A Case of the Runs

(NOTE: Sun Chlorella winners are posted HERE .) I was a complete dud on Valentine's Day because I was sick . We usually don't make a scene for the holiday, anyway. The one year we did go out (and that was only because it was the only option we had), the crowds irked me. Well, since I felt bad for being a total couch slob that day, a few days later when I felt human again, I whipped up a meal like I had intended to on the actual day. I've blogged about my vegan lasagna before but never documented the process.  Well, here it is: The "ricotta" is actually a mix of tofu, nutritional yeast, spices, and thawed frozen spinach.  There are a lot of recipes online -- I have a printed version that I have no idea where it came from. But what I do know is that this whips up quickly.  Once the tofu is done, you simply layer it with about 2 jars of the marinara of your choice and start piling it up with lasagna noodles! I used whole wheat lasagna noodles and boiled...

On the day of my graduation  (which seemed so long ago but was just back in June), two of my best buds attended the two-hour long ceremony. Knowing how long and boring commencements can be, I was already eternally grateful! After things finally wrapped up, a couple more friends joined us at Mi Piace  (pronounced something like: pee-AH-cheh ), a New York/Italian restaurant that is always so crowded when I would walk by at night. I guess my friends wanted to booze me up, so white peach sangria went down.  I didn't have very much, since I had barely eaten that entire day up until this dinner, and no food in stomach + alcohol = no good. We started off with an ahi tuna tower... split among six people, ha ha. I'm pretty sure this was a portobella appetizer. My buds partook in raw beef! Bread.  My friends got carried away (not me, I think...), and I think this was our third basket! My main entree was this veggie lasagna.  Of course, I took lots of...

Talk about a rocky relationship. A while back, I blogged about my intended re-commitment to go easy on eggs and dairy. For a while, it did not bother me that I wasn't eating too many of these products. I didn't miss them. But I had become an eggs and potatoes kind of girl. That is -- until the massive egg recall we had a couple of months back. Since then, my egg consumption has has lessened, and when I do eat them, they are no longer enjoyable. And certainly, I have not craved them like I used to, and not because they were recalled. But then, my cravings made a turn for the worse -- cheese. As a child, my favorite food was cheese, and even now, my top three favorite foods (1 - pizza, 2 - lasagna, 3 - Potstickers) are mostly cheesy. While I've learned to veganize some of these (e.g., vegan lasagna / pizza ), there's nothing like eating pieces of cheese on crackers. And let's be honest... not even the best cheese subs are quite "the same." I wish d...

I have to admit that I've eaten way more frozen entrees than one really should.  Something about vegan boxed meals intrigues me, just like energy/meal replacement bars .  Perhaps it's that I am skeptical that these could come close to the typical non-vegan versions... or perhaps I just like the chase. This Tuscan Veggie Bake from Kashi was a surprise purchase (on sale).  I know that not all of Kashi's stuff is vegan, but for all intensive purposes, this one seemed to be.  The dish is similar to lasagna, except there is no cheesy aspect to worry about (I put "worry" because it's so easy to mess up cheese substitutes!). I thought that this was not bad, but as a lasagna lover, I was really missing some substance in the middle besides vegetables and lentils(?).  I also thought it was a tad salty, but I think that's a complaint I have about any frozen food with a tomato sauce base.  However, it did fill my stomach without hurting it... and that, my fr...

In spite of my lack of cooking posts, there has definitely been plenty of it around here.  A strange new place feels more like home once you start making food in it! In those last couple weeks before we moved out, there were meals like this: Wild Planet Foods lemon sardines.  Very convenient and tasty on baguettes and lower in mercury than other canned fish! One of our wedding gifts in action! In those last weeks, we were making a game out of cooking with whatever we had in the pantry.  I think I baked a batch of banana-date scones with whole-wheat pastry flour that was starting to go a bit south.  I've been back at it again.  I really love my kitchen. =)  It's not big with an island, but it's clean, and somehow we manged to fit everything in spite of less cabinet space.  Perhaps I'll post more detailed photos someday, but I really love that I can plug in my appliances everywhere, and everything wipes off easily.  We wasted...

On a cold Saturday evening, "The Ukrainain" and I finally went to Dumpling House after long-existing intentions of doing so. If I could rank my favorite foods of all-time, dumplings would be somewhere within the top five. Above: Upon walking in, free tea and this celery/tofu mixture are given while the dumplings are cooking. Since the dumplings are homemade, this process can draw out a little depending of the traffic in the (small) place. Above: "The Ukrainian" ordered three kinds of dumplings. Most had pork in them. This was one variant. Above: The second variant. Above: The third variant. Due to the thick skin on these fried ones, they can get filling!!! Above: My only veggie option was these tofu/mushroom ones. I wish I had done a better job showing you the fillings , but these were indeed delicious with a skin of correct firmness. The prices are not that bad... Each dish comes in around $6, but you get ample dumplings for the amount. (The ...

I am not vegan, but dairy sends me for a loop. I can still eat some, but it makes me bloat heavily. Cream is the worst culprit. Lactose pills have not really helped beyond their placebo effect. I haven't been able to figure out whether I am intolerant to lactose or some other milk protein (e.g., casein), so whenever I can, I try to avoid milk products altogether. I've had some vegan cheeses, both good and bad, and this is one of them. Vegan Grated Topping is supposed to emulate that dry parmesean cheese that is normally dusted onto pizza or pasta. It is made from soy and yeast ingredients and comes shelf-stable (refrigerate after opening) for less than $3 at health food stores. In the near-future, I won't be making such random purchases, as I have a steep tuition next semester that is going to somewhat stress my finances. This tastes slightly cheesy, but I find it somewhat lacking and even somewhat repulsive. I can't explain it. But this is supposedly the best mock-parm...

It's been a while since I've posted a random photo entry , so here's my latest: Above: I'm spending a bit of today and tomorrow working on my dissertation and e-learning stuff for my second job. Don't get me wrong -- I still did my daily gym-time, but the theme of today and tomorrow should be... productivity. So the question is here... do these glasses make me look smart? Why do people get that impression even when I'm not wearing them? I'd rather be known as athletic, just to move away from my abysmal geekiness of yore. Above: A vegan spinach lasagna is currently sitting in "The Ukrainian's" oven. Well, I lied. The one in this picture, which I made in October, is vegan and was miiiggghty delicious, mind you. However, this time I put ground turkey meat in half of it to make it more man-friendly. Above: Last month, I also made some pumpkin-ginger muffins, which we ate with pumpkin butter from Trader Joe's . This stuff is WAY sweeter than a...

For over a year, I have been getting these devestating headaches after morning runs. By "devestating," I mean an ache that starts slowly but progresses into nausea, and a few times, vomiting (TMI?). This mainly happens after hard runs or anything over 6 miles. I tried drinking a lot of water, but that often did not help. So the other day after my 17-miler (which went very well by the way), I randomly drank a leftover Clif Quench that I had lying around. Sure enough, no headache. I even drove out to see "The Ukrainian" and did not have that extreme fatigue/sleepiness that long runs and drives normally give me. According to the article I linked below, as well as a Google search, I learned that electrolyte imbalances can cause headaches. I always figured that muscle cramping was a result of an imbalance, but the brain? Maybe it's the "muscles" around my skull? The scary thing is, though, that if I am really having an imbalance enough to give me these bad...