Staying afloat...

Must keep up, argh, must not drown in schoolage. Bleh.
Uh yeah, so that being my semi-reason for lack of being around in general. However, this is completely my own doing so I can't whine that much.
So whats new, uhhh well... a long time to go back:
-my camera seems to have acquired a problem, upon further researching it was found that this is a malfunction that, fortunately, will be fixed and reimbursed by Canon, however that meant leaving it at home so father can take it somewhere to get fixed
-luggage was lost on the way back as well
-went volunteering to the bunny place last monday, they had two bunnies there and now have a third, one was a rex *drool* named Trixie who was a big sweetie, she rather enjoyed being petted for the little bit of time I spent with her, and the other was a Dutch named Benji who is supposedly really nice too but I didnt spend any time with him alone. (I was there with this lady who was showing me the ropes so she went in with him) There are two other people who volunteer on mondays but apparently they only wanted to do it every other monday so that leaves me with the other mondays so I am scheduled to go in on the 5th of March next. Unfortunately I left here at 7:30 and didnt get back until 3:00, for an hour of volunteering, yeah, basically their bus system is crap so I dont know if this is going to be a long term thing or not, I guess I will see if I can figure out a better schedule bus-wise. Tis rather cruddy though because me wants to do stuff with creatures *whine* so I am thinking about seeing about this fostering business because that would be a lot easier for me time-wise.
-finally had our roommate meeting last wednesday, roommate #1 had written up a list (I was rather amused by that) that she said basically as things that had to be changed rather than suggestions for things that could be changed which was a bit cheesy but anyhow, roommate #2 just mentioned about the whole boyfriend being over 24/7 thing which, of course, made roommate #1 notsopleased ( 'are you going to give me a schedule or what!?' *glare*) however we both have noted that the conversation has basically had zero effect on his comings and goings, which is apparently ticking roommate #2 off quite a bit (she was ranting to me last night) so I guess we will have to see where that goes
-There is a possibility of being in the next performance (Sleeping Beauty) as a court person, however when they lined us all up they were putting everyone in pairs and I was the odd one out so she told me to learn two pairs parts. I dont know what that means, if I have better chances that way or less so. However, being in that would mean that I couldn't go home the day I had hoped to but I guess that will be figured out here soon.
-My thing from roommate #1 at the meeting was to take some stuff out of the freezer (upon inspection though, I dont have that much in there and I had just taken a large container of soup out) and it has been noted that she is interested in filling up the freezer with a whole shwack of prepared meal type things for her and le boyfriend to be eating and today she took some of my stuff out of the freezer and stuck it in the fridge without asking. This ticks me off quite a bit, she has by far the most amount of stuff in the freezer now and we shouldnt be expected to facilitate what he wants to eat since he doesnt live here or pay rent *glare* AND she shouldn't be deciding what stuff of mine should be taken out to make room for her freezies etc. *tick, tick, tick*

That, I think, is a veritable compilation of the last little while. I have been intending to do a big writeup post on Global Warmingness but just havent got around to it (I am hoping that by posting this, I might be more motivated to do it) and at some point shall post pictures from le trip.
But for now, au revoir.
Hermit

The Joys of Travel

Yepyep, I am home, finally but yeesh this travel business is a bit insane:
-3am wakeup to get to airport for 5am flight (fortunately this time it wasn't accompanied by a insanely expensive cab ride)
-luggage lost at first destination *note that of the four times I have recently travelled, my luggage has been lost three times, pathetic, no?*
-said lost luggage contains all of my clothes, bear-bear, schoolbooks, library books etc.
-luggage not located prior to leaving first destination
-luggage not located prior to leaving second destination (two days folks, bleh)
-three hour delay on flight to get home
-half hour wait for fathers luggage once we land (3am was our time of arrival at home, supposed to be 11-12ish)

Bleh.
Hermit

Vegan for a week and the eating is good

Well, it was a weeklong foray into eating vegan and I must say that I don't think it would be that hard switch over except for eating out and prepared food because they are awfully sneaky about using animal products. I actually think that I might have just kept with it but I have some eggs and cheese in the fridge and I would feel bad about wasting them.

So here is the exciting food that was consumed:
The first day I made eggplant parmesan, good but not all that photogenic, so no picture of that one. You can see a picture of it and the recipe here though.
I also realized that the Haagen Dazs Raspberry Sorbet I had just procured qualified, so twas demolished aussi.

Then I decided to try some baked goods since they generally involve eggs and milk. Poked about to find some recipes that I had the ingredients for. So I made up these biscuits as per this recipe:

Drop Scones or Biscuits

1 cup white flour
1cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/4 cups soymilk mixed with 1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400⁰F.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Stir in soymilk mixture with a fork. Stir quickly to moisten the dry ingredients. Drop the mixture by large spoonfuls onto lightly greased or non-stick cookie sheets, far enough apart so they don't touch.

Bake in a 400⁰F oven for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown on the bottom and beginning to color on the top.

Biscuits were not too fancy looking either so no pictures, they weren't bad but definitely just a plain biscuit, kind of like bread, good with the eggplant dish.

Next up was blueberry muffins

These were tasty, I didn't note any weird yucky flavours or anything. Recipe was from some website that I didn't note the name of but I altered it a bit anyways.

3/4 C soymilk
1/2 C applesauce
1/4 C water
1 C whole wheat flour 1 C all purpose flour
1/2 C sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 C blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients. Add blueberries to dry ingredients and coat with the flour mixture. Mix together and bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes.

I spent a long time looking for a dessert type recipe that I had everything for and finally fixated on cinnamon buns.

Very tasty indeed, although I think I skimped a bit on the margarine in the filling part so it was a bit dry. My big issue was the icing , cream cheese isn't vegan although there apparently is a vegan substitute that can be purchased. I looked around and finally decided on a sugar and milk concoction, however I was out of icing sugar, no problem, just wiz some granulated sugar up in the blender. That was not terribly successful.

A trip to the store ensued and me builts some homemade vegan cream cheese.


1 tub of firm tofu
3.5 T cashew butter
4.5 t lemon juice
Remove tofu from package and place in a clean dishtowel, squeeze to remove moisture, continue squeezing until very little water remains. Place all ingredients in blender and puree until smooth. For me the blender wouldn't mix it so I added some of the tofu juice until it would blend, even so it didn't get completely smooth but I think that is largely because of the age of the blender. Refrigerate, it will thicken as it cools.

With that built and icing sugar acquired, I could have me some cream cheese icing for my cinnamon rolls. Mix up some cream cheese with icing sugar, vanilla and some vegan margarine if you like and voila, icing.

My nice warm, iced cinnamon bun, yum yum!
And lastly, to use up my veggies in the fridge, I built some sloppy joe goo.

• 1 tablespoon light olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 10- to 12-ounce package tempeh, any variety, finely crumbled
• 1 chopped green bell pepper
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
  
• 1 tomato sauce
• 1 cup water
  
• 1 maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon each: chili powder, basil, parsley
  
• Whole wheat rolls or pita bread
• Shredded lettuce

Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion until it is golden. Add the crumbled tempeh, celery and green pepper and saute over moderate heat until the tempeh is lightly browned.

Add the remaining ingredients (except the last 2), stir well, and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Serve hot on whole wheat rolls or in pita bread with shredded lettuce.

This was a bit bland, I think because I vetoed a fair number of the originally called for spices, but on bread with lettuce, it isn't too bad at all.

And there you have it, a notsoshort summary of my vegan week.

Hermit