I love my husband

Look what he bought for me!

Ruh-roh!

For about a half an hour today my world came to a screeching halt when I realized I am probably allergic to soy. I never really realized how soy seems to sneak its way into every product I seem to buy, and when considering some random health issues I've been having I decided out of the blue to google "soy sensitivity," wouldn't you just know it, everything fit. Here I was, thinking I was merrily hopping along, thoroughly happy with all my delicious food substitutes, then BAM! No more Go Max Go bars, no more Tofutti ice cream cones, no more tofu wings!!! *gasp* *dies right here at her desk of heartbreak* 

I would love to tell you for the sheer drama of it that I had to wrestle with the idea of giving up being vegan, but that just wouldn't be the truth. I had a quick thought along the lines of, "Would it even at this point be possible for me to take on eggs and dairy again?", but the complete and utter revulsion I felt quickly tamped that thought right down. So my stress then developed along the lines of, "Okay, jeez, this is my situation, so how the hell am I going to manage this? Has all the light gone from the world???" 

But then I did what comes naturally to me. I googled "vegan with a soy allergy," and you would not believe just how many hits came up! Clearly I'm far from alone in this boat, and that instantly made me feel so much better. There are other vegans out there living happy healthy soy-free lives, and I know I totally have it in me to do it too.

The question is, can the Hubster deal with it?

A look inside my fridge

I just thought someone might be interested to see what was in one particular vegan-with-a-mostly-vegetarian-husband's fridge.

See if you can pick out these veggie staples:

5 kinds of vegetables

Ah!Laska chocolate syrup

Almond milk 

Earth Balance margarine

Flaxseed powder

Nutritional Yeast 

Papa John's pizza leftovers

"Sausage"

Soy sauce

Tahini

Tofu

Tofurky fake turkey slices

Tofutti cheese substitute slices

Vegenaise

Vitamins (including liquid B12)

Woohoo!

We're moved in! Yessss!!! We still have boxes all over the place, but it feels soooooooo good to finally be living in the house. And it seems to finally be getting a bit warmer (even though the weather report is magically predicting snow for Friday. God I hate the weather here). We took a quick trip to Lori's Natural Foods the other day and they had vegan marshmallow bunnies and chicks from Sweet & Sara, which were nommed in the car on the way home and were fabulous. It looks like Lori's is building a greenhouse which would be exciting.

The kitties had a hard time with the move at first but they're slowly adjusting. Jazzy cat (left, on the new couch) is pretty much back to normal now, but Jack (right, seen hiding in the basement sink) is still very timid.

Check out the new dining room table!!! I'd had my eye on it for a while, and Hubster agreed that there's nothing else like it, so when it went on sale we snatched it up. We've changed the light fixture since I took that picture to this one and we love it to bits. I'm so very excited about eating delicious vegan meals on this table every night.

It's been a while since we've been able to get into a routine, so we're definitely looking forward to being able to settle in and get comfortable. Poor Hubster has been having a really rough time at work lately, plus the moving stress, so we're just hanging in there until this weekend when we can turn our phones off and chill out together.

Food, Bitches!

I went completely nuts one night last week when making dinner. I took whatever the hell I had laying around the kitchen and threw it together in one crazy-ass dish that turned out to be freaking fantastic!

Olive oil! Refried beans, kidney beans, black beans, garlic, and onion! Throw it in a pan!

Then frozen broccoli and peas! Watch it smoke, bitches!

Then FOUR kinds of peppers, bitches!

Then kale, bitches!

Then mushrooms, bitches!

Soy sauce! Soy sauce! (Actually I added Frank's hot sauce. Seriously, I just kept throwing shit on there like this was a vegan Epic Mealtime parody. Watch the video this links to, bitches!)

Here's how it looked cooked, bitches!

Microwave some Seeds of Change pouch rice, bitches!

Pour veggie mash over rice and eat, bitches!!

Dirt!

I'm spending my Sunday on the couch eating cake and watching Netflix (don't judge me) while Hubster takes his Dad to a Sabres game. Incidentally, Hubster is intent on purchasing some Sabres clothing for me despite my complete and utter lack of interest in hockey. It'll be interesting to see what he comes home with.

One documentary in my Netflix queue that I hadn't gotten around to just yet was Dirt! The Movie, so I figured I'd give it a go. It was actually really fascinating and a lot of fun, and it made me super excited to start gardening in our yard this Spring. I think I'm going to try squeezing fruits and vegetables into every spare spot I can instead of planting flowers that just look pretty but don't contribute anything. The only exceptions I'll make are things like butterfly bushes that really attract insects.

This should be interesting, since pretty much the only thing I know about gardening is the difference between an annual and a perennial. I've started googling some things about vegetable gardening and so far I've learned that there are quite a few perennial vegetables, which comes as somewhat of a surprise to me. I've also learned that if I want a lemon tree I'd probably do best to keep it as an indoor plant in this climate (and I do very much want a lemon tree. I suck down lemon juice like nobody's business).

I'm also crazy excited about composting! I'm not really sure how to go about it, whether it's best to buy one of those crank-handle rotating bins or instead to build one of those chicken-wire rounds in the yard. I suppose I'll start googling that next.

I just can't wait to get moved in and get started. The big move is next Saturday! Six days to go!

Getting Closer

Oh man, I'm so excited to move. We're almost there. Just under 10 days to go! I can't wait until the kitties are poking around boxes in the new house, "helping" me unpack. The new couch comes this weekend! Squee! I generally describe this couch as a fort made of teddy bears. It's so soft and cocooning; you just melt right into it.

Last night there was an epic food situation, but there are so many pictures that I won't have time to post it until probably Sunday, so stay tuned.

Yesterday I took my friend Kate, the new vegetarian, over to experience the wonder that is Dogtown for herself. And of course she absolutely loved it. I know I write about that place a lot, but honestly, it's become a huge part of my life. It sounds crazy, but I am so extremely happy that that place exists. [I just wish they'd expand to a larger location with more parking and be open on Sundays *grumble grumble*]

Hubster is still doing very well with the veggie thing, to my knowledge anyway. I wonder if he'd tell me if he had meat or if he'd keep it a secret. 

The latest development in my adjustment to veganism is that eggs and cheese have started really grossing me out. Hubster had a sandwich from Dunkin Donuts last weekend on our way to spend the day painting the new dining room, and I had to open the car window because it smelled so bad! I wanted to jump out of the car. It was wicked disgusting!

Still not dead...

...Although I felt pretty dead Saturday morning. So THAT's what a hangover feels like. Huh. 

Friday night had been my company's big casino night in the office party with a Mardi Gras theme. I felt fine when I was there but the second we got home those 3 glasses of wine and a gin and tonic caught riiiiiiight up to me. But I do have to report, though, that I was CRAZY PROUD of the Hubster. They had all kinds of meat-type finger foods and he stuck to the vegetarian ones the whole night. He even fended off a waitress by telling her specifically that he was vegetarian.

I still don't have any new food pictures to post since really we haven't been doing anything that exciting. Meals have been very last-minute affairs stuck haphazardly in the schedule between work and house stuff. Lots of scrounging around for ideas. 

I did come up with a fantastic nacho cheese-type substance about a month ago when I put two packs of fake cream cheese and one bag of cheddar Daiya in the food processor. The resulting goo melts pretty well on top of chips in the oven and it makes a pretty good jalapeno popper filling as well. But that's really all I've got! It's been lots of spaghetti and baked veggies and cereal and food from boxes. And that one batch of brownies I made that burned and wasn't a great recipe anyway. 

Man, I can't wait until we're moved in and life (and blogging!) can resume as normal. Two weeks to go...

Wegmans Does It Again

They put a new restaurant in/next to the Pittsford Wegmans (the big fancy-pants Wegmans). It's called The Food Bar, and it's an informal snack bar type situation like you'd find at an amusement park or museum (except with real food, not crap). They're advertising their Hometown Vegetarian Burger with homemade vegan hot sauce, so we stopped in to try it out. The girl behind the counter said it was vegan if you left the cheese off, hence calling it a veggie burger and not a vegan burger. Cool beans, so Hubster and I each tried one (he had cheese on his), and it was THE BEST veggie burger I have ever had EVER. Nice and crispy on the outside, moist and juicy on the inside, with a ton of unconventional flavor (one warning though, if you don't like curry you may not like this very much, but who doesn't love curry?). Seriously, if you're local or you're ever going to be in the area, you need to try it.

P.S., Check out on the menu how they point out that the cow burgers are irradiated. Why in the world would you want to eat something that is so dangerous for you it needs to be blasted with radiation first, and how did we get to the state where that's a selling point? The world is a twisted place.

Not dead

Honestly, with all the house stuff going on we probably haven't gone legitimately grocery shopping in two weeks at least, so putting meals together has become a "scraping the barrel, wracking the brain" type of activity. Plus continuing doughnut experiments. So there really hasn't been a whole lot for me to share, hence the lack of posting. This might continue for a little while, probably until we're moved in.


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