Thursday, November 12, 2009

Random nibbles.

Apologies, dear ones. I have been a very lazy blogger. I have no excuse, save the usual cop-outs of lack of energy and/or inspiration.

Red and I are now the proud owners of each variety of Go Max Go’s vegan candy bars! I splurged a little, because I’m very curious and Red needs convincing that vegan chocolate can approximate his beloved milk chocolate. We’re planning to sit down and do a formal taste test. Rest assured, you’ll get to hear all about it!

I can't tell you when I last ate four candy bars in a row. Photo courtesy of Go Max Go Foods.

Because I am awesome, I also bought him Sweet & Sara’s strawberry marshmallows. This boy loves him some strawberry, so you know he was happy when he saw those. He smiled blissfully as he chewed, so I intuited that Sweet & Sara has created another winner. Strawberry s’mores…mmm.

You should eat these. Photo courtesy of Sweet & Sara.

I haven’t done much in the way of vegan activism lately. A coworker at a meeting this morning urged me to have a doughnut. I politely declined. “You don’t do doughnuts?” she asked. I told her that I was vegan, explaining that the doughnuts most likely had eggs in them. “You don’t eat eggs?” she asked, clearly surprised. I explained about the eggs. Her response? “But eggs are good for you!” I sighed. The meeting was starting, so I decided not to get into it with her.

Red and I made a tasty chickpea casserole from a New York Times recipe. Their recipes can be hit-or-miss. (Go to hell, sweet and sour squash.) This was pretty hit, although I felt like I did a lot of work for what basically turned out to be hummus with chickpeas on top, baked on toasted pita. The yogurt topping was tasty, but it started going green in tiny spots after a day or two in the fridge. I ate it anyway until Red pointed out that it was probably mold. In my defense, it had a lot of mint on top, and I thought it had just dyed the yogurt. Shut up. I was flexing my immune system.

Ooh, and we also followed through on experimenting with less-Indian dosadillas. These were just potatoes, mushrooms, and peas with some sage, salt, and pepper. We used apple-cranberry chutney instead of mango-ginger. I was not too thrilled, I think because the chutney had too much clove in it. The yumminess of the vegetable filling was overpowered, and I was sad.

Tragically, that’s all I have today. I’ve ordered Carol J. Adams’ The Pornography of Meat, and I’m sure I’ll have lots to say when that gets here. Brace yourselves!

13 comments:

  1. Oh, just LOOK at those strawberry marshmallows! I've only seen the regular ones, and they are delicious.

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  2. Thanks, Stella! I'm really looking forward to the candy bar-a-thon. :) I've enjoyed browsing your blog, too, esp. your religious odyssey. See you on the PPK!

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  3. Carol Adams HELL YES! She is one amazing human being.

    I love the sound of your dosadillas....I NEED to make some, they would be a huge hit around here.

    Yay for vegan chocolate, I have a very large slab every day.

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  4. thanks for posting a link to the NY time chickpea recipe - i want to try that!

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  5. Sweet and Sara's Smores are fantastic and I'm not even vegan. Health Concern in Towson carries all of their products.

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  6. How I miss the Health Concern, BFP. Give it a hug for me the next time you're there.

    Being vegan is wicked fun! I dare you to try it for a week. ;)

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  7. Oh, that brings up a very complicated question. If a vegan rescued chickens from a bad situation and provided them with a good life as beloved family pets (which I have), would the vegan have a problem eating the eggs? If you would not eat them, what would you do with the eggs? An alternate hypothetical, if Lucy layed eggs... no forget that one, that's just gross. I have been thinking about these things as I try to create a guilt-free life for myself. Now if I can only find a stray cow that produces ice cream.

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  8. That's an oft-discussed question! Being as they're an animal product, eggs aren't vegan no matter how beloved the chicken that laid them. Most vegans probably would not eat them, because like me, they no longer see eggs as food. Plus, eggs = chicken menstruation, yo! Many vegetarians have no problem with eating such eggs, and I would be hard-pressed to object to that choice even if I wouldn't make it myself. I would also love to come meet the gals and Little Brett!

    At Farm Sanctuary in NY, they scramble the eggs and feed them back to the chickens. Odd, but efficient.

    Lucy peed on our comforter today. I would have taken eggs instead.

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  9. Yea, I have been forced to explain egg production on more than a few times and I describe is as chicken menstruation. As a simple vegetarian, I have no problem with my egg consumption if it comes from a humane source.

    My motivation has always been to eliminate harm to the animals, but you have enlightened me. The vegan approach is in many ways more simple and thus, avoids the slippery slope issues. That being said, it also avoids ice cream and I am very weak.

    You are always welcome at the farm.

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  10. Oh BFP, I would say you are a complex vegetarian! :) Ice cream and dairy in general can indeed be hard to kick (cheese contains opiate-like chemicals), but there are many decadent soy- and coconut-milk ice creams out there (albeit not in millions of flavors). I don't feel deprived, and even Himself has come around to the wonders of non-dairy ice cream. He's going vegetarian on Thanksgiving, of all days.

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  11. Well that puts smoked gouda in a whole new context. Thank you. More importantly, it explains my habit of injecting nacho cheese directly into my bloodstream... it's a cry for help.

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  12. Thank you for enjoying our marshmallows!

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