More gratuitous bunny cuteness!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend. This is Christie, signing off!
Turning Veganese
I think I'm turning veganese, I really think so.
Category Archives: Thoughts
Sunshine Award!
We here at TurningVeganese are pleased to report that we were nominated for a Sunshine award by LiveBlissful. THANK YOU!
I can’t speak for Brent or Melissa on the answers to the questions or favorite blogs but you’re about to get a sampling of what I dig. I’m only nominating 4 bloggers because most of my other favorites have already been nominated and I don’t think these ones have been… yet.
Rules:
If you are nominated you must include the link in a blog, linking to the person/blog that nominated you. You must answer some questions and nominate 10 fellow bloggers and link their blogs in your post. Let the people you have nominated know that you have nominated them!
Here are the questions:
1. Who is your favorite philosopher? Richard Boyd
2.What is your favorite number? e
3. What is your favorite animal? Pretty much all of them. Nature blows my mind. I have a soft spot for octopus, rabbits, seahorses, pandas and a few others. Hippos are hilarious.
4. What are your Facebook and Twitter? Turning Veganese on FaceBook, Turning Veganese on Twitter
5. What is your favorite time of day? Noon, because it’s probably lunch time.
7. What is your favorite physical activity? hiking with Brent and swimming
8. What is your favorite non-alcoholic drink? coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffee… also tea and vegetable juice.
9. What is your favorite flower? Delphinium, bee balm, bachelor buttons, wild poppies, fragrant lilies, columbine, Gerbera daisies and a few others. The sheer variety of flowers is staggering; nature just does the coolest things.
10. What is your passion? Exploring, learning and growing.
Nominees for the Sunshine award
1. the Perky Poppy is a blog that caught my eye recently because secretly I’m lazy and want a personal chef who is also a compassionate and fascinating person like Christine to come to my house and cook for me.
2. The Cruelty-Free Review does reviews of vegan and cruelty-free products that are honest and a little funny. Also… easy to follow recipes for delicious food. Give it a try!
3. v1valavegan’s blog explores the trials and tribulations of going vegan with clever recipes, reviews and easy-to-relate-to anecdotes.
4. the Cameraphone Vegan’s blog is just about exactly what you’d expect; delicious adventures in food from the perspective of a camera embedded in a phone. I love that Ty is local because then I get to go try it. She’s also a New York transplant and has a dearth of scientific and medical knowledge so I like to pretend I know her. Is that creepy?
This is Christie, signing off!
Vegan Thoughts
I haven’t been experimenting much with vegan cooking these days, so I thought I would share a few random thoughts with you guys.
I’m really excited about having a 100% vegan Thanksgiving this year. I’ll be ordering my dinner and plan to make a delicious vegan dessert.
I get a real bad hankering for eggs about two or three times a month. Whereas my pizza cravings are more about taste and wanting something junky, my egg cravings seem physiological. I wake up on those days and I think, “I NEED SCRAMBLED EGGS TODAY OR I MIGHT DIE.” I don’t really get it, but I do give in to it and feel zero guilt because it makes me feel better physically. That’s weird, right?
I’m not comfortable calling myself vegan. That’s probably because I eat eggs and cheese sometimes. So, if it ever comes up, I most often will simply say, “I don’t eat meat.” That’s definitely a true statement.
I get really upset with vegetarian restaurants that aren’t vegan-friendly. I feel like they should be called creamy-and-cheesy restaurants.
We are approaching the one year anniversary of Turning Veganese! Can you believe it?? –Melissa
Sunday Bunday!
Brent and I adopted some bunnies a few weeks ago and we’re just sharing bunny cuteness. 
This is not an unusual pose: they do this kind of thing ALL the time. Rabbits bond for life and these two are inseparable. They’re napping together, eating together or grooming one another or doing SOMETHING adorable. I kind of wish I could love as unconditionally as they do.
With that, I’ll give a friendly reminder to get your pets spayed or neutered and adopt instead of buying an animal. Now comes the quandary: our neighborhood has a feral cat problem. There are at least 12 that hang around our house, skulk on sidewalks and in driveways and have crazy loud cat fights/mating sessions in the middle of the night. We’ve been considering renting a trap from the city to catch the animals (which one of our neighbors feeds, unwittingly perpetuating the problem) and have them impounded. It’s likely many of them will be euthanized if they’re too wild for adoption. The alternative is to hire a service to catch, spay or neuter the animals and then re-release them into our neighborhood. We could also leave them be, but I was never one to sit back and watch a disaster unfold. What would you do?
This is Brent, Christie and the bunnies, signing off!
Not Chick’n Noodle Soup & a Hot Toddy!
Having been born and raised in Chicago, I know it’s only a matter of time before I catch a cold during the fall or winter. I have made it a point to get a flu shot every year since my oldest niece was born, and I either end up with a really violent flu about two weeks after getting the shot or I am in the clear. I got this season’s flu shot a month ago, so my educated guess is that I will not the flu. However, I cannot escape the cold!
It’s not completely unexpected: I was the one idiot in Chicago who wasn’t wearing socks while walking outside yesterday. And then, today, when I couldn’t concentrate and was trying to stay awake at work, I came up with the genius idea to get some fresh air — in the balmy 43 degree weather.
The point is, I feel like total poop right now. I’m sneezing, my nose is running, I’m chilly and achy (uh oh, I hope my flu theory doesn’t get debunked), and I’m exhausted. My body absolutely wants to shut down. My appetite has also been measly all day, but I had to eat something, so I made a really basic Not Chick’n Noodle Soup for dinner.
It doesn’t look like much, and that’s because it isn’t much:
1 cube Edward & Sons Not Chick’n bouillon
2 cups warm water
1 8oz package of traditional Shirataki Noodles
salt and pepper, to taste
I put the water and bouillon in a medium sized pot and let it sit while I drained and rinsed the noodles. I started heating the water and this helped to fully dissolve the bouillon cube. Once it was boiling, I added the noodles, brought it back to a boil and let it cook for about 3 minutes.
This is actually the first time I tried Shirataki noodles! I liked them a lot and I love that the traditional version, made with white yam, is soy-free and has zero calories (along with being gluten-free and vegan).
You can definitely add more to this, but I was really in need of a bare bones broth and noodle dish with little embellishment. I was worried that it would be bland, but it was perfect as-is with just a tiny bit of salt and pepper.
Before going to bed, I definitely wanted to warm up with some hot tea. Why not add some spirit to the mix? I didn’t have whiskey so I used rum for this particular hot toddy. I started with a cup of hot ginger water, but you can start with any tea. I added some agave nectar to sweeten it, and then added just about a tbsp of rum. That isn’t a lot of rum, but I wanted to be pleasantly relaxed, not buzzed.
What vegan cold remedies do you use? –Melissa
Relating To Animals
Brent and I have been talking about adopting rabbits for a really long time. We are now the proud adoptive ‘parents’ of a pair of rabbits.
These two are Vlad, a Flemish Giant (the 15lb. buck) and Cassie, a Dutch mix (the 5lb grey and white doe). Rabbits bond for life, kind of like people. They don’t always bond with a member of the opposite gender or even another rabbit; they can also bond with cats or even people. These two met at the shelter where we adopted them. Vlad was found dumped at a construction site and Cassie was found hopping along the side of the road where she’d been abandoned. Vlad is likely the product of a local breeder whose purchasers hadn’t appreciated that rabbits get aggressive when they enter puberty, not unlike human teenagers. There are 2 breeders in our area and it is also possible he was dumped because he’s small for a breed that’s valued for size. Cassie was probably the unwanted progeny of feckless rabbit owners who didn’t realize that when people say “multiplying like rabbits” they’re referring to a level of fecundity allowing rabbits to become pregnant within thirty minutes of giving birth. YIKES! What I’m getting at is that abandoned animals is a problem in a society where humans think animals exist as meat or entertainment and forget that they are more like us than we [like to] think.
They’re curious, remarkably intelligent, affectionate and wary of humans. I don’t blame them given their history. We’ve mostly earned their trust, but have a ways to go. They’ve become great additions to our family and the most adorable substitutes for garbage disposals EVER! They eat just about anything we would otherwise throw away including stems from broccoli, carrot tops, ends of beets and carrots (sparingly, rabbits are easily diabetic), stems from strawberries and apple skins among other things. We also learned that they love empty unbleached boxes, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, brown paper bags and other recyclables. We’re also composting their poo, hoping for some radtacular tomatoes! Rabbits aren’t for everyone but we’re happy campers. Vegan dog and cat foods are available if that’s more your speed and in your budget. Before you talk about ‘natural diets’ for cats and dogs (cats are obligate carnivores), read the ingredients on your average dry food. You’ll discover that there’s nothing natural about the grain based diets we give dogs and cats (among other animals). These foods are merely nutritionally adequate for your pet’s needs. Also know what “chicken by-product meal” and other unsavory ingredients are usually sweepings from factory slaughterhouse floors, male chicks that aren’t useful for laying eggs and are instead thrown into garbage bins to suffocate, feathers, feces and worse. Also, if you’ve got a dog or a cat, try giving them nutritional yeast. I haven’t met a cat or dog that wasn’t crazy about the stuff.
As far as being vegan and wanting pets goes, think about adopting animals instead of buying your favorite breed. You’re likely to find you favorite breed if you contact the right organization; purebred animals like Vlad are abandoned more often than you might think. Get them fixed. Know that you’re not contributing demand and encouraging people to breed animals so that they can exploit them. If a breeder tells you they really care about their animals, ask why they’re selling them. This doesn’t have much to do with food but it has a lot to do with being vegan. Isn’t this why we stopped eating them, after all?
This is Christie, signing off.
Snips and Snails and Sentience
It happens pretty often when I tell people I’m vegan that people dream up a scenario where I’d have to eat meat. “Would you eat meat if you were stranded in an Arctic wasteland?”
Yes, actually, I would. I would eat Brent if it meant one of us would survive (sorry, Brent). But that’s not what’s happening here. Being vegan is a choice that I make every day, every time I walk into a supermarket, a restaurant or a cafeteria.
I make that choice because it’s better for my body, it’s better for the planet and last but not least it’s better for the animals. Fortunately for those of us who find that thinking and learning feel good, life is full of grey areas.
There are things I don’t eat but not because of my primary reasons for being vegan. Things like honey. I don’t think that bees suffer when we steal their hard earned honey. I doubt their sentience… or at least that they can suffer the way a fish does when it suffocates or a cow does spending her life chained to he wall of a concrete barn as we steal her babies and milk. I simply prefer maple syrup. I’m from the Northeast, what can I say.
I don’t eat shrimp, I also doubt their sentience. I don’t eat them because shrimping destroys seahorse habitat and as a long time SCUBA diver I can assure you that seahorses rock. I guess that fits into my ‘environment’ category. Oh well…
I also don’t eat mussels or escargot but I can’t really justify it in the regard that I don’t think that they are sentient, I don’t believe harvesting them destroys the environment and I don’t think they’re bad for my body (though all molluscs contains cholesterol, so it might fit into my personal health category)
So you might be wondering why I’m going on about things that aren’t vegan that I don’t eat for random reasons. There are 2 things I wanted to throw out there to get an idea of how other vegans respond to these issues. Lab grown meat is a phenomenon that would produce cruelty-free meat. Would you eat it if it were commercially available? I know a lot of vegans who would love to eat bacon from time to time. How does this compare? Would the resources be better spent elsewhere?
The other question is something that comes up when I talk to people who are crazy about the paleo diet. Why does the paleo diet ignore insects, worms and other bugs? Eating bugs is a major component of many diets by domesticated and wild humans alike… except in Westernized cultures. Our closest living relatives (evolutionarily speaking) also eat a diet consisting largely of bugs and foraged fruits and vegetables. I’m talking about chimpanzees. They’re kind of amazing… like seahorses. As a vegan, would you eat bugs? Chocolate covered ants? Fried grasshoppers? Are they as capable of suffering as mice? They’re environmentally friendly and inexpensive to grow relative to meat. They can even be grown on lawn clippings, rotting wood and other things humans often consider to be waste. They’re also nutritious. Personally, I doubt their sentience but that remains up for debate. Thoughts? Recommended reading?
This is Christie, signing off.
Adventures in Fruit: Finger Limes
Finger limes are also known as citrus caviar. They’re appropriately named in both regards: they’re finger sized, finger shaped and contain little beads of citrus lime action.
They’re great for use in drinks, in soups or over any food that would benefit from a splash of lime in a unique format.
The last thing I made with these was some chipotle lime quinoa. The advantage of using citrus caviar was that the first thing I tasted when I put the quinoa in my mouth was savory spicy chipotle and as I began to chew the quinoa I got the nutty quinoa and zesty lime. It was definitely an evolution of flavor that you can’t get from ordinary lime.
I hope you find these at your local market!
This is Christie, signing off!
P.S. This is the LAST day to make an entry to our giveaway for 4 tins of Muir Glen organic tomatoes. We will name winners later today and need your mailing address by midnight this Sunday.
The Unadventurous Vegan
I needed to restock on tofu so I visited the giant Korean grocery store today. It was a great day to go since a pack of tofu was only 98 cents (down from $1.28)! In addition, Mori-nu silken tofu is regularly priced at $1.09 a box. I also picked up some soy puffs. I’m not sure what to do with these, but I’m excited to try them out:
I always come across weird stuff in the giant Korean grocery store. A few months ago, I saw this and bought it, but I was so freaked out by it that I never ate it:
It comes in a beef version as well which like roast beef: the perfect imitation meat if I were craving an Italian beef sandwich or something. There was just something really weird about it. I’ll admit that if I had found it in Schmole Broods or Raider Boe’s, I wouldn’t be so put off by it. But I can’t help but be weary of some of the products I find in Asian grocery stores (and I am Asian).
Now, they say to never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, and “they” are right. I found myself lurking in the snack (read: junk food) aisle when I saw something that looked vegan. I was right… and I was also kind of freaked out:
I Googled VegeUSA right away and only found information on their frozen “meat” products, which actually look pretty delectable. These guys scared me, though. They had “steak,” “chicken,” and “pork” at the store. The instructions are to rehydrate them and then use them as a meat substitute. Sounds like soy curls, right? I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I think my shock mostly stemmed from finding these next to chips and crackers and initially thinking that they were chips. Again, I was kind of freaked, so I put them back on the shelf and took it as a sign to not buy any junk food.
While I like to think of myself as an adventurous vegan, there are some things that I am not brave enough to try just yet. My last big leap was probably with tempeh, and I have yet to try seitan. I don’t think I need to try everything: just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for you, right?
Have you tried any of the products above? What did you think? Are there any vegan products that you’re not willing to try? Let us know in the comments! –Melissa
Oh, hey! Don’t forget about our giveaway! It’s a good one!
Oh My Freaking Pie
I have these moments when I find myself smelling a cheeseburger or fried chicken, or I have a nasty craving for a hot dog. A small part of me says, “Hey, it’s okay to give in” while the rest of me says, “The gastrointestinal consequences are NOT worth it.”
Then there are moments when being vegan is the bomb. Like when I’m shopping and I spot it: Vegan Cherry Pie!
I can’t put into words how f’ing delicious this was. Guilt-free, 100% vegan, cherry pie. I don’t know how they did it and I don’t need to know. I’m just happily enjoying it.
Here’s to a short and sweet post! –Melissa
Turning Veganese 