The survey/meme is certainly making the rounds. I predict 80% of all MoFo’ers will complete it before the end of the month.

There are quite a few of us newbie Vegans out there. The excitement is palpable.? Long-time vegans and newbies alike seem to be sharing little insights into “why I’m a vegan.” I love the variety of reasons and the love out there.

Oh, and apart from not eating animals, vegans really LOVE animals. I have seen so many cats, dogs and random varieties of animals gracing so many blogs. So in order to fit in, here are my cats:

Miss Chiana dressed up for you.

And Miss Pandora, chillaxin’ on my Rainbow Brite sleeping bag

There is a LOT of great food out there in the vegan kitchens across the world and a lot of experimentation. And as predicted in Veganomicon, the Chickpea Cutlets are indeed taking over food blogs.

As the warm weather is leaving the majority of us in the Northern Hemisphere a lot of comfort food seems to be popping up. I can’t complain. I could live on comfort food. Keep it up.

As luck would have it, when I went shopping a couple nights ago, I picked up some raw hazelnuts just for such an occasion. So I pulled out the ever-nearby Veganomicon and thumbed through to find the recipe. Now, I’m not brazen enough to post the recipe. I think that’s rude and possibly a copyright violation. If you are feeling particularly needful of the recipe I have no doubt that a brief google search will yield it. But it’s really not difficult at all. All you need to do is make a nut butter with your roasted hazelnuts, and cocoa powder, a diary alternative & a sweetener. Yes, you could make it more complicated if you want. You could use additional flavor enhancers. Hell, you could slather it all over your naked body if that’s your thing. But those are all up to you.

When I followed the recipe in the book, my nut mixture reached it’s saturation point at around half the oil it called for. So instead, I thinned it out with some soy milk. Obviously the end result is perishiable, so I’m keeping it in the fridge. I don’t know how long it will last, but the rate at which we go through nutella in my household it will not be an issue at all. The omni verdict: “mmm good.”

I also picked up a couple packets of Road’s End Chreese mixes out of curiosity. Looking at the ingredients they are essentially nutritional yeast with extra spices thrown in for a little extra flavor and color. I tried the gluten-free cheddar style chreese (which I picked up by mistake) and it is nothing to write home about. Making your own cheese sauce at home with “nooch” (nutritional yeast) would probably come out better. Word is still out on the other gluten-y packages.

I went shopping today at this HUGE grocery warehouse. You know it even if you don’t live here. Every area has one. It’s huge, old, kinda dirty, ant tends to cater towards the lower income brackets because they put so little into the store that the products they sell are usually a good price. But as luck would have it, this store has a good “health food” section. It’s more a specialty section that caters to vegetarians/vegans & people who like to buy organic. So I may be extremely fortunate.

I managed to find most of what I want. I bought some items from bulk bins and beefed up my spice collection from the cheap bagged mexican spices. You gotta be smart about these things when you don’t have a steady income. All in all I’m pretty happy with the results of this night’s venture. I think I can get most of the rest of what I want by visiting a couple other stores. And after all this shopping is done I will have a better idea of where to go for specific things and plan accordingly so that I’m not all over town.

If there is one thing that shopping has reinforced for me is my desire to get my own soy milk maker. The amount of tofu that I plan on using in various delicious recipes I’ve been reading might break the bank if I bought it with the frequency with which I wanted to use it.

I think tomorrow I am going to make VeganDad’s lunchmeat. I’m really keen on sandwiches and would love to have vegan lunchmeat on hand that didn’t cost me an arm and a leg for a few slices.

Oh, and my Daiya is scheduled to arrive tomorrow too! erm.. today? I’ll write more when my day has gotten underway, or perhaps wrapped up. I’m just so happy to be doing all this. I’m happy to be going Vegan. I’m happy to be a part of VeganMoFo. I’m happy to be starting a positive change in my life. In fact, I’m so happy that I’m realizing I am actually giddy. The kind of giddy born of being really fucking tired. And I am… tired. So bed.

Night all

Anywho… this is my VEGAN BLOG. I know. Crazy. Bet you didn’t know I was a vegan!? Well, I’m not. Not yet.

I’m trying to get prepared for my new life as a vegan. I’ve been reading books, compiling personal resources and working on my shopping list for my new lifestyle. I want to go into this new chapter in my life as prepared as possible. And to tell you the truth, I am not daunted at all.

At the start of October, just a few days from now, I plan to start my vegan diet. The reasons for this are many. First of all, I am housesitting til the end of the month and don’t have access to my own pantry. Secondly, I find that making a lifestyle change and sticking to it is easier when you map things out and can set concrete goals. A specific start date is a very concrete goal. I read somewhere that November is supposed to be a Vegan Month, but I can’t wait that long. I feel like the preperation/research phase is coming to a close and I am eager to get on with it.

Interesting, October is is the Vegan Month of Food, or VeganMoFo. It’s a (now) annual blogging event organized through the  the Post Punk Kitchen as a kind of Vegan slant on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The purpose of VeganMoFo is to write about Vegan food for a month. You can oin the official list and other VeganMoFo readers and writers might visit your blog. They might not. Who knows?

Will I be joining the VeganMoFo? Of course! Of course, this being a Vegan blog it would be more like the VeganLiFo (Vegan Life of Food).