Blogging Redux: Twitter made me Vegan

Today’s not only my coronation ceremony as Teacher of the Year 2011, but the second anniversary of my decision to “go vegan”.  (A quick vegan shout out to The Waterview Pavilion in Belmar – they did an excellent job creating a delicious vegan lunch for the only non-meat or fish eating Monmouth County TOTY.) I’m republishing a blog post I wrote on May 25, 2009 about how Twitter played a big part in my decision. Twitter was a cocktail party back then (as opposed to the frat kegger it’s heading towards), and I found many real people discussion their eating choices online.

So let’s revisit a more innocent time when cutting animal products from my diet was new and challenging…and peaches are back in season, so let’s try that cobbler!

Twitter made me Vegan.

I know, only a few posts ago when talking about @pleather and @veganfreak’s podcast, I said, “I’m not a vegan”.  I wasn’t when I wrote that although I was trying that NPR Vegan be4 6 idea.  Then I began following vegans like @vegan1 and @vegancook101, and twittering vegans like @ismithx, @eatconciously, @yovegan, and @stephendavis02 started sending me DMs of support as I tweeted about my thoughts on becoming vegan.

So as of today, I’ve been vegan for a week.  Not long at all, I know, but very eye opening.  No, I’m not going through my closet of shoes and handbags and discarding those made of leather, but I won’t buy new ones – found a GREAT non-leather bag for Sarah at Target that confirmed for me the existence of fashionable non-animal alternatives.  I’ll also admit that it wasn’t so much animal cruelty that “turned” me (I do acknowledge it and never wore fur cause I couldn’t look my dog in the face if I did), but the effects animal husbandry and harvesting has on the environment convinced me immediately.  Even the town of Ghent in Belgium is going vegetarian every Thursday to address this environmental impact, so if they can do it, so can I! (Yea, I learned that on Twitter too!)

I was very surprised at how many foods I consume have animal products in them.  Who knew there was a really nice health food store right around the corner from my big American supermarket?  Nature’s Corner carries all kinds of vegan food (cheese, milk, snacks, etc.) many of it local – got tofu from Pennsylvania this morning – and vegan lunches I can grab at the wonderful teacher lunch hour of 10:30 a.m.!

The real issue now is how will I adapt all my favorite recipes to my new vegan lifestyle?  More to the point, how will my children react?  I tried an experiment last Tuesday.  @vegancook101 tweeted this recipe and I thought I would adapt it.  I didn’t use whole wheat ziti (I used durham wheat ziti), I used a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes, a 15 oz can tomato sauce with italian spices, added my own dried oregano, thyme, and basil along with onions and garlic to make the sauce.  I used soy crumbles for the “meat” and put vegan mozzarella on top rather than breadcrumbs.

I don’t have a picture of that meal (my bad), but here’s what happened.  It was a busy Tuesday night at our house. I tutor a student with Asberger’s Syndrome in Flash Animation at 7 on Tuesdays.  Sarah was filming a project for US History, and Joe was playing drums at his friend Nigel’s house (better there than here).  When Joe came home, he and I sat down to the ziti.  I asked him how he liked it; he said, “It’s really good.”  Then I broke the news about the non-meat meat.  OMG, you’d think I fed the kid poop!

Now, I have to show him the packages when I tell him it’s meat, milk or cheese.  In his defense, he’s 14 and, when I was pregnant with him, I practically lived on beef, even fantasized about steak at odd moments!  Sarah, on the other hand, liked it as did her friends.  She was a vegetarian for a number of years, so not a surprise.  Unfortunately, I was off tutoring by the time they tried it, but based on how little was left over for my lunch the next day, it was a success with them!

After that experience, I began thinking about how I would adapt favorite recipes to be vegan.  I love to cook and enjoy nothing more than waking up, planning meals for a day or two, going off to the store, then spending the day in the kitchen.  Helps with our busy schedule cooking ahead, and I do enjoy listening to NPR and trying new recipes on winter sunday afternoons.  This past saturday, I tried another recipe a tweeter posted (I forget who – apologies!) called Rustic Bread & Eggplant Lasagna.  Again, I substituted vegan mozzarella for the breadcrumbs and used the first fresh basil of the season to add some flavor.  Here’s 2 pics of the finished dish:

Peaches are also in season, so I adapted a peach cobbler from the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts (p. 30).  The only substitution to make it vegan was margerine for butter – and Joe loved it!

Tonite, I’m adapting our favorite Giada DeLaurentis dish: Salmon Baked in Foil. I substituted tofu for the fish and am currently marinating it in olive oil, fat free balsamic dressing, garlic (really, anything with garlic is good), oregano, thyme, basil, and lemon juice (see below):

I did find that Yankee Candles weigh the best when draining tofu!  Check back for an update on how this adaptation works out, as well as tomorrow’s attempt to tackle a true favorite – meatloaf!  Oh, and if you keep following my adventures in vegan cooking, you’ll discover that all my cooking utensils are very 60s/70s.  I learned to cook from my grandmother and those remind me of her kitchen.

I delayed this post because my daughter asked me to knit a sunglasses case for her friend Paige as a birthday present.  Sarah found a beautiful tea set but wanted to add something to the gift.  Being a good daughter, she fed my yarn stash on Mother’s Day and then promptly picked one of the yarns she gave me for use in this new project.  I tend toward bright colors (primarily pink and purple – can you tell?) so knitting a plain brown sunglasses case worried me … until I finished it.  The yarn color took on some depth when knit, and Paige loved all of her gifts!

The lighting isn’t great and I took that photo with my iPhone, but you get the idea!

I also started a scarf for Father’s Day for my Dad.  This is the first time I’ve worked with wool, and it took three tries to get the gauge and stitch right.  Now I appreciate why I should make a swatch before I start a project and not just dive in. Knitting may teach me a bit of patience yet!  The color is more like that in the second picture below, but you can see how the scarf is shaping up in the first one.  Again, let’s hope neither of my parents decide to check the blog anytime soon!

I’m going to TWTRCON!

Last June, I was fortunate enough to attend TWTRCON, advertised as “a full-day immersion in the mobile, social and realtime web” in New York City.  Active in social media for 2 years at that point, I’d organized a jersey shore social media event in 2009 but was (and am) employed full-time as a New Jersey teacher. Opportunities to hear leaders in the industry discuss how they integrate Twitter into their marketing plan were few and far between due to my schedule and income.  I was lucky enough to attend TWTRCON via the “Go Standby” program (a deep discount, trust me), and I chose to write about the experience over on the VoxPopNJ blog.  This year I’m attending the event, now known as The Realtime Report, through the same program and will blog about the experience here.

In preparation, let’s look back at last year’s event.  Martha Stewart was the keynote speaker, and as a former stay-at-home mom, Martha and I had a “history”.

During a panel featuring a spokesperson from NASA, PETA decided to hijack the twitterfeed (yes, I’m a vegan, no, I don’t agree with their tactics).

Finally, I attempted to embrace geolocation software but as the summer progressed, I found it sadly lacking at both Chili’s and Chipotle.  I will say that both venues have improved considerably with regard to social media, but I’m still not motivated to check in anywhere at this point in my social media career.

I’m looking forward to lots of new ways to leverage social media at The Realtime Report in June.  Check it out, and if you decide to come, follow me on twitter and let me know how to find you there!  I’ll also be at the Emerging Learning Design Conference at Montclair University on June 3rd.  While directed at educators, I’ll share what I learn here as well, or you can join me at that event too!

Ode to Code

As I thought about this blog post, I was tempted to write either a poem or a blog post in code.  Sadly, my ability to write poetry peaked in high school with my own version of a Cantebury tale, and so few readers would understand a post in code that I created the list above then sat down to just write.

Language: it’s what I love about code.  Over the decades I’ve been coding, people regularly remark, “You must be good at math if you’re good at programming.”  This is a blatant fallacy .  I learned to code because I suck at math!

Way back before my kids were born when I wrote marketing proposals for an engineering company, I came in contact with a phrase I still shudder to hear: “billable hours”.  As an English major, I could write glowing prose about how my company was the best one for any job, but I had no idea how to figure out the proposed cost of the mechanical and electrical systems contained in these bids.  The engineers had to do this, but anything done for my department wasn’t “billable hours” so guess how quickly those guys got to my requests.

Even bribing them with an expense paid meal rarely worked … and this in the era when drinks were still de rigueur at lunch!

Looking back over my life thus far, I realize I do my best work when angry, and this was one of the first examples.  Fine, I said to nobody in particular, if they won’t write the individual estimates, there’s got to be a way to automate this.  I kept all the proposal information in a database – anyone remember dBase III? – and wrote a few simple scripts and interfaces to get me out of work on time when the President of the company decided he needed statistics at 4:55 p.m. on Friday.  If I could get one engineer in each department to give me the formulas they use for these proposals, I could create an interface to generate that section, print it for an engineer to approve (this is way before email), and get those proposals out on time!

The rest is history.  I enjoyed writing those quick little programs so much, I signed up for a Java course at Brookdale, then convinced my employer to pay for me to learn to write interfaces for that newfangled internet. Back from maternity leave, I moved from marketing to the fledgeling tech group and created the first onsite program for cell tower engineers to use to access information remotely.  It was ugly but it worked!

As I type this, I’m reminded of a program one of my Java students wrote this year.  He decided to automate the process of looking up history terms and events by having the computer access the first paragraph of the corresponding wikipedia entry, dump it into a text file, and voila! All the information contained in one convenient Word file created while he played video games.  Brilliant!  Also goes to show that the best programs come out of frustrating experiences.

Recently, I was asked to create an browser interface for teachers to enter data about students.  As I reviewed the specs and nodded along with committee chair as she ticked off all the requirements, I thought, “It’s been awhile since I created rather than taught code.  Is this stuff still in my head somewhere?”

Luckily I could use PHP which is a scripting language and therefore quicker to write since it runs in a browser. (If you’re a coder, you get that, if you’re not, don’t worry about it.  Be happy you have a life.)  Since I’ve used PHP with WordPress and a few other projects, I knew where to start.  Of course, the path of attack I chose had a lot of side trips down dead ends, but in a few hours stolen from prep time and after school, I built the interface.

Few things are as rewarding as working through a programming project and solving problems that pop up along the way.  Knowing I can still write code and manipulate a database after 8+ years out of industry gave me a nice little boost of confidence.

Damn straight this old lady still has some skills!  Now to celebrate my success at Bond St. with the chair of that committee…

On the Needles: Cotton!

This week’s on the needles I have an infinity scarf I’m knitting for my daughter out of cotton yarn.  I chose cotton because I wanted her to be able to wear it this spring, and I’ve never worked with cotton before.  So far, I like the fiber but it doesn’t have as much “give” as acrylic.  I’ve also spent way too much time looking for a button or two to sew on the scarf to give it some style and have yet to find any I like.  Steampunk buttons were tempting but I think these are too heavy for cotton.  Any suggestions are appreciated!

I’m knitting six rows then purling six rows to give it some texture and a striped look.  Here’s a closeup of my progress so far:

Hope my baby girl likes it!

Everyday Vegan: Taking Stock

When you start to cook as a vegan, one of the basic ingredients you may have difficulty replicating is chicken stock. In my omnivore incarnation in the kitchen, I don’t recall using much beef stock, but my pantry always contained a good supply of chicken stock.  As a kid, I remember my grandmothers making chicken stock out of the leftovers and bones of Sunday chicken dinners to be used in other recipes later in the week. When I was an underemployed 20-something in Southern California,  I made many a batch of chicken stock to use and freeze.  Good chicken stock added so much flavor to so many recipes, I couldn’t imagine finding a substitute…

and I never learned to make my own vegetable stock.

So about two years ago when I thought I’d just experiment with vegan cooking, I went off to my local health food store in search of a chicken stock substitute.  As with most things healthy in this country, decent vegetable stock in a box or can cost more than chicken stock and contained way too much sodium even for this lover of salt.  I started with the little cubes, then noted even the health food store version contained 42% of my daily allowance of sodium.  Why didn’t I just use pound of salt instead? I was desparate, and as we in the northeast prepared for what became snowpacolypse, I hastily grabbed a little canister off the shelf hoping it would make decent soup during the storm.

Trust me, the last week of 2010 provided a lot of time to experiment with chicken stock alternatives.

I discovered that my snow induced purchase of Vegebase was a truly brilliant bit of happenstance.  Add a tablespoon to a cup of hot water and you have what looks and tastes like cup a soup with only 5% of the daily allowance of sodium.  Through winter colds and soup making Sundays, I burned through my stash of Vegebase.  Branching out, I used it as stock for curries and stir frys.  As of this posting, I’ve yet to find a recipe this vegan stock didn’t work with and in many ways enhance. Here’s a picture of what I call “soup with all the vegetables that need to be used now“.

No, I’m in no way affiliated with the producer of Vegebase.  I’m just an everyday vegan home cook making her way in an omnivore’s world.

Homeless

I recently read J. J. Brown’s blog post about her debt reduction experiment.  Last December I participated in the #reverb10 blogging challenge and one of the goals I chose for 2011 was dealing with debt.  Definitely the hardest goal I chose, it’s also the one I’ve successfully ignored for the last 4 months.  I can pay my bills and buy necessities but rarely have money for those unexpected expenses like broken cars and leaky roofs.  As I get older and my children become independent, I wonder if I’ll just be working to finance all the things in my life?

Brown’s largest expense after necessities and education is books. My house is filled with books and about two years ago, I put a moratorium on book purchases.  I love the library including that popular contact sport, library book sales, and have found a number of incredible books in local thrift stores.  Around the same time, I cut down quite a bit on clothing purchases because really, at my age, comfort is key and who’s noticing anyway?  My biggest chunk of cash after mortgage, food, and utilities goes to my cell phone carrier.  With 3 smart phones in the family, 2 owned by teenagers, that’s more necessary than discretionary spending.  So where is all my money going?

Let’s return to Brown’s blog post for a minute.  Her experiment was quite simple: when she’s tempted to make a purchase, she imagines herself homeless and “carrying that particular item down the street”.  I immediately saw my homeless self wandering down Route 35 in my must have Paula Deen onion goggles.  In my arms, I’m carrying my out of date iMac, in my pocket my iPhone with speakers (love podcasts), in my bag my painfully old netbook, too small external hard drive, tablet, and miscellaneous powercords, mice, and keyboards. I’d also have a dog on a leash, a cranky old cat in a carrier, and a gecko in a fishbowl balanced on my head.  Behind me I drag my new Rachel Ray saute pan, complete set of Fiestaware including pitcher, gravy boat and glassware, knife set, notebook full of recipes, a lot of beans, produce, and huge container of cumin.  I’m on my way home to my luxury apartment inside my broke down VW Bug.

Let’s not forget the two children trailing behind me.  The teenage boy sports his drum set, iPhone, and old Little Tykes wagon piled high with cereal, milk, and pop tarts.  The princess is busy texting on her Blackberry complaining about how no one offers to help her drag her 7 huge suitcases of clothes down the street while she struggles with her laptop bag.

Talk about first world problems!  My job may have it’s ups and downs, but I have a job and can support my family.  The rising price of gasoline is daunting and will force me to wonder how I’ll keep two cars on the road this summer but somehow it’ll happen.  Maybe I have to spend my vacation learning all about home improvement since sadly I can’t afford to pay others to do it, but I can afford paint and plywood.

So as I sit here paying my bills on my almost 3 year old iMac, I realize that I don’t really need a debt reduction experiment.  I just need to take the time to appreciate all that I have, reflect on where I’d like to be in the future not from a financial standpoint but in terms of what will bring me happiness, and recognize that the 3 year old iMac works just fine …

or maybe this is just one big rationalization as to why I gave up chasing the money and became a teacher.

Everyday Vegan: Breakfast!

A weekend episode of Everyday Vegan, this morning I thought I’d share a new breakfast favorite.  I find that breakfast and baked goods are the toughest cooking categories in which to find decent vegan alternatives.  On Wednesday, I wrote about Trader Joe’s soy chorizo, and yesterday morning while rummaging in the fridge for a decent breakfast idea, I hit upon a spicy tofu scramble!

Vegan Tofu Scramble

1/4 of a package of Trader Joe’s soy chorizo
1 1/4 inch slice of extra firm tofu, crumbled
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup sliced tomatoes
1 shallot minced
garlic powder
cumin
salt & pepper
chopped fresh cilantro

Press the tofu to get as much water out as possible but don’t stress it – this is breakfast after all.  Add soy chorizo to nonstick saute pan and cook for about 5 minutes or until light brown and crumbly.  Remove from pan.  Add about 2 tablespoons EVOO and saute mushrooms and shallots for a minute or two.  Add crumbled tofu and all the spices to taste.  I add a LOT of cumin but it’s really up to you how much spice you’d like. Saute for a few minutes so tofu can absorb the flavors.  Add tomatoes and saute until warm but not mushy.  Add soy chorizo and some fresh chopped cilatro.  Stir until all ingredients mixed together.  Serve topped with more fresh cilantro and whatever bread or tortillas you have on hand.

Below is my prep – I do love to prep!

Final delicious breakfast for one (because the girl is at school and the boy won’t touch tofu).

On the Needles: Resources & Yarn Bombers!

I recently learned to knit at an NAHS workshop at the school where I teach.  @amandaszukofski gave me a great start, and in her instructions to us, she strongly suggested going on YouTube to learn more techniques.  I started by learning how to cast off with a video and am going to attempt to make a blanket with a cable stitch for my son this summer.  I also discovered mobius and infinity scarves on ravelry, an online community you really should join if you’re at all into knitting and the fiber arts.

A comment on last week’s blog post prompted me to compile a short list of resources I’ve discovered in the brief time I’ve been knitting.  Feel free to add more in the comments; I’m always looking for more resources!

1. As I mentioned, the first video I watched was how to cast off.  The knitting needles are HUGE, but I think that makes it easier to see what she’s doing.  The British narration doesn’t hurt either!
2. knittinghelp.com is an excellent resource for how to do just about any knitting stitch or technique.  For my first infinity scarf I needed to do “increases” and had no idea what they were or how to do them.  This simple explanation was the best I found on the internet.
3. Over at The Knitting Hobbist I found the best explanation of cable stitching I could find – and I viewed quite a few! In subsequent On the Needles blog posts, I’ll share my (let’s hope) success with this technique.
4. While I’ve spread the social media love around these past weeks, Twitter is still an excellent place to find knitting resources.  @traceyknits and @knittinghobbyist are my two favorites, and I’ve found quite a few good resources and blogs via their tweets.
5. While I’m still at the Michael’s and A.C. Moore stage of knitting (and acrylic washes REALLY WELL, a must when I make things for my teenagers although I did find a beautiful cotton yarn for Sarah this past week), @amandazukofsky swears by yarn.com and knitpicks.com.  She recently got a great yarn winder for $20 at the latter website, a tool I think I too will purchase! (And yes, I have been known to spend my entire 20 minutes of lunch browsing through what I call knitting porn on these and other websites especially etsy!)

I’ll leave you with a wonderful film project about yarn bombers.  What’s a yarn bomber you ask?  When I first started knitting in January, quite a few friends sent me links to various yarn bombers exploits because, let’s face it, if anyone’s going to do performance knitting at the Jersey Shore, it’s probably me.  Last year, there was a mystery knitter around Cape May that I followed and that was before I learned to knit!  This video describes a documentary project about yarn graffiti.  Please consider donating to their cause even if you just like to see colorful knitting in urban landscapes!

Everyday Vegan: Chorizo!

I love cooking magazines and while there are a few good ones for vegans, I like the challenge of reading magazines with general recipes and trying to make them vegan.  Cooking Light makes this easier for its readers with The Enlightened Vegetarian section.  Granted, they place these recipes at the very back of each issue, but I foil their plans to hide these great options by reading the magazine back to front!

The April 2011 issues has an exceptionally large amount of vegetarian recipes that are either already vegan or easily altered.  My favorite thus far is Paella with Soy Chorizo.  I substituted cumin for the saffron – I don’t keep saffron in the house, am not a fan of tumeric the usual substitute for saffron, and truly believe that cumin (along with cilatro) makes every dish that much more delicious.

First step, locate soy chorizo.  In my part of New Jersey, we have to travel to get to any decent store.  I realize this every time I visit my parents in Plano, Texas, where every store is a mile away.  Every store.  A quick google of “soy chorizo” revealed that Trader Joe’s carried a decent product and, by coincidence, a Trader Joe’s recently opened in Shrewsbury. While not around the corner from my house in Wall, I teach on Tuesday nights in Fair Haven and could easily swing by to pick up this necessary ingredient.

The recipe requires only half the package above, so I’m going to be experimenting with other options for using this spicy meat substitute.  Don’t think I’m a fan of vegan products masquerading as meat; in fact, I recommend to people who are new to the lifestyle to avoid them.  They just don’t taste “right”.  However, this soy chorizo is delicious!

The recipe itself does take a bit of time to make, so it’s definitely a weekend choice for me.  Excellent leftover, this made enough for dinner for me as well as two lunches. On the spicy meter, it’s not burn your taste buds jalapeno hot, it’s more a mild pleasant taste, but if you are like @JenAnsbach and pretzels are your version of spice, this isn’t for you.   Below you can see my finished version; it’s not yellow like the original recipe but I loved it!