Veganism -- Seventieth Post

I believe I posted a recipe for vegan apple pumpkin bread made out of random stuff I have in my kitchen, which at the time did not include butter or eggs.
It turns out that I'm quite fond of vegan recipes. This is probably because I frequently run out of eggs and butter (my housemates use some of my eggs, it's a long walk to a store that has cheap groceries, I have no budgeting skills, I made a chocolate torte that takes three eggs and half a stick of butter when I only had three eggs and a stick of butter left, and my baking cravings are unpredictable). Vegan egg substitutions are cheap, and it's fun to try recipes that don't have any cholesterol (yay, shitty heart issues!). I also stick with vegan milks because it's too hard to keep regular milk fresh and around with how little I use it on a day to day basis (mostly, a glug or so in my tea every morning when I can be bothered to wake up in time for tea, since I don't eat cereal hardly ever). I'm thinking I might try some vegan cheese just to see if it's quesadilla-worthy, even though it's probably more expensive.
Today, after a weekend of homework, I NEEDED to bake oatmeal cookies. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I used most of my butter and all my eggs in a chocolate torte that is, quite frankly, pretty damn good for a first try and without a machine to beat my egg whites into stiff peaks.
So, I started hunting for vegan cookie recipes. Eggs I could handle, but the butter... I don't have any coconut oil on hand. I need some, but I am currently without.
I found one recipe that seemed pretty legit, although it didn't include oats, and figured I could just add in oats.
It worked okay until I added too many oats and dried the whole thing out. I also used brown sugar instead of raw sugar. I added 1/3 of a cornstarch egg (1 tbsp water, 1 tsp cornstarch) to moisten it up, and the result was a slightly dry but surprisingly soft and delicious cookie.
I did end up adding about two tablespoons of soy milk to the second batch, but they came out cakey. Another tablespoon of cornstarch egg would have been a worthy addition. Ground up nuts and applesauce might have been good as well.
I hope to make a review of milks for my own purposes at some point, but I need to try rice milk first. So far, almond milk is way too thin for use in tea but fine for everything else, and soy milk is great in tea; maybe a little thick.

Which reminds me, there was something else I was going to post a review on... I forget. Oh, the oriental hy-top stir fry mix is all beans and pretty much nothing else. Don't get that again.

Vegan Apple Pumpkin Quickbread -- Sixty Ninth Post

I've taken to cooking lately, my dear reader(s). I want to bake all the time. Homework? No, baking. Organizing recipes. Finding new recipes and trying them out right away.
One day, I found myself totally out of butter and eggs and desperately wanting to bake bread.
The problem: no breads, yeast or quick, can be made with the ingredients I have on hand. If it's not calling for butter and eggs, it's calling for 15 cups of flour or a bread machine or a loaf pan or something ridiculous like that. Yeah, my communal kitchen is understocked in some respects. We have five muffin tins, but no loaf tins or cheese graters. We have fifteen knives, but none of them for bread.
So, I turned to quickbreads, my preferred drop biscuits being out of the question due to their 5 tablespoons of butter.
Most quickbreads take freaking eggs.
My alternative eventually became apparent to me when I googled "quickbreads no eggs no butter" and pulled up a lot of links with "egg" and "butter" and about two that said "vegan".
AH!
I am not vegan, although I am vegetarian, but I'm a butter-and-eggless vegetarian at the moment, which renders me a cow-milk-consuming vegan for the time being. Not that I'm opposed to vegan milk options; soy, rice, and almond milks can be stored in the cupboard until opened, my friends with no fridge space and erratic milk-drinking habits. They are also quite tasty, although they are best, in my opinion, in cooking rather than in cereal. Soy's a lot thicker than skim. Rice and almond are more skim-y, and a mix of rice and soy makes for great box-bought mashed potatoes.
Anyway. I found this "vegan" apple bread recipe that didn't have applesauce (also not in my kitchen) or pumpkin (technically, the stuff in my fridge isn't mine, but I'm the one storing it, so I didn't want to use it). It called for an egg (goddamnit), but the Cook's Thesaurus provided me with a whole heap of egg substitutes. I used the cornstarch (1:3 with water) and added a bunch of oil and heaped my spoons of baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
It was super dry since I chopped the apples instead of grating them (it was about two of my favourite itty bitty apples that remind me of the ones I got in England and that are the perfect size for cutting and eating straight off the core), so I frantically added the last two tablespoons of my soy milk, a massive glop of raspberry jam (sounded better than plum in this context and is way cheaper than my other jam), and, in desperation, what was left of my friend's slowly going bad pumpkin puree. I then added a handful of dark chocolate chips.
Here's the recipe as I wrote it down:

Vegan Apple Pumpkin Bread
1.5 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
cinnamon and cloves, and other spices to taste
At least 1 cup shredded apple
1/2 cup raspberry jam (but any fruit jam would do, probably)
1/2 cup pumpkin (apple sauce or any other fruit puree would do)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp vanilla
squirt lemon juice
1 egg: 1 tbsp cornstarch, 3 tbsp water, glug (probably about a tsp, up to a tbsp) olive oil
2 tbsp milk (enough to moisten batter)
Handful chocolate chips (or more)
If you use less jam, add more sugar, or less sugar if you use a sweeter fruit puree (applesauce, for instance).

Preheat oven to 350 F; grease pan. I used olive oil and it worked okay.
Mix up dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. I added the "egg" mixture last to the wet ingredients.
Gently, gently mix wet and dry ingredients just until there's a thick batter. Any more stirring and it might get tough.
Fold in chocolate chips (gently!)
Pour into pan with same capacity as a shallow 9" pie tin.
Bake for about an hour, checking periodically, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let it sit in the tin for about 10 minutes to cool, then tip it out onto a cooling rack. Flip it right-side-up when it's cool enough; no use having it break now when you've done so much work to keep it pretty already.
Not that it would be any less delicious if it broke.

The cornstarch egg worked well. The bread is fairly light, not tough, and flavourful. It's a little sweet, as I followed the original recipe and put in a full cup of sugar, but it's okay in small amounts. It's also incredibly rich; I believe that adding more fruit puree and less oil makes it lower calorie, but I don't know about richness. The chocolate chips probably don't help that, either. Using banana or zucchini might have improved the richness problem, but I really like the flavour without those. Again, any jam would probably work; whatever strikes your fancy. It would probably be good with cranberry, blackberry, apricot, peach, cherry, plum, or strawberry; but don't limit yourself. If anything sounds unappetizing with the pumpkin, swap it out for something else, like applesauce. Applesauce would be delicious in this (but I don't have any). There is definitely a nice pumpkin background to the whole bread, but it's not too overwhelming. The apple and raspberry are definitely present. I happen to love pumpkin, but banana would work as well. Also, mine is incredibly sweet because I followed shannonsrunning's recipe (which does not include mostly-sugar jam) and put in a whole cup of sugar. This was too much, at least if jam is used.
I would photograph it and post the picture for you, but my camera's batteries are dead and I'm too broke to buy eggs and butter right now, let alone batteries.
Just trust me, it's delicious looking.
According to my housemate's boyfriend, it smells like heaven. After eating a piece, he informed me that I was "doing the Lord's work". I've decided he can stay around; anyone who compliments my kludged up recipes is a friend of mine.

Back in the States

I've been back in the states for a few months now, and I'm really starting to get the reverse culture shock (whenever I have the time to think about something that isn't upper-division chemistry or speeches that I have to write and deliver, which isn't often; American uni is harder than British uni). I find myself walking down the street missing Sunderland, of all places (I had a distinct day where I hated the whole place down to the paving stones), missing pasties, missing people being able to pronounce pasties without sounding oddly profane... I miss people who say "to-mah-to" instead of "to-may-to", and I miss how oddly uncomplicated life is when you're living with people with whom you share no history.
I miss the days of the only drama in my friend group being that my roommate was being a bitch about something stupid or eating other people's food (I strongly suspect her of eating an entire half-package of soft cheese the weekend I went to Liverpool, and I was only gone for a night). Back here, one of my friends is turning uni back into high school, with her complicated, dramatic view of how friendship should work.
Here, for your viewing pleasure and also my personal ability to understand my life, is something of a schematic of why I miss my England friends:
Linear Complex Bio Major: is attempting to reinstate the clique mentality of american secondary school. Is not really speaking to High Valence Biochem Major. Fancies Unfortunate Biochem Boy. Bosses Distressingly Unknown Accountant and Myself as much as possible. Sees all decisions made by anyone in friend group as involving whole group; has a strong "we" mentality. Is enormously frustrated by single-ness; this manifests itself in her scaring off any friendly boys, much to her continued and compounded frustration.
Octahedral Biochem Major: has a much looser view of friendship. Is best friends with Unfortunate Biochem Boy. Is not really speaking to Linear Bio Major. Gets along fine and does not try to boss Myself or Distressingly Unknown Accountant, although she does tend to bulldoze the planning. Still, allows friends to be otherwise engaged without being offended.
Unfortunate Biochem Boy: is male. Is also most eligible junior science major bachelor who is determined to remain a bachelor. Does not fancy Linear Bio Major back; may or may not suspect that she fancies him. Is sometimes clueless about why the females that surround him are angry. Is a decent lab partner and generally decent friend in spite of some core dickishness, as revealed by conversations between Myself and Octahedral Biochem Major.
Distressingly Unknown Accountant: tries to avoid making decisions. Ends up being a bit of a pawn. Like Myself in this way, just times twenty thousand. Personal thoughts are largely unknown, but often professed to be known by Linear Complex Bio Major and English Major, her roommate.
English Major: is generally nice and sweet and a generally good friend. Lent Myself $20 and has not asked for it over the past month (guilt). Tends to follow Linear Complex Bio Major's theory of making decisions for others via the "we" groupthink. Tends to boss Distressingly Unknown Accountant, her roommate.
Myself: is pissed at the drama created by Linear Complex Bio Major and Octahedral Biochem Major's clashing. Misses simplicity found in England. May or may not fancy Unfortunate Biochem Boy; is flat-out determined not to actively pursue him. Is lab partners with Unfortunate Biochem Boy, wherein a reasonably good friendship has sprung up. Feels that, aside from not being awfully ready to pursue a relationship due to a need to figure out self first, most relationships that seem attractive would cause awkward tensions.

So. The main thing that's been unfortunately camping out in my thoughts is that, in England, relationships, even non-platonic ones, were socially simple. Logistically, not so much, but one could hook up with a guy without worrying about offending two of one's closest friends. Sure, the guy in question was my dearest England  friend's boyfriend's best friend, but that was all we had in common.
In the unlikely event that Unfortunate Biochem Boy asks me out, I will have alienated Linear Complex Bio Major, who would see not using my influence with him to nudge him towards herself as the deepest form of betrayal. She will in turn take it upon herself to alienate me from Distressingly Unknown Accountant, which will likely also alienate me from English Major. Also, since he is besties with Octahedral Biochem Major, that relationship might be strained. They talk about everything, which would not bother me in the slightest, since I understand the relationship, but I wouldn't want to harm their friendship. If Unfortunate Biochem Boy stopped being as close to Octahedral Biochem Major, I would feel really bad. Although it's not likely to be a problem, the implications loom over me like an upcoming doctor's appointment. They probably won't find anything horribly wrong, but what if they do? So I stress.
See? See what happens when people get histories? Much better when the only thing shared by all parties is the fact that they live in the same flat, or know people who live in that flat.

Other things that I miss are the smell of british tobacco smoke (which is emitted by tabs, not cigarettes or the hookah that stunk up my whole house tonight, and is generally smelled when hanging out with my British friend), pizza places, chips, pasties again, public transport, and the lack of daytime rain. The close proximity of grocery stores like Aldi (where real food could be purchased for £1, or less than $2) and the fifty million news agents, supermarkets, and fruit and veg stands that populated the three blocks surrounding my flat are also sorely missed. I have to walk ten minutes up hills to get even to a (british-type) supermarket, found in the states as convenience stores attached to gas stations. These walks are not associated with any sort of commute. The cheapest grocery store is also the furthest away, of course. 
I also miss drinking and dancing. Parties big enough to have drinking games are full of strangers that only want to play pong and who don't want to dance and parties small enough to want to play drinking games are populated by non-beer-drinkers. I miss the casual drinking, where you know that someone has got your back, even if they're just as drunk as you, and they won't leave you at the club. I miss the siren songs of dubstep and rave music pounding through my body as I relax in the anonymity of a club and allow my body to thrash around, not really caring if I can match the rhythm of the music or the person next to me. 


I'll be investing in air freshener to ward off any hookah stink that might make its way into my room (although keeping my door shut has done wonders so far tonight) and possibly also investigating the potential of Richmond cigarettes, the smell of which I didn't mind in England and which I rather miss, although I'd need to be stealthy and not get addicted or make my clothes stink of the smoke. That being said, I probably won't. I'm spending most of my disposable income, of which there really is none, on food and booze lately. 

Sixty-Seventh Post — Miscellany

Having had a crazy drunken time in Edinburgh that included nearly falling asleep in a pub after having coffee with brandy and wishing I'd punched the guy that tried to kiss me in an insanely expensive nightclub and plotting to punch the guy that was dancing up on my roommate, I returned to the normal monotony of my HQ for the semester and promptly drank 4 red WKDs in about an hour before going out to a shitty nightclub where I ended up getting into a fight with some guy who kept smashing into me. The fight consisted of him slamming into me and me being too drunk and small to do much besides attempt to elbow him in the back and stomp futilely at his feet.
That's it, no more parties for me until at least the weekend.
I've also signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in an attempt to finish my most current storyline. I mostly need to fill in the blanks and actually set into word processor the plotline, with motivations and everything, and I'm hoping that this will provide the impetus necessary to do so.
If you want to see my profile, click here.
Now, a quick anecdote about loose leaf tea.
Since being in England, I haven't had much time for loose leaf tea. The only one using my tea stick and ball was the other american in the flat, who got loose leaf Earl Gray by accident. In case you don't know, I despise Earl Gray tea with a deep passion because it was the only caffeinated tea in the house after my wisdom teeth removal. Chewing on teabags while in excruciating pain while spitting blood into a bowl while starving to death because I had to be fasted for general anaesthesia and hydrocodone makes me vomit was not a fun experience. I never really liked the stuff before, but this really cemented my hatred.
There are some incredible sentences in this post. Sorry about that.
In any case, I decided that today was a good day to have some of my Organic White Peony tea. White tea doesn't taste like much, I'll admit, but my first sip was...
It was...
HOOOOO-LEEE SHIT!
It was so damn GOOD. I had forgotten how amazing loose leaf is. Tomorrow, I plan to have some rather more caffeinated green jasmine tea at breakfast. Excitement!

Looking back on it, this post is impressively scattered. I blame the small amount of vodka I had with dinner.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone — Sixty Sixth Post

What I remember from the first movie, which I watched when I was in fifth grade:
very vague, the scene with dumbledore, mcgonagal, and hagrid at the beginning.
The snake scene at the zoo
the letters bursting into the house
wand selection, vaguely. meeting quirrel, I think
running through the wall to platform 9 3/4
neville's toad? Draco malfoy in train, for sure. So, imagined that, actually.
Oh, sorting hat. I vaguely remember that, and that must be where I remembered malfoy.
unicorn blood- detention with hagrid, but strictly the unicorn blood part
Quirrell taking off turban, talking to Voldemort. V and Q crumbling or something

What really happens in the movie, plus my impressions thereof (in a stream-of-consciousness sort of style):
So, I definitely only remembered snatches of that first scene. Very, very vague snatches that I suspect were invented after reading the book. I also have no memory of the theme, which reminds me of the Hook theme.
I had forgotten how adorable daniel radcliffe was when he was 11. So cute!
Fairly certain that the snake was from brazil and said "thanks, amigo" and the amigo was omitted from the movie.
They skipped moving harry into the smallest bedroom...
Hagrid's entrance well done.
I did remember a bit of the wand-picking scene, with the papers flying.
Ah, the initial draco-harry-ron confrontation well played. well placed, too. draco is such a smarmy little bastard, with his hair all slicked.
wait, why is hermione first? what happened to alphabetical order? and the song! Gah!
hmm. should have been inside the head during sorting. hmmph. I guess I'm now a purist for the books.
I thought john cleese was peeves? hmm. nearly-headless nick isn't bad.
The fat lady isn't quite what I pictured, but she's not bad. nice and fat, I guess.
classic scene with orphan in moonlit window. Why is hedwig in his bedroom? dubs-tee-eff...
alan rickman is awesome. friggin' awesome. he plays hateful really, really well. really well. damn.
madame hooch is cool. I wish I could pull off that hair. hair envy... mine's long and floppy and looks stupid and floppy short.
aw, they're so cute little.
McGonagall's supposed to look pissed, but she keeps looking awesomely happy.
"no one's died in years!"
Oh, i did remember that james potter was a seeker. I vaguely remember the plaque.
oliver wood's actor is cute. cute accent.
hermione is insufferable. I like her later, but she's really insufferable. seamus is great for explosions.
poor hermione, when ron says that she's a nightmare in her hearing. It's a case of feel bad for but still don't like much, because she was an insufferable bitch of a kid. harry giving ron a dirty look for hurting hermione's feelings is great.
Oh, I might remember the troll. maybe.
"Coo." Go ron.
oh, alan rickman is good. he plays an absolutely hateful snape.
"let's open it," honestly. it's a cleverly disguised broomstick, derp.
harry looks so tiny...
"I, uh, don't really remember. I took a bludger to the head two minutes in. woke up in the hospital a week later." accent!
lee jordan has an oddly effeminate voice. I hope that improves. I mean, he's at most thirteen years old, but I distinctly recall my classmates having lowered voices by then.
come on, harry, look for the damn snitch. snitch, dammit!
I have the advantage of hindsight... snape ftw.
"I shouldn't have said that."
honestly, don't you two read?
alan rickman is so good. ftw.
quirrell/voldemort's demise is rather horrifying for an 11 y/o to witness.
they left out neville in the points at the end? oh, good. they didn't.
why does james have pattern baldness? I thought he was supposed to have the same hair as harry...
Over all, I approve of the movie for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The music is pretty (oh, God, how shallow. It's gorgeous, evocative, masterful...), and the actors were mostly well-chosen. McGonagall isn't quite how I pictured her, but the Maggie Smith is great and makes up for it.
And Alan Rickman is awesome.

Sixty Third Post — North Dakota

Have I ever talked about my internship?
Well, I had one my senior year of high school. There were a bunch of us at the national lab in the area, and we had to meet up for "enrichment sessions" that meant that we got paid to sit around and talk about our work with people who had no idea what we were talking about while thinking about the thing that we left in the plate reader, or oven, or other experimental medium.
They were a hoot.
A lot of times, the leader would be late or be called away, so we would end up talking about random things that had no relationship to our labs. Things like state capitols.
Out of 20 interns, all high school seniors, all smart enough to get teachers to write them the recommendation letters, most in several AP classes, at least two destined to speak at their graduations, not one knew North Dakota's capitol.
We showed our true colours as future engineers and surgeons by deciding that North Dakota therefore does not actually exist.
I adopted this as my pet conspiracy theory. National monuments, landmarks, forests? Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota. Little House on the Prairie's later books? Set in South Dakota.
Yup. North Dakota is actually not there. I have yet to work out why the government has perpetrated this lie, but I think it has to do with secret stuff on the Canadian border, like Area 51-status stuff. In fact, my uncle was stationed there with the Air Force. Uh huh. That's right. He's part of the cover-up.
Then the TA for my Karate class had been to North Dakota. Damn. However, the account of just one witness does not count.
Then I found this video (you don't have to watch it if you don't want to, just read the title and the description and maybe watch a few seconds or so of it to get the gist).
Goddamn it. That's two witnesses, one with video evidence.
Sigh. I guess I'm just not cut out to be a conspiracy theorist.
Unless... maybe they're all in on it...

Fifty Ninth Post

Hi, everybody.
You may or may not know about my past flirtation with the world of vlogging. It started in february, but then I ran out of time to edit videos and had to do school things.
I filmed myself rambling about "zen" tea that destroys me, but that one never went up.
I filmed my house, but that will never go up.
But yesterday, I filmed and edited a video thanking JK Rowling. It's not very good as far as videos go. I just have my built-in iSight camera and microphone with which to film, and, while adequate, they are not the best.
However, it's a start. I have a slightly romantic view of vlogging- I'll just make videos on my built-in camera and post them, crappy as they are, and people will watch them and like me! Then I'll have internet friends.
Unlikely.
I kind of want a video camera for when I go to england, but I doubt that will happen. Most likely I will just blog, post a lot of pictures on the study abroad blog, and make about one video the whole time I'm in another country.
ANYWAY. Back to the Harry Potter vlog post.
The idea of the original video (italktosnakes' "Want to say "thank you" to JK Rowling?" video) was for lifelong fans to thank JK Rowling for the impact she's had on their lives for the past fourteen years.
I talked a little bit about how Harry Potter has impacted the world in general: Ravelry.com has groups devoted to Harry Potter, there is a whole new genre of music that grew up from the internet, and someone has invented a sort of "ground quidditch".
Fact: Harry Potter had no impact in my life at all until five years ago when people started wondering why I had never read them (Answer: for the lulz gained from people's shocked reaction).
However, since I read the books in quick succession last summer, I've noticed depths to Harry Potter that I might have missed as a child. Harry is not just some kid who plays a mix of rugby, baseball, basketball, and bocce on broomsticks; he's not even a particularly lucky/talented kid who vanquishes ultimate evil. He embodies some of the good things that we like to think about ourselves, as a good protagonist should (at least in "children's" literature, as the series began). He's heroic, he's loyal to his friends, he's a natural leader. He also, however, embodies things that we like to ignore about ourselves. This is where we leave the realms of children's stories and get into the depths of human nature. His awareness of his wizarding prowess leads him to be reckless, foolhardy, and arrogant. Harry is a real person, in other words. He's a real teenager, unfortunately. He mopes, he whines, he takes out his anger on the wrong people. What makes him a protagonist, someone that people want to emulate, is the fact that he deals with the stupid human faults to which he is prone. In spite of his failings, he manages to get himself back on track and save the world.
Imagine if everyone could do that.