We're Making Sourdough! (Day 2) -- Seventy Third Post

I still don't have batteries.
Seeing as I set up Baker Out of Eggs and Butter last night, I'm going to continue this sourdough adventure over there.
We're Making Sourdough! (Day 2)

This isn't really a real post

This is mostly to say that I'm almost definitely going to make the new blog if only to give me something to do and a good reason to go to the store and get batteries and also apply for a job and maybe get some more applesauce and fancy flour while I'm there.
So, names! I'm sort of down to two options.
accidentalvegan is taken. It's even at blogspot.
I've never made a cranberry cup cake, or really anything with cranberries in it. In fact, I dislike cranberry baked goods as a rule, although I drink cranberry juice exclusively and would eat entire bags of the dried stuff if given the option.
So, we're left with thebrokevegetariancooks and bakeroutofeggsandbutter.
Basically, do I want a rhythmic name or one slightly more accurate.
Wait, the broke vegetarian cooks has a vegan relation on tumblr, and on blogspot, and a sibling in brokevegetarian.
It's decided: bakeroutofeggsandbutter I will be.

UPDATE!
Baker Out of Eggs and Butter: A Broke Vegetarian's Flirtation With Veganism is a thing now.

We're Making Sourdough! (Day 1) -- Seventy Second Post

I'm just going to pretend like this is the 72nd post even though it's somewhere in the sixties.
Anyway, I'm all moved and unemployed and stuff. Goddammit.
This leaves me with a lot of time to watch TV. I've watched all the seasons of the new Doctor Who (bow ties are cool and Matt Smith took the reins very handily, although David Tennant was definitely awesome) and Sherlock, the BBC modern-day show (really, really well done adaptation of the stories). Having run out of TV shows, it gave me a lot more time to think about how stupid it is that I can't find a job and even more time to grumble to myself about how I WOULD have something to do if someone would frigging HIRE ME.

ANYWAY.

With all this free time, I've decided that I can make sourdough starter, no problem. It's not like I have anything else to do, and if I can't remember to have a look at it every 12 hours, then I'm stupid and deserve for it to die. I'm following the instructions from Sourdough Home because it seemed fairly comprehensive.
Since I have a balance, I can do it by weight. Yay for being slightly non-american, I guess!

Day 1: Mixed about 50 g each of unbleached safeway brand white flour and tap water at 21:30.
I put it in a clean (large) applesauce jar, covered it gently with the lid (to keep out bugs, dust, and housemates), and put it on top of the refrigerator. I'll be scraping the sides and doing most of my mixing with a trusty red spatula.

I'll put up some pictures when I get batteries, hopefully tomorrow.
Right now, it's just a thick paste of flour and water. Woo hoo.

Oh, and, incidentally, I'm thinking about starting up yet another blog, this time for baking and for cooking in general. Name ideas include cranberryfairycakes, accidentalvegan, thebrokevegetariancooks, and bakeroutofeggsandbutter.
But I have one for study abroad, crafting, ranting about randomness, and even a defunct one for computer stuff; do I really need a fifth?
My train of thought here is that I could stick with this blog as a conglomeration of my university life, which definitely does not include anything crafty or remotely interesting, maintain my crafty blog over the summers, and continue ignoring the computer blog, while dumping everything that's not crafting or studying abroad here. If, by happy chance, I find myself abroad again, the study abroad adventures will start back up with quasi-regular updates. As it stands, it might be simpler to keep everything on this blog.
If you have thoughts, I'd love comments, but I'm really not expecting anything. Input would be valued, but ultimately ignored. Welcome to life.

Avengers Review -- Somethingth Post

First off, I can't remember how many posts there actually are. I think I skipped a bunch of numbers, but I can't be asked to go back and fix everything.
Know what else I can't be asked to do?
Homework. Yeah, it's finals. Yeah, I have four things due for one class and an exam in another tomorrow. No, I don't want to work on those.
So, here's what will hopefully be a largely spoiler-free review of The Avengers, the new superhero movie by marvel that all the kids are talking about.
Yeah, I went to the midnight premier even though I had an exam the next day. I've been waiting for this movie since the first Ironman whenever it came out (I was in high school then; I'm very nearly a senior in university now); I'm not going to let a little thing like an exam in my hardest class stop me from seeing this the day it comes out.

The trailers had been indicating that all these extremely strong, movie-carrying characters were going to be working together but still having issues and experiencing internal conflict due to their extremely strong personalities. This was encouraging. You don't get to be a superhero without being independent, strong, and forceful (unless you're that pansy, Spiderman), and superhero-type personalities don't mix well. Luckily, Nick Fury was a super-strong personality as well as being the purported leader of the gang, so no one was fighting over who got to call the shots, just who was, you know, right about stuff like who had the right to beat the shit out of Loki.
Who was played really well, by the way. I have a soft spot for non-satanic "bad guys" in mythology because they just tend to be misunderstood over time and disney. Hades didn't torment anybody, he just made sure everyone followed the rules of the underworld (which included the paradise-like afterlife and wasn't just a sort of greek hell). Zeus was a dick, though. Loki wasn't evil, just mischievous (well portrayed in Thor, I thought) in a way that sometimes came into conflict with everyone else.
The film really dug into the basic nature of humanity in the conflict between Loki and everyone else, making it interesting to watch from a philosophical viewpoint (one of my classes is dealing with some of the actual statements made in the film). It also dug into Tony Stark's hidden depths, since he mostly just developed compassion while still being a rich egotist in his other two movies.
While Bruce Banner was not played by the same guy as in The Incredible Hulk (2008-ish; I was in high school but it was after the first Ironman), this new guy did a great job of portraying Bruce Banner and the Hulk.
I was pleased by the tension between Captain America and Tony Stark. I was hoping for some, since Steve Rogers had pretty much been BFFs with Howard Stark, who Tony only barely came to forgive (for kind of being a terrible dad) in Ironman 2. There's a scene where Tony and Steve get into an argument and leave muttering angrily; Tony comments that if this is really the guy that his dad wouldn't shut up about, maybe they should have left him on ice. Still, they get over it because of a HUGE FUCKING PLOT TWIST OMG!
I won't tell you what it was, but Joss Whedon is a sneaky bastard who kills off his main characters and can't even be blamed for it by the end of the movie because it works out so perfectly.
Damn you, Joss Whedon. You kill people off and I can't even hate you for it.
We are all Joss Whedon's bitches, is what I'm saying here.
Another thing that impressed me was how there was no love story. All the others, including both Ironmans, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America, have had love stories that are sort of central to how the movie runs, how the main characters roll, and how the probable sequels might be set up. The only love story in The Avengers is between Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, and it's really just a few scenes showing that they're in a committed relationship and that Tony really loves her a lot. Thor's lady, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman, if you've forgotten her name as thoroughly as I had), gets shuffled out of harm's way without us ever seeing her. He better have dropped by, because if I saw that my demigod man had saved the human race from devastation without even saying hello even when I'd been looking for him relentlessly after his einstein-rosen bridge had been smashed, well...
Well, I'd take him back, but he'd better be sorry.
Presumably, Captain America's lady is dead or very, very old with grandchildren. Not a lot of WWII veterans hanging around nowadays. My grandparents are in their 80s, and they were children during the war. She wasn't even mentioned, which I thought was a bummer.
Bruce Banner's love interest from The Incredible Hulk (Liv Tyler, of all people) wasn't brought up at all either. She really wouldn't have fit and the whole thing was a bit odd in the first place.
Basically, there was enough personal growth and team growth that they didn't need love stories to drive the action. The action was driving itself well enough.
A new story that popped up was Hawkeye and the Black Widow. There were romantic undertones, but you mostly get the impression that the Black Widow cares more for Hawkeye than she does for anyone else in the whole world because she owes him. I would watch a movie about those two, even if they didn't end up together. They could be best friends forever and I would be okay with that.
Also, Robin from How I Met Your Mother is a SHIELD agent.

Overall, the film is a great blend of action and plot, with great explosions and these fish things from outer space. I also suspect the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving's character in Captain America, you know, the guy with the creepy-ass red head who gets tesseracted out into space?) is involved.
There are slow spots at the beginning, but once it gets going, it's awesome. There's a lot of humour on both sides (neither side gets to have all the jokes) even in really serious situations. However, there are serious situations that are not appropriate for humour, and these were not made funny in the movie.
Stay to the end of the credits. Not only is the music pretty good, the final scene is hilarious. No, it doesn't set up a sequel, but it does reference a humourous moment from a serious situation and it's pretty hilarious. No, I won't tell you what it is.

Yay, so that's a review and I really do need to do homework.
Summary: Go see it. If you're too broke, pirate it as soon as you can and try to ignore the weird non-western alphabet subtitles. It's worth it.

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.