Life may change but chili is a constant

I've obviously not been posting here much lately so the question remains: What have I been doing with myself? As hard as it is to believe, there's actually stuff going on in the world outside blog-land. Some things I've eaten and done since my last entry:
-Begun school
-Made a whole lot of pancakes
-Made even more chili (details below)

-Ridden the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster
-Eaten rice and peanut butter sandwiches (not together) practically on a daily basis (you aren't missing out on too much exciting food)
-Survived on Chipotle vegetarian burritos (ignore the silly facepaint)


-Gotten my butt kicked by school work
-Made cookies instead of working
-Saw some rally cool praying mantises
-Kicked some of my school work in the rear
-Begun college applications (let's pray that MIT loves me as much as I love it)
-Updated my blog roll at the side of this page. I deleted all of the blogs that are no longer active, added some new ones, and discovered that one of my links went to a porn site (oops!). If you have a vegan food blog and would like to be added just leave me a comment.
-Helped build a sukkah for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot



The chili pictured above is my standard meal for days when I'm feeling lazy, in need of comfort food, uncreative, or just plain hungry. The recipe varies from day to day (yes, I have gone entire weeks eating just chili), but it follows some general guidelines.

I start with whole cumin seeds in hot olive oil all in a large frying pan. Once the seeds get a little toasted I add diced garlic and onion and cook for a little while. Next is when the recipe starts to change. I take out whatever vegetables are sitting in the back of the fridge and need to be used up. This varies but usually includes some combination of the following: carrots, mushrooms, kale, spinach, bell pepper and hot peppers. If I have some other veggies that need to be used up I throw those in. I dice up these vegetables, add them to the pan and cook some more until everything is a little soft. Then I add cayenne pepper, oregano, and black pepper. If it's just me eating the chili I usually add cocoa powder and cinnamon but my dad doesn't like cinnamon and my mom avoids chocolate, so I often don't use these. Finally, I add in a rinsed can of dark red kidney beans and diced tomatoes (canned or fresh depending on which I have). A couple minutes before eating I stir in Morningstar Farms frozen veggie crumbles.

I like my chili with rice and I've worked out the whole chili-making process so that I can put up the frying pan for chili and the pot for rice at the same time and have them finish cooking simultaneously. In other words, making chili only takes about 20 minutes, the same amount of time as cooking basmati rice.

Lasagna and couscous

A backlog of lunches: that means double post for all you lucky readers.

Unlike most of the horror stories I hear about, most of my family is very accepting of my veganism. On Sunday I attended a family party where there was a ton of food that even I could eat. There were Asian noodles, veggie lasagna, rice, salad, fruit salad, sorbet, and all sorts of snacks (chips, cut vegetables, salsa, etc.). In fact, the only non-vegan parts of the meal were ice cream and a cheese lasagna (which wasn't nearly as popular as the vegan lasagna). I brought home some leftovers and had a ready-made lunch of rice, salad, and lasagna for Monday. The lasagna has tomato sauce, broiled eggplant, and tomatoes in layers in between the noodles. I put the bread on top of the rice before I closed my lunch and it all fit perfectly.

For today's lunch I have some couscous with peas and basil. Couscous is great it cooks in just a few minutes and is good cold. Although I pack my lunches at night, I still don't want to spend a ton of time. Couscous is the perfect way to have some real food without laboring for hours. There's also a little more bread, some red bell pepper, two Twizzlers, and some peanuts.