My first tag post!

I can't believe I've never done a meme before! Paulina of Veggie Delight was kind enough to tag me with this meme.

1) LAST MOVIE U SAW IN A THEATRE? I seriously can't remember, I don't go to the theater much, I'd rather just wait to rent them because I'm cheap like that. The last movie I rented was The Golden Compass. Not as good as the book, but still a great movie.

2) WHAT BOOK ARE U READING? Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America by Nathan Winograd.

3) FAVOURITE BOARD GAME? Chinese Checkers

4) FAVOURITE MAGAZINE? National Geographic

5) FAVOURITE SMELLS? Cinnamon, cedar and pine trees and fresh bread

6) FAVOURITE SOUNDS? My favorite songs, cats purring, and really, really hard rain

7) WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? Not realizing you've made a stupid mistake until immediately after it's too late to do anything about it

8) WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN U WAKE? Trying to get out the door for my run/walk before it gets too hot

9) FAVOURITE FAST FOOD PLACE? Ewww, no thanks, I don't eat that junk.

10) FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? I don't want to have children, but if I change my mind probably Marina for a girl and Joshua for a boy.

11) FINISH THIS STATEMENT—IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I’D...Use some to pay for college, give some to my parents and brothers, buy only organic food, travel all over the world, and give the rest to charities that I believe in.

12) DO U DRIVE FAST? No

13) DO U SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No

14) STORMS–COOL OR SCARY? Mostly cool, except tornadoes and hurricanes

15) WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? I don't have a car yet.

16) FAVOURITE DRINK? Water, of course.

17) FINISH THIS STATEMENT-IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD…Go to the humane society more often.

18) DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI? Yes, I love broccoli stems.

19) IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY OTHER COLOUR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE? Black or something weird like blue or green.

20) NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS U HAVE LIVED IN? I lived in Austin, TX until I was 3, since then I've lived in Pflugerville, which is just outside of Austin. How boring!

21) FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH? I don't like sports.

22) ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Paulina seems very smart and friendly and determined to achieve her goals.

23) WHATS UNDER YOUR BED? Dust bunnies and the carpet

24) WOULD U LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?? No, that would be boring. I would want to be a different person or even a non-human animal.

25) MORNING PERSON OR NIGHT OWL? Morning person, I'm always up before 7:00.

26) OVER EASY OR SUNNY SIDE UP? I didn't even like eggs before I was vegan!

27) FAVOURITE PLACE TO RELAX? At my computer.

28) FAVOURITE PIE? I don't like pie, so I've never tried to make a vegan pie.

29) FAVOURITE ICECREAM FLAVOUR? Vanilla Oatscream

30) OF ALL THE PEOPLE U HAVE TAGGED, WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST? Probably aTxVegn, she updates her blog pretty often.

I tag:
Ruby Red Vegan of Ruby Red Vegan
Peggy the Veggie of Vegan Teen Cuisine
Freedom of The Raw Vegan Princess
aTxVegn of eat'n veg'n vegan food and recipes
Veg-a-Nut of Life on the Vegan Highway is Good!

No more high school!

A week before yesterday (June 6), I graduated from high school! My grandma came down from Connecticut on the Wednesday before it, and left three days ago. It was pretty
exciting! I have been waiting for high school to be over since I was a freshman, and now it finally is! Because my grandma was here, we ate out a lot. After picking her up on Wednesday, we lunch ate at Mother's, and on Friday after my graduation, we ate at Kerby Lane, since my older brother was with us. Then for dinner, we ate at Casa de Luz. I had never been there before, even though it's the only 100% vegan restaurant in Austin. The food was very tasty, but it was pretty expensive and it was a little confusing. It is sort of buffet style. You get your own soup and salad and can eat as much as you want, but everything else comes on a plate. We weren't sure if we were supposed to have more than one of these plates. Over the weekend, I stayed home with my brother while my parents and my grandma went to see some boring painted churches. I was happy to have some time away from my grandma, who likes to complain and b**** about everything. I was sick of her telling me to "do something with your hair" and saying that vegan food is gross and a million other things. When they came back on Monday, I cooked some scrambled tofu and pancakes for dinner. My brother didn't even try them, but my grandma liked them, even though they're vegan. On Tuesday, we went to San Antonio to go to the SAS shoe store and then we went to Green again, for lunch. I bought something for dinner too because on the way back, we were going to stop in San Marcos to eat with my other brother (he's 23), and the only vegan friendly restaurant there is Thai Thai Cafe, which my brother eats at all the time. For lunch at Green, I ordered cece's stir fry with brown rice and sweet potato fries. This was very delicious, with lots of sauce and lots of veggies and some crispy, breaded tofu. I ordered the Raw Deal Wrap with fruit salad and kale salad to save for dinner. The kale salad was kind of weird(too salty maybe), but the wrap was pretty good. The next day, my grandma finally left.



A few days before my grandma came, I made Brussel Sprouts Go Asian from FatFree Vegan Kitchen and served it on Tofu Shirataki noodles with steamed broccoli. This was my first time trying both brussel sprouts and Tofu Shirataki noodles. The brussel sprouts were okay, but some of the bigger ones were a little bitter. The tofu noodles had a weird taste and texture, but they were good enough. Other than that, this was a pretty tasty dish.



Last night and the night before, I had Creamy Curried Veggies from How it all Vegan. This was very delicious and healthy, after a week of eating out too much. I subbed unsweetened almond milk for the coconut milk to make it healthier. I've been wanting to make Indian food lately; I can't remember the last time I cooked an Indian dish.

While my grandma was here, I more or less stopped exercising, so now I have to get back into the routine and start where I left off, with walking 4 minutes and running 1 and repeating for an hour. I want to also do some strength training, because I'm weak and not toned at all, and I want to change that.

School's Almost Over!

I just have one 4 day week of school left, and we're not really going to do any really work. Everyone has major Senioritis, so it would be pointless. And I don't have to take any of my finals because my school has this policy where you don't have to take finals in each class that you have an average of 80 or above and less than 3 absences. But my actual graduation isn't until a week after the last day of school. So I'm pretty much done with high school now, forever!

A lot has happened in the last 2 months. First of all, I know where I'm going to college-UT. I got rejected from both Stanford and UC-Berkeley, so I basically have no other choice. I was upset, but maybe it's for the best. I'll be able to come home whenever I want, and I'll be more familiar with the area. And UT's a great school too. And I'm going to live in Royal Co-op! Also, I did very well at the District and Regional UIL competitions, and made it to State in science! If you make it to state, you're eligible for hundreds of scholarships, with about a 50% chance of getting one! I won't know until July what, if anything, I will receive. I do already have $30,000 worth of scholarships from two different scholarships, but it would be great to get more.

I also finished all my AP tests about a week ago, all 6 of them- BC Calculus, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C E&M, English Literature, US Government and Macroeconomics. Calculus, Government and Macroeconomics weren't too hard at all, but both Physics exams and the Lit exam were brutal. I'm hoping to get 5's on everything except Lit, and a 4 on Lit.

Sorry that there's no pictures in this post, I having been cooking much at all lately, up until this past Wednesday, my life has been pretty hectic. After I was done with my AP tests, I had to work on this really stupid Scrapbook project that my English teacher made us do. So I had to work on that all last weekend and until Wednesday when it was due.

Last Saturday morning, I started a 10 day raw food cleanse. Not only am I eating only raw, unprocessed food, but I am also eating no high fat foods, like nuts, seeds, avocado, etc, and no dried fruits. So basically, that leaves fresh, raw fruits and vegetables. I've actually had little trouble doing this. I've been tracking my consumption on Nutrition Data, and I've been able to get at least 100% of the daily value of all vitamins and all but a few minerals(Iron and Selenium, and some days Phosphorus). My protein has been only slightly on the low side(31-46 g). Since this is only temporary, it's fine to be slightly low. So far, I've also lost 7 of the 12 pounds that I've gained since January(!), mostly by binging very often. The cleanse ends Monday night. I will end the cleanse gradually by eating some raw nuts on Monday night, then add in steamed vegetables on Tuesday, then add beans on Wednesday, and after that any other foods I have been avoiding(grains, bread, etc.).

I've been enjoying the simple, delicious foods that the start of summer brings-fresh, raw corn, ripe tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, peaches, cherries.

Also, I'm going to be volunteering at the Library this summer, as well as volunteering more often at the Humane Society. I will probably get a job too, and start exercising more often. Today a went on a 55 minute walk/jog, and then did an hour of yoga. I'm going to gradually increase the percentage of jog I do during the walk/jog.

Edit:
I almost forgot to mention, on April 17, I turned 18! I'm finally an adult.

That's all for now. Hopefully now that it's summer, I can update more often.

Happy 2008 From the World's Worst Blogger!

Wow, so I haven't updated for 5 months. Sorry about that. Things have been kind of hectic. I stopped updating in august because the computer wasn't working. Then, around august 26ish, it was fixed, just a few days before school started. I had a lot of pictures that it had been planning to post about once the computer was fixed, but by then, there were so many that I was too lazy to do it. Plus, the school year was about to begin...and not just any school year...my senior year! Yeah! Finally! So, there has been a lot of crap to keep me busy and not cooking, like SAT 1's and SAT 2's and college applications and essays and scholarship applications, my UIL stuff, and schoolwork. I only have 5 classes this year, but it sure doesn't seem like it! Especially with AP Physics C. Oh how I long for AP Chem! So much easier and more fun than Physics.
Anyway, as of December 31, I was officially done with all my college apps. I applied to UT-Austin, MIT, UC-Berkeley and Stanford. I was all set on applying to Rice too, but I thought it over and realized that I would not choose it over UT if I had to choose between those two, and I've already been accepted to UT (they have rolling admission, plus if you're in the top 10% of your class, which I am, and you live in Texas, they automatically accept you). Since I can only go to one school, I'll eventually have to narrow it down anyway, so might as well start now and save my $60 application fee. Unless, of course, none of the other schools accept me...which is quite possible with that list. Honestly, it is extremely unlikely that I'll get into MIT or Stanford. Berkeley...maybe. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to cook and blog about what I cook much more often now that I'm done with that. I'll try to blog at least once a week from now on!
And guess where I'm going on January 16th, after midterms? California! Since there is a good possibility that I will get accepted to Berkeley, and I am also applying to Stanford, my parents and I decided that I should go and see those schools. Since I have Friday and Monday off, no midterms on Thursday, and can take a "campus day" on Tuesday, we will have almost a week to be there! It's going to be so much fun! I promise to take pictures and post them here! By the way, anyone have any good restaurant recomendations in the bay area? (Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Palo Alto)
I do have a few pictures from the past few days. One New Years day, I made some Blackeyed peas with onions, garlic, chipotle powder and freshly ground pepper. It was pretty good, not fantastic or anything. I don't like blackeyed peas that much. Here it is with some steamed kale:



Yesterday, I made some cupcakes! I've never made vegan cupcakes before. When I was little, I probably helped my mom make some omni ones though. I used the Vanilla Agave Cupcakes recipe from VCTOTW. I used almond milk instead of soymilk and replaced the oil with applesauce and used WW Pastry flour. I only made a 1/2 batch because I do not want 12 cupcakes that only I will eat sitting around! (each of my parents would probably eat one, then I would be left to eat the other 10!) It actually only made 5 cupcakes instead of 6. I made some delcious frosting by mixing together 2 T of almond butter with 1 T of maple syrup. It made enough to frost 4 cupcakes, with a little bit left over for the other one. Here they are fresh out of the oven:


And after frosting:

And here's some with the wrapper off:




Here's one I took using the new camera I got for Christmas in "food" mode:

And this is my new camera!



My parents got me a camera for Christmas because next year when I go off to college, I can't just take theirs! They also got me a spatula and umbrella for the same reason. I haven't gotten my laptop yet, though. But sometime between now and august I will buy my very own laptop!

I will leave you with a picture of my dog Maggie taking a nap. (in "pet" mode on the camera!)

That's all for now, I guess. I wish you all a happy and healthy 2008!