Back From California!

It's been nearly two months since my last post. Oh my! But this time I'm not going to apologize because I've been busy with things that are more important than keeping up with this blog. These past two months sure have been eventful. I don't even know where to start!

Well, I finished all my financial aid stuff for college in February. I went to the two dinners required for the House of Commons co-op. I think I prefer Royal co-op, but if I apply to both I have a back up in case Royal is too full. I'm not even sure if I'm even going to UT yet, so I can't reserve a spot in either co-op until I decide, which could take until mid-April. By then Royal might be full since it can only take 17 people. I've also gotten two rejection letters. One was from the UT Engineering Honors program and the other was from MIT. The rejection from the honors program was very disappointing because I thought it was pretty much a given that I would get in. But apparently it's very competitive, especially for chemical engineering, which I applied to. And it seems to me that their decision is about 90% based on SAT scores. You basically have to 1500 or more (math+reading). I was not the least bit surprise about the rejection from MIT. However, a girl in my class got in and another guy was put on the wait list. The girl has a lower gpa and class rank than me, less extracurriculars(as far as I know), similar or possible slightly lower or higher SATs. I think the reason she got in, while I wasn't even waitlisted was that she's Hispanic. Oh well. Where I really want to go is UC Berkeley. I will find out if I get in there on March 27 (this Thursday!). Then on April 1, I will hear from Stanford. I'm not too optimistic about Stanford after my rejection from MIT, since Stanford has an even lower admission rate.

I've also been busy with school work and UIL. The first six weeks of the semester ended three weeks ago(1 week before spring break). I was surprised when I got my report card, because I literally got a 100 in every class. I always make good grades, but never perfect in every class! I've gone to two UIL competitions since my last post, one on Feb. 9 at Wimberly and one on Feb. 23 at Westwood, and district is next Saturday. At Wimberly, I really cleaned up! Our school got 1st place team in Mathematics, Calculator and Science. I got 4th place in Science, 1st in Calculator, and 2nd in Mathematics. Then at Westwood, which was a larger tournament with 5A schools, our team got 1st in Science and 2nd or 3rd in Calculator(I don't remember which). I also got 1st in Science and 3rd in Mathematics, with a 300 and 214, respectively, which are both personal records! I didn't do so hot in Calculator, though, only 143. I usually get around 170's or 180's in Calculator. At school, I recently met two sophomores at lunch that are vegetarians and would be vegans if their parents would approve. One of them notice that I was wearing a vegan freak t-shirt one day. Now I eat lunch with them everyday. It's so awesome!

On this past Tuesday, I came back from my trip to California. I went there on Tuesday the 11th, which was during my spring break, and had to miss Monday and Tuesday after spring break. California was wonderful! I saw Berkeley and Stanford and even visited some of the co-ops at Berkeley. I think I fell in love with Berkeley, both the school itself and the town. I really hope I get in and can afford to go there! The out of state fees make it quite expensive, especially compared to UT. In addition to seeing the schools, we also explored San Fransisco and went to Golden Gate Park, Muir Woods and Point Reyes. It was very hard to park and get around San Fransico. While there, we went to their amazing farmer's market and ate at Herbivore. I can't remember if we did much else there...most of our time was spent looking for parking! Herbivore was pretty good, but I was hard to enjoy it when we felt so rushed, since our parking meter had a 1 hour limit, including walking several blocks between the car and the restaurant. I ordered vegetable kabobs with soy chikin and quinoa and soy ice cream for dessert. Other than that, we didn't go to any restaurants because we wanted to save money. We ate hummus and pita for lunches and sometimes dinner, and we made a simple lentil dish that lasted for two dinners. We also ate lunch at one of the dining halls at Berkeley, where they had almost as many vegan options as omni options! Vegan pizza with vegan cheese, vegan hot dogs, vegan sloppy joes, vegan tacos,a nice salad bar, even a daily vegan dessert! The Whole Foods in Berkeley sold a variety of vegan cakes, vegan donuts, vegan donut holes and huge chocolate vegan cupcakes. I tried each one of these on the trip.

We weren't at Golden Gate park long, but we did see the Golden Gate bridge:


We saw a coyote at Point Reyes:

Here is a lighthouse at Point Reyes:

We also saw elephant seals:

Elk, but you can barely see them:

Deer:

Here's a picture from Muir Woods:

It was a pretty awesome trip!

Now here's a few food picture's I've taken.

This is a soup a made at the beginning of February. Sorry, I don't remember what it was!


These muffins are Susan's Berry and Spice Muffins. I made a few changes. I used date sugar in the topping and omitted the margarine, used all whole wheat pastry flour, and used an equal amount of agave nectar for the sugar. I also used unsweetened almond milk instead of soymilk. I asked Susan whether agave nectar could be substituted for the sugar, and she thought this might solve the dryness problem she had. It did! These were moist enough, but not too moist, and very delicious!

I made pancakes! I've never made pancakes before! These are the Banana Pecan Pancakes from VWAV. I used all w/w pastry flour, almond milk, omit the 1 T of oil, and used walnuts instead of pecans. I topped it with sliced bananas and pure maple syrup. My dad thought these were better than omni pancakes! At first I had trouble making these, but after the first few a got the hang of it.

I got Veganomicon from my mom for a valentines gift. I don't usually get valentines gifts, it was really just an excuse for her to get me this book since she knew I wanted it. I made the chickpea cutlets that everyone's been raving about and made a sandwich with Ezikel bread, lettuce, hummus, tomato, and a cutlet. I baked them it the oven. I really liked them, but my mom didn't because they were very chewy.


One Friday, I went to a Whole Foods "Eat-up" with the Vegans Rock Austin group. I've gone to one other meet up with them in January, to Mr. Natural. We ate at the flagship Wholefoods downtown this time. They have a buffet type area where you can get several different types of food and pay $7.99/lb. for all of it. I also got a sorbet and a slice of vegan Nutty Monkey Cake, and my Dad bought me Clif Nectar bars and a 365 brand vegan dark chocolate bar for Easter. Only my dad and I went, since my mom is very shy. Most of the members of the group are in their 20's or early thirties, so they were all older than me and younger than my dad. Despite the age difference, we still had a great time. It's great to meet other vegans in my area!
Well, I really have more to say, but I'll probably post about it later today or tomorrow morning before school. Have a great day everyone!

Rockport, a Few Meals and Other Happenings

My trip to Rockport was okay. We left on Friday the 18th and came back on Sunday. I had last Monday off and we were planning to stay until Monday, but by then we were ready to go home. The main reason was that it was too cold and wet to do anything other than sit in our tiny cabin and read. The first night we got there was rather unpleasant. We arrived pretty late, and the heaters in the place weren't working. We finally had to tell one of the managers about it. It turns out that the circuit was tripped. He was able to get them running. Meanwhile, it was pouring outside.




Saturday was a little better. It was still pretty cold, but it stopped raining. We went to a wildlife preserve and saw whooping cranes and armadillos. There were supposed to be alligators there too, but it was too cold for them to be out. On Sunday, we went home, but not without stopping at Green! It was so delicious (but not too healthy!). I ordered sesame chikin with brown rice and a salad. My dad had zucchini enchiladas, brown rice and sweet potato fries and my mom had the popcorn tofu po boy with french fires. My dish was fantastic! The brown rice was great also, and had lentils in it. I tried the sweet potato fries, french fries and tofu po boy, which were also great, though the tofu po boy was a little too salty for me. I did not try my dad's zucchini enchilada(dairy cheese!). I also got a soft serve soy ice cream for dessert, which wasn't very good. I prefer oatscreme from Dhaba Joy!


While we were there, we made Chickpea Ratatouille from Vive Le Vegan using Chickpeas we cooked in the crockpot. I didn't realize beforehand that it had to be baked, so we didn't have anything to cover it with, but it still cooked in the right amount of time. I left out the vinegar and oil. It was very tasty and we had leftovers that we had to haul home in our cooler.

A day or two after we got back, since we still had some chickpeas (we cooked two pounds!) and some spinach that was getting old, we made Chickpea and Spinach Curry from Vegan with a Vengance. My parents enjoyed it, but I found it rather bland and the spinach had a slimy texture. Maybe one reason for this was that the recipe called for 2 TB of fresh ginger, and we barely had 1 TB.

After that, we STILL had some chickpeas, so we made Curried Garbanzo Beans . If I was forced to pick a favorite recipe, it would have to be this one. I have made this recipe several times. It can be a lifesaver when I'm short on time but demand something flavorful. It can't get much simpler than this-heat some spices and garlic, add chickpeas, mash, cook for twenty minutes, cut up some lemon, cilantro and tomato while wait, then mix them in when it's done cooking; serve. That's it. You can even leave out the lemon, cilantro and/or tomato if you really need to. The spices make it very flavorful, and it has a nice, thick and mushy texture, sort of like a thick dal. After we finish all the chickpeas, we made Chipotle Corn and Black Bean soup again.

On Saturday, I had my first UIL competition of the year! Our team actually went to two before this, one in November and one in December, but I had to take the SAT 1 and SAT 2 and had to miss both of them! This meet had very difficult tests, and we had to compete against 5A schools. Normally we only compete against other 4A schools. I didn't place in any of my math events, but I got 4th place in Science. In fact, I tied with the 3rd place winner, but there was a tiebreaker. I have another competition in two weeks. There will be less schools, and no 5A schools, so hopefully I will do better.

Last night I had dinner with the members of Royal Co-op. Having dinner with them is part of their application process. If I go to UT next year, I definitely want to live either in this co-op or the House of Commons. It is a great alternative to the dorms. Most of the dorms don't even have a kitchen, and you're required to buy a meal plan if you live in the dorms. Plus, the co-ops are about $2000-$3000 cheaper a year, even if you have your own room! And, these two serve only vegan food! The only catch is you have to do 5-6 hours of housework a week. But that can include helping cook the meals, which I actually enjoy.

I was pretty nervous about the dinner, but it went well. I'm pretty shy. They seemed like friendly people, and since most of them are vegetarian or vegan, they probably have many of the same interests as I do. Plus, several of them are science majors! The meal served was delicious and pretty healthy- gumbo from Veganomicon, salad, brown rice. For dessert, they had pineapple upside down cake.

Lunch "Bowl" and Update on my Vacation

A few days ago, I made a "bowl" for lunch, inspired by Veggiegirl's bowl-meals. It had quinoa cooked with onions, garlic, cumin, italian seasoning, tomato paste and a little bit of pinto beans and topped with steamed brocoli and kale, raw carrots, and grilled eggplant. I didn't actually make the eggplant from scratch. At HEB they sell frozen grilled eggplant, so I heated some of that up in the toaster oven.


I liked the "bowl," but it it took longer to make than I expected, and I nearly burned the quinoa because my b(r)other wouldn't leave me alone and I was trying to make a one-serving portion of it. There was a layer of quinoa stuck on the bottom, just barely starting to burn, but the rest was fine.

I have a update on my California trip: we postponed it until spring break in March. The reason we wanted to go in January in the first place was that we got great deals on the plane tickets ($99/person each way!) and it wasn't available during spring break when we bought the tickets. But then my dad thought it might not be a good idea to go now because there are some pretty bad storms in California right now. So then we looked and saw that they now have tickets available for the same price during spring break, so we changed our tickets. And we can go for a few extra days now, since it will be during spring break.

So now what are we doing over the 5 day weekend coming up? We are going to stay in the HEB cabins in Rockport! It's free since my dad works at HEB.

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!

Sweet and Sour Seitan and Vacation Pictures

Tonight I made Seitan Baked in Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. This is so delicious! I used the extra sauce to make a delicious stirfry of onions, garlic, ginger, carrots, celery, sugar snap peas, cremini mushrooms, bok choy and zucchini. I subbed lemon juice for the vinegar, arrowroot powder for the corn starch, and chipotle powder for the chili sauce. I also left out the sesame oil. Yum!

Now, here are some lovely vacation pictures:



Here is a picture of our first glimpse of the ocean.

Now here are a few from various places in Olimpic National Park:







And here is a very brave deer. This deer let us get about 5 feet from her without even flinching.



And here is a banana slug. Banana slugs are only found in Olimpic National Park!



One last thing before I end this post: ever time I try to log in to my blog, I have to reset my password because for some reason my old password will not work. Has anyone else had this problem? Any suggestions would be welcome.

No, I didn't give up on this blog...

I've just been really busy as well as lazy these last few months. Now there's so much to blog about! I worked really hard this last semester, but it really paid off! I finished the school year with excellent grades in all of my classes and completed my service hour requirements for NHS. In UIL, I made it to district and regional and came so close to making state in Science. At district, I got 5th place in Calculator and 2nd in Science, and at Regional, I got 5th in Science. If I had just got to 3rd place, I could have gone to state! Oh well, next year I will surely go to state! I also took three AP tests. I haven't gotten the scores yet, but I feel pretty confident that I did well, especially in Chemistry.

I have been out of school since May 25th. A few days after school ended, my parents, my oldest brother and I went on a three week long vacation to the Washington/Oregon area. My other brother stayed home with the animals. Not that he minded- he hates vacations! Too much driving! It was great, and I literally have hundreds of pictures, which I will probably post some of tomorrow. We saw Seattle, Portland, Olympic National Park, Orcas Island, and numerous beaches. It was a great vacation, but maybe it was a little too long. By the end we were all getting on each other's nerves.

Then, I came back to Texas. It has been raining and raining and raining ever since I came back! When my dad and I went to volunteer at the humane society today to find out that the dog area had flood with a foot of water last night! At least the rain has kept it much cooler than usual though. The highs have been only in the 80's since we came back, which is very unusual.

Also, guess what else? In April, my parents went vegetarian! They did this in honor of my 17th birthday and have been vegetarian even since! Unfortunately, they are not vegan. I honestly don't think my mother could ever be vegan. She really enjoys chocolate and candy and store-bought baked goods, as well as cheese, and doesn't like soy milk on her cereal. My dad might be able to though. Just have to wait and see...

I've recently bough three vegan cookbooks: Vegan with a Vengence, The Everyday Vegan, and Vegan Lunchbox! I also checked out six cookbooks from the library, so be prepared to see a lot of recipes from cookbooks in the next few weeks. Here are three recipes I have made over the last few days:

First up, Red Curry Vegetable Stir-Fry from Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott.





Very good and very spicy. Tofu, green beans, japanese eggplant, basil, red pepper, curry paste. I also added add handful of bean sprouts, though it was not called for in the original recipe. Served with steamed kale.

Next, Auntie Bonnie's Lively Lentil Stew from How it All Vegan! by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer.



This soup is really delicious. I really like lentil soups, and this one was no exception! I used several handfuls of spinach, rather than the half cup called for, and added in a few green beans we had layng around in the fridge.

And last but not least.... Lentils Rice Balls with Sneaky Momma's Tomato Sauce from Vegan Lunch Box by Jennifer McCann.



These balls came together so well. They were easy to form and held their shape so well. And they were so delicious. The sauce was so flavorful! I used a can of crushed tomatoes instead of the tomato paste and whole canned tomatoes called for. I served the Lentil-rice Balls and Tomato Sauce along with some steamed broccoli for a lovely, delicious meal.

Well, I guess that's all for now. I will post tomorrow with more about the vacation as well as a delicious recipe.