Very Vegan Virgin Post

First of all, I'd like to make a welcoming speech to all those out in the blogosphere who are both a) crazy enough and b) bored enough to browse through my little blog. I've always wanted to start a food/lifestyle blog and this morning I felt the sudden urge to skip my Irish Literature class and just do it. That probably wasn't the best idea, because thanks to the fact that I have the same professor for another class and my sorely misdiagnosed case of Word Vomit, I told her that I decided to "screw going to class" today. I don't think that earned me any brownie points.

Which brings me to my point. Brownies.

Okay, actually not--but the night is young. Who knows what I'll do given adequate amounts of cocoa powder and flour at 10 PM?

So, anywho...since you're here, you may as well hear a little bit about my life up until now. So sit back, relax, maybe pop open a bottle of bubbly, and hear the tale about how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air.

[disclaimer: this is not going to be all-inclusive because my life is far too exciting to write every aspect of it out in one post. Have no fear, you'll be getting tantalizing tidbits with each and every post.]

I was born into a Navy family and travelled all around the world for the first 7 years of my childhood, after which we packed up 5 girls, 2 parents and 20,000 pounds of luggage (this may or may not be an exaggeration on my mother's part.), and moved to the Bluegrass State of Kentucky. Not ones to stay settled for long, my family then moved once more to Northern Virginia where they've set up their homestead in the wilderness of Suburbia. Three years ago I got the crazy notion that I needed some sort of college-education fancy-schmancypants thing, so I picked up my books and headed down south to a small (but not too small) university which I happen to adore. Deciding what I was going to do once I got there was a little more challenging.

One day I was Undecided, the next a music major (while toying with the idea of Dietetics), became an International Affairs major, decided that was too much economics, became a Political Science major and an English major on the same day, and then dropped the Political Science two semesters later. Which leaves me with an English degree and nothing to show for all the semesters I did as various other majors. What the hell do you do with an English major anyway?

While all of this scholastic turmoil was occuring, something a bit more sinister was brewing in my intestines (ewww gross. first post? what is this girl thinking?!). Yep, first semester of my sophomore year I became bedridden with all sorts of funky stuff and eventually got a diagnosis: Ulcerative Colitis. This led to a few months of agonizing pain while I tried to figure out what foods worked and what foods didn't. I'd been told to avoid "fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains" and a whole slew of other things, so I lived off a steady diet of french fries and milkshakes...not the wisest choice I've ever made.

As a longtime vegetarian, I knew that I would never eat meat to get nutrients into my system but I had to do something to gain back the 20 pounds I lost while in the hospital. I looked into various diets but nothing sat well with me and the vegan lifestyle began to appeal to me more and more. So, yes, I decided to eat a vegan diet to gain weight. At first I thought it would just be a temporary thing until I got healthier, but the more research I did the more I realized that this was the best possible lifestyle for me AND for the planet! And the animals! It's a win-win-win situation.

So now I experiement in the kitchen all the friggy-diggy time, always taking pictures of my latest creations and writing about them in my journals...so it is high time I starting publishing my ramblings/food-ings on the interwebss.

And, without further ado, my first post dinner:

BUBBLE AND SQUEAK

I've never made this before, but I saw someone posting about it on a vegan forum I frequent and decided to test it out because I had all of the ingredients on hand. (Did I mention that I'm a poor college student? Because I am. So I don't get to use all those fancy-schmancy ingredients that people with an income get to play with.)

It is also not nearly as healthy as I normally eat. Fried foods? Margarine? These are things I hardly ever use, so don't get too comfy.



Crap, I've really got to take better pictures. They just smelt so damn good that I couldn't wait to try them and therefore took rather less-than-stellar pictures. Apparently I've got a LOT to learn about food blogging...including patientce. Ugh.