Finally working out after a month of getting settled

So far this week I've worked out 4 days in a row. I'm feeling pretty superior about that. I've started Cathe's STS over and I don't remember week one being this hard. I think I've blocked it from my memory because of the trauma. Monday I did disk 1 (chest, shoulders & biceps). Tuesday I did Step Blast, which was the first serious cardio I've done in a month. It totally wiped me out. Wednesday I did STS disk 2 (back & triceps) and Thursday I did STS disk 3 (legs). Disk 3 was insane but I think I did better than the first time I tried it. I actually used weights for the crazy paper plate exercises and I still suck at wall squats but I was able to do all of the sets, even if I didn't use any weights.

My eating is back to normal too. I finally had time to go to the grocery store and get real food in the house. We'd been living on our food storage for a month, which gets old and repetitive, especially since we didn't have a whole lot of variety in our food storage yet. But it's amazing how long you can live comfortably on beans, rice, TVP, nutritional yeast, soy beans, flour and sugar.

In other news...

They finally gave me a mac at work. It's pretty sweet. It's a 2x2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 8 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ram. In other words, it's rocketship fast. And I've got two monitors. I'm not sure how I lived so long without it.

Vegan MoFo Survey

I'm not participating in the Vegan Month of Food (I'm not a prolific enough blogger to actually commit to blogging regularly about food) but I saw this survey and thought it would be fun to put on my blog.

1. Favorite non-dairy milk? I make my own soymilk for cooking and putting on cereal but my favorite for just drinking is the store brand from Sprouts (I actually think all of the store brand soy milks are pretty good).

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook? This week I'm making some black bean and soy chorizo burritos, Isa's Edamame Pesto and the Pumpkin Baked Ziti from Veganomicon

3. Topping of choice for popcorn? Lately olive oil, salt and nutritional yeast

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure? Long, long ago, long before going vegetarian and before anyone could consider me a good cook, I made these horrible meatballs with rice inside. The recipe specifically said not to cook the rice before cooking the meatballs. The rice didn't cook like the recipe said it would and we ended up with meatballs with hard, uncooked grains of rice in them.

5. Favorite pickled item? The spicy carrots they have a taco shops sometimes

6. How do you organize your recipes? I have a bookshelf full of coookbooks in my kitchen. I also have some random, unorganized printouts from websites scattered around the kitchen. I should probably organize those.

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal? Garbage disposal. I would compost but that would involve stuff actually growing in my garden.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods...what would they be (don't worry about how you'll cook them)? Soy beans, no question, they're seriously the most versatile food ever. Mushrooms because they're the most delicious fungus ever. And chocolate because, duh, it's chocolate.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood? We used to go to one of those pick-your-own peaches places every year and we'd bring boxes and boxes of fresh peaches and my mom would make peach jam. *drool*

10. Favorite vegan ice cream? Purely Decadent Chocolate Brownie Almond

11. Most loved kitchen appliance? My fire-engine-red Kitchen Aid mixer.

12. Spice/herb you would die without? I can only choose one? Um......cumin, I mean thyme, I mean coriander, I mean paprika, I mean ....

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time? My old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It's that red and white checked one with the three-ring binder cover. It's got some loser recipes in it (see horrible rice-meatball disaster above) but it's got a few good basic recipes that I've doctored and made my own over the years. The Sweet & Sour Pork became Sweet & Sour Chicken which became Sweet & Sour Tofu and has also been Sweet & Sour Seitan once or twice. The Swedish Meatballs has become Swedish Bean-balls and has lately become Swedish Tempeh-balls. How long have I had the book? I think it was a wedding present almost 15 years ago.

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly? I lust after the strawberry balsamic jam my friend Sarah makes

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend? Veggie Lasagne, they're always surprised when I tell them there's no cheese in it. No one seems to be able to tell the difference between mushed up, seasoned tofu and ricotta cheese.

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh? I'd have to go with tofu because it's so versatile.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)? I LOVE making desserts but I don't get to make them very often because of all those pesky calories.

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator? A fondue set that I've used maybe once. I swear, I'll make fondue any day now.

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking: Frozen blueberries, flax seed and frozen edamame.

20. What's on your grocery list? I just went grocery shopping over the weekend but I forgot a few things. I still need to get: chickpeas, veggie lunchmeat and nutritional yeast.

21. Favorite grocery store? The Henry's in Rancho Bernardo (San Diego). Sadly I live 400 miles away and I have to settle for Sprouts. Although Sunflower just opened nearby so it might become my new favorite but I haven't actually gone shopping there yet.

22. Name a recipe you'd love to veganize, but haven't yet. Chocolate meringue pie. I've seen a recipe for vegan meringue but I haven't been brave enough to try it.

23. Food blog you read the most. Or maybe the top 3? fatfreevegan, vegandad and veganfeastkitchen

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate? Dark Chocolate. I like Endangered Species brand.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately? I bought $5 worth of fresh basil to make pesto.