Crystal Paul's Vegan Mac 'n' Cheese Recipe.

I don't typically like vegan mac'n'cheese.  The overpowering flavor of nutritional yeast makes my stomach turn.  Leave it to my vegetarian roommate, Crystal, to change my mind.  This dish is a favorite of mine and a necessity at our vegan potlucks.  The last time we held one, people practically started chanting "Where's the vegan mac and cheese?!  We want vegan mac and cheese!"  Luckily, (for us or them, I'm not sure)  it was in the oven.

Mac'n'cheese is in the oven!  Photo by Sarah Love.

You will need:

     * 1 1/2 pounds pasta, preferably macaroni.
 
'Cheese' ingredients

     * 1 1/2 cups unsweetened soy milk
     * 1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast
     * 1 cup Earth Balance Soy Margarine
     * 1/4 cup soy sauce
     * 1 block extra firm tofu
     * 1 Tbls garlic powder
     * 1 Tbls paprika
     * 1 Tbls salt
     * 1 dollop of mustard

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Boil pasta, strain. 
Put all the 'cheese' ingredients in a blender and process until smooth.  Put boiled pasta in a baking dish and combine with cheese sauce.  Coat every macaroni piece!  Bake about 15 minutes, or until top starts to look slightly brown and crispy.  Serve.  You will immediately become a celebrity within your group of friends and family.

I haven't made this myself, but have watched Crystal do it a variety of times.  What I would add to it is sauteed red onion and garlic, thinly sliced green onion and a maybe 2 Tbsp Italian seasoning, 1 Tbsp pepper.  Add to pasta at the same time as the cheese sauce and bake.  Color and extra flavor!

Crystal as Lady Gaga.

The first time Crystal made this dish, she posted on Facebook that it was so nasty, not even the bums outside our apt would eat it.  Little did she know, at that very moment, I was scarfing it down in the kitchen.  She still doesn't think it's that great, but every time we have people over, they ask about it.  It's nearly riot inducing, as observed at our previous potluck party.  It's delicious!

In order to make this a gluten free dish, first and foremost, use gluten free pasta.  Instead of soy sauce, alternate with Bragg's, Wheat Free Tamari or Coconut Aminos.  To cut down on the soy, substitute unsweetened nut milk in place of soy milk and vegetable oil instead of Earth Balance.

Tips and Tools of the Trade

Here's how to keep cilantro fresh in the fridge.  Without a plastic bag!

Put it in a cup of water.

Update 3/1 - 3 days after I bought it and it still looks super fresh.

Update 3/2 - Still fresh.  I bought it Saturday night and it's now Wednesday night. 

Talk About Showing Up Late to the Party.

My manager gave me this stainless steel water bottle last week.

I love it!  I'm on the bandwagon!  I've been drinking so much more water lately, which is a really good thing considering one of my extra curricular activities leaves me outrageously dehydrated.

Lena Fay is one Elegant Chica. And She Plays an Excellent Triangle.

So Lena and I want to watch the Academy Awards.  We put on dresses, we go out.  To the bars, of course.  And you know what happens on TV screens, Oscar Night, in the Upper Haight?  Basketball.  DISLIKE. Trax was just too crowded, but looked like a fun gay time.  Oh c'mon,  You know Oscar night with Gay Boys is the best night EVER.  Unless you can't find a seat.  Then you are just standing in a bar that has a nightmare inducing bathroom.   

We go the dive bar route, one without TVs.  Murio's = good to catch up, listen to punk rock, talk about boys and all the crazy shiz we've pulled lately, but after awhile us grrls want to see pop culture in action!  I have cable.  We are hungry.  Oscars at my apt it is!

We have Prosseco, Red wine and the ingredients to make a vegan pizza.  Now, I like to make my pizza dough from scratch, however, after 4 vodka sodas, a growling stomach and the Oscars on TV, I gotta  make things easy.  Fast.  Tasty.

Rock'n'Roll.

The goods.

The Refreshments

Coconut water for the next morning. 

Getting the Party started.  No - keeping it going!

Finito!

It turns out Lena Fay is very good at pop culture, (better than me?  I think so...) she predicted ALL the wins before they happened.

If you don't want to watch the whole video, which I personally think you should, go to the 2:33 mark.  Lena and I are friends for all the right reasons.  I've totally Lohan'ed' it out on the Sunset Strip.  


Also worth mentioning - I had made this last week too, after watching an episode of 'Jersey Shore' in which they are chowing down on pizza after a night on the town.  It looked so delicious, I wanted a vegan version!  Although I love the taste of Follow Your Heart Soy Mozz, Daiya melts in a way that works great for pizza.  Very tasty as well.


Lena and I totally watched an episode of 'Jersey Shore' after the Oscars. 

Lena's new blog, http://redwineandaredheart.blogspot.com/ .  It's hysterical!

Natalie Portman Won an Oscar!

And she deserved it.

Black Swan was a crazy, intense film.  I didn't come out of that movie the same person I had been going in.

She's a vegetarian. I read a Vogue article, in which Natalie Portland explained she's a vegetarian at home and a vegan out to eat.  My first instinct was to hate.  Why not be vegan all time? But she used the word 'vegan' in Vogue.  And I tend to be vegan at home, vegetarian when out to eat, when, you know, MY VEGAN ORDER GETS MESSED UP, and I don't want want to make a big deal about it.  So Natalie, let's hang.

Black Swan- see it.  Natalie Portland- easy to love.

Natalie Portman Interview in Vogue.

The Great Plastic Reduction of 2011!

You know what's super terrifying?  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Not cool, guys, not cool.  It's also terrifying my room looks like that right now.

I don't know why I haven't thought about this topic in awhile.  Maybe because it makes me break out in a cold, nervous sweat?  Maybe because I'm part of the problem, not the solution? This hot mess of garbage is in the ocean, killing wildlife, releasing toxins, is supposedly twice the size of Texas....and I'm still bagging my fruits and vegetables in plastic at the grocery store? The shame. I haven't been conscientious of the amount of plastic I go through at all lately.  Yikes.

A website that can explain this much more eloquently than I.

Horrific

Not the wildlife! Not the animals!

As wikipedia explains (and I'm paraphrasing), the jellyfish eat toxin containing plastic pieces, bigger fish eat  the jellyfish, humans eat the fish.  So I guess we get ours in the end, huh?  Unless you're vegan!  But seriously, let's work to reduce our usage of plastic everywhere. Shop at places that use compostable bags, rinse and reuse plastic bags, don't use ziplock baggies anymore, be mindful of how many bottled beverages you are consuming...  Sustainable living!  Recycling is great, but minimizing consumption is even better!  You know the slogan - reduce, reuse, recycle. 

I mean, this shiz is scary, right?

To help lighten the mood, I'll leave you with a picture of the cutie pie sea lions sunbathing on
Pier 39.

The Enemy

I haven't intentionally used a microwave since 2008.  No joke.  But my roommates love it.  So this monstrosity is staying.

This Corn Salad Will Knock Your Socks Off!

 This is the best side dish you can bring to a BBQ!  It's so flavorful and refreshing.  I know it's a little early to be posting BBQesque recipes, but I live in California!  I can BBQ whenever I want!

That being said, this salad is great because it's raw, it's colorful and it's delicious.  You do compromise the 'rawness' of it if you use frozen corn or a different sweetner. 

 You will need
     *A bag of frozen corn or 3 to 4 ears of fresh corn (I cut the kernels off fresh corn once, I'm over that
     noise.  Plus, I don't own a decent (gasp!) knife.  Frozen it is)      
    *Olive oil
     *Salt
     *Raw Agave Nectar (although if all I have is regular, that's what I'll use)
     *Cumin 
     *Curry Powder
     *3 to 4 stalks of celery
     *Green Onions
     *Cilantro
     *1/4 to 1/2 a Red Onion

Since I use frozen corn, I let it defrost in the fridge overnight.  If I'm in a hurry and saved my salad to the last minute, I'll put it in a colander and run cold water over it until it's usable.  Next I chop my onion, celery and cilantro.  The amount of cilantro you use is really up to your taste preferences.  I happen to use quite a bit.  Same with the green onions.  Are they both referred to as bunches?  I use half a bunch of each.
Put your corn and chopped ingredients into a bowl.  Lightly drizzle contents with olive oil and agave nectar.  Sprinkle salt, cumin and curry powder over your salad, shake it up and then...taste it.  I wish I could give you exact measurements on spices, but I just keep adding them until it's to my taste.  Less cumin than curry powder, fo' sure.  Start with a half Tbsp of cumin, 1 Tbsp of curry powder, half Tbsp of salt and go from there.
Prepare yourself, this salad...well, you saw the title of this post.

I made this for my roommate's History Club BBQ, which he hosted at our pad.  They were impressed by my salad, I was impressed by their hard partying ways.  Maybe I'll join History Club.

PETA Should Totally Feature Lady Gaga in One of Their 'I'd Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur' Ads

Can't you see it?  They will sit her down, make her watch 'Earthlings', then cry together over the meat dress incident.  Okay, sorry for the snark.  Nevertheless, how does PETA pick the celebs they feature for those ads? I love Khloe Kardashian, I'm not going to lie, but why did they feature her in their ad campaign? I like PETA alright, except sometimes they seem more celebrity obsessed than myself.  That's saying a lot.  There are so many hawt vegetarian/vegan, non-fur wearing celebs to chose from for those ads....like Jenny Lewis.  What?!  You know it's true!  

Getting back to Lady Gaga's meat dress, WTF?!  So wasteful and exploitative to animals.  I read she did it to prove she's not a piece of meat, some noise like that, but c'mon.  I'm actually speechless about it.  So I'll let Mark from Vegansaurus articulate my feelings.  I found this on his blog and started cracking up, "You’re making this really hard on me, Stefani Joanne! How am I supposed to continue defending “Bad Romance” and “Paparazzi” to haters when my own reaction to this meat-dress debacle is to scream “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” through a motherf@#$%*^$ bullhorn? SERIOUSLY!"  http://judgejudy.tumblr.com/
Perfect.

Photo by Nora Kay.  Nora and I have seen Lady Gaga live, it's true. House of Blues, Chicago.


I'm definitely inspired to read Carol J. Adams', The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. 

Giving Up Caffeine is Really, Really Hard. Then Again, So is Dealing With Caffeine Induced Anxiety.

Seriously.  I gave up caffeine in December and it was rough.  Really, really rough.  Sure, the first few days were easy.  I had decaf, it tasted similar enough - everything was fine!  Around days 4 and 5, everything changed.  I realized I wasn't pooping, which made which made me feel fat and uncomfortable.  Then, the aches, pains and fatigue set in - they only lasted about two days, but it was the weekend!  I wanted to have a blast at The Ian Fay Christmas party I was going to!  Nope.  I was cranky, bloated and achy.  FML.

Ian Fays video (Snow Globes) for your eyes and ears!

I love Fay parties!  I had even put together a super delicious pizza - cashew cheese, homemade tomato sauce, mushroom and spinach topping with a vermouth and sherry reduction - the whole nine yards, two nights of work!.  However, early evening found me curled up in a ball on my bed, yelling to my roommates that I couldn't bear to move.  I did end up going, but I am not in any of the party pictures because I hid out like a recluse all night.  Not my usual style, let me tell you. 
My roommate Dan had given up coffee the month before.  He assured me I'd ONLY be constipated about 3 to 4 weeks.  Lena Fay told me at the Christmas party it'd be 4 to 5.  WHAT?!  You know how long it lasted?!  2 MONTHS. 

Okay, maybe I had a little fun at the party.  Me, Lizz Fay, Lukey Bear and Julian.  Photo by Sara Fay.  (The coffee maker in back is taunting me.)

Christmas rolled around.  I ate.  I ate a lot.  I mean, people gain weight during the holidays, I'm not exempt.  Add that to not eliminating anything and you have an uncomfortable, cranky vegan.  Not fun, major dislike.

I bought a whole vegan/soy turkey this year, for fear of preparing an elaborate meal from scratch in the same kitchen as my family.  It was meant to feed 8-10 people and I ate about half of it Christmas night. Also featured is a twice baked chipotle sweet potato - recipe from Melisser Elliott's The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life.

Vegan Christmas!  So excited to eat a 'drumstick' again.

I can't even look at pictures of myself December through January - I can see the pain and sorrow in my eyes. 

It's February now and I'm back on track, non-caffeine style!  I didn't think I'd make it to the other side, but I'm happy to report everything is going really well.  I'm eliminating regularly again.  I'm back to my normal size (I had gained 10 pounds.  Gross.  My roommate Vanessa could tell I wasn't 'going' because I looked pregnant for a month and we laughed about it.  Well, I cried - she laughed).  My anxiety isn't getting the best of me anymore because I'm not highly caffeinated off of 6 cups of coffee, with maybe a little Yerba Mate mixed in too. Added bonus- by complaining on facebook about going without, many of my friends were able to reach out and offer support.  You see, I'm going to turn 30 this summer (I'm not freaking out at all, really) and I'm one of the last of my super close group of friends to do so.  As it turns out I'm not original;  the nearer my friends get to their impending thirtieth birthdays, the more caffeine aggravates their bodies and anxiety issues.
I still drink decaf cause I LOVE COFFEE SO MUCH.  My heart is a little broken about all this.  I'm slowly incorporating green tea, to try out small amounts of caffeine again. 

I would also like to add that my roommate (the cutie featured in the Seitan post) works at Starbucks and gets free coffee.  She brought me those instant decaf Vias and I was stoked. So quick!  So convenient!  So tasty!  Then, my friend Steve posted this on his blog, and I realized I am a jerk.  Shade grown, organic decaf it is.  If not for myself, for the rain forests and the birds!

Store Bought Vegan Food is so EXPENSIVE! Make it From Scratch!

Here's how to make your own vegan mayo, and I promise, it tastes just as good if not exactly the same, as Veganaise.

You will need:

     *1 block silken tofu
     *Olive oil
     *lemon juice or white rice vinegar (or a little of both)
     *salt and pepper


Combine everything in a food processor.  Add oil, lemon juice/vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.  Remember, you can always add more but you can't take it out! If you want more specific measurements, though a guesstimate, I'd say start with 1/4 olive oil, juice of half a lemon or 2 Tbls vinegar.  2 tsp each of salt and pepper. 
Now you have about half a jar's worth of vegan mayo, for a fraction of what you would have paid had it been in fancy packaging.  Think about all the tofu egg salads, the quantity of potato salad, the sandwiches you can make! Keep in mind, since there are no preservatives, it will only last in the fridge about 5-7 days. 

Me, scavenging my roommate Crystal's potato salad, after a very successful vegan potluck.  Perhaps I could have found a more appetizing picture... 

I'm Going to Make a Vow to You All Right Now.

I went vegan for a variety of reasons, including living a more sustainable lifestyle...Reduce my carbon footprint!  Make a difference on this beautiful planet!  And what do I do? I don't carry around a travel mug for coffee, that's for sure. Nope.  When I order my coffee at some cafe (or Starbucks, don't hate me) I get the paper cup, the plastic lid and sometimes...EVEN THE SLEEVE!  So wasteful.  So shameful.  No more.  From this day onward, if I don't have a travel mug with me, I'm going without.  For real.

The days of my dad and I drinking coffee out of paper cups together are over!  Sorry Dad.  I'll buy you a travel mug!

Vegan Thanksgiving!

Always on a quest to find a new culinary challenge, I was stoked when Vegansaurus! posted a recipe for a vegan butternut squash and mushroom tart  from The Tomato Tart  as their facebook status.  It blew my mind.  Here's how mine turned out...

Definitely a recipe I will be revisiting.  Some changes I made included:
     *Adding a little cinnamon to the butternut squash as it was in the food processor
     *Adding about half a tblsp each of cornstarch and arrowroot instead of silken tofu to squash (I think it's
       important as herbivores to cut down our soy consumption whenever possible),
     *Sauteing the steamed/processed squash with caramelized onions
     *Sauteing garlic with the mushroom topping
      *Using sherry wine instead of sherry vinegar to the mushrooms.
      *I did not use earth balance, simply olive oil.  Except in the crust.  I did use soy margarine in that!
Next time I try this, I will be using a nut crust.  Gotta watch those carbs!
If your family is anything like mine, prep most of your tart the day prior or morning of, before putting it together.  This recipe is time consuming and on holidays, it's usually best if the least amount of people are in the kitchen as possible-with my family, tension runs high.
And I'm so snarky about the fact my family thinks my food is weird, I wrote this on twitter early Thanksgiving morning, "I am thankful no one in my family will touch my vegan feast tonight. Sigh. I love being the black sheep. Friends, I will have leftovers".
Bitchy.

Facebook is No Place for Photos of Restaurant Food!

....at least according to my humorously critical, yet always quite sexy buddy.  I somewhat agree, though I do have a whole album on Facebook dedicated to food I have made.  So, yeah, I can be hypocritical at times.  You know what's a perfect avenue for posting restaurant food pics?!  A BLOG!
I'm going to document a recent trip to LA.  I went there to see Jenny and Johnny open for Belle and Sebastian at the Hollywood Palladium, Oct 2010.  The next morning, my friend Christina and I went to a little place called Millie's Coffee Shop in Silverlake.  It's now totally one of my favorite restaurants, and I want to go back to LA simply to eat there again!  They infuse the water with mint!  The menu is enormous!  Meat eaters and vegans can go there alike! And it's divey.  Totally my kind of place.  Here's what I had...

My knee was lookin' good!

 This is the No Huevos Rancheros.  I still think about it.  Tofu, soy cheese, guacamole, black beans and a pile of vegetables atop corn tortillas.  Amazing! You owe it to yourself to go there.  http://www.milliescafe.net/

I had this Jenny and Johnny song stuck in my head the whole time.  Christina and I, along with my friend Jess, had all been to the show the night before and in this particular song they mention Silverlake, a section of LA I had not previously been to.  It being stuck in my head def had nothing to do with all that noise about no booze and going to Promises.  I won't even get into what happened at the Bar Marmont after the show.  Let's just say I must've been channeling Lindsay Lohan, but without all the drugs.

After the Millie's breakfast was digested, Jess and I went to Real Food Daily in Santa Monica, for dinner.  As you can see, the food looks super tasty.

Wet

Obviously, I ordered a burrito.  And....I liked my breakfast at Millie's so much better!  Sorry, RFD, that was one of the least delicious vegan meals I have ever had.  No flavor!  No salt!  No salt on the table!  So disappointing.  Jess loved her meal - a gluten free pizza if I remember correctly.  I'm going to guess it's because she has Celiac's and her options are so limited.  She just doesn't know any better.

 A few months prior to the LA trip, I went to a wedding in San Diego, at Balboa Park.  My friends Nick and Alana really know how to put a party together!  Luckily for me, there was a vegan option on the menu.  And it was incredible.  Some mushroom, asparagus thing.  Love at first sight.  Plus, I quite like the way asparagus makes my pee smell.

Anyway, I couldn't eat the cake, so one of the other wedding guests became dessert. 


I don't know what it is about SoCal that makes me go so bonkers.  So glad my bad girl days are over....

Everyone Wants to 'Hail Seitan' and I Can't Bring Myself to Tell Them How Unoriginal They Are.

This seitan recipe rules.  My friends ask for it all the time, and everytime I make it for a party, the meat eaters make it a point to tell me they'd totally go vegan if I was their cook.  Okay, they say that about everything I make.  I love seitan because it's high in protein and tastes like meat!  I miss meat!  I'm a fake meat loving vegan!  Don't hate.
I was intimidated of making seitan for a long time, but it couldn't be easier.  This recipe makes a lot!

Start a large pot, filled with 12 cups of water, 1/2 cup soy sauce or Braggs, boiling. (Lately I have been adding pepper and cut up onions to the water for more flavor).  Once it reaches a boil set it to simmer.

While you are waiting on your water, gather these next ingredients...
2 cups vital wheat gluten

1 1/2 cup cold water

1/4 cup soy sauce or Braggs

1 tbls olive oil

4 cloves garlic, chopped or minced (I add about 8, actually)

Add all ingredients to a bowl. It would be best to add vital wheat gluten and garlic first, then make a ditch in the center and add all the wet ingredients. Knead the dough for about 5-10 minutes, until it becomes firm and you aren't really doing anything anymore. It should become really dense. The garlic won't all combine in there, so I add stray cloves to the water. You can either cut it into (largish) pieces (about 4 or 5) or add the whole thing to the water. I don't bother cutting it up, but it will cook faster that way.

To your simmering broth, add the seitan and let it go for about an hour, with a lid on the pot. This will make a dense seitan, which is much easier to use in recipes which call for meat and you are using this as a substitution. After the hour is up, let the water and seitan cool together. I have pulled it out after the simmer session when I was short on time and it was fine.  I think it makes a better quality seitan when they cool together but we don't always have the time for that, do we? I will also cut into a piece of the seitan to make sure it has cooked all the way through.  You will know if it hasn't. 

For a more tender seitan, which is good on sandwiches, bring water to a boil and add the hunk (or hunks) of seitan to boiling water, then bring it to a simmer, together. Again, let go for about an hour and let cool together. 

My roommate Crystal and her bf 'Hank' after making a batch of seitan. 

 As you can see above, I have taught my roommate the fine art of seitan making.  Well, I read off the ingredients and vaguely explained how to do it as we had been at a bar all afternoon.  It's that easy to make.  

I like to make it the night before I need it, cut it up into chunks and marinate it in bbq sauce or buffalo wing sauce all night.  Then I bake it for about 15-20 mins at 350 degrees and serve.  Seriously, sometimes it doesn't even make it off the baking sheet.  People go nuts over the stuff!  However, the night we made the seitan that is displayed, we pulled it out of the hot water as soon as it was done, cut it up,poured buffalo wing sauce all over it and baked it.  No 12 hour marinating sesh.  So, really, either way works just fine.   

You know what else you can do with seitan after marinating it?  THROW IT ON A BBQ GRILL!

This is What I Drink When I'm Hungover

No added sugar, all natural, refreshing and has way more electrolytes than sports drinks.  Forget Gatorade, people!  Coconut water is where it's at. I would drink this if I were an athlete - after an intense workout.  But, I haven't felt the burn for awhile.  I don't even know what the words 'work out' mean anymore.

This is what I'm drinking tonight.

I know the Vita-Mix in the background is super distracting.

By the way, what's up with getting athlete's foot when you don't even partake in any athletic activity?  Major dislike.

Sometimes when you throw a vegan potluck, people bring over young thai coconuts and you drain them yourselves.  Chicago is a crazy place. 

Who Needs Kids When You Own A Vita-Mix?

Seriously.  This baby is my pride and joy.  I have my blender and my cat, that's all the family I need.  2 horsepower motor - I'm set.

 Jealous?!  You should be.

I don't even use my food processor anymore, but it's just nice to know it's there.
Mentioning my cat reminds me of the time my friend Jen's bartending buddy said that single girls with cats scream 'Daddy Issues'.  WTF?  I guess it's something to think about.  Not regarding myself, of course.

The cat.

Jenny Lewis Can Do No Wrong.

I don't know if she's still vegan, but this video is the cutest.  She could probably slaughter a cow in front of me and I'd still love her.  Maybe not.

There is No Better Place for Plastic Dinosaurs than a Vegan Birthday Cake.

First blog post.  So intimidating, yet so exciting.  Here goes...
Besides everyone wanting to know how I get my protein, sometimes they want to know why I'm vegan.  Everyone who follows a veg lifestyle does it for alternative reasons.  If I am going to be completely honest, which is always more fun and humorous than lies and fabrications, it's that I was dating a hot vegan.  And we worked together at a popular vegetarian restaurant in a little city you may have heard of called Chicago.  Restaurant in question-The Chicago Diner.  It took about 6  months of working there (and being a meat eater, gasp!) before I finally decided to go cold turkey and try being vegan.  I was influenced by more than my (ex)boyfriend, but I think he deserves some credit.  Being surrounded by people who took on not only what they were eating, but where they were spending their money as a form of activism seemed really exciting and inspiring.

My old coworker Nick and I, after a very long day at The Chicago Diner.  Still smiling, though.  He's vegan in this pic, I am not quite there yet.

 That being said, I am not a fan of the judgmental vegan.  I believe that people try to do the best they can in this life, in a variety of forms.  I choose veganism.  Of course, I wish everyone would take it on, but I know that is not realistic.  Instead, I like to throw parties where only vegan dishes are welcomed (Vegan Potluck!) and do the best I can to show my friends and peers that I am not missing out on culinary delights because I'm not eating meat and dairy anymore.  I feel more inspired by action and compassion than I do being yelled at by someone who is 'more ethical' than I.  Those conversations used to lead to me running to McDonalds.  So bad, I know.
I struggled the first year, and I still struggle.  I liked meat, I liked dairy products.  I miss them sometimes.  I think it's more important to do the best you can, than be 100%, 100% of the time.  We all make mistakes. I don't read the ingredients thoroughly on something I assume is vegan and I don't send food back if a mistake is made regarding dairy, most recently, sour cream. The not sending food back comes from not wanting to waste and working in the restaurant industry-my burrito would just be thrown away and then what?  It's a waste of food and labor, which to me, defeats the purpose.  And those little blunders end with me realizing I don't want to eat animal products, that I'm doing this for a reason!
In a bar one night in Chicago, a vegetarian peer explained to me that not all vegans or vegetarians give up meat and cheese because they don't like the taste of those things anymore, but because....I can't remember exactly - we were drinking and it was four years ago...something about the bigger fight at hand, compassion, and believing in not slaughtering animals for food.  That really stuck with me, though obviously not verbatim.  She ended up being my ex's rebound after we broke up, but that's a whole 'nother story. 
One morning I passed a newspaper stand in Chicago, in which the headline of the paper read "If you want more free range beef, you're going to have to slaughter more free range cattle".  Perfect.
I became vegan because I wanted to try something new and adventurous those four years ago - taking on not eating animal products as a form of compassion, sympathy and activism was the direction to go.  It made me uncomfortable, secretive (What if I failed?!  What if everyone starting judging me and asking questions I couldn't answer?!) yet also extremely empowered, especially at a time when I felt so helpless about our country being at war for so long.  Learning new ways to live your life can be fun.  Especially cruelty free ways!  And hey, my boyfriend was doing it, as well as his roommates and most of my coworkers. I didn't think veganism would last long with me (always a bit of a pessimist) but here I am, and it will be 4 years in April.

 

Vegan chocolate and caramel cake for my friend's 29th bday.  Having fun with it.

I could go into facts and statistics about not eating animal products, but I'm not gonna.  You can look those up on your own.  I will state one though, my favorite, "Seldom mentioned is that cows and other ruminants, such as sheep and goats, are walking gas factories that take in fodder and put out methane and nitrous oxide, two greenhouse gases that are far more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Methane, with 21 times the warming potential of CO2, comes from both ends of a cow, but mostly the front. Frat boys have nothing on bovines, as it's estimated that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25 to 130 gallons of methane a day."
Cow gas and belches=global warming.  But hey, don't take it from me, this was pulled from http://www.vegansworldnetwork.org/topic_environment_killer_cow_emissions.php . I also remember reading about this in my Biology101 class at Humboldt State.