V3G@Nizm

I have been eating a bit of Vegan food l8ly (soz still pumped about abbreviation from the title). It has been a while since my last intentional vegan meal, but my friend Hayden is Vegan and I often get the desire to cook for him. Last week was one of those times.

Well first we went to his place last wednesday and he cooked us some maaaaaaaad tomato & vegie pastie roll things, with salad and garlic bread (Coles plain brand garlic bread happens to be vegan!! OMGOMGOMG). Here are the happy snaps of Haydens yummy dinner

You may be surprised to know that the vegan in the above photo is not the skinny one. Many people are surprised to know that Hayden is a vegan, as he looks like a... how do you say... tank. This may be due to the fact that he lifts weights and hooks himself up to an IV drip overnight of power shakes and plasma tranfusions etc. Not really. Well yeah, he does lift weights. He is in a club called "Vegan Strength" and I have seen some other club members and they are strong. See: http://www.veganstrength.org/ for photos that make you feel inadequate as a human.

Anyway, Friday night was my turn, as my cousin from Adelaide was coming to stay and she's vego. So i thought what better night to cook vegan again for H-dizzle mah nizzle than this! I made a vegan lasagna, and it was great!! I made one with balsamic tomato roasted vegies, and added some 'Vegan Mince' to the mix.

First, I cut up my fave vegies for roasting - pumpkin, eggplant, capsicum, zucchini, and a bit of onion and tomato. I make a balsamic dressing by adding olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tomato paste, garlic and capers in a bowl and mixing them all up into an oily oily paste. Bung it in the oven to roast for a while..

Next i make the base tomato sauce by frying off onions and garlic in olive oil. Then i add canned tomatoes and some VEGAN (i used "Mission brand") stock and water. After a while i added lentils, and then while we were making salad i decided i wanted some mushrooms in it tooooo! I was drinking wine while cooking so it was about this point where i totally lost interest haha. I think i added some tomato paste maybe, and some salt and pepper.

Now for the vegan mince I used "Planet Organic" brand which i think we got from Safeway (Woolworths). Hayden made this part, and the finished product kinda looks like some ungodly froth bubbling up from the pits of zombie hell.

Then when we had drained the liquid away, I added the mince to the tomato sauce, and grabbed the vegies from the oven too.

Then i forgot about my camera and finished it all up. I made a white sauce with Nuttelex, soy milk, flour, and herbs like nutmeg and rosemary.

Then i layered it all together with vegan lasagna sheets, topped it with some breadcrumbs, chucked it in the oven, and BAM! AMAZING VEGAN LASAGNAAAAA!

Daftly DIY: crap wall lettering

I decided I want some wall letters, but as I am so fussy and cheap I decided not to buy boring ones. I thought i could make better ones, in joined cursive and all!

Step 1. Get a big piece of thick cardboard and write your giant cursive letters on it

Step 2. Get a Stanley knife/box cutter and cut them out as rounded as possible (It was kinda funny that i was doing this while re-watching the final episode of Nip/Tuck season 3 with the "box" cutter- fans you know what i'm sayin...)

Step 3. Put double sided tape on the front of it, and glue as well for extra coverage, and lay it face-down onto some nice wrapping paper.

Step 4. Naturally i chose the hard way to do things, so because the cardboard was so thick i had to bring the wrapping paper over the sides too, otherwise it would look crap on the side-view. So i had to fold the paper over all the dips and curls of the cursive letters and stick it down with glue and sticky-tape. *sigh*

Here is where i am now...

Obviously it's for the bathroom, so I have maybe another night or two of gluing and then i will have the final PICTURE, YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!! And here it is:

I used some "3M" mounting tape to stick these on, as they are quite light. I really want to put a big picture of a pin-up girl next to it, that'd be ace. But one slow step at a time ;) YAY!!

social commentary: the wave

so, imagine you are a pedestrian happily strolling along a city street, perhaps listening to some music or thinking about how much you would love to go to Japan again... it may be a stretch, but please, for the sake of the experiment.. please try. So you get to the corner of your current street and an alley or similar sized small street. As a model citizen, as well as a handsome stroller, with an admirable swagger, you stop at this corner and check for any maniac drivers who may be trying to run you down - intentionally or otherwise...

Suddenly, and surprisingly you see a car coming up the alley wanting to turn out of the street. Then much to your delight, the car slows to a stop and they wave you across. What do you do?

I was always a 'hand up in a half floppy wave but signalling thanks' kind of person, then one day recently i decided to become a "thumbs up" person. I tried it a few times and i think i get more of a kick out of it than the driver would. Which is good, it gives me a moment of joy, even if my joy doesn't project onto others. Ok, so i'm happy being a thumber, yeah, but i often wondered if they would only half see me, and think that I am flipping the bird..? I hope not, because they might run me over.
Anyway! The last few days walking from work to the train station, i have been in this situation where i get signalled to walk infront of a car, and i go to do a thumbs up, but somehow I HAVE PUT UP MY INDEX FINGER! WHAT!!!?? WHYY>?!?!?!! After i do it, I kinda go "why did i just do that..?". i have done this twice, i have no idea why i would raise my index finger, as if to say "just 1 minute..." or if i waggled it it would be like "no,no,nooo!". i feel like such a fool, i hope i don't do it again.. rrrr

Leather Hackett

I don't know what the hell kind of demon posessed me, but a few years ago i thought it was the most brilliant idea to buy a $400 leather trenchcoat. Now, I know what you are thinking, the Matrix right? NO no no no no NO!!! First of all, it was brown. Secondly, I was in highschool when the first Matrix came out, and I boycotted the 3rd movie, and this whole leather trenchcoat thing was after all that. The nice people at the 'facility' where i spent some time after watching the Matrix had finally convinced me that the world i lived in was in fact real, and that no amount of picking up ringing phones and trying to will my body to liquify and suck up into the earpiece was going to change that. I am ok now. I digress..

Perhaps it was some sort of subconscious sick joke to play on my vegan and vegetarian friends and family members.. who could know? All i know is that I was bewitched by the feel of the crushed leather, the intoxicating smell of the hide, the way it made me look like a 1920's pilot if i wore it with a white scarf... i was in love. So i played hard to get by leaving it on Lay-by (or lay-away for those of you playing in America) for a few months, only giving it the slightest bit of attention every now and again. Once i had it, my life was complete, our 2 worlds collided and we were now one, ready to hit the streets of MElbourne and strut. But then the most curious thing happened when i tried to wear it for the first time. I did up the last button and suddenly the voices of ghostly and angry protestors, and the distant "mooing" of cows bombarded my conscience. I fought it, and wore it out to work anyway. Sadly, I could no longer feel like a superfly 1920's starlet in this jacket because all I could think about was what people were thinking of me in my bloody cow skin. I think i have worn it perhaps 3 times since i bought it. value for money - i think not.
I told this to a lady at work, and she confessed she had just bought a leather couch without realising just what it is made of. I saw her face fall as she came into the same head-space as me. I'm sorry cow, i love you.