#i don't like the texture of soggy cereal i like my CRUNCH

[matryosika]

my god, i really thought we could be friends, but now you're my public enemy #1 😿 I'm team cereal first, i think is a matter of texture, I don't like to feel the cereal being hard on some parts and soggy on others, I guess that's why I like it that way

💌

with love from your nemesis,

kar

Ah, I hope to do a good job as your freshly new public enemy #1 🫣

But really, I love, love, LOVE the crunch when it comes to food. I love my cereal crunchy, so I try to eat it as fast as possible before it gets soggy!

I will pour milk before cereal and I will die ON THAT HILL. But I hope you can make an exception for this poor soul 👀

I love you too, (so love me).

[delphictrip]

Vegan cooking resources that have helped me out a lot

Budget Bytes is amazing. If you have $12 to throw at a printable online cookbook I would recommend it, the cookbook is basically meal planning with weekly grocery lists. If that's not your jam, above is the link for her vegan recipes.

Bad Manners is a vegan chef outfit. I have a few of their cookbooks and I love them, although they can be a little hard to follow. I've linked their recipe list and it looks like you can apply filters for different types of meals and ingredients.

Tofu is very versatile. Here's a cool list of marinades that kicks ass. I recommend pressing the water out of firm tofu if you're cooking it. You don't have to marinate but it can help. The flavor of plain tofu has actually grown on me as long as it's not all I can taste in the dish.

To press I typically wrap it in paper towels and then an absorbent dish towel. Then place it between two plates and I put maybe 2-4 cans of beans or whatever on top. Let that baby sit for as long as you want, 30 minutes is generally the recommended time but you can let it go longer or a little shorter if you're super crunched on time.

Freezing tofu is a decent method of preservation if you have too much to eat or it's going to go bad (almost never a problem for us, and it keeps pretty well in the fridge). Do note that freezing tofu completely changes the texture and essentially turns it into a sponge. You can squeeze water out of it with your hands and it soaks up marinades like crazy but it doesn't hold together too well for frying and you can turn it into a giant mess if you try to press it with too much weight (it will fall apart).

A favorite method of cooking tofu is frying it with a cornstarch crust. I don't bother making it fancy, usually just salt and cornstarch is my jam. I wouldn't recommend marinating it first because if it's too soggy the crust doesn't stick well to the tofu. Also do not recommend making this in advance because the crust turns gummy if you leave it sit too long. Super tasty for dinner over rice and stir fried veggies though!!!

This is a pretty decent guide. Also, a lot of the "vegan diets aren't good for you/a good way to get your nutrients" that you hear about people who quit veganism are people who either didn't plan it very well/did not get supplements or did something bananas like a raw food vegan diet and it didn't work out for them. I tend to not plan my food too well aside from "protein, vegetable, grain" and I get my fats and sugars from the oils I use to cook and the sugars that come with the other categories or the junk food part of my diet. Pure junk food vegan isn't very sustainable and neither is raw vegan. If you're going to go vegan you will likely have to do a lot of cooking for yourself. I keep chickn nuggets around for lazy nights but if I have the energy I'm making something with chickpeas and rice or beans and rice or tofu or seitan as the protein of the dish.

Contrary to popular belief you do not have to subsist off of quinoa and avocados. I barely eat either because a) don't really like quinoa and b) avocados suck because I live in Alaska and it's nearly impossible to get good avocados.

Another point is to not beat yourself up if you accidentally use/consume an animal product. It happens to the best of us, best thing to do is to move on with the knowledge of what to avoid in the future.

The more you learn on this journey will likely lead you to conclusions you never saw coming. You may be in less denial about what happens to farmed animals. You will be upset about the little non-vegan parts of foods that could easily be vegan (see: gelatin in cereal for some reason. milk powder in chips.). You will find yourself avoiding leathers and furs. You will find yourself absolutely horrified with standard practices in animal agriculture the more you open your mind to learning about it. You will also find yourself more open to seeing animals in a different way. I was a carnist a little over two years ago. I'm still a rather new vegan, but it's amazing what a paradigm shift I've experienced.

Going vegan helped me in ways I never expected. It helped me emotionally with the trauma around the hobby farm I grew up on. Actually uncovered some memories I had blocked out. It also feels good to know that I'm not contributing to the suffering of industrialized animal agriculture.

Anyways, go vegan! The vegan society defines veganism as "as far as practicable" and for most people that is a lifestyle and diet completely without animal products. Sometimes there are barriers for people and reducing animal consumption as much as you can is still helpful.

[unhingedwomandiaries]

Here's the thing about peppers. I love them. And lately, my YouTube Shorts feed has been absolutely inundated with videos of stuffed peppers. It's like the algorithm knows my weakness. And you know me, I can't resist a food trend. So naturally, I decided to make them for my weekly lunch prep. Because that's what responsible adults do, right? They meal prep.

The first batch came out looking perfect. Instagram-worthy, even. I had such high hopes. Such foolish, naive hopes.

Day 2: Monday arrived, and with it came crushing disappointment and persistent hunger. The texture of baked peppers, as it turns out, is reminiscent of... how do I put this delicately? Slimy, snot-covered, raw earthworms. I know, I know, it's a vivid and nauseating image. But that's the truth of it. I couldn't get past it. I tried to salvage the situation by just eating the filling, but let me tell you, the filling isn't exactly a culinary masterpiece on its own.

Day 3: In a moment of what I thought was brilliance (spoiler alert: it wasn't), I decided to stuff the peppers without baking them. My reasoning? The crunch and snap of raw peppers had to be the solution. Oh, how wrong I was. Somehow, defying all laws of nature and cooking, the raw peppers became watery. And the filling? It developed a consistency that can only be described as... moist. There was a puddle underneath the peppers. A puddle! It was like some sort of pepper swamp. The residue left me thoroughly grossed out.

Here's a fun fact about me: I don't put milk in my cereal because I can't stand soggy textures. It's absolutely gag-worthy. Don't @ me about this, internet. I stand by my dry cereal convictions.

Day 4: In a last-ditch effort to salvage this culinary catastrophe, I decided to just put the filling in a sandwich. Bad idea. Really bad idea. It was like inviting heartburn over for an extended stay.

So here I am, at the almost end of a week of lunch mistakes, hungry and questioning my life choices. Maybe next week I'll just eat bread. Or better yet, stick to writing about food rather than attempting to cook it.

[frutavel]

One of the few things Manso and I have in common is that we both eat cereal dry and straight out of the box