Thanksgiving

We don't really believe in Thanksgiving here. Neither of us has much family and all our friends do so usually we just spend the day doing some funny like tearing up our floor while blaring Johnny Cash interviews or watching Reno 911 marathons. We did go to the prix fix or whatever it's called at Madeleine Bistro one year, but we have a sick dog and two cars that are leaking stuff and a fence that needs to be built so we sat that out this year. We kept it cheap and simple at home:

One year as a vegan.

I just hit my one year anniversary as a vegan. Honestly, I don't remember the date exactly but it was sometime a few days before Thanksgiving last year.

It was a number of things that made me decide to finally be vegan for real: not being able to tell the difference between the vegan ice cream and the regular ice cream from Scoops, the way Lilou looked at me when she was getting stitches taken out after being attacked by another dog (who was not a pittie, btw), checking out Vegan with a Vengeance from the library and not wanting to return it to the point that I owed like $15 in fines on it, hating my job and my disgusting fast food freak co-workers and wanting to find an excuse to get out of the Friday pizza meetings, being told that my vegan desserts were better than conventional ones, reading Diet for a New America. All of these things happened within a few weeks of each other and once I made the decision to be vegan, that was that. No turning back. My husband joined me within a month.


It's not just the food (although the food is forking awesome!). It's not just about health (I mean really, look at this blog, look at what I eat, I'd fry my oatmeal if it wasn't so messy!). It's about having all those "I love animals!" feelings I've had my whole life finally mean something. When people ask me why I'm vegan, I don't think I can ever fully get across to them how amazing it feels to live my beliefs and stop being part of a system I think is wrong. It's better than all the jackfruit and vegan cupcakes and the regularity that a high fiber diet brings.


When I went vegan, I was only the mama of one dog--the ever docile half-lab, half-pit Lilou. If I hadn't have gone vegan I don't think I would have adopted the troubled boys, Buster and Bootsy. My veganism and my pitbull life can't be separated. I wouldn't have one without the other. Saying no to the products of pain and suffering isn't a popular thing to do, and neither is adopting a throwaway "dangerous" breed dog. Deciding to not take the easy way out when it came to food only encouraged me to take on the tougher task of two dogs who were headed for the kill room. I sharpen my bullsh*t-fighting skills every day whether it be dispelling some myth about how much protein a person needs or whether pit bulls are good guard dogs or babykillers (the answer is "no" to both). Being vegan makes me a better pitbull mama and being a pitbull mama definitely makes me a tougher vegan.

It's been four months since Bootsy came home with us and I still get weepy sometimes when he accomplishes something new (like waiting patiently at the door and not barking at other dogs in the park) and looks at me with his eager-to-please eyes. The fact that he is here, living and breathing and going crazy for peanut butter, reminds me that you have to take action and change the world yourself. You can't wait for someone else to do it for you, because it ain't gonna happen. I tried to find Bootsy a home, a rescue group, anyone who would take him. I thought that surely someone else would see that he was a dog worth saving. When his time was up, I'm the one who got the call and I was only person standing between him and the euth needle. I can't wait for someone else to do something any more.

You can complain about world hunger, environmental destruction, and animal cruelty and wait for someone else to do something about it or you can take the first step in knocking those things out: go vegan. Choosing to go vegan and then choosing to rescue a pitbull like Bootsy are the most empowering things I've ever done. No matter what else I go on to do in my life, my veganism and my pitbull experience are the foundation. They make me strong, confident, and ready to fight for what's right. They also give me a satisfaction and joy I wish I had found years ago.

Since this is a total talk-about-your-feelings post, I give you a picture of sensitive New Age Buster:

where the magic happens...

My kitchen. Not pictured is the stove, a tiny cabinet with the microwave on top of it, and the four doorways (two of which lead directly into bedrooms).

I broke VeganMoFo

I didn't just skip a day, I skipped a whole week. Terrible.

So starting today, for one week, I'm going to double-post to make up for it.

Why did I abandon VeganMoFo for a whole week? Two things:

I've been spending time gathering signatures (and as of this week, coordinating volunteers for my part of town) for Californians for Humane Farms. We are trying to get a factory farm reform bill on next year's ballot that would effectively ban gestation crates, veal crates, and battery cages. It's a huge deal and will be a huge victory when Californian voters make the right choice in November. However, first we need to get on the ballot and that means collecting 650,000 signatures by February. So if you're a registered CA voter, not only should you find a petition to sign, you should be collecting signatures from your family, friends, co-workers, strangers, whoever!

Also, my dog Bootsy has cancer. A mass cell tumor to be exact. Due to the holiday this week, he will be in surgery next week to remove the tumor and then we will know how far it has spread and what the future looks like for him. It's incredibly sad because this boy has been through so much but we are optimistic. We're still jogging and socializing (he ate with me outside Pure Luck this week and he didn't bark at anyone or freak out...he even made new friends!) and training. He continues to amaze us with his progress.

this is so wrong...

What I planned to make for dinner didn't materialize due to the crappiness of my local grocery store's offerings and being out of stuff at home.

So I went there. There, being, the list of wrongness. Things that I ate back in the day when I was young and stupid and had a metabolism. It's an actual list. The Monte Cristo sandwich is on there with the likes of cheesesteaks (which I posted the vegan version of yesterday) and carne asada fries (which if you have ever had these you are probably from San Diego and maybe we know each other or something). It's a list of disgusting things to veganize and I proudly check things off of it from time to time.

Check.



This sandwich was good. Very good. Good quality organic bread, FYH moz, Tofurkey slices, my take on the "fronch" toast batter from VwaV, apricot preserves and maple syrup for dipping. Raspberry preserves would have been better and more like the original from the Broadway Department Store cafe, which was my absolute favorite thing to eat when I was a kid.

I should have left well enough alone and eaten an apple or baked a potato and called it a dinner. I still had batter though. Lots of batter. I am not a wasteful person. I had half a block of tofu awaiting usage in the fridge.



This picture does not capture the awesomeness of this disgusting choice (probably becuase I had started eating it before I took the picture). The batter didn't really take to the tofu so after the tofu was frying in the pan, I just pored the rest of the batter over it. When it was done it was like a constellation of tofu blocks in a big batter pancake sky.

It was okay. The apricot preserves helped alot. But then suddenly, on the last bite, it become clear to me that this was a bad idea, another lapse of judgement in a life punctuated by such things. I felt sick. Still do in fact.

What can I say. Not every day can be quinoa, kale, and tempeh.

I am going to go lay down now and think about staying away from batter for a while.

portophillys

These sandwiches are my favorite thing to eat when I've had a long day and am really hungry.

Portophilly sandwiches
serves 4 normal people or 2 really hungry people

1 french baguette
2 portabello mushroom caps
1 green bell pepper
1/2 a small white or yellow onion
Vegenaise
olive oil

Slice the baguette into fourths and lightly toast. Slice the mushrooms, onion, and pepper and saute in olive oil till tender (careful not to overcook or the mushrooms will get slimey). Slather (yes, slather, it's no time to be stingy with the 'naise) the insides of the bread with Vegenaise. Assemble the sandwiches by loading them up with the mushroom-onion-pepper mixture. Press them together so the Vegenaise mixes with the mushroom juice. It won't be as good if it isn't messy and greasy and falling all over the place.

Enjoy (preferably with a classic carbonated beverage like Cheerwine).

cooking for the dogs

I cook for my dogs once or twice a month. I don't use a recipe, just throw some stuff that is good for them and that they like together. Sometimes it's because we're running low on their usual food, Natural Balance Vegetarian Formula, and need to fill a meal before we can get to the store and sometimes I just want to spend time cooking and have totally caught up on all my cooking and baking for humans. Today it was a little of both. We definitely have to go buy some dog food after the boys training class tomorrow morning, we're running low. These dogs eat alot!

So here's what I used today:



I boiled the carrots and peas, added the cooked chickpeas, mashed everything with a potato masher, added a heaping spoonful of peanut butter and smaller spoonful of flaxseed meal, and topped it off with some shakes of nutritional yeast. I then let it cool for an hour.

Buster, my little devil and best eater, practices waiting patiently:



Bootsy licks his lips and also waits patiently:



And here they go:





Bootsy has some dry kibble with his becuase we need to maintain somewhat of a routine for him since he's still learning what it's like to be in a real home where you get to eat on a regular basis (it was actually his 4-month anniversary of adoption yesterday!). It was becuase of him that I started cooking for the dogs and transitioned them to a vegan diet. He refused to eat when we brought him home. We tried all kinds of meat kibble and snacks and canned food and he would not do it. In desperation, I cooked him some oatmeal with peas and peanut butter and he ate it up. We tried some vegetarian kibble and he ate that too. So we tried it with the other dogs and Buster loved it! Lilou was uncertain at first, but she is so militant about her food being exactly the same every day. We transitioned her more slowly and now she's fine with it. She's not as into my homecooked stuff as the boys are (which is why I didn't take any pictures of her) but today I put a little bit over her kibble and she ate it up.

fresh tofu

I found myself in the valley yesterday and that meant one thing: Vinh Loi Tofu

I crave Vinh Loi constantly and luckily my husband works close by and brings take-out home from there on a regular basis. For some unknown reason I've never bought ingredients there, just the prepared stuff. That ends now. Becuase the tofu I bought and used in my green curry tonight was the best tofu ever and far superior than that waterlogged crap at the grocery store.

Behold:



It fried up so nicely that I kept eating the little triangles before it was time to add them to the curry. The texture is firm without being too dense and it doesn't require pressing (yay for having to do less work!). The Vinh Loi tofu doesn't need to be stored in water and lasts three days in the fridge. I forsee all of my tofu dishes becoming 100x better just by using this tofu. Oh yeah, and it's only $1.50 for a one pound block.

Dinner:






Vinh Loi tofu, I love you.

begin...

Here's my modest attempt at jumping into the awesome vegan food blog world. I wanted to take part in VeganMoFo (like NaNoWriMo) so here I am.

I'm sure I'll babble on and on about this in a future entry, but why "veganpitbull" you ask? I'm vegan and I'm the human of three gorgeous rescued pitbulls and I'm super passionate about both of these things. Five years ago, if you would have told me that I would ever be a vegan pitbull mama, I would have said "you crazy." I hated pit bulls and thought veganism was annoying. If I can change, anyone can. Like my dogs, I'm always learning more and improving and I'm tenacious and determined when it comes to what's important to me.

Oh, and my dogs eat vegan food! So in addition to posting about all the awesome food the people in my house eat, you may get a post or two about what the dogs are eating.