Girl you’re in the kitchen
Sweating up a storm

Now let me clarify. This song was not previously part of my music library.

But holy crap it’s so amazingly terrible.

And let me further clarify that there was NOTHING sexy about what was going on in my kitchen. Case in point:

Vegan Valentine’s was a success. My family and I ate plant-based meals all day. And we lived. Here is what I learned, in no particular order.

1. Vegan food can be yummy food. For Vegan Valentine’s I made: oatmeal (I had to start easy, ok?), a green smoothie, Ginger-Sesame Tofu, Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad, Creamy Black Bean and Cilantro Dip, Fire-Roasted Salsa, Roasted Chickpea and Broccoli Burritos, and Crispy Millet and Peanut Butter Buckeyes. The dessert was obviously the best part. But it was all good. The family ate it. Even the kiddo. I think I had a hard time judging it just because I had been the one to cook it–I was kinda numb to the flavors by the end of it all.

2. Cooking is exhausting. Now this is mainly my own fault. I chose to cook six new recipes (a couple were just dips… but still). Recipes that required fresh ingredients and therefore lots of peeling and cutting (I hate you cilantro). It takes a while. I just wanted to pass out by 8:00. For the future, it’s ok to start simple, stupid.

3. If you aren’t flavoring your food with meat and grease, you are flavoring it with onions and garlic and other spices. And that shit will stay with you. Like all night and into the morning. We both woke up with the worst morning breath EVER.

4. Take shortcuts. Why the fuck did I take the time to make my own salsa on top of everything else? I don’t know. Maybe because my BFF makes such a damn fine homemade one (mine was not as good). But with everything I was trying to cook, this would have been one to cut. Same thing for the carrots. Why did I cut my own matchstick carrots? They were more nicely sized than the store-bought variety. But damn. Save yourself some time.

5. Cholesterol FREE! I tracked my meals in My Fitness Pal just to see how I did–what nutrients I ended up short on and how many calories I ate. And I momentarily freaked out when I saw that I ate ZERO cholesterol. No animal products, no cholesterol (duh). But I DO know that the body needs cholesterol. A quick Google led to this website. Apparently cholesterol is so important, your body will just make it out of whatever you eat. Yay!

But…

6. The article also made the argument that it’s CARBS, NOT MEAT, that is sending our LDL through the roof. Remember, I wrote about how bad meat is? Well now this woman is saying it’s sugar triggering your insulin, which tells your body to grow, which means make new cells, which means make more cholesterol float around in your blood. (Cells need cholesterol to hold them together.) This just made me wanna say FUCK IT and eat whatever I damn well please. But as my BFF pointed out when I told her about this project: “If you research enough, you’ll find out you can’t eat anything. So just eat in moderation.”

7. I am the messiest cook. Ever. Did you see the sink picture above? That’s not from a week of me being lazy. That is one day of us eating at home (though not V-day). I somehow used just about every dish in the house when I cooked. Is it bad planning? I don’t know. But the dishwasher was running nonstop this past Sunday.

And this is how I utilize the counter. 

Gross. I know. But I’m cooking here. I don’t have time to clean as I go.

8. You can overeat, no matter what you eat. According to My Fitness Pal, I still ate over 2,000 calories this day. I’m going to primarily blame the rice noodles. And the chips I used to eat my black bean dip. Neither of these are nutritionally helpful. I was going with the rice noodle thing to get some carbs, but I got plenty of carbs anyway. And in the end, I am still just programmed to overeat. For dinner I could have probably been fine with one taco, but when do you eat just ONE taco? We’re Americans. We don’t do that sort of thing.

9. I got 84% of my calcium without ANY dairy. Which blew my mind. I had no idea plants had so much. Now, it’s not enough (it’s not 100%), but it was way more than I predicted. I grew up with my mother, the rabid, avid milk drinker. She has been freaking out any time I tell her I’m researching a vegan diet. She sees my bones crumbling before her eyes. Like, when I was 7 years old and I broke some tiny bone in my foot jumping into a pool (and yes, there was water in it). Her universe got destroyed–how could I, her milk-drinking daughter, break a bone?!? So I wanted to show her it might be possible to not live and breathe milk. I call her to tell her my astounding news–that I got 84% of my calcium without a drop of milk, and what does she say? “It sounds like you’re 16% short.” Which is true, but I think just illustrates how scary this is to her. We grow up with these preconceived notions about nutrition, and it’s just hard to change. But so far, she might be KINDA right. Based on my day, I probably need some dairy to get my full calcium requirement.

10. And finally, Thug Kitchen is definitely one of my favorite cookbooks. Thanks for the delicious recipes (all of the foods listed at the top except the oatmeal and the smoothie)! If you haven’t seen it, check it out. They curse while they cook. Like, “You know what an enchilada looks like, so handle that shit.” I find it comforting, like I’m cooking with a friend. Ok, none of my friends curse that much. So try it, and it’ll be like you are cooking with me. I curse like a sailor.

Come see me tomorrow when I either write about the super painful deep tissue massage I got, or the super painful kick-boxing workout I tried. Hmm… which of THOSE do I want to relive?