HOW TO: VEGAN AT COLLEGE

What better way to start off a post about college-eating than with pictures of ramen?

In high school, when people found out we were vegan the two most common questions were:
“Why??!!??” and, “Are you going to be vegan in college?”
And yes. We are still vegan in college. Which means we don’t partake in college staples like frozen pizza, frozen taquitos, or any other freezer meal (although in a weird twist of events we do take up the most space in our freezer because of our abundance of kale and frozen fruit).
Here are our tips/how we have managed to stay vegan while being slightly broke-ish:

1. Meal prep – We meal prep the freaking heck out of our weekends. We normally make one big meal on either Saturday or Sunday and then eat that for lunch, dinner, and snacks for the next week. Depending on what it is it can last for a week-and-a-half or less than twenty-four hours. Stuffed shells, we’re looking at you.

2. Stock up on food – We like to have a lot of the essentials ingredients on hand so if we run out of fruit and vegetables, we don’t starve. These plastic containers from Walmart have been a lifesaver. We normally have “bulk” (as bulk as you can get while in college) flour, sugar, oats, cashews, popcorn, dates, quinoa, and rice.

3. Make a dessert every week so as to avoid eating non-vegan desserts – We just started doing this because we were both craving desserts. Also, Costco started selling their semi-sweet chocolate chips that are vegan and we bought two bags. So far we have made chocolate peanut butter bars, peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookie dough, muffins, and pumpkin bread. We only have half a bag left so it’s getting desperate.

4. Lots of potatoes and bean burritos – Potatoes are so freaking cheap it’s lovely.

5. Work at the MTC where you can pilfer the bananas that they are going to throw away. No joke Liesel comes home every Saturday night with at least fifteen bananas that we freeze.

6. If people offer you free food, take it – This includes collards and kale, which have replaced spinach in our smoothies. Both of those are grown in our Grandma’s garden and our Grandpa keeps threatening to take a chainsaw to them because the kale is a literal bush and he hates kale. and also bushes.

7. Smoothies – Using pilfered bananas and the kale from Grandma’s house.

8. Have a few key meals that you can eat – So far we have made enchiladas, stuffed shells, spaghetti, chili, spring rolls, french toast, and pancakes. So, pick five and then rotate. 

9. Don’t buy snacks – We bought a pound of vegan chocolate raisins and ate them in twenty-four hours. So, never again. Also, vegan snacks are dang expensive. So this is more us being cheap vs. us being vegan. Also our incredible lack of self-control and rationing.

We haven’t starved yet, so we’re going to continue along this very green-filled path, quietly promoting our lifestyle through stickers on water bottles and t-shirts.

Scott’s Run Hike

President’s Day was downright beautiful. We decided to enjoy the weather and go on a picnic/hike with some of our friends.
When we opted for a hike we all thought it would be a “girls’ camp hike”.
AKA incredibly easy.
T’was not so.
There was an excessive use of hands and rock climbing. And hills. Dang those hills.

Brie, Lauren, Mikelle, Stephanie, and Gwyneth.

We had to backtrack, sprinting, camera bouncing in the wind, to grab this picture.

This picture took some shimmying (on their part) and some squatting (on my part).

T’was a little waterfall.

Concentrating awfully hard. Those were some slippery rocks.
You could say it was rocky going. 

Featuring me traipsing through the water with utter disregard for my shoes.
You could say it was a bit watery.
(Wait, water you doing that’s not even a pun. What?)

It was a fabulous way to end a three-day weekend.

The 200 IM

Liesel:

I wrote this a while back to show my love/hate relationship with swimming.

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The 200 IM – Words that strike fear into the heart of a shorter-than-average-girl who’s prone to panic attacks and sobbing when swim season comes.

For the sane people (ahem. non swimmers), 200 IM means eight laps across a twenty-five meter pool. That’s a fifty of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. For those unfamiliar with pools or full submersion in general – a fifty is dos laps. Ocho laps of torture in all. El Diablo.

First is butterfly: The Most Treacherous of Strokes. You can get disqualified for basically anything. A stray toe wiggle? DQ’d! Both hands didn’t apply equal pressure at the wall? DQ’d! Heaven forbid you don’t look like Michael Phelps. All this occurs while giving thanks that your goggles didn’t fall off during your dive. A dive that was closely related to its cousin – the belly flop.

After butterfly, one must painstakingly flip onto one’s back and begin backstroke. This ensues flailing of arms. The flailing commences at the start but subsides five meters away from the wall on the second lap of backstroke. At this point you begin back-paddling in an effort to avoid slamming your head and/or hand into the wall at the end. Side note: Your hands are already numb from smacking into the lane lines. As you slowly float past the five-meter mark you mentally prepare yourself for the Back-To-Breast-Turn. In the heat of the race this has been forgotten – post-200 IM amnesia.

After skillfully maneuvering The Turn, it’s time for breaststroke. My advice is to swim the next fifty meters at a leisurely pace. This is because my breaststroke sprint and my warm down are of equal speed.

After meandering my way through the two laps of breaststroke – stopping for a light lunch – I am prepared for freestyle. After launching off the wall and kicking for six meters underwater, I emerge deserted by my legs. I look down for confirmation. With silent threats offered, The Flailing begins again. This time accompanied with strategic breathing. I gasp in meager handfuls of oxygen every-other stroke (including before and after the flip turn). After the glorious flip turn, a reward is needed and I cheerfully take another breath. At this point I have almost completely stopped. The threats towards my limbs start up again.

With only five meters left of the race – my legs having fully revolted and now conspiring with my arms – I float towards the wall; the end has come. Through sheer willpower I heave myself out of the pool – pleased with accomplishing the 200 IM with grace and poise.

I won’t even mention the 400 IM.

Caramel Sauce & Chocolate Pudding

Two completely unrelated recipes.

Caramel Sauce

1. In a blender put:
   • 1 cup warm water – Which is a problem when your water heater is broken but then comes back with vengeance, like, “Here’s some boiling water to show that my unrequited love for you never died!”
   • Add halved dates till the water line reaches the 2 cup mark
   • Add 1/3 cup cashews on top
   • 1 teaspoon vanilla
   • 1/8 teaspoon salt
2.  Blend until it’s as smooth as my wit.

Chocolate Pudding:

AKA The Feast of the Sunday Afternoon or The Feast of Those Who Survived Church

(It’s a working title.)

1. In a saucepan, whisk together:
   • 1/2 cup sugar
   • 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
   • 1/4 cup cornstarch
   • 1/8 teaspoon salt
2. Stir in 2 3/4 cup vanilla soy milk. Place over medium heat (or high heat if you have zero patience).
3. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until it’s thick (or not. Sometimes we just drink it because (read above) we have zero patience.)
4. Remove from heat and stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla.

*Side note: This makes enough for three small children. My family triples it.

A Vegan Thanksgiving

oh yes. You read that right: A vegan Thanksgiving. This time it didn’t consist of tofurkey but in years past that has definitely been featured.

Here’s our menu – All recipes are taken from Greener Eating which is a blog that my mom and her family all post on. It’s basically a plethora of goodness. Healthy goodness.

• Rolls: Because rolls are the bread of life (ha.) and we made so many we are still eating them three days after Thanksgiving.
• Mashed potatoes : Potatoes are good in any form. any.
• Gravy: Good for drowning said potatoes in.
• Stuffing: oh sweeeeet glory! My mom made so much freakin’ stuffing and I’m not even kidding when I say that I literally ate half of it.
• Green Bean Casserole : Just as good as the stuffing.
• Raspberry Cheesecake : The pie of all pies. And it has fruit in it so it’s basically a salad.
• Chocolate pie: It’s chocolate – but vegan – but chocolate.

Rock Climbing

Being in Malaysia has it perks, especially because we get so many days off of school. Last Tuesday, school was canceled because of haze and then Wednesday was National Day. On a whim we decided to go bouldering at Madmonkeyz which is an indoor rock climbing place.

Gwyneth was really feeling the whole bunhawk thing.

Notice the small stuffed eagle in the corner. It has a sign that says “Do not touch”. Strangely none of us were tempted to.

Admire the physique of our swimmer shoulders (also admire my use of the word physique).

I Came. I Swam. I Conquered.

I Came. I Swam. I Conquered.
ish. I conquered-ish.

I live on chlorine.
I am addicted to it.
I train 6-7 times a week from one to two hours.
Swimming is so confusing.  better than any dry-land sport because:
1. You don’t sweat.
2. It’s not hot.
And the fact that I used the word “dry-land” is testament to how much swimming has taken over my life.
And you’re not running which is always a plus.
And whenever we do dry-land I am always reminded by the multiple injuries sustained by team members and myself that hand-eye coordination is not a skill that swimmers are equipped with.
Mostly I just run away from the ball and pray that I don’t get hit in the face.
Swimming is life. I honestly don’t know what I would do without it. And what my hair would do without it’s daily morning dunking in chlorine.
I swim; not to win, but for the satisfaction of being able to get out of bed after a four kilometre practise. I swim for the personal accomplishment of finishing sets last but not having skipped any laps.
I sink when we do pull sets, gasp for air, seek high elbows, forget to breathe, try to stay streamlined, head down, not too far down, two hand touch, make it to the end of the pool, and if I’m lucky get a maximum of ten seconds rest throughout the entire two hour practise. I am proud when I don’t have to flip turn into the next set and can hang on to the wall for a precious two seconds.
I live for it.