Rainy Days are Gravy Days.

I woke up the other morning with an inexplicable craving for gravy. I rolled over and lifted the curtain by my bed to take a peek outside. The sky hung heavy, cold and dull grey, wet but not raining. The air seemed oddly still.
Ugh, I thought to myself, Good day to roll back over and hit the snooze button.
My belly rumbled in disagreement.
Alright then, I thought. If not bed then gravy. A big ol' bowl of hot, starchy, salty goodness to warm my belly and my brain, letting me pretend that I'm rugged and rustic and resourceful, and not just some skinny little wimp freezing my ass off in 3 layers of clothing when it's 40F outside.  I'll spend an hour conjuring my inner upper-midwesterner, some stout, resourceful, sensibly-dressed, no-nonsense, middle-aged woman named Peggy. And I will conjure her with gravy. But I will be the health-foodie-gastro-hippie that I am in real life and make it vegan and gluten-free. And I will eat it with rice. And a big ol' mess-o-greens. And that is how I will fill the rainy-days-are-for-comfort-foods hole in my belly with only rice, beans, and greens.
And so I rolled back over, out of bed, into slippers a scarf and a second sweatshirt, then shuffled into the kitchen and made...

Easy Vegan (and GF!) Gravy 

For the record, I have never actually measured any of the following ingredients. These are totally unscientific guesstimates, based purely on...well...nothing, I guess.  Think of it as improv theater, only in your mouth. (Ew. Actually, don't think of it as that. Think of it as anything but that.)
Anyway. What you wanna do is...

1. Marinate about 3 oz. tempeh in a 1/2 C of water and 2 tsp Bragg's for a little bit (see helpful hint below!) then put it all in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil.
2. Meanwhile, sautee some chopped onion in a little Earth Balance.
3. Add about 1T rice flour to the Braggs-n-tempeh water, stirring well to combine.
4. When the onions are nice and soft and translucent, toss 'em in the gravy pot with a bit of thyme and some fresh ground black pepper.
5. Keep on stirring the mixture over med-low heat, adjusting water/flour until it is the thickness and tastiness you desire. (Be patient whenever you add flour--it takes a minute to thicken).
6. Pour your tasty vegan (GF!) gravy all over some warm brown rice and cooked greens (or a baked potato and broccoli) and dig in...yum! 
7. Helpful hint below: Marinate the tempeh in the Braggs-y water while you prep your rice and greens and give yourself a pat on the back for having such great time-management skills.

Makes 1 bowl worth of gravy-liciousness:

Go ahead and give it a try.

Do it! (You know you want to.)

Manifesting Abundance

RBG 2.0: Day 1 gives me great hope.
I did not spend any stupid money on non-RBG items.
But I did manage to eat all kinds of non-RBG items.

I mowed lawns all day with Adam.
He gave me almonds and bananas.

I mowed the lawn of a woman named Nancy.

She gave me tomatoes and zucchini.

I came home to my new housemate, who offered pickles and beer.

Momoko followed suit, saying what's hers is ours.

If I was a hippy I'd say that I manifested abundance, and the universe provided for me.

But since I'm not a hippy I think I'll thank my friends instead.

And Nancy.

Nancy was rad.

Blog fail. Blogger fail. Bloggest fail.

Holy crap! Did you see that?! I just failed spectacularly at like 3 things all at once! Before I even started them!

First I was all “Oh, hey. I’m an ascetic. I’m only going to eat rice beans and greens for 3 months.”
Then I was all “Oh, hey. I’m a writer. I’m gonna blog about being an ascetic. Awesome.”

Then the sun came out. Apparently sunny Saturdays are not conducive to asceticism.  

Apparently they are much conducive to tacos. And cocktails. Not so much to rice beans and greens.

So I failed at asceticism. 

"No problem though," I thought to myself. "My friends know I'm broke...surely someone will buy me lunch or a drink." 

But alas, I failed to get either lunch or a drink bought for me.

Then, to top it all off, my internet broke. So now, not only do I have to buy snacks and drinks to use the interwebs, but I also totally space on blogging every single time I'm online--Fail #3.

Possibly I’ve been subconsciously blocking the blog out, so I don’t have to confront my failure. 

Either way, both diet and the blog seemed dead on arrival.

But look!

They have arisen! It’s like digital-dietary Easter! My sins of gluttony and forgetfulness are forgiven!

The blog begins anew! -- the diet too.

October 1 2010. 

It begins.

Rice. Beans. Greens. Blog.

Same rules as before, only now I have a support group. (And still no job.)

Henceforth I shall have discipline.

Henceforth, I shall eat three kinds of food and write about it.

Oh man.

It will be so rad.

You don’t even know.

Seriously.

Just wait.

PS: Ignore the date stamp. I wrote this 30 Sept 10. I swear!!

In the beginning there was excess...

During my 2 years living in a student co-op I never had to spend a cent on food or worry about what I was going to eat at a given meal. Eventually I found myself wandering aimlessly into the kitchen, opening up a fridge, and mindlessly munching on whatever I found there. During those years, I was also making way more money than I needed to pay my rent and my spending patterns beginning to mirror my eating -- I just did it, all the time, without thinking about it.

Then one day, I graduated from college and moved out of the co-op. With no one around to feed me anymore, no job and thus no money, I decided to reintroduce myself to my old friend Scarcity. If I could only reprogram myself to think more carefully about where my money went and what I ate, I might return to my pre-grad-school, super-frugal, super-cook. Heck, I might even begin to chip away at the mountain of student debt I'm suddenly standing face-to-face with

To that end, I decided to begin a 3-month experiment in the creative possibilities of ingredient asceticism, which basically entails eating rice, beans and greens every day for 3 months. Obviously, this won't be a very interesting blog if that's all I eat though. Also, I won't be a very interesting person...unless surly and disgruntled count as interesting. So, there are a couple rules I am going to follow:

1. All rices, beans and legumes, and leafy greens are on.
2. Oils and vinegars are on...like I'm going to live for 3 months without olive oil? C'mon.
3. All spices and condiments I already own are on.
4. $4/day discretionary budget: Limited to seasonal stuff from the "Damaged" bin at the co-op, coffee, or alcohol.
5. Anything anyone else pays for or presents me with is on.

It starts tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe in a week I'll say, "Hey, you know what? I don't really need root veg!" or "Damn, even the cheap fruit is kind of expensive." Or maybe I'll fail spectacularly. Then you can come on here and comment on what a loser I am. Neat!