First meals in the new place.

Day two of school is down. And only three more days of this week left. I cannot believe school is here! I am not having a hard time adjusting to my new location a bit further from my campus (a whole 4 blocks). The walk is nice and breezy as of yet. Come November, I will be screaming in agony over the cold and the LOONG walk. I still do not have internet set-up in my apartment. I applied through the school for a 'discount' rate. So they only make so many appointments for us kids. Its been 10 days since I applied and I am getting antsy. That's probably why this post will not get up til Thursday or Friday.

I don't have much work yet for my classes, but the large organization fest for campus is on Thursday. It's a great event for new students to check out all the organizations on campus, all 250 of us. I remember going to it last year when I transferred here. It was mind blowing. And its where I found out the club that I am now a director. It is called WYSE, Women and Youth Supporting Each Other. We are a curriculum-based mentoring program for middle school girls that are at-risk. I love my mentee and its so great to really see how she has flourished as a person this past year. I feel I have grown so much due to being a mentor and it has been the major shaping for my college experience.

Tonight I wasn't really up to cooking. I was going to make a great feast of Chinese Bbq'd tofu, but it was 7pm by the time I was able to start cooking and I was bent over sick to my stomach hungry. I am not joking. I had no idea what was wrong, but after I ate my big bowl of Annie's Tuscan Bean soup with toasted pita bread, I felt tons better. I also had a kiwi and apple with peanut butter for desert. So delicious.

My first two meals in my apartment were also not too extravagant. But they were monumental! My kitchen is fully baptized mine. The small size will not bring me down. I have everything a little more organized than a normal kitchen, that's all. It makes the small size a bit easier to bare.

The first meal I decided to make was Fatfree Vegan Kitchen's Chili Mac. A simple chili recipe that looked delicious. I didnt have any kale on hand, so I replaced it with green peppers. And I had a taste for black beans over kidney. But that didnt make any difference to the meal. It was so quick to make and so easy. It's definitely a recipe Id come back to when I was starving or running out of time. And it was so delicious. I used rotini pasta, so the sauce clung to every bite. It had all the right flavors with the nutritional yeast being only a small component of the recipe. I was so full after eating even half of my bowl. Even all by my loansome I felt like I was at home with this meal.

My next meal was just trying to pull together some of the leftovers I had. I brought some white rice from my going away dinner with my family, we had a thai feast, it was deeelicious. Even my grandparents ate a ton. But anyways, the rice was sitting for a few days and it needed to be used up. Then I used the leftover black beans, onion, green pepper, and then frozen corn. So pretty much all the veggies that was in the chili mac. I threw it all in a bowl, added a bit water to recook the rice, some chili powder and diced jalapenos. Took me a whole 5 minutes to prepare and it was so good. Really good. Yay for quick, easy meals. Ill be living on them once the semester gets tough.















I didnt just cook, but I finally got around to baking. We dont have AC, so I never wanted to bake, I couldnt even imagine how bad it would have been. I waited til one night was extremely cool and made Dreena's homestyle cookies. This is my sad little stove, yes it is as tiny as it appears. It is not a normal sized oven. But the pans do fit all the way. Ive never cooked with a gas controled oven, we have electric at home, so this was a pure experiment to see if I could even make anything without sending us all flying out of the building in alarm. Do notice we have a fire extinguisher, just incase anything like that happens. I got us an oven thermometer just because I do not trust this little oven at all. It took 10-15mins to pre-heat but it seemed like it was off 50 degrees. So I turned the oven to 400 F for my cookies. I kept checking them every 2-3 minutes, but then at 6 minutes I got so involved in the clean-up process (we don't have a dishwasher either) so I forgot to check before the timer went off. When I went to get them out, they were not burnt, but they also were like GOLDEN GOLDEN brown. They were crispy, but still did have a chewy texture. Dreena's recipe is flawless, so they were obviously amazing. My roommate adored them, she couldnt believe they were vegan. Definitely pretty successful so far.

---
As I said, I knew this would take forever to get online. Its now Friday, Organization fest is over, and we got over 200 names that are interested in our mentoring program!! And all my classes are going off without a hitch. It seems like the it will be one of the first semester I can relax and breathe a little...hopefully.

This weekend is the Harley Davidson 105th anniversary. And since my city is the birthplace of Harley we are being taken over by bikers. A good 8000 of them to be exact. There is a huge festival for them down by the lake, but my ears are permanently screaming from the roar of their engines revving and screeching by. Ill be very glad when we get our streets back. But I guess Happy Birthday Harley? haha Have a greatweekend, and for all the Americans, enjoy the long weekend!