Less of Josephine.

Title courtesy fellow vegan, Heather.

The finished seitan:

Original recipe via the Post Punk Kitchen forums: http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15959

My interpretation of the original recipe:

Dry ingredients:
1.5 cups gluten flour (+1 tbs)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cinnamon (didn’t have)
1/4 tsp cumin (didn’t have)
2 tsp pepper (didn’t have)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (upped to heaping 1/2 tsp)
1/8 tsp all spice (didn’t have)
2 tsp garlic powder (upped to heaping teaspoons)

Wet ingredients:
3/4 cup water
4 tbs tomato paste (didn’t have, changed to 2 tbs tomato sauce)
1 tbs tamari (didn’t have)
2 tbs EVOO
2 tbs Worcestershire (didn’t have vegan version, subbed 2 tbs hot chili sauce)

Total calories in my version: 1272.25, 457grams. 278 for 100grans

Notes: I mixed all the dry ingredients, whisked the wet, poured it in. Mixed it up — thought it was a little wet so I added the 1 tbs extra of gluten flour. Turned it out on board and kneaded for exactly 2.5 minutes. Formed the log, wrapped it in foil and popped it into the oven. Viola.

Seitan-in-progress (click for larger pic if you’re so inclined):

I know that vegan food porn is usually made up of dishes that people actually, well, COOK. You know, they MADE them. Often the dishes required actual mixing of more than one ingredient followed by piping stuff through pastry bags. At a minimum it usually involves the oven or a pot. My food porn, on the other hand, is for the lazy vegan who just wants a damn sandwich and wants it now.

This drool-inducing meal is now a staple for me; I love it. It meets ALL my requirements: fast, great-tasting, and fast. The Yves Deli “Salami” is delicious. I can’t remember what real salami tastes like, so I couldn’t tell you if this approximates it or not. Nevertheless, it is very tasty with nice strong spice and good texture. I top this wonderful faux meat with exactly 30g of Mancini’s Fried Peppers, which are worth every one of their canola oil-soaked 25 calories. They are sweet-ish/hot-ish peppers that have been fried. What more need I say? They add a note of true decadence to a regular old sandwich and elevate the meal from a simple lunch to an orgasmic gourmet experience. I might be exaggerating a little, but not by much.

Twelve weeks. Seems like a lifetime. Yet is seems like it flew by in a blink. Every Monday I “officially” weigh-in for tracking purposes (I actually do look at the scale every single morning) and today I am 168.8, which is a 4 pound loss for the week and puts me down 39 pounds over the 12 week period. Whoo hoo! Lose just ONE MORE pound and I’ll have lost FORTY pounds, which seems like such a significant number! And I have “only” 28.8 pounds to lose before I reach my goal! That’s so exciting!

Suddenly my goal doesn’t seem like a distant dream languishing far out on the horizon, indistinct and unreachable. It seems in-focus and gloriously attainable. In fact, it’s just around the corner, so close I can smell its yummy, smooth vanilla-and-cocoa-butter scent. That’s the sweet smell of success I’m being gently teased with. The sweet smell of hard work and dedication and 5:30 a.m. runs when my legs are tired and roasted vegetables when something deep-fried and fattening is calling. I love that smell. I love the fact that soon I will round that corner and be able to actually see the finish line. And while the finish line is just the beginning of the real journey, I’ll love crossing it anyway.

I’m just SO excited today about my upcoming trip to California. I leave on July 18, 41 days from now, and it will be the first time in forever that my dear, darling husband and I have gone away together. We are staying in Monterey and planning to hit all the best hiking trails in the Big Sur area — and there are alot of spectacular trails. The only things to worry about on the trip are poison oak, rattlesnakes, ticks, mountain lions, and black bears. And, really, who is afraid of that stuff? As long as I have my good-luck hat with me, I’m sure I’ll be fine.

So I’m working hard every single day to be as fit and light as I can be before this wonderful trip. We just had our 5th wedding anniversary last weekend and this trip is an extended part of that celebration. And it will be a wonderful reward for all the hard work so far, as well as a reason to continue to take good care of myself. I’d really like to lose another 10 pounds at least before we go, so I’m aiming to be 159 the day we fly. I’d feel so GREAT getting on the plane at that weight. So I need to keep my focus and just keep doing what I’m doing. California here I come!

[Thanks everybody for the super nice comments on my legs! Ya'll were so sweet that they are blushing!]

This stuff is absolutely heaven. Put it on EVERYTHING. Boca patties. Baked potatoes. Grilled veggies. Heck, go crazy and just sip it from the bottle — I can tell you with some authority that you won’t be the first to do so.

It is 100% natural, no preservatives, no additives, no artificial colors, no MSG, and the ingredients are: Fresh red chilies, fresh onion, xanthan gum, raw cane sugar, sea salt, and vinegar.

The label says: Indonesian cuisine is a fusion of Thai and Indian. It is healthy, spicy and quick to prepare. BALI SPICE products are made in a woman-owned Indonesian factory where Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists work together. 5% of profits go to groups fostering religious and ethnic tolerance.

How cool is that? You can have a party in your mouth AND promote girl-power and world peace at the same time. That’s multitasking at its finest!

It is hard to see changes in ourselves, I think we hold on to our negative self images very tightly sometimes. As I have been going through this, I’ve been sad that when I look in the mirror I usually still see a very fat woman. And while yes, I have more pounds to lose, there have been positive changes that apparently I have a hard time seeing.

This morning when my darling husband complimented me on my trimmer legs, I commented that I couldn’t see a change. Surprised, he suggested that I slip on a skirt and he play Mr. Photographer (lewd suggestions included for free) and take some pictures of my work-in-progress legs.

When I downloaded the pictures, I really had a hard time connecting those legs to me. They look fine! They don’t look chunky as I always envision them in my head! Those are MY legs? They actually do look muscled, as he’d said! Wow! I’m gonna seriously KEEP running!

This is my new backyard buddy. He’s a cute Southern Black Racer, very active during the daytime and he likes to hunt around my pond. We ran into each other 3 times yesterday, including once where he fell out of a tree and missed landing on me by just a couple of inches! I took this picture as he was attempting to enter my house through my kitchen door — he seemed to think he’d be welcome with all my other pets. Cute as he is, he needs to stay outside.

Yo-leven, come on yo-leven! Yo! Yo! Yo! Oops, sorry, my love of craps is showing. But I am happy with my Lucky 11 week weigh-in. This morning I weighed in at 172.8, which is a 3.2 pound loss for the week and puts me at an overall loss of 35 pounds in 11 weeks. Yay! If you’d have told me 11 weeks ago that I could be 35 pounds down I would have snorted all over your shirtfront. And you’d have never done that again. I’ve just crossed the half-way to goal mark, and I have less to lose than I’ve already lost! Yippee!

I’m really feeling in-the-groove these days, happy with my food (not feeling deprived), happy with my choices (love eating vegan), happy with my overall fitness (getting faster and stronger). Happy, happy, happy! It’s almost annoying isn’t it?

what I’m looking for. Indeed, U2 said it best. I do believe they had a problem with bras, too, else how could they have written a song that so exactly expresses my own frustration?

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

Yes Bono, I’ve done all that and more besides. But I’m still searching for my bra soulmate, that perfect slip of fabric that will make my heart go pitter-pat while at the same time shaping my bosoms into perfect orbs of uplifted, un-conelike happiness.

But all I have succeeded in doing is buying a whole lot of bras. Bras that make me go meh. Bras that suddenly pinch and bind, bras that eventually itch, bras that make my bosoms look like torpedoes seeking a target. Bras I do not love but can’t return because I am a romantic and chucked the receipts in a show of good faith lest my new bra think I am not committed to the relationship. Oh I yearn for that perfect bra. When, oh when will I find it?