Me: I’m Julie! I'm 28 years old, and I like reading, writing, sketching, photography, growing veggies in my garden, and spending time out in nature, especially if I’m exploring the trails – and old ruins! – along the Schuylkill River and French Creek. I’m married to Zach, and we live with three kitties: Leela, who we adopted through The Grannie Project in August 2014, and the sisters Cringer and Daisy, who we took in from Zach’s family in September 2015 when they needed a home.
My veganism: I’ve been vegan for 8 years now; I don’t know my exact “veganniversary” since I went vegan from vegetarian over the course of several months, but I think it’s probably somewhere around May 2010? I was first motivated by concern for the animals, and I remain vegan for the animals. Often when people find out that I’m vegan, they say, “Oh, you must be so healthy!” To which I generally respond with some rambly version of, “I guess? I mean, I certainly eat more vegetables and a greater variety of food now than I did before, but that’s not why I’m doing it, and I still eat a fair amount of ‘junk food’ as long as it’s vegan.” But then people are confused – why would you be vegan if not for your health? – so I explain that it’s an ethical thing for me, that I care about animals and don’t want to harm them; most people tend to accept that and move on without a debate (at least in my recent experience).
What I like to cook and eat: For cooking, my main question is, is it (relatively) simple to make? If so, I’ll give it a try. For eating, if it’s tasty, I’m there; I’m not very complicated about food, haha! I tend to follow other people’s recipes when I’m cooking because I’m not the best at coming up with my own, though I do have a few good ones, if I do say so myself. And in the spirit of keeping it simple for the start of Vegan MoFo, here’s a recent dinner I made: jasmine rice (which I microwaved) and Gardein porkless bites and green bell pepper (which I cooked together on the stovetop).
What Vegan MoFo will look like here at My Apologies for the Novel: I’ve followed the daily prompts for the past three Vegan MoFo’s, and in the past, I’ve also done weekly themes, too – nostalgia week, Parks & Recreation, cookbook week, dollar store vegan, health food store vegan, and The Veganlist (veganized recipes from The Blacklist hehe) – but this will be my first year of doing a month-long theme. I always bookmark a ton of recipes during Vegan MoFo, and I do a fairly good job of trying new recipes throughout the year (I aim to do at least one new recipe a week, though that doesn’t always work out). Even so, I still have so many recipes I’ve meant to try but just have never gotten around to, so that led me to my theme of Bookmarked Recipes of Vegan MoFo Past! This month, I’ll try 28 recipes that people have shared in previous years; I’m sure they’ll look familiar if you’ve participated in Vegan MoFo for a while, hehe!
I’ll wrap it up today’s post with a kitty picture; here’s Daisy napping in the cat tower…
Peace. :)
