General Tao's Tofu

When I was snowed in earlier this month I tried out this recipe I found on VegWeb, an awesome recipe site that's a lot like allrecipes.com but for vegans. I learned a lot from my first go-around and tried it again tonight with pretty much total success. Here's my version:

1 box extra firm tofu, frozen, defrosted and cubed
2ish tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 of a medium red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons minced ginger
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1 small can of water chestnuts
1 1/3 cups vegetable stock (I use bouillon)
3 tablespoons Braggs Liquid Aminos
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons red wine (I used Cabernet because it was around)
2 tablespoons white vinegar (I used regular white and white wine vinegars)
2 tablespoons corn starch mixed with 4 tablespoons water
steamed broccoli and asparagus

Preheat oven to 400*F. Spread cubed tofu over an oiled baking sheet and sprinkle a little Braggs over them. Cook for ~20 minutes or until the tofu has reached your desired consistency.

Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add onion, ginger, garlic, pepper and water chestnuts. Don't burn the garlic! Once the onions are becoming translucent, add the stock, Braggs, sugar, cayenne, wine and vinegar. Stir together for one minute and then add the corn starch/water mixture. Stir well and simmer for a few minutes, then add cooked tofu and reduce the heat.

Serve with steamed broccoli and asparagus over your choice of starch (we had pearled barley tonight but it was also great with brown rice) and enjoy!

crisis averted

Nothing can ruin my day quite like a "WTF AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE" crisis.
My life is so hard, right?

No, but, that's the thing - when I start to freak out a little bit about The Impending Future and how confusing it is to try and figure out who you are and what you want and how to get it so that the next chapter of life is maybe a little bit better than this one, I then subsequently let my nervous panic overtake me which THEN leads me to feel incredibly selfish. This is the rough part of my life? Seriously? Oh, woe is me, so many choices. So then I feel bad about myself. But then I don't make any decisions and it's this gross vicious cycle!

Luckily today, in the middle of drafting an email requesting a letter of recommendation from some mentors and peers I stopped and took a step back to reconsider what I was working towards and how much sense it really made. I needed some help sorting out my worries and like an angel, Becky conversed with me for TWO HOURS on the phone and let me talk it all out. I can't sing her praises enough - she got me though college, was my partner in anti-genocide activism, ran away with me to Tanzania and has just seen me through some pretty awesome and pretty terrible times. She's a genius with a modest demeanor and gentle soul. She knows how to talk me off the ledge, which she did today.

This is Becky and I in a photo project KEW did our sophomore year of college.

In the midst of all this angst and self-loathing I skipped a conference I was supposed to go to today which was silly and irresponsible. I've been seeing on Twitter and Gmail that I missed a pretty awesome day, bummer. They're having another day tomorrow, so I'm going to try and get my ass out of bed for that in the morning. The one good thing that did come out of not going was that I was able to spend my evening with my new friend Lindsey. She also went to IU and we had some similar friends and went to some of the same parties but we never hung out until January. Tonight we cooked our second meal together from this AMAZING vegan cookbook she found at the library. The meals are very involved and time-consuming but we just spend that time getting to know each other and having some good laughs. And we are definitely 2 for 2 on the BALLIN' food - the hard work really pays off. It was seriously the best thing I could have done after having this really gross day that involved me thinking primarily negative thoughts because it's impossible to not have a good time with Lindsey.

Bottom line: I don't know what life after AC is going to look like but I do know that I'm going to have some quality folks around each step of the way. What more could a girl ask for? Amen.

Oh, hey February!

I'm sorry that I left this blog on such a negative note. I'm not having the worst time ever, but it has been a rough couple of weeks at my placement. I feel like I hit the bottom a week ago when I ended up in tears in my coordinator's office. I think my biggest challenge has been that I don't feel like I really have an ally or even a mentor in this whole thing. I want this to be a stepping stone towards something, you know? And I have been feeling skeptical about that being the reality. I'm three months in -- that's a quarter of the way through my term! Things should not be this bad!

With all that said, this week has actually been a little bit better. I'm coordinating an after-hours nutrition class for March (National Nutrition Month!) that will include a meal - food will hopefully bring people in. If it goes well, we're going to continue to hold classes, hopefully some a little more focused on certain populations, like possibly something re: diabetes management, hopefully something on GROWING healthy food, something kid-focused, etc. So, hey, keep your fingers crossed for me there.

I'm also attempting to assist our community outreach director in her part of putting together a health fair in April. I'm currently recruiting some nutrition/hunger-fighting/food access/etc. people to come out to talk to people not only about the importance of eating well, but how to make eating well a possibility for them and their families. Noticing a trend? I'm becoming more interested in nutrition & food justice and trying to pursue that interest within this position. We'll see how this all comes together.

Related to this, Michelle Obama recently launched her Let's Move campaign against childhood obesity (in her launch speech she said "food desert"!) and is tackling a lot of issues around nutrition, including school lunches. I recently learned that nearly half the population of DC school children qualify for free lunch (with another ~30% qualifying for reduced lunch) and after reading this six-part series looking inside the kitchen of a DC school kitchen, I was left pretty uneasy. Keeping things centered around children could be a good idea - parents want their kids to be healthy, right? Mamas and papas might be more inclined to take a second glance at a bag of apples if they knew it could help prevent disease in babies as opposed to just thinking about themselves, no? I'm processing all of this information and trying to think about how I can create something within my clinic to contribute to Let's Move or at least something like it. My first step was to request a TON of materials from mypyramid.gov, many of which are kid-centric, to put up and around the clinic.

I've been dreaming a little bit about how to start a vegetable garden at our facility and have some families work and eat in it. This is the first summer I will ever spend outside of Indiana and away from my dad's veggies. My heart, trapped in the frozen post-snowpacalyptic tundra, breaks at this realization. So in addition to wanting to help my community be healthier, I selfishly want to get my hands in the dirt and get some AC hours for it.

In addition to these things, I'm also tackling a big, long term quality improvement project to shorten the cycle time (time spent from the moment a patient walks in to the time they walk out) which currently averages 2.5 hours but on busy days is much, much more. The other day, trying to help things go a bit faster up front, a man yelled at me and asked if this was a f**king third-world country. Gosh, if that doesn't say something about health care, what does, right?

Life outside of work is going well. I'm in a new book club and have become the de facto leader, which I somehow tend to do in social situations. I'm working on some solid friendships with other AC-ers, roommates and fellow Hoosiers who are in DC. I'm a killer vegan (oxymoron?) and have made some ballin' food in the last few weeks. The snow storm helped with that! I've also been good at being active, walking more, going to the gym, etc. We're doing a Biggest Loser competition at work and I'm not trying to toot my own horn... but I've lost 10 pounds in the last 6 weeks. I've been working on being well and I feel good about the progress I've made.

My next outside-of-work mission: start looking for a post-AC job. Ahhhhh!