homework and pumpkin bread

Tonight, I'm reading "Molecular Anatomy of the Development of the Human Substantia Nigra", "The pars reticulata of the substantia nigra: a window to the basal ganglia output" and "Differential short-term plasiticity at convergent inhibitory syapses to the substantia nigra pars reticulata". I'm also making pumpkin bread, which came out surprisingly well despite the fact that I only put in about half as much oil and twice as much pumpkin as is required by the original recipe.

Pumpkin Bread (adapted from the PPK)

1/2 cup chopped pecans
1.75 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 can pumpkin pie filling
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup soy milk

1. Preheat oven to 365 degrees F. Grease and flour a 8″ x 4″ loaf pan.
2. Toast the pecans in an ungreased skillet. Set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the pumpkin puree, oil, and soy milk, and mix until all of the flour is absorbed. Fold in toasted walnuts. pour batter into pan.
4. Bake for ~1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, and cover loaf tightly with foil. Allow to steam for 10 minutes. Remove foil, and turn out onto a cooling rack. Tent loosely with the foil, and allow to cool completely.


I should probably mention that I'm on a "I want to quit graduate school" kick right now. I'm half in love with the idea of working for a food policy NGO and being a freegan. I wish I had more time for cooking and gardening. I'm really really stressed here.

baby's first winter

My dog Heart is from Florida, and this morning she saw snow for what I presume was the first time. She FLIPPED out. She started jumping around like crazy and doing mini dashes to-and-fro. It was super funny and adorable. I wish I could have taken video. Maybe next time.

Breakfast this morning:

Pear spice oatmeal!

1/2 cup oats
3/4 cup water
1 pear, cut into smallish pieces
maple syrup to taste
cinnamon

put the oats and water together in a small sauce pan, cover, and put on medium-low heat. When it's almost absorbed all the water, add the pears while it finishes cooking. When it's done, add maple syrup and cinnamon to taste. enjoy

conflicted

I'm in a weird state. My overall level of anxiety is exceedingly high, but my happiness is not so low. I'm still not sleeping much. I'm barely able to focus on my school work. I feel pretty terribly alone. I feel panic about getting all my work done (which is a lot. And I mean, A LOT). My skin is breaking out. I'm convinced that I have a million different diseases (multiple sclerosis or lupus, definitely ADD, possibly cancer of some type), and I'm only sort of kidding. But I don't think I'm sad. Not being sad is a good thing: at least I have one less thing to panic about.

Tonight, I had a special make up session for my seminar in cell fate (self-hate. hahaha) and Brown University generously provided us all with Thai food from our class budget of $700. I had vegan pad thai (it was actually written "VEGAN Pad Thai" on the menu under a special section!!) and mango sticky rice.

uh oh.

I just found out (link starting around minute 40, other link) that non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) kill the microvilli in the small intestine, thereby reducing my body's ability to discriminate incoming nutrients (the bad ones that get thought that shouldn't prompt an immune response), putting me at greater risk for autoimmune disorders, which my family is prone to... I'm going to have to be more diligent about my stretching for my sciatica and stop taking my anaprox.

cheese is gross.

Cheese is so bad for you. Don't be fooled by advertisers/governments who tell you to eat it! Dr. Fuhrman knows where it's at.

Every now and then I wonder if I'd still like cheese if I ate it. I'm not sure I would. I've gotten to the point where vegan stuff tastes normal to me, and I can't really imagine eating something as fatty and carcinogenic as dairy (this link too). When I hear the name of a cheese I used to love, I definitely remember it as being delicious, but I very seriously question whether I could consume it again.

Dinner tonight: PIZZA!!!

1 purchased Pizza dough- whole wheat from whole foods
1/2 cup tomato pulp or stewed diced tomatoes
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
3 cloves of garlic diced
1/2 a small onion diced
2 cups chopped mushrooms (I used baby bellas)
1 bunch of spinach
salt, pepper, dried chili flakes
some flour for dusting work space

Preheat oven to 400. Roll out dough to your preferred thickness and put it in the oven to do a little precooking (crust takes longer to cook than veggies do). Saute the garlic and mushrooms together and then add the spinach to wilt it a little. Take dough out of oven. Spread tomato pulp across the crust, sprinkle with salt, pepper and chili pepper flakes. Cover with nutritional yeast, then add veggies evenly across surface. Bake for 20 minutes?

This morning I made oatmeal blueberry pancakes for me and Adrian.
Pancakes
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup oatmeal
1 tbsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup soy milk
2.5 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together the dry then add the wet. Pour onto preheated skillet. Serve with Earth Balance and maple syrup.

best thing ever

Cinnamon sugar popcorn is the best thing to happen to me since coffee this morning.

step 1- pop some popcorn on the stove
step 2- melt some earth balance (I used 1 tbsp because of the amount of popcorn I was making)
step 3- put brown sugar in melted earth balance
step 4- pour sugar/margarine over popped corn
step 5- smother with cinnamon
step 6- mix
step 8- EAT

detox fail

I have an exam tomorrow for my neuroanatomy class, and I pretty much just finished off a box of kashi autumn wheat. so much for only eating more greens. I did well for my other meals though. Lunch was a kale, watercress and avocado salad with a bit of humus and pita on the side