The almost vegan quinoa macaroni and cheese incident of January 24th.

Let me just cut through the suspense here at the beginning of this post and just say that this story doesn't end very well.  It all started with a link I saw on facebook...

As soon as I saw the recipe for quinoa mac and cheese, I was beyond excited to try it.  And by that I mean, I kept the tab open for 3 days staring longingly at it until I had the time to go to the grocery store.  I had to swap out the cheese ingredient for vegan cheese and ended up coming home with a huge hunk of bright orange "cheddar."  As I was shredding it, the only thing that came to mind was soupy playdough.  I was mega skeptical/disgusted and did a taste test.  It passed, but just barely.  Other than that though, the recipe was easy to follow and there surprisingly weren't any disasters.

Karen and Jake came over for dinner and I felt a little bad subjecting them to a) my cooking and b) gluten/dairy free questionable ingredients.  But all was well and good and nobody hated it (unless they were really good at hiding it...) and I thought it was a total success.

...Until we all started feeling like shit.  Well, Karen was fine cuz she's one of those weird creatures that can eat anything, even styrofoam, and still have the sort of functioning digestion system I could only dream of.  (I made that styrofoam part up, though).  And Jake was fine too... for a little while.  We'll get back to that.  Tucker and I, though. Man.  It felt like my insides were being obliterated by one of those magic bullet things, except without the delicious smoothie outcome.  My plan had been to go to the gym, but all I wanted to do was lay on the ground and not move for 500 years.

And then I woke up in the middle of the night around 4am and saw that Karen had called me around midnight. I remember sleepily thinking, "hmm, I hope she's okay, mmph mmmmg zzz." And it wasn't until later today that I found out Jake had had an allergic reaction and needed a ride to the hospital.  I'm still a little unclear as to what he ended up doing and I haven't heard from him today, but I'm pretty sure he's alive.  So that's good.

And there you have it.  My delicious quinoa mac n' cheese was a fail.  Maybe I'll try it again with a different kind of soy cheese? I dunno. It's gonna take a while to build up the courage and block out that traumatic experience.

Deadly.

My romantic night in with Arctic Zero

Ugh, I haven't blogged in like, six and a half decades.  AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FO' DAT.  I've been busy. And lazy. And dumpster diving sucks because my findings are always full of gluten n' crap.   So that's my little negative rant for the time being. Let's move on to the COOL STUFF.

While I was in Spain, one of the girls on the tour told me about this magical ice cream called Arctic Zero that's gluten and dairy free and is packed with protein.  The best part?  It's practically calorie-free.  150 calories for the ENTIRE pint. I was like, "yeah okay, Amber, get your head outta your butt." And she was all, "FUH REALZ-- check out Whole Foods, gurl."

So today, I had a free hour that I could've spent napping or doing homework (pftt), but instead I set out on a quest for Arctic Zero.  There were a few scary minutes in the car when the traffic moved .3 inches within 15 minutes and my CD player was stuck on a fucking Cranberries song and I thought maybe it was karmic punishment or something.

I finally got to Healthy Living, found the ice cream section and, wonder of wonders, Arctic Zero was on sale!  And there were so many awesome looking flavors; how could I choose just one? I bought cookies n' cream, mint chocolate chip, and peanut butter chocolate.  Ran into a girl I went to high school with at the cash register... she probably thinks I'm the lamest human in the world: buying 3 pints of ice cream by myself on a Friday night. I'm pathetic, I know, whatever, I've accepted it, moving on.

I held a one-person taste-test party when I got home and was a bit disappointed.  First of all, since it has a bunch of protein, it tasted like a frozen protein shake. Which makes sense, I guess. But then second of all, the worst part, there are no chunks of anything!  Hellooooo, mint chocolate chunk, why are you smooth and not chunky?  Hellooooo, cookies n' cream, where are the effing cookies, GEEZ!  It was like they literally made a protein shake and froze it into an ice cream container.  And third of all, the first ingredient listed on the pint is purified water. Like...what?

So overall, I give it a 7/10.  There are a ton of pros and it does taste decent, but I'm definitely a chunk spelunker.  Eating ice cream without digging for chunks is like... petting a sphynx cat. You can still do it, but seriously, what's the point, it's not even fuzzy.

I'll sum up this post with a Chinese proverb I found on wiki: Not only can water float a boat, it can sink it also.  Aka, water will sink your ice cream. And by sink, I mean ruin.  Water will ruin your ice cream.