This is sooooo good when it's warm and fresh!

My kitchen has been invaded by ants this week.  I find this most distressing.  All the time I’ve lived in this house, I have seen an occasional straggling insect.  This invasion goes way beyond that, though.  This week, I have found a tiny battalion working its way to the dogs’ food dishes.  I looked around for humane methods of convincing the little buggers that they should look elsewhere for food.  Chili powder, curry, and vinegar haven’t worked.  Combinations of all three haven’t worked.  The last time I tried the chili powder trick, I found them walking through it to get to the food dishes.  I have cleaned the dogs’ bowls, mopped the floor, emptied the trash daily and swept the kitchen floor every night hoping the stem the tide.  So far, I haven’t seen any more today.  Let’s hope that maybe they found someplace better to go.  I will admit that I squashed a few while trying to sweep them up, and I’m pretty sure a few were drowned in vinegar.  I will also admit that I felt absolutely no remorse over the casualties.  This is why I will most likely never be a member of PETA.  ☺

I had a couple of overripe bananas sitting around the kitchen, so I decided to make some banana bread.  In the interest of trying to be a tad healthier (and possibly drop the 5 or so pounds I’ve gained since becoming vegan—ick!!), I made some changes.  I used 1 ¼ cups of whole wheat flour, ½ cup of unbleached all purpose flour, applesauce instead of oil, only ½ cup of sugar (I figured it would be sweet enough with the applesauce and the really ripe bananas) and I added about ½ cup of chopped walnuts.  I shortened the baking time to just under an hour—about 50 minutes or so—because the bread was starting to look overcooked.  As it turns out, the bottom was still a little underbaked, but it’s edible and not too sweet.  The whole wheat flour made it kind of dense and it didn’t rise very much, but it’s really tasty and doesn’t taste as desserty as some of the other sweet breads I’ve made recently.

After reading Skinny Bitch (and skimming Sean’s copy of Skinny Bastard), I have been trying to cut down on my caffeine intake.  It sucks.  Not that I’m usually too crazy with it—I got myself down to 1, maybe 2 cups of coffee a day, and I don’t drink soda at all anymore—but I really should be drinking more water.  I drank a full glass of water with the banana that I ate for breakfast (trying out the suggestion of eating a piece of fruit for breakfast, wait a little while, and eat another piece of fruit if still hungry), but I still wanted something else.  So I made a cup of chai tea with Silk creamer and a packet of Truvia.  Truvia is a tricky substance for me in beverages:  one packet isn’t enough, and two packets are too much.  I hate having half-packets lying around, so I’m thinking I may just try to deal with my tea being less sweet.  Either way, I greatly enjoyed my chai with a slice of fresh banana bread.  You didn’t really think I wasn’t going to taste it the second it came out of the oven, did you?  *grin*

Tonight is Weight Watchers, and I’m not looking forward to seeing the scale.  I have been hovering in the same 5-pound range for months, and now I’ve completely overhauled my eating habits and gained a few pounds.  Ick…  I know it’s just a matter of finding the right balance, and I have been eating so much bread lately that I’m surprised that I haven’t gained more.  It’s still been kind of frustrating not getting to my goal weight yet, but I’m still working at it, still trying, and still keeping that goal in mind.  I really need to remember that just because it’s vegan doesn’t automatically mean that it’s healthy and low-calorie.  It’s still all about calories in versus calories burned, and unfortunately baking cupcakes doesn’t burn enough calories to justify eating three of them in a day.  I should probably start my running regimen again.  I’m turning into a lump…

Enough pouting!  At least I’ve been keeping up with my kitchen (granted, it’s mainly so deter the ants, but still—an accomplishment is an accomplishment!), and I’m thinking I should probably get the kids out of the house for a while today.  Maybe we’ll go to the Y and they can swim while I run laps.  It’s a perfect day for it, really.  Exercise time, everybody!  ☺

Yummy whole wheat bagel with herbs and seeds in it!

Thank goodness for vegan cookbooks, that’s all I can say.  So many wonderful ones out there – we have a stack of them in the kitchen – but a few of my favorites so far have to be the writing style, awesome recipies and photography of the Veganomicon and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  Visit their web-site, join the forums, buy the books – or at least check them out at the library first.  Each are extremely useful and an enjoyable read as well – not boring, for sure!

Of course, having said that, the recipe that made the bagel above isn’t from PostPunkKitchen, but so many things we’ve made this week have been.