rival food sites

http://www.cookingwithcoupons.com/

I was just informed of this website by a friend and thought I would share it with the What We Eat Is Laughable team and readers. I read through it for a bit and I really like it. The concept is great, the food looks delicious, it looks nice, and it's easy to navigate. Thanks Nicole!

Are You Daring Enough for the Vegan McPizza?

Many of your distinguished palates are probably familiar with the McPizza. This is when a pizza is covered with Mickey Dees cheeseburgers, french fries, and chicken nuggets:

Or perhaps you have made your own concoction of fast food on a pie goodness. I know a favorite during my college years was the Taco Bell pizza:

Either way, being vegan I have always missed on this gluttonous side show, and for someone who likes junk food so much, it's been a sad hole in my diet. Luckily, there is this guy out in the world who was also pretty into this concept, but unlike me, he didn't let his diet stand in the way of making this priceless meal. With the help of two of the cutest vegan children I've ever seen he was able to craft one delicious looking pile of vegan junk food.

He describes the vegan McPizza as being, "very filling...it will only take a piece, maybe two, to fill you up…and I mean fill. I daringly went for two pieces…a half burger, half fry and a half burger, half nugget...I was stuffed." He goes on to give it more than favorable reviews, and to me, it sounds like maybe this could qualify for more than just junk food? Maybe... "The flavors were all actually quite good. The tomato sauce and cheese go well with all 3 toppings by themselves…chicken parmesan, cheese fries w/ marinara dipping sauce, a pizza burger. But all combined on a pizza…Vegan McMagic!"

To read more about the making of a vegan McPizza check out this post he wrote for the blog/website he shares with his wife called Ste Martaen. This is an excellent down to earth, welcoming vegan site. Plus, they sell what looks like awesome Vegan Gourmet Cheese. I haven't attempted to purchase it yet (online shopping intimidates me), but it's tempting. Please check it out for great recipes, thoughts on healthy eating, and of course fresh cheese!

Things I Do When the Boyfriend Is Gone

I love to cut corners, especially when it comes to meals. I hate the longevity of prep, cooking, and then cleaning up. I usually try to cram all the steps together in some explosive way that I usually regret later. I make a hobby of this mostly when the live in boyfriend is out. He doesn't consider throwing salad dressing into the bag of mixed greens a viable option, and he's not impressed when I eat peanut butter straight from the jar for lunch. He's really into cooking whole, healthy, and delicious meals and then putting them on a plate. The plate part is important, it took me a year to get him to eat Chinese food out of the take out box with me.

I really love that he makes all the meals because a) it's very thoughtful and b) I don't have to do shit, except eat his wonderful cooking...giving me more time to write about, uh, food. See it's not that I don't want yummy meals, it's just difficult to make them when you live in Lazytown USA. So when he goes places and leaves me to my own devices I blithely do lots of lazy things around the kitchen that I know would make him cringe. I leave the fridge door open while I use stuff, I stick the same knife into multiple condiment jars, I eat things cold with out cooking them, I eat ice cream for dinner if we don't have food, and I stack dishes up on the floor in front of the couch after I eat off of them, that is if I even use a dish. I try to avoid that as much as possible. Recently I've indulged in just eating whatever right off the cutting board, why dirty more stuff?

Then if a dish is dirty, I try my hardest to get someone else to deal with it before I just pull it together and toss it in the sink.

I know, I'm a total maverick. And now, I'm off to eat hashbrowns and cereal for breakfast. Yes, I will be eating those shredded potatoes right out of the pan...

For Shame...

I am a terrible person.

Well, I feel terrible at least. Here's the deal: I've been working on a big project at work for the last 2-3 weeks and it's required me to be in the office almost every day. My office is 100 miles from my house, so I usually get to work from home 2-3 days a week. Just not these weeks. 200 miles of commute means I have to pack life in around the edges, so I don't have time to cook, and I don't have time for meals at fancy restaurants. Most of my meals have been handed to me through my car window for most of the month, and it's finally beginning to take its toll.

I have explored pretty much every I-70 exit's food possibilities between Columbus and Dayton. Tim Horton's on Hilliard-Rome Road (just past the west outerbelt in Franklin County) is great for the Bagel B.E.L.T. sandwich and a cup of coffee in the morning. The McDonald's on US42 in London consistently forgets my hash browns. There's a Hardee's in Springfield that has almost made my heart stop. The Burger King in Huber Heights has the worst fries I've ever tasted. The Wendy's on Hoke Rd. in Englewood has actually handed me an entire bag of food that was *almost* what I ordered. But I keep going back to these places (and all the other fast-food joints that litter the landscape) because my work life is encroaching heavily on my social life.

Hopefully things will return to normal soon. I feel awful. My liver is begging me for forgiveness. I respond by drowning it with alcohol once I get back to Columbus. I have probably consumed enough sodium in the last year from eating fast food to last me for the next decade. Not to mention that I am not as svelte as I once was as a young man.

I should probably go on a diet of shredded newspapers and wasabi to counteract this egregious sin I've committed against my body, but I think I'll settle for another Beef & Cheddar with curly fries and admit that the situation is hopeless as long as I live like a nomad.

The Birth of a Blog: From Lowly Status Update to Mass Consumption

Sitting in front of my computer some morning last week, I was feeling some pressure to update my stale Facebook status. Having been in the work trenches all day, the only thing I could think to talk about was the deliciousness of the Trader Joe's soy yogurt I was devouring at that moment. It was everything I wanted at the end of a shit morning; with little bits of peach it had the exact texture and taste of dairy yogurt and was shocking in it's absolute perfection. It made me wonder why the Whole Foods brand I had got a few weeks ago could only muster an old vegetable taste. It gave the impression of dairy yogurt only in that if it hadn't been soy, I would have sworn it had curdled.

Updating my status to reflect this fact, I hadn't expected much of a response, but in only a few hours it had more garnered more comments than any actual update about my life. The next day I wrote about trying to make breakfast out of tortillas and peanut butter (due to a constant lack of funds for more meal-like prospects), and it got even more comments. It was at this point my friends and I decided that there needed to be more accessible writing about food we actually consume, that being waffles, novelty candy, booze, and philly chesse steaks (of the soy and meat/dairy variety). We are also pretty into concocting dishes, and planning theme dinner parties, so we figured an amalgamation of all of these things would make for pretty sweet reading. Have a taste, we know you'll agree.