Making malignant meat
April 2nd, 2026
My birthday came and went! No new sentiments; a few friends treated me to dinner and helped me pick up some goodies and hey, that's a day well spent I think. :]
So lately, I've been messing with seitan recipes a lot more lately in an attempt to find the easiest (yet tastiest!) forms for a good while now. For the uninitiated, seitan is a meat substitute made from vital wheat gluten, a component generally used to make bread. Anyone who eats plant-based in any capacity has likely noted how much more expensive plant substitutes are. For people willing to put in the effort (and who don't have a gluten intolerance, anyway), seitan is a gateaway into flexible, endlessly versatile meat substitutes that can capture a delightfully chewy texture.
One of the biggest walls with seitan is probably that every little ingredient matters in regards to the texture. If you're working with vital wheat gluten and just use it as-is, the end result becomes very rubbery and doughy- as unappetizing as it gets.
But y'know, I also really want to lose some weight. :')
In fun, recreational news, I was craving a retro emulation handheld with a good pocketable form factor, and after discussing with Marisa the AYN Thor, I decided while saving up for that I'd tie myself over with something smaller. The Game Boy Advance SP is one of my favorite handhelds from a visual design and feel standpoint (gotta love clamshells!), and so that informed my decision to pick up the Anbernic RG34XXSP.
Who else but Mega Man Zero! My hands have gotten a lot bigger since I last held something this small, but it still feels great to use.
It's a gorgeous and surprisingly solid-feeling little thing, with a crisp 3:2 screen that makes it perfect for Game Boy Advance games, though it can just as comfortably run anything from Atari 2600 to Dreamcast to PSX as long as you don't mind borders or stretching the screen. I like how clicky and firm the buttons feel, and the shape and size are perfect and instantly filled me with memories of my old indigo GBA. I love my Steam Deck and Switch to pieces, but they're hardly handhelds in the same way as there used to be, so it's absurdly cathartic to be able to fold out a tiny little box that fits comfortably in my pocket and play my favorite games.
I had to tinker a bit to get it going, namely installing a new OS and throwing all the games I wanted on it (for anyone else interested, you're probably going to want to replace the stock OS with something called MustardOS), but it was largely painless and before I knew it I was off to the races. If you're interested in something like this, expect to pay about $60-$90 including shipping, depending on where you get it from :]
In other such news, I'm trying to make desserts again! Something that feels woefully underrepresented for vegans is a lot of desserts I think ;; All the milk and eggs and whatnot... any commercially-available donuts and cakes, as well as things like soft cookies, are basically a no-go! My savior right now is the Insomnia Cookies that's about 10 minutes away, which is kind enough to have a non-limited selection of tasty vegan cookies. I love working in the kitchen as I've stated before, so trying to make desserts on my own and even bake a teeny bit has been an enjoyable experience that helps me scratch two itches.
First thing I wanted to do was start small and simple and reliable though, and I was craving brownies. That's right, I wanted to veganize some brownie mix.
Didn't come out too bad! Though you can see cracks in the surface where I clumsily tore it up with the thermometer.
Thankfully, it's pretty damn easy. The TL;DR for anyone else looking to know is that you replace your regular eggs with flax "eggs" (flaxseed and water!), halve the amount of oil the recipe calls for (because flax won't absorb oil like real eggs!) and then replace the halved amount with some other liquid (you can use water but I went with oatmilk; I've seen people do tea and coffee aswell!). It felt like I had to really check on them once they were in the oven because it seems like they baked at a different rate than they should have, but when they came out they were delightfully fudgy and delicious and my brother loved them, which is always a real endorsement.
Being able to reliably work with box mixes and fillings was something I wanted to be able to get down first before I got into any serious baking endeavors because sometimes you really do just want to whip something up without much thought. Just because I like being in the kitchen doesn't mean I always want to be! Amidst that I've been researching vegan baking and the many ways a recipe can differ... baking really is a science 😵 I'm further inspired by Kirakira☆PreCure, where Himari always says "Sweets are science!"
Otherwise, amidst that I've been keeping myself as conscious as I can, especially with the current state of things, and I hope everyone else is doing their best too. While I've been drawing fairly often, I'd like to write again as well, but I just haven't had the energy for any serious endeavors. This year it'll happen though, for sure.
Hey, does that count as a resolution?