The Cute Animal Pics/Videos Thread

[Carol the Dabbler]

But you would find eggs in the strangest places in your flat. Or even worse: you would NOT find them soon enough. :P

 

Not to worry -- the chicken's name is James.  Presumably not a big egg-layer.

[Arcadia]

It's not the eggs I would be worried about..... can a chicken be trained to use a litter box?

[J.P.]

Oh, so you never have had forgotten an egg in a dark corner of your freezer? And then broken it?

 

James, despite the name, looks like a hen to me. There was a cowboy named Sue, so it's possible... :D

[Arcadia]

Nope, my freezer has no dark corners. :p Accidentally left one in a pot of boiling water once, though. All the water boiled away, the egg kept cooking. I was downstairs and heard this funny little pop, went up to look -- the egg had exploded all over the kitchen. That was fun.

 

I think James looks like a hen too. Not that there's anything wrong with that..... :d

[J.P.]

That was an olfactory experience of my life. And it was far beyond the so called "bad egg smell".

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe James is merely a late bloomer?

[Van Buren Supernova]

Oh, so you never have had forgotten an egg in a dark corner of your freezer? And then broken it?

 

Freezer? Why would you let your chicken walk in the freezer? Or stay there? Or lay eggs there? Or put the egg in the freezer?

 

Nope, my freezer has no dark corners. :p Accidentally left one in a pot of boiling water once, though. All the water boiled away, the egg kept cooking. I was downstairs and heard this funny little pop, went up to look -- the egg had exploded all over the kitchen. That was fun.

How could you 'accidentally' left an egg while boiling water, or did you originally want to boil an egg?

 

Or we have different kind of freezer? The only freezer I have is the top part of the fridge where I make ice and keep meat (not eggs! :p) I don't have big freezer where chicken can walk around with dark corners. :p

 

I really like this one, I think I screencap it somewhere from Buzzfeed.

[J.P.]

Dang! I meant FRIDGE!

[Arcadia]

No dark corners in my fridge, either. :p But there is room for a chicken.

 

Yes, I was boiling an egg for my breakfast. Went downstairs and forgot all about it. I kept finding egg bits in remote corners for days. Blew one up in the microwave once too, because I forgot to poke it with a fork first. (Yes, yes, the shell was off. Geez. :p )

 

Eggs are fun! When I eat a hard-boiled egg, I like to challenge myself to get the shell off as intact as possible. And then mash it up into as many bits as I can afterwards. Never a dull moment when eggs are around.....

[Bluebell]

Good that I am vegan, so no eggs or chickens can be forgotten anywhere XD ...

 

Here's a new guinea pig video by Chan, this time he's filmed his guinea pigs eating in slow motion - it's so cute!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmnMfqoTKPw

[Carol the Dabbler]

Speaking of forgetting food items that proceed to rot and explode, somebody apparently left a can of frozen orange-juice concentrate out of the freezer (yes, freezer!) in our basement. Heaven knows how long it sat there. One day we were all sitting around upstairs, and BLOOEY!!! We investigated and discovered that the basement had been sprayed with what smelled like orange sauerkraut. 

So being a vegan does not afford total protection. (Though I do believe spoilt meat is about the worst -- at least a close second to rotten egg -- so I'm happy to be a vegetarian).

[Bluebell]

Really? Wow, sounds disgusting - I didn't know orange juice/liquids in cans can do that, too! I only know when you have beer in a glass bottle, and you put it in a freezer so it will  cool faster when you want to drink it soon, and then when you forget it, it will explode...luckily never happened to me because I usually remember the beer :D , but a friend told me.

[Arcadia]

Whenever I hear vegetarian/vegan, I always remember John Denver on the Tonight Show, regretfully admitting he'd like to be one but isn't, because "it's so hard to pass up a good taco."  That's been my mantra for years. :D I admire vegetarians, but I'm weak.....

[Caya]

There's a German comedian, Fee Badenius, who's written a song to that effect (I'd link it, but, well, German) called FleischEssLust (a wordplay on lecherousness that, with one letter added, means desire to eat meat), and it's so very true. Best line imo, "Ich wär so gern so lieb zu allen Tieren, aber warum hat Gott sie so lecker gemacht ..." (I would love to be nice to all animals, but why did God make them so tasty?) :lol:

 

[Bluebell]

Hahahaha, the poor cat.... ;)

 

Actually, it's been real easy to go vegetarian for me, because due to all the products that can replace meat, which you get nowadays in almost every country. I noticed that when you spice up something like tofu the same as meat, it really makes not much a difference. Also a good thing - the wheat and soy stuff, etc makes you sooner full than an animal product, that is my experience. While I had to eat usually about 5 sausages to get my stomach full, it's now like 2-3 is more than enough. :D I am admittedly a fast food fan, so now I can eat hot dogs and pizza and burgers and all the lovely stuff without killing a single animal. And there's way more than tofu - for example I know a burger stand that makes burger patties from black beans, and they are the best burgers EVER! *Nomnom*

The full vegan thing is a bit of a different deal because despite the development towards vegan and vegetarian and organic food you still don't get vegan cheese, egg- and milk products in every supermarket, while already all the discounters now have stuff like tofu and soy milk around here. (and besides that, not every vegan cheese is delicious, you have to really try out to find the ones that are real good!) So, there's no problem buying no milk but surrogate products in a discounter, but for milk products and egg-surrogates you mostly still have to go in a special vegan or at least organic shop, or well-sorted supermarkets...also my mom is not vegetarian, so when she bakes or cooks, I can not get all entirely vegan. She tries to support my vegan food and lifestyle, which I honour with not complaining about every cake than has eggs in it or something. ;) I just eat absolutely no meat.

So basically, I put not much pressure on myself or anyone, but I occasionally try explain to people next to me why it's better and even important to live vegan, and living as vegan as possible without limitation. I think that's the way to get eventually to it than put kind of a pressure to yourself  and make a big drama about every single non-vegan food offered (because if I would do that, I would feel like I would live on a diet to reduce weight or crap like that, and that is something that ruins basically everything!) or the people you eat with. ;)

[Arcadia]

I do like those black-bean patties. Don't taste a bit like meat, but yummy nevertheless. Tofu, on the other hand ...

 

I used to eat a lot less meat, but her doctor wants my elderly mum to have more animal protein, and I'm not about to cook two separate meals. And I have to admit, I do feel like I have more energy now that I have more meat in my diet. I know some people aren't bothered by switching to protein substitutes, but I seem to notice the difference. :( Still, even now I don't eat as much meat as when I was a kid, especially not red meat.

[Van Buren Supernova]

You can beat me up, I really don't like those mock meat (tofu 'meat' for vegetarian). We call it mock meat here. My mom is an ovo-lacto vegetarian, so sometimes I tried the meat a couple of times.

 

I think I can give up red meat if needed to but I love seafood... prawn especially.

 

[T.o.b.y]

I think vegetarian is easy, but vegan is damn hard.

 

My mother is vegetarian, so I grew up in a meatless household. Until I met my boyfriend (now husband), I didn't even know how to prepare meat. When it was a new thing for me, I went through a phase where I really liked it, but it never agreed with me very well and now I find myself developing more and more of an aversion to it. I do love fish, though, and other seafood. I guess I have some like once a month or every two months - basically whenever I eat out. It's like a special occasion thing for me. I don't refuse meat when it is offered to me as a guest. Like if my in-laws make a stew and it has bits of meat in it, I don't say anything.

 

I eat vegetarian at home and I use almond milk instead of cows milk (because I don't like real milk and it goes bad too fast). What I haven't found a good replacement for is yogurt and quark. The soy versions are... weird, to put it mildly. Also, how do you replace eggs? Not that I like eggs much, but you do need them for baking sometimes.

 

Some of our friends are vegan and I can cook vegan meals, no problem. But living vegan, including no leather products, no honey, etc.? That's quite a challenge and I admire anybody who manages to do it. I have huge respect for vegans.

[Bluebell]

Yeah, not everybody likes the soy or generally mock meat, even some vegans don't. ;) But for me as someone who once liked all that meaty fast food stuff it's a blessing, because I don't need to forget about eating that + it's cruelty - free. Tofu ist not always tofu as I had to taste several times, there's tofu that tastes like old socks or something, haha...yuck! :P

But recently I found tofu that exactly tastes like ham for example, it's called 'black forest tofu' and you can put it as alternative in anything that used to be prepared with ham.

Egg-replacement is an interesting thing - there's some sort of powder-mix that you can buy which you can use in baking, just like soy flour and mineral water. It's very easy to bake and cook when you just need to mix the eggs in the meal. The biggest problem that I have is, how prepare a meal like spinach and eggs?

Scrambled eggs is something you can make quite easily with silk tofu, there are various recipes.

And when I am really absolutely finding no alternative to eggs and I eventually need a real egg, I look for the ones that are made from farms that have like 'oldfashioned' way to have chickens. There is for example a little farm in Brandenburg that respects the nature of the chickens, and they also take the male chickens and raise them for 'later use' and don't put them in shred machines like the industrial food industry does.

This is the project 'ei care', which is a wordplay, it means 'Egg Care', but the german 'ei' is spoken like the english 'I'. ;)

http://www.aktion-ei-care.de/eicare-startseite.html

 

My mom does not use milk often, because she does generally not like milk, but she still eats yoghurt and stuff. The quark alternative is also something that needs development, there's some soy products that can be used, but the whole thing is still mostly too sweet so I mix vegan mayonnaise in it to make it more 'yoghurt'-like...but I am still waiting for the 'perfect alternative', too.

Those things I know because I read a lot and google recipes for vegan ways to make food, have cookbooks, and exchange things with other people. In the rabbitforum where I am for example there's a thread only for people who exchange tips and recipes all vegan. It's all a bit of effort and research (by the way there's even vegan fish sticks and stuff already - and I am one who always loved seafood, too... :D Not all of the replacements are good, but some make it really easy), but once you get the hang on it, it's not difficult anymore. I have the huge advantage to live in a big city and a district that has loads of vegan restaurants and shops already, so of course the change from carnivore to vegan makes things way easier than living in the countryside. But I see also here where my mum lives, that supermarkets develop as well. It's a slow change, so if you want it really, you can do it. ;) The main thing is - it's not a weight-reducing diet, no pressure when you can't make everything perfect!

[Arcadia]

I eat vegetarian at home and I use almond milk instead of cows milk (because I don't like real milk and it goes bad too fast). What I haven't found a good replacement for is yogurt and quark. The soy versions are... weird, to put it mildly. Also, how do you replace eggs? Not that I like eggs much, but you do need them for baking sometimes.

Toby, I've seen a few suggestions for replacing eggs in baking, and a quick search turned up several websites with lists of egg substitutes, such as this one: https://happyherbivore.com/2011/09/replacing-eggs-baking-vegan/. If you really want to eliminate eggs, you might want to take a look.

 

The only one I've tried is applesauce in a cake, and the flavor was fine but the texture was all off. But it's all an acquired taste anyway, imo!

[Van Buren Supernova]

Cake without eggs? :(

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I do like those black-bean patties. Don't taste a bit like meat, but yummy nevertheless. Tofu, on the other hand ...

 

I don't do well eating tofu very often.  Once a week I can handle a modest serving, but more often than that, I get all sluggish.  And I avoid soy-meat like the plague, because for a few hours afterward I'll seem clinically depressed.  It's not quite as bad now that I know what's causing it (and that it'll pass soon), but still.  I do love those black-bean burgers -- but all too many places list them on the menu and then actually serve a soy burger with a few black beans embedded in it!

 

I can't drink cow milk due to an allergy, so I drink goat milk.  Don't much care for veggie milks (other than homemade almond), and the storebought ones have way too much junk in them.

 

... how do you replace eggs? Not that I like eggs much, but you do need them for baking sometimes.

 

Have you tried flax gel?  It's easy to make fresh at home.  At one point, I rarely bought eggs, so I kept a bag of whole flax seed in the freezer.  I'd grind some up real fine and keep that in a jar in the freezer as well.  Then when I wanted to bake something that called for eggs, I'd mix some (sorry, I can't seem to find the precise proportions right now -- hopefully it's in the link that Arcadia posted) with water and let it sit till it got good & gooey, then use it just like an egg.  I had also tried the packaged powder, but I liked the flax gel much better.

[Bluebell]

How about Seitan?

 

Check this out, Hobbit cats get some cool toys:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X3WnHOEkX8

[Carol the Dabbler]

How about Seitan?

 

I'm not real sure how well I get along with gluten, and seitan is basically 99.9% gluten with some added flavoring.  So I don't eat it regularly.

 

Speaking of alternatives, I do get on tempeh kicks now and then.  In fact, I've been looking up recipes lately, so there may be another kick coming on.

[Van Buren Supernova]

There was a shortage of eggs before in a place I stayed because of Avian flu in source country. It was quite hellish days, the way I feel super irritated when my order of Sausage McMuffin with egg to go comes without egg.(It happened to me at least 30% and I hardly eat McD)