The Almost Vegan Project

Meet me elsewhere...

2011-04-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

With this blog, I set out to try once again a vegan diet. I wasn't committed to a fully vegan diet, and I went back and forth on whether I even wanted to try to get all the way there. I did finally transition to the full diet eventually, after reading Eating Animals, but I wasn't satisfied, and now I am back to where I started. By that, I mean where I started this project, not back to the fully Standard American Diet I was following before I started this blog, but it still means I am starting to feel this idea of a project is over.

I am not done talking about food, but I want to talk about other things, too, and I want to do it all at the same place. Therefore, I am moving my active blogging over to my more generic blog, Susan's Musings. I'll still be talking about food, and I will still talk a lot about books, which is what I mainly did over there before now, but I want to write about other things that interest me, too, and get a good writing habit going. My kids asked me recently what I wanted to be when I grew up, way back in the dark ages when I was a kid. Without hesitation, I said I had wanted to be a writer, and they said, "You could still do that, now." They are so right.

Kids in the Kitchen

2011-03-31T09:43:00.000-07:00

My daughter started middle school this past year. I went through parochial schools myself, with a K-8 elementary school followed by a traditional four year high school, and was not used to the idea of middle school. It seemed a bit scary to me, but she seems to be enjoying it, and she wasn’t nearly as worried about it as I was. One of the things she was really excited about was the chance to take two electives. Full year Spanish was a given (she loves Spanish), but then there were many choices for the other elective. I could see her choosing most of the choices (drama, art, chorus, orchestra, etc.), so we were glad to see that she could do shorter classes and take three choices over the year. I was surprised at her choices, though: Drama, FACS (Family and Consumer Science), and Shop. FACS and shop? These were not even options at my extremely small elementary school. We did English (which they now call Communication Arts, another weird thing for me), Math, Science, Social Studies, Religion, P.E, and once per week, Music and Art. My high school was all girls, college preparatory, and very small again, so the electives were limited to arts, advanced languages, or additional science type classes.

The feminist in me was pleased to see that my daughter signed up for both FACS and Shop. No feminine limitations on that girl! But, since I know how much she wants to attend college, and her insistence, so far, on an Ivy League school (“I want to go to Harvard, like our president”), her great enthusiasm for these classes is a bit disconcerting to me.

“Did you know that in high school, you can take semester long FACS classes? Sewing, or cooking or child development,” she told me excitedly soon after the second trimester began. No, I didn’t know, but surely she wouldn’t want to take these classes in high school! I suppose it makes sense in a way—she is a smart girl; her academic classes often seem very easy to her, and these classes are challenging in a different way. Other than the cooking section, where they made things that she had already made at home many times (pizza, cookies, scrambled eggs, tacos), she was actually picking up some new skills she hadn’t practiced before. Still, she could get all of these skills outside of school, and save her school time for more challenging coursework, coursework that will look good on a transcript being sent along with a college application. So, I told her that she could take a semester long FACS class in eighth grade, but no high school classes, and we would look into doing some of these things at home.

The easiest thing to implement was the cooking. I have done real cooking all of her life, so she is not a stranger to concepts like menu planning, grocery lists, and planning out your cooking tasks, but this has been very much on the edges of her awareness until now. She was a somewhat active participant in the menu planning, as I asked her and her brother what they would like me to make during the week, but mostly she was just aware that I was doing the planning. Now, though, she is responsible for dinner on Thursday nights. I consult her on the menu, reminding her to include plenty of veggies, and have her look in the pantry to see which ingredients we have, and which we need to buy for her dishes. Before she starts cooking, we go over everything and discuss the order that she should do the work. Sometimes I do step in and remind her to do certain things, or help her with the vegetable chopping, but as time goes on, I have to do less and less of that. She is still working on the concept of having everything ready at the same time, even with my reminders, but there is no substitute for experience in learning this sort of thing. She just needs to keep doing it until it becomes more natural to her.

The boy has been helping in the kitchen more, too. At 8, he is still too young to be cooking entire meals on his own, but he seems to like helping with the cooking, so I am encouraging him in that. He is very excited that I am letting him do some chopping. So far I am only letting him cut up soft things (no carrot slices or onion chopping), but it is all exciting to him. He is proud to be trusted with a knife, even if I am watching him closely, and I figure he’ll never learn how to use a knife safely if he doesn’t get to practice. I have him taste the food with me and judge the seasoning levels. It is so cute to see how seriously he takes this! He takes a bite and holds it in his mouth thoughtfully, usually pronouncing it could use a bit more spice. He even helped me make a Dijon mustard sauce, tasting and expressing an opinion, despite the fact that he did not use the sauce on his own dinner. “I like it,” he said, “but I want plain mustard tonight.” He is an adventurous eater already, but he is even more likely to try unusual things when he helps me cook them.

All in all, this is such a great idea, I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier. Well, I do know—the girl wasn’t interested, and it is easier to just get in there and get it done. However, I know adults who were never allowed in the kitchen while their mothers cooked when they were children, and they are completely helpless now. They can barely feed themselves the most basic foods, and certainly cannot put together balanced meals for a week. Like all skills, cooking takes practice. I feel good about doing my part to make sure my children grow up to be self-sufficient adults who don’t rely on fast food and heat and serve convenience foods for most of their meals. We do occasionally use the convenience foods, because some nights are just that hectic (or I am totally not in the mood!), but most of our meals start with whole food ingredients, and I want my children to learn how to do that when they are on their own, too.

Not Really Vegan, Again

2011-03-07T12:50:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about absolutism, community, and perfection lately. This applies to many things, but most pertinently here, it applies to my diet and the diet I feed my family. On the one hand, there is the horrible, cruel factory farming/livestock industry, plus all the health issues associated with the consumption of animal products, not to mention the allure of a sub-culture. Who doesn’t want to be a part of a club, especially when you really do agree with club members? On the other hand, there is the isolation of disagreeing with so many people that take an absolute stance as an affront, and the difficulty of social occasions, plus the risk of what my Catholic background calls the error of scrupulosity: focusing so much on the details that you forget the big picture, why you are doing what you do.

I have gone back and forth between strict veganism and a nearly totally Standard American Diet all of my adult years. The fact that I am allergic to cow’s milk has always made vegan choices safer for me anyway, and I do feel better when I don’t eat meat. The main thing that draws me out of a vegan diet and straight back into a standard diet is the community aspect, or what I have called the problem of eating at other people’s houses (and restaurants, come to that). I would slip out of my vegan diet for a meal or two, and then feel so guilty about abandoning my principles that I would just dive back in to the standard diet, not making any effort to moderate the health or humane-ness of my food choices. It was all or nothing—if I couldn’t be a real vegan, why even try? I would still make the occasional meatless meal with a recipe I particularly enjoyed, but I would eat lots of meat, buy my eggs from the grocery store, and even eat the occasional dairy product, although I knew I would pay for it later due to my allergy.

Lately, I have been trying veganism all the way once again, and once again, it really isn’t working for me. My kids are used to me being all about the vegetables and healthy foods, but they aren’t vegetarians, and they have been missing what I had cut out. They like fish and eggs and goat cheese. The like several of the vegan dishes that I make, but they missed the other things. Truth to tell, so did I. So, I am backing off the full vegan thing again, but this time I am doing it more thoughtfully. I am thinking about my reasons for my diet choices, and what I am going to keep from the vegan experiment, and what I am going to get rid of.

I really like that being a vegan helped me to focus on eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. Not all vegans or vegetarians do this, actually, but I had health benefits as one of my major motivators, so I really make the effort to include as many fruits and vegetables in my diet as possible. There is no reason this needs to change because I am adding in a few more animal products, we will still be eating a lot of produce.

The environmental benefits of eating low on the food chain were a big benefit of veganism for me. It started out as a nice little extra, and moved into greater focus as I started thinking about environmental issues in general more and more. My backyard garden was a great way to address both the desire to get more fresh produce in my diet and the environmental impacts. There is nothing that reduces food impact like being able to go out your back door and pick dinner ingredients. I have had the garden for two years now, and I am loving it! The first year I didn’t use as much as I could, and I still bought a lot of supplemental produce, but the second year I used a lot more of what I grew. I feel so good about what I did last summer that this year I am doubling the size of the garden, and moving my herbs up to a dedicated herb garden by my patio. I am also planting more fruit trees (fig and peach this year, and maybe apple and plum next year), and I am planning to learn to can my output. I am very excited about this! Again, there is no reason that this will not continue, and continue to grow in impact in my diet, no matter what else I eat.

The biggest reason I went to the stricter diet this most recent time was animal cruelty. I still hate what animals go through to give us meat or eggs or dairy, but I am just not there yet on completely abandoning the animal products. I did find several places where I can get eggs from chickens that are truly free-range, which makes me feel much better about that. When I read Eating Animals, Foer decided to forego the truly free-range chickens, because he believes driving down the total demand for eggs would reduce the factory chicken farms more effectively. At first, this made a lot of sense to me, and in some ways it still does, but on thinking further, I find that I want to encourage the people who do raise chickens humanely by showing that there is a market for that. The thing is, I am finding a local source for my eggs, and that takes me outside of the industrial farming system, which I like.

In fact, a lot of the things that I like about the vegan diet—the environmental benefits and anti cruelty aspects especially, but the health benefits to some extent, too—are also benefited by moving to a more local economy. I like to support my local community as much as possible in everything, not just food, but it is nice to see how it fits into my diet as well. By growing a lot of my own food in my yard and supplementing as much as possible with foods from local farmers, I reap environmental benefits from the reduced travelling of my food, I reduce animal cruelty by buying from small farmers who treat their animals well, and I get the health benefits from food that is very fresh. Plus, I support my local community rather than some rich corporation.

Part of me feels very good about all of this, and like I am continuing to live my life in a way that supports principles that I feel strongly about. Part of me feels like this is all a cop out, and if I really cared, I would be 100% vegan all the time. However, I need to be realistic about what I want to do, and what I can do, and not beat myself up for not being perfect. So many times, we think of issues in extremes, as if any decision is all or nothing, and that there are no benefits to going partway. I don’t think this is a healthy way to approach life, though. Eating vegan 75% of the time and being conscious about finding more humane sources for the animal products I do eat reduces animal cruelty quite a bit over eating a standard diet. Similarly, sourcing my foods locally as much as possible and eating fewer animal products (and less of them) reduces my environmental impacts, even if I keep buying oranges and coffee and avocadoes and other produce that won’t grow locally, and continue to eat some animal products.

Forgiving myself for not being perfect is a healthier way to live, and one that allows me to continue to do a lot to promote local economies, animal welfare, the good of the environment and good health without the danger that I will give it all up as being too difficult. American culture has a strong puritan streak that often causes us to view large sacrifices as good for us, and people who cannot make those sacrifices (especially if they just don’t want to) as weak. I do agree that self-discipline and training myself to do without everything that I want right when I want it is important for a healthy lifestyle in so many ways. At the same time, making myself miserable by trying to make such sacrifices permanent isn’t healthy either, and just sets me up for failure. For me, being a strict vegan is too much self-flagellation. I know, that is a strong word, and it definitely does not apply to all vegans. Many people are perfectly happy to be vegans, and I say more power to them. But that isn’t true for me, and I don’t think it makes me any crueler or less dedicated to the environment or my health than people who go all the way. I’d even go so far as to say that if a majority of people changed their eating habits to be more like mine—with a big reduction in animal products (even if they ate meat other than fish, which I don't plan to do), and an attempt to eat locally whenever possible—a lot of the problems with our modern food production systems would be reduced, if not eliminated, without people having to entirely give up the things that they enjoy. It seems to me to be a much more sustainable choice for society as a whole, and one that I can feel good about supporting.

Getting back to the point about community, I have been writing this post for over a week now. Part of the reason for that is that I wanted to think this through thoroughly, and really articulate what I am thinking. Part of it, though, is that I strongly suspect that many people who look at this blog for vegan ideas will consider this a total copout. I feel like I am totally on the edge of the vegan community, and this won’t help. I know that I do not participate in vegan groups as much as some, because I have many other interests that take up my very limited online time, too. But I do love reading the vegan blogs and talking to the people I have met online through veganism. I suspect that I am writing this blog mostly for myself anyway; although sitemeter tells me that I get a steady stream of visitors, most of them seem to be looking for a vegan African peanut stew recipe or vegan camping ideas. So, this won’t likely change much, and all the people I like to read seem like nice people who won’t care anyway. This probably gets back to my feelings about perfectionism more than anything.

A short menu

2011-02-21T08:56:00.000-08:00

I am only planning for 4 days this week, because the kids will be at their dad's this coming weekend. Plus, I will find out what my raise is going to be on Friday, and I am hoping I will have cause to celebrate!

Monday: Chickpea Cutlets, Dijon mustard sauce, buttered potatoes, steamed broccoli

Tuesday: Spicy Peanut and Eggplant Soup, from Veganomicon, brown rice, pineapple

Wednesday: Chili Pasta, pineapple, butternut squash soup

Thursday: Beanie Weenies (from McDougall's Quick and Easy Cookbook), steamed broccoli/carrots/snap peas, strawberries

This past week, I actually went out to eat one night while the kids were at their dad's, and found that I don't enjoy it as much as I used to. I still like eating out with friends, but I used to love eating out by myself, reading, enjoying some peace in the midst of people (not having to say "Be nice to your brother!", "Don't hit your sister!", "Sit down on that chair!") Now, I find it just takes a lot of time, is expensive, and isn't as good as many of the foods I make at home. It is good to find that I really have changed my habits.

What we have been eating

2010-12-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

We have been pretty busy around here, what with the holidays and all. Oh, and the new game I have been playing online. I have been cooking though, and even taking some pictures. Here is what we have been eating, starting back with the week of 11/29 and my last posted plan.

Monday plan: Chickpea noodle soup, from Veganomicon, without the mushrooms, since I am the only one who likes them (and we were out anyway), leftover steamed green beans and spinach

What we had:

Exactly as planned, with no mushrooms, and green things added to the soup. Delicious.

Tuesday plan: Roasted butternut squash risotto, steamed broccoli

What we had:

Broccoli not shown, because we were running so behind this day, the kids' dad came to pick them up just as I was finishing cooking this. I dished up a bunch to send with them, and ate alone that night, but at least it was delicious food. Also, I tweaked this recipe a little--I didn't change the amount of broth at all, but I upped the amount of rice to 2 cups. It was still plenty creamy and fully cooked, and made even more food, which is good for something that we actually like to eat the leftovers!

Wednesday plan: Borrachos, whole wheat tortillas, sauteed turnip greens, steamed sweet potatoes

What we had:

Just as planned. The tortillas didn't make the picture, and I added some guacamole with spicy pico de gallo from Trader Joe's in the back there. This made a huge amout of beans--that isn't even all of them in the serving dish there. I used pinto beans because that is the best I could find at the grocery store, but I am thinking I need to hit a winter's famers market soon to see if I can get something more interesting to try. These were delicious, though, and, as I suspected they would be, even better the next day.

Thursday plan: Fried rice/quinoa, cucumber wontons

What we had:

The kids decided to add some raspberry cocoa smoothies to this meal, which were very good. I love that they seem to be so enthusiastic about smoothie making, although we get a LOT of cocoa powder when they are in charge of the recipes. Not that they put too much in the smoothies, but all of their recipes seem to include the cocoa, is what I'm saying. Still, there were bananas and raspberries and calcium-fortified soy milk, so it all evens out.

Friday plan: Pizza, one with chickenless strips and pineapple, one with sausageless Italian sausages

I didn't get a picture of this, because we dived into the pizzas as soon as they were ready. We did this a bit differently than planned, though. We had veggie pepperoni in addition to the sausages, and my mom came over, adding her pickiness, so we had a bunch of different pizza sections. One pizza had chickenless strips all over, and pineapple on half (my mom and the girl), and the other had pepperoni and Italian sausage on 3/4 of it and chickenless strips and pineapple on the last 1/4 (the boy and me). I have been getting the pizza crust dough from Trader Joe's because it is only $.99, but we have discovered that you really need to cook the plain crust for 5 minutes before adding the toppings, or the crust doesn't get cooked all of the way. The kids were helping with the crust rolling, so one crust went in before the other, and when I took out the first one to put the pepperoni and sausage on it, I accidentally turned the oven off when I meant to turn the timer off. So, the chickenless pizza had a gooey crust, and we ate much later than intended, because I didn't discover the oven was off until I went to check to see if the pizzas were done cooking. Hence the lack of pictures.

Saturday: This was the big party. I am not comparing the plan and actuals here, because it is a big menu, so let's just start with some pictures, shall we?

We had:

dill dip with rye bread
cranberry mango salsa from Trader Joe's
hummus
some leftover chile chocolate mole sauce, thinned a bit
various breads, crackers, and veggies for dipping
Thai-spiced pumpkin soup
hot mulled red wine
Pinot Grigio
Cinnamon Pear Cider
tropical sweet potato casserole
roasted Brussels sprouts
butternut squash risotto
sausage stuffing
cranberry orange sauce
mushroom gravy
this new meatless loaf recipe
steamed green beans
eggplant parmigiana, brought by my neighbor

For dessert, we had:

cranberry upside down cake
maple cupcakes
some of my homemade mint liqueur

The mint liqueur was a hit, although very strong. The mint in my garden has a fantastic flavor, though, so it tasted really good, and everyone liked it.

After the party, I decided I needed to save some money and clean out my kitchen, so we did not do a grocery shopping trip for this past week. I had some extra stuff that I bought for the party and didn't end up using anyway, since a couple of entire families that were supposed to come got sick, and I didn't want to have FAR too much food (as opposed to the merely too much that we had, ;) ). I don't have pictures of everything from this week, but here is what we had:

Sunday was leftovers. We all ate our favorite things from the party, and barely made a dent in the mountain of food.

Monday I went with easy:

Whole wheat spaghetti, and butternut squash sauce from a jar, with spinach added as it cooked. Very nutritious and delicious and easy.

Tuesday, when I picked the boy up from school at 5:30, he reminded me that he needed to be back at school by 6:30 for his chorus performance. I had tentative menu ideas, but I don't even remember what they were, because we scrapped them in favor of leftovers again. This, combined with all the lunches that I ate from the leftovers, meant that I didn't have to throw out any of that good food. I was pleased that none of it went to waste.

Wednesday the kids were going to their dad's, and one of our neighbor's was over to do a school task with the boy (she is doing education classes, and she needed a practice student), so I pulled out a box of Road's End Organics Shells and Chreese, and prepared it with lima beans. This is super fast and simple, and the kids are always happy, even when I use lima beans instead of the peas or edamame that they prefer.

By this time, I felt like I was really getting to the bottom of the options, so I thought I should try to do some planning ahead. Wednesday night I went searching online for a good recipe for red lentil dahl, because I love that stuff, and I knew I had red lentils in the cabinet. There were lots of good ones out there, but the one I went with came from the New York Times. I also found a jar of masaman curry sauce in the pantry, so I went with a very non-traditional masaman curry on the side, with tofu, zucchini and carrot,s and brown rice and qyuinoa cooked with Bombay saffron rice spice from World Market. I invited my friend Andrea over for this, because she likes Indian food, too, and I actually got a picture:

We also had some garlic pickle from a jar and a bit of mint chutney. The kids made smoothies again, too; raspberry cocoa with some vegan chocolate chips. These were good, but probably more dessert-y that smoothie-y.

Friday the girl was in a play, and work was crazy, so I gave in and took the kids to Crazy Bowls and Wraps. I really want to avoid eating out as much as possible, but this is one time in over two weeks, so I feel pretty good about it. We used to eat out at least once per week and sometimes more, so this is progress. I should have planned ahead a bit better, though. This involved a lot more driving and money and less vegetables than I would have liked.

Last night was my dad's birthday, so we went over there for spaghetti. My dad had meatballs and sauce, and I doctored up a jar of garlic marinara with sauteed mushrooms, onions, sausageless Italian sausages from Trader Joe's and even more garlic.

My plan was to make a menu today and go to the grocery store, but it snowed overnight, and I am kind of a wimp about driving on snowy streets, so I am thinking I will try to find one more meal out of the pantry/fridge today and go to the store tomorrow. I do need to do that plan, though. But that is topic for another post, after some more game playing...

Menu, 11/29 - 12/3, along with some Thanksgiving stuff

2010-11-30T19:13:00.000-08:00

Last week, I didn't do a plan, and I didn't do much cooking. I don't even remember what we did on Monday, Tuesday we went to my parents' house for an early Thanksgiving dinner, since the kids were going to their dad's for the holiday, Wednesday, we just had falafel with pita bread and tahini sauce, and the weekend I just kind of grabbed some leftovers or peanut butter sandwiches. I did cook for my parents on Thanksgiving, but not as much as I have in the past. I am saving my serious cooking for this coming Saturday, when I think there will be a lot of people here. (Ack, I need to do a lot of cleaning!) On Thanksgiving, I made cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes with maple syrup and margarine, mushroom gravy, roasted Brussels sprouts, seamed green beans, and a roasted buttenut squash dressing. Here is a picture of the meal:

The dressing was based on the carmelized onion butternut roast with chestnuts from Veganomicon, but I didn't make it to the store, so I substituted walnuts for the chestnuts, a loaf of cubed cranberry pumpkin seed bread for the beans, and left off the breadcrumb topping, although I did add the seasonings to the casserole. It was a huge hit--both of my parents loved it. Also, since we had done the whole turkey dinner thing onTuesday (except I didn't eat any turkey of course), my dad didn't even bring any turkey, and we all ate the vegetarian meal,which was pretty cool.

Anyway, on to this week. I actually didn't make the menu and get to the store until today, but I wanted to put yesterday on this menu, since the idea is to help with future planning after all. I did most of this menu and the grocery list while the girl practiced putting contacts in and out of her eyes for the first time in the optometrist's office. Way to plan ahead, huh?

Monday: Chickpea noodle soup, from Veganomicon, without the mushrooms, since I am the only one who likes them (and we were out anyway), leftover steamed green beans and spinach

Tuesday: Roasted butternut squash risotto, steamed broccoli

Wednesday: Borrachos, whole wheat tortillas, sauteed turnip greens, steamed sweet potatoes

Thursday: Fried rice/quinoa, cucumber wontons

Friday: Pizza, one with chickenless strips and pineapple, one with sausageless Italian sausages

Saturday I am making a big meal for some friends. I don't have a full menu yet, but here are some things I am thinking of making:

Appetizers:

dill dip with rye bread
cranberry mango salsa from Trader Joe's
hummus
various breads and veggies for dipping
Thai-spiced pumpkin soup

Main meal:

Desserts:

cranberry upside down cake
double layer pumpkin cheesecake
apple cranberry crisp

I hope it is enough food.

What we actually had for dinner 11/14 - 11/18 (with pictures and notes)

2010-11-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

In order to help me plan better, I decided I should document what I actually do with my plans, so I can use that information for future planning. So, I took pictures of our dinners each night this week, and I am gong to compare the plan with what happened, along with notes about what changes I made to the recipes. The pictures are not that great, but I have hungry children waiting to eat when I put this stuff on the table!

Sunday plan: Carmelized Onion-Butternut Roast with Chestnuts, roasted Brussel's sprouts, cranberry sauce

What we had:

Exactly what was on the menu. It was so delicious, too! Okay, I was the only one who liked the Brussels sprouts, but I only made the kids eat two bites, and they survived, and I liked them enough for everyone. Both kids like butternut squash, so that was helpful. This was the first time I had had chestnuts. They were good, but kind of expensive. We will be having this again.

Monday plan: Mole Skillet Pie with Greens, steamed broccoli, orange/blackberry fruit salad

What we had:

Pretty much what was planned, except that Trader Joe's didn't have any blackberries, so we had blueberries instead. I know, totally out of season, but I am making many efforts to eat seasonally, and sometimes I just crave the out of season stuff. As for the mole skillet pie, did you go to the link? It has chocolate in it! It was awesome. I used turnip greens from the garden, and I added a grated zucchini to the filling because I had a zucchini in the fridge and I wanted to use it before it went bad. My mom was over for dinner this night, and she said I should definitely make it again, which I was already planning to do.

Tuesday plan: Tempeh noodle casserole, steamed broccoli/carrots/snap peas, pineapple

What we had:

I volunteered at the elementary book school fair from 4 - 6, then we had to walk through the book fair and pick out some books, and then we walked home, and we had a pretty short amount of time to get dinner cooked, served and eaten before the kids were picked up by their dad. Fortunately I had some gnocchi and a jar of sauce in the cabinet, which I can get on the table in 20 minutes from taking out the pot. I added some frozen peas and a bit of baby spinach, and rounded out the meal with some steamed green beans and applesauce. We all liked this, and it saved us on a busy night.

Wednesday plan: Lentils and rice with carmelized onion tahini sauce, beets, steamed sweet potatoes

What we had:

I got this started, with onions carmelizing on the stove, and brown rice and quinoa in the microwave steamer, when I found that I was out of tahini! How could this happen? I definitely need to head to the international foods store for the big tub of tahini this weekend--that is the best part of the meal! It was still pretty good, though, although the beets were a bit old, and neither the boy nor I liked them (the girl doesn't like them anyway.) I spent all of the time that I would have used making the sweet potatoes looking for tahini, so we did without and I grabbed a bag of broccoli and cauliflower florets I could throw in the microwave for 5 minutes instead.

Thursday plan: Peanut noodles, steamed green beans, green smoothies

We ate the green beans on Tuesday, so those weren't available tonight. The peanut noodles had plenty of veggies, though, so I decided to just forget that element of the meal. I made a double batch of the sauce, and used a tub of Healthy 8 diced veggies from Trader Joe's, along with a pound of extra firm tofu. Personally, I think that if this was the only recipe I ever got off the internet, it would be worth it, because it is just so darn awesome, but the kids aren't really fans. Of course, the boy said he didn't like it, but still had seconds; the girl didn't eat much. We all liked the smoothies, though. I used 2 cups of calcium-enriched orange juice, 1 cup of vanilla soy yogurt, 1 cup of blueberries and a bunch of baby spinach. The girl does not like that they are green, but she does like the taste.

All in all, a pretty good use of the plan. We mostly had what I planned on, with some slight changes in the side dishes and one wholesale substitution. I think we did get a fair amount of fruits and veggies with dinner, and I ate a lot of leftovers for lunches, so I got plenty of veggies during the day. The kids did bring some baby carrots, so they did get a bit more veggies, although we are still working on that.

Menu, 11/14 - 11/18

2010-11-14T08:32:00.000-08:00

I am continuing my quest to make more of the delicious recipes from Veganomicon this week with two casseroles.The girl will probably not be happy (she doesn't like her food to be touching!), but I am really excited about these recipes. The menu only goes through Thursday this week because the kids are going to their dad's on the weekend, and I get paid on Friday. I will probably eat something out on Friday, then do a new plan on Saturday.

Sunday:  Carmelized Onion-Butternut Roast with Chestnuts, roasted Brussel's sprouts, cranberry sauce

Monday:  Mole Skillet Pie with Greens, steamed broccoli, orange/blackberry fruit salad

Tuesday: Tempeh noodle casserole, steamed broccoli/carrots/snap peas, pineapple

Wednesday: Lentils and rice with carmelized onion tahini sauce, beets, steamed sweet potatoes

Thursday: Peanut noodles, steamed green beans, green smoothies

I am going to use up some of the turnip greens that are still going strong in my garden despite the frosty nights, and the butternut squash I still have from the garden, so I am still using some garden produce! You can also see how much I love carmelized onions in this menu.  I tried to add plenty of plained steamed veggies and furits to the menu so that the girl doesn't starve, but I know she will also be happy on Tuesday and Wednesday--even though the main dishes on those nights aren't plain foods, she still likes them. I am going to wear her down eventually on the casserole thing, I am sure of it!

Some thoughts about last night's dinner

2010-11-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

It turned out to be more universally orange than I was anticipating. It still had plenty of nutrients, but the plate would have been more interesting if we could have seen more colors.
The hot sauce glazed tempeh was amazing, and even better the next day.
This is a huge casserole. We had a friend over, and only ate half of the casserole.
The nine corn tortillas that I had on hand were enough, although the 12 called for would have provided better coverage. I was maybe just a little bit crazy trying to make the pieces I had cover the whole layer.
I added a diced Anaheim chili to the veggies (you knew that was coming, didn't you?)
Obviously, the lack of garlic in the original recipe was an oversight. Who would purposely leave garlic out of such a recipe? Crazy peole, that's who. I added about 3 or 4 cloves of crushed garlic after the onions had cooked for a few minutes. I also added just a bit more cumin.
Overall, it was delicious. I will just have a non-orange vegetable instead of the sweet potato next time.

Menu for the week of 11/8

2010-11-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

I know, this week is more than half over when you consider that I only made a Monday through Friday plan, but I want to document it anyway. I like to look back at old menu plans when I am making new ones, and my usual method of writing the menu on random pieces of paper is not very helpful for this. Plus, I can add notes on what I actually did this way, which is also useful.

Monday: Chickpea Noodle Soup (from Veganomicon), apple cranberry crisp

I was going to make grilled cheese sandwiches with some shredded Daiya cheddar cheese, but I didn’t make it to Whole Foods to get the cheese, so we did without. Also, I added some spinach from the fridge and chopped turnip greens from the garden to the soup. The kids were unimpressed with the addition of the greens, and with the mushrooms called for in the recipe, but I am hoping to wear them down eventually.

Tuesday: Orange Roasted Tofu and Broccoli, brown rice and quinoa, pineapple, roasted butternut squash

I substituted broccoli for the asparagus called for in the recipe (because the kids actually eat broccoli), and added a lot more—two 14 ounce bags of florets. I also doubled the sauce to make sure there was enough. The butternut squash wasn’t on the menu to begin with, but I had gotten a bag of cubed squash from Trader Joe’s to make risotto last week and only used half, and I decided to use it up while it was still good. I just sprinkled it with some cinnamon and nutmeg, sprayed it with some cooking spray and mixed it up a bit, then tossed it in the oven where I was roasting the tofu and broccoli already. The kids liked this, which is fantastic!

Wednesday: Fried rice/quinoa, made with tofu and chopped veggies, plus Island teriyaki sauce

I know, that is two nights of vaguely Chinese tofu and rice dishes in a row. Originally this was supposed to be Thursday’s dinner, but my friend Andrea is coming over tonight, and she will appreciate the original Wednesday menu more than the kids will, so I did a switcheroo.

Thursday: Chilaquiles casserole, hot sauce glazed tempeh, steamed sweet potatoes

I am hoping that if I steam a bunch of sweet potatoes, the kids will take some in their lunches. They actually like sweet potatoes. I am really trying to get more veggies in their lunches, because they cannot eat enough at dinner to cover a full day’s supply, and that is where they eat most of their veggies now. Oh, and I personally am really excited about the hot-sauce glazed tempeh! I am thinking of making a double batch so that I have leftovers for a long time.

Friday: pizza, baby carrots, green smoothies

I don’t think the girl is going to be excited about the green smoothies, but the boy will! And everything goes better with pizza, at least around here.

I haven't really thought through the weekend, but I have plenty of stuff around the house. I am going to so some more planning this weekend. I would like to avoid going to the grocery store until payday on the 19th. I could buy groceries (although not many!), but I want to try to use up what I have and see how creative I can be. I suspect there will be at least a short trip to the store for fresh fruit and veggies, but I am going to see what I can do with what I have first.

Using up the garden: Various saved up pictures and meals

2010-11-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

wwwI have been cooking and using the garden produce, but I haven’t had a lot of blogging time to post about it, so this post is just going to be a mishmash of what I have available. First, pizza!

Here are two mini-pizzas with some chopped Anaheim chilis and basil leaves from the garden, along with some chopped mushrooms from the fridge:

And here they are out of the oven with Trader Joe’s sausage-less Italian sausage and Daiya mozzarella added to the top:

The next day, I used the rest of the basil I had picked to make some awesome, garlicy pesto. I didn’t really follow a recipe for it, I just added a bunch of washed basil leaves to the food processor along with some minced garlic, nutritional yeast and pine nuts, then streamed in some extra virgin olive oil while pureeing. So good! I used a little of it to mix with tomato sauce for some more mini-pizzas, but I didn’t take a picture of those.

I decided to use a bunch of the pesto to try and recreate a veganized version of the pesto cavatippi dish I like to get from Noodles & Company. Every once in a while I get this dish without the cream or added Paremesan, and it is so good. I am sure that there is some more parmesan in their pesto, but I try not to think about it, because I do love me some pesto. But, I thought I could surely do better at home with my fresh pesto, and looking at the nutritional info on the Noodles site, I think mine has to be better on some of those categories as well (particularly because mine has no cholesterol or saturated fats!)

Anyway, here is the picture:

And here is what I did:

Olive oil, 1-2 TBSP
1 pound of tofu, cut into small-ish squares
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 onion, diced
1 or 2 Anaheim chilis, diced (frankly, I am not certain about this one, but I have been adding them to everything--Marsha gave me some extras, in addition to the ones I have still growing outside, so I probably added these)
1 pound of whole wheat pasta (rotini is what I had on hand)
About half a cup of pesto, maybe more (I didn’t really measure, sorry!)
3 - 4 cups baby spinach

Start boiling the water for the pasta. Fry the tofu in the olive oil until browned on at least one side. I did this slowly, over medium-high heat, while I chopped the other veggies and chatted with my mom. This is one of those things that just takes some time, and you don’t want to stir too much, which is one of the hardest tasks for me. Add the pasta to the water in the other pot as soon as it is boiling. Once the tofu is browned on at least one side, addethe onions, mushrooms, and chilis. Gently fry all the veggies with the tofu, stirring occasionally. When the pasta is cooked al dente, ladle out a cup or so of the pasta water to add to the sauce, then drain the pasta.

What I did next, versus what I think will work better next time:

Actually did: Add the pasta to the skillet with the tofu and veggies, then add in the pesto and the reserved pasta water. Stir to mix, then add baby spinach in handfuls, covering to let the spinach wilt, then stirring and adding more until the spinach is all incorporated.

Next time I will: Add the pasta water and pesto to the skillet with the tofu and veggies, stirring to make a slightly thinned out pesto sauce, adding enough liquid to make it saucy, but not so much as to make it too thin. Add the pasta to the skillet, stir to combine, and then start adding the spinach a few handfuls at a time.

I also added a bit of Trader Joe’s everyday seasoning to this, because I add that to a lot of things these days. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby, or you don’t want to use a seasoned salt, Mrs. Dash salt-free seasonings are a good substitute.

I meant to add some cherry tomatoes to the skillet right before the pasta was added, so that they would cook down some but not completely lose their shape, but I totally forgot. That would make it more like the restaurant dish, as would a bit of wine, but I forgot that, too. Next time, I will probably add a little bit of wine with the pesto, maybe half a cup of Pinot Grigio.

I still have just a little of the pesto left, but I am not sure what I am going to do with that yet.

The rest of the season in basil:

Mostly, I just went out before cooking many, many things and got a small handful of fresh basil leaves to add to the dish.
I did make the Sweet-Basil Tapenade from Veganomicon for my birthday open house, but I forgot to put it out, :-(. I ate some of it after the party, though, and it was a mixed success. I have been using the Grade B maple syrup lately for it’s richer maple taste, and that may have been a bit too much for the tapenade--I suspect it was supposed to be mostly pesto-y with some sweetness, but it was very sweet and maple-y, just a little too much. I may try again next year with some Grade A maple syrup, or less syrup or something.
Like the mint, I should have been using more of this earlier. Although I did use basil a lot when it was growing strong (I don’t think there was a week that went by once it was coming in that I didn’t use it two or more times per week in recipes), I could have used a lot more when it was growing back in almost as fast as I picked it. I could probably have made a big batch of pesto every week and popped it in the freezer without noticing a decrease in the amount of basil I had available for other uses.
Next year, I want to try basil lemonade, like the mint and lavender lemonades that I made this yea

In other news, I still have a lot of greens to use. For brunch last weekend, I made the Collard Greens and Sausage recipe from Vegan Brunch, although I used turnip and mustard greens, mostly. It was really good, although I think I could have cooked it a bit longer. Doesn’t it look pretty, though?

I made pumpkin pancakes and cranberry ginger sauce from Vegan Bruch as well to go with, along with hash browns. Such a yummy, nutritious and filling brunch!

I have a LOT of parsley out in the garden. I cannot believe how well that herb is still growing. I gather that it is supposed to be biennial, but it never died off this summer, and it is still going strong out there. I think I am going to ask a friend to let me use her dehydrator to preserve the rest of it soon, because I don’t want to just let it die, but I am not sure what else to do with large quantities of the stuff. Another thing to research for next year.

Here is a mostly non-garden dish, with some pretty parsley sprinkled on top:

The garden is mostly done for the year. I have a few Anaheim chilis, and some turnips and beets to dig up, along with all the parsley, but my days of going out to pick dinner ingredients are numbered. I still have a big adventure figuring out what to do with all the turnips that are coming in, but for the most part, the work and preserving food is finished. I think I did pretty well this year, barring the time when I was broken and couldn’t do much. I am feeling pretty good about expanding the garden next year, and now I just need to start planning what I want to do with all the extra space. Also, I want to review these posts about what I did this year and what I want to do differently next year, along with some research for new things I can do next year to make sure I grow what I want and preserve it well. I have a few things that I will carry into the winter months this year, but not many. Next year, I would like to do a bit more preserving for long term. So, I don’t have to stop obsessing about the garden after all, even though this season is ending! That is a post for another day, though.

Using up the garden: turnip greens, garlic, Anaheim chilis

2010-10-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite ways to use up veggies is to add extra veggies to a likely looking recipe. I think most recipes are improved by adding more veggies, with improved taste and definitely superior nutrition! I found a couple of good candidates for this treatment when I was deciding what to make for dinner last night.

First, I have been trying to make more soups, to get more veggies into our diet, and now that I am working at home, I can actually use my crockpot (which really irks me--all the recipes have 8 hour or less cooking times, which is too short for the days that I got to the office), so I went to my copy of Robin Robertson’s Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, and found this awesome recipe for French White Bean and Cabbage Soup.

I mostly followed the recipe, but the biggest change I made was to add a bunch of veggies. Marsha brought me some extra veggies last week, including some red bell peppers and one last zucchini. My zucchini plant died long ago, but they had one more plant that reseeded itself and produced a few late squash. So, I chopped those up and added them to the skillet for the intial sauté. Here is a picture of the veggies waiting to be softened (except the garlic):

As you can probably tell, I sliced up some baby carrots, rather than using a big carrot. I like to buy those for the kids lunches and fast cream of carrot soup. I also substituted 8 fingerling potatoes, some golden and some red, sliced thinly, for the Yukon Gold potato, and I added just a bit more thyme than the recipe called for, because I love thyme. I did not add the liquid smoke, because I can never seem to find that in the store. Here’s my bowl of the finished product:

For the main dish, I found this awesome recipe on the Vegetarian Times website. These days, I am always looking for recipes for greens, both because they are so healthy, and because I have a bunch of turnip greens in the garden that I want to use. Again, I mostly followed the recipe, but I did add an Anaheim chili to the onions and garlic. I also added a whole can of tomato sauce and water to make the full liquid amount, since I was out of veg stock, and a lot of extra garlic. I meant to add some baby spinach at the end, but after running to the Halloween store, then Target, then back to the Halloween store, then to Trader Joe’s, where I bought soy sausage, but forgot to buy more veg stock, I was feeling a bit frantic at the end of the cooking time, and I totally forgot. Next time. Here is my plate of this dish:

Predictably, the boy liked both dishes--he helped with the greens and sausage--but the girl was not a huge fan. I am going to wear her down eventually, I know.

Other things I have done lately with turnip greens and Anaheim chilis:

Tofu scramble: I used the recipe from Vegan Brunch, adding the chili with the onions in the beginning, and the greens near the end of the cooking time

This Yummy Yam curry: This did call for greens, but really, there aren’t many recipes that I don’t find suitable for a nice mild chili or pepper.

In which I care about my health

2010-10-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

Did you know that, regardless of how much time you spend exercising, sitting too much makes you less healthy? If you exercise for an hour every day, but spend the majority of the remaining time sitting down, your health outcomes are not that much different than those of a couch potato.

So, standing in the kicthen making sugar syrup, transferring my lemon peel infused vodka to a bigger jar, and mixing in the sugar syrup and more vodka today was clearly done because I care about my health! Now I just need to get some more sugar so that I can move my mint liqueur to the next step, too. You know, because I care about my health so much.

Using up the garden: butternut squash, thyme and garlic

2010-10-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

I got two butternut squashes out of my garden this year. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but last year I had a big long vine with lots of flowers and no squash at all, so I was pretty thrilled with these two. Of course, they were ready to pick while my hand was broken, so I couldn’t really do anything with them—they are hard to cut! But, they also last a while, so it was not a problem.

I am feeling a lot better these days, and I have been having some success with chopping when I use my left hand to stabilize the knife and apply some of the cutting pressure. When I was trying to decide what to do with those beautiful butternuts, I was thinking about how much we have been enjoying risotto lately. The kids will eat a lot of things if they are in risotto, and I find it very relaxing to stand there with a glass of wine and stir for 25 minutes or so.

I based my recipe loosely on this one from Food Network, but only as a starting point. I didn’t get a picture, but it was very pretty. I made sure to show the kids the red saffron that would turn our risotto yellow. I love that kind of thing. It’s the chemistry of cooking! (That is why I used to be so obsessed with fudge, back when I wasn’t vegan. I need to find some good vegan fudge recipes. Not that this has anything to do with risotto.)

Saffron Butternut Squash Risotto

1 medium squash (maybe 1 ½ - 2 pounds)

Halve the squash and remove the seeds. Peel the squash and chop into small, bite-size chunks. I put them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, sprayed with a little cooking spray, and tossed with a little bit of Everyday Seasoning, which is a seasoned salt from Trader Joe’s. I put those in a 400 degree oven and got started on the rest.

6 cups veggie broth
4 sprigs fresh thyme, fresh from the garden

I put this in a pot on the back of the stove, and warmed it up, then turned the heat down to low.

1 medium onion, chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 TBSP olive oil
1TBSP Earth Balance

Melt the butter and olive oil together in a skillet, then sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. Add:

1 ½ cups Arborio rice

Stir to make sure that the rice is coated with the butter/olive oil mixture. Add:

½ cup dry white wine

Pour a glass of wine for the cook to sip while stirring. You have to open the bottle anyway! Stir the wine into the rice, and continue cooking until the wine is fully absorbed. Add two ladles full of the warmed broth, along with:

1 tsp saffron
Several twists of the Everyday seasoning

Then, it’s all about the stirring. Add more broth as the rice absorbs the broth already in the pan. During this time, make sure to keep an eye on the squash in the oven. When it is roasted to perfection (25 – 30 minutes), remove it from the oven and set aside while you finish the risotto. When about two thirds of the broth was incorporated into the rice, I started adding some baby spinach as well, a handful at a time. I don’t have a measurement on this one, I just kept adding spinach until there was lots of green in the dish. When all of the broth was incorporated, I turned off the heat and added:

¾ cup nutritional yeast

Wow, this made the risotto so creamy and rich tasting! The final step is to add the roasted squash.

Everyone loved this. My mom thought it was fantastic and even the kids ate the spinach without much complaining. I will probably do something different with the other squash from the garden, but we will definitely have this risotto again with store-bought squash.

Using up the Garden: Turnip Greens

2010-10-15T18:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't been here for quite a while now. A little over a month ago, I broke my right hand. Since then, I haven't been doing much of anything except for taking pain medication, napping, having surgery on my hand, and then lots of hand exercises. Fortunately this coincided with a slow period in the garden, so I didn't lose as much produce as I might have. I couldn't chop anything or even eat much, so I did lose some, but an abrupt turn to colder weather meant that the warm weather crops mostly died off all at once, before the cooler weather stuff was ready to harvest.

I am starting to feel a bit better now, though, so I have been anxiously awaiting my Brussel's sprouts and beets and turnips. I have been reminding myself to be patient, even though I always want fresh stuff from the garden all the time! But when Marsha came to take care of the garden yesterday, she pointed out that I could get something from the garden now--turnip greens! When I was growig up, my family was not really the greens eating type (more like the canned green beans or corn type,) so it just didn't occur to me that I could eat the green part, too, even though I have eaten greens as an adult. I was very excited to realize I could go out and pick something for dinner. That is my favorite part of the garden--the way I go out right before I start cooking and pick some ingredients. So cool!

I went out tonight and picked a big pile of turnip greens and an Anaheim chili. Marsha left me some collard greens yesterday, so I used those, too. I de-ribbed the greens, then washed them and chopped them and put them in boiling water for about 10 minutes. While that was cooking, I chopped up the chili and a shallot (I am getting better, but I am still a bit slow...) Then I took the greens out of the water with a slotted spoon, and added a pound of whole wheat pasta. While the pasta was cooking, I put a good amount of olive oil in a skillet, and added some minced garlic from a jar and the shallot and chili. I was using the last of the garlic, so I ladled a little bit of the pasta water into the jar to get all the garlicy goodness and set it aside. When the veggies were softened, I added a few shakes of red pepper flakes, then the greens, and cooked for about 2 more minutes, tossing to coat them in the garlicy oil. When the pasta was done, I drained it quickly, then added it to the skillet with the greens. I added the extra garlicy pasta water from the jar at this point, too. If I was using fresh garlic, I would have taken some of the pasta water out before draining to add to the greens and pasta.

This was so good! I was worried I might find it bland, but it had a nice warm finish without being too spicy, if that makes sense. Even the girl liked it (the boy is off spending the night with a friend, but I am sure he would have liked it, too.) This garden is definitely the gift that keeps giving--fresh, healthy food, and new vegetables that the whole family enjoys!

Adventures in sustainability: gardening

2010-08-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about environmentalism for a long time, and what kids of things I can do in my life to be more environmentally conscious without sacrificing my comfort or adding a bunch of work that I don’t enjoy. So, I am a vegetarian, in part because I think that the way we eat meat in such large quantities in this country is unsustainable, but I actually find that I eat a wider variety of interesting foods on a vegetarian diet. I am always trying new things with veggies and legumes, and I actually enjoy cooking. And I have a garden in my backyard because that is the most locally grown food you can possibly get, but I hired someone else to install and maintain it. This way, I get great food with no fossil fuels expended to ship it to my table, but I don’t have to weed, or have a lot of gardening knowledge.

In this vein, I came across the coolest article in my local paper about a couple who are trying to make their suburban home more sustainable. They put in a geothermal heating and cooling system, which sounds like something I will need to save my money for. I am not needing a new heating and cooling system at the moment, which is good, because the initial investment is steep ($18K - 21K.) They also grow a lot of their own food, with a combination of raised bed gardens, trees, containers and food plants worked into the regular landscaping. Mary Deweese is a professional landscape architect, so she is definitely more equipped to design a yard this way than I am, but there are some ideas I can take from her landscape design.

First of all, they grow a lot of fruit. So far, we have planted cantaloupe, watermelon and strawberries, in addition to the sour cherries and raspberries that were already in the yard when we moved into this house. I have been planning to pay someone to remove my Bradford pear trees (non-fruit producing) in the backyard in the spring, and then I will replace them with a peach tree and an apple tree, but now I am thinking maybe I can do even more with fruit. I want to look into doing a fig tree in a container on my patio. Figs are expensive! Growing my own will make for an improvement in both personal sustainability and the variety of fruit we eat, because I can rarely afford to buy them at the store. Also, I had no idea you could grow kiwis in St. Louis. My daughter *loves* kiwi, so it would be awesome to grow some of our own. They have a slightly wider variety of vegetables, too. For instance, I would love to do artichokes, cauliflower and cabbage. Although, I may be getting cabbage for the fall planting--I know that Brussel’s sprouts are coming then. Last year, I went out on Thanksgiving morning and picked the last Brussel’s sprouts for our meal, which was awesome.

However, it is clear that the biggest difference they have from my garden is that they devote a lot more space to growing food than I do, which is a good idea. One good way to do this is the container gardening that they do. I would like to do some potatoes in containers to conserve some ground space. Last year we grew sweet potatoes, and got only about enough for one meal, so I would love to maximize our space for growing more potatoes, and more kinds of potatoes.

Even with the container gardening, I think we are going to have to do more ground space. This year I have been making more effort to use up the produce before it goes bad, so we are getting more out of the garden than last year, but it still isn’t as much food as I would like to have. I didn’t have much to preserve for the winter, so once the summer/fall were over, that was it. I keep looking at what we are getting and thinking it could be a lot more. I am thinking that maybe we could double the main area of the garden by building out into the yard. I am wondering about the front yard, too. It seems a shame to be thinking about pulling up the young tree in the front yard and putting in a fruit tree instead, but the front yard does get a lot of sun. I wonder if I could get the tree transplanted somewhere else?

I even find myself thinking I wouldn’t mind doing a bit more of the gardening work myself, which is surprising to me. As time goes on, though, I am much more excited about the whole gardening concept, and the work doesn’t seem quite as bad (except when it gets to 100 degrees out there!) Maybe I could start with a few containers and see how it goes?

Is anyone else getting into growing their own food? What are you doing?

Using up the Garden: Mint

2010-08-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

Last year, when I had my garden for the first time, I loved it, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I wasn’t really prepared for getting a lot of some things while getting none of others, and I wasn’t ready to start cooking with whatever I had on hand. I had long been a menu planner, but I was a grocery store menu planner:

Think of what sounded good
Make a menu and grocery list
Go to the store and buy it

The difference between this kind of planning and garden planning is that grocery stores usually have whatever you want, produce-wise, whenever you want it. Gardens produce whatever is in season, whenever they happen to be ready. I just wasn’t prepared for that shift, from starting with a menu and getting whatever produce went with it to starting with the produce that I had and making a menu from that.

This year, however, I was determined that things were going to go differently. I would plan ahead, searching out recipes, and adapting the recipes that I have! We would eat squash every night if necessary! Veggie soup! So far, I haven’t been perfect (a few things have gone to the compost bin), but we have actually eaten the majority of produce to come out of the garden. I want to start keeping track of what I have done and lessons for next year here, starting with mint.

Several weeks ago, I started using my mint in nearly everything. There was so much, and I didn’t want to waste any of it, because it is really good stuff! I made mint juleps, and sweet mint tea, Lebanese lentil salad and tzatziki-like herbed dressings, herbed chopped salads and mojitos. All of this did use up a lot of mint during the growing phase, but once all the mint started flowering and reaching the end of the season, I needed to do something fast, with a LOT of mint.

A quick search of the internet quickly led to a list of liqueur recipes, and I was hooked. It is the perfect way to use a lot of mint, and I can give some of the results away for Christmas presents, not to mention having some homemade liqueurs right here at home. Unfortunately, I also found a lot of other liqueur recipes that I am making with things not from the garden, but that is a story for another time. I settled on this recipe, and started it once as stated, but that barely even touched the huge amount of mint out there. Clearly, more drastic measures were needed.

Yesterday, I went out and cut off all of the rest of the mint in the garden. I used my kitchen shears and cut under all the leaves, but not all the way down to the ground, because I am hoping that more mint comes back in the fall. This may seem crazy when you consider how much work it was harvesting the mint yesterday, but I do love having fresh stuff from my garden! Here is the mound of mint waiting to be processed:

As you can see, some of the leaves don’t look so good, but much of it was usable. I got about 5 ½ lightly packed cups of mint leaves out of this mound. I stood at the sink for probably 2 hours or maybe a bit more, broken up into two stretches, pulling leaves off the stems, washing them, spinning them in the salad spinner (as an aside, the garden has changed my salad spinner from a slightly expensive indulgence--I used to buy pre-washed produce all the time--to an almost daily use kitchen gadget, which I think is pretty cool,) and making mint syrup and more mint liqueur.

For the mint liqueur, I decided to use rum this time, both because I had some rum on hand while I am out of vodka, and because I am just not a vodka fan. I guess it doesn’t matter since it is going to be so highly flavored with the mint and sugar syrup, but I wanted to try it with the rum anyway. Since I already started some with the vodka, I will be able to compare and see which one is better. I put about 4 cups of mint in with 9 cups of rum, playing a little loose with the recipe proportions. Although, really, that is only about a quarter cup extra mint, which will just make it extra good, I am sure. Here is a picture of what I have so far:

Since the jar is so big, it looks like it is not much, but it really is a lot! I have smaller jars for when it is ready to start aging and being sent out to friends as presents (or going in my liquor cabinet.)

For the mint syrup, I brought three cups of water and 1 ½ cups of mint to a boil, then added about 2 ½ cups of sugar. I let that return to a boil, stirring, then turned the heat down, put a lid on the pot and simmered for about five minutes. Then I runed off the gas, took off the lid, gave it a quick stir and left it to cool and steep. When I got back around to it, I drained the syrup through a colander to remove the mint leaves, put a lid on the bowl and stuck it in the fridge. We are going to get some vanilla ice cream today to have with this, and I may make some tea with it, or maybe some lemonade. I made lavender lemonade with a sugar syrup infused with dried lavender flowers and fresh lemon juice recently, and the kids loved it, so mint lemonade may be a hit, too.

Lessons I have learned from mint:

I could have started liqueurs long ago. While the mint was going strong, anything I took off came back within days, and it was all fresh and healthy. I would still do this end of season thing, but I could have gotten a lot more out of my mint if I had used it more at the beginning.
I need to look into drying some of these herbs. I assume I just need to get some kitchen twine and tie up a bunch in the basement, but I need to look into specifics.
I got more mint this year than last year, and chances are I will get even more next year.
I need to start saving all glass jars that I use during the year. I can save a lot of things in jars.
I could use even more minty recipes.

Overall, I know I did a much better job using the mint this year than I did last year. I am very excited about my homemade mint liqueurs, and I cannot wait to give them to my friends for holiday presents. Now I just need to see if cutting back the mint now leads to another crop in the fall. I am hoping that it will, but if not, I know that I will be better prepared to use even more of the mint next year. I am calling this one a definite success!

Planning

2010-06-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Very soon, I am going to have a LOT of yellow squash coming out of my garden. On the one hand, I am super excited about this—I love yellow squash, so does my mother, and last year we didn’t get nearly enough. Last year, we didn’t get a huge amount of anything from the garden. It seemed to be a fairly universal problem, and conventional wisdom said that it just wasn’t hot enough. This is what having a garden has done for me—actually made me think there is such a thing as a summer that wasn’t hot enough! I never thought I would see the day.

Anyway, this year it is much hotter, and the garden does look more productive. The yellow squash plant in particular is brimming with produce. And, to top it off, a couple of weeks ago, I consulted with my gardener and we couldn’t remember if there was a yellow squash plant already, so we planted some more. Those plants are still pretty small, but eventually, they will start producing even more vegetables. So, today I am looking for recipes to try out. I am not sure what to do with so much of one type of vegetable! I hope that my children aren’t going to get too tired of it.

As usual, a consultation with the internet turned up many delicious looking recipes. I am gathering them all together here so that I can find them again when I am trying to figure out what to do with all of those squashes:

From FatFree Vegan Kitchen, a wonderfully fresh looking soup
Also from FatFree Vegan Kitchen, roasted yellow squash and onions
From Vegan YumYum, a great method for pan-seared balsamic baby squash
From Veg4Health, an interesting vegan squash casserole
From Robin Robertson’s blog, Vegan Planet, another take on vegan squash casserole, which is more like a guideline than a recipe

This should get me started, along with my standard side dish of yellow squash, broccoli and sautéed onions. Now, I just need to be patient and wait for the bounty to begin!

Vegan picnicing

2010-06-06T15:15:00.001-07:00

We went to the Shakespeare festival last night. We generally go early and eat a picnic dinner so that we can participate in the festivities before the play starts. They have jesters wandering around, and a fire eater and a juggler, and various dances or talks. It is all very fun, and a nice way to spend the evening with family and friends, topped off with some great free entertainment.

As I have said, I have been trying to eat mostly vegan, so the thought of a completely vegan picnic wasn't as daunting as it could be. I just feel so pleased with myself anyway, that I had to share what we are had:

For our main dish, we had falafels. In search of a healthier sandwich, I pan-fried half of them, but then I wasn't 100% sure that they were cooking all the through, so I baked the rest. On the right of the falafels in the back is some spicy hummus from Trader Joe's, which is very good. In front of that is a salad I made with tomato, cucumber, avocado and a Tzatziki like dressing (with some extra dressing on the side.) For the dressing, I used Tofutti Better than Sour Cream, fresh herbs from my garden and garlic powder. I was thinking that a little bit of mayonnaise would make it nice and creamy, but I was determined to have a vegan picnic, and I had bought a big jar of mayo right before I decided to go vegan, not Vegennaise. However, I looked at the jar of Trader Joe's reduced fat mayo, and saw that it is eggless, so I was thrilled to read the list of ingredients and find that it is vegan! It's like it's stealth vegan--they say no eggs, because vegans know that eggs are the non-vegan mayo ingredients, but then they don't have to scare people away with the v-word, ;-). In front on the left is tahini sauce with lemon juice, water, fresh cilantro and parsley, and lots of garlic, which was so yummy. Rounding it all out are whole wheat pita breads.

For dessert/snacking, I made up a quick fruit dip from La Dolce Vegan, which was so simple. Silken tofu, maple syrup and cinnamon in the blender--could it get any easier? It feels like a treat, but it is healthy--my favorite kind of food. I brought along pears to slice when we were ready for them:

Not pictured, we brought along whole wheat bread, peanut butter and bananas for the picky girl and her friend, and veggie chips and kettle corn and Sobe life waters, and juiceboxes and a bottle of wine. It was a great night, with friends and good food and a wonderful play, too!

Exciting discovery!

2010-06-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

I just now discovered that Pi Pizzeria has Daiya cheese as an option for their pizza toppings! Vegan pizza! At a very popular restaurant (one that even our president likes!)

I am not usually so exclamatory, but this is pretty darn exciting. This is a place I can go out to eat with my not-even-close-to-vegan friends, and we can all be happy. Plus, we just discovered the awesomeness that is Daiya cheese at home in the past month or two, so I know it is delicious and the kids will be happy, too. But really, the awesomeness of the part where we can go out with our friends cannot be overstated.

Yay!

More transitioning

2010-06-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I finished reading Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Damn. Now I have to become a vegan.

Not that I am opposed to veganism. Much of the food that I eat is vegan. But now all meals with other people will be fraught with tension. People will feel judged, and I will feel left out, and the sort of community that you get from eating with other people will be even less available to me than it is now. I can’t un-know what I read in that book, though. I actually cried while reading some of the descriptions of animal lives and especially accounts of what happens in the slaughter houses. So, we are changing. We are going to go ahead and eat what we have in the house (if I can stomach it), but then no more.

The hardest thing for me will be the eggs. They are so useful when it comes to cooking. And a quick omelet is an easy dinner when I am feeling uninspired. I do have at least one vegan omelet recipe online, though, so that should help. Oh, and I have made tofu frittatas before, and those were awesome! The internet in general should help a lot. I have many vegan blogs bookmarked. And, this past year or two of being almost vegan will make for a less traumatic transition (for me at least—I don’t know about the kids.) Speaking of the kids, I am going to have my daughter read the book, too. I think this is really important.

Wish me luck!

Menu plan, Saturday to Friday

2010-03-13T14:11:00.000-08:00

Saturday: Peanut noodles with tofu, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, salad, some kind of fruit

Sunday: West African Peanut Stew (I know, two nights of peanutty stuff in a row, but it was hard enough to pick all of these recipes now that I am out of the habit; I am not redoing this), amaranth or brown rice, apples

Monday: Curry Coconut Shrimp (I am going to add some carrots, and probably use Thai red curry paste instead of the curry powder), Thai Vegetables, brown rice, mango

Tuesday: no plan; I may go to a friend's house for dinner and then working out, or I may just eat leftovers--kids at their dad's

Wednesday: Salmon noodle casserole (Yay! I will be the hero mom!), broccoli, some kind of fruit again

Thursday: Pasta with capers, tuna and tomatoes, salad, some kind of fruit again

Friday: pizza, carrot sticks, fruit

On Saturday we are headed for Troutlodge, where we will be fed, so no need for plans for then.

I am trying to start serving a fruit with dinner each night again, because I know those kids aren't getting enough fruits and vegetables every day. It is harder to plan that, though, and I am thinking I may need to just get some fruit canned in juice for a backup.

Holiday gifts

2009-12-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

I have been cooking all day today, but it isn't for me. I really should get in the habit of cooking ahead for the week, but that is a project for another week. This week, while I am off work to spend time with my children and prepare for the holidays, I am making gifts.

I used to do this all the time, when my daughter was small. I went through a phase of candy-making fascination. That is some serious chemistry, candy-making. I made fudge with many different recipes, potato candy, and caramels, and considered making divinity, like I remembered my grandmother and aunts making when I was small (although that looked a bit too difficult for me!) Time passed, and I went back to school full-time, then got the full-time job, and candy making seemed too complicated. Also, somewhere in there, I quit dairy entirely (except for the occasionnal Snickers bar...), which made the candy-making seem difficult as well as time-consuming. This year, though, with the new house, and the nonstop eating kids, I thought making gifts might be a good idea again. So, I headed for the Internet to find some recipes and ideas.

First off, the Internet has a LOT of recipes. When I added in my cookbooks, I think I may have over-planned. But, I did get some stuff done today, and I will do more tomorrow (and maybe tonight, too). Here is what I did today.

First, so that I would feel a quick sense of accomplishment, I made lavender sugar. This was easy--some sugar and lavender blooms in the food processor, then I was filling cute little bottles.

Also in the picture, flavored vinegar. That recipe made a lot of vinegar, so I had extra to keep for myself and, having just had a salad, I can testify that it is nicely hot. Amazing what habanero peppers will do for a recipe.

Next up was Def-Jam cookies, from Urban Vegan's cookbook. The finished product was really delicious, but I bet they would have been even better if I hadn't forgotten the cookie was in the oven. I think these will be for us to eat, and I may try again tomorrow for cookies I can give to other people.

The last thing I made today (so far) is White Christmas Fudge. I have to say, when I made this, it didn't look white or fudgy, but it did taste good. Here is a picture of it before I put it in the fridge:

Not the greatest picture, I know, but you get the idea. I just went and looked at it again, and it looks pretty much the same. My daughter says it looks delicious, though, so it's all good.

I did break out Urban Vegan's cookbook again to make Pumpkin-Daal soup for dinner, but by the time that was finished, I was exhausted, so there is no picture of that. It was good, we will be having it again. And, I guess I am putting off my remaining cooking until tomorrow. I only need to clean my house, finish some shopping and plan a dinner for my friends coming over tomorrow, so it shouldn't be too hard, right?

Another attempt at menu planning

2009-09-05T10:00:00.001-07:00

I am trying to get better about menu planning. I have done it many times in the past, so I don't understand why it still seems so difficult sometimes. Here is what I have so far for the next week:

Tonight: Tempeh Shepherdess Pie from Veganomicon, sauteed spinach and tomatoes, steamed broccoli. We have family coming over, and they are about as far from vegan or vegetarian as you can get. This should be sufficiently normal seeming for them to enjoy it, but still nice and healthy.

Sunday: Salmon noodle casserole, peas. I kind of thought when I started this blog that I might move closer and closer to veganism as time went on, but now I don't think that is going to happen. I like the way we eat, and I don't think I am going to cut out the seafood, or the occasional egg or bit of goat cheese. On the other hand, all of my favorite cookbooks are still vegan, so there will be plenty of vegan dishes in my future, too. I am thinking maybe I should change the name of my blog, though.

Monday: leftovers. We are having a big brunch in the morning, that is an interesting menu: Tempeh Scramble, Fennel Risotto, roasted butternut squash, coffee chip muffins (all fromVegan Brunch), berry scones, coffee, juice, dark chocolate covered almonds. I am thinking we will need to clean out our fridge Monday night.

Tuesday: The kids will be at their dad's, so I am thinking of using up some of the appetizer stuff I have hanging around my freezer--edamame shu mai, Thai vegetable potstickers, tiny cocktail samosas.

Wednesday: Red Beans and rice, steamed broccoli, fruit salad.

Thursday: Fried rice

Friday: No clue. Kids at dad's, so not feeling the cooking. I will probably decide at the last minute.

So, not a bad plan. We could end up going to a friend's one or two nights, so we should be able to make it through the week with this plan.

Things I am thinking of cooking ahead...

2009-08-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

...and putting in the freezer.

Breakfast burritoes: scrambled tofu with shredded carrots, onions and bell peppers, hash browns, veggie sausage, maybe some salsa

Chili--I could eat chili once a week, or more

Quick breads--they make excellent late afternoon snacks, and I make mine more healthy than the coffee shop does

West African peanut stew

Coconut Curried Vegetable Stew

Red Beans and sausage--to be served over rice

Sloppy lentils

Veggies from my garden sauteed with teriyaki sauce (or some other sauce)

Spaghetti sauce
Some kind of bean burger

I am not sure I have enough freezer space for this, but I can try to empty it out first. One of these days I am going to get a freezer to put in the basement. Anyone have any other ideas?

Look what I have!

2009-06-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Isn't it beautiful? It has a little friend, too:

The whole garden is growing. Look at these pictures:

Right after planting

This evening

So far I have mostly only gotten a radish and some herbs directly from my garden, but more is coming, and not too far in the future. I might have green and purple beans as soon as next week. I think that once the squash get going, they will go crazy. I can't wait!

Good fast dinner

2009-06-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

I didn't take a picture of this, but I had to post, because it was fantastic. Also, the girl complained a lot and tried to get me to give the extra plain rice that I made for a future meal, but when she finally tried it, she loved it!

I was looking around online, trying to find all my old blogs on my new computer, when I came across this tahini onion sauce recipe. I love tahini, and I like to use recipes that we can customize at the table without me feeling like I am making separate meals. A sauce that everyone can choose to add or not add is ideal for this. It came together quickly, too.

For the lentils and rice, I cooked up the rice, then added some pre-cooked lentils from Trader Joe's and seasoned the dish with a small palmful of ground cumin, maybe about half as much dried oregano, and a few shakes of Mrs. Dash Original Blend. I put about half an onion, sliced thinly, in a small skillet with some Earth Balance while I cooked the rice and made the tahini sauce. Since I wanted them good and carmelized, I mostly ignored them for 10 or 15 minutes (maybe longer), just stirring occasionally to make sure it all got browned and sweet.

On the side we had green and purple beans from the garden. Well, not actually my garden, but the gardeners brought some from other gardens they do, and we will be getting the same thing from our garden soon. They told me the purple beans would turn green when steamed, so I made sure the kids looked at them before I put them in the microwave to steam. They were originally a very dark, bright purple, making for an interesting experiment. They did come out green--a little mottled, but definitely green. The kids thought that was fun.

For dessert, sliced watermelon, which is always a big hit with the children.

The girl was convinced that she would hate the lentils and rice, but she loved it. The boy loved it, too, which I new he would. But he was also adventurous and tried the sauce. He didn't like it, but at least he tried it. I loved the sauce. I could probably carmelize an onion every day and happily eat it, but I think that might be going overboard. The people around me may not appreciate that! But at least I can enjoy some carmelized onion here, without worrying about kids complaining (or having to share!)

La Dolce Vegan

2009-06-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

Man, I love this cookbook! I have had it for a while, but for some reason, I didn't use it until recently. A couple of weeks ago I got it out and realized that I should have been using it all along, because there are a lot of awesome recipes. I made the fruit dip for a picnic at the local Shakespeare festival, but I have no picture. It was really good, though, and I loved how it was all healthy and still felt like a treat.

Last week I got a delivery from my gardeners with radishes, lettuce, spinach and fresh parsley, so I decided to find another recipe to try. I didn't find much for the veggies, but I did find a great recipe for some fresh herbs--Peacefrog's Artichoke Heart Pasta. I used the parsley and some basil from out in my garden. It was so delicious and easy! I did get a picture of this one:

Doesn't that look delicious? I pretty much followed the recipe as is, although I did use a bunch of grape tomatoes instead of one large tomato, and I just used water instead of vegetable stock, but it was still great.

Tonight I got this cookbook out again, but I had to use a bit more creativity. I made Karen's Mexican Burrito Pie, but I only had three tortillas instead of the five the recipe called for, and I was out of shredded cheese and pinto beans. I had some sliced cheese and black beans, though, so I used those instead. I think the cheese may not be entirely vegan, and I honestly prefer Tofutti, which is vegan. Next time I will get that, but this was still an awesome casserole.

I can't seem to add another picture, so I will continue this in another post....

Is this cool or what?

2009-05-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

I just sent an email to the folks at Backdoor Harvest. I found out about them at the Earth Day Festival I attended last weekend, and it is one of the coolest things I have come across in quite some time. The website is awesome, but to sum up:

They will come look at my yard and help me plan a garden
I get to pick all the produce
They will do ALL the work, from planting to weeding to harvesting
It won't cost me any more than I already spend on produce at the grocery store
They will use organic practices
Some of the produce grown in my back yard will go to other people in my community
No travelling costs for the food to get to my kitchen! This is really environmentally good!

I am so excited about this (as you can tell by all! the! exclamation! points!)! I hope they haven't filled up already....

An almost (but very convertible) vegan recipe

2009-04-29T20:05:00.001-07:00

I know, I haven't been here for quite some time. I have good pictures, too, from my trip to Chicago and the Chicago Diner. I haven't had the time to...wait, I mean I lacked the energy to post those, and I still don't have it. I made a really delicious dinner tonight, though, and I had to share the link. I did make this with shrimp, but I think it would be good with tofu, too. I love cabbage, so I was glad to find a good stir fry recipe like this. I used half of the red chili flakes and maybe a fourth of the sriracha sauce this recipe called for, because my friend said she wasn't in the mood for really hot food. I could have eaten it hotter, but it still had plenty of flavor. We had yellow squash and zuchhini sauteed with a shallot in some olive oil, then steamed as a side dish. Delicious and healthy!

A new laptop! Woohoo!

2009-02-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

Ever since my daughter knocked over my laptop and ruined the monitor, I have had a hard time with the blogging. My desktop is slow and uncomfortable, and I don't like to blog at work, so I have just been finding it all too much work. On Friday, though, I got my tax refund (thank you, new house!), and yesterday I got a new laptop. I am just amazed at how quickly technology moves on--I got my old laptop only two years ago, and this one has lots more memory and hard drive space, plus facial recognition for logging in, and probably other things I have not discovered yet, for $150 less than I paid for the other one. Yippee!

On the eating front, we have been doing pretty good. I am still cooking more, to avoid the expense of eating out. My biggest habit change that I am so proud of is eating breakfast at home. I had gotten in the habit of waiting until I got to work to eat breakfast, because we were so rushed in the mornings. However, that means being up for about two hours before I ate anything, which is terrible for my metabolism, and making poor choices, because I was starving by the time I ate. Lots of greasy hashbrowns with eggs, biscuits, donuts, and other heavy, unhealthy foods were had. Now I have cereal with rice milk, or oatmeal cooked with maple syrup, dried fruit and cinnamon, or a whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter and a banana, or a fruit smoothie. Much better choices!

On a completely different note, I have to share a picture of my almost vegan desserts from the after-Thanksgiving meal I had with friends the first weekend in December:

Don't those look delicious? The first one at the top left is my almost vegan dessert--a pumpkin bread pudding. I used soy milk, but I went ahead and used the eggs in the recipe. I have not been brave enough to experiment with egg substitutes for cooking yet. Scrambled tofu for brunch? I got that down pat, but not so much on the cooking subs. Next is urban vegan's cranberry upside down cake which was absolutely scrumptious, as expected. Front and center is the Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake from the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen (not a fatfree recipe!). That is very nearly the perfect dessert. It's rich and delicious, and I really couldn't eat more than a small slice at a time, because of the richness. Everyone loved it, vegan or not.

Okay, I have gained about 5 pounds just looking at that picture and thinking about how good those desserts were, so I need to go do some exercising! Hopefully I will be back here more often with the new laptop--I've missed it.

Leftovers

2008-12-04T07:07:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about this recipe that I found in a Laptop Lunchbox newsletter last year

for some time now. It really looked good, and I even considered making it as an entree for the Thanksgiving meal, like they suggested. I really like the individual dishes, though, and I have some picky family members that don't necessarily like their foods to be combined, so I decided againt it. I didn't forget it, however, and this year, I bought portobello mushrooms with my Thanksgiving supplies so that I could do it both ways, using my leftovers to make a totally new dish.

This turned out really well. The girl even ate some, although she said she wasn't very hungry. But she even put the cranberry sauce on top and ate without complaining! The boy liked it all except for the mushroom, but he ate the sweet potatoes and the stuffing and the cranberry sauce.

I also made pumpkin soup with the pumpkin I had leftover from the pumpkin cheesecake. That wasn't quite as successful. I thought it was all right, although it could have used a bit more spice. The kids, on the other hand, cried. They haven't done that in a while, and I thought it was more than a bit of an overreaction, but it clearly was not a success at any rate. I am going to perservere, though, because they need to learn to like soups. I am wearing them down in other areas (excuse me, educating their palates), it is time for soups. They are such a great way to get in extra vegetable nutrition. Plus, it's cold outside and soup is warming.

I just need to prepare myself for the whining and complaining! They will get used to it eventually, I am sure.

Thanksgiving meal

2008-11-27T16:31:00.000-08:00

I love having people over for meals. I rarely have my family over, because they are suspicious of my food. I am slowly winning them over though. And they are big into food that someone else cooks, especially at Thanksgiving time, so I was able to get them over to my new house today for a big meal. My dad did make a turkey out on the grill, though. But that is a small concession to make, I suppose. I didn't eat any of it, and they were happy to have it.

Here's a picture of the meal, except for the garlic roasted brussels sprouts, the turkey and the double-layer pumpkin cheesecake:

The potatoes were mashed with Earth balance and Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream, the sweet potato casserole was based on this recipe from Fat-Free Vegan, and I got the cranberry orange sauce recipe on Rachael Ray's website, although I added a bit of Grand Marnier to mine at the end. The stuffing recipe is the same one I make every year, although this year I left the raisins out in the hope that it would be more appealing to my mom that way. She did try it, but still thought it was weird; hey, at least she tried. Oh, and I also made the dill dip in the same post with the stuffing, but that was pretty well demolished by the time I took my picture.

Here's a picture of my plate, with all the yummy stuff:

So, by switching my dessert (from the pecan pie of last year), I managed to go completely vegan this year. I thought about making some kind of replacement for the turkey, but there was really plenty of food; I didn't miss it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Almost Vegan Pastitsio

2008-11-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

This meal took a little longer to make than many things I do, but it was worth it. It was very good, and both of the kids had seconds! I based this on a recipe in the Weight Watcher's Take-Out Tonight cookbook.

Almost Vegan Pastitsio

I have been eyeing this traditional Greek dish on restaurant menus for a while now, wishing I could try it. With a ground beef filling and a milk-based bechamel, that was not going to happen, so instead I searched out a recipe to veganize. The nutmeg in the sauce disguises the soy taste wonderfully. I know there are egg substitutes that would work in this, but I am not really familiar with them, so I just used the eggs. Feel free to suggest vegan alternatives in the comments.

Sauce:

3 cups soy milk

1/4 cup cornstarch

3 eggs, lightly beaten

4 TBSP parmesan substitute (we used Parma!)

salt and ground pepper

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Filling:

1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3/4 pound ground meat substitute, like Boca crumbles

1 pound plum tomatoes, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced (although I used more--probably 4 or 5)

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

salt and pepper

1/2 pound whole wheat spaghetti or elbow macaroni

2 TBSP parmesan substitute

Cook pasta according to package directions; drain and set aside.

Meanshile, combind the milk, cornstarch and eggs in a large saucepan. Cook over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly. This took me a while, but I think I turned the fire down too low--I was warming, not cooking--so make sure the heat isn't too low. When thickened, remove from heat and add the Parmesan sub, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. Place a lid on the pot and set aside while you make the filling.

At this point, you'll want to preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 7 by 11 inch baking dish with non-stick spray.

For the filling, heat the oil in a large skillet and saute the onion until softened. Add the remaining filling ingredients and cook until heated through, and the liquid from the tomatoes evaporates. Stir often.

To assemble the casserole, start with half of the pasta, then top with all of the filling and the other half of the pasta. Pour the bechamel sauce over the top and sprinkle with the last 2 tablespoons of Parma. Bake until golden, 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving, to set the casserole.

I was going to roast brussels sprouts with this, but the kids aren't fans, so I ended up skipping them, and we had green beans instead. Lima beans stewed with some olive oil and oregano would have been good, too.

A couple of quick meals

2008-11-25T17:49:00.000-08:00

I read a lot of vegan blogs with fantastic gourmet recipes. I love to see people showing that great meals do not need to center around a hunk of rotting flesh, or baby animal milk. People do some truly amazing things. But in general, that is not me.

I just want to get dinner on the table most nights. I want my food to have nutrition and flavor, but I am not passionate about making it just right or gourmet, or taking a long time. There are so many things I want to do in life, and cooking is definitely one of them, but only one. I want to get good food made in the smallest amount of time that is necessary. Sometimes that is not such a small time, but some nights it has to be fast, or we can't do it. Here are some examples of fast meals we have done lately.

First, I described my recipe for fast vegan fried rice awhile back, but here is a picture:

Doesn't that look healthy and delicious? The kids even like it. The boy had seconds and the girl ate hers without too much convincing (although she did try to convince me that she wasn't that hungry, a holdover from a virus she had the week before--she didn't complain about the taste, though). Every time I make rice these days, I make some extra so that we can have this later in the week. It is super fast, nutritious and we all like it.

Here is an even faster way to use up leftover rice:

For this one, I used fried tofu I got from the international foods market, along with a canned Thai soup and frozen green beans. I had to add some sriracha hot sauce to mine, but my friend said it was very good.

So, there you have it: some fast to the table, but still flavorful vegan meals. I hope this gives someone some good ideas for quick family meals that don't sacrifice flavor or your food convictions.

My Backwards Dinner

2008-11-11T19:11:00.000-08:00

The kids are at their dad's for the night, so I had dessert first. I was really excited this weekend to see the coconut milk ice cream at Whole Foods this weekend. I was looking forward to it all day at work, so I decided to dive in as soon as I got ome tonight. Oh my goodness, was it good! So creamy, no soy taste, just about perfect. I had to stop myself from devouring the whole pint, but I am looking forward to being able to have it again, so I was able to take only one serving and put it back in the freezer.

Why do I get to eat dessert first, when I won't let my kids do the same? Because I knew I was making urban vegan's delicious 30 minute Polish meal. I didn't get a picture, but it was awesome! I added cried cranberries to the carrots, and used baby carrots rather than slicing whole carrots, but other than that I pretty much followed the recipe as is. Oh, and the first time I tried to toast some walnuts to throw in the carrots, I accidentally turned off the wrong burner, so they burned, while I lost cooking time for the carrots. It all turned out very good, though, and I caught it before it got too bad. I had to throw out that batch of walnuts, but I didn't ruin the pan or start a fire or anything.

I tell you, having my own house is so good for me--the kids weren't here, but I cooked a real meal and washed dishes, two things I used to avoid when the kids were gone. I ate out a lot, or made sandwiches and left the dishes for the next night. So, healthy delicious eating, saving money, cleaner home. All in all, a definitely good thing!

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Yesterday I cooked twice. I worked from home, so I decided to cook lunch, too, and freeze some of the leftovers. I made the Red Lentil and Cauliflower Curry from Veganomican. I had made it before, but just from what I had on hand when I went searching in the cookbook. This time I actually planned ahead to make it and went to the store to buy all the ingredients for it. It was good last time, but this time it was even better. The parsnip was good--I had only had parsnips once before and I don't think that was a good recipe. I remember thinking it was weirdly textured and bland, but it really worked in this recipe. I got an Anaheim chili, which isn't quite as hot as the jalapeno or serrano recommended, because I think the kids may eat some when I thaw out the remainder. I have to warn you, though, they are still plenty hot enough to set your eye on fire if you touch it without washing your hands. I learned that the hard way well after I was done eating, while I was on a work phone meeting. People are asking me questions, and I am trying not to scream while frantically searching for the nearest washcloth to help rinse my eye out, with impaired sight since I couldn't open the one eye. Not something I recommend. Be careful with chilis!

I had it with some garlic naan from Trader Joe's. Doesn't it look delectable?

And for dinner, I made my friend Andrea's favorite dinner (well, her favorite dinner that I cook, anyway): Curried Stir-Fried Noodles with Vegetables. No picture of this one, but I can assure you it was very good, as usual.

See all these fresh veggies? I feel so healthy! And full.

A Flurry of Cooking

2008-10-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

I have actually cooked dinner four nights in a row! I have plans for the rest of the week, too.

Moving has, once again, made it hard to get into a routine. On top of moving there is the new school year, which always comes as a shock to me. Why, I don’t know, since we have been doing this for 6 years now, but I am always thrown by the new schedule. And on top of that, we are in a new school this year, so the routines are even more different. Not to mention the whole unpacking thing, and (sniff, sniff), the lack of a dishwasher at the new house (sob, wail!).

But, this week I got it together finally. I have done some cooking, of course, but this week, I made a menu, and a grocery list, and went and got everything I needed. And I have been cooking every night, and even doing dishes and making lunches. Go me! Here is my menu:

Sunday: Tempeh Shepherdess Pie, from Veganomicon, which was fantastic. We had friends over for this one, and everyone loved it. It was a bit more time-consuming than I would like for a weeknight meal, but it was perfect for having friends over on the weekend.

Monday: Curry Cashew Casserole, from urban vegan, also very good, but not quite spicy enough for me. No matter, I had some good Thai garlic chili sauce, and it made the dish perfect. The kids actually ate this fairly well, too.

Tuesday: Meatballs in Applesauce, rice, broccoli, from Cooking for the Rushed (although this recipe called for ground beef, I just subbed some meatless meatballs from Trader Joe’s), which is a popular kid meal

Wednesday: this was my non-vegan night, with Curry Salmon Noodle bake, peas, which was a HUGE hit with the kids

Thursday: Sloppy lentils on whole wheat buns, baked fries, bell pepper strips

Friday: Fried rice, egg rolls and shu mai (appetizers from Trader Joe’s). Oh, and we may have some candy, which will likely not be vegan.

Saturday the kids will be at their dad’s, so I am not sure what I will be doing, although I do have food. I may be helping friends move, though, so I may do something with them. Sunday I have a play to go to. We go to the 2:00 show, so we often eat out after that.

Monday: Macaroni and Cheese and peas

Tuesday: some kind of sandwich or snacky food for me, while the kids are at their dad’s house

Wednesday: payday! We may go out to celebrate surviving the first month with the big house payment. And then we may need to do a quick grocery store trip to replenish supplies.

The house is continuing to force me to cook at home, which is good for my bank account and my health. Also, my eating pleasure--it may not be modest, but I have to say that I make good food!

Busy, busy, busy

2008-07-01T08:20:00.001-07:00

I am buying a house! I have been spending a lot of time looking at houses, and gathering paperwork, so I haven't been posting much. Now I am going to have to spend a bunch of time packing, purging, doing even more paperwork, getting inspections and all that, so I will probably not have a lot of time to post for a while now.

After I move though, I am doing something kind of exciting--Once A Month Cooking, or freezer cooking, or whatever you want to call it. I will need to cut costs when we move, so I am going to do some cooking ahead to make sure that I have food available when I come home for dinner every night. I have done this before, but that was back when I ate meat, so this will be a bit different. I am already thinking about what kind of recipes I can do, and making a few plans, so I can dive in after I move (and buy a small deep freezer). I like making dinner with fresh food, but this does save a lot of time and money, when I know what we will be eating every night. I can still cook sometimes, but I will have a nice backup for busy days. I will post my plan when I get it figured out.

BLAT sandwich

2008-06-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

Next time, I need to add some sprouts, so it is a BLAST sandwich, which sounds more appetizing. Anyway, it has hearty whole grain bread, veggie bacon, lettuce, tomato, and avocado, with a thin layer of vegennaise. Not pictured: yummy sweet potato fries as a side dish.

Brunch

2008-06-08T17:12:00.001-07:00

I was going to go out for the expensive brunch I have been eating most Sunday's lately. It isn't ridiculously expensive--it's downright cheap when you think of all you get, including many vegan goodies--but it's certainly more expensive than I could make at home. And, it's fun to break out my cookbooks and make food the way I like, and feed my friends and family.

I didn't make anything new today, unless you count the smoothies, which are slightly different every time I make them. This time they had orange juice, bananas, frozen mixed berries, frozen mangoes, frozen raspberries and a fresh peach. I had forgotten how much I like fruit smoothies--the main point of this offering was to make sure there was at least one thing the children would consume without complaining! I served them in ice cream sundae dishes to make them even more fun.

We also had blue flannel hash from Veganomicon, and the asparagus and sun-dried tomato frittata from Vegan with a Vengeance. I've made both of these recipes before, so I wasn't surprised that they turned out awesome. We had a little bit of veggie bacon brought by my friend, some banana bread with carob chips made by another friend (given to me after she spent the day watching my daughter, which is probably a bit backwards, not that I am complaining!), and some grapes to round out the meal. We had some good conversation about books while we ate, and everyone had a great time. We are definitely going to do this again.

Here is an aerial view of our brunch, picture by my friend Andrea:

Here is my plate of yummy brunch goodness. See how the stem on the grapes looks like a big preying mantis? (No actual bugs were harmed during the making of this brunch ;-))

Summer!

2008-06-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

The crazy end of school is over. I went to Jefferson City with the 4th grade, I volunteered at the kindergarten birthday party, I assisted in the frantic search for library books, I got a certification of my own, and I generally was so busy we collapsed in exhaustion at the end of every day. I did take some food pictures, but I don't have them with me, so I will have to post them later.

What I do have this week is an actual menu plan! I am feeling pretty proud of myself on this one. I have even brought my lunch to work every day so far this week. Here it is, my not terribly inpired, but still, complete, plan.

Sunday: soy cheese pizza, fruit

Monday: lunch--leftover pizza, strawberries, dark chocolate
dinner--BBQ at my dad's; I brought a Boca burger, and he had steamed broccoli and corn on the cob

Tuesday: lunch--not vegan; Trader Joe's Thai tuna curry with a boxed pilaf mix with lots of different whole grains, orange, apple
dinner--garbanzo beans and spinach cooked in Trader Joe's curry simmer sauce with some plain soy milk, brown basmati rice simmered with Bombay saffron rice spice from World Market, fruit juice (orange peach mango, I think)

Wednesday: lunch--leftover curry, apple, orange
dinner--macaroni and cheeze, steamed broccoli and cauliflower

Thursday: lunch--leftover mac and chz, or frozen pad thai from Trader Joe's, strawberries, pear, leftover veggies
dinner--veggie and tofu fried rice, oranges

Friday: lunch--I may go out this day, I think, or leftovers
dinner--okay, I only planned until Thursday, you caught me...

Thursday is payday, so I just decided to get that far and then make new plans. The end of school is expensive! We may go out on Friday and then head to the Farmer's Market on Saturday.

After this weekend, the kids go to their dad's house for 2 weeks. I will need an easy plan for that time, to guard against eating out for every meal, which is really expensive! Also, not so healthy. So, I need a plan with healthy stuff that is easy to make. Maybe some cooking ahead? I am going to think on this for a bit and see what I can come up with. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Cupcake party!

2008-04-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

I got a copy of Vegan Cupcakes take over the World something like a year ago. I wanted to make all of the cupcakes right away, but I have really gotten out of the habit of baking. So, I showed the book to some friends, and they were enthusiastic, too. We picked out some recipes, and made vague plans to have a cupcake party.

This weekend, we finally did it.

I invited two friends over, and they came with their two children each. S invited 2 friends, also. So, we had 11 people in my small kitchen. Well, we mostly kicked the 4 boys 7 and under out to play, but at one point we did have all three adults and all 4 girls crowded around the table. I was in charge of reading the recipes, washing measuring cups, and fetching spoons, forks, and various other implements to mix, measure and taste.

We started with the sexy low fat vanilla cupcakes with fresh berries. The girls made these under my supervision, and then we kicked them out, too. I think I may have underestimated my ability to handle chaos, but it really wasn't that bad once we got things calmed down for a bit.

We made gingerbread cupcakes with lemony cream cheese frosting, and chocolate cherry creme cupcakes with vegan buttercream frosting. This all took a lot more time than I thought it would, but it was so much fun! Most everyone had three cupcakes, one as we finished each batch. This isn't quite as unhealthy as it sounds, since we used whole wheat pastry flour instead of the all-purpose white flour, and at least there wasn't any high fructose corn syrup in anything. But mostly, it was so fun and delicious, we didn't care about the calories or sugar or fat!

My favorite was the vanilla with fresh berries, Tracy's was the gingerbread, and Andrea's was the chocolate cherry cream. This is not surprising, as those are the recipes we each picked. But they were all amazing, and we are definitely doing this again! I have my eye on the orange pudding filled cupcakes. We are thinking about an adult cupcake party with black forest cupcakes (the choc cherry cream made with cherry brandy) and maragarita cupcakes. I feel very in this cupcake trend, which no doubt means it is pretty much past the height of trendiness. No matter, I love the cupcakes!

A picture and a menu

2008-03-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

First I have to say, Oh my goodness, but Whole Foods is expensive! Partly it's me stocking up on several things, and partly it's the rising cost of food these days, partly it's their great selection of vegetarian products, partly it's the awesome prepared foods they have. Lots of partlys adding up to a big bill. But, it should be worth it in healthy, delicious food this week.

First a picture from a while back:

This is the gnocchi I made after my kids spent a day at my parents' house eating nothing but junk. It's gnocchi with lots of tomato sauce and spinach. On top, and lurking in the background of the picture, is Parma! vegan parmesan. We had to buy this, because it has raw organic walnuts, red star nutritional yeat, celtic sea salt, and love. With an ingredient list like that, how could we pass it up?

Now the menu:

Tonight: Carribean Beans and Quinoa--so incredibly good! The girl even liked it. I am so glad that she is finally more open to more complex flavors.

Tuesday: I am making a Rachael Ray Curry in a Hurry recipe with the new Trader Joe's chickenless strips. Plus rice, and some kind of vegetable (maybe salad, or broccoli).

Wednesday: Fried rice. I threw some together on Friday, and it was so good, I am making it again. I heated up some coconut oil, pressed some tofu (just between my hands), diced it and fried until golden. Then, I added some onion and garlic, and when the kitchen started smelling really good, I added some frozen spinach and peas, and two cups of cooked brown rice. After I mixed all that together, I poured about a third of a jar of Trader Joe's Chinese 5 Spice Chef Sauce on top, and heated it all up until the flavors were blended and it was all hot. I couldn't believe how good it turned out, for something just thrown together!

Thursday: West African Peanut Stew

Friday, the girl is going to sing at the Cardinals game with her choir! I have no idea what we will eat, but I am sure we will have fun.

That's as far as my planning has gone, but I am going to do more planning next week. We eat so much better when I know what we are going to have (not counting that serendipitous fried rice).

You learn something new every day...

2008-03-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Like, my last post? I posted that on Wednesday, March 19. But I started it on March 6, like the publish date says. I did not know that Blogger could pretend like that...

Anyway, a camping update:

Not totally vegan this time, so I'll skim over the first night, when we had salmon and sugar snap peas cooked in a foil packet with teriyaki sauce.

The second night, I went with the best kid-pleaser, beanie weenies, made with soy hotdogs. My friend made new potatoes, carrots and onion roasted in foil, and the kids devoured grapes with the beans.

The third night, it rained, so we had Taco Bell. Oh, for a larger town nearby with a Qdoba!

Breakfasts were largely fruit and whole wheat bagels with tofutti cream cheese, and lunches consisted of a lot of general snacking. I brought a bunch of guacamole this time, and whole wheat tortillas, and the boy ate some leftover hot dogs. Oh, and we had leftover beanie weenies. Hmm, we weren't very organized this time.

We did get some beautiful hiking in before the rains hit. We went down on a Saturday and stayed until Tuesday, so we were practically alone on the campground after Sunday morning. Monday night, when it was raining, we were the only camper there. We saw a lot of wildlife, though--probably 6 or 7 deer, some of them fairly close up. We saw a beaver on our way back from town on Monday, which was pretty cool. We played a lot of Trivial Pursuit and got a lot of reading done.

Wednesday night we had friends over and I made Curried Stir-Fried Noodles with Vegetables. Andrea requested it last time she came for dinner, but I didn't have all the ingredients, so I got it all when I went to the store to buy some supplements after returning from the campground.

Last night we went to my parents' house for pizza, and I got to feed S something other than plain cheese pizza. She eats too much plain food, so we are experimenting with more complex flavors. We had pineapple pizza, and it was a big success! We used rice milk cheese, and it was very good, melty and delicious.

Now the kids are at their dad's so I expect some eating out this weekend, but I am going to try to make some healthy stuff this weekend to prepare for next week.

Update on my plan, new week

2008-03-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

I just found this post hanging out on my blogger dashboard. I am not sure what I was planning to do with it when I saved it and walked away, but I am just posting it as is and I will come back with something more updated later. Something with more camping thoughts, as we did that again this past weekend....

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I did pretty good on my plan from last week. Monday through Friday was just what I planned. I did go out on Tuesday, but that was my tentative plan anyway. My friend made a delicious veggie chili on Friday with all kinds of good veggies in it--much healthier than I usually make mine. I just do a basic bean chili with tomato sauce and salsa, but not much else in the way of veggies (well, onions and garlic, but that's a given). She had carrots and eggplant and zucchini and all kinds of good stuff in there. Very good!

The weekend was all right. Saturday we just had Tofurkey Italian Sausages (hallelujah, the girl likes them! They have flavor, and she eats them!) and hashbrowns, because I didn't feel like going all out and making falafels and tahini sauce and all that, when I was pretty sure the kids wouldn't eat them, or not much. Sunday, we went out for Vietnamese food. The girl was so picky and rude about it, I decided no more eating out for her for some time. She will learn to like more foods at home, or no eating out. I am tired of buying her chicken fingers and french fries.

This week, we have only been home two nights so far. Tuesday, we had a Match crab and cabbage stirfry with some kind of pineapple teriyaki sauce and sliced carrots. Yum! The kids ate theirs with only minimal complaining. I am wearing them down, ha ha.

Last night we had friends over and made pizza. No arguing for a change, everyone was joyful.

Menu plan

2008-02-26T13:06:00.001-08:00

I went to the store with an actual plan and a list! I feel so organized when I do that.

Here is what we are having, starting with last night:

Monday: Beanie Weenies, steamed broccoli

Tuesday: waffling here, I may go out, or make falafels (kids are at their dad's)

Wednesday: Peanut noodles, steamed sugar snap peas, blood oranges

Thursday: Creamy chickpea and tahini casserole, salad, some veggie the kids will eat

Friday: eating at a friend's house

Saturday: Falafel, if I don't make them tonight, or I may do a grocery store run that day

Okay, it's not a great plan, but it's pretty good. It's better than no plan. I am trying to actually make some more of the recipes I have bookmarked on my computer, rather than marking them and forgetting about them.

Leftovers

2008-02-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

Last night, when we had guests over for dinner, this was baja tempeh tacos in blue corn tortillas, with red cargo rice and black beans with adobo sauce on the side. For lunch today, I threw the whole thing in a bowl, minus the tortilla. It was delicious both ways, which isn't a shock, because I got the recipes from Veganomican, which hasn't let me down yet. The marinated tempeh was amazing, and the slaw and lime crema were the perfect complements. I loved the recipe for the black beans with adobo sauce, because the beans were nice and bland, and the sauce was nice and spicy, with lots of flavor. Since the recipe called for adding the sauce at the table, it was the perfect dish to share with people with a wide variety of tolerance for hot, spicy food. I garnished with fresh radishes, avocado and orange tomatoes, although there weren't any tomatoes left to garnish my leftovers. The radishes came fresh, still attached to the greens; I find they are so much better than the blandly hot radishes that come in bags from the big food processors. I would have thought that bland and spicy don't go together, but those just taste hot without any flavor to go with it to me. This was a very successful meal with guests, and something we will definitely be having again!

Several things

2007-12-27T14:43:00.000-08:00

Why did I think I would get back here during the holiday season? I have been busy, busy, busy. On the bright side, I have done a lot of good cooking, but almost no writing. Here are some updates on the many topics I have thought about blogging in the past few weeks.

Having Friends Over for a Thanksgiving Meal

This is the meal with 3 other vegetarians sitting at the table, plus two friends who were just along for the totally vegetarian meal. We had a great time, and ate way too much food!

First, the appetizers--I made the dill dip I referenced in my last post, and my friend Tracey brought over olives cooked in crescent roll dough. These were SO GOOD! It may be a very 70's dish, but who cares? While we munched and I finished other things, I instructed Tracey in the making of the cranberry upside down cake from Urban Vegan. She did a great job! That was one of the best cakes I have ever had, just the right amount of sweetness without being too much.

I made:

A Tofurkey roast with carrots and onions
The gravy that came with the roast
My veggie sausage stuffing
Cranberry orange sauce
Pecan pie

My friend Andrea brought:

Nut loaf (pecans and sunflowers seeds, with rice and other yummy stuff)
Red potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes
roasted Brussels sprouts with lots of pepper (so I didn't steam the broccoli and cauliflower that I had purchased for the meal)
Some spiced apples that we forgot to get out of the microwave until after everyone was totally stuffed

We had some wine, and we played Boggle after we ate. I loved having my friends from different spheres over--one couple who have a daughter in S's class, two moms of boys in M's class, and Mandy, my friend from high school. Everyone got along and I had a great time.

An Update on the Egg Thing

I had some eggs for breakfast the other morning, and they tasted kind of yucky. That was partly because the egg whites were still a little runny (shudder), but also, I think I am getting over the weird craving, whatever that was all about. I don't fantasize about eating eggs anymore, and I can easily look past the eggs in the morning to grab something else for breakfast. I don't know what that whole thing was all about, but I am glad it is over. I am still not cutting eggs out entirely, but I am making it a much more occasional thing.

Christmas cooking

I had friends over for Christmas Eve, and I made Snobby Joes, from the teaser recipes on the Veganomican page over on The PPK. I also made a bunch of Herb Roasted Potatoes from Vegan with a Vengeance, because I wanted them for Christmas breakfast, but I didn't want to get up over an hour early to get them ready. I thought both recipes were delicious, but the kids thought the joes were a bit too spicy. Next time I will tone down the chili powder, because I want this to be a kid-friendly recipe.

I did get up a little early on Christmas morning to make the asparagus and tomato fritatta, also from Vegan with a Vengeance. Wow, was that so good! After my mother ate a serving and talked about how good it was, I told her that it was a tofu fritatta, and she was surprised. She asked, "There's no egg in this at all?" Nope, and it was extremely yummy. I think it would have been even yummier with the sun-dried tomatoes that the recipe called for, but my mom doesn't like those, so I used fresh. I have enough trouble getting her to eat my "weird" vegetarian food, I don't need to start on a bad note with something she doesn't even like. I heated up the potatoes in the oven right after I pulled out the fritatta, and they were great.

New Cookbook

No one gave me a cookbook for Chirstmas, but my brother gave me a gift card to Border's, and Veganomican was the first book I picked up. I have been drooling over that book since it came out, but I was holding off and spending my money on gifts for other people. I went right to Border's the day after Christmas though and picked up the book first thing! I cannot wait to start cooking from that book!

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That's all the news that's fit to print for now. Have a happy new year, everyone!

All the Thanksgiving meals

2007-12-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

November was definitely a month for eating too much food. I have a lot more difficulty eating moderately around Thanksgiving than Christmas, because Thanksgiving food is real food, not junk. Well, except for the pie and cake, but it's still not an endless supply of cookies and candy like Christmas food is.

The first Thanksgiving meal was about a week before the actual holiday, at work. We do a big potluck for all the people on my floor. Okay, not all, but a lot of people participate. Of course, these meals generally have a lot of meat, and I don't even want to think about the dairy involved, but there is generally enough food available for me to eat far too much anyway. This year I brought my favorite stuffing, made with veggie sausage:

Sausage Apple Stuffing

~6 cups bread crumbs (I use whole wheat bread, cut into cubes and toasted a bit in the oven)
1 pkg. Lightlife Gimme Lean sausage
1 apple, diced
1 onion, diced
¼ cup raisins
1 TBSP poultry seasoning
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 ¼ cup apple juice (or, in my case, 2 6.75 ounce juice boxes, because that’s what I had on hand)

Gimme Lean sausage is very low fat, so I find it difficult to just crumble it in the skillet and cook it like normal sausage. So, I spray some cooking spray in the skillet, slice the sausage, fry until done, and then chop it into small pieces. Remove to a large bowl. Saute the apple, onion and raisins (the original recipe called for celery, too, but you will never find that stringy vegetable in any of my recipes!) with a little more cooking spray, then add to the bowl with the sausage. Mix in the poultry seasoning and walnuts, then stir in the breadcrumbs. Finally, pour the juice over the top and mix one more time.

Don’t do like I do every time, and put it straight into an unprepared baking dish. This stuffing is too good to be missing all the stuff that sticks to the dish. Spray the pan down well, then throw in the stuffing and bake at whatever temperature all your other dishes are cooking, generally 350. I bake it until it smells great in my kitchen and looks done, which is not a scientific measurement. I know it when I see it, but I can’t tell you how. I think it is about 30-40 minutes, though.

I am also lucky in this sort of potluck in that we have a fair contingent of Indians on my floor, so I am not the only vegetarian. This year, though, there weren't any good veggie curries. Still, I had a good salad, lots of my stuffing, veggies, cranberry sauce, fruit, pumpkin pie, cherry cobbler and peppermint patties. I am sure the pie was not dairy-free, but overall, it was a fairly successful meal.

On Thanksgiving day, we went to my parents’ house. I didn’t cook as much as I intended to make originally, because I knew that most of the stuff I was making would not be appreciated by my family, and I would be having friends over the following weekend that would appreciate it all. I did make a pecan pie, cranberry sauce, mashed candied sweet potatoes, nutmeg mushrooms, steamed green beans and this great dill dip:

Dill Dip in a Round Rye bread
1 cup Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream
2/3 cup Nayonnaise
1 tsp dill seeds
1 tsp English Prime Rib seasoning (the original recipe calls for Beau Monde, but Penzey’s doesn’t carry that—I am only a little freaked out at all these “meat seasonings” I am using; first poultry seasoning and now this ;-))
1 TBSP dried onion flakes
1 TBSP dried parsley
1 large round loaf of rye bread

Mix the first 6 ingredients well. Cut a bowl into the top of the rye loaf, tearing up the cut out bread for dipping. Place the dip in the bowl and eat with the rye bread chunks, tearing up the bowl when the chunks are gone.

This is insanely good. My family devoured this in about 20 minutes, just me, my mom, my dad and my brother. The kids did eat a little of the bread, but they aren’t much for dip.

I still have one more meal to describe, but that will have to wait for another time. It was delicious, though! And, of the 5 people I had over, 3 of them were actually vegetarians, so I wasn’t outnumbered in my non-meat-eating ways for a change. Not that I mind cooking for anyone, it was just a nice change.

Entertaining

2007-11-13T08:10:00.000-08:00

I have finally done enough unpacking to feel comfortable inviting some people over to my house. The apartment is still not stranger-ready, really, but it is looking good enough to have friends over. Woohoo!

On Friday of this past weekend, I had two other single moms from my childrens' school over with their kids. I am glad I have the bigger apartment to accomodate 3 moms and 6 kids (mostly the 6 kids--they need a lot of space!). I got out my cool appetizer platter and put roasted garlic hummus in the center, then piled sun-dried tomato and basil Wheat Thins, baby carrots, olives, pickles, dried plums and a spicy nut mix. I gave the kids some veggie sticks, which sound healthy, but is really just slightly healthier junk food. Many of them came in and ate pickles, olives and baby carrots, too, though. One 6 year old boy even drank some of the pickle juice! Just a little bit, because we wanted to see if he really would like it. He said it was good, but he didn't clamor for more when it was done ;-).

For dinner we had chickpeas and yukon gold potatoes cooked in a store bought vindaloo sauce that was actually nicely spicy. I find that a lot of store-bought sauces are too bland for me, but this one had a definite kick. We had brown basmati rice cooked with bombay saffron rice spice and Thai green beans from Trader Joe's. I was worried that it wouldn't be enough food, but many of the children were too busy playing to eat much, so I had plenty of leftovers to enjoy.

I had so much fun having people over on Friday that I did it again on Saturday. This time I invited my friend Mandy, her 11 year old daughter and one of her neices, A. My daughter has been wanting to do more with A for some time, but she goes to a different school, and I am not friends with her mother, so we don't see them very often. This time we were pretty casual. We had some hummus and flatbread for an appetizer, and I made a pasta with carmelized cauliflower recipe from the most recent issue of Vegetarian Times. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love that magazine? There is always something in there that I want to make, usually more than one thing. In this same issue is a wonderful looking vegan moussaka, which I am going to make sometime when I have more time available. And some adorable cranberry molds I am going to use to replace my gelatin based cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, as mentioned below.) Everyone ate at least some of the dish, which I consider a success with picky pre-teen girls.

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On another note, I was mistaken, the children will be with me for Thanksgiving this year! There are definitely some times when I am glad to be wrong. I am still doing most of my cooking at home, though, and avoiding the smoke.

Thanksgiving menu, so far

2007-11-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

You mean it isn't a requirement to make too much food on Thanksgiving? I never got that memo ;-).

Appetizers:
Spinach dip with wheat thins (made with Tofutti sour cream and Nayonnaise)
Dill dip and rye bread (ditto above)
hummus stuffed cherry tomatoes
veggies, maybe with hidden valley ranch dip (is that vegan?)

Main meal:

My neighbor is going to bring a nut loaf and mashed potatoes
Punk rock chick pea gravy from Vegan with a Vengeance or mushroom gravy
Vegetarian sausage, apple and walnut stuffing
Sweet potato casserole
Steamed green beans with minced onion
Candied carrots with dried cranberries
Nutmeg mushrooms
Cranberry molds from the latest Vegetarian Times magazine, because my normal cranberry relish uses jell-o, which is obviously not vegetarian

Dessert:

Pecan pie, not vegan, because it has eggs
Cranberry upside down cake, recipe from a blog somewhere that I have favorited at home
Some kind of non-dairy vanilla ice cream

I think I might be forgetting something. I go a little crazy over Thanksgiving, :-D

This may or may not be on Thanksgiving. I may do this with a group of friends the following weekend, and take a smaller amount of food to my parents' house for the day itself. What I am not going to do is spend all day at my parent's house cooking while my dad makes the turkey and their yucky stuffing but otherwise everyone sits in a different room watching tv and ignoring me. If my neighbor stays in town, I am hosting the meal on Thanksgiving and inviting my family, although they may not come since I am not making a turkey. My kids are going to be at their dad's house this year anyway, so I am not subjecting myself to all that. Plus, the cigarette smoke! Yuck-o.

The Egg Thing is Creeping Me Out

2007-11-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, I really like eggs. So much, I decided to just give in and declare eggs a part of my diet for now. But I am wondering if I should change my mind again. Not because I don't like them, but because I really, really like them. Maybe a bit too much.

I am not kidding, I fantasize about eating eggs these days. I am averaging 2 per day, but yesterday I ate 3. I make one in the morning, and then I have to make another one, because I am just not satisfied. When I am hungry, I start thinking about how good those eggs are, and I can even feel the texture in my mouth, along with the taste. This does not seem right to me.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that people often crave foods that are actually bad for them, but I am too lazy right now to go search for the link. I mean, foods that you are allergic to, not just the generic bad stuff we all crave, like candy and potato chips. It is starting to make me wonder about these eggs, because it seems like such a weird thing to crave all the time. But, I don't want to give them up! I love them!

See what I mean? It's kind of creepy.

World Vegan Day

2007-10-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

This Thursday, 11/1/07, is World Vegan Day. I found out on the message boards at LibraryThing just now, so I don't have any plans as yet, but I think I will try to be as vegan as I can on Thursday. This could present a slight shoe problem, as I think my brown winter shoes are leather, but I will see what I can do.

I did send an email to the people that attend the vegetarian potluck here at work, but I haven't heard back from anyone yet. But, I don't think I ever mentioned how cool my vegetarian potluck group is. We meet once a month for lunch, and the group is open to anyone who wants to attend, but there is a core group of about 6 of us that have been coming the whole time, which is 2 or 3 years now. We are not all vegetarians, but obviously we all have some interest in vegetarianism. Of those of us who do not eat meat, there is a lot of going back and forth between meat-eating and vegetarianism. We have graduated beyond a lunch group to a group of friends, with field trips out to area restaurants outside of work, and even one dinner at a member's house. I am planning on inviting everyone over when I finish unpacking (note to self: get cracking!). One group member was even one of my biggest helpers with my move this summer. I think it is so awesome that we got together just to share good food, and we have grown beyond that to real friends. And, once a month I am guaranteed a great lunch at work!

Skinny Bitch

2007-10-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

Copying from my book blog, because it is relevant here:

71. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin

This was an interesting book on the benefits of the vegan diet. On the one hand, I liked the way they tried to take some of the mainstream stigma away from a vegan diet with their tough-love tone and complete lack of "crunchiness." I don't have a problem with alternative lifestyle stuff, but it was nice to read a book with straightforward, practical reasons for veganism, not the kind of touchy-feely stuff that turns off a lot of people, or strident, disapproving activism. Not that they were shy about talking about the abuse of animals that occurs on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, but they did it in a more informational tone than a condemning one. On the other hand, their use of profanity was gratuitous and over the top. Overall, though, I enjoyed this short book, which had a nice balance of information on why people should change and practical tips to make the change.

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I am still having a hard time staying away from eggs, and eating fish does still make it easier to eat out, but I am trying to make sure I am at least not overdoing it. I still try to eat totally vegan for most of the time. Maybe I should cut it all out, but I figure almost vegan is better than not at all vegan. The book was helpful in strengthening my resolve at least somewhat. I was starting to think about how much easier life would be if I could eat at my parents' house (translation, if I ate meat), but I am not thinking about that any more. So, at least it is helping to keep me from sliding any further.

A Planning Victory

2007-08-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

The last time I tried to do some cooking ahead on the weekend, I way over-planned. I didn't get half of what I planned done, so I felt like a failure there. So, with school starting for both kids this week, I decided to make a more modest plan. I just made a big pot of rice on Sunday, and boxed it up for use through the week. And it worked! This is the easiest, quickest way to have a big impact on the week.

Sunday night I didn't use the rice at all, though--we just had tacos. I got soft corn tortillas, Lightlife soy taco meat, Follow Your Heart nacho cheese and grape tomatoes, and we had a quick and easy meal. The kids ate plums and I had a pluot to round it out somewhat.

Monday I worked from home for a half day after getting the boy off to his first day of Kindergarten, so I had extra time to cook something. I have been wanting to try this chicken and dumpling recipe for a long time, so I took advantage of my extra time. Oh my goodness, was the seitan good! I forgot to get plain soy milk, and I didn't add enough liquid to the dumplings, so they were only okay, but the deliciousness of the seitan and the gravy more than made up for it. Even the girl said that she didn't expect to like it at all, but it was actually absolutely delicious. I will definitely be making this again. Often.

Tuesday the kids were at their dad's house, and I had a really hard cardio kickboxing class, so I didn't get home until 7:30. By the time my muscles stopped resembling a big bowl of jelly at about 8:30, I was really glad that all I had to do was heat up some Thai green beans from Trader Joe's and serve over already made rice. What a relief.

Yesterday was my birthday, so we went out to California Pizza Kitchen. I had split pea soup, Thai Curry Noodles and a fruity drink with pomegranate schnapps.

Tonight we are going to have veggie meatballs with a sauce made from tomato soup, applesauce, chili sauce and agave nectar, more of the pre-made rice and some kind of veggie.

This weekend I am on my own again, so I imagine I will have a bunch of variations on the bowl of rice, veggie and a sauce theme.

The Problem with Eggs

2007-08-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

I love them.

I never used to be a big egg fan, except when I was pregnant. Both of the last two times I was a vegetarian, I went ahead and gave up eggs, because I wasn't eating meat, and I couldn't eat dairy anyway, so I thought that I might as well give up eggs and go all the way (well, mostly). But when I was pregnant with my children, I loved eggs. After I had my daughter, the craving passed, but since I have had my son, I just can't get enough eggs. They are so good. A good over medium egg with that creamy, rich yolk, oh yum. And they are good with hot sauce and hash browns. And omelettes, with lots of veggies.

So, my next project is going to be finding a source for local eggs, from chickens that walk around in a farm yard, rather than living in cages. I know a farmer's market that I can probably go to for this. At least that way I am not contributing to animal cruelty when I eat eggs at home. Now, what am I going to do about eggs in restaurants?

Maybe I will reconsider this again, but for now, eggs are officially in my diet. I think this still makes me an almost vegan, although I know I am moving further away.

Stir-Fry

2007-07-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

I went to my dad's house this weekend, and he invited us to stay for dinner. He offered to make salmon, but while I haven't completely sworn off seafood, I prefer to avoid it most of the time, so I went to the store with him to see what looked good. After much searching through the store, I came up with the following easy and delicious meal.

Fake Crab and Veggie Stir-Fry
(I know, this isn't a great recipe name. Let me know if you have a better one.)

1 bag Rainbow Salad mix (shredded hearts of broccoli and cauliflower, shredded carrots and red cabbage)
1/2 bag angel hair shredded cabbage
1 pound AuraPro crab meat substitute
about 1/2 bottle Soy Vay Island Teriyaki sauce

It doesn't get much easier than this. I put this all in a big skillet, using a wooden spoon to break apart the fake crab. Then I simmered it, covered, for about 10 minutes, until it was all good and hot, and the veggies were tender, but not mushy. I made Minute Rice to go with, because that is the only kind of rice my parents had in their pantry, but I would usually use brown basmati rice.

This was so incredibly yummy, and healthy, and easy. The boy loved it, and the girl didn't hate it, although she wouldn't admit to any enthusiasm at all.

Following my plan

2007-07-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

Well, not so much.

Actually, I didn't do too bad, I guess. Saturday night I had just what I posted, which isn't that shocking since it was in the oven while I composed my post. Sunday, I made cream of broccoli soup for lunch and put the leftovers in containers to take to work. But then I didn't feel like cooking ahead any more. For dinner that night, we had cheese pizza, made by the girl, and I ate a salad.

Monday, I ate tofurkey italian sausages, but Tuesday I didn't cook anything. I didn't get home from the Muny until after midnight on Monday, so I didn't get enough sleep that night. Then I worked late, and the kids didn't want to come home from grandma and grandpa's house, so I didn't get home until about 9PM. On top of that, I had to go to work early for a meeting on Wednesday, so I just threw together a salad and heated some frozen channa dal samosas and had those with mint chutney. Exhaustion and cooking don't mix.

Without even consulting my menu, though, I got back on track last night and had the seitan curry in a hurry. That was really yummy, although it was a little sweet. The recipe calls for either mango chutney or mincemeat, and I used the mincemeat in the hope that it would make it more acceptable to the girl. She still said it was too spicy, so next time I am using the chutney. The boy tried a raisin first and said he didn't like it, but I convinced him to try the seitan, and then he ate it all. He's a good little eater, and he likes spicier foods. The seitan was perfect in this recipe. One of these days I am going to have to make my own though--pre-made seitan is expensive!

Tonight we had Susan V's International Quinoa salad. Yummy, yummy, yummy. Of course, I am alone in that opinion, but I am hoping it will grow on them. It also seems like a wonderful recipe for a potluck; it makes a ton, and it's pretty. I will definitely keep this in mind next time I get invited to a family BBQ.

So, not too bad. We actually had the item on the night that I said we would 3 times, and ate two of the other meals I had planned, just on different nights. We only skipped one recipe, the ratatouille, and I am going to try to make that this weekend. I don't want to throw out all those veggies. I am glad I sat down to examine my plan here, because I had the impression that I hadn't followed it at all, but I actually did pretty well. I will have to keep this menu planning thing going.

Cooking ahead

2007-07-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

I had a couple of disturbing experiences with sweets this week. The first involved an enormous fruit smoothie at Maggie Moo’s, which seemed like a great idea when I first saw it. Real fruit, sorbet, fruit juice—and all low-fat. Unfortunately, it tasted like berry flavored sugar, mostly, and it was far too big. When the guy gave it to me, I reminded him that I ordered the regular, not the large, but he said that was the regular. Way, WAY too much. The second bad experience was with some baklava, which is not vegan, I know, but I just love it, and I almost never eat it, so I decided to indulge. Both times, all that sugar made me feel sick—a bit nauseated and a bit jumpy, like my body couldn’t handle all that sugar at once. Not good, since I had gestational diabetes with my youngest, and I really don’t ever want to go back to that. I had it bad, with sticks 4 times a day to test my sugar, and insulin injections three times a day. I hated every minute of it.

So, I decided that it is time to get even more serious about eating healthy. I am not doing so terrible, but my big downfall is eating out, especially during the summer. I try to make healthy choices when I eat at restaurants, but I can’t get as many fruits and veggies with my meal as I can at home, and restaurants almost always use a lot more fat to cook their food than I do. I was commenting about this to a friend not too long ago—I always lose weight when I do a lot of cooking at home, and it almost doesn’t matter what I cook. I say that because my highest-fat meals are still lower in fat and calories than a lot of the food you get out at restaurants (I don’t deep fry at all, for instance). But, despite lots of trying, I haven’t gotten completely back in the habit of cooking at home. I have a renewed determination now, though.

Today I took this motivation and used it to do some menu-planning. I looked around online and in some of my cookbooks, and I came up with a great plan. I even made a grocery list. Unfortunately, I also bought a bunch of stuff that was not on the list, so I spent an arm and a leg! Oh well, I guess it is just motivation to stay out of those restaurants this week. As part of my strategy to make sure I don’t waste all this food I bought, I am going to cook up some food tomorrow to take me through the week.

First, I am going to make a batch of Cream of Broccoli soup from The Family Vegetarian Cookbook. That will be a perfect afternoon snack instead of heading to the coffee shop for a scone. I always want something real food like about 3:00, but it is hard to grab something easy and vegan near the office. I am also going to make a big batch of Susan V’s International Quinoa salad for dinner tomorrow night. That recipe makes 10 servings, so I should have plenty to take for lunches during the week. And I will roast the veggies for this fabulous-looking ratatouille, so that I can make it more quickly during the week.

I’d like to think that I am going to make more, but I think I am taking baby steps into this cooking ahead thing. Even having a couple of easy things to grab will make it easier to resist temptation as the week progresses. Here is my menu for the week:

Tonight: salad, black bean and soy cheese taquitos, salsa, baby bananas
Sunday: International Quinoa Salad, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, blueberries
Monday: I am going to the Muny with my mom, so I will just grab a Tofurkey Italian sausage that I left there from the boy’s birthday BBQ yesterday and whatever fruits and veggies she might have around
Tuesday: Roasted Vegetable Ratatouille, gnocchi, salad
Wednesday: Rachael Ray’s Curry in a Hurry, with seitan substituted for the chicken, mangoes, brown rice, some kind of veggie (maybe green beans to appease the kiddoes)
Thursday: Sloppy Joe pizza, steamed veggies, some kind of fruit

Friday the kids go back to their dad’s, so I imagine I will have easy stuff. I bought one of the new Amy’s pizzas—the spinach kind that is vegan. I can eat that for a few meals. But that is mostly a problem for next weekend. First I have to be good about following this one.

Dinner, fast!

2007-07-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been around much now that it is summer, but I haven’t forgotten my blog entirely. It’s just that summer is so much less structured, all my habits change. My children spend a lot of time with their dad (6 weeks, in 2 week chunks), and I am not home much during that time. It just gets so lonely here when they are gone. Why, yes, I do know that I am pathetic, why do you ask? ;-) The kids came back this weekend, though, so I have been cooking again. I am trying to cook up what I have in the house, both to use up stuff I don’t have room for in my storage-challenged new kitchen, and to save some money, so cooking is a bit of an adventure these days.

I came home from work today with no idea what to make for dinner, so I hit the cookbooks. Now, I love my Vegan With a Vengeance book, but at 6:30 this evening, every recipe I looked at needed an hour’s marinating, or 30 minutes on the stove followed by an hour in the oven, or 3 labor intensive components that had to be baked for 45 minutes after they were assembled. So, they obviously weren’t happening.

Next I turned to The Vegetarian Family Cookbook, by Nava Atlas. I’ve mentioned this cookbook before, but it’s been awhile since I looked at it, and I had forgotten just how wonderful it is. I quickly found a delicious recipe that I mostly had the ingredients to make, and I was able to throw together a good nutritious dinner while I chatted with a friend for about 20 minutes. The boy ate well, and the girl didn’t complain too much, which is a victory with her. Of course, I threatened her with dire punishments if she said anything bad about the food—she is always doing that, and then the boy has to say he doesn’t like it, just like his big sister. But, if I can get her to keep her opinions to herself, he almost always really likes what I make. I have to say, if you like good food that is not difficult to make and that appeals to a wide array of people, you need to buy this book.

Stewed Tofu with Corn and Tomatoes

1 pound firm tofu
2 Tbsp light olive oil
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes (the original recipe called for fresh tomatoes, but I didn’t have any)
3 cups cooked corn (I did one can, drained, because that is what I had)
4 scallions, sliced
1 tsp paprika
Freshly gound pepper, to taste
Minced fresh parsley or cilantro for topping, optional (I used cilantro, yummy!)

Slice the tofu and press between paper towels or clean kitchen towels, then dice the slices into small cubes. Heat the oil in a wide-bottomed skillet until just hot, and gently fry the tofu, stirring, until the pieces are mostly golden. I added the scallions, giving everything a quick stir at this point, then added the tomatoes, corn and paprika, stirred everything together and ground some pepper on top, stirred again, and let it all simmer gently for about five minutes. Of course, you could add salt at this point, but I never cook with salt, so I didn’t. I ladled the stew into bowls and topped my portion with chopped cilantro and more freshly ground pepper, but neither of the kids wanted any cilantro. Very good and easy, we will definitely be having this again!

Camping menu

2007-06-17T09:12:00.001-07:00

We went camping from Monday, June 4 to Friday, June 8. That's four nights of vegan food, plus 4 breakfasts and lunches. We camped in a tent this time, so we had to keep our cooler stocked with ice, but it turned out pretty well.

For lunches, I brought tofurkey lunch meats, peanut butter, and tortillas for the kids. We had a lot of fruit all around, and some baby carrots, too. For myself, I made a curried chickpea salad to replace my old favorite of curried chicken salad. It was good, but I added a bit too much curry powder. Next time I know how to make it better. We also took some Lara bars--oh my goodness, these are so good! Cashew cookie is my favorite, and they have only two ingredients, cashews and dates. Convenience food made out of real food and nothing else? Heaven. The kids loved the cherry pie and apple pie flavors. Checking out the website, I see that they have even more flavors that I didn't know about. I am definitely going to have to hunt down a Key Lime Pie bar to try. Oooo, and ginger snap. And cinnamon roll. (I'd link you directly to these flavors so that you can easily see the wonderfulness here, but they have one of those websites that I hate, where you click around and it puts up content, but the page address never changes. I don't get their blog, either. The description makes it sound like if you click on their link to launch their blog, you will be generating the content--"A new window will appear and you will be bloggin' in no time at all!"--but it seems that they do in fact write the blog themselves. Maybe you can email them stuff to post, or maybe they don't get that blogging means writing a blog, not any generic activity associated with blogs, like reading them. Odd for a group of people writing a website.)

For breakfasts, it was mostly whole wheat mini-bagels and Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese. I know, that isn't terribly healthy, but the kids love the stuff, and it is vegan. We also ate a lot of fruit, and I brought some cereal and rice milk.

Dinner menus:

Monday: Pizza! I made the Basil-Tofu Ricotta from Vegan with a Vengeance before we left, and brought along a premade whole grain crust and some pizza sauce from Trader Joe's. When we got there, I assembled the pizza and wrapped it in aluminum foil and cooked it over the fire. It turned out pretty well, but we are thinking about bringing charcoal next time to get a hotter cooking fire. We had salad on the side with this. Well, the kids didn't, but I shared with my friend.

Tuesday: Tofurky Italian sausages on whole wheat buns with a little cream cheese, new potates and asparagus roasted in a foil packet with olive oil, thyme and parsley

Wednesday: Beanie Weenies, recipe from my McDougall Quick and Easy cookbook, leftover asparagus and potatoes, fruit

Thursday: Falafel, tahini sauce that I made before we left, roasted garlic hummus, all wrapped in whole wheat tortillas and served with grape tomatoes on the side, salad, fruit

The kids weren't as thrilled with falafel night as they were with all the other choices (especially the beanie weenies, when they eagerly sat at the table and ate seconds), but they were fairly content with the choices. As always, I wish they would eat more vegetables, but they did eat a LOT of fruit. One day for lunch, we did whole wheat tortillas spread with peanut butter and wrapped around bananas, which is one of their favorites. Overall, I'd say this longer vegan camping trip was a success. The key was planning ahead, and making the basil-tofu ricotta and the tahini sauce at home before we left. That way I had everything I needed and didn't need to spend a lot time sitting at a picnic table getting the meals ready to be cooked.

If anyone has any other great ideas for vegan meals while camping, please let me know--we will be doing this again!

A few things

2007-06-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

I am always doing this. I get busy, I think of several things I want to say, and then I come here and do a big brain dump. I have a few topics that I am going to save for their own posts, but here are some small items I just have to get out.

My New Favorite Meal

Last night for dinner I made New Farm Mac and Cheez, recipe from Jess at Get Sconed! Oh my goodness, I could not believe how creamy good this was. I won't add any bread crumbs next time, but mainly because the kids hated them. We had steamed broccoli and cauliflower on the side, and I chopped some apricots, added some blackberries and juiced a lime over the fruit for dessert. So healthy and yummy!

The Dishwasher!

It's running right now. I love it so much. I was right, it does help me to cook more. It is so much easier to cook in a kitchen that has counters that are not piled high with dirty dishes. I am so much less overwhelmed at the thought of cooking AND cleaning up. I would even go so far as to say that the dishwasher has made my life better. I love it so much, I cannot overstate it. Well, I don't want to marry it or anything, and no idol worship, but my adoration is just short of those states.

Unpacking

Not my favorite activity. I am really struggling with the fact that my new kitchen has less storage than the old one. This will force me to get rid of some stuff I don't need and plan ahead a bit. I am getting rid of some stuff as I find cans of chicken broth and big containers of mayonnaise, though.

Menu Planning

I made a real plan this week. Oh, and last week, too, while I was camping, but more about that in another post. It is nice to come home from work knowing what we are going to have, and having everything I need to make the meal. Here is what we are having/have had:

Monday: falafel with tahini sauce, hummus, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, and mache lettuce, sauteed zucchini, baked fries

Tuesday: (listed up above)

Wednesday: leftovers, peanut butter sandwiches for the kids (it's tumbling night at the gym for the girl, and it falls right during dinner time)

Thursday: Curried Stir-Fried Noodles with Vegetables, salad, and whatever fruit we have lying around (we have lots, so we’ll just grab whatever looks good.

On Friday, the kids go to their dad’s for two weeks, so I’ll be eating leftovers and trying to use up any veggies in the fridge. I just need to stay away from the restaurants—I always want to eat out while they are gone. It’s lonely here without them :-(.

Moving

2007-05-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned this before--I hate to do dishes. I know, who doesn't? This seriously gets in the way of cooking as often as I would like, though. I either need to clean before I can cook, and lack the energy, or I just don't want to go to all the trouble of getting a lot of dishes dirty that will just need to be washed later.

That is all going to change, though--I am moving to an apartment with a dishwasher! WOOHOO! My new apartment will also have an extra bedroom so that the girl and the boy don't have to share anymore (and so that all their stuff will fit in their rooms rather than my living room!), and TWO more closets. Wow. All this for only $100 more than I am paying now. And the best part? It's in my building, so I don't need to rent a truck. Of course, I will still need to carry stuff downstairs from my 3rd floor apartment and then upstairs to my new 3rd floor apartment since the only floor with a hallway that goes all the way through is the basement, but hey, no big truck. And, I don't have to move the stuff out of my storage unit.

If I don't make it here very often, imagine me packing and going up and down a lot of stairs. Maybe it will even help with some weight loss! I'm taking some stuff to Good Will, too. That will be a few trips just down to the car, which will be nice. Wish me luck!

Ah, Air-Conditioning

2007-05-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

Ever since I started this almost vegan project, I have been thinking a lot about my impact on the environment. As I talked about just after Earth Day, I hate the idea that you would only do one thing for the good of the environment that we live in, and I have been trying to think of other ways I can live green. One of the things I have been looking at is my use of electricity. So, as the weather has started to get hotter, I have been trying to resist the siren call of air conditioning. I have ceiling fans, and I have been changing into shorts and tank tops when I get home from work. It’s been getting cool at night, so it hasn’t been too bad.

The big problem is, I live on the third floor. These methods weren’t going to work for very long. Finally, tonight, I realized that I could be fairly comfortable only if I sat perfectly still under the fans. My kitchen needed cleaning, but trying to stand at the kitchen sink doing dishes resulted in a steady drip of sweat off my nose, into the soapy water. That didn’t seem very sanitary to me, so I gave up on my battle to keep the a/c off. I really wanted to turn it on last week, so I guess I did hold out for a while, but I just couldn’t take it anymore! Oh well, I’ll keep looking for other green methods that fit into my life better.

For dinner tonight, we had pizza with For Your Heart Vegan Mozzarella. The girl shredded the cheese, and she put a LOT of cheese on the pizza. We had used this cheese before and liked it, but this time we used a lot more, and it tasted a lot more like cow milk cheese, for some reason. It tasted really good when I was eating it, but when I was done with a slice, I felt a little queasy. I know that it doesn’t have any dairy, but when it tastes so much like it does, it’s hard to convince my taste buds that everything will be all right. What a criticism, huh? Your fake cheese is too much like real cheese!

A new cookbook!

2007-04-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

I had been thinking about buying Vegan with a Vengeance for a while when I came across this post on Eat Air: A Vegan Food Log. The picture of Maple-Mustard Glazes Potatoes looked so good, it was the final impetus I needed to go order this cookbook. It wasn’t so much that I HAD to make that recipe, it was more that a critical mass of great recommendations had been reached that propelled me over the edge to make the purchase (not that it is that hard to convince me to buy a book!).

When the book arrived in the mail, it looked just as good as I thought it would. I love all the extra bits of information on how to host a public access tv show, or Food Not Bombs, or how to host a brunch café. I have actually found myself reading the book, rather than just paging through and glancing at recipe titles. Today, while riding the Metrolink home from work, I came across the Maple-Mustard Glazed Potatoes and String Beans recipe that had sent me to the online bookstore, and I realized that I had most of the ingredients for this recipe. Not only did I have fresh green beans and Yukon gold potatoes, I had beans and potatoes that needed to be used before they went bad! Talk about serendipity! I hate throwing fresh veggies away (although I am thinking this weekend we are definitely going to start our own fire escape composting bin; still, while composting food is better than throwing it in a landfill, eating it is better still). So, I was even more excited when I started actually assembling the recipe, and I realized that I didn’t have the yellow onions called for, but I did have a leek that would otherwise go to waste. Ah, it’s the little things in life that are exciting, isn’t it?

There are so many recipes in this book that I want to make. I just need to make a grocery list so that I can actually make the recipes, not necessarily food inspired by the recipes, like tonight’s creation (I didn’t have Dijon mustard, either, but stoneground seemed to work just fine). Not that there is anything wrong with changing a recipe—I firmly believe that recipes are guidelines, not laws—but it is nice to change things consciously, because I think I will like it better, rather than by necessity. On the other hand, there is nothing quite like the experience of realizing that you are out of a key ingredient midway through your meal preparation and still being able to produce a delicious dish.

Several things, again

2007-04-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy lately, I haven’t had time to post, but I have been thinking about things I want to post, so I am dumping it all here now, before I forget it.

Vegan Clothing

Near the end of last week I was talking to my next door neighbor, who also happens to be a vegetarian, about the process of going vegan. I was telling her that I am still struggling with vegan food although I am doing pretty well, but I am not even ready to address vegan clothing. And anyway, vegan clothing is all ugly or, if it is nice, way too expensive. Then, the next day, there was an article on my local paper’s site about environmentally friendly fashion that listed some more affordable and attractive options. I am still not convinced that I can go to vegan clothing entirely (for one thing, one of the materials highlighted in the article is merino wool, which I have mixed feelings about), but I am not so certain it would be impossible, either. There was even a fun article on recycling various materials to make jewelry. Then, I went to the Earth Day festival on Sunday (more on that below), and got the cutest blue bamboo top for only $32, which I thought was totally reasonable. I am wearing it today and it is so comfortable, and I really like the way it looks. So, I am thinking a bit more about this.

Earth Day Festival

I have never attended the Earth Day Festival here in St. Louis, but I will be going in the years to come. Despite coming home totally sunburned, I had a great time. I ate an AuraPro pulled pork sandwich with cole slaw on top from the chef for Terrene, recreating one of my favorite sandwiches, back in my meat eating days. I will definitely be visiting that restaurant sometime soon—not only do they have delicious vegetarian food, they use organic, sustainable food practices. As I mentioned above, I bought an awesome shirt. And, I found a local group that has vegetarian potlucks on a regular basis. I hate their website, but I like the idea of meeting other vegetarians in the area. I saw belly dancers, salsa dancers and some kind of stylized fighting dance that looked to be African, but I didn’t catch the group name, and I can’t find it on the festival webpage, but they were all very impressive.

What would you do to save the environment?

During the Earth Day buildup, my local paper’s website had a poll on actions to save the environment. I can’t link directly to it, since they have it as a popup, but I can tell you that I found it very annoying, because you had to pick one thing only. What a useless poll! If ever there was a question that begs to allow more than one choice, it is “What would you do to help keep the earth green?” Right after I saw that poll, I noticed this post from BlogHer on my Google sidebar webclips. Elisha Camahort proposes an Earth Day meme to show that you can do more than one thing, and I think it is a great idea. Here is my list of the top 5 things I do for the environment:

1. Moving toward a vegan lifestyle.
2. Recycle as much as possible.
3. Use compact fluorescent lights in my home.
4. Take public transportation to work and walk as many places as possible.
5. Bring reusable bags with me to the farmer’s market and store.

Returning to an old favorite

This weekend when I went to the Farmer’s Market, I bought a huge head of cabbage. I love cabbage, but I particularly had in mind this dish that is kind of like a loose, messy cabbage roll. I used to make this a lot during my last time as a vegetarian, but I haven’t made it in years before last night. I don’t know why, it is delicious and healthy. Normally I would mix the mashed potatoes in with the whole mess, but I kept them separate this time for the benefit of my children. Also, I didn’t even think to check the ingredients on the tomato soup until I was getting ready to type this up, so I have no idea if they are vegan. I hope so, but if not, I know I can get the Imagine soup for next time.

Cabbage Stew

½ large head of cabbage
1 large or 2 medium leeks
1 red bell pepper
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can condensed tomato soup
freshly ground pepper
garlic powder

Slice the cabbage and add to a large soup pot. Add about 4 cups of water and bring to a boil; reduce hit and simmer with a lid on the pot while you continue to chop veggies. Chop the leek and wash thoroughly in a bowl of water, draining several times to get all the dirt from in between the layers; push the slices apart to make sure they get clean all the way through. Add drained leeks to the soup pot. Chop the bell pepper and add that to the pot, too. Cover and let this all hang out for ten or fifteen minutes or so, until the cabbage is tender (I didn’t use the timer, I cleared off the table and looked at the mail and other stuff like that). Drain the veggies in a colander, but don’t worry too much about getting it all dry. I dumped it, gave it a couple of quick shakes and put it back in the pot. Turn the stove back on and add the stewed tomatoes. Use a wooden spoon to break the tomatoes up a bit (and incidentally, some of the big slices of cabbage); add the tomato soup and mix well. Grind in some pepper and add the garlic powder to taste. We like garlic a lot, so I added quite a bit, but I didn’t measure, so I am not sure how much. Put the lid back on and simmer for 10-15 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I washed, peeled and chunked 5 or 6 small Yukon gold potatoes, boiled them until they were soft and mashed them with a little bit of Earth Balance margarine and plain rice milk. I had the stew over the potatoes, and it was almost like stuffed cabbage rolls with mashed potatoes, except without the ground beef.

Smoothies!

2007-04-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

When my smoothie maker broke a few months ago, I was really bummed out. We had been having fruit smoothies almost every morning and I hated that our routine was going to be disrupted. Part of the reason I was so disappointed was that suspected that what was going to happen was what actually did happen. First, it took a while for me to get to the store (and to remember that I needed a new blender at the same time that I was in the store). Then, some clutter took over the spot where the smoothie maker used to sit, so I didn’t even get the new blender out of the box for a long time.

Last night, though, while I was at the grocery store, I found myself remembering all of the bananas that I threw in the freezer because they were turning brown, and missing my morning smoothies. So, I stocked up on orange juice and frozen fruit, and this morning, we all had Very Cherry Berry Smoothies. I forgot what a great start to the day a good smoothie makes! Again, my recipe is not really exact, but here it is anyway.

Fruit Smoothies (for the three of us)

1 ½ - 2 cups orange juice
2 bananas, fresh or frozen
2 cups frozen fruit (my favorites are berries, peaches or mangoes)
1 – 2 tsp vanilla

Pour the juice in the blender, add the bananas and fruit. Push the fruit down into the juice; it should stick up over the top a bit, but not a lot. Splash the vanilla on top, and blend until smooth and creamy. Fresh fruit is good, too, but frozen makes it seem almost like soft-serve ice cream, especially with the peaches for some reason. I love the vanilla in this!

The kiddoes love these, too, and I love seeing them start the day off with such a healthy boost. I feel better, too. I know that returning to this morning habit will make us all feel even better the more we do it.

CORN

2007-04-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

I throw away too many vegetables. I tend to buy a lot of vegetables, because I love them, and I love how I feel when I get plenty of veggies in my diet. But as the week progresses, I find myself grabbing whatever is easiest, which is often not my veggies. Tonight, I decided that I needed to do something to reverse the trend. Thus, Clean Out the Refrigerator Night. This is actually a recipe I like to make often, but it is an adaptable recipe, depending on what I have to use up.

Veggies and Couscous

5-6 cups of veggies, whatever you have (tonight I used mushrooms, red and yellow bell peppers, a leek, broccoli and cauliflower, 1 yellow tomato and 1 red tomato)
16 ounce container Imagine Organic Creamy broccoli soup
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh basil

I sautéed the mushrooms, bell peppers and the leek in a bit of water until they started to soften, then added the broccoli and cauliflower, put a lid on the skillet, and let that all steam for a bit. When the broccoli and cauliflower started to soften, I added the soup, chopped the tomatoes, and ground some pepper on top. The lid went back on top, and I let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Then I picked some fresh basil from the pot in my window and stirred that in.

I served over tri-color couscous, and we had steamed carrots and mandarin oranges on the side. I feel so healthy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reading No Impact Man has really made me aware of how much stuff we throw away. It doesn’t help that we are working on massively decluttering the apartment. We recycle, but I really would like to do more reusing.

However, it takes so much time to reuse! We have been doing pretty good with bringing our lunches, and the Laptop Lunchboxes are so much better than the sandwich baggies I used to send with the girl that she would throw away every day. But, washing those extra dishes every night takes so much more time. And, if I can whine just a bit more, my kitchen sink is just that much too short, so that my back hurts when I stand there to do dishes, stooping just a bit. I don’t even notice I am doing it until my back starts to hurt.

I really don’t mind the extra dishes that much, though. It’s the thought of how many more dishes and how much more prep work I would have if we reused more that really gets to me. So, I feel a bit guilty as I put the empty glass mango sauce jar in the trash, but not guilty enough to seriously think about making my own mango or apple sauce at home in my own reusable jars. Do you know how long that takes?!?!?

Maybe someday I’ll get there, but for now, I am just going to focus on the benefits of not using sandwich baggies. And I will go put my paper bags from Trader Joe’s by the door so I don’t forget to take them with me tomorrow to the store. Baby steps before running, right?

Not Really a Recipe

2007-04-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

I love Trader Joe's! Also, World Market. They make my life easier without making me feel like I am sacrificing healthy eating. Here is my Thai green curry recipe (more directions for assembly, really) using the shortcuts I found at those stores.

Bombay Saffron Rice

2 cups brown basmati rice
4 cups water
2 heaping teaspoons Bombay Saffron Rice Spice (from World Market)

Mix this all together, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until done, about 15-20 minutes.

Thai Green Curry Veggies and Tofu

about 10 ounces firm tofu
1-2 tsp sesame oil
1 package stir-fry veggies from Trader Joe's (includes broccoli, bamboo shoots, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, water chestnuts, baby corn, baby carrots, and maybe something else I am forgetting)
1 jar Thai green curry sauce from Trader Joe's

Press some of the water out of the tofu and cut into smaller rectangles (about 1 inch x 1/2 inch x 1/4 inch, or whatever size looks good to you). Heat the oil in a skillet and add the tofu pieces. Turn heat to medium and gently fry until tofu is golden; add veggies. I didn't want to add more oil here, so I added about 1/4 cup of water and put a lid on the skillet, and let the veggies cook for 5-10 minutes. Then I poured some of the water off and added the green curry sauce. I put the lid back on and let that simmer another ten minutes or so to meld the flavors and continue cooking the veggies.

This was really good. I need to make a mental note that the girl prefers the green curry sauce that I have gotten at World Market, but overall, the kids ate pretty well. They really like the Bombay Saffron rice, much to my surprise (especially in the girl's case; the boy loves rice almost any way). Fortunately, Trader Joe's and World Market are just a few doors apart in my local shopping area. We will definitely do this again, because it was quick and easy. I was even able to finish up some dishes and make some extra, plain rice so that I could try a banana rice pudding recipe later while this cooked. I love quick meals!

Progress

2007-04-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

I have been continuing to plug away at eating the lower calorie foods and working out, and I am finally seeing some results! I have lost about 4 pounds, and my stomach, while not getting smaller, is at least getting less firm. I figure this means I am losing some of the visceral fat that is so bad for you. This is the kind of fat that makes you an apple shape, which is the worrisome one from a health standpoint (I am not very fond of it from an appearance standpoint either, but that is another issue). This isn’t a huge difference, but it is a difference in the right direction, so I am encouraged.

The kiddoes continued bringing their lunch all through last week. The boy and I even had a conversation about how he feels loved when he is eating the lunch that I made for him. The girl was less enthusiastic about bringing her lunch on chicken nugget day, but agreed to try the Quorn chicken nuggets next Tuesday, apparently forgetting that she has done that before and liked it. Even though this is adding a lot of time to my evening and morning routines, I am liking it. I like that the kids are eating more vegetarian foods when they would be eating meat if I didn’t send something, and I like the environmental benefits of using the reusable lunch containers.

I have been pretty good about bringing my lunch, too. I actually brought something 4 days last week, although I did end up going out on Tuesday with a friend because it was his birthday. I ordered a veggie burger, and decided to get the yammy potato salad instead of the fries to try to be healthier; it wasn’t until after I got it that I realized potato salad is made with mayonnaise and often has extra bits of hard-boiled egg in it. I mean, I knew that, but I didn’t think about it. Still, it wasn’t a lot. Next time I will do the vegetarian chili or just go with the fried potatoes. It’s not like I do it every day. Although the food at the place we went to eat is generally filled with meat, it is nice to see that there are some vegetarian options. My salad and leftover gnocchi with marinara sauce and peas did not go to waste that day, since it was a late day for training, so I ate it for dinner.

All in all, this has been a good week in our vegetarian journey. I lost some weight, in a healthy way, the kids are eating a lot less meat, and we are all getting into the groove of bringing a healthy lunch from home rather than relying on what we can find at school, work and daycare. We are getting used to the new routines with a lot more cooking at home, and even coming to like it. Monday, as we sat around the dinner table eating gnocchi and asparagus, the boy beamed at his sister and me and said, "You know what, guys? I really love you guys!" If that isn't motivation to sit around the table together, I don't know what is.

A Recipe and Some Lunches

2007-04-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

Coconut Curried Vegetable Stew

2 onions, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp veg oil
4 medium potatoes, chopped
4 medium carrots, chopped
½ head of cauliflower, chopped
2 cups frozen cut green beans, thawed
1-2 tsps fresh ginger, to taste
2-3 tsps good quality curry powder, to taste
½ tsp turmeric
1 15 ounce can light coconut milk
1 cup frozen peas, thawed

Saute the onions and garlic in the oil until golden. Add the potatoes and carrots, plus two cups of water. I needed to add just a bit more to come close to the top of the veggies, about half a cup. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer, cover and cook until veggies are half-cooked, about 10-15 minutes. Add the cauliflower, green beans, ginger, curry powder and turmeric. I did not have any cauliflower, so I used frozen broccoli, which was very good. Continue simmering, covered, until vegetables are very tender, about 10-15 minutes more. Mash some of the potatoes against the edge of the pot to thicken the stew, and add the coconut milk. The cookbook recommended letting the stew stand for an hour to meld flavors, but I didn’t have time for that. It also recommended salting at this point, but I don’t cook with salt, so I skipped it. Add the peas and heat thoroughly, then serve.

Oh my goodness, this was so yummy! The kids were not as impressed, but I think they’ll come around, given repeated exposure. And they will get repeated exposure, because I just loved this.

Lunches

I ordered two Laptop Lunchboxes last week after seeing them used so well on the Vegan Lunch Box. Originally I had only planned to order one for the girl, but the boy wanted one, too, so I went ahead and got two. They arrived today.

The girl was so excited that she decided she wanted to take her lunch even though tomorrow is chicken nugget day in the school cafeteria. I have to admit, I am pretty excited about her lunch—it’s really healthy, and for her, it’s got a lot of variety. I took a whole wheat tortilla and spread it with Tofutti cream cheese (I know, that isn’t the greatest, but I am so happy it is non-dairy, I am overlooking the fact that it isn’t perfect) and rolled it up and sliced it. On the side, she has mango sauce, dried apricots, sugar snap peas and sunflower seeds. It’s not anywhere near gourmet, but it is healthy and she’ll eat it.

Of course, since I was making the girl lunch, and he had a new lunch box, too, the boy wanted me to make a lunch for him as well. I tried to talk him out of it, since his daycare provides lunch, but he was adamant. So, he is having a whole wheat tortilla with cream cheese, too, plus some sugar snap peas, sunflower seeds, and a medley of dried fruits (apricots, raspberry-flavored cranberries, cherry raisins, and papaya). I should be glad he is eating veg, too, but instead I am overwhelmed with the thought of making three lunches every night. Bad mommy. I guess I will adjust, though.

Several Things

2007-04-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy lately, I think of things I want to write here, but I never quite make it to the keyboard before I am too tired to string together some coherent thoughts. Here are some of the things I have been thinking about lately:

The 100-Mile Diet

While I was reading about No Impact Man, a blog being written by a man who is undertaking a year-long experiment to radically reduce his family’s impact on the planet, I came across this website advocating a more local diet. While this is a great idea in theory, I just don’t know if I can do it. I am pretty addicted to a wide variety of spices, for instance. And wine. Also, I don’t think I could do enough canning in the summer and fall to make it through the winter with fruits and vegetables, at least at this point in my life. Still, I think it’s a great ideal to strive for. I attempt to go to the farmer’s market for my produce, and one of my favorite restaurants has a garden out back. They also try to buy local as often as they can. It’s nice to know that I can go out to a restaurant and eat local foods. This is one of those topics that I will definitely be thinking about more as time goes on, I can tell.

Burger King and animal welfare

Fast food is not something I usually think about a lot, but I couldn’t help but notice when Burger King announced that they were going to adopt animal welfare standards for the suppliers of their meat. Now, I am sure that this will only affect a small percentage of the animals that are supplied to the fast food industry as a whole, and Burger King in particular, but it is nice to see a big corporation stepping in the right direction on this issue. It also reminds me that, despite the focus on sandwiches with way too much meat (Triple Whoppers?!??!), they are the only major burger chain with a veggie burger.

Meatless Mondays

I have gotten onto a mailing list for Mambo Sprouts, which is some kind of marketing group with an emphasis on health-food store type products. Earlier this month, their newsletter featured a great link to the Meatless Mondays website. This website has lots of interesting meatless recipes, from entrees to snacks and from beans to tofu to all veggies to meat substitutes. The tips for eating meatless on the go look pretty useful, too.

Cooking and menu planning

I still haven’t been doing so well, here. I am taking a training class at work that requires me to stay late one or two nights every week, and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I am cooking tonight though—Coconut Curried Vegetable Stew from Nava Atlas’ Vegetarian Family Cookbook. I hope it tastes as good as it sounds!

Camping

2007-03-21T18:36:00.000-07:00

I survived my first camping trip as a vegetarian this past weekend. The only part that was bad, really was that I couldn't share the cooking with my friend that we went with. Usually, we will bring our own stuff for breakfast, lunch and snacks, and we will trade off on the dinners. This time we did our dinners separately, too.

I brought a bunch of sandwich stuff for lunches, and for dinners, I brought Quorn hot dogs, since the boy loves hot dogs (which, as an aside, I thought were gross even when I ate meat), and Tofurkey Italian Sausages for me. I threw the hot dogs and Italian sausages on the grill over our fire for dinner the first night. Predictably, the boy loved the hot dogs, but the girl just ate the (whole wheat) bun. My Italian Sausage was awesome!

I also got some vegetable masala burgers from Trader Joe's. Oh my goodness are those things yummy! We camp with electricity, so I was able to microwave them, but they would have probably been good wrapped in aluminum foil on the grill. I brought along Thai Garlic Chili sauce to put on top, because nearly everything is better with hot sauce. Lots of fruit rounded out our choices.

Camping without meat was easier than I feared. Our biggest problem was what to do Saturday night after a day of wet snow made all the wood wet and fireproof. We cheated and went for the fast food--chicken nuggets from McDonald's for the kids, and bean burritoes with no cheese for me. Still, we would have been fine if the weather had cooperated. Truthfully, we could have coped with just the microwave, but my friend didn't want to throw her chicken in the microwave, and hey, we were on a mini-vacation.

Hysterical raw food song

2007-03-06T20:25:00.000-08:00

One of my online friends shared this YouTube video that her husband made about raw food living, set to the tune of I Will Survive.

My friend reports that, although she does eat meat, her husband is not actually planning to dump her, and although he is definitely vegetarian ("he is a rabid vegetarian"), he isn't actually into raw food exclusively. Just in case anyone is concerned about the exact truth. Enjoy!

Eating at Other Peoples' Houses

2007-03-01T08:42:00.000-08:00

When I decided to go back to vegetarianism, I made a decision to continue to eat fish, to make it easier to eat at other people’s houses. Also, at restaurants. But I really don’t want to eat a lot of fish, I am only doing it to be semi-flexible. I am just astonished, though, at how many people have not one single meatless meal in their repertoire of dinners.

I really don’t think we eat a lot of exotic food. Sure, I make some interesting Thai or Indian dishes, but more often we eat foods like pizza, pasta, some kind beans and rice, soups, salads, sandwiches, chili, bean burritos and other foods that seem pretty standard to me. I am a little more biased toward including lots of veggies in my meals than a lot of people I know, but that’s not a huge difference.

I do have a friend who makes an effort to eat less meat. She makes a lot of casseroles with a small amount of meat and more veggies to fill them out. But she has some meat every single night. That just seems so weird to me. When I did eat meat, I still made meatless meals once or twice per week.

I don’t want to tell anyone how to eat, mainly because I like having friends. But I really don’t understand what is so difficult about an occasional meatless meal. Every time we go over to my parents’ house for dinner, there is a fraught conversation about what to make for dinner. I hate this conversation. This past Sunday, my dad went ahead and got food on his own—ribs for everyone else, plus a piece of salmon for me. If I am going to have something different than everyone else anyway, I would rather pass on the fish, so I stopped and picked up something else on the way. Besides, I’d had salmon the night before at my friend’s house, and I didn’t want to eat it again.

Why is this so difficult? How did people get to the point where there is not one single thing they can think to make for dinner if the meat is removed? I blame meat marketers, personally. They have sold us a bill of goods that says that eating meat is a sign of wealth, and that a meal is not complete without it. I don’t really have a problem with people eating some meat, but this insistence that a meal is not a meal without it seems kind of creepy to me. I find myself wanting to ask people, “Don’t you care about your health? What about the environment?”

Of course, I don’t, because I genuinely like these people, and I don’t really feel that eating meat makes someone a bad person. But I keep coming back to my original question: How can people not have a single dinner idea that is meatless?

Impatience

2007-02-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

I've read many different places about how you rarely see overweight vegans. If you are avoiding animal products, you almost have to do a lot of cooking at home, and it's harder to get too many calories if you aren't eating animal products or highly processed convenience foods. I am not entirely avoiding the convenience foods, but I am making the effort to eat more fruits and veggies and cook at home as often as I can. I am also working out like crazy--3, 4, even 5 times a week at the gym, plus getting as many walks in as I can throughout the day. I have been doing all of this since before Christmas. Why aren't I skinny yet?

Okay, being skinny already is an unrealistic goal. I am far too overweight to go to skinny in a month and a half, no matter how good I am. I don't even want to be skinny, really, just at a healthy weight. But still, I am only down about 5 pounds, and I want to be down more, darnit!

I know that I am whining. I have been lifting weights and getting stronger, so I have to be gaining muscle. The fact that I have still lost weight while gaining muscle means even more fat is gone. I feel so much healthier, it's unreal. My body feels stronger and I have more energy. I even look better, more in shape, and my skin is clearer.

However, my stomach doesn't appear to be getting any smaller. My waist is still way too big, and I look pregnant in most clothes. It's even worse now that I am firming up in other parts of my body, because my stomach stands out so much more. I am extremely self-conscious about it, both because it looks horrible, and it is so unhealthy to have this big waist. On the plus side, it's making me grateful for my big hips, since at least that makes it more proportional, ;-).

I am not giving up. I like feeling better. I like doing my part to conserve our planetary resources and improve our environment. Even if I don't really lose any weight, I am getting healthier, I know. The thing is, I would be even healthier if I lost this extra weight. And, I can't get rid of all vanity--I want all this work to show in a better looking body! I just have to have confidence that if I keep plugging away at the exercise, and enjoying all the healthy options I have for delicious foods, the better looking body will come eventually.

I hope it decides to hurry, though!

Comfort Food

2007-02-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

I feel kind of yucky today. I have had a cough for a couple of weeks now, and I could tell that I was fighting off a worse illness. For the most part, though, I felt successful. I made sure to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. I kept working out. I tried to get enough sleep, successfully most nights. I thought I was winning the fight.

When I woke up feeling kind of sore and achy all over today, I put it down to the hard workout I did last night. Unfortunately, I am now thinking it is more than that. I am really, really tired, and not in a "I've done a lot today" way. I am still pretty achy, and even though I did work out hard last night, I usually don't stay this sore all day from a workout. I feel really warm, too, although that may be a consequence of living on the top floor of a building with the forced air, radiator heat, with the thermometer on the first floor.

Despite all this, I did not want to abandon my plan to finally cook dinner tonight. My kitchen has been a mess lately, due to a combination of being legitimately busy, and just not feeling like cleaning it. I have eaten at home some, but just sandwiches and fruit, or microwaving frozen food. Tonight we didn't have anywhere to go after work and school, so I resolved to clean my kitchen up and cook dinner. But I didn't feel like cooking at all.

Road's End Organics came to my rescue. Their Shells and Chreese was perfect for just this situation. It was easy to make from the box and completely dairy-free. I added peas to it and felt like it was semi-nutritious. And mac and cheese is such great comfort food. Not being able to eat macaroni and cheese is one of the big drawbacks of being vegan, I thought. But, now I can! And the kids love it, too, which is a double bonus.

We didn't sit around the table, but at least we all ate food I cooked at home, and it was at least semi-nutritious.

West African Peanut Stew

2007-01-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness, was this a yummy recipe! I ate too much, because it was too good to stop.

1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil (I think; I just swirled some in the bottom of the pot)
1 red onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, diced (I used a lot more)
2 cups shredded cabbage
2 medium large sweet potatoes, diced
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp grated fresh ginger (or more, if you like it a little spicier--I used more)
3 cups water
1 10 oz. bag frozen okra
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper or 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (again, more if you like it hotter)

Saute the onion and garlic in the oil until golden; add cabbage, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, ginger, and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until the cabbage and potatoes are staring to soften, about 15 minutes. Add the okra (my Trader Joe's didn't have okra, so I used green beans instead), and then add the peanut butter a small amount at a time. Stir to melt the peanut butter before adding more. Add the cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes and then cover and cook until all of the veggies are tender, about 10 minutes. If needed, add water to keep it moist, but you don't want to let it get thin like soup.

I served over plain red cargo rice, and I had an apple on the side. It was so delicious and nutritious! You know, I cook a lot, and I can usually tell when I read a recipe if it will be good or not, but I am always surprised when new recipes turn out well. This, even though the vast majority of the time, new recipes turn out well for me; I know my abilities in the kitchen pretty accurately. This time, I had fairly high hopes, but they were still surpassed. This is one of the best new recipes I have tried in a while. I will have to make a blander version for the kids some time--I think they will like the idea of peanut butter in their stew.

Eating Out

2007-01-20T08:19:00.000-08:00

I really like eating out. I like the food you can get out at a restaurant, where someone can spend more time making food than I have time to prepare at 6 PM. But I really like the fact that eating out doesn't involve any dishes to wash!

This week has been crazy with kid activities, which started a trend of eating out. On Tuesday, I had to pick up the boy, feed us all dinner and take the girl to basketball practice very close to the boy's school in about 45 minutes. It didn't make sense to go all the way home in between the daycare pickup and the basketball practice, so eating out it was. Even better, there is a coffee shop with a vegetarian cafe just down the street from the school where practice was taking place. It was fantastic! I had a Greek pita with hummus, baked falafel, tomatoes and onions, and a tahini viniagrette, the boy had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with chips and grapes, and even a little toy, and the girl had a bagel and cream cheese. After running the girl down the street for practice, the boy and I came back to eat little treats and drink pink lemonade and a caramel latte. I was really excited to find a place that is totally vegetarian, although not at all vegan (I had to ignore the feta cheese on the side of my pita, and the boy had chips instead of the cheese stick that came with his boxed lunch).

Wednesday the girl had tumbling half an hour after I picked her up. Last week I made peanut butter and banana tortillas to eat in the car on the way to the center, but this week we were out of bananas, so we ate at the Subway in the lobby, at least for a snack. I had a veggie sandwich, and the kids had chips. When we got home, we supplemented with soy yogurts and fruit, and peanut butter sandwiches for the kids.

Thursday, the kids were at their dad's and I was feeling lonely and sorry for myself, so I went to my favorite Greek restaurant and had hummus and stewed Mediterranean Vegetables. Yumm! Last night, the kids were still at their dad's, and I got off work late, so it was out again, this time to a local brewery, Schlafly Bottleworks, for salad and veggie curry, which was amazing! Last time I had it (over a year ago at least), it was kind of bland, and the veggies were too crunchy. Last night the veggies were perfect, the spice was much more assertive--I added some Tabasco sauce, but to supplement the heat, not to add all the flavor--and the rice had some kind of garbanzo beans and daikon seeds that made it more textured and flavorful. I think I have a new favorite dish! This restaurant is so fantastic, with lots of vegetarian choices.

Tonight I am going to a trivia night, and everyone is bringing food. I am planning on bringing hummus and guacamole with chips, and I am sure there will be other things I can eat, so I think I will be skipping dinner. Tomorrow, I am scrubbing my kitchen and getting back to cooking!

Yoga

2007-01-15T21:43:00.000-08:00

I suspect that yelling at my daughter to be quiet because I am doing yoga, and damnit, it’s supposed to be relaxing, is missing the point somewhat. Okay, I didn’t add the damnit part, and it was mostly crying out in surprise because some music very suddenly came on the computer loudly, but I still think I was missing the point. However, when I got to the last part where you are supposed to just relax and she started to talk, I was able to very calmly say “Not now,” and, amazingly, she waited. The boy did the yoga with me, (and much better, I might add--limber little 4 year old bodies do these things better than mommy bodies!). He told his sister that she should do it too, because it is healthy. He even asked if we could do it again sometime!

I did yoga tonight for a couple of reasons. First, I have been doing well with cardio and weight-training, but I don’t have much flexibility training in my workouts. Also, because of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I had the kids tonight, which I normally wouldn’t on a Monday, so I couldn’t go to the gym as easily. I have been doing so well with my working out lately that I didn’t want to skip tonight entirely and it gets dark too early to go for a walk after work, so yoga seemed like the best choice.

I am really surprised by how difficult it is. Because people say that it helps them to relax, I always have this image of yoga being calm and relatively easy. It isn’t really very easy at all. I found myself having a lot of difficulty with the slow breaths I was supposed to be taking at a few points, because the poses were very challenging. I am already sore, and I even took a nice warm shower when I was done. Oh well, that must mean the exercise is having a good effect on my body and I am sure it will get easier as I keep practicing.

The last reason I wanted to make sure to get some exercising in is the terrible eating I did at my parents’ house tonight. My grandmother had cooked cabbage in some water, which was fine, but she had also added ham hocks. I love cooked cabbage, and my grandmother is so happy when I eat her cooking, but all the ham grease was a bit heavy on my stomach. I also ate a light caesar salad, which had cheese, egg yolk and anchovies in the dressing. Not a lot, but still. And if this all wasn’t non-vegan enough, I ate chocolate chip cookies (made by the girl and my grandmother) AND a couple of mini-Twix bars. See what I mean about the junk food mecca? So, not a vegan night at all, but it could have been much worse. I didn’t eat any actual chunks of meat, and the salad really was the best of a lot of bad options. The candy and cookies were just weakness. Still, one not so great night is not the end of the world, and at least I did the yoga to make up for it, right?

The girl makes dinner

2007-01-11T19:48:00.000-08:00

I don't have a dishwasher. Like most people, I hate washing dishes. I have been cooking a lot more lately. All of these things came together tonight into a huge pile of dishes and no desire to cook a whole meal.

I had Curried Noodles with Veggies on the menu tonight, but I also had a lot of leftover Curried Fruited Couscous from my vegetarian potluck at work today. I mean, a LOT of leftover couscous. We have not had a huge group lately, so I made a bunch so that we would be sure to have plenty of food for those of us who did come. We did have a relatively big group of people show up today, though--a total of 9 people, and everyone brought a lot of good food. I didn't think another curried pasta dish would be a good thing to make, even though they are pretty different recipes. They are too close for a lot of leftovers at once.

So, when we got home, I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. Predictably, they both said pizza. This sounded like a good plan to me, since it didn't involve the stove top, which was disturbingly full of dirty dishes (I am short on counter space in my kitchen, so the stove top does double duty). Even better, the girl volunteered the information that she could make the pizza herself. I started on the mound of dishes, and she got to work. Our shredded soy cheese was no good, but I had slices of Tofutti cheese in mozzarella and American flavors, and she was thrilled to be given a knife to cut the cheese to scatter on the pizza. The boy snacked on golden raisins, and both kids had extra slices of cheese during the prep time. After the pizza went in the oven, I had an appetizer of the couscous. I watched over the baking while working on the dish mountain as the girl impressed her brother with her Spiderman video game playing skills.

The pizza turned out really yummy. We all really enjoyed it, and I think we could have made a significant dent in a second one if it had been available. It was really nice to have my daughter make the dinner tonight, mostly. I need to go tell her how much I appreciate it before she goes to sleep.

Grocery shopping

2007-01-09T19:30:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, after the rib incident on Saturday, the girl told me that she is still a vegetarian, she just succumbed to temptation at Grandpa's house. Well, it's an adjustment, and I want her to want to do it, so I am certainly not going to criticise her efforts. We are back to making lunches and eating almost vegan food this week. She even told her dad and stepmom while at their house last night, so I think she is serious.

I made my menu on Sunday, but my children were running around like little wild children, so I decided I couldn't face the crowded grocery store, and shopping would have to wait for Monday night. This resulted in me eating out for both breakfast and lunch at work on Monday, but I think it was worth it. I hate feeling stressed out at the grocery store.

I went shopping at Trader Joe's, which is such a great store. My cart was mostly filled with produce, which makes me feel so healthy. But, although I love Trader Joe's for all the healthy choices they have, even including healthy convenience food, they don't have everything I need when I am making recipes. So, tonight while the girl was at basketball practice, I went to another store to finish off my list. I couldn't find a bag of shredded cabbage at either store, though. What's up with that? I must have just overlooked it at the big store--I can't believe people have developed a sudden passion for shredding cabbage at home. I am going to find out just how much of a pain it can be this week, because I finally just grabbed a small head of cabbage. I don't have a food processor or a big grater, so I will be doing this with a knife. How bad can it be?

Tonight for dinner we had the Sloppy Lentils from the crockpot. They were really good! I am so glad I got the vegetarian slow cooker book--it is so nice to come home to a main dish that is ready to go. I just threw the fingerling potatoes and veggies in the microwave, helped the kids clear off the table and we all sat down to a good, healthy dinner in about 15 minutes after we got home. I even had enough leftover to put some in the freezer and take lunch tomorrow. I will also bring leftver potatoes and veggies, and grapes and an apple. Sabrina will take some leftover veggies, grapes, an individual chocolate soy milk, and either mini-bagels with tofutti cream cheese or chickenless nuggets. Woohoo!

The Parent Trap

2007-01-07T20:24:00.000-08:00

We went to dinner at my parents' house on Saturday. While this wasn't a problem for me, the girl succumbed to the lure of BBQ'd ribs. We had discussed what we might have for dinner at Grandpa's, since my dad asked what he should cook (my mom doesn't cook at all). We decided to ask for spaghetti, and we would bring some soy Italian sausage, but my dad said that he didn't want to heat up the kitchen. Yes, I know, it's January, but he gets hot easily. So, I asked Sabrina what she wanted and she said she didn't want to be a vegetarian. I told her that was up to her, but what did she want, and she said ribs.

This was not a problem for me, because eating meat off of the bone has always kind of grossed me out. I went to Trader Joe's and got some supplies for the night--veggie samosas for my main course, fingerling potatoes (which are awesome, by the way) and broccoli, cauliflower and baby carrots for the side dishes for everyone, and soy ice cream--mango/vanilla and very cherry with chocolate chips. Before dinner, we had some guacamole leftover from Christmas--in a pouch, not fresh made, which would have been bad by now! I ate a lot of food, but I didn't really get into all the candy and junk they have there. I did try some mini-Pringles and I had one caramel Hershey's kiss. That is excellent for me going over to my parents' house, the junk-food mecca of our family.

Today I made a menu plan for the coming week. I didn't make it to the grocery store, but I will go tomorrow night while the kids are at their dad's. It is much less stressful that way. Trader Joe's is always so crowded, and they are wild children!

Monday: Something easy from Trader Joe's--either the Mediterraean feast, or something frozen.

Tuesday: Sloppy Lentils in the crockpot (kind of like sloppy joes, but with lentils instead of meat), fingerling potatoes (did I mention these are awesome? Also, you can microwave the little bag for 5 minutes and be ready!), steamed cauliflower and broccoli

Wednesday: The girl has tumbling class at 6:30, so we will eat dinner late. I am thinking I will bring whole wheat tortillas spread with peanut butter and wrapped around bananas for us all before the class/workout for me. After class, we will either have leftovers or fruit and yogurt. I also need to make something for my monthly vegetarian potluck at work, probably chili, unless I get really inspired before then, and I happen to have all the ingredients for my inspiration dish.

Thursday: Curried Stir-Fried Noodles with Veggies, salad, some kind of fruit, maybe mangoes.

Friday: Seitan "Meat and Potatoes" Stew, Cabbage, Apple and Raisin Slaw, steamed green beans.

Saturday: I think I am going out with friends.

The recipes for Seitan "Meat and Potatoes" Stew and the Cabbage, Apple and Raisin Slaw on Friday come from Nava Atlas' The Vegetarian Family Cookbook, which is a fantastic resource. I was paging through it today writing down recipes I would like to make, and after about 160 pages, I already have 19 recipes noted. I think there are others I saw that I would like to make, too, I was only noting the ones I want to make as soon as I can work them into my menu plan. I don't want to out too many brand new recipes into one week, though. It's not like I have never been a vegetarian before and I am having to come up with all new recipes.

I am pretty sure I will follow this menu plan as long as I make it to the store tomorrow. Menu planning is something I need to get used to again, but once I have a menu, I am good about following it. It makes my life so much easier to come home from work and know what I am cooking, and that I have all the necessary ingredients, so I don't go changing it up all that often.

On a final note for this entry, I did succeed in bringing a lunch every day last week, but Friday was payday, and a friend convinced me to go out to eat. I had a vegetarian curry dish that they said they were going to make spicy, but it was pretty bland. Fortunately they had sriracha hot sauce, so it was pretty good. I have some leftovers from tonight (whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce, mashed tofu, and spinach) in the fridge for tomorrow, and I have various sides to take with me. Hopefully this will be a good week, too.

Planning

2007-01-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

I have been obsessively reading vegetarian websites, vegetarian magazines, vegetarian blogs and vegetarian cookbooks for over a week now. I have been to the grocery store twice to buy foods to make the switch back to vegetarianism easier. Unfortunately, these things were not united by planning. I checked my pantry, fridge and freezer to make sure I had the ingredients I needed for a couple of recipes and then just bought a bunch of food. Tuesday and Wednesday went really well. I knew what I was going to make, so I came home and just made it. They were good meals, too. Tonight, however, I came home with no plan.

Fortunately I had picked up a couple of cans of red beans, so I was able to pull together red beans and rice, some baked potato wedges and green beans for a yummy dinner, but I see a definite menu and grocery shopping list in my future for next week.

Lunch today was good. I remembered the salsa, but I still ended up foraging in my cubicle at 3:30. I found some caramel rice cakes, and I spread one with a bit of peanut butter, which really hit the spot. I know what my afternoon snack will be tomorrow! I was impressed, too, because the rice cakes were actually dairy free. They did have some honey, but I am so happy that it wasn't high fructose corn syrup. I have my lunch mostly made for tomorrow, so that will make my first week at work this year complete with lunch brought every day! It's a short week, but only 1 day short. I am feeling pretty good about this.

We didn't make a lunch for the girl tonight, but we have been heating the chik'n patty or nuggets in the morning anyway. She brought her lunchbox home from school today (who knows how long it has been there...), so we can throw an ice pack in and she can bring a soy pudding and a Silk Alive yogurt smoothie. Her lunch should come together pretty quickly. This was only a three day week for her, but we made it through her first week, too.

One week down, well, let's not think about how many to go. I prefer to dwell on the success of this week completed, not the many weeks, months and years to come.

Wednesday Food

2007-01-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

Well, the girl's lunch went well. She said the chik'n patty was good and it was enough food and she ate it all. I wish my lunch was enough food. I forgot to bring salsa to eat with baked chips, though, and I think I would have been fine if I had. As it was, I was starving when I got home, so I made one of the chik'n patties for myself to tide me over while I cleaned up the kitchen and made dinner.

For dinner tonight we had soy meatballs in sauce made from onions, tomato soup, applesauce, honey and chili sauce. On the side we had red cargo rice and peas. The girl ate a clementine, and both the kids had a dumdum sucker and a Tofutti cutie for dessert (minus one bite for mommy). Tomorrow I am having leftover meatballs and rice for lunch, and the girl is having another chik'n sandwich. We'll both have some sugar snap peas on the side, and I'll slice up one of the huge pears we bought for us to each take half. And I'll remember the salsa this time! In fact, I just got up and put some salsa in a little container now so that all I have to do in the morning is grab it.

I don't know how that girl can stand to have the same thing for lunch every day, but that's the way she likes it. Last year she took mini-bagels with tofutti cream cheese and a piece of fruit almost every single day. That would drive me crazy!

The boy keeps asking to be able to bring a lunch. Lazy mommy that I am, I tell him no, the school feeds him lunch. But meals are part of the tuition at his school, which isn't cheap, and although the do include meat, they already keep the dairy out of his, and they do try to keep it pretty healthy. Maybe when I really get in the habit of making lunches for the girl and me, I will start making them for him, too.

A lunch update

2007-01-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

After basketball practice tonight, my daughter informed me, "I am a vegetarian." I said, "oh, did you tell your dad that?" She had just returned from a spell at her dad's house, but we had talked about this before she left. She said that no, she forgot. Hmm. Still, it's progress.

We went to the store to get some Quorn chicken patties and whole wheat hamburger buns, since the school cafeteria is serving chicken patties tomorrow, and she thought that looked yummy. I want to make this easy for her. We also got broccoli, sugar snap peas, clementines, pears, kiwis, one Silk Alive mango soy yogurt smoothie, some chocolate vanilla swirl soy puddings, Kidz Dream soy and juice drink boxes, Quorn chicken nuggets, and Quorn hot dogs for the boy.

When we got home, we steamed some broccoli and split it into sandwich baggies for us each to take in the morning. Yes, I know that using reusable containers would be better, but I was in the middle of a mountain of dishes, and I just couldn't take it. My lunch today was all in reusable containers, and we'll do it again tomorrow night. I also put a hamburger bun in a baggie for her, although we will heat up the fake chicken patty tomorrow morning. She'll take a clementine and one of the drinks to finish the meal. I am taking leftover Thai red curry veggies over brown rice, the broccoli, a clementine or two, and some salsa, because I have some baked tortilla chips at work.

My lunch today was good, but I keep forgetting how much food you need to eat when the food is low-fat and animal free. I ate an Amy's brand vegan breakfast burrito at about 8:00, and by 10:30, I was already really hungry. I ate the clementine and the split pea soup, went to a meeting, and ate the applesauce and bean tortilla wrap. I was still hungry, so I ate some of the baked tortillas with the remaining salsa, and a few almonds I had at my desk. In the afternoon I had a small soy yogurt, and went to the coffee shop for a soy caramel vanilla latte. I suspect there is some milk in the caramel, but I am working my way there. I was still pretty hungry by the time I got home. The Thai red curry veggies over brown rice really hit the spot, but I am going to have to go to bed soon before I get so hungry that I eat something I shouldn't!

I am just drinking my Kleri-tea from the Colonix colon cleanse that I am doing and I am off to bed, but first I have to say that I already feel so much better only a week or two into this project. My skin has cleared up amazingly, my hair is less greasy, my stomach isn't quite so bulgy, I have more energy and I can concentrate better. I am more patient with my children. I know that sounds like I am saying a vegan diet is some kind of miracle cure, and I think maybe it is. I feel better, so I am less irritable with my kids, which is so great. Not that I was mean to them before, but I wasn't as patient as I would like to be, and now I am getting closer, and it isn't that hard. I feel more motivated to exercise, too. I just feel a lot more healthy, and I love it. I need to remember this when I feel the tempation to fall off the wagon so to speak.

I am not as unique as I thought I was...

2007-01-02T08:28:00.000-08:00

Here I thought I was coming up with a unique idea, with my Almost Vegan project, but there is another Almost Vegan already out there! I enjoyed this blog, though, and it is nice to see that I am not alone, although it would appear that she has been doing this a lot longer than I have.

So, I have to say that my second biggest concern about almost vegan eating, after eating at other people’s houses, is eating at work. There aren’t a lot of interesting vegan lunch choices at downtown restaurants. They aren’t nonexistent, just harder to find. The other concern is that I want to have a variety of fruits and veggies, and keep it lowfat, which limits my eating out choices even further.

Fortunately, I have been working on bringing my lunch more often for a while now, due to overspending on my children’s Christmas presents. The biggest hurdle is just getting in the habit of making a lunch to bring, at least in my case. So, last night at 10:30 PM when I got back from my parent’s house, I went right into the kitchen and prepared a meal for today. I put applesauce with cinnamon sprinkled on top and split pea soup in little containers, spread a whole wheat tortilla with fat-free refried beans, and made up a container of salsa with a dash of hot sauce for dipping. This morning I grabbed all that, along with a small soy yogurt and a clementine, and I was ready to go! One day into this, and I am off to a good start.

Now, how long can I keep it up? Tonight I will need to make a lunch for my daughter as well, who is cautiously attempting this experiment with me, as long as I make her lunches for her rather than making her do it. This adds a new dimension of complexity, because she is PICKY!

A New Project

2007-01-01T20:47:00.000-08:00

I have recently decided to stop my meat-eating ways, and get back to a good, healthy vegetarian diet. I am allergic to dairy, and I decided to give up the eggs, too, but I am not ready to go quite all the way to vegan eating (I don't feel all that strongly about honey, for example), hence the *almost* vegan project. I am not ruling out going more fully vegan as time goes on, though. I figure being truly vegan is always a process, anyway, I am just not very far along in that process.

By way of background, this isn't the first time that I have lived a vegetarian lifestyle. When I was 18, I decided that meat was just gross. I think that this was somewhat related to going on the birth control pill, because of the hormone changes. I didn't necessarily want to stop eating meat, but it just made me feel so nauseated. I remember finally deciding that I really would quit on Thanksgiving. The meal was long done, and we were sitting in our kitchen playing a game, eating leftover turkey out of a storage bag, and I just looked down and thought, "This is disgusting." I didn't eat meat again for nearly five years, at least not on purpose. Since I was in college, my mother didn't realize what was going on until over the Christmas break. When she did, she told me, "You have to eat meat again sometime." I just told her that no, I didn't. This was not a popular decision.

I actually loved being a vegetarian. I learned to cook, because eating out was so boring. This was the late 80's, early 90's, when there were a lot less options for vegetarians eating out. I went to college in a small town, so there were no health food stores or vegetarian cafes. I ate a lot of salads, and I ate a lot of dairy, especially cheese. It was just so much easier to be able to order cheese pizza, or fettucine alfredo, so that I could have warm food when eating out. Still, the choices were all boring, so I bought some vegetarian cookbooks and began experimenting. I tried a lot of different fruits and vegetables, and I was generally pretty healthy.

Almost 5 years after I stopped eating meat, I started again. I don't really know why, but I expect it was just easier. My mother was overjoyed. However, after about 6 years, I started having more health problems. I hadn't gained a huge amount of weight immediately after I started eating meat, probably in part due to my terrible smoking habit. Cigarette smoking is terrible for one's health, yes, but it is also an appetite suppressant that raises the metabolism. When I got pregnant with my daughter at the end of 1996, however, I quit smoking. Combined with the pregnancy and some bad eating habits (I developed an addiction to fast food after my daughter was born), I put on a lot of weight. I also started having a lot of intestinal troubles, and I generally felt run-down and just yucky. I decided to try a meatless fast and do some nutrition research to see if that would help. After a couple of days of cutting out meat, I also cut out the dairy. I couldn't believe how much better I felt! I didn't know I had that much better to feel. As an interesting side note, I had been visiting a doctor to get to the bottom (ha, ha) of my intestinal issues. When I told her that I felt a lot better since adopting a low-fat strict vegetarian diet, she pretty much dismissed that as a potential cure. I would think that it is pretty obvious that what you eat affects your bowels, but she didn't seem to think so at all.

My parents were not happy about this turn of events. It was bad enough when I did it by myself as a young college student, but they were intensely hostile to me bringing my daughter into this. My mother gloried in feeding my daughter meat whenever we were at her house, and laughed delightedly when I was upset by it. It was a really low point of our relationship.

All of this happened when I was about 30 years old. I kept up my vegetarian diet for about a year and a half, although the quality suffered when I started working full-time. I started eating a lot more processed food, and less fruits and vegetables. I separated from my husband, and found out that I was pregnant. Then I developed gestational diabetes. Trying to follow the diet that they gave me with the limited carbohydrates was tough. I was hungry and I started losing weight. I started eating meat again, because I wanted something a bit more substantial, and it is hard to find protein sources that are low in carbohydrates. And it was just easier. I was on my own with a four-year-old daughter, a full-time job and I was finishing my college degree at a school almost 200 miles away from where we were living. It was so much easier to be able to buy a chicken sandwich, or eat dinner at my parents' house. After my son was born, one of the main reasons I continued to eat meat was that it was easier to eat at other people's houses.

After I had my son, I put on a lot of weight again. I didn't want to get diabetes again, because I hated it when I was pregnant. I had been on insulin and I hated testing my sugars four times a day and giving myself shots three times a day. So, I started exercising more and became more careful about what I ate. I lost nearly 40 pounds, but then I became careless about my diet again, so I gained it all back. To be honest, part of that had to do with the male attention I got when I lost the weight--I wasn't ready for that, so I ate to sabotage myself. I didn't even realize I was doing that until I had gained back most of the weight that I lost.

So, , this brings me to where I am now. I am back to having intestinal issues, and I feel run-down and icky again. I did keep the exercising up somewhat the whole time, and about 3 months ago I joined our local community center so that I could work out in the fitness center, but that wasn't enough. In fact, I gained the last 10 pounds since I started working out at the center. So, right before Christmas I decided to try cutting out the meat. I didn't cut out fish, but I noticed a difference right away. In fact, after about a week I had one of my favorite chicken curry dishes at a local Thai restaurant, and I could tell right away that was a bad idea. I knew then that I was on the right track. Around Christmas, I decided to try to limit the fish, too, although I am keeping it as an option for eating at other people's houses for now.

My parents' have been a little more supportive this time. My dad has gone out of his way to make food that I like when we go over for dinner. He made salmon once, and shrimp stir-fry another time. Last week he even got portobello mushroom caps and threw them on the grill for me. My mother is slowly figuring out that I am really going back to vegetarianism, but she hasn't said anything negative yet. It probably helps that I am a bit relaxed this time. My 88 year old grandmother made beans and ham for New Year's Day today, and I just picked the ham out of my bowl and told her it was delicious. I am not striving for perfection here, just good health and relatively harmonious relations with my family.

At this point, I am going almost vegan mostly for health reasons, although the ethical stuff is a definite plus for me. I am particularly excited about how good this style of eating is for the environment. Like I said, this is a process and a journey, and I expect to learn more, even though this isn't the first time I have been here.

As a final note, although I love The Vegan Lunch Box, I am not trying to mimic that blog. I just couldn't find a template on blogger that I liked more than this one, so we look a bit alike. I am not trying to be nearly as cool as Jennifer is, though. For one thing, I am not so good with the pictures!