Tag Archives: veganism

Mar 25 2009

The Vegan, She is Finished (Pretty Much)

I can’t do the veg any more. 

Not full time, not hardcore vegan.  I just can’t.

Dairy is cruel to me.  So I will continue to buy the tofu-based vegan sour cream alternative, tofutti cuties ice cream bars, soy yogurt, etc.

I will continue to buy tempeh because I love it.  I love couscous. I enjoy the boca burgers and Morningstar Farms spicy black bean burgers. I love me some nutritional yeast-based cheese sauce alternative on macaroni.  So that part of the vegan learning curve had massive benefits.

I will very very seldom eat beef ever again.  And only occasionally have chicken or pork.  But the restrictions of the vegan diet have had their toll on me.  My vitamin B-12 deficiency is a pain in the neck, and hair is starting to fall out again.  My energy is sapped, and it has been difficult to prepare two separate meals every night for the family.

I can see eating a vegan(ish) diet about 70% of the time with occasional treats of grilled chicken, or fried chicken, or shrimp or tuna. That is enormously appealing to me.  I don’t want to be a prima donna when dining out.  I don’t want people to have to prepare special foods for me at their homes, or to cart my cooler of hippie vittles with me when I visit. 

It’s about balance.  The pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction.  But I swear, my food habits have been forever changed because of this.  I will continue to read vegan food blogs because of the dairy alternatives I find there, and for the possibilities of discovering new and interesting foods.

The new focus for me, especially while reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma is going to be working harder to buy locally.  Local eggs, local produce, and hopefully local meats when possible.  Slow cooking.  Baking my own bread more often, being more creative with inexpensive ingredients, perhaps buying a share in a local organic farm co-operative for a regular stockup of produce.

I don’t feel like a failure.  Because I never set out on this things as a moral quest.  It was a dietary experiment.  It works for some people, and it has certainly been beneficial to me.  But I’m ready to get back to a good, meaty piece of chicken breast.

And of course, the bacon.

Mar 20 2009

Last Day of Winter Vegan Soup

In honor of it being the very last day of winter 2009, I made soup last night and it was wonderful.  A winter vegetable soup.  PC said it sounded revolting, but smelled good.  He and Rabbit ate Totino’s Party Pizza.  I made slow food and loved it, and Rabbit told me it looked pretty. 

Just for the record, if I don’t know what I’m going to cook, I start by slicing up an onion and carmelizing it in olive oil, and while that is happening, I decide what to do next with what I have on hand.

Last night, I sliced up a whole large onion and put it in a cast iron pan with a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil.  After it was cooked to a golden color, I put it in the soup pot and added a little more oil, and salt and pepper.

I peeled three cloves of garlic and left them whole, and put them in the hot pot, and they started to turn golden.  I added about a quarter of a head of green cabbage, cut coarsely, and it started to cook down.  It was really mild cabbage, and wayyyy less stanky than the cauliflower I used last time I made vegan soup.  I added a large carrot, chopped, and kept stirring all the vegetables in the oil to coat them.  It smelled amazing. 

I peeled and coarsely chopped a sweet potato, and added it.  Then I peeled and cut up two russet potatoes.  I stirred everything some more and all the veggies were getting carmelized and roasty and smelled delicious.  After about four or five minutes, I added about a quart and a half of vegetable broth (jarred vegetable bouillon paste mixed with hot water), a little more salt, and some ground pepper.

I turned up the heat and brought it all to a boil and then put it down to simmer with the lid on.  When I stirred it, the top of the broth had a beautiful golden sheen from the olive oil. I covered it tightly and set the timer for 30 minutes.

When it was done cooking, I put it in the blender in batches, pureeing it until it was smooth.  Then I put it all back in the pot and added a generous dusting of paprika, and about a cup of almond milk, and stirred it all together. 

I fixed myself a bowl of it, and it was incredible.  Served with whole wheat bread, I felt my stresses melt away to nothing.  Seriously.  All hail the curative and therapeutic power of making soup, and of eating it.  It was another bowl of food love.

Jan 19 2009

More Food Love: Vegan Chili

OK, just for the record, I was a freaking cooking maniac this weekend. 

PC and Rabbit and I cleaned house on Saturday morning, scrubbing toilets and floors, sweeping and dusting, and mopping bathroom and kitchen floors until they glowed.  We took 3 hours, and Rabbit was “helping” by alternately dusting and staying out of the way.  

Anyway, after finishing that, I needed to relax. I started cooking, and it was such great therapy.  It’s too bad most of you can’t stop by to eat–it was that good.

First I made whole wheat bread; the texture was so fine and light, it was incredible.  I got the recipe from the cookbook that came with my KitchenAid mixer.  Instead of dry milk, I used non-dairy creamer powder.  Two loaves of bread, and the whole house smelled wonderful.

Then, I cooked up a grain I bought, having never heard of it before.  Have you heard of “kamut?”  It’s supposedly an Egyptian form of wheat, somehow related to wheat and/or triticale.  It took TWO HOURS to cook.  But since I was in the kitchen going crazy, it was fine.  While that was cooking, I had a couple of pounds of red rome apples that PC bought when I had told him to get gala apples.  These Rome apples are a little mealy, so I peeled and cut them and cooked them in some water with sugar, then mashed them up to make applesauce. 

Finally, while the bread was baking, I made homemade vegan chili.  It turned out so good!

So here’s that recipe:

In a large pot, heat up 3TB olive oil and saute 1/2 an onion, diced; two large carrots, diced; three ribs of celery, chopped (including the leaves); and four cloves of crushed (not pressed) garlic.  When the onions are translucent, add a 15oz can of petite diced tomatoes, a can of water, and a can of chili beans.   Bring to a boil and then reduce to a good simmer.

While the onion is cooking, prepare the “meat” for the chili.  I use TVP from the hippie vittles store.  One cup of it, dry, in a large bowl. I added 2 drops of liquid smoke, one teaspoon of worcestershire sauce, 1 TB of browning sauce (kitchen bouquet or Magi), some garlic powder and some onion powder.  Stir well to distribute the flavor and the coloring.  Add 1 cup of boiling water and cover for five minutes. 

Add this mixture to the chili.  Then add 2TB of chili powder, 1TB of paprika (or more–it’s your chili) and 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper.  Add 2tsp of oregano. Salt and pepper to taste.  (Now if you are like me and oversalted the stuff, an easy fix is to cut up a potato and add it to the simmering chili for about 15-20 minutes; it will draw in some of the salt and then you can discard the potato).   Later on, I added some taco sauce when Rabbit decided she didn’t want to eat any, so we could make it as spicy as we wanted.

Simmer the whole thing for about 90 minutes or up to an hour.  This is really good served over some of the cooked Kamut grains, or eat it as PC did, covered with cheese.  We had ours with fresh warm bread, and it was so good! 

I had some tonight with kamut, and it was a lot spicier reheated.  But dang, that was some great chili!

My next project: homemade tortillas.  And vegan fudge-sicles.

Jan 15 2009

Vegan Update January ’09 Edition

Vegan fail.  Three times in four days I ate cold leftover Val’s pizza.  Bacon pizza.  It’s like leaving a bag of meth on a table in the recreation room of a rehab clinic.  If it is there, I have to eat it.

So PC knows now that the next time he orders Val’s for himself and Rabbit, they are going to have to sit at that table and eat pizza til it is all gone, and if there is any leftover, he’ll have to hide it in the trunk of his car.

Tonight, I made them some sort of pasta casserole (just threw things together and they ate it–sometimes it works).  I sliced up a sweet potato and baked the slices with salt and paprika and spices, and ate that before dinner.  Then I had steamed broccoli, couscous, and sauteed tempeh with soy sauce and sesame seeds, while PC and Rabbit ate pasta with cheese, turkey and vegetables.  It wasn’t bad, but I was really jonesing for that pizza. 

At work today, I had soy yogurt for breakfast.  It tasted good, especially with the giant handful of sunflower seeds I put into it.  But that stuff smells really strong, almost like vinegar.   At lunch, I had an apple and lots of peanut butter, and then a bunch of trail mix that the boss’s wife keeps at the office. 

PC and I speculated about what my cholesterol levels must be by now.  I have reduced my consumption of animal products by probably 90% over the last 8 weeks, and am getting more fiber in my diet than I can ever remember.  I have lost almost 12 pounds so far, but PC thinks that is from working out.  I don’t think so.  I think it is a combination of the change in food and the exercise.

I think it is worth it.  But man, that was some goooooooooooooood pizza.

Jan 10 2009

Recipe For Southwest Bean and Corn Cakes

I talked about it in an earlier post, and by request, here is the recipe; it makes a LOT of these, so prepare to freeze leftovers.

Southwest Bean and Corn Cakes

1 1/2 cups corn kernels

1 cup cornmeal (I ended up using more)

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (again, you may end up adding more at the end)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp sea salt (or kosher salt, since I didn’t have sea salt)

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 TB lime juice

pinch cayenne pepper (I forgot to put this in)

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp paprika

15oz can black beans

1 medium yellow onion, diced (I carmelized it first, and highly recommend you do too)

1 medium carrot, finely grated

1 3/4 c. plain rice milk (I used soy)

2 tsp cider vinegar (when you add it to the rice milk or soy milk, it thickens it up and makes it tangy like buttermilk)

Preheat the oven to 350 (I suggest 400).  Lightly oil a baking sheet (or line it with a silpat mat and spray with veg cooking spray).

In a large bowl, combine the corn kernels, cornmeal, flour, baking powder, cumin, salt, red pepper flakes, lime juice, cayennne pepper, black pepper and paprika.  Mix well.

(Before you start this, if you’re going to cook the onions first, dice them and cook them in plenty of oil, so you will have oil leftover to fry to patties if you would like to try that instead of baking the patties.  Cooking the onions helps the texture and mellows the flavor of the patties.)

In a separate bowl, use a potato masher to coarsely mash the beans (leave a few whole).  Add the onion and carrot and mix to form a thick mash.  Add the rice milk and vinegar to the beans and mix.  Add the bean and rice milk mixture to the corn mixture and combine.  (If it’s too thin to make a patty in your hands, add a little more cornmeal and a little more wheat flour.)

Use your hands to scoop some of the dough to make burger size patties.  Arrange patties on the baking sheet ad bake 15 minutes.  Flip the patties and bake another 15 minutes or until crisp around the edges.

(The bakes ones are dryer, but freeze really well.  The fried ones don’t freeze so well.  I suggest you fry what you will eat that night, and bake the rest.  The cooled off baked ones are even good to eat cold.)

Jan 8 2009

Not As Boring As The Original Title

93284100682920m1The original title of this post was “Cookbook Review:  Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking.”  But then I realized people would stop reading and never find out about what I made for dinner tonight.

I checked this cookbook out from the library, and there is nothing sadder than a clean cookbook.  I need to buy a copy to have on hand, since every other page is marked with a scrap of paper indicating a recipe I want to try.  The book was written by J. M. Hirsch and Michelle Hirsch, and the subtitle is “Bold Flavors for Meat- and Dairy- Free Meals.”  Well, they don’t have anything in here with egg, either, so it is a vegan cookbook. 

Clever folks–the word “vegan” will scare off all but the bravest, but I would encourage you to look at this cookbook and try some of the recipes.  I mentioned a few posts back that I was discovering vegan food love, and that’s because of this book.  The flatbread I made, the sweet potato fries, the artichoke tapenade…all delicious and even PC enjoyed each dish.

Tonight, I made Southwest Bean and Corn Cakes, and they were so good!!!  Frozen corn kernels, cornmeal, whole wheat flour, spices, lime juice, black beans, a chopped and carmelized onion (I could eat carmelized onion on ANYTHING), shredded carrot, and soy milk.  It was like a thick pancake batter, and the recipe (like all the recipes in the book) could feed an army.  I should have made a half batch.

I followed the directions and put six of the patties on a baking sheet in the oven.  Some I cooked on the electric griddle, and the rest, I fried in the oil leftover from cooking the onions.  Of course, the fried ones were the best.   Now I have 20 left over (TWENTY??), so I will freeze them to take to work for lunches. 

Rabbit did not like them, so she had peaches and bread and butter for dinner.  PC ate two large patties.  I had more than that, but shut up — I worked up an appetite cooking.

There are some recipes in the book that I think are a little weird, namely “Vegetarian Haggis.”  Seriously?  Haggis?  Haggis in the first place is an appalling concept and I’m sure an even more appalling dish, but to try to make a vegan version of something so horrifying is like a Catholic kindergarten trying to put on a production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Why try a kinder, gentler version of something so craptastic? 

But on the whole, the recipes are imaginative, very healthy, VERY flavorful, and easy.  PC told me I may as well buy a copy of the cookbook to keep, so I can get it stained with soy sauce and glue the dessert pages together with sugar and flour.

Now I am off to make tofu fudge-sicles.  Stop retching, I bet you haven’t even tried them!

Dec 30 2008

This Post Will Make You Fat

Slowly, slowly, I am finding alternatives to processed and nasty food. Instead of hasty dinners of sub-nutritious ingredients in the kitchen, I’m reading cookbooks and online recipes, substituting ingredients for things that I know I like, and rediscovering my love of cooking. The “slow food” movement has gotten to me.

Sunday night, I made some of the best mashed potatoes I have ever had. I cooked white russet potatoes until they were fork-tender. While they were cooking, I thinly sliced a whole onion, and then carmelized it in a pan with olive oil and vegan butter, 20 minutes, until the onions were golden and sweet. After draining the potatoes, I ran them through a potato ricer and then took a couple of tablespoons of vegan sour cream (Tofutti Sour Supreme, which even my husband likes) and poured some of the hot potato water over it to make it into a milk-like substance, then added it to the riced potatoes. I added a little more potato water, then salt and pepper, and then all of the carmelized onion.

Seriously? Food love. They were rich and creamy, and the carmelized onions were absolutely the perfect extra touch. With the oil from the onions, I made a roux with flour, and then added stock to make gravy. You could use beef stock or vegetable, depending on what kind of diet you are following, but PC loved the onion gravy over the potatoes, which were just as good reheated the next night for dinner.

Another discovery? Sweet potatoes. My God. I am a convert to sweet potatoes. I used to loathe them because their flavor was too sweet to be endured, mostly due to how they were cooked at the holidays, boiled or baked beyond salvaging, and covered in sugar or marshmallows and butter.

A vegetarian cookbook I checked out from the library provided sweet potato redemption. Cut them into fries, then put into a gallon ziploc bag with 2 TB olive oil, and some chili powder, thyme, paprika, pepper & salt, and a little lime juice. Roll it around so each fry is coated, then dump them out onto an oiled (or lined with silpat) baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, turning the fries over once. Sprinkle with kosher salt and serve hot.

The sweetness of these potatoes was offset by the salty, tangy, savory seasoning. They were wonderful!

Then yesterday, I made artichoke tapenade. Tapenade is a spread that is traditionally made with finely chopped olives, spices and olive oil. In this case, I used canned artichoke hearts, garlic, capers, sundried tomatoes packed in oil, lemon juice, parsley, vegan parmesan topping, salt and pepper. I put it all in the food processor and pulsed it until everything was chopped finely. We tried it on crackers and toasted pita bread. It was so good! Next time, I’m going to roast the garlic first, to give it a more mellow flavor, and maybe add some carmelized onion. I will probably also use marinated artichoke hearts in oil, instead of the ones packed in water, just for texture and mild flavor. But it was still terrific, especially with the sundried tomato adding color and flavor. I can see this being a good alternative for myself when I make pizza for the rest of the family, to put this on a flatbread, or top with candied carmelized onion…..

Last night, when Rabbit was sick to her stomach but needed to eat something, I melted butter in a small saucepan, and added about 1/2 cup of cooked leftover brown rice. While it was getting hot, I added a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar, which mixed with the melted butter and sort of carmelized and candied each grain of rice. Then I slowly added 1/4 cup of soy milk and 1/2 tsp of ginger. It was the prettiest gold color, and set up like rice pudding. I put it in a white bowl with three peach slices, and Rabbit said it was too pretty to eat. She managed to scarf it down anyway. I would make it as a dessert for the whole family next time.

Tonight, I made flatbread–flour, water, and salt, kneaded into a dough, then rolled out in little pieces the size of tortillas, and cooked on the griddle, which had been brushed with sesame and olive oils. Flipped once, then left to puff up a little. It looked like the bread you get in Indian restaurants. We ate it with some of the artichoke tapenade, and some of it dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which Rabbit adored.

Great, now I’m hungry again! Once more, I am getting the sinking feeling I could become the world’s fattest vegan. Anyone care to join me?

Dec 23 2008

Bacon Double Cheese Love

More food love!

Tonight, PC got me a bacon double cheeseburger and fries.  I am officially bloated.  If someone poked a hole in my arm right now, I think I would ooze gravy.

Not much time to write anything.  I’m getting together with some of the youth from my last retreat, for a Christmas party.  I feel like that girl in Willie Wonka who turned into a giant blueberry, but I’m turning into bacon.