Veggie Goes Vegan

Martha Stewart: When will you simply go veg?

Martha Stewart is someone I happen to admire. Her business savvy, the way she handles setbacks, the way she says what she thinks.

Lately she's been on a tear advocating for what i consider to be veg*n values...and featuring Michael Pollan, Jonthan Safran Foer, the Food Inc documentary.

She did a whole vegetarian Thanksgiving episode, which you can watch and check out the resources for here. Recipes and more abound.

She was also recently interviewed on NPR and shared these thoughts about the next decade:

I'm very concerned about the environment and I hope that people will read books like "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is a wonderful book about how our meat is produced. And if you read that you'll feel like I do, that we must, must, must think organic and humane. And not only with meat, but also with vegetables, with the way we treat our animals and treat our food, all of that is extremely important. So I'm an optimist and I think in the next 10 years, I think more and more of us will be concerned with the same things and all kind of band together and get things straightened out.

I just wonder when she's going to bite the bullet and go veg like her daughter Alexis. I wonder if she didn't have a show and books etc. etc. based around cooking, and if it wasn't perceived that veg cooking was so limiting, I wonder if she'd do so?

Hmmmm.

Quick Link: Talking veganism on Forbes?

Not often you see veganism discussed in the conservative financial/business publication Forbes, so I read In Praise of (Mostly) Vegan Diets with great interest. And the comments too.

Given I'm one of those folks who likes to encourage people to make whatever steps they can for whatever reasons they do, I am a little annoyed to see a couple of vegans chime in with the "vegan is not a diet; it's a lifestyle" argument. 

You know, I'm not sure that's true, and I am sure it's not useful. Most people *do* think "diet" or "way of eating" or "what foods you will and won't eat" when they hear "vegan", and I really don't think it's a drastic error of some sort that we should be out there "correcting". We just sound like assholes for no good purpose.

No one is confused by what this guy is saying. I personally want more people saying they eat "vegan" as often as they can, and not copping to Michael Pollan's pussified "plant-based diet".

Am I swimming against the vegan tide here?

The last few days on the Kickstart, now one week in

Of course going back to work after a long weekend, I was reminded that following a plan can be tough. Why? Well:

-I often start working at home before I get ready and get on my commute. If I start on email, it can pretty much consume my time until I look up and need to jump in the shower. From there I don't get to work until 10AM.

-Sometimes I have meetings back to back through lunch. If I haven't brought food, I sometimes can't sneak out to buy lunch. 

-When I get home, usually at 7PM or later, I'm tired. The thought of cooking isn't that appealing.

-I often work 12 hours between home and office, plus another 1 1/2 hours of commute time per day. It's no wonder I sometimes struggle to fit in exercise or cooking.

But it's not all doom and gloom. I actually did OK this week. I did better at planning and executing, then I did at blogging it :)

Here's how the last 3 days went down:

Tuesday the 5th:

I keep oatmeal at work, which is a go-to breakfast many mornings when I get in. I also had the luxury of having leftovers of both the Couscous Confetti Salad and Carrot/Red Pepper Soup I had made over the weekend. That made for a healthful lunch.

I had brought a soy yogurt and a persimmon for a snack. Persimmons are a new fruit I discovered over the last few months, and I really like them. Not too sweet. And not to sweet was especially appreciated since it was a birthday week at work, and there was a thin slice of vegan vanilla cake to be eaten.

I did cook when I got home...a spicy satisfying dish called Hearty Chili Mac. I went ahead and made the full recipe, and got several meals out of it!

Finally, a friend brought me some macadamia nuts from her recent trip to Hawaii, so one of my challenges has been to train myself to take a small portion, not just keep eating out of the can.

Wednesday the 6th:

I work from home most Wednesdays, so I did indeed have the luxury of my kitchen to prep in. I had a flour tortilla with cherry-applesauce, sprinkled with a little cinnamon, along with a banana for breakfast. For lunch I had some left over Spinach/Seitan/Mushrooms from the other night but also made myself something called an Asian Persuasion Coleslaw. 

Now, I'm not a coleslaw eater and never have been. It's funny how there are some "unhealthy" things that just don't appeal to me, never have...never did even before being vegan.  Coleslaw is one. Stuffing is another example. Even though I tend to be a savory/salty/fat craver more than a sweets craver.

So I wouldn't say I've *ever* bought cabbage and cooked with it before! OK, maybe once in the old days, maybe, I might have made corned beef and cabbage...maybe. But used raw cabbage in a salad. Uh huh. Still put an Asian soy, sesame dressing on just about anything, and I'm there. This salad thrown in some peanuts too, so it was surprisingly good, and I ended up eating the whole bowl. Good thing it's pretty damn low-calorie.

That evening I met a friend and went walking, and we then went to a local Japanese restaurant. it's possible to eat very healthily and very vegan at a Japanese restaurant, as long as you don't get jealous of all the choices others have around you. Your choices are there and yummy, but typically very limited. I had miso soup, a wakame seaweed salad (seaweed is very nutritious) and an avocado roll. Just a couple of tips, BTW. If you order something like Agedashi Tofu, and I often do, make sure to ask for it without the bonita flakes (which are fish-based.) Also, if you live in the Bay Area and want a Japanese food restaurant experience with an abundance of choices, check out Cha Ya Vegan Japanese in the Mission district of San Francisco.

Thursday, the 7th:

It was all about the easy, the ready-made and the leftovers yesterday. Oatmeal and a banana for breakfast. Left over Couscous Confetti Salad and ready-made artichoke hummus for lunch. Also had a blood orange in the afternoon. Another new fruit I only started eating somewhat recently. Leftover Hearty Chili Mac for dinner, with ahandful of macadamia nuts for a snack.

Couple of other things:

Now that I'm back at work, I do still get a soy latte on the mornings I head into the office. It's about 130 calories or so, and it's worth it to me. Plus soy milk gets me a little protein.

I also sprinkle nutritional yeast on various things i cook. Nutritional yeast is a great way for vegans to get their B vitamins in. Plus it helps that I love the flavor. 

Finally, I have been very dedicated to drinking water. I have a 27-ounce canteen that I make sure to fill it and drink it three times a day.

So this morning was 1 full week since I started the 21-day Vegan Kickstart, and finally did weigh myself again. I lost 4.4 lbs. Now, that may be the biggest one-week weight loss I've ever had, but I should say that I was coming from my highest weight ever, that last week I had eaten Chinese food the night before the first weigh-in, so probably high in sodium...meaning a lot of water retention I probably got rid of, plus, on top of it all, I was PMS-ing. Not to downplay how pleased I am about hitting that mark, but i don't want to be disappointed if I don't see that kind of number again, you know?

So, did you make healthy resolutions this year? We're on week in...how are you doing on yours?

When hectic strikes

So, sometimes I have trouble following meal plans when they want me to fit in a substantial breakfast. I know, I know it's the most important meal of the day. And yes, I usually eat something. But, not until 10AM, and maybe then a piece of fruit. Or a cup of oatmeal.

Yesterday it was a banana.

For lunch I had a vegetable sandwich from the deli downstairs. Of course, I picked out the sprouts and most of the lettuce and ended up eating the rest of the veggies with a fork...tomatoes, pickles, onions. More like a side salad.

Then I took the sourdough bread where the avocado was spread, added some artichoke hummus I bought at the farmer's market on Sunday, and that was my sandwich.

I'm weird like that.

For dinner I met friends at Amici's East Coast Pizzeria, a place I love to a dangerous degree (given they deliver) because they use Daiya vegan cheese on request. I had a mini 7" pizza with vegan cheese, tomatoes, basil, roasted garlic and mushrooms.

Nom nom nom.

It was quite a low-calorie day, and since I started the day by cracking open the new EA Personal TRainer game for Wii that I bought myself, I felt quite virtuous!

Day 3 of the Vegan Kickstart, now with pictures!

Yesterday I did some cooking, some eating out, and some leftover re-purposing, and it was all good.

I was kind of in a hurry in the morning, so rather than make a Zucchini Scramble and Breakfast Homefries as two separate dishes, per the menu plan, I combined them into one big Zucchini, Potato, Tofu Scramble:

Zucchini Potato Tofu Scramble

I was in and out of the kitchen (including eating time) in about 20 minutes.

For lunch I had a veggie breakfast burrito at Aqui. No cheese, no eggs, but plenty of polenta :)

Veggie Breakfast Burrito

Finally for dinner, which the meal planned called for being a "DIY Beans, Greens and Grains" combo, I decided to eat leftover whole wheat spaghetti with leftover marinara with cannellini beans, and then to saute up real quickly:

One box of seitan

One portabella mushroom

Several handfuls of fresh spinach

in a half-cup of red wine

So, beans, green and grains. Check. :)

Quick Link: The Four Food Groups, vegan-style

The PCRM has published The New Four Food Groups, and while it's all stuff I pretty much know, but I think it's helpful to have it laid out in this way, particularly with ratios of number of servings per group.

Structure helps me eat more healthfully, and if it does you too, the new four food groups concept may be a good way to structure your thinking.

Enjoy.

Day 2 of the 21-day Vegan Kickstart

The day started with a #cookingfail, but ended with a simple cooking discovery that I will try to use again.

First the cooking failure:

Breakfast: Day Two's menu was supposed to start with two recipes: Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes and Facon Bacon. The Facon Bacon was based on using tempeh, which I've never quite gotten enamored with, so I just bought LightLife's Smart Bacon and figured I'd cook that. Yes, it has a bit higher fat content than the recipe I was supposed to make, but I figured that would be OK.

And it was. I also discovered you can make that Smart Bacon in a non-stick pan with just a spray from my olive oil mister, and it will cook up just fine, no sticking and no burning.

The pancakes, on the other hand, were an entirely different story. What a mess! I'm not even sure what I did wrong, but that same spray of oil in a nearly identical non-stick pan did not keep the batter from sticking to the pan. And moreover, the batter never really seemed to be cooking. Finally, even when I tried to sort of eat the partly-cooked, mushy disaster, it was gritty and unpleasant.

Some possible issues:

• The recipe called for cornmeal. Hence, the grit. After some tweeting around, I did notice that the cornmeal I bought was "medium grind", and apparently you can buy "fine grind" which might be more appropriate for something like pancakes
• Obviously, I could have had the heat too high, although I had it on Medium
• I mixed my dry ingredients together, and then I went to the the wet ingredients. Now, the recipe says: "In a separate large bowl, combine mashed banana, maple syrup, vinegar, and non-dairy milk", and I confess I just put the wet ingredients together than plopped banana pieces in there and tried to mash it in the bowl with everything else. Of course the liquid made it a little hard to see if I had successfully and thoroughly mashed the banana
• I used agave syrup instead of maple, and I chose to use soy milk as my non-dairy milk, although it said you could use either
• Finally, I probably started with too much batter when I started to make my pancakes

Whatever the exact reason, this was a big cooking fail, and i ended up picking out some blueberries to eat and tossing the rest away!

Luckily, I had a Pumpkin Bolani (sort of a middle-eastern crepe) in the fridge, so I ate that instead.

For lunch I didn't have the exact vegetables called for in their Spinach Salad with Orange Sesame Dressing, so I used their recipe as more of an inspiration. I did throw a tangerine and some walnuts into my spinach salad, along with carrot, celery and cucumber. I also made my own dressing, consisting of:

Sesame Oil

Lemon Juice

Tamari

White Vinegar

Sugar, salt, garlic to taste 

Didn't really measure, but did small amounts to taste until the combo seemed right. It was yummy, and very aromatic.

Now, once again, perhaps because it's been the weekend, so I get started a bit later in the day, but between the amount of time it takes to cook, and when my meals were, I didn't really find time to eat the snack recommended for the day (Edamame) and just moved straight on to dinner.

Dinner was simple, just Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Simple Marinara Sauce. Again, I made small variations, mostly that I used canned Diced Tomatoes, instead of "Crushed Tomatoes", and therefore my Marinara was chunky, not smooth. I also used a Leek, not an Onion, which probably contributed a subtler flavor to the sauce.

My advice on this recipe is to go a bit lighter in the "Italian Seasonings" then called for in the recipe; it was a bit overwhelming.

My other advice is to, by all means, cook the garlic and onion or leek in red wine, as per one of their suggested methods. I'm very used to starting any such dish by pouring olive oil in the pan and sauteeing. But, in reality, you're adding fat, not that much flavor, and it gets absorbed into the veggies and then you're almost sauteeing dry. Using the red wine really made a positive impact. It added flavor; it didn't get absorbed, so the veggies could happily simmer without starting to stick or burn, and of course, no added fat. 

Simple, but good and filling, end to a day that started with a cooking disaster!

Kickstarting 2010 with the 21-day vegan kickstart from PCRM

Yes, I know I'm already a vegan, but it's always good to start any resolution with a little outside support, guidance and structure, so I'm partaking in PCRM's 21-day Vegan Kickstart.The quizzes, videos and little tips about eschewing animal products aren't that meaningful to me, but I am trying to follow their menu plans.

I did a big shopping at Whole Foods on Thursday (me and everyone else in the area, apparently) and got down to business yesterday. They have a LOT of recipes, which meant a lot of cooking. Which is fine for this long weekend, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to pull it off when I go back to work on Monday.

I think I need to spend some serious time planning my version of their menu for the work week. (Or I'll spend all weekend end cooking, which is kind of a daunting thought.)

Yesterday's menu was way too much food. I'll give you the menu, but note which parts of it I actually ate. The link under each food item is a link to their recipe that I used.

Breakfast:

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal with Raisins: Made with old-fashioned oats you cook in a pot, not the instant kind. This was a big helping, and it was very filling. Especially since I've been trying to be much better about drinking a lot of water, I ate breakfast at 9AM or so, and didn't even start thinking about lunch until 1PM.

Lunch:

Couscous Confetti Salad: Colorful grain salad with lots of veggies I don't normally use, like red cabbage and red bell pepper. Lots of chopping=lots of prep time.

Carrot and Red Pepper Soup: Well, I only recently said that I've been intimidated by the thought of making soup, and here I was making soup. My kitchen is kind of the band of my existence, not a lot of counter space, especially to haul out things like my blender/food processor, or even to chop up a ton of veggie. Anyway, the soup came out really really good. I'm not even a huge red pepper fan, but it added a nice subtle touch to this soup, and the soy milk made it creamy. Highly recommended!

All in all lunch took almost 90 minutes to prepare!! Didn't eat it until 2:30 or so, which may be why I was not at all hungry for, nor did I make the planned "Snack": Fantastic Fruit Smoothie.

Dinner:

Hoppin' John Salad: I did want to make this, because it's a New Year's Day tradition in some parts of the country. I have to confess I wasn't incredibly hungry, even at 7:30PM, so I made this and about a full cup of it, but I skipped making the side vegetable dish: Kwik Kale. (Of course I bought both Kale and Chard, so I better make sure to make greens some time soon...not one of the things I typically make.)

At the end of the day I probably only ate about 1200 calories worth of food all day, but it all felt really filling. Which is, I suppose the point.

There's more cooking on tap for today...and maybe more to prep for the coming week.

As I asked myself yesterday during one particularly cramped and messy maneuver I was trying to make from stovetop to blender and back: "Do I really even like to cook?" LOL