Veggie Goes Vegan

Vegan MoFo Day 14: The best laid plans...

...of this blogging vegan, were completely waylaid by a little thing called work. Sigh. Bad Vegan Mofo Hanger-On, BAD!

Of course that little thing like work had me leaving the house by 7AM most days this week, and getting home late and just generally not being on a schedule or doing the healthy vegan thing I want to do.

I did eat at Hobee's twice this week...meaning I had their tofu scramble with hash browns and a soy latte. Yes, I order the same thing every time. No, I don't see anything wrong with that!

And I also threw together a few things from what I had lying arond in my fridge. Including this meal of: Seitan, Portabella, Poblano Chile, Pine Nuts, Garlic and Nutritional Yeast. 

But the cutest picture I took all week had nothing to do with food or veganism. (Although I like to think a vegan was cool enough to be behind it.) If I had a cute little car I would definitely be on the look-out for hte accessory on this VW Bug:

 

Today is Day Fourteen:

 

Vegan MoFo Day 8: Impromptu Dinner

Last night I wanted to cook, and I had the following goals:

 

1. Use up a bunch of produce that was starting to reach the edges of its freshness 2. Quick, easy
3. Get some protein in, since I really hadn't had any all day

The choice was clear: Yes, to roasted vegetables, but I needed to give them a protein boost with something.  This is what I came up with:

One baking tray full of roasted vegetables: Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Leek, and Poblano Chiles. I tossed them for the first 15 minutes of roasting in olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder. At the 15-minute mark I took them out and sprinled both nutritional yeast and almond meal on them, tossing them so everything got coated. I then roasted for another 15 minutes. (Oven at 450).

At the same time, in the very same oven, I had a baking tray of Roasted Tofu, using the recipe from former #VegCookbookClub book Bryant Terry's The Inspired Vegan to coat the tofu (it's olive oil, cumin, turmeric, mustard seed, fennel and salt). These also came out at the halfway mark to be turned.

Together these two trays of vegan goodness were a hearty, nutritional, quick, easy dinner. Looks pretty nommy, eh? I assure oyu it was :)

Today is Day Eight:

 

Vegan MoFo Day 7: My (wannabe) morning ritual

At around the same time last year I read Kathy Freston's The Lean, and I bought a Vitamix.

Both created habit changes, even if I'm not perfect at doing all 30 Lean tips every single day. 

One of the most significant habit changes that I'm pretty faithful to is makeing smoothies. I would like to make one just about every morning as my breakfast, but I confess I'm not quite there on smoothie dedication.

I don't know why, given it truly takes about 3 minutes to make one with my beautiful, powerful Vitamix. And the Vitamix is super-easy to clean, which I do immediately each time I use it.

Like every good habit, practice will make perfect, so I'm going to try to practice what I preach and make more smoothies!

This morning I made a very typical morning smoothie:

Coconut Water (I use Zico, and I get a case auto-delivered every few weeks from Amazon)
1 Banana
1 cup baby spinach leaves
2 TB ground flaxseed
1 scoop of Vega Vanilla Almondilla protein powder (This is really the only vegan pritein powder I have found at all appetizing)
1 cup frozen strawberries 

Et voila:

And serious, if you don't have a Vitamix, you should consider getting one. It's magic. Grinds up frozen stuff like a champ. One things I haven't tried yet is to make soup in it. Apparently if you run the blender at high speed long enough it heats up the contents, so you can make pureed soups right there in the Vitamix. Crazy!!

And no, not being paid to say how much I love my Vitamix, which I bought with my very own money, although this is an affliliate link.

Another recommendation, wait for those 20% off postcards from Bed, Bath & Beyond and use that to buy your Vitamix. That's what I did.

Today is Day Seven:

vegan MoFo Day 4: And just like that...

I miss a day. Sigh. It's a lot easier to blog daily on the weekend than on the weekdays, that's for sure.

So, in honor of Vegan MoFo Day #3 I ate a Sofritas Burrito at Chipotle. If I'm being totally honest, I could be equally happy with a Beans/Rice/Guac/Salsa buritto. The Sofritas aren't necessary. but I want to support their very existence by buying them every time I go to a Chipotle. 

Are there any vegan foods you buy pretty much just to encourage the manufacturer or retailer to continue making or carrying them?

In honor of Vegan MoFo Day #4 I had a great talk about veganism with a co-worker. She was making a frozen meal by Amy's for lunch, and I mentioned that I often buy that particular meal. So, it's vegan. And was she going vegan?

Maybe not, but she's awfully close to vegan as it is. She asked me if I felt better being vegan, and I pointed out that I'm rarely, if ever, sick, and that I don't look my nearly 50 years in age. And I attribute that to veganism (and staying out of the sun). I also mentioned that I think living your beliefs makes you happier and boosts your immune system.

A totally unscientific opinion from a data-oriented person, but I believe it anyway :)

Do you find your health has changed a lot since being vegan?

#VeganMoFo Day Two: Hungarian Goulash

I just couldn't let August's #Vegcookbookclub  book go, and had to make one more recipe from Betty Goes Vegan by Annie and Dan Shannon: Hungarian Goulash

That means I also finally used my slow cooker, hooray!

This recipe was rich, savory, easy. 

Take a look at the beautiful finished product:

Today is Day Two:

Vegan MoFo starts TODAY!

OK, I had to go check my archives to confirm: No, I am not crazy to be surprised to see Vegan Mofo filling my feed reader starting today. For the last several years Vegan MoFo month has been *October*, and while time indeed does fly, it is not actually October yet. They've just moved Vegan MoFo up a month. Which means I missed the call for adding one's blog to the Vegan MoFo blog roll :(

I will try to participate nonetheless, because much as BlogHer's NaBloPoMo re-energizes much of our community to blog, Vegan MoFo does the same for me. Belonging to the #Vegcookbookclub re-energizes me to vegan-cook each month. We've just wrapped up Betty Goes Vegan by Annie and Dan Shannon and we're kicking off cooking from Vegan Indian Cooking by Anupy Singha

 

These exercises may seem artificial, but sometimes a little external encouragement, a little group activity can really help. Just like I stick to my walking regimen because I do so with a friend. The days we don't walk, I just don't self-motivate myself out there!

So, for a little #VeganMoFo food action, here are photos of two Betty Goes Vegan recipes I made this week:

Peach, Plum & Pomegranate Salad:

This was yummy (I used almonds instead of walnuts, which was great). I do think my S.O. had it right though, in that pomegranate seeds are always better in theory than execution. They look awesome and have a nice sweet-tart flavor, but they do add this gritty texture into the dish.

And Easy Jambalaya (with vegan sausage and shrimp):

 

This was easy, spicy, and fed me for three days! Would definitely make again. The book suggests using a brand of "shrimp balls" I've never seen in a store, so I used the vegan prawns that are carried in Whole Foods, and they worked great.

There were a ton more recipes I wanted to try from Betty Goes Vegan, and I'm a little skeptical of my own patience and taste for cooking Indian food...so I may still fit a few more Betty recipes in this month.

So, are you participating in #VeganMoFo and did you make it into the blog roll?