Food

Getting back on track?

Posted on Mar 18, 2013

Is it already time to get back on track? Because we’ve fallen off the “diet” wagon? And it’s only March, and “swimsuit season is just around the corner”! Oh MY GOSH, the pressure!

I’m not sure if this post will qualify as a rant, but seeing these words, on this cereal really made me think about health, eating, exercise and living. I don’t know that I’ll go into all of those topics here, now, but I’d like to share some of the random thoughts that ran through my head when I saw the cereal.

Spiraling tacos!

Posted on Mar 6, 2013

We aren’t exactly making tacos that spiral.

It sounds like an interesting idea though. I’ll present it to the R&D team.

These tacos were inspired by the taco salad at Spiral Diner in Fort Worth.

We didn’t add the taco meat listed in the ingredients, we started with the Quinoa and added mexican taco type seasonings to that. As usual, there’s a “next time we make it let’s do this” for this meal. Next time we are going to add seasonings as it’s cooking, and more of them. We were timid with our seasonings. Imagine that!

The taco shells are vegan and are from Trader Joe’s in Fort Worth. We got some other groceries while we were there (our inaugural trip to TJ’s!) and we loved it. As always, when entering, we said “do we need a basket?” and a resounding “no” turned out to be a TJ reusable shopping bag FULL of wonderful treats that turned out to be a mere $23.00 and change! WHAT? Yes, we will go back.

Here’s what else is in our taco meat.

Quinoa seasoned with cumin, garlic, coriander, Mexican oregano, salt and pepper, cayenne and probably some other seasonings. Though we had several, our intensity still needed a boost.
Black beans
Corn
Peas
Avocado
Vegan Sour Cream
Homemade Pico

The Spiral Diner version has taco meat (vegan- we elected to have our Quinoa act as the meat), green onion and carrots which we forgot! Ours was still great, and I had a “taco” for breakfast the next day.

We discussed what new foods we were eating since being vegan. Quinoa tops this list.

What new foods are you exploring?

The mid-way point of Vegan Lent

Posted on Mar 5, 2013

Today we are 21 days into the Lenten season.

That leaves us with 26 days left. Not exactly the mid-point, but really close enough to make some observations.

Our favorite food it seems is the Portabella burger. We found some ‘shrooms that were OMG huge! It’s like a double meat something without the heart attack! Here’s one from last night. We had them Sunday as well because they are SO easy and so convenient. I’ll add that Sunday’s grilling wasn’t really healthy because it started at 11:30 P.M. I’m sure the neighbors think we are nuts, and that’s ok.

In this photo we have the burger and some “fries” and some asparagus. I know asparagus doesn’t go w/ burgers necessarily but we had it and it needed to consuming. The “fries” are simply the small multicolored potatoes that we’ve roasted. I like these better than normal fries now!

When I put the burger together, I put the flat side of the ‘shroom on the bottom bun, and put the grilled mushroom and other veg inside the cap, on the gill side. It makes a nice place for the veggies to sit without falling everywhere. There’s also a tomato and some sprouts here. We use Rudi’s Vegan buns and they are REALLY great!

Other observations:

Cooking is not a big deal. Planning is the big deal.
Vegan is less expensive or more expensive? That one is still out, but I’m going to say LESS expensive because my bag of quinoa can be used several times. The amount I cook usually gets divided up and used more than once. Leftovers get used up. Greens get eaten. I’ll keep better track of this in the next 26 days to let you know for sure. Since we are leaning toward the “vegan is a lifestyle, not just a Lenten event” as well, I’ll let you know from 1 April to 30 April what I come up with.
Lighter is in fact a feeling and we are feeling lighter. YAY!
No more naps needed. No post-lunch issues and I’m able to work later into the afternoon and still THINK! I’m an early bird, preferring the 5 a.m. wake up call so 3 in the afternoon is time to clock out. Not lately!

Explore your diet. What can you change? Feel better faster!

Faster than fast food!

Posted on Mar 2, 2013

Since the weather here can be cold one day and hot the next, lunch frequently presents a challenge. Today, it was pretty cold.

I went to a brunch with fruit and breakfast items, not many vegan options. When I got home I was pretty hungry.

Going to Chipotle was an option but I’d have to get back in the car and go and get out of the car, go in, order and all, and then back in the car to drive home. Not a LONG time spent but about 30 minutes maybe.

Here was my plan B.
You’ll need about 2 cups of cooked Quinoa
Put all the following ingredients in large pot:
Pinto beans 1can
Frozen mixed vegetables (probably one cup)
Rotel mild ( because it was here)
Vegetable broth ( about 1cup or maybe two)
Garlic clove (1 just smashed)
Thick slice of onion separated

High heat til bubbling (10 minutes or less)
We added cumin, red pepper flakes, salt an pepper, cayenne and some Cholula for added heat. Siracha will work.

Add leftover quinoa ( we cooked extra a few nights ago)
Serve with sliced avocado and vegan sour cream.

This was SO good and so fast!

Lenten adventures in eating: noodles and peanut sauce

Posted on Feb 28, 2013

Before I get into this particular post, let me say that we’ve experimented w/ our vegan burgers and are coming along in our research. The key to using pinto beans is use more, and mash them a bit. The lentils we used in the first batch were nice and soft. Since pintos are larger, there appears to be a “gap” in the burger because of the beans. I’ll keep you posted!

Last night we had Udon noodles w/ peanut sauce or something like that. It was pretty good for a first try at Udon noodles, first really for a stir fry thing NOT using a wok and first for peanut sauce that is more liquid than anything. Here’s the link for the dish and it’s really called Vegan Thai Noodles with spicy peanut sauce .

Pressing Tofu is not a problem.

Just time consuming. NOTE TO SELF: (and readers) if you bake your tofu (which I thought would be a good idea because then it’s done) use it IMMEDIATELY. We didn’t use ours immediately and well, I think we threw out more than we ate. Next time I’ll stir fry it with everything else. Also I’m going to try the wok on the grill, since I have a flat stove top and a curved cast iron wok.

We changed ournoodle dish up a bit to use what we had. For the veggies we used baby bok choy, zucchini strips, snow peas and ….the other peas. What are they called? Anyway, they look like snow peas, but they aren’t. Help me out here, if you don’t mind, I’m drawing a blank. We didn’t use much ginger because Jessica’s not a fan, but you couldn’t taste what we did use, and ginger is a good ingredient to add for heat. We decided to use more ginger next time since we all wanted more heat.

Be careful cooking those Udons.

They are sensitive noodles. It got a little crazy in the kitchen for a second. I think I really needed a glass of wine, or a nap! Eric asked what he could do to help about the same time the timer went off for the noodles and something else was going on, so I said “Panic, so I don’t have to”. Apparently he did a nice job of subsituting panic and I felt better and the noodles were fine. He also turned off the timer, which was doing that incessant beeping thing that it does ONLY when there are 300 other things going on! Whew!

Over all, the dish has a good rating and we will do it again. Maybe with different noodles. More Siracha in the Peanut sauce? Perhaps a stir fry jalapeno or two.

More work or less work than a “normal” (carnivorous) dish? I’d say the same, depending on what your meat dish is. I still like the easy clean up, and no fear of cross-contanimation. The “no-bloating/no carb coma” is turning out to be a nice plus as well!

Use your SPICES!

Burgers and Vegan. Do they go together?

Posted on Feb 25, 2013

I’ll tell you – YES they do!

My vegan R&D team does a great job of finding things for us to eat so we aren’t scrambling for dinner. Since they work and have school, the real test of vegan comes at the dinner hour.

To date, we’ve eaten a bit later than I’d like but since it’s all so good and not a heavy meat and potatoe based dinner I don’t feel all weighted down after we eat. I’ve been staying up a bit later every night anyway, so it seems to work itself out.

I’ve GOT to get back to a normal sleep schedule. There’s that procrastination and Lent thing again!