Days 22-24: WOW! Week 4 begins

I never, ever, would have believed that I could go without meat and cheese for 3 weeks and not miss it. But I did. And I don’t.

Not. One. Bit.

Now week 4 has begun and I can’t imagine ever ending this way of eating…way of living actually.

I feel lighter in mind and body.

I am smiling more. Much more.

My yoga is more satisfying, gratifying, joyful and deeper. I can’t wait to get to a class. 4 times a week was a goal but a bit of an effort, although one I made. Now, I don’t think I can go a day without. I’m going to try a 5-day in a row yoga week this week. Maybe 6. I seriously can’t wait for 6:30 am tomorrow morning. Bring it on, Darcy!

I am stressed out less about food than ever before, probably because I know that as long as I don’t eat animal products I am fine eating anything I want.

Really, I am stressed out less. Period.

My weight is down another couple of pounds. My blood sugar is just fine with the carbs I am eating and it has not once dipped too low since I changed the way I eat.

Life is good. And that’s more than just a saying on a T-shirt for me.

So what about the food?

An acquaintance told me early on in my veganventure that I would be shocked at the range of foods I would start eating as a vegan. I chuckled a bit, thinking about the range of foods I thought I ate as an omnivore. The joke has been on me.

We have eaten every kind of vegetable, legume and grain imaginable, from kale and pumpkin, spicy peppers and mushrooms to French lentils, black-eyed peas and black beans.

We have incorporated raw cashews, pecans and dates into our foods, replaced eggs with flaxseed in baked goods, fallen completely for steel cut oats and almond milk and began enjoying, again, homemade whole grain bread with jam.

We have discovered coconut milk ice cream bars covered in dark chocolate and almonds, the complex and intriguing flavors of Indian food and the tummy and soul-warming soups created from local squashes, vegetable broth, curry spices and our fall 2012 honey . 

I have rediscovered the joy of trying new recipes. I am back to an old habit – reading cookbooks like novels. Every meal is an adventure and so far, no flops! Last night, the Stuffed Acorn Squash from The Vegan Table with Brown Irish Soda bread from Vegan Baking was amazing. A glass of California Petite Syrah from Preston Vineyards in Dry Creek, Sonoma rounded out the meal.

Pasta has entered our life again, as well.

We are eating the real thing now, albeit whole grain, and enjoying every minute of it with vegetable sauces, vegan sausage and home made pesto, hold the cheese. Actually, the pesto that I made was so amazingly delicious that I’d like to share the recipe with you. Give it a try, especially if you, like I do, still have some basil in your garden. Harvest the basil in the next 24 hours before it’s blown away by Hurricane Sandy. If you don’t, buy some from Olivia’s Garden and perhaps cut this recipe in half. Either way, you will be blown again by the flavors.

VEGAN PESTO

·      4 cups of cleaned, patted dry and loosely packed basil leaves

·      2/3 cup raw cashew pieces

·      1 large or 2 medium fresh cloves of garlic

·      ¼ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted

·      ½ teaspoon salt

·      ½ teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional, but I tried it both ways and the yeast makes a positive difference)

·      Olive oil

Place the pine nuts, cashews and garlic cloves in a food processor and process using the pulse mode until finely ground (but not to a paste). Add basil leaves and salt (and yeast, if using it) and process until the basil is entirely incorporated into the nut/garlic mixture. Add olive oil is a slow stream until the consistency of the pesto is to your liking. I like mine just a bit on the firm side of runny.

I froze some of the pesto and it froze well. I stored a small jar in the frig and preserved it by pouring a thin layer of olive oil on top to seal in the flavor and preserve the brilliant green color.

We had it on a whole grain pizza crust one evening with roasted red peppers and kalamata olives as an accompaniment to soup. It was extraordinary.

Enjoy!

Days 18-21 (sort of): Exploring Restaurants

The past several days have resembled a rollercoaster ride.

The days moved at 1000 miles an hour; the ups and downs were dizzying, nauseating and exhilarating; the activity felt like it was never going to stop, and I had little sense of control. Oh, and when it was over, it was over and the world re-settled.

The reasons for this craziness were varied and many and, really, are so mundane that there is no sense talking about them...with one exception that I’ll get to. Essentially, Peter and I were so busy that there was a lack of planning for meals that shouldn’t have happened. The good part is that we learned some important lessons.

We relied a bit too much on restaurants and quickly found about those that offered us delicious selections and those that didn’t. We are surrounded by Thai places and learned that not all Thai is the same.We also found out that a close-by burger and beer joint is a happy place for vegans.

Our place of choice for Thai is usually Veranda Thai. The place is close to our home and family run, the food is fresh, flavorful and generous in portions and delivery is quick and reliable. The menu offers tofu in everything, as well as vegan spring rolls (fresh and fried), terrific curry sauces and a drunken noodle to die for. The tofu, which we usually get fried, is in fairly thin strips and fried to a crispy crust so quickly that there is no greasiness at all. When we eat there, the service is attentive, quick and friendly and the place is clean enough to eat off…well, the tables. Who would really want to eat off anyone’s floor?  veranda thai

Veranda Thai is not, however, on my way home. Seng Chai Thai is, right on Forest Avenue. I was late in getting home on Thursday night, as was Peter and neither of us had done anything about dinner, as we both rushed out of the house that morning. I resorted to asking Siri, my iPhone girlfriend, for a list of Thai restaurants on Forest Avenue and I began dialing. Without seeing a menu, I ordered from Seng Chai some standard Thai items for us – drunken noodle with tofu, spicy basil leaves with tofu and brown rice.

Vegan, yes. Delicious? Not really. Sauces lacked flavor. The drunken noodle lacked spice, almost completely. The brown rice tasted like it had been sitting around and was a very small portion. The tofu was in very large chunks, was not fried to a point where it had a crispy skin and tasted greasy. Actually it tasted of old oil. Seng Chai comes off the list.

Saturday even was supposed to be dinner out with neighbors at Yosaku and then Portland Stage for The Sisters Rosensweig. But, alas, the universe had other plans for us.

About 3:30, I heard the sound of Peter’s table saw from the basement and guessed, quite correctly, that he was working on beehives. The saw stopped about 15 minutes later, some other kind of tool started making noises and then came the call. Peter calls my name often, but rarely with a heightened sound of panic and urgency.

“You need to take me to the emergency room”, he called, as he walked up the basement stairs. I expected blood, lots of it, having listened to the table saw whir for a ¼ of an hour. There was none. He walked into the kitchen holding a ¾-finished frame made from 3 pieces of wood…that he had nailed to his thumb with a nail gun.

Well, suffice it to say that a Maine Med nurse who couldn’t help but be both fascinated and amused quickly brought Peter into triage. After a quick examination, he was walked back to a room. The wise cracks began during the walk. “When you bring your own furniture, you get a room quickly” quipped one Doc. “You’re really attached to that, aren’t you?” “We love it when folks bring us gifts”. And on and on.

It had been a slow and difficult day in the Maine Med ER, so Peter quickly became the amusement for every tech, nurse and doctor in the place. There was a steady stream of ER personnel into his room to see his injury. Pictures of the x-rays were passed around so everyone could see how close to the bone the nail had come – so close that it actually bent the bone without piercing it.

Nurse Carrie couldn’t help but deliver wisecrack after wisecrack, each funnier then the last. Doctor Liz proceeded to give Peter a digital block, numbing his entire thumb. Once she and Peter and I managed to detach the wooden frame from Peter’s hand, she quickly pulled out the inch and a half nail.

3 hours later we were home, having cancelled our evening’s plans. But what about dinner? Peter was jonesing for Japanese food, which we had been looking forward to. A quick call to Yosaku let us know that there was over an hour’s wait for take out. Fuji, though, could have it ready in 15 minutes.

A quick check with the hostess on vegan concerns left us smiling. No egg in the tempura batter. Vegetable tempura, miso soup, yaki udon (stir fried noodles)with veg and tofu and 3 vegetable maki (rolls) – inari (sweet tofu), shitake and vegetable - rounded out the meal. All was delicious, flavorful and really ready in 15 minutes. Finally, 4½ hours after we entered the ER, we sat down to our meal.

Our restaurant madness continued over the next day or so, as I took my little sister (through Big Bothers Big Sisters) to The Pepper Club where the Pho with tofu was soul-satisfying and the fluffy vegan tapioca pudding brought me back to my childhood. Lots of vegan choices there and all delicious.

A visit from Peter’s 86-year-old Uncle Dan on a busy work night prompted us to explore The Great Lost Bear, which is a 3-minute walk from our house. SCORE! We knew there was a veggie burger on the menu, but there was so much more that the kitchen would gladly veganize. We both ended up with a rice and bean burrito with veggie (vegan) chili and fresh salsa that was enormous and spicily delicious. And they came with fries. And the beer was cold.

Thank God French fries and beer are vegan.

Day 17: Pizza Returns to My Life

It’s been 18 months since I ate a pizza.

It seems that many of my stories start this way.

Truly, though, when you are managing a low carb diet for the sake of blood sugar control, there are many foods that simply disappear. Pizza was one of those for me, due to the overwhelming amount of bread (usually white) that makes up that delicacy. Now admittedly, I had a few slices of pepperoni pizza (my all time favorite) the day after Thanksgiving last year. I had Turkey Day dinner without mashed potatoes, only a taste of stuffing and just the filling of the various pies, so I felt somehow deserving and victimized, all at the same time. But the enjoyment of the pizza was tempered by knowing I would feel like crap later that night and the entire following day. Which I did.

So really, why bother?

Enter my veganventure, where pizza needs to be without animal products. No pepperoni. No cheese. Did I say no pepperoni? I thought about it and decided, “Why bother?”. Then Peter suggested one night that a pizza on a whole grain crust would be a terrific quick meal. I decided if my carnivore-turned-vegan-for-the-month husband was thinking about pizza then I should, too. So I bought some Portland Pie Company whole-wheat crust and some vegan sauce (Paul Newman’s Sockarooni) at Hannaford in preparation for a night when I would be home later than Peter and he was going to do the cooking.

Lets cut right to the crust. It was glorious.

The Newman Sockarooni sauce is a bit spicy and truly flavorful. Peter covered the ‘za and sauce with fresh basil, chopped kalamata olives, peppers, onions, mushrooms and some Daiya Mozzarella cheese-like substance that I had bought to add some semblance of cheese to certain dishes. Everything tasted fresh and real and savory. Oh my.

Peter heated our pizza stone 1^st, so the bottom of the crust was crispy and the inside chewy. The cheese was surprisingly good, staying soft and melty while the pizza was still hot, and with a flavor that was moving in the cheese direction. The mouth feel, though, was definitely cheesy. All in all, a great, quick meal.

We accompanied the pizza with a bottle of Nero D’avola, a delicious Sicilian red wine. The wine was really robust with a full fruit flavor, subtle spice with some nice tannins and balanced by a smoothness that made the tannins all that much more delightful.

We ate almost the entire pizza. (It was smallish)  We drank the entire bottle of wine. (It was not smallish).

It was one of those days.

Day 16: Nutritionist Check-in

3 pounds down in 2 weeks. Not bad for doing nothing other than not eating animal products.

I see nutritionist Kim ever 2 weeks, to check on my weight, but mostly for solutions to challenges, ideas for food experiments and especially for knowledgeable conversation about diet, blood sugar and health, such as her recommendation to take a B-12 supplement. Yesterday’s visit confirmed my suspicions that my weight had effortlessly decreased as a result of my veganventure.

Kim also gave me a suggestion for a cookbook that I ran out to purchase and I’m so glad I did. The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is filled with gorgeous pictures and recipes that sound as good as the pictures look. Especially of interest to me is a chapter on Holiday Foods that already has me thinking about new dishes to introduce to the Thanksgiving table, along with (in case my son Bennett is reading this) the turkey, gravy and cheese-filled spinach pie.

Since Tuesday October 16^th was a presidential debate night, Peter decided we needed a treat and took off for the frozen food section of the grocery store as I bought bread and coconut creamer. He came back with coconut treats from SO Delicious: mini dark chocolate-covered coconut almond bars and coconut ice cream sandwiches, both vegan. Feeling the need to conduct a quality test, I had a mini coconut almond bar. Oh my. Rich dark chocolate, crunchy almonds sprinkled on the chocolate coating and creamy coconut milk ice cream. Magnificent. And that spoon full of sugar definitely helped the debate go down a bit more effortlessly.

Speaking of sugar, that’s been an important tip from Kim and something I’ve started paying attention to. When alternatives to dairy are used, sugar ends up in just about everything. Even my blessed coconut creamer has sugar added. Just a bit, but its there. Sugar remains a concern of mine, even though I am feeling terrific and my blood sugar levels are in line. So the So Delicious treats will be just that…a once in a while treat.

Another find has been Little Lad’s Bakery here in Portland. It is entirely vegan and produces, for instance, gourmet popcorns with herbed, BBQ and caramel coatings. Kim suggested I try the herb, as one of the flavorings used is nutritional yeast. It is savory and satisfying, which says something coming from me, as I am not a popcorn lover. I also used a bit of it yesterday to coax my chickens in from the front lawn, where they DO NOT belong. Someone left the gate to the back yard open. I do believe that someone was me. But it could have been Rudy the dog. He is a very clever canine.

The caramel coated only comes in small bags…THANK GOD…but is a rich version of Cracker Jacks, minus the prize. The sugar is there, but it is not sickeningly sweet and boasts more molasses flavor than strait cane sugar. It makes for an ideal “I need something to crunch on and that is both sweet and salty to help me deal with the crisis of the moment” antidote.  

However, since weight loss is a goal of this experiment as well as overall health and medication reduction, such treats will remain just that. These discoveries did, however, lead me to a realization.

Even vegans need comfort foods sometimes.

Day 15: Gadgets make the world go round

 

We haven’t eaten rice in our house for about a year and a half. That’s a long time.

Counting carbs caused me to make tough choices. First of all, I gave up all things white, which I am still doing. White bread, flour, potatoes, rice, pasta…they all are very high is carbs and give me nowhere near the complex carbs/fiber I needed to help keep my blood sugar stable.

Next came the other carbs. Rice simply was too high in carbs for the portion I could have. 30 carbs was a meal for me. A cup of brown rice has about 45 carbs in it, and ½ a cup of rice just wasn’t worth it. But now, no more carb counting. Rice has become a staple. Tonight we had it with left over ratatouille to which I added some cooked garbanzo beans. It’s a perfect accompaniment with a stir-fry, with Peter’s now famous spicy rice and beans…and on and on. Therefore, a gadget was called for to make cooking rice easier and quicker.  We get home at 5:30  (well, I do now, but that changes by the academic semester) and want to eat by 6:30 or 7. Enter, the rice cooker.

I had seen rice cookers in action – set it and forget it. Perfect rice every time. Hot, steaming and fluffy.

Wow, sounds like I’m talking about Kennebunk’s latest scandal.

OK, back to the rice cooker. I did some research on my go-to-site for everything, Amazon. AS a Prime member, if I can get it there for a good price, that’s where I go. Hair products, shoes, books (of course), you name it, Amazon has it. And sure enough, there was a little red rice cooker for under $20.00. My kitchen has red toile wallpaper so red appliances are a must-have.

This little baby cooked a cup of long grain brown rice in 30 minutes. Perfectly. So very impressive. And convenient. It also has a steamer insert, which I tried with some veggie dumplings. Also quick, convenient, and mucho-yum. Little things like always being able to have fresh rice take away a bit of the panic of what to have for dinner when you can't whip up an omelet.

 

That, and the fact that red wine contains no animal products.

Days 13 and 14: The end of Week 2

I have been animal free for 2 weeks and I feel so energetic and alive. And light in both mind and body.

Pancakes for breakfast on Sunday were quite a treat, as I had not had pancakes in going on 18 months. Using the vegan recipe from The Get Healthy, Go Vegan Cookbook by Dr. Neal Barnard, (find it easily on Amazon), I added fresh raspberries which are still ripening on the bushes in our backyard. Three decently sized pancakes with real maple syrup and one link of Field Roast vegan breakfast sausage with a piping hot cup of coffee (avec coconut creamer, of course) made for an amazing breakfast. 

The recipe has nothing weird in it, just a bit more baking powder than you might expect to make up for the lack of eggs. I used ½ unbleached white and ½ whole wheat that I grind about once a month and keep in the freezer.  My Kitchen Aid mixer has a grain mill attachment, which allows me to always have fresh whole-wheat flour on hand. For those of you who hate whole-wheat flout due to the bitter taste, you are eating old, rancid flour. Freshly ground flour is the key to great tasting whole-wheat products.

The flavor was classic pancake and the syrup, warmed slightly, was heavenly. Admittedly, though, I was worried that my sugar would spike really high and then crash. Although I didn’t feel my body reacting, I nevertheless tested my blood sugar an hour after eating. 109. For those of you familiar with blood sugar ranges, that is amazing. 2 hours after eating that gourmet breakfast, it was 89. Even more amazing. I’m looking forward to my Tuesday appointment with my nutritionist, Kim, to go over the blood sugar records I’ve been keeping. They seem balanced and stable to me.  I’m also expecting my weight to be down. My weekly trip to the scale Saturday morning, after breakfast, showed a 4-pound loss over the last 2 weeks. We will see what Kim’s scale says Tuesday morning.

Looking back over the past 2 weeks, I can honestly say that part of the ease Peter and I have felt is due to preparation, planning and trying new recipes. I have found Barnards cookbook, as well as Meg Wolff’s to be reliable in producing tasty, filling and easy-to-prepare dishes. We have tried something new almost every day, relying on homemade soups, Blue Mango Burgers and hummus to fill in the blanks.

Last night we tried a pasta dish with broccoli rabe, walnuts, garlic and spicy peppers over whole-wheat fettuccine, and salad with a creamy avocado pesto dressing. I made up the dressing based on suggestions in an article I read in Whole Living magazine. Here’s the recipe:

One very ripe avocado

1 large clove of garlic, peeled and cut into a couple of pieces

6-8 fresh basil leaves, torn into pieces

1 Tb olive oil

1 tsp. lemon juice

Place everything in a blender (I have a small blender attachment to my immersion blender) and blend until smooth. For a thinner but still creamy dressing, add some almond milk. This also made a terrific dip, which I tried out as I was making dinner and watching the Patriots crumble in the last 2 minutes of the game.

I’m thinking Belichick needs to put the team on a vegan diet.

Days 11 and 12: Vegan at Dartmouth College ain’t the same.

You’d think those brainiacs at Dartmouth could get vegan right. But all the high IQs in the town of Hanover, NH couldn’t keep the cheese out of the vegan sandwiches.

I spent Thursday and Friday (days 11 and 12 of my veganventure) at a conference at Dartmouth College, home to Tuck School of Business, a medical school, uber-smart youngsters and famous academics. As the only vegan in the crowd of 250 people, apparently, I was assured a vegan meal at my 2 lunches and one dinner and plenty of vegan options at breakfast on Friday. However, I had planned for possible screw-ups and had grapes and hummus with me, in my bag, as well as Coconut creamer for my coffee (yes, its true…).

Thursday’s lunch was a green salad with vinaigrette, chips and wraps, featuring a roasted vegetable wrap…with Boursin cheese. I was going to get my money’s worth and scraped the Boursin off and enjoyed an otherwise tasty sandwich. And 2 mini bags of chips. One bag was my desert, as the cookies and brownies were NOT vegan.

Dinner that night was a quinoa tart with a medley of veg on top, served with a salad and crusty whole grain bread. Yum.

Lunch the next day? The same roasted vegetable wraps…with the same Boursin cheese.

The conference breakfast Friday morning had only melon and bagels to offer this fledgling vegan. The spreads for the bagels? Butter and cream cheese. Since I weaned myself off sugar a while ago, the platters and platters of danish, muffins and cinnamon rolls didn’t call to me in too loud a voice. Fortunately, the Residence Inn where I was staying offered English muffins and peanut butter, as well as hot oatmeal with walnuts and raisins, so I was sated by the time I arrived at the conference breakfast and patted myself on the back for eating at the hotel.

These two days taught me some important lessons. Take care of my self and don’t expect anyone else to (which I learned as a teenager and have been reminded of throughout my life). Don’t take things like Boursin cheese on my vegan sandwich personally. And always remember that potato chips are vegan.

My 2 days of epicurean uncertainty were offset by a delightful pot luck dinner Friday night with the officers of the Cumberland Country Beekeepers Association which included my husband and several people I knew, as well as a few whom I have never met. Peter brought a pot of spicy rice and beans from Dr. Neal Barnard’s cookbook which was fabulous. Peter had let others know that we were following a vegan diet, so one couple arrived with a flavorful quinoa salad and dessert was a vegan apple crisp prepared by a woman we have known for years who surprisingly to us, had been following a vegan lifestyle with her husband for several years. The salad featured local greens, fruit and pecans and the bread was also vegan, warm and crusty. A guest quietly played his guitar and sang some James Taylor as we ate, laughed and tossed bee-puns around the room. A wonderful juxtaposition to my Dartmouth experience.

Tonight, we attend the 100^th Anniversary Gala for Saint Joseph College, at the Marriot. We requested the vegetarian option with a further request for a vegan meal. Stay tuned.

I just hope the chef didn’t go to Dartmouth.