Days 9 and 10:keep it simple

A crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich on homemade whole wheat bread is vegan.

That realization this morning made me smile and feel all warm and cozy inside.  I have a very great tendency to overthink things. To over think everything. My recipe research had begun to overwhelm me with possibilities as I entered a hectic workweek full of tight schedules and travel. I had dedicated a couple of days to cooking and preparing for the week. The refrigerator was still filled with veg from the farmers market and it was yelling at me to cook something amazing. ASIAN SLAW!  BROCCOLI RABE LASAGNA!  ROASTED ROOT VEGETABLES!  VEGAN BAKED BEANS!  It became deafening. 

Then I thought about the PB&J. And started to breathe again. 

I also dug into Meg Wolff's cookbook, A Life in Balance. Meg stresses not getting stressed.  Keeping food tasty. Not worrying about replicating non-vegan food. Breaking free from the main course, side dish, starch dinner plate. Her words gave me permission to step back, enjoy how great I feel, eat my sweet potato soup, enjoy treats from Little Lad's Bakery and a Spicy Boca Chik Patty and try Peter's delicious homemade hummus. 

And make a humongous peanut better and strawberry jam sandwich on vegan whole wheat bread. 

Homemade bread, of course.

Day 8, Week 2: A homemaker day

“It sounds like you have to have house-wife tendencies to be a vegan”.

When asked last night by a friend how I spent my Columbus Day vacation day, I recounted the various dishes I had made and the shopping I had accomplished to get ready for the week. Her response was the quote above.

Now, admittedly, I thoroughly enjoy a day or two in the kitchen. Yesterday was one of those. I have an extra-long weekend with the College closed Monday and Tuesday this week for a mid semester break. I seldom have enough time on the weekend to dedicate a solid 6-hour block to cooking, so I took advantage of the day.

I picked the remaining peppers and tomatoes from the garden together with a large bunch of basil (frost is coming…its just a matter of days until I wake up to find a garden full of black, rotting basil) and decided to make a ratatouille with the eggplant from Saturday’s farmers market.  To ramp up the fiber and protein, I added ¾ cup of tiny red lentils and increased the juice from the tomatoes a bit. Lots of basil and garlic, a couple of onions and a piece of jalapeno pepper 2 ½ hours of slow coking at 325 degrees produced an intensely fragrant and flavorful dinner served over brown rice.

 

When the prep for the ratatouille was complete, I started a soup from the last of my carrots and sweet potatoes. Beginning with leeks and shallots (also from the farmers market), I sautéed them in olive oil until they were wilted and turning sweet, added some finely minced fresh ginger and then the chunks of carrots (about 6 medium sized ones) and three peeled and chunked large sweet potatoes. Vegetable broth, some garam marsala seasoning and salt rounded out the ingredients and I let it simmer for a while. Needless to say, the house smelled mah-valous!

I finished the soup off off with a bit of Sriracha for some spice, blended it with my immersions blender and stirred in some light coconut milk, a hint from the chef at St Joe’s for making creamy vegan soups. Divine. Some will be frozen, some went with Peter to work for his lunch and what's left will be my lunch tomorrow.

Next. 

Oh yes, there is more. Applesauce.

Not-so-pretty Cortland apples were being sold inexpensively at the farmers market by the 5-pound bag, which made me see jars of applesauce in my winter larder. I washed them, cored them, and cut them into chunks, leaving the skin on. The deep red skins produce a rosy sauce that is flavorful, but also just darned pretty.  With a bit of water, set on low heat, the apples began to break down and perfume the kitchen even more.

I later put the apples with skins through a food mill, which produced a smooth, silky and down right gorgeous treat. I added some vanilla and cinnamon to the sauce (no sweetener), re-heated it to a simmer and canned about 5 pints in a boiling water bath. Added to steel cut oats or in a whole grain applesauce cake, todays fruit project will be deeply appreciated in late January.

Ok, so, do you need “house-wife tendencies” to be a vegan? Nope. However, it certainly doesn’t hurt to love to play in your kitchen.

I’ll leave darning my husband’s socks and ironing the sheets to someone else.

Day 7: Zinfandel and Gingerbread

Don’t forget who you are.

That was important advice from a friend, Leigh, who with her family began a plant based life style about 6 months ago. I was asking her – well, actually I was conducting a friendly inquisition – about her diet, health implications and anything else I could think of when she told me about her family’s decision to change their entire lifestyle. They had seen the documentary Forks Over Knives together and immediately decided that they could no longer eat animal-based products.

They jumped into veganism with great gusto. Regardless of their enthusiasm, Leigh said it was hard…really, really hard until she realized an important fact. They weren’t being themselves any longer, but were trying to be who they were not. They were going without dessert, wine and beer and most baked goods. Loving these foods and missing them made their lifestyle change more difficult than it had to be. Hence her advice to me.

I raised my glass of Seghesio Zinfandel to Leigh yesterday for her sage advice. Zinfandel is vegan. And it is red wine. I thoroughly enjoy good red wine and I’m committed to my veganism for at least 3 more weeks. The perfect intertwining of my defining characteristics.

I’ve recently read accounts of vegans who have eschewed all comforts of their past, non-vegan lifestyle in an effort to lead a pure life. Comforts like wine. Dessert. Eating out. Martyrdom is not something I am interested in. At all.

Sundays are days that, pre-low carb diet, I often would bake a treat for the week. Something simple like banana bread, that would provide us with a quick breakfast but was healthy with whole grains and nuts but light on fat and sweetener. I have decided to resurrect that sort-of tradition. Yesterday, the choice was gingerbread.

I thought of doing this late in the day, after the Patriots had finally decided to shine. It was about 7:45pm and the day was waning. I opted, therefore, for a healthy, reliable gingerbread mix from Hodgson Mill and altered it by using “flax eggs” and vegetable oil instead of butter. The remainder of the mix was vegan and featured whole-wheat flour and all organic ingredients. I added walnuts and raisins and popped it into the oven. If you havent tried mixes from Hodgson Mill, I encourage you to do so. They are healthy and delicious.

45 minutes later, we had a warm, fragrant, mouth-watering gingerbread with even better texture than if made with eggs. The dessert was a welcome addition to our evening menu of left overs and added delightfully to the Columbus Day freedom of being able to watch football and then Masterpiece Theater (to be followed by Homeland) and not worrying about setting an alarm for the morning.

As Week 1 draws to a close, I must say that I love this experiment. I have energy all day. I wake up refreshed and go to bed tired but not groggy. I feel lighter, even though my weight is only down about 1.5 pounds.

Admittedly, though, this takes more planning than I am used to, even though I love to cook. A frittata, chicken breasts on the grill or a quiche is no longer an alternative for a quick meal. I head off for a conference the end of this week, which will be an interesting and perhaps challenging experience. I’ve requested vegan meals and have been assured by the conference planners at Dartmouth College that they have a full compliment of vegan choices. One question remains.

Should I travel with my coconut milk creamer?

Day 6: A Vegan Dinner with Friends

It helps to have friends who love to cook. And eat.

Dinner last night was with dear friends, Alan and Debbie, our oldest son’s godparents, who are always open to trying new foods and recipes. Coincidentally, and rather bizarrely, Debbie began a vegan diet a week before I did. She is using recipes from Meg Wolff’s “A Life In Balance”, as well as information and support from Meg’s website. http://www.megwolff.com 

Last night proved that a vegan lifestyle is anything but boring. It also helps that the 4 of us have been friends for almost 30 years, know each other very well, have laughed and cried together, raised our children together, love each other and always end up laughing hysterically by our visit’s end.

We started the meal off with a delicious black bean salad that Debbie has made for years and that we have always devoured. Black beans, corn, tomatoes, green pepper, celery and parsley with a balsamic dressing, it was a delicious accompaniment to hummus and corn chips. Marinated olives and mushrooms and a good bottle of red wine rounded out our appetizer course. Our main entry was the eggplant “parm” that I made from the Oh She Glows website that was delicious and made more so by a fresh sauce that I made from my early morning farmer’s market visit. 

I used Daiya mozzarella cheese replacement on top. My husband suggested to me after dinner that we might as well just do away with trying to find a cheese substitute. It tasted ok, but its not cheese. Let's just not use stuff like that to replace cheese, he said.

He is right. 

These words don’t often appear in my lexicon, so don’t get used to reading them.

I served the eggplant with a low carb fresh pasta from Al Dente Pasta, called Carbo-nada, that I had on hand. It has a tiny bit of egg in it, but I had it on hand and decided to use it. If you are looking for a low carb pasta option, give this a try. http://aldentepasta.com Keep in mind, though, that there is egg in it, although listed last in the ingredient list.

Debbie produced a fabulous couscous salad to accompany the eggplant. It was filled with roasted yellow cherry tomatoes, cukes, sweet red pepper and a light and flavorful dressing. She had made it a bit earlier, so the couscous had absorbed the dressing and the roasted tomatoes popped when we bit into them, exploding with a flavor that was fresh but rich, thanks to a brief 15-minute roast in some olive oil. It was a perfect side dish with the rich breaded eggplant cutlets.

The game of Sequence and some decaf capped our evening together. And imagine…no one needed, asked for or craved anything sweet. Yow-za! One other notable difference is that no one started to fall asleep, was too tired to keep going or complained to being too full. We were sated, well fed and happy.

There might be something to this vegan thing.

Day 5: Coffee dilemma? Solved!

I can’t wait for tomorrow morning. My drinking black coffee days have come to an end.

My nutritionist, Kim, suggested that I look for a coconut milk creamer, but Whole Foods had nothing even close that I could find. Today, on my way home from having my car serviced, I stopped at Lois’s Naturals, a wonderful, small, locally owned store on Route 1 in Scarborough.   I stopped primarily to get a snack, as I was famished. I wanted to try the Little Ladd’s herbed popcorn that includes nutritional yeast in the herb mix. The popcorn, which thankfully comes in a small bag in addition to a vat-sized bag enough for 25 of your closest friends, was yummy. We will talk about my initial reaction (gag) to nutritional yeast another time.

While I was there, I decided to look for some products that Kim had mentioned to me. There in the refrigerator items was SO Delicious Coconut Creamer.

My heart leapt into my throat. Creamer that wasn’t soy! Then, my enthusiasm tanked. Would it be awful? Would I be crushed, defeated and forever drink my coffee black? Regardless of the emotional spectrum I traveled during that 45 seconds of contemplation, I purchased it.

You have to guess that the 1^st thing I did when I walked in the kitchen door was make some coffee. The creamer looked good in the coffee – just the right color. But, then again, so did the soy creamer. I smelled it – all I smelled was delicious, smooth coffee aroma. The taste was next.

Praise the coffee gods! I swear my eyes became dewy. Then, I shook for an hour after drinking too much caffeine at 4:30 in the afternoon. The price one must pay. It was glorious.

To mark the Friday night, Peter and I went out to dinner at Veranda Thai, a sweet little restaurant on Veranda Street in Portland, less than 2 miles from our house. We chose Asian food because we knew that tofu and veg options were always available. Today we had fried tofu in our stir-fries. Peter tried Spicy Cashew Nut and vegetables and I had Namprik Pao, a very flavorful and spicy sauce with green beans, sweet red peppers, carrots, scallions and bamboo. Brown rice and Singha beer rounded out the meal. All was flavorful and fresh, not over-sauced, just spicy enough and entirely satisfying. We will go again and try other tofu possibilities, like the Thai curries or Drunken noodle, that we had always eaten with meat.

Tomorrow is farmer’s market day where I plan to be inspired by the surfeit of veg available. Fall crops are flooding the market and Brussel sprouts squashes, sweet potatoes, leeks, carrots, and garlic will be available at my CSA.

It’s also the day I’ll bake those Congo squares with my Little. Eek. I’m thinking of muzzling myself to keep from licking the bowl.

Tomorrow night we are joining 2 close friends for dinner who, entirely coincidentally, began their own vegan journey 2 weeks ago. Eggplant is the theme; I’ll be bringing eggplant parm using the Oh She Glows recipe, as well as a frisee salad from my garden. http://ohsheglows.com/2011/11/08/eggplant-parmesan

It’s all such fun.

Day 4: Thankful for small things

I began having ruminations today of never, ever having another baked-good. Never, ever again.

My son Seth asked me, last night, to send him some Congo squares. I had already planned to make pumpkin breads this weekend and send them on to my older son, Bennett, and his fiancé, Lindsey, in Washington DC. Tossing together some Congo squares would be easy, especially since I would be cooking with my little sister (through Big Brothers Big Sisters) on Saturday. She would enjoy baking the squares and we could split the batch between her and Seth’s care package.

But what about me?

I love to bake. I love to eat. I love to eat things that I bake. My husband loves to eat things I bake. Living a low carb life for the past 18 months has caused me to cut back, honestly, almost to zero, the number of baked goods I would produce in any given month. No more banana bread from the old bananas. There weren't even any bananas. Biscuits, which I humbly must confess that I have mastered, were in the past. Cookies? Nada. The same with pies, cakes, scones, all the things that I baked and then ate. No wonder I lost 20 pounds.

And then, Kim, my nutritionist , said those magic words…”no more counting carbs”. Did that mean….could it mean….that I could bake again? And eat what I bake?

Well, the rule against anything white was still in place, as I still had insulin levels to manage. That’s fine. I don’t miss them. But being vegan means no butter, no eggs, and no milk. Furthermore, I need to keep fat levels down and whole grains up to combat the nasty insulin invaders. All the things that make baked goods melt in your mouth, light and fluffy, dense and creamy. Like crispy, moist cornbread.

Lord, I think I need a cold cloth.

It occurred to me at some point this morning, in between creating a Business Law quiz and grading papers, that the vegan lifestyle did not just start 4 days ago. Many people, and many people who love food, have been doing this for a long while. There had to be some recipes in the universe that would satisfy my need. Maybe even a corn bread recipe. And there were.

Good ole Google led me to www.picklesnhoney.com and a terrific simple vegan cornbread. In addition to a terrific recipe, it also introduced me to the concept of a “flax egg”. Little did I know that 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed and 6 tablespoons of water, when mixed and allow to sit in the frig for 15 minutes, would turn gelatinous and serve as a replacement for 2 eggs. But it does and it did.

The cornbread was delectable, especially with a bit of homemade blueberry spiced jam from this past summer’s wild blueberry crop. Crispy along the edges, moist inside with whole grains that gave it a great crumb and a nice texture. A tip – I replaced the maple syrup with a molasses/agave blend. Can’t have corn bread in New England without molasses. http://www.picklesnhoney.com/2011/10/05/simple-vegan-cornbread

A vision of vegan pancakes will dance in my head tonight.

Day 3: There's something to that Girl Scout motto

Be prepared.

I was never was a Girl Scout. It was Camp Fire Girls for me. Considering I was 5'10" at age 11, I made quite a little Bluebird. But, the those girls in green know what they are talking about when they pledge to be prepared. Today, I was NOT prepared for lunch and VERY prepared for dinner. What a difference it makes.

As I mentioned, we have a terrific cafeteria at St. Joe's. I've made two salads in a row and they were vegan nirvana. Yesterday salad bar had edamame, those roasted sweet potatoes again, sweet multi-colored beets, roasted corn, all good stuff. Today, however, I was so jammed with students wanting help, advice, an ear, a soft shoulder (my job would be so easy if there were no students) that I barely had time to breathe until about 12:15. Then, the downpour started and didn't let up. With a class at 1 pm, I resorted to the trail mix and fruit I had thrown in my bag. Actually, I wasn't hungry at all most of the afternoon and threw in a cup of tea at 3 between classes for caffeine's sake. However, I ate a LOT of almonds, dried cherries and cashews, and the random dark chocolate nib. A plum in the car at 5:30 held me over. And dinner was easy because....

I turned on the crock pot.

It takes a real woman to turn on a crock pot. It was all hot and bothered when I arrived at home.

The acorn squash halves were cooked perfectly (on low with a little water). I sauteed some shallot, garlic, jalapeno pepper and mushrooms in olive oil, added some brown rice I had cooked earlier in the morning (while I was showering) along with a handful of chopped walnuts. While sauteing, I cooked some finely chopped kale in salted water with some red lentils (heeding my son's advice about legumes) and added that when done. A splash of vegetable broth and

some bread crumbs, some thyme, salt and pepper and it was ready to stuff into the squash halves. A drizzle of olive oil and into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  Toss a salad, open a bottle of pinot noir. Sha-zam! Dinner is served.

To answer a question I received today, I feel great. I am not craving anything. I am drinking my coffee black because soy creamer is gross and almond milk makes coffee look and taste like dish water. My dear college friend Gwen wrote to me after Day 1...

 "I think Seth may have a point here; it's time to put on your big girl panties and drink your coffee black. There is no substitute for the delicious creaminess of half and half. So why settle? Explore coffee grown in different geographically areas. Instead, like your salad, let the flavor and essence of the coffee come through." 

Gwen and I were dorm-mates and basketball teammates at Bowdoin College in the late 70's. I trusted her then and I trust her now. Black it is.

So, because I am feeling great 3 whole days into this vegandventure, I'm beginning to think that maybe there will be a month 2...which means the challenge of THANKSGIVING. As I ponder the conversations with my older son and my mother about whether I will cook a turkey (as the dinner is always at my house), this response comes to mind, courtesy of my niece-in-law, Chrissy.

Perhaps I'll cross that animal product-free bridge when I come to it.