Supper and the Single Girl

Vegan Meals and Random Thoughts

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Oh, what a beautiful day

On the third Saturday of every month, a local restaurant Java Green has a funding day for a wonderful local organization, Compassion Over Killing. Basically, 10 percent of sales go to COK. Another local place, Vegetable Garden, has funding days on the first Thursday of every month. Recently, COK has started leafleting near well-trafficked areas before going to eat at the funding restaurant. I can't help them hand out Easy Vegan Recipe guides and veg-dining guides on Thursdays, but I can do it on Saturday, after which we go to eat at the supporting restaurant. So I met up with the woman running the leafleting, grabbed some stuff and went to the entrance of a Metro station a couple of blocks away. Almost everyone was polite, whether or not they accepted the guides I was handing out. One man said that his wife was vay-gun (this after I'd said "vegan"), and I said that the guide was a restaurant guide. He took it. I don't know if running to catch people counts as exercise--it should.

Afterwards, we all gathered to eat, and I had my usual "chicken" rice bowl (really chunks of soy protein in a delicious sauce) and Cricket Cola, a green tea cola I love. With us was someone new to activism, but apparently has been vegetarian for a few years, so the organizer and I explained the environmental damages wrought by the animal foods industries. I did a bit of research to send a letter to Ms. magazine in response to an article they did on global warming, plus I've read numerous books on the subject, so I felt I could talk with some authority. COK focuses primarily on the animal rights issues, but I like to touch on health, animals, and environment because you never know what may get through to a person.

The weather has been manic depressive this week, going as low as the 50s Thursday and Friday and up into the 80s today. It was beautiful today--the complete opposite of grey, chilly, rainy Friday--but if I was in the shade, I needed my hoodie, and when I was in the sun, it was too hot for my hoodie. I sat in the sun while we ate and basked in the warmth. I even splurged on a chocolate vegan milkshake (ohhhhhh) while my boyfriend got a create-your-own smoothie with banana, mango, and coconut milk. A few other friends showed up, and we chatted and just hung out.

After everything broke up, my boyfriend and I made our way to my place, where I collapsed in bed and napped for an hour. I don't know if it was the running around, sitting in the sun, or a combination of both, but I was sacked out. I think I recall having spent days at the beach as a kid, and being in the sun would just put me to sleep. I didn't want to nap too long--I do have to get to bed tonight so I can work Sunday--but I was very reluctant to drag myself out of bed, which my cat supported wholeheartedly.

But I did get up and do the laundry and eventually cook dinner, another recipe adapted from the Heart Association cookbook, this one a lemon seitan dish (the original dish called for lamb and chicken broth; I used seitan and vegetable broth). I veganized it, of course, and added capers to the sauce. I'm trying to decide if I like the mustard in the sauce, or if I should remove it and add more lemon juice or something else, maybe garlic or tamari. I think it's mostly good, but I will be tinkering with the recipe to try to perfect it.

And like a good girl, I did have a salad with it, although it isn't pictured here. I made the same type salad and the same Sesame Ginger dressing I did last time, but instead of olive oil, I used half flax oil and half sesame oil, and I think that enhanced the flavor. If you want a sesame or Asian flavor, get yourself some toasted sesame oil, and keep it in the fridge once opened. If you want to add omega-3 fatty acids, get some flax oil, and absolutely keep that refrigerated. I once read somewhere that all oils, except for olive, should be refrigerated once opened. Flax oil should be refrigerated always, although you can't really do that between the grocery store and your home. Don't buy flax products from a store that doesn't keep them in a refrigerated case, just to be on the safe side. Flax is very delicate and can go bad very easily. I actually freeze my flax seeds because they stay fresher longer. And because I have more than enough stuff in my fridge.

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A plus and a minus



I made a couple of recipes from Enemy of the Steak tonight: a luscious tempeh dish called Picadillo (tempeh, onions, garlic, bell peppers, tomato sauce, raisins, capers, and seasonings) and Glazed Plantains. I had a dab of the Saffron Rice left over (gotta buy that again) and heated it up. I guess you can tell which is the plus--it's the tempeh dish. The cinnamon gave it a nice kick, and lazy girl that I am, I used Whole Foods "Stoplight" (red, yellow, and green) peppers even though the recipe calls for one green pepper. It's something I do when I have dishes that call for chopped bell peppers. It adds a splash of color to my favorite tofu dish.

I don't know what went wrong with the plantains--maybe they weren't ripe enough, and time in the fridge didn't help. I'll have to keep an eye out for ripe plantains. Considering my neighborhood has a large Latino population, one of the stores must carry plantanos. I suspect this recipe will work better with soft, ripe plantains rather than unripe "tostones." I made a couple of other very minor changes, but it shouldn't have affected the flavor. It was the texture that was sort of problematic.

I've mentioned that I do not object to using frozen veggies. Unless you're doing a stuffed pepper, you can easily sub a few handfuls of the frozen bell peppers. I usually run warm water over them to get the ice off and start the defrost process. The upshot is my freezer is crowded with frozen fruits and veggies, plus some shortening, stick margarine, a few convenience foods, and soy ice cream. My small fridge is also crowded with tea pitchers, grains, nuts, stuff I've cooked, sauces, dressings, and a few cooking oils.

I need a larger fridge.

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Monday, May 07, 2007

Pasta and Salad




I did a bit of shopping today and then went set about cooking dinner. I love bagged salad mixes--they're prewashed, so all you need to do is dump them in a bowl and toss in the rest of your salad fixings. I grated a couple of carrots, cut up a couple of Roma tomatoes and a Gala apple, threw in some golden raisins and some peanuts, and made a lovely Sesame Ginger dressing from Garden of Vegan. I love these little condiment bottles I get at Bed, Bath & Beyond. They're the size of your average bottle of dressing, but you can use them over and over. The only thing I don't like about them is there is no removable tip, so I have to cut off the tip of the lid to squeeze. They also work well for frosting cupcakes if you aren't doing any fancy swirly stuff.
I found a couple of really neat recipes in last Wednesday's Washington Post Food section. This is a recipe for Udon Noodles with Baby Bok Choy. Wow--a vegan recipe from the Post. What a shocker. Well, I didn't have udon noodles (or the sub of linguini), so I used whole wheat fettuccine instead. It was pretty tasty, although I don't eat pasta enough that I have a handle on the taste and texture of whole wheat pasta. And since I had more pasta than the recipe called for, I could very well have used that third head of bok choy that was in the package I picked up at Trader Joe's last week. Still, with the salad, it was a very nice dinner. I topped that off with a bowl of Purely Decadent Pomegranate Chip "ice cream" (well, they call it non-dairy dessert, probably because they can't legally call it ice cream). This was some seriously good stuff. I typically put chocolate syrup on my ice cream, but when I discovered I was out of syrup, I ate it plain. This is some good stuff. You must get some NOW (oh, okay, if the store is closed, wait until it opens and get it then).
I have become a bit of a pomegranate freak since they became popular. I love pomegranate blueberry juice and pomegranate molasses flavoring. Clif Nectar bars, their almost raw division, has a new pomegranate cherry bar that rocks. I think I love it almost more than their dark chocolate and walnut flavor, which has served as my chocolate fix at work on a few occasions.
And I totally forgot to mention in my post of last week that if you're a guy, you should eat lots of cooked tomato products. Pasta with marinara sauce (and veggie meatballs), pizza with tons of veggies (no cheese), recipes with tomato sauce, tomato paste, or processed tomatoes--eat up. Tomatoes have lycopene, an antioxidant, and eating them helps prevent prostate cancer. It is most bioavailable when the tomatoes are cooked or processed, but it's still not a terrible idea to put some in your salad anyway. Even ketchup on your veggie burger will provide you lycopene.
I wonder what special benefits it has for women. Either way, I'll try to eat more of them.

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Saturday, May 05, 2007

Quick and Easy

There are times you need a recipe that doesn't take more than a few minutes to throw together.
I found a simple recipe in the Amerian Heart Association cookbook and veganized it. I cut up a large hunk of seitan (if you're really lazy, I suppose you could get a couple of packages of the premade stuff, but I find making my own works better) into bite-size pieces and sauted it, tossed in some bottled teriyaki sauce, added some frozen peaches, pineapple, and mango, and threw in some almonds. Did I tell you that I think frozen fruit is awesome? If you can't get fresh organic fruit, you usually can get frozen organic fruit, and it works just fine in recipes. I also heated up some frozen green beans and used some leftover saffron rice from the other night, although I think brown rice would have worked much better. But I was feeling a little lazy and didn't really want to delay my dinner any longer.
I submitted my recipe for Puckery Pomegranate Seitan to the VegWeb site, and hopefully I'll see it up there soon. It's adapted from a fessenjen recipe, but I really didn't feel like calling it Seitan Fessenjen since I've never had the meat version and I never will. So I invented a new name for it with a made-up word (although Microsoft Word also redlines "seitan" and "tempeh"). I fixed the problem that made the recipe fail to show up legibly, so you should be able to make it yourself. Let me know what you serve it with--I wonder if a nice wheat berry pilaf would go with it or I should just prepare the brown-and-wild-rice pilaf I made last month. And maybe some roasted veggies like mushrooms, zucchini, onions, and bell peppers. I can eat zucchini if it's cooked right, but I just can't get into yellow squash. A lot of vegetables most people dislike they just haven't had cooked properly. When it comes to broccoli, though, it doesn't matter. I still hate the stuff.

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