Vegan Log, no. 2.

I'm four days into my Vegan Adventure. I thought I might go over exactly what my perimeters are. I'm following "The Kind Diet" plan for the most part, but have chosen to look at this as a chance for exploration. For the record, that means whole grains, beans, greens, and fruits. I'm not just using recipes from that book exclusively or anything like that.

*No animal products of any sort. That includes meat, milk, cheese, dairy of any sort, gelatin, and honey.

*I'm avoiding sugars and white flour. I'm using products sweetened by fruit juice and whole wheat flour, when necessary. I've switched over to agave syrup.

*Prior to my dedication to the Vegan Adventure: I've weened myself off coffee and soda and haven't had them in about a month. That was more of a battle than the vegan thing is, at least so far. I wanted to get that out of the way before I made this attempt (I was a 3-soda a day kinda gal), and I'm relieved that this hasn't kicked up any cravings.

My husband is not actively doing this with me, but he's eating what I've prepared each evening when he comes home from work, and being supportive. My best friend, Kim, has decided to give the Vegan Adventure a try as well. We are on the phone via text and voice checking in with one another and swapping food ideas.

Today I'm on a hunt for a small white board for the fridge--Kim had the brilliant idea of making a food plan for the week and essentially listing everything out. Since I live so close to health food stores, it hadn't hit me how much this could help! With deadlines looming, I need all the extra time I can get!

On Monday, my friend Michelle took me to Studio City to try Kind Kreme, a raw vegan ice cream shop. Michelle isn't vegan, but she's totally into trying new things and knew that I'd be into this. I had a scoop of Fresh (Cucumber, Kale, Lemon, Himalayan Crystal Salt) on a gluten free cone and loved it! Shoulda got a double scoop. I can see this being a regular spot for me.

I haven't had any vegan cheese since starting on Monday--and I'm trying to prolong the amount of time between starting the Vegan Adventure and actually working with it. My friend Jessica said to wait about a month before delving in because it's so different from regular cheese. I am heeding her advice because she's a genius.

I feel noticeably lighter, with more focus and energy, and a bit more alert. I'm hoping the alertness gets more pronounced as I continue with this. Shopping has been easy, and I live in a neighborhood where it's easy to comparison shop, so it's not breaking the bank. Since Kim is living in Fresno, I know this might take more effort to make happen. She has also had to deal with people asking what the heck vegan means, and then looks of disgust or laughter (seriously?! Seriously. So lame.). None of that in L.A. so far, and I don't expect it. People have too much on their own plates. Whaa wha.

Dispatch, over. Live long and prosper, I'll see you soon!

"This new girl is gonna guac my world"

When Stephanie told me about "Feed Me Bitch", I was caught by surprise, and not because of the name. The truth was, even though I'm probably the most dedicated (re: stalker-ish...I love blogs and have been reading our girl for years upon years!) Stephanie reader out there, I did not know she had this blog! Needless to say, I was stoked to have more content to read, and even more stoked--dare I say, double stoked?!-- to be asked to contribute.

So, of course, since I am female and living in America and also aware of stereotypes, I have a history with food. As in, I LOVE to eat. I love all sorts of treats, carby things, veggies, meats, the whole deal...save for bananas. We all have something, I guess. I was vegetarian for a few years in college but obviously lacked the conviction to follow through once my ex-boyfriend's mother shoved a pepperoni pizza in front of me at a family dinner. Lacking the elegance to gracefully find a salad or potato, I bit into that greasy slice, loved it, and reverted back to my meat loving ways.

My body paid for it. I didn't jump back on the vegetarian bandwagon--I ate bad food after bad food with reckless abandon! I ended up gaining 50 lbs, had acne, and felt tired and unmotivated. My pleasures continued to be confined to an 8-inch plate, or a 5-inch bowl of heaping ice cream. Yum in my tum. That's right.

Eventually I was asked to participate in a weight-loss pool at one of my office jobs. I had found a motivator--money! Imagine that. I lost all of the weight on Weight Watchers, which I still heartily advocate. The program is healthy, not extreme, and makes sense if you just stay on board with it! Not to brag, but I totally won. I felt amazing fitting into a size six again.

Alas, life changed, my mother passed away, and I stressed the heck out, eating crap. I gained some of the weight back, which is where I'm at now. It's been three years since. My husband and I stick to a fairly healthy diet. I mean that, if you compare it to the rest of America. We don't typically eat fast food, save for every few months when I must have a Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's Junior (look, it's only when I'm riding the crimson wave. He usually gets something less horrible.). We eat a lot of fish, veggies, and whole grain pastas. We occasionally have red meat, but it's when we go out. We eat pretty well. But like all things, including Jennifer Aniston, we could do better.

So, what's going on right this very second? I read Alicia Silverstone's book "The Kind Diet (I'm a child of the '90's and in my private world, she and I are best friends) last week and it's got my head spinning. Ms. Cutie Face makes a very convincing arguement for at the very least trying some new foods. I'm completely loving the idea of taking care of my body, animals, and the earth at the same time. It really speaks to the multi-tasker, faux-Virgo, Filofax-carrying part of me.

Here's the scoop on "The Kind Diet". It's a vegan/macrobiotic plan. It explains the danger of having meat products in your system and the toll it takes on the environment, as well as the crazy stuff sugars and processed foods do to you. I'm 30 now, so I am starting to be very aware of how my body is changing and is affected by my environment. I want to be responsible and conscious. I have absolutely no reason not to. And to contrast the elimination of easy-to-find-in-vending-machine foods, the book is loaded with vegan'macrobiotic recipes that acutally look awesome. I'm talking peanut butter cup awesome.

I'll be documenting my vegan experiments on "Feed Me Bitch", and on my own blog, "Trois Mois". It's about to get all soy up in here. For the time being, I'm just finding recipes on-line and in books. I hope to get so adept with my new vegan ingredients that eventually I'll be concocting my own recipes from scratch.

Here's to a new adventure! If any of you are vegan, what resources do you use and do you have any tip for someone just trying it out?

easy vegetarian soup!

Awhile back I decided I'd like to be able to make my own soup. For the most part canned vegetarian soups are expensive, come in small cans and aren't always available in small towns or bargain grocery stores. Vegetarians are poor too people! So I set out to create a soup that could be made by anyone, anywhere, regardless of season.

WHAT YOU NEED:

3 cans of Swanson Vegetarian Broth

1 bag of frozen mixed vegetables of your choice. What I do is I usually buy one bag of either a California Blend or Italian Blend and then another bag of just regular mixed vegetables.

1-2 red potatoes

1/4 -1/2 clove of garlic depending on your personal taste

seasoning according to taste

(Optional: rice or noodles)

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

Add all three cans of vegetable broth to large pot on medium heat. Add garlic to broth.

While waiting for the broth to warm, wash and slice or dice your potatoes (again according to your personal taste)

When broth becomes warm, add potatoes.

The add either an entire bag of frozen vegetables, or if you plan to mix your veggies, do half and half of each. Two bags would over power the broth.

Wait for soup to boil and reduce heat. I typically let this simmer anywhere from an hour to four hours, depending on how long I have to get it made.

Stir every so often and make sure to taste it. As the broth cooks, the flavor will change and you may need to add your spices of choice.

To beef up the soup (pardon the expression) you can also add rice or noodles. I recommend boiling this addition in an additional pot until it's ALMOST done (or you know, al dente) add the noodles or rice about 10-15 minutes before you plan on serving the dish, in order to keep them from getting too mushy.

This could also be done with fresh vegetables, but I'm keeping in mind that not everyone has access to affordable produce in the winter months. The whole mess usually costs me between 3-5 dollars to complete and will serve 8. It also keeps pretty well in tupper wear and also reheats well. Good option if you're trying to take your own lunch to work/school/etc.

Using my love for Soyrizo

Last night it was pretty warm here in California so I decided a salad was in order for dinner. I went to the store to pick up some lettuce when a brainstorm hit me!

Soyrizo Taco Salad! I did this on the easy and cheap. This recipe could be easily veganized.

What you need:

1-Bag of salad mix. I did a mixed greens and baby spinach leaf mix

1-tube of soyrizo

1-bag of taco chips

1-cup of shredded cheese (or vegan cheese)

1 1/2 cups of sliced olives

1 1/2 cup of salsa

1 green bell pepper

2 cups of chopped green oinions

sour cream or vegan sour cream

salad dressing of choice. (I used Kraft Vidalia Onion Vinaigrette with Roasted Red Pepper)


Preperation:

Chop the bell pepper and oinion, saute in a wok with a touch of salsa and some of the olives until the bell peppers are tender. (I also thew a handful of Frenchs Dried Oinions in for texture and flavor and a dusting of garlic sea salt.)

Take a skillet and heat soyrizo to texture preference. Cook it longer on higher heat if you want a firmer, crisper, texture.

Turn both pans down to low to keep warm.

Take taco chips and crumble. Toss salad with taco chips, cheese and the remaining olives.

Lay salad out on plate. Top with soyrizo and bell pepper garnish. Add dressing to taste. Top with sour cream and a dollop of salsa. I topped the boyfriend's sour creme and salsa mix with a little olive to make it pretty. You can also sprinkle some of the shredded cheese on top for color.

bento! (or holiday gift ideas for your veg friends)

So recently I've become kind of obsessed with the concept of Bento Boxes. I have a lot of time on my hands and like to cook. And I love anything cute. I joined a community for Bento and I realized a lot of people who are into Bento are also vegetarians. The community on LJ has all the entries tagged so you can click straight through to veg or vegan boxes and there are some really creative ideas in there for packing a more appealing lunch.

With the holidays coming up I thought I would start a series on gift ideas for you to ask for or to give your vegetairan friends! So today's idea is all about the bento.

Some examples of the boxes:



This is a pretty traditional Japanese Bento.
It comes with:
*2 tier lunch box
*Lunch box bag
*Chopsticks
*Erastic belt

Or if you want to go a little more cutesy, there is this Black Sheep box.

And as far as I'm concerned you can't talk bento without bringing Miss Hello Kitty into the mix.

There are alot of extras you can also throw in when introducing someone to the art of bento. Like rice molds, so that they can create rice balls or even use them to make sushi. Some people like egg molds for hard boiled eggs and another almost essential product is a sauce container.

The best part about the bento is its resuable and you save some plastic waste, especially if you make sure to get the sauce/condiment container.

There are also loads of cook books on how to make bento boxes that would make a handy companion for a first time bento maker. The Manga Cookbook comes with a bento box already while Vegan Lunch Box takes a more American and totally vegan take on making and packing lunch.

I'll leave you with some photos of delicious looking veggie bentos. Come back soon for more gift ideas....

A couple of lunches prepared by jokergirl

contents:
Vegan Korean stew, -with sihmeji and enoki mushrooms. Then there's tomatoes, carrots, a dumpling and a mini muffin, and rice in the top layer.

Big box (top): Millet and chili sin carne decorated with parsley. Millet is actually rather tasty, but not very different from couscous texture and flavour-wise. Mmm.
Small box (bottom): Tiny croquettes on picks decorated with oregano; mini chocolate chip muffin (made in a condiment cup with a tiny amount of muffin dough), star-shaped carrots and a cup of tsatsiki.

Easy Breezy Beautiful Covergirl Shepherds Pie

I'm Irish and lord knows many traditional Irish recipes call for two things: booze and meat. So last St Patricks Day, I was newly veg, and planning a party. I had no idea what to make until I came across a recipe for Shepherd's Pie. Now I'd had the meat version before at a pub in Santa Monica and thought it was pretty delicious and filling and would make a nice dish for the party. However all of the recipes I found were really time consuming and too much work to feed to a house full of drunks who were probably just going to complain about the lack of meat. So I went on a mission to make it just a little easier...

What you'll need:

For the topping:

Mashed Potatoes. Yes you could totally go boxed on these, but gross. I made my own and I'm a lazy bitch, so let's assume you're going to need real ones. To make mashed potatoes you need:

1 1/2 lbs potatoes, peeled and quartered length-wise
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 Tbsp heavy cream (or milk substitute)
2 Tbsp butter (or vegan butter substitute)
1 Tbsp milk
Salt and Pepper
1 teaspoon of minced garlic

1 Put potatoes into a pot. Add salt. Add water until potatoes are covered. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, 15-20 minutes, or until squishy and mashable

2 Warm cream and melt butter, together, either in microwave or in a pan on the stove. Drain water from potatoes. Put hot potatoes into a bowl. Add cream and melted butter. Use potato masher to mash potatoes until well mashed. Use a strong spoon to beat further, adding milk to achieve the consistency you desire. (Do not over-beat or your potatoes will get gluey.) Salt and pepper and garlic to taste.

Okay now set that aside, you'll need it in a little while.

Most Shepherds Pie recipes require you to make the filling yourself. But when I'd like to be drinking Guinness with my friends, I'd rather not be constructing what amounts to a vegetable soup all flippin day. So I called on Amy... Amy's Kitchen that is.

You'll need about two cans of Amy's Organic Soup. I used chunky vegetable (pictured below) but she's got a few interesting veggie combos brewing in her kitchen, if you know what I mean. I chose this brand because they have an easy to read "key" on their products that tells you if it's veggie or not. If you're new to the vegetarian game as I was last year, you might not know a lot of the "vegetable" soups that are on the shelves still have meat products in them. So be careful if you're using another brand.

Anyway take the two cans of Amy's Soup and combine them in a large pot. Add one pint of Guinness Beer and cover to simmer. I threw in some more garlic and pepper just make sure there was a kick to it.

Traditional Shephard's Pie does have meat in it and some people use artificial crumbles or whatever to replicate that texture and flavor, but I'm not really a faux meat crumbles girl, so I skipped it.

After heating the soup up and waiting for the Guiness to cook off, pour the soup into a pyrex dish. Wait a second for it to cool, because it will give the soup some "tackiness" which you will need.

Take the mashed potatoes you made earlier and spread them across the top of the soup, like a frosting or pie crust. You can also add some cheese or vegan cheese sprinkles over the top of the potatoes once you get them sprinkled in.

Put in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes. If the potatoes are browning and the "cheese" is melting, your dish is done.

This recipe made about a large pryex casorol dish and a half for us and served about 11 people. This could also be an excellent edition to your Thanksgiving table.

ThanksflippingGiving

This is going to be my first year as a Pescetarian at Thanksgiving. Now if I were hosting the dinners as Pescetarian we'd just have salmon or mussels or something but I am not and every where I am going to eat is tradition central. I came across an article at www.delish.com that has some veggie recipes so I thought I'd share that first.

http://www.delish.com/entertaining-ideas/holidays/thanksgiving/vegetarian-thanksgiving-recipes?GT1=47003

But also I wanted to share my easy as a box of cornbread dressing I mixed up the other day.

Ingrediants:

1-box Stove Top Cornbread Stuffing

1- can Swanson Vegetarian Vegetable broth <-- btw the only broth I found at my local grocery that is 100% vegetairan.

1/2 green granny smith apple

1 green onion

How to do it:

Dice up the onion and green apple before putting the stuffing on.

Prepare the stuffing just like the box says except instead of water, use the can of vegetable broth. Add the apple and onion when you add the stuffing mix. Five minutes later you have delicious.

Other suggestions to add would be: dried cranberries, carrots, garlic, etc.

Later I promise to share my easy breezy beautiful covergirl recipe for Sheppard's Pie!

my breakfast cereal subsititute

Okay so everyone knows some cereals have animal products in them. And to be honest, I HATE OATMEAL. There I said it. Oatmeal is flippin' gross. Sue me.

So when I was a kid my mom made me something else on cold mornings and I finally reproduced it Vegan style yesterday morning and wanted to share.

Rice Cereal!

Now this takes about 10-20 minutes depending on how long your white rice takes to cook. My bag of white rice said 20 minutes but it was done in 10. I have a gas stove, so who knows, maybe it's hotter.

What you need:

1 cup of white rice

Soy/Rice/Almond milk

Vegan Butter

Sugar or sweetener substitute

How to do it:

Step 1 - Boil your rice. As mentioned before, this could take anywhere from 10 -20 minutes, so if you're busy in the mornings, you can always make the rice the nice before and stick it in the fridge. It works either way.

Step 2- Put rice in a bowl and add your milk product (I used Rice Dream Original) to taste.

Step 3- Add your butter product to taste

Step 4- Add your sugar product to taste

Step 5- Stuff in the microwave and heat it up like you would instant oatmeal. This should be good at about 1 minute on high (obviously you can do this on the stove as well, but this is all about the fast, it is BreakFast after all.)

Step 6- Pull out and stir around. Stick in face. Be full.

You can dress this mess up just like you do oatmeal as well. Brown sugar or cinnamon or fruit. It tastes very similar to oatmeal without the gross texture.

Plus this is a fairly cheap breakfast to make and as far as I know, kids like it!

We're all poor, I get it

So today I was scanning some of the vegetarian blogs I read and someone posted a link to a website where you can feed your family of 4 for a week on 40 bucks. Now I know this is possible. Neither Jen Wa or myself are rich by any means, but it's always interesting to see someone else's take on it.

Over at HillbillyHouseWife, they've posted the menu that they use for this sort of eating and I was pleased to see it's almost entirely meat free and could be veganized with a few substitutions. Not that I'm all about converting others to my life style, but it's nice when others realize it's not all that bad.

election night nachos

So last night I had a last minute election party and had to make a nacho/layered dip out of stuff I found in my cabinets. My recipe is completely vegetarian but could be made vegan with a few adjustments.

Ingredients:

1- Can of Black Beans

2- can of Vegetarian refried beans. This brand is my favorite.

3- can of diced tomatoes. the kind I had on hand were diced for salsa or chili, I use them when making my veg sloppy joes.

4- Cheese dip. Now since I'm not vegan, I just used the Tostitos Salsa Con Queso but for you vegans out there, I looked up a recipe for 30 Second Vegan Chili Cheese dip. Since that recipe calls for beans, you could forgo one of the other kinds of beans I used, but I actually think this would work just as well.

5- jar of salsa

6- cheese (or vegan cheese)

How to make it:

Grab an oven safe casarole dish. (Pyrex is best, y'all) Add the black beans as your bottom layer, then cover with the diced tomatoes. After that layer on the refried beans. Cover that layer with your cheese dip of choice. Sprinkle real cheese over the top.

How hot you cook it, really depends on how fast you want it. Since I wasn't in a hurry, I put mine in the oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes. Once I saw something boiling up in the pan, I pulled it out.

I served mine over Mission Round Tortilla chips and everyone went back for seconds at least, even the meat eaters...

Vegan "Chicken" Fajitas

Not only am I vegan, I am also gluten intolerant. So cooking for me is always an extra difficult task. Nothing I cook is "fancy" but it all has to be from scratch, and it has to be quick and easy due to my busy schedule. Did I mention it also has to be cheap? I live on an extremely tight budget. Combine that with the fact that I only cook for myself and it gets to be a REAL challenge trying to add some flavor and live off on anything other than plain boring rice. I like to choose a theme for the week. For instance this week is mexican. A bag of corn tortillas can be used for numerous different recipes and leftovers can easily carry over to spice up new recipes the next day. It saves money and diminishes waste. For nothing irritates me more than having to toss out food. With that said, this is one of my favorite recipes.

Ingredients:
1 Package Tempeh (found next to the tofu)
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Small Onion
1 Small Green Pepper
1 Package Fajita Seasoning Mix !!Always read the ingredients on the back to ensure it's vegan!!
Corn Tortillas

optional:
Tofutti Sour Cream
Vegan Gourmet Cheese



Slice onions, peppers, and Tempeh into thin strips. Heat up olive oil in a frying pan on medium high. Add onions, peppers, and Tempeh. Heat, stirring frequently until Tempeh is a golden brown. Add one cup of water and immediately mix in fajita mix. Turn heat down to a low to medium heat. Stir frequently until the water has boiled down. Heat up tortillas, fill with fajita mix, add cheese and sour cream if you so desire.

Quick, easy, and tasty! I like to later use the left over fajita filling to top nachos.

-Jen Wa

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes? Oh yes, it can happen

A long time ago before I decided to become a vegetarian/pescetarian, I dated a guy who was a veg for the first year we were together. I wasn't, but that didn't stop me from eating loads of yummy vegetarian things to try them out. One night we were drinking wine in a bar in North Hollywood and he confided in me that he really really missed Sloppy Joes.

Coming from a white trash taste palate myself, I love me some Sloppy Joes. So I ran right out and figured something out for him.

Since I was drunk and it was late we went the instant route, which is what this blog is all about. And we bought two more bottles of wine in the process.

Anyway what you will need to construct these drunken deliciousness is this:

1-Can of Sloppy Joe mix. I used Del Monte when I made these last night. Yes you can make your own sauce if you're that kind of uppity cook, but the point of this recipe is the simplicity with which you can make and eat something while wasted. Check the ingredients on any canned item before buying it to ensure it does not have animal products in it.

1-box of Rice O Roni Spanish Rice. (Or substitute the Spanish rice of your choice. Trust me though, Spanish rice is the way to go, so stop being a rice racsist and get back on board.)

1-14 oz Can of Tomatoes. You can substitute salsa here as well if you need a bigger kick in your Joes. However the chopped tomotaoes give the sandwhich more depth and a better consistancy.

1-package of the hamburger buns of your choice

1-sliced vegan cheese

Preparation:

Step 1- Have a cocktail. Walk around the house drinking and swearing and turn on some music. I like to cook to Tom Waits and Billie Holliday. I know Jen Wa prefers Rancid.

Step 2- Have another cocktail. Put the Spanish rice on the stove and cook it how the freakin' box says to. Don't forget to add the tomatoes. This is going to take about 20 minutes, so you might as well have another cocktail.

Step 3- After the rice has simmered down to the right consistancy you add the sloppy joe mixture. Stir it around and cover the rice with it just like you would if you were making the meaty version.

Step 4- (optional) toast the buns in the oven or toaster. I have a gas oven so I just toast them in there.

Step 5- Take toasted buns out and add your vegan cheese slices.

Step 6- Add the "sloppy joe" mix on to the bun according to how hungry you are. Be careful, these are actually very sloppy. But delicious.

Step 7- Have another cocktail and eat this goodness

I found this Vegan Sloppy Joe mix on the internet you can buy as well. I've never had it so I don't know if it's worth the 7.95 though. I've also never used a subsitute meat product instead of rice. Most faux meats gross me out to be quite honest, but I'm sure if you really wanted to grind up a Boca Burger and soak it in sloppy joe sauce, you could.