Vegan with jam

Category: Meals

  • Easy Vegan

  • Udon Noodle Dish

    Another tasty dish! Let me know if you’ve tried it!

  • And Some Veggies with Rice

    This was great! And so simple!
    beans and rice

  • More Veggies – Less Starch and Sugar

    After having just returned from a big blow out wedding, I found myself not quite where I want to be weight-wise. So, as a result of watching a video that compares the food with the highest nutrient/calorie ratio, I’ve decided to shoot for the food with the highest numbers. Which one is highest, you might ask? Kale. Followed by others green, leafy, or just green… Foods such as rice, potatoes, WW bread, to name a few, fall into the third column, vegan though they may be. And of course, continue to watch the oil, and… need I say it, the wine…

    So, the result since June 21st, the day I woke up and smelled the kale? When I returned from this wedding trip, I weighted in just short of where I was two or three weeks ago. Not a lot of progress. As of today, eating veggies, salads, soups, etc. I’m down seven lbs!

    Two dishes have emerged that have been long forgotten:
    #1. Kale and tomato soup. Saute 3 onions and 40 cloves of garlic (in very little oil – 2 tbls tops) in a 16 quart stock pot. Add some mushrooms too. Add a gallon of diced tomatoes (I got mine at Costco in a #10 can). Add two or three bunches of kale, mustard greens, and/or collards. Cook for an hour or two. Add water or reduce until it is the right thickness, depending on whether you want soup or stew… season to taste.

    #2. Black bean, tomato, corn salsa. As above, saute three onions, two or three bell peppers, 40 cloves of garlic, a half dozen chopped jalapaneas (include seeds). Add a quart of water. Bring to boil. Add six ears of corn. Cook till the corn is done. Remove corn, slice kernals off cob and return the kernals to the mix. Add two pounds of dried black beans. Add a gallon of diced tomatoes. Cook for two days… (OK… just kidding on this part… however, the beans will take a LONG time too cook!) As the pot thickens, reduce heat to simmer and watch it doesn’t stick to bottom or burn! Stir at least every 15 minutes. If it starts to stick to the bottom, aggressively scrape bottom with spatula until the bottom feels clean. Season to taste. I made mine pretty hot with some sambal ulek. Serve either hot as dip, or cold as salsa. Use for dressing on salads.

  • More New Things

    The other day while traveling on business in Tulsa, I ordered a lunch from a take-out place to eat with the other people in the meeting. So, I ordered a salad with none of the usual stuff and some fruit. I forgot to order dressing – and got exactly what I ordered. Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, 2 olives, and 1 pepper. Lesson: Be more specific and order dressing.

    However! For lunch today I ate at Dean and Deluca’s at the Towne Center and it was great. Had roasted vegetables including asparagus, peppers, onions, squash. Also some kind of cubed winter squash thing that was very tasty. And some baba ganoush that I put on a baguette. Also some kind of rice pilafe with a vinegarette. Excellent. I’m going back there again next week. Tonight, I think I’ll do the falafel again with some rice. See ya!

  • Lunch at Price Chopper

    Rob joined me for lunch at Price Chopper. Didn’t feel like three bean salad so thought I’d get a loaf of bread and have some hummus with it.

    Lunch: The bread was from Farm Fresh, a black bean dark bread. It was good but not my favorite. I like the WW better but I couldn’t find it in their display. Red Pepper Hummus. Empire Apple.

  • The Last Day of Regular Journal Entry

    Today is January 31st, the last day of the 31 day experiment in vegan eating here in Kansas City, or wherever travels have taken me. It has been quite an adventure. So, now what to do? I’ve considered many options. One of which is to resume a “normal” American diet to observe changes in how I would feel. For instance, back in December I believe it was, I had a cheese pizza, and afterward didn’t feel all that good. A feeling that sustained for a least the following day. So, was that an anomaly or would that happen again? I’ve decided not to try this approach, at least not now.

    Another thought is to resume a somewhat vegetarian diet, and not be completely vegan. In other words, eat some dairy, and/or eggs. I’ve decided not to do that either.

    Yet another approach would be try vegan but not to an extreme… by way of not worrying too much about those trace elements of dairy or eggs that seem to creep into so many products without notice. That would make life a little easier on the face of it, but upon further reflection, it might be easier to maintain a strict vegan diet, than to try and decide when to deviate, and when not.

    So, here it is. I’m going to maintain the vegan diet for an indefinite period of time. Currently I expect that to last at least a year, probably longer. We’ll see. Especially with what I’ve learned during these past 31 days, I don’t expect that will be a problem. And frankly, there are so many benefits to this plan, and virtually no down side. So what are the benefits? Here are some that come to mind in no particular order:

    1. Good Health – lower cholesterol
    2. Good Health – losing weight
    3. Good Health – reduced pain in back
    4. Good Health – Feeling better overall
    5. Cheaper – not purchasing meat reduces the bill at the checkout counter
    6. Cheaper – not having meat in cooked food permits them to have longer refrigerator life.
    7. New Adventures in Eating – There are a bunch of new foods and spices in the vegan world.
    8. Make the world a little better – less environmental stress, and being kind to our animal friends.

    What are the down sides?

    1. Explaining to wait staff the diet. Yes, no dairy means no cheese, no sour cream. Dairy products come from cows. Cheese and cream are dairy and they come from cows too! Really!

    2. Explaining to friends the diet. Yes, it is weird. But is it more weird than eating crawfish, lobsters, or ground up dead animals? Think about that. No, I don’t have horns. Yes, I can still drink coffee and beer. No, I don’t believe it has altered my sexual identity. Yes, I get plenty of protein.

    3. Avoiding trace elements of dairy, eggs. This gets easier over time. I’m pretty much over that hump.

    4. Can’t think of any more.

    From this point forward, I’m only going to make entries here when there is something interesting that comes up in my life as a vegan. I’m also putting together a more linear edition of this that will start from the beginning and move to the end, rather than backwards.

    Here is what I’ve consumed during the past few days:

    Saturday Lunch: Rather late in the day, around 3 PM. We were busy doing shopping and stuff. Had some of Mary’s vegatable soup. I’d have to say this is the best soup I’ve ever had. Also had some pita bread with hummus baked like a pizza in the oven topped with brocholli and fresh tomato. Very excellent. Thanks, Casey for the idea!

    Saturday Dinner: Late with this too. Mary and I cooked up some shells to go with some homemade tomato sauce, pretty much our standard recipe. Salad.

    Sunday Morning: I just had toast and jam. Coffee.

    Sunday Lunch: We had hoped to have lunch at the Kansas City market, the Meditarianian place, but it was closed. I had some pictures to pick up at Costco so didn’t want to go home to eat and then venture forth again, so we found a taco bell and we had bean and rice burritos. Not bad. Not great. Did the job.

    Sunday Dinner: Rice and mixed vegatables. WW toast with hummus. Very good.

    Monday Breakfast: Mixed nuts
    Monday Lunch: Whole Food Market. I had a dark mexican rice, nearly black, with I think he said acorn squash sauteed in… very good. Also some kind of wheat veggie burger. Also good. French bagette.
    Monday Dinner: Pretty much the last of Mary’s veggie soup. WW toast and hummus.

    Tuesday Breakfast: Nuts again. Yeah, boring.

    And that brings me up to now. The day is beautiful, sunny, promises to be 62 degrees. Wow.

  • Another Weekend – But Raining

    It is raining but otherwise not all that bad for January. The weather promises to be reasonably warm next week, approaching the mid fifties for most of it.

    Breakfast Thursday and Friday: Old Fashioned Oatmeal with Soy Milk and WW toast and jam. Bought some black raspberry for a change of pace.

    Lunch Thursday: Mostly three bean salad with some mixed greens and fruit (mellon).

    Lunch Friday: Baked potato with BBQ sauce and a salad with tomato and brocholli. Iced tea.

    Dinner Thursday: The vegatable soup Mary made the other day and some WW bread toasted with hummus. Very good.

    Dinner Yesterday: Spaghetti

    Breakfast Today: Pancakes made with 1/2 WW flour and 1/2 AP flour. Used “Plain” Soy milk (contains cane sugar) for fluid. These were the best pancakes I’ve had in a long time, if not ever. Very flavourful and nutty like. Served them up with Earth Balance spread and maple syrup. Great!

    Back to the rain. Went to the gym this morning. It is getting to be a fairly regular routine.

  • Continuation

    Lunch Yesterday: Six inch veggie sub from Planet Sub. Pepsi.
    Dinner Yesterday: Left over Rice, beans, tofu suprise with salsa on side. WW Toast with Earth Balance.

    It is now the Thursday morning. I’m on my first cup of coffee. Haven’t got anything else to add at the moment. Didn’t make it to the gym yet. Maybe later. I am off to the kitchen to put some dishes away and start the oatmeal. I hear Mary stirring on the second floor. Perhaps she’ll be down soon for coffee.

  • And The Soy Milk Didn’t Kill Me Either

    Now on day two of the exercise program, and none the worse for it. Even managed to get out the door by 5:30, grocery store by 6:30, home by 6:45, fed by 7:30.

    Breakfast: I bought two containers of Soy Milk, one having no sweetner, and the other labeled “Plain” (it has cane sugar in it). Thought I’d try them both. This morning I had a half cup of Old Fashioned Oats with about a 1/4 cup of unsweetened soy milk. Once you get beyond the not-white color (I don’t expect it’s green, but it looks like it to me…) it is not an obtrusive flavour, not too much unlike regular milk. Combined with stawberry jam on WW toast, which I did, and it is just fine. This is going to be a new breakfast standard. Coffee, of course. I’m up a pound today by the scale, but not concerned.