Vegan with jam

Category: Meals

  • Three Weeks Into A New Life

    As I reflect upon these past three weeks, I am noticing changes in not only my body and how I feel, but how I think about this diet as an on-going way of life. Here is what I know for sure: Before November 2005, I wouldn’t have thought life as a vegan to be a reasonable choice for me. There was too much I enjoyed about consuming traditional meals, and all those things I’ve learned in the past decade about how to cook beef, turkey, chicken, and pork… what do you do with that library of knowledge?! Not to even mention cheese. My heavens, what to do with the fondue set?! Seriously though, there are so many things that seemed overwhelmingly in favor of staying with the traditional omnivore diet that veganism didn’t seem like a reasonable option. However, somewhere along the vegan path, the seemingly obvious problems associated with becoming vegan have begun to fall by the side of the road. I thought I would miss cheese immensely. I don’t at all. I thought I would miss BBQ pork ribs. No. Not a bit. I haven’t had a dish of ice cream in months, many months, so that hasn’t been a problem. Cookies? Nope. Chocolate? No. It is somewhat of an inconvenience to find gratuitous amounts of dairy and/or egg product in a number of foods, like bread for instance, but other than that, this diet has been a non issue.

    So, with one week to go, I’m not looking forward to the end. I’m looking foward to learning more about it and learning new recipes on this road to a better life. It just seems that if I were suffering on this diet I would be counting down the days, and that would be 7 left. But, I’m not counting. (OK, this blog is getting kind of old, but maybe I’ll put it into better order when all said and done, correct the spelling and whatever, and maybe someone will benefit from the reading about the experience…)

    Today
    Breakfast: Mixed nuts
    Lunch: Red Beans and Brown Rice with Roasted Asparagas and steamed mixed veggies. Had a few hunks of French Bagette with. Very good and filling. Had this at Whole Foods Deli, though the asparagas was over cooked a little, it was still good.
    Dinner: A few of us stopped at an Irish Pub for a few beers after work. We haven’t done this in a long time. I had some Guinness and potato skins with salsa. I had a hand full of nuts prior to going out.

  • Home At Last But Alone

    It has been a while since I’ve made updates. It is now the evening of Monday and I see we have to cover all day Saturday and Sunday. I am looking forward to not making a comment about every meal, but only those that are worthy of comment. Another week or so and I’ll be to that point. Here we go:

    Breakfast Saturday: Started with more coffee than was probably required. And ultimately had some toast with hummus.

    Lunch Saturday: Sunny wanted to have me join her for showing of a car she had to sell, so I ended up eating a PB&J #3 – wow – and off we went around noon. She had spent an hour or so at the gym.

    Saturday Afternoon Snack: While Sunny was attempting to show the car, she had dropped me off in down town Glens Falls. It was a rather dismal afternoon weatherwise, however uncharacteristically warm for the season. I took some pictures but didn’t produce any exciting results. Sometimes that happens. After Sunny and I got back together, we went into a neat little bistro bakery type place and had tomato cous cous soup and salad. All vegan. Enormous portions.

    Saturday Dinner: Sunny went off to work and I had left over spaghet. See above somewhere about that. I also had way to much bread, but all vegan. So, in all the dinner was great, but not all that good in terms of nutrition. But good points for the vegan aspect.

    Sunday Breakfast: I cooked up the usual tofu scrambler and served it up wrapped in a WW tortilla with salsa on the side along with toasted French Batard slices.

    Sunday Snack: This was a travel day, so didn’t have a “formal” lunch per se. I bought a bag of trail mix and munched on some of that.

    Sunday Dinner: Had a nice Mediterranian meal in the same place in the Detroit airport as I did before. Pretty much the same thing. All vegan.

    Monday Breakfast: Hand full of mixed nuts. Very busy morning.

    Monday Lunch: Today was a Rotary day. Had a large heaping of salad with green beans, some corn, rice, and I think that is about it. Told my Rotary friends about my diet.

    Monday Dinner: Left over tofu/rice/bean mixture Mary and I had frozen sometime back. Had some 100% WW bread toasted and didn’t notice until afterword that it contains dairy. Didn’t see that coming. But should have. Lesson: Watch ingredient in your own home.

  • Traveling Veganman

    These past few days have been a whirlwind. Since Tuesday, I’ve been in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia, and then back to Kansas through Missouri again. Then with 5 hours sleep continuing on to New Hampshire through Detroit and on to Vermont and my current location in Upstate New York by yesterday evening in time to make dinner. Spaghetti. The day’s meals:

    Breakfast: Beginning the day with coffee at 5 AM to create my presentation for the client meeting and on the nearly two hour drive north through the back roads of New Hampshire, I had one of the PB&Js. It did the trick. I nearly had peanut butter running down my chin, but managed to not make too much of a mess. It wasn’t a problem for me to avoid the bowls of available candy the agency had scattered about.

    Lunch: The agency hadn’t made any specific plans so we each ordered off a take-out menu. I selected the hot veggie sub with no cheese, dairy, eggs, or mayo. I was very specific and that turned out to be a successful strategy. The sub was good, and was very probably 100% vegan. It was “meaty” with mushrooms, broccoli, onions, peppers, and a light oil dressing. Much better than I expected. I had a few potato chips as well. Water to drink. That was about it.

    Dinner: Sunny and I went to Hannaford’s grocery store and failing to find any Earth Balance spread, settled on some 100% Organic Canola stuff to learn after later reading the fine print that it contains some (nearly insignificant amounts, I’m sure) dairy flavour extract… whatever that is. I had it on a slice of WW bread for dinner not knowing that. The WW spaghetti just had the usual onions, peppers, garlic and tomato paste sauce, pretty much my quick and easy standard.

    Breakfast Today:It wasn’t until after consuming the WW toast this morning that I learned about the dairy in the spread. Not a severe infraction and a good lesson in summary. When I get more time, I’m going to look for more available butter substitutes – maybe even SmartBalance would be OK. I’ll have to check. Casey and I also discussed this topic during a chat session later in the day. Last night I also couldn’t find the hummus, but Sunny managed to buy some during a break between classes and was nice enough to bring me some before lunch.

    Lunch: I decided to eat PB&J #2 even though they were beginning to look a little less appetizing. I didn’t want to waste them. There is one left. I don’t know about that one. We’ll see tomorrow.

    Afternoon Snack: Sunny and I went to an EMT banquet this evening where they made me a vegan meal. Not knowing in advance what I might find there, I thought a good snack might get me through anything that might come up. So, I had a sliced apple with garlic hummus dip. It was great.

    Dinner: The dinner surpassed my expectations. It was a vegan chili – all vegatables, but oddly no beans (this is especially odd from either a New York or Texan perspective. In NY all chili has beans, in Texas chile never contains beans and always meat. The flavours were definately chili pepper in the front and very tomatoful. And it was stuffed into a baked egg plant! Beautiful plate presentation. The chef did a great job. Vinegarette dressing side salad and a small par baked hard roll. It was about the size of a chicken egg. I chose to assume it was vegan and it probably was. Glass of wine and coffee for dessert. I by-passed the cheese cake with not a node in that direction. I’m going to have to try variations on this egg plant theme during the coming weeks, maybe with some grilled portabellas.

    During the social hour of the recognition banquet, ladies in pretty dresses and men with neck-ties, I was introduced as Sunny’s brother appropriately enough. And because Sunny has now taught nearly 3 generations of children going through her English classes, she knows just about everyone. Of course, I was the only one to have a “special” vegan meal, and this drew attention to everyone involved. So, I was Sunny’s brother and the vegan. Somehow I got a chuckle out of that thought. “Hi. I’m John. Sunny’s brother. I am Vegan. I am from planet Vega. The Veganman. Ha!” That’s funny. I wonder if I can get that like on my license plate, or maybe a T-shirt.

    During an on-line chat with Casey today, he suggested pizza made with hummus as a cheese substitute. We volleyed recipe suggestions back and forth for five minutes and I think both came away with some ideas. Then I read on the hummus container some of the same thoughts. I’m going to try these ideas also. Oh, and the hummus container said to use pita bread and cucumber slices for topping. Can’t get much simpler than that. Enough for now.

  • Day Three on The Road

    And almost consecutive. Does it count that I spent the night in my own bed? Probably not if it was for only 5 hours.

    I was prepared today. And like when you bring an umbrella and it doesn’t rain, there was no shortage of vegan fare. I packed, not one, not two, but THREE PB&Js in the luggage. (Well, I was using up a loaf of bread…) The bomb squad probably wondered about that. I see they did inspect my bags, though they were probably more interested in my piano tuning tools. Those must have raised an eyebrow. Here is the day:

    Breakfast Today: Breakfast at home, even briefly, is great. So, I had more of the lentil stew Mary and I made sometime ago. Remember that? Look back, I don’t remember either. But the funny thing is, that when the food doesn’t have animal product in it, it is less likely to spoil (properly refrigerated, of course…). It smelled and tasted good (maybe even better) and filled the tummy for a good morning of travel. As I was flying from MCI to MTW, I thought about how good I felt. It was a peaceful feeling. Just wait. I’m just getting started.

    Lunch: I was all prepared to have a PB&J, made this morning on WW bread. But I thought I’d look around to see what I could scare up. I found – yes, in the Detroit Midway Airport – an Internet Cafe (though they charge extra for the I-part…) that had some middle eastern cuisine on the menu – completely vegan. So, I had that with a cup of coffee. I figure A+ for me being prepared and then trying something new anyway! Ha!

    Dinner: Actually considered having PB&J in the room, but the staff here at the hotel knew what vegan was and recommended an Indian restaurant six short blocks down the street. So, I had to try that. I had Malai Kuftha and Garlic Naan. Near as I can tell, the Malai Kuftha was some kind of veggie “meat” ball, served in lots of curry sauce. It was good. This is one of my first Indian restaurant experiences so it is hard for me to judge. I would say it was good, but not great. The lingering flavors were wonderful. The garlic naan was basically pita bread with garlic toasted on top. So, another A grade for the evening meal. And I have three PB&Js left! The good news is, these sandwiches are not like those served on Wonder Bread. They are so dense they can last probably for two or three days and still be edible.

    As I sat in the “Indian Palace” (yes, that was the name of the place) tonight, I wished my friend from Maple street were with me. He would have liked it. I think they could have toned down the “Indian Artwork” on the walls. More like Elvis Velvet paintings with mirrors and fake jewels. Really over the top. And they had 5 wait staff, and one customer, me. I was well attended, though I think I would have been less conspicuous in the Temple of Doom (a cultural reference…)

  • Day Two On Road

    Well… the morning was marginally OK in terms of adhering to a vegan diet. In retrospect, I probably could have done without the Danish, fruit based though it was. It probably contained some type of dairy/egg products, though it would be hard to have gathered that information. And from a nutritional standpoint, it didn’t add a thing.

    Lunch Today: So, the agency changed my lunch order to a veggie roll up without cheese. Seems pretty simple. So, I was thinking of the way I would make a veggie roll up with out cheese and that seemed pretty good! I never would have thought to put RANCH dressing on it. Well, there was little of it, but still, not great marks in terms of planning. And of course, there were potato chips, something I never eat unless really hungry, and I was, and did. Then there was the cookie, in retrospect, also containing sometype of non-vegan food. I succumbed and ate that too, however to be fair, it contained no discernable chocolate or, thank god, coconut. So all together, it was a not great lunch. Another “C” grade on the report card, I fear.

    Now that I’m in the Dayton airport waiting to catch the connecting flight to Atlanta and then to MCI, hopefully things will be better. At least there are nuts. And beer. It is going to be a busy evening of travel. And tomorrow I’m off to Manchester.

  • Passing Grade on First Road Trip

    Yesterday evening was quite a challenge. It was my first exposure to attempting a vegan diet in polite company. And I’d give myself a good solid “C+” for the experience. Here is how the day went:

    Breakfast: An early one of WW toast, two slices with hummus. Was a little nervous over preparing for the trip so didn’t have anything else.

    Lunch: PB&J – WW bread. Made the sandwich before leaving the house. So, I give myself an “A” for planning ahead.

    Afternoon Snack: While on the plane from MCI to CIN, I had two tiny bags of peanuts. Good enough.

    Dinner: Here was the part that had me concerned. I joined three female clients for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, “La Fiesta’s”. This place is really very nice and the food is great. And cheap. Remarkably cheap. And they had a special on margaritas for $1.99. How can you beat that? So, I had one of those and a Negra Medelo with the meal. So, looking at the menu, they had a vegetarian section. So, how hard can that be? I ordered a veggie burrito with no cheese. That should be pretty straight forward. The waiter didn’t speak very good English so I had to say it a few times. It was noisy and he couldn’t hear me very well either. So, without grandstanding, I tried to get my point across as well as I could. The three ladies were beginning to wonder, I think. Anyway, the burrito looked great, and it was, but it had about a tablespoon of sour cream in it. And I didn’t know it until I was a third into it. So, I took it apart, as much as possible and scooped out as much as I could. And then proceeded to eat whatever didn’t look like sour cream. It was somewhat of a mess but we managed. I also had ordered beans and rice, but didn’t get that. So, I had to order that separate. And the beans came with a drizzle of cheese melted across the top of that. So, I had to fuss with that also. All totaled, I probably consumed a teaspoon of dairy. Lesson learned, you have to say “No diary” also. And my advisor warned me about that, I just forgot. I’ll do better next time.

    Breakfast Today: The classic Hot Hotel Breakfast. I had mixed fruit, orange juice, a fruit danish, oatmeal, two slices of bread (almost WW), bran cereal, and three pads of margarine. That should hold me…

    I understand the agency has chicken salad for me to eat for lunch. They said they would order something else for me when we got together this AM.

    Guess I better get my notes together for the meeting.

  • Catching Up – Busy Weekend

    It has been a busy week with a number of things. I have three new projects kicking off this coming week and there has been a lot of preparation. One in Troy, Ohio, one just outside Manchester, New Hampshire and another in Tulsa. So the following meal comments will be brief. They are getting rather repetitious anyway. I’ve lost 15 lbs since this began. Interesting. I wonder what would happened if I limited my portions and got any exercise?! Maybe I’ll try that.

    Mary indulged me with a walk downtown yesterday. I took a lot of pictures of the interesting building we have here in Kansas City. Some are remarkably old for this part of the country, dating back to 1870s. I might post some of these later. They certainly don’t make buildings like they used to. One in particular that caught our attention is the Hotel Savoy. It might be fun to spend a night there, especially if I was from out of town.

    Thursday Night: Left over spaghetti mix from two past evenings.

    Friday Breakfast: Nuts
    Friday lunch: Hummus on WW bread
    Friday night: potato, asparagus, broccoli, salad

    Saturday Breakfast: WW toast and hummus
    Saturday Lunch: “House Combo” from Habashi House at the City Market: Hummus, Baba Ghanouj, Dawali (Dolmas), Falafil
    Saturday Dinner: Leftover Lentil Stew , salad with balsamic vinaigrette

    Sunday Breakfast: One slice of WW toast and hummus, sliced apple.

    I’ve started some WW bread dough and Mary made some vegetable soup last night which we haven’t tried yet. It might have to go in the freezer with us both on the road during the coming week. As I write this, Mary is busy at her desk preparing to leave for Massachusetts. Her plane is scheduled to leave around 12:30 PM.

  • The Day Begins with Breakfast

    Yesterday for dinner we did have left over spaghetti – two batches mixed together. Nothing special. But it was good. And we had a side of freshly cooked green beans to go with…

    Breakfast Today: No nuts today! No, sir. How about a generous ration of Roasted Red Pepper Hummus on Whole Wheat Tortilla?! It was so good I had a second one also. The second one had apple slices on it, a very nice combination. I finished the remainder of the apple by itself.

    Lunch Today: Though that is still a half hour away, I expect I’ll be eating the PB&J on WW that is sitting cold in the car. And the apple slices. I’ll let you know if there is any change to that plan later.

  • Standard Fare

    Tuesday:
    Breakfast: Another handful of nuts. Generally a pretty busy day with the new projects underway. Lots of phone calls and meetings with various associates. Not much time for a leisurely breakfast.
    Lunch: Had lunch with Rob at Hen House so that I could pick up my shoes, in for heal replacement. Big Russ, the prior owner of the Shoe Repair Store has sold to another owner and his old helper is now in charge. Anyway, got the shoes after having a veggie dish from the Chinese buffet and a side of mixed veggies too. Very good and filling.
    Dinner:Mary and I spent some time musing on the differences between tomato sauce, tomato soup, and tomato stew. I guess it pretty much depends on how thick it is and what is in it. I’m not sure. We started off to making a veggie stir fry including the usual stuff but with brocholli and snap peas. We weren’t sure how to serve this over the linguinni, so ended up with spaghetti, and then added tomato paste and then a little more and the next thing you know, we have spaghetti – with lots of veggies. Regardless, it was all good. Had WW bread and a salad too.

    Breakfast Today: Two bananas. Just ripe enough for me and before Mary threw them out. Or ate them. Sometimes I get lucky.

    Lunch: I actually made a PB&J and prepared a sliced apple but forgot I did that and had lunch with Rob. As I got back in the car, I found my lunch still on the seat. So, it’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Meanwhile, back at Price Chopper, I had the usual salad with mixed veggies and legumes.

    We’ll probably have left-overs tonight. More later. I’m going home.

  • Cool Weather – Warm Hearth

    Mary will be leaving for a couple of months of travel soon. Like next week. It won’t be nearly as much fun in the kitchen without her preparing the veggies.

    OK… where did we leave off? Oh, yeah… with Saturday’s meals.

    Here we go with Sunday’s meals followed by Monday:

    Sunday Breakfast: I had the rest of the tofu scrambler… none the worse on the second day. I did indulge with the ol’ double toast including Welches Jelly all around. Yummy. Lots of coffee. Probably more than I need. I’ll deal with that in the next century.

    Lunch: PB&J. Not even an apple this time around. Mary and I did some shopping in the afternoon attempting to solve the picture frame problem [re: why don’t picture frame sizes match pictures?]. At least one store has frames on 50% off sale, but they were closed. Others had their sale last week. One store had two specific frames on sale but not the others. It was more than I could take. We left with no frames but continue to search for the economical solution. On that note, I thought I’d check on line… and found an excellent source! You can get a 20 x 30 mat (inside) for only like eight bucks! So, why do we go through all this trouble to find a local source? Because the total with the shipping – yes, this is absolutely true – was $96 and change! Geeze! They charge something extra for OVERSIZE. Sure. I’ll get a dozen of those!

    Dinner: Spaghetti. A fairly normal recipe by all standards. Well, not quite. Here is the HOT TIP: Don’t use honey as a sweetener! We (OK, I did) made a few other errors during preparation, but it came out all right in the long run. I added a whole bunch of TVP that was probably unnecessary with the thought it might add a chewy texture, which it did. The initial flavour impact was quite noticable. However, I noticed the initial “brewery” aroma and taste seemed to dissapate as it continued to cook. Even the honey flavour seemed to disappear with time. Upon further reflection, next time around I’ll probably go with a more traditional sauce.

    Breakfast Today: Back in the office. Had a handful of nuts – ok, maybe two. Avoided the doughnuts in the kitchen. They looked like leftovers anyway. Many had coconut. I didn’t have too much trouble! Oh. And I had a few Brach Orange Slices also. I checked for gelatin. None.

    Lunch: I went to Whole Foods for lunch today because it is right next to the bookstore and only about three blocks from work. Had the grilled tofu with some kind of reduced citrus sauce. Very good and filling. Had black beans and whole grain rice on the side. No beverage. Watched people come and go as I ate. Interesting group of shoppers to be sure.

    Dinner Today: Left over lentil stew. Mary did all the cooking this evening while I continued to be obsessed with Photoshop and all its wonders. She did excellent in preparing a broccholi & mushroom dish with roasted pine nuts to go with the left over lentil stew. We nearly consumed the whole thing. WW bread with Earth Balance spread.

    So, readers. There you have it. All up to date on the same day! Can you beat that?

    Casey: Thanks for the comment on my last!