Vegan with jam

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  • Home In Time for Tomorrow

    So… I made it home afterall. And not all that late, all considered. All is well, ‘cept that I have to pack for tomorrow’s trip, an activity that will begin very early tomorrow. So, off to bed… Oh, and there were more peanuts on the plane. Oh boy!

  • Airport Dinner Today

    Dinner: I came across a Sbarro’s Pizza here in the Dayton Airport, which on the whole has a reasonable product, though bland to the discerning eater. When I enquired if they had any pizza without cheese, I thought they were going to call airport security. But you should have seen the expression on the young lads face. So, I settled for spaghetti with a light tomato sauce. The lady attendant said there might be some parmesan cheese in it, but I could not see or taste even a trace. Who knows. If there was any cheese near this sauce, it was a fly-by experience. I had this with a lettuce salad with cukes, tomato, and rip-out-of-the-package vinegarette dressing. The meal was filling and on the whole, considering what other options I had, probably the best. One can only eat so many peanuts. I’d rate this an A- for maintaining vegan, and about a B- in terms of nutrition. I won’t bother to give it a rating for taste.

    As it stands now, my flight is a half-hour late leaving for Atlanta. This could be a problem. If I don’t make my connection to Atlanta, then I’m not going to make the New Hamshire flight scheduled to leave just before 10 AM tomorrow AM.

    I think I better check into Delta flight control and figure out what is going on…

    More later…

  • 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!

  • End of First Week

    The first week was a great success. Food bills are substantially less. I’m losing weight. I feel better. It’s just as much fun to cook. I must be healthier, though that will take a little longer to determine for sure. My back doesn’t hurt as much, certainly a result of losing weight. And I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

    Here is what I had yesterday:

    Breakfast: Tofu scramble. I have found it is best to put the tofu in early and then pretty much just let if dry out some. It seems to caramelize a bit, but maybe my color vision is not quite right. At any rate, it is very hard to distinguish this dish, when done right, from scramble egg with veggies added. Oh, and my standard recipe for this is to saute chopped onion and green pepper in a tablespoon of EVOO, to be joined by a half dozen hearty cloves of garlic, seasoned with black pepper and salt. Add the squished up tofu (I squeeze it between my fingers – and it makes a mess) before the garlic burns, and let it cook until sufficiently dry.

    I also had WW toast with Earth Balance spread and Welches Grape Jelly. Coffee of course.

    Lunch: We headed downtown after breakfast and took a bunch of pictures in the art district. Also revisited the WWI Memorial for pictures of the city. Some of them came our very nice. Mary did her exercise walk with her “buddy” and came back as I was finishing up at the Liberty Memorial. We then drove down to the art district, followed by the city market. A pretty full morning. We bought some spices at the market and a few other things.

    Back home for lunch and had a PB&J with an apple. Spent the remainder of the afternoon going over the pictures.

    Dinner: Had the lentil/kale stew. I think Mary has already posted the recipe for this, now one of our favorites.

  • Dissertation on Being Boring & Comments

    First things first. I’ve just discovered to my surprise (I guess discoveries are typically surprises) that anyone can post to this blog. The surprise is that I thought I had set write permissions to only members of the blog. So far, that would be Mary and me… with Casey pending. And the reason I did this is to prevent spammers from posting derogatory remarks, advertisements for performance enhancing drugs, and great deals on mortgages. I have seen this happen on our Rotary Club blog and don’t need that aggravation.

    Now that it is the way it is, I’m going to leave it. Certainly friends and family are welcome to the club and may comment at will. Mary and I enjoy the chatter. However, if we find any spam, I’ll need to make all our friendly commenters members of the blog and restrict access.

    This blog is unpublished and not secret. Meaning that so long as nobody thinks to look under this stone, they’ll continue to walk on by. However, anyone that knows the URL can readily read on and therefore by extension, post at will. So, though it might be fun in some sense to share our experience with a bunch of web-surfers, I’m not sure that would be productive at this point. The message here is to avoid sending the link to the i-am-a-vegan-too list. 🙂

    Boringness: It occurs to me that my diet has been fairly boring. And I don’t mean since the beginning of the year, now only six days old. American Meals typically center on “some kind of meat” dish. And those meats are typically beef, chicken, pork, and fish – in that order. So, just taking the first one on the list, beef ground-up is hamburger – OK, there’s lunch – and sliced up – OK, there’s dinner, and of course adding to the mix various sauces and stacking them in different orders and numbers on a bun between a pickle and leaf of lettuce gives you the complete menu of the Big Mac Factory. End result, pretty boring.

    Now that I think of it, pizza might be the only non-boring food group!

    Of course, here in Kansas City, there are 57 varieties of BBQed meat, even without venturing across the state line, “all the way out of state” from whichever state you’re in… Regardless, how many times can you have BBQ in a week without being boring?

    Now, adding to the mix eggs and cheese: you can fry an egg, scramble an egg, poach an egg, and even make an omelet with an egg and cheese. But an egg is an egg. Boring.

    It occurs to me that what makes the meal interesting is the spice and variation in preparation, largely with those ingredients other than meat, cheese, and eggs. Especially when you don’t use a recipe (!), those meals are different every time. The recipe variation we’ve seen on these pages during these six days has limited immediate evidence of innovation. But the spirit has been energetic and the meals very tasty! We wish you were here to join us!