Living Without Meat

As my juice fast was coming to an on Sunday, my teeth were restless. All I wanted to do was chew something!

My morning started out with a breakfast juice of an orange and a couple of carrots. For my first snack, I made a digestive aid using 4 large carrots, some jicama, and half of a pear.

After these two juices, I was so ready to never see a carrot again, but equally enticed by the recipe that I had picked out for a cold carrot soup for lunch. I juiced a few carrots, then blended it with an avocado and some cumin. It was so creamy and satisfying, but I really wanted a cracker or piece of bread to go along with it. I stayed strong though.

The mocktail for happy hour was fantastic! With the juice of one tomato, half a cucumber, some fresh cilantro, and a chunk of lime, it created a fun version of a Bloody Mary.

Then it was time to drink dinner: a juice blend of apples, spinach, parsley, and lemon that is meant to target the colon’s cleaning needs. I am surprised to say that this was my favorite drink of the day. It was light and refreshing. However, for the first time during the day I felt hungry and headachy. It was the least fulfilling … I may have had a little homemade hummus with carrots and celery at this point.

Drinking so much juice, I wasn’t really thirsty and only finished about one tall glass of water. I did, however, brew a pot of detox tea and sipped it throughout the day.

To round the whole day out, I treated myself to a tropical taste of pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, and ginger juice, blended with a touch of soy milk and some ice cubes.

In the end, it wasn’t a whole day of nothing but juice, but there is no denying that I had a very healthy day, offering my body a replenishment of nutrients.

The movie that I just watched - Charlie Bartlett - was very inspirational. After watching it, I picked up my guitar for the first time this year, and got an early jump on my Sunday juice fast. I made a pink lemonade juice that was amazing!

Into the juicer went: 1/4 organic lemon with the rind on (only okay if it is organic and washed); 2 huge, red delicious apples; and 1/2 thoroughly scrubbed beet.

Yum! I highly recommend it … but I also recommend taking it slow when you pick the guiter back up. My calluses aren’t there anymore and now my fingers are in pain!

***

This, and all, of the juices that I am making during this juice fast were inspired by recipes from the very informative and innovative book The Juice Lady’s Juicing for High-Level Wellness and Vibrant Good Looks by Cherie Calbom, M.S. It’s one of the best resources for both recipes and nutritional explanations.

I wanted to share a picture of my dinner this evening, but the battery on my camera chose this moment to die. Plus, I was excited to begin eating my tasty meal.

Along side a half of a whole wheat pita pocket, toasted with margarine, I had a sauteed veggie medley and tofu crisps.

Into the oiled stir-fry pan went: onion, eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, olives, red pepper, and portabello mushroom. Near the end I added sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, garlic, and Old Bay seasoning. (I grew up in Maryland where crabs run rampant. Yesterday, I passed a crab feast and was thus inspired to use some of the seasoning.)

While letting the seasons stew with the veggies, I began to heat some oil for the tofu. I sliced firm tofu into thin strips, and coated one side with the same four spices as used with the vegetables, plus a light sprinkling of bread crumbs. Into the oil, spice side down, went the tofu strips. Spices were added to the face-up side, then the tofu was flipped.

And that was my delicious meal, replete with healthy, vegan nutrition.

I love colorful meals!

I had premade a mix of cut up red, yellow, and green peppers with rinsed, canned corn and black beans, seasoned with sea salt and fresh garlic. After sitting in my fridge for a day, the juices and flavors of all the ingredients really pulled together.

For this meal, I sauted this corn-bean salad with fresh spinach, cherry tomatoes, onion, salt, pepper, and oil. I ate the stir fry along side a microwaved yam topped with vegan Smart Balance (butter), brown sugar, powdered red pepper, cinnamon, and sea salt.

It was delicious!

For a lunch, I made a bed of uncooked spinach leaves, romaine lettuce, and whole wheat pasta, put a blop of the corn and bean salad in the middle, and layered cucumber slices around the edge.

Blech! I am more and more disgusted with big business foodstuffs with every label I read. For instance, I could find but one brand of bread this weekend at ACME that didn’t feature high fructose corn syrup. Every whole wheat, multi-grain, or plain loaf had this nasty, falsified sugar in its first few ingredients.

Another place that high fructose corn syrup runs rampant? Sparkling waters. So why not make your own?

Jeffrey Morgenthaler - a wine and spirits, bartending writer - provided a doable step-by-step of “How to Make Your Own Tonic Water.”

As for bread, sprouted loaves were the only one that I found to be sugary chemical free. But don’t be wimp - try making your own bread, too. My friend Kelly has started making it regularly, and she’s got three kids under 6 and co-runs her own law firm. So if she can find the time …

Looking for some more recipe and meal ideas? Over at Allie’s (Green) Answers you can find a regularly scheduled, weekly meal inspiration through Allie’s Meat-Free Mondays. Full-time vegetarian or not, Allie doesn’t consider a meat-free meal to be two side dishes: a veggie and a starch. She dives head first into trying tofu, quinoa, and fresh organic seasonal crops.

“The affected product may contain small pieces of hard plastic.”

That’s the reason Fairbank Farms is issuing a voluntary recall on their ground beef products.

Price Chopper, Shaw’s, BJ’s, Wilson Farms retail outlets, and C&S Wholesale distributor all received potentially contaminated meat.

So many thoughts… I’ll make a list:

1. Why does hunks of plastic in a food product not return a full recall, but only voluntary?

2. I suppose plastic falling into the grinder is better than entire sick horses. Yup - the imagined “glue factory” for sick horses is often actually “the beef industry.”

3. You’d think an apology or explanation would be issued as well. Leaving consumers to speculate on their own might lead to searching for answers on the Internet, which might in turn lead to meat eaters finding sites like this one, clicking on the picture to order their free vegan recipe book, and ultimately becoming vegetarian. Oh, I can dream.

Hopefully, you know you’re safe because you don’t purchase ground beef. But if you did, and would like more information on the Fairbank Farms beef recall including which “sell by” dates were effected, read the press release.

It was my birthday Friday and, as planned, I went home to mommy and daddy’s house to be spoiled with gourmet (a la daddy-o) vegan food. Here’s how the shish kebabs turned out.

Mmmm … soy sauce and honey marinated and breaded tofu, zucchini, onion, pineapple, red and yellow peppers, potatoes, portabello mushroom caps, carrots, celery … am I missing anything? Garlic and spray olive oil were surely incuded as well.

With tomorrow being my birthday (26!), I am headed home for the weekend to celebrate with my family. It was a tradition growing up that you got to choose the meal on your birthday, so that’s what I did this year.

As a child, I chose one of the same two dishes every year: scalloped potatoes topped with ham, or shish kebabs featuring peppers, onions, pineapple … and some meat.

So this year things are not to be quite the same as childhood birthdays; it will be better!

I am one of the lucky vegetarians whose family not only supports my diet, but goes to lengths to make sure that I have something to eat - be it with a home-cooked dinner or out at the restaurant.

For lunch on Saturday, my sister and her crew (niece and nephew time!) are bringing up a vegan cake. For our meal, Dad is fixing up some vegan kebabs - complete with the peppers, onions, and pineapple of my youth, but now also including tofu, potatoes, squash, and more.

Remember that I’m lucky … because Dad is also cooking up a yummy vegan dinner consisting of spaghetti, fresh veggies, and a sauce (to be determined based on what Dad sees that looks good, because my family doesn’t do recipes … except my sister, but she’s weird like that). I’m also psyched about having vegan crab cake appetizers from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, the follow-up recipe-filled book to my current commute read Skinny Bitch.

Going home also means stocking up at my mom’s local co-op: Newark Natural Foods, a.k.a. the Newark Co-op.

It will be a good birthday weekend!

I made a delicious whole wheat vegan pizza last month that I was so excited about.

Now, I come to find out that it wasn’t vegan.

I paid extra care when choosing my faux cheese, knowing that that is a common place to find whey casein (derived from milk). I used only the best, fresh, local, organic produce. I sprinkled TVP crumbles flavored with nothing from an animal.

But I didn’t thoroughly examine my Boboli whole wheat, pre-made crust: it was apparently baked with cheese sprinkled all over it. I had been so excited about the great sale (2 for $6) that I only scanned the nutritional info.

Just like Silk soymilk, Boboli’s Web site provides only nutritional information, and not lists of ingredients, for each of their products. (The site does however have a suggestion form on their front page …)

I only found reference to the cheese in their FAQ section:

What is that brown stuff on top of my BOBOLI?

That “brown stuff” is something we’re very proud of. It’s our delicious, oven-baked mozzarella cheese, one of the ingredients that gives BOBOLI its hearty flavor. Now that you know, perhaps you’ll think of it as “great stuff.”

This I find quite stinky. I do not want to make dough and my own crust whenever I want a vegan pizza pie. And I don’t want to order a tomato pie.

Anyone know of any vegan pre-made pizza crusts?

Top Chef had me on an veg*n emotional roller coaster last night!

After praising the Bravo! TV cooking contest for having a winning vegan dish a few weeks back, and pointing out that there has never been even a mention of tofu, I stand to edit my statement.

The newest episode, which aired April 23, had a tofu challenge.

Contestants were given their assignments based upon an audience participation portion of an improv show at Second City. Each pair of chefs was given a color, an ingredient, and an emotion.

Dale (who made the aforementioned vegan dish) and Richard were given the challenge of making a dish that represented “green,” “perplexed,” and … “TOFU!”

I was ecstatic; I sang: “They’re gonna cook me some tofu, they’re gonna cook me some tofu …”

First step of this - which would become the winner - dish? Render cow fat on a grill so that when the tofu is grilled it picks up the cow fat’s flavor.

Stunned. Frozen, then, as Gossip Girl would say: “OMFG!”

The judges praised their ingenuity. They worshiped the tofu for it’s beef-like flavor. They awarded this dish the winner, because they “would have been so angry” if they had had to cook tofu in a challenge like this.

I wanted to barf. I wanted to swear at the TV: “No sh*t it tastes like a steak, you freakin’ all but sewed it to a strip of animal fat!”

But, alas, Top Chef did finally have tofu on it. They gave me what I asked for … unfortunately, it came with a side of rendered cow fat.

I would now like to direct Dale, Richard, and all Top Chef people to Tofu Today, an entire site dedicated to loving tofu with recipes, history, how to make your own, tofu references in the news (including this episode of Top Chef), and so much more …. because (are you listening Tom Colicchio?) there are infinite numbers of people who do not cry when they are “forced” to cook with tofu.

Any hummus is delightful, really, but the satisfaction that comes when you make a truly delectable hummus from scratch is above and beyond anything else.

Here’s what went into the blender last night:

* 1/2 a can of chickpeas, rinsed
* 1/2 a can of kidney beans, rinsed
* 2-inch thick slice of soft tofu
* 2-3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
* 1/4 cup of water
* Sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper, and garlic powder

Here’s how lunch was served today:

* Two big spoon plops worth of deliciousness (a.k.a. the homemade hummus)
* 1 carrot, slicified
* 1 toasted, whole wheat pita pocket, sliced like pizza pie
* 1 celery stalk, cut length-wise only for maximum scooping
* 1/2 a green pepper, sliced but with a natural scooper created from the top curve of the pepper

It was heaven!

I fear that, in order to tell you about what had me jumping with glee on the couch this evening, I must first admit that I love watching the least vegetarian-friendly show ever: Top Chef.

I understand that the cooking business calls meat protein, but everytime a Top Chef challenge lays out tables of animal meat and refers to it as “the protein” - never a bean, soy product, or other such protein in sight - the myth that vegetarians cannot get sufficient protein is perpetuated. But still, I watch the cooks battle it out in the kitchen each week.

Two weeks ago, the “Zoo Food” episode brought what I thought would be an inspirational challenge, breaking the vegetarian barrier. Teams of the competing chefs were assigned an animal - bear, gorilla, penguin, vulture, or lion - and had to pay homage to their creature’s natural diet for a zookeepers’ cocktail party. But even though they had a veggie-loving beast, team gorilla added meat. Boo.

Tonight, however, a vegan dish won the quickfire challenge, earning the meal’s creator Dale immunity. It was a vegan take on sushi; it was beautiful. He used shaved cucumbers as a wrap and delicately cut veggies for a filling, and won me - and the judges - over.

So stay tuned for the recipe … and watch Top Chef to cheer on Dale!

To be fair, I just noticed that both Richard and Ryan made vegetarian tacos last week during the quickfire challenge. Richard’s won; Ryan’s were in the bottom. Richard’s are seen here in the first picture; Ryan’s in the second. Click on either picture to go to that taco’s recipes.

Giant food stores are really doing a fantastic job of providing consumers with organic, vegan, gluten-free, healthy … options.

Recently, I was tipped off by a friend to a good sale at Giant on frozen vegetarian meals. So I went. But I ended up finding an even better sale: all Boboli pizza crusts were two for $6. All of them. A pack of two minis, a regular crust, or even a whole wheat one which is usually $1.50 more than the plain version.

Here’s what I did with my find:

Vegan Whole Wheat Pizza

* Spread some canned tomato sauce on the crust. Add oregano, sea salt, pepper, and garlic to the sauce to make it taste more like pizza sauce.

* Sprinkle with vegan cheese. I used some soy, shredded mozzarella flavored, and slices of some local made cheddar-flavored, tofu-based cheese that comes in a cube.

* As the oven is pre-heating to about 400 degrees, I tossed the cheese-only pizza in to start warming up. On top of the stove, I sauted some onions, crumbled beef-style TVP, and small pieces of broccoli.

* Once the broccoli is cooked, spread the toppings on the pizza’s slightly warm cheese layer. Sprinkle with spices and herbs of choice, and cook for about 20 mins.

* Enjoy!

UPDATE: All Boboli crusts actually contain cheese already in them, making this pizza not vegan.