Day 302 Bloodless Mary

Bloodless Mary

This is a fresh alternative to a Bloody Mary.  By making your own Vegetable Juice, you skip all the sugar and artificial ingredients in a V8 style juice.  The color is not as pretty, but it is much more natural.

Vegetable Juice

2 Tomatoes
2 Carrots, peeled
1 Head Romaine
1 Bunch Parsley
2 Cups Parsley
1 Bunch Celery
2 Heads Baby Bok Choy

Cocktail

12 Ounces Vegetable Juice
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
1 Teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce (Day 297)
1/4  Teaspoon Horseradish Sauce
2 -3 Drops Hot Sauce
1/4 Cup Vodka

vegetable juice

Veggies for the juice

1.  For the juice, run all of the juice ingredients through a juicer.  This will make more juice that you need for the drink.

Cocktail mix

2.  For the cocktail, mix all the ingredients except vodka in a glass dish.  Microwave on high for 3 minutes.  Mix well, let cool.  Serve over ice with vodka.  Makes 2 drinks.

Soundtrack The Music is You - Various Artists

Day 204 After Dinner Juice

After Dinner Juice

1/4 Head Red Cabbage
3 Apples, cored
1 Inch Piece Ginger

Run all ingredients through a juicer.  Cool before drinking  or add ice.

Soundtrack Coldplay - A Head Full of Dreams

Friday Night Musings

Kale apple

Carrot cucumber

I have returned to making some more juices.  The one on the left is a mix of carrot, cucumber, broccoli, lemon and ginger.  I put a little too much ginger in it and it was a bit too spicy.  The one on the right is a mix of kale, apple, cucumber, lemon, beet and ginger.  This is an excellent tasting juice.

Butternut Bisque

Fall is a great time to start making soups again.  This one is a blend of butternut squash, apple, and onion with some nutmeg to spice it up.

Cheesy bread

Making soup and bread has helped to keep the house warm as the temps drop.  No need for the heat yet, it is still 70 degrees in the house even though it is 43 outside. The bread uses a mock cheddar cheese and is spiced with onion and garlic powders. I used the egg substitute of flaxseed, baking powder, potato starch, corn oil and water and flax milk for the milk product.  I used the bread to make a vegan BLT for breakfast today using bacon spiced tempeh.

Chocolate balls

We can't forget dessert.  This is a raw sweet made with dates, cashews, coconut, cocoa powder and tahini.  The ingredients were minced in the food processor and then rolled and chilled.  I think they would have been better with peanut or almond butter in place of the tahini, but otherwise they were a nice sweet.

More soup

Fresh pineapple juice and pulp

I  put the juicer back in action today.  I made a batch of pineapple juice and kept the pulp for breakfast.  Juicing creates a lot of pulp and it is a waste to just throw it away.  I try to use it in soups, smoothies, stocks or with breakfast grains.   Today I added it to the oatmeal while it was cooking.  The water rehydrates it and it makes make a nice dish

Pineapple oatmeal

At lunch I had the last bit of some vegetable soup I had made earlier.  This one had a tomato base and was filled with potatoes, onions, carrot, and  corn.    The bread was from an earlier meal.  Since I only had about a cup, I added some of the mung beans I cooked earlier.

Vegetable soup

To round out the meal, I had a salad.  The based was spring mix with artichoke hearts, walnuts, alfalfa sprouts, avocado, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pepitas and pecans.  I used the dill dressing with it.

salad

Dinner was easy.  I just combined the brown rice and the veggie mix that were made the day before.  I added some of the sundried tomato pesto for flavor.

rice and veggies

On the side was a small salad of spinach, broccoli and sweet potato with the dill dressing.

The last dish I made yesterday was a Carrot Ginger Soup.  I sauteed some shallots then added vegetable stock, carrots and ginger.  When everything was soft I added some silken  tofu, dill, salt and pepper.  I had a little cup at bedtime before putting the rest of the soup away.

Carrot ginger soup

Addicted to Results 5/24

Fitting into the skirt for the first time

Workout - 30 minute treadmill run/walk
30 interval circuit
Kettlebells

Breakfast - Juice made from oranges, tomatoes, limes and cherries.

Lunch - Mushroom Tofu Burger with tahini sauce, lettuce, tomato, and salsa on a sourdough olive roll

Dinner - Spaghetti with tomato sauce and meatless balls.
Split a bottle of 2011 Chambolle Musigny

I am in leftover mode for the next few days.

Addicted to Results 5/9

River

Workout - 30 minutes bike
1 hour Personal Training
Kettlebells

Juice

Breakfast - Tomato, Orange, Lime juice - cranked up the juice machine again.

Fajita

Lunch - Fajitas - Tempeh, onion, and carrot sauteed in tamari, chili powder and cumin.  Whole wheat tortilla as the the base, some tofu mayo was spread on it, then  topped with lettuce, the tempeh mix, tomato, and mango salsa.
Banana Snack Cake.

Snack - Applesauce with sunflower seeds

Dinner - Chili Macaroni
3 slices of a TVP sausage with some homemade ketchup
Salad - mixed greens, carrots, walnuts and pesto dressing.

Addicted to Results 4/16

Raspberry Orange Juice

Workout - 1 hour walk
TRX - Jacki focused on the upper body so now I can hurt all over.

Faux Sausage

Breakfast - Raspberry Orange Juice, just the 2 juices made with the juicer

Slow cooker Porridge

Slow Cooker Porridge-  This is a mix of brown rice, dried coconut, raisins, and wheat berries seasoned with some cinnamon.  The fruit and grains are added to a crock pot with some water at bed time, then there is a hot creamy porridge ready in the morning.

Cooked 'sausage' patties

2 'Sausage' slices - I made some faux sausage using Tempeh and a ground meat like prepared TVP.  I like the flavors better when I used a dehydrated TVP, but the texture was much better.  I did not have to add baked potato to hold it together.  These version was more peppery, using ground black and white peppercorns.

Whole What Sourdough Bread ready to rise

Lunch - Gazpacho reheated from leftovers in the freezer.

Finished loaf

Faux Grilled Cheese on Whole Wheat Bread.  I made a sourdough whole wheat bread using my starter, whole wheat flour, water, and a little salt.  I never thought I would be making bread without a recipe, but I have learned to eyeball the right amount of water and flour for a basic loaf of bread.  I added a little yeast to speed up the rising time.

Homemade Ketchup

The bread was topped with a sauce made from nutritional yeast, whole wheat flour, lemon juice, tahini, ketchup, cornstarch and spices.  The nutritional yeast is another of those complete protein options for vegans.  Tahini is a sesame paste with the same consistency as peanut butter.  It is often used in hummus.

Add caption

The sauce was added to the bread and then grilled.  It had a nice creamy texture and the nutritional yeast gives it a nutty taste.  No one would mistake this for real cheese, but it tastes much better than the fake cheeses that I have tried

Grilling the sandwich

The ketchup was home made.  It uses a puree of roasted red peppers and onions that is added to the tomato  sauce and spices.  The mix simmers for an hour and is thick and tasty.  Not the overly sweet stuff most people use.

Grilled sandwich

Dinner - Mushroom Stroganoff over brown rice pasta.  The sauce is a mix of cornstarch, tamari, vegetable broth, garlic powder, and tahini.  Two onions, garlic, and mushrooms are sauteed in olive oil  with crumbled seitan.  Then the sauce is added and the mix is simmered until creamy.  I made this 6 years ago (I date stamp my recipes) and it is excellent.

Brown Rice Pasta

Sesame Broccoli - a simple saute of broccoli and red pepper with sesame seeds and sesame oil

Snack - Chocolate Bonbon.  Not as rich as your typical bonbon, but definitely chocolaty.  Brown rice syrup, almond butter, cocoa, and canola oil are cooked until melted. Then some vanilla is added.  A couple of brown rice cakes are crumbled into the mix. Once it has cooled, the mix is rolled into balls.  I only ate one!  It reminds you of a dark Nestle Crunch bar.

Chocolate Bonbons

1st Quarter

Before cooking

I have made through the first quarter of the year as a vegan! Yea!!  It has worked pretty well. This past month my only missteps were the almond cheese with casein and the overdose of beet juice.  I am trying different aspects of the lifestyle which meant that least week I had 2 meals of juice a day and one of solid food.  From taste aspect that was very interesting.  I got a much more intense blast of the fruits and veggies.  It definitely did not fulfill by desire to eat and I was much more hungry than usual.  Even with the restricted diet, I only lost one pound during the month.  That part of the juicing experiment is over.  I will still make some juices and they do make a good breakfast.  I will say that during the last week I did have an energy boost.  I do not know if it was from the juicing or a delay in the start of the vegan diet. We shall see as the year progresses.

My breakfast juice was a lovely shade of brown.  It was made from 2 tomatoes, a lime, and arugula. I used an entire container of arugula and it made very little juice. The leftover pulp just looked like chopped arugula. I do not see it as a good veggie for a juice.  The flavor was good, but it seemed like a waste of the greens.

My lunch juice looked very similar. It was made from 4 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, and 6 stalks of celery.   The cucumbers, while not my favorite flavor are good for juicing because of the quantity of juice they make.  the weather was nice today, so I made my juice to go and we took the dogs to Panera to eat outside.

Overall, I would say that juicing is not very cost effective.  Large quantities of fruits and vegetables are used to make a much smaller amount of juice.  Actually eating the plants seems to make more sense.  Also, I needed to make a grocery stop to keep us going for the next 2 weeks.  I will say that this trip figuratively broke the bank.  Mainly because of vitamins. I was out of my B12 and D3 that I normally take every day.  I decided to supplement that with Omega 3 and a multi vitamin.  Buying those at Whole Foods was $100.  Now the Omega 3 lasts for 4 months, the multi and the D are for 3 months, and the B12 is for 2 months.  I also bought some chia seeds that are good supplement for vegans.

What I did get that was more cost effective was dried beans.  I bought some garbanzo and kidney beans from the bulk aisle. I cooked a batch of each so that I would have them for the next few weeks.  Some went into the refrigerator and some into the freezer.

For dinner, I roasted some fennel, red onion, parsnip and carrot in thyme olive oil with salt, pepper, asafoetida, and lemon juice. I like just about any vegetable roasted, that is my favorite preparation.  I  also microwaved some setian and seasoned it with hoisin sauce.

Easter Weekend

Started having juice meals again, this time with vegetables that will not make me sick. Breakfast was a safe and flavorful mix of 2 apples, fennel, and 3 carrots.  It was also one of those rare juices that was not green.

Lunch was a mix of spinach, watercress and 3 carrots. This was a major juice fail. The watercress has an unbelievably strong taste to it.  It is very bitter.  I tried cutting it with sparking water, but it did not help much.  I went through a liter of water and still had not finished the juice. I will not use watercress in a juice again.

Since the weather was nice on Saturday, we decided to take a walk into Fell's Point with the dogs.  We settled in at Bond Street Social  Which has a huge out door seating area.   One of the specialities of the bar are liquid nitrogen martinis.  Liquid Nitrogen is poured on top of the drink which becomes extremely cold and it 'smokes' as it evaporates.  I had the New Fashioned made with Grey Goose Cherry, muddled orange and cherry, bitters and lemonade. Great drink. The food menu is not very vegan friendly.  I had the curry chickpeas which are side and thought that maybe I could mash them into a hummus and spread on some bread.  When I asked if they had baguettes or pita the waitress said "no".  While I was eating the very spicy beans, I saw an order of mussels come out with long slices of toasted baguette.  So much for accommodating your customers.  I would have paid extra for the bread.

After we left, we walked back to Canton and hung out at our favorite water hole, Chesapeake Wine Company.  I had the tapenade and roasted pepper salad with baguette slices.  After the chickpeas, that was enough for my evening meal.  Tommy and I split a bottle of Rose as we sat outside until close to sunset and the temperatures dropped.

For my breakfast juice I made a pineapple, spinach and lime drink. This was much more pleasant tasting.  Today, I ate a brunch and returned to the juice for dinner.  I made a bottle of orange juice and a liter of soda water. We also had a Pouilly Fuisse wine. I made a simple cocktail mixing the three liquids which made a nice light juice cooler.  If only the weather had been nicer for sipping.

I did a Tofu Scramble for the meal that was made with asparagus, chives and nutritional yeast.  It really does look like scrambled eggs.  The turmeric gives it that look.

An Easter brunch is not complete without homemade biscuits.  These were made using Earth Balance and rice milk in place of butter and heavy cream.  They were very light and flaky.  I spread some leftover lemon curd on mine.

Dinner was back to the juice.  Tonight's was made from a head of romaine, kale, a lime, cilantro and 2 apples.  It is sort of weird making juice from lettuce.  However the taste was good, which is the most important thing.  I also found myself more full today by having the food meal during the middle of the day.