Faux Snow Day

One of the new items I am trying is Oat Milk, which really is not a milk.  It is packaged as an oat non-dairy beverage.  I found a recipe online to make your own that does not seem to hard to make.  At some point in the future I may try that. I am amazed at the large variety of milks that are available.  Soy and almond are the most common, but you can also get flax, hemp, walnut, rice, and oat.  For breakfast today, I made a smoothie using the oatmilk, frozen strawberries, cranberry juice and soy protein powder.

Lunch was a salad made with spinach, carrots, croutons, sugar snap peas, nutritional yeast, dried apple, olives, tomatoes,   and the cranberry viniagrette. A rice cake spread with peanut butter completed the meal.

We are moving into leftover mode now.  For dinner we some quinoa and brown rice with spinach.  I added a faux sausage and some onion gravy to complete the meal.

A rose champagne makes any meal special.  I will not be posting for a few days because the meals are repeats.  Monday will be grocery day.

Dessert Success

Resting dogs

I started the day with a Fruit Salad and some of the Orange Oatmeal Coffee Cake. The salad was made with peaches, blueberries, pear and cashew nuts. These fruits have so much more flavor than the melon mixes that most restaurants use.  I spread some peanut butter and apple jelly on the slices of coffee cake.  Once fresh fruit season comes around, I hope to make some fruit preserves.

Lunch was a salad and an Olive Bread Roll spread with Hummus.  The salad was made with spinach as the greens with some black olives, cherries, and sugar snap peas. I used the Cranberry Vinaigrette to dress it. The bread and hummus were the ones I made earlier in the week.

Dinner was my version of a Blue  Plate Special of meat, potatoes and a vegetable.  For the 'meat' I tried a new variety of faux sausage. This one was made from soy protein and had a much better consistency than the last one I bought.  I was able to grill it along side Tommy's chicken sausage.  It was spicy.  The heat was a bit more intense than I like. It was probably just right for most people.

I finally used the rest of the butter on the Onion Gravy and Mashed Potatoes.  From this point on I will be using Earth Balance.  For the gravy, onions were cooked in butter then I added whole wheat flour as a thickening agent.  That cooked for a minute then I slowly  added vegetable stock until it reached a gravy thickness.  The potatoes were boiled and hand mashed with butter and oat milk.  For the vegetable, I sauteed collard greens, broccoli, green beans, and sugar snap peas in vegetable stock.

For dessert we had some Lemon Tarts.  This was a big time success.  I adapted a recipe from an old Bon Appetite magazine.  I started sugar, corn starch and water. After that started to simmer, I added a mix of silken tofu and lemon juice.  The original recipe called for 8 egg yolks that were beaten.  I used almost a cup of tofu and beat it with the lemon juice. Some lemon zest was added and the mixture cooked until it boiled. That was removed from the heat and half a stick of Earth Balance was added in.  The curd was transferred to the refrigerator to cool down.  The crust for the tarts was a basic vegetable shortening crust with no adaptions necessary.  Once everything was cool,  the lemon curd was spooned into the crust.  The curd was nice and thick and would accommodate fresh fruit as decoration. We just ate them plain.  This came out prefect. I had extra curd leftover that I can use as a dressing for a fruit salad.

Date Day

Monday was a date day for Tommy and I. We started out with breakfast at Lamill Coffee in the Four Seasons.  They have a great selection of coffee and teas.  The vegan food selection is very limited. I had a fruit cup that was cantaloupe, honeydew, and pineapple.  That was it for the menu.  They serve an English Muffin sandwich with egg, so I asked for a plain toasted English muffin with some jam. It is the Four Seasons, they will accommodate you.  We should have gone to Wit and Wisdom because they have a few more options according to the website such as oatmeal (as long as it is not made with milk) and bagels.

For lunch we went to one of my favs, Sticky Rice in Fell's Point.  This is one of the few places I can go and have multiples choices on the the menu.  For an appetizer we split the Fried Teriyaki Mushrooms.  The mushrooms were marinated in a teriyaki sauce and lightly tempura fried with a Sweet and Sour Sauce for dipping. For the main course I had the Dirty Vegan.  This was tofu and buckwheat noodles tossed with a peanut coconut sauce and broccoli, peppers, and onions.

During the late afternoon we went horseback riding at Happy on Hooves.  This was a beginners trail ride for an hour.  This is only the 3rd time I have been on a horse.  My horse, Sadie, was likes to lag behind the group then sprint to catch up.  Oh wonderful.  I get the horse whose ideal rider is adventurous.  I guess I am,   Sadie and I did fine.  The faster trots were fun and by the end I was able to stop her from doing that.

Dinner was the same as last night - salad and pasta with marinara sauce.  No chocolate bar. Before dinner I had some Basignani Merlot.  It was okay, but a bit green on the end.

During the afternoon we found out that Tommy's Uncle Pat died in Mississippi.  He was medical doctor that had practiced in Macon, MS until we was 70.  Pat was 86.  Our thoughts are with the family.

Regular Food

This day was a 'let's eat real food vegan style' day.  Pancakes, burgers and fries, pasta and marina sauce were the foods of the day.  For breakfast I made Walnut Pancakes with Maple Syrup. The batter was a mix of whole wheat and rice flours with arrowroot as a binder in place of the egg. These were really good pancakes and you would not know they were 'vegan'.  The taste and texture were the same as traditional pancakes.  Much butter than the earlier versions I tried.  I had a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice to go with the meal.

Lunch was a a Chipolte Black Bean with fires.  The burger was made with onions and black beans and whole wheat bread crumbs.  It used a lot more bread crumb filler than the burgers I have previously made.  As a result, it was much more bread like and the texture was more crumbly.  It would not hold together well enough for me to use the grill, I had to use a grill pan instead.The fries were roasted in the oven with salt, pepper and garlic powder for flavor.

Dinner was a Spelt Spaghetti with a Marinara Sauce.  The sauce was made with onions, tomatoes, parsley and the last log of my faux sausage made with textured vegetable protein.  

We had a salad of mixed greens, pepitas and raisins with the cranberry dressing I made from the vegan mayonnaise with cranberry juice.  The mayonnaise thickened up in the refrigerator and has the texture of Miracle Whip.

Dark chocolate is okay for vegans, so had this bar made with panko bread crumbs and sea salt for dessert.

A nice wine always makes the meal better.

Tommy definitely appreciated a day of regular food instead of the veggie mixes.

Veggie Mixes

Doggie cuteness

I made a quick breakfast before going to the gym yesterday morning.  Some mango and blueberries with a Cliff fruit and nut bar.  The Cliff bar was made from dates and almonds.

I have been using a lot of different mixes of vegetables over grains for my meals this week.  For lunch I had whole wheat bowtie pasta with Ratatouille.  The Ratatouille was a blend of eggplant, onion, tomatoes, garlic, celery and parsley. I prefer the version I made for the Super Bowl party in which the veggies were roasted in the oven.  This was an easy saute in the skillet. Tasty, but not as complex as the roasted version.

For dinner,  I baked a batch of Kale Chips seasoned with garlic and onion powder. Kale  is one of those great superfoods that is full of calcium, Vitamin C and Potassium. It even has some protein.  It grows very well in cold weather so it is fresh and local most of the year.

The kale accompanied another veggie mix.  This one had onion, snap peas, carrot, tomatoes, celery and spinach sauteed in a rice vinegar and hoisin sauce.  It was served over brown rice.

Return of the Green Smoothie

I started the day off with another green smoothie.  This one was made with kale, almond milk, ground flaxseed, dried apple, banana, and frozen peaches.  The peaches were the dominate taste and gave the drink a milkshake like texture.  I have ordered a new blade and gasket for my blender.  The leaking is getting very annoying. It is fun to drink the smoothies from the large burgundy glasses.

For lunch I made a Quinoa Salad using the leftover quinoa from several nights ago.  I added in grape tomatoes, 5 spice dried tofu, parsley and the last of my balsamic vinaigrette. The dried tofu is a super firm version that has most of the water pressed out, but is still soft.

Dinner was a simple mix of brown rice, steamed broccoli, and avocado with plum vinegar and sesame seeds.

In the evening I made some loafs and rolls of Olive Bread. The dough was a mix of white and whole wheat flours.  The bread was really good with some hummus spread over it.  This recipe made a lot of bread.  I kept about half for now and the frozen the other half.

Two Months

I can now say that I have eaten Vegan for 2 months.  I only had a few hiccups. Mainly not thinking about the broth a soup was in or realizing something was cooked in butter instead of olive oil. I have used butter in a few breads because I want to use what I already had on hand. I still have 2 sticks.  I just don't use butter or a substitute that often.  I lost three more pounds this month which is nice since I am not on a 'diet' or counting    calories. I just counted calories and grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fat the first week. I wanted to make sure I had the right balance of everything and it gave me a picture of what should be on my plate.  

My breakfast was an Almond Butter Banana Sandwich.  The almond butter is the fresh ground in the DIY machine at Whole Foods.  It is very good, but pricey - not for the budget conscious.  I made the bread.

For lunch I sauteed a variety of mushrooms with leftover grilled eggplant and baked tofu.  This was served over white rice.  I am really happy with the use of leftovers in new dishes.  I have greatly reduced food waste.  Now, does anyone have a suggestion for making alfalfa or clover sprouts last longer. These usually go bad in less than a week when I have only used a quarter or half of the package.  This is not very practical when you only go to the grocery every two weeks.

At dinner I had a type of grain porridge.  I cooked a mix of black rice, barley, steel cut oats, urad beans and a large Indian food bean (can't remember the name of them) in veggie stock.  I seasoned it with sage and curry.  For the vegetables, I roasted brussel sprouts, broccoli, and potatoes in roasted garlic olive oil. I finished the oil and added the whole garlic cloves to the pan. I seasoned it with garam marsala and basil.

I mixed up a Biga Pugliese or starter from Puglia to start fermenting for some breads in the future. The picture was right after mixing and before any rising.