Shopping and Prep

Yesterday was grocery day and time to prep for next 2 weeks of meals. The food for the next two weeks is pictured above.  I finally broke the $200 barrier with the cost being 186.84. Buying a whole butternut squash and dried beans would have lowered the cost, but I like the convenience. I also bought premade Italian bread, English muffins, and a baguette.  I still have quiet a few staple items like olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper spray oil, whole wheat flour, and spices.  I keep thinking that the week will come when I have all that stuff on hand. I did have the dried cranberries, walnuts, and nutritional yeast on hand that I used in making food for yesterday and today.

One of my goals was to start making my own faux meats. First up are meatballs.  I used one pound of the textured soy protein shown above with almond milk soaked Italian bread slices, nutritional yeast, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. For the egg I used  ground flax seed, olive oil, baking powder, and potato starch. I tried to mix everything together with my hands like you would do with regular meatballs, but the soy protein  would not mix well.  I had to use the food processor to incorporate everything.  The result looks very meatball like. I will see how they taste later in the week.  This recipe idea came from an old Bon Appetite magazine for traditional meatballs made with sirloin.

They are a light color, but the recipe I will use calls for chicken meatballs.  My other prep for the week included roasting yellow and red peppers.

And a loaf of whole wheat bread

My other 'meat' attempt is to make a sausage.  I rehydrated 8 oz of Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) and crumbled in 8 oz of flax seed tempeh. I added a small baked potato for texture, sage, salt, pepper, marjoram  and cayenne pepper. I used the immersion blender to reach the right texture. I rolled them to look like bulk sausage.  One  roll went into the freezer for later. I will fry the other one up later in the week.  The idea for sausage came from a Breakfast cookbook I have.  The recipe I looked at used 2 pounds of pork butt.  So, I  improvised a bit.

I have finished up the recipes in the Vegan Kickstart program .  http://www.pcrm.org/health/diets/kickstart/kickstart-programs . 

So from this point on I am finding recipes and ideas from other sources.

Condolences

I want to start out by sending condolences to the family of Richard Twiss.  Richard died yesterday from a heart attack after attending the National Prayer Breakfast in DC. I had met him at Cedar Ridge Community Church and at the Amahoro Conference  in Rwanda in 2008.  He was a tireless advocate for First Nation peoples and a all around good guy that was always smiling.  This world will miss you.

On more trivial matters, lets start with breakfast. I made a Breakfast Burrito on a whole wheat tortilla.  The filling was extra firm tofu and potato sauteed with turmeric to give it that egg look.  I added some spinach, olives, and roasted red peppers and topped with Black Bean Salsa.

Lunch was a leftover Chickpea Patty on a whole wheat tortilla with spring mix, tomatoes, olives and the Maple Balsamic Sauce.  That afternoon I made an Apple Swirl Loaf.  The batter was whole wheat flour and oat bran, maple syrup and almond milk. That was layered with an apple, applesauce, and lemon juice mixture. This one came out good.  It has a coffee cake texture, not quite as sweet and a little heavier because of the whole grains.  If it was made with white flour and more sugar, you probably could not tell that it was vegan.  Personally, I like the heavier whole grains better.

For dinner I had leftover Ratatouille over pasta and a green salad. The salad was spring mix and spinach with tomatoes and olives and the Miso dressing. Tommy is not a fan of eggplant, so I made a batch of Basil Pesto. It is pretty much the same as regular pesto, I just left out the Parmesan cheese and used more nuts. I used walnuts because I was out of pine nuts.  I think they each work equally well. I used roasted garlic and my roasted garlic infused olive oil to give it a richer and creamier taste.

We accented the meal with a very nice Soave. Later in the evening, Tommy made a cookie run at the bakery a few blocks down.  He had a sweet tooth and doesn't like bananas or apples that were in the sweets at the house. I didn't realize how many cookies we used to eat. I rarely cooked them, but there are several places we would grab them from. I don't miss most of them. Having muffins with chocolate in them really helps. I will not be making any fresh recipes for the next 2 days while finishing up the leftovers in the fridge.  I will post again on grocery day.

Baking

Posting a picture of River because she is so cute.  Started with oatmeal for breakfast. I put the dry steel cut oats in the blender and made an oat flour.  This makes the oatmeal cooking much faster.  I went from 40 minutes to 20 minutes.  After I finish up the steel cut oats, I am switching to regular oatmeal (but not instant).  It cooks much faster and is used in baking and veggie burgers.  I mixed in some fresh strawberries, pistachios, and maple syrup.

For lunch we had some Chickpea Patties. They were more moist that burgers and could be spread on a baking pan and roasted/broiled.  The patties were made with sauteed onions and celery, chickpeas, roasted garlic, ketchup, soy sauce, capers and brown rice that were pureed with and immersion blender.  I served them on a flour tortilla with spring mix, grape tomatoes, black olives and a Maple Balsamic Sauce.  The sauce was a mix of maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and tamari heated with some arrowroot to thicken it.

For snack time I made was Banana Chocolate Muffins. These were better than the ones I made at the beginning of January.  Those were way to dry, these were a little to moist which can be corrected with more flour. I used whole wheat pastry flour, oat bran, and rice flour for the dough.  Pureed bananas, maple syrup, and almond milk were the wet part.  After everything was mixed together, I added two ounces of Scharffen Berger unsweetened dark chocolate.  I beat it with a kitchen mallet to make chunks.  There was enough sweetness in the muffins to make up for the absence of sugar in the chocolate.  Dark chocolate is okay for vegans, but no milk chocolate.

Dinner was leftover Pumpkin Tomato Soup, Lettuce Rolls, and Braised Eggplant.
For those who may be wondering about vegans and bread, most basic yeast breads are dairy and egg free.  You should check the label on mass produced commercial bread, but baguettes, whole wheat bread, pitas, bagels (except egg bagels), naan, ciabatta, and multi grain breads should be fine.  Butter and milk are in the feathery type breads like croissants, brioche and challah.  Non yeast loaf breads, muffins, cakes, and cookies have dairy and eggs.

Back on Schedule

Finally back to living and eating on a normal schedule.  I am also cooking regular meals again.  At breakfast I had a Mango Strawberry Smoothie with some soy sausage.

I am not a big fan of faux meats, but thought I would give this one a try. The spices were very sausage like but the texture was not good at all.  The taste was okay.  After I had grilled one, looked at the ingredient list and noticed that egg whites were in it.  I should have done that at the store. Oops.  I am still going to eat them, but I will need to be more careful about pre-made foods. At some point I will try to make my own sausage using bulgur wheat.

Not Vegan!

Lunch was soup, salad and dessert.  For the salad, I added leftover Carrot Halwa and Watermelon Salsa over mixed greens and snap peas.  The soup was a leftover Chickpea Sweet Potato Soup with last nights Cran Apple Quinoa mixed in.  For dessert I baked a pear filled with raisins and sprinkled with cardamon.

Lettuce Wraps filled with tofu, shiitake mushrooms, onion and carrot were an appetizer. Leftover Ratatouille and spaghetti were the main course. Pistachios and garlic bread were snacks during the day.

Super Bowl

The last few days have been busy and exciting.  I have not written everything that I have eaten down. But there are some highlights to show. I started Super Bowl Sunday off in purple style - A blueberry smoothie and a purple poppy seed bagel from THB in Canton.

We  snacked on leftovers for lunch while I was cooking for the big game.  I made some Watermelon Salsa with Chili Lime tortilla chips for snacking.  We have really developed a taste for the homemade roasted chips. The big dish was Grilled Ratatouille with angel hair pasta.  I sampled several pasta salads at the party.The only mistake I made was one with a pesto dressing. Pesto traditionally has Parmesan cheese.  There were plenty of chips, nuts and sparkling wine to go around.

Monday and Tuesday were leftover days with oatmeal and fruit at breakfast and pasta dishes for lunch and dinner.Tuesday was the Super Bowl victory celebration and I walked to the stadium.  Lunch was at 3:00 and   very light. Tuesday night we went out to Cinghiale for dinner. Cinghiale is Italian for wild boar and the restaurant     has a heavy meat and pasta emphasis. All of the regular pastas are made with eggs.e They have a gluten free vegan spaghetti that I ordered and they made a mushroom marinara to go with it. I ordered the beet salad off    the menu. I thought the Parsnip and Cannellini Soup would be safe, but it was made with chicken stock.  For dessert I had a Strawberry Red Wine Sorbet.

Today at breakfast I had some left over farina topped with fresh blueberries.  Lunch was the last of the Vegetable Lo Mein.  At dinner  I made Black Bean Burgers served on the carrot rolls with carrots, lettuce and cucumber toppings. The burgers were made from black beans, onion, cilantro, roasted garlic, and bread crumbs.  On the side was a Cran-Apple Quinoa.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get back into a more regular schedule of eating.

Brunch

We started the day with a birthday brunch for a friend and Teavolve.  You know you go a place a lot when the hosts asks 'how are the kids' and you know he is talking about the dogs.  When the weather permits they have outdoor seating and we will bring the dogs with us for brunch.  Today we were inside.  We got there early and sat down for some coffee and tea.  Assam is my favorite black tea.  I don't drink caffeine very often and when I do it is in small quantities.  But I had a headache this morning and opted for the blood vessel shrinking quality of caffeine.  It did make the headache go away, but I had the most intense caffeine buzz ever.  Teavolve makes the best red sangria in Baltimore.  That helped push the buzz down.  We started out sharing a hummus plate that included olives, roasted peppers and pita.  For the main course I had a White Bean Soup and a Vegetable Pannini.

Dinner had an Asian flair. We started with a Mixed Green Salad with a Miso Dressing.  The salad included greens, red cabbage, carrot and cucumber. I also made a Vegetable Lo Mein.  The udon noodles were topped with marinated tofu and the vegetable stir fry of broccoli, snow peas, celery, red pepper, ginger and garlic.  The sauce was made with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, vegetable broth, chili puree, arrowroot, sea salt, and pepper.

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl!!!

Thanks

First, I would to give a shout out to my significant other Tommy.  He is being great during this transition.  Admittedly, I am putting cheese on his veggie burgers and tonight he had turkey sausage in his soup.  Still, I am getting a lot of support from his and that has been great.  It has been fun working with new recipes and ideas for meals. Tonight was tough because be brought home some awesome chocolate chip cookies that were made with butter and eggs.  I have had them and they are great.  Not eating any may be good for my calorie count, but my tongue says 'gimme.'

Breakfast was some of the leftover Fig Oatmeal that I microwaved before heading out to the gym.  For lunch, I grilled the Chickpea Veggie Burgers that I made on Monday.  The burgers were on the Carrot Rolls with caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, mustard, and ketchup.

During the afternoon I roasted some zucchini chips and made a big batch of basic salsa using tomato, onion, jalapeno, cilantro and lime juice. The chips were good, but they did not roast like potatoes.  The chips did not dry out until they turned a burnt brown.  The ones that were yellow still had a wet consistency.  I also made a fresh batch of stock for soup.  I use stock for rice, couscous, and soup even when the recipe calls for plain water.  It is nice to add a little veggie flavor to the dish. I also prepared a bottle of thyme infused olive oil.  I always keep some flavor oil on had.  Usually I have one bottle that I am using while the other bottle is soaking up the flavors.  My current oil is a roasted garlic oil.  Oils take about a week to infuse the flavors into the oil and the thyme oil will be ready when the roasted garlic oil has been used up.

Dinner was a Curried Sweet Potato, Chickpea and Spinach Soup  with a salad made with greens, leftover carrot halwa, mango salsa and tomatoes. I used some peasant bread to soak up the broth.