Vegg Salad

One thing I've figured out quickly on a plant-based diet is that minimizing processed food is not only good for you, it is actually cheaper. I had my month or so with buying up fake cheese and fake frozen meats, only to realize that these manufactured substitutes are more expensive than the product they purport to be, and that they represent the processed food that I've tried so hard to stay away from. The idea behind "vibrant health" (as Morris Hicks calls it in his audio book that I'm currently enjoying, "Healthy Eating, Healthy Planet") isn't simply to eliminate meat - though many people make this choice for ethical reasons alone and subsist on Diet Coke and Fritos - but to eat whole foods (plants). The third point about manufactured vegan products (behind cost and less than optimal health benefit) is that a lot of it tastes like cow puckey.

For example, one of my first attempts was aimed at "fooling" Chris. In my mind, I would present the husband with a vegan lasagna roll, made with lots of gooey, store-bought vegan cheese. He would be amazed at the finished result, exclaiming, "I defy anyone to tell me that this isn't cheese!" He would be whole-heartedly won over to the vegan lifestyle! And then it came out of the oven! And look at it! Doesn't it look delicious?

What I got from Chris, instead, was the statement, "It tastes funky." Well, he was right. It wasn't all-out disgusting, just... Strange. The texture was close. The taste was even close. But it wasn't cheese. I decided to stop trying so hard to make things taste like meat or dairy. Because they aren't. Therefore, they are destined to fail. (And, Chris is no longer allowed to say things, like, "Well, it's good, but it doesn't taste like beef." No, it tastes like seitan. Which is tasty in its own right, if you give it a chance...)

So now, when I make lasagna rolls or pizza, I use some home-made "parmezano sprinkles," (though I like to use raw cashews in my mix) which have a delicious salty, nutty flavor and actually thicken pasta or sauce the way parmesan does - but I don't use a lot. I use tiny amounts of the fake cheese, but only a small amount, in combination with other ingredients. Then they are a reasonable stand-in, adding a little necessary creaminess or binding. But in place of an inch-deep layer of cheese like I used to have on my Lou Malnati's, I've learned to add more plants (such as spinach and garlic), to change the preparation method (roasting makes everything tastier), or to season things differently. I find that the food I'm eating now is more hearty and complex in flavor (no, seriously) instead of simply rich and decadent. Instead of the versions of some things that I used to love, I have different versions of most items now, which I also sincerely love (and love me back a bit more). And I love and even crave them in their own right.

There are a handful of products that I've been impressed with in this moderate to light use, even some that I like better than the original. One of these is Vegenaise, by "Follow Your Heart," which is a company that has my full respect. I've tried their vegan cheddar, and it's my favorite of the fakes. Vegenaise has and incredible, rich, full mayo flavor without eggs. I like it better than regular mayonnaise. I use it in what my brother named my "v-egg" salad. It's a great stand-in for egg or chicken salad. I like it on my favorite new bread, "Ezekiel 4:9" by Food for Life.

Vegg Salad Base

1 block tofu, pressed and crumbled *
2-6 Tblesp. Vegenaise
3-4 Tblesp. nutritional yeast flakes
2 stalks celery, diced small
2-3 Tblesp. fresh parsley, chopped fine
2-3 Tblesp. sliced almonds or chopped walnuts or pecans
1 tsp. ground mustard
1-2 tsp. celery salt
salt and pepper to taste

You really have to add the mayo slowly, and add more just until it holds together. Then just keep tasting. To this, you can create variations by adding things such as halved grapes, dried blueberries and rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes and toasted pignoli in place of the nuts, fresh dill, or just about anything you can think up that you like in chicken salad or egg salad.

I like it with a good amount of greens on the sandwich, but you can also have it in a pita, or a scoop atop a salad.

*Tofu has to have the water pressed out of it before using. I like to wrap mine in a clean tea towel and use one of these, but you can also wrap it and press it under something heavy for 20 minutes, like a cast iron dutch oven. Then crumble it with your fingers into a mixing bowl.

The Christmas Project 2012

Just as I did last year, I wanted to make up some give-away gifts for Christmas - to teachers, Sunday school teachers, the family Christmas at Grammy's, to the postal carrier, co-workers and etc. I wanted to do something made by hand. Because when you make stuff by hand, people know you care, and you think, "I won't have to spend quite as much money, since I'm putting the effort in," so it always sounds like a great idea to share the love and not break the bank. Twenty trips to JoAnn Fabric later, the budget idea is just about out the window, but the love remains.

Plus, it keeps my kids amused for whole seconds at a time, and hopefully makes some memories. I used the following photo of the girls in their favorite aprons to print out gift tags for the gifts.

My gifts this year were a combo-plate of ginger cookies, Ritz cracker chocolate-covered cookies, and white chocolate snowman pops. I could alter it to suit - the folks at work got a big platter of cookies and snowmen, the girls' primary teachers got all three candies, family got all three, the Sunday school teachers got bags of cookies, etc. I wrote down everything I wanted to give everyone and made a tally. I love lists, so this part was fun. Then I hit the sales at JoAnn for all the cookie bags, platters, ribbon, and lollipop wrappers.

The ginger cookies got the most rave reviews, so I will for sure be making those again next year. I used a vegan recipe from Alicia Silverstone's site that I saw on Pinterest. I quadrupled the recipe, and I think I may need to do even more next year. I pretty much doubled the spices (NOT the ginger, though), including a mulled cider mix they sell at my grocery store that has orange peel, clove and other spices. I ground it in the spice grinder first. I'd say the seasoning was just right - it tastes more bold in the dough, but mellows after baking - so I may add just a touch more next year. I wanted the cookies to be frosted, so I used this vegan royal icing recipe. Instead of soy milk, I used Silk Egg Nog, and I also added a touch of nutmeg. I used holiday cookie cutters that I found at the dollar store, plus a couple others I already had. I made a lot. Of. Cookies.

I didn't fuss too much over the icing - I just snipped a corner of a Ziploc bag, and swirled it over the cooled cookies in the general shape of the cookie. I let them dry out on parchment paper overnight, so that the icing would be nice and dry for packaging.

The girls enjoyed the confectioner's sugar most of all. You gotta love that kids like their sweet stuff as "straight diesel." It's also just fun to play with. I put this picture on the back of our tags, noting that no one licked their fingers until the end, and that we used very clean hands. :)

Next up was the snowman chocolate pop. I made these last year, based on an Ina Garten recipe, and spent a great deal of time trying to arrange the cranberries and cashews so that they didn't resemble faces. This year, I thought, "I'll just make them into faces." I bought half-cashews for smiles, and dried cashews. The only changes I made to Ina's recipe is that I used the JoAnn melts for simplicity, and I put a good sprinkle of kosher salt on each one before they hardened. The nuts, cranberries and white chocolate just cry out for salt. Plus, it makes them look snowier.

I made lots more than this. Lots.

The last item I made (on the third separate day), was the Ritz cracker cookie. I don't think I made enough of these, but dang, I was running out of freezer space! They are a Ritz cracker sandwich, with a very thin layer of chocolate peanut butter (or Nutella) and marshmallow fluff in the middle. You then use melted Hershey bars to dip them in. Don't use anything for these other than Hershey bars, or the texture will be wrong. Don't.

This year, I found sandwich cookie molds at JoAnn, and it simplified the process a bit. I let the girls put candy sprinkles in the bottoms of the molds, then put a bit of melted chocolate in, then the cookie, then more chocolate. I put them in the fridge, but found them to be very difficult to unmold... Popping them in the freezer fixed this. They popped right out, but I did shatter one mold this way. Sounds like a lot of trouble, but I found it easier than hand-dipping each one.

I stored everything in the freezer until needed for bagging and packaging.

I thought I took a picture of all my pretty boxes and bags (the end product), but I guess I didn't. So here's one more of the girls, who used the very last two ginger "Joobies" (named for the combo of the girls' names) to put out on a plate for Santa at Grammy's house (the carrot is for Rudolph). Then they ate them, because they know that fat man is coming either way, and they are so not worried about it.

Where the Blazes Have I Been?

So, what's in a year?

Some stuff has happened lately that has given me a renewed interest in resuming this food blog. I won't go back over the whole year, only that as of last summer, I had pretty well abandoned this food writing idea. Food had become something I made as simply as possible, while still trying to remain healthy. I wasn't really inspired, as I feel I had been in the last ten years. I felt that I was over it. There are so many food blogs out there now - and so many of them do this so much better than I do. I don't own a Mac, and my pictures look decidedly less fancy compared to others with each passing year.

I feel that God places things in our path at times, and we can either continue to walk around them and ignore the signposts, or we can stop and pay attention. Suffice to say, my signposts had begun to accumulate. A voice was needling me from somewhere in the back of my mind.

In September, I had a wonderful time at my older daughter's birthday party. I made her a Rapunzel cake; my first fondant cake with homemade fondant. It was incredibly fun, and I plan to do it again, possibly this summer when my younger daughter most likely has the Cinderella-themed party that she's been insisting on for months. They seldom let go of things, my kids.

Anyway, my mother-in-law made some shredded pork sandwiches for the party, which I ate and enjoyed very much. The next day, I promptly became a vegan, and have not looked back. I am in love with it.

(Then, I also turned the remnants of our herb garden into a large batch of Nonno's seasoning.)

Was this a shockingly sudden move on my part? Well, I'm sure it seems that way to most people. But I've been led to this point by the convergence of several others. First of all, I'm not so much an animal rights activist, but well, meat has just started to seem... Yucky. I watched an episode of "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" (a program I still enjoy, owing to the habit I have of watching cook shows that feature food I would never cook or eat), and they showed an entire pig being brought up out of a crank-turned smoker on a grate. It had been gutted, and laid open. It had smoked so long it was just holding its form together in a near-gelatin state. The diner's cook thrust his hand between the skin and the ribs, unceremoniously ripping out various cuts of meat ("there's your tenderloin") and throwing pig liquid all over the room. I thought, "Yeah, I'm done."

On top of this, I always enjoy vegetarian food. I know I may be a freak, but I already knew I loved tofu, seitan and tempeh. I just usually used cheese liberally in my vegetarian dishes. Did I want to give that up? Until recently, I also couldn't picture life without eggs. I'd been heard to say that I felt vegetarianism was logical, but veganism was something I viewed as a type of eating disorder. But back to that in a moment.

The second influence on me was a couple articles I'd read by vegan athletes. I was eating more lean meat than ever (note the post, "Diet Plate,") based on the advice of periodicals like "Runner's World," which pushes a lot of lean meat, telling you that as a runner, you need 30% more protein, printing meaty recipes, etc. I was exhausted almost all the time (which I actually blamed on my children). So when I read about Scott Jurek (which I also have to credit to "Runner's World," though you'll notice that the tone of the article treats him like quite the novelty), another component slid into place. He talks about coming to this decision a little at a time, over a period of years, which is how I feel my journey has been. I was eating meat, but my tastes have been evolving in the last ten years, from someone who really enjoyed her Cheez Whiz, into someone who really enjoys broccoli rabe. Anyway, I had read another couple articles in the same week, seemingly placed into my path somehow.

I decided to try it out for a couple of weeks, just to see what happened. As my brother says, "I figure if I ever change my mind, the meat is still there." So without pressuring myself, or expecting much either, I decided to try it out. I needed a new adventure, and I figured maybe I'd lose two pounds or so for my efforts.

My first vegan meal was acorn squash, stuffed with black rice, dried fruit and chopped nuts, apples, and topped with lots of cinnamon, margarine, and brown sugar.

(It was very good, but I decided I had over-sweetened it.) The next week, I went out to dinner with my friends Brooke, Kim, and Brooke's incredible family (still waiting for them to sign my adoption papers) at Vapiano's in the city. I ordered an entire pizza without cheese, ate the entire thing, and then the next morning I got up and ran my first marathon.

(My knees started killing me at about mile 18, but I attribute that to too many weekday miles, not the vegan diet.**) Anyway, after two weeks, I felt better than I ever have in my life. Like, WAY better. Incredibly alert, energetic, strong and beautiful. And I still do. Then I watched "Forks Over Knives," and the infamous China Study solidified my views on things. Sealed the deal, I guess.

(**I will say this, and apologize. If you go vegan, expect a certain side-effect to go on for a couple weeks until your body adjusts to the whole foods and fiber. Find a quiet corner at work, crop-dust, and get through it. I got better, and I still have some friends.)

I continued things all the way through Thanksgiving, when I kept everything vegan, except the turkey roll I made for the family. I served roasted brussel sprouts with chestnuts, mom's rolls (veganized version), stuffing, baked sweet potatoes, and a Tofurkey roast, which apparently only I didn't like. It reminded me that I had cut out most of the processed food in my life for a reason.

I love the food I am eating, and I look forward to sharing. My family is not vegan, though they often eat what I make, so if I adapt a recipe for them, I will share this also. If we go to a burger joint together, you're going to see that also. Cooking vegan has been a true adventure, as well as a learning process, both in culinary technique, and in integrating the cuisine into my family's life. Thanks for your support!