The Green Monster!

Okay, so I've been slacking on this, I know... So I figured I should get on here and share a recipe.  But what recipe could I write about quickly and easily?  How about one I make every single morning?
Green Smoothies!!
Or as they are called in our house, Smoo-Gies! (don't ask - we're kind of stange.)

I love love love green smoothies - they're the first thing I did when I decided to change my diet earlier this year, and the first thing I've done in a long time that actually had results!  We got our VitaMix in February and right around then I found a blog that suggested a 30 day green smoothie challenge.  What better timing, right?  Even with just that addition to my diet I noticed my skin cleared up, I was way more regular, I felt more energy, and I just felt cleaner, if that's a thing.  One of my coworkers even stopped me in the hall one day and said "whatever you're doing it's working - your skin is absolutely glowing!"  Who doesn't love a good compliment like that?  So I did continue, and haven't looked back :) Now, 4 months later, I'm still drinking a green smoothie almost every day (they sometimes get skipped on weekends when I sleep in) and I've got it down to a science!  I've even got my mom doing it and loving her results as well!

Let's start with prep - it's my best friend when it comes to smoogies.  I don't often make anything if it involves long prep times and dishes to wash.  So when I go to the produce stand, I do an hour or so of prep and I'm good for like a month!

Greens:
I like to use a mixture of spinach and kale.  I've used other greens before when we juiced, and they were all fine, but S+K are my go-tos because they're consistent, I can always get them at my local produce stand for a great price, and the mild spinach mellows out the acquired taste of the kale.  I get 3 bags of spinach and 2 bunches of kale each time I go.  This will last me quite a while, because I make green cubes with them!
I blend the spinach and kale in my VitaMix with a tiny bit of water (just enough to get it moving around) and pour it into ice cube trays and freeze.  This way, I never have to worry about greens going bad in my fridge, having to buy them every 4 or 5 days, and it also adds a nice icyness to my smoogies.  Another added bonus is that frozen spinach doesn't really taste like anything, so if you don't like the taste of greens, you won't notice them at all!

Fruit:
I like to freeze most of my fruit too.  I'll peel bananas, cut them in half, and freeze them in single layers on wax paper before throwing them in a ziploc in the freezer door.  Pineapple will get a similar treatment, being cut into 8-24 pieces and frozen solid and bagged.  Cherries get pitted and frozen, blueberries can just be washed, dried, and thrown into a bag.  I also like to buy frozen fruit when I can get a good price.  Publix does BOGO on dole frozen fruit sometimes, and once I got a huge bag of mixed tropical frozen fruit at BJ's with a coupon.  I try to mix it up, but bananas blueberries and pineapple are my standards.
Now, I don't usually throw the fruit into the blender straight from the freezer - remember what I said about frozen spinach having no flavor?  That happens to a lot of fruit too (especially peaches!) and we don't want that - we want to be able to taste the delicious fruit!  So every night before I go to bed, I fill my smoothie cup with frozen fruit and pop it in the fridge to thaw overnight.  In the morning, I have a perfect portion of fruit that's thawed but not mushy and gross, ready to go!

Liquid:
This one varies a lot.  I used to make almond milk really frequently.  I kind of got tired of peeling almond skins all the time so if it's on sale and I can find a coupon, I'll just go for store bought.  Sorry, but I'm kind of lazy... Not that making almond milk is hard, but it goes bad pretty quickly, so I was making it 2-3 times a week.
Sometimes I use a nondairy milk, but more frequently I've been using juice.  If V8splash is on sale I'll get that, because it adds a bit of vegetable goodness to my smoogies beyond the greens!  In a real pinch, I'll just use water - as long as there's a lot of fruit, it's still delicious!

Add-ins:
I don't have a daily protocol for these, I just add in whatever I'm feeling like for the day, but some of my favorites are:
Vegan protein powder (I love love love PlantFusion!)
chia seeds (especially if you have lots of liquid, these will thicken it up)
ground flax seed (mmmm, Omega-3s!)
spirulina powder
unsweetened shredded coconut
cocoa powder / peanut butter (these are usually when I'm running low on fruit and have a banana-heavy smoogie!)

Assembly:
Couldn't be easier.  Seriously, you may be thinking "it would be easier if I just went to Smoothie King"  NOPE!  You'd have to drive there, wait in line, make sure the person very clearly understand you don't want any dairy in your smoothie, and then you have to pay for it!  I prefer my way... I dump in my cup of thawed fruit, add some liquid, green cubes (5-6,) add-ins, and blend!
Clean-up used to be my least favorite thing in the world, but that's another thing that's changed with the VitaMix.  Most of the time you can just rinse it clean, but if there's something on the sides that won't rinse, all you do is fill it halfway with water, add 2 drops of soap, and run it for 10-20 seconds.  Then rinse and you're set!  Love it.
As you can tell I'm not one to use recipes, but I know some people need them, so I've put a few together from smoogies that turned out extra delicious :) 
I hope you try some and enjoy!

 Green Julius: 
2 Oranges, peeled and seeded
1 banana, frozen
5-6 green cubes
1/2-1 cup non-dairy milk

Chocolate Covered Cherry
1 cup cherries (thawed if using frozen)
1/2 banana
1 scoop chocolate vegan protein powder
1/2 - 1 cup non-dairy milk
5-6 green cubes

 Bluth Frozen Banana
1 1/2 bananas
1 generous scoop peanut butter
1 scoop chocolate vegan protein powder
1/2 - 1 cup non-dairy milk
5-6 green cubes

 Tropical Delight
1/4 pineapple (thawed if frozen)
1 banana
1/2 - 1 cup orange juice (or orange mango V8)
1 tbsp coconut flakes
5-6 green cubes

Berry Delicious
1/2 cup thawed cherries
1/2 cup thawed blueberries
1/2 cup thawed strawberries
1/2 cup juice or non-dairy milk
5-6 green cubes

 The door of my freezer is constantly full of rotating bags of fruit

 It may not be pretty, but these green cubes are FULL of vitamins and nutrients!  If I had kids, this would for sure be a go-to way to get them to eat more greens :)

But what difference can one person make? Environment edition

One frequent question I get when asked about why I transitioned to veganism, is "what difference do you really think one person is going to make?"  Lots of people agree that what we're doing to animals in this country is an abomination - factory farming is pure cruelty, but I'm only one person, if I stop eating animal products, what's going to happen?
I'll tell you what - WAY more than you think!

This was a concern I had as well when I started delving into the world of "ethical veganism."  I've mentioned before that my husband and I started our journey with health as our primary motivator.  But the more research I did, the more I learned about the treatment of animals and the more that became an equal contributor in my decision to stop eating them.  I've come across quite a few incredible infographics on this topic and will include them here so you can see as well, but let's break it up a bit - today I'll just talk about our diet's impact on the environment.

Everyone loves the environment - right?  We're all taught to conserve water in school, and I challenge you to find someone who isn't familiar with the "reduce, reuse recycle" motto.  But no one really ever mentions how much the livestock industry contributes to the destruction of the earth... til now of course!
  If you get a chance, here's a fascinating article about the use of freshwater resources in the livestock industry: http://www.forksoverknives.com/freshwater-abuse-and-loss-where-is-it-all-going/
Fresh water is like the one thing everyone agrees is a pretty hot commodity, and is insanely important.  There are laws about when and how often we can water our lawns, water-saving toilets, showers, and other appliances are hugely popular, and everyone knows not to leave the water running while you brush your teeth!  But we don't learn facts in school like this: 2500 gallons of water are used in the production of each pound of beef.  Almost half of all the water used in our country is used by the livestock industry, while less than one percent is used by humans for drinking. 
It's not just the water these animals drink - it's also the water required to grow their feed.  We're essentially using water twice for a single source of human food.  Because of this, and other factors, the production of one pound of meat requires 50 times as much water as the production of a pound of vegetables.  That means that my personal water usage is 50 times smaller than that of a meat-eater, simply by being vegan.
Here's an example from that article I mentioned that really puts it in perspective: "One of the more common actions people tend to take in an effort to reduce their freshwater footprint is to reduce their shower time by a minute or two each day. The average shower requires 8 minutes and twenty gallons of water. Cutting off two minutes of shower time would conserve five gallons of water daily. This is all good … however, forgoing a single burger or steak at lunch that same day would save 500 to 1,000 gallons of water. Cutting out a turkey sandwich or a chicken salad would save 200 gallons of water. Herein lies the real opportunity for individual activism... Between 1,700 and 4,000 gallons of water are needed to produce one pound of beef, 880 gallons to produce one gallon of milk, and over 100 gallons to produce a single egg!
Many of the commercial vegetable and fruit farms I’ve interviewed grow their products without any irrigation, yielding 2,000 to 20,000 pounds of annual produce per acre, grown simply with rainwater."

Anyone else feeling different about their personal contribution to the environment? I know I am!

While we're on the topic of the environment, let's talk about our carbon footprint.  Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide are the big three gases that contribute to climate change.  If you don't believe in climate change or "global warming" please click the red "X" in the corner of this page - I won't be offended.
 Everyone would agree that driving a hybrid car will cut down on CO2 and help the environment, right?  What if I told you that you can reduce your carbon footprint by 50% more by going vegan for a year?  Crazy, right?  If every American simply went vegan for one meal a week, it would reduce the same amount of CO2 emissions as 500,000 cars.  WHAT??!! 
Now, while everyone is aware of CO2 emissions, Methane and Nitrous Oxide are also huge contributors to the problem, and livestock and dairy industries are the largest contributor of both emissions.  Methane is 20 times as powerful as CO2, and Nitrous Oxide is 300 times more powerful!
Simply by living a vegan lifestyle, I have cut my contribution to greenhouse emissions down to 1/7.  That just has to make you feel good!

Last topic: deforestation.
Wait, deforestation?  I thought this was a vegan blog...
When we think of the livestock industry, we don't usually think of the rainforest.  But here's a scary fact: for each hamburger we eat, we're contributing to the destruction of rainforest.  We're a growing society, and overcrowding is an issue we've all heard about.  So if we're overcrowded, but our consumption of meat keeps increasing, what are we to do?  One solution is to find new land, uninhabited by humans, to build new farms!  One infographic I've included below suggests that for each pound of beef produced on these farms on cleared out rainforest land, 660 pounds of living matter (plant species, insect species, birds, reptiles, mammals) is destroyed.  Now I like insects just about as much as the average American female, but I also recognize that they have a function.  Cockroaches and spiders are disgusting, but I know that they eat other bugs.  Any kid whose seen the movie Fern Gully knows that the rainforest is a delicate ecosystem and every creature serves a purpose to keep the community strong.  If we're bulldozing these creatures, we're destroying an entire ecosystem that took centuries to develop, and possibly killing off whole species we haven't even discovered yet!  Who thinks that's a good idea?  Not me.
Another source suggests that 30% of the earth's land mass (that's the equivalent of Asia, and more than the moon) is used for raising animals for food.  Wait, didn't we just mention overcrowding?  If 30% of the land is being used by livestock, then wouldn't cutting that back a little open up new land for us to live on? 

Okay, I'll shut up for now, and let you digest some of this.  I know it took me a while to comprehend some of these facts.  I still can't totally comprehend why more people aren't aware of this stuff! Everyone wants to save the environment and do good things for Mother Earth... until it means they can't eat a damn hamburger.

Lazy Sunday

I'm feeling a bit lazy this holiday weekend... Yesterday I treated myself to a massage, and today I was planning on relaxing at the pool while the hubs had to work.  Unfortunately, someone in our apartment management thought it would be a good idea to close down both pools at the same time, right before a holiday weekend.  Great planning, right?  Well, I didn't want to bother any of my friends to try and bum at their pools, so I decided to do some cooking for the week ahead, and it inspired me to share some of my favorite lazy meal ideas!

I'd also like to take a moment, before I begin, to apologize for the quality of these photos.  They're from my cell phone, and as I took them I thought "I'll surely edit these before I add them to my blog" but as I mentioned earlier.... I'm feeling lazy.  So you may catch a glance of a hand or foot, whatever happens to be on my kitchen counter, or maybe even one of my stash of stolen chipotle napkins!  If you don't like it, I'm sorry - there are plenty of fancier blogs out there that you can visit instead.  With me, what you see is what you get!


Veggie Paninis, inspired by Rip Esselstyn

This one is very handy for cleaning out the fridge.  I usually make this either right after I make a big shopping trip that includes produce, or I'll make it when the produce is on the brink of ickiness and I know I need to use it up fast!
There's not much of a recipe for this, but I'll give you my basic blueprint:
-Bread (I always have a loaf of ezekiel in the freezer for this very purpose)
-Some kind of spread (cashew cheese, hummus, pesto, guacamole, vegan mayo, roasted garlic, etc.)
-Veggies - whatever's in your crisper drawer (I like spinach, sprouts, grilled portobellos, red peppers)
-Something surprising (kalamata olives, thinly sliced crisp apple slices)
-A little more spread
-Bread

Variations - Once in a while I'll add a slab of grilled tofu or tempeh to my panini, but keep in mind that definitely ups the richness, so plan your veggies accordingly.  Once I made a panini with roasted garlic olive tapenade and tempeh, and it was just too much.  It needed some freshness or crunch!  I love adding apple slices for that!
Once you stack your layers, it's time to grill.  I use a George Foreman grill I got while I was in college - does the trick perfectly!  You can either stand by and put pressure on the top, or do as I do and place a silicone oven mitt on top (for grip) and then gently put a 5 lb dumbell, or some other heavy object on top and walk away.  In less than 5 minutes  you'll have beautiful grill marks!
My husband has discovered that if you use too much spread on the bread, or if your spread is a little too water-y, it can make the bread soggy and it will stick to the grill.  If that happens to you but you still want all of that hummus-y goodness, just add another layer in the middle of your veggies.  It'll help keep everything together too!




Baked Potatoes with Mushroom Wine Sauce

I first made this while my husband was away for the weekend, and I thought it was amazing!  Then, I realized part of the reason I may have loved it so much was that I drank quite a bit of the wine I was using for the sauce as I was cooking.  But I saved some for the hubs when he got back and he confirmed that it was, in fact, delicious.
Baked Potatoes - I like to do these in the crock pot - just wrap them in foil, layer them in and set on high for about 4 hours.  I like to rearrange them in the pot every hour or so (I don't think you really have to do that, but it makes me feel better when I do.)  If you don't have a crock pot, or like to use your big oven, go right ahead and bake your potatoes however you prefer!
When your potatoes have about 30 min left, start the mushrooms.  Chop up about 2 pints of baby bellas (or you can be lazy like me and buy them chopped!) and add them to a pan with a diced onion.  Stir every few minutes until the mushrooms look soft and the onions have some color to them.  Add a few tablespoons of flour and stir til you can't see the whiteness anymore (the flour will soak up any liquid in the pan, don't be alarmed!)  Add about a half a glass of white wine (enough to cover the bottom of the pan,) and stir it around.  You may want to add some more liquid (water, broth, or more wine,) when you see how much the flour is still absorbing.  The sauce will continue to thicken as it cooks, so add as much or as little liquid to get your sauce the consistency you prefer.  At the very end, I added a scoop of plain vegan yogurt to add some creaminess.
To serve, put a potato in a bowl, chop/mash it up, and top it with some delicious wine-y mushroom sauce!  Don't forget to pour yourself a glass to go along with it!



Lentil Sloppy Joes

put all of the following ingredients into a crock pot:
1 cup lentils (I use a mixture of green and french - the french lentils have a very meaty texture)
2 cups vegetable broth
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1 medium onion, diced and cooked on the stovetop til translucent with 2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
whatever other spices you find in your kitchen that you think sound good

Cook on high for about 2 hours, or low for 4, until the lentils are cooked and the consistency is desirable.  toast up some buns and get sloppy!  Okay, that sounded weird.  But you knew what I meant.



Taco Lasagna, or Mexican Pizza

This is a recipe I actually made today, and love it!
In a bowl, mix:
2 cans refried beans (make sure there's no lard in there!) I like to use one can of "spicy" and one can of "mild"
1 can black beans
1 can corn
In a pie pan, layer the bean mixture with tortillas, 1 can enchilada sauce, and a few handfuls Boca Crumbles.  I end the layers with a tortilla covered in enchilada sauce.  You can also add in some vegan cheese to the layers, and the top, but my husband is not a fan so I leave it off.  I did, however, top it with a shake of nutritional yeast for some zest (which you can see in the photo.)
Cook at 350 for 20-30 minutes, slice and enjoy!
I usually have some of the bean mixture leftover, and I like to heat it in the microwave and use it as a dip for tortilla chips!  You can also use it for nachos (see below,) or as a burrito filling, using the leftover tortillas :)



Nachos

This isn't really something that warrants a recipe, but I have a photo, and they're quite delicious and easy.
Start with a layer of whatever tortilla chips you happen to have on hand (we seem to always have a bag or 2 of Santitas - they're just like Tostitos, but half the price.  Not sure if they're a national brand, but look for them next time!)
Then you have some kind of beans - you can use plain canned black beans, refried beans, or you can make your own bean mixture in the food processor with spices and such.  Whatever you feel you can handle.  Heat it up a little and it will be easier to spread around.
I like to use Beyond Meat Chicken Strips on my nachos - if you haven't tried Beyond Meat, you are seriously missing out.  They're relatively new, and I get them at Whole Foods near the tofu and tempeh.  They look and taste so much like chicken it's frightening!!  You could also heat up some Boca Crumbles for added meatiness and protein.
I also like to add corn on my nachos.  I know this isn't very traditional, so feel free to leave it off, and add whatever nacho veggies you like!  Peppers, green chilies, olives, etc.
You can also add some vegan cheese, but as I said earlier, we don't usually have that in our fridge.
I like to layer it up 2-3 times, then I'll zap the plate in the microwave to meld everything together, and melt the cheese if you've added it.  Then you could add some vegan sour cream to round it all out and enjoy!


Black Bean Burgers!

This one sounds a lot more complicated than it is.  Maybe the fact that I have a vitamix makes it that much easier, but I think even with a regular food processor, the only difference would be a bit more clean-up.
In the vitamix or food processor, blend up a can of beans (any kind!)  Stir in a handful of oats and whatever spices you like (I usually use chili spices, or whatever I have handy.)  Let it sit for a while so the oats can soften.  Then, if the mixture is still very wet, sprinkle some whole wheat flour (or wheat gluten) to soak up the moisture.  Form into patties and cook about 4 min per side.  Toast up some buns, and add whatever burger toppings you like!  I'm boring and usually only add ketchup and maybe some lettuce, but let your imagination run wild!
As you can see in the photo, these pair wonderfully with some homemade sweet potato fries (let's be honest, I've used frozen ones many times as well!)



I hope you're having a wonderful holiday weekend, and that at least one of these lazy meal ideas has inspired you to get in the kitchen.  None of these recipes is hard at all, and your loved ones will be ooh-ing and aah-ing like crazy!

Date Night

Ever since we've been married, Aaron and I have a weekly "date night."  It's something his parents did/do, and something we really like.  If nothing else, it's a time every week that we have carved out just for each other, and since it usually consists of just going somewhere for dinner, it also has the happy side effect of curbing our eating-out habits throughout the rest of the week.  If I'm really craving that Chipotle burrito bowl, I'll just wait til Saturday and know we can go for date night.  Then, I scrounge something up from the fridge and I save myself $8! 

I have to admit I was a little worried date nights would start to get a little boring once we switched to veganism.  But I've been pleasantly surprised!  I had no idea there were so many places with abundant vegan options!  It goes to show that when you're not looking for something, you'll never notice it's there.  We can still go to most of our usual places, and have tried new places we probably never would have gone to before.  Here are a few of our new "usuals."

Chipotle
Okay, so this one's not really a "new" usual, but it's always been one of our go-to's and I'm SO glad it can stay on the list.  I've actually found that I like the taste of my burrito bowls better without meat!  And since non-vegans tend to pity those of us who "can't have" meat (that mentality baffles me sometimes... this is my choice, please don't feel sorry for me!) I've found that the portion sizes for veggie bowls are frequently much larger than they are for meat-eaters!  I can ask for extra brown rice, extra black beans, as many fajita veggies as the bowl can hold, and they don't even charge me for guac!  I also enjoy lots of tomato salsa on my bowl now, which I didn't before.  For whatever reason I grew up HATING raw tomatoes.  I'm not saying I'm going to bite into one by itself now, but I've been slowly increasing the amount I eat mixed into other things and I'm really pleasantly surprised by how much I like the taste!  The cost of our trips has gone down $3, and if I'm really conscious of the portion-size I can get 3 meals out of one bowl (let's be honest, it's usually 2... it's date night, why not?)

Trang VietCuisine
This is one we just recently tried.  It has a full menu of meat dishes, but then it has 2 full pages of vegan options in the back of the menu (the pages are a different color, you know I had to make a "back of the bus" joke while we were there...)  We shared summer rolls and steamed dumplings which were both fantastic - Aaron is obsessed with the peanut sauce they serve with the rolls at Vietnamese places.  I had a "chicken" curry dish with tofu and their own concoction of imitation chicken (I'm guessing some form of seitan - the texture was surprisingly good, and I was very impressed!)  and Aaron had a noodle pancake with mixed veggies and some yummy sauce.  I definitely don't think we would have ever gone to this restaurant before this year - it's near campus in a strip mall, and isn't exactly the type of place you bring someone to impress them.  But the two men who were running the place were SO incredibly sweet and knowledgeable and friendly.  Once we were in I loved it, but it took something to get us through that door - knowing they had a large vegan selection.  Without that bridge, it could have been right outside our door and we never would've known.  And I'll be honest, the real reason I loved it so much was that they had 2 types of vegan cheesecake!  I have had dreams about cheesecake since we've vegan-ized this year, and just knowing that I could come here to get delicious strawberry or marble cheesecake has completely put my mind at ease! 

Jai Ho
This was one of the first new restaurants we tried after "making the switch" (how many euphemisms for choosing a vegan lifestyle is this post going to contain?)  It immediately appealed to us, since the full name of the restaurant is "Jai Ho - Pure Veg."  Sounds like our kind of place, right?  It's also in a type of strip mall, near campus, someplace we'd never have gone before.  Once inside, I think quaint would be the first word that would come to mind.  It's a long, narrow space with tables on either side and a mixture of ornate silver decorations and dollar-store-framed photos of food.  I loved it.  The booths and menus were decked out in bright colors and there were photos of all the food.  We first informed our waitress that we were vegan, and asked if there was anything on the menu that had egg or dairy so we could stay away from it. She looked very worried and said she wasn't sure, but she'd get the owner to come speak to us.  I was a little worried, based on her reaction, and we started thinking of backup plans, just in case.  The owner was SO sweet and friendly, and it turns out almost everything we would have wanted to order was perfectly safe.  She made sure to tell the kitchen not to use any butter on our dishes, and answered all of our questions.  We ordered 2 appetizers and 2 entrees to share, because we assumed by the prices that the dishes would be small.  We were wrong.  The pakoras, which were only probably $4 had about 9 pieces, and the samosa were huge!  We ordered a masala dosa which hung over both sides of the giant serving platter they brought it on, and we had a never-ending bowl of vegetable "fried" rice!  Needless to say we had tons of leftovers and will be going back again!!

Taco Bus
This is another place we had been to a few times before our "change of heart."  Everyone in the Tampa Bay area has heard of Taco Bus - it started in St Pete as a food truck, and has grown incredibly because it's so delicious!  They now have 4 or 5 locations and have been on the Food Network at least twice.  The first time I tried it I was with my mom and mother-in-law coming back from the St Pete Saturday Morning Market and we stopped to get lunch.  We were all immediately in love!  I don't even know what makes it so delicious but I have not had a single thing there that I didn't absolutely adore.  When Aaron told me they serve tempeh, imitation steak, tofu, and 2 other vegan options I was ecstatic!  Their refried beans are even vegan!  There are many options but I always end up getting their tempeh - it is SO DELICIOUS!  Another reason I love love love Taco Bus is that it's a really great place to go to with my non-vegan friends!  They have lots of really yummy meat options, so they are happy, and I can eat my amazing tempeh too!  So many places have "vegan options" that are just a salad, or beans and rice... it's really nice to have options that both omnivores and herbivores will LOVE.  We recently met my cousin there who was in town for work.  He loved his dinner just as much as we loved ours!  I've even gone with a coworker who ended up becoming a tempeh-convert by the time we left!  She now buys it regularly from Publix and has started choosing meatless options much more frequently.  I feel really great that I was able to show her that vegan doesn't have to mean less flavor or not delicious!

Greek
Now, I say "greek" here and not a specific restaurant, because living in FL we have ample choices!  Little Greek, Greek Village, Athenian Gardens, GoGos, Acropolis, Byblos, Pitas Republic, Pita Pit, Pappas, the list could go on, and they all have delicious food that we can eat!  I've always loved falafel, and my love has only grown in the last few months!  Also a delicious choice is a simple hummus and veggie pita or wrap.  As long as they have a plethora of veggies to stuff in there, it's always a good option!  I thought I would miss the tanginess of tzaziki and feta, but I honestly don't even notice they're gone!



Date night is just one more instance where I'm able to stop and reflect on how happy I've been with our decision to choose a vegan life.  So many people view going vegan as a form of deprivation - again with that pity-mindset.  But honestly I feel like my life is so much fuller now than it was before.  I'm lighter - physically, mentally, and emotionally.  I'm noticing that I see the beauty in the small things more, and that makes my Saturday dinners with my wonderful husband that much more enjoyable - and that's without even mentioning all the amazing food we've been trying!

Bean Day!

Before I "went vegan," my mom and I used to cook together frequently.  I would go to her house and we'd make a HUGE batch of something - cannelloni, lasagna, some kind of chicken, minestrone, you name it - and we'd portion it out, freeze it, and I'd take a bunch home!  It was fabulous - time with mom, delicious food, and a stocked freezer, what more could I want?  When I decided to stop eating animal products, I was kind of sad that we wouldn't really have this tradition anymore.  But then I realized, why couldn't we?
I had a bean dilemma that I needed her advice on anyways... We were going through a lot of beans with our new diet.  A LOT of beans!  Our local produce stand sold 3 or 4 types of dried beans for only $1.29 a pound, so I knew that dry beans were the way to go financially - a can of low-sodium beans is usually around $1, so I'd be saving a lot in the long run by using dry beans!  But I'm not one of those people who plans meals.  I usually cook a few times a week, and live on leftovers the rest of the time.  I go grocery shopping to buy what I'm in the mood for, and sometimes I wake up wanting something completely different than I thought I did yesterday, so planning meals usually ends up in lots of wasted food at my house.  I envy those who are able to plan weekly menus!  I'm more of a scavenger in my own kitchen!  So dry beans pose a problem - I have to soak them overnight and then they take a few hours to cook!  Not exactly convenient.  So I thought of my mom and our big cooking fests, and asked her if she wanted to do a bean day!
Aaron and I went to the produce stand and got 4 gallon-sized ziploc bags full of beans... we don't do things small!  I soaked all the beans overnight and then transported them to mom's house.

We used mom's giant stock pot for the garbanzos, since they have the shortest cooking time, and we split all the black beans into batches for the pressure cooker - only 20 minutes a batch!  All together, it took more time to portion the beans and wait for them to cool than it did to actually cook them!

Now I have a freezer full of beans and I always keep some of each kind in the fridge to be handy whenever I want or need them - for bean burgers, hummus, falafel, to add to salads, chili, stew, soups, pasta, black bean brownies, chick pea "cookie dough," or other endless applications!

 Here's one of my favorite bean recipes:

Texas Caviar
1 can (or equivalent) of each of the following:
                      black beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, sweet corn
1 red and one green pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1 can olives, diced (I like kalamata for an extra saltiness)
2 cans diced tomatoes
1/4-1/2 cup minced fresh parsley or cilantro
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup vinegar of your choice
1/4 cup sugar

Mix together all beans and veggies in a large bowl.  In a small saucepan, combine oil, vinegar, and sugar.  Heat til sugar is dissolved, oil and vinegar seem to be mixing, and it is almost boiling.  Pour over the veggies and let sit for 10 minutes.  Stir, let sit for 10 more minutes.  Drain excess liquid out, and put salad in the fridge.
Serve with tortilla chips, or eat with a spoon.  You can also use as a salad topping, or add cooked pasta for a yummy pasta salad :)

There's Nothing Like Pancakes on Sunday...

I figured it would be fitting for my first shared recipe to be my favorite new discovery... Banana Pancakes!!  Now, I've had pancakes with banana before, but none like this!  

I have to say when I began my vegan transition, I was worried about baking.  I come from the school of butter is better and was hesitant to try "egg substitute."  I found this recipe HERE, from a great blog The Minimalist Baker, and immediately needed to try it.  I made one batch and split it between my husband and I, and almost immediately started whipping up a second batch for us to split as well.  These weren't just your ordinary pancakes - they were better than any I'd had before.  Maybe it was my newly refined vegan palette talking, but I will never make another pancake recipe, as long as my kitchen has all of these ingredients!!  And, by the way, none of the ingredients are that crazy - I had them all in my kitchen to begin with!

I varied from the original recipe a bit by not making the streusel.  I'm a pancake minimalist, I guess, and served them with just a bit of Grade B Maple Syrup.  I also added frozen blueberries because I had them on hand, and who doesn't love blueberries in their pancakes?!

You start by mashing a banana (all of our bananas are usually in the freezer for smoothies, so I nuked one for 30 seconds which made it very easy to mash!)  Mix it up with a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp baking powder.  Add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I don't think this is too important so don't worry if you don't have it or forget like I sometimes do!)  1 Tbsp ground flaxseed meal and 2 Tbsp water and let it hang out for a minute.  If you're not vegan and don't happen to keep flaxseed meal in your fridge, here's where you would use an egg!
Then you add 1 Tbsp of fat (the original recipe calls for melted margarine, but I used olive oil because my husband was feeling anti-margarine) and 1/2 cup of your choice of non-dairy milk.  I usually use almond milk, since I make my own (lightbulb! I'll do a post about it soon!) but I've used soymilk when I'm in a pinch.  Once it's combined, add 1/2 cup flour.  The first time I made it all I had was all-purpose unbleached, but my lovely mom got me some awesome King Arthur whole wheat blends so I've been playing with those lately and they make the pancakes very filling and just as delicious!
Let the batter rest for about 5 minutes - this is when I usually turn on the stove to get the pan nice and hot.  This is also when you can add your extras - frozen berries, nuts, chocolate chips, let your imagination run wild!

 I always use my 1/4 c measuring cup to measure the flour in the last step, and then I keep it out to use for measuring batter into the pan. 














If you have a griddle, cooking will go much faster, but I'm pretty bad at managing multiple pancakes at one time so I stick to a small saute pan and cook them one at a time!

Finally, as I mentioned before, I top them with just a drizzle of Grade B Maple Syrup (don't ask me why, but it's the best - once you try B you'll never go back to A!)

Here's the recipe once more :)

• 1 ripe banana, mashed (if you're in a rush, freeze and thaw the banana)
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• ½ tsp pure vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 Tbsp flaxseed meal 
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 Tbsp fat - melted margarine or oil
• ½ cup non-dairy milk
• ½ cup flour (whole wheat is the best, of course!)
• add-ins of your choice - berries, nuts, chocolate chips, etc

Mash the banana and add the baking soda, baking powder, salt, and vanilla.  Add in the flaxseed meal and water and let it sit for a minute.  Add the fat and milk, and once blended add in the flour.  Add in any extras and let the batter sit for 5 minutes while your pan or griddle heats up.  Drop batter by about 1/4 c onto the pan, and flip when the edges look cooked and the bubbles in the middle stop.  Top with extra fruit, or the syrup of your choice, and Enjoy!  No need to thank me :)

Vegan? Why?

If you had asked me a year ago, hell, even 4 months ago, if I ever saw myself becoming a vegetarian or vegan, I would have laughed.  I love meat!  I grew up eating meat at practically every meal - definitely dinner, almost always lunch, and sometimes breakfast.  My husband, Aaron, is super fit and ate a TON of chicken, since it's packed with protein and we've always been told that in order to be fit and healthy, you need protein!  We even bought Whey Isolate Protein Powder by the 10 lb bag!  I'm talking a dog food-sized bag of chocolate protein powder that we would go through in about 6 months.  For Hannukah this year, my parents bought a Sams-sized flat of chicken breasts, grilled them, and packaged them in twos for our freezer. 
In October, I even posted this photo on facebook of my meal prep for the month:

We ate a LOT of chicken.  

That changed in February.  A lot.
We've always tried to be healthy - you can see our juicer in the photo behind the mountain of raw meat.  After watching the documentary Fat Sick and Nearly Dead on Netflix December 2011, we got it and started juicing.  That waxed and waned, mostly because it was such a hassle to clean, and you had to juice so much to get a full glass.  My morning juice would usually be a cucumber, 4-5 carrots, an apple, an inch chunk of ginger, and 2-3 oranges.  That would get me about 20 oz of juice.  Not cheap, right?  
Well, this year we got some money from Aaron's parents for Christmas and decided to use it toward a Vitamix.  This thing is amazing.  I've always coveted one, but they're pretty expensive, and I didn't have the last bit of information about it that was the missing piece of the puzzle.  It is the easiest thing in the world to clean.  You fill it up about halfway with water, 2 drops of soap, and turn it on for about 30 seconds.  Then rinse, and you're done!  I was sold.  Even after only having it a month I felt comfortable saying it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.  Since we got it, I've been making green smoothies for breakfast almost every day.  Remember all the fruit/veg I listed for the juicer?  In the vitamix, I'll use 1/2 cucumber, 1/2 banana, 1 orange and a bunch of spinach and get as much or more juice than I got with the juicer!  Incredible!  Our produce stand hauls last twice as long, plus we make our own peanut butter (with JUST peanuts, no oil or salt or sugar!), we make soups, sauces, hummus... you name it, this bad boy will make it easier!

So, needless to say, I've been having much more veggies and less meat, just by virtue of the Vitamix.  Now let's take it another step:

I was discussing the virtues of the vitamix with a coworker who also has one, and we got to talking about food in general - preservatives, additives, etc.  I'm a big fan of the documentary "Food, Inc." (also on Netflix) and shared with my coworker that after I watched that I definitely changed the way I look at meat and eggs, and I've definitely changed my eating and purchasing habits.  For example, the doc goes into detail about how chickens in the livestock industry are raised in complete darkness, growing from chick to adult in about 9 weeks, thanks to all the hormones they're injected with.  They cram as many as will fit into a small barn, where many will die from being trampled, not being able to get away because their bones haven't caught up to their muscle growth and their legs can't hold up their body weight.  Egg-laying chickens are kept in very small cages, just big enough for their bodies, and are also kept in darkness most of the time, except for when they are stimulated to lay eggs, at which point bright lights are shone in their eyes, causing them to stress out and drop eggs.  If they die in their little cages, it could be weeks before someone comes around to remove the body.  
So once I saw this and learned more, I payed the extra for better eggs.  I knew that "free range" only meant that each chicken gets about 3 square feet of space, instead of one, but I felt a little bit better about that.  I avoided Purdue or Tyson, knowing that they were forcing small farmers to change the way they raised chickens to be more productive instead of humane. 
Food, Inc also talks about beef - the unnatural ways cows are raised and the amount of processing the meat goes through... after watching that, I hardly ever bought beef anymore, especially ground beef (which is processed with bleach and any red "blood" you see in the packaging is food coloring to make you feel better about eating it."  
I felt like these small changes were making a difference.  Maybe they were... But I will admit I chose to be ignorant about a lot of it.  We didn't have a lot of disposable income, and the better stuff cost a lot more!  I was still buying into the protein story and believed I needed meat every day, so I often chose was right for my wallet, instead of my conscious.  

While I was talking to the coworker and I brought up "Food, Inc," she asked if I had watched "Forks Over Knives."  I hadn't, but I saw it in the Netflix queue and had heard others talking about it.  She said "watch it.  watch it tonight."  So I did!
I now highly recommend this documentary to everyone!  It focuses on 2 Drs (one PhD, one MD) who have spent their lives studying the same basic principle - we are what we eat.  One Dr noticed on a trip to the Philippines that many of the poorer families had healthier children than the affluent families, whose children had a shockingly high rate of liver cancer.  He suspected a link to their diet, since the affluent families could afford to eat meat daily.  He found a study that backed him up, where they fed test rats diets of either 5% casein or 20% casein, after being exposed to a known carcinogen.  The rats who were in the 5% group had a significantly lower amount of cancerous tumors.  They even did a test where they changed the rats diets and it showed that when the rats went from 20% to 5% their cancer stopped growing and in some cases went away!  They then did a huge study in China, looking at the rates of different types of cancer in all the different counties and compared it to the diets of the locals in those counties.  It was pretty obvious that there was a link between diet and cancer, and a lot of it had to do with the consumption of meat and dairy!
The whole time I was watching I was captivated, but I knew I'd never be able to convince Aaron... he was an athlete, he needed protein!  He has twice as much muscle mass as I do, and he got that way eating a high protein diet.  Then, the documentary showed an MMA fighter, Mac Danzig.  He looked pretty good - same body type as Aaron... and he was totally vegan.  Basically, the documentary explains that we've all been programmed to believe animal protein is the only kind, or at least the best kind.  In reality, we don't need that much protein, but meat is calorically dense when compared to vegetables, so our primitive minds crave it.  In the cave man days, we didn't know when our next meal was going to be, so we ate whatever had the most calories to fuel us as long as possible.  Nowadays, we know when our next meal is, but our brain still functions this way.  Vegetables and fruits (a plant-based diet) has more than enough protein than we need, as long as we eat a good variety.  
I immediately told Aaron about what I had learned.  As I expected, he was skeptical but agreed to watch it.  The next day, he was texting me every 10 minutes about the information he was finding that backed up the documentary completely.  He was worried about the increased amount of soy in a vegan diet, so he did some research and found nothing wrong with soy itself - only in highly processed soy isolates or concentrates!  Makes sense - you take a good thing and process it to the high heavens, and guess what?   It's now bad for you!!
The next night we decided to look for more on Netflix, and we found a documentary called "Vegucated."  The description just said it was about 3 meat-eating New Yorkers who agreed to go vegan for 6 weeks for an experiment.  Sounded perfect!  
The beginning was fantastic - it was like they were reading our minds.  Are all vegans dirty hippies?  Did we have to live on a commune and make our own soap and clothes?  No!  The main character in the storyline sounded a lot like us!
Then it got into the details of how animals are treated in the livestock industry.  Like I said before, I knew a lot of it, but I chose to be ignorant.  The information and images in this documentary were not things I could ignore anymore.  I already had the beginnings of the change in me and this was the nail in the coffin.  I can't eat pork anymore after seeing farmers castrating baby pigs with their bare hands, kicking an injured piglet away after it got caught in the gate mechanism and was dying, or shooting one between the eyes with a bolt gun, as it tried to run away.  I won't be able to drink milk without thinking of the cows who are forced to be pregnant their entire lives so they produce milk, but as soon as the baby is born they drag it away so it never gets to bond with its mother, but instead will either be killed for veal or raised to live the same fate.  I cannot continue to eat chicken without thinking of the baby chicks being sorted and thrown around like nothing - the "lucky" females being put in boxes to be shipped to egg farms, and the boys being killed because they can't lay eggs or be used for meat.  They either put them in plastic bags to suffocate and dump them with the trash, or put them in the grinder to be used as feed for other animals... alive.  That image will never leave me.  
What really bothered me was the people doing these things.  A few months ago, there was a story on the local news about a man who put 4 kittens in plastic bags and put them in the freezer to die.  Thankfully, someone found them and called the authorities - 3 survived and were adopted thanks to the local SPCA.  But what I couldn't get over and what puts a knot in my stomach even now, was the thought that a human being was physically capable of doing that to a helpless, defenseless baby kitten who just wanted to be loved.  I cannot imagine having those eyes looking back at me as I seal up the bag and close the freezer door.  Just like that, I cannot comprehend how so many farmers around the country do these horrific things to these animals every day.  How you could treat the cutest baby piglets and chicks like that makes me feel sick. 





I thought it would be harder than it actually is... the only real hard part I've found is talking to people about it.  Many of my friends have been pretty confused when I share the news with them, and I don't want to be that stereotype who pushes my beliefs on others.  I chose to be ignorant for a while and I have to respect other people's decisions to do the same - especially if I'm going to continue my friendships with them!!  I've always hated religious groups who try to push their beliefs on me, so I can't start doing that to my friends... but it's so tough because I feel so passionate about it and when you're excited about a new chapter in your life, what do you want to do?  Share it with your friends!  

I needed an outlet to share my thoughts and get my passion out, so I figured a blog would be a good way to go!  I visit vegan blogs frequently to find tips and recipes, so why not start my own?  I don't know if anyone will read it but me, but that's just fine...