Traffic

Grr. Some of you may have heard about yesterday's disaster on the 405 (Los Angeles freeway near LAX airport). A truck overturned and traffic was absolutely abominable in the area ALL day!!!! Needless to say, my commute was unpleasant, in both directions. Alhtough certainly not as unpleasant as the poor truck driver who perished in the accident.

I don't really deal all that well with traffic issues. I've been driving this same route for a long time and know exactly how long (to the minute) it is supposed to take me, and when my commute goes long, I start getting antsy. Jane is always threatening to take the clock out of my car so I'll be less frustrated. I'm not sure if that would be a larger benefit to me or to her!

At any rate, I love my wife. Since this is not a blog about marriage, I won't be writing about the times I don't totally love my wife or how difficult marriage can be... Not that ours is a bad marriage, but every marriage can be trying at times. On the positive side, there are moments that make you never want to be single again. Last night was one of them.

I finally arrived home after 1 hour and 16 minutes to find Jane hard at work in the kitchen. Apparently, after seeing the traffic report, she realized I wouldn't be getting home at a reasonable hour. So she made one of my favorites, the spanikopita recipe from Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh, Really Good, Really Vegetarian. It was just as good as last time. But Jane made a few minor alterations. Mainly, she forgot the leeks, so she used maui onions instead. Personally, I couldn't tell the difference and it was just as yummy as last time! And what a treat to come home to!

And for dessert, because I was so cranky, Jane whipped up a quick batch of muffins. This time she put in wheatberries for added crunch and the fruit was gooseberries. (Huh?) So, the muffins are crunchy and tart. I think they are very good, but Jane doesn't care for them that much. Also, she's still working on perfecting the basic muffin recipe... When she's happy with it, she's promised to post it for you all.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Vegan Nutrition

Next week I go to the doctor for my annual physical. I had my blood drawn yesterday. Jane and I are very curious what my blood-work will reveal. I don't have any real health issues, but over the past years my cholesterol and blood pressure have crept up a bit; call it middle age. Reading all the wonderful things I have come across about vegan dieting have led me to hope that both of those numbers will be a bit lower this visit. I'll keep you posted on that.

We do have to figure out if we should ask the doctor to test for anything specific for our subsequent visit... Can they determine if you are getting enough protein, calcium, etc? Are these easy blood tests? I know that an iron deficiency will show up and that is another one of those things vegans need to be cognizant of, but I am concerned about the calcium thing. Jane is having us take a calcium supplement, so we're probably covered, but we need to do a bit more research. And omega-3s? Life was so much easier when we were consuming dairy products.

I've been spending some time at the Vegetarian Resource Group website where they have basic nutritional information. It's by no means comprehensive, but they provide you with broad strokes information on what you might be missing by eating vegan, and the nutrient content for sample foods.

Who knew eating could require so much attention to detail? Sheesh!

Boo!

It's Halloween time. Fortunately, we live on a hill that doesn't get a lot of trick-or-treating traffic, so we won't be tempted by the Halloween goodies.

In the past, we have purchased chocolate goodies to hand out; and to eat ourselves, if we're being honest here! We'd always thought about buying healthier treats to give the kids, pretzels or raisins, but what kid wants those? We remembered when we were trick-or-treaters, those treats were among the least eaten of all our collected loot. We wanted to hand out treats that were appreciated.

This year, we face a dilemna. If we buy the chocolate that we have in the past, how will we pass by the bowl without having a piece or two? And does it actually matter if we do eat some of it? Of course it does! We're vegans now.

But I'm not going to spend $20 for a few pieces of vegan candy to hand out to people who eat McDonald's regularly... So it looks like we'll be giving out pretzels and raisins this year.

Who Says the Brits Can't Cook

(Yes, this is repost. I inadvertently posted this morning instead of saving a draft, so if you read this mornings post skip past the first three paragraphs -- there are some minor edits, but the content remains the same.)

First off, let me apologize to anyone I may have offended with that statement, but when I was growing up in New York it was common "knowledge" that British Cuisine was an oxymoron. Bangers and Mash, Salisbury steak, Toad-in-the-Hole, Steak and Kidney Pie; none of these are particularly appealing to me, and so I had written off British Cuisine as something that I wouldn't partake of.

I have recently changed my mind about that. While I can't say that any of the dishes listed above could ever entice me to give up my vegan life, I have stumbled across a few cooking shows that have caused me to re-think my ideas on British Cuisine.

In my pre-vegan days, Nigella Lawson always had something tempting to offer on her TV show, Nigella Feasts; not to mention her sensual treatment of food. Her show always made me want to eat something. There are a few things I remember seeing her prepare which could be easily converted for the vegan diet, and some that were vegan. Nigella's website (link above) has a recipe index, but it appears the recipes are submitted by visitors to the site. I haven't gotten my hands on any of her cookbooks, so I can't discuss whether her recipes cook up well. But everything looks enticing.

Yesterday I caught a program called "You Are What You Eat" on the BBC network. There is some considerable discussion on the web as to whether Gillian McKeith is legitimate... her science is suspect and she seems to be a snake oil peddler. BUT, the show is entertaining and inspiring. It starts with "Dr." McKeith secretly watching the client for a week or so, then piling up what they've eaten for a week. It's absolutely astonishing to see what people will put in their mouths. Then she barks at her clients and teaches them a bit about nutrition. And they live happily ever after by the end of the show.

I'm not sure that it's something I would watch regularly, but it did inspire me to do some googling, and this link is what inspired me to write this post. I spent considerable time on this site, it's clean and well designed and very informative.

And finally, they have vegan recipes (just click on the vegan option). So, who says the Brits can't cook?

Because...

Any time Jane and I mention that we are now vegan, the invariable question we get is "why?" I stumbled upon this segment from a book I have yet to read. But really, this says it all.


John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America"

"It is increasingly obvious that environmentally sustainable solutions to world hunger can only emerge as people eat more plant foods and fewer animal products. To me it is deeply moving that the same food choices that give us the best chance to eliminate world hunger are also those that take the least toll on the environment, contribute the most to our long-term health, are the safest, and are also, far and away, the most compassionate towards our fellow creatures."

I Miss Milk

I know there are all kinds of reasons not to consume cow's milk. I've embraced a vegan diet. I drink soy milk, rice milk and almond milk these days. Even though we were drinking fat-free milk in our house prior to this vegan thing, I understand that cow's milk may not be healthful. Not to mention the horrors of the dairy industry.

But nothing beats a tall glass of real milk to go with warm chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven.

I simply cannot drink a glass of soy milk. I can put it over my cereal and it's an ingredient in many of the meals Jane prepares. But I cannot drink a plain glass of soy milk, or even almond milk. The rice milk is sort of like Horchada (a mexican rice milk concoction that's sweetened and there's a bit of cinnamon too), but unless it's doctored...

I miss cow's milk.

Vegan Road Trip

Friday morning Jane and I loaded up the car for a long weekend trip to Arizona. Our primary reason for the trip was to visit a younger cousin who's away at college in Prescott. We also decided to visit Sedona since it's been nine years since we were there last. It was a beautiful autumn weekend in the Southwest.

But enough about our trip, let's talk food - since that's what this post and this blog are all about!

This trip required a bit more forethought than usual because we knew that food would be an issue. So, prior to our departure, Jane went out and got some goodies to take along. We had: grapes, apples and tangerines; there were also Triscuits and pretzels, and dried apricots. Sounds like overkill, but these wound up saving us from scrounging for more than one breakfast/lunch.

Before we took off on Friday morning Jane also prepared our lunch for the day: hummus in pita, and some carrot sticks to crunch on. I love Jane's hummus, but the sandwiches suffered a bit sitting in a car for a few hours before we ate them. They tasted just fine, but the were practically falling apart, what a mess! Good thing we brought along some wipes!

I'm not going to detail all our meals, or the restaurants we ate at. Suffice it to say, that eating out vegan style can be a bit of a challenge. One meal we even wound up inadvertently eating cheese. The menu detailed the items in a dish, no cheese mentioned. The plate showed up, the restaurant was dark and we didn't identify the cheese until the meal was half eaten. Bummer.

I'm sure we're not the first vegans this has happened to, and it served as a reminder to ask about what we're ordering.

But the most important thing we learned on this trip is that Taco Bell is a vegan's friend. The black bean burrito without cheese is a yummy vegan meal. We had three in three days.

I've got my baker back!

I've been missing Jane's baking. It's not like she baked something every week, but she baked occasionally, and she baked really well. Her coffeecake and strawberry shortcake are some of my favorites, along with apple pie and berry pie. Or her cookies. I could wax poetic here, but I'll spare you all.

Anyway, I've been whining. I understand that learning how to cook vegan after cooking non-vegan for 20+ years is a bit of a challenge. And the baked goods we've tried eating out haven't been particularly inspiring.

So, I've been poking around a few message boards to see what other people are doing. And I got this recipe from one of them: Link Here

Jane made this version of muffins, and they were yummy. We ate the batch in 3 days. (That's two muffins per person per day -- and maybe Jane didn't have two muffins every day.)

Because of the conversion from British cooking to American, they weren't perfect. Jane is going to use a little less oil and sugar and more flour in her next go round. But yay, I've got my baker back!

Looks Like Something the Cat Coughed Up

Our new vegan lifestyle has led to a huge increase in our tofu consumption. Looking to replace meat with some kind of protein, tofu has been the easiest choice. Of course, there is conflicting information out there about just how much tofu you should be consuming. Admittedly, I have done only the most cursory of online searches to solve this newest (to us) nutritional mystery. Since the new vegan thing is different enough, I'm not going to do any further research for now. Suffice it to say, there are other ways to get your protein. Jane usually makes a tofu stir-fry once a week. And there's always a bean based dish or three. We've also had a few things with store-bought chicken seitan. And we've discovered that some grains have protein too! (Couscous and quinoa, for example.)

Looking for alternative sources of protein, Jane decided to try and make seitan at home. We've had seitan, or "wheat meat" as it is also known, in a few of the vegan restaurants we've tried and it's been mostly good. Time for an adventure in the kitchen.

We really both love the "Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh, Really Good, Really Vegetarian" cookbook by Ann Gentry (as we've said many times already). However, her recipe for basic seitan was far more work than Jane felt like undertaking for her first venture into the world of home-made seitan. We did have a recipe in "The Accidental Vegan" by Devra Gartenstein that looked simple.

Basically, you take some wheat gluten (Jane used Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten) and water to form the dough. That's the attractive picture at the top of this post. We've both made bread before and adding the water to the wheat gluten is pretty much like the beginning stages of making a loaf of bread. However, it really looks like cat puke, as any of you who live with the furry beasts can attest to! Then you boil it in water with soy sauce and ginger. Pretty simple. And pretty tasty.

For our dinner last night, Jane then made a gravy based on nutritional yeast and flour and which was rather good. She also roasted butternut squash with olive oil and brown sugar, salt and pepper. The picture does not do it justice. Dinner was yummy. Hearty winter fare. As usual, our entree was accompanied by a salad of mixed field greens with onion, apple, cranberries and a balsamic dressing.

Real Food Daily - Take 2

Jane and I were out and the other night, and since we were over on that side of LA anyway, we decided to re-visit Real Food Daily for dinner. We were very impressed with our first visit, and had high hopes for this one. Also, I received a comment from MaryAlice PV on my September 12th post, suggesting other things to try.

Unfortunately, our internet access was down all day before we left home so we didn't get to refresh our memories as to what we should order. MaryAlicePV suggested:

"For the meal I go with the basic 3 or basic 4, which means you can make your own dish based on several menu options. The marinated tofu is not to be missed, the regular golden gravy (not the mushroom gravy from your special) is so delicious. I used to get the mashed potatoes, gravy and tofu with the vegetables of the day, but that is a very heavy combination. Now I've replaced the potatoes with sea vegetables and sometimes brown rice if I'm extra hungry. The house dressing is also very delicious, heavy on the tahini."

MaryAlicePV had also recommended the hummus and pita, as a not to be missed, but we completely forgot about that! Next time I guess, although Jane makes a really good hummus herself, so it's not something we're inclined to order out much.

We were close, but not spot on. Jane ordered the TV dinner, which comes s a slice of tempeh vegetable loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and vegetables. I ordered the RFD Burger with the works, the works being avocado, tempeh bacon and cashew cheese, plus the standard roll, lettuce, tomato and onion that the burger comes with. Of course, we planned on sharing our food.

As usual, the meals arrived beautifully presented. The TV dinner was true comfort food. The mashed potatoes and gravy were absolutely delicious. The tempeh vegetable loaf was pretty good too, but the vegetables, a mix of sliced carrots, cubed red onions and a few pieces of yellow squash were rather uninspired.

We ordered the burger because we'd read somewhere that it has been voted one of the 10 best burgers in LA. (Neither of us can remember where we read that - so no link, sorry.) It was really, really, really good. But for $2.50 extra, you can skip the works. Neither one of us even noticed the taste of the cheese, and the tempeh bacon is no where near as good as the Smart Bacon you can buy at the grocery store. We also ordered the sea vegetables instead of a salad for an additional $1.95, and while they were good, a salad would have been just fine. That put the burger at just under $16, instead of the $10.25 the basic burger would have cost, and the burger was the best part of the plate. Oh well, you live and learn.

So, after our second trip to RFD, we'd still recommend it, but not as highly as before. And we won't be making any special trips out there.

Beer Here

I'm a guy. And on Sunday's I become the typical American Guy. I like to sit around and watch football on TV with my friends, drinking beer.

You can imagine my dismay when I read that beer may not be entirely vegan!@!##$%!%! I was looking through Vegetarian Sourcebook: Basic Consumer Health Information About Vegetarian Diets, Lifestyle, and Philsophy, Oncluding Definitions of Vegetarians, With Facts Regarding vegetar (Health Reference Series) and came upon this horrific paragraph on page 174:

Beers: As a general rule, traditional, cask-conditioned beers ('real ales') are usually clarified (cleared) with isinglass finings. Isinglass is a very pure form of gelatin obtained from the air bladders of some freshwater fishes, especially the sturgeon. The addition of the finings speeds up a process wihich would otherwise occur naturally. Keg, canned, beer-sphere, and some bottled beers are usually filtered wihtout the use of animal substances. Lagers are generally chill-filtered but a few may involve the use of isinglass. The only possibly animal-derived ingredient used in the production of keg beers is E471. Animal-derived finings contine to be used in all Guinness- and Bass-produced beers.

HORRORS!!!!! I love Guinness.

Further down the page, I came across their vegan recommendations:

Vegan Products: Beers/lagers - Whitbread Kaltenberg Pils, Heineken Export Lager, Labatt Blue Lager, Labatt Ice Lager, Scottish Courage, Beck's Bier (keg, bottle), Budweiser (keg, can, bottle), Coors Extra Gold (keg, can, bottle) Holsten Pils (keg, can, bottle), Grolsch (keg, 450 ml swingtop bottle - not the 250ml/275 ml bottles or 500ml cans).

That put a frown on my face. I'm not sure how comprehensive that list is. One of these days I'll have to get around to contacting my favorite vendors (Sam Adams, and Pete's Wicked Ales) to see what they have to say for themselves.

I never gave beer a thought. How could it not be vegan? Hops, Barley, Malt... Water... no animal products there. Some days this vegan thing feels much more complicated than I anticipated it would be.

Pepperoni Pizza

Do you remember Bagel Bites? Little frozen pizza on a bagel? I never actually had any, but the jingle is till floating around the back of my brain.

As a vegan, I wrote off pizza. Not without regret mind you. But being a native New Yorker (even though I now live in LA, I'm still a native New Yorker at heart), I've probably had enough pizza to last a lifetime, at least for the non-New Yorker.

For dinner last night, Jane made us mini pizzas , and now I'm singing the old Bagel Bites TV jingle, "Pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at suppertime. When you have pizza on a pita, you can have pizza anytime..." Excuse the poetic license. We didn't even have our pizza on a pita, it was a tortilla, but hey.

I wouldn't call this gourmet food. But if you have a kid to feed.... Jane used whole wheat tortillas topped with tomato sauce, Yves Vegan Pepperoni, and vegan mozzarella cheese, oregano and a drizzling of olive oil. The cheese sort of melted, but not before the exposed tortilla began crisping. Overall, not a gourmet meal, but a quick tasty dinner. Served with a large green salad, of course.

Sausage and Peppers

Here's a quick and easy weekend lunch idea... a sausage and pepper hoagie (or submarine, sub, wedge, hero, sandwich....). OK, it's not what I used to have as a meat eating child. And I'm not wholly convinced that someone who had an authentic sausage and pepper hoagie the day before would really love this. But for us vegans...

Jane "steam-fried" the peppers and onions. A technique she read about in "Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs"
I have to admit, I didn't miss the oil. She used Yves Sweet Italian Sausages (a vegan product of course) and served it all up on some fresh La Brea bread. Yummy.

A perfect accompaniment for the football game.

Spanakopita

We've been vegans for a little over three months now. Since we're old dogs (in our 40s), it's been a bit of a challenge to change our way of thinking about what a meal should be, and that's been harder on Jane than on me, since she prepares most of what we eat.

To date, most of the recipes Jane has tried have been more than reasonable and there have even been a few that have been outright delicious. But nothing has come close to what she made for dinner last night. We had spanakopita, greek spinach pie, and it was restaurant quality food. And I don't mean Denny's! The recipe was out of Ann Gentry's Real Food Daily cookbook, with a slight modification, Jane didn't bother making triangles, she just layered everything in a pyrex dish and made a pie. I cannot recommend that cookbook highly enough (link below). The recipe in the book is called "Phyllo Triangles with Spinach and Tofu Cheese."

This will be the dish Jane prepares for non-vegan company. You have to get this cookbook!
Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh, Really Good, Really Vegetarian

Comment

I received an email comment on the blog yesterday : " I HATE to break it to you but I have been vegan for a while now and I am still 100 pounds overweight. Oh well, at least I don’t eat innocent animals. J"

The only reply I can make is that this blog is a chronicle of my vegan experiences (and Jane's too). We've lost weight over the past three months. Admittedly I've lost more weight than Jane has, which frustrates her a bit. But we're losing weight because we're eating more fruits and vegetables instead of processed food, just like most nutritionists would advise. Another big contributor to our weight loss is that we're generally having cut up fruit for dessert instead of some high calorie dessert Jane woild have baked; Jane used to love to bake. Our diet has changed to be more healthful and clearly less calorie-intensive, as we are actually consuming more food than before. And I'm sure a grilled portobello mushroom has far fewer calories than Chicken Parmesan!

So J, I'm sorry your experience hasn't been as rewarding mine and Jane's has been so far. But I'm not trying to sell anyone anything, I'm just excited about my experiences and I want to share how easy it has been for me.

And maybe this will inspire others to make choices that will be less harmful to our environment and more compassionate to our fellow creatures on this planet. (Proselytizing over.)

You're Feeding Me a Mushroom For Dinner?

I almost got killed last night. Well, not literally, but it could have been close.

As I've mentioned before, Jane is the cook in our household. I get home from work after 7pm, so she usually has dinner just about plated up as I'm walking thru the door. (Yes, I know I am spoiled -- but hey, at least I appreciate it!) We accomplish this feat with the use of "modern technology. I usually email Jane to let her know when I'm leaving and will often call her when I'm at the 10 minute mark (on my hands-free cel phone -- In our house, we do not condone driving with a phone pressed up to your ear!).

I used to ask Jane what was for dinner, but I'm not allowed to do that anymore. And if I ask, the response is "Dinner!" In case you are wondering, the reason I'm no longer allowed to ask is that once or twice, when I heard the reply to my query, I commented on the dinner which was being lovingly prepared for me. The comment was less than positive, and along the lines of "I would rather have pizza" or some equally distressing-to-the-chef statement. So now I'm no longer allowed to ask. It saves us both a little stress and anxiety, and usually I'm happy enough with what I'm being served.

So last night, when I walked into the kitchen and saw the beautiful grains Jane had on the side of the plate, I was looking forward to whatever the main course was, and then I saw it, a giant mushroom (Portobello). I couldn't help myself, and blurted out "You're feeding me a mushroom for dinner?" Really, you could just see Jane dreaming of bashing in my skull with the skillet she held in her hand.

But damn that mushroom was good! And now I have to figure out how to get out of the doghouse!

Our First Clunker

So far we've been fairly pleased with our vegan diet. The products have been mostly good. The recipes we've tried have, for the most part, been things we'd make again. Although I didn't love the peach cobbler, and there was a cabbage salad that we won't be making ever again, we haven't run across anything that we've found inedible or completely unpalatable... until now.

One of our vegan cookbooks suggests Umeboshi Paste, which is a Japanese pickled plum puree, makes for a really wonderful alternative to butter on your corn on the cob. Since we had always loved corn on the cob dripping with butter and a sprinkling of salt in our pre-vegan days, we figured this would be a great vegan replacement.

WRONG!!! It's horrible. It's tart and tangy and overwhelmingly salty, and we only used the tiniest bit to taste. I'm sure there are people who love this stuff, but it won't be making it over the threshold to our home again. Ick. It's a shame too, because this little container was just under $9 at our local Whole Foods.

There's Some Weird Stuff In My Kitchen

These days there are some weird things in my cupboards. I was going to make myself some oatmeal for my breakfast yesterday morning, actually I did. But before I got around to making it, I had one of those "what the #$@#%! this?" moments. I reached into the cabinet to grab hold of the oatmeal container and this package of Textured Vegetable Protein was staring me in the face (actually, it was unopened at the time).

Just bizarre. I asked Jane if we were having other astronaut food as it reminded me of the astronaut food I'd heard of: freeze dried ice cream, tang crystals, etc. Needless to say I was not looking forward to consuming this stuff.

Then we had spaghetti for dinner and I commented to Jane that the ground soy product was good in our pasta sauce. She had an odd look on her face and when I asked her about it she laughed and told me that was the TVP. I don't know how it tastes in other recipes, but it's pretty good with pasta and tomato sauce.

3 Months In

Today is our 3-month Vegan Anniversary. We started this journey on 07/07/07. It's been an interesting journey. To date, I've lost 15 pounds without any other attempts at losing weight. That's right - no exercise. Jane's lost 5 pounds. That's really exciting. We're not thinking about what we're putting in our mouths from a "diet" perspective, so we're not feeling deprived. Maybe we should bottle this stuff!

There have been the occasional bumps in the road for Jane. She's the cook and has had to learn how to change her thinking when it comes to "what's for dinner." And our staples have had to be re-learned. But we live in southern California, and have some really great year-round farmer's markets, so getting our hands on good fresh produce has never been a problem.

Our biggest issues have involved eating out. We've found that quite a few restaurants don't have anything on the menu for a vegan to eat. But we've found a few vegan friendly restaurants and when we're out with our non-vegan friends or associates we've gravitated towards Italian food. It makes for invisible vegan eating. We don't need to explain our dietary choices to anyone because there is always the option of pasta (whole wheat, of course) with marinara sauce and grilled vegetables. No one looks at you cross-eyed if you skip the cheese. Easy. We just hope Grassroots re-opens soon (they are closed due to fire damage).

Anyway, after three months we both feel fine. There's been no difference in our energy levels and we believe we're healthier. We'll actually be reporting on that in a future post. We've got our annual medical check-ups coming up in late November so we'll see if our new way of life has some hidden benefits as well as the obvious one of weight loss. We expect to be reporting good things.

Bacon and Eggs!

No, we haven't slipped. We're still happily doing the vegan thing, not that you could necessarily tell from this photo. Looks like the real thing, eh?

Last night I was feeling a little unwell and I asked Jane to make me some comfort food. We'd just had pasta so that was out. Jane decided we'd try an old standby from our non-vegan days. Of course, she converted everything to fit our vegan lifestyle. She made a tofu scramble and we had Lite Line's Smart Bacon along with Alternative Bagels (low calorie, low carb, vegan friendly), Tofutti Cream Cheese, cherry tomatoes from our local farmer's market, sliced red onion, and a large green salad.

Verdict: Yummy. This dish needs to make it into the rotation. The tofu scramble tasted better than scrambled eggs and the smart bacon passed Jane's test. I couldn't believe it! How could scrambled tofu taste better than scrambled eggs?! Wow!

Mocha Frappuccino -- Who Needs It?

So yesterday Jane brought me home the Silk Coffee flavored soy beverage. Yummy. It's like a Starbucks Mochaccino. Ok, I don't really know if it's like a Starbuck's Mochaccino, but it certainly makes a nice iced afternoon snack.

Jane's not fond of coffee, but she had a sip and decided it's not bad, not quite her cup of tea (pun intended), but quite drinkable.

It was hot here again, so we popped some into the blender with some ice cubes. Yummy. If you like coffee, I'd suggest this as a nice "adult" snack.

And, it's cheaper than anything you'd get at Starbuck's... not to mention vegan!

8 Things to Eat Every Day

I was driving to work the other morning, listening to sports talk radio, and I heard the hosts talking about, of all things, nutrition. They were talking about 8 things that you should eat every day to be healthy. Sounds good. And, as I've mentioned before, I'm like a household pet.... I'm OK eating the same thing every day.

When I got home I googled "8 things to eat everyday" and found a number of interesting links. You can search yourself if you want to do further research. But this is the list below:

• Spinach
• Yogurt
• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Blueberries
• Black Beans
• Walnuts
• Oats

As for the yogurt, soy yogurt is listed as an acceptable alternative. So, I'm looking at this list and thinking, hmmm, I could do this every day. Sort of. Maybe not every day, but most days.
But what I found most interesting is this little blurb I found on spinach:
"Protein makes up 30% of the calories from spinach and it's high in methionine, an essential amino acid that is somewhat lacking in many plant foods. Spinach is a good addition to your diet if you should not eat a lot of soy product."

One side note on the spinach... buy organic. The pesticide levels on spinach appear to be pretty high, at least from the reading that I've done online.

Happy eating.

OK, Maybe I Don't Have This Vegan Thing Down Yet

It's been almost three months, and here I am thinking I've got the vegan thing down. Tonight Jane and I were trying to figure out where to go for dinner. We had a late afternoon meeting and she wasn't up for cooking, so we were discussing our various options. We were toying with the idea of going to one of our favorite (pre-vegan) Indian restaurants and were trying to think what we might eat that didn't contain hidden animal product (ghee, cream).

In the past, when we were not vegan, our most favorite Indian dish was Chicken Tikka Masala - which is tandoori grilled chicken in a cream and tomato based sauce. We were never able to gravitate away from that dish. Whenever we had Indian, one of us would order that, often both of us would. That should illustrate how much we actually like that dish. Our usual Modus Operandi is to order two separate plates and share them.

So, as we were tossing around potential dishes and their pitfalls, I mentioned that we wouldn't be having Chicken Tikka Masala, but maybe we could have the Chicken Tikka instead. Jane looked at me with a gaze that said "you must be kidding," and asked me what I'd really order. Repeat previous dialogue. Finally she realized I had no idea what was coming out of my mouth. She gave me a look that said "you must be stooopid," and then said "Lane, um Chicken?!?!?!"

I guess I need a little more training.