3rd Annual Vegan Thanksgiving

This is our 3rd year eating a vegan diet and this Thanksgiving was certainly not a disappointment. We spent it on the beach again and enjoyed spectacular weather as well as the excellent hospitality and company of Jack, Pam and Shasta. They are great hosts. But back to the food:

We had cornbread dressing, fresh green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, homemade rolls, gravy and our ever present and popular chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. In addition, we were so blessed to make 2 new vegan friends who joined us for the feast and they shared food and recipes too! Tasha brought a wonderful quinoa/ rice dish that was very savory. Joan brought a cabbage/beet/apple raw dish that was quite a festive and tasty addition as well as some traditional cranberry/orange relish. The piece de resistance had to be the raw pecan pie that Tasha made! It was amazing that it tasted just like pecan pie with no butter, eggs or corn syrup! The filling was made of dates but it sure tasted like the traditional pie. I don't have the recipe yet but I know it's coming. :) I'll be sure to share once I get the new recipes.

It's always a pleasure to meet others who eat a vegan diet! It's so nice to share ideas and recipes and what works and what doesn't. I am excited to have new sources of ideas. Best of all, it was wonderful to share Thanksgiving with family and new friends.

Vidalia Onions

It's been a really long time since I've posted. We just get in periods when we eat the same things over and over and I've already shared all that. We are really enjoying the fresh veggies now - Troy and Shirley have been keeping us in homegrown tomatoes. Yesterday they sent us home with an eggplant too. We've had some good squash - both yellow and zucchini - some wonderful blueberries, and the best Georgia peaches I've had in a loooong time.

John loves the large dried lima beans so I cooked some of them today. (Since we don't eat meat, I use an onion and some veggie broth for cooking.) The last time I made them, I started thinking of the Vidalia Onion Relish that I bought at Whole Foods a couple of years ago. We have been back a few times looking for more without any success. I've been googling since then looking for just the right recipe. I found one online and then did a little adapting. I've posted the final results here.

I have never done any canning so was a little uncomfortable and unsure if everything would work but it turned out great! I was so happy to hear my 4 "pops" as the lids sealed!

I put a nice forkful on top of those lima beans, had a piece of vegan cornbread, some green onions, roasted eggplant and a couple of slices of tomato. Yum, yum, yum.

Vegetarian House - San Jose, CA

I am in San Jose this week - working and doing some training. My friend Carmella took me to her new favorite restaurant, the Vegetarian House, for dinner last night. Oh my goodness! It was amazing! What a breath of fresh air to have a WHOLE MENU to peruse! Everything looked so delicious that I had a really hard time deciding!

We ordered the hummus with pita chips for an appetizer. It was smooth and creamy and spicy and delicious. They serve the meals family style and the portions were large so Carmella ordered the Kung Pao Tofu and I got the Mahalo Grill. I had them add some yam flour crescents to my Grill. They looked EXACTLY like shrimp! The texture was right too. However, even though they were good, they did NOT taste like shrimp! We got a large bowl of brown rice to share too. Once we had eaten all we could hold of that, we shared a piece of vegan chocolate cake. Wow. We ate, and ate, and ate . . . and then I brought all the leftovers to the hotel. I ate about half of those tonight and I see the rest in my future for lunch tomorrow! :) (I told you there were large portions.)

Thanks Carmella for an experience that I will remember for a long time!

Eggbeater Update

I had a scrambled eggbeater sandwich made on our homemade whole wheat bread. Spread a little "nayonaisse" on the bread, put the sandwich together, then toasted it in the skillet. Yummy!

Eggbeaters

So I've been trying to think of some different things to cook and I started thinking about Eggbeaters egg substitutes. After a little research, I learned that they have removed all the cholesterol and fat from their products. Very interesting. It drove me back to examine the reasons and goals of this diet. Yes, it's vegan. No, it's not really for moral and ethical reasons - it's 100% for health reasons. What are the "rules"? Nothing with a face or a mother? or foods with zero cholesterol and a low fat content?

We went with the second scenario. We enjoy our scrambled tofu but tofu carries a fairly high fat content. It IS a good source of protein and that's important. Last night, I made a big skillet of scrambled eggbeaters with onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, and diced potatoes. What we wound up with was a nice meal that was high protein, ZERO fat, and full of veggies. I think it works! It also gives us a little latitude in meal planning. The Eggbeaters website suggests baking the product in a cake pan til it's set and then cooling and dicing it and making egg salad. Wouldn't that be good in those nice whole wheat pita pockets? (made with the Nasoya zero fat "nayo-naisse" of course. It also gives us an option for baking too. We always use the egg replacer products and probably will continue to do so - but there may be times that eggbeaters would be a better choice.

Anyway, I can't think of any reason that this change would cause problems. Can anyone else?

French Bread

I've been making some really nice French bread lately. Just posted the recipe here. I'll post some pictures next time I make it. Delicious with salads or anything Italian. Also, pretty good dusted with a little garlic powder and browned in a non-stick skillet. It makes a nice garlic bread. Enjoy!

Blogworthy!

I know, I know! I haven't updated in a long time! We have been eating the same things over and over - not really in a rut - but not doing anything particularly creative that we haven't already shared.

Italian food is absolutely one of my favorite foods and I've had ravioli on my mind for quite a while now. We eat alot of whole wheat pasta - and occasionally a vegan pizza - every now and then some vegan lasagna - but ravioli is what I have wanted. Now, I don't have the attachments for my mixer - and I certainly haven't found any ready-made ravioli that is legal for our diet - so I needed lots of time for this.

Oh my goodness! These turned out really, really good! I posted the recipe here. I boiled most of them, threw a couple in a non-stick skillet and cooked them, and put a few in the oven on a cookie sheet. The boiled ones were definitely the best. I served them with some 365 brand fat-free pasta sauce from Whole Foods. Yummy!

Disclaimer: this recipe is time consuming and you must roll the pasta sheets very, very thin or you will have a gummy, not-delicious mess - however, it is definitely worth the trouble for a treat.

Health Stuff

It's been a pretty strange year for me health-wise. We both had a physical in January just to see where we stand. That was just opening Pandora's box. John had some issues with his heart - they thought - but further tests didn't show anything. I had some nodules on my thyroid which I finally had checked after I began to have some throat problems. The throat problems turned out to be a type of reflux (LPR) which I am controlling by not eating Junior Mints anymore. The meds the doctor prescribed made everything worse so I am so thankful that I can control it so easily by just giving up one thing. During the process, the endocrinologist found that I was still vitamin D deficient and my liver enzymes were out of whack. After more testing, she was just sure that I had Paget's disease and I had a bone scan last week.

The results were not at all what she expected and there IS no bone disease - well - just a little arthritis - but no Paget's. She wanted some x-rays but I did some research and found that it is normal for alkaline phosphatase to be elevated when vitamin D is deficient and it takes time to normalize once the vitamin D is back to normal. Since my D is just now back to a normal level, I talked her into giving me some time and rechecking my levels. I will go back in December for more blood work. A full year of horsing around with this - and I have actually been healthier as far as my sinuses, allergies and bronchitis is concerned. I have had one short bout of bronchitis this year - back in March - and have not had to see a doctor for being "sick" since then. I think I will take a break from the physical in 2010.

I am taking a good multi-vitamin now with 1000 units of vitamin D, a couple of Caltrates every day to get the calcium, and right now, while the flu is so widespread, I am taking Emergen-C that has tons of extra C and B vitamins. Also, we are making an effort to eat better. . . more veggies and fruit and lots less sugar. I'd like to drop another 20 pounds by the end of the year and see my cholesterol go below 150. It's 160 now. We are both still content not eating meat or dairy and, in spite of what the doctors would like to find, we believe we are healthier. Neither of us takes any meds besides our supplements. I guess for 55 and 61, that's not bad. :)

Blogworthy?

It's been too long since I've blogged here. Actually, we have been in quite a routine as far as our diet goes. Neither of us has lost any weight in about 4 months now but we have been nicely maintaining while we eat whatever we want. Whatever we want has increasingly meant cookies, muffins, cake, etc. I'm really happy that I haven't gained any weight back during this "rest and eat" time. :)

As far as our daily nutrition, naked burritos, stir fry, scrambled tofu, and chili with cornbread still lead the pack as our standards. We still eat lots of bananas, raisins, oatmeal, and whole wheat bread too.

I haven't done anything new for awhile now but a couple of days ago, I felt a little creative and did a change-up on our naked burritos. Here's what I did:
1. Put a little salsa in the bottom of a casserole dish.
2. Used a can of fat-free refried beans and covered the bottom of the dish.
3. Piled on a bunch of basmati rice on top of that.
4. Put some fresh chopped cilantro next.
5. Squeezed a lime over everything.
6. Sauteed a chopped onion and tomato seasoned with cumin and put over the top.
7. Served in a bowl with a dollop of fresh guacamole.

It was really delicious and the creamy refried beans really gave a different texture than the naked burritos with the black beans that I usually use. Maybe we'll call this one "Fajita Casserole". We will definitely have this one again. It was a great use for leftover rice.

Today I cooked some pinto beans (used some veggie broth and a chopped onion and cooked them all morning). We steamed some carrots in one of the Ziploc steamer bags and I made some corn fritters. They were really good. I used the regular recipe for cornbread except I used a can of cream style corn instead of the liquids (so no soy milk). I "fried" them in a non-stick skillet. They were pretty tasty and John loved them. They were kinda bread and kinda veggies and something a little different. I'm sure we'll add those to the rotation too.

More Muffins

I made the mandarin orange muffins today. I used a large can of mandarin orange slices packed in water with no sugar added - drained well, of course. I added a little almond flavoring to change it up a little and sprinkled a little coarse turbinado sugar on the tops before I baked them. Wow! These were awesome!

Muffin Update

The muffin recipe continues to be the hot hand at our house. Last week I did pumpkin muffins. I used 1 cup of canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling) along with 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg. I threw in a few raisins and they were awesome - moist and tender and delicious. Last night, I added about 1/4 c. cocoa and a cup of vegan chocolate chunks. Yummy! The original recipe is here.

We bought a can of mandarin oranges yesterday so we'll probably try those at some point this next week. Maybe combined with a little bit of pineapple. That should be good. :)