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?