Cuban Burrito

Kohlrabi Greens, Carrots, Hummus, Cuban Beans and Rice

Dinner tonight was Cuban Beans and Rice in a tortilla with jarred salsa, steamed kohlrabi greens with vinegar or Sriracha hot sauce (oh, darnit, I just remembered I bought some Chipotle Tabasco, oh that would have been good!), and raw carrots with leftover hummus from the restaurant.

Jonagold Apples, Bok Choy, Celeriac, Rainbow Carrots, Fennel, Cilantro

I went to our town’s first winter farmer’s market tonight.  Last year there was very little produce because the organizers hadn’t given the farmers much notice.  Tonight there was TONS of stuff there.  Look what I got! There was a baker who sells vegan brownies but didn’t seem to have any there tonight.

I cut off the celeriac stems (upper right) and put them in some water to simmer and make stock, which is all the farmer said they were good for.  He said you can boil and mash the celeriac root.

Maple Bread, Take 1

Quesadilla

Lunch for two days has been No-queso Quesadillas with mushroom, avocado, and salsa, and a banana and veggie juice.

I have been smelling toasting Monks Maple Cinnamon Bread since Saturday.  It’s not vegan and I want my own.  I went looking for a nice sweet maple bread recipe, but all I could find was just a little maple syrup added, and people were using it for sandwich bread.  Pfah!

I made an attempt by altering the Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Machine Bread.  I replaced the oil and sugar with 1/4 c maple syrup and added 1-1/2 t maple flavoring.  The dough was sort of wet, which is probably why it sank in the middle during baking – that didn’t affect the flavor but doesn’t look great.  A little more white flour would probably take care of that.  I think it could also use some more sweetness and a lot more maple flavor.  The Monks bread also has chunks of cinnamon sugar in it.  I will think about whether I want to do that later.

I ate dinner out at a Mediterranean restaurant.  We got hummus and pita as an appetizer and I ordered a veggie combo with four appetizers as my meal: Tabulee, Dolmades, Tourlou, and Sauteed Spinach.

The Vegan Theory of Relativity

Recently I’ve been annoyed by the hidden animal ingredients in restaurant meals, such as cheese in red sauce or olive oil.  This posting reminds me that my “suffering” is nothing compared to what I’m doing it for.

Lava Cake

I made a batch of Hummus today from the last of the chickpeas I had cooked.  I had some for lunch with some Pita Bread I was surprised to find at the back of the freezer.  Unfortunately, the pita had to have been about 6 months old and tasted more than it should have of my freezer.  But it was edible, and the hummus was awesome.

This was our Saturday to eat out, and we went with my favorite Chinese restaurant where I got the same thing I always do.  What a rut I’m in when it comes to eating out.  It was General Tsang Soy, fried and drenched in sauce and totally unhealthy.  But then I cancelled that out with a fresh spring roll, so it all worked out.  I had more than my share of a bottle of Reisling with this, and paid for that the next day.

Dessert was wonderful.  I made a Dr. Oetker Organic Lava Cake, with  2 T ground flax seed and 6 T water in place of the 2 eggs, which works fine.  I had to calculate the amounts of egg substitute after consuming the more than half bottle of Reisling, but I did it right!  I say I made a cake, but the package actually makes four little muffin-sized ones.  Watch out, the non-organic lava cake mix has milk in it.

Because this goes SO well with vanilla ice cream, we also had Purely Decadent Turtle Trails.

A Life Connected

This 11 minute nonviolent video, A Life Connected, is a beautiful introduction to the many reasons people choose vegan.

Semolina Pizza

Seasoned Chickpeas

Lunch was leftover Garlic Toast, chickpeas with creole seasoning, an apple and vegetable juice.  Sprinkling a salty herb mix on fresh chickpeas is so good and easy.  I am not sure this would be so great on canned.  These chickpeas were leftover from cooking a few days ago.  When I am cooking up a smaller amount of beans for a recipe, I will usually double the amount and find a use for the rest within a few days or freeze them.

Crunchy Light and Puffy Semolina Pizza

Dinner was Pizza, only I made a change and replaced 1/2 c whole wheat flour with 1/2 c semolina.   Mmmmmm!  It was so puffy and good!  On my part I had banana peppers, artichokes, shiitake mushrooms, and olives.

Spaghetti Arrabiata

This week I finished off the 50 lbs. of organic white flour I bought in May.  So it took six months, but that included purchasing a few bags for various reasons.  The 50 lbs. of whole wheat flour is more than half gone.

Marinara, Garlic Vinaigrette, Garlic Toast, Collard Greens, Spaghetti, Arrabiata, Tomatoes

Dinner today was whole wheat spaghetti with choice of Marinara or Arrabiata sauce, steamed collard greens with balsamic vinegar, tomatoes with commercial garlic vinaigrette, and garlic toast.

I made the Garlic Toast from an episode of Totally Vegetarian.  You slice some bread (I used the last of the Blue Light Beer Bread), then broil it, then rub half a garlic on it, then drizzle olive oil and salt and pepper on it.  I used to watch my Mom do it this way and it always turned out great.  But I had some problems.  First of all, I have a gas stove, and I cannot really get used to the idea of putting the food within inches of a line of blue flames.  So I put them in the toaster – shouldn’t that be the same?  I rubbed the garlic on and that was OK, but I found I was not really able to control the rest of the ingredients.  My Mom used to spread on butter, and Toni on TV had this fancy olive oil bottle with a drizzly neck.  I just had a big ol’ bottle.  So it was nothing and then “glug.”  And then my s&p shakers were acting up.  So it wasn’t as great as I had hoped.  Next time I would use margarine or maybe spray-on canola, and then sprinkle salt on using a bowl and my fingers so I could control it – or skip that.

Roasted Chickpeas

Roasted Chickpeas

This morning I quick-soaked and cooked some lima beans and some chick peas (see beans).  I used half the chick peas to make Roasted Chickpeas with Garlic and Sage, a snack.  They are good.

Lima Beans, King Cabbage, Brown Jasmine Rice, and Spanish Rice

Dinner was pretty plain.  We had lima beans with salt and pepper or store-bought Creole seasoning, Spanish Rice, leftover brown Jasmine rice, and King Cabbage.

Cabbage Soup

Cabbage Soup

Tonight’s soup was Refrigerator Soup with cabbage, a potato, a carrot, a celery stalk, some garlic, defrosted chickpeas, thyme and oregano.  With this we had defrosted Blue Light Beer Bread.

Local vs. Vegan – Battle of the Greenhouse Gases

In 2008, Engineers at Carnegie-Mellon issued a report comparing the greenhouse gas reductions attained by eating locally, compared with changing what we eat.

They found that a totally “localized” diet, difficult in many parts of the country, reduces GHG emissions per household equivalent to 1000 miles/yr driven, while shifting just one day per week from red meat and dairy to a vegan diet reduces GHG emissions equivalent to 1160 miles/yr.  Shifting totally away from red meat and dairy toward a vegan diet reduces GHG emissions equivalent to 8100 mi/yr.

For vegetarians, it turns out that dairy is the number two GHG emitter, right after red meat.

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“Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States“

Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

Environ. Sci. Technol., 2008, 42 (10), pp 3508–3513