Avocado Pizza

Pizza

I went out for dinner with friends, but also made dinner for my family, including Pizza, delicious with marinara, fresh basil, avocado, microwaved spinach, olives, mushrooms, and jalapenos.

Dinner for me was at The Owl House again.  I got the same thing I did last time, Saigon sandwich.  Some others who had been disappointed with their meals in the past, specifically the despised lentil burger, tried the Saigon and all who did liked it very much.  I had a brownie for dessert and it was OK but not as good as mine.

Yellow Split Pea Soup

Yellow Split Pea Soup

Roasted Green Beans

My parents came for dinner and I made Yellow Split Pea Soup With Collard Greens and Yams, Corn Sticks, and Roasted Green Beans.

Dessert was Cocoa Cake and Assam tea.

Happy Veganniversary

My parents came for breakfast this morning, and I made Whole Wheat Pancakes, Strawberry-Rhubarb Syrup, Blueberry Syrup, and Assam tea.

The kids’ Easter baskets had jelly beans, a chocolate egg from Vegan Essentials, a Mahalo bar, and Guylian chocolates.  Vegan Essentials had a lot of Easter treats, but they seem to go fast.  They were sold out of vegan Peeps    Completing the baskets were an umbrella, hair ties, and a comic book.  The kids were very happy.

Torta Pasquelina

Even though Easter moves around on the calendar, it was Easter dinner 2008 that I first decided to try to make a completely vegan meal, and it felt so wonderful, so right, that I stuck with it, and so it seems fitting for me to celebrate that important anniversary on this holiday of rebirth.

I was so proud of myself for pulling it off.  I have my notes from that meal, and I made Torta Pasquelina, Roasted Potatoes, Braided Sweet Potato Bread, and Cream of Leek and Asparagus Soup (both the unlinked recipes are from Vegetarian Celebrations).

For different reasons I didn’t cook a big meal in the next two years, but tonight I decided to celebrate.  Not only is it my third year as a vegan, but my daughter has now been vegan one year, having gone vegan right around last Easter.  I’m so proud of her.

My kids remember loving that Torta, so were very excited that I made it again, and my daughter loved to help.  As you might imagine, it’s a dish that means a lot to me, being my first deliberately vegan meal.

Rosemary Roasted (White and) Sweet Potatoes

Another dish I remember making a lot a decade ago, but haven’t made recently, was Rosemary Roasted Sweet Potatoes.  I had to really search for the recipe.  It’s still great.

Salad

We also had a salad with lettuce, cuke, shredded carrot and beet, roasted red pepper, greek and black olives, dried cranberries, and Balsamic and Herb Vinaigrette and some Swedish Hill Svenska Blush wine.

Crispy Rice Treats

My daughter made Crispy Rice Treats for dessert, and we had it with Starry Night tea.

Tal Ronnen

"Chicken" Scaloppini

Tal Ronnen was at our Wegmans today.  He cooked up some samples from his cookbook, and his food was available on the veggie bars.  I had a few samples and then bought some entrees and desserts to take home.  My kids didn’t care for the entrees, but I thought they were very good.  I’ve never had Gardein before and though it has been 18 ? years since I ate a chicken, it’s exactly how I remember it.  My kids, who have never eaten a chicken, thought it tasted like tofu.

Potato & Green Bean Salad

There was a potato salad I sampled there, Green Bean and Fingerling Potato Salad with Miso Dressing, very good.

He did seem to rely on Gardein quite a bit.  It’s a processed food his web site calls “a transitional food for meat-eaters.”  Here are the facts for the Gardein Scallopini, which isn’t too bad for a processed food.  However, there were many whole foods there as well.  Many of the recipes were more complicated that I care to make, but I don’t seem to be in his target audience anyway.  If he can tempt meat-eaters with this delicious food, then Yay Tal!

It was nice to see several hot vegan protein entres on the veggie bar there at Wegmans.  While there is always plenty of delicious cold vegan protein at the salad bar, usually there is not much for me for a hot dinner.  Also there were two vegan desserts (where usually there are zero) and they were wonderful: Tal’s Lemon Pistachio Cookies and Coconut Tapioca Pudding with fresh berries.  My kids loved those.  Also it was nice to see that everything seemed to be labeled vegan or vegetarian.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tal, but overheard others saying how nice he was.  Check out his web site for a few free recipes.  Many thanks to Wegman’s chef Eric Wendorff for bringing Tal here.

The Power of One

A fellow vegan recently was telling me how she made that choice.  Her daughter went to camp and a fellow camper politely refused a meat dish, saying  simply, “I don’t eat meat.”  Her daughter thought to herself, “Someday that’s going to be me.  Someday I’m going to say that.”

The daughter followed through and her mother eventually decided it was easier to just cook vegetarian.  The son liked it, too, and soon the daughter decided to give up dairy and eggs as well.  Again, the rest of her family followed along, and now the three of them are vegan.

The power of one may not do much in math, but look what it does in a dining hall.  We think our choices save just the few animals we don’t eat.  We can have no idea of the reach our personal actions have.

Visiting the ‘Laws

We spent a few days with my in-laws.  I bring stuff to cook and to have for breakfasts and lunches, having a pretty good idea of what they have in their pantries.

For breakfasts I brought grapefruit juice,  Whole Wheat Raisin Bread and Earth Balance margarine.

For lunches I brought dry chickpeas, a little vegan mayo, and a little powdered nori (seaweed) to make Notuna, my favorite sandwich bread (Arnold Soft Family 100% Wheat), natural PB and J, and no-salt veggie juice.

For one dinner I brought a head of garlic, rosemary, and some purple potatoes.  I put this together with their veggies (carrot/celery/zucchini), veggie broth, the chickpeas, and some doggie-bag penne to make a delicious Refrigerator Soup.  Also made Whole Wheat Rolls and someone else made a salad.  I made my MIL’s favorite, Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cake, for dessert.  This is the only dinner I ended up making, though I had come prepared for a pasta dinner like this as well.

All this stuff fit in one grocery bag and a small cooler, so no big deal.

For the car we had PB&Js, fruit (grapes, apples, clementines, and bananas), popcorn, sunflower seeds, and water bottles.

My SIL made an awesome fajita dinner one night.  She marinated thinly-sliced onions (she got a new mandoline) in ChiChi’s seasoning (I think taco) and lime juice, maybe some water too.  Then she sauted them in some olive oil, set them aside covered in a warm oven and then without cleaning the pan she sauted (separately), zucchini strips, peppers, and mushrooms.  So everything was in separate casseroles in the oven.  She served this with little bowls of salsa, minced jalapeno, and minced green onions.

She found just the tortillas I’ve been looking for.  All the wheat tortillas at our Wegmans are either white flour or they have honey or, for crying out loud, fish!  What business does either of those have in a tortilla??  She had Maria and Ricardos, and they were pretty good, both on the nutrition info and taste.  They’re even organic.

Pesto Pizza

Pesto Pizza

I made Pizza with Pesto, black olives, artichokes, roasted peppers, jalapenos, and fresh basil.

Cow Peas and Collard Greens

Cow Peas and Collard Greens

Corn Sticks

My parents came for dinner and I made Cow Peas and Collard Greens, Corn Sticks, and Cajun Cauliflower.

Cajun Cauliflower

Chocolate Chip Cookies

My son made Chocolate Chip Cookies for dessert.

Happy Second Blogiversary to Me

Today marks the second year of this food blog.  I’ve entered here pretty much every recipe I’ve made for two years and exhaustively answered the question of what this vegan eats.  (Whoopee.)

Over the past few weeks I’ve become selective about which meals I post, skipping the more repetitive ones, and that will probably continue.  So, I’m not keeping any great meals from you; it’s all there in the archives to the left and the headings up top.

Now for the second annual stats analysis:

In the two years this blog has been up, I’ve had 32,000 views.  My busiest day was 176.  In 2009 I averaged 27 views per day; in 2010 45; and so far this year I’m averaging 80 views per day.  Friends and family are telling me I should start selling ads, but I am not comfortable with that.

I have 680 posts and Askimet has protected me from 3,624 spam comments.  Thanks, Askimet!

What search terms are bringing people here?  I’m mystified to announce that the #1, 2, and 4 spots are taken by variations on “worms.”  After that, the search terms seem similar to last year’s analysis.  It’s not easy for me to pull out from April to April, so these are all-time search terms.  It’s also difficult to get a good summary since people enter similar search terms differently, but a lot of people want to know about vegans and cancer.

What are people looking at?  My home page got almost 10,000 hits.  Not only is this the main portal of course, but it also contains half a dozen of my most recent postings, so that makes it hard to tell which of those postings is more popular.  Anyway, the number two spot goes to Of Worms and Turtles, which has been baffling me since it took off last fall.  Number three is the same bread recipe that was popular last year.  Number four is a page of links to vegan/cancer studies.  Number five is a list of links to readings from the Psych 123 class on food I took online through Yale; I think it’s just a really helpful posting that people return to.  And from there down the list looks like last year’s.

Sesame Edamame with Whole Wheat Pasta

Roasted Green Beans & Sesame Edamame with Soba

It was our monthly Tasty Tuesday yesterday at my daughter’s school, and two other moms and I handed out dixie cups with healthy food samples as the kids passed into the cafeteria.  Yesterday it was raw green beans, which seemed to go over well.

The info sheet the lead mom made up to go home with all the kids had a recipe for Oven Roasted Green Beans, so I made that tonight.  It’s so simple, I’m just going to put it here.

• 1 lb. fresh green beans, washed and trimmed
• 1-2 T olive oil
• 1/2 t kosher salt
• freshly ground pepper

Just spread the beans on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil (I tossed them a bit with my hands), sprinkle on the salt and pepper, and bake at 400 for 15-20 min.  My kids loved it!

With this we had Sesame Edamame with Soba Noodles.  They look purple in the picture but really they are brown.  It was good.  My daughter’s friends were over and they liked nibbling as I was cooking, the microwaved edamame, the sliced peppers, the half-cooked green beans.

My son made Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies from How it all Vegan by Barnard and Kramer.  As with another cookie he made, we weren’t crazy about it as it tasted kind of like frosting.  Maybe he is not cooking them enough.  Everyone said they prefer my Colossal Chocolate Chippers, which are also much healthier.