Lent Status Report, Version 2.0

Hey ho folks! Still working on that camera issue. Plan on buying one next week, since I've pretty much close in on and identified the one.

I thought I'd do a little fessin' up about Lent. Well, that sounds like I've broken totally and utterly down and broken all good form here, which happily, isn't the case. But I have veered a bit. Just a smidge.

I'm still keeping myself mentally vegan on a daily basis, and even though I may pop an animal made product in my gob, it doesn't feel like I'm sinning. The main thing here is that I now thoughtfully consider every thing I put in my mouth. It may sound a bit obsessive, and I can totally see that, but it's not. When I was an omnivore, I didn't even consider myself as such, because I didn't think about everything I put in my mouth, despite striving for organic fare for the important stuff (fruit, veggies, meat). As a result, I would mass consume processed foods, candy, snacks, whatever, without really thinking about it. Now, I think. Not obsess. Just think. And it feels REALLY good.

As I mentioned before, I lost 2 kilos (5lbs) right off the bat. They're still off, no more, no less. Though I continually feel skinnier, and I think that's down to not feeling as bloated as I previously have. I'd love to lose more, but that's not my main objective at this time.

I have been eating goat's cheese to satisfy that craving, and if I ran out of soy milk, I'd use cow milk. Tastes awful, when you're used to the other stuff! Really bad after taste in fact. I also went to a belated Christmas/early Easter party with some girlfriends, and I did eat tuna salad, pickled herring and eggs, since I didn't want to make an issue out of it. My mom being here added some cow milk cheeses to the menu, plus a little ice cream and again, I didn't sweat it. But just today, at the office, my office mate fried up some bacon. Wow, did that ever smell bad! Death. Fried death. He asked if I wanted some. I declined, politely. Yuck!

So, I haven't been strictly vegan, but my diet has changed. I have fewer craving for either specific foods, or just stuffing my face in general. It's been a relief actually. Although I know it's restrictive, strictly speaking, to eat this way...it's actually liberating.

Rooty Coconut Chowder

I really really wish I had a picture of this. Alas, I have yet to find a replacement for my kaput camera (tips on better versions of the old point and shoot welcome), so an enthusiastic description will have to do.

I had yet another box of seasonal veggies staring me in the face, daring me to make something tasty out of them. Unfortunately, the biggest offering this time was a rutabaga! Wtf. Well, I actually enjoy the challenge of making anything tasty, but when you're pressed for time and have a hungry brood waiting small droplets of sweat form on your brow, and the nagging question of "what exactly am I doing" plagues you. Luckily, it went well. Really well.

1 rutabaga (by nature a large creature), peeled and cubed
.5 - 1 kg sunchokes, peeled and halved
1 large onion
1 tsp dried ginger
1 can coconut milk
sprinkling of cinnammon
1 tsp herbamare

- Start off by boiling the sunchokes and rutabaga together in a pot of salted water until soft. Drain, and set aside for next step.
- Finely chop the onion and fry it up in a little bit of coconut oil with the dried ginger until soft and fragrant. Add the boiled rutabaga and sunchoke, coconut milk, plus the herbamare. Let bubble, maybe adding a bit of water if it's too dry. When the taste is about what you want, take about half of the contents out of the pot, and blend them until nice and creamy. Add to the pot again, adding the dash of cinnamon. Stir well and serve with homemade bread.

Really really lovely chunky, creamy soup here. Enjoy!

Creamy Vegan Potatoes

Dude! It's been a while, huh? Well, between testing this vegan thing and my studies and my trip to Berlin, and now my mother being here for a visit...you get the idea. My camera is out of commission, for ever, so until we acquire a new one, I'll make do with old snaps of dishes I just haven't blogged about, and then second hand tales of decadent vegan meals, or something.

I made, actually invented, this warm potato salad as a side to an Indian dish I made recently, and it was good! And easy! And vegan!



I simply boiled some cute small potatoes, with skin, rubbing them gently off after they'd cooled a bit.
Then, I fried a small amount of finely chopped onion with light and dark mustard seeds and nigella seeds. When they'd released some of their flavor, I added the cooked and peeled potatoes again for a quick swirl, before turning the heat off. Then, as the creamy dot over the "i", I added a few bid spoonfuls of the white coconut cream that rises to the top of the canned coconut milk*. It was the perfect touch. And the dish was eaten with great fervor by all, young and older.

* Coconut milk has been a lifesaver in this vegan adventure of mine. Can't imagine not having its creamy goodness on hand.

Lent Status Report

Apart from an inadvertant bite of bread with butter/cheese I've been keeping this Lent thing up with no big problems. Just a few days after I started, I lost one whole kilo (2 lbs) which was quite a great perk if you ask me, and also a good reason to keep it up. I've lost another half kilo since then, and I think it's owing to the lack of butter in my diet. Boy, do we like butter here.

My breakfasts are a pretty standard bowl of oatmeal made on water, with raisins, cinnamon/sugar and flaxseed oil. Filling and quite satisfactory.

Lunches have been mostly bread with a smear of bean paste and beets, misc. vegan cold cuts, and cut up fruit and veg. Seriously, I haven't felt like I've been missing out. I would like to note that the bean paste has 15% protein, as opposed to a smear of Danish leverpostej, which has 24%. The vegan cold cuts have as much protein (wheat protein) as turkey cold cuts.

Dinners have been what they normally are, either vegetarian dishes with veggies and lentils, or dishes using quorn or soy meat substitutes. I made a mean chili sin carne the other night, and you could hardly tell the quorn/meat difference. Honestly.

If I am lacking any protein in this manner, just through regular meals, I put extra protein in my daily routine with lots of nuts for snacks, and peanut butter/hazelnut butter on Wasa crackers.

So far, no cravings for "real" meat, though I do miss cheese, so I'll find a good goat cheese to satiate that. I'll post some recipes I'm collecting soon.

Otherwse, I'm enjoying this little experiment, not in the least because I enjoy eating in a thoughtful manner. It's gratifying. And my body feels great, inside and out. 'Nuff said.

Two Days In

Thank you, Anonymous, for that cheerleading!

I just woke up after my second day without eating animal products, and get this, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed before 7 am, and I hadn't even had my coffee yet! Something good is going down here. I thought I'd post what I'd eaten for the last two days, and I might update every week or so with a Lent update and recipes.

Day 1:
breakfast: 1 cup coffee with soy milk
oatmeal with raisins, cinammon/sugar and flax oil
lunch: apple, pear, orange, high fiber crackers
tea
dinner: Leftover rice, fried, steamed endive, coleslaw w/vinaigrette

Day 2:
breakfast: same as day 1
lunch: rye bread with bean paste/spread and pickled beets, cucumber and vegan coldcuts
dinner: Indian mélange of rice, spinach garam masala dish, carrot curry/coconut dish and potatoes in coconut and mustard

Snacks have included fruit by the bucket, and if that wasn't enough, Wasa crackers with a nice smear of hazelnut butter (better than Nutella!) and maybe a drizzle of honey. And yes I'm still eating honey.

Feeling good, and so far this is easier than I thought it would be.

Lent

For the first time in roughly 20 years, I decided to give something up for the Lenten fast. I don't know what spurred it on, perhaps that Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day/Mardis Gras, and I seemed to have forgotten why that is celebrated in the first place. Something about Jesus being 40 days in the desert, I believe. And people think Islam and Christianity are nothing remotely like each other. Huh. So, having just read Eating Animals, I've decided to eat adhere as much as possible to the food doctrine behind the book, for 40 days. That would mean mostly sticking to a vegan diet, though I'll allow for dairy from goats/sheep since Safran Foer points out that those animals have not yet been targeted by factory farming. Yet. And I'm going to Berlin in a week's time, and I will allow myself to be touristy enough to enjoy a curry wurst.

I've long wanted to give the vegan diet a try, though having three omnivores in the house has kept me back. I think though, that I'm grown up enough now to endure watching others eat a certain food, without feeling deprived. And there is an ulterior motive a well. The weight issue. My bmi is normal, but I want to see what such a diet can do for my waistline. But ultimately, I want to try the diet of the future, and understand its necessity for myself, without dreading it when it becomes inevitable. I think we can do it!

This blog isn't going on hiatus per se, but I have no idea how this will pan out, as far as yummy recipes go. We shall see.

Anybody else doing Lent?