First and foremost, I promised everyone an interior shot of the stuffed chickpea cutlets from Sunday's protein cook-a-thon. Here it is, gang:
That's the same rye, water chestnut, and mushroom stuffing I used in my early Thanksgiving tofu turkey. It's my favorite stuffing next to the non-diabetic friendly Southern cornbread kind. I really should branch out into other types of dressings, but why mess with perfection? And this dinner was pretty darned perfect, especially after I smothered the works in some onion pan gravy. *Drool*
I've also made some serious inroads into the Vegan Dad veggie lunch meat. It is hella good stuff, and Bean thinks so too. I'm glad I went ahead and made the entire recipe - it shall probably be gone way too quickly.
But enough about the savory. I'm ending MoFo on a sweet note, darn it!
God, what happened to my great plans for this MoFo? I had all of these great recipes I wanted to try, wonderfully low glycemic index recipes in the works, themes coming out of my ears.
And here I am, a day away from the finish, posting about a stir-fry.
Hey, guys. I'd forgotten how much fun a cooking marathon can be. It's been a while since I hit the kitchen with the goal of stocking the freezer for a spell. A few hours, a couple podcasts, some Play-Do on the kitchen table to keep the Bean happy - life was good. Today's madness had a mission, and that my dear friends was protein - lots and lots of protein. Protein is important in my current delicate condition, and I needs it in a nice high-fiber form to keep the glucose monsters happy. So this afternoon I made a fiesta of seitan and bean-based goodness.
In honor of MoFo, I've been a member of the vegan club for the month of November. I'm usually an ovo-lacto veggie, but I decided to ditch the dairy and eggs for the past couple of weeks. Except for Thursday and Friday. We already had the traditional dinner a few Sundays ago; my husband and my mom are both out of town, and I had no plans since my trip north fell through last week. So I got together with my brother for what basically boiled down to a festival of all our favorite junk foods. I fell off the wagon for Thanksgiving. And I hit the ground. Hard.
It's funny - I didn't notice any wonderful effects from giving up the remaining animal products in my diet. I wasn't filled with supernatural energy or bathed in golden, heavenly light. But now that I've had two days of eating mozzarella sticks, cheese pizza, and untold other whey and casein infested disgusting things, I realize that I must have cleaned out my body during the vegan-thon. 'Cause I sure feel like logey, tired, bad-tempered crap now.
So there it is, everyone - more proof that a vegan diet is good! Or that cheese is bad. Or maybe both - I'm no scientist :)
I got back on track today. And I have to say, the bowl of oatmeal I had for breakfast this morning tasted better than anything I scarfed on Thursday afternoon.
Of course, the toasted fresh Georgia pecans, Earth Balance, and Sucanat toppings might have helped with that.
The only thing of note about this particular repast was how I made it. I bought a Crockpot Little Dipper to heat gravy for the big dinner. I remembered seeing a mention in the Amazon reviews of a guy who made overnight oatmeal in his. I tried his formula, and it worked like a charm. A third cup of steel-cut oats, a pinch of salt, whatever spice(s) you like, and a cup of water poured over the works. I set a timer to have it cook for six hours overnight. The oats came out nice and thick (you'll want to add more water if you like yours a little looser). The only drawback: the Little Dipper was a crusty mess. The remains came out after a few hours of cold-water soaking, but if you're an "everything must be clean NOW!" type, it will drive you nuts.
Just a quick one tonight, guys, because I'm tired and lazy and had a veggie burger for dinner (delicious, but not noteworthy).
I mentioned on Monday that I had an epic snack fail over the weekend. The one that sort of worked out was a fake s'more I made in the toaster oven. I tried it again today, and it actually worked a lot better. Score one more for dumb luck!
I went veg on August 1, 2008. I was expecting to survive on tossed salads with vinegar and eat raw vacuum packed tofu out of the box with a spoon. This attitude was partially due to some popular preconceived notions that circulate around the omnivorous world, and partially due to to my earlier flirtations with vegetarianism in high school and college.
I found out pretty soon that a lot had changed since the nineties (praised be the most high). And in the two years since, some more things have gotten even better. Five things in particular have impressed me. And because dinner tonight was so far from praiseworthy, I'll share them with you.
I had a short list of delicious snack ideas that I wanted to try this weekend - a kind of fake s'mores, blueberry cobbler made out of whole grains and flax meal, rosemary sea salt rye crackers, all sorts of stuff that just sounded superb on paper. Damned if I didn't crash and burn on each and every attempt. The s'mores weren't bad, but everything else ranged from bland to inedible. Oh, well; according to popular myth there's a thoroughfare leading to a hot, dry location that is tarmacked with good intentions. By yesterday night, it was paved with mealy crackers and mouth-suckingly dry desserts.
So here I am - a string of failures on my hands. What's girl to do?
I need to apologize for all the sans-recipe posts I've flung your way this MoFo, y'all. Usually I try stuff out a couple of times before I post it, but since I'm blogging in almost real time right now I'm not comfortable spilling the beans just yet. I'd hate to lead someone down the primrose path with promises of the ultimate deliciousness, then be responsible for the ruined mess they had to feed their family for dinner.
That said, I wish this recipe was ready. Because it is seriously delicious.
Michael Perry is one of my favorite authors - easily in my top five all time greats list. I want to attribute this entirely to his lyrical prose, his warmth, his ability to wrap his readers into a story so completely that you only surface hours later, almost gulping for air.
But I'm afraid that at least part of my devotion to Michael Perry is that in his most recent memoir, Coop, he introduced me to the concept of Sunday night popcorn dinner.
I almost always have a few apple slices lying sad and forlorn in my refrigerator. They end up there courtesy of Bean, who loves a nice crisp piece of fruit but can never finish the whole thing. Sometimes I eat them myself. Sometimes they languish until they're brown and soft enough to merit a trip to the compost bin. I needed some way to rescue them from this fate.
Help came from Paris. In French Women Don't Get Fat, Mireille Guiliano gives a wonderfully simple recipe for a faux apple tart. Instead of pastry, you lay quartered apples on a cabbage leaf, sprinkle with sugar and butter, and bake until tender. This seemed like just the thing to turn Bean's leftover snack apple into a diabetic friendly dessert treat. Tonight, I made it happen - vegan style, of course.
Snacks and sweets week begins with a twist on a classic breakfast treat/party staple. By no means do I have a masterpiece here, but I think I do have the beginnings of a great idea. I mean, who doesn't love sausage?
Well, besides people who hate sausage, of course.
Such people do not exist in my house. Even I, who have foresworn meat, have a lingering fondness for charcuterie flavors. On holidays, my family has for years indulged in sausage pinwheels for breakfast. Though I have a perfectly good veg*n recipe for them, this year I needed a low glycemic index version to please the diabetic demons. I thought about the humble sausage ball, that old standby made of pork, cheese, and Bisquick. Maybe I could find some way to replace the Bisquick with some nice whole grain flour, I thought.
Ahhh...I'm sure there are things more satisfying than a vegan feast, but I can't think of too many right now.
Here are some of the best dishes of yesterday night:
Sweet potato casserole - topped with Dandies and a brown sugar/pecan/Earth Balance streusel. Not anything a diabetic can eat in great quantities, but beautiful to behold.
Okay, so I had these great plans for making my favorite soup for tonight's dinner. I did the chopping, started the initial roasting of veggies... and then my afternoon went to hell in a Tofurkey sandwich with extra mustard. Red eventually had to rescue me with a trip to Ruby Tuesday's, where I enjoyed their delicious fresh salad bar. And while a Ruby Tuesday's salad bar dinner is scrumptious, it is not my favorite fall soup. My favorite fall soup is currently still in its individual components, languishing in the fridge. So I had a bit of a blogging dilemma.
Then I remembered what is probably the world's most forgettable vegetable:
That's right - I'm all about the cauliflower tonight.
I mentioned on Monday that I bought Melisser's new book, The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life, at the Northeast Florida Veg Fest. What I didn't mention was that I've already cracked the spine on that puppy. I always seem to destroy my favorite cookbooks, and it looks like this one is on its way to an early grave. Yummy for me, not so great for that poor little volume.
My first recipe: Mac and Cheesie Casserole by Kittee Berns.
No Mac and Lots of Cheesie - spaghetti squash crashes the vegan party!
I'll try to keep it brief today, guys. I've been a little loquacious recently (or as a pre-bat-crap-crazy Lindsay Lohan memorably said in the movie Mean Girls, prone to "word vomit"). But really, what can I say about beans that hasn't already been said before? High fiber, protein rich, magic bullets of complex carbohydrates. I don't think you can be a successful veggie if you don't at least come to term with beans. Or - in my case - fall head over heels in food love with them. Especially yummy, creamy white beans. Mmmm...
Slightly fuzzy picture - very yummy beans. It's a trade-off.
I completely stole this white bean mash from Nigella Lawson. I remember seeing her make it as a side for a minute steak on her Nigella Express series back in my pre-veg days. I thought "That might be good," and promptly forgot the mash ever existed until a few days ago. The good thing about forgetting something for over three years is that you only have the barest idea of how it was actually made - it's terrifying and freeing at the same time. I know it involved sage leaves, olive oil, and white beans. So I went from there.
Aside from yesterday's review of the Northeast Florida Veg Fest, this week is dedicated to the side dishes, y'all. This is what I've had the hardest time producing on my veg-abetic diet. I love all the stuff that I'm supposed to severely limit or avoid for the duration of my pregnancy. Creamy soups. Starchy foils for delicious drippy main dishes. Breads. I'm no where near cracking the code for making all my favorites diabetic friendly, but I have picked up a few tricks in the past couple months. For today - it is VEGan MoFo, of course! - those tricks are all about the vegetables.
Clockwise from top left: simmered green beans, stewed okra and tomatoes, hoecake (experimental), and white bean mash (coming soon!)
Before I got my gestational diabetes diagnosis we used to have doughnuts every Sunday morning. That, of course, has gone by the wayside for me. My nutritionist explained to me that I could have whatever I liked in small portions, but "moderation" and "cruller" have never been words I've cared to use in the same sentence. So no deep-fried dough coated in candy glaze.
All the true vegans readers are now saying "Big deal. I haven't had a bakery doughnut in years!" And believe me, now I feel your pain. Because as much as I adore soysage and scrambles, sometimes you just want a little something sweet in the mornings.
I wouldn't call these oatmeal scones sweet, per say. Not the original plain ones anyway. The recipe, another winner by Bryanna Clark Grogan, originally appeared in Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes. It's a great book, and it's been an invaluable resource for me, so I suggest you read it if you or yours have blood sugar issues. However, if you're healthy or strapped for cash, you can find the recipe here.
Inspiration for my latest breakfast experiment comes from Snugglebunny at The Republic of Bunny.* She has soy intolerance, and as such has had to come up with some creative ways to get around recipes that call for tofu. A while back she mentioned a puttanesca scramble that utilized chickpeas in place of the old soy standard. I looked at the picture, thought "Chickpeas for breakfast, yuck," and kept on trucking.
Then, yesterday morning caught me with a wee can of garbanzo beans and a devil-may-care attitude. I decided, knee jerk "yuck!" reaction be damned! I'll give chickpeas for breakfast a whirl.
There was disgust on her smooth young face. Revulsion even. She extended one French manicured index finger as if to poke the offending item, then stopped short a mere centimeter from the box. The girl spared me a contemptuous glance.
"I didn't know we sold that," she commented, as if I had deposited a particularly raunchy marital aid on the checkout counter between the paper towels and the romaine lettuce.
Hope that title didn't scare anyone. As soon as I typed it I remembered that old HBO series "Taxicab Confessions." I didn't ever watch it, what with being a young teenager at the time and not blessed with premium cable channels, but from what I understand there were some pretty saucy doings in yonder program. We're keeping it clean here at the Housewife, unless you find lentils exciting in an after-dark kinda way. And if you do, that's between you and your grocer's dry goods section.
Speaking of grocers, I have to admit that I adore supermarkets. I have a lot of love for the local produce store, and the natural foods stores in my area are a constant source of happiness and bankruptcy. But there's just so much great stuff to be had at Publix. Like processed soy breakfast sausage.
So... here we are celebrating all of the world's great, animal free food! This is my second year MoFo-ing, and I'm really looking forward to the challenge. Especially since I have a theme this year: INSULIN RESISTANCE!
"You know that expression on a dog's face as he watches you plop food into his bowl? Everything that's happened in my life so far has led up to this moment. That is how I feel, at the bottom, about something to eat."
Faster than a speeding squash plant after a rainstorm...more powerful than a KitchenAid stand mixer...able to leap tall dust bunnies in a single bound...
