Whew!

So, holy crap, it feels like it’s been forever since I posted anything. I look at my blog stats and they are slowly but surely trailing off with each passing day that people come to visit and I still have not posted anything.  No reason, really, except that I’ve felt no real food inspiration lately.

I like to post recipes and pictures but when I’m just making the same old crap that I’ve already posted about, then I have nothing to give you. Oh, plus, I can’t seem to access a lot of the pictures I downloaded last month…long story. It boils down to me being severely computer retarded. I do have a couple things to give you: a calzone and some muffins. In other words, carbs, carbs, and more carbs. Meh, whatareyougonnado?

Cherry Almond Muffins

Oven at 400. Spray muffin tin with no-stick spray.

2 cups ap flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup canola oil

3/4 cup rice or soy milk

1 6oz container soy yogurt, plain or vanilla

2 tsp almond extract

1 cup sliced almonds

1 1/4 cup dried cherries, chopped

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the center then add oil, ‘milk,’ yogurt and extract. Use a wooden spoon to mix well until combined. Fold in 1/2 cup of the almonds and all of the cherries.

Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Press the remaining almond slices into the tops of the batter. Bake for 18-22 minutes.

The original recipe had you picking fresh and never-in-season-therefore-always-ridiculously-expensive bing cherries. Those would be delicious in this muffin but I’m a cheapskate so I bought dried and just added more to the recipe. It’s from Vegan With A Vengeance.

Next up, I made this fantastic calzone with some pizza dough that my Trader Joe’s carries. Add some sliced tomatoes, pizza sauce, cheeze, homemade pesto, herbs and spices, and I say old chap, you’ve got a bloody good dinner!

God, those pictures suck hard. Sorry. It really was delicious though. Oh, ps- my homemade pesto consists of basil, olive oil, garlic, and walnuts. Oh, snap! No pine nuts? Whaaaat? That’s right. I didn’t have pine nuts but i did have walnuts and they are a cheaper, totally acceptable substitution. So there.

As any of my friends can tell you, I am an absolute horror movie fiend. Not just a fanatic but a completely obsessed nerd with the most useless knowledge about directors, cinematographers and producers that you could possibly percieve. Imagine my utter  delight when I came across the Val Lewton series of films from the 1940s! I was ecstatic. They were everything I could have dreamed of and then some. Netflix has this wonderful collection of movies at two to a disc with a little documentary of Lewton’s life on one of the pairs. I highly recommend them to you, as you will be totally astounded by what was considered a horror film back then. Today, we are bombarded with gross-out images of body parts, bloody viscera, and plotlines so convoluted and ridiculous that movie-makers have obviously noticed, otherwise they wouldn’t resort to remaking all the classics as they have recently been doing. Examples: My Bloody Valentine, Friday the 13th, Halloween…need i say more?

The picture is of my television with the opening screen image of one of the discs. I Walked With A Zombie is not what you think, trust me. And The Body Snatcher? Well, there is nary a pod person to be seen for miles.

Enjoy the food and the movies!

Banana Split Pudding Brownies

I have been craving some chocolate lately, and in a mean, mean way. Since I can’t just run out an buy a candy bar, I have to make my own stuff. Normally, I would bust out my copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, close my eyes, hold out my finger and randomly pick a recipe (then flip around until I found something I REALLY wanted to make). However, I was in the mood for something a little more…fudgey. Not to mention we had a bunch of brown bananas that needed to go away as they were housing a colony of fruit flies on my damn windowsill. So, I opened my bent, dirty, sticky copy of Vegan With a Vengeance and found this heaven sent jumble of words. I’m not sure why they are called Banana Split Pudding Brownies, they were more like fudgey brownies with a creamy banana topping, but they were awesome nonetheless. Another home run by Isa. Love you, girl.

As usual, I made some adjustments to my liking and to how I do things, so if you see things differently here as to what’s in the book, get over it. I think next time I make these, though, I will put them in a smaller pan, maybe 9×9, and bake them longer. I’ll let you know how that turns out. Here they are-

For the brownies-

4 oz semi sweet chocolate chopped, or 4 oz mini chips

2 large overripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup canola oil

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

For the topping-

2 large overripe mashed bananas

2 Tbsp sugar

1/4 cup soy milk *i used vanilla soy milk, it was all I had. Boooo….

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp arrowroot powder

For decoration and even more banana yumminess-

1 ripe, but not too ripe banana, sliced

Oven at 350. Spray a 9×13 pan with no-stick.

For the brownies…melt the chocolate chips in a small glass bowl in the microwave for one minute. Stir until smooth, set aside. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix bananas, oil and sugar with your hand held mixer until well combined. Mix in vanilla and melted chocolate. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Add this to the banana mixture in batches and blend completely, but you know, as usual, don’t over mix.

In a small bowl, combine all topping ingredients and beat until well combined, about a minute.

Spread brownie mixture evenly in baking pan. pour banana topping over that and spread evenly. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool for 15, then move to fridge until fully cooled. To the left is what mine looked like when they came out of the oven. Cut into twelve portions, top with sliced bananas and serve. YUM. I actually cut them into 24 portions and there was no evil uprising. I kept them in the fridge because, I dunno, they just seemed like a fridge type thing. Her directions say to top with sliced bananas, place on plate, and eat with a fork but after cutting them smaller and refrigerating them, totally not necessary. The extra bananas are totally up to you.

Here they are again as smaller bars and with a movie I watched last night that I frigging loved to little bloody pieces. Best line ever- “You two took away everything I ever loved. Fuck you both.” Lucky Number Slevin. Go rent it.

So, my review of “Skinny Bitch in the Kitch” is going to be kinda negative. If this was a book you liked, well, you should buy better vegan cookbooks, truthfully. I didn’t hate it, let’s be honest, if I wrote a cookbook, it would have the kind of mean-spirited butthole-ishness that this one has. As I put in my previous post, one of the pages in the book states, and I quote, “There’s nothing more annoying that recipes with a million obscure ingredients.” Agreed. But then some of their recipes call for stuff like kelp powder, or refined coconut oil to the tune of $16 for 16 ounces. OUCH! Evaporated cane sugar? I couldn’t find that crap anywhere. A good portion of their recipes consist of things like “vegan cheese, vegan turkey lunch meat, vegan chicken cutlets, etc.” You know, the kind of stuff I could have figured out for myself, for pete’s sake. I was not impressed. Sigh….

I think maybe this book was made for girls who don’t know how to cook and just got into the whole vegan thing. In that respect, I can dig it. But if you are a seasoned home cook, like I am, this book won’t cut it. No offense ladies. However! I have found one recipe that I am willing to try and I will post/bitch about it in a few days.

Until then, have a good one! I know I will. I get to spend tomorrow night in Chicago while my daughter is at the Good Charlotte(gag) show. I’m going to see the Hulk and then it’s off to Veggie Bite or Joy’s Noodles. Probably Veggie Bite. I effing love their shakes. Woot.

Wheat-free Blueberry Pancakes

An old man awoke before sunrise to see a youth standing at water’s edge, heaving a starfish back into the ocean. He asked the youth what was the purpose of his effort. The youth replied that the tide had washed all the starfish onto the beach and they can’t get back to the ocean by themselves. If they don’t get back into the ocean before sunrise they will die, he said. Upon further surveying of the situation, the old man saw the beach was littered with starfish in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the effort became clear and the old man told the youth that there were more starfish than he could ever hope to save before the sun comes up, and that surely he could not make a difference. The youth paused briefly to consider the old man’s words then bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. He turned to the old man and said, “I made a difference to that one.”

The reason I am telling you this story is because I go through something similar quite often with friends and family members on a weekly basis and I’m getting a little tired of it. “Oh you couldn’t possibly make any kind of a difference to the situation! Blah!” However, according to PETA’s website, and I quote, “every vegetarian saves the lives of a hundred animals per year.” Now, considering how much meat my kids and I ate before going veg, I’m going to bump that number up. In fact, I think most people eat much more meat that. So suck it, omnivorous pricks.

I chose this recipe because I wanted to experiment with all the flours I went out and bought. It is a mix of Isa’s wheat free mix that I found on the PPK forum, the pancake batter mix I found in “eat, drink, and be vegan” and the blueberry pancake mix I found in “vegan with a vengeance.” It has a lot of different flours in it so that may be a problem for those on a budget but the thing is, when you bake for gluten-free folks, you have to use a bunch of different flours because each one does something different in the recipe. I don’t know much about chemistry but I know when things taste like sawdust.

Wheat-free Blueberry Pancakes

3 Tbsp tapioca flour

1 Tbsp ground flax seed

1/4 cup

1/3 cup plus 2 Tsbp white rice flour

1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp quinoa flour

3/4 tsp cinnamon **this helps mask the ‘earthy’ taste of these. don’t leave it out.

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup water

1 1/4 cups soy or rice milk **I used almond milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 Tbsp pure maple syrup **at $6 per 8 oz, I just use regular cheapy syrup and my stuff tastes fine

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, doesn’t matter. **I used frozen because that’s always what I have

Mix the holy crap out of this stuff. Since there’s no gluten, you don’t have to worry about them getting all tough on you, but you do have to worry about everything getting distributed evenly. I read somewhere that you should add xanthan gum to wheat-free baked goods and I bought a bag of it, but I forgot to add it. So add at your own risk, if you want. Anyways, cook them in a fry pan greased up like a pig at a county fair. You know how to do that, right? I don’t have to walk you through it? Cool. Top your pancakes with this stuff-

Celestial Cream

1/2 cup to 3/4 cup pure maple syrup **again, too expensive! the cheapy stuff works fine! If you’re watching your sugar or cutting back on processed crap, then yeah, use the expensive stuff.

1/2 cup vegan margarine (earth balance or smart balance light)

1 tsp vanilla

12 oz silken tofu, like Mori-nu

1/4 tsp salt

Heat syrup and margarine on low heat until margarine melts. Add vanilla, tofu and salt. Place in blender and blend until smooth. Delicious!!! ***I actually just threw all this in a blender instead of heating it up. Still yummy!

So I hope you enjoy these. I have a recipe for vegan pancakes that just has plain old flour but what fun is that?

Oh, and a preemptive strike into “skinny bitch” and “skinny bitch in the kitch.” First of all, in “kitch,” the authors state that they know how much it blows when you have a recipe that has a bunch of goofy ingredients that are hard as hell to find. However, these broads want you to run out and buy refined coconut oil ($15.99!!!), safflower oil, kelp powder, and shit like that. Come on, ladies. Let’s keep it real, shall we? I’m still determined to find a couple of recipes that I like and can use more than once so keep your fingers crossed.

Until then, have a fabulous day!!

Falafel- yum!

***Edited note: Originally I had a link to a site but she has since made her blog private. I will never understand why people even bother writing blogs only to make it so others can’t read them. Just keep your diary under your mattress for crissake! She lost a lot of points with me. Booo….

First and foremost- this broad is H-I-L-arious. Go here and read her stuff. If you’re easily offended, well too freaking bad. She swears, she yells about people who are stupid- she does all the things I wanna do but get in trouble for when I do them. People tend to hold you to a higher standard when you’re a mom but I still make fart jokes and I call my fifteen year old daughter a douche bag. I’m going to try real hard not to swear(too much) because this site links to my business site and I don’t want to scare away money, but she has inspired me to be a little more…myself. And if THAT scares away money, well, you’re probably a huge pain in the ass I don’t want to deal with you anyway. Honestly, uptight people who offend easily should never come around me.

Plus, I totally agree with her about the Tina Fey stuff. Tina’s funny and all, but I expected ‘Mean Girls’ to be way funnier. I did totally love Janitor from Scrubs (one of my favorite TV shows of all time) as the dad, so here’s my shout out to good casting.

To the food!! I made this fantastic falafel(p98 ) from Vegan With a Vengeance. To your left, is my daughter enjoying hers. And in case anyone’s wondering, yes, I DO own other vegan cookbooks. In fact, I have two more coming from Amazon so don’t get your panties in a twist about it. I just happen to love these broads and I’m hoping that if they get enough press, they can get their butts on the Food Network and open the world’s eyes to good food that is cruelty-free. I’m sick and tired of people asking me where I get my protein and “what do you eat anyway?” Me- “Oh, you know, rocks, sticks, grass. I found some flowers the other day and sauteed them with garlic.” What idiots, I can hardly stand it sometimes. Here’s the recipe-

2 cups cooked chickpeas (i used two cans and drained and rinsed them)

1/4 c whole wheat bread crumbs (NOT Italian style, which is all i have, and it has parm cheese in it, so i had to used an old dried up heel of bread that i tossed in the blender. But if you’re not vegan then go nuts with it, girl! Or boy!)

2 Tbsp AP flour

1 medium sized onion chopped (I hate onions so I only used 1/4 of an onion, for flavor)

2 cloves chopped garlic

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander (I left this out because I hate cilantro/coriander)

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 c chopped fresh, Italian flat-leaf parsley

1/2 tsp salt

a few grinds of fresh ground black pepper

veg oil for frying (I used corn oil)

Pita breads sliced in half to make pockets(I used 100% whole wheat), sliced tomatoes(you may want to leave these off with the current salmonella outbreak and all), lettuce(I didn’t bother since eating lettuce is pointless for me- I may as well put it directly into the toilet), red onion(which I hate so no go on these either), sliced cucumber, and tahini dressing.

Put everthing up until the veggie oil into a food processor. Scrape down the sides occasionally, but make sure you have a nice pasty consistency. Put it into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for about an hour or until it firms up a bit. I ended up leaving mine in there for two days because I had to work and didn’t have time. I assumed it would take a long time but I guess i didn’t really realize all i was making was a damn sandwich.

Put your oil in the pan to heat up. Take the bowl out of the fridge, make about 16 little balls then flatten them into patties. I have large fry pans so I was able to make them in two batches of 8. Place in the oil and let sit until they get brown on the bottom, you will be able to see the brownness. Very carefully, flip them over and cook another 3 minutes or so. Maybe 5, who knows. I wasn’t counting, I just waited until I saw brown. The book says 2 1/2 to 3 minutes per side. You do what you want. I sure did.

When they come out of the oil, place them onto paper towels for draining and your best bet here is to eat immediately. Although, i ended up having two later on that I had to micro and they weren’t bad at all, just not crispy, and I think the crispness is what you’re going for here. Oh, and I’m thinking of renaming them Crabby Patties since I’m an old grump and my little peanut loves Spongebob. She may just eat them, you know?

Then you put them into pita breads that you have already spread with tahini. You put tomato, lettuce, onion and cucumber in there too. I used two patties per sammie but you can make it more veggie-based by just using one pattie and filling that pita up with the toppers. Yum! these were fantastic! I thought they would be hard and a pain in the arse but not so much! Just mix the stuff up, chill it, make patties, fry it, then assemblage of sammies. I served them with homemade guacamole but I don’t feel like posting the recipe since all i really did was throw an avocado into the magic bullet with some lime juice, jalapeno, cumin, salt, pepper, and garlic. Just pretend there are pictures, okay? Thanks.

Also, this thing rules the school for chopping. It is god, really. God. It was given to me by my hubby’s grandma because she heard me talking about how i wanted to buy one. It would have only been twenty bucks, and I’ll tell you what- for as much chopping as i do on a daily effing basis, I love this thing, totally worth it. You should spend the twenty bucks. They were at Bed, Bath, and Beyond last I checked. It has a smaller blade for garlic, or just smaller onions I suppose. I hate chopping onions. Don’t you? Ick.

Here’s what I had for breakfast for the last three days. It was simply scrumptious. I sauteed in a large pan one Tbsp of corn oil, one package of extra firm tofu crumbled, a cup of Morningstar Farms vegan sausage crumbles, a tsp of cumin, half cup of Trader Joe’s fire roasted corn, salt and pepper. I spread some Earth Balance on a piece of toast and away I went! It fed me for three days!! And it was awesome!!! I have always loved my eggs soft-scrambled(but not runny, that’s just gross) so this was perfect for me! I’m going to make it again, thank you very much!!!

Until next time, kiddies….

Tiramisu cuppies, garlic soup, Trader Joe’s and Veggie Bite!!

I’m not gonna lie…I’ve never like tiramisu very much. It’s just not chocolaty enough for me. In fact, the only chocolate in there is a lame dusting of cocoa powder on top. Blah. The first time I had it was when my mother and I went to eat at a restaurant in Colorado while visiting my brother about 13 years ago. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was sorely disappointed, let’s just put that out there.

Last week, my best friend Robert went to a wedding in California. I told him that when he got back, I would make him the tiramisu cupcakes(p119) from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. So, these are for you, gayhole.

You are making the basic vanilla cupcakes(p33) but doing things to the cupcake afterward to make it all tiramisu-y.

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp cider vinegar

1 1/4 c ap flour

2 Tbsp cornstarch

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 c canola oil

3/4 sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

Put the soy milk aside with the cider vinegar to curdle, making it our version of buttermilk. This should only take about 5 minutes. Next, mix wet ingredients into it. Mix dry stuff separately, then mix it all together until there are no large lumps. As always, and you’ve heard it a million times, DO NOT overmix. Please.

Fill your lined muffin tins about 3/4 full or until you’ve used all the batter to make 12 cuppies. Bake for 20 minutes, maybe 22 if your oven is a jerk. Let cool.

I did not let mine cool completely, instead, I only let them cool for about 15 minutes. Then I cut out a cone shape with a paring knife. One of the only good uses for a paring knife, I believe. (How often do you use that thing? I mean, come on.)

Next, I made the cream cheese frosting(p158).

1/4 earth balance (or any non-hydrogenated vegan margarine)

1/4 vegan cream cheese, i used toffutti

2 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Cream margie and toffutti until fluffy, add vanilla, add powdered sugar. Bam! This didn’t taste very cream cheese-y to me, but it was still the shiz, so I’m keeping it.

I then mixed 1/3 cup Starbuck’s coffee liqueur with 1/3 cup water and 3 tsps of instant coffee mixed and microwaved. I wanted it strong, yo!! (You can use any coffee liqueur, really.) And for my straight edge friends, obviously if you omit this, add more of the extra strong coffee, probably espresso powder instead of coffee would be better. And if you have an espresso machine…well, you rule. Use that instead. And marry me, please.

You put about 2 Tbsp of this into the cavity of each cupcake, make sure it’s nice and soggy. Believe me, you want to taste the coffeeness. Pipe in your cream cheese frosting, and the replace the cone once you have dipped it into that coffee ooze. Use your sifter to dust a mixture of 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp cocoa powder over the tops of these.

These were amazing. I am totally hurting my shoulder patting myself on the back right now, but they were THAT good.

I also went to a place called Veggie Bite today and had the most amazing chocolate shake. My friend lives right by the one on 111th (which I had no idea of) in Chicago so I told her i would be visiting her more often. Even she, the veal and pate loving omnivore said, and I quote, “I am really impressed with how good this shake is right now.” Then she proceeded to argue with me- right in the joint- as to why cow’s milk is totally normal and good for you and okay to drink. Sigh. And she’s in law school, ya’ll. Don’t ya just love lawyers? They can rationalize anything.

And Trader Joe’s– what’s that all about?? I went there like ten years ago and forgot it even existed for while but I went back today. I wanted to take a picture of my receipt because, seriously, everything I bought was like two dollars. Seriously. I will be shopping there from now on. I think it’s totally worth the 25 minutes drive.

Oh, and I made this kickass garlic and white bean soup from Vegan With a Vengeance(p67). I served it with crusty wheat artisan (vegan) bread. It had just enough fennel to NOT be overpowering, because I totally hate that black licorice crap flavor, and I got to put my immersion blender to work. That poor thing has been collecting dust for far too long. Even my omni hubby loved this hearty and filling soup! But really, who wouldn’t like two whole bulbs of garlic roasted then squeezed and blended into soup? Especially these crazy eye-talians I find myself suddenly related to!

Until next time…vengeance is mine!! Oh, and so is the falafel.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip

These were the best cookies ever. Really. I got them from Vegan With a Vengeance but I tweaked them a little.

The recipe called for raisins and walnuts. Well, no thanks to the nuts and I was fresh out of raisins so chocolate chips it was!

I used the optional ground flax seed because she says somewhere in that book that they add chewiness and I’ll be damned if I’m eating crispy cookies. I don’t like them.

I actually split the batch in half, added my vegan chocolate chips to half, then added regular Hershey’s semi-sweet to other batch. Mainly because I’m too cheap to share my super expensive vegan chips with the rest of my family. Carmen can’t seem to keep herself vegan so she’s just half-assing it right now, and that’s fine. I know how teenagers can be. Fickle, irresponsible, cranky. I’ve been there so I’m not going to force her into something she’s not quite into wholeheartedly.

oh, sidebar-I’m trying like hell to volunteer at Warped Tour for the Action For Animals booth. It would be super if they would call me but he said he thought they were full at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater. Oh well, I will have to find something else to volunteer for, I guess. There’s plenty of horrible crap going on that I can be a butthole about and protest, right?

Oh, here’s a couple more pictures of my cookies in action…

This was the mix and the can of pumpkin. I used my spring loaded 1 ounce ice cream scoop to make all my cookies the same size. I love it, it’s so handy for all kinds of crap.

I got 48 scrumptious cookies out of this recipe. I guess I’ll post it here, and if the ladies get mad at me, I’ll just take it down. But really, if you make the cookies, then buy the book because of it, who wins? Everyone!

Here it is, you will need:

2 cups AP flour (i used unbleached)

1 1/3 cups rolled oats

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 2/3 cups sugar

2/3 cup canola oil

2 Tbsp dark molasses

1 cup canned pumpkin, NOT pumpkin pie mix

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp ground flaxseeds (optional)

1 cup walnuts, finely chopped     ** i passed on these. not a HUGE fan of nuts in my cookies.

1/2 cup raisins  **i was out of raisins so instead i used 1/2 cup vegan choc. chips, and 1/2 cup reg. choc. chips

This follows the basic premise of any baking job- you mix the dry stuff together, then the wet stuff, then you fold to combine, then you add the raisins/walnuts/chocolate chips, what have you.

What I did was I divided the batter into two portions and added the different chocolate chips to each batter. I used my scooper to get my cookies a nice uniform shape and size. I sort of mushed them down before putting them in the oven. I have five rack spots in my oven so one of the cookie sheets sat on the very middle rack, and one sat on the rack directly under it. I baked them for 8 minutes, took them out, turned the pans around and switched them from top to bottom and bottom to top and then turned my timer back on for 9 minutes. I took them out and let them cool completely.

I tried one warm, and one completely cooled and what a difference!! Wait til they cool. You will NOT be disappointed. Yum!!

Enjoy! And Viva La Vengeance!!

Lack of Protein? No Way, Jose!

So , it drives me up a wall, but I constantly get people asking me what i do for protein. Are they serious? I get so much protein i think my kidneys are mad at me. Let me just set the record straight real quick.

First of all…beans! Yes, they are the magical fruit that make you go toot but they are also packed with protein. If you take enough Beano, you don’t have to worry about gas. Or bloating. Or that weird meowing noise your stomach does when garbanzos decides to tear it a new one.

Second…pasta! If you look at those new-agey type pastas they all say “excellent source of protein” and upon further digging, i have found out that apparently whatever your age is, you multiply it by two and there you have how much protein you should be taking in per day. If there are any nutritionists out there who’d like to do battle over this stat- bring it. I’m unarmed. That’s just something I pulled from the net. You would totally win.

The box of angel hair I just looked at says 7 grams of protein per 1 ounce serving. I looked at my cans of beans, too. Garbanzo beans, 6, red kidney beans, 7, cannellini beans, 8 grams, all per 1/2 cup serving.

Let’s not forget my favorite protein alternative- tempeh. This monster has 19 grams of protein in one four ounce serving. Wow. Tofu, while not the best of them, is still holding steady at about 4.5 grams per ounce. Let’s not forget soy milk, please. I ingest tons of it because I freaking love granola (yes, honey free, my darlings) and one cup of it has 7 grams.

And let’s go there please. Soy milk. It was never my favorite back in the day, but this ugly duckling has really sprouted beautiful feathers recently. I don’t know what they’re doing to the stuff, but it tastes so much better these days. And calcium? It has 30% of what i need in that little cup.

I’m not going to go through and list all the things i eat in a day that have protein and calcium so a clan of carnivores can still find something wrong with the vegan philosophy. Either you feel it or you don’t, and I do. So nyah! Bring on the food!!

This was my lunch yesterday and today. I boiled the aforementioned pasta while sauteeing some cherry tomatoes. I pushed down on the tomatoes to get them to squirt out a bit of juice and then tossed in a lot of zucchini and yellow squash. When it was pretty well caramelized, I tossed in the cannellini beans, a handful of dried parsley, a handful of dried oregano, a crapload of chopped garlic, and some crushed red pepper because I like my shit hot. Oh, and of course, kosher salt ad pepper. This was quite delicious and I’m going to pat myself on the back for this one.

I’m not going to pat myself on the back for this one, however. I sucked hard at making this recipe that I know would have been fabulous if I’d had over a couple of Yentas, but I don’t know any. It’s the Matzo Ball Soup from Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Chandra. It started out great- I got the mix together and I refrigerated it overnight, as suggested.

I took it out and made my Matzo balls. I was so excited I almost started speaking in tongues, Yiddish being one of them. I had my water boiling and I carefully placed them inside the pot. I put the lid on and left it alone like she says to in the book. I mean, she used all caps to drive home the point, so i figured I’d better do it or I may get some kind of bad Kabbalic Karma sent my way. Then this happened.

It boiled over. So i had to remove the lid. I was looking over my shoulder the whole time, I swear. What a bummer because I’m sure that had something to do with what happened to my balls. Ahem, Matzo balls.

They looked nice in the pot but when my 40 minutes were up and i went to remove them, well, there was a lot of Matzo meal floating about the pot and a good portion of the balls were falling apart. Very sad, really. I was so looking forward to trying this stuff. This  is the finished product. I managed to find few good balls and i ladled the broth over them. It was still heavenly, I’m not going to lie, but until I perfect this soup, I’m not serving it at my next Passover Seder.

You know what? I’m going to have some right now. see you tomorrow!

The Mostly Vegan Gourmet!

Well, I finally got all my vegan cookbooks and then discovered there was one more i needed- Vegan With a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. However, i must tell you a secret…I’m trying to just veganize the recipes i make now so my kids don’t get all freaked out by the weird stuff I will soon be making.

Today’s lunch consisted of something we make at the restaurant where i work. It’s simply called “escarole with sausage” but my super-Italian boss just calls it “shcarole” pronounced like you’re rolling the R just a tad. I don’t know, it sounds funny to me, so i just say to people, “Oh, you’d like the escarole with sausage? Sounds delicious!” (And he’s kind of a stroke so who cares how he says stuff.)

Anyway, I simply boiled rigatoni pasta noodles for the correct amount of time- no more than that though because I freaking HATE slimy, soggy, mushy pasta- then while that was happening, i sauteed the sliced soy/veggie italian sausage with some olive oil, chopped garlic, crushed red pepper, and salt. When it was mostly done, i threw in the green stuff and let it wilt down quite a bit while tossing it here or there. I kept adding touches of oil because i love the stuff.

Here’s my confession- I’m pretty sure the sausage wasn’t totally vegan. Oh, and my other confession- I’m not sure I care all that much. See, here’s my problem…

I was vegan a long time ago, and I only lasted about 8-9 months. (I already posted why previously so if you wanna know why, go back and read about it.) And i was “that guy.” You know the one. You sit down in a restaurant and you order a BLT and I’m the one who starts in with how pigs are kept in factory farms and tortured and blah blah blah. (Only it’s NOT blah blah blah, but still, not the time or the place.) I harassed everyone i went out to eat with. I was a complete pain in the ass at restaurants and had to make a point of my politics to every single human i came into contact with.

I’m a different person now. I made the veggie transition over a couple of days last month and it worked out well so far. I’m very hesitant to refer to myself as vegan though and here’s why- I’ve met soooo many vegans who are now just the way that i was then. Assholes. “What are you doing using Burt’s Bees? Don’t you know that’s stealing?!” (I love the stuff!) I don’t want to be an asshole. I try desperately to use soy milk in my coffee every time and most of the time i do, but if I’m somewhere where there happens to be no soy milk and the only thing available is that powdered crap with trace amounts of casein…I’m using it. Sorry.

I will do what i can when i can to eat as little animal products as possible but I’m not going be a militant jerkoff about it. I’m not going to lecture people or tell them they’re going to hell. (Is there such a place?) I’m not going to starve myself. Don’t get me wrong, I will never eat meat again, but we plan on going to Italy for our anniversary (apparently he has family there. who knew?) and while I could eat pasta marinara the whole damn time, I’m not going to. I’m going to taste the regional cheeses. I am, after all, a food lover. It’s just something I’ll have to deal with when it happens.

So, I’m only going to refer to myself as mostly vegan. And lazy. And cheap.

The “Lazy, Cheap, Mostly Vegan Gourmet.” It has a ring to it. Enjoy.