vegan lunchcast

Well...

2007-06-01T10:45:00.001-04:00

Unfortunately, it looks like I am going to need to take a break from my daily blogging for a while. There are too many other things in the real world that need my attention right now so I won't be devoting much upcoming time to trying out new recipes and coming up with new lunch ideas. I'll probably just be eating a lot of sandwiches for a while, and fixing large dishes that I can dine on for several days. Both of those things would be boring for a blog, plus I would need to find time to even do a boring post, and it looks like I am going to be short on time here for a while.

I don't know if it'll be a short break, or a long one.

I didn't want to just disappear like I did last time and leave people wondering if I had an accident or something. I'm fine, but there's just a lot of stuff going on right now and I'm not going to have the time I need to continue blogging at the rate that I have been.

I hope to be back though... eventually.

So, thanks for reading my blog. I really appreciate it, but I just need a break really bad.

I'll leave everything the way that it is, so enjoy the old posts and have a great Summer. :o)

Vegan Dining Out @ Aladdin's Cuisine

2007-05-30T19:01:00.000-04:00

If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you might remember a post from a couple of months ago when I was traveling in Savannah, GA and dined at an authentic Middle Eastern restaurant and discovered falafel. I had never had falafel before, well good falafel anyway, and as soon as I tasted the real thing I knew I had discovered something that I loved. Well, I figured that you probably had to live in a town that at least resembled a big city in order to have a restaurant that served Middle Eastern food. I never dreamed that there would be such a place here where I work, in Kingsport, TN. But I was wrong. Who knew there was a place here that served falafel?

Aladdin's Cuisine is located right downtown and it is HUGE. 3 stories to be exact. It's right beside an oriental rug gallery. I think the same man owns both businesses. Anyway, the place is huge and the decor is over the top. Talk about some atmosphere. On the weekends they even have belly dancers. Not to talk bad about where I live, but it IS pretty redneck around here. So it's really amazing that there is such a restaurant here. I just can't imagine people who live around here being willing to try Middle Eastern food. But I guess some of them are. And since I discovered that falafel and hummus are usually safe vegan bets, well, they've made a new customer here too.

I started out by ordering the hummus as an appetizer. I am not lying when I say that this was absolutely the BEST hummus I have ever tasted in my life. They list the ingredients on the menu, and it's just the usual; chickpeas, tahini, garlic & lemon juice. But gosh it sure does taste good. My sever said that the cook was Iranian, so I guess that explains it. That guy just KNOWS how to make awesome hummus. Mmmmmmm... it was good. I only ate about half of it though and boxed the other half up to take home for later. How come my homemade hummus doesn't taste like this?

For my main course, I ordered the falafel. I was expecting it to come as a sandwich on some pita bread, but it didn't. Technically, this wasn't part of the lunch menu, so I guess this is really more of a formal dinner type of way to serve falafel. Anyway, this was also DELICIOUS. It came with a tahini sauce, which I had to confirm didn't contain any dairy (I was afraid there might have been yogurt in it). It was vegan though. It was just tahini thinned out with some olive oil & vinegar. YUM!

The entire meal was EXACTLY what I wanted, yummy Middle Eastern food, and it was DELICIOUS. It was expensive for lunch ($10.95 for the falafel and $5.95 for the hummus), but I wasn't ordering from the lunch menu, and I normally wouldn't have ordered both the hummus AND falafel by myself, but I wanted to try both. I had plenty of both dishes left over to pack up and take home for dinner.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with the restaurant, both the decor and the food. It's a place that I definitely want to eat at again, and I would like to bring some of my coworkers who aren't familiar with Middle Eastern cuisine here too so they can see how delicious the food is. This is one cool restaurant, and I didn't even know it was here. What a wonderful discovery.

So there you have it, my delicious, and HUGE!, Middle Eastern lunch for Wednesday.

I'll be back tomorrow with the lunchbox. See you then!

Homemade Veggie Burger

2007-05-29T17:02:00.000-04:00

After a nice long Memorial Day weekend, I was exhausted (too much sun & too many margaritas). So I took the easy way out with today's lunchbox and just cooked up the last homemade veggie burger that I had in the freezer. I actually made a BUNCH of these things from the recipe at Bunnyfoot's blog on Thursday and took them with me to the campground this weekend. I ended up feeding several of them to some omnivores and even they liked them. Of course, I jazzed them up with Vegenaise, lettuce, pickle, tomato and onion. For the lunchbox today though, I was just in the mood for a pickle.

I doubled the batch and made several veggie burgers and then wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and froze them. Then all I had to do to prepare them was defrost them really quickly in the microwave and throw them in a skillet for a few minutes to brown them up real nice on the outside since they're really already cooked when you bake them initially. I poured on lots of vegan Worcestershire sauce and Montreal Steak Seasoning while grilling them just to make them taste extra yummy.

This is the same recipe that I was tinkering around with a couple of months ago when I got all stirred up and said that I was going to mess around with the recipe until I perfected it into the perfect veggie burger recipe. Well, needless to say, I haven't done that yet. There's just not enough hours in a day, you know. They really are yummy just the way they are though, so I really enjoyed them this weekend, as did everyone else who tried them.

While I was eating them this weekend though, I started wondering if it was really worth it to spend all that time making veggie burgers when a nice grilled Portobello cap probably would have been just as good. Maybe I'll try that next weekend.

Anyway, to go with my burger, I just brought along some french fries that I baked up in the oven. And then I've got a Cashew Cookie Larabar for dessert.

Needless to say, I didn't lose any more weight this week. I ate too much during the holiday weekend. I have been keeping up with my walking though, so I haven't gained any back, but if I want to lose more weight, and get down to my goal of 185, then I'm going to have to start cutting back. So I'm still at 197 lbs. with a total weight loss so far of 28 lbs. I guess I've just gotten too comfortable with my eating since I lost that initial weight. I may need to start counting Weight Watchers Points again or something. At any rate, there's no new weight loss to report, but no gain either.

So I guess that does it for Tuesday's post. I can't decide if I want to pack the lunchbox tomorrow or go out and eat because I just discovered a new restaurant here in town and I couldn't believe that it existed right here. If I end up going there tomorrow I'll share it here on the blog because the fact that a restaurant like this is located around here where I live just blows my mind. I'm pretty sure that I'd like to try it out tomorrow, so brace yourself. :o)

I hope everybody had a great weekend. See you back here tomorrow!

Baked Italian Hummus

2007-05-24T19:20:00.000-04:00

Okay, this post is gonna' have to be filed under DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. I was so proud of myself last night while I was making this because I thought I had a really good idea how to recycle a vegan dish that I had a large amount of, but it ended up not working out as well as I thought it might have. So let me save you the trouble of trying this and just let you know that today's recipe is probably not worth trying. :o(

I had so much of that Creamy Chickpea & Tahini Casserole left over from yesterday's lunch that I tried to think of other ways to use it. I got to thinking about the fact that it contained a lot of chickpeas and tahini and I was like, "HUMMUS!"

I love hummus, the regular kind that is, and the kind with roasted red peppers added. So I thought this might be good if I just took some of the leftover casserole and plopped it into the food processor and whirred it into hummus. Since it would basically be hummus with tomatoes & Italian seasonings mixed in, and it was baked, I decided that a name like Baked Italian Hummus might be good.

Well, that might be a good name, but it really didn't end up being a very good dish. The tomato & Italian seasonings tastes are good in this when served HOT as a casserole. They are not so good if you serve it cold as hummus. It wasn't completely revolting or anything, I could eat it. But if it were something that I had ordered in a restaurant, I would make sure to never order it again. So needless to say, I won't be making it again either.

The color came out kinda' icky too. It's almost pink. Obviously, that didn't make it taste any better. I just brought some homemade tortilla chips that I baked up in the oven to eat with it. At least they are really good.

I also brought along some more mixed vegetables from the freezer to finish filling the lunchbox.

If this recipe had turned out decent, I was actually planning on thinning some of the "hummus" down with some soy milk and making a sauce for pasta with it for tomorrow's lunchbox. But as you might guess, I won't be doing that now. Just the thought of it... eww...

But don't let this debacle deter you from trying the original casserole recipe, it is WONDERFUL! Just don't try turning it into hummus. Not too good.

I'm actually going to be taking a break from blogging tomorrow (Friday) and Monday since it's a holiday weekend and I won't be going to work. I'll probably just end up eating some sammiches at the house so I won't bore you with those. If I accidentally whip up anything wonderful I might do a quick post, but that probably won't happen because I plan on taking it easy these next four days and doing absolutely NOTHING except laying by the pool.

So thanks for reading the blog this week and I'll see everybody next Tuesday back at work with the lunchbox (with something GOOD in it).

Have a GREAT holiday weekend!

Creamy Chickpea & Tahini Casserole

2007-05-23T19:55:00.000-04:00

Today I've got a new item in the lunchbox from a recipe that I recently discovered online. It sounded so yummy, and it had such good reviews and it had the words "comfort food" in the description, so I HAD to try it. The reviews were right, this is a really yummy recipe, and cheap too. Plus, it makes a TON of food, so it's really good for eating on several days or feeding a really large group. And like the recipe says, it's really open to modification. I imagine a nice crusty topping of bread crumbs or corn flakes would really be delicious on this. Of course, it's yummy just the way it is.

Creamy Chickpea & Tahini Casserole is really easy to make. It just involves mixing some chickpeas, onions, some brown rice, a few spices and some tahini and then baking it. It's one of the easiest recipes that I've tried but boy does it taste good. This is something that I would like to make this year at Thanksgiving and take to my parents' home for everybody to try. I know they would like it.

My mind is also racing with other ideas of how to modify the leftovers to turn it into other dishes for subsequent lunches. I have an idea for something to try tomorrow, so I guess I'll do it and see how it turns out. I even have another idea for Friday, so if my first experiment ends up being edible then I may even try another. At any rate, this recipe made a huge tasty pan of food. It's pretty healthy too. If I weren't trying to have something different every day for my blog, I could probably just make pans of this stuff and live on it.

Anyway, to go along with the casserole I just brought some more vegetable mixes from the freezer, as well as some blueberries for dessert.

So that's basically it for today's lunch. I really like making casseroles since they are usually so easy to make and they make so much food that I can eat on them for several days. This one turned out really good (the reviews were right!) and it's definitely something that I will be making again in the future. I am also hopeful that the couple of modifications that I have in mind mean that I'll be able to squeeze a couple more different meals from this one huge dish. I hope it turns out as good as I think it will. Stay tuned to find out...

So thanks for reading my blog today. See everybody tomorrow!

Vegan Dining Out @ Giuseppe's

2007-05-22T17:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I had to go out for lunch today with the group from work. We were celebrating someones new assignment in a different area so, of course, that person got to pick the restaurant. Lucky for me, they chose Giuseppe's, which is a local Italian restaurant. You might remember a post from the past where I ate at another local Italian place called Raffaele's. Well, this place is owned by the same family, except it's a little more upscale, and a little pricier. That really didn't matter for me though because the boss ended up paying for it. WOO-HOO! Free vegan lunch!

I knew we were going out to eat today, so I really skimped on breakfast because I knew I would probably be eating a lot at lunch. I just had a couple of pieces of light toast since I didn't want to skip breakfast altogether since that's not so good for your metabolism. So by the time lunch rolled around I was starving. I was so hungry in fact, that I forgot to take a picture of my salad because I inhaled it at soon as it hit the table. At any rate, it was just a simple salad since I had all the non-vegan ingredients left off, so you're not really missing anything. It was good though, and I just got the individual bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dress my salad with. The balsamic vinegar that they had was extremely good. It was quite a bit sweeter than most others I have tried. It was so good I was passing it all around the table and several other people enjoyed it as well.

I ended up ordering a dish off the menu called Pasta Toscana. I asked for them to make it vegan by leaving off the cream sauce and just giving me the pasta & veggies stirred up some olive oil and roasted garlic. There's bowtie pasta with shiitake mushrooms, spinach, sundried tomatoes and walnuts in there. YUMMY! It was kinda' funny though because I was trying to tell the server that I needed my food to be modified since I'm a vegan and she said, "What? You're a villain?" I'm not sure that she ever even really got it because after I asked for the omission of the cream sauce, she asked me if I wanted chicken on it. Um, no. Anyway, I was worried about what I might get, but it came out exactly like I asked for it to, and it was delicious! Several people in my group eyed my plate and commented that my food looked really good. I think one or two of them might have been envious of the vegan food today.

Anyway, it ended up being a really nice lunch and I was extremely pleased with what I ordered. It tasted really, really good. I'm gonna have to be extra good for dinner tonight to make up for eating so much for lunch though. Maybe just a green smoothie or something. Although I am going to try a new recipe that I've been wanting to try tonight so I can have something new in the lunchbox tomorrow. It's fairly healthy, so perhaps I will indulge in a little bit of that dish later this evening. It sounds like a really good recipe and I am excited to try it and share it here on the blog.

So thanks for coming by the blog today.

I'll be back with the lunchbox tomorrow. See you then!

Vegan Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

2007-05-21T19:22:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I saw a commercial for a certain fast food chain this weekend and they were advertising their new Buffalo Chicken sandwich. Well, that's all it took. I absolutely love Frank's Hot Sauce and welcome any opportunity to eat it. So, I just whipped up my own vegan version of this sandwich for my lunchbox today.

All I did was pack a Boca Chik'n Patty along with a light bun and a small container of Frank's Hot Sauce. I guess, technically, to make buffalo sauce, you are supposed to mix equal parts of the hot sauce and melted margarine, but I certainly don't want to add that many calories and that much fat to my lunch, so I just use the hot sauce by itself.

I love to make vegan versions of hot wings too. I had one version, using seitan, here on the blog quite a while ago. I also made a different version once using tempeh after seeing it demonstrated by a few people on various other message boards & blogs. I just love the flavor of the hot sauce, and the more fumes the better.

To go along with my sandwich, I brought a couple of containers of different steamed vegetables. The larger container has broccoli, cauliflower & carrots while the smaller container has peas, corn, carrots and green beans. Lucky for me, I like my veggies. And these just came from the freezer, so all I did was pour them straight out of the bags and then I'll heat them up a lunchtime in the microwave.

To finish filling the lunchbox, I threw in a few raw cashews. I think cashews are probably my favorite nut. I have to watch myself when I eat them though because I don't have very good self control around them. They do fill me up though, I guess because of the fat content, so that's one reason why I like to add them to the lunchbox. Well, they taste good too. Sometimes I eat them with my lunch, kinda' like dessert, but sometimes, if there's enough other stuff to fill me up at lunch, I like to leave the nuts and have them later in the day, like around 2PM, as a nice snack. Just depends on how ravenous I am at lunchtime.

So that does it for Monday. It was such a pretty day yesterday that I didn't want to spend too much time in the kitchen cooking, so after seeing that commercial and getting all stirred up about buffalo sauce, I took the easy way out and slung together this simple, but tasty, vegan sandwich.

I'll have to take my camera to work with me again tomorrow because the whole group is going out to lunch again. Sure does seem like we go out for lunch an awful lot at work doesn't it? HA! I think we're going to a local Italian place, so it should be pretty easy for me to find something good to eat there.

Whoops! I almost forgot. It's Monday and time for another weight loss update. And I guess the reason I almost forgot is because, unfortunately, there's nothing new to report this week. I still weigh 197 lbs. So I didn't lose any additional weight last week. That's okay because I know as I get closer and closer to my goal of 185 it will be harder and harder to get the pounds to come off. I am also discovering that it's going to be more challenging to continue to lose weight now that the weather is so beautiful and there are all of these opportunities to overindulge popping up left and right. I am really going to have to be careful and buckle down if I want to make it to 185. I HAVE still lost a total of 28 lbs. though, so I'm not discouraged. I realize it's going to be more difficult from here on out. I've just gotta' stick with it.

So thanks for checking out the blog today. See everybody tomorrow!

Black Bean & Vegan Cheese Nachos

2007-05-18T13:40:00.000-04:00

Today's lunchbox was really easy to put together. That's good too, because I had plans yesterday evening and didn't want to spend a whole lot of time cooking and worrying about the next day's lunch. With all of the Mexican cooking over the last few days, I had lots of leftovers stored in the fridge. So it was no trouble at all to go through and combine a few of those items to create some delicious Black Bean & Vegan Cheese Nachos.

In fact, everything in the lunchbox is a leftover from the previous couple of days worth of cooking, except for the tortilla chips. Just move your pointer over each item in the lunchbox and text boxes will pop up and tell you what each item is. You might remember a while back when I brought some nachos for lunch and I had a hard time locating baked tortilla chips here where I live. I don't know what it was, but for some reason, none of the local stores that I checked had any baked tortilla chips, so I ended up getting fried ones last time. This time, however, I took matters into my own hands and baked my own tortilla chips. That way, I can cut the fat, to help me with my weight loss, plus they taste a hundred times better anyway when you make them yourself.

All I did was spray a cookie sheet with some canola oil and then use a pizza cutter to cut corn tortillas into little triangle shapes. I normally just cut them into fourths, but since these were for the lunchbox, where space is valuable, I made them a little bit smaller by cutting the tortillas into six pieces. Then I just placed all of those little triangles on the cookie sheet and sprayed the tops of them with a little more canola oil. A quick dusting of salt and they were ready for the oven. I like to use big chunky salt on my chips, it just seems to taste so much better. And not surprisingly, the best salt I've found to sprinkle on my homemade tortilla chips is coarse margarita salt. I just bake the chips in a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes or so. Just watch them until they get nice and brown and crispy. Be careful not to burn them because they can burn on you pretty quickly.

These homemade chips taste so much better than storebought, and they are so much healthier.

So that's really it for Friday's lunchbox. That was one of the easiest lunches I've packed since almost everything was a leftover from a previous day's cooking. That's one of the things I like about Mexican food, with just a few different ingredients you can combine them in all kinds of ways to make different dishes. And speaking of Mexican dishes, I FINALLY finished that Cheesy Bean & Cheese Enchilada Casserole last night. Geez, I ate on that thing for DAYS. It was good though, and I'll definitely be making it again. And that vegan cheese sauce from that recipe is my current favorite vegan cheese replacement. It's so easy to make, and so yummy. I do like to add a little extra salt to it though, and a little bit of salsa to make it turn orange in color so it looks more like cheese sauce.

Well, thanks for reading the blog this week. See everybody on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Baked Black Bean Taquitos

2007-05-17T15:30:00.000-04:00

As you can tell from the picture of today's lunchbox, I had a little bit of trouble last night with this dish. But, not to worry, it still tastes really good. That Bean and Cheese Enchilada Casserole that I made for yesterday's lunch put me in the mood for some more Mexican food this week, so last night I just winged it and made some Baked Black Bean Taquitos. I really didn't use a recipe (except for the bean part), but there are several of them out there if you do a search on Yahoo! or Google. I just kinda' made mine up as I went along, but I did encounter a few technical difficulties.

I started out by just making a big double batch of Joanna's Refried Black Beans. That's what I used for the taquito filling. Most taquito recipes that I found online recommended microwaving the corn tortillas prior to filling and rolling so as to make them more pliable and less likely to crack on you. Well, that didn't work out too well for me. My corn tortillas wanted to crack really bad as I tried to roll them up. You can see it in the picture of the lunchbox. After getting my cookie sheet about half covered with rolled up (and cracked) taquitos, I finally spotted what the problem was. I was using corn tortillas that were marked down on clearance at the grocery store. It was a huge pack of 100, but it was the brand I normally buy, so I figured maybe just not enough people bought that large of a size. Anyway, I got to looking more closely and discovered that there was a dang hole in the bag that the tortillas came in! So I guess that's why they were so dry and prone to cracking. I guess I could have spent some time microwaving them in a covered dish with a wet paper towel or something to try and rehydrate them, but I didn't fool with it. By this time, I was so frustrated that I was just slinging the things together and throwing them on the cookie sheet. UGH!

Anyway, after baking them, they turned out really tasty, although they're not too pretty to look at. I brought come Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream and some guacamole to go along with the taquitos, as well as some vegan cheese sauce, which I just whipped up from the recipe for the Bean and Cheese Enchilada from yesterday's lunchbox. I also had tons of that Spanish rice & vermicelli mix left over, so I brought some more of that too.

So there it is, my half-baked (pun intended) attempt at making black bean taquitos. Like I said, they taste really good, I just wish they had rolled up better and came out looking a little bit nicer. Oh well, maybe next time.

Thanks for checking out the blog today. See everybody on Friday!

Bean and Cheese Enchilada Casserole

2007-05-16T14:00:00.000-04:00

Today's lunchbox features a recipe that I've been wanting to try for a while. I discovered it over at VegWeb while looking at the list of most popular recipes (in the lower right section of the main page). I always like trying recipes from "most popular" lists, and ones that have high rankings, since it makes the chance of failure a little less likely. This recipe had lots of good comments, and I learned a lot from them, like the fact that this dish is a LOT easier to make as a casserole, which is not what I started out doing initially, but ended up doing eventually. Here's how the whole thing went down...

Cheesy Bean and Cheese Enchiladas are really simple to make. You just whip up some vegan cheese sauce, stir in some beans (I used pinto beans, kidney beans and black beans) & onions, roll all of that up into a bunch of corn tortillas, lay them in a pan, cover with enchilada sauce and more vegan cheese sauce and then bake. Or, at least, it's supposed to work that way. I discovered that I didn't have too much luck rolling the filling up in the tortillas. It appeared to be a common problem in the comments, so a lot of people just ended up making the dish casserole style, which is what I did. I got the filling in the tortillas and got them rolled up, and into the pan, but the filling wasn't that thick, so it was difficult to get a decent amount into each tortilla. Plus, it kinda started wanting to ooze out into the pan. After I got the whole pan full of rolled up tortillas, I discovered that there was TONS of filling left over. So, I just dumped all of that extra filling on top of all the rolled up tortillas, spread it out, and then put down another layer of tortillas, just laid out flat. Then I covered the whole thing with the remaining enchilada sauce and reserved vegan cheese sauce.

It came out super yummy, just like the reviews said, but I can see why a lot of people opted to do it casserole style. When I make it in the future, and I WILL be making it again in the future, I will just do it casserole style and not fool with the whole trying to roll beans up in a tortilla thing. This is really delicious, and it makes a lot of food, so I'm sure I'll be eating on the leftovers for several days.

The vegan cheese sauce in this recipe has also gotten my attention because it's a little more simple, and uses smaller amounts of fewer ingredients, than most of the other vegan cheese sauces I have tried. I plan on experimenting with it some more in the future and trying it on macaroni and other obvious cheesy dishes.

To go along with the enchilada casserole, I brought some Spanish rice, which is really just the Kroger brand of the rice & vermicelli mix, you know, like Rice-a-Roni. It's just made from a box of mix and a can of diced tomatoes with chilis. I love this stuff, but I really have to be careful when I eat it because I have a tendency to eat way too much of it.

I also brought some leftover mustard greens. I just couldn't bring myself to bring something more Mexican, like refried beans, since there were already so many beans in the enchilada casserole. Plus, I really like greens now, so I was more than happy to bring some more.

For dessert, I just brought a few Red Globe grapes. I use these things every morning in my green smoothies, so I've always got some hanging out in the fridge.

So there you go. A new Mexican style vegan recipe that turned out pretty dang good. It was really easy to make too, especially when you make a casserole out of it. It would probably be prettier if you could roll them all out and put sauce on them and bake them like you're supposed to do, but I didn't have the patience (or the skill either) to do that. It tastes the same either way, so unless you're super talented at getting runny liquids rolled up in tortillas, I suggest saving yourself some grief and just going the casserole route. Either way, it's delicious.

Thanks for reading the blog today. See everybody tomorrow!

Amy's Mexican Tamale Pie

2007-05-15T16:00:00.000-04:00

First of all, I'm not sure what's up with the color in the picture of today's lunchbox. I tried doctoring it up on my computer but I didn't have much luck. I guess the color of all that polenta just somehow messed with my camera. Anyway, the picture may have not turned out too great, but today's lunch sure does taste good. While looking through the fridge & freezer last night, trying to figure out what I was gonna' bring for lunch today, I stumbled upon Amy's Mexican Tamale Pie. As you probably know, I love all of the vegan products from Amy's Kitchen. I eat the vegetable pot pies all the time, and the last time I featured that on here, a blog reader mentioned in the comments that the Mexican Tamale Pie was also really good. I had never tried it before because I guess I just assumed it had cheese in it and wasn't vegan. Well, after that recommendation I purchased one and placed it in the freezer at home.

All I had to do last night was just cook it up in the oven and then pack it in the lunchbox. I hadn't read the box too closely, other than to verify that it was indeed vegan, so I was thinking that the top was more like cornbread than polenta, but it's polenta. I was expecting it to brown up a little more than it did, but I was afraid to leave it under the broiler too much longer for fear of burning the paper bowl that it comes in. Maybe polenta just doesn't brown that easy? I don't know, it's my first time dealing with polenta. Isn't it basically just runny cornbread?

Anyway, this thing tastes really good. I hate the fact that my picture came out so crappy, so here's a prettier picture from the Amy's Kitchen website. Something like this would be really easy to make from scratch too, but of course it wouldn't be near as convenient. I figured it would be delicious (everything else I've tried from Amy's has been), and it didn't disappoint. Plus, listen to this, this thing is a good size, the size of a regular pot pie, but it only has 150 calories and 3g of fat! I was impressed. Definitely good for the ol' diet, and very, very tasty indeed.

To go along with the tamale pie, I brought my two most favorite side items; roasted potatoes & onions and mustard greens. These were actually some leftovers from dinner, so I didn't have to do any extra work to make them for my lunch.

And finally, for dessert, I brought one of those new delicious Larabar Jocolat bars. GOSH! These things are so good. They taste just like a brownie, but they're nice & dense, and so chocolaty. I could eat my weight in these things, and so could a few other people, judging from the fact that they can hardly keep them in stock at my local grocery store. These are the most perfect vegan replacement for a regular old candy bar that I have found. If you like chocolate, I highly recommend trying them out (if you can find them).

So there you have it. Amy's Kitchen to the rescue again. You know, this tamale pie was so good that it's inspired me to try a new Mexican recipe that I've been wanting to try for quite a while. I might actually get around to making it for tomorrow's lunch. UGH! And now that's reminded me of ANOTHER Mexican recipe I wanted to try. SHEESH! This may end up being Mexican theme week if this keeps up. I guess we'll see.

At any rate, thanks for checking out the blog today and I'll see everybody tomorrow!

Home Cookin' @ Rosetta's Kitchen

2007-05-14T20:25:00.000-04:00

Well, I ended up getting home really late last night because I went to visit my mom for Mother's Day and we all hang out at the lake all evening. You know how that goes. A little Jimmy Buffett music, a boat ride and some margaritas and you've lost track of what time it is. That, plus the fact that I had to run over to Asheville, NC today meant that I didn't have the time to pack the lunchbox last night. So instead, I just made a quick stop at Rosetta's Kitchen. You might remember that I ate there, for the first time, a few weeks ago on my way back home from Savannah, GA. The food that I got last time was very delicious, so I was more than anxious to stop there again today. And while I tried a dish last time that I had never had before (Peanut Butter Baked Tofu), this time I was in the mood for some vegan comfort food that I am more familiar with. And yes, that is a recycled picture of the street sign at Rosetta's Kitchen. I forgot to take another picture of the outside of the building today. Whoops!

I ended up getting a plate of good ol' country food. I've got a bowl of pinto beans and a plate full of some mashed potatoes with vegan brown gravy and some vegan macaroni & cheese. All served with a huge honkin' piece of vegan cornbread. Needless to say, it was delicious. And man, I wish this place was closer to where I live because it is so nice to be able to go into a restaurant and actually order vegan macaroni & cheese.

And while the macaroni & cheese was very good, it was quite different from my all time favorite mac-n-cheese recipe from the New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, which I am CONVINCED is the best vegan macaroni & cheese recipe in the world. Everything was really good though, and it was quite nice letting someone else do the cooking for a change.

And speaking of changes, I guess it's time for another weight loss update. Just to recap, for anyone who might not have been reading the whole thing, a couple of months ago (I guess it's been about that long) I weighed myself and weighed the most I have ever weighed in my life, 225 lbs. I set out to try and eat healthier and exercise more with the intention of losing a total of 40 pounds and getting down to 185 lbs. Last week, I weighed in at 199 lbs. This weekend, I am happy to report, that I weighed in at 197 lbs. That means that I have lost 28 pounds so far. WOO-HOO! And you can actually tell too. I am starting to get more comments from people as the weight loss begins to show more in my face. My pants are a whole lot more loose too. In fact, it's all I can do to keep my favorite pair of shorts on right now because they keep wanting to fall down. Guess it might be time to maybe think about buying some new clothes huh?

So that means I've got 12 more pounds to go. That's really not that much, but I assume the last few pounds will probably be the hardest to lose. I'm really gonna' have to buckle down and quit eating like a maniac on the weekends. 197 really isn't that far away from 185, so hopefully that will help to keep me motivated.

The blood pressure machine at work is screwed up right now, so I can't give a really recent report on that. The last time I checked it, a couple of days ago, it was 105/69 which is AMAZING for me. I'm excited about the weight that I've lost and the significant changes in my blood pressure.

So there you have it, a slightly unexpected vegan lunch on the road. I'll be back at work with the lunchbox tomorrow.

See you then!

Vegan Pepperoni & Mushroom Pizza

2007-05-11T14:12:00.000-04:00

I was in a pizza kind of mood last night at dinner time, so I whipped up some vegan pepperoni & mushroom pizza. And while I was at it, I went ahead and made some extra for today's lunchbox. Now, I was a serious pizza addict long before I became vegan, and I still am. But luckily, vegan pizza is a lot healthier for me than the greasy cholesterol-laden junk that I used to eat. I wish we had a restaurant around here like Pizza Pi, in Seattle. But I guess the chances of an all vegan pizza joint opening up around here are somewhere between slim and none. Oh well, I guess I'll just continue to make my own homemade vegan pizza and enjoy it. Either that or move to Seattle. Hey, if vegan pizza isn't a reason to move, I don't know what is.

I just made some small pizza crusts using my favorite recipe. Again, I either let these rise too much, or maybe I just put too many toppings on my pizza, because I used to be able to stack both halves of the pizza in the lunchbox, but not this time. It was too thick. So I only ended up bringing half of a pizza for lunch. I topped the pizza with some storebought pizza sauce, Yves Veggie Pepperoni, mushrooms, onion and green pepper. Then I topped it all off with some Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella. I don't know if I'll even reheat this when lunch time comes because I've always liked cold pizza, and I think the FYH cheese is even more like the real thing after it's been cooked & melted and then cooled back down. I guess I'll see what I'm in the mood for when I actually eat it.

To go along with my pizza, I brought some steamed veggies. These are just the regular California Blend of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots found in the freezer section of any old grocery store.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to bring for dessert, so I just started looking through the kitchen. I kinda' wanted to bring something a little bit different. I looked and looked and then finally stumbled upon a great big jar of applesauce in the fridge. I bought it for use in reduced fat baking, and have used it for that several times, but it had been a while since I used it. I had even forgotten it was in there. I figured that might make a good dessert, but then I realized that they probably dump tons of sugar into applesauce, and it might not be as good in the calorie department as I thought it was. Well, I looked at the jar and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was apparently being a good boy when I bought this because it was all natural applesauce, with absolutely no added sugar. I was actually surprised that I had bought that because I bought it before I really started trying to pay more attention to what I am eating. I was actually a little bit proud of myself. I sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon on top of the applesauce just to make it extra delicious.

So there you have it, Friday's lunchbox. You really can't go wrong with vegan pizza. It's delicious, it travels well, and you can enjoy it hot or cold, which makes it especially nice for when you're not around a microwave.

Thanks for reading the blog this week and I'll see everyone on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Curried Tempeh Salad Sandwich

2007-05-10T14:18:00.000-04:00

You know, sometimes it's really cool what you can come up with when you just wing it and make stuff up when you're cooking. Yesterday evening, I really didn't know what I was going to pack for lunch today. There were a couple of pieces of grilled tempeh left over from the reuben making the day before, so I originally thought that I might just bring some grilled tempeh (which IS good) and some veggies and stuff. But then I remembered an idea that I had been wanting to try for a while now, but I just never did have any tempeh around to try it with. This all sprang from a grand opening celebration for a local restaurant that I went to several years ago, way before I turned vegan. They had this yummy curried chicken salad that they served that was so good. In fact, I meant to whip some of that up at home way back then, before I knew any better, when I was still eating chicken salad. But I never did. Pair that idea with something else I've been wanting to try, and that's using tempeh as a replacement for chicken in vegan "chicken" salad. I had read on several message boards about people making tempeh salad, and it sounded like it would be really good. So when I found myself with some leftover tempeh, and a pantry stocked with curry powder, then I knew what I needed to fix for lunch today.

All I did to make the Curried Tempeh Salad was just cube up the tempeh into really small pieces. I didn't have to worry about cooking it since it was already grilled. Then I just mixed that up with some Vegenaise, some diced onion, some sweet pickle relish and a BUNCH of curry powder. WOW! This turned out really good. So good, in fact, that I'll probably make another large batch of it pretty soon because it tasted pretty much exactly what I remember that curried chicken salad tasting like. I brought along a light bun and some lettuce & tomato to eat it on. This makes a REALLY good sandwich. I will DEFINITELY be making this again this Summer. I thought that the tempeh made an excellent substitute for chicken because it had a really nice texture. Tofu would have been way too soft, but the tempeh worked really well. And it looked just like chicken there in those tiny little cubes. This was GOOD!

To go along with my sandwich, I brought a few Red Globe grapes. I found these things by accident the other day at the store. I've been buying a LOT of grapes here lately to go into all of those green smoothies that I've been making with my Blendtec. Well, I've looked and looked for grapes WITH seeds but I never could find them. All anybody has around here is seedless. I wanted ones with seeds because there are so many compounds in the seeds that are good for you, and the Blendtec would make easy work of the seeds and you wouldn't even be able to tell they were in the smoothie (I like the crunch of the seeds too when you just eat grapes one at a time). Plus, it just seems more healthy to eat "normal" grapes that have seeds instead of ones that have been manipulated to express some mutation of not having seeds. Anyway, for some strange reason, they got these things in stock at my local grocer last week and they were even on sale. I stocked up and I LOVE THEM. These things are HUGE! I hope they continue to carry them.

I also threw in a few almonds & raisins just to finish filling the lunchbox up.

So there you have it, lunch for Thursday. I definitely wanna' make some more of this stuff. I would also like to make some regular vegan "chicken" salad using tempeh and adding Vegenaise, onions, sweet pickle relish, walnuts or pecans, celery, grapes, apples, etc. I guess if I was going to do something like that I would probably cook the tempeh especially for that particular dish and marinate and cook it in a chicken-type broth, probably like the broth that I would use to make chicken style seitan. The tempeh I used today for the curried tempeh salad was leftover from the reuben recipe, so it had been marinated in a more beefy type marinade, but it was still delicious. This is good stuff!

So thanks for reading the blog today. See everybody on Friday!

Tempeh Reuben

2007-05-09T14:30:00.000-04:00

Today for lunch, I've got one of my all-time favorite vegan dishes. I've wanted to bring this in the lunchbox for quite a while now, but I just never was sure exactly how to split it all up and package it into the lunchbox without ending up with a big soggy mess. Tempeh reubens, as most of you probably already know, are really delicious. The first one that I ever had was homemade, but I have since had them at a couple of vegetarian restaurants. The ones that I had in restaurants were good, but they were nowhere near as good as the ones that I enjoy at home. So after a little brainstorming, I think I finally came up with a way to transport this thing to work so that it would be just as yummy there as it is at home.

This tempeh reuben, the best one in the whole wide world as far as I am concerned, is made using the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I assume that most people who read my blog already have this cookbook, but if you don't, you HAVE to go an get it right now. It was this cookbook that helped convince me that it was even possible for me to go vegan in the first place because all of the recipes are so delicious. And now here, a year and a half, and several vegan cookbooks later, it's still the cookbook that I go to the most often when I want to make something that I know will be delicious. Everything that I have made from that cookbook has been EXCELLENT.

The recipe's really not that hard. All you do is slice up some tempeh and then marinate it in a yummy mixture for an hour or so. Then fry it up in a skillet. There, the first part is done. Now just whip up your vegan Russian dressing in a small bowl. That takes all of 2 minutes. Then just spread some Earth Balance on some dark rye bread and grill it in a skillet (hey! that rhymes). Now just layer all of these things on your grilled bread; some grilled tempeh, big pickle slices, avocado, sauerkraut (sometimes I put it on cold, and sometimes I heat it up, just depends on what kind of mood I happen to be in, or how lazy I am), and then drown the whole thing with Russian Dressing. It's sooooo messy, but soooooo good.

The bread that I bought yesterday seems a little bit large, and the tempeh may look a little sparse there, but trust me, once I pile all of that sauerkraut on there and pour on the dressing, it will be a substantial sandwich.

Tempeh reubens really are one of my favorite vegan foods. I think I could live on these things. I actually brought one to work back when I wasn't blogging and I just assembled the whole sandwich at home the night before and put it in a plastic container. Needless to say, by the time lunchtime arrived, it was fairly soggy. It was still very tasty, but soggy. This time I put the bread, tempeh, pickle and avocado together on one side of the lunchbox, and packed the sauerkraut and the Russian dressing in separate containers. This way, I can heat up the bread & tempeh in the microwave at work and then pile on the sauerkraut and dressing right before I devour the sandwich. Soggy sandwich problem solved. Of course, there is another piece of bread that goes with this sandwich, but I left if out of the picture so you could see the tempeh & stuff. After I took the pic, I put the top piece of bread on and the lunchbox lid closed with no problem.

I should probably also mention that I have let an omnivore coworker taste this before, and they agreed that it was delicious. I plan on serving some to my family this Summer, at some point, to see what they think. They all like reubens, but they've never had a vegan one. My coworker liked it, so I'm hopeful. I can't imagine anyone, vegan or not, not liking this.

Well, with the big sandwich taking up so much room in the lunchbox, I only had enough room there up top to cram in a Banana Cookie Larabar. That's plenty though, because the Larabar weighs in at around 200 calories, and who know WHAT the reuben is. So this is more than enough to satisfy me for lunch.

If you haven't made tempeh reubens before, you must do so as quickly as possible. You don't know what you are missing. So messy! So yummy!

Well, I guess that just about does it for Wednesday.

Thanks for checking in today. See everybody tomorrow!

Garbanzo Tacos

2007-05-08T11:37:00.000-04:00

I decided yesterday that I was going to bring some type of soft tacos for lunch today, and I originally planned on just mixing up a box of that storebought TVP-based taco filling. But then I remembered a recipe that caught my eye a week or so ago over on VegWeb. Instead of using TVP, or seitan, or something like that for meat replacement, the recipe used chickpeas. It seemed like an interesting concept. It had pretty good reviews from people who had tried it, and it would be cheaper to make. So I decided to try it.

Garbanzo Tacos are really simple to make. All you do is dump two cans of chickpeas into a pot (just use the juice from one can and drain the other one), then dump in a package of storebought taco seasoning (watch out for milk because some of the brands contain it), and then simmer for 10-15 minutes. Mash it up a little bit and you're good to go. I brought some soft flour tortillas to put mine on. They're laying up there in the lid of the lunchbox and just lay flat on top of everything else when the lunchbox lid is closed. I also brought some lettuce & tomato, as well as some taco sauce, to complete the soft tacos.

For a side dish, I brought along some refried beans, which are just the fat-free storebought variety right out of a can, but thinned down a little bit with some soymilk and spiced up with a little garlic & cumin. I usually like to buy the "vegetarian" version of these at Kroger, but they were out. The fat-free version is also vegan, it's just that the vegetarian version has a little bit of fat in it from some vegetable oil which, of course, makes it tastier in my book. But do I really need that? No. I noticed another can sitting there on the shelf that said "mexican" style, so I, of course, picked it up to see if that meant what I figured it did. Yep. It did. LARD. Ew.... Anyway, I ended up getting the fat-free version.

And for my "dessert" I just threw in a few raw cashews since there wasn't very much room left there in the yellow lunchbox container.

These Garbanzo Tacos are good, and I'm glad I tried them, but they're probably not my favorite. The chickpeas made a nice substitution for something "meaty", but I wouldn't call it a replacement. It's really just more like eating a bean burrito than something where you are trying to simulate meat. So it's not bad, but it really is more like a bean burrito than anything. If I were going to eat chickpeas in some form on some type of bread, I think I would rather invest a little more time and make falafel and enjoy it on pita bread. That's just me though.

As you probably already know, there are lots of interesting recipes over there at VegWeb. There are four or five that I am REALLY interested in and would like to try soon. The ratings and reviews make it easy to spot the recipes that are most likely to be winners.

Well, I guess that's about it for Tuesday's lunch. The Garbanzo Taco recipe is good, especially if you like bean burritos and such, but it's certainly not something that I would consider to be a mock meat. It's definitely worth trying though, because it does taste good, and recipes don't get much easier than that.

So thanks for stopping by the blog today. See you tomorrow!

Eggless Deviled Egg Tofu Salad Sandwich

2007-05-07T14:25:00.000-04:00

I finally got around to trying out a new recipe for the lunchbox today. The funny thing is though, I really didn't even like eggs that much before I went vegan. I never ate them scrambled or fried. Except for using them as ingredients in other recipes (like CAKE!), I rarely consumed them. There were TWO ways that I enjoyed eating them though, even though I didn't do it very often. I always liked deviled eggs and I always liked egg salad sandwiches. And of course, growing up here where I did, there was always an abundance of both at most Summer cookouts or other functions. So when I discovered this recipe for Eggless Deviled Egg Tofu Salad, I knew that it was something that I wanted to try. I had seen several vegan egg salad recipes floating around but this one sounded like it might be the best one. The fact that it was from Isa (author of VwaV), just made me want to try it even more, because I don't think I've tried a single recipe that she's put her name on that I didn't just absolutely love.

As you can see from the recipe, the main thing that sets this recipe apart is the addition of black salt. I had never seen such an ingredient, so when I managed to stumble upon it at the Indian grocer last week, well I grabbed it specifically so that I could try this recipe. If you've never seen or used black salt, it's really kind of pink looking. And the reason that it's so good in this recipe is because it's salt that contains deposits of sulfur, so when you add it to a mock egg salad, it makes it taste, well, like eggs. This stuff was really easy to make, and it's delicious to boot. I did alter the recipe a little by mixing in a little Vegenaise at the end. I also added a little sweet pickle relish, just because that's the way that I always had egg salad. The next time I make it I might even increase the amounts of black salt & vinegar (maybe add some vinegar in directly at the end instead of just boiling the tofu in it and then draining). I really like that "deviled egg" taste, so I would be all for any way to increase it. The texture of the tofu ends up being strikingly similar to eggs. I dare say even an omni might like it, if they like egg salad.

I brought a light bun to put my egg salad on, along with some lettuce & tomato. It's easier to fit a bun in the lunchbox than big square bread slices. That, plus I was out of sliced bread. HA! I used it all up this weekend making toast to eat this egg salad on. HEY! I have to properly test the recipe before showing it on here. ;o)

I did pack the egg salad in its own container so it wouldn't get the bread all soggy before lunchtime.

Then I brought my two standard sides, some greens, mustard greens to be exact, cooked up with some onion & garlic, and some roasted potatoes & onions that I just cooked up in the toaster oven and sprinkled with a little garlic salt & Montreal seasoning. YUM!

That filled the lunchbox up, leaving no room for dessert, but I think I've got enough calories here anyway. And speaking of calories, after a couple of weeks of watching my weight stick at 201 lbs. I am happy to report that my weight this weekend was 199 lbs. YIPEE! I lost another two pounds and am finally below that 200 mark. I feel so much better now that my weight starts with a number 1 instead of a number 2. That leaves me with only 14 more pounds to go in order to get to my goal of 185 lbs. I would actually like to go a little lower than that, but if I can just make it there I will be very pleased. I think one thing that finally got my weight loss moving again this week was the fact that I started using my new pedometer to keep track of my walking. Until I got it, I had just assumed that I was getting in the recommended 10000 steps a day. Well, I wasn't. I was actually only getting in 6000-7000 steps. It definitely helped to have a piece of equipment to count my steps for me so that I could make sure that I was doing as much as I thought I was doing. It shows distance & calories too, which is cool. It's so nice to look at that thing and see that I've burned 571 calories walking a couple of times a day. It helps keep me encouraged to be able to put a number on it like that.

Anyway, that means I've lost 26 lbs. so far, and I can tell. Only 14 more (at least) to go. And on another health related note, listen to this. My blood pressure has always been high, and I am currently taking medication for it. As you know, normal BP is 120/80, but before I started medication, it was not uncommon for me to check mine and get a reading of 150/110 or something like that. So I started the medication a few years ago. I hate taking pills, but I HAD to get that down. Even with the pills though, it would normally run 129/87, just a little bit on the high side. Well, the last time I checked it, while on medication, it was a little high like that (129/87) and that was 2 weeks ago. I haven't lost any additional weight in the past two weeks, but there was one significant change in my lifestyle, I started drinking green smoothies. I don't know if they're the cause for this, or not, but now, the last time I checked my blood pressure it was 105/69. WOW! What a difference. I don't feel light headed either. I've checked it several days in a row and it is holding down there. I am inclined to think that consuming all those greens has something to do with this because that's really the only thing that has changed in the past two weeks.

I have an appointment with my new doctor coming up, so I will be excited to tell him about this. Hopefully, we will cut the dosage of that medicine down and see what it does and, eventually, I'll be able to stop taking that stuff. Anyway, I don't know why I got off on a rant about that. I'm just excited that my blood pressure is that low, and I honestly think it's happened just from eating lots of greens. I'm sure the weight loss helps too, but I've lost lots of weight before (and then gained it back) and I've never seen my BP this low. I guess I should add that disclaimer here that I am not a doctor and am not giving medical advice. It will be interesting to see what he says about it though.

At any rate, that was my lunch for Monday. The Eggless Deviled Egg Tofu Salad is delicious, especially on toast, and I highly recommend trying it.

Thanks for coming by today. See everybody on Tuesday!

Falafel

2007-05-04T14:22:00.000-04:00

For my lunch today, I brought a homemade version of something that I have been really stirred up on ever since that trip to Savannah, and that's falafel. Prior to my trip, the only falafel that I had ever tried before came from the freezer section of a health food store and it was absolutely horrible. I had to spit it out into the garbage because I couldn't even eat it. I don't remember what the brand name was but it was absolutely disgusting. So I thought that I didn't like falafel. Eating falafel in that Middle Eastern restaurant in Savannah though, showed me that I actually LOVE falafel, and it was just the frozen stuff that wasn't worth a flip.

Shortly after I got back from my trip, I made some homemade falafel using a recipe that I found online. It was pretty simple. It didn't come out anywhere near as tasty as that from the restaurant though. So I've continued looking. Then melanie, a local blog reader and soap maker extraordinaire, informed me in the comments section that one of the local health food stores actually carried falafel mix in the bulk section. I had been meaning to get by there and get some of that stuff so I could try it, but when I stopped at the Indian grocery the day before yesterday, I found a box of falafel mix there that looked like it would be really authentic (i.e. it had words on the box that were not in English). So I bought it and last night I actually got around to making it. It was easy. All I had to do was mix some of the falafel mix with water, let it soak a little while, then pat it out into little balls or patties and then cook them. I wanted to go easy on the fat so I baked them rather than fry them.

To go with the falafel I brought some pita bread, some lettuce, tomato & cucumber, and some homemade hummus. You know, hummus is my favorite snack food now and I am getting pretty dang good at making it, if I do say so myself. Especially now, with that new Blendtec Home Total Blender, I can make the creamiest, most delicious hummus that I have ever had. Of course, what would you expect when you blend hummus up with a 3 horsepower motor. HA! I briefly thought about just using pure tahini as my condiment, but I decided not to (again, the fat, you know).

This turned out really well, but it's still not as good as what I had in that restaurant. Of course, I may never be able to recreate the taste of real falafel made by an actual man from the Middle East, but I can keep trying. I am thinking that his recipe may have been a little different than what I have tried so far. For example, based on texture, I am almost positive that his falafel had bulgur wheat in it. I have seen a few falafel recipes online that contain it, so perhaps I need to try one of those next. At any rate, this falafel from the mix is nothing I would turn my nose up at. It's pretty tasty, it's just not as amazing as I want it to be.

Not that it matters, but I had to do a little rearranging of the lunchbox right after I snapped this photo so that everything would fit. I actually brought four balls of falafel, not just three like shown in the picture, but I couldn't fit them all into that small container. So after the picture was taken, I actually put two of the falafel balls under the pita bread (there was tons of room there) and left the other two in the little container. So it IS possible to fit all of this into the lunchbox, just not exactly like I arranged it there to make a pretty picture.

So thanks for reading my blog this week. I'll see you guys on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Vegan Dining Out @ Rush Street Grill

2007-05-03T14:59:00.000-04:00

I went out to eat lunch again today because my group was having a send-off for a member who is leaving our group. I really would have preferred not to have eaten out again this week, since that seems to make it more difficult for me to lose weight, but I didn't want to be rude, so I went and just tried to eat as healthy as I could. The person we were all roasting chose Rush Street Grill as the place to have our gathering. If you've been reading my blog for very long, then you've probably seen me go there before. There are a couple of good vegan options there, and the choices that they DO have are very good. They've got a nice outside dining area too, so I really like to go there and eat lunch when the weather is nice.

I decided just to get an individual pizza for my lunch. I had already quizzed them here about the ingredients in their pizza dough during a previous visit, so I didn't have to bother them with all of that this time. I just ordered extra sauce and a bunch of veggies and it turned out really good. I did order a few less veggies than I did the last time I ate here because I almost had too many veggies on my previous pizza (if that's possible) and it made it come out a little bit dry. As you can see from my picture though, this one was really juicy with lots of extra sauce, which I love, because I am a lycopene addict.

I briefly considered ordering a salad to go along with this but ultimately decided against it. I know that the veggies in a salad wouldn't have added that many calories to my lunch, but I would have had to put oil & vinegar on that salad, and I know I could have went easy on the oil, but I really didn't want to feel bloated after lunch today so I skipped the salad and just got the pizza. It turned out good because I was satisfied when I left, but I wasn't so full that I felt sick.

I usually eat too much, so I was happy that I was able to control myself somewhat and eat a little less food. Of course, it's not like I turned down chocolate cake or anything, I just didn't order a salad. It probably really didn't matter as far as calories and weight loss go, but I just didn't want to feel miserable after lunch because I ate too much.

So there's another vegan dining out excursion. I hope there's nothing else coming up at work in the near future because I really need to cut back on all of this eating out stuff. I haven't been able to lose a pound since all of that eating out started in Savannah a couple of weeks ago, and I am bound and determined that I am gonna' lose a pound or two this week. So I'm going to have to be extra good the rest of the week, which I HAVE been trying to do. For example, some friends wanted me to join them last night for drinks at one of our favorite watering holes. Normally, I would be inclined to join them, but I turned it down this week and stayed home and did a couple of things that I NEEDED to do. I want to lose some more weight more than I want a drink.

So thanks for coming by the blog today.

I'll be back with the lunchbox tomorrow. See you then!

Vegan Dining Out @ Raffaele's

2007-05-02T15:18:00.000-04:00

A coworker and I met our boss for lunch today and they were kind enough to let me suggest the restaurant since I am the "pickiest" eater. Like I mentioned yesterday, I would have been happy going to Cootie Brown's again, but we've all eaten there the last several times that we went out for lunch together, so I figured I'd better suggest somewhere different at least once. I ended up deciding on a local Italian restaurant called Raffaele's. The family that owns this restaurant owns several other Italian restaurants in the area, the main differences being atmosphere and maybe cost. Raffaele's is kinda' what I consider to be the "middle" of the three types of restaurants that they have. The food is delicious at all three, it just depends on what type of restaurant you would like to eat in and how much you would like to spend.

I started out by ordering a side salad for my lunch. I thought I had myself covered just by asking the server to make sure there was no cheese or bacon bits on my salad, but then she asked me if I wanted croutons. I had forgotten about those, and it seems like a lot of ready made croutons have butter or Parmesan cheese on them, so I told her to leave those off too. Then she asked me if I wanted egg on it. DANG! I'm glad she asked because I wouldn't have been expecting egg on it. Needless to say, I left the off too. That pretty much left me with what you see. Just some iceberg lettuce, onion, tomato and cucumber. Not my favorite salad, but it was fresh.

I almost got burned on the dressing too because when she named off the types of dressing she said that they had a balsamic vinaigrette, and both my boss and coworker thought that would be a good choice for me (they know I'm vegan), and I kinda' did too, but before I could ask, the server said that there was a lot of cheese in that dressing (Parmesan cheese). So she saved me there too. I ended up just getting oil & vinegar. I used the oil very sparingly because I am determined to lose some more weight this week after a couple of weeks of nothing.

For my main course, I ended up ordering some penne pasta with marinara sauce. They have another dish there that I have had before, and that I like a lot, and I almost ordered it. It's just angel hair pasta with olive oil & garlic. It's very delicious, but there's quite a bit of olive oil in that dish and I just couldn't bring myself to order it with me trying to minimize my calories this week as much as possible. So I ended up getting the marinara sauce which was exceptional. I guess it was probably homemade, because it sure tasted like it was. Sorry my picture is so stark, but I was sitting right beside a window.

After lunch, my coworker and I made a quick stop over at the Indian grocery across the road before heading back to work. I was so excited because I FINALLY got some agar agar. Now I can try my hand at making some of those vegan block uncheeses that you can slice and eat on crackers. I just never could bring myself to pay what they were asking for that at the health food store, and at the Indian store I got a HUGE bag of it for something like $1.49. Unbelievable. I picked up some falafel mix there too so I can try it and see if it's any better than the homemade falafel that I mentioned on here a week or so ago. I just love going in those ethnic grocery stores. They are so interesting. Oh yeah, I also found black salt, which is some elusive ingredient I have been looking for so I can make vegan egg salad. I know there are lots of vegan egg salad recipes that don't call for black salt, but apparently it's salt that contains some amount of sulfur, so it makes vegan egg salad taste "eggy". I thought it sounded interesting, and I've been wanting to try it. Now I have the black salt (it was cheap) so I can try it soon.

Believe it or not, I've got to go out and eat again tomorrow. Another one of my coworkers is leaving the company and we're all going out to lunch with her tomorrow. I didn't want to be rude and not go, but this will be my second time eating out this week so I am going to have to try and be extra good tomorrow. I can NOT blow my diet this week.

So there you have it, my little vegan lunchtime excursion. It was really good, and I got some awesome new cooking ingredients at the Indian grocery. Cool!

Thanks for reading the blog today. See you tomorrow!

Beans, Greens and Taters

2007-05-01T14:00:00.000-04:00

Country food alert! Country food alert! Well, I've done it again. I've whipped up one of those meals that I used to hate, but now I love. I never did like a lot of vegetables when I was growing up, especially beans and greens, but now I absolutely love them. I'm not sure if it's because of changes in taste from getting older, or changes in taste from going vegan. Probably a mixture of the two, wouldn't you say? Whatever the reason, I'm glad it happened because when cooked properly (i.e. without a lot of added fat) this ends up being food that I really enjoy eating because it satisfies my hunger and isn't too damaging in the calorie department.

First of all, I've got some beans in the red container. It's just a mixture of canned Pinto beans and Great Northern beans dumped together. I know that I really should be cooking my beans from scratch with dried beans, but it just seems like there's never time. I never plan ahead with the whole soaking thing. I did cook them from scratch one time and they were SO much better than the canned stuff. I've been speaking with a coworker about it, and maybe it's not as complicated or drawn out as I thought it was because she said that she usually just soaks beans for 1 hour in hot water and then cooks them in the pressure cooker for 25 minutes or so. I thought it took a lot longer than that to soak and/or cook beans. I guess I need to read up on some recipes online and see what the actual deal is. How sad is that? I have no idea how to cook beans.

Then I've got some more delicious greens. I think she was correct in the book, Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko, when she said that drinking green smoothies would make your body naturally crave more greens as it found itself receiving, in abundance, all of the nutrients that it has been missing. I've only been drinking green smoothies for something like a week and a half now but it just seems like I can't get enough greens. I was so happy when I cooked that kale up from scratch and discovered how delicious it was. And this time I cooked mustard greens. Now I can tell you that I DO NOT like mustard greens from a can. I've had them before and I just do not care for them. These were cooked up from scratch though. The mustard greens were on sale at the local grocer this week and I bought several great big bunches of them. I just grilled up some onions and garlic and then wilted the mustard greens and WOW! This stuff is really good. I know most of you are probably laughing at me since you probably already knew that greens were good, but honestly, I thought I hated this stuff. And now I think I could eat it everyday. Oh well, I guess there are worse things to develop a liking for.

I also brought some rosemary roasted potatoes that I just cooked up in the toaster oven. In an effort to save a few calories, I packed those in a small lunchbox container because I could easily eat a five gallon bucket of these. I just love it when you cook potatoes & onions up like this, with a little garlic salt and some rosemary. It reminds me a lot of the french fries over at the Laughing Seed Cafe in Asheville, NC. Of course those are deep fried, but they cook up onions with the french fries and also throw in some jalapeno peppers. YUM! I might try adding a few jalapeno peppers to my roasted potatoes & onions next time. I think it would probably be very delicious.

And then I broke down and brought some bread, Joanna's Cornbread Muffin to be exact. This is still my current favorite cornbread recipe. It has lots of nice flavors since it contains corn, onions, bell peppers and jalapeno peppers. However, there is a recipe over on the message boards at the ppk which caught my eye the other day which contained cream style corn and roasted red peppers. I might be trying that one soon. It sounded really good.

So there's lunch for Tuesday. Nothing complicated. It was all fairly simple to prepare, and there's not a lot of added fat in anything. Just some canola oil spray to get the onions going for the greens, and a little more on the pan that the potatoes & onions roasted on. That's one of my favorite things about Joanna's Cornbread Muffin recipe, by the way. Unlike a lot of other cornbread recipes I've made, hers doesn't call for any added oil or Earth Balance or anything like that. I guess the corn and soy yogurt make up for that (but I never have soy yogurt so I always use Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream) because they always come out nice and moist even though they're not loaded down with oil.

We're meeting our boss for lunch tomorrow, so I'm gonna' have to go out and eat again. I promise we'll go somewhere different than Cootie Brown's. HA! Frankly, though, I wouldn't mind going there again, but I guess we need a little variety, so I think we're leaning towards one of the local Italian places. They're usually pretty easy to eat vegan at. So, depending on what time we all end up meeting, the blog post might be a little delayed tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see everybody on Wednesday!

Creamy Spinach Pesto Pasta

2007-04-30T12:31:00.000-04:00

Today's lunchbox contains an idea that I mentioned in last Friday's blog post where I had the veggie pizza with SusanV's Tofu Spinach Ricotta on it. That stuff is so good that I can just eat it by the spoonful by itself. It's really good in the original lasagna recipe that it comes from, so I wondered what it would be like if you just stirred it up with some pasta and used it as a sauce. Well, I had so much left over on Friday that for today, I mixed some up in some spaghetti noodles and WOW! This stuff is really good. And there's no shortage of chlorophyll here either, so this all fits wonderfully into my whole "eat more greens" thing.

I couldn't think of a better name for it than Creamy Spinach Pesto Pasta. It smells a lot like pesto, because there is a little dried basil in the recipe, but it's mostly spinach. Regular pesto is one of my favorite dishes, but I try to limit myself since it contains so much fat. This recipe has considerably less fat than regular pesto, especially if you use reduced fat tofu. The tofu really gives it a lot more body too and makes it more like a creamy sauce. This is really good and I'll definitely make it again. In fact, I may be having it for dinner tonight because I STILL have a lot of the tofu ricotta left over. I guess I need to start thinking really hard and think of some other uses for it. Perhaps it would be a good on a sandwich. Maybe something like an avocado sandwich with sprouts and then tofu ricotta spread on it. Now THAT sounds good. Hmmmmm...

Anyway, to go along with the pasta I just brought a simple salad of some baby spinach leaves. To top it, I brought some more of that delicious Brianna's Rich Santa Fe Blend salad dressing. It really is amazing that this stuff is fat-free because it certainly doesn't look like it, or taste like it. This is probably my favorite salad dressing right now. At least until I burn myself out on it.

I also threw in a few raw cashews and a few red grapes for dessert. I started to include another Larabar but decided against the additional 200 calories since I was eating pasta today. Gotta' keep watching those calories.

And speaking of watching calories, I unfortunately did not lose any additional weight this week. DANG IT! I still weigh 201 lbs. When I have lost weight before using diets such as Weight Watchers, I have usually hit a plateau around the 200 lb. mark, so that may be what is going on. Or maybe it's just because I overindulged too many times last week. I DID go out and eat Mexican one night, although I ate as healthy as I could, and I DID have Papa John's one day this weekend. Needless to say, I will be evaluating all of my non-lunch meals much more closely this week. I'll probably try to replace a lot of them with green smoothies. I'm also going to kick up the exercise a little this week. Thanks to my new pedometer (which I love) I have discovered that my normal walking routine that I have been following has NOT been getting in the 10000 steps a day that is recommended. So I'm going to have to add some more walking every day. Surely, between being stricter with the calories this week, and upping the exercise, I can break through that 200 lb. mark by next Monday.

It really could be a plateau, and I might be stuck here for a little while, but I'm gonna' try to jump start it again this week and get this scale moving again in the downward direction.

So there's lunch for Monday. Using the tofu ricotta on pasta turned out just as delicious as I imagined it would be. I'm sure there are a million other things I could do with this stuff too if I just put my mind to it. Mmmmm... sitting here writing this I just had an image of delicious Roma tomatoes stuffed with this stuff. Holy cow that sounds good. I think I may have just planned tomorrow's lunch.

So thanks for reading my blog today. See everybody on Tuesday!

VLC Extra - Blendtec Home Total Blender

2007-04-29T20:56:00.000-04:00

Well, after what I guess has been years of thinking about investing in something like this, I finally went and did it. I actually started lusting over the Vita-Mix several years ago before I even went vegan. It was usually during a period when I would start getting stirred up about my health and started investigating ways that I might improve it. Invariably, I would end up "discovering" all over again that I needed to eat more vegetables, and the Vita-Mix just seemed like the best way to do that.

Well, I finally started getting serious about this purchase a couple of months ago and I came really close to purchasing the Vita-Mix when I saw the Blendtec Home Total Blender mentioned on a discussion board. People were comparing the two machines, and they sounded really similar. But there were a few things about the Blendtec that I really liked better. First of all, it has a larger motor. The Vita-Mix is 2HP and the Blendtec is 3HP. I also liked the controls better. The Vita-Mix just has the switches and the knob, and you have to stand there and turn it off and on and control it throughout the entire process. The Blendtec just has some buttons that control several different preprogrammed sequences so you can just load the thing up and then press one button. It will speed up, slow down, whatever it needs to do, and then at the end of the blending or grinding it will turn itself off. You can still control it manually if you want to, using the buttons, and you can always use the pulse button if you think that something might need a little more processing. And the third thing that really sold me on the Blendtec is the fact that you can use the same container for blending wet things and grinding dry things like wheat. With the Vita-Mix you have to switch back and forth between two different container/blades, which cost extra. I also just liked the look of the Blendtec better. It's more high-tech looking with that cool blue LCD display on the front.

So how does it work? In a word; AWESOME! It does everything that they claim it does. It makes awesome smoothies, but I figured it would since this is the same blender that lots of national smoothie chains & coffee shops use. I've also made hummus in it and it turned out wonderful as well. One cool thing about making hummus in it is that you don't need to use Tahini, you can start with actual sesame seeds and let the mixer pulverize them into Tahini. I thought that was cool, and practical considering that I was out of Tahini and I DID have some sesame seeds in the cabinet.

I also made some soy ice cream in it. I actually figured that they were exaggerating when they used the word ice cream, because I figured it would be more like frozen treat or sorbet kind of thing rather than actual ice cream. But no, it turned out the exact texture of ice cream, and if I hadn't actually seen it be made in the blender, I would have thought it had been made the regular slow way with an ice cream maker. But all I had to do was pour in some soy milk, sugar, vanilla, peanut butter and then add three cups of ice, put the lid on and press the ice cream button. In about 35 seconds I actually had homemade peanut butter ice cream, and it had a very creamy consistency, not icy or chunky at all. Just perfectly creamy. I was impressed.

Of course, sitting around eating soy ice cream is not gonna' help me lose weight, or really do much for my health, so that brings me to the main thing that I have been making in this monster...

Green smoothies are something that I never thought I would be drinking in a million years, but you know what, they are really good. Like a lot of people, I would imagine, I got on the green smoothie kick after reading Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko. If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend checking it out. I won't try to condense it down to a few sentences because there is just so much information in it. If you think you might be interested in significantly increasing the amount of raw greens in your diet then just head over to Amazon.com and read the information on the book, and check out the reviews. This book is full of compelling information showing how increasing the amount of greens in your diet can cause miraculous improvements in your health. Of course there's data in the book to back up the claims, but just reading about it you can kinda' sense that it's true, even without proof. I mean, everybody knows that greens are good for you instinctively, the only problem is how do you consume enough of them, and how do you make sure that you're getting all of the nutrition out of them, and that's where the Blendtec comes in handy.

So far, I've only been having green smoothies for breakfast. I'm not sure that I'll see much additional weight loss from that though because I was already usually just eating a grapefruit for breakfast. What I really need to do is start replacing some of my dinners with green smoothies as much as possible, and certainly all of my snacks. I am actually amazed at how much I enjoy them. They taste so fresh and you just know that you're doing something really good for your body when you drink them. And it amazes me every time when I make one and just throw in strawberries with the caps still on them, and just quarter an apple and throw it in, with the core & seeds and all and the mixer just completely pulverizes all of that to a smooth consistency (I need to do some more reading about this though because there is information out there saying not to consume apple seeds). I really shouldn't be surprised though, this baby can pretty much grind up ANYTHING. If you don't believe me, just head over to their website at www.willitblend.com and watch them grind up everything from magnets to golf clubs.

Hopefully these green smoothies will help me with my weight loss goals as they improve my health from within. But I really do need to start working them into my eating habits more. Green smoothies are also an excellent way to experiment with the whole raw lifestyle that I am so fascinated with. And according to the book, experience has shown that people who regularly consume green smoothies tend to eat more and more raw food naturally. So that will be interesting to see if it holds true for me.

So there you have it, my new secret weapon to help me eat a lot more raw vegetables, and also to, hopefully, help me lose some more weight. I wanted to share it on here because I'm really excited about it. I've always wanted a real heavy duty blender like this so that I could make really good smoothies, make ice cream quickly, grind my own flour, make my own nut butters and all that other stuff. Of course, I'm really on the green smoothie kick right now, but I hope to get around to using my Blendtec for all of those other things eventually.

I sat on the fence about this thing for a long time because they are so expensive. I read review after review on the internet, but still wondered if I would actually think that the thing was as awesome as everyone else seemed to. I was just worried about spending that much money on something and then having buyer's remorse. So do I think it's worth it? You bet! I mean, we'll see how long I continue to drink green smoothies but hey, I really like the taste of them, they are incredibly good for my health, and they are absolutely no trouble at all to make with this thing. So why stop? Hopefully this is the beginning of a lifelong HEALTHY habit.

I'll let you know what I think about the Blendtec as I use it for other uses in the future. But as far as making smoothies, and especially green smoothies, go, I can already highly recommend this thing because it does just an awesome job.

See you tomorrow!

Yummy Vegan Pizza

2007-04-27T14:25:00.000-04:00

I had it all decided in my mind, before I left work yesterday, that I was going to bring pizza for lunch today. So I stopped by the health food store to pick up some more FYH Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella and DANG IT! They were out of stock. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the empty shelf there, but I did confirm that they haven't stopped carrying it or anything, they were just temporarily out. So apparently, there is someone else in this town who likes that product as much as I do. HA! Since that was out of the question, I decided to do something else that I have been meaning to try for quite some time now.

I just made some homemade crusts using my favorite pizza crust recipe. Here lately, I've really gotten into making several individual size crusts rather than just one or two big ones because normally, when I cook pizza, whatever is there on the pan is how much I will eat. So just making smaller pizzas really helps me keep from overindulging on pizza, as I so frequently do. I actually made the crusts a little bit too big this time, or I guess I should say that they rose up a little bit more than they normally do. I couldn't fit the whole pizza in the lunchbox like I usually do, so I only brought half of a pizza for lunch today.

Since I didn't have any vegan mozzarella, I whipped up a batch of the Spinach Tofu Ricotta that is used in my favorite lasagna recipe from over at SusanV's Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. I have been wondering how this would be on a pizza, and this was my chance to find out. If you haven't made this stuff before, it's really delicious. I love it in the lasagna recipe. I even like to just lick it off the spoon. And I bet that it would be delicious just tossed in as a sauce on some pasta. That's something that I might try next since I have quite a bit of this stuff leftover.

Anyway, I just spread the Spinach Tofu Ricotta all over the pizza crust. I put it on first because it's pretty thick. If I had put the sauce on first, it would have made a real mess trying to spread this mixture over it. So the "cheese" went on first, then some storebought pizza sauce, and then I just covered it with a bunch of mushrooms & veggies. I was also out of vegan pepperoni but oh well, I didn't miss it. Just plain ol' veggie pizza is great.

This turned out really well. The Spinach Tofu Ricotta made a nice substitute for cheese, and it was a lot cheaper than using a storebought vegan cheese product. I will definitely make pizza like this again in the future.

To go along with my veggie pizza, I brought a baby spinach salad. For the dressing, I started to just bring some olive oil and maybe a lemon wedge, like I did the last couple of times that I brought a salad. But then I remembered that I had an unopened bottle of Brianna's Rich Santa Fe Blend salad dressing that I stumbled upon at the supermarket a couple of weeks ago. When I glanced at the bottle at the store and read the ingredients, I thought everything on there looked vegan. When I got home though and read it again, I noticed that it did list lactic acid as an ingredient. I won't go into the whole lactic acid discussion, but needless to say, I started wondering if it was of animal origin or if it was derived from microbial fermentation. So, I just put the bottle in the fridge and fired off a quick e-mail to the company and asked them about the lactic acid. They responded very quickly and informed me that the lactic acid in that dressing is NOT animal-derived and is indeed vegan. Woo-hoo! Not only is this dressing vegan, it's also delicious and even FAT-FREE!

And for dessert, I just took the easy way out and threw in a Banana Cookie Larabar. These are still one of my favorite vegan treats, but I guess I just don't show them that much on here any more because I usually try to limit myself to one a day and I normally end up consuming them for breakfast or a snack.

So that does it for Friday's lunchbox. I'm always up for some delicious vegan pizza, and today's certainly hit the spot. I'm planning on maybe doing an extra post this Sunday about my new "secret weapon" for my weight loss & health improvement endeavor. It's something that I am really excited about and have really been enjoying. I am excited to share some information about it with everybody. I'm also keen to see what kind of improvements I will see from it in my health.

So thanks for reading the blog today. See you on Monday (well, probably Sunday).

Have a great weekend!

Vegan Dining @ Cootie Brown's (again)

2007-04-26T14:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, I admit it. Cootie Brown's IS my favorite place, here where I live, to find good food that can easily be made vegan. If you've been reading my blog for very long, then you've seen me go there several times. This time, however, I swear it wasn't my fault! Our entire group at work decided to take our Secretary out to eat (in honor of Administrative Professionals Day) and today was the day that was decided on. We let her pick the place, and lucky for me, she chose Cootie Brown's. So see, everybody can find something that they really like at Cootie's; omnivore, vegetarian and vegan alike. In fact, I think it was the very first time that my Group Leader had ever been there and I heard him make the comment as we were all leaving that he really liked it. So hopefully, more work-related lunches will be taking place there in the future. If I have to go out and eat in a restaurant, it really is the best vegan option around here that I have found.

I think I ordered Pizza the last couple of times that I featured Cootie Brown's on my blog. So this time I went back to the veggie burgers. They have three different types of veggie burgers, and they are all homemade. There's a Black Bean Burger, a Sundried Tomato Burger and a Spinach Burger. They all have a similar base, but just with different ingredients blended in. I'm not sure what all they put in there, but it seems like it's one of those veggie burgers based on Lentils, Bulgur Wheat, maybe some Potato, maybe Chickpeas? Who knows. Whatever they put in them, they are deeeeeeelicious. In order to make sure that my burger was vegan I had to make sure they left off any cheese and mayo. Plus, I did the whole "no butter on the bun" thing as well. I'm not sure if they put butter on their buns before they grill them or not, but better safe than sorry. My bun came out just toasted, which is exactly what I wanted. This Spinach Burger is really good too because it comes with those yummy Grilled Onions on top. EXCELLENT!

Instead of ordering French Fries, or some other side like that, I opted for the dish of Roasted Vegetables. It's just a dish of Spinach, Artichokes, Garlic, Roasted Red Peppers, there may have been Onion in there too. Anyway, it's all roasted in this ceramic dish in Olive Oil and herbs. It normally comes with Blue Cheese all over the top of it, but I, of course, asked them to leave that part off. End result: TOTAL VEGAN YUMMINESS!

I have been meaning to try those vegetables for quite some time, but I was a little worried about how much Olive Oil would be in there. I AM trying to lose weight. Actually, they had just the right amount on them. They weren't swimming in oil, but there was enough in there to flavor the veggies and keep them from drying out when they were under the broiler. If there had been too much oil on them, then my stomach would be complaining right about now. But it's not. The burger and the veggies were delicious and made for a nice combination. I really like it when I eat a meal that really fills me up, but doesn't make me feel all sick after I eat it. Those are good meals. And this was one of them. It was a good amount of food that really filled me up, but it was healthy enough so that I still feel good after eating it.

So that was my lunch for Thursday. I've been trying to be really good this week so I can get back in the groove of losing weight, but I went out and ate Mexican with my parents last night, and then we had this lunch today. Oh well. I chose fairly healthy options both times, so maybe these two meals won't have too big of an impact on my week and I'll still come out a pound or two lighter on Monday.

I purchased a new pedometer today and I love it! They've got a program going on here at work where you can register and log your total steps online everyday and win prizes and all that. I was already walking anyway, so I figured I might as well join the program. Every little bit of motivation helps. I hadn't replaced my last pedometer since it quit working, so I did a little research online and ended up purchasing the Omron Premium Pedometer. It's really nice and I think it'll really help to keep me motivated with my walking.

So thanks for coming by today.

I'll be back with the lunchbox tomorrow. See you then!

Veggie Plate

2007-04-25T15:00:00.000-04:00

Well, today's lunchbox ended up being just a big ol' pile of veggies. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that. Cooking more complicated vegan food is fun, when you have the time, but there's also something to be said for eating simply. I was running short on time last night so I decided on bringing a bunch of veggies for lunch since I didn't have a lot of time to cook. The Kale & Onions and the Mashed Potatoes with Vegan Brown Gravy were even leftovers from my previous night's cooking. So there was no extra work involved there at all. So there's really not a whole lot to say about today's lunch, except that it was yummy.

All I had to do was get the leftover veggies out of the fridge and pack them into the lunchbox containers. The Yellow Sweet Corn was frozen, so I just poured some it out of the bag, still frozen, into the red container. It thaws out on its own before lunchtime, and then a quick pop in the microwave heats it up nicely. The only thing that I did have to cook for today's lunch was the Vegan Cornbread Muffin. I've been trying to leave bread out of my lunchbox as much as possible to cut down on the amount of calories that I am consuming since I want to lose 16 more pounds. But since I was just eating veggies today, I thought I could probably afford to splurge a little bit and bring some cornbread.

I really wanted to bring some of Joanna's Corn Muffins (I had them on here once before) because those were really tasty, and probably the best vegan cornbread that I have tried so far. I didn't have any bell peppers at home though, so I fell back to my previous favorite cornbread recipe, which I made a little bit healthier by adding some ground flax seed. The only thing that was missing was something to put on my cornbread. I really wish that I had packed one of the little lunchbox dressing containers with some Smart-Squeeze in it. I love that stuff. It's vegan, it tastes buttery and it's fat-free. Oh well. Maybe next time.

As I look at this lunch, I can't help but imagine someone from here, where I live, looking at it and saying, "Oh. THAT's what a vegan eats. Well, heck, I could probably do that because I eat like that all the time." Lots of people around here do eat something similar to this a lot of the time, and you can easily order just plates of veggies in most restaurants, but it's NOT vegan. They seem to think that it doesn't taste good unless the corn is swimming in butter, the mashed potatoes are full of milk, and the greens have cooked in a pot with a dead animal's leg. No thank you. I like my vegan food just the way that it is. Honestly, I couldn't imagine ruining this delicious Kale & Onions by simmering it with body parts. Anyway, I'll shut up. I'm about to go on a rant...

It is funny though, how my tastes have changed since I became vegan. I NEVER would have eaten a bunch of veggies like this before. I couldn't stand most of them, and now I love them. I've gone through 2 lbs. of Kale in just the last few days. I went back to get some more at the store, but they don't have it now. In it's place were Collard Greens. They were in the same packaging, already cut & cleaned. So I got a big bag of them. I've only eaten them from a can before and I really didn't care for them. But I'm willing to bet that when I cook them up fresh, I will love them. I guess we'll see.

So that's it for lunch today. I'll try to bring something a little more interesting tomorrow. Sometimes it's just nice though to eat simple things.

No wait, I almost forgot. I have to go out and eat tomorrow. Everyone at work is taking our group's secretary out to eat. Lucky for me, we're going to Cootie Brown's, and you all know how much I like that place. WOO-HOO! So, the blog post will probably be a little bit delayed tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm gonna' eat there this time. I've been craving that Spinach Veggie Burger that they have, but that Pizza that I've eaten there the last several times has been amazingly good. Decisions... decisions...

Anyway, thanks for checking out my blog and I'll see everybody tomorrow!

Vegan Comfort Food

2007-04-24T13:35:00.000-04:00

I was reading back through my blog last night, FINALLY responding to some of the comments from last week, when I became fixated on the post about Rosetta's Kitchen over in Asheville, NC. I got to thinking back, about how delicious that meal was, and it really got me hankerin' for another big ol' plate of vegan comfort food. So into the kitchen I went to try and recreate something similar for my lunchbox today. I didn't have the time to fool with trying out a brand new recipe like the Peanut Butter Baked Tofu, plus I'm not sure that it was really something that I liked THAT much, it was a little too rich for me, so I ended up fixing something that's really quick and really easy... and REALLY delicious.

Vegan Chicken Fried Steak is something that I came up with on here a while back. Of course there's not any real chicken or steak in it, and it's not even fried, but that's the best name I could think of for this. All I did was warm up a Boca Chik'n Patty and then smother it in some delicious Vegan Brown Gravy made using my favorite recipe. You might remember that I like to doctor the recipe up a little bit by adding an extra Tbsp. or so of Soy Sauce, along with 1/8 tsp. or so of garlic powder, a pinch of thyme, a pinch of sage and some fresh ground black pepper. Gosh this gravy is good, even better than what I've eaten in restaurants. And if you haven't tried it all over a Boca Chik'n Patty yet, you really should go do that right now. It's CRAZY good. The only problem is, after I eat one, I want two or three more. Luckily, the lunchbox won't let that happen today.

I also brought along some homemade Mashed Potatoes, covered with some more Vegan Brown Gravy. And you know, I don't have to feel bad about putting this gravy all over everything because the stuff is FAT-FREE. I did put the potatoes in a smaller container instead of a larger one to help me control the calories a little bit. Plus, I omitted bringing any type of bread like a roll or cornbread muffin, like I used to do so frequently.

I also whipped up a big bunch of Kale & Onions by just frying up some onions & garlic in a skillet and then wilting a bunch of Kale in it. You know, I had never eaten Kale before in my life until that meal last week at Rosetta's Kitchen. I've seen various posts about it on other message boards where people have someone in their family who hates it and such, so I was kind of wary of it. But HOLY COW I love this stuff. It's my favorite green now and I plan on eating lots and lots of it in the future. There's a lot of Kale in my house right now because of that "secret weapon" for my health & weight loss that I mentioned yesterday (if THAT gives you any hint as to what it is). Like I said, I'll be doing a post about that in a few days.

And for dessert, I just whipped up a quick Trail Mix by mixing together some Raw Almonds, Raw Cashews, Raw Sunflower Seeds & Raisins. YUM!

So there you have it, a nice little lunchbox full of delicious vegan comfort food. It was really easy to cook up. The only thing that even really took any time was boiling the potatoes so that I could smash them up.

That Vegan Brown Gravy really is one of the greatest things ever. You could feed that to any omnivore and I think they would love it. I like to put it on EVERYTHING.

So thanks for checking out the blog today. See everybody tomorrow!

General Tao's Seitan

2007-04-23T13:28:00.000-04:00

It feels kinda' strange being back at work with my lunchbox after a week of searching for vegan food on the road. But here I am. For my lunch today, I tried a new twist on one of my all-time favorite vegan recipes. I only had to make it once, to know that the recipe for General Tao's Tofu over at vegweb was a winner. I've made it several times, and a variety of different ways. I've breaded the tofu with cornstarch and fried it, like the recipe says. I've made it with just plain old steamed tofu as well. Heck, I've even left the tofu out completely and just made it with vegetables. The sauce is my favorite part anyway. This time though, I thought I would try making it using a different meat substitute.

I whipped up some Seitan last night using the recipe from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. I was hooked on the baked seitan thing there for a while, but anymore, this method seems to be my favorite because it's just so dang easy. It's just equal parts of Vital Wheat Gluten and water mixed together. I usually add 1/4 cup of Chickpea Flour also though, just to help the texture be a little less rubbery. Then you just simmer that glob of gluten in a broth that you flavor up depending on whether you are trying to imitate beef, chicken, pork or fish. And you only need to simmer it for an hour. Then you can use the broth to simmer another batch of gluten, or use it as the liquid part to make some tasty rice or stuffing, or something like that.

Anyway, last night I made the Chicken style seitan and then cubed it up and fried it in a skillet. Then I just followed the vegweb recipe down to the letter. I did add a bag of frozen vegetables near the end. There's broccoli, a few green beans and carrots in there. The color of the veggies got kinda' icky with me cooking them like that. Perhaps I should have just steamed them separately in the the microwave in their own container to help them keep their color. Oh well. They may not be that pretty to look at, but they sure do taste good.

To go along with the main dish, I brought some Brown Rice that I just cooked up using some rice from the bulk bins at the health food store. And then, in the small containers I've got a few Raw Almonds and some Wasabi Peas. The General Tao's Seitan & Rice are really for my lunch, and I packed the Almonds & Peas with the intention of using them to snack on throughout the day. I only recently discovered the hot Wasabi Peas at the Asian Market and I am on my 3rd or 4th large container of them now. They are so HOT. I love snacking on them because I have to eat them pretty slowly since they're so spicy. They're even semi-healthy, for a snack food.

And speaking of healthy, just like I predicted, I am afraid that I am going to have to report that I did not lose any additional weight last week. I'm not upset about it though because the good news is, I DIDN'T GAIN ANY WEIGHT EITHER! I couldn't believe it when I weighed myself this weekend, because I really blew my diet all to pieces last week while I was in Savannah. Looking back, I guess most of my food was semi-healthy, but just the amount of food that I ate was so much more than I normally eat here at home. I thought for sure that I would be back up to 205 lbs. or more, but nope, I'm still 201 lbs. I knew that I probably wouldn't lose any weight with all of the eating out that I did, but not gaining any is actually a pleasant surprise. I'm happy with that.

It's time to get back in the groove of eating better now though, and I've got a new secret weapon to help me eat healthier. I'll reveal it in an upcoming post. Hopefully, getting back to fixing my own food, controlling my portion sizes, getting my daily walks in again, and using my secret weapon will allow me to get this weight loss show back on the road and get rid of these last 16 pounds that I want to lose.

So thanks for checking in on my first day getting back in the groove of things.

See you on Tuesday!

Asheville - Rosetta's Kitchen

2007-04-20T15:30:00.000-04:00

Well, as planned, I stopped in Asheville, NC on my way back home to Tennessee and enjoyed a nice lunch at Rosetta's Kitchen. I have been meaning to eat here for quite a while but just never got around to it. There are a couple of different ways to get into the restaurant. I ended up parking around back and using the back entrance which takes you up a long flight of colorful steps to reach the main restaurant part. It's a funky place, with a definite atmosphere that you can almost cut with a knife. The menu seemed HUGE! And there were lots of special vegan things, different types of Quinoa salads, cakes and stuff like that, that aren't on the menu every day, that were in display in a case right there where you order.

Here, you just order and go ahead and pay right there at the counter and then go take your seat at a table and wait for your food. I thought I remembered someone telling me that they call your name to come and get your food, and they did ask for my name when I ordered, so I was expecting that. But they brought my food to me. Maybe they just call your name when they get really, really busy, which they did before I got finished eating and got out of there.

I ordered their Hummus as an appetizer since it had been more than 24 hours since I last had Hummus. Hahaha. I swear, I have never eaten as much Hummus as I have this week and I am HOOKED. I can't wait to get back home and make some MORE! The Hummus at Rosetta's Kitchen was very good. As you can see, it came with some Carrot sticks and Tortilla Chips, which were also exceptionally good by the way. I really enjoyed all of the Hummus that I ate this week, and this batch was no exception. It was nice and thick and seasoned just perfectly. It tasted awesome on both the chips and the veggies.

I ended up ordering one of the plates off the menu that was full of vegan comfort food. There's Peanut Butter Baked Tofu, which I had never had before, some delicious Mashed Potatoes with some Vegan Brown Gravy (very similar to that gravy that I like to make) and some Kale. EXCELLENT! Very good vegan food. The Peanut Butter Baked Tofu was a little strange at first, because I've never had it, but it was extremely rich. It was very difficult to eat it all. In fact, I think I had a little bit left over that I couldn't finish.

I was really wanting to try some of their delicious looking vegan desserts too, but after eating this plate of food there was NO WAY I could eat anything else. They had lots of other vegan goodies on their menu too, like Macaroni & Cheese, Nachos with vegan cheese sauce, and all that stuff. This is a really good place to find some yummy vegan grub. I just wish it was closer to home, but I guess I'm lucky that it's only an hour away.

So there you have it. A fitting end to a week of vegan eating out. It was a little challenging eating out for a whole week while out of town, but not too bad. Luckily I seemed to have magically attracted other vegetarians & vegans to me to offer suggestions. I just showed my lunches on here, but I hit some of the places I liked more than once for dinners. I even ate dinner at the hotel restaurant once. I just had them whip me up some pasta, mushrooms & veggies in some Olive Oil. They were more than happy to accommodate me, and it ended up being really delicious too.

I guess I'll take it easy this weekend and try to recharge before heading back to work next week.

So thanks for reading my blog this week.

The lunchbox and I will be back at work on Monday. See you then!

Have a great weekend!

(whew! it feels good to be back home)

Savannah Mall - Ruby Tuesday

2007-04-19T20:42:00.000-04:00

Well, this will be my last evening in Savannah. I'll be heading back home to Tennessee tomorrow. I couldn't decide which sightseeing picture to post today. I had a few of some statues from some of the squares, and a few more of the fountain. I finally decided on another pic of the fountain because it's just about one of the prettiest things that I've ever seen. This pic shows you the long covered walkway leading up to the fountain. It gets even prettier (and spookier) as the sun starts going down and the streetlamps begin to illuminate. At any rate, Savannah is a beautiful city, just like everyone told me that it would be. I'd probably like to come back at some point in the future on my own, when work isn't involved, so I could enjoy myself a little bit more and not have to worry about getting up at a certain time every day and going to class. It's a little expensive down here though, especially if you want to stay right down on the river. I'll probably be back sometime though because there were so many things here that I didn't have time to do this time around.

Unfortunately, today I ended up eating at a chain restaurant that you've seen me eat at before on here. I originally went to the Savannah Mall to try and locate a new restaurant that a bartender told me about. I don't know what it is, but I just seem to attract other vegetarians and vegans to me. I was sitting in a bar the other night, chatting with the bartender when somehow, the issue of food came up and I mentioned that I was vegan and was surprised that there was not an exclusively vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Savannah. Well, come to find out, the bartender was a vegetarian who had actually been vegan for several years before going back to being a vegetarian. He said there was a new restaurant near the mall that had a huge sign outside that said VEGETARIAN or maybe even VEGAN on it. I went to the Savannah Mall and looked all around it, but could not find anything like that. There is more than one mall down here though, so it's possible he was talking about a different mall. I guess I didn't get enough details. DANG IT!

So anyway, I ended up just eating at Ruby Tuesday in the mall because I was short on time and needed to get lunch over with and get back. I really like Ruby Tuesday, it's a good vegan option when you're travelling. I just thought I was going to be able to find something else more local, but I couldn't. So in a way, I guess Ruby Tuesday came to the rescue and helped me eat a filling vegan lunch when I couldn't find any other options.

I started out by making a nice salad from their incredible Salad Bar. I think that they probably have the nicest and most diverse Salad Bar that I am aware of in the chain restaurant industry. It's less than $3 to add it to your meal too, and it's unlimited trips. Plus, they have so many ingredients. I just grabbed a little bit of everything and piled it up into a nice salad. One thing I did do, that I've never done before, was put a few Jalapenos on my salad. I like Jalapenos, but I just had never added them to a salad. It was really good. I'll add those little suckers every time now when I make a salad, if they're available.

I wasn't sure about their salad dressing choices. Even the Light Balsamic Vinegar dressing looked like it might be "creamy", and made me wonder if it might have dairy in it. So I just opted for the oil & vinegar that were sitting there at the end of the salad bar in their separate bottles. You can't go wrong there. My salad was delicious, and I really could have just made a meal out of the Salad Bar. In fact, I probably should have done that since I feel like I have eaten like a PIG this week. But I decided that I might as well enjoy their veggie burger too while I was there. It's the best vegan veggie burger that I know of in the whole chain restaurant industry, and it will DEFINITELY fill you up.

Once again, I asked the server before ordering if that particular restaurant was serving the Veggie Land Burger, because there are supposedly a few Ruby Tuesday locations that serve a different brand of veggie burger that is NOT vegan. She informed me that it was indeed the Veggie Land Burger and said that someone else had asked her about that last week. I guess there must have been another vegan through there, YIPEE! And yes, I got the french fries with it. Not healthy, I know. But hey, I'm pretending like I'm on vacation. I am SO not losing any weight this week. Oh well...

I, of course, also asked her to leave off the mayo and the cheese to make it vegan and then also said that I didn't want them to butter the bun when they grilled it. She looked worried and said she would see what they could do. This was the same look I got at the location at home when I mentioned no butter on the bun. Come to find out, they butter and grill the buns in advance, so there's no way to remove the butter from those buns. So, I just told her that I didn't need my bun grilled, and asked that they just give me a plain bun straight out of the plastic bag, which they did. So I was happy. I have found butter on the buns to be one of those sneaky things that you really have to watch out for when trying to eat out as a vegan. I got burned with it once, a long time ago on a Portobello Mushroom sandwich, and I have been on guard for it ever since. I guess some servers, who really don't understand what veganism is, must think that I am crazy being so worried about butter on the buns, I even had one tell me one time that "they don't use very much and you really can't taste it." But oh well, I eventually get my point across that I don't want any butter on my food, and I guess there's lots of people who think I'm crazy anyway, so there. ;o)

Well, I'm about to head out and cut up a little bit tonight. I guess I can enjoy myself a little bit more since I don't have to get up early for my class tomorrow. I'll just get up whenever I wake up and then start the drive back to Tennessee. It's really not that far. It only took me 5 1/2 hours to drive down here. Hopefully, traffic will be comparable to the drive down and I'll make it back in a similar time frame.

I'll probably stop in Asheville, NC again for lunch on the way home. This time though, I'll try to eat at one of the other vegetarian restaurants there. It really is amazing how many vegetarian dining options there are there, so it's kinda' dumb to just keep eating at the same place over and over. I am planning on FINALLY trying out a place called Rosetta's Kitchen. I don't know what time I'll finally make it home to enter my blog post, but I assume it will be a little later in the day.

So thanks for following the blog this week as I scoped out vegan food in Savannah. There weren't a whole lot of options here, but the ones that I did find were delicious. There were a few more places that were recommended that I didn't even get around to trying, but I guess I'll save those for when I come back and visit the town again on my own and won't be constrained on time because of a work related class.

I'm going out right now to find some ghosts and a great big Margarita!

See everybody tomorrow!

Savannah - Middle Eastern Cuisine

2007-04-18T18:55:00.000-04:00

I had a little time to wander around the streets of Savannah this evening and I made my way down to the famous Savannah Fountain and snapped this picture. This thing was beautiful. I've seen lots of pictures of it in the past, but none of them really do it justice. This is really something that everyone should see, if at all possible. It's so pretty as you walk up this long walkway that leads to it. The walkway is surrounded by lots of those huge Weeping Willows with all of the moss growing in them and drooping down towards the ground. BEAUTIFUL! I always thought that the pictures of the fountain were beautiful, but seeing it in real life was even more impressive than I thought it would be. I'm glad I got to see it.

For lunch today, I headed for a place recommended by my vegetarian server at the restaurant where I ate lunch yesterday. It's a little place called Middle Eastern Cuisine. She recommended it because she said that they had the best Hummus and Falafel that she had ever eaten anywhere, and that those items were, of course, vegan. It didn't take me long to find it. In fact, it's really pretty close to where I am staying and where my class is. As you can see from the pic, it has a very unassuming storefront. There was a cool screen door there on the building too that let the nice breezes blow into the restaurant. I think that this place is quite popular. The owner showed me some Savannah tourist magazine there too which had a write-up about his place in it. It's small, but I think that just makes it all that much more interesting.

Needless to say, I started out by ordering the Hummus. All of the ingredients were listed right there on the menu and this was just plain 'ol Hummus made with Chickpeas, garlic, tahini, lemon juice & salt. If there were any secret ingredients in there then they weren't listed on the menu. This Hummus was EXCELLENT. It seems kinda' strange that I've eaten Hummus every single day this week. I guess I'm starting to get addicted. Oh well, there are worse foods to be addicted to. I used to like "fancier" Hummus better, with Roasted Red Peppers or something else like that. But I swear, I can't imagine Hummus tasting any better than just this plain old regular recipe. This stuff was really good.

And then, for my main course, I ordered the Falafel. I have never made Falafel at home, although I have been meaning to. I had only tried it once before. I bought some pre-made brand from the freezer section of the local health food store. It was horrible. I couldn't even bring myself to swallow it. I actually ended up spitting it out in the trash can. I discovered later via some vegan message boards that frozen Falafel is practically inedible and NOTHING like the real thing. Kinda like canned Asparagus I guess. I knew that I wanted to give it another try because I had heard so many people talk about how much they loved the stuff. Well, what better place to try it than in a restaurant called Middle Eastern Cuisine?

The Falafel is homemade, of course, and the owner said that he baked his. It came wrapped up in a Pita with some lettuce, tomato, red onion and cucumber. You could choose from a few different things to spread on it, but I just ended up choosing to have mine slathered with a little more Hummus. OH MY GOD! This was so good. I am SO making some Falafel when I get back home to Tennessee. Now I see what people are talking about when they say how much they like Falafel. I kinda' feel like I've cheated myself by not discovering Falafel earlier in life, but oh well, better late than never. Hopefully I've still got a lot of years left to enjoy eating this stuff. I will definitely be seeking out places that serve Falafel whenever I eat out now. I don't think there are any where I live, but who knows? Maybe there is. I just never have checked. I will certainly be making some homemade very soon though, so keep your eyes peeled for that to appear in my lunchbox one day.

So there you have it, my second vegan lunch in Savannah, GA. If you're ever through there, then definitely look up Middle Eastern Cuisine, it is SO worth it. It's not far from the whole riverfront scene and it's a definite vegan treat. I'm glad that girl at the Mellow Mushroom told me about this place, because I probably never would have discovered it on my own. Although, NOW I know to look for places like this, that serve Hummus & Falafel, in the future, since those two items are inherently vegan.

So thanks for reading my blog today. I'm about to hit the streets again and do some more sightseeing, maybe with a big Margarita in hand. You know, it's legal to walk around on the streets here while drinking an alcoholic beverage. It just has to be in a plastic cup, and you can only have one drink with you. HA! Other than that, as long as you behave, it's perfectly legal. How cool is THAT?!?!

See everybody tomorrow!

Savannah - Mellow Mushroom

2007-04-17T20:58:00.000-04:00

Well, as you can see, I made it to Savannah, GA. This first picture is obviously not a picture of the place where I ate lunch at, but a picture of the Mercer House. In case you don't know, it's the house where the whole "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" thing went down. I just thought I would throw in a few pics this week from around town in case some of you might be interesting in seeing them. It was kinda' cool to see this house in person after seeing it in the film. It's really beautiful. In fact, the whole town is. It's just FULL of beautiful old mansions like this with streets lined with palm tress and huge Willow trees with moss growing in them and dropping down toward the ground. It's really beautiful at night too, in a spooky way, which is why I guess there are so many ghosts that supposedly reside here. I'll show some more pics from around town as the week goes on, but now on to my vegan lunch that I enjoyed today.

I ended up dining at the Mellow Mushroom. In case you don't know, it's a chain of pizza restaurants that have this whole funky vibe going on. The atmosphere reminds me of something of a cross between my favorite local restaurant, Cootie Brown's, and a coffeehouse. It's decorated really wild and is full of college kids and hippies and that whole scene. It's really neat. There's actually one an hour away from where I live but I just never had gone to it. After this experience though, I will definitely be visiting the one closer to me on a regular basis. Their food is REALLY delicious and there are several menu items that are vegetarian and can easily be made vegan just by omitting an ingredient or two. The staff was extremely helpful and was happy to help me plan out my vegan meal.

I started out with some of their Hummus. I just had some yesterday up there in Asheville, NC and I wanted to try their Hummus here and see how it compared. WOW! This stuff was good. It came with Pita Bread to spread it on and it was topped with something that was absolutely delicious. Maybe some of you guys know what it is. I couldn't figure out if it was just Taco Seasoning, or a mix of Chili Powder & Cumin, or maybe just some type of Smoked Paprika. Whatever it was, I LOVED it. Definitely some of the best Hummus I have ever eaten. I was actually pretty full just from eating the appetizer, but I still had a large pizza on the way! I ordered a large so I would have lots leftover to carry back to my hotel room to munch on later tonight and for breakfast in the morning.

I ended up ordering the Mega-Veggie Pizza, without cheese, of course. They have a regular Veggie Pizza that has a few less toppings on it, but I wanted the one that goes all out. I can't even remember what all was on there; Portobello Mushrooms, onions, green peppers, roasted red peppers, broccoli, artichokes, olives, tofu and I can't even remember what else. It was REALLY good. I really like their crust and their pizza sauce. And needless to say, as you can guess from looking at the picture, I ended up walking back to my room with LOTS of leftovers.

So there you go, my first vegan lunch in Savannah. I really like the Mellow Mushroom and will probably visit there again one night for dinner this week. My server there was actually a vegetarian and was excited that I was looking for some vegan food in Savannah. She wrote down a couple of places that she recommended, so I've got a few leads on other places to try out this week.

Well, it's almost 9PM here. I think I'll head out for a little while and find some spooky bar to have a couple of drinks at. I noticed last night that they've even got a Haunted Pub Tour down here where you go from bar to bar (buying a drink at each one, of course) listening to all of these ghost stories. That really sounds like fun, but I can't have THAT much fun tonight because I've got class again in the morning. I am gonna' go out for a little while though because the town at night is SO pretty.

So thanks for checking in today. See everybody tomorrow!

Laughing Seed Cafe in Asheville, NC

2007-04-16T17:56:00.000-04:00

I am actually sitting here in Savannah, GA as I write this blog entry, but the lunch that I'm going to show you is actually from where I stopped in Asheville, NC earlier and ate lunch on my way down to Georgia. Asheville is one of my favorite places in the world, and it's very vegan friendly. There are numerous vegetarian restaurants there and Laughing Seed Cafe is my favorite, so far. One reason is because I like it so much that I never can bring myself to try one of the other restaurants when I am over there. I always want to go to the Laughing Seed. Perhaps someday I'll get around to trying all of the other places, but today, while driving through North Carolina on my way down to Savannah, I was in the mood for some awesome vegan food. I've gotten kinda' worried about what I'm going to be able to find in Savannah, so I wanted to start my trip off with a bang and get some awesome vegan food at a restaurant that I knew wouldn't let me down.

I ended up starting out with an appetizer of some Roasted Red Pepper Hummus that actually had some Artichoke blended up in it as well. Of course, it was delicious. And it just reminded me of the fact that I don't eat anywhere near enough Hummus. That stuff is so easy to make, and I like it so much, that I should be snacking on this stuff all the time. Of course, snacking on it all of the time could add up to some calories if I consumed it all on Pita Bread, but I guess I could always try some healthier options like veggies or something. But anyway, the hummus that they had prepared for their appetizer special today was fabulous. YUM!

The lunch menu is a little bit toned down from the dinner menu. There's more sandwiches and stuff like that one there. I ended up ordering the Tempeh Reuben. I love making Tempeh Reubens at home using the VwaV recipe. In case you haven't tried it, those are AWESOME! This one was good as well. It tasted exactly like I expected it to. The Russian dressing is vegan, and you can order it in either a vegetarian version, which has some cheese on it, or leave that cheese off, like I did, which makes the whole sandwich vegan. Mmmmmm... Tempeh Reubens. DELICIOUS! Their french fries are really delicous too, but not that healthy, I know... They fry them up with onions and jalapeno peppers which makes them exceptionally tasty.

Then, just to make a complete hog out of myself, I asked if they had any vegan desserts today, and they did. It's a Strawberry Napoleon which is basically, just some fresh strawberries between layers of yummy pastry, all topped with some type of delicious vegan coconut "cream" sauce. EXCELLENT!

Needless to say, this road trip to Savannah may not be good for my diet. When I weighed myself this weekend I weighed 201 lbs. That means that I lost another 2 pounds last week which brings my total weight loss to 24 lbs. Not bad. Only 16 more to go to get to my goal of 185 lbs. If I keep eating like this though, on this trip, then I may not be reporting any loss next week. I guess it will depend on whether I can find any vegan food as delicious as this down in Savannah and how much walking I manage to get in.

I'm not gonna' beat myself up over it though. Even though this trip is for work, it's a mini-vacation too and I intend on enjoying myself down here in Savannah. If I end up having a week where I don't lose any weight, then that will be just fine. I've been losing weight for several weeks in a row now and I deserve to enjoy myself a little. I'm not gonna' go wild or anything and gain all 24 pounds back in a week, but if I end up not losing any pounds this week I'm not gonna' feel bad about it. I'll just get back with the program when I get back home. Anyway, who knows? I might walk so much down here that I DO lose a pound or two. Stranger things have happened.

So there's what I ate for lunch for Monday. I know it's not in Savannah, but hey, I couldn't drive past the Laughing Seed Cafe and not stop for lunch. Wish me luck as I start to explore Savannah and see what kind of hidden vegan treasures I can find. I've already gotten some good tips from a few locals, so who knows what I might find. I think I'll go explore right now!

Thanks for reading my blog. Remember that my posting schedule will be messed up this week because I'll be in class most of the day. So the posts will probably be coming a little later than usual.

See everybody tomorrow!

Vegan Turkey Sammich

2007-04-13T11:15:00.000-04:00

Well, there's nothing fancy about today's lunch so there probably won't be too much to talk about. Today was one of those days that I really just wanted to bring a plain old sandwich. It's been a while since I've had one in the lunchbox, plus I didn't feel like cooking too much stuff last night, so it all worked out. I was really wanting to bring a Bologna sandwich, but the Turkey was all that I had. Of course, I'm not talking about real Bologna or Turkey. I'm talking about the Light Life Deli Slices. I just love the Bologna style on some bread smeared with a bunch of Vegenaise. YUM! But, like I said, all I had in the fridge was the Roasted Turkey style, so the decision was kinda' made for me. I really like it too. In fact, I think it's kinda' scary how close they actually got to the taste of real turkey. Definitely a good vegan product if you like deli-style stuff on sandwiches. The Light Life Deli Slices are obviously based on Seitan, but they have really got the texture thing down. I'm not sure which ingredient it is that makes it so similar to the texture of deli meat, but whatever it is it works. I notice there is Tapioca in there, and I've seen that in a few seitan recipes as a texture modifier, I assume, so maybe that's it. I've never even bought Tapioca before, but I did notice all kinds of it at the Asian market last week, so maybe I should get some and experiment with it in my homemade seitan and see what kind of effects it has.

I made my Turkey Sammich (I just like to say that sometimes instead of sandwich) using some Light Bread that only has half the calories of regular bread. You would think it would be smaller since it has fewer calories, but it's actually larger than the regular bread I buy. It looks like they either do something with the yeast or add a bunch of baking soda or something to get the bread to really poof up full of air pockets, a lot more than you would normally see in regular bread. So it's a lot more "airy" than my usual bread, which makes it bigger, and also lower in calories since all that air is in there. I just noticed this because with my old bread I can cram two sandwiches into this lunchbox, whereas with the Light Bread, only one would fit. Heck, if I'm using Light Bread trying to cut back on calories then what the heck am I doing trying to pack TWO sandwiches in my lunchbox. IDIOT!

Anyway, it's hard to see the Light Life Roasted Turkey Deli Slices, but they're under the Spinach leaves there. I think I put about 4 slices on this sandwich. I also sliced up a Roma Tomato and put that in there, and I spread a little Vegenaise on the bread. I went a little easier on the Vegenaise than I used to since I want to continue losing some weight this week.

To go along with my sandwich, I brought some more of Joanna's Lemon Butter Rice. This stuff is probably my favorite side dish now because it is so easy to make and has such intense taste. It just tastes healthy too you know, Brown Rice and fresh Lemon. Mmmmmmm...

For dessert I just threw in some Raw Almonds & Raisins. Keeping a few different kinds of dried fruit and raw nuts around usually makes it easy to improvise a dessert for lunch if I don't have anything special to bring. Just grab one or two different types of nuts and one or two different types of dried fruit and throw it all together. If you have enough different types of nuts & fruit, you could come up with different combinations for days before you had to repeat yourself.

Well, I guess that does it for Friday's lunch. Nothing fancy, but kinda' noteworthy since it's something that most people (i.e. omnivores) don't even know is an option if you stop eating animal products. I just wish more people realized that stuff like this is available and how super easy it is to be vegan now with all of these meat replacements just sitting there in the coolers at regular grocery stores. I guess that's why I'm blogging huh?

So thanks for coming by today and I'll see everybody on Monday.

Everything's worked out at home and my housesitter/babysitter (for my Yorkie and my kitty) is coming to stay at the house later this weekend so that I can go on my little trip to Savannah, GA next week. I've got to go for work, but I plan on taking in some of the sites and having a little fun too. It looks like my dining options are going to be severely limited there though. It looks like my only choices for food are going to be an Indian restaurant that's classified as vegan-friendly, a coffee shop that sells some vegan stuff, and a pizza place that has some fancier toppings, but no vegan cheese. I've really got more options than that HERE where I live, but I guess we'll see how it goes. If all else fails I can always call Papa John's. So, don't be too disappointed if the posts aren't all that exciting next week. I'll do all I can to make it as interesting as possible, but if it ends up being a vegan dining wasteland, then I don't guess there will be too much I can do except eat salads. It'll be interesting. Who knows what my blog posting times will be like either. In other words, next week may be kinda' screwy here in my blog, but I'll try to make it entertaining. Hopefully it will be fun.

Actually, now that I think about it, since I didn't go anywhere on vacation last year, this will actually be my first time travelling somewhere new, for more than one night, as a vegan. So I guess we'll see how big of a challenge it will be for me to find some decent vegan grub huh?

Have a great weekend. See you in Savannah!

Soy Boy Ravioli

2007-04-12T15:05:00.000-04:00

Today's lunchbox contains a storebought vegan item that I've been wanting to try for quite a while, but I just never was able to locate it at any store. Well, that changed a couple of weeks ago when I was browsing through the freezer section at The Health Barn, one of our local health food stores. I have discovered several different vegan items there that I NEVER thought I could find around here, and that day was no exception. My jaw dropped open when I spotted Soy Boy Ravioli sitting there in the freezer. I was already aware of their products from their advertising in Satya magazine, but I had never seen any of their products in stores. The Health Barn has quickly become my favorite place to shop because they have so many of the hard-to-find vegan items that no one else seems to want to carry. I even made it a point when I was there to compliment the guy who is the grocery buyer and tell him what an awesome job I think he does and how much I appreciate being able to come in there and buy ready-made vegan food items.

The Soy Boy Ravioli is just stuffed with a tofu mixture that's spiced up with some herbs & garlic and such. Pretty standard stuff, like a tofu ricotta. It's good, but I must admit that I like the Spinach Ricotta that SusanV uses in her lasagna recipe better. I guess that's a clue that I need to make my own dang Ravioli sometime and stuff it with exactly what I like huh? I've never made Ravioli before, but it seems like it would be fun. But, the Soy Boy product is good, and VERY convenient since all I had to do was just boil some water and plop the Raviolis in and let them cook for a few minutes. For the sauce, which is NOT radioactive despite how it looks in the picture, I just stirred in some storebought Spaghetti Sauce. I honestly can't even remember what the brand was right now. I'm not really picky about pasta sauce because I pretty much like them all. I usually just grab whatever happens to be on sale and give the ingredients list a quick scan to make sure there's no cheese or anything else in it that would spoil the vegan vibe. I'll definitely buy this Soy Boy Ravioli again, because it IS good. Making my own might be a little better, but it would also be more work. So I guess there's a trade-off there somewhere. In a nutshell, the Soy Boy Ravioli is a tasty and very convenient pre-made vegan product. I'm glad that I found it and I will buy it again.

To go along with the Ravioli, I brought another Spinach Salad. I liked the fresh squeezed Lemon Juice & Olive Oil that I had on my salad yesterday, so I brought that again too. And for dessert, I just threw together my own little homemade trail-mix combination there of raw Sunflower Seeds, raw Almonds, raw Cashews and Raisins. Mmmmm... Very good. I could eat a 5 pound sack of this stuff.

I'm also happy to report that I have been getting in my lunchtime walks like I promised, so hopefully the exercise thing is back on track after that wretched cold snap. I went out and ate dinner last night with my parents to celebrate my mom's birthday and we went to our favorite Mexican place. I normally blow my diet all to pieces when I eat there, which is why it's been a looooong time since I went there. But I was actually pretty good last night. I tried something new and got the manager over there (I kinda' know him) and asked him what they fried the mushrooms in when they grill them. He said they used vegetable oil. I asked him if they put any lard in there or any butter, and he said that they did not, it was just mushrooms & onions grilled with some vegetable oil. So I ended up getting 3 soft tacos with grilled mushrooms & onions on them (instead of meat) and lettuce & tomato. I poured a little salsa on them too and I was good to go. I think they think that I am LOCO, but they made it and it was delicious. Mushrooms have so much more taste than meat. I also only consumed one and a half margaritas (7 oz. size) instead of my normal 20 (just joking, but I normally did drink a lot more margaritas than that and they have SO many calories). So yeah, I blew my diet a little bit last night by going there, but it was a special occasion and I did a lot better than I normally do when I eat there. It was worth it and I'll probably still lose some weight this week. I don't think one little splurge will ruin anything.

So I guess that does it for Thursday's lunchbox. Definitely try the Soy Boy Ravioli if you find it where you live, and you like Ravioli. It's yummy.

Thanks for reading my blog today. See everybody on Friday!

RAW - Carrot & Sunflower Seed Burger

2007-04-11T13:20:00.000-04:00

Well, I never thought I would actually get around to doing it, but lo and behold I've finally made one of the fancier (and more time consuming) raw vegan dishes for my lunchbox. It seems like I've been working on this one for a week now. Of course, it's not hard work or anything. It's mostly just a lot of time waiting for things to soak, and to sprout, and to dehydrate, etc. Half of this dish is actually from a recipe and half of it is made up. After I've finally gotten into it and started making some of this stuff, I can see where it would be easy to just make recipes up and wing it based on what ingredients you might happen to have on hand. At any rate, this raw vegan lunch is actually pretty tasty. I don't think I could live on this 100% of the time, but it makes for a nice change of pace, and you can definitely tell that it's healthy for you when you eat it. And yeah, it may look kinda' small, I guess all raw food kinda' looks small now that I think about it, but believe me, it is dense and rich, not as in sweet, but just meaning that it would be difficult to eat more than one of these raw veggie burgers.

The raw Carrot & Sunflower Seed Burger started out with me making the raw "bread" that serves as the buns for the "burger". I made them from a recipe in Alissa Cohen's book, "Living on Live Foods". The main ingredients are sprouted buckwheat and soaked flax seeds. There are quite a few spices added in there too which make it taste really good. Basically, you just mix all of that stuff up in a food processor and then spread it out into sheets and dehydrate them. You can mound it up into big hamburger bun shapes if you want to, but I just did mine in thin sheets and then, when they were about halfway done dehydrating, I took the sheets out and used a glass to cut out small circles that I knew would be able to fit into the lunchbox. I stopped the dehydrating when they were about the texture of bread. You could easily let them continue on and dry down further until they got crunchy and then use them as Live Crackers. I'll probably try that soon, because I do like the taste of this stuff. You'll probably see me use them as mini pizza crusts too at some point. Basically, this stuff made from sprouted buckwheat & flax could serve as any kind of bread, or cracker, or wrapper for a raw vegan food dish.

The "burger" part is just kinda' made up based on one of my favorite cooked veggie burger recipes, which in turn is a clone of the Sunshine Burger, which is one of my favorite storebought veggie burgers. SHEESH! I just soaked some sunflower seeds for a few hours, then put them in the food processor with some carrots, onion, garlic and basil and then just processed the whole thing until it turned into a dough like consistency that I could mold into patties. I just dehydrated them for a few hours and they were done. To make the complete burger I just took a couple of pieces of the "bread" and put a patty between them along with some raw spinach and tomato. Like I said, this does taste good, but it is kinda' hard to eat too much of it because it tastes so nutrient dense. I don't know if I'll ever bother making these again, because it does take a while to do, but I'm glad I tried them just so I could see what something like this tasted like. I like it.

To go along with my "burger" I've got a salad (a.k.a. some Spinach), and in keeping with the raw vegan theme, my salad dressing is just a small container of some cold-pressed Olive Oil and a big lemon wedge that I can squeeze on the salad. For dessert, I just cup up a few fresh Strawberries.

So there you have it, my very first attempt at some of the fancier raw vegan cuisine. I was pleased with how they came out, but like I said, I'm not sure I like devoting that much prep time to such small food, even though it's not hard work. I'm sure I'll try some more raw cuisine, but I see now that I am definitely not cut out for being a 100% raw vegan at this point.

Today's lunch is definitely healthy though, and low calorie, so it will hopefully help me lose some more weight this week. It's finally starting to warm up again around here, so I can finally get back into the groove of walking every day. With that cold snap that we had last week, my walking schedule was seriously interrupted. In fact, I was surprised that I even lost any weight last week, but I did. Of course, the cold is really no excuse considering that I have a treadmill at home (hangs head in shame). Anyway, I AM walking today and the rest of this week.

So thanks for checking out the blog today. See everybody on Thursday!

Lolo's Crispy Sweet & Sour Seitan

2007-04-10T12:30:00.000-04:00

When I was thinking about what I was gonna' fix for lunch today, I knew that I wanted to make something from the beef-style seitan that I made this past weekend. And it really wasn't hard to decide which recipe to use because there's one that's been going around the message boards and it seems like everybody and their brother has been making it and loved it. So, last night, I finally got around to making the Crispy Sweet & Sour Seitan from Lolo's VeganYumYum blog, which just so happens to be one of my favorite vegan blogs. If you don't already know about it (heck, you've probably already made it, I feel like I'm the only vegan on the planet who hasn't made it yet) it's supposedly a very accurate clone of a dish served at a certain restaurant which I know absolutely nothing about. All I knew was that the pictures that everyone had been posting looked awesome, and the recipe itself sounded like it would be delicious. It sounded a lot like General Tso's sauce (or however in the world you spell that), and I LOVE that stuff. So I made it last night.

The recipe was really easy to follow, and I didn't have any trouble making the dish. It turned out just as delicious as everyone said it would. And it does remind me a lot of a General Tso's dish, except maybe a little heavier on the Rice Wine Vinegar. After cooking it though, and eating the first bite, I realized that this was most definitely something that I should not be eating a lot of, or eating on a regular basis if I want to continue to lose weight. There's quite a bit of oil involved in this recipe, and I really didn't have much to drain off at the end of the frying like the recipe says to do because the corn starch on the seitan seemed to have soaked it all up. So yeah, this IS delicious, but it's also full of corn starch & oil. No wonder it tastes so good. I just ate a little bit of it last night, and this is really WAY too much in the lunchbox. I'm planning on probably just eating about half of what I brought. I probably really should have packed it into one of the smaller containers. Anyway, this is a super tasty dish but I definitely need to eat it in moderation. This is one of those things that I would classify as a vegan TREAT, that I should probably only eat from time to time. Of course, you could alter the recipe and make it a lot healthier, which is probably what I'll do the next time I make it. I think next time I'll probably just fry the seitan in a skillet sprayed with a little Canola Oil and leave out the corn starch all together. I know that's what made it so crispy, but I think it would still have a little crispiness to it just from the frying. I made a double batch when I made it last night so there was like 1/2 cup of peanut oil in it. I'll probably try this again in the future and try leaving all of that out. I know it won't be the same recipe then, but I just can't trust myself with something with that much fat & starch in it.

Eating this dish did get me stirred up to make some more General Tso's Tofu (or Tao's or WHATEVER!) though (the recipe from vegweb) and use seitan instead of tofu. If I were to fry it in cornstarch I think it would be just like chicken, but I really don't want to do that in this dish either, so I'll probably just fry the seitan in a quick spray of canola oil to try and make it healthier. I recommend making Lolo's Crispy Sweet & Sour Seitan recipe if you like intensely flavored Asian food, because it's VERY delicious. It's just definitely NOT diet food, but nobody ever claimed it was. Definitely a vegan TREAT.

To go along with the seitan I brought some Steamed Broccoli and some Raw Almonds. And then I've got some "Beefy" Rice that resulted from a little experiment I did and it turned out AWESOME! Remember yesterday when I was talking about seitan cooking broth and how much I hated to throw it out after I was finished making seitan? Well, this time I saved the broth, which was "beef" flavored broth from the recipe in La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer and used it as the liquid part when I made some Brown Rice. I just took 1 cup of Brown Rice and 2 cups of the broth and then heated it to boiling, then reduced the heat and let it simmer, covered, for 40-45 minutes. The result is DELICIOUS. It really does taste "beefy". This would be so good too with some grilled onions added, or maybe peas & carrots, or mushrooms. I am NEVER throwing my seitan cooking broth away again.

So there you have it, two new recipes, one of which I knew was already delicious from everyone else's previous experience, and one that I just kinda' made up to see what it would taste like. Now I have an excuse to make more seitan, just so I can get the broth! Actually, I probably WILL be making a lot more seitan now because it's probably my favorite of the meat-replacement holy trinity, but I just always hated throwing all that broth out at the end, so it kinda' discouraged me from making it. NOT ANY MORE! Now I know that when I make seitan, I'll also be able to make delicious rice dishes, and you know, it would be good for making stuffing too, especially if it was chicken-style broth. I guess that'll be the next thing to try huh?

So thanks for reading my blog today. See everybody on Wednesday.

Mock Meat & Noodle Toss

2007-04-09T14:15:00.000-04:00

Today's lunch came about as the result of a day long cooking marathon that I had yesterday. I don't know what got into me, maybe it was just because it was too cold outside to do anything else, but I just had the urge to cook yesterday. I made several things, a couple of which are present in today's lunchbox. It'll be a day or so before I can enjoy some of the other things because they are raw vegan dishes, and well, take some time with all the soaking, sprouting and dehydrating that you have to do. One thing that I definitely knew that I wanted to do yesterday was make some seitan. It's been a while since I've made any and it seems like new seitan recipes have been catching my eye a lot here recently out on the vegan message boards. Now, I had gotten into the habit of baking my seitan the last few times that I made it because I just HATE throwing all of that cooking broth out. Making those vegan chicken & dumplings a while back got me thinking though. Why do I need to throw the broth out? It's tasty. In the chicken & dumpling recipe it's easy, because the broth becomes the "soupy" part of the dish. When making "beef-style" seitan though, like I did yesterday, I mean, why do I need to throw the broth away? I could just re-use it to make some "beefy" rice or something like that. At any rate, I made myself a nice batch of beef style seitan and I saved the broth so I can experiment with it later in the week.

I used the seitan recipe found in La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. It's probably the easiest boiled seitan recipe that I know of, and I really like the taste and texture of it. I would have made the baked type, but I was out of aluminum foil. Curses! Anyway, it came out delicious. Then I chopped a little bit of it up and used it in a recipe found in the same cookbook called "Mock Meat & Rice Noodle Toss". I didn't have any rice noodles though, so I just substituted Soba noodles. No big whoop. It came out really good. I would certainly like to cook this again sometime. It's basically just grilled seitan, onions and some edamame all cooked in some homemade Teriyaki sauce and then served over noodles. How could that not be good?

To go along with my main course, I also brought along some Raw Sugar Snap Peas. And I also brought along the thing that was probably most responsible for starting my cooking session yesterday, and that's Joanna's Lemon Butter Rice. It had been a couple of weeks since I made it last and I was craving it yesterday, so I just whipped up a big batch. I ate most of it yesterday, but managed to save a little bit for the lunchbox. I may have to make some more tonight if I want to enjoy it any more this week.

I also tossed in a few Raw Cashews. I just got these from the bulk bin at the health food store. Unfortunately, these are just the broken pieces, not the nice whole nuts, which are so much prettier. The broken ones are like half the price though, and I bought them with the intention of making some raw "cheeses" from them, so I figured why waste extra money on whole cashews if I'm just gonna' grind them up. I haven't gotten around to trying that yet though, and cashews never last long at my house. So no matter what I bought them for originally, if they sit in the fridge for more than a day or two, I am gonna' get in 'em. I think I could eat my weight in cashews.

And speaking of weight, when I weighed myself this morning, I weighed 203 lbs. That means that I lost another 2 pounds last week and have now lost a total of 22 lbs. (just a little more than halfway to my goal of losing at least 40 pounds). I'm starting to get a little excited now because I think my weight loss is really obvious now. Several people commented on it this weekend, and it's really starting to show in my face, which is great. I guess I've lost 10% of my body weight now (from my starting point of 225 lbs.) and that's supposedly an important milestone because losing 10% of your body weight supposedly lowers your risks for a variety of ailments significantly. I just remember that you got your own special star for that on Weight Watchers Online.

I was actually a little bit lower than this at one point last week, after eating 100% raw for a couple of days, but I guess switching back to regular food for the rest of the week averaged it all out to a 2 pound loss. I'll probably have another raw day or two here pretty soon as some of this "fancier" stuff that I'm working on gets completed, so it will be interesting to see what happens. I've lost track of exactly how many weeks I've been at this now, but I've obviously settled down into the 2 lbs. per week weight loss mode. That's what everything I've ever read has said is a healthy rate of weight loss, so I guess it's all good. I'm really excited that I've managed to shed 22 lbs. so far and I can't wait until I finally get back down to 185 (or less). Before that though, I'll also be really excited in another week or two when my weight doesn't start with the number 2 anymore. There's just something psychological about weighing 199 lbs. instead of 200 lbs. I can't wait until I drop below 200. Hopefully, it won't be long.

So there's my lunch and the weight loss update for Monday. It's been a while since I've had a good seitan dish, and this one just reminded me of how much I like the stuff. I've got a good amount of it made up now, so perhaps I'll try out some of those other interesting recipes that I've seen floating around on the internet.

Thanks for coming by today and I'll see everybody tomorrow.

Vegan Pizza @ Cootie Brown's

2007-04-06T15:48:00.000-04:00

Well, I didn't have to go to work today since it was a holiday, so I spent the morning messing around with my raw "bread" that I put into the dehydrator yesterday. It's basically a mix of sprouted buckwheat, soaked flax seeds, carrots, and some spices like curry, garlic & rosemary. You just put all of that together in the food processor and blend it up and then spread it on the dehydrator trays and dry it down until it's bread-like, or cracker-like, whatever you want. I actually tasted of the wet stuff, straight from the food processor, and it was actually very yummy. I could definitely see using it as a Live Dip for some raw veggies. In fact, I ate quite a few pieces of raw carrot dipped in some of the leftovers and it was very delicious. It went into the dehydrator yesterday evening and should be done sometime today. But anyway, when lunch time rolled around, I pretty much decided that I would like to go out for lunch. I had no idea that it would be SO crowded out today, but I guess everybody else in the country had the same urge I did, to go out and eat for lunch on their day off.

Eating out here where I live, and being able to eat something that's both yummy & vegan, of course limits my choices significantly. One place that I can always count on though is Cootie Brown's. That's why it shows up so often in my blog. Unfortunately for most people who read this blog, there are only two of these and they're right here where I live & work. I wish everybody could try their food, but I'm also a little selfish and am so thankful that they are here where I live. Since it can sometimes be a challenge to find vegan food when you eat out, having a little gem like Cootie Brown's around, which offers several different delicious things that can easily be made vegan, is a lifesaver.

I went there today with my best friend and it was PACKED. We ordered the Mexicana pizza which comes topped with black beans, red onions, green peppers, sliced jalapeno peppers, roasted chilies, roasted red peppers & black olives. It normally comes with Monterey Jack & Cheddar Cheese on it, but I, of course, left those off to make my pizza vegan. I'm sure it's delicious just like that, with absolutely no cheese on it, but look at the picture of my pizza. What is that? It looks like it has cheese on it. Have I renounced my veganism?

No way. Believe it or not, it's actually some Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella (the BEST vegan mozzarella cheese replacement, in my opinion, and that of a bunch of other people). I cubed some up and took it to the restaurant with me in a little plastic storage container. Once I got there, the owner and his wife actually happened to be there so I asked them if they would mind putting my vegan "cheese" on the pizza instead of the actual cheese that they normally use. They didn't mind at all. AWESOME!

It's still kinda' blocky, because if you've ever used the FYH cheese before then you know that you usually have to hit it with the broiler at the end of your cooking in order to get it to really melt up. But they were extremely busy today and I kinda' felt bad about springing this on them right in the middle of such a rush, so I didn't request any special cooking adjustments or anything, I was just thankful that they would actually put my vegan cheese on my pizza. Some of it melted, and it all got nice & creamy, so it was VERY delicious. We only ate half of it at the restaurant. I brought the other half home and I'll probably zap it under the broiler in the toaster oven tonight for a late night snack. That'll be goooooooooooood.

And get this, the owner's wife rang me up and she said that they would actually look into getting that vegan "cheese" and offering it at the restaurants as an option on their pizzas! WOW! I made the comment that they probably wouldn't need very much since there probably wouldn't be many people ordering it and she told me that there are actually quite a few vegans who eat there regularly. Who are these other vegans here where I live? I wonder if they read my blog?

Speaking of people who read my blog, after I got done at Cootie Brown's I FINALLY visited Melanie's soap & candle shop. She's a local reader of my blog and frequent contributor in the comments section, in case you have no idea who I am talking about. It's so cool to meet someone in the real world that I met through blogging. I had already tried some of her soap, which I purchased in a local health food store, but I used all of that up and was in need of some more. So I already knew that I loved her stuff. Her store (and it's where she makes all of her stuff too) is REALLY neat. I ended up buying a few bars for me (I got the Vanilla Bean, Nag Champa (I love that smell), and some kind of Japanese Grapefruit) and a few bars for my mom. It's her birthday and I know that she'll love this soap when she gets it. Melanie even fixed it up all nice for me in a basket so it's all ready for giving as a birthday gift. Thanks Melanie! Even if you don't live near here, you can still order some of her awesome soap online (it's all vegan, except one with honey in it). It's all homemade and full of such yummy stuff. I just love the look and feel of homemade soap. It's almost like something that you should eat instead of wash with. If you're into fancy handmade soaps, you will really like her stuff. It's REALLY nice.

Oh yeah, I met her daughter Storm and her two kitties too. Hi Storm!

So there you have it, a little vegan adventure on my day off. I had some awesome vegan pizza, and maybe even started the ball rolling on a local pizza place serving vegan pizza, and picked up some awesome vegan soap too. Not a bad way to spend a chilly Friday.

So thanks for reading the blog this week. See everybody on Monday.

Happy Easter!

Finally! - Amy's Spinach Pizza

2007-04-05T15:20:00.000-04:00

Well, I finally managed to locate that elusive new product from Amy's Kitchen; the new vegan Rice Crust Spinach Pizza that has the Follow Your Heart Vegan Mozzarella on it. I've been looking for this thing for quite some time but have had a hard time finding it, as have several other people from what I have read on some other vegan message boards. I know I could make something like this myself, but I think it's exciting that someone actually bothered to put a frozen pizza with vegan cheese on it on the market, so I wanted to support that effort and purchase one. There was only one in the freezer at one of the local Health Food Stores (THE HEALTH BARN, which is my new favorite place to shop). So when I saw it I actually gasped and grabbed it before anyone else could snatch this vegan prize from my grasp.

I just cooked it in the toaster oven and then cut out a nice big square piece from the middle that would fit nicely into the lunchbox. That left me with these four side pieces that I sampled last night to see what I thought about it. DELICIOUS! I already knew that I loved the FYH Vegan Mozzarella, but I had never had a Rice Crust before. It's really delicious. It tastes a lot like the homemade pizza crust that I like to make from Whole Wheat Pastry Flour. The texture is very much like that.

There are only two real drawbacks about this product and one is the amount of fat in it. I mean, just look at the nutritional information! This is WAY more fat and WAY more calories than I calculate for the homemade pizzas that I make, and mine even have vegan pepperoni and such on them. The other thing is the price. These things are not cheap. The one that I purchased was $7.69. So obviously, I could just buy some FYH cheese and make something similar homemade, probably without the Rice Crust, for a lot less. But like I said, I'm glad that they are making this product, so I wanted to purchase it to support the company, and really, if I ordered this in a restaurant and it cost that much, I don't guess I would think twice about it. I just wish it was a little less costly and lower on the fat and calories. Anyway, it's definitely delicious, there's no arguing about that. So if you're pressed for time, and want a delicious vegan pizza, then this would definitely make you very happy.

Since the pizza has so many calories, I just finished filling the lunchbox with some Edamame and some Dried Apricots for dessert.

I don't have to work tomorrow since it's a company holiday, so I'm not sure what I'll do for the blog. If I go out and eat for lunch, which I am kinda' planning on doing, then I'll just take my camera along and do another "Vegan Dining Out" post. If I make something at home, then I guess I'll just do a post about that. But anyway, whatever I do, it probably won't involve the lunchbox since I don't have to carry my lunch to work.

So thanks for coming by today and I'll see everybody tomorrow!

Reduced Calorie Vegan Chicken Sandwich

2007-04-04T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today's lunchbox features a little idea that I came up with a couple of weeks ago as a way to reduce the calories in something that I eat ALL the time, and that's the Vegan Chicken Sandwich made with the Boca Chik'n Patties. If you've been reading the blog then you've seen me bring them before in a few different ways. I eat quite a few of these things since they're so convenient, but since I've started trying to lose some weight I've paid more attention to my food and it's kinda' bothered me that the patties have 180 calories. I mean, I don't guess that's a big deal, because if you combine it with a Light Bun, which has 80 calories, then you're still only looking at 260 calories for your sandwich. I've been trying to cut calories out everywhere that I can though, and one day I finally figured out how to remove a few calories from this sandwich.

It's easy, just use the Boca Chik'n Nuggets instead of the patties. It takes four nuggets to equal the 180 calories of one pattie, and it only takes three nuggets to make a sandwich, so you save 45 calories right there. Not only that, but based on the number of nuggets in a box and the number of patties in a box, 2 boxes of patties will make 8 sandwiches but 2 boxes of nuggets will make 9 sandwiches. The patties & nuggets cost the same here where I live, so that's kinda' like getting one sandwich for free. Granted, there is a tiny little area of the bun that's not covered when you use the nuggets, but it's not that big of a deal. You can still get some "chicken" in every bite. I guess 45 calories isn't THAT big of a deal, but when you eat as many sandwiches as I do (I practically live on them on the weekends, especially when I'm at the campground) those calories add up. So that's just a little idea I thought I would pass along in case anyone else might be interested in shaving off a few calories here and there.

To go along with my sandwich I brought some more raw Sugar Snap Peas. I love these things. They're great for snacking too. I had never tried them until a couple of weeks ago when I spotted some at the grocery store that were marked down to something like 50 cents so that they could get rid of them before they went bad. I gladly pay full price for them now because they taste so good and you can just tell that they're good for you when you eat them.

I also brought along a few raw Almonds and some Raisins for dessert. So, I guess that's a fairly healthy lunch. 3 out of 4 items are raw and the one cooked item weighs in at only about 215 calories. If I add in a nice walk during lunch then this should work out good for helping me shed the second half of that 40 pounds I want to lose.

And speaking of raw food, I was so excited this morning when I got up and went into the kitchen to rinse my Buckwheat that I am sprouting. I removed the towel that was covering the bowl and THEY HAVE SPROUTED! I felt like jumping up and down because I've never sprouted anything before. It really does feel like you're gardening on your kitchen counter. I don't have the recipe with me now for making the raw "bread" but I'm pretty sure I need to soak some Flax Seeds as well, so I don't know if I'll have time to do that between the time I get home and the time I go to bed, or if I'll just have to put the Buckwheat sprouts in the fridge and soak the Flax overnight. At any rate, I'm excited about making some raw "bread", and if it comes out halfway decent at all I'll show it on here.

So thanks for stopping by my blog today. See everybody on Thursday.

RAW

2007-04-03T19:45:00.000-04:00

Well, sorry again for the late post. Even though I usually type most of my blog posts up the night before, I'm not able to get online right now and add last-minute comments before I activate the post from work like I used to. I'm not sure if this is just temporary or not, but for a while, at least, it looks like I'm gonna' be on a little bit different schedule with my posts showing up either a lot earlier or a lot later than they used to. At any rate, I'll still post every day, just don't be surprised if the timing is really weird.

For my lunch today, I just packed a simple raw lunch containing some fruits & vegetables, as well as a few nuts. I've got some raw Broccoli & Carrots and some fresh Strawberries for "dessert". I packed a few raw Almonds to munch on as a snack at some point in the day too. I just love raw nuts, especially Cashews & Almonds, although I did discover in some reading last night that the Raw Foodists are up in arms because there will soon be a requirement that ALL Almonds be pasteurized. So even though they might be labeled as "raw", and will still sprout, they are all going to be exposed to high temperatures. Not such a good thing if your a raw foodist and want all of your food to have all of its enzymes intact. Sounds like there will definitely be some fighting over this.

And as far as the raw food thing goes, I've eaten 100% raw for two days now, and I (once again) realize that I'm probably being unreasonable in thinking that I can eat like this for an extended period of time. If you've been reading the blog for very long, then you probably remember previous times where I've gotten stirred up and claimed I wanted to go 100% raw, but reality soon sets in when I realize how much work is going to be involved if I want to have any kind of variety, and how much it actually costs to eat that way all of the time.

So even though I was on here yesterday claiming I thought I could go 100% raw, after a second day of it, I realize that it's probably really not for me. Just eating raw veggies (and nothing else) gets old fast (in 2 days actually). And I would like to create all of those fancy raw dishes but I really don't have the time to do all of that sprouting & dehydrating and stuff. Just keeping this blog going takes up enough of my time. Plus, I enjoy cooking too much. I mean, if I went raw then I couldn't work on perfecting that veggie burger recipe!

So I confess, I've failed at trying to go 100% raw again. Of course, I did do it for a couple of days, and I did get a nice POP! in my weight loss this week from it. But it will be interesting to see if that holds out for the rest of the week as I go back to regular old vegan food. Of course, I'm still trying to lose weight so I'm not going to stuff myself or anything, and I'll still be working in plenty of raw fruits & veggies to go with my cooked food.

So, this ended up being strange. I posted some cooked food yesterday and told everybody that I didn't even eat it because I was eating raw from that point on, and then today I've posted some raw food and told everybody that I want to start cooking again. Sorry for being so indecisive. But anyway, nothing bad happened. I just ate raw for a couple of days and found out that it's not as easy to stick with as I thought.

I've still got my Buckwheat Groats sprouting in the kitchen. I do want to finish sprouting those and make some raw vegan "bread" items from them just to see what that tastes like, so don't be surprised if you see a funny looking bun pop up in the blog in a few days.

So, sorry for flip-flopping so much. I AM intrigued by the raw lifestyle, but I guess I just kept forgetting how much I was already enjoying the way that I was eating. I like cooking too much, and I've got a trip to Savannah coming up here in another week or so and I want to document all of the eating out that I do down there here in the blog. So this was definitely not a good time for me to try something like going 100% raw. Maybe someday. And if nothing else, perhaps I'll just start making one of those fancy raw dishes from time to time and featuring it in the lunchbox.

Speaking of fancy raw recipes, let me tell you really quickly about something that I tried last night. This was the recipe that got me so excited about going raw yesterday. It's for raw Banana Ice-Cream. I couldn't believe the recipe was that simple and could actually resemble real ice-cream. BOY! Was I wrong...

If you want to do something really cool sometime, just freeze 2-3 peeled bananas. I sliced mine and layed them out on a pan so they would freeze faster. After they are good and frozen, then just put them in a food processor and process them with the S-blade. They will look really gritty at first, and you'll probably have to keep taking the lid off and using the spatula to mash it back down in there where the blades can get hold of it. In fact, I finally added like 1 Tbsp. of water to help soften it up a little bit more until the magic finally happened. There will finally come a point where the whole thing just creams up and becomes the EXACT texture of ice cream, and I'm talking about the full-fat kind. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Just from frozen bananas. It tastes like bananas, of course, but my immediate urge was to sweeten it up some more by maybe adding some frozen Strawberries to the mix, or something like that.

So I guess, if nothing else, my little two day venture into raw food found me a nice recipe for a really healthy snack that seems like it's really naughty. So it's not a total bust. Well, I lost a little extra weight too.

So thanks for coming by my schizophrenic blog today. The lunchbox and I will be back tomorrow with some more delicious cooked vegan food, and maybe some raw too. I want some vegan pizza right now so bad I can't stand it, so maybe tomorrow. See you then!

Homemade Vegan "Chicken" Tenders

2007-04-02T20:00:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the late post but I didn't have any access to the internet today. I normally type most of the blog entry up the night before and then just have to add a few sentences and post it from work during the day. I couldn't do that today though, and then I needed to mow the yard as soon as I got home, so here I am posting it this evening. But even though it's a late post, it'll probably be the start of something interesting, and not because of what I cooked for today. What in the world do I mean by that?!?!

For my lunch today, I made up a recipe for Vegan Chicken Tenders which was just the veggie burger recipe that I used previously modified to include the spices from the cooking broth from the Chicken & Dumplings. Then I breaded them with bread crumbs and baked them in the oven. They really didn't turn out that well. They're alright I guess, but too dry, and the breading ended up being WAY too thick & hard. DEFINITELY a recipe that needs lots more work.

To go along with the tenders, I made some Vegan Honey Mustard by mixing together some mustard and some Maple Syrup.

I also brought along the remainder of the Dill Green Beans & the Cooked Carrots that I opened up for last Friday's lunch. And I threw in a small container of Raw Sunflower Seeds to round out the lunchbox.

Now, why is this so interesting? Because I ended up not even eating this for lunch. I've been reading more and more in Alissa Cohen's book, "Living on Live Food". And today I may have reached critical mass as far as this eating raw thing goes. I've been thinking about it more and more, and there's even a 30 day Raw Challenge getting worked up over at the ppk, I think.

So I ended up not even eating this today. Instead, I had a Grapefruit for breakfast. Then at lunch I ran out to the store and bought a pound of fresh Strawberries and a Banana Cookie Larabar. On my way home this evening, I stopped by the health food store and picked up some Buckwheat Groats that I intend to sprout so I can make some Raw Buns & Bread using my big Excalibur dehydrator that I purchased over a year ago when I first started thinking about this raw thing. I can then use the "bread" in a variety of Raw dishes like burgers, "chicken" sandwiches, "tuna" salad, and more.

I've always been interested in trying this, and the more I read about it the more I want to try it, especially now while I am trying to lose weight before Summer is officially here. Speaking of losing weight, when I weighed this morning I weighed 205 lbs. So I lost 2 more lbs. last week. And so far I have lost a total of 20 lbs. since I started trying to eat healthier. That means I am HALF-WAY to my goal weight of 185 lbs. or less. Woo-hoo! I can't help but wonder how much switching to a raw diet could improve my weight loss. I am just too dang curious, and I would really like to try it.

I don't know if I can do it for an extended period of time, or forever, but I only know one way to find out, and that is to just jump right in and try it and see what happens. I assume my lunches might not be as interesting while I test these waters, although I don't know, they might be MORE interesting. Of course, I won't be eating gourmet raw food every day, most of the time it'll probably just be plain old raw food, but I want to try as many of those gourmet raw dishes as I can. I've got all of the equipment that I need to do it, and I'm tired of putting it off.

Of course, it will be a few days before anything "fancy" shows up in the lunchbox because I've got to sprout things and dehydrate things, but I'm going for raw "burgers" and sandwiches and stuff like that first. If I do manage to do this for an extended period of time, then I don't know if I'll keep doing this lunch blog like this because it might not be that interesting once I get into the groove. I don't know. I am definitely continuing this blog until I get down to my goal weight of 185 lbs. But I am thinking that after that, if I decide to continue eating raw, then I may need to start a different Raw Blog and just do posts that show the interesting dishes that I prepare and not just the every day run-of-the-mill lunch. I don't know, I guess we'll see.

Who knows, I may be over this idea tomorrow, but I doubt it considering all of the raw food that I just bought. We'll see. Don't worry I won't disappear again like I did last year. I promise to keep blogging right here until I get to my goal weight, but then if I've decided to pursue the raw lifestyle for good, then I might need to start a new blog that concentrates on that.

Like I mentioned before, I decided this early today and all I consumed today was the grapefruit for breakfast, a pound of strawberries & a Larabar for lunch. Then this evening I have had several Raw Almonds and a few Raw Cashews. That's really not much, but I'm not hungry at all. I am planning on enjoying a little Raw Banana Ice-Cream in a little bit. In fact, that was one of the recipes that got me so stirred up this morning. I was just like, "Okay this sounds really good. But can it really be this easy?" I plan on finding out in just a few minutes.

So who knows what to expect for tomorrow's lunch. I plan on eating raw again all day tomorrow so we'll see. My Buckwheat is soaking right now and I'm gonna' start is sprouting tomorrow. As soon as I get some Raw "bread" I should be able to really start experimenting with this food. Maybe this fascination will only last a few days, but who knows? It might last forever. I'm curious to find out though.

Thanks for coming by today and I'll see everybody tomorrow with another RAW lunch.

Fruits & Veggies

2007-03-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

After a week of lunches that included a good amount of fake meat and some processed foods (plus I ate pizza twice this week for dinner) I decided to simplify things for Friday and end the week with a lunchbox full of fruits & veggies. I'll admit, I did it for the sake of convenience too because there's really nothing easier than filling lunchbox containers with veggies. But they're delicious too and will make for a nice reduced calorie way to end this week. I'm gonna' have to be better this weekend than I was last weekend if I'm going to see any weight loss come Monday. I am determined to eat better this weekend and hopefully try to get in a couple of good walks. But anyway, back to the fruits & veggies...

In the green container I've got something that I had never tried before; Dill Green Beans. I just spotted them on the shelf the other day at the grocery store and they caught my eye. I thought they sounded interesting. It says on the can that they are good cold too, maybe as a snack. And boy are they right. These things are yummy. If you've never had them before, just imagine Green Beans in pickle juice and you've got a pretty good idea what they taste like. I like pickle juice, so I, of course, love these.

The purple container just contains some Cooked Carrots. I normally like to jazz these up with a little Brown Sugar and make them taste like the sweet carrots that you might get at a Japanese restaurant, but since I'm trying to cut calories I skipped the sugar this time. The Green Beans and the Carrots both came out of cans, which I know is not the best way to eat your vegetables. One of them has 13% of your Sodium RDA and the other has 15%, so that's not exactly great, but it was a convenient way to get some veggies and I made up for that (a little bit) with the other two choices in the lunchbox.

I've got a Blood Orange there in the red container that I've already peeled & sectioned. I absolutely LOVE these things, and I had never even tried one until a month or so ago. A coworker eats them all the time and finally convinced me to try one. There was no looking back. I've been eating these things like they're going out of style. DELICIOUS!

And then I whipped up a few more of the little things that I call Raw Fudgy Treats (because I can't think of a better name). They're just equal parts of Raisins & Walnuts processed in a food processor until they turn into a "dough" that you can roll up into little balls and then roll in Coconut, or Cocoa, or whatever you like.

So there you have it. I don't guess there's that much to say about a bunch of fruits & veggies. I really need to start having more of my lunchboxes look like this, well, maybe without the canned stuff. This stuff is extremely filling to me, especially when you consider the lower calorie count. You get a lot more "bang for the buck", which is exactly what I need if I'm gonna' get down to my goal weight any time soon.

I'll be back Monday with another lunchbox. I've got a few ideas in my head right now because there have been several really interesting recipes making the rounds on the internet here lately. If I have the time, and energy, on Sunday I might try whipping one of them up.

Thanks for reading my blog this week and I'll see everybody next week.

Have a great weekend!

Filet-NO-Fish Sandwich

2007-03-29T13:05:00.000-04:00

Hey everybody! Today's lunchbox contains something that I've been meaning to try for quite some time now, and I finally got around to making it. It's another idea that's floated around in my head, probably since I first became vegan, and I've always wondered what it would taste like. But when veganluv mentioned it in the comments section of one of my old blog posts, and confirmed that it was indeed yummy, then I knew that I needed to try it soon. I like to call this a Filet-NO-Fish Sandwich as a play on words with the name of a fish sandwich at a certain fast food restaurant. I used to eat those alot when I was a kid (HEY! I didn't know any better) and really liked them. Of course, what kid wouldn't like all that grease? I know I didn't make that name up because I swear I've seen it before, but when I did a Yahoo! search last night, I couldn't find a mention of it anywhere. Anyway, I don't think I made this name up, but I just like it. I think it's kinda' cool. A vegan fish sandwich... Who'da thunk it?

First of all, it's not really a fish sandwich (of course), but I mean it's not even a vegan fish sandwich really. It's just a Boca Chik'n Patty on a Light Hamburger Bun with half of a slice of Tofutti American Cheese (vegan, of course). What makes it taste like a fish sandwich is the addition of a bunch of Vegan Tartar Sauce, which I packed in its own little blue container to keep it from making my sandwich all soggy before lunch. I searched the internet for recipes for Tartar Sauce and there were all kinds of them, all with different ingredients. So, I finally just decided to wing it and throw together whatever ingredients I had on hand and see what I came up with. I just took a small bowl and plopped in a couple of Tbsp. of Grapeseed Oil Vegenaise. Then I stirred in just a tiny little squirt of Yellow Mustard. I squeezed in a few drops of fresh Lemon Juice and then added some Sweet Pickle Relish and Capers until it looked like the right amount of "stuff" swimming around in my Tartar Sauce. I tasted it. YUMMY! I made Tartar Sauce!

I took it one step further then. Just to make SURE that this was gonna' taste like a fish sandwich, I rehydrated a little Hijiki in some hot water and then drained it and stirred it into my homemade Tartar Sauce. So really, the "fishy" taste comes from the sauce and not the patty. WHO CARES!?!?! This is delicious and tastes very similar to what I remember a fish sandwich tasting like. I don't know that I'll eat it that often while I'm still trying to lose some more weight because of the fat in the Tofutti cheese and in the Tartar Sauce. But it's definitely a vegan treat that I'll add to my list to enjoy from time to time.

To go along with my fish sandwich I brought some Lay's Light Potato Chips (the fat-free kind fried in Olestra), some Sweet Yellow Corn and for dessert, just a few Raisins, since that sandwich is a little bit high in calories for someone trying to cut back.

I'm also happy to report that I did finally break down and work in my yard last night and it was HARD WORK. I was probably out there at least a couple of hours sweating up a storm. Combined with my lunchtime walk yesterday though, that gave me a good amount of exercise yesterday. I got my walk in during lunch today too, so the exercise thing is going really good this week. Hopefully I'll be rewarded when I weigh in this weekend.

So there you have it, another tasty vegan clone of one of my (unhealthy) childhood favorites. On a side note, have you seen their commercials where they are actually putting TWO deep fried fish patties on those fast food sandwiches now?!?! That is just INSANE!

Well, thanks for coming by the blog today and I'll see everybody on Friday!

Grilled Portobello Sandwich

2007-03-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today's lunch was a lot easier to fix than my previous one, but it's still every bit as delicious. A Grilled Portobello Sandwich is right up there in my top 10 list of things to eat. In fact, it seems like it's sometimes the only vegan option at some restaurants, other than salads of course. Whenever I order one out at a restaurant I always have them leave off any cheese or mayo that they might normally add, and I learned once, early on in my veganism, to make sure and ask that they don't put any butter on the bun because a lot of places seem to like to butter the buns and grill them. I like toasted buns, but no butter please. :o)

I actually made this sandwich kinda' out of necessity since I had a Portobello Mushroom cap hanging out in my fridge from where I was experimenting with those veggie burgers last week. I would REALLY hate for something like that to end up getting thrown away. So I just grilled it up last night in a skillet with a little bit of Soy Sauce and then threw it onto a Light Bun and topped it off with some Roasted Red Peppers, which are packed in water by the way. Fairly low-calorie for such a delicious sandwich, I think.

In the green container I've got some Hoppin' John, which is just a mix of Stewed Tomatoes, Black-Eyed Peas, Onions & Jalapeno Peppers. It's spicy and delicious. Not too many calories there either. I've seen several recipes on the internet for making your own, but this just came out of a can from the grocery store and it did NOT list any type of pork product in the ingredients (apparently it's common to season this with pork when people make it at home).

While looking for food items that I needed to get rid of, I also stumbled upon a few Sugar Snap Peas that were left so into the lunchbox they went. And then for dessert I just tossed in a few Dried Apricots that I spotted on sale at the store a couple of weeks ago.

So I guess that does it for Wednesday's lunch. Shew, that was a lot easier than yesterday's post. [grin]

Believe it or not, I've actually been getting my extra exercise in that I wanted to do this week. I've been doing my normal walk during lunch and then doing another 30 minutes in the evening after work. I guess I'll get some extra exercise in this evening after work too because I'm gonna' have to break down and finally mow the yard. ARGH! Hopefully, all of this extra physical activity will translate into a few lost pounds come Monday.

So thanks for checking in today and I'll see everybody tomorrow!

Vegan Chicken & Dumplings

2007-03-27T13:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm on to something here folks. This is a recipe that I've made up and it's been floating around in my head for probably close to six months now. Well, I finally got around to trying it last night, just to see what I would end up with, and all I can say is that it is AMAZING. This is so close to the Chicken & Dumplings that I used to make back when I ate meat that it's scary. I was actually surprised at how well it came out for a first try. The main thing that I DID learn is that I need to add more vegetable broth at the end next time because it was just a little bit short on the liquid part. Not bad though. I think I'll also try leaving all of the fat out of the dumpling part next time too because I mean, do you really need it if the dumplings are going to be absorbing all that moisture from the broth? I don't think so. The "chicken" in this dish is actually a simple seitan, but don't worry, you just make it as you go along and it's really easy. It doesn't require hours of cooking either. I made this batch, from start to finish, in probably 75-80 minutes. So what did I do?

First, get a big pot, like you would cook spaghetti in, and mix up your cooking broth. This is what you will cook the chicken-style seitan that you make in, and it will also become the liquid part of the Chicken & Dumplings. It's YUMMY! Just stir all of this together in your big pot:

CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS - COOKING BROTH
4 cups water
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp rubbed sage (the dried powdery kind in the little metal spice can)
1/2 tsp rubbed thyme (the dried powdery kind in the little metal spice can)
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/8 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp salt
I put it a little fresh ground black pepper also, not much, just a few turns of the pepper mill

Now, get this started heating up to boiling, and while that happens, in a mixer (I used a KitchenAid mixer with the paddle attachment, NOT the dough hook) stir together the following:

CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS - CHICKEN STYLE SEITAN
1 cup vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup chickpea flour (besan flour)
1 cup water

Let this knead for 5 minutes or so until your broth is boiling, then turn the heat down to simmer and, once it's not vigorously boiling anymore take your big rubbery ball of gluten that you made and start pulling off really small pieces with your fingers and dropping them into the broth (Don't let the broth boil anymore from this point forward or your seitan will puff up too much). You want to make sure that the pieces are really small, smaller than you would want a bite of "chicken" to be because they will swell up quite a bit as they cook. This took a couple of minutes because I tore my pieces off really small. Just remember that each little piece that you drop in there will be one bite of "chicken", so keep them very small.

Now, just cover this pot and let the stuff simmer for an hour or so. I let mine go 60 minutes. Who knows, you might be able to get away with 45 minutes since there's another 20 minutes of cooking once you add the dumplings. But I cooked mine for an hour. Briefly remove the cover and stir everything around every 10-15 minutes or so just to keep everything separated.

When you get close to the end of your cooking time, then you can start mixing up the dumplings. In a bowl, mix these things together:

CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS - DUMPLINGS
2 cups flour
5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Now cut in (with a fork):
2 tbsp Earth Balance Margarine
2 tbsp vegetable shortening

I dare say that you could probably leave all of this fat out completely since the dumplings will be so moist from steam cooking in the broth. Now just stir in Soy Milk with a fork until you get a nice ball of dough that you can work with. I have no idea about the amount. I just keep pouring a little in at a time and stirring with a fork. When it's absorbed all of the flour and the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl, then I know it's ready.

I poured in 3/4 cup of vegetable broth into the pot at this point just to increase the amount of liquid. It will thicken up from the flour in the dumplings. Next time though, I think I need to add at least another whole 15 oz. can of vegetable broth (in addition to the 3/4 cup) because mine came out a little short on liquid. I guess it just depends on how "soupy" you want it. At this point, I also turned the heat up on my pot a little bit to MED-LOW. Now, just uncover the pot and pinch off little pieces of the dough and drop into the broth, just like you did with the gluten. I like to keep these small too. You can also roll this out and cut it into little squares and drop into the broth, but I like mine dropped on top like this. Now, after you get all that dropped in, just replace the lid and let them cook for about 10 minutes like that, then uncover them and let them cook another 10 minutes or so, until you think they are done. Then just give the whole thing a good stir and you're done!

This recipe still needs a little bit of work, but not much. Probably just figuring out the exact amount of veggie broth to add at the end. The texture of the "chicken" pieces is so much like those little cubes of real chicken in those cheap frozen pot pies that it is frightening. This is gonna' be one of my favorite vegan comfort foods, I can already tell you. This would be a good way to start out making a Vegan Chicken Pot Pie too. Anyway, if any of you try this I would interested to hear what you think about it, and what you try different. If you liked Chicken & Dumplings when you were an omnivore (if you ever were) then you NEED to make this. It's good.

To go along with the Chicken & Dumplings I just brought some veggies; some Peas & Carrots and some Sweet Yellow Corn. And for dessert I just threw together some Sunflower Seeds, some Raisins & a few Dried Apricots.

So there you have it, my yummy lunch for Tuesday. I even gave a couple of bites of it to an omnivore at work and they confirmed that this DOES indeed taste like Chicken & Dumplings. WOW!

So thanks for checking out my blog today and I'll see everybody on Wednesday.

Vegan "Chicken" Nuggets

2007-03-26T12:52:00.000-04:00

Today's lunch is one that I just threw together really quickly last night because it was pretty late when I got home. This weekend was BEAUTIFUL here in Tennessee and I just HAD to get out of town for the weekend. When I got back home and started thinking about lunch for today, it became obvious that I was probably going to be relying on storebought vegan items to feed me today. The main star of today's lunchbox is one of my favorite pre-made vegan items that you can find in the freezer section of almost any regular old grocery store.

Boca Chik'n Nuggets are pretty much just like the Chicken Nuggets I remember from my omnivore days. They taste just like their Chik'n Patties, and I assume they're probably made out of exactly the same ingredients, just formed into a different shape. I like to keep these on hand in the freezer at all times. They make good snacks, and you can even use them to make a reduced calorie version of a Chicken Sandwich should you run out of patties. I'll probably be showing that in the lunchbox pretty soon because I've been doing it a lot here lately with this whole weight loss thing. I've got some vegan Barbecue Sauce there in the little blue container for dipping my nuggets into. It's just storebought too. I just checked the label to make sure that it didn't have honey, or anything else not vegan, in it.

In the green container I've got an interesting mix of vegetables that I spotted in the freezer section at the store. There's corn in there, along with black beans, onions, green pepper and red pepper. Plus they're seasoned kind of in a Mexican style with some spices & Lime Juice. They're actually really good. I'll probably be buying these quite a bit from now on, or making something similar on my own.

And then I've got an Apple Pie Larabar for dessert. My favorite. Then I kinda' ended it there and left the lunchbox at that. I mean, I probably could have squeezed in another container or so, with some more food in it, but since the nuggets have quite a few calories, as does the Larabar, I figured I'd better stop with what I had if I plan on losing any weight this week.

And speaking of losing weight, I lost another 2 pounds last week. I've been at this for 5 weeks now and have lost a total of 18 pounds. I started out at 225 lbs., the most I have ever weighed, and I weighed in this weekend at 207 lbs. I actually weighed less than that at one point during last week, but I kinda' ate (and drank) more than I should this weekend since it was so nice outside, so I sort of hurt myself a little bit there in the end. Oh well. I'll take the 2 pound loss and keep chugging along. I'm thinking about upping the exercise a little this week and trying to get more walking in. I guess we'll see how that goes. I'd like to walk during lunch, while I'm at work, and then maybe fit in another walk in the evening, after work.

So there's my lunch for Monday. Pretty much NO work on my part, and still yummy. Thank goodness for pre-packaged vegan food.

Thanks for coming by today. See everybody tomorrow!

The Ultimate Veggie Burger 2.0

2007-03-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I started this week's lunches with a veggie burger, so I figured I might as well end it the same way. It's not just any old veggie burger though, it's completely homemade and it's my second attempt to create the Ultimate Veggie Burger. And like I said before, while I also really love other types of veggie burgers made with nuts or smashed up beans & veggies, and stuff like that, my goal with this particular burger is to make a veggie burger that is the best copy of an actual beef burger possible. Something that you would take to a cookout and the omnivores wouldn't even suspect that your burger was vegan, and if you told them, then they would all be dying to try it and they would actually LIKE it. That's what I'm shooting for. This was my second attempt. I made some progress, but also suffered a small setback, which I think is easily correctable. So, here's the story.

I started out again just using the recipe from over at Bunnyfoot's blog, which is based on a Bryanna Clark Grogan recipe. These were really good the first time I made them. Even if I just made these straight from the recipe from now on, I would be happy with them, and they would be my favorite veggie burgers. There's no comparison to storebought stuff, these are so much better. But this time, I wanted to alter the recipe a little bit and try to make it taste "meatier". The first thing that came to mind was Portobello Mushrooms. I mean, just grilling an entire Portobello Mushroom Cap on the grill and then slapping it on a bun tastes an awful lot like meat to most people. So I took one huge Portobello Mushroom Cap and ground it up in the food processor until it was ground pretty fine. I basically want it to disappear into the texture of the veggie burger, because that was already perfect, and just contribute to the meaty taste. I added 1/2 cup of this to the burger recipe. I also chopped up a yellow onion, pretty fine, and added 1/2 cup of that to the mix also.

I purchased a cheap plastic thing at the store that helps you make uniform patties, but I'm not sure that I like it. I thought I would prefer a larger thinner patty, but now that I've made them, I think I kinda' liked the thicker hand-patted type patty. It made it seem more like a hamburger, more homemade and less processed. Making the patties thinner also makes them a little more fragile and a little more difficult to flip halfway through the oven baking part. I'll probably just form them by hand from now on.

The Mushroom & Onion definitely improved on the taste of the burgers. They are quite delicious. The only problem was that the extra moisture from the Mushroom & Onion, which I didn't compensate for, changed the texture of the burgers and made them a little bit softer, or as I like to say, smushier. They were still firm, but not as firm as the original batch. I think that could be remedied easily just by adding some more Vital Wheat Gluten, maybe bumping it up from 2/3 cup to a whole cup. That's probably what I'll try next. And I assume I'll probably need to increase all of the other flavorings like the soy sauce and stuff by 50% so the flavor doesn't get watered down by the extra gluten. So that's what I plan on trying next. These are good though. The taste is better than the first batch, and it's definitely the "meatiest" veggie burger that I have ever eaten. So stay tuned. I might work on this more next week.

To go along with my burger I just brought some Sweet Yellow Corn and some Peas & Carrots. Just frozen veggies that I dumped into the lunchbox containers, still frozen, last night. They'll be thawed by lunchtime and a quick zap in the microwave will get them all nice & steamy.

For dessert, I brought along an Apple Pie Larabar. This is probably my favorite flavor of Larabars and I consume quite a few of them a week, usually for breakfast. I like them because they are vegan, they are raw, they taste good and they are ultra-convenient for eating as a quick breakfast while driving to work in the morning.

So I guess that does it for another week of vegan lunches. I'll continue working on the veggie burger until I get it just the way that I want it, and then I'll post the entire recipe & process here so you can try it. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful weekend here in Tennessee. I get to leave work early today and I can't wait to get out there and start enjoying this beautiful weather.

Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see everybody on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Vegan Dining Out @ Cootie Brown's

2007-03-22T14:15:00.000-04:00

Well, I ended up going out to eat for lunch today because I wanted to share a new delicious vegan meal that I just discovered with you all. Well, I wanted to eat it too, of course. But I ended up going to Cootie Brown's again. They're probably the most vegan-friendly place I can think of to eat in either Kingsport (where I work) or in Johnson City (where I live). I actually used to work there for a little while as a part-time second job a loooooooong time ago, so I'm at least a little familiar with what goes into their food. I know the manager of the one in Kingsport too, so I don't have any trouble going up and asking him about food ingredients, and he actually knows what veganism is, so that's extremely helpful. Their menu contains several different types of veggie burgers, all of which can be made vegan by leaving off any cheese, mayo or butter, and several different types of pizza, which can all be made vegan by leaving off any cheese or meat. I opted for the pizza today because it's so easily veganized and honestly, their toppings are so varied and so delicious that putting cheese on them (even if you aren't vegan) would, in my opinion, just drown out the tastes of the really good stuff.

I ended up ordering a half of a Carribean Pizza. You can order either a whole pizza, or just a half of one, and they have both regular crust and whole wheat crust. I got the whole wheat. Their pizza crusts are really tasty too because they actually grill them on a grill. Sometimes there's grill marks and everything and they taste all nice & smoky. So much better than just a plain old pizza crust. They're very thin and crispy also, which is just how I like my pizza crust. And this particular pizza, once you get them to leave the cheese & chicken off, comes topped with olive oil (just lightly brushed on the crust, not too much at all), baby spinach, artichokes, portobello mushrooms, pica-dillo (mangos, pineapple and mandarin oranges), and a reduced Jamaican Jerk Sauce drizzled all over the top. This is VERY delicious, and I couldn't even imagine drowning out the flavor of the Jerk Sauce and all those yummy fruits & veggies with a bunch of cheese. Eating it without it actually made me glad that I was a vegan so that I could enjoy all those flavors. P.S. If you click on the picture then you can view the large version in a new window which really lets you see everything on the pizza a lot better. :o)

This will probably be one of my favorite things to eat for a while and I'll probably end up ordering it at home all the time until I get tired of it. If I do though, there are several other easily veganized pizzas there that I want to try at some point, especially that Mexican one. You'll probably see me go through all of them eventually here in the blog because I'll probably be eating there quite a bit now that the weather is turning nice. The walls of the entire restaurant open up and turn the whole place into one big outdoor dining space, which is really cool, and a really nice place to eat in the middle of the day when you're at work. Kinda' like a mini-vacation.

So there you have it, my latest vegan discovery, and a yummy one at that. Proving once again that it's not too difficult to eat vegan out at restaurants if you just choose carefully and ask a few questions and make a few requests. Yeah, I had to work a little bit asking about dough ingredients and sauce ingredients, but it really wasn't THAT much trouble. And getting something as yummy as this pizza to eat, while still eating vegan, makes it worth it.

Thanks for reading my blog today. See you tomorrow!

Black Bean & Vegan Cheese Nachos

2007-03-21T15:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I was back in the kitchen yesterday evening trying another one of Joanna's test recipes for her upcoming cookbook. I've been looking for a while for a good vegan "cheese" sauce for nachos because all of the ones that I have tried so far from my cookbooks have seemed to be a little lacking. Everything else that I've made from Joanna's tester recipes has been really good, so I assumed that her cheese sauce probably was too. I'm happy to report that it IS indeed good, and it's now on my official list of things that I will be making all the time from this point forward. I'm not sure why I like this so much better than other vegan cheese sauces that I have made, but I do. Maybe it's just that my tastes have changed enough since becoming vegan that I actually LOVE nutritional yeast now, or maybe it's just that Joanna is magic. Who knows.

I also whipped up a nice big skillet full of a double batch of her Refried Black Beans, which are also one of my favorite things to eat now. Then I just threw both of those things together with some Tortilla Chips and some Jalapeno Peppers and TA-DAH! Black Bean & Vegan Cheese Nachos. I packed everything separately in the lunch box, of course, but when I tested this out at home last night I just piled it all in one big pile in a bowl and dug in. DELICIOUS!

There's no fat at all added to the Cheese Sauce or the Refried Black Beans, so they're super duper healthy. The Tortilla Chips, however, were a bit of a problem. I wanted to get some baked ones, to try and save some calories on the fat, but there wasn't a single bag of baked tortilla chips at the grocery store that I go to. There was a bag that was cooked in Olestra, which I like, but they were HUGE triangular chips and wouldn't fit in the lunchbox very well at all. So I ended up buying just regular old Tostitos, in the little round version. Since they're fried, they, of course, have more fat in them than I would like. A serving is only 140 calories though, and there's 24 chips in a serving (that's a whole serving in the lunchbox). So when you consider that, plus the fact that everything else in the lunchbox is really quite healthy, then I guess it's not too bad for someone trying to lose some pounds. Well, it could be worse.

When I tasted the cheese sauce last night and realized that I really liked it, I couldn't help but feel like I had tasted it somewhere before. Then it finally dawned on me. It tasted just like the cheesy stuff in that Macaroni & Cheese that I brought a while back using the New Farm Cookbook recipe that was posted in a thread over at The PPK. That was the most delicious vegan Macaroni & Cheese that I have ever made, but it was FULL of fat. This Cheese Sauce that I brought today is FAT FREE and tastes just as good. So I think, from now on, if I want Macaroni & Cheese, I will probably just whip up some of Joanna's Cheese Sauce and stir IT up in macaroni and skip all that fat in the other recipe. I'll try that someday soon and bring it in the lunchbox.

It's absolutely BEAUTIFUL here today outside, so we made sure that we got our walking in during lunch.

And I can't wait until either tomorrow or Friday to go out and eat for lunch so I can show you all something new that I discovered in one of my favorite local restaurants. Of course, we don't have any exclusively vegan, or even vegetarian, restaurants right here where I live, but as you can see in some of my previous posts, there are are certain places where it's easier to eat vegan than in your typical fast food joint. I'm excited about posting about this delicious new dish that I found and I'll share it with you in a day or so.

So that does it for Wednesday's lunch. I LOVE nachos, and I used to eat WAY too much of them when I was an omnivore. This is actually the first vegan version that I have made that I really liked, so I am definitely going to have to be careful and not allow myself to pig out on these all the time and blow my diet. Of course, if I were to use the Light version of the chips, fried in Olestra, then I could significantly lower the calorie count, but it would still be calories, and I have a very hard time making myself stop eating nachos when there are still plenty left. Thank goodness for the lunchbox controlling my portions today or I probably would have been too stuffed to even get up and go for a walk. HA!

So thanks for stopping by today and I'll see everybody tomorrow! Adios!

Roasted Garlic & Spinach Pasta

2007-03-20T13:30:00.000-04:00

Today's lunch ended up being something that I just whipped up at the last minute yesterday evening because I spent most of my time tinkering around with that veggie burger recipe from my previous post. I think that I definitely made a little bit of progress, but also realized another modification that I need to make in order to counteract a slight change in texture that my original change made, if that makes any sense. I'll share what I did, and the delicious results, either tomorrow or the next day because I made several burgers, and I'm experimenting with the whole freezing them thing too because once that recipe is perfected I want to be able to spend big chunks of time, like on weekends, cranking these things out so I can keep myself stocked up with a good supply.

For today's lunch though, I just whipped up a quick pasta dish by boiling some Whole Wheat Spaghetti for 12 minutes or so. Then I drained it, returned it to the hot pot and added 1 Tbsp. of Olive Oil. I threw in some fresh Baby Spinach leaves and wilted them down, and then added some nice big chunks of Roasted Garlic that I had cooked up in a skillet. I guess, technically, that's not roasted, but that's what I like to call it. I just love great big pieces of garlic when you cook them until they get all nice and brown and sweet. YUM! The only fat I added to the dish was the tablespoon of Olive Oil, and this is just a small portion of the entire pot of pasta in my lunchbox today, so this is actually semi-healthy.

To go along with my pasta, instead of bringing a bunch of bread like I used to do, I brought some yummy veggies instead. I had some fresh Asparagus hanging out in the fridge that I REALLY needed to use. I bought it a while back when I spotted it on sale and hadn't used any of it yet. I just put a few pieces in a Corningware covered dish, sprinkled some water on it and then popped it into the microwave for a couple of minutes. I like cooking it that way because it makes it so green, and it stays so crisp & crunchy. Rather than mix up some kind of lemon based sauce to go with the Asparagus, I took the easy way out and just threw a slice of fresh lemon on there. After I heat this up at work in the microwave then I'll just squeeze the lemon juice all over it. Mmmmm... I love Asparagus.

Then I've got some more Peas & Carrots from the freezer. I didn't like these a whole lot when I first started bringing them. They were okay, but not great, because peas have never been one of my most favorite things in the world, but I'm really starting to like these. I actually look forward to eating them now, because of their taste, and no longer pack them JUST to be packing something healthier. So that's good.

And finally, for dessert, I brought some more of those, what I like to call Raw Fudgy Treats, which are just equal parts of raisins and walnuts processed in the food processor until they magically turn into this "dough" that you can roll up into balls. I swear they taste like fudge. I tried to jazz mine up a little bit by trying an idea from over at Vegan Lunch Box and I rolled them in Cocoa Powder. They just immediately soaked it up though, which made them have this wet Cocoa outside, which is kinda' messy, but it definitely tastes good. I guess if I wanted them to have a dry coating of Cocoa Powder then I would probably have to completely pack them in it until the outsides got dry enough to not get the Cocoa wet anymore. Maybe I'll just stick to rolling mine in Coconut, or nothing at all. These make great desserts for lunches when you discover that there's nothing sweet in the house to pack. They are yummy and extremely rich.

So that does it for Tuesday. This was easy to fix, and it's one of my favorite ways to eat pasta. In fact, it's one of the things that I always keep in my mind when dining out in case I have to do a special request for a vegan meal, because almost any restaurant that serves pasta could make something like this with no problem. I haven't had to resort to asking for it yet, but you never know.

Thanks for reading my blog today. See everybody on Wednesday!

The Ultimate Veggie Burger 1.0

2007-03-19T11:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I was cooking up a storm this weekend and I have firmly resolved to develop the ULTIMATE veggie burger within the next couple of weeks. I am calling this one The Ultimate Veggie Burger 1.0 because there will be several versions as I continue to tweak and improve the recipe. I couldn't believe how well this first try came out, especially in the appearance department, I mean look at that thing. It looks exactly like a beef hamburger! I would dare say that if this were on a grill with some meat-based hamburgers you wouldn't be able to tell them apart, except maybe for the tons of grease pouring out of the meat ones. The appearance is almost right on, even on this first version, and the taste and texture aren't bad. Let me tell you a little bit more about it.

I ended up FINALLY trying this veggie burger recipe over at Bunnyfoot's blog. I believe it is, in turn, based on a recipe from Bryanna Clark Grogan, who is, of course, one of my vegan idols. I had been wanting to try this for quite some time, because it sounded like the combination of Vital Wheat Gluten and TVP might be the key to achieving the texture of an actual hamburger. Now, don't get me wrong, I like all of the other types of veggie burgers too, you know, the ones based on nuts or smashed up beans and things like that, the ones that are just delicious being what they are, not trying to copy a beef hamburger. Right now though, I am intent on developing this recipe to turn it into the best copy of a beef hamburger that I can. There's no need to really worry any more about the appearance, because the appearance is perfect. These tasted good too, but they taste more like the VwaV Veggie Burgers than say, a real beef hamburger.

I can remember lots of tricks from other veggie burger recipes I have tried in the past for making them taste "meaty". I plan on trying all of them until I find just the right combination. Some of the things I plan on adding to the mix are chopped onion, Portobello Mushrooms, maybe Dale's Seasoning (that soy sauce based stuff that people use to grill meat with), peanut butter?, walnuts?, Montreal Steak Seasoning, vegan Worcestershire Sauce, and who knows what else? I also plan on getting to Walgreens at some point because supposedly they sell these "Beef Bullion" cubes that are so cheap that they're vegan. I don't know if that's true or not, but I've heard it and plan on checking it out. Needless to say, there's lots of experimenting to do, so you might be seeing veggie burgers pop up pretty often in the lunchbox here in the near future. As soon as I get everything perfected, I will post the entire recipe and procedure here. Until then, if you'd like to experiment yourself, just use the recipe over at Bunnyfoot's blog because that's where I am starting.

This should be really interesting because these burgers are already fantastic. There's so much that you could do for the taste though, that once they're really jazzed up, they may be worthy of the title of Ultimate Veggie Burger. I guess we'll see huh?

To go along with my burger, which is on a Light Wheat Bun by the way, I brought some Lay's Light Potato chips. They're the ones that are fat-free since they're fried in Olestra. That stuff doesn't hurt my tummy, so they're just fine to me. I do have friends though who can't eat it because it messes with their insides. Looking at my lunch today though, I could smack myself for spending $3.49 on that bag of chips when I could have just whipped up some of those Microwave Potato Chips that I like to make. I'll bring them later this week when I try my first changes to the veggie burger recipe.

And then, to finish out the lunchbox, I brought some veggies. I've got some Peas & Carrots and some Sweet Yellow Corn, both of which just came from the freezer section of the local grocery store. I've mentioned before, that I just dump these in the lunchbox frozen and then they're thawed out by lunch time. A quick 45 seconds or so in the microwave, covered with some Glad Press-n-Seal, and they are good to go.

No dessert for me today since I've got that big veggie burger and I'm still trying to lose weight. I don't think I need any anyway because this is PLENTY of food. That veggie burger is HUGE! It's only got a couple of grams of fat too, so that's good.

Well, it's Monday, so I guess I need to update everybody on how my weight loss is going. It's now been 4 weeks since I started at my highest weight ever of 225 lbs. Last week, I weighed in at 211 pounds, so I had lost 14 pounds in 3 weeks. I ate pretty good last week, and got my exercise in as best I could. I actually only got to walk 4 out of 5 days because it poured down rain one day. But when I weighed myself this morning I weighed 209 lbs. So I lost another 2 pounds last week. YEAH! That means that I've lost a total of 16 pounds in 4 weeks. Not too shabby. Just 4 more pounds and I'll be halfway to my goal of losing at least 40 pounds.

It's kinda' slow going now, only losing a pound or two a week, but that's the healthy way to do it. Plus I have gotten encouragement from the fact that I actually LOOK like I am losing weight now, I can see it in the mirror, and I assume everyone else can too. Plus, I actually got to move in another belt notch last week. So that's good.

So that does it for Monday's lunch & weight loss update. I am really excited about messing around with these veggie burgers because grilling season is almost here and I would LOVE to have some awesome veggie burgers available to impress all of my meat-eating friends with. I want to make these things so good that they'll all actually want to try them, and LIKE them! I guess that's a pretty lofty goal, but I guess we'll see what happens.

Thanks for coming by today. See everybody tomorrow!

Morningstar Egg Facts

2007-03-18T13:30:00.000-04:00

I thought I would take a little bit of time this weekend for a little cyber activism and do a quick post about an issue that I think is important, and something that we could all really make a difference in. You may already be aware of this campaign, but just in case you're not, I wanted to help spread this information to as many people as possible. If you're a vegan, and you went through the stage of being a vegetarian before you became vegan, then you might have been like me and practically LIVED on Morningstar Farms® products. Boy, do I miss those Grillers Prime Burgers. I was very discouraged when I became vegan because I could no longer consume their products due to that devlish "contains less than 2% of the following: egg whites, blah, blah, blah." I just never understood how that tiny amount of egg could make a huge difference in the product. It was obviously possible to make similar products without the eggs, several other comapnies do, and I, of course, transitioned over to eating their products.

But now, Compassion Over Killing and Vegan Outreach are teaming up with compassionate people everywhere to ask Morningstar Farms® to stop using eggs in its product line.

Morningstar Farms®, which is owned by the Kellogg® company, was approached in September 2005 about its use of eggs in its products, all of which come from hens confined inside barren wire battery cages. Battery caged hens are typically provided with a meager 67 square inches of space in which to live—that’s less than the size of one sheet of notebook paper. These birds are so intensively confined for their entire lives that they are denied their natural inclinations to spread their wings, perch, preen, or even walk.

Morningstar Farms® has long been a leader in supplying delicious vegetarian foods to a growing market. Let them know that the market also wants them to remove their support from the cruel battery egg industry and encourage them to join with companies like Gardenburger®, which last year announced it has taken eggs out of all its products except for one private-sourced item.

Please contact Morningstar Farms® and politely request that they remove eggs from their products. Let them know one of their biggest competitors, Gardenburger®, has already made this decision for all but one of its products.

All of the information needed to contact them via a variety of methods is available at the campaign's website:

MORNINGSTAR-EGG-FACTS.COM

I just wanted to share this information in case some of you might not be aware of this campaign. I will be contacting Morningstar Farms® to tell them my story, and how I wish I could still enjoy their products, and I urge all other people concerned with the plight of battery hens to do the same.

Thank you so much! Our efforts can not only help us to increase the number of vegan food options available to us, but also help free many hens from horrible lives in battery cages.

Tofu & Mushrooms with Soba Noodles

2007-03-16T12:45:00.000-04:00

After today's lunch, I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of this making maximum use out of leftovers thing. You might remember that I baked some tofu several days ago in a previous post. Well, there was bunches of it leftover, and I didn't know if I would use all of it before it went bad if I put it in the fridge, so I just put it in a plastic container and plopped it into the freezer. Well, last night I just pulled another one of those "make it up as you go" cooking sessions and this is what I ended up with. It's actually really good. In fact, I was quite amazed at myself for just slinging it together. I believe my vegan powers are steadily increasing. HA!

All I did was thaw out the frozen tofu and then cube a couple of slices of it up. Then I just cooked up some mushrooms and some garlic in a skillet. I poured in a healthy dose of Soy Sauce and then, for some reason, I put in some Curry Powder. I don't know why I did it. I was just making it up and it seemed like a good thing to do. Finally, I added the cubed tofu and then sprinkled in a few frozen Peas & Carrots. I took that off the heat and then just boiled some water in another pot and then cooked some Soba Noodles for about 4 minutes. I drained those and then packed the whole thing up in the lunchbox. I had just a little bit left over which I, of course, tried last night. TASTY! Like I said, I was actually quite amazed at how good this was, and all it contained was pretty much just leftovers, and some frozen stuff. It was super easy to whip up and it tastes like something you would get in a restaurant, or at least like a really good frozen entree like something from Amy's Kitchen.

To go along with the main dish, I brought some Sweet Yellow Corn. That just came in a bag, frozen, from the local grocery store. I just pour that in the lunchbox container frozen and cover it with a little Glad Press-n-Seal. It's thawed out by the time lunch rolls around and then a quick 45 seconds or so in the microwave, with the Glad Press-n-Seal still on it, will get it all nice and hot and steamy for you.

And for dessert, I just brought some Blueberries. You may or may not remember, but these are just from one of several bags of Blueberries that I've still got stored in the freezer from last Summer. A friend of mine picked these not too far from my house, so these are just plain old Blueberries. No added sugar or anything. SO GOOD!

I've learned that I really like Soba Noodles a lot, since trying them for the first time last week. They were a little expensive at the regular grocery store, but I FINALLY made a trip this week to the local Asian Market and WOW! They've got tons of them for a whole lot cheaper. Their Soy Sauce was also, of course, a lot cheaper. I bought a great big bottle of it. I also picked up some of those Hot Wasabi Peas. I love snacking on those things. And then, I was so happy when I found some actual Durian fruit in the freezer section. Now, I had read all about Durian in reading up on Raw Food. Alissa Cohen even shows one in her DVD and serves it to two ladies who seem to like it. Now, I knew that the things supposedly stink, but the claim is that the yellow liquid in the big pods tastes like custard. Well, they got the stink part right. HOLY MOLY! This stuff stinks. I let one of the pods thaw out and then held my breath while I took a bite of it. I SO wanted to like it. I wanted it to taste like custard or vanilla pudding, but to me, it didn't. I spit it out in the sink and immediately ran downstairs to brush my teeth. YUCK! Durians and I are obviously not meant to be together. Woops! Sorry for getting off on a tangent there.

So that does it for Friday's lunch and another week of yummy vegan food.

Thanks for reading the blog this week and I'll see you on Monday, hopefully with some more weight loss to report.

Have a great weekend!

Amy's Vegetable Pot Pie

2007-03-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today for lunch I brought one of my favorite pre-made storebought vegan items, and that's the Non-Dairy Vegetable Pot Pie from Amy's Kitchen. You're probably already familiar with all of their products, but just in case you're not, everything that they make is vegetarian, and there are several items that are even vegan. Their packaging is awesome because they always tell you right there in huge letters right at the beginning of the ingredients list if something is VEGAN. That makes life so simple. I've been meaning to try bringing one of these for lunch for a while now because I figured that I could probably fit one into the lunchbox and luckily, I was right.

The Vegetable Pot Pie is just what you'd expect. Just like a Chicken Pot Pie, but without the chicken. If you look for this at the store, make sure you get the one that says NON-DAIRY, because I'm pretty sure that there is a second product that is very similar except it's just vegetarian, which I guess means that there's milk or cream in it. These things are delicious. I eat them at home all the time. The only drawback to them is the same drawback with all frozen pot pies, and that's the loooooooong cooking time required to reheat them. This one takes 25 minutes @ 400 degrees uncovered and then another 20 minutes covered with aluminum foil. I didn't discover until the thing was already in the oven yesterday evening that I didn't have any aluminum foil. CURSES! So I started thinking about it, I figured that the first 25 minutes uncovered were to cook the crust and get it all brown and then the second 20-25 minutes (covered) were probably just to finish thawing out and heating up the insides of the pie. So, I figured that I could take it out of the oven after the first 25 minutes and then just let it cool and pack it in the lunchbox. I figured the inside will finish thawing completely before I eat lunch, and then I could just heat the whole thing up in the microwave. I didn't know for sure if my bright idea would work or not, but I heated this up and enjoyed it just a little while ago and I am happy to report that it worked perfectly. So remember that if you ever take one of these for lunch. Just do the first half of the cooking in the oven at home and skip the second half. Then just heat it up for a couple of minutes in the microwave at lunchtime and it will come out perfect. I was actually a little shocked at how crispy the top crust still was, even after microwaving. It was just the way that I like it.

To go along with the Vegetable Pot Pie, I've got some Edamame and some Cherry Tomatoes. Again, I guess these are really the Grape Tomatoes, or whatever they're called, since they're more grape shaped than round. I don't know. I just like calling them Cherry Tomatoes.

And for dessert I threw in a Cashew Cookie Larabar. I thought about leaving the Larabar out, since the Pot Pie has 360 calories, but even with the Larabar (and at least it's just raw fruit & nuts), this is still probably better than I used to eat, even as a vegan. But since I knew I was going to be eating quite a few calories for lunch today, I made sure that I was very good at breakfast and, instead of eating another Larabar, I just ate a Grapefruit. So I saved a few calories there. The Pot Pie and veggies filled me up, so I may just save this Larabar until around 2PM or so and eat it then for a snack to help distribute my calories a little more evenly throughout the day.

So that does it for Thursday's lunch. It was super easy to fix since I let Amy's Kitchen help me. I always like to keep several of their products in the freezer for times like yesterday, when I don't have a lot of time to try and cook something. In fact, I just discovered several more products of theirs that I didn't even know were vegan (like the Tamale Pie) that I will have to try very soon. I think I saw it at the grocery store when I was there yesterday but I just assumed that it probably wasn't vegan, but according to their website it is. Yipee! Seems like eating vegan just gets easier & easier all the time.

Thanks for checking in today and I'll see everybody on Friday!

Vegan Dining Out @ Rush Street Grill

2007-03-14T14:20:00.000-04:00

I didn't bring the lunchbox today because we had plans to meet our boss for lunch. It was decided that we would eat at a local place called Rush Street Grill. I've done a blog post on this place once before, when I had the Grilled Portobello Sandwich, which was delicious, but I wanted to get something different this time for the sake of a little variety. I browsed through the menu on their website and it looked like my only other choices would be some type of salad, some spaghetti with marinara sauce, or some type of veggie pizza. Well, this place is pretty well known for their pizza, and I used to eat it all the time back when I was an omnivore, and I loved it. I hadn't tried any vegan pizza from there yet, so that's what I decided I would get.

I skipped the salad thing, because the last time I did that at lunch with pizza I ended up so full that I was miserable. So this time I just ordered pizza. I know I could have just ordered the salad but HEY! I was in a pizza mood. The first thing I did when I got there was to ask the server to go back in the kitchen and find out for me whether their homemade pizza crust contained any milk or any butter. I think most thin pizza crust is probably safe, well Papa John's thin isn't so I guess I shouldn't say that, but if you want to be absolutely sure then you'll have to ask like I did. She came back and informed me that the crust did NOT contain either one of those ingredients, so I was good to go.

I just ordered an individual size 8" pizza with no cheese and just about every vegetable that you can think of. I've got spinach, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, black olives, fresh tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers and roasted garlic on there. And I may have even forgotten one or two things. I just basically got every veggie on there that was available because after the 5th topping they're free (I guess that's because there's not much room to put much of anything else on there). As you can see, this thing was LOADED. I laughed when they brought it to me and said that it was a salad and a pizza in one. And that's not too far from the truth. It was delicious, just like I expected it to be. And talk about full. Sheesh! I ate the whole thing and I was stuffed. I don't think it'll be too bad for my diet though because the crust was really thin, and everything else on there was veggies.

So there you have it, an easy, and delicious, vegan dining experience. If there had been something non-vegan in the crust, then I probably would have opted for the pasta with marinara sauce, or tried to get them to fix me something special like spaghetti with some olive oil, roasted garlic, and wilted spinach in it or something like that. Luckily though, the pizza worked out fine.

We planned ahead today since we knew we would be going out for lunch and got our walking in early this morning. So even though I kinda' indulged a little bit for lunch, I DID get my exercise in today. So that's good.

So thanks for stopping by today.

I'll be back with the lunchbox tomorrow. See you then!

Sloppy Joannas & Lemon Butter Rice

2007-03-13T13:40:00.000-04:00

I got fired up last night looking through the recipes over at Joanna's Test Kitchen and decided to try a couple of them for dinner last night. I tried to pick things that I knew would make a lot and would reheat well so that I could also use them for lunch today. Every one of her recipes that I have tried so far has been delicious, and these two were no exception. Her recipes are creative, very simple to prepare and absolutely delicious. That's one of the things I like about vegan cooking, it seems like most vegan recipes rely on fresh ingredients and "going all the way" with the simple things like lemon juice. What I mean by that is, before, when I was an omnivore, if a recipe called for lemon juice I would just use that icky stuff that comes in the little plastic lemon or in the green bottle. I wouldn't touch that stuff with a ten foot pole now. I don't look at veganism as something restrictive, or something that reduces my dining options, I choose to look at it as something that opens up a whole new universe of flavors & tastes. So now, as a vegan, if I'm cooking and a recipe calls for lemon juice, then I actually squeeze fresh lemons, and zest them. Cooking with REAL FOOD like that just makes everything taste so much better. I guess one reason why vegans would be like that is because we are conscious of what we are eating, don't you think? We pay attention to it. I guess most people just eat and never think twice about what they're eating. But when you are aware of what you are eating, and cooking, then you'll obviously do everything that you can to make it as good and tasty as you can. Well, I don't know how I got off on that rant. Sorry.

Today I made Sloppy Joannas, which are just a tastier vegan version of Sloppy Joes. They're obviously TVP based, but they contain a few more creative flavors than I am used to having in regular old Sloppy Joes. I packed the Sloppy Joanna in its own individual container so that it wouldn't get the bun all soggy before lunchtime arrived. And then, just to make it extra special, I went ahead and toasted the bun. Like I said before, since I'm paying attention to my food, I might as well make it taste as good as I can.

The side item in the little yellow container is Joanna's Lemon Butter Rice. WOW! This stuff is good. It's really simple, and you can tell from the name of it what the main flavors going on are. I just wasn't expecting the lemon flavor to be so intense, but it is off the charts, and I really like it! It took me a minute or so to get used to it after I started eating it because the flavor is so intense, but after that I was hooked. I think that just about anyone that you served this to would initially be surprised at how much flavor is in this, but then, like me, they would realize how delicious it actually is. I guess you can always alter the amounts of ingredients to change the taste however you like, but I like this stuff just the way it is. EXCELLENT!

And to finish filling the lunchbox I just threw in some Steamed Green Beans that came from the freezer section of the local grocery store. I thought about trying to squeeze some dessert in somewhere, but with the bun (which is at least a "light" bun) and the rice in today's lunch, I think I'd better leave that out if I wanna' see the scale go down any this week.

So there you have it. I think this makes four recipes that I have tried so far from Joanna's Test Kitchen. Like I said in a previous post, her new cookbook looks like it is going to be awesome and I can't wait until it comes out later this year. Trying these two recipes today just makes me want to try more and see what other delicious ideas she has come up with. Whenever I try something new I'm sure you'll see it on here. Oh, and by the way, she's got a blog started about the upcoming cookbook over at www.yellowroserecipes.com. There are some AWESOME pictures of some of the recipes there and I think she said that she's even gonna' start posting a few of the recipes there in the blog as the release date of the book gets closer and closer.

We're meeting my boss tomorrow for lunch out at a restaurant (not sure where yet) so tomorrow's post may be a little delayed as I won't be able to post anything until after I get back from lunch and upload the picture. Hopefully I'll be able to wrangle up some yummy vegan food no matter where we eat. I guess we'll see.

Thanks for reading my blog today. See you on Wednesday.

Baked Italian Tofu

2007-03-12T12:50:00.000-04:00

Well, I finally decided to try baking some tofu on my own last night. Whenever I have fixed tofu in the past, I always grilled it or just steamed it, so I never was really that satisfied with the texture. Then I tried that storebought stuff that was already prebaked and I saw how much baking the tofu seemed to improve the texture. So now, I've actually baked some myself. I basically used the method listed over at SusanV's Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. It's not complicated. Just marinate your tofu in some Soy Sauce or Bragg's and then bake it for 30 minutes or so. When I made mine, I sprinkled some Oregano and some Basil on halfway through the cooking time to give it the "Italian" flavor. It will be interesting to see how mine compares to the storebought baked stuff that I really liked. There was quite a bit left over. I may use it and make something similar to the Tempeh & Soba Noodle dish that I did not too long ago. I think that something like that would probably make good use of it.

To go along with the Baked Tofu, I brought a bunch of Raw Cauliflower that I needed to get rid of before it went South on me. I like Cauliflower, plus it always seems to really make me feel full. I could have brought along something to dip it in, but since I'm still trying to lose some weight for Summer, I figured I'd better skip that part. I like it plain anyway.

In the small purple container I've got some Peas & Carrots that just came from the freezer section of the local grocery store. I really bought these for use in a recipe that I've made up in my head and want to try sometime soon, but when I was packing lunch last night and looking for some veggies to put in it, I thought these would probably be a good choice since I practically never bring peas for my lunch. I used to really dislike peas when I was younger, but I like 'em now, especially when they are nice and sweet. I think it's so strange how your tastes change as you get older, and when you go vegan.

And then finally, I packed a few Raw Cashews. I am a firm believer in the health benefits of eating a few nuts every day. There's tons of information about it on the internet. I just have to be careful though and really control my portion though because I would have no problem sitting down and eating about ten times this amount. I didn't put very many in my lunch as you can see, because I don't want to have too much fat, even if it's the good kind. I buy my Raw Cashews at a local Indian Grocer now because they have them for like half the price of the health food store. What a bargain!

So, now I guess it's time for my weekly update on my weight loss progress. To recap, I started trying to eat healthier and exercise a little bit every day 3 weeks ago. My starting weight then was 225 lbs. which is the most I have ever weighed. UGH! I lost 7 pounds the first week and then 5 more pounds the second week which brought my weight down to 213 lbs. a week ago. Well, I expected the loss to slow down after those first couple of weeks of initial weight loss, and it did. When I weighed this weekend I weighed 211 lbs. That means that I lost 2 more pounds last week, bringing my total weight loss to 14 pounds in 3 weeks. My goal is to get down to 185 lbs. or less, so that means that I have, at least, 26 more pounds to lose.

This is when I think the going gets tough because it's really not that inspirational to only lose a pound or two in a week, although it really should be because I could be GAINING. I'm sticking with it though because I am determined to get my weight down before Summer gets here. It's been warming up nicely here in Tennessee this past week, so this will definitely be a good week for getting all of those daily walks in. I'll probably even add a little time to my walks this week in an effort to shake things up and keep that scale moving in the downward direction.

So that's it for Monday's lunch & my weight loss update.

Thanks for coming by today and I'll see everybody on Tuesday.

Vegan Chili Beans & Joanna's Cornbread

2007-03-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

Today's lunch is something that you've seen me bring before, but this time there IS something just a little bit different. In fact, today's lunch was pretty much designed around one of the side items, and that's the cornbread muffin. Joanna's Cornbread Muffin, to be exact. I signed up to be one of Joanna's recipe testers for her new cookbook, and while I haven't tested as many recipes as I would have liked to by this point, the few things that I have made have been absolutely delicious. In case you don't know, Joanna is "joannalovesyou" over at the Post Punk Kitchen message boards. And I can already tell you that her cookbook is going to be awesome, so you might as well just plan on ordering it right now when it comes out around June or so. Her recipes are really, really good. And I mean GOOD.

You might remember me lamenting over cornbread in previous blog posts. It seemed like I never could get my vegan cornbread moist enough, and the last thing I tried, which worked pretty well, was adding some ground flax seed to the mix. Well, while browsing through Joanna's tester recipes this week, I stumbled upon her recipe for cornbread muffins. They were really more like Mexican Cornbread since they contained Bell Peppers, Hot Peppers and Fresh Corn. The thing I found most interesting about them, was the fact that there was NO FAT in the recipe. They didn't call for adding any oil or margarine like most cornbread recipes do. She had a pic posted, which looked delicious, and I knew her other recipe that I had tried was delicious, so I made the things. All I can say is WOW! These are the most delicious cornbread muffins I have had since I became vegan. They are really moist and extremely tasty. These are DEFINITELY what I am making whenever I make cornbread in the future. The fact that they didn't have any added fat also meant that they're good for my diet.

To go with the cornbread (this seems so funny, basing a whole meal around a side item) I made some Vegan Chili Beans. They're just the usual Chili Beans that I make which consist of a can of Kidney Beans, a can of Chili Beans and a package of Chili Seasoning, all just Kroger brand. I also like to add in some TVP to help make it "meatier". Oh, and I almost forgot, I also grilled up some onion in a skillet and threw in there. It's really starting to warm up around here, so there might not be too many more opportunities to enjoy some hot chili beans on a cold day.

I also sliced up the last Yve's Zesty Italian Brat that I had left and stirred it up in some Sauerkraut. I don't really care too much for Sauerkraut by itself, but if you put enough faux meat in it, then I like it. As I said in the previous post, these Brats are really good and I definitely plan on consuming quite a few of them this Summer via the grill.

And finally, for dessert, I just threw in a Cashew Cookie Larabar. I've slacked off on bringing the Larabars lately, but believe me, I am still a full-fledged addict. I normally eat one every morning for breakfast, and I like them for snacks too. They're so tasty and they're just so dang convenient.

So that does it for Friday's lunch. I got my walk in today, so, for the first time since starting this weight loss thing, I finally got my whole 5 days of exercise in this week. Hopefully the scale will reward me when I report in on Monday.

Thanks for checking in today. See everybody on Monday!

Have a great weekend!

Spaghetti with Vegan Meat Sauce

2007-03-08T12:15:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't noticed from some of my older blog posts, I absolutely love Spaghetti. I like it with Marinara Sauce, I like it with Vegan Meatballs and I like it the way that I brought it today, with a Vegan Meat Sauce. Of course, there's not really any meat in it, but it sure does look and taste like it. Normally, there really wouldn't be that much to say about another spaghetti lunch, but since I'm trying to lose some weight, I did do something a little bit different. Plus, the story of how this whole lunch came about is a story in itself. So let me tell you about it.

This lunch actually started when I had Sloppy Joes a couple of nights ago for dinner. To make the Sloppy Joes, we used the Fantastic Foods Vegetarian Sloppy Joe Mix. It's basically just TVP and all of the necessary flavorings & spices. All you have to do is boil some water, dump the package of stuff in it and POOF! You've got Sloppy Joes (they also make my favorite Taco Filling mix). Anyway, you can just prepare the stuff as is, by mixing it with water, or there is a recipe there on the back of the box for Mama's Sloppy Joes (or something like that) that involves making the mix and then jazzing it up with a few more ingredients. I thought I might like it better if it were jazzed up a little bit, so that's what we did. We added some chopped onion, some diced tomato, some Basil and some Chili Powder, along with a few other things. Anyway, it ended up not tasting too much like Sloppy Joes to me. I ate it anyway, as a Sloppy Joe, that night. But there was just something about the taste that I couldn't put my finger on. As I put all of the leftovers into some plastic containers, wondering what in the world I was gonna' do with all this stuff, it finally hit me. It tasted more like Spaghetti Sauce. So I figured it would probably be really good if I just took some jarred Spaghetti Sauce and poured all of this into it, turning it into a "meaty" Spaghetti Sauce. So that's what I did, and that's what is in the lunchbox today. It turned out AWESOME! In fact, I think I'll probably even start putting this Sloppy Joe mix into my Spaghetti Sauce from now on. It really sweetens it up and gives it a lot of extra flavor, in addition to making it "meaty". It was a cool accidental discovery.

To go along with my Spaghetti I just brought a simple salad made with some Baby Spinach and some small Tomatoes. For dressing, in the topmost little blue container, I just mixed together some Olive Oil, some Balsamic Vinegar and a few drops of Sesame Oil to smoke it up just a little bit.

The lunchbox container helped me control my portion size on my Spaghetti because, believe me, I could eat a bucket full of this. For my Garlic Toast, however, I had to be careful and not go overboard with the fat & calories like I normally do when I fix bread. I think that most times in the past, when I've brought spaghetti for lunch, I've brought 3 or 4 pieces of Garlic Toast, each of which is a half of a slice of bread. I used to use just plain old bread, which was 80 calories or so a slice, so I had something like 120 calories just in the bread. This time though, I was a little more careful and used a Light Hot Dog Bun instead of multiple slices of regular bread. The bun is only 60 calories, plus I cut off the rounded ends (which I ate with my dinner last night), so that probably removed another 25% of the calories. So instead of having 120+ calories invested in my bread, I think I've got something more like 45 calories. Of course, there's Earth Balance on there too, but I also went a little bit easier with that than I used to. So overall, I think I cut out quite a few calories from the bread side of the lunchbox.

And then finally, in that little blue container at the bottom of the lunchbox, I've got something that I've been meaning to try for quite some time. Previously, whenever I have needed Vegan Parmesan Cheese, I have used some storebought stuff that I got at the health food store. It's okay. It's made from soy though and obviously highly processed, and tastes just a little bit too chemically to me. It's okay, but it's not great. I have read, multiple times, on various vegan message boards about making your own Vegan Parmesan sprinkles. I just never have done it. I think there's even a recipe for it in one or more of the cookbooks that I've got. Well, I was about to sit down to a plate of this spaghetti last night when I just thought, "Dang it. Let me make some of that right quick to throw on here." So I did.

I didn't follow any recipe. I just used my little Cuisinart, the one that's really tiny, like for grinding coffee beans or something, and I threw in a few Walnuts, sprinkled in some Nutritional Yeast and then just added a little salt. I gave the whole thing a whirl and the next thing you know, I've got stuff that looks like Parmesan Cheese. It smells cheesy to and tastes really good. I put some on my spaghetti and I really liked it. I would much rather use this than some highly processed product full of chemicals, so I guess I'll be making this from now on whenever I've got an item that I would like to sprinkle something cheesy on.

So there's lunch for Thursday. Not super-duper diet food by any means, but certainly not as bad as it could be. By paying attention to the bread thing, and cutting calories there, and letting the lunchbox control my pasta portion, I think I did okay. Coupled with a good walk today, everything should be on track for losing a few more pounds this week. It's finally starting to warm up here now and it looks like it's gonna' be a beautiful day for a walk, so I am DEFINITELY getting that in today.

So thanks for stopping by and I'll see everybody on Friday!

Zesty Italian Vegan Bratwurst

2007-03-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, the title of today's lunch might not sound like the healthiest thing in the world, but luckily, it's really not that bad. The Brat itself, is fairly low in calories & fat since it's vegan, plus I really tried to make up for splurging a little bit with the rest of the lunchbox and squeezed in as many raw fruits & vegetables as I could. Brats were something that I really enjoyed back when I used to eat meat. We used to eat them at the lake all of the time, covered with grilled onions and peppers. YUM! But gosh those things were unhealthy. Fortunately, this one's not so bad. But it tastes just as good!

Yve's Zesty Italian Brats are delicious. I would put a link to the product page at their website, but none exists. For some reason, this product is not listed on their website yet. Maybe it's brand new? First of all, they are HUGE and they've only got 150 calories and 5g of fat, ALL of which is monounsaturated & polyunsaturated. And second of all they taste really good. I would like to use them at some point in the future to try and recreate a delicious, and terribly unhealthy, hot dog creation that I ate once at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville in Key West back when I was an omnivore. It was the best hot dog I have ever had in my life, and one of the reasons was because the frank that was on it was a lot like this veggie brat. Guess I'll add that to my ever growing list of things to try. These brats would also be super delicious sliced up in some Sauerkraut. I'll probably get around to that before I try recreating that Margaritaville hot dog.

All I did to prepare my Yve's Zesty Italian Brat was heat it up in a skillet, then grill some Onion and Bell Peppers and then pile the whole mess on a Light Hot Dog Bun. I've been careful to make sure that what bread I do eat lately is the lower calorie version since I'm trying to drop some pounds. These hot dog buns are only 60 calories, so they're not too bad.

Instead of bringing chips or fries, or anything else that you might usually bring along with a Brat or a Hot Dog, I just brought along a bunch of raw vegetables. I've got some Celery, some Cherry Tomatoes (or actually, these may be the Grape kind, I'm not sure) and a bunch of those Sugar Snap Peas that were on sale this week at the local grocer. For dessert, I've got a Banana Cookie Larabar which, if I'm not mistaken, contains a whole banana. Of course, it's completely raw, and completely yummy. Overall, I figure I've got just a little over 400 calories in this lunch. Not too bad.

I actually thought this was an unusual amount of vegetables at first, and figured that I wouldn't be able to eat them all in one sitting. I originally planned on maybe eating the Brat and Larabar for lunch and then snacking on the veggies throughout the rest of the day. Well, much to my surprise, when I sat down to eat lunch, I was so hungry, and the raw vegetables were so delicious, that I basically inhaled the entire lunchbox of food. I ate every single bite, and I am stuffed. Luckily, we did our lunchtime walk BEFORE we ate today. Otherwise, I might find it difficult to get up and get motivated after eating that much food. At least it was healthy though. ;o)

So I guess that does it for Wednesday's lunch.

Thanks for coming by and I'll see you tomorrow!

Tempeh & Portobello with Soba Noodles

2007-03-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today's lunch features a dish that I just made up last night off the top of my head. I bought some Soba Noodles a few weeks ago because there was a recipe on a recipe testing site that I was wanting to try. Well, before I could make it the recipe got pulled because the author made it a second time and thought that something wasn't right. Dang it! So, I just put the Soba Noodles in the cabinet and figured that I would get around to using them someday. Well, last night when I was trying to figure out what I was gonna' bring for lunch today, I stumbled upon the last little bit of that Grilled Tempeh that I had in the freezer. A quick internet search for "TEMPEH AND SOBA" revealed several recipes using these two ingredients. I looked at a few of them and quickly discovered that I was missing this ingredient or missing that ingredient. So finally I just said WHATEVER and just started cooking to see what I would end up with.

I boiled some water and got the Soba Noodles cooking. I've never made these before, but they only take 4-5 minutes to cook. Then I just dumped them out into a strainer and ran some cold water over them. Now all I had to do was figure out what I was going to put on top of them. I looked in the fridge and saw half of an onion wrapped up in some plastic wrap so I chopped it up and started it cooking with a little bit of Canola Oil spray on medium heat. Then I threw in about 4 cloves of minced garlic and let the whole thing cook for about 10 minutes. I had one HUGE Portobello Mushroom cap left from my weekend raw food adventure, so I cubed it up and tossed it in along with the leftover tempeh. Then I just poured some Bragg's allover the whole mess and stirred it around until it was heated through.

I did a quick taste last night as I was packing the lunchbox and WOW! This stuff tastes like meat. Cooked Portobello Mushrooms never cease to amaze me. I packed the noodles and the tempeh separately so I could fit a decent amount into the lunchbox. When I eat lunch, I can just spoon a little bit of the stir-fry over onto the noodles and eat it. Eventually, there will be enough room in the noodle container to dump whatever stir-fry I have remaining into it. I've never eaten Soba Noodles before, so I am anxious to eat my lunch today and see if I like it. I KNOW that I like the Tempeh & Portobello Stir-Fry, and I haven't met a noodle yet that I didn't like, so the odds are good that I will enjoy this.

I just threw a couple of Sugar Snap Peas on top of my noodles there to make it look nice. They were on special this week at the store and I bought a bunch. I'm sure you'll see a container full of them in the lunchbox one day this week. They are so sweet and delicious. I don't steam them or anything. They are just so delicious raw. YUM!

I also brought along some more of the Blackberries that I stocked up on this weekend. I love Blackberries and I refuse to let any of them go bad and go to waste. And then, as if the berries weren't enough for dessert, I also brought along a couple of treats that I made this past weekend when I was so stirred up on the raw vegan thing. I just made this up from other recipes that I have read and made I guess what could best be described as Raw Fudgy Treats. All I did was take 1 cup of raisins and 1 cup of raw walnuts and put them into the food processor. Then you just run it until the whole mess turns into this dough-like consistency that you can mold & shape with your hands. Then I just rolled it up into little balls and rolled them around in some unsweetened coconut. I think a lot of raw desserts probably use the raisin & walnut combination because it really does taste like fudge.

So there's lunch for Tuesday. I'm looking forward to eating it. I did get my exercise in yesterday and it looks like I am going to get it in today as well, so everything is cool on the exercise front.

Thanks for reading my blog today and I'll see you on Wednesday!

RAW - Portobello & Guacamole

2007-03-05T12:39:00.000-05:00

I toy with the idea of going completely raw from time to time. I've got several books about it, which I find fascinating, and I've bought all of the equipment needed along the way. I just never seem to make the leap. Well, with focusing on trying to lose weight and all, I was stirred up yet again this weekend on raw food. And while I eat lots of raw fruits & veggies, I don't think I have ever spent so much as a single day eating 100% raw, until yesterday. On Sunday, I basically survived on several pieces of fresh fruit, several handfuls of raw nuts, and then for dinner I tried a raw recipe from one my raw cookbooks. While I was at it, I just went ahead and made double so that I would have something to bring for lunch today. I felt okay yesterday, I never did get hungry, but I think the whole thing just convinced me that I'm not sure that I would want to make the leap to 100% raw.

Here in the lunchbox I've got a large Portobello Mushroom Cap covered with some Guacamole. It was so large that I had to cut it and half and split it between two lunchbox containers. I made the Guacamole in the food processor by just tossing in 3 Avacados, a Roma Tomato and a decent sized chunk of Onion. It apparently takes some time to learn how to select good vegetables if you go completely raw, because I had no idea what I was doing and I paid for it. The Avacados that I got were just horrible. They weren't ripe enough and really wouldn't even "cream up" to make good Guacamole. I mean, it tastes OK, but the texture is all off. I was so mad when I was trying to get the Avacados out of the peel that I was about to go back out to the grocery store and ask them why they were selling this junk. Anyway, it was my fault because I'm no expert in selecting Avacados. The recipe just calls for making the Guacamole and then spreading it on the Portobello. Then you just pour a little Bragg's on it. I packed it there in the little blue dressing container. This tastes okay, but it's not my favorite thing in the whole world, and I don't think that I would want to make it again. I think I would much rather have the big mushroom cap grilled on a bun with some lettuce & tomato. I am obviously not ready to make the leap to 100% raw yet. I think I'll just stick to working as many raw fruits & veggies into my diet as possible. Bryanna Clark Grogan did a nice write-up here which kinda' sums up the way that I feel about the whole thing.

To go along with the raw entree, I also brought a few Cherry Tomatoes and some fresh Blackberries. I DO like things like this, so I guess I'll just continue to make sure to keep packing them in my lunchbox as much as possible. Obviously, raw fruits & vegetable are good for you, and I should continue to eat as many as possible, but I couldn't imagine living without soy products, plus, I just plain enjoy cooking. So I don't guess I'll be going completely raw anytime soon.

Now, on to the weekly update about my weight loss. It's been two weeks now since I started trying to eat healthier and lose some weight. I also set a goal of exercising by walking at least 30 minutes a day, five times a week. The first week, I missed a day of exercise so I only got in four days of walking and I ended up dropping from 225 lbs. to 218 lbs. for a total loss of 7 lbs. for the first week. So what happened during Week 2?

Well, again I am ashamed to say that I missed a day of exercise because it was raining here and I wasn't motivated enough to get on the treadmill when I got home. I DID get four days in though, which is more exercise than I was getting before I started this. So I did at least get some exercise in. I ate pretty good this week, although I did have pizza a couple of times. I tried to make up for it by eating extra healthy at other meals. I guess it paid off because when I weighed this weekend I weighed 213 lbs., which means I lost another 5 lbs. last week bringing my total weight loss to 12 lbs. in two weeks. Not bad. I'm happy with it.

My final goal is to weigh 185 lbs. or less. The going will most likely get a little tougher now since I'm past those initial stages of weight loss. I suspect that I will probably only lose 1-2 lbs. a week from now on, IF I'm lucky. That means that I'm gonna need to pay extra special attention to eating the healthiest food that I can and I've got to quit missing that day of exercise. You'll probably see a bunch of fruits & veggies this week, but don't be surprised if you see vegan pizza or burgers again too. I don't want to deprive myself, but I'll try to be as good as I can.

So there's an update on the weight loss and my raw lunch for Monday. Not my favorite lunch that I've ever brought, but a healthy one that'll help me lose some more weight this week. I have a feeling though that tomorrow's lunch will be NOTHING like this one. I'll try not to let the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction though. ;o)

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see everybody tomorrow!

Barbecued Tempeh Sandwich

2007-03-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've brought some bread in the lunchbox, in fact, I don't think I've brought any since I started trying to eat healthier (i.e. lower the fat and simple carbs) a couple of weeks ago. Well, I finally broke down and brought a sandwich type meal today, but when I went bread shopping this week I did at least make sure that I bought some "light" buns that have fewer calories than their normal cousins. I did check to make sure that they were vegan. I was pretty sure that they were because I remember buying them before when I was on Weight Watchers, and was vegan, but I still checked because you never know when they might change the ingredients on you and slip some milk, eggs or whey in there.

To go on my bread, I brought something that I've never fixed before. Barbecued Tempeh is something that I have seen mentioned on several other vegan message boards. Apparently it is featured a lot on salad bars at stores like Whole Foods Market and/or Wild Oats. I have seen people go on and on about how much they like it. So since there's no Whole Foods or Wild Oats here where I live yet, I decided to just go ahead and make some myself and see what I thought about it.

It was really simple to make because the only real work involved was already done. If you remember, I had some Grilled Tempeh left over from lunch the other day which I just wrapped up and put in the freezer for future use. Well, all I had to do last night was take some of that out of the freezer, thaw it out, and then crumble it up into a small bowl. I thought about making some barbecue sauce from scratch, because I wasn't sure if I had any storebought stuff on hand, but I looked in the fridge and there was a little bit left. So I just wimped out and used it. I have learned that storebought barbecue sauce is something that I have to examine closely before I buy it because I can not tell you how many times I have almost bought barbecue sauce that has honey in it. Sometimes they'll announce that in huge letters on the label because it's their main selling point, but sometimes they don't mention it anywhere at all, except in the ingredients list.

But all I did was squirt a bunch of barbecue sauce on the crumbled tempeh and stir it up. I packed it in its own little lunchbox container so that it wouldn't get my bread all soggy before lunchtime. As an omnivore, I never really like those pulled pork barbecue sandwiches, in fact, I couldn't stand them. But I did like barbecue rib sandwiches, and now, as a vegan, I love the Gardenburger Riblets. So it will be interesting to see what I think of this. I like tempeh, and I like barbecue sauce, so I have high hopes. ;o)

To go along with my sandwich I brought along some Mixed Steamed Vegetables and some Edamame. I'm sure I'll be at the grocery store this weekend and I really need to try and diversify myself a little bit as far as my vegetables go. I'm sure everybody is sick and tired of seeing broccoli in my lunch, but it IS just about my favorite green vegetable. But perhaps some green beans and brussel sprouts are in order.

I didn't pack anything for dessert, since I'm trying to watch my calories, but I think I'll be fine. I need to hang my head in shame because I have to admit that I did NOT exercise when I got home last night. It's nice outside here today though, so I will definitely get my 30 minute walk in today. That will give me 4 days of exercise this week, which is what I did last week, so hopefully I will have some more weight loss to show for it come Monday. I'm pretty sure that I will. The exciting part of this is almost over though, because even though I'll probably report a loss of several pounds on Monday, I'm just about to the point where it all levels out and the weight loss drops down to 1 or 2 pounds a week. I think THAT is when it becomes challenging to stick to eating healthy and exercising, when you feel like you're not getting a lot of bang for the buck. And especially when you plateau. That's why I'm glad that I'm using this blog to put what I'm doing out there where everybody can read it. It is DEFINITELY helping me stick to it because believe me, I don't wanna' get on here and have to tell all of you that I ate 6 vegan pizzas and downed 5 pints of vegan soy "ice cream" this weekend and gained 5 pounds. In fact, missing my exercise yesterday and having to report it here means that I WILL get it in today, whereas before, without documenting everything here in my blog, I probably would have just skipped today too and the whole thing would have started to fall apart. So thanks for reading this because just knowing that people do is the best motivation in the world.

I want to do some cooking this weekend and try some new recipes, so hopefully I'll have some new and interesting (and HEALTHY!) items in the lunchbox next week.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see everybody on Monday.

Have a GREAT weekend!

Tofu & Wild Rice

2007-03-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

I didn't have a lot of time yesterday evening to do a lot of cooking for lunch today, so instead of using recipes from books or the internet, I just made something up. Since I'm trying to eat healthier, then that automatically means that I probably don't even need to worry about 2 or 3 items in my lunch because they should automatically be some vegetables or fruit, which really don't require any preparation. So that leaves me with just needing to come up with the main entree to really put a lunch together. I started browsing through the fridge, and then the freezer. It was there that I came upon a small block (about half a package) of tofu that I had frozen. It was leftover from making something else (I don't remember what), so I just threw it into the freezer for use as a meat replacement in some later dish. You probably already know this, but freezing and thawing tofu makes it a little bit tougher and more meat-like in texture. It usually does change color when you do that and end up a little bit on the brown side, but since you normally end up cooking it in some soy sauce, or other dark liquids, it doesn't really matter.

All I did was cook up a package of Uncle Ben's Long Grain & Wild Rice and just stir in the cubed up tofu at the very beginning. So it spent the whole 25 minutes in there with the simmering rice which gave it plenty of time to cook up and absorb a lot of the flavors from the rice seasoning packet. Since I didn't have that much tofu to start with, there's not a whole lot in there, only 3 or so pieces in my lunch serving I think. And the rice is basically fat-free since I never add the oil or butter that they suggest in the instructions. So this makes for a nice low-fat dish.

To go along with the Tofu & Brown Rice I just brought some Steamed Broccoli, some delicious Strawberries for dessert, and I whipped up another quick little batch of that Carrot Salad that I made a week or so ago. All I did was shred some raw carrots, stir in a little Apple Cider Vinegar and then toss in a few raisins. Fat-free and quite delicious. The tangy taste of the Apple Cider Vinegar goes really well with the sweetness of the carrots and raisins.

So I guess that does it for Thursday's lunch. It was really easy to fix, since I really just had to cook one item from scratch. It's also quite delicious and fits right in to this whole eating healthier thing. I did walk every day this week, until today, so that puts me exercising 3 days so far this week. However, it's pouring down rain outside here so it looks like I will not be walking outside today. I do have a treadmill at home in the garage that I, needless to say, rarely use. So I guess I will have to break down and have a 30 minute session with it this afternoon. I'm feeling pretty good since the initial weight loss thing has been going so good, so hopefully I will be motivated enough to exercise when I get home.

Thanks for reading my blog today. I'll see everybody on Friday!

Vegan Dining Out @ Crazy Tomato

2007-02-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I ended up going out for lunch today with the whole crowd from work to celebrate a member of our group's retirement. Today was his last day so he got to pick the restaurant. Lucky for me, he picked a place that I really like. Crazy Tomato has two locations in the Tri-Cities, one in Johnson City, where I live, and one in Kingsport, where I work. The one in Kingsport is fairly new, and I actually hadn't been to it yet. I had been meaning to go soon, so this was the perfect opportunity. I like to frequent the one in Johnson City a lot when it's nice and warm outside because they have this cool outdoor dining area in the back. I just love eating outside.

The new one in Kingsport was very nice. You could tell that they had spent some money and put a lot of effort into decorating the place. Being an Italian restaurant, there are, of course, lots of things on the menu that are off-limits for vegans. But just by making careful selections, and asking for a couple of ingredient omissions, I was able to enjoy a delicious lunch and come out of there absolutely stuffed to the gills.

I started out by just ordering a Garden Salad. There were several other salad options, but all of those contained cheese and/or meat. So it was definitely the Garden Salad for me. I did ask if it had bacon bits on it, it didn't. And I did ask if it had cheese on it. My server said that they sprinkle some parmesan cheese on it, so I asked for that to be left off. That left me with just all veggies, exactly what I wanted. For the dressing I selected the Oil & Vinegar. I guess this particular one was made with Red Wine Vinegar and it was really good. I guess it's been a while since I ordered a salad in a restaurant, but this one was very delicious. And I was actually pretty full when I finished it. I probably should have stopped there, but I didn't.

For my entree I ordered an individual slice (which is really more like two slices) of their Crazy Garden Pizza. It had the usual veggie pizza ingredients; onion, green pepper, mushrooms and black olives. There was just some Olive Oil brushed on the crust and I, of course, asked them to leave the cheese off. It was very delicious, as usual. And a couple of my omnivore coworkers even commented that it looked good. It did look good, and it WAS good. I had forgotten how much I liked their pizza crust.

So that was my lunch experience for Wednesday. Demonstrating once again that being vegan doesn't mean that you have to starve when you go out to a restaurant. Of course, a little starving might have done me good since I'm trying to lose weight right now, but now that I look back on it, my entire meal was basically just vegetables except for that pizza crust and the oil in the salad dressing. So while it was a lot of food, it definitely could have been a whole lot more unhealthy, especially if it hadn't been vegan.

I may have to be extra good with the lunchbox tomorrow to make up for eating so much today. I guess we'll see...

Thanks for checking in today and I'll see everybody on Thursday.

Vegan Soft Tacos

2007-02-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

WHEW! I just got back in from a good walk during lunch and I am worn out. We set out as soon as I got finished eating so I didn't have too much time to digest anything. I just wolfed down my lunch and then drank a bunch of water and then took off walking. That's kinda' rough on a person. Perhaps I should have walked first. Lesson learned. I've got a few minutes left here to do my blog entry, so here we go...

Today for lunch, I brought all of the fixin's needed to make a couple of delicious Vegan Soft Tacos. I just packed a couple of small flour tortillas (80 calories each) there in the lunchbox lid and then to fill them I've got some Fantastic Foods Taco "Meat". This stuff is just made from TVP and spices, so it's vegan and very delicious, in my opinion. Plus, there's practically no fat in it. The directions call for adding a couple of Tbsp. of oil when you cook it, but I never do that. I've also got some Baby Spinach leaves and some Diced Tomato. And I've actually got some Taco Sauce at work, so I didn't need to worry about packing any of that.

The main star of the show today, however, are the Refried Black Beans. These are from a recipe from the Test Kitchen of Joanna (aka joannalovesyou over on the Post Punk Kitchen). She's currently in the process of writing a great new vegan cookbook and I was lucky enough to get in on the recipe testing.

I've seen lots of pics from other people who have been testing her recipes and they have all looked delicious and her food has received rave reviews. I don't think I've ever seen anyone say anything other than that they absolutely love her food. This recipe was no exception. It's the first recipe of hers that I have tried from the Test Kitchen and all I can say is WOW! This will be THE side dish that I fix to go with Mexican style meals from now on. I just made a single batch last night, but while a friend and I were sitting there eating it, we were both already wishing that I had made a double or triple size batch. I could just live on this stuff, it is so yummy.

I believe that her cookbook is supposed to come out sometime around June. I'm sure you'll see me try lots more of her test recipes here in the months to come, and I will definitely be singing the praises of the cookbook when it comes out. If just the dang side dishes are this good, well then, LOOK OUT! It should be great!

So that was my lunch for Tuesday. There was plenty here to make a couple of good size Soft Tacos. I didn't want to bring more than two tortillas since I am trying to watch the calories & carbs. There was actually a little bit of everything left over, so I just dumped it all into one container and stirred it up and finished it off.

I was kinda' wondering if I should've squeezed in a dessert, but now, after my walk, I now know that NO I didn't need any kind of dessert. I am FULL.

The blog post may be a little late tomorrow because everyone at work (including me) is going out for lunch to celebrate the retirement of a coworker. I'll take my camera though and document me using my vegan superpowers to eat out. There will be a blog post up about it as soon as I can get it online.

Well, I guess it's time to get back to work.

Thanks for coming by today and I'll see everybody tomorrow!

Grilled Tempeh

2007-02-26T11:21:00.000-05:00

For today's lunch, I wanted something that was really easy to fix, but also something that would taste good and be somewhat healthy. I started digging around in the fridge yesterday evening and found a package of Light Life Tempeh that I needed to use. My favorite use of tempeh, so far, is the Tempeh Reuben recipe found in VwaV. If you've never made those then you must go do it right now because they are so delicious. One reason that they are so delicious is because the marinated tempeh that you use is delicious all by itself. So, I decided to just use the marinade recipe, the same one used for the reubens, and then just grill the tempeh.

I cut the block of tempeh into four pieces and then sliced each of those in half, giving me a total of eight pieces of tempeh to grill. I mixed up the marinade and let them soak for several hours. Then I just grilled them on the stove using one of those grill pans that has all of the little raised surfaces on it. You can't really see it in the picture, because I also covered the tempeh with a little bit of that delicious fat-free Bryanna's Vegan Brown Gravy, but the slices of Grilled Tempeh have some nice black grill marks on them. I like food when it has grill marks on it, I think it makes you think it taste better. But this tempeh actually is delicious, really simple to fix, and I had a bunch left over. I wrapped it up and froze it for future use. I've got a few ideas floating around in my head for what I will eventually do with it, but needless to say, it will eventually end up here in the lunchbox.

On the healthy side of things, I also brought along some Mixed Steamed Vegetables and some fresh Strawberries for dessert. The berries were on sale this week at the store, so I couldn't pass them up. Again, I don't know if it's just because I haven't eaten strawberries in a while or what, but these are SO good. I was actually surprised at how sweet they were. I wasn't expecting much for "middle-of-the-winter" strawberries, but these are really good. I could have capped them and cut them up and fit a couple more into the little lunchbox container, but I like opening the lunchbox and seeing them in their natural state, with the green tops still on them, so I left them that way.

Now, onto the one item in today's lunch that is definitely not health food. Yes, I am still on a diet (more on that later), but I played around in the kitchen a little bit this weekend and finally tried a recipe that I have been wanting to try for quite a while. And while it's not the healthiest thing in the world to eat, I did make a couple of modifications to make it a little bit healthier than it would have been otherwise, plus the lunchbox helps me out again with portion control. But Macaroni & Cheese was one of my favorite foods as an omnivore and up until this weekend, I hadn't been able to find a vegan version that satisfied me. I tried the one out of The Uncheese Cookbook by Jo Stepaniak, but it just didn't do it for me. Then I found this thread over at the Post Punk Kitchen where people were talking about Macaroni & Cheese recipes and someone made the New Farm Cookbook recipe. They said that it was a lot better than The Uncheese Cookbook recipe, so I was tempted to try it, and I did.

HOLY COW! This stuff is good. I did cut back on the oil (I only used 2 Tbsp.) and I used Dreamfield's pasta to significantly lower the digestable carbs, but this stuff is still a vegan treat that you should definitely eat in moderation. I swear this was so good that I could have just sat down and pigged out and eaten the whole 8" x 8" pan of this stuff. I don't know if this recipe is really that good, or if my taste for nutritional yeast has finally just improved to the point where I actually love it, but this recipe is delicious. If you've been looking for a good vegan mac-n-cheese recipe, then you should definitely try this one. The actual recipe is posted there in the ppk thread.

So there's lunch for Monday. Simple, and pretty good for me, except for the mac-n-cheese. It's a small portion, so a treat like this is okay I think, every once in a while. At least it's the only "not-so-good-for-weight-loss" treat in the lunchbox. Since I brought it, I made sure that I didn't bring any more fat or carb laden goodies like homemade rolls or a sweet dessert. As long as I make adjustments like that, I think I'll still be able to lose weight at a decent pace.

And speaking of losing weight, I promised an update every Monday on my weight loss progress, so here it is. You've seen what I ate for lunch last week, and if you remember, last weekend I weighed in at my highest weight ever (again!) which was 225 pounds. I tried eating healthier last week, and I exercised by walking 30 minutes a day. My goal is to do that 5 times a week (Monday - Friday) but last week I ended up only getting in four days. I had a bunch of errands to do on Friday which interfered with my lunchtime walk. Of course, I walked around quite a bit doing those errands, but still, I will admit that I missed a day. At least I did get in 4 days of exercise though, which is 4 days more than what I had been doing.

So what happened? Well, it's been a whole week, and when I weighed myself this weekend I weighed in at 218 pounds, so I have lost 7 pounds so far. This is typical for me whenever I start a Weight Watchers type diet, which is basically what I am doing, and count food points and try to keep them below a certain limit. I normally lose 7-8 pounds a week for the first couple of weeks and then it tapers off to a healthy 1-2 pound weight loss per week. So, needless to say, I am very happy that I lost 7 pounds this week, that's almost 20% of my ultimate goal of 40 pounds!

I went to a birthday party Saturday night and someone even asked me how much weight I had lost, so that feels good to know that it's already showing. I just love it when people ask you if you've lost weight. And all of this happened just by slightly tweaking my diet and getting up and walking a little bit every day. I even overindulged this weekend a little bit by consuming several light beers at the birthday party and even ordering some vegan pizza from Papa John's, plus I made that dang mac-n-cheese, but I knew that I had lost a significant amount of weight already this week, so I figured I deserved it. I mean, yeah, I probably would have lost even more if I hadn't done those three things, but really, 7 pounds in a week is plenty. I'm happy with it.

So that does it for Monday's lunch, and I am DEFINITELY getting my 30 minute walk in today.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see everybody on Tuesday!