Salads, maybe?

I think I said I was going to post a little more often than I actually am but that’s okay! Things are busy, how I like ‘em. A couple of my jobs take a hiatus around the holidays because they revolve around children and the school system calendar but now things are back in full swing. Which means…

I don’t have a lot of time to cook. I had Sunday this week, which was nice. I was able to make an ample supply of granola bars. Next week, and for the following 11 weeks, I won’t have Sundays anymore. I already didn’t have Saturdays… or evenings… or mornings…

But I do have lunches! The best thing about my crazy schedule is that I am typically home with time to kill from 1pm to 3 or 4ish. I love getting to come home for lunch. I don’t have to rush through it and Joe isn’t home to pester me ;). I get to listen to WBFO. I get to eat and make good food. Brussel sprouts, anyone?

Something I need to get better at is dinners I can make ahead over lunch. Mondays through Wednesdays I sit at a desk during the dinner hours and have only a microwave to “cook” anything I want for dinner. Unfortunately as well, ventilation is not great in the small building and anything that has a strong scent is a big turn off to people coming in for fitness classes. Salads, maybe? I’ve always wanted to be more adventurous with salads! (Sorta. Suggestions welcome.) Thursdays I teach until about 8:30 and don’t have the desire to cook when I get home. Having something already made is a must or else chips n salsa it is.

Anyway, I have a bunch of left over veggies this week because I had a weird tummy ache for a lot of last week. Green beans, brussel sprouts, kale, cauliflower, and carrots galore! It saved me quite a bit on my grocery bill. I’m still on a taco kick at the moment, so I’ll see what I can come up with these veggies. Grace, Molly, and I went to a local mexican restaurant on Saturday night and Molly got a sweet potato taco and I wanna make something like THAT.

Just gotta get over my fear of sweet potatoes. But more on that later.

"Sooo that means you don't want any beef jerky??"

Yesterday, Joe made beef jerky from a rump. A rump! Rumprumprump. 

Anyway, our apartment smelled rump-a-licious (sorry) for the better part of the evening. He was happy with the final product and I patted him on the rump.... er, uh, shoulder...for his efforts. Like kimchi, I declined to try any but it's exciting how many new food things we've been trying out since the new year! I think this is lots of fun. 

Okay, enough with the rump.

This weekend, Grace, Emeline, and I headed to Milwaukee to meet up with Yessssica. Lots of fun and a vegan paradise! We went to Bel Air Cantina for dinner and it was amazing! I had three tacos: soy chorizo, broccoli&artichoke, and black bean&corn (no cheese/crema). Sooo good! We went their last time we visited too and I think it's safe to say it has become our go to place. They give out super cool stickers instead of mints at the end of the meal, too!

In the morning, I made vegan pancakes for everyone. I brought a Bob's Red Mill buckwheat mix and made it with almond/coconut milk and ground flax. They turned out well! It was all of our first times with buckwheat and they are a little denser than traditional pancakes but still very good - they also have more protein to boot. We covered them in strawberry jam for lack of maple syrup and it was a very tasty substitute. 

I don't think I have had any dairy/cheese in the last week.... Wait, that's not totally true. I had a moment of groggy early morning weakness via free bagels at the museum on Saturday morning BUT THAT'S OKAY. It was to celebrate our new penguin exhibit! Surely penguins eat bagels with cream cheese.

My tummy has not been feeling great at all today. I hope I am not getting sick. Currently sipping on some ginger tea and saying a prayer for better days ahead. Will have some oatmeal when I get home from work.

Readin' Vegan

Right now, I'm eating oatmeal with peanut butter and banana. Joe and I make steel cut oatmeal for breakfast every morning and sometimes I eat it and sometimes I don't. I'm having it for dinner at work because I've begun to realize that maybe the highly fragrant curry-type dishes I usually reheat in the closet microwave probably don't mix as well with a HIIT workout as they do with my desk job. Oh well. It's yummy, vegan, and no sugar added!

Why no sugar added? Well, I just finished reading A Year of No Sugar by Eve O. Schaub, per Kate's recommendation (of course). I took the book at a slow and steady pace, allowing myself about a week and a half to work through it. While I'm not going to do a no sugar challenge at the moment (veganism is enough to tackle for now!), reading this book has really made me take a second look at my sugar consumption for the past few weeks. Veganism by nature cuts out some fructose monsters - traditional chocolates and cookies being prime examples. But do I really neeeeed to douse my oatmeal in maple syrup? Nah, guess not. At the end of the book, Eve reflects on her family becoming much more selective about the sugar they choose to consume as a result of a year of cutting out all sugar entirely. I think this is an approach I'd like to adopt in the coming year - just taking a second to consciously think about sugar going into my body and enjoying treats as treats. I'll keep you updated.

Oh, that brings me to another update! In my initial "plan" I said I was going to use MyFitnessPal to track carbs, fats, proteins, etc. I've decided not to do this, mainly because the app has a large focus on calories and counting calories and in general being worried about how many calories one consumes. I've found that going by how my body "feels" for the past two weeks has been working well and I'd like to continue along this trajectory. Hungry? Eat more. Low on energy? Eat more.

You get the picture.

Now I'm going to start reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollen because rumor has it it's the Bible of the real food movement. Again, I'll keep you updated.

Weekend Vegan

This weekend was pretty good for my veganism. I had cheese in my lunch yesterday - still transitioning away. I have hidden the big bag of cheddar in the very far back of the fridge. Outta sight, outta mind! I had a chocolate after dinner - only two left! And, dun dun dun, the one unconscious vegan slip up I feel really silly about - I put half n half in my coffee at Starbucks on Friday. I don’t even like half n half! I just did it to cool down my coffee, not even a second thought. I only realized my slip up after I’d slurped the whole thing down. Whoops.

Joe and I went grocery shopping this morning. We did our best to avoid processed food and WOW it was amazing how much cheaper our groceries ended up being! My typical $40 bill was reduced to $25. Joe’s bill was $40. Why? He accidentally bought $13 cashews - ha! He promptly returned them when he realized what he’d done.

Joe and I typically buy two containers of 16oz salsa for $8. This week, we decided to try to make our own salsa. We got all of our produce and spices from Aldi and got enough of these things to make two batches to the recipe’s specifications. Turns out one recipe makes like, 5 POUNDS of salsa! So much salsa. We now need to have a salsa party. I also made another batch of glo bars for the week (with the addition of chia seeds and slivered almonds) and roasted brussel sprouts and potatoes for dinner. We also have lots of leftovers from the Lao restaurant we went to last night! Yumyumyum.

Here are some salsa pics. Come on ovaa.

I feel like this photo diminishes the amount of salsa but TRUST ME it was a lot. 

Vegan Junk Food

Two nights ago I had my first experience with vegan-sanctioned junk food. I went out to a local vegan restaurant with Grace and Brooke that I've always wanted to try. The menu was amazing and varied and I’m super excited to go back. However, I made the mistake of ordering junk food. I ordered the mega nacho plate, which the menu described as corn chips with black beans, pico de gallo, peppers, avocado, vegan cheese & sour cream, and olives. Yum! I pictured it loaded with beans and veggies, but “sprinkled” would be a better descriptor. Turns out that this dish was about 80% corn chips, 20% other stuff. I really had to dig around to find the black beans I’d been craving and vegan cheese is still greasy.

I’ll order something different next time. “Next time” should be in the near future, because I discovered yesterday that this restaurant has a Groupon special and said special was ON SALE. Score!

I’ve been having lots of fun with smoothies all week. Avocados errrrrywhere. Today on the TODAY show they said that an avocado a day keeps the doctor away. I am thinking about getting this tattooed on my body. I also ordered a big bag of chia seeds off Amazon (they’re like half the price of the grocery store, kids!) and made the mistake of trying to blend them into a smoothie. Since chia seeds expand and get sticky when wet, this just caused them all to glue onto the blender blade which was wasteful and hard to clean. I explained this to Joe and he then explained to me that you always put the chia seeds in AFTER you blend the smoothie, ya dingus. Right. Got it.

Today we had an all staff cleaning day at the museum, complete with pizza lunch. I decided to have the pizza becaaaaaause my plan had been to come home and use up some cheese for lunch anyway. Might as well eat it there. No harm, no foul.

But I still have a giant bag of cheese to get rid of.

Pesto Fails and Emergency Brussel Sprouts

I’m happy to report that the weekend was good to my new found veganism. The only dairy/eggs things I ate were a couple of cookies and chocolates left over from Christmas… gotta get rid of them somehow!

I left my last post with the intention to make Angela’s creamy avocado sauce but that didn’t go as planned. I have everything ready - basil, salt, pepper, lemon juice already in the blender - and cut open the avocado only to find that it had a shriveled, barely existent pit and was all brown. It was extremely bizarre - I should have taken a picture. I tried googling what this means but couldn’t find anything. Did I have a martian avocado? I don’t know.

Anyway, Joe burst into action, running to the nearest grocery store to get a replacement avocado. Alas, this avocado was not ripe enough to use and saved for later. I ended up making a more traditional pesto sauce - basil, sunflower seeds, and olive oil blended in the blender. While it wasn’t what we had planned for dinner, it turned out pretty good! I used the rest of the pesto today on a naan bread pizza. Joe also requested more glo bars for the work week, so we made some more of those too.

There it is again - my naan bread pizza crutch. I only have one slice of the bread left so I should be through with it tomorrow! Same with the asiago cheese. My new approach this week is to only have dairy at lunch, in an attempt to use up my cheese supplies. So far, so good. I had a smoothie and a glo bar for breakfast and we roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower for dinner. I also cracked open the not-yet-ripe avocado from Saturday and it was perfect!

I had a bit of a brussel sprout emergency today. Yesterday, we did our weekly grocery trip and after visiting two grocery stores I still wasn’t able to find any satisfactory sprouts - everyone I encountered just looked old and gross. I thought fine, I’ll just go without brussel sprouts this week. But then, a mega craving hit as I was thinking about what to make for dinner when I was out running errands this afternoon. I needed brussel sprouts! So I found myself at a grocery store I’ve only been to once my life, buying two pounds of sprouts . Whewwww. Crisis averted.

I will not make the same mistake next week.

New Blender!

At 7:00pm last night, my new blender finally arrived! Although I was quick to unpack it as soon as it came, I didn’t have a chance to try it out until breakfast this morning. I decided to use a classic smoothie as its first test and it turned out SO YUMMY. My smoothie included roughly one cup vanilla almond milk, one very ripe banana, one cup spinach, ½ cup frozen blueberries, ⅓ cup each strawberries, blackberries, and pineapple. It was perfectly sweet and thick, with zero trace of the secret spinach.

Tonight I’m going to whip out the blender again to make Angela’s 15-minute Creamy Avocado Pesto - wish me luck!

Hidden Dairy

I’d like to report that my first 24 hours of veganism were right on track, easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. That would be a lie. A horrible lie. Why?

Hidden dairy.

It’s everywhere! Maybe it’s naive of me to have not paid attention to what products contain dairy in the past but I’ve discover in just the last day that so many foods I consume on a regular basis have dairy.

I think one reason I didn’t think about hidden dairy when deciding to go vegan is because I’ve never liked milk. I saw this as one less hurdle to cross. I love cheese but please don’t make me drink a glass of milk - yuck! Of course, my parents were of the mindset that healthy children grow by drinking cow’s milk but in order for me to drink it, it needed to be loaded up with chocolate syrup/powder. I don’t think drinking milk was very “healthy” for me as a kid.

Remember how I am trying to ease into vegan eating by using a 7,6,5,4...etc. method? Yesterday, as I said in my last post, I had pizza for lunch. Check one for dairy. Then I got to thinking about the granola bar I had for breakfast… it had caramel chips with… dun dun dun… milk as a main ingredient. Okay, check another one for dairy. In the evening, I went to make dinner and figured I’d use up some tikka masala that had been sitting the cupboard for months over lentils. But wait, the masala sauce has yogurt as a main ingredient… and the naan I wanted to have on the side was made with milk…. ARGH!

Yesterday, I put four out of seven strikes in the dairy/eggs allotment box. How am I going to get through the rest of the week?! Well, by continuing to eat dairy. After dairy strike number 4, I took a few minutes to go around my kitchen and evaluate what has dairy/eggs in it. A lot things. There’s a lot of cheese in the fridge, sitting next to 11 eggs. A cookie mix to be made. A whole other package of naan bread…. Although I’m feeling a little discouraged, I also know that it would wasteful to throw these things out. Thus, I’ve decided to not be so hard on myself this week. I’m going to continue to eat these things this week and plan to not buy any replacements during my weekly grocery trip.

That being said, I’m on my last traditional granola bar so I decided to try out Angela’s recipe for Classic Glo Bars this morning! The recipe contained several items I didn’t have on hand - brown rice syrup, hemp, shredded coconut, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds… which prompted a trip to my local food co-op to peruse the bulk food section. I also ended up FINALLY buying a co-op membership, after having lived in this city for a year and a half. Mostly, I’ve been hesitant to get a membership because two other grocery stores in town also have pretty thorough bulk foods sections. However, many to trips all three of these stores has finally led me to conclude that the co-op does indeed have the best selection. You can even buy spices and oils in bulk! I love bulk foods because they allow you to keep prices down by only buying what you need. Which is exactly what I did!

The Glo Bars turned out really well! The recipe was very easy and took about 15 minutes to make. You don’t even have to put them in the oven - just mix the brown rice syrup and peanut butter over medium heat, pour onto the dry ingredients, press the mixture into a pan, and put in the freezer to firm up. Voila! Glo bars for days.

Now I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new blender aka my Christmas present to myself. Amazon.com says its out for delivery - I’m ready to make some smoothies!

Hey! Hi! Welcome!

Why Veganism?

I’ve been a vegetarian since boldly declaring in the 7th grade that killing animals for food is the worst things a human can do. Have I eaten meat since 2003? Yes, particularly during a study abroad in Brazil when NOT eating meat meant missing out on rich cultural experiences. This is an approach I plan to take with veganism as well - there’s no reason veganism should get in the way of trying new things and having “big picture experiences”.

Since 7th grade, my reasons for sticking to vegetarianism have evolved from animal rights advocacy to desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I will eat meat on “special occasions” but I just don’t think about meat in my day-to-day meal planning.

Here comes a confession: I’m a bit of a cheesetarian… I’m currently lunching on naan bread smothered in leftover spinach and kale dip, topped with melted asiago cheese. I estimate I eat cheese at 14 out of 21 weekly meals. I love cheese and I default to cheese. I mean, what’s a New York transplant to do in the great state of Wisconsin?! I went to cheese fest this fall and it was glorious! But cheese two-thirds of the week? No bueno. I know my tummy will be happier without it and I’m exciting to be adding veggies into my ‘default’ meals.

Why Now?

I had a chance to catch up with my dear college friends Kate and Betsy over winter break. This year for the holidays, Kate is gifting to people some of her favorite books and I was lucky enough to be the recipient of “The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Over 100 Vegan Recipes to Glow from the Inside Out” by Angela Liddon. This book is BEAUTIFUL! Kate jokes that Angela feels like a friend and I can see why. Her approach to veganism is very, well, approachable. I was 3 minutes late to work on Tuesday because I was reading this book. Sitting down and reading this book has become my new favorite hobby. It finally makes veganism something I am ready to tackle. I remember trying to go vegan once in the 8th grade, about a year into my vegetarianism.This amounted to me eating lettuce and strawberries for a week, neither of which I am particularly fond. Not sustainable. Angela’s book presents a whole foods approach to veganism: no 24/7 tofu, fake cheese, and empty substitutes. I’m ready to approach veganism by educating myself and trying as many new standards as I can.

2014 was also plagued with tummy-issues and running injuries. I’m hoping veganism will leave me happier and with more energy!

My Approach:

I’ve decided to come up with some steps to make this transition to veganism gradual and to not become overwhelmed. Here are my initial goals:

1. Cut back on cheese/dairy consumption using a 7,6,5,4...etc. approach. The first week I will allow myself to have dairy products 7 times during the week, the next week I’ll cut back to 6, then 5, and so on until I have cut dairy out of my diet entirely. I will track this in my planner.
1. Why not the same approach to eggs? Well, I don’t really eat eggs. I’m not imagining eggs/egg products to be as much of a struggle. Who knows, I may re-evaluate and add a similar approach if eggs seem to creep up on me.
2. Make a new recipe from Angela’s book twice a week, documented on this blog.
3. Use MyFitnessPal app to monitor fat/protein consumption. MyFitnessPal shows me that my current diet is very fat/protein heavy and I’ve heard that veganism tends to shift the tilt in the other direction. My goal is to find a BALANCE and I believe MyFitnessPal paints a good picture of where one needs to increase/decrease carbs, proteins, and fats.
4. Write in this blog three times a week. Evaluate how I feel physically, mentally, and emotionally. Report on ups/downs/progress. Keep flowing in a positive direction.
5. I am giving myself a three month time frame: January, February, March. I am allowing myself to “really make up my mind” about veganism come March. (Final evals due in March, so to speak.)

That’s it for now. I’m going to take it easy going into the New Year - for today, at least! Time to do some dishes, take a shower, and roast some green beans for an afternoon snack. Happy 2015 and wish me luck!

P.S. I will add that I welcome comments and suggestions, as I’m willing to take all the help I can get!