Mung Bean Soup and Sprouted Mung Beans

Ho hum. I hate blogging when I have no photos.

I soaked some mung beans to make soup but didn't have a recipe. I liked this one:

Mung Bean Soup with Kale from Andrea's Easy Vegan Cooking Blog

It turned out quite delicious. Didn't use kale, but added a yellow summer squash. Doubled the ginger. It could have used some cilantro, which I believe the recipe calls for, to garnish, but I didn't have any.

I also sprouted some mung beans. Seems to me to make sense that this is one of nature's complete foods. It is one tiny package with the equipment to produce food for many. Okay, not by itself, but they are smart little entities. Smart with mother nature juice. More, please.

I also plan on using them in this recipe from Veggie Belly.

***

I'm having a vegan weirdness day. I feel tired and sore in my legs and I don't know if it's hormonal, or that I haven't been exercising, or what. But I feel tired and sore. My body is telling me to eat tofu, so I had a smoothie with a handful of walnuts, a handful of almonds, a few macadamia nuts, a spoon full of chia seeds, and some nut butters. Plus some strawberries. That should calm the protein urge, right? That smoothie topped off a cool-down snack (it's still 80 degrees and it's 10pm!) of a cup of frozen rasberries, a banana, some homemade cashew milk, honey, and vegan sugar-free carob chips. Both were satisfying but now I wish I hadn't had quite so much of the nut one. I have nut gut : )

The Power Vegan Diet article and a simple pizza recipe

My friend sent me this photo:

Impressive! And with Bill Clinton out with his recent vegan lifestyle, looks like we're on the right track.

Later I found this blog post that recaps the article. And one of Spencer's posts linked me to this video by Tracye McQuirter, author of By Any Greens Necessary:

I like simple, and I like pizza, so I like this video : )

And speaking of pizza...

Last week, I overheard some of my preschoolers talking to each other about pizza, so we made paper plate pizzas and I wrote down their reply to the question, "What do you like to eat on your pizza?":

I will eat pizza in the morning when I get up from nap.

Olives, syrup on my pancakes, peanut butter, cheese, all gone!

Peanut butter, carrots, peanut butter, cheese.

Cheese, that's all.

Pizza!

Macaroni [pepperoni?], cheese, syrup on my pancakes, sugar.

Bean Dip, Seaweed, Sugar

This white bean dip recipe from Vegan Epicurean is worth having around. I always have these ingredients in the house, and I always need to add beans/legumes to my diet. Plus, the nutritional yeast in the dip provides B vitamins that I don't get from other sources. I used half the mustard because, though I love mustard and pickles and that flavor genre, I don't really love mustard in these types of mixes. I added a bit of salt and a dollop of olive oil for good fats. I used canned Eden Foods brand white kidney (cannelini) beans which, while double the price of the Whole Foods brand, is packaged with kombu seaweed, which supposedly makes the beans a lot easier to digest (which is why I often add a piece to my bean and lentil soups and stews). Spreaking of seaweed...

My esthetician yesterday told me during our facial that I need to eat more seaweed or take superfood tablets. Apparently this will help the iron to indirectly help my skin (it's very dry and has been prone to breakouts). We'll see if anything can redeem this skin!

My skin's not so bad...at least I'm not a fur face!

***more about my ongoing relationship with sugar***

And one last note about my sugar cheat yesterday. I did have gelatto, and remember last time when I said I have to be all-or-nothing about sugar? Well, I came home and ate four cookies. THAT is why I can't eat any sugar!

I guess my willpower hasn't been doing push-ups after all!

Mushroom and Broccoli Soup

Tonight's dinner actually deserves it's 5 star rating!

Inspired by this Thai Curry Soup and Kim's version from Affairs of Living, I decided to venture into the soup world tonight even though California temperatures were soaring today!

What I ended up making was almost exactly like the version from Elana's Pantry, minus the lime (the one ingredient I didn't have). I really just estimated everything and replaced half of the shitake mushrooms with portabella, and replaced fresh broccoli for frozen.

It turned out delicious.

I finished the whole lot of it (granted I halved the recipe).

And now a friend just invited me to gelato and since this particular friend really needs a night out, I'll be eating dairy (ugh) and sugar (oh dear, not again) tonight.

Last time I ate sugar and dairy (last Sunday), I had a hangover (?) the next day (headache) and was depressed the day after that (withdrawal?). And why am I eating sugar and dairy tonight? Maybe I'll see if they have some sugar-free non-dairy gelato. I'll let you know tomorrow if my will power has been doing its push-ups.

5 Star Cake Batter...

but Zero Stars on the final product!

I made these today, hoping to re-ignite a Friday tradition between a co-worker and I of making decadent sweets on Fridays. Ever since I stopped eating sugar, I kind of left her behind. Well, in an effort to reinstate Brownie Fridays, I tried this Chocolate Cupcake recipe. Boo!

The cake batter was delicious. The final product was horrible. I think half the avocado, and subbing honey for maple syrup might make it better, but I think I'll just skip it altogether next time!

Vegan out!

Butternut squash and broccoli curry

I did it! I ate all nine suggested servings of fruits and vegetables today!

BREAKFAST: Kale; Blueberries; Strawberries; Apricots/pineapple

LUNCH: Zucchini; Avocado

DINNER: Butternut squash; Tomato; Broccoli; Kale

Yay!

***

What to do with extra pizza dough and two extra butternut squash?

Tonight's dinner

Butternut Squash Curry and warm bread

Star rating: 4

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash (peeled, seeded, cubed)

1 bell pepper (I used orange)

1 cup steamed fresh or frozen broccoli (I used frozen)

1 small can coconut milk

curry powder, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds

ginger and chiles would have been good...I didn't have them

"Garnish": blend 3-4 kale leaves, 1 cup of water, pinch of salt, scoop of nutritional yeast (1-2 tablespoons?), 5-10 cashews, blended until a sauce and set aside.

Heat oil on medium, add mustard seeds. When they start to jump out of the pan (you can hear them pop), add cumin. Then add squash and bell peppers (and ginger and chiles if using). After browning slightly, add some water. Make sure everything cooks until very tender!
When squash is tender, add coconut milk and a curry powder to taste (I used about a teaspoon, which is very little). After about five minutes, add broccoli. Cook another five minutes.
Add blended "garnish" at the end to maintain the vitamins in the kale but also just cook it into the dish.
This was so good! And the "garnish" hopefully added some B vitamins and micronutrients from the nutritional yeast and kale.

Oh yeah, I baked the pizze dough plain with some salt, and sliced it in strips and ate it with the curried squash.

I have to note, I felt very sleepy right after I ate, like a food coma feeling. Could I be allergic to wheat? I'm starting to suspect something...I'll be watching that. It could have also been the fatty coconut sauce, but I'm seeing other red flags.

Until next time...

Sugar Headache

I knew all that sugar and crap I ate last night would make me feel bad today.

I had a mild headache most of the day. I was tired by noon (I felt that way every day when I was indulging in sugar first thing in the morning on a daily basis). I felt like a sugary drink, knowing that it would help (and it would!) the feeling of withdrawal.

I feel better now, though.

And by the way, the cheesecake was delicious!

Tonight's dinner: Easy peasy bean chili

Star rating: 5 (I'm easy to please lately!)

1 can black beans (rinsed, drained)

1 can kidney beans (rinsed, drained)

1/2 yellow onion

3 tomatoes

1/2 green bell pepper

2 zuccini, medium

2 carrots, medium

Put it all in a slow cooker, turn it on low, eat in 8-12 hours!

I added some Daiya and, to my complete and utter surprise, it improved the flavor. I suspect it added sodium, thereby bringing out the lovely taste of my chili : )

Tonight this was served with brown rice (leftover) and spelt tortilla (trying to increase my grain intake without increasing my gluten intake...but after reading this article posted on this blog I'm thinking I should stick with the rice and lose the tortillas!).

Acorn Squash soup, Hamentashen, Cashew cheesecake, and Sugar Addiction

Okay, I almost didn't do my goals for the day because of this couch:Ikea drama! We will never be going back there again. Emphasis on never. But Mitch, unaware of the drama, found his nook.

I saw these at Whole Foods and wanted to make some, so I baked some kale chips in the oven today. I didn't use their fancy ingredients, just plain kale, baked until it was crisp-ish and ate it right off the veins.

For dinner this evening, I made butternut squash soup, brown rice and artichokes.

Inspired-by-Sue Squash soup:

Star rating: 5

Acorn squash, baked at 350 degrees for around 40 minutes

Scraped it into boiling veggie broth and water

Added chopped yellow onions and a couple of chopped carrots

Let it simmer for a while

Pureed a few ladles full to create a more bisque-like texture and get rid of the stringy squash pieces

Adding the brown rice straight into the soup afterward made it reeeeallly good.


Then, on to my goals. These non-vegan, with sugar, hamentashen (from this recipe) turned out pretty tasty but a bit mis-shapen. Yes, tasty. Yes, I ate them. I will talk about this later.

On a raw vegan note, I attempted to make this cashew cheesecake recipe. The crust:

The cashews, soaking (for four hours!):
The pie filling in the food processor:
And since I don't own a pie pan, so I used this dish thing (shouldn't be a problem since you it will be frozen before it will be taken out of the dish):
It's in the freezer now...I'll write about the final product when I complete it!

And since I didn't feel like improvising the cheesecake recipe, I used agave nectar like the recipe called for. I was tempted to use maple syrup but didn't want to mess with the flavor. Looks like I'll be getting my dose of fructose this week!

***

Sugar

Tonight's baking (and raw) adventures reminded me of why I have to cut out sugar cold turkey. I don't possess the ability to consume sugar in moderation. When I say sugar, by the way, I mean processed, refined, or just really concentrated sugar (as opposed to fruits and honey and along-with-its-source sugars). I made the hamentashen and could not help eating one. "It's okay, just eat one," I told myself. "Don't be so rigid about this diet thing. Your body can handle a little bit of bad." Well, one didn't happen. It was one, then two, then a third, and then when I burned my husband's chocolate chip cookies (he had me bake some frozen cookie dough since the oven was going), I had to try those to make sure they weren't too burnt to eat (couldn't take a bite, had to eat two). So I had about five sugary, non-vegan cookies tonight, thinking the whole time about how I will probably feel in the morning after all that sugar. I couldn't just have one? I had to have five?

I've always tended toward the rigid side when it comes to creating and following rules. I'm trying to be balanced about this diet stuff. For instance, I stay off of soy for the most part, but last night we went out for pizza and the only cheese alternative is soy cheese (which is very lucky for us vegans!). So what am I going to do, have a cheese-less pizza? I don't think so!

I'm just trying to stay balanced. Finding the balance is pretty easy, but remaining there...not so easy.

I guess it's an adventure that is really not about the destination but the process of yet deeper levels of self-discovery.

And I can't wait to give those hamentashen cookies to my brother-in-law and get them the heck out of my house! Oh, the temptation!!!

This weekend...

This weekend, plagued by a long list of to-do's, I'd like to try making this and this. But I also have to appeal to my omnivore loved ones by making this for my brother-in-law and this for my employee. And I will probably make this for my neighbors, who just delivered twins last week. Or I'll just buy them some stuff.

Today's morning smoothie, inspired once again by this lovely gal, has the following healthful ingredients:

1/2 c oats, processed to powder

5 dried cherries

1 packed cup baby spinach, raw

5 or so walnuts

1/2 c frozen blueberries

1/4 c frozen mango

1/2 cup fresh raspberries

2-3 shakes of cinnamon

1-2 shakes of powdered ginger

1 heaping Tbsp raw cacao powder

1 Tbsp chia seeds

1/2 c green tea brewed at 175 degrees, seeped for 5-10 minutes

2 c water

aerial view of smoothie

That should do it for the morning, yeah?

Usually I put nut butter like cashew or almond for fat and flavor, but I decided that maybe it's time to cut back on that stuff. I've already lost a whopping 9 lbs. (against my will! I need to gain weight!) since being off sugar, but I just don't think eating nut butters is a healthy way to try to maintain the pounds. I need to figure something else out.

This week's goal...eat more beans!

Another Oxymoron

My day has not started off so well, so I'm intervening with a humorous story.

Recently I have been encouraging my husband to use more natural facial cleansers because I hate the way his Cetaphil cleanser smells (and I have a very sensitive nose to make it worse). I'm also pretty sure it's chock full of horrifying chemical ingredients that are leaching into his body via the skin. So we bought him some new cleanser from Whole Foods, but I noticed he hasn't been using it.

Well, we went to Tahoe a couple of weekends ago and stayed in a hotel. At the hotel, I found a bottle of facial cleanser and thought, "wow, he went on his own to get some natural stuff since he didn't like the first one". It was Aubrey Organics. The bottle was full so I knew it wasn't one of my leftovers from ages ago that he found in the cabinet (I save almost empty bottles for eternity). I have used Aubrey Organics products before and love most of them.

Well, during our trip my facial cleanser ran out, so I used his "natural herbal" one. It left my face squeaky clean, and had an interesting astringent smell to it. It was bright blue. I thought, "wow, i like how this feels...it's so easy to rinse off".

***two weeks later***

We're in the bathroom getting ready for our days, and I'm brushing my teeth watching him get ready. He squeezed some of his Aubrey Organics facial cleanser onto his hand and started rubbing it around, lathering it up to wash his face. I thought it was kind of odd because he was already dressed up for work...hadn't he washed his face in the shower?

In what must have been a not-enough-coffee-yet state of confusion, he started to put the face wash into his hair. Immediately, I reached out for his hand, and said, mouth full of toothpaste bubbles, "babe! that's your face wash!"

He replied, "no, I just used this old bottle as a travel bottle for my hair gel. I figured you wouldn't mind if I rinsed out the little bit of face wash in there to use the bottle."

So I'm here to give a five star review for my newest facial product.

Un-complicated soup

Star rating: 5!

Tonight for dinner I made simple vegetable soup. In my first post I committed to using recipes because I finally admitted that my improvisational cooking leaves something (lots of things) to be desired. In The Joy of Cooking, there is a basic vegetable soup that suggests:

2 cups of stock

2 cups diced vegetables

1.5 tsp. tomato paste or 1/2 c chopped tomatoes

No pre-cooking, sauteing, spices, nothing. Soups don't like my tendency overcomplicate them.

A dinner complete with flavor and nutrition.

Tonight's No-Frills Soup:

1 cup Pacific organic vegetable broth

2 cups water

1/2 cup quinoa (I rinse it really well to get all the bitter resin off of the outside)

1 small beet

1 small zuccini

1 carrot

1/2 c chopped baby spinach

1 tomato

1 small garlic clove

(Ginger would also make a lovely addition to this soup).

Bring to boil, reduce to simmer for 10-15 minutes until quinoa is fully cooked. Add 1-2 Tbsp olive oil (for the good fats), an optional dash of mirin, and black pepper and salt to taste.

Makes a modest two servings (ie. my dinner and tomorrow's lunch).

After eating, I read this (and by the way, who eats that way???) and was inspired so added some anti-inflammatory herbs to the leftovers. Added 1 tsp. tumeric, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp. ginger powder. We'll see if I can palette this soup tomorrow.

Daiya cheese review

I made pizza (it was half real pizza and half "pizza"). On the "pizza" side I used Daiya cheese. I've read raving reviews about it but had never tried it. Out of the bag it's disgusting, but on pizza it was delicious. Did it taste like real pizza? No. Was it a cheese alternative? No. Did it make my pizza feel more like pizza than without any cheese substitute? Absolutely!

Star rating (cooked): 4

Star rating (out of bag): 1

***

About my pizza: store-bought pizza dough from Trader Joe's, tomato-garlic-kale sauce (jarred tomato sauce with steamed and blended kale added), and lots of colorful veggies. Topped with Daiya. Made on the grill.

Good girl, Bad girl

photo credit

Over the weekend I did six loads of laundry. I wanted to be green so bought clothesline and line-dried everything. The laundry smelled good, and all was crisp and wrinkle-free.

I was very proud of myself. I saved a lot of electricity. What a good thing I did for the planet.

***

Yesterday, some guy merged into my lane and kept driving in my lane next to me for, like, a hundred feet. So I accelerated my fast car and re-claimed my turf.

I wasted a ton of gas in the process. The fuel meter goes down a whole bar every time I do that. What a horrible thing I did for the planet.

Good thing I hung up all that laundry.

Almost-Raw Brownies

This un-photogenic brownie gets a star rating of 5+!!!

Even though I don't follow a raw diet, I had to try these "B-raw-nies" from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan. They turned out delicious. They are so good in fact that I can't believe I'm allowed to eat them, given all of my new dietary rules.

My adaptations:

-Instead of raw cocoa, I used half regular cocoa powder and half cacao powder.

-I used honey instead of agave nectar. Here is why.

-Used vanilla extract, 1 tsp., instead of raw vanilla bean. I also added vanilla to the frosting, which may be why it turned out a bit grainy rather than creamy (also could have been the honey).

-If I make it again, I need to remember to use dried cherries! The cherries and almond extract were the highlight of this recipe!

-I garnished it with chia seeds to emphasize just how healthy they are! And to make them cuter. (I hope they stay cute and don't turn gelatinous like they do when they soak in water...oh dear...)

-Next time...1. mix the frosting by hand and properly defrost coconut butter (slowly), and 2. make a double batch (they disappear quickly when you're excited to share!), and maybe try a different nut butter for the frosting next time. Oh! And 3. re-hydrate the cherries so they process better and keep the brownies moister longer.

And still sugar-free!

This morning I shared my woes about my sugar craving (or what I thought to be withdrawal but wasn't sure). I said that I would not "treat" the desperate feeling of needing to fix the sugar crave, even though every part of my body told me that something was wrong. I ignored it. And it went away. Whatever it was either recovered, or was satisfied by the multitudes of healthy things I put into my body today (fruit and nut smoothie, cashew and honey sandwich, spinach and blueberries juice with ezekiel cereal, chia and sunflower seeds--i know sounds disgusting but SO healthy!, and leftovers from last night's dinner). And my intensive bike ride tonight proves that I don't need animal protein to be a good athlete, dammit!

And what a great feeling to know that I walked through the hardest part about giving up sugar (the withdrawals), and I'm still okay.

I'm Cocoa for Cocoa Puffs!!!

I woke up feeling like something was "missing". Do you ever get the feeling that you "need" protein, or you "need" a banana? Like, something is really wrong and you need to consume something in order to fix the feeling? Well, I feel like that right now. Usually my mind would go here: "Well, maybe this vegan diet is missing something...what if I'm lacking protein or essential minerals? What if I start to disappear???"

But I feel like that crack addict chocolate bird who is cocoa for cocoa puffs!!!

(And that's exactly what I would look like if I ate a bowl of cocoa puffs right now.)

Today I will make the assumption that this discomfort is a sugar craving, and I'm going to go out on a limb and NOT try to fix it. Just to see what happens. My smoothie this morning is practically all sugar...cherries, mango, bluberries, spinach, and some sprouted pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and almonds, and a little cacao powder and cinnamon. But usually I put a dash of agave nectar in my smoothie, which is no longer an option. If I still feel like this tomorrow morning, I'll have a protein shake (no sugar, but has whey).

Time to do a little research.

***

Well that wasn't very helpful.

Most articles focus on how to stop sugar cravings (gives a little sense of of our psychology, right? Just stop doing it without understanding it.)

One article suggests that when we stop ingesting seratonin-inducing things (like sweets), that even more receptors in the brain open up so that we can more efficiently collect what we crave. So maybe this is my body trying to get as much sugar as possible. But I kind of wanted a better explanation of the physical process at work to help me to walk through it. Like, say, it's just an insulin surge and will die down over the next 24 hours, or it's how the body feels when it detoxes.

Oh, well.

The truth hurts

Damn it!

"Wholesome...organic...raw..." Sounds like something I want in my body...not!

I just found this article about agave nectar and can no longer stay in denial.

The gist of this article:

1. Agave Nectar is not a "natural sweetener". It is converted from the agave plant much like high fructose corn syrup is converted from corn starch. ie. chemical processes. ie. highly refined.

2. Its fructose content is through the roof (more than HFCS!).

3. It's not "raw" even if it is labelled as such.

4. It is a newly created sweetener, developed in the 90's, and not an old traditional product made by the ancient Aztecs to promote health or any kind of b.s. like that.

5. According to the article linked above, "The body doesn't recognize fructose" and it is not found in nature (what the what?). Can we say 'free radical'?

Maybe this article is a little extreme...I'm sure agave nectar is better than HFCS. But still...

Before reading this article, I had just put a few drops of agave nectar in my blender as I made almond milk for a late night bowl of cereal. I just poisoned myself! Yuck! I'm throwing it away! But saving the bottle for a cool preschool art project!

Agave nectar...one more thing on my no-no list!

Other perspectives: anti , pro, in between.

Dinner...4 stars.

Well, the most colorful was this:

and surprisingly it turned out better than I expected. I just heated some canola oil, sauteed the sweet potatoes for a few minutes, added peas, corn (cheated!), and tomatoes, and some curry powder (just a tad), salt, and black pepper, and some veggie broth. I cooked it, open top, until the sweet potatoes were cooked through. I wish I could have cooked them softer but the other veggies would have overcooked.

The yellow split pea dhal turned out pretty good, too. I promised myself in one of the first posts here that I'd start following recipes, and I'm glad I did. Although it was just 4 stars (meaning I would eat it again, but would only be moderately excited to do so) it was better than what I would have made on my own. I added mustard seeds to the recipe, as well as fresh ginger, a piece of kombu and some aseofotida powder. Next time...less onion!


Brown long grain rice, with a pinch of white rice added at the end just to sweeten it up a little (I'm still getting used to the grainy brown rice flavor).

I'm really craving sugar today, which tells me that I'm probably doing well with not eating too much sugar the last 24 hours (otherwise why would I crave it). I'll have to eat an orange for dessert.

The China Study

I'm reading The China Study and I wanted to share some tidbits.

p. 6 "Low-protein diets inhibited the initiation of cancer by aflatoxin, regardless of how much of this carcinogen was administered...In other words, the cancer-producing effects of this highly carcinogenic chemical were rendered insignificant by a low-protein diet. In fact, dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and turn off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed...

But that's not all. We found that not all proteins had this effect. What protein consistently and strongly promoted cancer? Casein, which makes up 87% of cow's milk protein, promoted all stages of the cancer process. What type of protein did not promote cancer, even at high levels of intake? The safe proteins were from plants, including wheat and soy."

photo credits

p.7 "...among the many associations that are relevant to diet and disease [found in the study],

so many pointed to the same finding: people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse effects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease."

photo credits

p. 15 According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "physician error, medication error and adverse events from drugs or surgery kill 225,400 people per year...[making] our health care system the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind only cancer and heart disease."

photo credits

***

I will continue to post as I get more tidbits of info. The section of the book I'm on now is really heavy on the study design.

***

5 Vegan Chefs went out one day...

I really love watching cooking shows. But the more restricted my diet becomes, the less relevant these shows seem to me. I ran across this article and now have some chefs to follow!

: )

Friday Lunch and Dinner

I was feeling extra motivated this morning (thank you, french roast) so I made my lunch. Working from home, this seems redundant, but believe me, if I don't, lunch ends up being two bites of the kids' pasta and then maybe some crackers and almond butter while the kids sleep. So I made my salad before the preschool opened and stuck it in the fridge.

Ingredients:

Cherry tomatoes, halved

Carrot, shredded

Apple, shredded

Cucumber cubes (a third of an English cucumber)

Avocado, half, cubed

handful of sunflower seeds

A drizzle of shitake vinaigrette

SO GOOD. I should have used less cucumber, but hey, it's a very healthy ingredient, so whatever.

After eating the salad, I realized I need some grain so I toasted a piece of wheat bread and added some Earth Balance. It hit the spot.

The latest recommendation is 9 fruits and veggies per day. Let's see, did I get mine? I'll count backward: 9. Avocado, 8. Cherry tomatoes, 7. Cucumber, 6. Carrot, 5. Apple, 4. Banana*, 3. Frozen blueberries*, 2. Frozen mango*, 1. handful of baby spinach*. Wow, I just hit the mark, and that is me really trying.

*These were in my smoothie this morning, with soaked almonds, cacao powder, oats, ground flax seeds, cinnamon powder, ginger powder, and some honey. Gosh, I am grain deprived. And that would be what prompted my dinner.

And dinner would be these pancakes.

Adapted from this recipe, these pancakes promise flavor but not a good vegan feeling afterward. I eyeballed all of the ingredients, substituted almond milk for the soy (I'm 99% soy-free, remember), and substituted agave nectar for the sugar (cheating, but better than refined sugar! Well, is it?)

Okay, okay, I added Earth Balance margarine and a fine drizzle of maple syrup. Totally cheated on this one (there is soy in the margarine and the syrup might as well be sugar)!

And now I feel a little lousy so I wish I had used honey. Or nothing! The batter is so good I licked the spatula after pouring the batter from the blender into a saver bowl.

Really, really wished I had used honey. Pancake stomach!

Chef Chloe's sliders and fries

Thank you for the blog post, Chef Chloe!

First I made patties that were flat and not uniform and fell apart easily. What can I say, I'm not good at making hamburgers!

Then I realized that if I form balls and then gently flatten them, that would be much easier. So that's what I did.

The sweet potato french fries turned out great! I enlisted Tristan's help to cut the fries. Just toss them in salt and oil and stick them in the oven for twenty minutes or so. The recipe says to flip them but I don't really think it's necessary unless maybe you cut some big slices. Dipping them in mustard and mayo took away from the flavor of the sweet potatoes, so maybe another dipping sauce should be called for next time!

We topped the burgers with mango-avo-tomato sauce. Just blended some frozen mango, an avocado, and a little bit of salsa fresca and put a dollop or so on top of the burgers. The color is so-so, but the flavor is unexpectedly delicious. Might be worth a try to squeeze some lemon or lime juice in it next time.

And according to this guy:

you couldn't "taste the difference". I guess that's a compliment if we're looking to satisfy the vegan and the omnivore.

She's Ga-ga for her meat!

A meat bikini???

Gross.

Aqui Cal-Mex

I love this restaurant. Vegan is possible, and almost-vegan gives many options.

My almost vegan option tonight was their felafel roll up with a side of mango walnut salad with arugula and cranberries and vinaigrette. YUM.

Okay, this is not the photo of what I got. But it's pretty darn close. Imagine spinach inside the tortilla with falafel, cucumber, and a curry mayo sauce (that was the non-vegan part of the rollup). But my salad looked SO much better than in this photo. Actually, it called out at me in it's gorgeous healthfulness when I opened my styrofoam container and I scarfed it down.

I got my tooth drilled today so I couldn't feel most of my mouth (or throat) for hours. Once the feeling came back, I was starving! So this was the best thing I've eaten in years. No, in my life.

I could make my own version of this, right?

Is this going to turn into a blog about my personal life and meals? Lord, I hope not.