I’m buying all my makeup from here from now on…

December 8, 2008 · Filed under vegan skin care and beauty, what you *don't* have to give up · Tagged , ,

pinkquartzminerals.com

Remember when I said you didn’t have to give up having fun looking pretty when you go vegan?

I found some beautiful colors and an owner/colormixologist who gave me awesome customer service at PinkQuartzMinerals.

Doree really set me up.

I found her on the Etsy site– pinkquartzminerals.etsy.com.

I wrote her a question via Etsy and she responded nearly instantaneously. She answered my many additional questions quickly and courteously.

She mixed me up something custom but did not raise her extremely reasonable price. Her prices are great, she shipped very promptly, she offers samples, and her colors are GORGEOUS.

And I was very, very satisfied with my little custom color. It was for a costume, and I felt as gorgeous as one can feel when one’s skin is, well, it’s not easy being green, but she made it easy, I felt so pretty and the makeup was so light I hated to take it off. And I was GREEN.

I am also very satisfied with the lovely colors of eyeshadow and the bronzer color I chose. She suggested some foundations and I can’t wait to try those out.

Doree, you are the best.

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It’s too bad I can’t cook (or, black bean enchiladas)

December 2, 2008 · Filed under I don't actually like vegetables, family meals, kid pleaser, mexican, sweet potatoes, yum! · Tagged , ,

I really, really need to find another tagline.

I first encountered black bean enchiladas/burritos with the extra flavor and nutrition kick of sweet potatoes in Leanne Ely’s awesome Saving Dinner cookbook. It sounded gross to me but we had enjoyed nearly every recipe from that book so I decided to trust her and try it.

They can be enchiladas or burritos… I think I make them up as burritos, with no sauce and no baking, just cause I’m too lazy to take those later steps. Green chile and soy sour cream sauce and other additions for these that I find as I surf the internet for recipes sound appetizing… but I get so darn hungry.

My husband doesn’t like ‘em so much, but I adore them, and I adore the nutrition.

I love to serve them with a big bowl of Leanne Ely’s depression fighting, attitude adjusting, no winter weight gaining, cancer stopping veggie soup done up Mexican style. For my nonvegan friends I throw some real cheese on top of or inside the burritos/enchiladas. But they are nutritionally complete on their own.

I am a recent convert, so I am not raising my child vegan, just asking her to taste what I make and adding this or that if it will get her to try new things. Vegan is weird anyway… and then, we do eat a lot of exotic food. Middle Eastern, Indian and Mexican foods are not always that kid-friendly.

So when I am feeding kids I add even more cheese and call them ‘cheesy burritos’ or ‘cheesy enchiladas’.

You can get away with a lot, with kids, just by adding the word ‘cheesy’ to the name of the food.

And then all they see is the cheese, and they don’t really even have time to say ‘ew’. It’s just so good, by the time they take the required one bite (especially if you were smart enough to let them get good and hungry before supper) it’s too late.

They’re already hooked on something that’s also good for them.

Tonight I used this recipe from chef #788844 on Recipezaar:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Sweet-Potato-Black-Bean-Enchiladas-292128

But I did NOT use corn (that just seems like a bit too much) or green chiles (didn’t have any).

I cut up and boiled a huge sweet potato skin-on in hopes of preserving some of the nutrients lost when you peel.

I used my food processor to chop up a big onion nice and fine, not into a paste, but small. I sauteed that for a bit in olive oil, added a couple teaspoons of minced garlic, a can of black beans and the amounts of cumin chili powder and coriander called for. I let it cook for a bit just to be sure, but in the end I decided it needed more salt and chili powder. So you could add those a little at a time if you wanted, til it tasted good to you.

I used small tortillas and got about 15 or 16 little enchiladas out of them. I made a small pan with no green enchilada sauce for the little one.

I thought longingly of Karina’s recipe for homemade green chile sauce for her prizewinning enchiladas here,

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/budgetrecipechallenge/recipe2.php

but just dumped green enchilada sauce sparingly on mine so they wouldn’t be too hot.

It is not necessary to use soy analogs, as my husband calls them. A lot of people are against them for various reasons. A lot of vegan cheeses are YUCKY. But I need to buy stock in Tofutti- I love so many of their products, and I love these burritos with a smear of their guacamole-flavored Better than Sour Cream.  

Cooked sweet potatoes are an awesome food for infants/toddlers– my friend’s baby eats them like crazy and my child ate them like crazy and still does at five– just mashed with a bit of butter, or cut up into cubes.  They are very nonallergenic (sorry, not sure how to say that correctly) and they are such a wonderful whole food. 

I keep them on hand and feed them to my friend’s baby every chance I get. I use every sweet potato recipe I can find that sounds even remotely good. I veganize non vegan recipes– believe me, Kim without her sweet potato pie is not a pretty thing. And the hummingbird cake– HEAVEN! 

Sweet potatoes are supposed to be a fertility booster too– that was the original reason I started forcing myself to find every possible way to actually eat them myself, as opposed to just giving them to the little one.

But now fertility isn’t so much an issue… and I just love sweet potatoes. They are awesome in so many ways.   YUM!

So give this one a try. Hop it up any way you’d like.  If you’re put off by the sweet potato thing at first, just smother it with cheese, make up that homemade chile sauce, or use my favorite Better Than Sour Cream. Green salsa mixed with Better Than Sour Cream is darn good too.

I wish you many benefits to your health, your family’s health, your karma, and a healthier environment as we step away from factory farming for meat dairy and eggs– not only insanely cruel to animals but also making us very sick.

Enjoy! Salud! Skal!

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Melamine– yet another reason

November 22, 2008 · Filed under Here's Why...

Melamine is used in animal feeds and has turned up in everything from pet food to ice cream to chocolate to baby formula.

Much of the recent hype has come from our favorite evildoer of late, China. But contamination has been reported in the US and Canada in feed used for fish farming and formula, desserts and candy containing milk and dairy byproducts.

I don’t endorse everything Dr. Mercola says or sells but he does offer a lot of interesting and documented facts.

He supports purchasing from local farmers, as I do. However, local farmers, no matter how conscientious, cannot be sure that they aren’t using feed laced with dangerous chemicals.

Bottom line, for me: You don’t get mad cow disease from veggie products. You don’t get melamine from veggie products.

I suppose if China can ship melamine to US pet food manufacturers labeled wheat gluten and rice protein, then even being vegan won’t keep us completely safe. But from what I have read so far, melamine makes you sick when you are using products in everyday, industrially processed foods. The farther back down the food chain you can do, using the least processed foods possible, the better off you are.

Here’s Dr. Mercola’s article on melamine, from today’s newsletter:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/22/deceptive-protein-toxin-is-becoming-more-widely-spread-in-your-food.aspx

‘Deceptive “Protein” Toxin is Becoming More Widely Spread in Your Food

protein, toxin, toxic, food, melamine, contamination, china

First baby milk formula, then dairy-based products from yogurt to chocolate, and now chicken eggs have been contaminated with melamine.

An admission that the industrial chemical is regularly added to animal feed in China has fueled fears that the problem could be more widespread, affecting fish, meat and possibly many other foods.

Melamine is rich in nitrogen, which means that it gives low-quality food and feed artificially high protein readings. But extremely high levels of melamine can cause kidney stones, and in some cases can bring on life-threatening kidney failure.

However, there have been no tests on melamine’s precise effects in humans.

Until the contaminated baby formula became public in a few months ago, there was never any reason to. The situation has left consumers worldwide, particularly parents, worried about food products from China, and even those made elsewhere with ingredients imported from Chinese companies.
Sources:

* ABC News October 31, 2008

Horrendous Health Threat Inside Your Body?
Find Out More

Dr. Mercola Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

In the wake of the tainted dairy scandal, Chinese authorities are now admitting that the use of melamine — an industrial chemical — as filler in animal feed (which is also exported abroad) is a widespread practice. At this point there’s really no telling what, or how much, of your food might therefore contain this hazardous material.

In May of 2007, reports surfaced that Canadian-made fish feed for farmed fish had been contaminated, and the use of melamine in chicken feed is the cause for this latest contamination found in eggs from China’s leading egg producer, Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group.

Melamine has become a popular profit booster because it shows up as a protein in some tests used to determine the nutritional value of a foodstuff.

Manufacturers use the compound to make their products appear more nutritious.

In 2007, melamine contaminated material labeled as wheat gluten and rice protein was shipped from Chinese manufacturers to pet food companies in the U.S. and elsewhere. Thousands of pets died from renal failure as a result.

I find it baffling that toxicity experts would dare insinuate that this dangerous material would not likely sicken humans, despite the fact that at least four babies have died, and some 54,000 have been hospitalized from contaminated infant formula and milk products.

Since when are children not considered humans?

They claim the amount of the chemical in most foods, such as meat products, for example, would be too low to cause harm. But in reality, they have NO IDEA whether or not melamine might cause serious health effects in humans, besides renal failure – which in and of itself is bad enough, if you ask me.

What is Melamine?

Normally used in the manufacture of plastic and fertilizers, melamine is a compound composed of nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen. It was invented in the 1830s by a German scientist, and became a fashionable material for plastic household goods and laminates in the late 1930s.

When combined with formaldehyde and exposed to extreme heat, melamine creates a moldable material that is virtually unbreakable once cooled.

And therein lies the most obvious health problem.

As explained in a recent article in the journal Eurosurveillance:

“Melamine, when associated with cyanuric acid, can cause renal failure by the formation of insoluble melamine cyanurate crystals in renal tubules and/or the formation of calculi in kidneys, ureter, urethra or the urinary bladder. These calculi are a mixture of melamine, protein, uric acid and phosphate and as such are distinct from other kidney stones.”

Cyanuric acid is a white, odorless solid, used as a component in bleaches, disinfectants, and herbicides.

The FDA also permits a certain amount of cyanuric acid to be present in some non-protein nitrogen (NPN) additives used in animal feed and drinking water. In water, cyanuric acid is mainly used as a precursor to N-chlorinated cyanurates, which are used as disinfectants.

When melamine combines with the cyanuric acid, it forms fine, insoluble, and unbreakable little “plastic stones,” which your body cannot dispose of.

Additionally, there is evidence that melamine is carcinogenic under conditions that produce bladder stones in animals. And yet they insist that this compound is more or less harmless to humans.

In the European Union, the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of melamine is 0.5 mg/kg body weight, even though studies to evaluate the real risks of melamine on human health are lacking.

Symptoms of Melamine Toxicity

China and other countries like Canada and the U.S. have reported melamine contamination of milk-containing products, including infant formula, commercially sold milk, frozen yogurt dessert, coffee creamer, ice-cream, chocolate, toffees, cookies and candies.

The following symptoms have been observed in infants affected by infant formula laced with high amounts of melamine:

* Unexplained fever arising from urinary tract infections
* Unexplained crying in infants, especially when urinating, possible vomiting
* Small amounts of blood in the urine
* Acute obstructive renal failure
* Pain on urinating, and passage of stones while urinating
* High blood pressure
* Edema
* Pain over the kidneys

It would certainly be wise to visit your physician if your child exhibits any of these symptoms. The melamine “stones” will show up on x-rays.

There are also an estimated 27 million Americans suffering from chronic kidney disease, who would want to take extra precautions with the foods they consume, in light of this disturbing contamination trend.

Bottom Line

The bottom line here is: know where your food comes from and how it’s produced. This may sound like an impossible task, and in many cases it will be. Particularly if you depend on processed and commercially farmed foods.

However, if you purchase your raw dairy, grass-fed meats, and free-range eggs from local farmers that adhere to organic farming practices, you can eliminate much of these worries since their livestock must be put out to pasture and eat what God intended for most part of the year, instead of relying on potentially contaminated animal feed.

This reference page contains links to a long list of organizations that can help you find local sources for high quality organic foods.’

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Cosmetics can be vegan too

November 10, 2008 · Filed under Reality (at least my reality) and veganism, vegan skin care and beauty, what you *don't* have to give up · Tagged , , ,

I have to pick on somebody besides Sarah Palin in my tag line now, don’t I. I can’t think of that right now, though.

I will say this much. Poor thing. I actually feel sorry for McCain and Palin… but I still ordered lots of post-win Obama stickers from Moveon.org. Heh.

Anyway. A friend of mine said the other day, but I would have thought you would have stopped shaving your legs.

WHAT? I shave them every day, in the shower. It’s faster that way, never a huge ordeal, over with, no worries. Why?

In Alabama we wear open toed shoes about 9 months out of the year, even to work. It is actually stated in my employer’s dress code that open toes are okay. It took me a while to get used to it– but I finally caved.

And hose, even though they are recommended in my employer’s dress code, are a BIG, BIG, NO, NO with open toed shoes. And they age you. My mama told me so. And they’re made with petrochemicals/fossil fuel byproducts, too. Aren’t they? Yuck.

So back to what going vegan does not have to mean.

So this isn’t about food. But it is about what you DON’T have to give up just because you go vegan. Therefore it does fit under our title Vegan Without Cruelty.

Just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean you give up being sucked into other sorts of consumer and marketing scams like beauty products.

I don’t dye my hair any more– I do kind of draw the line at that kind of alteration of my natural looks. I miss it, I miss it bad. I look at the photos from my baby’s first Christmas and my hair just looks so darn good. I can’t stand it. I am so much prettier a dark, almost-black ash brunette.

But… well… it just seems wrong.  Maybe later if i can find some good cruelty free plant based dye and get the guts to try it at home and be ready to live with the consequences if it turns out green – either walking around with green hair or paying the wonderful lady who cuts my hair a BUNCH O MONEY to fix it. After she recovers from laughing her butt off at me.

In our last town I had the best stylist in the whole wide world… she cost a pretty penny for the insanely cool, edgy dyejob and cuts she gave me… but her prices were quite good considering her amazing ability and my extreme satisfaction. But when I moved here I just stopped going to her. When you have someone great you just can’t bring yourself to try something new sometimes. I love the lady who cuts my hair– she is AWESOME too. But I haven’t ventured into color since I ‘lost’ her.  

I want a tattoo real bad too. The only reason I don’t do that is because I am just plain chicken.

So breathe a sigh of relief. You don’t have to give up your shitty self-image and stop altering yourself or stop expensive slathering product all over yourself to go vegan. I haven’t. In fact, I just started, and I am loving it.

Although as I’ve noted before, I dropped 30 lb going vegan– a huge self image boost. But I’m also pushing forty and getting anxious about beauty– skinny don’t stop aging (okay so vegan might actually slow it, honestly!) and it certainly can’t fix ugly (sorry, Tater Salad).

So from my other blog, devoted to bargain hunting and saving time and money…

“I can’t believe I just did this. I just spent 45 bucks on Ecco Bella’s anti aging day cream and eye nutrients cream. But if I’d paid full price it would have been sixty four bucks– plus shipping.

Vitacost.com had a deal where you could get both for around forty dollars, their standard shipping is only $4.99.

I have Ecco Bella Eyeliner and Mascara, and I shit you not, their mascara is the BEST EVER. Plus it comes with a little mirror right on the tube, how AWESOME is that?

I’ve been needing an eye cream BAD. Concealer settles into the tiny wrinkles around my eyes– which would probably be invisible if I didn’t use concealer, but if I don’t use concealer I look like death. I actually scared myself the other day, caught unawares as I peered into the mirror to begin my morning primp.

The beautiful boy at The Body Shop in Atlanta told me the solution was a good eye cream, and my mom told me the solution is a concealer brush. So now I’ll have both.

The daily moisturizer I use– Beauty Without Cruelty with Alpha Hydroxy– well I ADORE it and I’ll probably buy some more of it but BWC AHA does not have SPF in it at all. It’s better, actually, for places that get scaly– not eczema, just trouble spots, you don’t need me to share with you which spots I’m talking about, believe me. It also seems to reduce the appearance of cellulite (okay that’s a hint, right?)  

And LORD, I thought BWC was expensive!

But there’s an AWESOME sale on BWC on drugstore.com and you can get free shipping if you order enough stuff.

I usually buy my skincare stuff with joint account funds– that is, money  my husband and I both contribute for shared bills. But the Ecco Bella, even with the huge savings, I just felt too guilty, and I bought it out of my own little nest egg.

On to drugstore.com… free shipping if you order enough, though their Peaceful Patchouli deodorant is 1/3 more expensive (6.29 or something) than on amazon.com (4.15 or something), I think the shipping savings makes up for it.

And one last frivolous purchase– in a strange twist since my extremely redneck and intolerant 20’s and early 30’s, I now love anything patchouli or sandalwood. But my little girl hates Kiss My Face Peaceful Patchouli Moisture Soap. 

One day she came to me just after washing her hands and I said you smell good. She said, I used the soap in the green bottle you had on your sink. That was the remnants of a bottle of Lush’s Tramp, watered down to stretch out what was left for hand washing.

My little’un has complained so many times– do I HAVE to use Kiss My Face?– that I determined to buy her some more Tramp. (I’ll defer telling her what Tramp means).

It is vegan, although the last time I looked it does contain SLS  unfortunately. But how often do we use it, and just on our hands… I went ahead and got her some, with my own funds from my own little nest egg as well. The shipping for it was slightly cheaper on Amazon… Lush has free shipping for orders over $100 but I don’t see myself spending $100 on anything at all any time soon.

I have on my wish list on amazon a book about make-at-home organic skin care. I may grab that some time soon. Wonder if what I make out of there will be cheaper or have results as nice as the stupidly expensive stuff I buy now?

Also I feel bad about adding to landfill problems. Those products are sold in teeny tiny little containers, so you run out quick, and have to toss the container, which may or may not be recyclable… I need to get that book. I will.

After I enjoy my Ecco Bella, BWC and Lush…

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iron skillet

October 21, 2008 · Filed under kitchen tools and techniques

I used to be an iron skillet snob.

We had them around the house when I was growing up and I hated them. That’s because I was the one who had to do the dishes. So heavy!

But years later I saw a boyfriend’s mom frying chicken in one and that was about the time I started cooking for company in earnest and I got mine seasoned up and never looked back.

I don’t know why I quit. It’s been years– I’ve dragged two around with me through  move after move, shoving them into the back of my pots and pans cabinet, improperly seasoned, useless, ugly, f-ing HEAVY.

And I don’t know why I started again, either. Probably because lately if it appears involved and difficult I want to try it.

And it’s not difficult or involved.  

Get it good and greasy, and good and hot, don’t be afraid of a little smoke! Scrub it with salt on a dishcloth instead of soap and steel wool.

I cook everything in them now. I am throwing away my dangerous, carcinogenic, poisonous nonstick stuff. Nasty.

The only thing they haven’t worked out for is baking. But anything stovetop, I mean anything. Saute to pasta to pancakes. My pancakes are flawless (and vegan of course).

I don’t know how much impact the iron that comes from cast iron cooking has on my and my family’s wellness. I hope it helps some, ’specially since I’m vegan.

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A little strange, DAMN good

October 21, 2008 · Filed under cookbooks · Tagged

My parents got me Veganomicon for Christmas. My husband made one recipe from it, which was different and just delicious, and then it disappeared. How you lose a fat white heavy cookbook I dunno. But I cleaned my upstairs office/craft room when my mom came to stay this summer and it reappeared.

For a debate party a couple of weeks ago I made the beanball subs, except I put the beanballs, marinara and pine nut cream on slices of french bread brushed with olive oil and garlic like bruschetta.  Oh, my gosh. I was craving that again so bad almost the minute I stopped eating it, but I ran out of french bread and without that it wasn’t the same. (CM, if you go to Costco tomorrow will you bring me some? Don’t make an extra trip though, it’s almost as good on the bread I already have here.)

So I made those again this weekend and we had them for supper last night. DAMN. I’m tempted to go make a couple up for a before bed snack. I know I’d be sorry though. Maybe for breakfast.  

Saturday night my poor husband was getting ready to fly out for a work trip at six thirty Sunday morning. He had just gotten home Friday night. Poor guy! He loves artichoke hearts, and we have basil growing in our garden, so I made spinach linguine with basil cilantro pesto and artichoke hearts.

HOLY. COW.

This was an incredible thing.

She says right at the start of the recipe that you’ll be craving it all the time.

It’s a very original, unexpected taste, to say the least. And it is SO. GOOD. So rich and flavorful. The faint nutty sweetness of the almonds, the just right al dente noodles coated in just a little olive oil and sauteed in the basil cilantro pesto with thin slices of red onion… I’ll just be honest. it was better than dammit.

I hate artichoke hearts, so those were all his, but I don’t think it would be as good without at least the whisper of their flavor, even if I did push them all to the side and refuse to even taste one.

I think it’s safe to say that Isa Chandra Moskowitz’ trademark is the unexpected, flavorful, textureful delicious. If there were more like her in the world we’d all be vegan, for no reason other than that it just tastes so damn good!

I worship her, her partners, the lady who does fatfreevegan.com and the lady who does shmooed food and … lots of nameless folks whose recipes are so good and available to me on the internet. Because without them, the food ethics that are so important to me would be nearly impossible for me to put into practice. 

Okay, okay, it’s nearly impossible now, but that’s my fault for succumbing to the occasional dairy pizza or Costco cake– but there are so many delicious vegan recipes out there and I am just so thankful because it does mean so much to me. And so does cooking, cooking cooking delicious, wonderful, interesting food! And I have a compulsion, no matter how exhausted I am, to share that food with people. So you want to be my friend. You really do. You do, that is, if you don’t mind things that are, well, different. Let me win you over with the insanely delicious desserts and baked goods. That’s what hooked me in. We’ll go from there.

Then today I spent a good part of the day cooking lentil tacos and the awesome veggie burgers from Vegan with a Vengeance. I was out of dijon mustard though (my husband, in a stunning display of helpfulness, completely cleaned our fridge long enough, and it was out of date so out it went), so couldn’t finish them. Tomorrow maybe.

To top it all off, I made two double layer pumpkin cheesecakes from fatfreevegan.com. That’s why I’m still up, waiting for the last one to finish baking. Who’m I kidding? I’m still up because I am getting old. But Mm. Mm. They will be so good tomorrow. I kick it up a notch though, in my own special way. I’ll let you guess what the secret flavor is. Heh. 

For craft night I hope to make at least a half recipe of sweet basil tapenade from Veganomicon, and cannellini bruschetta. I looooove having that basil and rosemary growing fresh in my yard!

Now if I could just figure out how to make a vegan version of the maple-adobo pork chops or barbecued chicken and the rosemary-cheesy-red oniony corn bread that were once one of my signature meals… 

I got my Dirty South vegan cookbook and my Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World in the mail the other day. I’m afraid to crack them because I know I’ll have to cook from them right away. This, to me, is porn. Or a World of Warcraft quest. It will suck me in. Now I just need Skinny Bitch in the Kitch and the cookbooks I ordered by Elena Zelayeta– I’m thinking I can use her Mexican fried chicken recipe for tofu, mmm, mmm! and I’ll be in business for true.

Yes, my kitchen was a mess. And yes, it is almost completely clean now. Read ‘em and weep.

Read and weep also at what time it is. I’m going to have to force myself to go to bed, because I have to get up early, dammit. That is, I want to get up early so I can have a little me time before I get the baby up and take us off to school and work. The grind begins anew.  At least I have yummy food to come home to.

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the girlfriends talk about nutrition and such…

September 24, 2008 · Filed under Community Supported Agriculture, I don't actually like vegetables, Reality (at least my reality) and veganism, Slow Food, creating a community of like minded foodies, family meals

It’s a recycled email post and for that I apologize. We’ve been talking about Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable Miracle, Community Supported Agriculture, kids and husbands who won’t eat what we fix when we try to do something healthier for our bodies, our karma and our planet, and how you balance nutrition with reasonable convenience for a busy family with doing what’s right for our environment and local farmers and our budget.

But the email covers a lot of my thoughts about the whole vegan thing. It means a lot to me but I try not to be a Nazi… more below.

Haha, I was so happy J forwarded these emails right away, because I am so excited about Community Supported Agriculture, and I love the frontier-like challenge of eating what is actually local and in season, and so, well…

Butternut squash? I can see how to make a wonderful creamy soup or ravioli with dairy and white wheat flour (another item I try so hard to steer clear of, but it is so hard when I LOVE to bake!).
 
But I can’t imagine, you know, squash without lots of stuff to, well, take away the taste. ;-) I used to LOVE to make crookneck squash casserole– you know, with lots of butter, cheese, and ritz crackers on top? Not exactly vegan, but very country. I’m not sure how to approach squash, now. My mom breaded and fried squash and zucchini. I guess that’s an option. I sure thought it was nasty, growing up, though. It probably still is. But all those idiot grownups loved it. NASTY!
 
M, I’m sorry your husband isn’t more supportive. I know you already have to put up with a lot as a lifelong vegetarian.
 
 I am so lucky that way, not bragging, just saying very humbly that eating and enjoying together as a family means a lot to me, and it wouldn’t be much fun if my husband wasn’t so good about eating ethnic food– Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Mexican, Indian, we’re even branching into Ethiopian now– all lend themselves to vegan and don’t necessarily  have to have weird tofu/soy/analog ingredients. I have a lot to be grateful for.

And… I cheat, too. We eat a considerable amount of Taco Bell, Papa John’s, and Brusters, and I can’t turn down Kim’s Macaroni and Cheese or Costco cake, whenever I can get C to get me one! I don’t believe in wasting food– especially if it was prepared or offered with love. When spending time with people I care about that’s more important to me than being strictly vegan.
 
Vegan cooking– not just vegan, but tasty and nourishing and complete vegan meals that anyone can enjoy, that are not a compromise or a step down from a ‘real’ meal– that is my passion, so for me it is easy and worthwhile, but it’s also a lot of work and our culture makes it so hard!! Even if I don’t use animal products, I am perfectly fine with y’all using them, because i know you are just as concerned about health and quality and what really constitutes nutrition and your children’s wellbeing and how our eating habits effect the earth and our karma and our local economy.

My latest thoughts on that, though, are in the book Farm Sanctuary. I do hope we can make our way toward an animal free diet eventually. But then I think of never, ever having another bite of ham, or Thanksgiving turkey again… I don’t know. I don’t want it in my daily life, but to never, ever, ever have another Big Mac?
 
I met with an old lady friend this week, a local author and old school democrat, in with all the Civil Rights heroes in town…  She has so many wonderful stories, she has hooked me up with introductions with so many neat people, and I love her so much. She’d dropped out of sight for a while, she’s sick of being hard of hearing and having to navigate that with hearing people, she moved around town several times after losing her place when they closed the Standard Club to develop the golf course into a ‘gated community’… she lost her aged mother after years of having to care for her pretty intensively… She has landed on her feet and I went to see her in her new (old) place on Saturday (where she lived from age 14 til she married)– the place looked so lovely and ladylike, just like her, and she fixed me a chicken salad sandwich and damn right I ate it. I didn’t say a damn word. I love her that much! I felt sick for a day or two, but it was worth it.  It’s the first time I ate meat since Kim’s baby shower! Those ham and cream cheese rollups were just too good. 
 
My husband wishes I would go organic/cruelty free dairy– if I would do that, he says he’d go vegetarian. I still feel a bit bad though about using animal products– not sure how I’ll resolve that– by being sure that I find a cruelty free egg farm and a cruelty free dairy farm I guess– talk about jumping through my ass!

But even those places eventually send their animals for slaughter, I think… and the toll on the environment… I still struggle with the idea that we aren’t baby cows, too. I dunno. And I do feel that agriculture on a local scale, plant or animal, is soooo much better for the environment as well as for the animals and our own bodies, that if anything will push me over the edge Community Supported Agriculture will.  
 
As far as the kid/kids, I just committed to what I wanted to serve, and went for it. I do the cooking. You eat or be hungry. It’s a challenge to me to find yummy things to eat that aren’t too weird that kids will still like.
 
I wish I could find where I read this statistic, but kids have to taste something like 100 or 1000 times before they begin to like it. And I remember– I hated EVERY SINGLE THING my mom cooked when I was growing up, except tacos, spaghetti, my granny’s quail pot pies made while my grandpa was still raising hunting dogs and bird hunting (mmm, mmm! just don’t break your tooth on a stray piece of buckshot!) and empanadas. Oh, Gawd, she used to actually put spaghetti sauce on spaghetti squash. Disgusting!  

She had to hide a lot of stuff in jell-o to get me to eat it. Now when I think of how jell-o is made–eeeyech!  
I hated onions. I hated mustard. I hated anything salty. I hated legumes of any sort, or anything that actually required chewing, like raw apples or carrot, or anything sour like vinegary dressings. My mom got so mad!!  I hated veggies.

I tell my kids that all the time– I still hate them but at some point you have to make the decision to eat what is right for your body and your brain / emotional /spiritual development. I mostly still hate veggies but you can hide them in flavorful, stickto-your-ribs vegan cooking and still get the nutrition– I LOVE MY FOOD PROCESSOR!. And now I love mustard, love vinegary dressings, olive oil on pasta with veggies and white wine… I don’t see me headed for a raw food diet any time soon though.
 
I read several pediatrician’s opinions that kids eat when they’re hungry, and they’ll be okay if they don’t want to eat what you serve, and aside from some truly healthy alternatives you can feel good about — I tell my stepkids they can have unlimited fruit, for example, all day long– if they don’t like it too bad, kitchen’s closed!  
 
So I tell my five year old, you don’t have to like it, but you do have to taste it. If I know something is truly gross for a little kid, I only require tasting… if I know it’s not gross– I make some perfectly acceptable pastas and sauces and veggie burgers on some darn good homemade rolls– I set a goal, like, five bites if you want your ice cream, or whatever. Someday… she’ll be more comfortable with those choices, and if not– well when she’s paying the bills she can eat all the spaghettios with franks she wants, but maybe I will have postponed leukemia or cancer for a little longer, anyway. 
 
I’m trying to find ways to communicate that, yes, okay, it’s a bit of extra work but it doesn’t have to be a total miserable impossibility for normal people and it doesn’t require perfectionism to be a success or to be enjoyable and worthwhile.
 
I can’t wait for our Animal Vegetable Miracle discussion! Or CSA/Slow Food supper, or whatever!

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The Best (I mean it) Lentil Tacos

September 15, 2008 · Filed under family meals, kid pleaser, meat eater pleasers, party possibilities

These are so good. They’re not my recipe, they’re from vegweb.com, submitted by sheenarose, 7/10/06.

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=12306.0

I pretty much dispense with the vegan version of cheese cause my husband has a prejudice (as I once had, myself)– if you want to eat cheese, why eat fake cheese, why not just eat cheese? Yep, back when I ate lotsa Big Macs it used to tick me off to think there might be soy in my animal products. How funny is that? Now it ticks me off that there might be animal products in my vegetarian food!

So I love these with, if I can get it, even if it is an imitation of an animal product, Tofutti’s Sour Supreme Guacamole flavor. They should pay me for telling everyone how good that stuff is. MMM, MMM. Then lettuce, tomato, and green salsa. If I can’t get Sour Supreme Guacamole flavor, these are still darn tasty with just the green salsa.

I use the Sam’s Choice Garlic and Lime tomato salsa, if I remember right, in the lentils themselves, and some other Wal Mart brand green salsa, and they are still darn good.

Yes, I do shop at Wal Mart. I shop there a lot.

Bad hysterical activist.

I hope I get points for the fact that I spend almost as much money at our locally owned health food stores buying weirdo vegan ingredients.

From vegweb.com

submitted by sheenarose

The Best Lentil TacosIngredients (use vegan versions):

1 cup finely chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon canola oil
1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup salsa
12 taco shells or small tortillas (for soft tacos)
1 1/2 cups shredded lettuce
1 cup chopped fresh tomato
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded soy cheddar cheese

Directions:

In a large nonstick skillet, sauté the onion and garlic in oil until tender. Add the lentils, chili powder, cumin and oregano; cook and stir for 1 minute. Add broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the lentils are tender.

Uncover, cook for 6-8 minutes or until mixture is thickened. Mash lentils slightly. Stir in salsa. Spoon about 1/4 cup into each taco shell (or tortilla).

Top with lettuce, tomato, and cheese. Enjoy!

*I got this recipe from a friend and it is one of my favorites!! These tacos are SO good!! =)

Serves: 6

Preparation time: 40 minutes (total)

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Reason #27 to Buy Vegan with a Vengeance

September 15, 2008 · Filed under cookbooks, family meals, meat eater pleasers, party possibilities

Isa Chandra Moskowitz made it all possible for me with Vegan with a Vengeance.

Okay, thinking my dad went vegan and panicking over what to cook for him when he came to visit (he really only went vegetarian, but the end justifies the means, right?) made it all possible.

And Skinny Bitch pushed me over the edge. Of course the word ’skinny’ grabbed me, but the book is not just about bullshit ridiculous body image issues in this nation– it is about nutrition, and animal cruelty- if all you care about is what you look like this may not be the book for you. But if you care about your health, the environment, animal cruelty, your emotional wellbeing, and last and least looking hot (or at least hot-er), it’s a must.

But back to Isa. Her book helped me realize that you can eat really, really yummy vegan food– you don’t have to starve to death, and you don’t always have to work your ass off. Thank you, I love you.

Some of the recipes do require some work and odd ingredients, okay, but those are sooooo worth it. And many are cheap easy, and simply rock.

I don’t have permission to post her recipes, but many of them are available on the internet for free at Post Punk Kitchen. 

How do I love this cook book, let me count the ways. One of the recipes I come back to over, and over, and over again, is Veggie Burgers, page 96. I’m making them today.

In order of importance, here are the reasons you should try this recipe.

1. They are approved by some of my favorite meat-eating taste testers. 

2. They are easy if you have even the smallest, cheapest food processor.

3. With the exception of a small amount of Textured Vegetable Protein, they are completely whole food and don’t require weird ingredients.

4. You can make them mostly ahead, which takes 20-30 minutes, and refrigerate the cooked mix 24 hours or so until time to make up patties, fry and serve.

5. They’re damn good for you, but if you want to add even more nutriton– hard to imagine, when they’re already so good for you– or if you have some hard to please kids in the audience, chop up and bake some sweet potato fries, page 114.  The seasoning on them is kinda like that orange stuff they put on Arby’s curly fries– do they make those any more?– oh, but without the beef tallow sprayed all over them to make them taste so damn good.  

I make homemade sweet potato rolls to serve them on. This does take a bit of extra time, but less than you’d think. The recipe is easy. I put out spinach, mustard, ketchup, real cheese for the dairy eaters, and you know, whatever else goes on your family’s burgers. YUMMMMM!

There are a few caveats.

I don’t use liquid smoke. I’ve heard it’s nasty, and these guys are so good I don’t think it’s needed. That’s up to you.

She says they make 6 burgers– I have found that they fall apart on me if I make them too large, so I make them smaller and make my rolls smaller to serve them on.

Cook them at a pretty high temp, longer than what she says– if they brown a bit longer, they stick together better. Cause they can turn out a bit sloppy joe-ish, still patties but a bit soft, not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I don’t care because they are sooooo goooood!

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