New Year's Eve, at around 11:50pm, I was sitting on the ground on an old comforter with 2 sleeping dogs and 1 sleeping husband surrounding me. Ears and bums were scratched (dogs) and husband was poked every few minutes to keep him awake until midnight (not working). At 11:59pm, I shook C awake, waited, and wished everyone a happy new year! We got up to go to bed and I noticed that the clock I was watching was fast! Ugh! I had 3 minutes left. Oh well, this bought me one last chance at non-vegan treats. I am ashamed to say that at 11:59pm, I was eating as much Greek Yogurt as I could get into my mouth! I regret nothing. I stopped before the clock struck twelve and with one tick of the clock, I was now a vegan for the next month.
I woke up the next morning, after a well deserved sleep in (both hubs and the dogs shared that sentiment) feeling motivated and excited for a new year! I just have to interject here that as I type this (C is at boxing and America's Next top Model is on in the background), Maggie is snoring so loudly that I can barely hear myself think! She is laying in Butter's little bed like a cooked turkey. Hilarious! Back to the story...
So, up and motivated, it was breakfast time! Slow cooked oatmeal with chopped dried apricots. Hearty and tasty.
C and I sat at the table with some fresh brewed coffee and discussed our plans for the new year. While I've never really made resolutions in the past (I believe changes should be made as needed, not once a year), we chatted about what improvements we'd like to make over the next year. We decided on some key mutual goals that we'd like to achieve.
Here is our list:
1) Eat clean(er) - vegan month (incorporate more vegan all the time)
2) Make and follow a workout schedule
- M: Lose 7lbs, be bikini ready for Cuba trip (gym 6 days per week)
-C: get in shape for Cuba; fight ready by spring
3) Walk and play with the dogs more
4) Read more books (add books to my Kindle)
5) Do our budgets on time: save $ ahead of time and plan better
6) Plan house projects: execute them on a timeline (we have major building to do)
What do you think? Do you have some similar goals? Completely different?
Feel free to share some of your resolutions.
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| first vegan meal |
I'm thinking that the vegan foods we/I ate for day 1 were pretty boring and not worth posting, so, onto Day 2! Well, I already had oatmeal waiting, so I switched it up by topping it with some raw almond pieces and maple syrup (honey is off limits). I thought to balance this off, I would make smoothies: almond milk, frozen strawberries, and fresh cranberries. A fresh coffee with almond milk and I was set to start the day. Off to the gym!
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| smoothie in the making |
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| vegan breakfast, yum! |
After the gym, I made a trip to Bulk Barn with a coupon in my hot little hands. If I was going to experiment with vegan cooking, as opposed to just cutting up some veggies for my meals, I was going to need some new ingredients. I washed out some containers (hey, reduce, reuse, recycle!) and made labels. Once I have a real pantry, I plan to do it up like Michael Smith's on his show Chef at Home with everything in clear glass Mason/canning jars. Oh, just seeing raw cashews in a washed out pasta sauce jar made me giddy!
So, here is what I bought: raw cashews (they cost me an arm and a leg - good thing veggies are cheap - they will be used to make fake cheese sauces and for snacking), sprouted grain bread (sprouted grains are recommended on many vegan sites), nutritional yeast (again, used in fake cheese sauces and in seitan recipes), vital wheat gluten (this is the bases for making one of my main proteins - seitan), soy slices (marinate for 15 minutes in hot water then use as you wish: stir fry, stews, etc), TVP (textured vegetarian protein - a soy protein used like ground meat, dehydrated in this case, you could use Yves ground round too), and powdered soy milk (I buy almond milk to drink, this will be for baking or cooking - I do the same with dried skim milk powder, saves money and doesn't go back as quickly).
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| vegan ingredients, at the ready |
I think I may have mentioned but I have been reading a ton of vegan blogs (well, I've read them in the past but now it was a matter of survival!). I have been bookmarking pages of recipes that I want to try here is one of them. It's called Mushroom and Spinach Manicotti and can be found on the Epicurean Vegan blog, here.
The recipe promised a vegan ricotta filling that can be used in many other recipes. We would see.
First things first, ingredient prep to make to cooking process quick and easy. Always read through a recipe before starting so you aren't surprised by a step or by something that needs to be done quickly. Have everything you need on hand and nearby, including your tools. So, chopped onion, mushroom, and spinach, waiting...
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| veggies for the manicotti filling |
The ricotta filling would be made with firm tofu instead of cheese...for $1.99 a block at Superstore, this seemed like a pretty good deal! (although I supposed it would balance out with those damn cashews for a cheese sauce).
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| extra firm tofu is a bargain! |
All of the tofu goes into a food processor with a ton of fresh basil (grrr, I want to grow my own herbs!), garlic, nutritional yeast, rosemary, salt and pepper.
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| ricotta filling ingredients |
Let the processor do it's work and voila! Instant basil flavoured ricotta. So easy! The texture is much denser than ricotta so I was a little worried that this wouldn't taste light and creamy.
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| basil tofu filling |
Here is where being organized helps. I had the water on to boil while I was preparing the filling. I dropped a box of manicotti shells into the rolling boiling water while I blended the filling. I only cooked the shells for 6 minutes: they were partially cooked but still held their shape...I figured they would soften in the oven with the sauce.
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| cooking pasta |
While the pasta cooked, I had plenty of time to saute the onion and mushrooms.
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| mushrooms and onions |
The cooked onions and mushrooms get added to the basil filling with the chopped raw spinach.
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| filling, done! |
So far, so good. This recipe was proving to be pretty easy. I was worried about the next step though...stuffing the shells. I have read that to stuff manicotti, it's easiest to fill a pastry bag or ziplock with a corner cut off, and then pipe in the filling at each end until it hits the middle of the shell. I knew this wouldn't be possible since the filling was so dense. Oh well, this wasn't ground meat and I wasn't shy. I just jumped right in! Whenever doing something messy with cooking, I try to keep one messy hand and one clean hand: this will give you a lot options if you need to pick something up that you don't want to get dirty. So, left hand holding the shell, my right hand scooped up the filling and just jammed it in with my fingers, from each end. It wasn't pretty, but it got the job done. I poured some pasta sauce into a 9x13" pan and then carefully laid the finished stuffed manicotti into the dish. I definitely get very corny when I am cooking alone and often personify my ingredients or unconsciously make up stories about them. I thought about the scene from Disney's The Little Mermaid when Sebastian gets trapped in the French chef's kitchen. The chef catches Sebastian, thinking that he's a runaway protein from one of his plates and proceeds to prepare him while he sings...."now I stuff you with bread, it don't hurt, 'cause you're dead, and it's certainly lucky you are!!!"...hmm, reading it doesn't sound as child friendly as I remember it, but it's really a great scene. So, I'm feeling a little sorry for my manicotti, as I'm stuffing them to the gills... But, it's for their own good and now I can carefully put them into their cozy bed of comforting sauce, and they are happy again! Smiles. By the way, the firm manicotti, perfect for this dense filling! If this pasta were cooked anymore, its limpness would have made it impossible to fill.
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| almost ready for the oven |
With the little pastas tucked snug into their bed of rich pasta sauce, some vegan shredded cheese on top (Daiya), they went into the oven for a nice warm bake. Picture a day at the beach, ahhh :)
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| baking manicotti |
Since I am still waiting for scratch n sniff blogging options, let me just tell you that this dish filled the kitchen with the smell of a rich Italian dish. I was so excited to try this!
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| tofu mushroom and spinach manicotti |
I served this with some simply sauteed cauliflower and wow, what an awesome meal! C and I both really enjoyed this and there was plenty for leftovers. I would dare to say that this would freeze well. This would make an excellent dinner for guests, vegans and non-vegans alike! Go for it, give this a try at home. Don't tell anyone there's no cheese inside and see if anyone notices. Oh, but don't let them read this blog first.
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| Italian vegan dinner |
* * * * *
Part of my new year's resolutions, while not on the list, is to be more contained in my note taking, clippings, and thoughts. I pulled out a fresh notebook and it is now my food book. This is not for keeping track of what I eat, but for making notes about meals or recipes that I want to cook, ingredients I'll need, where I found the recipes (so I can locate them again if they were in a blog), etc. So far, so good.
The book underneath is a new journal that I carefully picked out for myself. I haven't written in a journal/diary for a long time. Think about it. If you were going to be completely honest on paper, releasing all your darkness (fears, self-doubts, self-loathings, sadness, anger...everything that a proper young lady is not supposed to release to the world), would you trust this book to be out somewhere? What if it was read? Knowing this, could you be honest and use it as a release? We will see. I plan to use this book as my therapy. With my blog, you've likely noticed that my posts are good humored, upbeat and positive. I wish I could say that I am always like my blog version of myself but I am only human. I have my doubts, fears, and issues. However, my blog is not the venue for sharing that sort of thing. That is where this journal will come in. I have a name for this journal already, though not on paper yet. I like the idea of balance, that there are 2 sides of extreme and that one cannot experience or fully understand one side without the other. There is no happiness without sadness, no light without dark, no love without loss.
This book is The Dark Passenger and the White Owl. One represents all of the negativity and darkness that needs to be released from my soul, the other represents the wise, free, and soaring spirit that understands that this too shall pass and that there is a greater good for all pain: that all things can be overcome with time and effort. This is my balance.
The pages remain blank, but this book is around for when it needs to be. Waiting.
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| notes and thoughts |
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