It's all about the dress(ing)

I was off to San Diego last week for four days, thinking that SD would be a vegan friendly type of place. I was kind of wrong about that and ended up having some feta cheese at two different meals. But my E2 guy is perfectly okay with being a bit flexible, attempting to eat a plant-based program most of the time. One result of the SD trip was photos taken of me--I have so few photos taken that I don't realize how bad I look, even after going vegan for a good month now. So it's time to go cold turkey on those yummy ice cream substitutes and other desserts and stick to the low fat E2 diet. Luckily, I really do love salads in just about any shape or form. I had a really wonderful roasted beet salad (red and yellow beets!) in SD which I've been wanting to re-create but haven't gotten around to yet due to having tons of freelance work this month in addition to the ol' job. I did come across this salad dressing, perhaps best described as a cross-dressing ranch (it looks like it but not quite the real thing). It is thankfully light--only 19 calories & 1 gram of fat for 2 T. and fairly tasty. It is made with silken tofu which I've come to learn is the go-to tofu for any creamy delectable such as vegan sour cream, vegan pudding, vegan mayo and now salad dressing. And I actually have been keeping it on hand, which is a big plus! It could be more flavorful with more tahini but that would also up the fat and calorie count.


6 ounces lite firm silken tofu (1/2 pkg. of Mori-Nu)
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon tahini
2 green onions, white parts removed, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley, packed
1 large clove garlic

Place all ingredients in blender and process until smooth.

Muffin Mania

One of the more "difficult" (and I put it in quotations because it isn't that difficult) things about following the vegan diet is that I'm doing lots of double cooking, especially on the weekends. Although, I think the breadwinner is beginning to come around, admitting today that perhaps no red meat is the way to go healthwise.

The three men in my family are accustomed to having rather large breakfasts on the weekend. On Saturdays it generally means eggs and muffins or biscuits and on Sundays waffles and bacon. The breadwinner and Gigi, our old retriever (who is here by my feet snoring LOUDLY), are muffin maniacs. I usually bake a batch of muffins each Saturday for their morning snacking throughout the week. Last week I fell down on the job and left them both rooting around in the kitchen every morning for a suitable substitute (to which they agreed there was none). I've been trying vegan muffin recipes so here's the latest offering. But before I begin recipe, I must mention that I turned on the oven and then walked around the corner to Tony's store for a single ingredient. The trip takes all of five minutes. When I came back, the breadwinner had turned off the oven because "it was getting hot." Duh--that was the point the dear. It's a good thing I'm the cook in the family. We would all starve otherwise.

Cherry Streusel Muffins
2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. fresh cherries, pitted & roughly chopped
1/3 c. safflower oil
3/4 c. sugar
1 c. soy milk
1/3 c. orange juice

Streusel topping
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. oatmeal
1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. shredded coconut (which I omitted due to a certain someone's distaste for all things coconut)
1/4 c. chopped walnuts
3 T. earth balance margarine (or some other vegan butter substitute)

Preheat ove to 450. Spray muffin tin with canola oil spray or use paper cupcake/muffin cups to line the muffin tin. In mixing bowl, whisk milk, oil, and orange juice. Sift together dry ingredients and stir into wet ingredients. Fold in cherries and spoon into prepared muffin pan. Combine streusel ingreddients, mashing with fork until mixture is crumbly. Top each muffin with streusel mixture and bake 18-20 minutes.

Planning ahead

My friend Carolyn and I had emailed back and forth today about a few things. She is the one who originally got me interested in the E2 diet. She mentioned that she was worried about planning for vegan meals once school starts back up (she is a head start teacher). And she was right--planning ahead is important especially since we're fairly new to this way of eating. I have had a super hectic week thus far and had very little in the house in the way of food until my trip to Central Market this evening. My fall back on these super hectic days is hummus and nuts for a snack or source of protein and steamed vegetables and rice for a quick dinner. I've been keeping frozen brown rice on hand (you can buy it frozen in microwavable bags) for those evenings when I come home really hungry. By cutting the vegetables into small pieces they steam really quickly and the rice takes only 2-3 minutes in the microwave. The only thing quicker is a hippie sandwich with hummus, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and onion. Groovy!

Tater Salad

Fourth of July really is my favorite holiday. Besides celebrating our country, it is such a great day to get together with friends and family and have a blast--as Bart Simpson says "We're going to celebrate our country's independence by blowing up a little piece of it." 

For this year's Blair Blowout we did veggie burgers and regular burgers plus several salads, a lemon cheesecake for most and vegan cupcakes for moi. For the cupcakes I used a recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, a cookbook based on the Post Punk Kitchen, an NYC vegan cooking show. Cupcakes were great and all who ate them said they couldn't tell they weren't regular cupcakes. So score. But the real highlight food-wise was the potato salad.

Potato Salad with Herbs and Lemon

3/4 c. olive oil

1/4 c. fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 tsp. grated lemon peel

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 c. chopped onion

1/4 c. finely chopped fresh basil

1/4 c. finely chopped fresh mint

2 1/4 pounds small red-skinned, potatoes (I think I had more potatoes than this)

Whisk oil, lemon juice and lemon peel in small bowl to blend. Season dressing with salt and pepper. Place 1/2 c. dressing in large bowl. Mix in green pepper, onion, basil, and mint. 

Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain. Cool 15 min. Cut potatoes in 1/2 inch cubes. Add potatoes to bowl with dressing and toss to blend. Let stand 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, adding more dressing if desired. Serve at room temperature. 

Vegano TexMex

TexMex and going vegan are pretty incompatible. If you made a venn diagram of the two, it would be a pretty slim overlapping area. But there are options--at least in Austin and if you don't look too closely (i.e., did not ask "Is there lard in this?"). Yesterday I had a two-fer TexMex day. Lunch at Amaya's with Kati and Deborah. Surprisingly Amaya's borracho beans have no meat in them. So I had a cup of beans with rice and guacamole. Pretty durn good. Then Guero's for dinner with Nancy and Debbie. Their grilled vegetable plate was great--lots of grilled vegetables over rice with a cup of black beans. Again guacamole. However, I won't see much weight loss having Guac 2x in a day but that makes it a pretty perfect day in anyone's book (except Debbie's whose allergic to avocados).

Love lost

It's now been 2 1/2 weeks since I started this vegan diet experiment and it is going great. I've lost 5 pounds and am now wearing a green skirt that I've been wanting to wear since March.
Should no longer call it an experiment because it is something I think I can stick with. My energy is good, my workouts at the gym haven't suffered at all. In fact, I had 100 pounds on the leg press on Monday.

The main reason I think I can stick with this new way of eating: my taste for dairy has diminished. I was at a lunch meeting yesterday on campus and had the veggie wrap from a campus cafeteria where I often grab lunch. Their veggie wraps are usually always hummus and occasionally have a balsamic vinegar/oil dressing in place of hummus. I took a bite and could immediately tell it had a heavier "off" flavor and sure enough looked at the label (in about 5 pt. type that one over 50 certainly has a difficult time with) and it had a cream cheese/pesto spread. And it didn't taste at all good. This is good news as I thought dairy would be the hardest food item to give up--my love for cream cheese and butter was evident in nearly every birthday cake I've baked for the past 20 years. But like bad boyfriends (not that I've had any experience in this category for 28 years) they can be replaced.

Luckily vegan food is fairly easy to find in Austin, especially around campus but for venturing out in the world, I've decided it is always good to take a Lara bar with me. These are great--the apple pie flavor is very good. They also have cherry pie flavor, cashew, peanutbutter cookie, and chocolate. The only downside is they are high in fat due to all the nuts used to make them. Since they have no flour, ground nuts are what binds the fruit and other ingredients. But the nuts also make the bars fairly high in protein. Another "find" which I just found yesterday is Simply Delicious soy ice cream. Again, relatively high in fat and calories--lower in fat and calories than Blue Bell or HagenDaas however and 0 cholesterol. I picked up the Chocolate Almond Brownie and it was GREAT--so good that throughout the course of the evening, I ate the entire pint. I'm surprised that green skirt fit this morning! Won't be buying that again for a while.