What happens when a girl from Miami and a guy from Chicago move to a 118-year old house in small-town North Carolina and care for our rescued chickens.
We're total fans of the new Chao non-dairy cheeses from Field Roast.
We've had some great sandwiches already but last night took it up a bit by adding them to Twice Baked Potatoes.
Ingredients:
2 very large russet potatoes, scrubbed, baked, and cooled
¼ cup unsweetened dairy-free milk alternative, plus more as needed
1 tablespoon Earth balance spread
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup of minced onion (red or sweet)
⅛ teaspoon sea salt or Himalayan pink salt, plus more as needed
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
Prep:
Take cooled potatoes and slice off the top to make a canoe shape.
Scoop out the insides and combine in a bowl with the other ingredients. Use this to fill the hollowed out potatoes, cover lightly with foil.
Bake at 375 for 20 min on a baking sheet.
Add slice of Chao on each potato and put under broiler until bubbly but not burnt.
We make risotto fairly often in the cooler months of the year. It's the perfect comfort food dinner that fills you up and makes you feel all warm and cozy inside. It's also a great base for experimentation, with sides or additions.
I like to have a good green veggie side with risotto - sometimes asparagus, a green salad or broccoli but since we made the mustards for our Christmas gifts, I've been thinking about green beans sauteed in a mustard sauce.
While the risotto was becoming magically creamy from my homemade stock, I snapped the ends off of the fresh beans and popped them in the steam for about 10 minutes - enough cook them but keep some of their crispness. As the rice was almost finished, so were the green beans.
To save on washing dishes I used the same pot the stock had been warming in and in that I melted over medium-low heat a few tablespoons of Earth Balance, about a 1/2 cup of white wine (the same I used for the risotto, actually) and about a tablespoon or two of Dijon mustard. I whisked that together to combine and then tossed in the steamed green beans.
I left the beans in the sauce for a few minutes so they could absorb the flavors and served on the side. Some fresh ground pepper and a sprinkle of kosher salt and you're done.
I need to get better about putting up more of our actual dinner and meals. We love to cook and we love to talk about food - especially great food that just happens to be vegan too. So I'm going to try and take more pictures, even if they are phone pics, and write up what we made so you can see that we're not deprived or starving over here!
Last night we wanted to make something quick. We had gone to World Market last week and I'd bought two packages of gnocchi. Some gnocchi do have eggs but most shouldn't. They come in a vacuum sealed package and these were pumpkin gnocchi.
Gnocchi couldn't be easier to make and they are as versatile as pasta. I personally like them in a wine-butter-garlic sauce, so that the gnocchi are nice and squishy after soaking it up.
To cook the gnocchi, boil a pot of water and when boiling, add some salt. Bring back to a boil and drop in the gnocchi (make sure you have separated them as they will be squished together from the packaging. They only take a few minutes to cook. As they start floating to the top, spoon them out into your saute pan which has the sauce.
For the sauce, I melted a few tablespoons of Earth Balance (from the sticks) along with fresh grated garlic (as much as you like) and about a half cup of white wine. I also like to add fresh squeezed lemon juice, to taste, and salt and pepper. If you have any favorite herbs, you can add those in as well. I have this started when I had dropped the gnocchi in the water so it is all ready to go as they are ready.
I had steamed the broccoli separately and cooked the shitakes in a separate pan (we are a divided household - I'm the mushroom lover, the hubby is not) so they could be added to just my serving. When the broccoli is done, add it to the large saute pan as well and stir everything to cover with sauce.
- Spring vegetable minestrone made with homemade veggie stock
- Spice Roasted Tofu fillets with Israeli vegetable couscous
- Lentil loaf with mashed potatoes, gravy and sauteed greens
Some of these were holdovers from last week. What we had planned made a lot of food. We did really well with not eating out too. I did meet a friend for lunch one day and then we grabbed veggie cheeseless pizza on Friday night because I was home late but other than that, it was all homemade. And delicious.
We made the lasagna last night for dinner and then froze individual portions for lunches the rest of the week. I also made 12 cups of veggie stock which we froze in 4 cup portions to use for the minestrone and just to have.
I really love planning the meals for the week on the weekend and them shopping and cooking on Sunday.
I also made Lavender sables (french butter cookies) with EarthBalance and they came out just the same as with cow's milk butter. And I made my first loaf of Irish Soda Bread which we had for breakfast with a delicious tofu-onion-red pepper scramble and with the lasagna for dinner. I plan on baking more on the weekends too, like I used to.
I'll be adding recipes here but also to the notes section of the Facebook page, so be sure to go by and "fan" it to get all the updates - www.facebook.com/TheDailyCoop.
Canned soup, while handy, is loaded with salt and other yucky stuff. There are some fresher options but still they aren't as good as homemade. And please... don't eat those horrible packages of ramen noodles.
Here are two easy soup recipes that don't take too much time to make, are easy to freeze in individual portions and can then be reheated when you need an easy lunch or dinner. The hubby would like to say that reheating is as easy as popping it in the microwave or in a pan over medium-low heat to defrost while you are relaxing with a beer or glass of wine watching tv.
Tomato-Basil Soup
10-12 medium sized roma tomatoes
1 medium onion sliced
1 large bunch of basil or two small containers
Oregano
Salt/pepper
Chili flake
2 cloves of garlic
4c of veggie broth
2c of water
2-3tbsp olive oil (not extra virgin, if you don’t have regular then use canola)
Preparation:
I don’t mind the skins, but if you don’t know the source of your tomatoes you should remove their skin. So start by getting a pot of water boiling, then put in the tomatoes, and be sure to cut off the stem end. Leave them in there for about 1-3 minutes. If you are going to skin them, take them out and drop them in ice water, the skins should come off easy. Otherwise just drain them, remove from pot and set aside.
Add oil to pot, then sauté the onion for about 10 min or so, and then add the tomatoes. Let them sauté for 10 min or so, mashing them when you can, then add the broth, water, spices (not the basil yet). Get it to a boil then reduce the heat to simmer for about an hour. Stir about every 15 minutes or so. Then add the chopped basil. Leave it on the heat for about 20 min or so. I then use a stick blender to puree the soup, which is how I like it. You could let it cool, and then put it in a blender. After that you can eat it, freeze it for later.
Potato-Leek Soup
6 medium potatoes, chopped, peeled
3 medium leeks or 2 large leeks
1 2inch piece of ginger
Fresh rosemary
Salt/pepper
4c of veggie broth
2c of water
2-3tbsp olive oil (not extra virgin, if you don’t have regular then use canola)
Preparation:
NOTE: Leeks are grown in sandy soil and get dirt and grit caught in them. So slice the leek lengthwise and put it in a bowl of cold water. Spreading the layers and shaking them to get the grit out. If they seem really dirty you might have to do with a couple of times.
Get your pot with some oil going, and then add the leek and sauté for 5-6 min then add the chopped potato. Let them sauté for 10 min or so, mashing the potatoes when you can, then add the broth, water, spices, rosemary. Get it to a boil then reduce the heat to simmer for about an hour. Stir about every 15 minutes or so. Leave it on the heat for about 20 min or so. I then use a stick blender to puree the soup, which is how I like it. You could let it cool, then put it in a blender. After that you can eat it, freeze it for later. It will occasionally get yellowy foam on top; this is from the oil, just stir. This recipe uses no cream; I don’t think you need it. The potatoes make it creamy enough.
Serve with a nice roll or crusty bread for dunking.
To all of the people I know who actively and proudly say they eat meat and will continue to eat meat no matter what they hear, especially in the name of celebrating a holiday, I can only say: Open your mind and hearts.
I once ate meat and I wish I had known then what I know now. I wish I had not been so indoctrinated and had supporters to show me there is another way. And that it is easy and so much better in so many ways.
I'm sharing this video taken in Austria (I believe). Basically some folks dressed as Santa visited these young pigs kept on a factory "farm" - much like what we do here in the US. You will see these poor pigs are kept crowded and in the dark on cement floors, totally unlike their natural environment. They've never experienced kindness from a human or seen hay, which pigs love to play in. These kind Santa's brought them some hay and apples and the pigs over came their fear to nestle up to their new friends.
Sadly these sweet animals are destined for more abuse and to be slaughtered for a meal.
You can't watch this and not be affected or feel a need to make a change. It's not right what we do. The information is clear. The evidence is here. There are tons of resources and other delicious foods available. I promise to be here to help if you need it.
Make the future and the new year better. You CAN make the change.
One of the concerns we hear a lot from people when they ask us about being vegans and the food we eat is that they thing the food is going to be boring, ascetic or bland.
Let me just say, this is SOOOO not the case.
We are major foodies. We love food and ingredients and cooking and baking. Heck, I have at least 10 kinds of salt alone. So, when we switched to eating vegan, you can be sure it was not at the expense of our tastebuds.
One thing that you may not consider when you eat a typical animal product-centric diet is that most of the flavors in foods come from plant-based ingredients. Spices, herbs, vinegars, nuts, oils, marinades, dressings, ketchups, mustards, etc. All plant based.
Think about your favorite meals. Personally, I like a good burger, but what I love is the mix of textures, the ketchup, the onion. Having a veggie burger (or even better one of Laughing Seed's Hempnut Burgers, sigh) with the same burger fixings is perfect. Plus no upset stomach that I always got from ground beef.
For Mexican meals, we make veggie fajitas, tacos or burritos or taco salads with Crumbles and my favorite Moe's Art Vandalay burrito too.
Italian is all about tomato sauces which you can add a Field Roast Italian Sausage to (or use for a sausage-pepper sandwich) or risotto which I just make with veggie broth and EarthBalance.
Our favorite meals are usually Indian - we love the spices, the textures and the balance of the dishes - rice, naan, samosas, etc. Yum!
And then there is Thai. Thai cuisine is considered one of the most complex and layered because almost every dish ties in the five main flavor components: hot, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. A meal we had recently at a local restaurant showcases this fundamental philosophy in the cooking.
The appetizer we started with was called a Healthy Plate and consisted of a leaf wrap (here it was kale) and then chopped red onions and ginger (hot), toasted coconut (sweet), peanuts (salty), lime (sour) and a tamarind sauce (bitter/sweet). You wrapped all of these in the leaf and popped them in your mouth. Amazing!
When we received our meals you could see the same flavors combined into the more integrated savory dishes. The hubby had a tofu dish but mine was all veggies.
We ended the meal with an amazingly decadent sliver of candied sweet potato topped with a rich and creamy coconut cream sauce that I could not get enough of.
Not one part of the meal had an animal product but yet it was complex, flavorful, delicious and satisfying.
It is easy to look at your favorite meals with a fresh eye. Don't get hung up on worrying that you will be "missing out" just think of it as cooking with a few ingredient substitutions and you will be surprised how easy and tasty cooking without meat, dairy and eggs can be.
An interesting article in mainstream media that talks about, if you care about the environment, you can do more good by eliminating meat from your diet. Worth reposting.
The debate over climate change has reached a rarefied level of policy abstraction in recent months. Carbon tax or cap-and-trade? Upstream or downstream? Should we auction permits? Head-scratching is, at this point, permitted. But at base, these policies aim to do a simple thing, in a simple way: persuade us to undertake fewer activities that are bad for the atmosphere by making those activities more expensive. Driving an SUV would become pricier. So would heating a giant house with coal and buying electricity from an inefficient power plant. But there's one activity that's not on the list and should be: eating a hamburger.
If it's any consolation, I didn't like writing that sentence any more than you liked reading it. But the evidence is strong. It's not simply that meat is a contributor to global warming; it's that it is a huge contributor. Larger, by a significant margin, than the global transportation sector.
According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Some of meat's contribution to climate change is intuitive. It's more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people. Some of the contribution is gross. "Manure lagoons," for instance, is the oddly evocative name for the acres of animal excrement that sit in the sun steaming nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. And some of it would make Bart Simpson chuckle. Cow gas -- interestingly, it's mainly burps, not farts -- is a real player.
But the result isn't funny at all: Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius (PDF). A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week. That prompted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to recommend that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere. The response was quick and vicious. "How convenient for him," was the inexplicable reply from a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. "He's a vegetarian."
The visceral reaction against anyone questioning our God-given right to bathe in bacon has been enough to scare many in the environmental movement away from this issue. The National Resources Defense Council has a long page of suggestions for how you, too, can "fight global warming." As you'd expect, "Drive Less" is in bold letters. There's also an endorsement for "high-mileage cars such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids." They advise that you weatherize your home, upgrade to more efficient appliances and even buy carbon offsets. The word "meat" is nowhere to be found.
That's not an oversight. Telling people to give up burgers doesn't poll well. Ben Adler, an urban policy writer, explored that in a December 2008 article for the American Prospect. He called environmental groups and asked them for their policy on meat consumption. "The Sierra Club isn't opposed to eating meat," was the clipped reply from a Sierra Club spokesman. "So that's sort of the long and short of it." And without pressure to address the costs of meat, politicians predictably are whiffing on the issue. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, for instance, does nothing to address the emissions from livestock.
The pity of it is that compared with cars or appliances or heating your house, eating pasta on a night when you'd otherwise have made fajitas is easy. It doesn't require a long commute on the bus or the disposable income to trade up to a Prius. It doesn't mean you have to scrounge for change to buy a carbon offset. In fact, it saves money. It's healthful. And it can be done immediately. A Montanan who drives 40 miles to work might not have the option to take public transportation. But he or she can probably pull off a veggie stew. A cash-strapped family might not be able buy a new dishwasher. But it might be able to replace meatballs with mac-and-cheese. That is the whole point behind the cheery PB&J Campaign, which reminds that "you can fight global warming by having a PB&J for lunch." Given that PB&J is delicious, it's not the world's most onerous commitment.
It's also worth saying that this is not a call for asceticism. It's not a value judgment on anyone's choices. Going vegetarian might not be as effective as going vegan, but it's better than eating meat, and eating meat less is better than eating meat more. It would be a whole lot better for the planet if everyone eliminated one meat meal a week than if a small core of die-hards developed perfectly virtuous diets.
I've not had the willpower to eliminate bacon from my life entirely, and so I eliminated it from breakfast and lunch, and when that grew easier, pulled back further to allow myself five meat-based meals a month. And believe me, I enjoy the hell out of those five meals. But if we're going to take global warming seriously, if we're going to make crude oil more expensive and tank-size cars less practical, there's no reason to ignore the impact of what we put on our plates.
One of the questions you get (among many) when you are vegetarian or vegan is:
Don't you care about people? Why don't you spend more time worrying about people rather than animals.
Personally, I find it very weird to think that these two things are mutually exclusive. Many people I know who are animal activists care very much for people too. They care about the environment. They often do other volunteer work. They support anti-child labor laws.
But even if you don't actively campaign for a human cause, you are helping people by switching to a vegetable based diet.
There are tons of side benefits that eliminating animals and animal secretions from our diets. Insurance rates could be lowered because health would be better. Lifestyles would improve. The run off from animal processing plants would be reduced. The mental trauma from killing animals would not happen either.
Another huge impact is to the clear cutting of the rain forest for cattle. This impacts our air, potential medicines and even slave labor. Greenpeace just released thier report on the Amazon Cattle Footprint. Some highlights from the report are:
- Forests are a crucial carbon stock: forest ecosystems globally store about one-anda-half times as much carbon as is present in the atmosphere.25 Deforestation of tropical forests is responsible for up to approximately 20% of the global emissions of greenhouse gas, more than the world’s entire transport sector.
- The Amazon is estimated to store between 80-120 billion tonnes of carbon.27,28 If this is destroyed, roughly 50 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions from the US will be emitted.
- Cattle ranching in the Amazon has horrific social impacts, including the highest rates of slave labour in Brazil. 3005 rural workers, kept in slavery, were freed from cattle ranches in 2008. 99% of them had been held in the Legal Amazon.
- The region is home to more than 20 million people – including over 200,000 indigenous people, belonging to 180 different ethnic groups31. The rainforest is their home, providing them food and shelter to tools and medicines - it is also central to their spiritual life.
- Studies estimate that the Amazon supports 40,000 plant species; 427 mammals; 1,294 birds; 378 reptiles; 427 amphibians and 3,000 species of fish. Many other species are still unknown.
- The Amazon produces 20% of river water in the world. The forest influences the hydrologic cycle at local and regional scales, as humidity retained by the Amazon is carried by the wind to other parts of Brazil and South America. The reduction of the forest cover diminishes the amount of rainfall on the Southeast and Center of Brazil, affecting agriculture productivity.
- Belched methane from livestock constitutes one of the largest sources (roughly 30%) of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Agriculture as a whole contributes between 10-12% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
- The greenhouse gas emissions from beef are13 kilograms CO2-eq per kg36. This means eating a kilogram of beef represents roughly the same greenhouse emissions as flying 100 kilometers of a flight, per passenger.
It is definetly something to consider when you are choosing your food. The food we eat should be considered as carefully as any other choice, be it politics or money, because each bite we take as far reaching consequences. Consequences that impact more than just ourselves. The impact of each meal is shared by the world.
But the biggest change has been adopting a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. We are still figuring out what all that means to us, since it varies from person to person, but as I've said before, it has been great.
And when I talk about this "change" I don't mean just the way that we cook or the foods we choose, but really a whole mentality. We've learned a lot about the health benefits of cutting out animal-based food, the disgusting facts of factory farming and really just made a lot more connections that should have been obvious to us before.
Even though I've worked with and cared for animals all my life, it took the traumatic incident of the attack on Napoleon to really open our eyes and spur us to action. Thank goodness he has had a 100% recovery but how could we care so much for this one and then contribute to the torture and slaughter of thousands of others? Oh, and by the way, since so many people have asked... I didn't pressure the hubby into this change. He actually was the main driving force, for which I will be forever glad and thankful.
So yes, we had trauma and, yes, we have learned some sad things that reinforce our feelings but this holiday should be about joy and Thanksgiving. And this year we, I feel, finally celebrated in a way that supported that. While a few turkey's are "pardoned" (like other innocents who are spared from execution in the nick of time), 72 million for this day alone are not.
We got a few questions, which we were happy to answer, including "But what will you eat on Thanksgiving if you aren't having a turkey?" Well, I never really liked to eat turkey or ham. And I got an upset stomach from all the butter and fat every year, so I wasn't going to miss that. What we were having were all of the other amazing traditional foods with only a few ingredient changes and one substitution.
We had a Celebration Roast from Field Roast for our main. These (and their sausages) are so delicious I wish we had started eating them in general years ago. We also had an Apple Sage Mushroom stuffing, asparagus, a fresh field green salad with pecans, sweet potato biscuits, gravy and the hubby's famous roasted root vegetable mash.
This is one of the best things he makes. You chop up and roast any mix of veggies but we used: butternut squash, turnips, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, russet potatoes, parsnips, carrots and rutabagas.
Prep the veggies by seeding and peeling as needed.
Then we chop them up into equal size, sprinkle with some olive oil, salt and pepper and any herbs you may want. Then they pop in the oven to roast at 400 for about an hour or 1.5 hours until they are crispy yet tender. You then can food process them or hand mash them. We add some broth and EarthBalance and you are done!
I also made a (vegan) pumpkin pie with a pecan crust which may have been the best pumpkin pie I've ever made. I could not stop eating it.
Unlike previous years, I came away from our dinner with a feeling of actual thanksgiving and a lot of hope. It really confirmed that you could eat amazingly (which we kind of already knew) and traditionally but still in line with our goals. We could have people over for a holiday meal and know that no one would leave missing anything from a taste or emotional level. I think food speaks to us on both planes so knowing that we could still fulfill that meant a lot to me.
Many people may have seen this video of Palin and thought it was pretty bad but I'm not sure it really opened any eyes. The whole "pardon a turkey" thing is sort of a joke.
There are so many people out there who care about animals and the environment. The Prop 2 victory is evidence of that and a great start to what I hope is a wave of change. In this new world, this paradigm shift, I hope that awareness will continue to grow and an openness will find new paths.
I hope our experience will inspire you to think beyond what has been taught to you in the past and to seek new information and try new things. I'd love to help answer any questions or talk through your thoughts.
