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Vegan cleanse

vegankitchen 152

It’s no secret that I’m a little in awe of the vegan lifestyle. I’m in love with the founding principle: that animals are left unharmed and allowed to live as freely as we do. And of course the numerous health benefits of a plant-based lifestyle are hard to ignore.

I do feel though, that if I gave up meat, dairy and other animal-based products, I’d be taming my passion for cooking and food. Sure, I can get excited about vegetables. As excited as I do about high quality bacon or a well-marbled steak. But vegetables have always been a part of the equation, not the full equation itself.

That being said, I’ve always wanted to give vegan eating a test run, and after a month and a half of gluttinous eating  – the turkey, stuffing, egg nog, fruitcake, ham and bread pudding extravaganza that we call the holidays – January is the month to do it.

After all, don’t we all love a fresh start in January? A cleansing of the system, a New Year’s resolution to eat a healthier diet, with more whole grains and plenty of vegetables?

My arteries need a rest from my holiday binge. They’re panting at the finish line. Well done friends, you kept me alive for 60 straight days while I shellacked your surface with LDL cholesterol. Now is your time for reward. I give you vegetables, and lots of them.

Starting on Wednesday (Jan 1) I’m going to kick off month of healthy eating. For 31 days I’m going to eat a vegan diet to see whether eating this way feels like a sacrifice or a triumph.

I’m guessing a little of both.

And I’ve been preparing. I’ve been reading through some of my favorite vegetarian and healthy living cookbooks, including the latest from The Moosewood: Restaurant Favorites, classics like Chez Panisse Vegetables, and more recent additions from vegetarian guru Yotam Ottolenghi as well as Sarah and Hugh Forte, the husband and wife team behind The Sprouted Kitchen.

I’ve also been following some great online resources for vegan receipes, including:

And I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention the inspiration that I get from one of my favorite people on Instagram, Amber (RawVeganBlonde) who blows me away on a regular basis with what can only be described as fruit and vegetable art.

So despite preparations to give up some of my favorite foods for a month, excitement has been building, I’ve been tagging recipes and making notes.

I’ve also been updating my Pinterest boards to catalog my growing collection of vegan and health-focused recipes, which you can easily follow by clicking on the links below.

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100 new foods

Mushrooms

Mushrooms

Apologies in advance for the long-winded discussion but mushrooms were a 2-for-1 special this week. As in two preparations tested: raw vs. cooked. Raw didn’t go over so well, but we all learned that when foods are prepared differently, you might end up liking them. Mushrooms went from most hated to most loved in the flash of a pan. Amazing what heat, olive oil, and a little salt can do.

EMMA: What are those?

LAUREN: Mushrooms?

EMMA: Smells good right? What do they look like?

LAUREN: I got a little plant. They look like flowers that lost all of their petals.

ME: Such a good description!

EMMA: This one is broken.

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Family

A 6th birthday party

cake

Man, I need a vacation. I’m winded. Hosting a birthday party for six year olds isn’t for the faint of heart. Birthday parties are a blast, but they’re high energy. And this year I had a few wrenches thrown into the mix to make things even more chaotic.

Starting with the cupcakes.

Lauren asked to have a cupcake decorating party this year. No big deal, I prepared the week before. I baked a few trays of mini cupcakes, and popped them in the freezer.

The day of the party, I took them out of the freezer, and let them defrost in the kitchen. I pushed them to the back of the counter and off I went to finish up some Christmas shopping.

I got back to an apartment that looked like it had been ransacked by a mob of hungry thieves. Kitchen a mess, sofa cushion shredded. And a full tray of cupcakes + their wrappers had disappeared.

Only one man was to blame:

Jackson

Look at that face. Guilty, nauseous. He’d snuck back to my bedroom to camouflage himself in an attempt to hide from me. Apparently he’s learned a thing or two from the Amazonian tree frogs.

Upon inspection of the main room, I was happy to find that he’d eaten some cupcakes, and buried others between the couch cushions and had crumbled them to pieces trying to retrieve them from the cracks. In case you were wondering, that doesn’t make a mess at all.

Fortunately I’d made enough cupcakes to feed a small army, so I vacuumed, frosted the remaining bunch and set them up on the table, just in time for our guests to arrive.

I don’t know why I bothered cleaning in the first place. If you’ve ever hosted a birthday party for a crew of elementary school kids you’ll know why. It was messy again 3.2 seconds after they arrived.

Table

But they had a ball. Cupcakes were frosted and bedazzled to their hearts’ content.

cupcakes

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Blog

Chicken stock 101

chickenstock_feedmedearlyIf there ever was a discussion more fraught with angst and frustration in our household, it’s about chickens.

I’d say that I’m a bit thrifty when it comes to food. I touched on it briefly in my post about smart tactics for the kitchen, but truly, when it comes to throwing away perfectly good food, I just can’t do it. This of course doesn’t mean that I keep old food long past its prime. I’m a chucker once things run their course. But good food, perfectly usable? That’s a different story.

So our freezer is where good food goes to die. If there’s a leftover dish that we know we can’t eat because we’re out of town or we’ve eaten it for two days straight, into the freezer it goes.  Baguettes that were accidentally left out overnight? Freezer. And best of all, a chicken carcass or two, you know the drill.

The problem is that we live in New York City, so as much as I’d love to have a second freezer for all of my left over food, it ain’t gonna happen.

Our freezer runs out of space quickly, which results in chicken carcasses (carcii?) taking over whatever available space we have.

So we argue about bird bones.

Rodney, clearing the remains from a rotisserie chicken: “Are you done with this?”

Me: “I’m going to make a stock with it, stick it in the freezer.”

Rodney:  “We have 10 chickens in the freezer already.”

Me: “Put it in that little space where the ice comes out.”

Rodney: “You’re going to break the ice cube tray if you do that.”

Me: “That’s fine, I don’t use that thing.”

And truly, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t have ice cubes. For my Scotch-drinking husband, this is tantamount to losing power.

So the arguments continue: fresh stock vs. a broken fridge.

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100 new foods

Alfalfa sprouts

Alfalfa Sprouts

Since last week’s bean sprouts were such a big hit, I thought we’d try another sprout-related veggie. Enter radish and clover alfalfa sprouts. Aside from the disagreement about whether we were dealing with Brussels sprouts or alfalfa sprouts, I’d say that we had a productive conversation. And we even got a long-term taker, Emma loved them.

ME: What are these?

LAUREN: Brussels sprouts.

ME: Actually they’re not.

LAUREN: Actually they are.

ME: Actually they’re not.

LAUREN: Uh, they are.

EMMA: Can I get a cool one?

ME: These are alfalfa sprouts.

LAUREN: Yeah, they’re Brussels sprouts.

ME: Um actually they’re not.

LAUREN: Oh yeah they are.

ME: They’re the little sprouts that make radishes and clovers. What do they look like and feel like and all of that?

EMMA: Mmmmm I love them.

ME: You love that?

SAM: Brussels sprouts.

LAUREN: That’s actually spicy.

ME: They taste like Brussels sprouts? What do they look like in your hand?

SAM: Brussels sprouts.

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