Meghan, Post-Veghan

Exactly a year ago, I decided to become a vegan. I was motivated by my environmental and economic beliefs, and by what promised to be a challenge. I was excited for what I saw as a lifelong adventure ahead of me.

But I knew I was taking a risk by adhering to a diet that would require me to restrict my food intake. I suffered from a pretty gnarly eating disorder during college, and even though I’ve had a healthy relationship with food for over five years, I knew I’d have to take careful note of any weird habits that seemed to be resurfacing.

Well, a few weeks ago, my roommate Erin had some friends over for dinner. They were going to have homemade pizza; though Erin encouraged me to hang out at the house and be social, she apologized that the pizza dough wasn’t vegan. I said I’d just go to a coffee shop and get some writing done rather than join them for dinner. As I walked to the coffee shop, I became aware of a disturbing feeling. I was glad the pizza wasn’t vegan because it meant I couldn’t eat it, and thus I didn’t have to eat dinner.

I could skip dinner and nobody would notice. That thought might seem inconsequential, but it was a huge red flag for me. It was an impulse to use my very public veganism to mask a very secret anxiety about food.

When similarly unhealthy thoughts popped into my head in the following weeks, I took note. And I decided that while veganism has been conducive to my physical health (and the physical health of countless animals, I like to think), at this point in my life, it was threatening to my mental health. I like food. I want to keep liking food. And sticking to any kind of restrictive diet is not the best decision for me.

Emphasis on for me. I am not suggesting, in any way, that veganism is an eating disorder, or that vegans develop eating disorders any more frequently than anyone else. In some cases, though, veganism and vegetarianism can be used as a cover for an eating disorder; Canada’s National Eating Disorder Information Centre published this article about it a couple years ago. (For more about eating disorders in general, visit http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.)

I knew that Meghan the Veghan would have to become Meghan the Post-Veghan. But I wanted to continue to eat in a way that reflects my environmental and economic concerns. And it’s not like I could ever get tired of writing about myself...

So from now on, I’m going to do my best to buy local groceries, eat at restaurants that use local ingredients (there are a ton of them around Santa Barbara), and learn as much about my food as possible. And I’m going to blog about it. I hope my followers, vegan and non-vegan, will continue to support me! I know this post has been kind of a downer, but I’ll be back to myself once I get writing about my adventures in local eating.

By “local,” I mean food that I could feasibly go get for myself (and I don’t mean by walking to the supermarket). There is a farmer’s market almost every day of the week here in Santa Barbara, so it will be pretty easy to get local groceries. I might even start a little garden (or I might just mooch some produce from my landlady’s garden; I haven’t decided).

It’s been a good year. But as much as I’ve enjoyed my vegan adventure, I have missed eating certain things. And by “certain things,” I mean bacon.

I Kid! Some Vegan Snacks to Make You Feel Young

This week, I participated in my very last seminar meeting as a graduate student – the last class of my life. Of course, I will still be a student for infinity the next couple of years as I write my dissertation. But as far as coursework goes, I’m done!

This milestone, while exciting, is also terrifying in that… I’m kind of an adult now. At the very least, I’ve inched a little farther along that life axis that spans from the belligerent, generally inappropriate child I once was to the belligerent, generally inappropriate old person I hope someday to become.

In recent years, I have become more and more anxious about aging. (The other evening, I purchased a bottle of pinot noir without getting carded and I almost cried.) So I decided that if I couldn’t regress physically back to childhood (obviously, I couldn’t), I could at least regress gastronomically.

I got to work preparing three of my favorite childhood snacks, one of which had to be veganized. The recipes, if they can be called that, are delightfully simple. Just like childhood!

Ants on a Log

Chop celery sticks into 3-inch pieces. Spread a generous amount of peanut butter on each one, and top with raisin “ants.”

Homemade Apple Sauce

Skin, core, and chop up four apples. Put them in a sauce pan with ¾ cup water, ¼ cup organic sugar, and ½ tsp ground cinnamon. Cook over medium heat, covered, for 15-20 minutes. Transfer the apples to a food processor and pulse until the applesauce is the texture you want.

Bagel Pizza

 

Cut a bagel in half. I use Bagel Josef’s plain bagels from Trader Joe’s, which happen to be vegan. Sprinkle Daiya vegan cheddar cheese and layer sliced avocadoes (or tomatoes, or whatever creative pizza toppings you have lying around) on top. Broil in the oven for about three minutes, or until the cheese melts.

Hey-o! Vegan Mayo!

Sandwiches are one of those things that can either be mindblowingly good or incredibly bad. We all know what it’s like to bite into a surprisingly delicious sandwich – the kind that makes you a horrible lunch buddy because all you want to do is talk about how amazing every bite is. On the other end of the spectrum, a poorly made sandwich is not just disappointing – it’s devastating. A bad sandwich can really ruin your entire outlook on life day.

Unfortunately, I haven’t eaten too many sandwiches since becoming a vegan. At first I thought it was because most sandwiches include meat and cheese (except for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, on which I could subsist for weeks if I needed to). But I recently realized another non-vegan ingredient that has thus far prevented me from enjoying sandwiches as regularly as I would like to: mayonnaise.

I’ve never been a huge fan of mayonnaise on its own (who is?), but it’s hard to deny that it really makes a sandwich hang together. Vegan-friendly sandwich shops often substitute hummus, but it’s just not the same. There exist a few vegan mayonnaise options – vegenaise from Follow Your Heart is my favorite, and they just came out with a few flavored varieties.

But vegenaise is only sold at Whole Foods. The problem with Whole Foods is that… I love everything at Whole Foods. Sometimes I manage to pay my eighty bucks for six things and get the heck out, but usually I do more damage to my grad student budget than that. So I needed a way to have vegan mayonnaise that didn’t involve setting foot in a Whole Foods.

With perfect timing, my former classmate Jesse sent me a link to Kenji’s slideshow of vegan recipes from his month-long vegan adventure (see his story at seriouseats.com). All the recipes look mouth-watering, and I have added a bunch to my To-Try-To-Prepare List (excluding the ones with “spicy” in the title).

Included in the slideshow is Kenji’s recipe for – you guessed it – or did you? – let’s assume you guessed it – vegan mayonnaise. I followed his directions, but I decided to add Ener-G Egg Replacer because I thought it might act as an emulsifier. Also because I have a huge box of Ener-G Egg Replacer and I don’t know how I’m ever going to use it all up.

What, you might be thinking, is an emulsifier? Apparently, it’s an ingredient that just makes the rest of the ingredients hang together. Much like mayonnaise itself, when used in a sandwich.

Here’s what I used:

Vegan Mayonnaise

4 ounces soft silken tofu
1 clove garlic, chopped
juice from ½ lemon
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 ½ tsp Energ-G Egg Replacer + 2 tbsp water
1 ½ cups olive oil
pinch of sea salt

I dumped all the ingredients except for the olive oil and salt into my food processor and blended them together until they looked like this:

Now comes the risky part. I had to drizzle in the olive oil while the food processor was running. I've had bad luck with similar situations in the past, and I couldn’t help thinking of that old saying that goes something like: Explode all over the kitchen once, Food Processor, shame on you. Explode all over the kitchen twice, Food Processor... well, I was committed to making this mayonnaise, so I went for it.

And the mayonnaise didn’t explode! It stayed right in the food processor where it belonged while I poured in the olive oil, a quarter cup at a time. Here's what it came out looking like:

I enjoyed it on whole grain toast with slices of organic beefsteak tomato on top. It tastes good; almost exactly what I remember regular mayonnaise tasting like. The only problem is that it is really oily and hard to spread. I had to kind of pour it onto the toast.

But I plan to use it in every sandwich I make now! Except for peanut butter and jelly. Gross.

Vegan Camping: Be(an) Prepared

Last Saturday, David and I went camping at Jalama Beach near the random little town of Lompoc. It was the second time I’d been camping as a vegan; the first time was with my sister Katie last summer, and it involved a long, precarious, uphill drive and a plan to avoid getting eaten by bears. (Bears are not vegan.)

I discovered to my delight that there are no bears at Jalama Beach. There is a lot of wind at night, which is arguably about as dangerous as bears, especially when your tent has no stakes holding it down. Ahem.

There is also a little store right near the campsite that doubles as a restaurant. David, whose appetite would eat my appetite for breakfast, bought a hamburger to eat as an appetizer to the vegan dinner I had brought. I was slightly annoyed at his lack of faith in my vegan dinner, but I didn’t complain because I wanted to eat his French fries.

After a rousing game of Rummy 500, we got to work on dinner. I had not planned the specifics of the meal; rather, I had just thrown ingredients that seemed like they might go well together into a tote bag. I had already-cooked, tri-color quinoa leftover from the night before, a few fresh tomatoes and a Hass avocado from the farmer’s market, a can of organic black beans from Trader Joe’s, and Daiya vegan cheddar cheese:

The only meal option I could envision was to toss them all in a pot together. Obviously, we started with the canned beans, which were already cooked. Our campsite had a little fire pit, so it was easy enough to heat up the beans in a pot. Then we stirred in about a cup of Daiya cheddar cheese, which melted immediately, and the tomatoes, which we had chopped into small chunks.

Finally, we poured the bean mixture over the quinoa and arranged the avocado slices on top. It looked… well, it looked like something I had thrown together at a campsite:

I decided to call this concoction “Fancy Beans,” since it was obviously a fancier version of the boring omnivore camping staple of beans and… hot dogs? Pork? What do omnivores put in beans when they camp? Something less fancy than tri-colored quinoa, I’m sure.

I decided not to share the name “Fancy Beans” with David, who is much too cool for silly food names. You know what else I decided not to share with David? My misery at being kept awake by stomach cramping and gas while he snored peacefully in his sleeping bag beside me. There I was, awkwardly alternating between child’s pose and happy baby pose (difficult to do inside a sleeping bag), cursing myself for believing I could eat half a can of beans with no consequences. What hubris!

My insomnia wasn’t helped by the gusts of wind that threatened to blow our tent over every few minutes or by the rowdy, pot-smoking thirty-somethings having a reunion at the neighboring campsite. I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I dreamed I saw the sunrise over the ocean. I only realized it was a dream when David reminded me that the sun does not rise over the ocean on the west coast.

In conclusion, I have to ask: why do people eat beans when they camp? The world may never know. But here’s what I do know: the next time I feel compelled to go camping, I’m bringing some coconut oil and anise seeds and I’m making myself a Libido Burrito. Lesson learned.

What Do Zombies and 93% of American Adults Have in Common?

Hey, there's you.

I recently started watching Season 1 of the AMC series The Walking Dead, which, to the detriment of my productivity, is available on Netflix. And slightly more recently (today), I finished it.

On to Season 2, once Erin gets home from her dinner party. If you think I’m watching this terrifying show at night in my rickety, old, definitely-not-zombie-proof cottage without my 105-pound, mild-mannered roommate to protect me, you’re crazy.

I have to admit I watch most of the gory scenes (and there are quite a few) through my fingers. The goriest moments include the human characters hacking up dead bodies and the zombies (or “walkers,” as the show refers to them) tearing into and devouring humans and animals indiscriminately. I haven’t gotten to Episode 6 of the second season yet, but I hear it involves a zombie massacre in a barn.

It got me thinking and I came to a couple of (completely useless) conclusions. First, I want to be one of the extras who gets to play a zombie. I have the right skin tone so they wouldn’t need much makeup other than to make it appear as if my face is decaying and falling off.

Second, in a zombie apocalypse, pretty much everyone would become an almost-vegan. There just wouldn’t be any non-perishable animal-based food to be had, other than candy and bread products. The human characters in The Walking Dead eat fish and squirrels when they can get their hands on them (who wouldn't? It’s a freaking zombie apocalypse), but most of the large animals have been eaten by zombies.

That brings me to my third observation. Those zombies don’t discriminate: they eat any living thing, from humans (of course) to horses, deer, barn animals, and dogs. It’s not even clear that they prefer human flesh to that of other animals; when the characters come across a zombie tearing into an animal, it’s not like the zombie loses interest in the animal and starts chasing the humans instead.

And the producers don’t discriminate, either: they amp up the gore just as much when a group of zombies is digging into a dog torso as they do when it’s a human getting nommed on. As I watched a zombie unraveling a horse’s intestines, it occurred to me that this scene was meant to be disgusting to all viewers.

But why should meat eaters be disgusted by the eating of animal flesh? They eat that stuff, too. And at least zombies eat the whole animal, not letting any of it go to waste. It’s not that I’m comparing meat eaters to zombies, but… yeah, I’m comparing meat eaters to zombies. Way to have more things in common with zombies than I do, guys.

Food for Sex: A Lesson for Next Valentine's Day

Photo: soranohatemade.blogspot.com

If you're a romantically attached vegan, chances are that last week you had a delicious Valentine's dinner with your significant other, followed by some satisfying Valentine's sex (perhaps courtesy of Vegan Erotica, if you're into that type of thing).

But if you indulged in some of the most popular animal-based Valentine's meals and desserts, you might have run into some speed bumps (not the good kind) once you made it to the bedroom. In a report released last week, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine investigated foods that can "break a loved one's heart" on Valentine's Day.

In particular, the PCRM looked into the Blue Ribbon Brownie at Applebee's, the Smoked Mozzarella Fondue at Olive Garden, the Maine Lobster with Stuffing at Red Lobster, the Porterhouse Steak at Outback Steakhouse, and the Fresh Strawberry Original Cheesecake at Cheesecake Factory.

First of all, I'll just state the obvious: if any of the above restaurants is your Valentine's dinner destination (ahem), chances are you're not getting lucky afterward anyway.

But let's assume your girlfriend has a thing for the Olive Garden. If you order the Smoked Mozzarella Fondue as an appetizer, you're consuming 940 calories and a whopping 1,940 milligrams of sodium; that's almost as much sodium as you should consume all day.

The Lobster at Red Lobster packs 59 grams of fat (39 grams of saturated fat) and 535 milligrams of cholesterol; that's double the amount of cholesterol the American Heart Association recommends for an entire day. But the Porterhouse Steak at Outback is arguably worse, with 71 grams of fat (31 grams of saturated fat) and 325 milligrams of cholesterol; that's more fat than twenty-nine strips of bacon. Twenty-nine.

The Olive Garden, Applebee's, and Cheesecake Factory don't disclose how much cholesterol is in their food probably because, quite literally, it will kill you.

But cholesterol aside, the Fondue has 48 grams of fat (28 grams of saturated fat), and the Brownie at Applebee's and the Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory weigh in at 63 grams (32 grams of saturated fat) and 29 grams of saturated fat, respectively.

What does a meal like this mean for your sex life? In men, diets high in fat and cholesterol can lead to artery blockages that cause sexual dysfunction. In fact, men with ED have a 45 percent higher risk of suffering from a cardiovascular event. But women aren't safe, either: heart disease is the number one cause of death for women in the United States. And you can't really enjoy sex if you're dead.

So next Valentine's Day, steer clear of foods high in fat and cholesterol. They'll break your heart literally and figuratively.

The Battle of the Bulgur

A few weeks ago, I received a chain email. Now, there are only two types of chain email that even make it past my spam filter these days: “inspiring” poetry and/or quotations about being a strong woman, living each day like it’s my last, etc. that my mom sends me; and recipe exchanges. This chain email was the latter.

It stressed me out for a couple of reasons. First of all, it instructed me to come up with a recipe, send it to a person I didn’t know, and then forward the original email to my twenty closest friends. Twenty closest friends? If I had twenty close friends, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t drive them away by forwarding them chain email.

But I did just that. I forwarded the chain email to my seventeen closest friends (and three people whom I consider to be just so-so friends), and I sent a pretty tasty quinoa recipe to the random girl whose contact information was at the bottom of the chain email.

The second reason this recipe exchange stressed me out was that I had to indicate that I wanted only vegan recipes, of course. I put “vegan” in parentheses after my name and contact info, knowing that it would likely limit the amount of recipes I received in return.

And I was right. I received only three emails, one of which was an apology for not participating. (Um, I forgive you.) Fortunately, one of the emails was from my friend Kinley, and it contained a recipe for Bulgur with Spinach and Basil.

I didn’t know what bulgur was, so I went to my local hippie grocery store, Lazy Acres. Amazingly, nobody at Lazy Acres knew was bulgur was, either. But after spending about ten minutes hunting around the bulk section with the help of a dedicated sales associate, I found it.

Turns out, bulgur is just whole grain wheat. Here’s the recipe Kinley sent me:

Bulgur with Spinach and Basil

3 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups medium-grain bulgur
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 bunch spinach (thick stems removed), coarsely chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn

First, I combined the vegetable broth, bulgur, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil in a skillet and brought it to a boil. Then I reduced the heat and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes, until the bulgur had absorbed all the broth. Meanwhile, I chopped up the spinach and basil. When the bulgur was ready, I just stirred in the greens until they were all wilted.

It tasted great; I always like the combination of spinach, basil, and garlic, and the bulgur was a nice change from boring old rice. I ate it as a main course and it was quite filling, but it would also work as a side dish.

As I nommed on my bulgur, I decided to send Kinley a text message to say thank you for the recipe. Unfortunately, Kinley had changed her number recently without telling me (and I am only a little suspicious that it’s because I send her annoying text messages). So I had the following text message conversation with someone who is now thoroughly confused:

Me: I made your bulgur recipe!
Not Kinley: Who’s this?
Me: How many people do you send bulgur recipes to?
Not Kinley: I don’t know what bulgur is
Me: With spinach and basil?
Not Kinley: No.

So, on the off chance that Not Kinley reads my blog: I hope this clears it up for you.

Is It Child Abuse to Raise Your Kid Vegan? "What Would You Do?" on ABC Asks

Photo: veganheath.info

The ABC series What Would You Do? uses hidden cameras to capture bystanders’ reactions to staged awkward, sometimes illegal, and always controversial situations, usually involving social prejudices. Psychologists and other experts weigh in, discussing the results with host John Quiñones.

In an upcoming What Would You Do? episode, which takes place at the Mason Jar Grill in New Jersey, a couple pressures the young daughter of a vegan mother to eat meat (they are all actors, including the waitress). After overhearing the girl’s mother explain to the waitress that she and her daughter are vegan, the intervening couple scolds the mother, saying, “She gets no protein,” and “It’s really a form of child abuse.”

Non-actor diners at nearby tables whisper among each other and stare as the couple goes so far as to order a hotdog for the little girl while her mother is in the bathroom. When the show airs, viewers will see whether the bystanders “step in, step up, or step away,” but ABC has already posted polls on its website.

The overwhelming majority of respondents responded to the poll question, “Would you try to convince a vegan family to feed their child meat?” with the answer, “No, I think vegan food is a healthy option for children.” But it’s definitely a controversial issue.

Less controversial is whether the hotdog the intervening couple orders for the little girl is actually “good for you,” as they say. Hotdogs aren’t “good” for anyone, vegan or not.

But is it child abuse, as the intervening man suggests?

In my (humble, vegan) opinion, that’s a ludicrous suggestion. It’s impossible to bring up child abuse with regard to diet without acknowledging the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States, a growing problem that is certainly not the result of veganism.

Childhood obesity is one of the most complex health and social issues in this country, and I’m not suggesting that parents who raise their children on a diet that contributes to obesity should be accused of abuse (though some have). But let’s keep some perspective, here.

Just like any parents, parents who choose to raise their children on a vegan diet ought to take care that they are getting all the B-12, calcium, iron, Vitamin D, and protein they need. The website EatRight.org offers some guidelines for raising kids on a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Watch What Would You Do? On Friday night at 9pm if you’re interested in seeing how the bystanders at the Mason Jar Grill react. My guess: the vegans win.

Easy, Vegan-Friendly Super Bowl Snacks

Photo: VegNews.com

Somehow, despite my utter lack of anything resembling interest in football, I have found myself invited to a Super Bowl party. It’s my first Super Bowl as a vegan (not that I’m using Super Bowls as life benchmarks or anything), and so I have to wonder: on a day when productivity, marriages, and human decency are sacrificed for love of football and greasy, cheesy, meaty snacks… what is a vegan to eat?

Just because some guys on TV are tossing around a pigskin, doesn’t mean you have to be eating the rest of that pig in the form of bacon bits as you watch from your couch. If you have the time and ambition to whip up something fancy, check out Ecorazzi's list of Super Bowl vegan recipes.

But what if you are lazy? Or what if you have a vegan coming to your non-vegan Super Bowl party and you want to make sure she doesn't starve to death (but you don't like her enough to go to the trouble of preparing an elaborate vegan meal option)? Well, here are five ideas for simple, vegan-friendly snacks to enjoy this Sunday:

1) Potato Chips
This one’s not surprising, since the only ingredients in most brands of potato chips are potatoes and astonishing amounts of oil. Just make sure your potato chips aren’t made with animal fat, and you’re good to go.

2) Guacamole
Check the ingredients if you’re buying a tub from the store, or make your own by mashing up a few avocadoes and tomatoes and adding lemon juice and salt. Tortilla chips for dipping are usually vegan, too!

3) Veggie Platter
I know, I know, no one likes the person who brought the veggie platter, especially if there's no Ranch dressing. But if you’re okay with being a stereotypical vegan, go for it.

4) Fruit Kebabs
Unlike veggie platters, people will actually eat your fruit kebabs. Spear pineapple chunks, strawberries, blueberries, melon, or whatever fruit is in season and arrange the kebabs on a plate. If you want to get fancy, mix some lemon or lime juice into plain soy yogurt to make a tasty dipping sauce.

5) Vegan 7-Layer Dip
At any sports-watching party, whoever brings the 7-layer dip is everybody’s best friend. Make your own vegan version by using the following layers:
1) Tofutti cream cheese substitute (or Trader Joe’s brand) mixed with taco seasoning
2) Guacamole
3) Salsa
4) Shredded lettuce
5) Daiya vegan cheese
6) Chopped green onions
7) Chopped black olives

So what if my 2012 Super Bowl experience is bound to revolve around waiting for a close-up of Tom Brady’s butt face? At least I’ll have snacks.

I Can't Believe It's Not Cheesecake (Mousse)

When I became a vegan, there were certain foods I knew I could easily veganize by using substitutes for eggs and milk. But there were some foods I assumed could never be properly veganized. Cheesecake was one of those foods.

For my eighteenth birthday, my parents threw me a surprise dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. All my best friends and my (then-unbeknownst-to-me) gay boyfriend came, and we gorged ourselves on all the horribly delicious appetizers and entrees we could stuff into our faces. We didn’t save any room for dessert, but we were at the Cheesecake Factory for Pete’s sake, so we felt obliged to order some cheesecake to go.

The next day, I had my wisdom teeth pulled. All four. Impacted. It was rough. And what made it rougher was that I had a piece of perfectly good, uneaten chocolate-chip-cookie-dough cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory sitting in my refrigerator.

I could barely open my jaw wide enough to swap out the bloody squares of gauze wedged into the gaping holes where my wisdom teeth used to be; there was no way I was going to manage to eat that cheesecake. So instead, I watched my family members devour it, bite by bite, until every last morsel was gone.

I made a vow that day: nothing was ever going to keep me from eating cheesecake again. It wasn’t that serious of a vow, though, because it became pretty much null and void when I went vegan. Until now.

Last week, I was shopping at Trader Joe’s and stumbled upon this display:

How perfectly delightful, I thought, that Trader Joe’s would name a product “This is not a tub of cream cheese. This is a tub of non-dairy spread.” I decided to purchase a tub of it to show my support for two-sentence-long grocery item names.

Part of me wanted to be boring and put it on a bagel or something. But a bigger part of me wanted to honor the vow I had made to myself on the day after my eighteenth birthday, and I decided to try to bring cheesecake back into my life.

Now, I’d had yummy vegan cheesecake on two occasions: at Café Muse in Hollywood and at Loving Hut in San Francisco’s Chinatown. But I’d never attempted to make my own cheesecake, vegan or otherwise, so I decided to set my sights low. I’d make cheesecake mousse. That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about baking it (and I wouldn’t have to go out and purchase any graham crackers for the crust). Here’s what I used:

Vegan Cheesecake Mousse
(makes 4 servings)

1 container vegan cream cheese
1 container firm tofu (about 15 oz)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp flaxmeal + 2 tbsp water (egg substitute)
2/3 cup powdered sugar

The only real instruction for this recipe is to combine the flax meal and water in a little dish first; after a few minutes, it will congeal into an egg substitute. Then I just dumped it into the food processor with the rest of the ingredients and pulsed it until it was smooth. I separated the mousse into four small dishes and refrigerated it for a couple of hours.

Success! It tasted sweet but not too sweet, and the consistency was actually pretty close to cheesecake. If you are feeling fancy, you can always add a strawberry or raspberry garnish. Next time, I’m going to serve it in shot glasses, layered with vegan chocolate mousse. Yum!

Top 10 Accidentally Vegan Junk Foods

As a vegan, my diet consists mostly of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains. I'm an advocate for eating local, unprocessed foods as much as possible, blah, blah, blah. That's all well and good. But sometimes, I've got to have snacks. Disgusting, over-processed, diabetes-inducing snacks. And thanks to Peta's list of brand-name products that are "accidentally vegan," now I know what my options are.

Below is my list of Top 10 junk foods that are, purely by accident, vegan-friendly.

Photo: blog.nj.com

10) Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs
If I can’t have Reese’s peanut butter cups, I’ll settle for their slightly significantly less exciting younger cousin. In the realm of junk food parading as breakfast cereal - and it’s a surprisingly vast realm - Reese’s (Reese?) is the obese king.

9) Smartie’s
According to my British friends, there is a UK version of Smartie’s that is way more delicious than our version here in the US. Well, those aren’t vegan. Sure, our Smartie’s might not be all that delicious – they might even be the thanks-for-participating prize of choice at pretty much every elementary school spelling bee – but you know what they’re great for? Gluing to a piece of graph paper in color-coordinated rows to learn about fractions.

8) Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate (Double Chocolate)
The chocolate mocha and chocolate hazelnut versions are also accidentally vegan, but if I’m fancy enough to drink Ghirardelli hot chocolate (and snobby enough to pronounce it with a hard “g”), I think I can handle the double chocolate, thank you.

7) Big League Chew
Never mind that the last time I actually purchased a Big League Chew, it was from the snack shack at my middle school baseball field and I was wearing tube socks and Adidas Sambas. Back then, I had no qualms about shoving fistful after fistful of those gooey pick shreds into my mouth, then tipping the bag back and pouring in the rest, so the resulting wad of gum was nearly impossible to manage between my jaws. It's good to know I can relive that experience any time I want.

6) Wheat Thins
Wheat Thins are one of those snacks that you just barely convince yourself are healthy for you to eat an entire box of. They’re basically crackers. They have the word “wheat” in the title! Come on.

5) Fruit by the Foot
In the hierarchy of elementary school cafeteria snack trading, Fruit by the Foot is the bourgeoisie. You could trade up for a Fruit Roll-Up pretty easily (jokes on the wrapper, hello?!), but no way was I going to score a Fruit by the Foot in exchange for the low-fat cheese stick or apple my mom stuck me with.

4) Kellogg’s Unfrosted Poptarts
A lot of people think the best part of poptarts is the frosting. I disagree. I think the best part of poptarts is the goopy, slightly grainy, artificially flavored “fruit” filling that sticks to the roof of your mouth like napalm. Lucky for me, I can have it in fake brown sugar, fake blueberry, or fake strawberry form.

3) Nabisco Oreo Cookies
When I was a kid (and had traded shrewdly that day in the school cafeteria, duping some poor sap into exchanging his Oreos for my chewy granola bar), I used to enjoy Oreo cookies in the most disgusting way imaginable. I would use my front teeth to scrape the crème filling off, and then – rather than just swallowing it – I would collect it from behind my teeth and use my fingers to roll it into a little ball. That ball would grow as I added the filling from three to four cookies, discarding the chocolate cookie part as I went. Then I would pop the huge, spitty crème ball into my mouth and suck on it until it dissolved. I can’t wait to resume this enchanting little ritual as soon as I get my hands on some Oreos.

2) Swedish Fish
Yes! Swedish Fish are the best.

1) Sour Patch Kids
I never understood this snack. Am I really nomming on kid-shaped candies? And what is a sour patch? Is it like a vegetable patch, but instead of vegetables, it grows… sour? Do the candy kids live in the sour patch? How did they get so delicious?

The world may never know. But at least I know what to snack on as I ponder these questions.

Nutty and Nice: Lemon Walnut Hummus

A couple of months ago, I splurged and spent over $25 on a fancy bottle of walnut oil. I figured it was $25 toward my health, since one tablespoon of the stuff apparently has enough omega-3 fatty acids to sustain a family of four on a vegan desert island for a month (or something like that).

But since making this purchase, I have been anxious about using the walnut oil, so the bottle is still mostly full in my cabinet. This type of thing happens with every splurge I make. For example, last summer I spent 80 euro on a designer purse in Florence, Italy. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot of money to you, but at that point, the rest of my “purse” collection consisted of canvas shopping bags that had been given to me at organic food festivals and similar events.

Anyway, after spending so much money on this Florentine purse, I was afraid to use it for its intended function. I was plagued by fear that it would get stolen (the purse itself was far more valuable than anything inside it) or that my lip gloss would melt all over it or that some other misfortune would befall it.

The fancy walnut oil in my cabinet was becoming the food equivalent of my Florentine purse (which, by the way, is still in fantastic shape). I needed to use it for something. So a couple of nights ago, I decided to make walnut hummus with lemon juice. Here’s what I used:

Lemon Walnut Hummus

1 can chickpeas, drained
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
2 tbsp (fancy) walnut oil
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, chopped
juice from 1 lemon

I had no idea what I was doing (I’m sure that is not incredibly surprising), but as it turns out, making hummus is about the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I just dumped everything in the food processer and pulsed it until it was the consistency of, well, hummus.

It turned out a bit tangy, which I liked, and nutty at the same time. I immediately decided to make hummus to bring to every party I’m invited to in the future. It’s so easy, and there’s something undeniably cool about the person who brought the homemade hummus. I want to be that person.

Unfortunately, this hummus was almost too good. David ate nearly the entire batch in one sitting (apparently when I said, “Would you like a bit of hummus to hold you over before dinner?” he heard, “I made this batch of hummus just for you, and I don’t want any of it myself”).

But since it’s so easy, I’ll just make another batch in the next few days. Now that I’ve moved past my anxiety over using my inordinately expensive walnut oil, there’s nothing stopping me.

Shit Meat Eaters Say to Vegans

Yesterday, I decided to get on the "Shit BLANKS Say [to BLANKS]" bandwagon. If you can't beat 'em... right? So my roommate Erin and I spent an afternoon frolicking around our neighborhood and trying not to get kicked out of our local Ralph's supermarket. Here you go:

Shit Meat Eaters Say to Vegans

(the picture is a link to the video)

Restaurant Review: Mike and Patty's (Bigger Isn't Always Better)

I am not a very competitive person, generally. As a fifth-grade softball player, I was relegated to right field, where I tugged up stray blades of grass and honed my (now perfected) zoning out skills. And I’ll likely fail as an opera singer, since my diva ways do not extend far beyond writing a self-indulgent blog and photo-documenting all my meals.

But at Mike and Patty’s, a neighborhood breakfast joint in Boston’s fabulous Bay Village, a long-dormant competitive streak was awakened within me. I was meeting my pregnant-but-somehow-still-skinny friend Bridget for breakfast there before I headed back to Santa Barbara, and I arrived five minutes before she did.

It was immediately apparent that seating would be an issue. Mike and Patty’s, though charming and cozy, is cramped, to say the least. The single table was occupied by two couples and a baby in a carrier and the two counter stools were occupied by another, nerdier couple. Both parties had just gotten their orders.

Since there was nowhere to sit, I considered the option of just standing there balancing the plate on one hand while eating off it with the other, like I used to do in my little cottage before I had a kitchen table. But the only place to stand was directly in front of the counter, silently staring down a woman I had to assume was Patty, who wanted to take my order. I tried that for a while, but it got awkward pretty quickly.

As I waited, another customer showed up, carrying a messenger bag. Now it was really crowded. There was just no room for me, the random guy, and his messenger bag. As the couples with the baby prepared to leave, I watched the guy eying their soon-to-be-available seats. I hoped he didn’t think he was going to get one of those seats. Suddenly competitive, I began to imagine the altercation that would ensue if he made a move, and I clenched my fists, preparing for the worst.

But at that point, Bridget arrived and I realized I had had nothing to worry about all along. Bridget is pregnant. In the hierarchy of seat claiming, Pregnant beats Random Guy with a Messenger Bag any day.

The reason we had come to Mike and Patty’s is because it is quite vegan-friendly. Although there are no flat-out vegan items on its menu, many things are easily veganizable. They have Daiya vegan cheese substitute and Tofutti cream cheese substitute. And both Patty (at whom I had been awkwardly staring while I stood waiting for Bridget to arrive) and Mike (who was quite visible in the tiny kitchen and able to participate in conversation) were exceptionally friendly and willing to make substitutions.

I went with the Vegetable Torta (sweet potatoes, poblano peppers, avocado, refritos, and jicama slaw on a roll) and substituted Tofutti for the goat cheese. Putting sweet potatoes in a sandwich is one of those things that had never occurred to me but once I tried it, it made so much sense:

Thanks, Mike and Patty, for a perfect last meal in Boston. I understand why seating is so competitive – the food is worth it.

Restaurant Review: Mi Lah in Philadelphia - "Get Your Brunch On!"

Have I mentioned how much I love brunch? Of course I have. So it should come as no surprise that I was determined to find a vegan brunch spot in Philadelphia while I visited my friend Saloni there this weekend. My search was pretty easy; Saloni already knew of a place within walking distance of her house.

It’s called Mi Lah, which originates from the Indian Buddhist word for “nature, harmony, happiness, and kindness.” I support all those things, and I also support Mi Lah's use of local, seasonal ingredients.

The décor was quite unremarkable, so I will not remark upon it. But the menu made up for the décor’s lack of enthusiasm: across the top of the menu were the words, “Get Your Brunch On!” I found this delightful, if slightly aggressive.

I would get my brunch on, and I would like it. Bring it on, Mi Lah.

We started off with a complimentary plate of fruit: grapes with orange and apple slices. I like things that are free, so I liked the fruit plate, but if I was going to Get My Brunch On as the menu commanded, I’d have to step it up.

Free fruit always tastes good.

So I ordered what seemed like the menu item that would be most conducive to the Getting On of My Brunch: veggie sausage and avocado on oven-fresh biscuits in mushroom gravy with Red Bliss sweet potato home fries and bronzed coconut king mushrooms.

I wasn't sure what a king mushroom was. I hadn't even been aware that mushrooms operated under a feudal system; had I been unknowingly consuming bourgeois mushrooms my whole life? Or worse, peasant mushrooms?

Well, this king mushroom (which, as it turned out, was just an exceptionally long mushroom) was fried in a light coconut batter. The sweet potato home fries were crispy on the outside and just the right amount of mushy on the inside. And the biscuits, veggie sausage, and avocado were stacked eggs-Benedict-style, with the mushroom gravy substituting for hollandaise sauce. The combination of textures was perfect:

Saloni, who was considerably less concerned with Getting Her Brunch On, went with the corn masa cakes with refried black beans, avocado, and fresh mango salsa. The corn masa cake, underneath heaps of avocado and salsa, was surprisingly flavorful and very filling; Saloni couldn’t finish the whole thing, even with my help:

 

I wish Mi Lah were in my city so I could Get My Brunch On all the time. But I will have to try to make up for it by inventing new vegan brunchy recipes myself. In fact, while typing this post, I have decided that my New Years resolution will be to represent Mi Lah out in California by embracing “nature, harmony, happiness, and kindness” and, most importantly, by Getting My Brunch On as often as possible.

Anatomy of a Vegan?

I love information and I love graphics (I guess), so obviously I love infographics. They just make it so much easier to wrap your head around concepts that are otherwise overwhelming or vague.

So I’m excited that the folks over at Advanced Physical Medicine put together an infographic to represent who vegans are and what we’re about. The cleverly named Anatomy of a Vegan infographic, based on a 2011 survey conducted on Facebook, addresses everything from the amount of money vegans spend on groceries to the reasons people become vegan in the first place.

But I have some problems with the way this information is represented. First of all, the infographic’s introductory blurb asks, “Did you know there are 3 million+ vegans in the United States?” But the survey included only 144 respondents, 6% of whom (somewhere between 8 and 9 people, whatever that means) are no longer vegans.

That might explain some surprising results. For example, 48% of survey respondents have an annual household income of under $30,000. It’s possible that this evidence debunks the common belief among omnivores that only the wealthy can afford to be vegan, while poor people must eat whatever they can get their hands on.

But it seems more likely that those 48% of the survey’s participants, who needed access to Facebook to participate, are students (like me!). Even though Facebook’s demographic is no longer dominated by the student population, I think the fact that 46% of survey participants have only earned a high school degree (so far), 74% are single, and 88% have no children supports my theory that the majority of participants are currently students.

Or maybe nobody wants to marry vegans. That might be true, too.

Along those lines, the part of this infographic that will be most disappointing for all the single vegan ladies is that only 17% of vegans are male. I guess that’s why one of the most commonly cited challenges of being a vegan is “dating non-vegans.”

Personally, I don’t mind dating non-vegans; in fact, I’ve never even met a vegan guy I wanted to date. The one drawback of dating an omnivore is occasional hot dog breath, but it beats scrounging around for one of those twenty-four (and a half) vegan guys who participated in this survey.

Restaurant Review: Veggie Galaxy in Central Square

Before I went vegan, one of my favorite things in the world (I’m talking right behind bursting into joyful song in inappropriate unusual situations) was brunch. I once told my friend Nadia, over brunch, that I could never be a vegan for the simple reason that bacon... exists. About a week later, I went vegan.

My character inconsistencies aside, brunch is awesome and anyone who says otherwise is not my friend. Unfortunately, that’s probably why I don’t have any vegan friends: brunch is generally not a vegan-friendly meal. Bacon? No. Eggs? Duh, no. Coffee?! You try asking the haggard diner waitress if she could please bring you some soy milk.

But it’s the brunch experience that I really miss – waking up too late to eat a proper breakfast and walking over to a breakfast-all-day diner, drinking bottomless coffees and chatting about any old thing (but probably all the fun you had the night before).

So when my bouncy, recently tattooed friend Amanda suggested we check out a new vegetarian brunch place after our hot yoga class, I jumped at the opportunity. It’s called Veggie Galaxy, it opened a few months ago in Central Square, and I should point out that it’s not only a brunch place. They serve breakfast all day, but they also serve dinner and vegan desserts.

The founder, Adam, had a similar brunch-withdrawal experience to mine when he decided to go vegetarian. As he explains on the Veggie Galaxy website:

“After becoming vegetarian, the menu selections at diners narrowed for me. No more Club sandwich, tuna melt or meatloaf. No Reuben, no BLT, no eggs Benedict with a nice thick slice of Canadian bacon. I still loved going to diners, but always ended up with either an omelet or pancakes.”

So he founded Veggie Galaxy to fill that vegetarian diner gap. I say an omelet or pancakes beats watery oatmeal, which is what vegans have to call a meal at most diners, but I digress. Last week, Amanda and I bopped over to Veggie Galaxy after class. We were all sweaty and yoga-y.

Amanda just loves Veggie Galaxy.

I was ready to gain back the ten pounds of water weight I’d just sweated off, so we started with a “Vanilla Zebra” coconut milk shake:

As we sipped the shake, I looked around the restaurant. Almost everyone who worked there could be described as “biker/hipster.” And by “biker,” I mean bicyclist. They were thin and covered in tattoos, most wore thick-rimmed glasses, and men and women alike had haircuts that involved some variety of spikiness. I am not sure this style even exists in Santa Barbara, but apparently it’s a scene in Cambridge. Amanda sighed and said with admiration, “I bet all those line cooks work as bike messengers during the day.”

The biker/hipster line cooks at work.

I was so enticed by the dinner menu that I didn’t even end up ordering vegan brunch. But it’s nice to know a place exists where I could order vegan brunch, if I felt like it. I went with the vegetable pot pie (roasted seasonal vegetables, house smoked tofu, mushroom gravy, tarragon basil pesto), because I haven’t had pot pie since I’ve been a vegan. It’s just one of those things I never think to make for myself.

This pot pie was served with a side of mashed sweet potatoes, which was to die for. Those biker/hipster line cooks really know what they’re doing when it comes to mashing sweet potatoes:

Amanda got the “Kendall Square” (a vegan burger with roasted red pepper puree, beer battered onion rings, roasted garlic mayo, and baby argula) with red cabbage slaw. She chose this particular burger because it came with huge onion rings on top of it:

 

Although I had been determined to save room for dessert (Veggie Galaxy is also a vegan bakery), the coconut milk shake had made it difficult to even finish the last bites of our delicious entrees. Dessert just wasn’t gonna happen.

But I will be back! And I really want to rediscover Veggie Planet, Veggie Galaxy’s sister restaurant, in Harvard Square, my old flouncing stomping grounds.

Indian-Fusion Cheela

I haven’t always been intimidated by my friend Saloni’s cooking skills. I never noticed what a natural cook she was while we were in college, since we ate the majority of our meals in a dining hall. But last year when I went to visit her at her apartment in Pennsylvania, I realized what kind of force I was dealing with.

This lady was flitting around the kitchen like Ratatouille, adding a pinch of this and a sprinkle of that to the multiple pots and pans on her stove, using a wooden spoon to taste the concoctions in each one, and making thoughtful analyses of what had happened so far, what was happening right then, and what needed to happen next in this whirlwind cooking experience.

She offered to let me help, but we both knew that I wasn’t going to contribute beyond chopping some vegetables, which she would then toss through the air in a graceful arch to land in one of the pots.

At that point in my life, I was subsisting mainly on peanut butter toast, which, as you might know, has only two ingredients: peanut butter and toast. One time I even messed that up, when I got distracted by an episode of The Bachelor schoolwork and let the peanut butter toast get cold. I stuck it back in the toaster oven to heat it up, but when I took it out, the peanut butter had melted all over everything and it stuck to my hands like edible napalm.

But yesterday when I went to visit Saloni at her parents’ house (which is relatively near my parents’ house), I was feeling a bit more confident. Nobody would ever try to convince you that I’m a natural, but over the past nine months of being a vegan, I’ve at least become less of an embarrassing spaz when I try to cook.

Saloni’s mom is gluten-free and mostly vegan, so they decided to make a simple, vegan, gluten-free, Indian-fusion meal for lunch. It’s called cheela in northern India, where Saloni’s parents are from, and chillah in western India. It’s basically an Indian version of a savory crepe.

Indian-Fusion Cheela
(makes one)

5 heaping tablespoons quinoa flour (or bean flour)
water
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon hummus
handful arugala
¼ tomato, sliced
raw onion to taste

Saloni’s mom is gluten-free, so she makes her own flour out of chickpeas, cannellini beans, and in this case, quinoa. She makes the different kinds of flour herself in her incredibly powerful blender, but apparently you can buy them at stores like Whole Foods.

First, she mixed water into the quinoa flour a little bit at a time, stirring it in until the batter had a watery, crepe-like consistency. She said to start in the middle of the dish and stir your way outward, to make sure there aren’t any stealth flour lumps.

Then she spread the olive oil over the entire bottom of the pan and poured the batter in carefully, tilting the pan so the batter would spread out into a thin, even layer. She sprinkled the cumin and salt on top and let it cook for about five minutes, until it was easy to remove it from the pan with a spatula.

Now comes the fusion part. Traditional cheela is eaten plain or dipped in various sauces, but we ate our cheela like a wrap. We spread a thin layer of lemon hummus over the whole thing and added arugula, tomatoes, and raw onion slices.

It was quite a tasty spin on the basic lunch wrap. I’m visiting Saloni at her house in Pennsylvania over New Years weekend, and I can’t wait to cook up some more yummy vegan meals with her! This time, I won’t be scared.

Youtube Premiere: Very Simple Vegan Chocolate Cake

My first instructional cooking messy baking video: how to make Very Simple Vegan Chocolate Cake in a pan. It came out light, fluffy, and moist - no frosting necessary!

I think that's a pretty sweet thumbnail, too. It looks like I'm singing at you. Enjoy!

Holiday Parties: A Vegan Survival Guide

Photo: makermama.com

Last weekend, my parents hosted their annual Christmas caroling party. Friends, neighbors, and relatives came over to have a light dinner and then we went out caroling around the neighborhood. Afterward, we warmed up with mulled wine and cider. It was the perfect opportunity to show off what a good singer I am under the guise of holiday cheer.

This was not the first holiday party I’d attended this season, and since it is my first holiday season as a vegan, I’ve been taking note of ways I can avoid awkwardness (for myself and my omnivorous fellow party-goers) in a trial-by-error kind of way.

Of course, your best bet is to just celebrate with other vegans. But if like me, you have few (okay, zero) vegan friends, and you don’t want to turn into an anti-social Grinchy McGrinchface, you will inevitably end up in a non-vegan holiday party situation. So I’ve compiled the following list of three simple behaviors that, I hope, can help other vegans avoid some of my holiday party fouls.

1) Bring a delicious vegan dessert to share.
If possible, make it yourself. And don’t tell people it’s vegan until they’ve gorged themselves on it. If you show up at the party and announce, “I have a plate of vegan cookies!” people might be afraid to try them. So let them enjoy the cookies and then savor their surprise when you mention that those cookies all over their faces they just ate were vegan. This trick worked great with the chocolate chip cookies I brought to a holiday sparkle-themed party and the peanut brittle I made for my parents’ party.

Note: this only works if your vegan dessert actually tastes good. Don’t bring nasty vegan cookies to a party.

2) Don’t talk about being a vegan.
Probably the only way to pull this one off is to not even mention you’re a vegan – as soon as you do, the person you tell will demand details. Why are you a vegan? How do you manage it? Where do you get your protein? Well, you certainly don’t get your protein from two pieces of red velvet cake, a caramel brownie, and a handful of M&Ms every few minutes. But the person you’re talking to thinks she does, and if you draw attention to her indulgences, she’ll just feel self-conscious and get defensive. At holiday parties, people want to stuff their faces in peace. This is one time when you shouldn’t disturb that peace.

3) If you must talk about being a vegan, direct the conversation to how weird raw foodists are.
I was the token vegan at my parents’ party, and people kept asking me about it. If I had refused to answer, it would have just seemed creepy, like I had lost my powers of speech or something. So instead, I bonded with them about the only dietary restriction more alienating to omnivores than veganism: raw foodism. “Yeah, it’s sometimes difficult to avoid eggs, but ohmygod those people don’t eat spaghetti. Can you imagine?”

And if all else fails, just start singing a Christmas carol really loudly. Joy to the World works well. At any other time of year, you will almost certainly be ostracized for such behavior – but at Christmas, people will admire your holiday cheer and join in.