Sickness and Health...and Salad

First of all, I just want to make something clear: Tony is perfectly capable of cooking. He's even good at cooking. His spaghetti sauce is incredibly delicious. When I was pregnant, he actually did the majority of the cooking because I was practically always sleeping.

That said, I do the majority of the cooking now. The reason for that is because I enjoy cooking. I like losing the stress of my day in the mundanity of chopping and sauteeing and the focus that comes with meal preparation. So, when I'm down for the count, the cooking either stops or shifts to convenience cooking. This is, once again, not because Tony is not capable. It's because when one of us is sick, the other takes over for childcare and meal prep, and since keeping the kid alive is the priority over meal prep, the kid wins.

For the last week or so, I've had a weird stomach bug going on. I had a fever and chills, and I was really nauseated. I spent a lot of time in bed, drinking mint and ginger teas. So our meals have either been repeats of stuff I've talked about in the past (tacos, for example) or they've been desperation meals since I've been sick--like canned soup. Don't judge us.

Tacos repeated! Plus the guacamole I made for myself.

Last night was probably the first I've really cooked in a while, and it was nice to get back to it. I made a mushroom, lentil, lemon and arugula salad. I found a recipe for it Pinterest--I do that a lot--and it was pretty good. I say pretty good because it was alright, but I don't think it was great. The recipe as it was written just wasn't there for me. I'm not going to link to the recipe because I think I want to try to change this one up myself and then post my recipe for it when I really feel like I have it where I want it.

Here's what I'll say in favor of this dish: mushrooms are probably my favorite thing on planet Earth, and the combination of mushrooms and garlic will always be a win for me. The arugula also pairs incredibly well with mushrooms and lentils. Tony doesn't feel particularly fond of arugula, but he commented last night that he liked it with this dish.

I just feel like the whole time I was eating this I was thinking about what I could have done differently and trying to figure out what was missing from the flavor. There are also things that I would omit next time, like the chili flakes the recipe called for. I will say, though, that this mixture was really good when I spooned it on top of the naan we had with dinner. In the future, no matter what else we decide on to change it, it will definitely be served with naan.

I feel like last night's dinner was disappointing to me. It was decent enough in flavor to eat, but it was just not that satisfying. The best meals are the ones that are satisfying in flavor and in effort. I feel like last night was neither. I put in a fair amount of effort for very little return in flavor, which makes me feel like the effort was somewhat wasted. This does not please me at all.

The good news is that today is a new day, and I can try again. We were between a few options tonight for dinner, so I'm not exactly sure what I'll be making for later. At any rate, I know it will be better than yesterday. It has to be. Otherwise I'll just have to quit cooking and become one of those people that subsists only on coffee and my disdain for others.

Buckwheat Pancakes

When I was a kid, my parents used to make these weekend breakfasts. You know how in the movies and television, there are always these families having breakfasts of pancakes and bacon and juice and sitting around the table like they actually like each other? Well, in our family, we actually did that. It didn't always end well--sometimes there were fights or someone stormed off angry or something--but that's because this is reality and that's how life in a real family actually works.

I remember that my dad used to cut up fruit for us on a separate plate. Usually, we ate the fruit first while we waited for whatever else was being served. We alternated meals. Sometimes, we had eggs. Sometimes, pancakes or waffles--in regular, sweet potato, or buckwheat varieties. On occasion, my mom used to make this really amazing peach thing--I have no idea what it was called. All I know is that I found it delicious.

Not that long ago, I found myself craving buckwheat pancakes. I'm not sure why I wanted them. It just came out of the blue. When I thought about it, I realized that it had probably been something like ten years since I'd actually had a buckwheat pancake. Ten years is certainly long enough, so yesterday, while we were out and about, Tony bought some buckwheat flour in preparation for big day when I was going to try my hand at making them.

I didn't really have a plan on when I was going to make them, but then our friend Nikki came over yesterday. The subject of pancakes came up because she asked if we could still eat pancakes. Random side note: let me just say I'm grateful for friends who ask questions about being vegan rather than judging it. I would rather answer questions all day than deal with one person scoffing about my life and my choices. Anyway, I figured since pancakes had come up so very recently and I now had all the stuff to make them that this morning would be as good a time as any.

I used a recipe that I found on Pinterest just because I didn't feel like experimenting too heavily as of yet. You can find the recipe here. Plus, if you have me on social media, you know that this week's been a little crazy for us. The baby was sick on Tuesday. Yesterday, I had enough of an ear infection that I was diffusing essential oils and laying in bed with apple cider vinegar in my ear. It's better today, but I still have a little something going on. So today was not exactly a day for me to experiment. It's more of a lay-in-bed-with-the-heating-pad-pressed-to-your-head kind of day.

This recipe is good, but it wasn't great. The pancake batter was a little thick at first, so I added some extra almond milk and some extra applesauce to make mine a little looser because I tend to like a thinner pancake batter. I did use unsweetened applesauce as the recipe called for, but I didn't do it on purpose. We happened to have some, so it just worked out that way. In the future, I think I would actually use applesauce that had some sweetener just because I really think that these needed that extra sweetness.

I also found, technique-wise, that there was more of a need for me to spray the pan with the cooking spray between each pancake than there usually is for traditional pancakes. I mean, I was using a non-stick pan, so I didn't really have to, but the pancakes got a much more appealing look and outer texture when I did use the cooking spray. So I would say to each their own, but I really preferred it that way.

The recipe does produce eight to ten pancakes, as promised. I ended up with eight good sized ones and a ninth small one. If I'd made the others a little less large, I'd have had ten, but I like big pancakes (and I cannot lie). The recipe was also super easy and had a total of five ingredients, all of them easily accessible and readily available. It was simple to follow, but then again how many pancake recipes out there really get all that complicated?

I think this recipe was a good start. It produced good, consistent results. I just felt like it needed something. It needed more sweet. These were Tony's first introduction to buckwheat pancakes. He liked them enough to have them again, but he also agreed that they needed a little more sweetness.

We'll have to see about altering this recipe for future use, maybe adding something to it. Maybe I'll just look at some other vegan buckwheat pancake recipes and cobble a few together to make my own. Who knows? What I do know is that this satisfied a craving I'd been having for a while now. I kind of forgot how much I enjoy buckwheat pancakes. They have this really good earthiness, and they're so satisfying. The protein content helps them stick with you a little longer, I think. The next step is going to be working on those sweet potato pancakes, and before you know it I'll have my breakfast game on point for when Josephine is a little girl. Maybe I can ensure that she carries forward some good memories of weekend breakfasts into her adulthood too.

Spaghetti Squash and Mashed Potatoes

Today is my day off, which means I'm on baby-wrangling duty. I love getting to spend time with my daughter. What I don't love, however, is that today she's turned me into her human Kleenex. Yesterday, Tony ended up having to stay home with her because she got pink eye again--the kids in daycare are basically just passing it back and forth--and she had a fever. When she's sick, she's inconsolable and unappeasable. She's basically spent all morning wiping her nose on me, and I truly was that was hyperbole.

With that, you know what kind of day I'm having. In between baby cuddles and eye drops, I'm trying to play catch-up on the food I've been making because we've actually had some really good food lately. I think I forgot a little bit how much I enjoy cooking. I also think that I took for granted how therapeutic cooking can be for me.

Monday night, Tony offered to make dinner. Normally, I would have loved to have him make dinner. But, this time, I was actually a little bit disappointed. I felt like I should have been doing something; I couldn't enjoy my free time. I ended up getting up and kind of taking over the cooking. I realized then how much I depend on those few moments of not thinking about work or obligations or bills. I use that time to focus on just making dinner and maybe listening to music. It's a small mental vacation for me, and I definitely need more of that in my life.

So, in that spirit, I'd like to share the zen that I had this Saturday when I made spaghetti squash. Let me just start by saying that I'm incredibly tired of spaghetti squash not getting it's proper respect. A great deal of the recipes that I've found online center around it being used in place of pasta and covered in tomato sauce. I've eaten it that way, so I can say it's pretty good. I just wanted to do it differently because it's more than just a pasta replacement. So I found a recipe that was a little different and modified it to what I wanted it to be.

First of all, we baked the squash whole in the oven at about 400 degrees for about thirty minutes. Then I cut it open, scraped out the seeds, and shredded in the inside into strands with a fork. In the future, I think I'd cut it in half, scrap out the seeds first, and then bake it. It was a little hard to separate the seeds from the cooked squash the way I did it before. After it was all scraped out, I set the squash aside.

Then, I sauteed some mushrooms with olive oil and garlic. Once the mushrooms were cooked, I added the squash back and some thyme and salt and pepper. Then, we heated up some leftover cauliflower and mashed potatoes. It was so good.

The flavor that really adds to this dish and makes it what it is is the thyme. It's flavor was surprisingly prominent, but in a really great way. The garlic was just the perfect undertone to the flavor profile. The texture of the spaghetti squash was a really nice juxtaposition to the mashed potatoes and cauliflower. The mushrooms give a nice meatiness to the flavor and texture. It was simple, delicious, and easy.

Tony had never had spaghetti squash before, so this was a good introduction to it. He enjoyed it, and even the baby had a little bite that she seemed to enjoy. This dinner was even declared a do-over on the first try--which is pretty high praise from Tony.

It's a little shameful that it's taken me this long to write about it, but there's so much that I've been making lately that I want to write about. It's been more difficult than I previously predicted to keep the blog up to date with all the new things that we're trying and all the work. I'm a little afraid that it's going to get worse once I go back to school, but I'm not going to let that stop me. I might just take advantage of the ability to schedule out posts in advance and use that to help with the hectic schedule problems.

Also, I was considering exploring a different format for these posts. That's in the works. We'll see. For now, it's baby duty. Sick and screamy are not my favorite combination for a day off. Just throwing that out there.

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Savory Spaghetti Squash

by Jessica Platz April-6-2016

This is a spaghetti squash recipe that is not the usual pasta replacement.

Ingredients

• 1 whole Spaghetti squash
• 4 large, cut into slices Mushrooms
• 2 cloves Garlic
• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• 1 tablespoon Thyme
• to taste Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Bake the spaghetti squash at 400 degrees for 30 minutes if roasting whole. I suggest cutting in half, scooping out the seeds, and roasting face down on a baking sheet. Time may need to be adjusted if cutting in half to avoid overcooking.2. Scoop the flesh from the cooked squash out with a fork to form strands and set aside.3. In a skillet, heat olive oil. Sautee the mushrooms over medium high head. Once the mushrooms are almost done, add the garlic and cook for another minute.4. Add the spaghetti squash to the skillet along with the thyme, salt, and pepper and cook until squash is reheated and flavors have had time to develop.5. Serve. We served with leftover mashed potatoes and cauliflower, but this is also good on it's own.

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 45 mins Total time: 54 mins Yield: 2

Friends and Food

Yesterday, I got the unique pleasure of someone else making dinner for me. For the first time since we've gone vegan, we had a dinner that wasn't prepared by one of the two of us or ordered from a Mediterranean restaurant. It was, I have to say, pretty awesome. Our friend Leah had us over, and we had Italian tacos with bean salad. The combination of the soy meat and bean salad was really wonderful, and I had three tacos.

It's kind of crazy how easy it is to take for granted the luxury that is having someone else cook for you or the luxury that is being able to eat out pretty much anywhere you want. You don't really think about it until it's not as easy an option anymore. We don't expect anyone to really cook for us as vegans because lots of people either aren't vegan themselves or don't understand the vegan lifestyle. And we can't just go and eat out anymore because a lot of restaurants just don't have options for us anymore.

So you can imagine how nice it really was to have another person cook for us. I didn't take any pictures of it while we were eating it because I was simply much too excited for food. The good news is that Leah was kind enough to send some leftovers with us, so I was able to enjoy more of it today for lunch.

I almost feel like the thing that's most surprising about going vegan isn't even the food. I've always been pretty happy about trying new things, and I wouldn't say that I would have ever considered myself terribly attached to meat even before going vegan. I was a vegetarian for a while before, so the meat part to me is kind of the easy part. What's really been most surprising to me about going vegan is how much I took for granted and didn't think about as a meat-eater.

I took for granted just the ease of being able to go wherever I wanted and order whatever without any restrictions. I feel like I finally understand how difficult it can be to be sure that you're not eating a restricted food for people who suffer from allergies. Labels are so vague sometimes, with descriptions like "natural flavors" included on ingredient lists. And when you eat out, you depend on the staff to be able to tell you what's in the food, you depend on the communication between kitchen staff and waitstaff. You sort of end up having to come to rely on the things that you are sure fall within your diet.

I also took for granted how mindless I often was about food. I bought a lot of things without reading labels. I didn't really think that deeply about the nutrition of the meals I was making. I put so much more thought into my meals and varying our menu and the nutrition inherent in what we're making. I think so much more about the ingredients of the foods I buy. I'm much more mindful about my food.

I guess the good news is that we're becoming much more aware and eating much better. We've really been eating more varied foods as well to keep it interesting, so we're getting a really good spread of vitamins and minerals.

Today, I've been trying to get some extra food made for the sake of my own laziness. I made a big pot of lentil soup tonight that we can eat for a few days for lunches. I also prepped some overnight oats for tomorrow's breakfast. My lentil soup is so easy. I just cut up three stalks of celery, three carrots, and half an onion. I use a can of diced tomatoes with the juice, a whole bag of lentils and then I just cover it with water and toss in some bay leaves. This time, I included a potato, but normally I don't. It was a good addition, and Tony said he preferred it with the potato. Then, just salt and pepper to taste and a few liberal shakes of cumin for that little something extra. That's it. I'm pretty sure I could make it with my eyes closed.

I know that it sounds kind of boring, but it's really filling. I seem to always forget how much I love lentils until I'm eating them. Tony loves this soup and has even specifically requested that I make it for dinner some nights--which is high praise coming from him. Plus, cumin and lentils pair so well together that it really adds that extra depth of flavor to this soup.

My overnight oats were also very easy. It's a 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup of cashew or almond milk, 1 teaspoon of chia seeds, and a heaping spoonful of peanut butter. Just shake it up in a jar, add any fruit you might want, and place it in the fridge. I put banana in mine because I love peanut butter and banana, but Tony said he preferred to just have the oats without any fruit.

We also sat down and talked about our meals for the next few days. We have enough food in the apartment that we won't have to go grocery shopping for at least a week. The problem is that our meal plan extends out to about next Friday, but we hate weekend shopping. So from Saturday to Monday, we're going to need to get creative about using up what is still in our apartment--because, seriously, we refuse to go grocery shopping on the weekend any more. It's too much of a madhouse. I'm hoping I can parlay that forced march into ingenuity into some interesting blog posts.

Burrito Bowls

So I mentioned in a past post that the way that Tony and I handle dinners is to make a list of meals we can eat and then randomly select a meal to make. Tonight, we made burrito bowls. In retrospect, we could just have made burritos because we did have tortillas, but we did them as bowls. We don't play by the rules around here. Also, we have a nasty habit of hanging on to tortillas well past their prime. It's something we're working on.

One thing that I should mention that I may have mentioned before is that when I make meals, I have to make them keeping in mind the fact that Tony is incredibly picky. If there's something I want for a meal, like sour cream for my burrito bowl or guacamole, I have to make the meal in such a way that I can keep those things separate because Tony won't eat them.

This has been a constant theme for us, cooking around the desires of each of us in such a way that we can both have what we want. So our burrito bowls needed, obviously, to be sort of customizable. So I tried to make things a little bit separate. You may have noticed that over the last few days, a lot of our meals have components that are made somewhat separately and combined together in a bowl. This is because I am lazy and it's easier than trying to brainstorm something that will be good for both of us or asking one of us to compromise.

First, I made brown rice in the Instant Pot. I actually ended up making extra so that I can use it for another meal that we're planning later in the week--or weekend, as it were. While the brown rice was cooking, I sauteed some red onion in a bit of grape seed oil. Once they were softened, I added some mushrooms--only about four since the mushrooms that we bought were very large. Once the mushrooms had some decent color, I added garlic and red pepper and cooked them until the peppers were softened, adding salt and pepper to taste.

The onions ended up beautifully caramelized, and the flavors all ended up really wonderful. There's something about sauteed mushrooms and onions that I feel like I'm rediscovering. Sauteed mushrooms were among my favorite things when I was a child. I remember how disappointing it was to me when they were gone. Now, as a vegan, I feel like I'm rediscovering the simplicity and depth of flavor that are present in something like sauteed mushrooms and onions, but as a main focal point rather than as a side dish. It's pretty cool, actually. I was legitimately surprised at how delicious tonight's vegetables were, not because I didn't expect them to be delicious but because I think I've been taking for granted how satisfying these components can be. 

For protein, we cooked some of the black beans that were left from yesterday's meal as well. I added some vegetable stock so they wouldn't dry out in the pan--just a splash--and seasoned them with garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, salt, and pepper. I didn't measure because I never measure seasoning unless I'm following a recipe. I just know what I like, and I tend to know how to get there. I also made some simple guacamole, just avocado, lime juice, and seasonings.

My bowl had rice, beans, vegetables, guacamole, and some tomatoes. I also added some Tofutti sour cream and Cholula hot sauce. It was so good. I can honestly say that I would enthusiastically eat this every day. I mixed everything together, and it was so satisfying. That's the funny thing about me. I make these pretty bowls, I take pictures, I post to Instagram, and then I demolish them and mix them all together to eat them. The pictures of how it looks when I'm actually eating it would be nowhere near as pretty if I showed how it really looks.

Tony's bowl was a little bit different. We had some TVP taco "meat" left, so he had that in his bowl. He also had rice, beans, and veggies. One of the things that perplexes me most about Tony is how dry he often has his food. I'm a fan of sauces and dips and things. Tony dislikes all of those things. He said he doesn't like wet food. So, there you go. Just another one of the ways in which we differ.

I think this is another really easy dinner that we could make regularly. Right now, I'm also trying really hard to find meals that I can either make really quickly or make in advance. Since I'll be returning to school in the fall and my classes will be in the evenings twice a week, there will be nights that I won't have time to make dinner or will have difficulty making dinner. Lunch tomorrow is really the test as to how well this meal will reheat. If it does well, then this might be something that I prep in advance and make for those evenings when we're short on time.

I've made some really good food lately. I've made some very healthy food. Honestly, tonight's meal was probably the most enjoyable meal that I've made all week. It was a last minute decision on what to make that ended up really paying off. 

Buddha Bowls and Other Dinners

Things were a little bit busy for us last week, what with Easter and all, so I haven't had as much chance as I would like to really share what I've been making for meals lately. Of course, last week was also complicated by the pink eye that we all had. And, on top of that, Tony ended up with an ear infection that forced him to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics. Our plans have been mostly derailed in the last week, so it's been kind of rough going around here.

As you can imagine, with all of that nonsense going on and the holiday as well, things have been a mess food-wise. Thursday night, we ended up just needing to make a super fast dinner because we had an evening church service to go to. So I just sauteed some onions, mushrooms, and garlic and served that over a mashed potato and cauliflower mixture that I cooked in the Instant Pot. We had bought some naan at Costco that we heated up to go with it. There was no recipe to speak of, it was just something quick and easy to throw out there. I was pretty excited about this dinner, though, since mushrooms are among my favorite foods.

Friday was a whatever night. We had canned split pea soup that we buy at Aldi. I ended up going out for coffee with some friends, and Tony didn't feel good, so it was kind of a wash anyways. Saturday, Tony made a red lentil soup in the Instant Pot that we've been really enjoying lately, but I didn't really get to enjoy it on Saturday because the baby was inconsolable and that was the day that Tony went to MedPoint to see the doctor. The lentil soup was for lunch, and it will more than likely be the subject of a later blog post. For dinner, I had toast. That's right, toast. I told you it's been a mess. On the upside, the toast I had was sprouted grain toast, so it did at least have some nutritional value.

For Easter, we brought our own food over to my parents. Since we were both just not feeling well this weekend, we opted for simple. I made a pasta salad for everyone to share, baked up a couple of sweet potatoes, and brought the leftover red lentil soup. My parents made asparagus that we also shared. For Easter breakfast, I made peanut butter and banana overnight oats, which turned out to be really quite good. I'm seriously considering making some right now to take to work tomorrow morning (but I probably won't because I'm seriously just not in the mood to put any effort forth).

Monday, we got lazy. We just made Boca burgers and roasted broccoli. We also had frozen french fries that we just threw in the oven. My family made burgers for Easter, and it really put me in the mood to have a burger myself. Also, it was time to be lazy. I felt terrible, so Tony cooked, which was really awesome. I stayed in bed and watched Anastasia with the baby. I will say, roasted broccoli is quickly becoming one of my favorite side dishes, and I don't suppose I really realized that until Monday evening.

We had bought some really nice eggplant when we went grocery shopping this last time, so on Tuesday night I made eggplant Parmesan. I wanted to make sure that we got a chance to use the eggplant before it went bad. It wasn't exactly vegan, since I still had some eggs in the fridge that I needed to use up. So when I breaded the eggplant, it was breaded with an egg mixture before it was fried. Tony didn't approve of the thickness of the slices of eggplant, but he did really like the flavor. This was actually the first time that Tony had ever even tried eggplant, so I'd call it a successful introduction.

Note the large grains of kosher salt. It makes the food extra delicious.

I still feel a little bit crappy right now. I made coffee this morning, and since I couldn't decide on an actual breakfast, I just had what was left of the pasta salad. Then, for lunch, I had a smoothie. I feel like I mixed up my meals. The funny thing is, though, I made the smoothie just because I didn't feel like cooking and I didn't want to put that much effort into really thinking about food, and it ended up being everything that I didn't know I wanted. I made the smoothie with a banana, some frozen blueberries, kale, açai juice, cashew milk, and hemp hearts. It was so satisfying.

Fun fact, I actually dislike blueberries. I really only ever have them in smoothies because I know they've got lots of beneficial antioxidants. Otherwise, blueberries can stay far away from me. I'm not sure if it's the texture or the flavor or both, but I've never really liked them even as a child. In smoothies, however, I don't really mind them. I can tolerate them, we'll put it that way.

Tonight was another simple meal kind of night. We've been doing Buddha bowls that basically consist of quinoa, oven roasted sweet potato, roasted broccoli (see, there it is again), and black beans. I had some black beans in the freezer from the last time I made a big batch, so I just had to pull them out. The sweet potatoes and the broccoli roasted at the same time in the oven while the quinoa was cooking. This time, I made a sauce that was modified from a recipe I saw on Pinterest. Basically, all of the components get thrown into the blender and blended up. The ingredients are as follows:

• 3/4 cup of vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of tahini
• 3/4 cup of nutritional yeast
• 2 cloves of garlic
• juice of one whole lemon
• dash of cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper to taste

The sauce in a jar. We reuse our jars.

I really liked it and I felt like it added a really great depth of flavor to the Buddha bowl, but Tony hated it. He felt like the flavor was too close to cheese because of the nutritional yeast. To be fair, it did have quite a bit of nutritional yeast in it. I really think the combination of the nutritional yeast and the tangy elements of the vinegar and lemon juice brought a great undertone to the overall flavor of the Buddha bowl. I would definitely make this again. The recipe made a pretty good amount of sauce, and you only have to use a bit of it at a time. So it seems like I'm going to have Buddha bowl sauce in my fridge for a good long time.

It only looks this good for about five seconds. Then it all gets mixed together and consumed.

I'm not sure yet what the rest of the week will bring. Our meal planning is actually a bit laissez-faire. We come up with a list of 14 meals, one for each night of the week, then we just pick one out and make it. We don't really plan certain things for certain nights. We just figure out what we need to make those particular meals happen, purchase, and cook. Sometimes, things get modified or omitted if we feel like it. For example, this week's eggplant Parmesan was supposed to be roasted eggplant, but Tony said he felt like having a pasta dish. So we just changed it up a little bit. 

One thing is for sure, eating with other people or eating out has gotten a lot more complicated since we've been eating vegan. I've been kind of surprised at the push-back we've gotten about it. People that I didn't think would be judgmental about it have been aggressive and almost belligerent. But then there are other people who actually are interested and ask questions, so I guess there's balance in that. What's been most surprising, though, is the stuff that people don't know. I thought that everyone knew that greens like spinach and kale are calcium sources, but they don't. I also thought that everyone knew that there was a lot of protein in certain plants, like peas and broccoli, but they don't. It's kind of cool to get to answer questions about it. I'll take questions over aggression any day!

Speaking of questions, I'd really like to know if you guys have any. I know that my blog is fairly small, but I'm really trying to grow it. If you have any feedback that you want to share or any questions or suggestions, I want to know! You can either leave a comment here or e-mail me at delicious.dilettante@gmail.com. I have some really good things planned out and some ideas for original recipes as well, so I'm looking forward to sharing more fun content.

Vegan Tacos

Confession: sometimes, I get in this experimental phase where I just keep playing with something until I'm over it for a while. For example, when I discovered that Korean beef recipe, I made it over and over again until I was tired of it. Right now, for me that thing is TVP.

First, you should know we've discovered that now all three of us have pink eye. The baby got it again after she finished her antibiotics, which means that all of the things we thought that we had disinfected will need to go round two on their Lysol bath. And, of course, Tony and I both got it, even despite the rigorous hand-washing and disinfecting (probably because the baby is going through this face-grabbing and face-slapping stage).

So begins the eye drops and hyper-vigilance. I have to say, this is not easy for me. I'm a pretty chill mom. I'll probably never be the kind of mom that totes along the hand sanitizer and freaks out about germs, but now I suddenly have to be. Just the very notion of it seems over-whelming and annoying to me. I feel tired already just thinking about the extra laundry and cleaning I'll be doing for the next week or so.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I wanted to keep dinner tonight easy, which is why we opted for tacos. I mean, what's easier than tacos? We discovered with the nachos that TVP actually functions really well as a taco meat replacement, so we decided to just go back to that for tonight. I know, it seems repetitive and not at all inventive of me. There's going to be more interesting stuff on the horizon, guys. I promise. For now, let's just talk about taco TVP.

Last time, I mentioned that I thought that the TVP would be much better if I'd actually used a taco seasoning packet with it, so tonight that's what I actually did. We used Bob's Red Mill TVP, and I rehydrated it with water and a few drops of liquid smoke. Our taco seasoning was actually in a big shaker that we bought at Costco, so I basically just used three tablespoons of it and 3/4 cup of water. I put the taco seasoning and water in the skillet, added the TVP, and heated it up until there wasn't a bunch of extra water hanging around and the seasoning looked evenly distributed. I wouldn't say it took much longer than it usually takes for meat to absorb taco seasoning.

Taco TVP "meat."

In my opinion, it's more the accouterments that make the tacos. We did the usual lettuce, tomato, red onion. I also mashed up half of an avocado with some lime juice (I just used the bottled stuff in the fridge because my limes always go bad on me before I can use them) for my tacos. We bought some Tofutti sour cream to try, and I can report that it tastes surprisingly like sour cream. I was kind of impressed with it. I will say, however, that the warmer it gets, the less it tastes like sour cream, so it's really best to have it cold. We also had taco sauce; we use Ortega mild because it is vegan and we like the flavor the best.

There are two things that I missed about tonight's tacos versus our usual non-vegan tacos. First, I should have taken the time to cut up some black olives like I normally would. I definitely missed their flavor. I thought about it, but I was too lazy what with the pink eye and all. Second, I really did miss the cheese. We bought some vegan cheese to try, but we bought the block stuff (because I refuse to pay more money for shreds when I can shred it myself at home for free) and again with the lazy.

The red onions are hiding under the lettuce.

A word on vegan cheese: so far, I've had three experiences with vegan cheese. The vegan cheese on Whole Foods vegan pizza is tasty, but it does not taste of cheese per se, nor does it have the texture of cheese. I also made the mistake of buying a cheap vegan cheese just to try some vegan cheese, and I can honestly report that vegan cheese is not something to cheap out on. The results will be lackluster if you get the cheap stuff and you will be afraid to try again. The third result was much better. I tried some Follow Your Heart provolone today actually. It was pretty good. It smelled exactly like cheese and had the texture down. It tasted like cheese, but like a mediocre quality cheese, which is pretty good for something that doesn't contain any dairy whatsoever. Someone had to science the shit out of that stuff to get even a mediocre result. I have bought some other brands to try, but I'm trying to go sort of one at a time on them. I'll report more on my experiences with vegan cheese as they come up.

One thing that Tony and I both found surprising about these tacos is how quickly they got us full. Actually, that's something we've been surprised about since going vegan in general. We both get full more quickly and end up eating less food in the long run. On a normal non-vegan taco night, I'd usually eat three tacos. Tonight, I only ate two and felt full and satisfied. The good thing about that was it enabled me to make a taco salad for lunch with the leftover toppings and TVP. My easy dinner transformed itself into an equally easy lunch, which will enable me to get a little more sleep in the morning tomorrow.

I have about one more meal worth of TVP left in my pantry. I'm going to make it my goal to use that TVP in a way that doesn't revolve around tacos or nachos or something like that. I'm going to try to think outside of the taco-type box that I seem to have put the TVP in in my brain and focus on doing something different. What that will be remains to be seen at this point, but I swear I'm going to try to make it a fresh, new thing! Like I said, I'll try to be more interesting.

Cheap and Easy, My Ideal Dinner

Let me just tell you about my night last night. First of all, let me preface this by saying that I love my daughter. Having her is the best decision I've ever made, the best thing I've ever done. Watching her tiny little face light up when she sees me is both the most amazing, heart-filling thing and also a thing that I have never and will never be able to do enough to deserve. It's crazy awesome having a tiny person depend on you and look up to you and to know that they love you. Genetics, man.

That said, my kid was a jerk last night. She wouldn't stop getting into things she wasn't supposed to. She wouldn't be appeased by any food offering or by her bottle, but wanted to practically crawl across my plate when I tried to eat. She refused to go down last night, and when we did finally get her down, she woke up in the middle of the night and stayed up for several hours. Maybe this is my comeuppance for bragging about what a great baby she is and how she sleeps so well.

I'm sure, then, you can understand when I say that I did very little today, out of sheer exhaustion. (The amount of mental clarity needed to even do something as simple as document my dinner in this blog is almost more than I can bear right now, guys. Seriously.) About halfway through the day, it occurred to me that at some point I was going to have to make dinner. So I started to think about the easiest thing I could make that I already had all the stuff to throw together.

I found a recipe on Pinterest a few months ago for this Mexican rice and beans. I've made it enough now that I just know how it goes, so it doesn't require me to look it up anymore which makes it an even faster dinner.  I use pinto beans because I tend to buy a two pound bag, make them for a beans-and-cornbread night and freeze the leftovers into servings about the equivalent of a can of beans, give or take. Also, dried beans are so much cheaper. You could probably use black beans or other beans here, though. The flavor isn't as much from the beans as it is from the salsa and spices, so I'm inclined to think it would work with other beans too.

It couldn't be easier than this. You heat up about a quarter of a cup of oil in a pan, add your salsa and let that cook for a bit. I probably used a little more salsa than this recipe calls for, but I didn't have much left in the jar and I wanted to just finish it up. After the salsa has cooked a bit, you add your spices--which are garlic powder, chili powder, paprika, and cumin, a teaspoon of each. Once those spices cook for a bit in the salsa/oil mixture and get fragrant, you add your beans. Then, you throw in your cooked rice, and that's dinner. It's seriously that simple.

I cooked the rice in the Instant Pot because the more that time goes on the more I wonder how I ever cooked rice before I owned the Instant Pot. The rice mode cooked my rice perfectly. I don't know why I ever doubted the rice mode. I never should have. It's just that the brown rice I have been making lately uses a manual setting, so I hadn't had occasion to use the rice mode until tonight. But I can say with confidence that it works wonderfully.

We also just threw together a quick kale salad and had some steamed veggies. It probably took Tony longer to clean up after dinner than it did for me to make it. In that regard, I suppose you could say I was on the right side of the dinner/clean-up trade-off tonight. This was a really good no-fuss dinner, and it reheats really well the next day for lunches, so you know what we're going to be eating tomorrow too. I got two meals out of my twenty minutes of effort. Not bad for a day that I spent as a mom-zombie on the couch in between feeding and changing my tiny terror.

Sushi Bowls

Lately, I've been thinking about the stuff that I'll really miss in going vegan. I've thought about family holidays and how this change will impact those functions. It's hard for me to conceive of a Thanksgiving without a turkey. It's hard for me to imagine Christmas without the Polish sausage that we've had ever since I was a small child. I know that it will be healthier to go without those things and that I'll feel better, but I'm still having trouble envisioning how these meals will work without the meat and dairy.

Because this is my thought process lately, especially with Easter fast approaching, I thought that it might help to ease some of my stress a little bit if I was able to find some decent replacements for things that I already love. So, with that in mind, I decided to try my hand at making sushi bowls.

I've always really loved sushi. In fact, the thing that I craved and missed the most when I was pregnant with Josephine was probably sushi. Spicy tuna roll sushi is my jam, so it's hard for me to face the idea of saying goodbye to that. But I've seen a lot of videos on YouTube lately of other people making sushi bowls, so in the interest of replacement foods, I decided to give it a try. It has all of the same ingredients as sushi but without the complicated rolling process.

We're trying to focus on whole grains, so for our sushi bowls we started out by making some brown rice in the Instant Pot. (Seriously, guys, brown rice in 22 minutes. How could you not?!) While the rice was cooking, I cut up a cucumber into thin strips, used a peeler to peel off strips of carrot, and microwaved and shelled some edamame. For my bowl, I also cut up some avocado and some strips of sea weed, but Tony left those out of his because he doesn't care for them. Once the rice was done, I piled everything up in the bowl--nothing scientific here, it was pretty much all to my own taste and desires. I also topped my bowl with sesame seeds and some Korean teriyaki sauce.

A note here about the Korean teriyaki sauce: we buy a local brand from Sunny's Gourmet Products. A lovely woman who runs a local restaurant here is actually the creator of this brand. Her teriyaki is totally vegan, gluten-free, and contains no MSG. It can be ordered on her website, and I highly recommend it. I'm a notorious hater of most things teriyaki, but this teriyaki sauce is probably the only one that I've ever enthusiastically enjoyed.

It was actually the teriyaki sauce that really pulled the sushi bowl together for me. I have to be honest, until recently I've never much cared for brown rice. In the last few weeks, I've actually had more brown rice than white, so I'm growing to like it more. I truly love all of the vegetables involved in this sushi bowl (with the exception of carrots, which I have always hated and eat only out of a sense of nutritional obligation), so this was actually a pretty satisfying dinner. I do wish that I still had a box grater (ours rusted and had to be disposed of) so that I could have just shredded the carrot instead, but I suppose if it was really that important to me I could have also done that in my food processor.

This is definitely something that I would do again. I don't even think there needs to be any modification. In the future, I might add tofu and see how I feel about it just to give that a try or maybe try to make a spicy sauce for it, but I honestly don't even think that these modifications are needed. The only thing that I truly can't stress enough is the teriyaki. I don't think this sushi bowl would be nearly as good with just soy sauce or tamari. I would definitely stick to making it with the teriyaki sauce mentioned above.

I'd definitely call this little replacement a success. It also worked really well for a lunch the next day for me, so it's something that could easily be doubled in recipe in order to have it for more than one meal. It was also crazy easy to throw together. I could see this being a really easy busy night sort of meal for us. It satisfied my cravings for both another successful substitution and sushi--all in all, a win.

Pink Eye and Leftovers

Just when you thought it was safe to settle down a little, there has to be yet another little thing that gets thrown at you from left field. This morning, the baby woke up cranky and with a little bit of gunk in the corner of her right eye. By 9:30 AM, her daycare is calling me to tell me that she has pink eye and that I need to come get her. At 10 AM, when I got to the daycare, both of her eyes had gunk in them, were bright red, and her right eye looked swollen with red circles underneath and on her eyelid.

Needless to say, there was a pediatrician appointment this afternoon and a trip to the pharmacy. Of course, my insurance--for whatever reason, maybe just because the universe decided it was my time for something stupid today--didn't list the baby's information on file correctly, so I ended up having to pay full price for her eye drops.

By the time I got home, the baby looked like she had two black eyes, and I was ready to call it quits for the day. Tony got home, we gave her the eye drops, and we both just mutually understood that dinner was catch-as-catch-can tonight.

The good news is that since we had friends over yesterday (which I mentioned in the post about the chocolate cake), we had leftovers. Yesterday, I had made vegan mac and cheese, barbecue soy curls in the Instant Pot, and coleslaw. I was feeling the spring barbecue vibe since the weather here is back up in the 50s, which is practically shorts weather for Indiana. It was a good night for reheating and just throwing together on a plate, given the events of the day.

The coleslaw was a throw together vinaigrette since Tony hates all things mayonnaise and mayonnaise contains eggs. Basically, I used 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a tablespoon of sugar, a few liberal splashes of lime juice, and salt and pepper to taste. We used a prepackaged coleslaw mix, but I added red onion and some yellow bell pepper to it just to give it a bit more flavor. The flavor of the bell pepper really came through prominently, and it ended up being a really wonderful addition.

The barbecue soy curls were the product of a recipe that I found on Simple Daily Recipes by Jill McKeever, but I did mine the lazy way. If you guys have never seen any of her recipes or videos, I highly recommend her YouTube channel. She's really entertaining, and watching her videos gave Tony and I a lot of inspiration about what kind of meals and things we want to eat and play with and try in the very near future. Also, she's 110% right about how awesome the Instant Pot is, and I am so glad that I bought one! I normally feel somewhat ambivalent about fancy kitchen things because I can create so many awesome things without fancy crap, but there are three things that have become indispensable to me now that we're doing the vegan thing: food processor, decent blender (we use the Ninja Mega kitchen system for both), and Instant Pot. Seriously, guys. All of these items are worth the money if you want to eat more healthily.

But back to the soy curls. First of all, we had never even heard of these until we watched Jill's channel, but they are actually really good. Like a lot of soy products, they don't have a great deal of their own flavor, so they can take on the flavor of the things you put on them incredibly well. I treated ours similarly to Jill's recipe, but the main difference was that I got hella lazy about the sauce. We had some store-bought Stubb's original sauce (which is vegan, according to their website!) that we used instead of making our own sauce, but the rest of the process was the same. Tony was not crazy about their texture, but he liked the flavor overall. I thought their texture was actually pretty good. We had whole wheat buns to eat them with, and I actually really loved how delicious the combination of the soy curls and the buns were together.

The mac and cheese, to be fair, was kind of a big cheat for me. About two months ago, Tony and I made this vegan mac and cheese from a recipe that we found on Pinterest. It was so good, and it made so much sauce that we ended up freezing about half of the sauce that it made for later use. So, really, all I had to do was make more of the macaroni, and then pour some of my left over sauce on it. I did end up thinning the sauce out a little bit with some cashew milk since the sauce was a little bit thick. I also added a few tablespoons of nutritional yeast just to boost the cheesy flavor. Honestly, though, this sauce doesn't need nutritional yeast. It's actually really good on its own, totally untampered with. In fact, I didn't think that Tony would even notice a difference, but when he tasted it, he surprised me by saying that it tasted different than the first time we had it. He didn't dislike my improvised change, but he did notice. So I guess that should be a sign that the first time we had it, it actually made an impression on him.

Really, I'm just grateful that there were leftovers to be had today. Everything went so awry that I don't really know what we would have eaten if not for the leftovers. If my leftovers could be like this all the time, I would have no problem at all with having leftovers. This food was just as good today as it was when I made it yesterday--I might even say that the coleslaw got better, but coleslaw often does when given the chance to hang out for a while. Let's just hope that tomorrow isn't as crazy. But if it is, there are still leftover soy curls and vegan mac and cheese...

Chocolate Cake

Confession: I love chocolate. Dark chocolate is actually my favorite, but I like most chocolate in general unless it's cheap and crappy. So you can imagine how sad it makes me that the majority of the chocolate that I really love contains milk, which is a vegan no-no.

Let me be straight up with you here: I can live without dairy if I have to, despite being raised on milk and cheese in true Midwestern fashion, but what I'm not sure I can live without is my chocolate. Especially around a certain time each month (you know what I'm talking about, we don't need to be crass here).

Before you give me guff, I already know that there are vegan chocolate options, and I plan to indulge in those. I just don't have any of them right now. And since Tony and I make a point of grocery shopping only at specific times to avoid spending too much money, it'll be a little while before our next shopping trip rolls around. Plus, we have tons of food right now, and I simply can't see going to a grocery store just to find chocolate without milk because there's no way that that will be the only thing I buy. I know myself way too well for that!

So, in the mean time, the chocolate is all on me to figure out. I will be honest, I wasn't really even thinking about chocolate when I ran across this recipe for vegan chocolate cake. What I was thinking was that I needed to find something delicious that I could impress some friends with because we had friends coming over for dinner (and, really, what's dinner without dessert?).  And since I was going to be serving them vegan food, I wanted it to really shine. You know how it is, you make the best dishes when you have people over so that you can really show them how well you can put a meal together. It ain't no time for boxed mac and cheese when company's coming, let alone boxed cake!

The recipe seemed really simple, which was what sold me on this cake. I wanted something that I could put together while the baby was napping. Minimal fuss, but maximum flavor. The liquid component in this cake comes from warm coffee, vanilla, and vegetable oil instead of containing eggs. I had a bit of a concern that it would taste too much like coffee, but the flavor of the coffee was really very minimal here. It was a nice undertone, but if you didn't know that there was coffee in the cake, you probably would never have guessed. Tony actually didn't know that coffee was one of the ingredients until I started to write this and asked him about the flavor of the coffee in the cake. His response was, "What coffee?"

It was a really nice, moist cake. It released very easily from the bundt pan. It assembled easily, baked easily, presented easily. This is a really good recipe, guys! It's perfect for a time when you want to put out minimal effort but still have something really good. I'd say it's exactly the kind of vegan desert that a busy mom can work with. And everyone who ate it tonight enjoyed it. We still have half the cake left, and I am really looking forward to having another piece tomorrow.

A little powdered sugar on top, and you've got a winner!

This cake could definitely get me through those chocolate cravings. Until I can find a vegan chocolate that I know I enjoy and can reliably find, this cake will make things a lot easier for me. It'll probably make things a lot easier for Tony too. Just sayin'.

Satisfying a Kale Craving

Ok, so I had every intention of holding off on more blog posts for a few days just to ensure that I had something of actual value to write about, but then something weird happened to me today: I had a craving for kale chips. I know that probably doesn't seem that weird, but it was weird for me. I don't usually crave kale. I crave things that are obscure. I crave sweet. When I was pregnant, I craved crunchy. In the past I have craved, and this is a direct quote from my grasping-at-straws struggle to vocalize my desires, "something cold and sweet, but not ice cream...but also soft..." Yeah, I know. It's weird. I'm weird.

Surprising, then, that I should crave something so definite. I also know how fake it sounds when people say things like this when we live in the junk food era, and believe me, no one is more surprised about my new-found love of kale than I am. I used to hear people say that they loved things like kale and glare at them skeptically. My mom, on the other hand, would tell you that she's not surprised by this behavior from me. She tells a story of how, as a two-year-old child, to the disbelief of our waitress, I ordered a salad. When it came, the waitress set it in front of my mother, I snatched it from her, and exclaimed, "Salad!" in an excited and adorable way. Maybe you can detox from all the crap food and actually start to crave healthy foods again. 

The good news is that I had kale at home! In fact, I had two different kinds of kale at home, red and green kale. I bought them for the kale chips that I made here and for a lemony white bean and kale soup that I found here. I hadn't made the soup yet, but I figured that it was as good a time as any since the baby is still getting over being sick and Tony got sick too.

The recipe was really good, but it was not vegan the way that we made it. We had leftover chicken stock that needed to be used, and it also called for a tablespoon of butter. But two small tweaks, and this soup would easily be vegan. I just had at least two and a half cartons of chicken stock that we had bought in bulk at Costco that I didn't want to waste. The butter could easily be omitted. It didn't really contribute to the flavor of the soup in too meaningful a way, and it make the surface a bit oily. That or it could be replaced by another tablespoon of olive oil.

The lemon in this soup is the thing that really makes it extraordinary. The burst of freshness that it contributes is the real star here. It pairs so well with the rosemary, thyme, and oregano that it makes you wonder why you never thought to put lemon in a soup before--or it did for me because I've never put lemon in a soup before! The only thing I wish I had done differently with this is tear the kale into smaller pieces so they were a little easier to get in a bite. The kale stands up really well to the heat of the soup, so it's an ideal green for this sort of application. The recipe suggested that spinach or chard can be used instead, but I feel those would be far inferior in both mouth-feel and flavor. The kale and lemon go so well together that I cannot conceive of replacing the kale here.

Each night that we try a new recipe, Tony and I have a discussion about it. The discussion always ends with me posing a question to him: is this a do-over? Because if he doesn't like it, then there's no point in me making an entire meal that he won't eat. Tonight, I didn't ask that question. Tonight, I said, "Oh yes. OH YES. This is a keeper." There was no debate. I'm definitely making this one again. It was also really filling. We each had one bowl and that was enough to satisfy us both.

The other good news is that this soup only called for about a cup and a half of kale. Since I had a whole bunch of kale, I had plenty of extra kale to use to make some kale chips. Overall, I would say today was a culinary win. I satisfied a craving, and I found something new that was really awesome, cheap to produce, and quick to make. Not a bad way to spend an evening. 

Nachos and TVP

Sunday is my favorite day, always has been. It's a day for chilling out, meal prepping, catching up on some TV and emails, and just generally being low-key. And since Josephine is still pretty snotty, it's a good time to be resting and doing as little as possible. She spent at least two hours this afternoon sleeping on me. It was a really nice moment.

Now, when it comes to food, this weekend has been less about meal prepping and more about using stuff up--whether that be leftovers or just previously purchased ingredients before they go bad. Since we've decided to transition into vegan, we've been buying a lot more produce and beans (obviously). You know what doesn't keep for very long? Avocados. I got really excited to see avocados on sale the last time we shopped. Per Alton Brown's advice, we let them ripen to perfection on the counter and then put them in the fridge when they were ripe. This kept them from getting too ripe, and it helped to keep them fresher for longer since we can only shop every two weeks.

Even despite the fridge trick, my avocados were close to being at the end of their lifespan. So what do you do when you have avocados on the edge? You make guacamole. There's really nothing all that special about the way I do it. Yesterday's guacamole was really in keeping with the using-up-some-stuff theme. I had tomatoes and avocados that needed to be used, some red onion I bought for one recipe that needed to be put to another use, and half a lemon to use up. It was the perfect collection of things to make guacamole, though I would normally use lime juice, Throw into that salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and you're in business. (Pro-tip: if you put cling wrap on the surface of your guacamole when you put it away, it won't brown. That's my trick for making it last longer!)

What I really wanted to do, though, was find something else to put that vegan nacho cheese on. If I didn't make it clear before, I really enjoyed that vegan cheese. But leftover vegan nacho cheese and guacamole does not exactly nachos make, and what I wanted was nachos. It needed something else, something meat-like. So I thought this might be a good time to experiment with the TVP we bought.

If you're not familiar, TVP is texturized vegetable protein. It's a dried food that simply needs to be rehydrated to be eaten. I rehydrated ours with vegetable stock according to the package directions (ours was the Bob's Red Mill variety, but there are other companies that offer it as well).

After that, I seasoned it with some cumin, onion power, garlic powder, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and liquid smoke. I didn't measure anything, just seasoned to my own taste. I was going for a taco meat kind of flavor, but I didn't have any taco seasoning on hand. Next time, I think I would just use taco seasoning because it would be easier and probably have a more traditional taco meat sort of flavor. Even with my improvisation, the results were good.

For the record, it also bears noting that the vegan nacho cheese actually heats back up really well when left over. I was concerned that it would get much too thick, and it did thicken up more over time, but it thinned back out very nicely. All we did was heat it up in the microwave, add just a splash of water, and stir. It worked out.

I started out just making it for myself because I was hungry after work, but Tony took an interest in it too after it was made. He actually voluntarily ate some. I have to give him credit. Lately, Tony has really been branching out with food. Eating cheese is way out of his comfort zone, vegan or not, but he was willing to try it. This morning, despite his hatred of coffee, he was willing to try a new coffee that we bought, and he discovered that he liked it. He also really liked the TVP with the vegan nacho cheese. I know because he ate a full plate of his own nachos, minus the guacamole.

Finished product on my plate. Picture this without the guac for Tony's plate.

 I'm a bit relieved to see Tony trying to be more adventurous with food because it would be pretty hard for us to go vegan if he wasn't willing to be more open about it. To be honest, I was bit skeptical when he suggested that we go vegan. It was a battle just to convince him to go for meatless meals a few times a week for the sake of our budget. Tony is a creature of habit. He likes to stay carefully ensconced in his comfort zone, and anyone who suggests he come out of it is usually met with irritation and attitude.

I'm not trying to disparage him; obviously I love him or we wouldn't have a daughter together and a relationship. It's just that going vegan is a big lifestyle change. I don't want it to be something that we do for a week and then just go back to the old habits. And I don't want him to feel the need to go sneak a hamburger on the sly. This relationship is not one where we force each other to do things or guilt each other, and it's counter-productive if we feel like we have to hide things from each other. If he's going to do the vegan thing, I just think it's going to be more successful if it's something that he actually wants to do. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that I'm really relieved to see him being so open and receptive to it.

Anyway, the other stuff we've made this weekend has been part of the continuing effort to use up our remaining meat and dairy. I did finally make the chicken wings. They were good, but I truly don't feel like I'll miss them. I also made some popcorn earlier today since I couldn't really decide what I wanted to have, but I wanted something. Tonight's dinner was more vegetarian than vegan since it contained butter and cream. I made garlic asparagus pasta. It was good, but I'm not going to really get too detailed with the recipe. Why? Because I want to find a way to make the recipe vegan, and then share it here! So expect that to be coming in the near future.

For now, we're closing out this Sunday night with some tea and fresh fruit in bed while Tony catches up on Fuller House--I finished binge-watching it earlier today. Our nightly routine lately has revolved around sharing a bowl of sliced fruit and having some herbal tea once the baby is in bed. It's a new routine, but I find that I really enjoy it. It's a nice way of winding down, so I'm just going to let the winding down commence right now.

Vegan Nacho Cheese

The last few days have not exactly gone as planned. And by that I mean that they were a total mess. Wednesday, the baby ended up with a fever, I had a doctor's appointment of the unpleasant feminine variety, and I had to take the baby to a last minute doctor's appointment. I also completely forgot about a board meeting, so I had to sort of re-plan my evening. Then, after the pediatrician appointment, I had to go to the pharmacy, drop off the baby, and head straight to my meeting.

It should come as no surprise, then, that dinner sort of fell by the wayside. I had every intention of making the chicken wings so that I could just be using them up and getting rid of the last remnants of meat from our freezer. Yet, by the end of the evening, we couldn't be bothered. We ordered in Mediterranean food from a local restaurant, Elia's, instead.

Vegetarian (but actually vegan) combination plate.

In fact, if I'm being perfectly honest about it, dinner has been a bit of an after-thought the last few days. Thursday, I had a funeral viewing to go to. Tonight, we went to Costco after work while my parents watched the sick baby for us. This entire week has been a bit of a wash for me, food-wise. It could have been worse, but it also could have been exponentially better.

Here's the thing: things are getting busy and I feel a bit on edge about the fact that I now have less food options to fall back on when they do because we're going vegan. It's easy to stop and get a burger. It's easy to pick out literally any restaurant and get chicken or some other form of meat. It's ridiculously hard in northern Indiana to find vegan options on a menu. I went to a restaurant with my parents this week and everything had meat or dairy. There wasn't even a salad that was free of meat. The sad thing is that this is not unusual. This is how it is in our area.

So, this evening, I just felt like I needed a few things. First, I needed a snack because I was still hungry after the take-out Chinese dinner we had with my family. Second, I needed to prove to myself that I could still have good snacks in a shorter amount of time without really feeling the sacrifice. In that spirit, I decided to give a try to a recipe that we found on a YouTube channel we follow called Hot for Food. Tonight, I made vegan nacho cheese.

Feel free to ignore my terrible cropping and the mostly empty baby bottle.

That's right, vegan nacho cheese. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the recipe, but you can find the video here. The video also contains a link to their website, where you can find the written recipe if you don't feel like watching the video (or click here if you're really lazy).

I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious this recipe happens to be. I will say, first of all, that it does not taste like the nacho cheese sauce that it looks like. It has some cheesiness to the flavor, but I wouldn't say that it tastes like cheese. But then, who really expects vegan recipes or products to actually taste like cheese? I just think this happens to be a really delicious sauce with some cheese-like undertones.

I think that the reason this cheese sauce is so good actually has a lot more to do with the jalapenos and their brine than it does the nutritional yeast. It wouldn't be nearly as good without the jalapenos. The texture of it, especially when pouring it out of the blender, was actually surprisingly cheese-like. The mouthfeel was a bit less smooth than it looked, but I think that may have more to do with the fact that I don't have a Vitamix than it does anything else.

We bought some multigrain tortilla chips at Costco tonight from a company called Food Should Taste Good that I had with the nacho cheese sauce. Those chips were also surprisingly good. They have flax seeds and sunflower seeds, so the flavor is a bit more nutty. Most importantly, the paired really well with the nacho cheese. Tony, the notorious cheese-hater, actually tried them together and liked them.

Ultimately, I think I accomplished what I set out to do tonight. I wanted to create something delicious in a shorter amount of time and prove to myself, after a week of crappy eating and disappointment in my food, that I would still be able to eat tasty, easy things while vegan. I think, including time to cook the potatoes and carrots, that this nacho cheese took about 15 minutes to prepare. It also made quite a lot of cheese sauce. I don't even think I ate a quarter of what it made, so there's still quite a bit left.

It took me until Friday night, but I managed to redeem myself with just a simple, satisfying snack. I feel like I can do this again after having spent the last few days worrying about how I'll be able to find things to eat that don't just consist of raw vegetables or scornful glances from meat-eaters. After all, one cannot subsist on judgement alone.