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.