Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Yet more cheap and easy stuff

First off, a shout-out for Happy Herbivore's new cookbook Pudge Free
Holidays. If you haven't gotten it, or the last Sneak Peak book, go
right now! They're both full of awesome, healthy recipes (several of
which I've happily tested). I really need to make that pumpkin bread again...

Another blog shout-out for the Chocolate Covered Vegan. Her recipes
are so clever, I ended up eating two of them yesterday! I've been
blending up my oatmeal all the time since this post, and I adore it in all
kinds of ways. I've always liked oatmeal as-is, but now that I can make
it into a rich creamy pudding I've become a full-on oatmeal addict. A
couple weeks ago I was making dessert oatmeal with cocoa powder and
MimicCreme. Yesterday for breakfast I cooked the oats in unsweetend
almond milk and blended them up with a big dollop of pumpkin, half a
banana, and some pumpkin pie spice. Wowza. For dessert, I tried my
hand at apple pie pudding. I've never used agar before, and was a bit
skeptical that this would work, but it really does! Another yummy,
creamy (and super healthy) treat. I made two servings and had one for
breakfast this morning. CCV gets my undying admiration for coming up
with two dishes that reach that elusive goal of being both healthy
enough and tasty enough to qualify as both breakfast and dessert.
Since I've told you so much about what I ate yesterday, I might as well
tell you about lunch. I've had a can of small white beans sitting on my
shelf for too long, so I made a salad out of them. I mashed up the
beans with 2 tsp of flax oil and added dried basil, salt, rosemary,
garlic and onion powder to taste. Plus a handful of dried cranberries,
this actually makes a really good sandwich on whole wheat bread with
lettuce. Economical, too!I brought my sandwich and cup o' raw veggies (organic celery, tomatoes
and carrots this week) to work, and ended up taking it with me to a
restaurant with my co-workers. It made me realize how far I've come
since going vegan back in January. I didn't feel self conscious at all,
and certainly not deprived - watching them eat their super-greasy pizza
(with pepperoni, blech) just made me feel a little queasy. Not too long
ago the situation would have raised some anxieties for me, but I'm much
more comfortable now. Yay! I like that I've been vegan for long enough
now that people accept that it's not just some phase I'm going through.

3 comments:

jessy said...

i might have to try that combination for a sammie, kate! thanks! i like the sound of it - especially the addition of the cranberries. mmmmmmmmmm! blended oatmeal sounds really, really, good - i'm gonna have to give it a whirl! i've never tried agar before either - i need to get over my fear & make some pudding! ahahaa!

dan & i became vegan january 1st of this year, and i think i'm finally where you are now, too. it's nice - not feeling anxious - not feeling silly (some people made me feel really weird for a while there, i know it was silly of me to feel like that, but i did) - and having people take ya more seriously. that's nice! and i love being where i am now, too! i don't feel awkward or different really - i feel more comfortable be'n my vegan self! yay!

Joanna said...

agar is a crazy ingredient!! i've never used it in cooking- just biology!! i was so shocked that agarose gel is used in electrophoresis. i did it in lab lats week, and was thinking the whole time that i needed to buy some... or steal it from lab haha

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Awwww, thanks so so much for the shout-out! You are seriously too sweet.

And thanks for the idea to make the pudding with pumpkin... now I want to try it with my beloved butternut squash!