At the Finish Line

There's a blizzard rolling into Chicago tomorrow night, so we celebrated this great weather event with some super delicious hot cocoa.  Here's what we put into it (we can't recommend this enough): soymilk powder, unsweetened cocoa powder, salt, vanilla, and maple syrup.  Perfect for a night like this!

Well, here we are, the end of our month-long experiment.  The past couple of days, I've been very anxious when thinking about eating "other" food.  I thought I would be happy to eat some old favorites, and I'm sure I'll enjoy them when I do eat them, but... I don't think I really want to.  I have felt great(!) this past month, as has Nate.  Here are some various things I've learned/experienced these past thirty days, eating a vegan and refined-sugar free diet:

- A few days after we began, I could already feel some amazing side-effects.  I felt lighter, fresher and brighter, especially in my face.  I believe this is because I don't have all that dairy and terrible sugar weighing me down.

- I lost a few pounds (even though I feel like I've been eating so much rich, delicious food lately) and feel   more toned.

- I love having nothing to do with high fructose corn syrup.

- After only a few days, my hereditary dark eye circles were completely gone.

- I can cook!  I always took advantage of Nate being an awesome, professionally-trained cook, so I never really tried it myself.  And not only can I do it, but I like it!

- My mom was right!  Keeping a clean kitchen is essential!  If the kitchen is messy, I am so less psyched to cook in it.

- This spring, I have to plan my garden completely differently!  I need to focus more on storage crops and items I can can.  We're almost through our stock of last summers canned tomatoes and those were supposed to last until this summer's crop.  We way underestimated how much we would go through.  I'm going to have such a hard time picking these up at the supermarket!

Posole

Tonight, Nate cooked up some 'Quick Red Posole with Beans' from Viva Vegan.  This was a dish that we really wanted to try before the month was up; with only one more day to go, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  This dish called for hominy (super-expanded corn), which I had never tried before.   Hominy has a great texture and mild flavor, I'm sad that I've been a vegetarian for sixteen years and this is my first time trying it.  Our posole turned out a lot like chili, but instead of heavy beef, there's all these amazing beans and veggies.  Yum!  Nate really likes this dish, too.  We had this dish with a lovely spread of toppings/sides: avocado, limes, cilantro, sliced cabbage and tortilla chips.  I love how hearty and versatile this dish is.  

Seitan Tacos

Tonight, Nate made us some wonderful seitan tacos.  We switched it up a little bit with hard-shells, which I've maybe had once before in my life, if you can believe it.  I really enjoy this meal and look forward to the summer when I will be able to walk out to the garden and pick our own fresh tomatoes, onion, cilantro, carrots, lettuce and potatoes for it.  

I am looking for a delicious red quinoa recipe to try.  I've had a ball jar full of it on my pantry shelf for far too long - I just can't find the right recipe.  If you have a favorite quinoa dish, please share!  I finally figured out how to let anyone leave a comment without having to sign into something first.

Peasant Food

Tonight, Nate made us his favorite dish - winter root vegetables and wild rice.  Tonight he included: carrots, onions, rutabaga, and potatoes.  We wanted to add beets, but the last few ones we had (from last fall's harvest!) finally passed their prime.  This dish is so simple and delicious.  For the past few years Nate and I have really tried to eat more like peasants - super delicious and humble vegetables, food of the earth in it's simplest form.  Pure food is incredible!

More Pasta Sauce

Today I made our weekly batch of pasta sauce.  I never planned on making so much pasta sauce this month, but we really have been enjoying it.  Truly, I am not surprised - when it comes to eating, we are creatures of habit.  We usually get fixed on 7-10 dishes every season that we eat on a loop.  I feel like we really have to be a lot more adventurous with our eating!  There are so many extraordinary dishes out there just waiting to be eaten.

  

So back to the pasta sauce.  I really focused on making nicer, cleaner, and smaller cuts of onion and garlic.  I really feel that this makes a huge difference in the finished product, leading to a more luxurious sauce overall (although sometimes a nice, rustic sauce is perfect too).  I also hand crushed the tomatoes before adding them to the pan.  I've also reduced from two onions, to only one - the result being a more mild, gentle flavor.  I've also been blending it with a stick blender towards the end of the cooking time until I like the consistency.  

Cupcakes!

I have wanted to make these cupcakes since the first time I looked through Alicia's "The Kind Diet".  These were really pretty delicious.  At this point in our experimenting with vegan/refined sugar-free food, I still sometimes have to remind myself that this is...different - and that's good.  On this recipe, I ran out of agave nectar and so I substituted it with maple syrup, which was ok, but maybe made the cupcakes not as good as they could have been.  The cake part was very light and springy, and the icing was very nice and airy.  Still, I look forward to making more of these!

Bears Sunday!

Today, I wanted a project that I could work on outside of the kitchen, so that I wouldn't miss any of the game.  Tamales seemed like the perfect solution, except I've never actually taken the lead on making them, so they were a bit more challenging than I expected - but still fun.  The recipe we used is in "Viva Vegan", and the filling consists of sweet potatoes, black beans, onions and garlic. At first,  I kept overstuffing them, but eventually, I think I got the hang of it.  I guess we'll just have to make more soon - practice makes perfect!  Bonus - this recipe made 25 tamales, plenty for game-day eating and lunches later this week.

And for dessert - Black Bean Brownies!  I found this recipe on Alicia Silverstone's website thekindlife.com.  I have wanted to make brownies with black beans in them for about a year, so I'm glad I finally tried it.  The ingredients: black beans, bananas, vanilla, unsweetened cocoa powder, freshly ground cinnamon (thanks Kevin!), agave nectar, and oats.

They smelled so good while baking! but, I think I'm going to have to try these again.  The texture was strange, they may be better later, after they have had a chance to set up a bit more.  Next time, I will make a  few changes from how I made them today- less cocoa powder, riper bananas and black beans that weren't cooked with onions and garlic.  There was just too much going on.  I have to say however, that these aren't so bad if you think of them as pieces of chocolate banana bread, not brownies.  

Nate's Stir-Fry

This is one of my favorite "Nate" dishes!  Nate cooks the tofu, browning it very nicely on each side, which really makes a huge difference when making it at home.  I find that on nights he's cooking stir-fry, I take lots of little trips into the kitchen to nab delicious mushrooms.  Aside from the tofu and mushrooms, Nate adds an assortment of vegetables we have hanging around the house, and finish it off with some organic basmati rice.  Yum!

Wednesday Stews

Today was a very busy day in the kitchen!  On my day off, I have been trying to make two dishes, with enough extra for both of us to take for lunch the next day or two.  So far, this has been pretty successful and today, I made a pasta sauce too.  The two other dishes were stews, both from 'The Kind Diet'.

The first one - Kabocha Squash Stew.  I decided to make this dish about 1 o'clock this morning, when I should have been sleeping, but instead was thinking up tasty food to make.  So, I got out of bed and got some azuki beans soaking, along with some kombu (seaweed), as the recipe calls for. After making the soup this afternoon, I kinda think I would have been better off staying in bed! This stew was way too hardcore for both of us. The seaweed flavor was very strong and the azuki beans had a texture that just didn't seem right to me. I don't think I'll be trying this one again.

The second one - Lentil Stew.  This was a perfectly nice soup, not amazing, but very nice.  It reminds me of minestrone.  This is the second lentil stew I have made, and both of them had tomatoes in them, which just seems odd to me.  I think I may omit them the next time I make this dish.

So, instead of having what I had planned for dinner - the kabocha stew, we had whole-wheat pasta with sauce from home-canned heirloom tomatoes.  I really love making my own pasta sauce, I think I am finished with store-bought sauce!

Soup (for a sick husband)

Nate has another cold!  His second for the season, and he is usually very healthy, so it's all the more frustrating.  So, last night I made him a soup.  I made Alicia's Sweet Potato-Lentil Stew and it was so tasty!  We have been on a bit of a sweet potato roll, they are so wintery and flavorful.  Lentils are also a ton of fun to eat, they're so silky and delicate yet really substantial.  I definitely plan to do a lot more cooking with lentils!  Bonus - one batch made plenty of extra servings for lunches.

A Delicious Sunday

What a wonderful day, full of delicious eating!  This morning, Nate cooked us up some oatmeal with maple syrup.  He also roasted potatoes, onions, garlic, dried rosemary (from our garden) and salt and pepper.  This simple, simple dish is just so delicious!









For lunch, we had a salad with 'Sumner House
Dressing', sweet potato fries, vegan hot dogs with whole wheat buns, and pickles.  We also found a
great vegan and sugar-free ketchup
(OrganicVille) at Whole Foods.





For dinner, we had another great meal from Alicia Silverstone's 'The Kind Diet'.  The Moroccan Couscous with Saffron was a dish that I have been wanting to make since I first read her book.  Butternut squash is one of my favorite winter vegetables!  The other veggies used in this recipe were onions, carrots, and zucchini; we also made sure to use organic whole-wheat couscous.

Saturday Night! Taco Night!

Nate made us some super delicious tacos for dinner tonight.  He made a mix of seitan, potatoes, carrots, onions and spices.  He also made some guacamole - so good!  The other taco toppings we had were shredded cabbage, onions, tomatoes, limes, cilantro, and home-canned salsa.  Now, with very happy stomachs, we're off to see 'The King's Speech'.  

More Rice Treats

Yesterday I made Alicia's 'Crispy Peanut Butter Treats with Chocolate Chips.  I halved the recipe and plan to cut it up into small pieces (1x1") to have as quick, on-the-go snack or small dessert.  We have been missing sugar, but not in any extraordinary way yet; with that being said, it's still really nice to have a relatively healthy chocolate treat.

Black Bean Soup

Today, I made Cuban Black Bean Soup from Viva Vegan.  I really had Nate in mind when deciding to make this soup because he loves black beans and Latin food.  For this dish, I was able to use some more of our home-canned tomatoes as well as liquid smoke (which I'd never used before - and liked!).  Here's the sofrito and finished soup, which we served over white rice.  Nate had the idea to make tostadas (basically a baked tortilla), they added a nice and much needed crunch.  Nate loved the soup, I on the other hand - not a home run.  

Nate's Winter Root Vegetables

Tonight, we had a nice and really simple dinner.  I love how so much of this vegan food is just so pure and so simple.  Nate made one of his very favorite dishes - root vegetables.  He steams turnips, rutabaga, celeriac, parsnips, onions, potatoes, and carrots together and adds a little Earth Balance vegan butter and some salt and pepper.  So wintery and delicious!  We also had some leftover barley casserole, which I really feel has peaked today.  The flavors have mellowed really nicely.


So, today is the fourth day of this vegan and no sugar stuff and I feel great!  Yesterday I felt maybe a little extra tired and irritable, but that really could have been anything.  Today, I noticed that my skin seems a little brighter and fresher and my hair feels softer and is shinier - always nice to see in the middle of winter!

Tomato Sauce

Tonight, we had pasta with some really lovely and simple tomato sauce that I made yesterday.  But really, I started working on this sauce eight months ago, when I first planted my tomato plants.  I absolutely adore keeping a garden.  This recent thaw has made me so excited about planning my garden for next spring!  Here's how we got to tonight's dinner:

Young Tomato Plants

Heriloom Tomatoes

Canned Tomatoes

Ingredients

Fresh Sauce

Barley Casserole

Boy was I busy in the kitchen today!  Nate usually does a large part of our cooking, so being the one to make everything all day today was pretty neat.  I've been wanting to try out this new recipe from Alicia's book, but had to wait - I had no casserole dishes!  Thanks to my mom who gave me some beautiful pyrex casseroles (and bowls!) for Christmas.

The only dish we regularly make with barley is mushroom barley soup.  Hulled barley is such a great little grain!  Nicely chewy (although I may have slightly undercooked this - adding to the chewiness) and super flavorful! 

Great Tamales and Greater Friends

Tonight, we did New Year's Eve over again, when more friends could come for the party.  

This was the first day of our vegan/sugar-free experiment.  We began our day with some oatmeal with maple syrup.  So simple and delicious.  Nate always eats oatmeal, but I never do; this was a very nice change.

For dinner we made sweet potato and black bean tamales.  We followed the recipe from Viva Vegan and topped them with some home-canned salsa - it was delicious!

For dessert I made Alicia's Crispy Peanut Butter Crisps with Grain-Sweetened Chocolate Chips.  These were super easy and really good.  I think they will be even better tomorrow, after they've had time to harden up a bit.  

-K

Our Project

Hi there, we're Nate and Kime and are going vegan (at least for the month of January)!  We are also going to cut out refined sugar.  We are very excited to experience the effects that the vegan lifestyle should bring.

I've been a vegetarian for the past thirteen years and Nate is a culinary-trained organic farmer, so we're hoping the transition will be fun, not a chore.

The main resources that we're using are:

The Kind Diet - Alicia Silverstone (I love Alicia!)
Viva Vegan - Terry Hope Romero
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - Deborah Madison
Veganomicon - Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

I thoroughly enjoyed cleaning out our house of non-vegan, sugar-filled items.  It felt great!

Before.

After.

What goes.

Wish us luck!

-K