Skiing trip

Ah, got back from a trip up to a cabin on Mount Hood. Tons of fun! 

It was loads of fun,  we skied, made tunnels in the snow, made snowmen, went sledding, and had snowball fight, and of course, ate lots of delicious food!

The first night we had a yellow curry with rice, along with some steamed veggies with peanut sauce.

Then the next morning, we had vegan French toast! (I still need to remind my friend to give me the recipe!) But she said the batter was mostly pureed silken tofu and soymilk, with maple syrup.

Then for that dinner, we had some vegan chili.

And then for the next breakfast we had breakfast burritos (recipe in last post).

Then minestrone soup.

And then some leftovers.

We made our own lunches, I brought makings for wraps. (tortillas, Tofurkey, spinach, avocado, and tomato) And some instant soups. ALong with a few snacks. (Clif bars, Fruit Leather, and veggies with hummus)

On a totally different note, the other day, when I was at my Asian Market, I found some inari wrappers! I'm excited to use them! I'll let you know how it goes!

Vegan breakfast burritos

I've noticed, that traditional breakfast foods are pretty much NEVER vegan, eggs, bacon, sausage, omelets, french toast, etc. And of course there's the pancakes but it's not like you could go out to a restaurant and get pancakes, you'd have to make your own. So, here's a breakfast food for us vegans, that is tasty, filling, portable, and freezes great for when you don't have time to cook.

And what is this wonderful vegan breakfast food you ask? Breakfast burritos! It's made of scrambled tofu, tempeh sausage, vegan cheese, mushrooms, onions, zucchini, spinach, and potatoes. Yum!

So here's how you make it:

Scrambled tofu:

first, saute some diced potatoes in a little oil, once they're close to done, add some sliced mushrooms, chopped onions, and chopped zucchini. (you could also add some olives, or sun-dried tomatoes if you want) Then once they are all done, add some chopped spinach, and a block or two of crumbled extra firm tofu. Saute for a couple minutes and add a couple teaspoons of curry powder, and a little soy sauce if you want.  Then once it's done, add a little salsa. Then put it in a bowl to cool.

Then make some Tempeh sausage

Once the scrambled tofu and tempeh are cooled, mix them together, and put some on a whole wheat tortilla, sprinkle on some grated mozzarella vegan cheese, and wrap it up tightly, but don't break it. Repeat until you run out of filling. Then all the ones that you want to freeze, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, and put them in the freezer.  To heat the frozen ones up, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, take a burrito out of the freezer, unwrap it, and put it right on the rack, then  flip it over once it has nice golden brown marks on the bottom, and take it out when it's defrosted. (they're usually done when the tortilla gets golden and a little crispy.

Or you could just unwrap it, and wrap it in a paper towel, and heat it up in the microwave.

Apple pie for really lazy people

Yesterday, I really wanted some apple pie, but I didn't want to make a dough and roll it out, etc.

So Instead I cheated, and I used some Pillsbury crescents to make the dough (careful, the normal kind is not vegan, but the "buttery flake" is! What the heck?!)

So you take the crescent dough out of the container, knead a little, then roll it out (it puffs up a bit, so make it fairly thin) then put it in your pie pan, and treat it just like you would a pie dough. Then thinly slice two apples, put them in a bowl, and toss them in some cinnamon and sugar (about 1/3 cup?) then put them in the crust, and if you have left-over dough, (you should have a little) make thin strips, and weave them over the top. Then sprinkle a little more cinnamon and sugar on top. Then put it in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Cook for about 10-15 minutes.

Let cool, and serve. (goes well with whipped "cream" or vegan ice creams)

Tasty lunch

I had a nice lunch today. :D

So today what I had was some pan fried tofu, vegetable dumplings, and edamame (baby soybeans in pods)

Edamame can be found usually in the freezer section of health food stores or Asian markets. Then just put them in boiling water until warm and thawed.

For the dumplings they can either be bought in the same places as edamame, or you could make your own. I just bought frozen ones today. But am planning on making some home-made ones soon. I'll post a recipe when I do that.

For the tofu, I cut it into four squarish chunks, then I sliced them width-wise, about a quarter of an inch thick. So that you end up with quarter inch thick slices about 1 inch, by 1 1/2 inches. (doesn't have to be perfect), then you put some slices on a towel, and then put another towel on top of them, and press some of the water out gently. Then lightly coat the tofu in corn starch, and then place on a lightly oiled pan on medium to medium-high heat. (you can cook the dumplings at the same time)  After a couple minutes check on them and flip if golden brown. Once they're golden-brown on both sides, put them on a plate with some teriyaki sauce for dipping, the edamame, and the dumplings.

A whole block of tofu and half of bag each of dumplings and edamame feeds around four people.

Still no camera, sorry!

Pitas with hummus

Oh my goodness!!

I just had the tastiest thing ever! (probably not, but it was still really tasty!)

I've never had a pita before, but I found some whole-wheat pitas in my freezer! Oh my goodness!

So after they defrosted, I made some sun-dried tomato hummus (recipe below), and then I stuffed the pitas with the hummus, tomatoes, and cucumber. SO GOOD!

Here's an estimated recipe for the hummus (I pretty much just threw everything in, no measuring)

1 16 oz can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans)

1 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon finely minced garlic

3 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste) (can be found in health for stores)

2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes

Put it all in a food processor and blend (you may have to scrape the sides a few times), then once it's a smooth and thick, taste it, and adjust it as desired. Then put it in a whole-wheat pita with tomatoes and cucumber.

Sorry about there being no photo, my camera is still broken.

I'm going to college!

Hello again, sorry for there not being very many posts yet. My camera isn't working (great timing, eh?) so I am unable to take photos of my yummy meals. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

But anyway! I'm posting because I'm excited! I'm going to be going to college at the end of this month! Since I've been home-schooled my whole life, and school is a very new experience for me, I'm only going to be taking two classes for my first term. I am going to be taking a beginning yoga class, and a "Vegetarian Adventures" class, that one will be a cooking class, that only has three classes, one focusing on greens, the other on tofu, and the other on "Vegetarian on the go". It says it's a "Pure vegetarian" class, so I'm hoping that means it will be vegan, but they can't really force me to eat anything, so I should be good either way. Plus, who puts dairy or eggs on their tofu and greens? Only silly people.

Why would anyone want to be a vegan?

A very commonly asked question, "Why would someone ever want to be a vegan? They can't eat anything but salads, and it's not healthy."

First off, there are TONS of reasons to be a vegan, and those two statements are entirely untrue, vegans can eat almost any dish that an omnivore can, just by not putting in the meat, or eggs, or dairy (or whatever else) Or they could put in a substitute! There is probably a vegan substitute for just about everything non-vegan, I'm not promising all of them will be realistic or good though.

Also, veganism is usually a lot healthier than an omnivorous diet. It lowers blood sugar, lowers cholesterol, usually lower in fat, and many other things.

The myths of vegans not getting protein is also not true, it's extremely easy to get enough protein, and most people actually get too much of it, in fact, I think it would be pretty hard to not get enough protein, unless you're living off of salads and potato chips, which wouldn't be good for anyone.

Here is my personal experience with veganism, and also the two friends that went vegan with me also said similar things happened to them, we did it pretty casually just a "Hey, I'm kind of curious about veganism, I'm thinking about going vegan for a week, do you want to do it with me?" "Sure, that sounds cool." And then after that week we said "That's not too bad, it's not actually that hard, do you guys want to keep going?" "Yeah, lets see how it goes." and then after about two months of it, our bodies had flushed out all of the nasty stuff it had gotten from meat and animal products, and we felt GREAT, we felt so wonderful, had so much energy, and felt so healthy!  And we're all still vegan, and never planning on going back, we also got a new friend to try out veganism. :)

Here are some more "official" reasons to go vegan.

http://www.nursingdegree.net/blog/19/57-health-benefits-of-going-vegan/
http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming.asp
http://www.goveg.com/healthConcerns.asp
http://www.goveg.com/environment.asp
http://www.goveg.com/theissues.asp

Here are some guides to going vegetarian or vegan:

http://www.goveg.com/vegetarian101.asp
http://www.vegcooking.com/makingthetransition.asp

There are also WAY more links that could help you, but I don't think you'd be likely to read hundreds of links.

Hope this post was helpful to all of you thinking about going vegan (or just started thinking about it from reading this)! There is one thing that I don't recommend doing, and that's going from omnivore to vegan, you should at least be a vegetarian for a month before going vegan, otherwise your body will go through withdrawal, and make you probably give up.

Introduction

I guess it's probably a good idea to give an introduction, My name is Jamie, I'm a vegan, and have been for over a year (November 2007).

The thing that inspired me to make this blog was reading The Vegan Lunch Box Blog, (Veganlunchbox.blogspot.com), that blog taught me a lot and I highly recommend reading it.

I like the outdoors, hiking, biking, hanging out with friends, playing with my bunny (Jasmine), skiing, skating, swimming, dancing, and I LOVE cooking and eating.

In this blog, there will be recipes, pictures, cooking ideas, just my general life, and a lot more!