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This is how I feel



So the last few days have been pretty hectic at work. Please forgive me for my lack of posting lately. I owe more to my fans, I know I know.






Let's see... it's Friday night, yay!!! However, I'm still at work, boo.





So, Wednesday afternoon I made a vegan lunch for Brian and Kourtney, Chitra had some too. My favorite thing about the lunch was Kourtney's quote: "I was honestly prepared to give a polite response, but this is actually good."






I filled a pita with eggplant, tempeh, sprouts, some other stuff... it was good.






I can't even remember Thursday, it was a blur. Between grinding my teeth and plopping my head into my hands, the day dragged on. I can't even remember what I ate, but I did have a few drinks afterwards.






That brings us to today, Friday. Thank god Kourtney found the primal strips in the kitchen! Those were lunch, dried fruit was dinner. Another stressful day at work... almost over. I am so ready for the weekend.

Brunch

What's Sunday without Sunday brunch?


I took my sister to "Sacred Chow", a vegan restaurant in my neighborhood. I've never been so I was a little apprehensive to take my meat eating sister there. The restaurant is really cute and has a nice size menu with tons of options!


I ordered the tofu scramble and Joanna opted for the banana french toast. We both had fresh squeezed orange juice, which was amazing! I forgot how good real juice tastes.


The food was delicious, and my sister was quite impressed that a scramble with no eggs and cheese could taste so good. Her french toast was also amazing. I need to start bringing my camera with me to these places.


If you're ever in soho and need a tasty breakfast, lunch, or dinner I definitely suggest Sacred Chow!


Check out the menu

Sister of Vegan

My sister is in town with her pint size companion, Alonso the Chihuahua. She's definitely not a vegan, quite the opposite. She's been known to taunt me for not eating meat, eggs, dairy....


This weekend will be a great test to see if I can manage to entertain her with good food and restaurants while maintaining my vegan status. I made dinner for both of us this evening, and it was a major success!


Whole wheat pita, veggie burger, sprouts, roasted red peppers, and hummus. Simple and delicious. I gave it two thumbs up; Joanna gave it a mouthful accompanied by "this is pretty fucking good, what's in it?"


Tomorrow we have the Bloomberg picnic so she will be in food heaven, and I'll do my best not to ask "is there egg in this" too many times.

One Hungry Little Vegan

I should've taken a picture of the sandwich I made for dinner, but I was too damn hungry...


Now in my last post I said I had to start cooking more. With the hectic work schedule a good homemade sandwich is a good start.


Avocado, hummus, roasted red peppers, and sprouts make an amazing culinary treat. The tofurkey in my fridge probably isn't good anymore, and even if it was I wouldn't put it on the sandwich. The stuff still freaks me out a little bit. I also found an acceptable dressing to use for my salads!!! Yay.


I decided to stop being lazy about reading ingredient labels. It was easy to just search out the word "vegan" on everything at whole foods, but keep in mind that vegan cesar dressing will always be nasty, whereas regular balsamic vinaigrette will always be good.


Reading ingredients might mean more time at the store, but at least I know exactly what I'm eating.


In the meantime here's a good book of recipes I recently picked up. I think most intimidating thing about cooking vegan meals is all the new ingredients I've never heard of. Nutritional yeast doesn't sound as friendly as cheese. But I'm an all or nothing kind of person so I'll go buy it and do the best I can.

Cook it your damn self

Part of the reason I decided to do this whole vegan thing was for the health benefits. Cutting out the dairy, cheese, and meat make me feel much healthier... I think. Now, those of you who know me are aware that my drinking habits shouldn't be described as "healthy" by any means. But I'll work on it. Baby steps.

Anyway, the real purpose of this post is to kick myself into cooking a bit more. With the exception of maybe a few meals, I've been heavily reliant on prepared meals from Whole Foods (The vegan lasagna rocks my world), and the snacks on 6.

It's not like I'm eating unhealthy snacks, but one cannot sustain themselves on almonds, dried fruit and soybeans forever. I really need to start cooking more!

I'm sure the pre-made vegan meals have fewer preservatives etc. in them (wishful thinking?) but there's something about homemade meals. The fresh ingredients and absence of hydrogenated oils makes them so much better.

So If I'm really serious about being a vegan then I have to make the time to cook like one, sigh.

Fallen for Falafel

I found a new vegan staple. The falafel. How can something so good be so vegan!? Sure fried chickpeas might not be the healthiest thing in the world, but they're damn good.

mmmm beefy

Wayne Campbell: So, do you come to Milwaukee often?

Alice Cooper: Well, I'm a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers began visiting here in the late 16th century.

Pete: Hey, isn't "Milwaukee" an Indian name?

Alice Cooper: Yes, Pete, it is. In fact , it's pronounced "mill-e-wah-que" which is Algonquin for "the good land."

Wayne Campbell: I was not aware of that.

The word "jerky" itself comes from the Quechua term Charqui, which means "dried meat". The Inca would make jerky on a regular basis. For them drying meat meant it was preserved and did not need to be refrigerated.

Brian has recently discovered the bliss of the "Primal Strip" (which also sounds like the name of a topless bar).

Though the Seitan jerky has 15% of your recommended daily allowance of sodium, the Taiwanese treat has 10 grams of protein! Amazing. It's also really really good. Chitra, Brian, and I give three thumbs up.

P.S. I donated blood this morning. I figure, if I want to save animals lives I might as well help the humans out too.

Happy Hour Part Deux

I just won a free happy hour for me and 50 friends... here we go again. Coincidence, I think not. The vegan gods are testing me.

On Happy Hour

Happy hour is a blessing. It's what the working man does between the awkward hours of 5 to 8pm. Cooking, cleaning, exercising... all out of the question after 9 hours in the office and 95 degree weather.


Happy hour keeps us entertained until the realization hits two beers and a glass of wine later, that the last thing you ate were animal crackers and a diet coke from the kitchen.


It's 8:30, you're hungry, you could really go for a slice of pizza, burger... hell, even the cart food starts looking gourmet. But then you realize, "Oh ya, I'm still doing that vegan thing... shi*".


After one phone call for moral support and a trip to the pizzeria with Kourtney, I was ok. I managed to steer clear of the mozzarella sticks (which looked damn good) headed home for a surprisingly delicious avocado and sprout sandwich sans tofurkey, because it still grosses me out...

How it all vegan...

Vegan: 1944, from vegetable (n.) + -an; coined by Donald Watson to distinguish those who abstain from all animal products (eggs, cheese, etc.) from those who merely refuse to eat the animals.

Donald Watson lived to be 94 years old. He was a vegetarian for over 80 years and a vegan for more than 60!

Like Mr. Watson, I decided a venture to the other side of the grocery isle would do me good.

So, here I begin my adventures in veganism. The trials and tribulations might break me, but for now I'm learning to deal with tofu's evil takeover of deli meat and what whole foods calls vegan Cesar dressing (which is simply inedible).

I am looking forward to trying one of my co-worker's favorite recipes: macaroni and yeast flake cheese... oh boy.

The past few days have been interesting, but most of all enlightening. Who knew there was so much shit in food!?

More to come...