time changes everything

I don't think it was all that long ago that I bought a bag of Nate's Meatballs for some recipe and wished they were a bit better than they were.  They weren't bad, they just weren't anything special.  The girl who rang up my groceries that night, however, thought they were the bee's knees.  So, upon some research, apparently that occurred two years ago.

Good to know, though, that Nate put those years to good use, because when I used "his" meatless meatballs tonight when I made Southwestern Meatballs with Corn-Black Bean Salsa from Clean Eating magazine, they were spectacular.  I'm not sure what product development took place, but they looked better, cooked better, and tasted better than they did two Novembers ago.

Not surprisingly, Angst begged persistently and loudly.  Angst Loves Meat Analogs (and Spinach).

I served the meatballs and salsa over a pilaf of bulgur and brown basmati rice and the whole thing was delicious.  I have never actually eaten a turkey meatball - I stopped eating animals around the time making beef out of turkey became "the new thing," so I never really had a chance, if you want to look at it like that.  Nevertheless, these reformulated meatballs had an appreciable poultry flavor, so I couldn't help but wonder if that was their aim.  The "old" meatballs were definitely more ground beef-y in both texture and taste, even appearance - they had that grayish color I could never understand why beef had.

The salsa itself was quite tasty, made up of canned black beans and canned tomatoes with a cup of Trader Joe's brand frozen corn and a teaspoon of cumin (because heaven forbid we make something "southwestern" without cumin).  It went well with the meatballs, and the chicken-y flavor actually worked far better with their flavor profile than a more beefy flavor/texture would have.

Thanks for reminding me why I read you, Clean Eating!

lovely day for an apocalypse

Soooooo....about that apocalypse thing...  I took the above picture on my way back to the train station after teaching yesterday, approximately 2 hours before all the good little kitties were scooped up by an invisible hand and delivered to heaven and the rest of us experienced a catastrophic earthquake unlike any seen/felt before, leaving us to survive continuing chaos and degradation until the world is mercifully destroyed on October 21st.

As you can see, I was not one of the chosen.  According to a comment on my last post, neither is one of my readers.  Unfortunately, neither was Angst.  He was very disappointed.

On the brighter side of things, yesterday was a gorgeous day - not bad for your last day of "normal" life, huh?  In a way, it kind of felt like one of those movies they put out a few years ago where everyone is going about their business like everything is normal, completely ignorant of the danger and destruction that awaits them in just a few short hours.

Or not.  "Rapture Fail," to quote so many others.  As much as I would like to live in the Time of Tribulation (not really, actually), I'm pretty happy the whole day passed with nothing more than gossip, sunshine, and a movie I liked far more than I thought I would.

I started the day with a smoothie date!  Kelly from Living On The Vedge met me at Pure Fare in Rittenhouse Square and helped introduce me to the wonderful world of smoothies.  While I still can't see them becoming a regular part of my breakfast rotation, I think they have a place once in a while, kind of like a special treat.  I plan to actually devote a post to my smoothie experience, so I'll move along in the day for now.  After we finished our smoothies and nice conversation, she headed to the Rittenhouse Row Festival and I headed to the train station for a relatively short day of teaching.

As I approached Suburban Station, I was caught off guard by this astonishing image.  First of all, the Comcast building is the tallest building in the Philadelphia skyline and is an imposing building to stand beneath.  It looks like it reaches straight up to heaven (maybe Angst should have taken the elevator instead of waiting) and, being clothed in reflective glass, it actually blends in with the sky until you notice that the sky looks a little pixelated and weird.  Then you have this moment where your brain yells, "Holy crap, that's a building!" 

The other incredible thing that caught my eye was the eerily perfect reflection of the building I was standing next to.  After I stood there gawking long enough to make a few tourists stare at me, I decided to pull out my camera and capture this amazing view before heading underground and out of my beloved city.  It is definitely things like this that cause me to pause and truly love my city.

After teaching, I returned to my fair city and found not a single stone overturned, so it looked like we were still safe from the zombie invasion for which the CDC was preparing America.  I was relieved to see the beautiful and historic synagogue on Lombard St was still in one piece, with the 10 Commandments standing proud and strong at the top.

Another welcome site was the steeple of St. Peter's Church on Pine St, the gold cross gleaming in late afternoon sunlight.  It came into view as I crossed 4th St and I was struck by the way it stood out against the magnificent white clouds, as if to say, "we're still here!"

So, the threat of apocalypse past, Mister and I thought we would enjoy the beautiful weather with a trip to Horizons, intending to drink in the temperate air and remarkable sky along with a tasty dinner and undoubtedly decadent dessert, possibly a cocktail or two.  A lot of other people had the same idea, so given the choice between dining inside and at the bar or eating elsewhere, we headed back toward home.  Mister tried to find another fun place to eat, but I really had my heart set on Horizons, so we just went home, where I prepared the last dinner from our menu, Fusilli with Lentil Sauce from Vegan Italiano.

I have seen recipes for lentil sauces before and aside from the way red lentils break down and thicken a sauce, I just couldn't imagine how it would work.  In fact, my original intention for this sauce was to use red lentils, until last night, when I pulled out my jar and found it to be lacking at least half the quantity I needed to make the sauce, so I hesitantly used regular ol' Goya brown lentils instead.

Mister and I were both completely surprised by how incredibly tasty the sauce was and how well all of the parts worked together.  Mister plowed through three big bowls and I chomped delicately through 1.5 (keeping his food math intact).  I am so sorry I didn't make this sooner.  I don't anticipate lentil sauces being my new passion, but I will definitely make this one again, and probably in the not-too-distant future.

After dinner, we watched Avatar and it was really a remarkable movie.  We both went into it with a trepidation we reserve for big budget blockbusters with CG main characters.  Our bro-in-law in California does this for a living, so we know CG has improved significantly in the last ten years, but Jar-Jar Binks really ruined everything.  We were both completely impressed with the movie in all aspects - CG, storyline, acting, even psychology (awesome inner battle with Jake Sully).  After the movie, we still had to wait for some of the drunks to stop screaming in the streets, so I put together this week's menu.  Having gotten through our Italian Week, I felt the need was quenched and we could move on to a completely ethnically diverse menu:

1. Italian-Style Rice Casserole from Vegan Italiano.  Okay, so I didn't make this last week due to a dearth of peas at Whole Foods, but I have the peas now, so we'll have it soon.  Besides, I can't go from all Italian to no Italian without doing irreparable damage to Mister's psyche.

2. Naked Burritos - I've seen one too many Qdoba billboards (I pass one every day on my way to work) and the craving for Mexican, more precisely burritos, set in.

3. Pasta Con Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction.  Old habits die hard...maybe I'm not completely over my Italian cravings.

4. Seitan Gyros from The Accidental Vegan, at Mister's request!  I almost always ask Mister if he has any requests when I start my menu planning.  98% of the time, he does not.  Last night, I asked again, and by habit, he said "no." Less than 30 seconds later, he stepped back into the kitchen and said, "Yes. Can you make me gyros with that seitan, since it tastes so much like lamb?"  How could I refuse my poor vegetarian Greek?  He hasn't had a gyro in nine and a half years.

5. Salsa Rice and Red Beans from Vegan on the Cheap.

6. Seitan Pepper Steak also from The Accidental Vegan.  Since the seitan recipe makes a 2-lb loaf and I don't know how long it will keep, I figured I should have another recipe that requires seitan on the menu this week.  I had some trouble choosing between this and Seitan Cacciatore, but ultimately decided that my menu, though far more diverse than last week's, still required a little more variety.

So there you have it: Italian, Mexican, Greek, and Asian.  Not bad!  We kicked it off tonight with Mister's request, since I had to bake the seitan this afternoon and I figured it might be easiest to just slice the seitan very thinly right after it popped out of the oven (okay, I let it cool a little tiny bit).  I set up a Build Your Own Gyro station on my long counter and let Mister construct his own.  I figured that was also a safer way to go about the Tahini sauce because it seems like I always put too much sauce on Mister's stuff.

Shortly after I took that oddly yellow picture, I think I figured out why gyro-serving places always give it to you in a little paper cone.  It's hard to keep those suckers wrapped in a cone shape without crushing the pita and/or getting tahini sauce all over your hands.

I did both.  SO, I decided I was not as good at gyro-eating as my Greek husband (unlike him, I think I only had one or two gyros before going vegetarian) and decided to turn my dinner into Gyro Salad (kind of like a Greek version of Taco Salad).

Second time around, I just skipped the pita altogether.  It was so good - the savory seitan really did mimic my memories of lamb and Mister was thrilled - it was exactly what he wanted it to be.  He so rarely requests anything other than "Whatever makes you happy, baby," that if he does want something specific, I fall over myself to make it for him.  The crunch of the chopped romaine was the perfect complement to the chewy seitan and the umami of the seitan foiled the semi-sweetness of the tomatoes as the smokiness of the tahini sauce coated everything with a layer of "something special."

faux fare and photos - time to weigh in

So, the veg-world is all atwitter (literally, in some cases) about a recent expose´ on quarrygirl.com about VegNews magazine using stock photos in their publication.  Anyone who is not "in the know" is probably wondering what is so bad about using stock photos - well, it just so happens these stock photos contained animals and not when they're all cute and fuzzy.

Feel free to check out the post, but I encourage you to also read the comments and maybe head over to a few other sources of information about this whole debacle.  There are really two battles being fought here and I feel like I've spent enough time reading compassionate, though possibly misguided defenses and venomous, movement-demeaning attacks to share my own thoughts now.  I absolutely invite dialogue via the comments section, but having seen how fired up people are getting about this, I do request that anyone who wants to share their thoughts does so in a respectful manner.

So, like I said, there are really two issues going on here and as far as I can tell, most people are picking one and ignoring the other, whichever is better suited to their own passion.  To be completely honest, I am feeling vaguely ambiguous about this whole thing - I have not yet had a defined, strong feeling push me one way or the other, though this has certainly been a brainbug for me the past few days.

I have slightly less to say about the first part, so we'll do this first: People are tweaked because the magazine used stock photos that included actual meat and/or dairy products to represent recipes or products.  Okay, I get that - the major public outcry is that this demonstrates a severe lack of integrity.  Integrity is very important to me, so I can go along with this one.  Is it deceitful and underhanded of a magazine that actively promotes not just a vegetarian diet but rather a vegan lifestyle to use pictures of dead animals?  Absolutely.  Do I think they were wrong?  Absolutely.  Then, just in case there was any hope for the staff of VegNews to reclaim their lost integrity, they made damn sure no one thought they were apologizing.  The "letter" they published on the website was very well written and can easily be read in a placating tone.  A person could almost accept their apology...if one had actually been offered.  Instead, VegNews's mea culpa sounds more defensive than it does regretful - as though the only thing they're actually sorry about is being caught.  At no point do the authors of the letter actually say "I'm sorry," when those two little words would have saved them a lot of grief in the long run.  Instead, they dug their hole a little deeper, and it will take even longer for them to find their way out.

As I was eating my dinner tonight (alone, since Mister fell asleep early), I decided to glance through my new issue of VegNews, which arrived on the date all this controversy began, coincidentally.  As I turned the pages, each time my eyes fell upon a picture, I caught myself wondering if it was also a stock photo and if I should be trying to decipher some digital manipulation, or if it really was a photo of a vegan culinary delight.  To be truthful, that led to the collection of thoughts that chased me over to my computer, determined to get out the words that keep repeating themselves inside my head.

You can't (really) fake a picture of a carrot.  Short of chopping up and bleaching beef fat, you aren't likely to have animal products in a picture of hash browns.  I can't think of a single part of an animal that looks like broccoli.  If you can, please do not share :)

Some people are saying that VegNews is making vegans look bad to omnivores; they say it looks like we're all starving for what we've chosen not to eat.  Well.... why are we looking for ways to veganize BBQ ribs, then?

What keeps going through my head is faux fare.  Think for a moment, folks.  We have Daiya and a bunch of other vegan "cheeses."  For heaven's sake, there is a whole cookbook devoted to making vegan cheese.  We have Gardein and Boca Chicken patties and Tofurky sausages, not to mention "deli meat" slices by LightLife, Tofurky, and Yves.  I'll excuse the original Tofurky roast since it was intended to help veganize a holiday that reeks of death to those of us who don't want to rip the flesh off of a dead bird with our teeth, but even that fits the paradigm.

What paradigm?  Glad you asked - the one that says we need to have something "equal" to the meat eaters' entree choices in order to "keep up" or be fulfilled and satisfied.  Think for a moment on the inordinate amount of time we spend scouting out, preparing, reviewing, and scrounging for meat substitutes?  The most coveted honor in vegan cooking?  From what I have seen, it appears to be the perfection of a vegan mac 'n' cheese recipe.  I see this quest represented in almost every cookbook I own, on almost every blog I've ever read.

Please don't think I don't count myself amidst the guilty, friends.  There have been times I have embarrassed myself with the amount of "fake meat" and/or "fake dairy" in my grocery basket, times that I have cringed as I placed my items on the conveyor belt at Whole Foods and wondered if the cashier thought ill of me.  I regularly buy Tofurky deli slices for Mister (it's my way of making up for not buying him cheese anymore), I probably buy Tofurky sausages as frequently as I buy tofu, and it is a rare shopping trip I don't leave without a carton of soymilk.  Other culprits?  Soy yogurt, soy/rice cheese, daiya shreds, Yves ground "meat," Gardein "chicken," veggie burgers, non-dairy ice cream, vegan hot dogs, vegan meatballs.  I could probably go on, but you get the point.  I am not immune.

I am, however, self-aware.  If we are afraid that omnis will see this debacle and think vegans are a bunch of crazy people who really just want what we "can't" have, we need to recognize that this is an indictment of ourselves, not a magazine that is trying to give us what we want.  Do you want a review of the top 5 veggie hot dogs as we all prepare to fire up the grills for the first time this spring?  Well, please don't be surprised when a magazine uses a stock photo rather than taking some crappy picture of one of the dogs only to have the manufacturers of the other 4 calling and emailing to find out why they didn't photograph their dogs.  And don't be scandalized when it's a stock photo of a "real" hot dog.  First of all, there is nothing "real" in hot dogs - just lips and a**holes, folks.  Second, aside from being a psycho-stalker and checking every photo they print against a database of stock photos, can you really tell the difference between artificially pink "beef/pork" and artificially pink soy?  I can't.

If all the people who are spending their time railing against VegNews and using inappropriate forums to make their point would use their energy to examine their own diet and consumer behavior for a moment, they might understand why [lack of integrity notwithstanding] this really isn't a good reason to tear down a magazine that is trying to do some good in a world full of abuse and hatred.  Did the staff of VegNews deceive us?  Yes.  Did they apologize?  Not yet, that I'm aware of, and I still really think that would be their most appropriate next move if they have any hope of salvaging their really good publication.  Regardless of this whole situation, for the last 11 years, this magazine has been on the forefront of a movement to draw the good things of veganism into the mainstream.  Having won a prominent place on newsstands everywhere, I'd say they have been instrumental in spreading "the good word."  Using deceptive photos does not discount the fact that every single recipe is unapologetically vegan, every product they promote is vegan, and the overall focus of the magazine is highlighting vegans and helping lower-profile folks become better, more thoughtful, more educated people. 

VegNews was a large contributing factor in my decision to go vegan.  I didn't flip through a magazine or two and say "wow, those pictures of fake mac 'n' cheese look so good!  I guess I can be vegan now."  I carefully read the features, examined their advertisements, sifted through their "favorite" products.  After garnering as much information as I could, I decided to give it a go because their words, their promoted products, and their recipes (with or without pictures) gave me hope that I could give up the things that hurt the world without losing out on things I love (like chocolate).

I had intended to review our dinner at Horizons (last night) and maybe poke some fun at how miserably I eat when I don't cook for Mister and I, rather than writing a manifesto on looking in the mirror before casting that stone.  All of that needed to come out, though, so thank you for reading it.  Like I said, I welcome your thoughts on the matter as well, but please state them respectfully.  As a reward for making it this far, I'll let you see how uncivilized I can be when Mister sleeps through dinner - it's especially ironic, given the point of this post, that dinner tonight was leftover "meatloaf."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some tasty vegan coffee cake to attend to.  I do plan to put it on a plate.

a tribute to a supermom

I'm getting old.  I don't mean that the way I usually do, when I'm looking at my gray hair in a mirror and having an existential crisis about wasting my life.  My body is getting old.  Unlike birthdays and gray hairs, people don't feel the need to tiptoe around that one - with each day that passes, each holiday we celebrate, each wedding we attend, each baby that is born, there is someone there to remind me that if we want a baby, we need to get on it because my body has only a few more "safe" fertile years left in it.

Nice, huh?

As I approach my mid-thirties, with only a soon-to-be 11-year-old cat to call my baby, I am reminded of all the things Mister and I have said over the years, regarding procreation and why we really have no interest in it.  For most of our time together, Mister has traveled extensively for work.  Babies would interfere with that in multiple ways - I didn't want to explain why Daddy was away so much and I didn't want to resent my offspring for preventing me from going with him.  That is a tangible example of the underlying theme of Mister's and my decision to remain childless - we are just too selfish.  Neither of us has come to a point in our lives where we can see children fitting in - rather, for us and our lives, children would be an interference of sorts.

Before you decide I am the worst human being ever and take my uterus away, hear me out.  I have a very high opinion of mothers, which is the primary reason I am not one.  I think mothers (generally) are the most selfless, loving, patient, amazing humans on the planet.  From the moment of conception, a mother gives and continues giving until she finally takes her last breath.  A mother cares about your hurt no matter how mean you were to her in the midst of it.  A mother works solely so her children can have what they want, since their needs are more than met; or, a mother stops working so her children can benefit from her attention and love as they grow.  A mother is always thinking of what is best for her children (okay, maybe not always, but it sure seems like it sometimes) and doing whatever it takes to show her love to them.

I admire those qualities.  I think if I needed to, I could cultivate them because I can feel them lying dormant inside me.  I just have no desire right now to be that person.

Believe it or not, although I do love my mother with all my heart, she was not the inspiration for all that mushy.  Believe it or not, that was all to build up to this ridiculous idea I had: to cook a whole night of recipes from Mama Pea.  I admire the way she raises her children and if you read her blog for just one week, you will be as hopelessly hooked as I am.  Lucky for you, she just revamped her recipeas page so all of her awesome is easier to find.  You want easier?  She has a book coming out soon - you can (and should) pre-order it on Amazon.

Anyway, for my first trick (AKA Dinner), I made her Meatless Meatloaf.  This was actually on last week's menu, but I chickened out last week.  I made it tonight by sheer force of will and at this point, morbid curiosity.  Now, I'm kicking myself for ever having doubted Mama Pea - I've been reading her blog long enough to know better.

It's really not very attractive...but then again, neither is "real" meatloaf.  What matters is the extraordinary taste.  No offense, Mom (I love you!), but this loaf of mystery meat was far more flavorful than the gray loaf of ground beef we ate in my childhood.  Of course, I'm inclined to think chickpeas taste better than cows, but I know my mother and I differ there.

To go along with the theme, I sauteed some Yukon Gold potatoes in a mixture of olive oil, vegetable broth, garlic, and Mediterranean seasoning from California.  They were good, but were far overshadowed, flavor-wise, by the 'meatloaf.'

Turns out, though, that together, they complemented each other - the intense flavors of the loaf enhancing the potatoes while they calmed the seasonings in the loaf.  I think Mister might have preferred that both components of dinner not be smushy, but he seemed to like it nonetheless and thanked me for making "funny dinner."

For my next trick, I decided to make this amazing recipe for Apple Spice Coffee Cake that Mama Pea just posted over the weekend.

It looked amazing going into the oven, although I made a huge mess of everything putting it together!  There are a lot of ingredients, possibly more than I had bargained for, so it took me quite a bit longer than I had anticipated.  If I realized how inefficient I was in my kitchen (after all, I am still getting used to it), I would have started at least a half hour earlier than I did.

Nevertheless, it was fun putting it all together - I rarely make things that have a crumb/streusel topping because it's such a pain in the you-know-what.  My "small" bowl was way too small, so I had to upgrade before smushing in the Earth Balance, and my fork was frustrating me - I had run out of patience at this point, so I just rubbed it all together with my fingers.  This is not the best idea when you have long fingernails.  So, after I had coaxed the last bits of topping from under my rings and fingernails into the sink, I finally got this sucker in the oven.

One of the reasons I love making spice cakes or cookies is because they start smelling good when you are mixing everything together and the aroma only gets better throughout the assembling and cooking process.  Most of the time, by the time I get to remove my treasure from the oven, I'm almost literally drooling.  There's also something about the scent that fills my kitchen while baking these delights that is just so patently "homey."

To borrow a phrase... oh. my. peas!

My pictures aren't as pretty as Mama Pea's, but I haven't taken any seminars on how to do anything more than point-and-shoot, and my camera is adequate, but nothing "special."  Regardless, I certainly hope my cake tastes as good as Mama Pea's because I can't imagine it getting much better!

The pain-in-the-butt streusel topping was absolutely worth every sliver of Earth Balance that got stuck beneath my nails, trapping with it some cinnamon and brown sugar and maybe a piece of oat for added comfort.  What was the most amazing thing, though, was the way the two textures came together.  The top was undeniably crunchy, almost crisp, but the cake itself was light and pillow-soft.

Speaking of pillows....

I'm really bad at going to sleep by a reasonable hour.

Good night, folks!

making peace with peas

People give up eating animals for myriad reasons, appealing to body, heart, and mind.  Some people are looking for a way to improve their health without resorting to medication or other treatment.  Some people have seen the right PETA video/pamphlet/heart-tugging-graphic-media at the right time.  Some do it for the environment, some for the animals, and some for the other people.  Some people, like myself, struggled for months with information that needed time to stew, much like last night's dinner.

I think that peoples' reasons for going vegetarian or vegan will powerfully influence the way they turn their diet away from animal-based foods.  It can be a difference of a person moving away from something or toward something else.  I learned a new term today: Vegivore.  It's the latest trendy name to describe a trendy movement with real potential but just barely misses the point.  As the name might suggest, a vegivore is more inclined to fill their plate with vegetables in the name of gourmet cuisine, however, that cuisine cannot be assumed to be strictly veg.  Although the star of a vegivore's dinner might be Brussels sprouts, that doesn't mean they weren't flavored by a good saute with bacon drippings.  Nevertheless, it's a step in the right direction.

When I became a vegetarian, I'll admit - I really didn't know what I was doing.  I didn't have the vaguest clue how to cook anything besides Minute Rice and canned soup.  I wish I could say I was kidding, but I'm not.  I'm so not kidding that when people I haven't seen/spoken to in years find out I have a vegan cooking/food blog, they are unabashedly surprised.  "But you don't know how to cook!"  Well, it was a process - I remember in the beginning I had about three Things-I-Called-Dinner that I just rotated.  What I have lovingly referred to as "fake meat" was not as abundantly available 8 years ago as it is now, so aside from the occasional tofu hot dog, it never really occurred to me to try to replace my chicken with anything other than vegetables.

But what do you eat??   Vegetables.  Grains and pasta sometimes, too.  Eventually, tofu.

It wasn't actually until I started to learn how to cook that I was introduced to neat things like Tofurky sausage, Yves meatless ground, and Primal vegan jerky to name a few.  I realize these things can be indescribably helpful in easing the transition from a very animal-based diet to a plant-based one, especially if they aren't doing it out of beautiful and severe compassion for the animals.  For my own diet, becoming a vegetarian taught me so many things about nutrition and the awesome results of providing my body with purer fuel.  As a result, I am stingy in adding many processed foods to my diet, just as I would if I ate animals.  Despite that they are plant-based, these meat analogs are still processed, so I limit my consumption.

I always felt a little awkward trying to explain why that was.  Imagine my delight when I read the introduction to The Urban Vegan and found that a person with a Masters in English took it upon herself to explore the same topic.  With Dynise's permission, I would like to share those words with you now:

Being vegan certainly takes some dietary adjustments.  It takes a bit of mental adjustment, too.  So a little bit of Zen wisdom is pertinent here.  It's important to stay in the present.

You don't expect an apple to taste like a mushroom, do you?  Nor do you expect a cup of coffee to taste like a cup of tea.  So why, I wonder, would anyone look back and expect ingredients commonly used in vegan cuisine, like seitan, tofu, and tempeh, to taste like meats?  They are not meats.  They are unique foods, just like apples and mushrooms, with unique histories, tastes, textures, and properties.  The same goes for nutritional yeast-based sauces and soy- and nut-based cheeses.  They might look like dairy-based cheese and cheesy sauces, but they are not.

My point, in short, is that all tastes, other than our innate love of sweetness, are acquired.  Imagine how glum food would be if we never moved beyond our affinity for sugar.  We all somehow learned how to like and identify the unique flavors of olives, coffee, wine, chili, and pickles, to name just a few.  So try to appreciate new foods for what they are.  Approach them with the open mind of a beginner and with an innocence, rather than with a preconceived notion of what they are supposed to taste like.  Accept them for what they are, just as you accept people for who they are.

 In other words, it's okay that Mister thinks vegan food tastes like marshmallows because something that isn't milk doesn't need to taste like milk and something that isn't cheese doesn't have to taste like cheese.  When I make a nooch-based sauce, I do so for the savory nature of the nooch, not because it tastes like cheese, because it doesn't.  On the rare occasion that I get a veggie burger, I usually get a flavored variety because I already know it won't taste like beef, and to be honest, I don't think I want it to at this point.

I've made peace with peas.  They're small and sweet and green.  They taste just like they should.  They taste like peas.  Have you made peace with your "peas?"