2 ways to pre-game Friday

Today is kind of like Friday Part One.  I took tomorrow off from work because Mister and I have big plans.  Well, actually, Mister's and my big plans could have been accomplished by taking a half day, but I decided to take advantage of the fact that PIFA is still going on and avail myself on some free arts stuff.

Some women go to a salon/spa to pamper themselves.  I go to museums and live music with food carts.

Today was also an interesting food day.  It was Hot Dog Day at work.  It never fails to completely astonish me how much crappy food we serve our employees at a weight loss company.  This year's Hot Dog Day was only more civilized than last year's in two small ways:

1. We managed to avoid polluting Earth Day with our little tubes of nitrates and leftover skin.
2. We managed to avoid the novelty of a fat and toothless man serving hot dogs from his little cart.

Apart from that, it served as a reminder of two more things:

1. Just because we work for a company trying to establish itself as a total wellness solution and just because we aim to teach overweight and obese people how to establish healthy eating habits while losing weight on our program does not mean we feed our employees healthy food.

2. If there is something novel available, like, say, veggie dogs, people will choose that over their pink tubes of manipulated meat out of pure curiosity.  Unfortunately, this can end with no food for the people who can only eat the veggie dogs...people like me.

I'm trying to "be the bigger person" (not literally, obviously) and look at this from a generous and enlightened perspective, but there are two points at war within me:

1. I really, really want to focus on how awesome it was that so many meat-eaters voluntarily chose to eat something that was not dead.  I want to be happy for their excellent choice of a [albeit processed] vegetarian protein over their usual choice of rotting, preserved flesh.  I want to believe that running out of veggie dogs before the event was half over will indicate to management that there is a larger interest in good, non-meat options than they originally thought and that this revelation will result in more veggie choices in future events.

2. I wish they had "reserved" at least enough for the known vegetarians, and allowed omnis to eat "extras."  I mean, really.  I, like everyone else, had believed the company was feeding me today, so I did not bring lunch.  Them running out of veggie dogs resulted in me having to buy my lunch at the cafe, who, fortunately, had vegetarian lentil soup for me to dunk my naked hot dog rolls in.

In any case, I was happy to head home at the end of a very busy and hungry day and find that Mister was actually awake and alert.  I had nothing to say last night because when I got home, Mister was passed out in the dark in the bedroom, got up for about an hour and a half before giving up and going back to bed.  In the absence of a formal, cooked dinner, I had a grilled peanut butter sandwich and a plate of strawberries.  It was a nice little dinner, but nothing to blog about, especially since the strawberries could have been a lot closer to in season.  Speaking of seasons, I know Mister and I are quite ready to wave Allergy Season goodbye.

So, despite Mister's ambivalent hunger, I set about making Mediterranean Chickpeas and Vegetables, from the July 1998 Cooking Light magazine.  Click the meal name for the recipe - and you should - it's tasty and very easy.  If you have precooked rice, or use a faster cooking rice like Basmati or Jasmine, or even a fast-cooking grain like bulgur or couscous, you can easily get this on the table in 30 minutes, which was exactly what I was aiming to do.

It has been such a long time since we've had this that I'm pretty sure I've never served it in those bowls...which we got the first Christmas after we were married (2007).  See, it took me quite a long time to find my cooking "wings" so for the first several years of our vegetarian lives together, I just kind of made the same things in an ever-widening rotation.  I was always trying to learn new recipes, I just hadn't become confident enough in my ability to cook to take as many chances as I do now.  So, before I learned how fun it is to be adventurous in your menu selection, even if it leads to disaster from time to time, we would generally do a rotation of pizza, pasta, veggie burgers w/fries, pizza, rice and beans, my own weak version of veggie lo mein, pizza, and rice cooked in vegetable broth with whatever vegetables I found palatable that day sauteed in some olive oil with not quite enough garlic.  And pizza - did I mention that?  Yeah, Mister and I ate a lot of pizza when we stopped eating animals.

Anyway, this had a high priority in our rotation because it was the first time I thought to combine canned tomatoes with the sauteed veggies and definitely the first time I realized you could have beans (chickpeas) and rice AND veggies - I know, it blew my mind at the time, too.  So, I probably overdid it a bit, so when I started building my cookbook collection, it fell away.

I'm glad I made it and I'll probably try to remember to make it a little more frequently than once every 3 years or so, because it's really good and simple.  I always enjoy the recipes that involve bay leaves because they lend such a bizarre flavor to dishes; smoky, like I mentioned.

Anyway, I have some French wine to drink in preparation for my day of French fun tomorrow.  I'm so glad I decided to take the day off - I so enjoyed the PIFA gala and I've wanted to attend far more than I have, but alas... that whole pesky working-6-days-a-week thing gets in the way of a lot of things I want to do.  I plan to enjoy every moment of tomorrow and hope to capture as much as I can on film so we can have a little picture party tomorrow night in preparation for Real Friday.

Bonne nuit et Beaux rêves, mes amis, à demain!

back to basics

Today was Monday, in a sense.  I went back to work today, but tomorrow is still Friday, which is definitely the way to go back to work.  Tomorrow, Philadelphia plans to remind us that it IS actually autumn - this will be demonstrated by way of a 20 degree difference in high temperatures between today and tomorrow.

I figured I should probably use that as my guide for the few dinners on my mini-menu.   I chose hot dogs because the stew and soup will probably be better suited for the next couple nights (as well as received more kindly by a shivery Mister).  Believe me, I wouldn't ordinarily peg a dinner made completely from prepared foods and no fresh veggies as the first meal I would cook after a vacation from my kitchen.

Nevertheless, when Sister and I had our Cajun meal in Disney, the baked beans reminded me of two things: first, they reminded me how much I love baked beans.  Second, and possibly more importantly, they reminded me that every once in a while, it's okay to make a "simple" dinner.  I don't have to plunk down a culinary masterpiece each night, nor do I have to stretch my creative wings each time I don't have a recipe handy.  Every now and then, it is not just okay, but fun to open a can of baked beans to heat up alongside the sauerkraut while the water is boiling for the veggie dogs and the whole wheat buns are warming in the toaster oven.

In other news, Mister is very proud of me: after all these years (also known as My Life), I've finally started to load my hot dogs up with stuff.  It's not really a hot dog for Mister if it doesn't also involve a pickle, sauerkraut, ketchup, mustard, and sometimes potato chips for crunch.  Pretty much all of my life, I've been perfectly content to eat a hot dog on a bun.  That's it.  No fancy condiments or pickled vegetables for me, sir, just the dog.  Tonight, Mister watched happily as I squirted ketchup down the center inside of my dog, then topped it with a generous bit of sauerkraut.

In case you have a thing for brand names, or are just curious and starting out on this whole delightful meatless journey, we had Jumbo Smart Dogs, Heinz Vegetarian Baked Beans, and store brand sauerkraut, flanked by Heinz ketchup and store brand spicy brown mustard on Arnold's Whole Wheat buns.

A couple of items in the Coming Attractions:
First, I have opened a Twitter account for the blog - I would love for you to follow me @AngstLvsSpinach.  I'll be posting when I put up a new post for your reading pleasure, as well as any other fun and useful things I come across.

Also, there are just a few days until World Vegan Day (Nov. 1st) which kicks off this year's fourth annual VeganMoFo!  I plan on trying to post every single day - In addition to some fabulous new autumn recipes and Thanksgiving prep, I'll be doing another round-up or two (hint: there will be chocolate) and covering a couple of special topics.  If there's anything you'd like to read about or if you have a favorite omni recipe in need of tasteful vegan conversion, feel free to drop a line and let me know!

you people = meat-hating mutants

Happy belated Earth Day!

I could go into a big discussion on how meat consumption is destroying the planet we call home, but I'll let PETA handle that for me.  We'll let it go at this - hot dogs are not earth-friendly (and just barely meat, anyway).

Before I go any further, I would like to make it clear that I am completely grateful for everything my workplace does to recognize the efforts of the employees and reward those efforts in any large or small way.  That being said, I also want to say that we're good at anti-holidays where I work.  I've already shared about the meat-loving extravaganza on World Vegetarian Day, so it really shouldn't have surprised me that we had Hot Dog Day on Earth Day.  Nothing says, "I love Mother Earth," like one of the most artificial and preservative-laden mixtures of meat ever molded into a little pink tube and boiled...mmmm....tasty.

A very thoughtful colleague brought in Tofu Pups, presumably because she doesn't eat beef (if you can really call hot dogs "beef"), but also because she recognized that I would not be able to partake of the meaty festivities.  I was touched!  I was astonished, though, when I found that the Hot Dog Man actually already had veggie dogs - well done, workplace fun organizers!  I did express my thanks as adamantly as I could because I think it's important to recognize little efforts like this (I must take after my company).  I also had an amazing interaction with the Hot Dog Man:

He actually said this - true quote: 

Yeah, we had to special order 'em for you people.

You people?  Really? We people who don't exploit animals or stuff their mutilated flesh into my mouth like I'm at the Wing Bowl?  We people who don't scarf nitrate-loaded tubes of mashed "meat?"  We people who don't have a significant weight problem and who can proudly show off all of our teeth (in our mouths)?  

I still can't believe he actually said that, but he did - I have witnesses.  They also had the pleasure of witnessing my response, which was a very mildly toned down version of what I wrote above before pointing out that my Tofu Pup was probably the closest thing to "real" food he had in his Cart of Death.  Happy Earth Day!

Moving along, then, Mister and I enjoyed a very Earth-friendly and tasty dinner.  It was also extraordinarily fast, though it did take quite a bit more effort than the recipe appeared to have.  I made the Pita Quesadillas from the latest issue of Vegetarian Times.  It was very very good, and although I had originally intended to serve it with Crash Hot Potatoes, I will save those for another time and I served it with leftover stew.

They looked nothing at all like the pretty picture in the magazine, but tasted fabulous.  Rather than making my own hummus from the recipe in the magazine, I actually used up the red pepper hummus that my mother sent home with us at Easter.  I think it worked out better that way.

Tonight, I made Spicy Tomato Peanut and Kale Pasta from La Dolce Vegan for dinner, with the can of V8 Mister procured from the local corner store.  I love Philadelphia.  V8 is not hard to find, but I love all the independent stores around here, rather than heading over to Wawa or down to Rite Aid.

I somehow managed to skip right over the part where the recipe called for only 2 cups of chopped kale, so I just chopped up the whole bunch and threw it into the sauce.  It came out okay, but I'm not completely sure it needed an entire bunch of kale.  The sauce would be a little more outstanding if I had added the splashes of tamari and red wine vinegar I wanted to add.  I believe I will make this again, but I will probably add about a tablespoon of tamari, a generous splash of red wine vinegar, maybe a teaspoon of vegan worcestershire sauce and increase the harissa to half a tablespoon.  I was still a little "gun-shy" after the huge amount of trouble I got into with the spicier items on the menu, so I was conservative with the harissa (in place of the chili oil called for in the recipe).