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Meatless Monday #82: Fennel and Grapefruit Salad

I’d never bought fennel before, so when it arrived this week in my CSA box, I wasn’t quite sure how to use it. A quick google search revealed that really the only part worth eating is the bulb (technically you can eat the stalks and fronds, but the stalks are tough and the fronds are really just more of a garnish).

Fennel

So for my first experience with fennel, I went for a basic fennel and citrus salad. And I absolutely loved it!

Fennel and Grapefruit Salad

Ingredients
1 fennel bulb
1/2 grapefruit
handful of walnuts (or almonds or pine nuts)
a few pinches of dill
apple cider vinegar (red or white wine vinegar would work as well)
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cut the stalks (& fronds) off the fennel bulb and discard the stalks (& fronds).

2. Slice the fennel bulb as you would slice an onion.

Sliced Fennel Bulb

3. Add cut grapefruit pieces, walnuts, and dill to the sliced fennel.

4. Dress with apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper.

Fennel salad, served with turnip greens and rutabaga fries

Austin’s Vegan Grocery Store

A vegan grocery store? I’d never heard of, or even imagined such a thing as a fully vegan grocery store! Until I heard about Rabbit Food Grocery. Rabbit Food Grocery will be Austin’s first vegan grocery store! (Do they have these in other cities?!)

As Rabbit Food Grocery prepares to open its doors, they will be selling some items online. Take a look at their virtual store and place an order – you don’t have to be in Austin! But if you are in Austin, you can take advantage of free delivery.

I, for one, am super excited about this place!

Meatless Monday #81: Two Recipe Remakes

When I first started this blog, I posted quite a few Meatless Mondays without knowing how to create easy to follow recipes or photograph the food I’d made. When I look back at some of those early recipes I have posted, I cringe at how some of my favorite recipes don’t come across as appealing because of my horrendous photography skills! Even though I’m definitely not an expert recipe-writer nor expert photographer, I’m better than I used to be, so I’ve decided to occasionally remake some of the originals and hopefully better show off their tastiness!

Recipe Remake 1: Hummus Pizza

This is one of my very favorite dinners. It is so quick and easy to make, it’s actually really healthy, and it’s super tasty! Check out the recipe here.

Recipe Remake 2: Cheese Enchiladas

Cheese enchiladas (which I now make with Daiya or Veggie Shreds) are my guilty pleasure. When I have time and want some really savory enchiladas, I’ll make my own sauce, or when I just want to make these quickly, I’ll use store-bought sauce from a jar or can. Enchilada and homemade sauce recipes are here.

This Is Your Thanksgiving Turkey

Over forty-five million turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving each year. These animals live torturous lives and experience painful deaths. What an awful way to celebrate our thankfulness, by contributing to massive suffering.

This Thanksgiving, as millions of people stand in line to purchase their mass-produced, drug-laden, sick, abused, inhumanely slaughtered turkeys, I will be thankful that I no longer stand with them.

Meatless Monday #80: Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

This is what I’ll be bringing to Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Ingredients
Sweet potatoes
Brussels sprouts, quartered (always, always, always use fresh Brussels sprouts, not frozen!!)
Pecan or walnut pieces
Dried cranberries
Feta cheese (optional)
Olive oil
Butter (vegan)
Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Wash the sweet potatoes and pierce them all over with a fork. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, or until soft.

2. When the potatoes have about 15 minutes left in the oven, toss the quartered Brussels in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and place on a pan. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes or until the leaves begin to brown and crisp.

3. Once the potatoes have cooled, slice lengthwise and smash the insides a bit to create a “bowl.”

4. Top potatoes with butter, roasted Brussels sprouts, cranberries, pecans, and feta.

Meatless Monday #79: (Vegan) Sweet Potato Lasagna

This recipe is from the Engine 2 Diet, a book about a group of Austin, TX firefighters who went vegan for one month to lose weight (some lost more than 20 lbs), lower their cholesterol (one went from 344 to 196), and improve their overall health.

Ingredients
Lasagna noodles (I used no-boil. If not using no-boil, be sure to follow the directions on the package.)
1 can sweet potato puree
Marinara sauce
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
Vegetables, like:
Spinach
Sliced mushrooms
Shredded carrots
Chopped bell peppers
Chopped onion
Sliced tomato

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cook the vegetables (except sliced tomatoes, if using) in a pan with garlic and some water or olive oil, until the vegetables reach desired firmness.

3. Put a thin layer of marinara sauce on the bottom of the lasagna pan, then layer the noodles, sweet potato puree, vegetables, and marinara sauce in a pan until you reach the top of the pan. Top with sliced tomatoes (if using).

3. Cover with foil and bake 45 min – 1 hour, or until the lasagna is cooked all the way through and the noodles are soft.

Vegetarian Infographic

A very talented graphic designer, and friend of mine, Josh Segars, created this vegetarian infographic for one of his clients. I love it!!

Source: RetailMeNot.com

Meatless Monday #78: BBQ/Buffalo Tempeh Sandwich

Ingredients
Tempeh
BBQ Sauce and/or Buffalo wing sauce
Bread
Sandwich toppings of your choice (lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, etc.)

What is tempeh?
Tempeh is a patty made from soybeans, similar to a very firm veggie burger. Many commercially prepared brands add other grains, such as barley, and also add spices and extra flavors. Although tempeh is made from soy, it has a unique taste and is mildly flavorful on it’s own, unlike tofu. Tempeh is low in fat and high in protein, calcium, and beneficial isoflavones. Tempeh has a textured and nutty flavor.

This is tempeh!

Directions

1. Cut the tempeh into squares or slices and cook it in BBQ sauce and/or buffalo wing sauce (I used both, mixed).

2. Assemble the sandwich with tempeh and sandwich toppings.

A Vegetarian Journey

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting much more than recipes lately. Or maybe you haven’t noticed. Either way, I’ve been boring myself with my lack of posts lately. But each time I sit down to write something new, I just can’t come up with the right topic, or the right words. It’s more than just writer’s block. I feel like I’ve lost my drive, my fire, my… anger.

I used to get so worked up about the cruelty, the unhealthiness, and the environmental destruction caused by the meat industry! But I no longer seem to work up the same kind of emotion that I used to about these things. I keep trying to figure out how I got from here and here to where I am now: at a loss for words.

Part of me thinks I’ve just become desensitized to it all. I suppose a few years of reading and writing about some of the most cruel acts imaginable will do that to a person. Sadly, I’m no longer shocked when I see an especially gruesome video of farm animal abuse because I’ve only come to expect it at this point. (Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s horrendous, but I just don’t react they same way anymore.)

Another part of me feels like I’ve simply said all I have to say about this. How many times can I repeat myself before running out of different ways to say the same thing? (Here’s the most simple way: MEAT IS BAD.)

But part of me knows it’s actually because I’ve matured through various phases of this vegetarian journey, and have finally arrived at a point of acceptance.

The 5 Phases of My Vegetarian Journey

Changing your lifestyle because of a new set of beliefs (the belief that the way our food system treats animals is wrong) is a process, and looking back, I can now see that I went through some very distinct phases during this process.

1. Denial
Calling myself an “animal lover,” yet eating animals. Loving dogs, cats and horses, but funding the brutal killing of pigs, goats and cows. Tearing up when accidentally hitting a bird with my car, then chomping on chicken for dinner. Spending hours trying to rescue and save a baby squirrel, then scarfing down a hamburger minutes later. It makes no sense. Yet it all seemed so normal at the time. For 27 years, I was in complete denial about the contradictory nature of my actions.

2. Enlightenment
By chance, I stumbled across a book that taught me the truth, and I could hardly believe how awful it was. That’s when the light bulb finally clicked on. I realized that my choice to eat meat was not only condoning, but also funding some of the worst animal abuse imaginable. And it made me sick that I was a part of this awful thing. Once you know how horrible the meat industry is, if you continue to eat meat then you are knowingly, consciously, supporting the animal abuse. I couldn’t in good conscience live that way, so I went vegetarian.

3. Action
In addition to changing my eating habits, I continued to read and learn more about vegetarianism. I learned about the health benefits, and the environmental impact, and quickly realized that vegetarianism not only saves animals, but it also saves our own health and our planet. I was feeling great, both physically and mentally, and I wanted to share this feeling and all of the information I was absorbing with everyone! I just knew that all I had to do was tell people the facts and it would be so obvious to them that vegetarianism was the best choice for themselves, the animals, and the planet, that of course they’d make the switch too! I was going to change the world through a blog!

4. Anger and frustration
Why isn’t this as obvious to everyone else as it is to me? Why aren’t more people appalled by what I’m telling them? Why aren’t the people who say they are appalled cutting back on their meat intake? Why aren’t the so-called “animal lovers” the first ones to go vegetarian? Why are the most unhealthy the most defensive about their diet? WHY DOESN’T ANYONE CARE? Is it really that hard to order a pizza with mushrooms instead of pepperoni? Do you honestly feel no guilt eating a hamburger when you know how awfully the cow suffered? How can you admit that you know the system is terrible, then continue to support it? You’re seriously telling me that you can’t commit to one vegetarian meal per week?! The more I tried to convince people, the more frustrated, angry, and sad I became at the level of indifference, the amount of irrational resistance, and the lack of courage of people to make a change for something they knew was right. And eventually, it all just became too much to handle.

5. Balance and Acceptance
After the mental overload, I backed off the activism for a while. This gave me some time to cool off, lose the anger, and realize that not everyone will process information in the same way that I do. Something that may seem obvious or easy to me is not necessarily seen that way by everyone else. I eased off the militant stance and adopted an “every little bit helps” approach. I not only changed my tone, but I completely changed my attitude. I realized that while most people are not going to go vegetarian, many people are open to eating less meat, and the best thing that I can do for the animals, the environment, and our own health, is to encourage and help those people. My goal now is to set a positive vegetarian example by providing useful information, delicious meatless meal ideas, and hopefully some inspiration as well. I’m trying to follow the advice of Ghandi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” And the change I want to see in the world is compassion for ALL beings (vegetarian or not).

____________________
Breakfast: Evol spinach and tofu burrito
Lunch: Veggie plate at a BBQ restaurant (went with co-workers) – fried okra, mashed potatoes, garden salad, and peach cobbler
Dinner: Pasta with eggplant, brussels sprouts, spinach, olive oil, and garlic

Meatless Monday #77: Curried Eggplant and Chickpeas Over Quinoa

What is quinoa?

Ingredients
1 small/medium eggplant, chopped
1/2 can Chickpeas
1 tomato, chopped
1-2 cloves minced garlic
cilantro, chopped
1 lime
1 tbs curry powder
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup vegetable broth
(OR another grain, like rice, instead of the quinoa and vegetable broth)

Directions

1. Bring the vegetable broth and quinoa to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to low and cook covered for 20 minutes. (Check quinoa package cooking directions for more specifics.)

2. In a pan, cook garlic and eggplant in some olive oil until eggplant is tender (about 5 minutes).

3. Add curry powder to eggplant and mix (about 2 minutes).

4. Add chickpeas and tomato and mix until heated (about 3 minutes).

5. Add cilantro and stir to combine.

6. Serve veggies over quinoa with lime wedges to squeeze over top.

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Meatless Monday #82: Fennel and Grapefruit Salad

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Austin’s Vegan Grocery Store

Meatless Monday #81: Two Recipe Remakes

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This Is Your Thanksgiving Turkey

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Meatless Monday #80: Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

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Meatless Monday #79: (Vegan) Sweet Potato Lasagna

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Vegetarian Infographic

Meatless Monday #78: BBQ/Buffalo Tempeh Sandwich

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A Vegetarian Journey

The 5 Phases of My Vegetarian Journey

Meatless Monday #77: Curried Eggplant and Chickpeas Over Quinoa

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