Turning Veganese

People often cite being vegan as being too difficult as a reason for continuing to eat meat, dairy and eggs. I was ruminating on this idea, this afternoon as I was thinking of what I would prepare for dinner this evening. I picked a handful of ingredients: green beans, butternut squash and cilantro. These were left over from other things I’d prepared this past week.

I sliced up the squash, leaving the skin on, sprayed it lightly with olive oil and sprinkled it with sea salt. I put it into the oven on a tinfoil lined baking dish and set the timer for 30 minutes at 350F/175C. I also put the seeds from my squash onto another piece of tinfoil with a light sprinkling of garlic salt and checked every few minutes or so until they were crispy and delicious. You can do this with pumpkin seeds or the seeds from spaghetti squash as well. I snacked on these while I was tending the rest of the meal.

While that was happening I washed my green beans and snapped the ends off each one. I put them in a covered steamer and waited until they were BRIGHT green. This takes 8-12 minutes, because I like mine crispy and green. As soon as they got really bright green, I took the lid off the beans and took them off the heat.

While I was waiting for that to happen I put collected the following:

1/2 cup red quinoa (any sort of quinoa will do)

1 cup of water

1 cube of bouillon

1/2 onion, chopped

3-4 sun dried tomatoes, sliced into strips (optional)

1/4 cup of cilantro leaves

juice from 1/2 lime

I put the quinoa and water into a microwave safe bowl and microwaved it for a minute. I stirred it and added the bouillon cube and microwaved for another minute. I stirred it and added the sun dried tomato and microwaved for a minute. I stirred it and added the onion and microwaved it for a minute. I microwaved for another minute and then all of the liquid was absorbed and I stirred in the cilantro. I squeezed some lime over it before serving.

I placed the green beans on the plate and sprinkled some almond slivers over them (omit these if you’ve got a nut allergy and use the baked squash seeds instead). I ended up drizzling some balsamic vinegar on them too but that’s not in the picture. I was starting to check that the squash was tender with a fork at this point and as soon as it was ready, I put the squash on the plate with everything else and because I didn’t take off the skin, I ate them like they were ribs… except there was no hunks of fat or gristle to get in the way of my eating pleasure. As I ate, I thought about how I made something really healthful, beautiful, fragrant and tasty in 40 minutes. As far as I’m concerned, the best food nourishes your mind and your body.

This is Christie, signing off.