health | Turning Veganese

Tofu and Vegetables in Garlic Sauce

Today is my Dad’s birthday. My Mom planned a feast… a feast of nothing vegan. Ribs. Pork chops. Upo cooked with ground meat. Baked catfish. Pancit with chicken (and using chicken broth). Tofu and Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce. Even that last item wasn’t vegan. So, I asked if I could cook the tofu myself, using an easy vegan recipe that I found online as my guide. (Psssstt… check out this blog from Jes, who wrote the recipe. It’s amazing.)

Ingredients:
1 pound extra firm tofu
2 bunches Chinese broccoli (try with other veggies or a mix of veggies–carrots, regular broccoli, baby corn, bok choy…)
1/3 cup safflower or olive oil
1 tbsp sesame oil (optional)

Sauce Ingredients:
2 cups vegetable broth
1/3 cup soy sauce
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger, minced
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp corn starch

Fist, make the sauce. Bring the vegetable broth to a boil and then add the soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and sugar. Stir the mixture together. When it’s heated through and combined, remove from heat and set aside.

Prepare your tofu. Cut it as you wish: I cut mine into cubes. Prepare your vegetables. I cut the broccoli stems into 1″ or so pieces but left the leaves whole. If you’re using Chinese broccoli, separate the stems and leaves into two groups since it will take longer for the stems to cook.

Heat the oil in a wok and add the tofu. When the tofu has been browned, add the broccoli stems. Once the stems are cooked–easily stabbed by a fork but still crisp–make another hole and add the leaves and florets.

Once the leaves/florets are wilted, reduce the heat a bit, and add the sauce. Mix everything together. Make a hole in the pan and then add the corn starch to thicken the sauce. Once the sauce is of desired consistency, remove from heat. Serve the dish with rice or grain of your choice (I opted for a brown rice/quinoa mix).

This recipe is so cheap and easy, as well as a great way to enjoy Chinese food without wondering if that vegetable dish you ordered is really vegan. I’m also happy to report that the dish ended up being a hit with our guests today. –Melissa

Cardiovascular health and veganism.

I took a hiatus to visit a family member who had a stroke earlier this week. I try not to be pushy about trying vegan food though admittedly it’s difficult at times. I’m pretty sure delicious looking/tasting food speaks for itself and is much more alluring than lectures about ripping guts out of conscious animals, feces contaminated spinach and lard in its various forms. I think everyone knows where I stand since we all had dinner together the evening I arrived.

I sat back and listened to everyone else talk. There was a lot of talk about nutrition, cholesterol levels and preventative medicine. People talked about skim milk versus 2%, avoiding mayonnaise and stress, and second opinions. I was thinking about the warning for risk of stroke on my old synthetic estrogen/progestin pills as soon as they brought up milk. People are very resistant to the idea of being vegan in general – it’s a demanding position if you’re not thrilled about new experiences. It’s also a tacit criticism of something people have been doing for years and either don’t think about or tell themselves is justified somehow. A lot of people looked at their dinners and at me and then told me “I don’t normally eat like this”, “should I be eating this?” and “I could eat better” as they heaped animal parts and animal reproductive secretions onto their plates.

I have an opinion in the matter of how diet can influence susceptibility to stroke, heart attack, and cancer. My opinion is informed by the best evidence available to me, not conjecture or speculation or some special I saw on a news channel one time. I hope you would choose to educate yourself on your opinions regardless of what they are and to ask lots of questions instead of making things up. If you have to tell people “this isn’t typical”, say “I can improve” or ask “should I be doing this?”, whether you’re talking about your exercise routine or your diet, just keep in mind that you’re not the only one who is affected by your choices. If you’ve got an iota of doubt (“should I be doing this?”) you should be reading more. Don’t adopt my opinion, make your own, and make sure you can back it up. I know I can.

This is Christie, signing off.

Salad rolls… kinda like a sandwich without the bread, meat and cheese.

Now that Melissa is talking about how much she loves to cook, I’m going to post about more things I make when I don’t want to cook. This is a little snack that’s low calorie, high fiber, and full of nutrients. Here’s what you need to start: a sheet of nori (like for sushi rolls), mixed salad greens, and your favorite dressing. Additional fillings can include sprouts, avocado, shredded carrots, tomato, hummus, baba ghanouj or some other spread. Get creative! If you’re using a soft spread like hummus, sprouts or shredded carrots will keep things from getting too messy. Put the nori on your sushi roller (you can get one for $5 on eBay or at your local specialty market. I covered mine with cling wrap for easier clean up.), add a generous fistful of greens, and put your toppings onto that along with a few tablespoons of hummus or whatever spread you like.

Afterward roll it gently. This part gets easier with practice. Moisten the far edge of the nori with a wedge of lemon or slice of tomato to seal the roll.

I like to slice it for presentation and dip into my favorite salad dressing. Lately it’s been a tough call between “herb tahini” and “spicy tomato basil”. There are so many possible combinations: mango and pesto hummus, garlic hummus and avocado, whatever!

Some day soon, I’ll share my recipe for home-made hummus. So many flavors: black olive, roasted red pepper, cucumber&dill, roasted artichoke heart, pesto, chipotle, extra garlic, sun-dried tomato, whatever. Let me know what combination you dream up! I want to nom them!!!

This is Christie, signing off.

Isoflavones vs. Steroids. Vegetables vs. Animals.

“Doesn’t soy contain estrogen?” People ask me this question a lot, especially when I mention that I don’t eat dairy. I call this “the milk talk”.

I’ll apologize in advance – I’m a biochemist so that will color my explanation… or maybe make it so colorless that you fall asleep. Anyways, what people are talking about when they say soy has estrogen in it is that soy contains compounds called isoflavones and flavones. All plants have them. These compounds are ‘estrogen-like’. This is what isoflavones and flavones look like in a simple chemist’s line drawing (think: stick figures for molecules, they don’t actually look like that). You don’t need to know what any of this means, just note the similarities and differences between all 4 drawings in this post.

Isoflavones and flavones aren’t one specific compound: they’re a group of compounds with similar structures, not unlike the group called steroid hormones. Estrogen and testosterone are both steroids.

I hope you’ll notice that estrogen and testosterone are much more similar to one another than to the flavone or it’s isomer (OMG you just learned some organic chemistry!). You might also know that estrogen and testosterone have very different effects on the human body: one makes you grow muscles and chest hair and the other makes you grow breasts and smooth skin. If you surmise that flavones and isoflavones have different effects too, then you’re correct: there is interest from the scientific community in flavones and isoflavones as treatments for cancer (and heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis). Research suggests that various compounds in the group of known isoflavones and flavones are effective for treating and preventing the very cancers that estrogen and testosterone are known to promote.

Additional fun fact: withdrawal from estrogen causes PMS. Withdrawal from testosterone causes ‘roid rage. Withdrawal from isoflavones and flavones has no documented symptom.

So you might be asking yourself, “Why is she going on about estrogen?” or maybe even. “well, dairy milk doesn’t have any hormones in it. I buy organic.” Really? Are you sure about that?

Where do you think dairy comes from? Cows.

All cows: male, female, young, old? Female cows.

How do you get a lady cow to make milk: motivational posters? Nope, you impregnate them.Then their levels of estrogen skyrocket, but not just estrogen. Progesterone and eventually prolactin will also show up in a pregnant cow’s secretions: from urine to (you guessed it) milk.

But there isn’t very much hormone in dairy milk, right? The concentration doesn’t matter, you don’t need a lot.

Why? Steroids (and all hormones) operate in something scientists call “signal cascade”. I would describe it as chemical chain letters: each cell that gets the signal (1 hormone molecule), sends copies to all of it’s closest friends and a few not-so-close friends.
If you’re really thinking, you might ask yourself, “Doesn’t pasteurization destroy it?” Well, pasteurization occurs a no more than 72C/160F (Wikipedia). Dessicated estrol begins to break down at 245C/473F (according to my Merck manual). Just throwing that out there.

This is what I’m really getting at: if you’re worried about the estrogen-LIKE compounds in soy, why haven’t you considered the actual estrogen (and progesterone) secreted by the [recently] pregnant cow whose milk you’re drinking? Anyways, I prefer almond milk – fewer calories.

Lasagna… hold the meat and cheese, please.

I usually use eggplant in place of lasagna noodles because of the whole… alergic to pasta thing but I encourage you to use it if you’re so inclined. The great thing about eggplant is that it’s also low in calories relative to traditional semolina pasta and has a lot of fiber and nutrients that pasta lacks. I’m biased. I dig plants.

For this recipe I took a large sized eggplant (2 medium would do) and sliced it thin. I wouldn’t recommend soaking the eggplant for this recipe since it can get kinda soupy if you do.I leave the skin on but you can remove it if you want. Pre-cooking the eggplant will result in a softer texture, you can do this by pan frying it or baking it until golden brown. This is my recipe for vegan ‘ricotta’. It’s a little more flavorful than regular ricotta cheese but I doubt anyone will complain. In your blender or food processor, combine the following:

1 16oz. box firm silken tofu (I like Mori-nu for this recipe)

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp Italian seasoning

2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional but recommended)

1tsp garlic powder

1 2 tsp starch (I used arrowroot)

1 pinch nutmeg

garlic salt to taste

Blend all of this until it’s uniform and creamy. After this mixing step, I added 2 generous handfuls of spinach – this is optional but a girl needs her iron.

I blended it lightly and then spread it on a layer of eggplant that I had positioned on a lightly oiled baking dish.

I put another layer of eggplant on top, (you can make more layers if you want but it’ll take longer to cook) followed by a generous helping of your favorite pasta sauce. I buy whatever is vegan, gluten-free and on sale. Cover with foil and bake 35 minutes. Remove the foil, toss on some crushed walnuts, if desired and bake another 20 minutes.

I served it garnished with some sliced olives and fresh basil.

This is Christie, signing off… I will probably eat that whole dish of lasagna tonight.

Chili and Cornbread: the Vegan/ Gluten-Free Way.

This is how most of my cooking adventures with my best travel buddy begin.

We didn’t actually leave the kitchen… except in our mouths… MINDS! I mean our minds. We made chili this particular evening. This recipe includes winter squash. We decided to use canned pumpkin but an equal volume of roasted butternut squash, acorn squash, or whatever you can get your hands on should work perfectly. The squash adds its own unique flavor and balances the acid from the tomato with the heat from the peppers. Normally the lard from ground meat would do that job but this way you don’t have to add a lot of grease to get a delicious bowl of chili. To start, you’ll want to assemble the following ingredients.

3 tins of beans (any variety), include the liquid when you add them to the recipe

28 oz tin crushed tomatoes

1 15 oz tin pumpkin

2 chiles, minced (we used jalapeno)

3 chipotle chiles in adobo, minced

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced (we used 6 but we love garlic)

1 tsp cumin

pinch of cinnamon

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tbsp chili powder

salt to taste

hot sauce to taste

Add the onion and a dash of olive oil to a large pot. Stir on medium/high heat until the onions begin to turn translucent. Combine the rest of the ingredients except for the beans and liquid. Heat to boiling. Add the beans (we used white, black and kidney but any mix would do) and adjust liquids to desired consistency with bean liquid and possibly water. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Garnish with cilantro. If you like your chili really spicy, include the seeds from the peppers, otherwise, discard them and add a little hot sauce for pep. Wear gloves when mincing the peppers to prevent an evening of burning fingers (sorry, Brent).

3 cups almond flour

1 tsp baking soda

big pinch of salt

1 generous handful of shredded Daiya cheddar cheese

2 peppers, minced (again, we used jalapeno)

3 tbsp starch

1/5 cup almond milk

Preheat oven to 325F/160C. Combine almond flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Mix in grated cheese and serranos. In a separate bowl, mix the starch, almond milk, and water. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until they just come together. Drop batter in large spoonfuls onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until slightly browned on top. If you’re allergic to nuts, try this with ready-made polenta and skip the almond milk and starch.

This recipe (as written) is perfect for 3-4 people to have a generous serving. Brent and I were both stuffed and the floor also had some. Oops. I hope you get to try it!

Butternut squash: that’s what she said!

Butternut squash is so easy to prepare and so delicious you might punch yourself for not having prepared it for yourself and your family sooner. It’s loaded with vitamin A and C and is also a great source of calcium and iron. All you have to do is slice it into bite sized pieces, coat the pieces lightly with olive oil and space them out on a metal baking sheet lined with wax paper. Bake them at 375F/190C for 40 minutes, turning them at 2 or three times. They should begin to caramelize around the edges. Sprinkle with a little salt and serve.

I ate mine with my variant of bachelor chow which I prefer to prepare in the microwave. I add 1/4 cup of French lentils to 1 cup of water, microwave it for 2 minutes and add another 1/4 cup of red quinoa. I microwave it 2 minutes at a time until all the liquid is absorbed. I season it with the following.
1 teaspoon of onion salt
1 teaspoon of garlic salt
a few dashes of hot sauce
a 1 inch cube of Teese mozzarella cheese (this makes it sticky enough to eat with chopsticks)
and salt to taste

You might also have noticed some Brussels sprouts on my plate too. I cut a cross into the top of each one, drizzeld a little balsamic vinegar over it and placed them on the baking sheet with the squash for the last 15 minutes of the bake. I like my green veggies pretty crispy, if you’re used to softer vegetables, cook them 25 minutes and turn them once.

This is Christie, signing off… to go bake the seeds from the squash!

Raw Manicotti: Effing Delicious!

Melissa has set me on a raw bonanza! If you want to be really simplistic, you could call raw food “complicated salad”. Considering how little time it takes to make a salad… this should be appealing to busy people. Complicated salads only take a little longer than simple salads. It’s also a great alternative to the same boring salad you’ve been trying to eat meal after meal in order to avoid getting new pants after all those rich holiday meals. I love shopping but I’d rather spend my money on farmer’s market veggies than pants.

Start out with 2 medium zucchini. These are your “noodles”. For the noodles, cut off both ends of each zucchini. Slice the zucchini the long way so that you have long, wide noodles. Use a knife, cutting as thinly as possible and be really careful. Set them aside. Now it’s time for the creamy filling. You’ll need the following ingredients:

1 block of Mori-Nu silken tofu

1/4 cup lemon juice

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tsp tablespoons Italian seasoning

4 cups spinach

Combine all the ingredients except for the spinach in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth. Scrape into a large bowl. If you want to be extra raw or soy free, substitute a cup and a half of soaked cashews for the tofu. Chop the spinach finely by hand and set it aside.

Now it’s time for the tomato topping. You’ll need to get all of these ingredients.

1 cup of sun-dried tomatoes (pre-soaked or not, just you’ll need more water for the latter)

1/4 cup water

1 medium tomato, chopped

3 cloves of garlic

1 handfull of fresh basil

salt to taste

Combine the ingredients in the food processor and blend until slightly coarse.

To assemble the manicotti, arrange 3 or 4 zucchini strips on a cutting board, slightly overlapping one over the next by about 1/2 inch as in the photograph. Add a handful of chopped spinach, as shown. If you’re feeling less adventurous, layer the ingredients to make “lasagna” instead.

Place 1/4 cup of the creamy filling in the center and spread about an inch thick. Add some more spinach.

Roll the zucchini up to make “manicotti”. Place two manicotti on a plate and top with a few tablespoons of the tomato sauce. Garnish with a sprinkling of raw parmesan and/or chopped basil. I also sliced up some black olives. I love olives.

This is Christie, signing off… food coma.

Raw sushi… wait, isn’t sushi raw anyways?

A dude at my farmer’s market sold me some parsnips and told me they make great raw sushi. I had to think about it. I don’t make a lot of raw food except for salads, guacamole and salsa. This is one of the reasons I’m fascinated by Melissa’s raw cheesecake.

I’m a little lazy so I skipped Stan’s advice (my farmer’s market friend). He told me to chop these roots coarsely. I put two of them into my food processor with the shredding blade. They’re pretty big, I’m not even sure they’re really parsnips since the ones I grew up with were small, pointy and a little sweet and these weren’t so much. Who knows. I’m not a rocket scientist. They worked fine for what I was using them for. I suspect cauliflower would work well too. I showed the picture to my cousin who is a real farmer and he suggested that they might be a kind of Japanese radish called “Daikon”. Wow, he’s smart. The flavor of the plain root was crisp and clean with a very mild spice. This recipe is loaded with fiber, vitamin A, C, E, omega fatty acids, and essential amino acids to name a few. It’s low in fat, has no cholesterol, no hormones, and no synthetic antibiotics.

I dumped this into a large bowl, added a tablespoon of tahini, half a teaspoon of maple syrup (if you use parsnip, you probably won’t have to add a sweetener), a dash of ponzu sauce and a few dashes of rice wine vinegar. I mixed it with my hands… if you’ve got little kids I bet they’d like that part. I tasted it until it was slightly sweet and slightly salty and with just a hint of tartness, like regular sushi rice. After that, I spread out about 3/4 cup onto a sheet of nori and added the fillings. In this case – carrot, mustard greens (stems removed) and avocado.

I used moisture from the bottom of the “rice” bowl to seal the edges. The first roll of these fell apart while I was trying to cut it. I started wrapping them up in 2 sheets of nori. I realize my rice was too wet. By the third try, they were pretty enough to get a picture. They took very little time to prepare: no waiting for things to heat or cook. They were also exquisitely tasty with soy sauce.

This is Christie, signing off… to attack that last “parsnip”.

Strawberry crisp: delicious, easy, healthy… what’s not to like?

I went strawberry picking with some friends Sunday. You might ask, “it’s the middle of December and you’re doing WHAT!?” It’s Florida, our weather is so good it’s criminal.

I’m going to make a quick note about sugar before we start. You might notice that I haven’t listed granulated sugar in any of the recipes I’ve submitted to this forum. It’s always molasses, agave nectar, etc. The granulated sugar that you buy at the supermarket isn’t vegan. It’s bleached using the charred bones of animals. If that wasn’t icky enough, brown sugar is granulated white sugar mixed with molasses. WTF?

Anyways, other available sweeteners have unique flavors and nutrients that are removed from granulated sugar during processing. For example, I use molasses for most of my sugar needs. I like that it comes from plants and has iron in it. Girls need a little extra iron, right? Ounce for ounce, molasses has almost 3 times the iron of beef and none of the cholesterol. Black strap molasses has a unique earthy flavor robust enough to eat drizzled over plain tofu. I also like maple syrup because it’s delicious and promotes preservation of old growth forests. It has a light woody flavor that’s great for cookies and cakes. Sometimes I get granulated coconut sugar at my farmer’s market. It’s lightly fragrant and creamy in flavor. I’m a big fan of agave and rice nectar: both have low glycemic indexes and a light mellow honey-like flavor but it’s beginning to sound like all unrefined sugars are my favorite. Let’s talk strawberry crisp. In this recipe I used turbinado sugar (which is actually semi-refined sugar) but granulated coconut or maple sugar work fine.
You can use any kind of sweet non-citrus fruit for this recipe as far as I’m concerned. Frozen or fresh – it doesn’t matter, just as long as it’s ripe. I’ve done this with peaches, apples, blueberries, and today I’m using strawberries.

5 cups fresh fruit, pitted and sliced (I like to leave the peel on but you can take it off)

2 tbsp turbinado sugar

2 tbsp corn starch, tapioca flour or arrowroot starch

juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 tsp)

I just mixed them directly in a glass baking dish

For the topping,

1 cup quinoa flakes or rolled oats

1/2 cup turbinado sugar (granulated maple or coconut sugar are fine too but harder to find)

1/2 cup flour (I used rice but whatever kind you like)

almond milk to texture

a pinch of salt

1 tbsp olive oil

cinnamon or pumpkin spice to taste

In a medium sized bowl, stir the dry ingredients together.

Work the olive oil in, and then the almond milk. Stop adding when it starts to get crumbly. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit and bake 375F/190C, for 30 to 35 minutes, until the fruit is tender and the topping starts to brown.

Serve hot and enjoy! Soy or coconut milk ice cream is an excellent compliment.

Turning Veganese

I think I'm turning veganese, I really think so.

Tag Archives: health

Tofu and Vegetables in Garlic Sauce

Cardiovascular health and veganism.

Salad rolls… kinda like a sandwich without the bread, meat and cheese.

Isoflavones vs. Steroids. Vegetables vs. Animals.

Lasagna… hold the meat and cheese, please.

Chili and Cornbread: the Vegan/ Gluten-Free Way.

Butternut squash: that’s what she said!

Raw Manicotti: Effing Delicious!

Raw sushi… wait, isn’t sushi raw anyways?

Strawberry crisp: delicious, easy, healthy… what’s not to like?

I think I'm turning veganese, I really think so.

Tag Archives: health

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