The end of Lent, lessons learned, and a few pictures along the way

This post's been a long time coming, and I'm sorry to keep y'all waiting. Just been gripped by a case of lazy, and been busy doing other stuff.

The long story short - I survived Lent. It was easy. VERY easy. I went through 40 days of vegan eating with variety, imagination, and ease of transition. I won't say I didn't have cravings for omnivore food, but they were fleeting and easily put off. To be honest, I was more interested in thinking of ways to use my local produce in the next night's meal than to worry about pining over chicken livers or a good steak. Not that I don't like those sorts of things, but it wasn't causing me any undue distraction.

It was interesting to see it from the other side. Though I've never really agreed personally with the reasons most undertake vegan living, I certainly empathize with them and respect them for being very personal moral doctrines. I've already talked before about the sort of weird tendency of society at large to feel the urge to evangelize vegans back into the fold, so to speak. I got plenty of that from friends and relations. A lot of it comes from simple misunderstandings, and a lot of it comes from folks who grew up as kids who hated their veggies served by parents who maybe didn't know how to make them appealing.

The best thing about my vegan experience, and one that I would suggest the whole experience is certainly worth, is learning how to color pictures using the crayons in the box you may not use as often. Let's face it, America's a pretty red meat reality. Most folks aren't just omnivorous, but they're also pretty plain about it. My origins are actually pretty laughably sad, because I used to be a very picky eater if that can be believed. It all changed once I reached college, but some folks just don't break out of the mold easily. It's one thing to learn that veggies can be tasty, but another thing to just fully take the plunge. Having almost all of my food delivered by my local CSA helped a lot. Before this, I had only the most passing and vague idea of what it was to eat by the seasons. Now, it's in my blood. Right now I can feel it inside me, this weird ticking clock that KNOWS when tomatoes are going to go from being milquetoast abominations into being orbs of the most amazing flavor (June in case you're wondering) Eating by the seasons made me appreciate the seasons more. Of course the irony here is that Lent is positioned squarely in the midst of the waning winter, so it was creative, shall we say, to celebrate that in food. Still, one day I remember busting whole turnips with the greens into a south Indian-inspired dish that only existed in my head. It felt good. It felt sexy. There's a bit of pride in knowing that you can be a part of that celebration.

So that's a lot of rambling for me to basically tell you obvious things. Eating a vegan diet for Lent makes you a much better connoisseur of vegetables, I think. Shocking stuff huh? When you start eyeballing a sack of collard greens the way some folks eye a steak, you start to commit your perverse imagination to bringing about the types of things that you otherwise would treat as an afterthought. An accompaniment. A side dish. It's that sort of thinking that makes me respect vegans who keep it real. There's honest food to be made for a vegan diet. I've made it. I've eaten it, and it's good. Is this my clarion call for you to abandon yon omnivorous habits and take up ascetic living? Naw. But I'm confident that not only does eating vegan give you a full perspective for all sorts of cooking, but it also has legitimacy in and of itself.

As for how the fast ended, let me go ahead and say that I caught an itch for sushi in my final 48 hours and made plans to debauch myself. Easter Sunday I had a fantastic multi-course sushi romp, which I enjoyed every minute of. I didn't feel liberated or rescued, it was just something different and appreciated, sort of like the change of seasons. Kind of fitting I think.

I'm sure that some of y'all are "blah blah too long didn't read where are pictures." I realize I had a few snaps I never posted, so here's a brief gallery of other vegan eats I had during Lent:


Sweet potato & roasted red pepper flautas with avocado, cilantro, onion, and salsa verde


A vaguely-Japanese udon noodle bowl with broccoli, marinaded tofu, carrots, green onions, shitake mushrooms, and cabbage.


This one was amazing. The soup is called Sopa de Grao com Espinafres, which is basically chicpea & spinach soup. Extremely rib-sticking and rustic food from Portugal. The bread, also Portugese, is a demi-cornbread called Broa.


I cheated and got an out-of-season tomato because I wanted to make taboulleh, which is an arabic salad made with bulgur wheat, tomatoes, parsley, herbs, and served in a romaine lettuce leaf. Funny, I could resist meat and animal byproducts, but I got my pride crushed by an out-of-season tomato from Mexico that honestly was only average. Still, the itch was scratched.

Redneck hommous

In a fit of mad science, I decided to make a "hommous" using traditional southern cuisine ingredients. It sounds bizarre, but if you think about it, it should work! I tweaked a little past this video (added citric acid to improve the acidity). It's not as pretty a color as traditional stuff, and black eyed peas don't quite spin as smoothly, but it's not a bad variation!



Here's the finished product, topped with some paprika and served, in true redneck fashion, with saltine crackers.

So how's your diet going?

This is the number one inquiry into my vegan experiment, and it's interesting to think about it. Most folks think of vegetarian and vegan food as super-prim rabbit food. From the examples given in most pop culture, I can't blame folks. What is it again? Tofu, bean sprouts, lettuce lettuce lettuce?

Heh.

So when folks asking how my diet's going, I point to my pretty substantial middle and arch an eyebrow.

"How do you think it's going?"

I eat gooood. Probably "too good" heh. Vegan sure as hell don't mean diet, I can help you go ahead and dispel that rumor. So I figure I might as well go ahead and offset some of that by getting my workout routine back on schedule. Did a good 2 1/2 mile run tonight, which was fun to do while playing with Juno and watching the news. Hope to make it a habit again now that the weather's turning nice.

In the meantime, maybe I should eat more taboulleh and less falafel. Yeeeaaaah....

At least this way I can afford the occasional bit of evil I dish up.

Welp, I'm farming for reals now

I've gone ahead and done it now.

To the tune of about 80 bucks, I've gone ahead and stuck myself into the farming racket, and purchased my first batch of seeds for the season. Mind you, I've got a nice half acre of land I can turn into veggies if I'm lucky, so hopefully this will be a fruitful (lol) endeavor.

The trick now is to stick to this. I've pretty much done the easy part. What I now need to do is to get a tractor or a tiller and tear up the earth good and proper the first time (should be easier after that!) go ahead and work in some composted manure and other nice stuff, then get a UV lamp to sprout some of the little babies as I grow 'em in bathroom cups. I'm trying to not overextend myself with growing too much stuff that I may not be able to control. Arugula, broccoli, some tomatoes, peppers, herbs, a few beans, corn, butternut squash, some kale. I'm getting okra from a friend, so that'll get put in as well. There's also the possibility something else might tickle my fancy and I might want to plant other stuff. I want to start small, but larger than last year.

Now to find a benevolent soul who can let me drive their John Deere on my property for a day.

I'd sneak into the Gaza Strip for a good Falafel...

...fortunately, I don't have to.

Falafel's one of those things you don't realize it's potential until you have a good one, and then you spend an eternity wallowing in inferior ones, cursing the world that you can't find a good one anymore. At least, that's how it is for me. I had the luxury a few years ago of having a really good restaurant near my office that made what I still consider to be the best falafel in Birmingham. They were a little unconventional, as they were patties instead of the round hush-puppy-esque balls most places serve. The flavor was fantastic, but what really made the falafel an experience was the texture. I believe the shop owner fried em up in a cast iron skillet, because the mouthfeel was almost exactly like a good piece of good southern sage sausage. That perfectly crispy, yet fork-tender outside that yielded into a substantial, very moist, yet meaty interior. It was light years beyond the usual Lebanese stuff to be found in town, which had a sort of shapeless soft texture that reminded me more of dry cornbread stuffing than anything.

I was content to rest on my laurels and eat there pretty much forever, and then the shop closed. It broke my heart. I haven't been that upset about a restaurant shuttering in effectively ever. It wasn't just the falafel, which alone was worth every meal. Their baba ghannouj was the richest, their maamoul made me never want for a fig newton ever again, and I probably shouldn't talk about the electric-purple pickled turnip straws in their salads and shawarma plates, lest I get kind of emotional. Suffice to say, best pickled anything. Ever. Nevermind that the place had a hookah (and the same three dudes were always out front puffing on it, just chilling out) and had a market in the back where you could buy everything from spices to turkish delight to tea sets, but to make it even better, the proprietor was a big Alabama fan. I could go in there and BS about cooking, BS about the Tide, and enjoy every moment of it.

I tried to replicate the magic for years and the results were hit and miss. My falafels would fall apart. I'd try to dredge in some rice flour to crisp them up, which resulted in a hard outside and a fairly under-done inside. It was still better than chain falafel, but man, it was nothing like the good stuff. I began looking for volunteer slots in UNICEF to see if I could go on sabbatical doing humanitarian work that would be paid in falafel. I was that desperate.

Fortunately, I struck gold, pretty much because I was randomly looking for a recipe to try. I yanked this recipe from Chow Vegan, which is actually a baked falafel. I tweaked it a little bit because I wanted it fried (basically removed the baking powder, lemon juice, and oil) let each batch rip in 320 degree oil for about nine minutes. The results weren't as good as the best falafel I've ever had, but they're so close that I can curb my nostalgia a little bit. The bits of onion carmelize into that deeply bittersweet flavor, and the little bits of un-smashed chicpea get very nutty and provide a great difference in texture to the rest of the falafel. I crammed those into some homemade pita breads with some spinach, plum tomatoes, and diced purple onion, then spooned some dill hommous over it. I realize it's a bit of a weird move, hommous on falafel. Chicpea dip meets chicpea croquette, but seeing as tzatziki isn't vegan, it's perfectly passable, and more to the point, tastes good.

So while I eat this complete badass of a pita, I'm pouring out a little cardamom chai on the ground for my departed homie, and while it still sucks that the restaurant is gone, I'm at least able to make a falafel that I know can throttle anything else in town I've tasted.

Poppadoms!

Boom, headshot!

Now that I have your attention. Looks good, huh? We all like crackery things we can dip into tasty stuff, eh?

Poppadoms, my friends, are the cure to your itch. Whether it's smearing some leftover curry on top, or dunking into a chutney, it's one of those awesome little snacks that I've eaten plenty of, but never made until now.

I even made a few videos to help you do the same:





Now, this is more of a snack thing than a meal accompaniment thing, but I was really hungry yesterday and I needed to make actual food, so how about a tofu mattar recipe as well? This is vegan-ized paneer mattar, but paneer and tofu are so similar to each other that it doesn't really matter to be honest.

Here's your meez for making tofu mattar:

• 1 pound tofu, cubed
• 1 cup sweet green peas
  
• 1 onion, finely diced
• about a cup of tomato puree
• about 7 ounces of coconut milk
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp dried chili flakes
  
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp turmeric
  
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• handful of cilantro, chopped, for garnish
• basmati rice, for accompaniment

It's a song and dance you probably know by now if you've followed my recipes. Heat your oil to near-smoking in a pot, toss in cumin, let it pop, then coriander, then turmeric, garam masala, chili flakes, pepper, onions, and salt in rapid succession while taking the pot off the heat to stir. Drop heat to low, cover, sweat for 10-15 minutes.

Add your coconut milk and tomato puree. Now I left the measurements approximate here because you kind of want to add and combine until you get to an orange color. Add, stir, and taste. You want just enough coconut milk to not make the sauce overly tangy, but not enough to make it just completely coconutty. Err on the side of more tomato to coconut. Take the pot off the heat and onto a trivet, and either blend with a wand blender or transfer to a food processor and whiz up until it's a uniformly thick liquid. Return to the pot if you took it out, add your peas and tofu, then let the pot ride on low heat while covered for at least 15 minutes. I let mine go for a while and everything generally comes together nicely.

From here, serve with the basmati rice, chop up some cilantro and sprinkle some on top, and it's food. And since I was starving, go ahead and add on the poppadoms and chutney too. And if you're really wanting to seal the deal, crack open a bottle of IPA and be in pure bliss.

Three weeks in

Hey guys, sorry about the lapse between posting. I promise I've been cooking fun things and enjoying the hell out of them, just haven't quite gotten to the point of posting anything substantial. Maybe this weekend will be the time.

I just by happenstance managed to check today's date, and realized it's three weeks into Lent. That makes twenty-one days of me on the vegan kick. How's it been? Pretty damn easy for the most part. The closest I've been tempted was maybe two days in when somebody had some good southern fried chicken livers. I thought "hey, I want one!" then immediately "naaaahhhh".

I'm not going to become one of those new-age health promoters. Going vegan hasn't added years to my life, made me rich and powerful, or taught me how to fly. I feel pretty good, but that's also because I'm not eating as much convenience foods as anything else. Probably the best thing I've been doing is eating plenty of fruit, which keeps me full of energy, and I only need one cup of coffee a day, instead of tapping an IV to the bean like I'd been doing before.

To be honest, I eat about like I ate before, minus a few frivolities that I usually reserved for the weekend anyway. I'm still a curry fiend of the like that puts Dave Lister to shame. It's just convenient that it takes zero effort to make vegan curry. I'm also getting through the backlog of a few slow-mover items that come in my CSA, so anything that gets us to finish our portions is always a good thing.

It's been fun to put myself into a lifestyle I haven't experienced before. I've found a lot of things that I expected to see, namely a lot of people not understanding/fearing veganism, and the really bizarre tendency of folks to blatently prosthelytize their eating habits to me. I could probably go out tomorrow and say I'm a member of the Church of Satan and have less people come rushing up to me to steer me on the path of their choosing. Mind you, I've seen the cheerleaders for vegans like everybody else. When your best known white knights are PETA and Moby, I guess it sort of makes credibility something you have to cook yourself at home.

Restaurants have been pretty chill for the most part. As long as you're not a dick, it's easy to ask people "Hey, does this thing have any animal products in it?" Whenever I do eat out in the first place, it's at places they generally care enough about their food to be able to tell me. Going to Flip burger boutique and getting a fauxlafel burger, they made sure to avoid both the butter on the bun as well as the feta, which I subbed out with artisanal ketchup anyway (Their rutabaga fries, by the by, are ridiculous and you should eat them if you get the chance). The key is don't be a dick, but this is sort of the golden rule isn't it? I'm from the South, so manners are always a good thing. I find that people respond well to them.

It's still not a game changer y'all. If some people are trying to convert this wayward lamb, don't worry. I still like food of all sorts. But I still think there's wisdom in both walking miles in other peoples' shoes, and learning how to prosper even when doing without.

And, I hate to be all doom prognosticator here, but people who deride vegetarians and vegans need to at least figure this one out: America (and to some extent other first world nations) can not survive without changing the way we eat, and being so dependent on meat as the centerpiece of each meal. I didn't eat much meat before I went vegan. I'll eat it again, sure, but I still won't eat much at all, because the amount we eat on average these days ain't sustainable.

The Seitanic Verses

Yes, I went there. A cheap pun combining meat substitutes and Salman Rushdie (since we're having a curryl). Don't judge me, I've had this in my head for days.

My wife baffles the hell out of me sometimes. I make lots of curry at home. Lots. Aside from Italian and good ol' Southern cooking, it's probably the most common staple we eat. The woman eats rasam, she eats dal, she eats stuff I have no idea what I'm making, other than "it's some stuff and I'll make a curry out of it."

Despite this high sense of adventure she has when I'm the one cooking, she's hell-bent on eating only one dish at our local indian restaurant whenever we go out. It's always "Chicken Afghani, mild please!" No saag paneer for her, no. Gosht Vindaloo? Why never! Yes, she'll pick at starters and appetizers. She likes their mulligatawny soup. She likes stuff like samosas, bhajjis, and other things. But the main dish she gets is always the same, which drives me nuts.

Because I'm a great husband, I've tried to recreate this dish at home, just going by taste. It's been pretty trial and error. I finally got it right this time (or really close at least) and with a vegan dish to boot!

Now vegan chicken, hmmm how do I go about this abomination? Well, I was gifted a few cans of "meat" from a friend who dabbles in seitan, which I've made before. It's vital wheat gluten, fast-kneaded with spices and then boiled to set. Marinade it in salt, fat, and whatever you want it to taste like, and voila, it's a meat-like thing! See:

"Quack Quack"

"Bock Bock!"

I had a can of "chicken" and a can of "duck". After tasting each, I'm pretty sure there's no real difference. By themselves they really don't fool a soul, but they're decent enough that you get the right effect in a curry. Also, since this is very much a northern curry, the real McCoy traditionally uses cream or yogurt. Instead, I'm using coconut milk, because it tastes great.

Now, let me preface this by repeating my beliefs: this sort of thing is a bit of a mockery. I think vegan foods that aren't trying to be something they're not are preferable to the alternative every single time. However, sometimes you have to stuff your principles a little, especially if you are cooking for a wife who wants to eat the same sort of stuff she was eating before you went to the V-side. In that case, go for it.


Here's my mise en place, sort of.

• About a pound of seitan, hand-shredded
• 1 cup tomato puree
• 12 ounces coconut milk
  
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
• 1 tbsp amchoor powder (dried mango, can be found in indian/ethnic grocers. Sub with a tablespoon of lemon juice if you don't have any, it'll be close enough)
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 2 tsp chili flakes
• 1 tsp salt + more to taste
  
• 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Heat your oil in the pan to near-smoking. Add cumin, let pop for a few seconds, then add coriander and keep on heat for two or three more seconds before removing from the heat. Add your onions, turmeric, salt, and garam masala, and turn the burner to medium-low. Stir and cook, cover, and come back every five minutes or so to stir more, for 15 minutes. If it starts to stick, add a little water to deglaze and keep stirring.

Add your tomato puree, chili flakes, and amchoor, uncover, and let cook on medium heat, stirring frequently for five minutes. To that, add your seitan, cinnamon, and cardamom, and cook another 5 minutes. Afterwards, add your coconut milk carefully, stirring to combine as you drop the heat to low. Let it go another five minutes or so and turn the heat off. Stir your minced garlic in. Taste and adjust your seasoning.


It's a very thick and rich sop, and you can either have it with rice or a flatbread like naan or roti. Since I like my options open, I usually have a little of each. In this case, roti's vegan so there you go.

Mission was accomplished apparently since she raved about the curry and asked me to make it again. I may very well later down the road, but I'm ready to move onto more fun things.

Rasam for days and days

It may be a byproduct of me feeling under the weather, but I've been fiending for Rasam. I did a prior blog post about the stuff before, but this time, with Dino's permission, I'm putting up the recipe for you. This is from his book Alternative Vegan, which is coming up for a second edition. Even if you don't give a damn about veganism, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It's great for approaching food from a South Indian perspective, which is often crowded out of our understanding of Indian food by the better-known stuff coming out of the north. It's also perfect for being creative and learning to love all of your veggies, which we all need to eat more of.

Rasam

Rasam Powder:

• 1 tablespoon dry toor daal or yellow split peas
• 5-6 dry red chilis
• 1/2 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon corriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon dry curry leaves

Roast all the spices in a small pan, and grind in a coffee grinder.

Rasam

• 1 cup dry yellow split peas or toor daal
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 tablespoon black mustard seeds
• tiny dash asafetida
• 1/4 cup curry leaves
• 1 pound tomatoes, chopped
• salt to taste
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
• 1 gallon water
• 1 cup cilantro, minced for garnish

Boil the split peas or daal in a separate pot for 20 minutes. Heat oil in a pot, add mustard seeds, and allow to pop. Add a dash of asafetida. Wait 3 seconds, and add the curry leaves. Add the tomatoes, and sprinkle on salt. Cook for about five minutes. Add the black pepper, the rasam powder, and the tamarind paste. Add the water and cooked, drained split peas. Bring to a full boil, and keep it boiling for 15 minutes. When cooked, sprinkle on cilantro for garnish. Serve over mushy rice.

Now, straight up, this is going to create a lot of food. Easily twelve servings, if not more. Don't believe me, here's the haul I produced:


For clarity, the one in the top left corner is a double portion I didn't have enough rice to dole out for. See what I mean when I say massive quantities? It's perfect to fill a week or two with staple meals and give you some room to play around.

SCIENCE

Okay, I admit as I do this vegan thing, part of me is kind of curious about folks who do this sort of thing as their real culinary gig for life. Some folks make the switch pretty painlessly, but others don't quite give up the life of an omnivore. Fear not, because SCIENCE has come to the rescue, promising vegan analogues for all sorts of things to keep otherwise sane people from thirsting for blood and their pound of flesh. Vegan, but want to eat meat? Well they got "meat". More specific, how about "sausage"? Got that, in all sorts of varieties. I bet you weren't expecting vegan bacon? Think again! Vegan cheese? Kazaam! Vegan ice cream? Kamehameha! All of these quick fixes, no doubt funded by DARPA and NASA to keep us from descending into our collective savage, hard-coded Lord of the Flies behavior. It sounds like an episode of True Blood or something, haha.

As I went out grocery shopping today, I got a weird bit of curiosity to come over me about these abominations of nature, and while my cart was otherwise loaded with nice wholesome ingredients, I had to stare into the abyss.


Went for the brass ring at first, and had some sausage. Okay, it's equal parts tofu and seitan from the package with "herbs" and a lot of SCIENCE in it. Fired up my skillet, rolled em around for a bit till they were equally crispy-brown on the outside. Divvied em up with my wife, and had em with mustard.

The inside's got a pretty compelling texture, but the outside gives it away. It forms almost like a bready crust on it, instead of a thinner, crispier outer cover you'd have with real sausage. Flavor is pretty much seitan, a ton of salt, fat, and italian herbs. It's alright enough, but you'd never for an instant think you were eating meat. These things were LOADED with salt. It's unreal. I haven't been this thirsty in a long time.


After that, time for dessert. Who likes ice cream? Who likes SCIENCE flavored ice cream! That's what this is, because I guarantee I don't know what "Vanilla Almond Bark" is, but if it tastes like SCIENCE they did a good job at recreating it. The ice cream was thin, bland, and had too many ice crystals in it. It finished with almost a gritty texture, like toothpaste. The carton said vanilla but I didn't taste any. The rabbit poop looking specks in there are I guess the "almond bark"? I don't know, there were bits of nuts coated by a bitter cocoa science alloy or something. It tasted not great.

Verdict:

The sausage was alright, if you are under no illusions that you're not eating a meat sub. If you're jonesing for some pig, then man, don't do it. Whatever you do, bring like two gallons of water because you're going to need it.

The ice cream is an abomination throughout. It's pure crap.

Findings:

It can be pretty hard to be a vegan it seems. As Americans, we're used to protein being the center of each of our three meals, and we're used to what we've grown up with. Folks wanting to make the moral switch to veganism, I can understand if you're not quite there culinarily. Myself, I'm kind of the opposite. I hold no allegiance to the moral ethos, but I think vegan food certainly has the capacity to be more honest about what it can offer than fake sausage or fake ice cream. There are fulfilling dishes out there that are honest, full of whole ingredients, and taste a lot better. To somebody who's ready to make their stand, but not quite ready to part without their tofu pork chop, I empathize. Maybe it's best to make the stand first, and develop an appetite for veganism's true bounty later. That said, I'd strongly suggest putting the bean pig aside for maybe some good hearty dhaal or ratatouille. You may just discover you like that way more.