Blog Posts - Make Simple Vegan Meals

Artichokes - The Good Stuff

5/23/2012

I recently started eating more artichokes and like them a lot. While fresh artichokes are easy to prepare, I usually get marinated artichoke hearts and devour them. The lemony brine produces a nice flavor with the mild taste and smooth texture of the food. Artichoke hearts are easy to add to salads and pasta and give a Mediterranean flair to almost any dish.
This nice article provides the history of artichokes and the development of crops in California. According to it, there are over 140 varieties of artichokes grown in Italy, France, and Spain.

Body Mind Temple Soup

4/30/2012

Body Mind Temple Soup has four key ingredients for perfect harmony - spinach, mushrooms, tofu, and broccoli. For balance, the ingredients are tied together with ginger and lime for a strong foundation. Body Mind Temple Soup will detoxify and rejuvenate the energy within you!

Body Mind Temple Soup

All you need
5 Cups water
2 Tsp soy sauce, reduce sodium version
1/2 Tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 Tsp white wine vinegar
1/2 Tsp ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 Cup white onion, thinly sliced and separated
1/4 Cup green onions, white and green parts, diced
1 Cup mushrooms, chopped
1 Cup broccoli florets, sliced
1 Cup spinach, chopped
1 Cup soft tofu, chopped
Juice from 1 lime
1/4 Cup fresh cilantro, chopped

What you do
In 3.5 qt pot, add water, soy sauce, olive oil, vinegar, seasoning, and both onions
Bring to slow boil on medium heat
Let cook for 3 minutes
Add mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes
Add broccoli, spinach, tofu, and fresh lime juice
Cook for 2 minutes
Remove from heat
When cool, serve and garnish with cilantro

Good to know
Servings - 4
Different vegetables used - 6
Total Time - 30 minutes
Prep Time - 15 minutes
Cook Time - 15 minutes

Vegan Half Marathoner

4/24/2012

The vegan diet trend is not just catching on with mainstream America, celebrities, and restaurants, but also with athletes. From boxers, to sprinters, baseball players, and even bicyclists such as Lance Armstrong who goes vegan two meals a day, the vegan diet is applied for increased performance, strength, and acuity.
I can understand why athletes feel this way about plant-based diets. I ran my first half marathon this past weekend which is 13.1 miles long. My pace was an 8 1/2 minute mile and I finished in 1 hour and 55 minutes. I was happy to be racing again after a long time and to reach this distance. When I ate meat over 10 years ago, I could only run for about 4 miles before quitting. But with my vegan diet and a lot of training, I was able to glide through the race.
It was great to see my body performing so well and efficiently. This experience reaffirmed my conviction that diet does have a huge impact on the body's ability to endure and operate with great strength. My meal the night before was a mixture of quinoa, lentil soup, red yams, and silken tofu. I also ate a handful of pistachios and half a banana. This mixture gave me a lot of energy and helped me pass several runners at the end of the race. It was a fun day for this vegan half-marathoner!

Seaweed is Served!

4/17/2012

My new favorite snack food is roasted seaweed! It tastes good, is very lightly salted, and doesn't fill you up like other snacks such as potato chips. While this has been common snack food in east Asia, it's now offered in supermarkets by various brands. I liked seaweed with cucumber or avocado rolls but I never tried it alone. Now I'm hooked and get it every time I visit the grocery store.
I referenced the health benefits in an earlier blog on sea vegetables as a new eating trend and its finally starting to go mainstream. Low in calories with good doses of vitamin C and A, it makes snacking healthy. Roasted seaweed is easy to chew and adds some variety to the diet. It also makes a nice garnish to top salads and rice dishes. Some brands are higher in salt than others so try to find the low sodium versions. It will be fun to see which sea vegetable is the next big hit!

Easier to be Vegan in Las Vegas

4/13/2012

The vegan trend is catching on in Las Vegas now, especially since casino owner Steve Wynn has gone vegan. He's made sure that every restaurant in his casinos have vegan options or a vegan menu. Other casinos are doing the same according to this article about the vegan transformation. It will be nice to see what gourmet spin these restaurants can put on meatless fare. Since some of the top chefs in America run the restaurants, it could be spectacular and a nice way to use those casino chips!

Vegetarian Apartments Buildings - A New Way of Living

4/11/2012

In Chennai, India, property developers are building apartment buildings whose living spaces are leased only to vegetarians creating a unique community. The apartments are filling up at an amazing rate according to this article from the Times of India on vegetarian living in Chennai.
I think it would be fun to live in an apartment building like this. It would most likely be peaceful, cheerful, and feel like a real community. The article cites vegetarians who dislike the smell of meat and I have to agree. After being a vegan for a while, it is more pleasant to be around plant-based food preparation than meat-based meals, even if you are not eating the meat-based meals. This is why I like to visit vegan restaurants when eating out. It just feels more comfortable and enjoyable. I'm sure the tenants of the vegetarian apartment complexes in Chennai feel the same way.
According to the article, the leasing agents inform prospective clients that the units are for vegetarians and they have to indicate on the rental agreement that they are vegetarian. I think the next step would be to create an urban farm on-site to provide fresh organic vegetables for the tenants. I'm sure that day will soon come.

Hidden Veggies, Crouching Fruit

4/8/2012

A big theme of my blog is finding ways to fit more veggies in your meals. This is a good practice because it's healthy and gives recipes more variety. Even as a vegan, I found that after a while I was using the same vegetables in my weekly recipes and needed to branch out to include new ones. My recipes already tasted good, so I was somewhat cautious about putting new ingredients in. In a way, after a while, you get comfortable eating what you like without variation, even when its vegan food.
One of the best ways to get used to new veggies in your meals is to sneak in different ones in small amounts. By finely chopping new veggies and rolling small amounts of them into a stew, salad, or soup, it makes it easier to become familiar with the taste and texture. New veggies might even enhance the flavor of stand-by recipes. There are more ways than this to get used to new veggies, but this is one of the best methods. This article explains more about hiding new veggies in your meals.

Faux Meats - A Good Place to Start

4/8/2012

When I want to add protein to my meals where meat usually was, I use mostly fresh ingredients such as tofu, mushrooms, black beans, lentils, tempeh, and quinoa. I also count on the small amounts of protein in leafy green vegetables which add up when you eat them every day. I rarely use faux meats at home anymore, even though they are a source of protein, being soy based, because they are processed and usually contain more sodium than I desire.
This wasn't always the case, however. When I first stopped eating meat, I always had my kitchen stocked with Boca burgers, soy dogs, faux deli meats, and even faux sausage patties. I really depended on them to help me replace the initial cravings I had for the taste and texture of traditional American comfort food. It's hard to break an eating habit that you've had since childhood. It was also easy to stop into a supermarket while traveling on the road and buy faux deli meats to munch on when no veggie restaurant options were immediately available.
Unfortunately, becoming dependent upon processed foods is not making the true transformation that a vegan or vegetarian diet aims to produce. It also doesn't help with weight control either. As an aside, not all faux meats are vegan either, so that was another factor. Now, I avoid processed faux meats except when dining at vegan restaurants where it's the specialty of the house. Replacing meat-based protein with natural fresh plant-based protein is the best habit for a healthy diet.
Having said that, faux meats are instrumental in helping people transition from a meat-based diet to a plant-based one. Even if you are a still considering the transition, I recommend trying out a Boca burger or something similar. The taste is great and its still a better alternative to ground beef or pork. Even faux chicken products are becoming popular since the mimic almost exactly the real thing. This article lists some faux meat products which have gone mainstream. But try not to become dependent upon them and slowly make the transition to fresh protein ingredients and you'll really start to see the benefits of the vegetarian or vegan diet!

Anti-Aging Formula - Eat Berries!

4/7/2012

Quite a bit of research has been released in the last year, including this one from Tufts University described in this article, which suggest that berries have anti-aging properties. More specifically, they boost the strength of the brain to overcome age related disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease and memory loss.

The research focuses on the antioxidants which bright colored berries have such as blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and cranberries. The antioxidants in berries specifically help prevent cellular damage in the brain and even change the way neurons communicate.
Sometimes berries can seem a bit expensive especially when they are out of season, but it's always a good purchase to stock up and use them in salads, fruit bowls, or finger-food!

Traveling Vegan in Berlin

4/7/2012

A couple weeks ago I posted that Germans were consuming less meat and eating more vegetables (Mehr Gemuse, bitte!)which is great considering they have a very meat based diet. As evidence of the change, Berlin is becoming a hub for vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Europe. This article lists three interesting places to eat if you are traveling in the city. It's nice to see the veg*n trend catching on in Europe!