New Jobs, Old Foods

I started a second job today! I will be working in two very different places, and I'll have a pretty packed schedule, which I do to myself anyways, so now that I _actually_ will be busy, it's very exciting. I am in the process of figuring out my food regimen for the next week. This is going to be one of those things where I have to, like, think ahead. Eek. I can do this!

Anyways, above is another picture of what has become Nathan and my default meal - the taco bowl. This one in particular was especially nice, because I used some of my leftover tempeh fajita stuff, which was just tempeh crumbled and mixed with spices and garlic and love, of course. Also, the beans are spiced and thrown in with corn, which is one of my favorite ingredients. Lately I've been forgetting I have it though. It's hard for me to keep up with what's in the freezer for some reason. Heh.

And, below...a beer I am very fond of. It's not absolutely amazing; it's just a solidly good beer. And it's local! Woo!

Convenience Food Guilty Pleasures

What else are we going to have as our dinner default than tacos? We’re in Austin – the taco mecca. Plus, we got a 100-count package of corn tortillas from Fiesta the other day and we have some taco-making to do. I will find other things to do with the tortillas, no doubt, depending on how inspired I feel. I’m thinking it would be nice to make my own tortilla chips one of these days.

These tacos had pretty much the basics – Morningstar Crumbles, avocados, tomatoes, cilantro and Valentina sauce. We were out of onions unfortunately, but they were delicious regardless. It’s hard to stray from something so consistently good. Still, I think I’m going to make my own taco filling next time. The meat crumbles are nice (and Nathan is addicted to them), but expensive. Plus it’s weird that the only place I can find them is at Target. Why? Oh, I guess I haven’t looked at Central Market, but they are probably more expensive there! Still, I don’t like buying food at Target. It doesn’t feel right, if that makes any sense.


BUT, speaking of Target, for about a week Nathan and I have been going through these Simply Limeades like they was water (very aware of my grammar discrepancies, thankyouverymuch). Seriously. And we can’t find them any cheaper than in Target. So there you go. We actually have gone on two trips to Target where we only purchased Morningstar Crumbles and Limeade. Thankfully, the Limeade phase has passed, but I make no promises once I have more spending money. Times are too tough for Limeade and Morningstar sprees. Next time I will not only make my own tortilla chips, but I WILL make my own vegan taco filling! Poverty is inspiring the DIY'er in my lazy cooking. Yay. I'm going to go learn a new origami fold now and think about decorating the apartment!

Vegan Tex-Mex Bowl

This bowl puts together some of my all-time favorites in the tex-mex food genre: avocados, corn, brown rice, tomatoes, cilantro, those damn Morningstar Crumbles, lime and corn tortillas. I also had chips and salsa with this. Delicious. You know, it was incredibly simple to put this together. Really, not much needs to be done. Just chop the veggies, heat up the fake meat (I've never heated it in the microwave because I like making it just a tiny bit crispy on the stovetop), and cook the beans and corn. Nice to put some spices in with the beans, like paprika, salt, cumin, garlic powder. And Valentina sauce at the end! And warm the tortillas. Always warm the tortillas. It is ALWAYS worth the effort.

That is all from me. I just got home from an incredibly intoxicating Thai dinner (Titaya's - way better than Thai Kitchen), treated by Nathan. I'm going to go eat some pie now and veg like I have never vegged.

I Did Not Have Tacos For Thanksgiving

Hi. How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was excellent. Easily my favorite holiday, though I had to work a little harder to make this one as delicious as could be (for someone as anti-suburban Thanksgivings as I). The last 7 years I've been having Thanksgiving away from my family, with friends, which, I have to say, is a whole lot more delicious and vegetarian-friendly. I love my family, and I had a great time yesterday, but as far as the food they eat...it's just a different world from what my taste buds ("taste bud" is such a cute word) have come to love and appreciate. Well, I'll talk more about that in a week. I still have some pictures on my camera to catch up on.

Nathan and I have been eating a lot of tacos since we've been in Austin.

I had to put this second picture in just because I think both pictures look sooo delectable. Like, that second picture is downright sexy, no? That crispy (but not burnt) corn tortilla, the innocently curled and haphazardly chopped cilantro...the fresh tomatoes...smooth avocado slices...mmmm...*drool* I want one now! Can you tell I haven't eaten dinner yet?

The "meat" is Morningstar's Veggie Crumbles. I've been into them since I first became vegetarian when I was a naive little high-schooler and didn't know any better. Really, I had no idea what I was doing. I ate way too many meat substitutes, not enough vegetables, and too much starchy stuff. I felt horrible physically but proud of my anti-meat stance in a very meat-centric city. But I digress - these "crumbles" are effin' good. There are few meat substitutes I stand by, but these are tasty in and of themselves. I've gotten Nathan slightly obsessed with them. Unfortunately, they are one of the many things I'll have to give up if it turns out I'm gluten intolerant. I read somewhere that some people are intolerant only to certain amounts of gluten...I have to make sure about that. These tacos didn't make me feel bad at all, but if I ate a bagel or had a beer, I would have killer cramps shortly after. These are things to note.

Oh, and we are having a BLAST with the access to cheap avocados we're having here. Jeebus - this particular week at Fiesta avocados were three for a dollar! THREE for a dollar! The store should have had those wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man things waving out in front, cuz that was just crazy.

And these tacos were mos definitely topped with Valentina sauce.

Introducing Gluten

Going through this process of re-introducing different kinds of foodstuffs into my system has been really good in actually introducing, for the first time, some grains and whatnots I hadn’t really cooked with or, in the case of kamut, had ever heard of. It was time at this point in my regimen, to introduce gluten, and see how that felt. So I did a little research into kamut, and then found the following recipe online. Then it’s just to get cooking.

Kamut is a type of wheat that has a only a very small amount of gluten. It is very similar to durum wheat and is one of those grains that have to be simmered for about an hour to cook (so cook a lot!). It is reputed as being tolerable by those who are allergic to wheat, but still off-limits for those who can’t deal with gluten. So it’s a good start when you want to check for a wheat allergy.

From how I felt later that night, I don’t think I am allergic to wheat, which, really, I’d much rather have as the case. What is the difference, really? Well, according to the INTERNET, a wheat allergy is the body's response to the specific grain, wheat, whereas a gluten intolerance is not an allergy, but an autoimmune disease, where the body attacks itself! Whoa! The reason why it's more annoying than a wheat allergy, is because with a gluten intolerance, one is to avoid gluten entirely - all gluten products, which include such yummy things as wheat bread, many pastas, delicious cakes and cookies, malt vinegar, vegetable protein (morningstar crumbles! NOOO!), soy sauce, etc.

So, I'm sure I'll be talking about this quite a bit in the next coming days, as I'll be starting my wheat introduction shortly. Here's the recipe I tried (it is super good, really, really good):

Oh, I found the recipe here.
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1 lb. kamut, steamed with 1 tablespoon garam masala spice mix
or 1 t. each cinnamon, ground cloves and ground coriander
(Recipe uses 4 cups of the cooked kamut; leftovers make great salads)
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 green pepper, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 tablespoon minced fresh gingerroot
1/2 cup bouillon
4 cups cooked kamut -- see note above
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 can pink beans or light red kidney beans
pinch cayenne, or to taste
1 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1 vine-ripened tomato, chopped
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or Italian parsley leaves

Bring the onion, green pepper, carrots and ginger root and 1/2 cup of
bouillon to a boil and simmer, covered, until the carrots are tender,
about 15 minutes. Stir the cooked kamut, raisins and beans into the
vegetable mixture and add the cayenne to taste. Just before serving,
stir in the peas, tomatoes and cilantro or parsley leaves. (EASY!!!)

8-10 servings (between three hungry people, we just almost ate the whole dish)
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The kamut was awesome, scrumptious, even. It had a super satisfying texture - like rice on steroids! The dish itself had a great variety of texture; the peas, carrots, beans and raisins in particular created a nice little bite medley, and it's very pretty when cut up and put into little bowls.
Now, when I had this (nervous laughter here...), it was also my first night with beer, so that in itself kind of messed up any speculations into whether I was allergic to wheat or intolerant of gluten or not. Whoops. I can say, though, that the beer definitely messed with me. My stomach was killing me after I had just one bottle. Since then I’ve been unable to handle beer without my stomach hurting a ton (cramps, at one point it felt like I was being stabbed in the intestines). It's the same reaction I have had to bagels. It’s not looking good. As I’m typing this my stomach is hurting, and I know I haven’t been avoiding gluten very well. It’s a bit childish, I know, but I may take awhile to admit defeat and just give up gluten altogether.

Healthy and Delicious

My parents were in town this weekend. Since I’ve been living in Texas, they’ve come down to Austin from Huntsville (a three-hour drive…a three-hour drive…heehee) EVERY weekend. And, I’ll tell the truth, it’s actually kind of nice. I haven’t lived near my parents in almost 7 years, and I missed them. They are very nice people. I like having them around. So there.

There are a lot of superficial differences between my family and me, one of those differences being what we eat. And this doesn’t usually bother me so much; I tend to be un-involved in others’ choices of what they choose to eat. Irrational food-prejudices annoy me, but I don’t really care when someone wants to eat a ton of meat in front of me, especially if it’s tasty. I am a big advocate of taste. Still, I guess in general I do enjoy sharing healthy AND delicious food; some people really don’t think healthy food can be tasty, and they need the enlightenment. So that’s one of my goals in living near my family. I want to influence the way they eat, at least a little. They don’t have a ton of healthy influences in their lives, and why not bring a little Portland food love to Huntsville, Texas?

Anyways, I know they like my cooking – at least, they are very convincing in their “Mmm’s.”

I wanted to cook something nice for my parents, but also easy. Usually that means I’m making a quinoa salad. Quinoa is one of my favorite grains ever (did you know it’s actually a seed? Hmm.), and I was intrigued by the following recipe because it uses red quinoa. I had never had red quinoa before, and I liked all of the other ingredients (avocados!!! cherry tomatoes!! avocados!!!), so I gave it a try. I found the recipe online, from the blog, AlmostFit. I pasted the recipe below, and put in parentheses my little changes.

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Ingredients

1 cup uncooked red quinoa
2 cups water
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2 avocados, diced
1 cup artichoke hearts
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons of pine nuts, toasted (I used walnuts instead)
2 tablespoons of capers, to taste (Did not use capers)

Caramelized onions:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 thinly sliced red onion

Basic vinaigrette dressing:
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice, with zest
2 cloves minced garlic
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Serves 4-6 as a side dish

Bring the quinoa and water to boil. When the water boils, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the water is absorbed, approximately 10 minutes. When cooked, quinoa has a texture similar to perfectly cooked pasta, or rice. Strain and rinse well under cold water.

While the quinoa is cooking, in a skillet heat olive oil over medium heat and saute the onions until transparent.

Prepare the vinaigrette by combining the ingredients and whisking.

In a large salad bowl, toss all of the ingredients together, including caramelized onions and the vinaigrette.

Serve cold or at room temperature.
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This meal was SUPER easy to make and effin’ DELICIOUS. Seriously. I have been missing out. Nathan thought it was the best quinoa salad I’d made (better than the quinoa paella? No way; that’s just crazy talk), but I think that was the just the out-of-detox-everything-tastes-amazing talking. In any case, it was tasty, if not also a liiittle too oily. Also, we had Nut Thins as a gluten-free accompaniment to the salad, along with some steamed kale with lemon juice. Yum. I felt great.

Dressed to Kill, Get It?

I came home from running errands and there was a delicious, scrumptious salad waiting for me. Nathan whipped it together from random things we had in the fridge. He got a little happy with the dressing, but, my god, can that boy make a salad dressing. He took so much pride in the montage of ingredients that he wouldn’t tell me all of them. I didn’t care so much. I was happy to be eating it, especially as I had just arrived home from about two hours of dazed grocery shopping. I went to the 24-hour Fiesta Mart, and it was just almost a religious experience. There are aisles and aisles of exotic and hard-to-find ingredients, super cheap, and I spent a lot of time dreaming about future cooking exploits. By the time I got home, I was starving.

Luckily I had an amazing salad all prepped and ready to eat! Mmmm, I’m getting giddy just thinking about it again. I know there were tomatoes, walnuts, avocados, Flax Seed Oil, nutritional yeast, artichoke hearts, celery, carrots, and I can’t think of what else. For some crunch, I had these Pecan Nut-Thins, by Blue Diamond. I’m still denying myself of wheat and gluten, so I’ve been eating a LOT of these crackers. They are super good, salty and with an excellent crunch, but unfortunately $2.19 a box (and we go through a box easily in one sitting).


I also found a baba ganouj version from Wheatsville that was slightly cheaper than the Tom’s Tabooley brand. Nathan liked it better. I think I prefer the Tom’s version, but both are pretty delicious. They are both pretty freakin’ fresh. Unfortunately, with unemployment still looming, I can’t get used to fancy-pants snacks.