Yes, I know, you can't be a little bit pregnant. But I'd like to think I'm semi-vegan, and today I honor my Facebook friends and family who posted today the environmental benefits of grains and vegetables over animal protein.
No, I'm not turning vegan. But three of my children are, and I love spoiling them with food. So I want to learn some yummy vegan dishes. (My daughter-in-law even has her own blog, chronicling her experiences cooking vegan while living overseas.) I also love food that's healthy and inexpensive. Since we got a pressure cooker last year, I've experimented with beans of various types. On the weekend, I'll try a new recipe for Caribbean Black Bean Soup or Curried Lentils, and then freeze it for lunches at work. On most days, I'll have oatmeal for breakfast, beans for lunch, and I'm a vegan until dinner.
I'm slowly learning the rules of begin a vegan (who knew Worcestershire sauce has anchovies?), and I'm amused by how our understanding has grown. Last weekend I was watching an old episode of "Good Eats" with one of my favorite Food Network personalities, Alton Brown. He was teaching us about the different types of tofu and how to cook each. I thought, "here's a man ahead of his time," until he coated the tofu in an egg wash.
When I was first married, foods like tofu were more fad than way of life. Now, we have a much more holistic view at how and what we eat; it's not so much this food or that which can "substitute" for something we're eliminating, but more of looking at our diet as a whole, understanding the rich variety of what we can eat, and celebrating it on the table.
One food which I've found especially challenging is lentils. With the exception of one pressure-cooker recipe for curried lentils, they always taste like dirt. My friend Kandy said they need to be well seasoned, and I've gotten several suggestions from Facebook friends, which I'll try, to make a less-earthy dish.
At Easter dinner, I asked my friend Liz for ideas. She seemed to recall some recipes she'd gotten at a fair that were produced by the Washington-Idaho Pea and Lentil Commission. She dug through her files and sent them to me (scanned and e-mailed, something we never thought we'd be doing back in the early '80s).
The recipes looked delicious, but I had to smile about the way they were used. One recipe for Honey Baked Lentils sounded like a great alternative to baked beans. But the recipe included bacon, and most of the other entrees had meat as well as lentils.
Like Alton, not quite clear on the concept! (In there defense, the "concept" had not quite evolved.)
I wondered if the commission had caught up with the times. They are now contributors to the US Dry Pea and Lentil Council. This site had a whole section of recipes (some of which also called for bacon, 'though less of it) but there was an updated recipe for Bar-B-Q Lentils which would qualify as vegan (if a vegan Worcestershire sauce was used).
It seems that the commission, like me, is semi-vegan.
Glad to find a new place to explore for recipes. I've always believed the food producers come up with the best recipes, because they have a commercial interest in making us love their product. And I'll continue on my journey as a semi-vegan.
Meanwhile, happy Earth Day to my vegan and carnivore friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment