One thing became clear to me today: if I am going to continue cooking vegetarian and vegan meals even after my 30 Day Challenge is up (which I know I will, maybe not 100% of the time, but often) then I am going to need a food processor.
I am so thankful Dan was over at my apartment tonight, because I definitely needed his help in making vegan tacos. When I've made my black bean burgers in the past, I simply mashed the black beans up with a potato masher and then mixed in the rest of the ingredients and it wasn't an issue. The taco recipe I used today called for pinto beans, which I found were a lot harder to mash up. That task was then assigned to Dan while I cooked the quinoa. Dan mashed the beans up pretty well, but we decided to try using a hand mixer.
FAIL.
The beans just got all packed into the beaters. After spending some time clearing those out, we decided to try to put them in my blender along with some sliced jalapeno. I figured if I poured some almond milk into the blender, it would help the beans become more pasty/creamy.
FAIL.
A blender is not a food processor! The beans didn't budge. So we scraped them all out and back into the bowl and left them the way they were.
While I waited for the quinoa to cook, Dan showed me the vegan cheese he bought at Whole Foods. He wanted to try making vegan grilled cheese, so he got a package of that for himself and made one earlier in the day. He said, "It's terrible by itself, but OK on the grilled cheese. I made it work." I decided to try a bite.
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Ehhhhhh. It was weird. It was almost tasteless and pretty grainy. Besides the sliced vegan cheese, Dan also picked up shredded vegan cheese for our tacos tonight.
While the "noocho cheese" in the recipe sounds quite interesting and tasty, I didn't try to make that tonight. It's something I should really have a food processor on hand for, and I didn't have the time to pick up any of the extra ingredients it called for either. Once the quinoa was done cooking, I realized the recipe I was using made no mention of heating the beans first. I remembered a recipe I saved on my Pinterest a few months ago for oven baked tacos and decided to use that as a guide for these. We loaded up the hard shells with a layer of mashed pinto beans and jalapeno, then the flavored quinoa on top. We decided to only put cheese on two tacos to start...just in case we hated it! The cheese smelled pretty good. I noticed it felt oily between my fingers. It was grainy in appearance.
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We let the tacos bake at 400 degrees for a little over 10 minutes. Then we added our toppings, took a seat and had a bite. The verdict?
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YUM! The tacos overall were very, very good. Quinoa is SO damn good! As for the vegan cheese...I didn't hate it. I didn't love it. It was good with the tacos, I could definitely taste a difference between the cheese taco and the cheese-free taco. However...I think I would prefer to do without the cheese altogether and just stick to my guacamole and tomatoes.
Since Dan agreed to be the official meat lovin' taste tester for my vegan food, here's his take on the tacos:
"These tacos were to die for. It didn't even feel like I was eating vegan. They were really filling - I was satisfied but without the stuffed, heavy feeling."
Hooray! I even have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Tomorrow night will be the first time Dan and I have kale when I make a Cajun pasta dish. Since I work both jobs on Thursday and Friday, I'll also be cooking a tofu stir fry tomorrow night. It'll be my first time cooking tofu...I'm so nervous that I'm going to screw it up!
Tuesday 4/2 Food & Exercise Log
5 AM
-1 cup Multigrain Cheerios with 1 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk
5:30 AM
-30 minute cardio session on the stair climber
8:30 AM
-Thomas's 100% Whole Wheat Bagel Thin with 2 tbsp Skippy Natural Peanut Butter - creamy style, 1/3 less sodium and 1/3 less sugar
-Coffee with Silk French Vanilla creamer (forgot to include this in my log yesterday. The Silk coffee creamer is just OK. I do miss regular coffee creamer.)
12:45 PM
-Spinach salad with cherry tomatoes, almond / pomegranate mix and balsamic vinaigrette
-Homemade vegan eggplant burger on an Aunt Millie's Slimwich bun
6:30 PM
-Corn taco shell with pinto beans, quinoa, vegan shredded cheese, guacamole and tomatoes (3 tacos)
I don't have my totals for the day because I didn't finish logging everything into MyFitnessPal. But I feel great and know I ate very well!
I meant to mention yesterday that technically, the sandwich buns I've been eating are not considered vegan because they contain honey. Bees are an animal, and bees produce honey. Since vegans do not consume any animals or products created by an animal, they don't eat honey. I'm sorry, but this one I just don't get! Are bees being mistreated? Are they being forced into overproduction the way dairy cows are? Bees make honey. End of story. And besides...
Bahahaha. Love this!!!
ReplyDeleteAlso - Food Processor is one of the best things I've ever purchased for the kitchen. The other "must have" is an immersion blender, which you can find for pretty cheap. It's a great last-minute tool when making certain dishes. For example - I make pureed cauliflower (a great substitute for mashed potatoes!) a lot. Now, generally, I use butter in these, as well as salt and pepper, but I bet you could sub your almond milk. I use cayenne and paprika in mine, too - even if you don't love cauliflower, it's really, really good - just an idea! Anyway, the immersion blender saves me!
Also, the smoothies I have in the morning now are vegan, with the exception of about 1 tbsp of yogurt. With the flax seed I add, and the other optional additions (spinach, other healthy seeds and grains, etc.), you could easily go without the yogurt, and I have before. I feel great in the mornings now - I use bananas and fresh squeezed orange juice, as well as flax seed and carrot juice, as well as blueberries and other 'super fruits.' Has made a world of difference!
So proud of you - I'll be trying some of your vegan recipes, so please keep posting! I maintain that I'm going to try to go, at the very least, meat-free a day or two a week, and if I can go Vegan once a week, even better!
xo - you're inspiring!
Thanks Catherine! Your smoothies sound DELISH! A few years ago, I was making smoothies with flax seed and spinach similar to yours and I absolutely loved them. I'm going to be adding them in to my diet next week!
DeleteI'm excited for you to try some vegan recipes! I know just know you'll find some new favorite dishes :)
Also, yes, fuck bees. (omg I never type that word. which makes typing it now feel oddly awesome.)
ReplyDeleteI debated using it in my blog, because I try to - ya know - keep it classy and whatnot ;) but the graphic I found was just too funny and I had to use it!
DeleteI would definitely try looking for a food processor at Goodwill. I see lots of items like that! Or even on Ebay. Would save you some money those are pretty pricey! Why does all that food look so brown and mushy and like well....you know? LOL
ReplyDeleteThat's actually a good idea! I was going to get one from Kohl's since I get coupons from them so regularly. But maybe I'll check Goodwill. They aren't as expensive as I thought though, there are a few at Kohl's for $40 and I usually get 20% or 30% off coupons.
DeleteAs for the food, I've been mainly eating beans and vegetables...not sure what else to say! These tacos were really, really good.
LOL just saw the bee thing. I had to chuckle because I had read about that before and didn't quite understand that since bees make honey and don't eat it themselves or get hurt in the process of making it, why can't it be eaten? So I had to laugh at your comment and the graphic
ReplyDeleteI love that graphic :)
DeleteAnd we dont eat bees, we just eat what they produce! SO weird on that one.
ReplyDeleteI would like to try this quinoa (sp) but I dont think I could try the vegan cheese...ick.
It wasn't gross. Just different.
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