Veganmofo: PETA dresses up the Trollsens

Because I loathe and despise the antics of these two monkey-faced druggies I really enjoyed this anti-fur and anti-Olsen Twins dress-up game.

http://www.peta2.com/Trollsens/dress_up.asp

The Olsen's wear fur and use it in their clothing line.

Plus one of them killed Heath Ledger which is not very nice.

Veganmofo: Dining Out at Dandelion Communitea Cafe

We dropped my brother Ray off at the airport in Orlando so he could fly back to Louisiana and go back to work and we decided to visit a quaint little vegetarian tea house called Dandelion Communitea Cafe in the heart of Orlando's Asian neighborhood.

The adorable cafe is slightly off the beaten path, but not too far from the main drag in a very bright green house located in front of a Holistic school and across the street from a yoga center. It's a great location and you have the option to sit outside at picnic tables or to sit in the cozy little tea house.

This place is all about organic, sustainable and local goods. But mostly it is about tea and there is a wall of teas you can purchase to take home and an extensive tea menu to get you drinking a cuppa. The best tea deal they have is two daily specials for $2.50 plus free refills.

That's how we began, a tall glass of tangy Hibiscus herbal iced tea and then we checked out their mostly light lunches and snacks menu.

We both opted for the soup of the day which was a stunning sweet onion soup served with Dr. Kracker! I was so excited. I felt instantly at home. I could have taken a gallon home, it was that good. It was loaded with local organic Vidalia onions, green onions and shallots in a super rich veggie broth.

We split the SXSW appetizer which was three different dips for blue corn chips. There was an terrific pea guacamole (so bright tasting - I will be making this at home), a black bean dip and a vegan nacho cheese dip (everything homemade). We devoured this and it was the perfect dip to chip ratio for two people.

Mom got the Fakin' BLT on whole wheat toast which had tempeh bacon (also homemade and local) with tomatoes, basil pesto and baby greens. Mom didn't warm up to the tempeh - she likes my Light Life Smart Bacon BLT's too much.

I on the otherhand LOOOOOOVED it! Turns out I could easily be a tempeh freak!

We decided to split our sandwiches so I shared my Eve's Revenge wrap (huge) with her. This motherlode of a wrap was baby greens, apple, raisins, walnuts, red onion and feta (vegan or dairy, your choice) with a delicious fresh raspberry puree balsamic dressing on the side.

The only gripe was they failed to supply an adequate side dish with the sandwiches and they were pricey ($7.50 and $9.00) to just be sitting on a plate with a few slices of apple as the "side dish" (more like a garnish). They should offer some vegan potato salad or whole wheat pasta salad as a side. It would round out the meal and add value.

Mom wasn't too thrilled with the value regarding the price even though I explained that such a small place (six tables inside and three or four outside) would have to struggle to survive. You have to pay more for beautiful, healthy, fresh, local organic food. Truly the best deal going there is to drink their amazing tea of the day.

We also tried the Morrocan Mint Green tea which was fantastic too.

A cool thing about the place was all the silverware, plates, tables and chairs are recycled. Nothing matches except they have painted all the chairs and they are decorated beautifully. This place had really great energy and the people were just lovely. I could definitely see hanging out there or stopping in after yoga class for a cup of tea. It's too bad I live so far away.

I really enjoyed the experience and will definitely go there again. My poor mother. What she has to endure!

Veganmofo: Surprisingly Vegan

I made a fun and tasty meal last night, not really anything to crow about since it came from a can (yikes!) but interesting in that it was completely and surprisingly vegan as well as low in fat and calories.

I used to love La Choy Chinese food when I was a kid. Remember their jingle, "La Choy makes Chinese food, swing American."? Mom made it for us when my Dad was out of town since he never liked Asian food. Of course this can barely be called Asian by today's standards but back in the seventies it was all we had!


From the La Choy site: Wally Smith and Yu Il-han, two friends from the University of Michigan, founded the La Choy brand in 1922. Smith had a grocery store in Detroit and wanted to sell bean sprouts. New, a Korean, knew how to grow them. They formed a business to can bean sprouts, growing them in a bathtub. The first La Choy plant was built in 1937, but was later closed due to World War II. They moved the La Choy operations to Ohio, and eventually its products were sold nationally.

My Mom used to eat La Choy when she was a kid too.

I made chow mein with the canned vegetables, a can of water chesnuts and a handful of fresh snow peas. I made my own chow mein gravy using soy sauce, vegetable broth and a little cornstarch. I served it over La Choy Chow Mein noodles and it was low-brow but high nostalgia.

Do you have any favorite foods from childhood (or meals) that you discovered were surprisingly vegan?

Veganmofo: Dinner - Vegetarian Chili

This is a bowl of Texas Red Chili that I made for dinner last night.

Mom was hungry and wanted a "stoup" (pardon the Rachel Rayism) but I was not about to get all into making something complex because I was tired and not very hungry myself.

This chili came in a package from Fantastic Foods.

Start there (it is the Cha-Cha Chili Bean soup mix) and follow the directions on the back to make it from soup into chili (less water, add some salsa or canned chopped tomatoes) then let your imagination run wild.

I added canned Mexicorn, some leftover roasted potatoes and some frozen baby lima beans.

It is not gourmet by any stretch but served with saltines and some hot sauce on the side it is absolute veg heaven.

It makes 4 hearty lunch sized portions. I got the soup mix from Pangea but I think they are out of it so you can order directly from Fantastic Foods.*

* Actually they have it backordered there too so it must be popular. Check at your local health food store, Whole Foods or Trader Joe's.

Veganmofo: Vegetarian Blues

I'm not excited about my food.

I've been having issues for the past few weeks. More snacks, fewer real meals, less juice, fewer smoothies. I make a quick convenience store run for chips or bagged popcorn. I'm hungry all the time and I'm eating plenty of calories and most of them (save for the raw food I eat) have zero nutrition.

I'm far off track right now.

Mostly I'm just tired.

I'm tired of being on a diet. I'm tired of healthy food. I'm tired of cooking and un-cooking. I'm tired of eating. I just don't want to think about it. I want to be like everyone else and I know that's not possible yet. I can't eat whatever I want and just sweat it off on the treadmill. I still have miles to go and I am stuck, so damn stuck right now and it seems like nothing can inspire me or reach me or pull me out of the doldrums.

Does this happen when you radically change your diet and lifestyle? Is it normal? Or am I sinking back from whence I came?

Veganmofo: Junk Food Vegetarian

This is typical of what I've been eating the last few weeks.

Fries and some kind of vegetarian sandwich, a sub from Subway (veggie delight), fast food from Taco Bell or Burger King (the BK veggie burger) or just making a TVP cheese steak sandwich and fries at home.

This is of course the opposite spectrum of my raw food meals, smoothies and fresh juices but I must be stressed or something.

I've also had white pasta (a big no-no for me) and white bread too (also zero nutrition). I almost caved and made Kraft Mac & Cheese in a box but thankfully gave it to the local Food Bank when I recently cleaned out my pantry to make a superfoods and raw foods shelf. Whew - that was a close one!

On the positive side I have been eating very little cheese and using much more vegan cheese. I have also not used any milk or half, preferring my new favorites, rice milk, MimicCreme (so good), almond milk (made fresh) and Hemp Chocolate milk for a treat now and then.

My veganization continues so even if I am burning the candle at both ends with junk food at least it is mostly vegan!

I credit raw food with that since you have to learn to be very creative eating raw vegan meals. I also admit that I probably like cashew and nut cheeses better than any dairy cheese I've ever had. It doesn't melt (I use Cheezly for that) but it taste delicious with crackers, fruit and wine.

I do feel though that considering my "renewed" veg status the "Veganization of Nikki" is right around the corner.

Now I've got to stop my cherry icee, BK veggie burger and Taco Bell Fresca menu items obsessions!

Suggestions? What do you do to avoid caving in on vegan junk food?

Veganmofo: Anniversaries

Today is my fifth month as a "renewed" vegetarian and my third month eating raw vegan food.

I wanted to revisit my history as a vegetarian since I may not have fully discussed it here in a while.

When I was in college I ate a sporadically vegetarian diet. I'd always eat veggie gyros, veggie subs at Subway and ate a lot of Kraft spaghetti kits (they came boxed with dry spaghetti, a little can of tomato sauce and some Parmesan cheese).

I also ate some of the worst processed meat nightmares ever like Hamburger Station cheeseburgers (sliders), the Mr. Hero Romanburger (a burger patty with grilled Italian cold-cuts on it), the Mr. Hero cheesesteak sub, McDonald's cheeseburgers with cheese sauce and grilled onions on a rye bun (a special that they have not had again in 20 years because I am sure they discovered how unbelievably bad it was for you) and processed meat at Chi-Chi's where we went to have Mexican food on a semi-regular basis.

One semester that I lived at home (and commuted) I ate much healthier sticking to an almost vegetarian diet for about 4 months.

I was on a serious vegetarian rollercoaster in that I would often go months eating vegetarian only to completely fall off and go the other way entirely. I had no real motivation other than health at this time as the concept of an ethical vegetarian had not reached but a few cutting edge people in Ohio in the early nineties.

When I was finally clued in four and half years ago, it was through some Buddhist friends that I had been on a retreat with and my friend Brooke who was the first person to introduce me to the concept of a living foods diet.

I played around with vegetarianism for about a year before I decided to go to PETA and read (not view) the animal rights information there. I also made friends with an AFL member who was instrumental in my finally becoming vegetarian.

I did fall off once before coming back five months ago so while I call this my five month anniversary it really has been 14 months total of a meat-free life, just with a small (ok, not so small) hiccup in the middle.

So what made me come back? What made me go further even to raw food?

My husband died ten months ago. This life-changing event reverberated through me. For months I couldn't eat anything but onion soup and pasta. I started to lose weight after being obese for the past 12 years of my life.

Since I had a head start and was dealing with type 2 diabetes that I had let run uncontrolled for 8 years and complications from that (peripheral neuropathy), I decided that it was time to get myact together.

I also went back to PETA after reading a stunning article in The Humane Society magazine on the closing of the Hallmark slaughterhouse. This article and the subsequant viewing of the material that I couldn't bear to watch a couple of years ago made me an instant vegetarian.

This time I did it differently.

I got involved in the blogosphere. I read every vegan and vegetarian book I could find. I began getting rid of all of my cookbooks that had meat recipes in them (and I had a collection of several hundred). I adopted animals at Farm Sanctuary and Animal Acres. I supported animal welfare through The Humane Society, National Wildlife Federation, Defenders of Wildlife, Pigs for Peace, Polar Bears, Alley Cats, PETA and many others.

I bought back issues of Herbivore magazine and subscribed to Vegetarian Times and VegNews. I read many vegan and vegetarian blogs and started getting involved with raw food, reading every book published on the subject as well as attending seminars and joining raw food communities.

I started un-cooking and using superfoods.

I've lost a total of 80 lbs too which keeps me quite motivated toward my goal.

At the same time I used up household cleaners and goods and replaced them with clean and green. I changed my body care and skincare and make-up to organic, no chemical, green, sustainable, vegan options.

I'm not telling you this to show you how wonderful I am or that I deserve a big award for being a vegetarian (though if there is a big award I hope it is vegan cookies or cupcakes!). I'm telling you this because all of this has helped me to STAY vegetarian. I have made lasting changes in my life and took the steps to make sure that I would not abandon my principles in a time of high-stress as I had before.

The things I read and viewed at PETA made an indelible impression on me, one that I had not allowed myself to endure previously out of fear. No one wants to see such scenes of terror and horror and think that they were complicit in the acts.

I wear a virtual hairshirt of my own weaving for the guilt I carry for having been a meat-eater for all but 14 months of my existence. I was not strong enough to do this before, not strong enough to dedicate my life to ethical vegetarianism and animal rights. Now I wear that hairshirt proudly because it reminds me that there is no other way to live.