Delivered: Raw Vegan, Cooked Vegan and Totally Not Vegan

I recently joined Front Door Organics, a Toronto-based company that delivers mostly-local, certified organic or wild edibles and eco-friendly sundries. Bask in my air of green, crunchy superiority, everyone. The jewel of the program is its "Fresh Box" - a box of fruit and veg that is super seasonal and based mainly on what's most abundant that week in the region.

Tasty, no?

You can choose to get a basic Fresh Box, where you get what they give you, or do a custom box where you can swap items for others online before delivery. I mainly stuck with what they offered as there were some lovely veggies that were new to me and I figured this was a good opportunity to try them. Should you be in the GTA and want to give Front Door Organics a shot, let them know Jen Byck sent you! (Yes, they have a referral program and piggy here needs more greens.)

Here's some of the stuff I've made: a raw vegan salad, a cooked vegan soup, and one darn naughtilicious Ukrainian dish featuring beet greens.

First up: (Raw Vegan) Garlicy Kale-Lettuce Salad! Because I am lazy so into the environment, I tend to make my salad dressing in the bowl I'm going to put the salad in rather than dirtying (and needing to wash) another dish. My salad dressings almost always consist of lots of garlic, lemon or lime juice, a splash of cold pressed olive oil, a splash of Wheat-Free Tamari and herbs. I'll sometimes also use raw, organic Tahini, but didn't this time.

Washing your lettuces is important even - or especially - when eating organic, particularly if you want to keep your meal vegan:

Yup, that be a caterpillar I found in the sink. I eventually found two more after I finished washing all my leafy greens. Blarg! Better than finding half of one after eating, though.

For whatever weirdo reason, I love cutting leafy greens into ribbons - the easiest way to do this to use a Chiffonade cutting technique. I especially find that raw kale is more palatable when it's in little pieces that can marinade in your dressing.

I then basically add whatever fresh produce I want - in this case I tossed in some fresh herbs, red pepper, green onion and cherry tomatoes - all from my Fresh Box. Voila!

Next up - a cooked vegan dish of Earthy Veggie Soup (I'm making up these titles as I go along). My Fresh Box had something called Blue Russian Potatoes - aren't they pretty?

I used those and what I had on hand and in my delivery - a bit of olive oil, garlic, white onion, carrots, leek, thyme, rosemary, turmeric, sea salt and water.

Diced everything, sautéed it, covered it all with water and let it simmer for a while. Since I just *love* a puréed soup, I decided to pop it all in my much-fawned-over Blendtec:

Bring on the creamy, salty yum:

If you didn't care about the vegan thing, this soup would be balls awesome with a bit of goats cheese on top ...

And then, inspired by some really leafy beets I received, I decided to dig a recipe out of a memory I had: My mom had made beet leaf rolls for us once in like 1988 and I have forever remembered the tasty goodness of that dish. The name of my grade two teacher? No idea. What I was doing this time last week? A complete blank. The taste of a meal I had over 20 years ago? Totally front of mind. My mom sent me a link to a recipe that was pretty close to what she originally made, and it turns out it's a Ukrainian dish called Holopchi. It consists of frozen bread dough and beet greens.

I went off the vegan rails by creating the dill sauce with bacon. But, oh, hot fuck, is it ever good:

And all inspired by what's fresh and local! Care to share any seasonal dishes you're getting your grub on with?

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Vegans: A History of Sucking

The other day when I was at the organic market, I came across two people who made me want to roll my eyes so hard that I'd risk bursting blood vessels. They are the veggie hippies of the worst kind: the pretentious and the posers.

Jen, who are you to call anyone a poser? Aren't you barely a week into your veggie lifestyle?

Duh, I know. And I'm not referring to myself as a veggie or a vegan as I'm not one (meat's still on the table - just really infrequently). By poser, I mean people who buy and say all the peace love yoginess but then act like royal dickheads to their fellow (wo)man. Like this:

I was walking toward a refrigerated cabinet when another woman got there first (imagine that, someone moving faster than me). No biggie. Since it was a narrow-ish display, I decided to just wait until she was done. Patiently. Happily. No, really! I had just found Saskatoon berries! I was as silently ecstatic as I could be.

But then I saw the thing I had gone there for, right at the end of the shelf. The woman wasn't looking at it or near it, rather she was holding the door open as she read the ingredients on another package from the other end of the shelf. So, I calmly and smoothly - without touching or interfering with the woman whatsoever - plucked the package and popped in into my basket.

"I'm not holding the door open for YOU, you know," snapped the hag.

Ugh, seriously. Get over yourself. But that wasn't the worst of it or what made her a poser. What made her a giant fake was that when she was at the cash register, she turned to the cashier and said with blowhard hippie breathiness:

"Namaste."

OH, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I'm sure if she wasn't carrying grocery bags she would have made the little prayer hands gesture along with it too.

Here's a fact for you: All the hemp milk, bamboo skirts and Sanskrit in the world can't make you an enlightened, spiritual being if you act like a self-centred d-bag to random strangers.

The other encounter, in the very same store, was brief but also indicative of why people hate vegans (and possibly Torontonians). As she was walking by the (organic, ethically raised) meat, a woman plugged her nose, glared at the man who was stocking it and quite audibly said, "SICK."

Again: SHUT THE FUCK UP. If you don't want to eat meat, fine, but the enemy isn't the business that buys pasture-raised beef. And if we're talking about things that inspire nose-plugging and gagging, consider adding your armpits to the list.

Because I can never steer far away from things vintage, I looked to see if some vegans have always been horrible or if it's just a new age thing. It's not. Check out this January 1953 article from the Milwaukee Sentinel:

Ugh. "You're addicted to the taste of dead flesh." Bah. You really think that will influence people to give up meat and go veg? Think anyone wants to be just like you?

Be the change, people. And learn to laugh at yourself while you're at it.

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Turning Over A New (Kale) Leaf

Hello! It feels like it's been forever, right? What can I say - I'm slightly addicted to Rocket Mania very busy and important.

Our new home still isn't pretty enough for the kind people of the Internet to judge, so no pics of the new place yet. The big hold-up is that we're waiting on some very necessary storage furniture to arrive. Right now the whole place has a Dude In A Dorm Room vibe thanks in large part to our various Rubbermaid containers strewn about the place. Talk about versatility; one in the centre of the room becomes a coffee table, and a stack of them double as lousy and confusing installation art (is there any other kind?)!

Until very recently, the Dude In A Dorm Room look was fully completed with a fridge (rather, freezer and cupboard) filled with Junk Foods From Hell. The process of selling our condo got us into awful, embarrassing eating habits that we gleefully brought with us to our new home. While we weren't eating out as much, we were, unfortunately, still going for those uber convenience "foods". I'm talking frozen pizzas, hot dogs, chips, dips ... and recently, a new low: A couple weeks ago, I brought home some purple stuff. Oh, the shame.

And then a week ago I found my scale in a box and for a self-hating lark, I stepped on it right there and then.

SWEET MOTHER OF LARD.

I'll put it this way; if I lost HALF my bodyweight, I'd be a very tiny, knobby-kneed, angry person - but probably not dead. And that is ... disturbing (and admittedly a strange way to gauge one's health).

This, paired with some truly unfortunate pictures of me that were taken recently at the Byck Family Reunion that I instantly untagged from Facebook like a fat assassin, has kicked me into gear. So ... I'm going back to a whole foods, largely raw vegan (but not totally) way of eating while incorporating more healthy holistic habits into my day. Don't worry - I won't be turning this into a diet blog - the world has too many of those as it is - but this post is a warning that I might yap about green juices, poor attempts at yoga and how much I hate attractive people ... more often than usual.

I'll be taking cues from Kris Carr, Alicia Silverstone (as if!), and other purveyors of random hippie nonsense - all to be taken with heaps of (ethically procured Pink Himalayan) salt.

It's about to get crunchy in here.

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It Really IS Greener On The Other Side

Ever since I did the 50s Housewife Experiment, I've been striving to make healthier and more conscious food choices. After having eaten the 1950s way for two weeks, I keep envisioning all the gelatin, canned vegetables and flour-drenched meat still globbing onto my colon like a bunch of skeevy remoras.

When my father-in-law passed away, all healthy intentions went out the door for a couple weeks and we lived off the goodness of others who brought trays of food over to my mother-in-law's house. People were so kind and generous that nearly every surface of the home had food on it.

As my brother-in-law cleverly observed, "nothing says 'sorry for your loss' like little triangle sandwiches and cubes of cheese."

Ha.

Anyway, when people pour their hearts into food for you during a difficult time like that, you don't stop and ask them if they know if the ham in those sandwiches were factory-farmed or if they could make that lasagna in a vegetarian version next time. No, you don't say that unless you're a sack of crap. Instead, you are so grateful and awed by their kindness that you take their gifts with wholehearted appreciation.

But we've been back home for a while and it's high time that we return to healthful, whole eating. I've been pretty good this week, but today is officially (or maybe not "officially", I have no idea. Do hippies ever fill in the paperwork to make things official?) Green Smoothie Day.

The concept is simple: Take some fruit, take some leafy greens, add a bit of water and blend. Add in extras to suit your taste. The result is a tasty and all-natural fibre, vitamin, mineral and water-rich drink that can easily replace one of your meals. You'll feel better, get loads of veg and fruit for a meal and maybe even drop a pound or two if you drink them consistently.

I've decided to join the BiG Green Smoothie 10-day Challenge and make smoothies a part of my day during that time. You can obviously just do it and not pay, but I'm kicking in $10 to the cause as all the money goes to help a cute girl's club in NY. Yay for being good at such an affordable rate.

In anticipation of Green Smoothie Day, I've 'been on' green smoothies for most of last week, experimenting with what I like best. My favourite green smoothie thus far is:

• Pineapple (about a quarter of a fresh pineapple, chopped up)
  
• One frozen banana
• A third of a large cucumber (if it isn't organic, peel it. Leave the peel on if it is organic)
• A whole bunch of kale leaves (a couple handfuls)
• A bunch of cilantro
• A couple tablets of chlorella (totally optional)
  
• A tablespoon of bee pollen (totally optional)
• Some water (maybe 1/2 a cup)

It's really yummy. I swear. Yes, it smells a touch 'green' (not quite like grass, not quite like a salad) but it tastes like tasty, tasty fruit.

Not totally convinced? Well, here's the bonus:

Big, long, green poops.

(and that's the real tie-in to today's blog title. It's OK, look back - or up - to see what it is. I don't expect you to remember such things.)

When I drink green smoothies, my poops are truly epic. If it wasn't for a fear that this site would get flooded by people who have certain fetishes, I would totally post a picture of one of my green toilet babies for you all to admire. Even if you're not the type who is impressed with a good poop (my god, what DOES please you?), these would captivate you for at least, like, five seconds before you turned away and pretended to be disgusted. It's like that scene in Contact when Jodi Foster lands on the other planet and whispers in awe, "they should have sent ... a poet." Yah, that. These poops are muses.

And - that - my friends, is my pitch for you to try a green smoothie. Amazing that the marketing agency I was with let me walk away, right?

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The Recent Stuff

While "The Wifestyle" (a modern housewife experiment) isn't officially on (but will be soon - must develop my "rules" and post them) - I have been attempting to keep two things up:

• Keeping the house semi-presentable
• Preparing more vegetarian and vegan homemade foods

As for the homemaking aspect, I haven't exactly been "50s Housewife good" with it, but the messes get knocked down a lot quicker than they did before. Our kitchen table has amazingly not yet reverted back into The Island of Misfit Mail, Purse Contents and Other Junk and the bed gets made each morning. If someone were to tell me they were coming over, I'd probably only need about 25 minutes to get the place guest-worthy (presuming I hadn't just made dinner. The kitchen seems to explode into a tremendous mess after each meal) . I think this is all pretty good considering I've been busy with freelance work for the last while. Hurray for me for finally acting like the adult I supposedly am.

When it comes to our meals, I've been a-ok about putting together a few things, although it could be better. The previous night's meal of veggie chips and candy during the True Blood premiere wasn't exactly a high point - but the rest hasn't been so bad. Some of these eats were served with a standard green / garden salad, but I really should try to keep more lettuce in the house to make it a given ...

A meal from last week included some wine from organic grapes, salad and homemade vegan / veggie pizza. Half the pizza had goat cheese and half went without. Dessert was homemade poppy seed cake (not vegan - it contained eggs) decorated lightly with icing and edible violets:

The next day, I made a vegan sweet potato and black bean breakfast burrito with homemade salsa from The Get Healthy, Go Vegan Cookbook by Dr. Neal Barnard. This cookbook features primarily low-fat vegan recipes. Patrick mowed it down but didn't go for his usual second serving - I'm guessing because it was so dense and filling (and not just because he was indulging in his secret stash of Doritos that I'm not supposed to know about). Dinner was a vegan mixed-vegetable pasta and salad. Would have liked to have used whole grain pasta but didn't have any left:


By this point, I was feeling like we were overloading on gluten, so I decided to go for a raw vegan food day (I'll explain raw vegan eating in another post, but simply, it's gluten and soy-free fruit, veg, nuts and certain grains that haven't been heated above 105 F). I mainly had fruit in the day, including my first dragon fruit. On appearances, it's very cartoonish and reminds me of something you'd imagine Mario and Luigi throwing at King Koopa. The taste is similar to kiwi but much milder. As I discovered later, our bodies don't really process those little black seeds. To share in my experience, just imagine what the lovechild of Mr. Hankey and a strawberry would look like. Did you properly visualize that? Good - on with more tasty food talk! For dinner, I made Ani Phyo's raw pad thai salad using kelp noodles. Even though I told him it was a salad, Patrick was irked by the fact that it was cold and didn't eat more than a couple bites. Oh well. I suppose getting him to eat dragon fruit (which I did by literally spoon feeding him like a suspicious baby) was enough to ask of a picky, non-adventurous eater for one day:

For the first time since before the 50s housewife experiment, we got take-out the other night. We decided to try an Indian place called Veda. They specialize in "healthier" Indian food (lower fat) and highlight the vegetarian and vegan eats on their menu. We opted to try the Saag Paneer, Chana Masala, Butter Tofu, Vegetable Basmati Rice and Naan. I won't lie - I've definitely had better. While it was flavourful and packed with spice, I really do love the full fat yumminess of Butter Chicken Tofu. However, it seemed to improve the next day as leftovers, and as you can see from a certain someone's thumbs up in the pic, Patrick enjoyed it and that's all that matters.

Then, last night, we had leftovers along with some summer rolls I made with rice paper, rice vermicelli and veggies (carrots, red pepper, snow peas, and green onion) served with a soy-vinegar-sesame oil dip. They were very tasty, but next time I make them, I'm going to omit the vermicelli and use greens to fill it up.
Going forward, I'm going to try to make meals that feature more greens and a bit less gluten. Probably attempt some more raw dishes, too. We're also going to ban chips, pop and other junk from entering the house for the next little while. Basically, I'm creating Patrick's nightmare - and you're all invited!

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It Ain't Meat, Babe

Last night I decided to cook a vegan meal for Patrick (and myself, of course). It's from The Conscious Cook - and a demo of this recipe can be seen here.

Now, I'm not totally wild about using soy products - there's a fair bit of debate on whether soy is truly good for you - so this isn't going to be standard fare 'round these parts. Plus, there's practically nothing local or fresh about this particular dish - it's actually quite processed when you think about it.

Oh, but it's pretty. And a certain someone who announced he wasn't interested in vegan food hoovered this dish down at such a rate that it gave James Dyson chills.

"Is this healthy?" Patrick asked me in those rare moments between bites.

"Umm ... well, not exactly," said the wife.

"But there's no meat in this, right?" he asked. "Or dairy or eggs or anything?"

"True - but just because something is vegan, doesn't mean it's healthy. I mean, I bet Doritos are vegan but you wouldn't ..."

"DORITOS ARE VEGAN?!?" he squealed.

Ah, crap.

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Sneak Peak of the Modern Eats

To clean the pipes from the 50s Housewife Experiment and to get both myself and my husband to a healthier place, I'll be making meals throughout the Modern Housewife Experiment (which I think I'm just going to call "The Wifestyle" - thoughts?) that are primarily vegan or vegetarian, local, seasonal, whole and homemade. It won't be perfect - and I'm sure you'll see a few things that fly squarely in the face of everything listed (we be human) - but the overall intention is there.

Yesterday's trip to the farmer's market netted many a tasty item. Today I made a "slow supper" containing loads of locally-grown produce. It took me the bulk of the afternoon to do everything, but it was a nice, relaxing way to spend a Sunday - and we have great leftovers from this all as well!

First, I made Pistou Soup, using a recipe from the Food Network's Laura Calder (I like her, but everyone who's ever mentioned her to me talks about their HATRED for this woman. I think it all stems from her what-is-that / what-are-you-trying-to-be accent. Any thoughts on this, Canadian TV snarkers?). This is one of my favourite soups - and it's so basic and lovely. Since the veg was all organic and I'm lazy peels contain a lot of fibre and nutrients, I didn't peel the potatoes or carrots (just gave them a good scrub). I also used plain ol' water rather than vegetable stock and skipped topping the soup with Parmesan. I made a very simple pesto with just fresh basil and olive oil (didn't bother with adding pine nuts or cheese - which is often normally included) to dollop on top. The only non-local ingredients used for this soup were the white kidney beans, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Next up (or, actually, while I was doing the soup), I made the Fresh Rosemary Focaccia from the cookbook Veganomnicon. I opted to use half white and half whole-wheat flour. Really yum, although the only truly local ingredient in it was the fresh rosemary. Maybe I should look into an Ontario flour mill ... ugh ... effort.

Finally, I got cracking on the 'fill' for the sandwich. It contained my homemade pesto, eggplant, roasted red peppers (done in the oven super easily - I also keep their skins on when serving them), sauteed mushrooms and sauteed leeks.

I "made up" this sandwich, but for the eggplant, I used a cooking method that I found in Vegetarian Times's Farmer's Market Cookbook (which is really just a magazine, but whatev). This is their trick: After you let the sliced eggplant 'sweat' a little (set the slices in a colander, sprinkle with salt and leave them for 45 minutes), pat them dry. Then with a really, really minimal amount of olive oil, lightly brown one side of the eggplants in a large frying pan over medium heat. You then flip them, pour some white wine vinegar on top, pop the lid on, and let it cook until all the vinegar has evaporated. Done! Yummy pan-fried look and taste without a lot of added fat.

Throw your fill ingredients all together in the focaccia (layer your veggies or mix them together - whatever you want!), broil it a bit to warm everything and you have dinner! The only non-local stuff used to make the sandwich stuffing was olive oil, vinegar and salt (used in the cooking process).
For Patrick's sandwich (not pictured), I gave him a generous slice of mozzarella cheese made from the sheep at Bestbaa Farm (their farm is 100 clicks NW of the city but they sell their milk, cheese and lamb at the St. Lawrence Farmer's Market on Saturdays). Patrick is on board with vegetarian foods, but giving up cheese, milk and eggs is going to be a bit tougher for that boy. I figure as long as I buy products from happy, healthy, local animals - and we don't use loads of it - we're still eating conscientiously (that said, I'll be seeing how he feels when he eats dairy-free - sometimes he gets stuffed up all of a sudden and I wonder if it's a milk thing).

In any case - he loved it all as did I. The meal was really filling and earthy with great flavour. While he enjoyed the mozza on the sandwich, I think feta cheese would have been really nice too. Might pick some up from the goat farmers next week...

Off to enjoy the last hours of the weekend ...

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