Thanks, Mom!

There's a whole world of San Francisco outside of my little corner of the Richmond that I hardly ever see.  I walk 8 blocks from home to work every day, and sometimes venture 6 blocks in the other direction after work for yoga, but besides that, it's mostly neighborhood restaurants, Trader Joes, and the occasional trip to the Kabuki or downtown for shopping.  

But there's this magical place called the Mission, where there are not one or two but many vegan restaurants, plentiful sun, no parking and a colorful array of homeless people.  I may have to overcome my fear of the latter two things (a homeless guy threw a pigeon at Kevin's head once!!!) because the food and the sun are lovely.

I had lunch today at Gracias Madre, an entirely vegan mexican restaurant with my coworker Scott.  And of course, I forgot to photograph the food.  (Plus I feel goofy about doing that in public.)  But we sat on the nice warm patio and I had some delightful veggie tacos, refried black beans and green juice.  And this picture happened:

And then she was vegan
Photo by Scott Reed 

I'm sure the name of the restaurant has more to do with thanking mother earth than with thanking, for example, my mother, but I love the idea (and the visual) of being thankful for the bounty we've been provided with, whatever the case may be.

I know my mom suffered at the hands of my willful pickiness, but it was reassuring to have her there, gardening, canning and cooking throughout my childhood.  Even when I didn't fully appreciate her efforts, and certainly did not want to taste them, they shaped who I was and who I have become.

I've long been told that I resemble my mother, and she and I have even discussed that moment, when you hear your own voice or look in the mirror and think "I AM MY MOTHER!!"  In some cases that proclamation is accompanied by a tone of dread or defeat, but for me, it's more a sense of surprise, or awe.  We may think we are unique, special, one of a kind, but sometimes we are history, we are family, we are a just pile of genes that say "brown hair, distinctive laugh, German temper, and fingers like tiny icicles".

Gracias, Madre!

Let there be Berley

I have trouble remembering to take pictures.  Plus, I'm not a very skilled photographer, so it makes it much more difficult to blog about food.  But I've been cooking up a storm.  Of awesome.

I recently decided to listen to my sister (Lisa) who has been trying to get me to love Peter Berley for ages.  I started reading through "The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen" (from the library) on my flight home from Boston and ordered my own copy as soon as I got home.  I made two recipes in a row this week.

Since Lisa and I were talking about her love for tempeh, I thought I'd share the Moroccan-Style Vegetable Tagine with Chamoula-Baked Tempeh:

While I would tweak a few things when I make it again, I thought it was pretty tasty!  And it's a bit time consuming for a weeknight dinner, but if you plan ahead you can work as you go.  I served this with brown rice, but any grain would be good. And luckily I liked it pretty well despite (my) flaws (see below), because Kevin is out of town til Friday, so I'll be eating three meals worth of leftovers by myself. 

Moroccan-Style Vegetable Tagine with Chamoula-Baked Tempeh

The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen

For the tempeh:

1/2 cup Olive oil 

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup chopped parsley

6 Tbsp lemon juice

4 cloves garlic

2.5 tsp sea salt

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp paprika

2 tsp cayenne

1 lb tempeh, cut into 1 inch cubes

For the Tagine:

2 Tbsp Olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

2 celery ribs, diced

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced

2 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole

2 tsp Salt

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp caraway seeds

1 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 pepper

2 cups chopped green cabbage

1.5 cups water

1 cup diced tomatoes

1 zucchini

chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 350F

Whisk ingredients for the tempeh together in a bowl. Arrange the tempeh cubes in a single layer in a baking dish. Pour the marinade over the tempeh and cover securely with foil.  Bake for 35 or 40 minutes, until the tempeh has absorbed the marinade. Uncover and bake several minutes longer to brown. (**I messed this step up because I only had 8oz of tempeh, and halved all of the ingredients except the lemon juice.  So I had too much marinade and it was waaaay too strong... I ended up baking for closer to an hour but the marinade never fully absorbed and the tempeh never browned.)

To prepare the tagine, warm the oil in a 3-quart saucepan over med heat. Add onions and next 5 ingredients (through salt). Turn the veggies over in the oil, raise the heat and bring to a simmer (Hey Peter, how do you simmer w/o any liquid??) Cover, reduce the heat to low and cook for 20 minutes.

Add spices, along with cabbage, water, tomatoes and zucchini.  Raise the heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for 20-30 minutes, until the veggies are tender and the tagine has thickened. (I might reduce the amount of water or simmer at a higher temp next time because it took about 45 minutes for this thicken for me)

Adjust the seasonings with salt or a squeeze of lemon juice to taste. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Sometimes you can't eat at home

This vegan thing is pretty darn easy.  Especially when I get to eat or at least prepare all my meals at home.  Even our weekly catered Friday lunch at work has a (usually) reasonable vegan option.  But eating out in the world is a different story. It turns out in most parts of the country, even those places that are vegetarian friendly have no idea what to do with vegans.

I'm in Boston currently at a conference, where the organizers were kind enough to provide meals to presenters, and there have been fairly reasonable options for vegan (or veganizable... yup, it's a word) lunches and dinners, however breakfasts and snacks have consisted primarily of baked goods.  Delicious, buttery, eggy baked goods. And so I err on the side of caution (see: hungry) in most cases.

I'm still figuring out when I care to ask questions (was this cooked in butter?) and when I'm ok just turning a blind eye. I haven't decided how outlandish I'm willing to be with "hold" requests (Could I get the "Three Egg Omelette" with mushrooms, peppers and broccoli... hold the eggs?).  This whole "living in the real world" business is hard!

Let there be cookies

Clearly my first food related blog post on my blog about (relatively) healthy eating must be dessert related.  Kevin has been a real sport about this vegan thing, not least of all because I've fallen hard for the idea of vegan baking.  The man loves his cheese and scrambled eggs as much or more than the next fellow, but Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles, he can really embrace.

And clearly picky Lori would approve as well.

I will say that I've cut back on sweets in general, but I am partial to a little bit of chocolate at the end of the day.  With the vegan thing, it's harder to just grab a chocolate bar off the shelf and assume it's safe.  It's much easier to bake your own sweets.  And thus far, much, much tastier.

Hello World! Or, why I'm blogging.

I was a very picky kid.  There were entire food groups (fruit), colors (green) and textures (mushy, soggy, wet) that I refused to consume. And when I say "kid", I don't mean elementary school or a couple years as an especially willful preteen.  I did not even begin to emerge from my picky shell until I was in my early 20s, and it's been a long slow process.

There were many ways I stubbornly perpetuated my pickiness.  When I was younger, my mother, facing her own frustrations, and reacting to the well-intentioned advice of friends, family (and likely medical professionals) tried all the tactics in the book: "Just try one bite!", "If you don't eat your [insert vegetable here] you won't get any dessert!" or "You're not leaving the table until you eat your [thing I was never, ever going to try]!".  This meant war, and in a battle of food-related wills, my wills usually won out.  My own tactics ranged from the relatively benign, like forgoing dessert, pushing food around on my plate to make it look like I'd tried it, or sneaking the offending item with me to bathroom and flushing it down the toilet to the more dramatic, like staying at the table past my bedtime, or even (once!) making myself throw up all over my plate.  My mother eventually let me make my own alternate meal if I didn't like what was being served, which suited me just fine.

I did, however like most things crunchy, sweet, and/or carb laden.  And especially once I started college and moved out on my own, I indulged my every mega-processed whim. Ice cream cones on the daily! Fried rice! Ordering pizza every other week! And my personal fav, crescent dogs (hot dogs + cheese + crescent rolls)! Not a vegetable to be found in my fridge. And I rationalized my eating habits by the fact that somehow I didn't really gain much weight.

So how did this picky kid end up craving kale, downing green juice and even flirting with veganism? Dating (and then marrying) a vegetarian helped start the transition.  Also as I grew up a little (imagine that!) and wanted to be healthier, more fit, etc.  I started eating vegetables, and found that I liked most of them!  I began running, at first to achieve my long-held goal of running the 2008 Race to Robie Creek, a local legend of a race in Boise, Idaho and then going on to run 3 more half marathons and 4 marathons in the interceding 5 years (half #5 is scheduled for two weeks from today, and marathon #5 is May 5).

I still love carbs, wine and all things chocolate, but in the past 8 months I've really started paying closer attention to portion sizes, calories in and out, servings of fruit and veggies and all manners of boring things like that.  Seriously, I don't know how my husband can tolerate me.  But I've lost almost 30 pounds of "lazy weight" and dropped at least 2 minutes per mile off my average run pace.  And as of January 1 (cliche much?) I've kept pretty much (but not uber dogmatically) vegan.

I'm planning to use this blog to document yummy vegan (and probably non-vegan) things I cook, as well as running stuff, and miscellaneous happenings in the life of my little Donovan clan.