Settled and Cooking

I'm finally feeling human and I hit the grocery store for a few oddities yesterday.  Mainly of all the odd things -- poultry seasoning for my seitan.  Fruit and some juice.  Some things for the meat eaters and that is about all.  It was a quick trip.

Tonight we're trying the "ribs" from the 500 recipes book.  I have our favorite sauce ready.

I'm also wondering about something.  I bought the book Simply Heavenly (The Monastery Vegetarian Cookbook) by Abbot George Burke. He has a lot of seitan recipes in the book but some of the cooking methods seem so time consuming.  I guess they need to be weekend projects.  Does anyone else have this book?

What have we been eating?

My son called from school at 3:30 last Thursday morning -- sick with a stomach bug.  By 8:30 we had him home and I spent two days coddling him and by Sunday he was well.  By Sunday evening I wasn't so well.  Apparently the "flu" is going around his campus...and even a lot of professors have been out.  Ick!!!!

My poor hubby has eaten a lot of peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  We've all eaten a lot of fried rice type dishes, but blander than usual.  In all honesty, my daughter and I have skipped most meals because of the ickies.

However, I'm feeling 50% alive and I'm hoping to eat some real food today.  Real as in more fried rice because it is settling on my stomach.

Thanks for all the tips on adding more things in.  I do have the 500 recipes book, but not the other. I'm going to order it for myself because I'm not giving up on this.

Struggling

I'm struggling to find meals with enough "substance" to satisfy my hubby.  I really, really need some advice on how to plan vegan meals that will fill him up and make him not leave the table wanting "something else."

Our Trip

I didn't really feel great while we were on our trip so I spent all my time snuggled in.

Meals were pretty simple.
On the ride we had veggie burgers from BK.  Not sure if they are vegan or not, but we decided it was the best we could find and still ride. (We were late leaving..lol)

At the resort there was a pretty good restaurant that also did the room service .
I had potatoes with onions for breakfast.  Not fancy, but filling.  Most of the breakfast foods had either meats or cheese.
For lunch I had a veggie wrap -- tomato and basil wrap filled with grilled veggies and an order of fries.
For supper we didn't do as well.  Dh didn't want anything the restaurant had to offer and he went out and picked up vegetarian pizza complete with cheese.  It was the first time I'd eaten anything out of "range" since I started and ironically I felt rather guilty about it

I've been careful to eat extra veggies and try to cleanse my system since I got back.

Photoless St. Patrick's Day

We had a slow St. Patrick's Day.  I was down on the couch with a head cold, but I did get up and fix a simple supper.  I was slack and forgot to take photos though.


Our meal --
steamed cabbage
stewed potaotes
sliced tomatoes
sliced cucumbers
raw carrots
apple tart of sorts made with puff pastry

I'm glad to say I'm feeling a little better this morning.  I've had a day time medicine added and I'm ready to face the world.

This weekend we'll be facing a new challenge.  We'll be out of town for meetings until Saturday and I'm not sure where we're going to eat.

First Bread with Okara and Chatter

Our first bread with Okara turned out okay.  It wasn't as fluffy as my bread usually is -- more of a dense bread.  It was great with a bowl of hot veggie soup.  I'm not completely satisfied with the results, so I'll continue to tweak the recipe until I get what I'm looking for or give up.

The recipe I used was one I found online.  I tweaked it as I went, because the original was not vegan.

Here's what I did.  I put it in this order in the Zojirushi Bread Machine.  When I make the next loaf I will probably use the mixer and bake the bread in the oven.  I'm also going to try white wheat flour.

1 cup of soy milk

1 cup of wet okara

 1 1/2 tsps salt

2 tbsp of olive oil

2 tbsp of sugar

3 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour

2/3 cup of rolled oats

2 1/4 tsps of yeast

Bake on wheat cycle in machine.  Makes one large loaf. 

Now for the chatter -- I hit the small local grocery store yesterday and found a few things they haven't had before and one or two things grown in our state.  So that was nice.  They had Jasmine Rice for the first time ever!  They had collards grown locally so I picked up a large bag of them.  They also had great prices on potatoes, cabbage, squash, zucchini, and ....well you get the picture.  We have a whole refrigerator full of fresh veggies and fruit to eat up this week.

I'm not doing a menu because we'll be gone for 3 days this week.  So it is just a cook up what needs to be cooked up kind of week. 

Shopping and Rice Milk

I was excited to find some "veggie chicken patties" that are vegan so I bought a package to try.  They are "grilled chicken" and I will serve them on buns with the usual suspects like tomato, lettuce, pickles and mustard. 

I found blueberries and raspberries.  I ate some of the berries in some brown rice cereal and they were fabulous!

I also made our first batch of rice milk this morning.  We're trying to alternate between the soy and the rice.  I definitely like the soy better...lol.

My supplies from Amazon came and I'm hoping to try my hand at "turkey" on Sunday.