3/12/12: We're going on a date tomorrow!! A real date. We will be joining the ranks of civilized people who eat without having to wrangle a 2 yr old while trying to enjoy a decent meal. We haven't had a real date in months. The last time we tried to spend some time alone we ended up dropping the munchkin off at the sitters and coming back home to watch TV. You can hardly call that a date. There is only one problem. I'm still not eating any kind of animal product. How will I be able to resist the cheese?? The soft and pungent Robiola or the nutty Pecorino.
Eating out on a plant based diet hasn't been difficult yet. In the past two weeks we have eaten twice at Native Foods in Aliso Viejo. Native Foods is a cafe that serves vegan food made from scratch. If it wasn't for this lenten experiment that we're conducting we would've never given Native Foods the time of day. Remember how I said I was going to try away from "fake" foods like vegan cheese and anything that slightly resembled a "real" food. Well, this restaurant has proved me wrong. They make an excellent seitan meatball sandwich, and their burger is not bad, not bad at all.
We also ate at Seabirds food truck, which basically serves vegan street food. I had a fried avocado taco, with a garlic aioli, and cole slaw. Their sweet potato fries were good, but the kale, apple, and currant salad was the best. Even though a fried avocado taco isn't exactly healthy it was a nice treat. Who knew vegans could be unhealthy as well??
This week we made:
- Falafel, Cucumber, Lettuce & Tahini Pita Pockets
- Spicy Red Lentil Daal and Brown Basmati Rice
- Ribollita
- Krispy Kale, Coconut, Tofu & Brown Rice in a Sesame Soy Dressing
- Cocoa Peanut Vegan Cookies
I have been looking for good vegan recipe sites or blogs and I came across HealthyHappyLife. The pictures are beautiful and the recipes I've tried so far have been excellent. They have a huge vegan recipe index with everything from breakfast to dessert.
3/14: Dinner last night was great. I was weak and ended up eating all kinds of deliciousness. It was worth it.
Mushroom Fajitas
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp. Oil (optional)
- 1 lb. Button mushrooms sliced 1/4 in. thick
- 1 lb. Portobello mushrooms sliced 1/4 in. thick
- 1 Yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 5 Garlic cloves, minced
- 2 ½ tbsp. Soy sauce
Instructions
- Set a large sauté pan to medium-high heat. Pour in oil. Add mushrooms when pan is hot and cook for about 3-5 min, until all the liquid released by the mushrooms has evaporated and they are golden brown
- Remove mushrooms from pan.
- Add onion into the pan and cook for 2-3 min. until slightly browned. Add garlic and peppers. Cook for 3-4 min. more or until the peppers are tender.
- Place mushrooms back in the pan. Pour in soy sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for 1-2 min.
- Serve with tortillas, guacamole and roasted tomato salsa.
Notes
Nutrition
Looks yumm! Cannot wait to make this for dinner.. the husband loves fajitas and am always trying to get more vegetables into our diet.
Thanks for stopping by my blog!
Thank you!
Dora,
What is your reason for going vegan? We are trying to eat %60 raw for better health. Also, cheese, yogurt and keifer made with milk, are animal products, but these products have been fermented which is really great for the gut.
Keep in mind that a lot of soy is highly processed making it not very healthy. Did you see my FB link on soy?
http://greensmoothiegirl.com/nutrition-manifesto/the-danger-of-soy-products/
DH still wants meat, so I cook less of it and only for dinner. We now have green smoothies for lunch on the weekend and often times for an evening snack. I have a green smoothie each day for lunch and we do fruit smoothies for breakfast. On weekends we do bacon, eggs and toast on Sat and whole wheat waffles, pancakes or french toast on Sundays.
I am trying to avoid buying anything that comes in a box or jar which is highly refined(sp) and processed.
Best of luck.
Hugs, Stacey
Stacey,
W
We watched a documentary, Forks Over Knives, on the importance of eating a whole foods plant based diet. So it's not really vegan, since vegans do it for political reasons and we don't mind eating animals at all. Right now we're doing it for lent and we're not using any kind of animal products. We're also doing whole foods, so minimal packaged and processed stuff. When we eat soy products we eat mostly tofu, and I haven't been using meat substitutes. We did try it at Native Foods, but I think it's probably better to eat a good piece of fish than all that processed meat substitute. Are your girls liking your the changes to your meal plan?? We still haven't decided what we'll do when lent is over, but we'll see. What websites or blogs have you been using for recipes??