Vegan Before Dinnertime: Day 10

My fresh fruit and vegetable intake has skyrocketed. I'm not sure I've ever eaten this much produce in such a short amount of time. And I'm really digging it. Reasons:

1) It's been a whole new experience, walking into a grocery store and restricting myself to the produce section. There's a lot - a LOT - I have habitually overlooked. I have, for example, rediscovered kiwis. I also hope I am slowly learning how to pick out the best and freshest fruit and vegetables. I hadn't realized how much my knowledge in this area was lacking until I took home what turned out to be a very sub-par honeydew melon. Need to read up on how to pick those.

2) As a follow-up to #1, I think spending a lot more time with fresh produce is helping me as a cook. I find myself thinking of ways to use, say, carrots - when I definitely was not doing that before! Either as the main focus of the meal or as a side - I am giving produce much more attention in meal planning than I was before.

3) I suspect my stomach is shrinking a little, which means it's now taking less to make me feel full. I've been slowly moving away, anyway, from 2 or 3 large meals to smaller meals and more snacking, but trying this vegan thing is accelerating that process. I hadn't really realized the extent to which this was happening until Matt and I had dinner at Chipotle over the weekend. My standard Chipotle order is three crispy tacos, and I had usually felt just full enough after all three. This last time, though, I was starting to feel full after the second one, and I had been really hungry when we walked in!

4) It's great not having that post-lunch lag! No more feeling sluggish or comatose in the afternoon after a big lunch. I'm not really eating "lunch" at work - just snacking all day - but nothing I'm eating is heavy and I feel like I gained a chunk of the day back.

5) I enjoy dinner more now - and actively look forward to it - since I know it's my treat. And I don't feel guilty about whatever I'm eating for dinner, even if it's takeout Chinese food or a fried fish and chips basket. Related side benefit - I find myself wanting to cook full dinners a little more often since scrounging in the fridge isn't very satisfying when it's your one "anything goes" meal of the day. So Matt is loving this, since it means he has to scrounge less. :P

6) I don't beat myself up on the days where I don't stick entirely to vegan food before dinner. Last week, for example, I had the rare opportunity to go to lunch with my dad, so I took it. I didn't restrict myself to the salads on the menu, but at the same time the heavier dishes - pastas, etc. - just didn't appeal. I ended up selecting something light but not vegan (fish tacos, if you're curious). So I don't adhere to the vegan dictum perfectly every day - the code is more a set of guidelines than actual rules. But what I want to eat even when I'm not adhering has changed.

7) All this fresh fruit and veggies are giving my intestinal system a good scrubbing. Enough said.

8) I feel better overall. Not in any particularly definable way, but just *better*.

I think I need to do this a while longer before I see any benefits in terms of weight loss. Although I also need to fit exercise into the day more consistently than I do.

Chili

Chili is great and can only be made better by beer, right?  Yes.  

I have never found a good standby chili recipe, but then I haven't looked very hard since Richard doesn't care for chili.  This recipe was Richard pre-approved because it forced me to buy stout.  

This proved a good basic recipe but I did alter it a little.

First of all, the recipe as written is enormous.  Five pounds of beef?  I definitely don't need that much.  So, the first thing I did was to cut the recipe in half.  Even then, however, the proportion of beef to beans/chili seemed off.  So this is what I did.  I replaced ground chuck-which of course cooks down substantially-with leaner ground round.  I also used only one pound of ground round, which was just the right amount.  An added benefit of the leaner meat is that you don't have to drain it.  

From the perspective of the vegetables, I thought the recipe would have been better served written in cups rather than pounds.  I used about 3/4 of a large white onion, and a whole medium red and a medium yellow bell pepper.  

We bought a four-pack of the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, so I used probably less than 1/4 of the bottle, which I thought was just right.  

Seasoning-wise, I added some salt and a little more cumin.  I also added just the slightest touch of cinnamon, which I think helps warm up the flavor a bit.

Delicious result.  

Vegan Before Dinnertime: Day 2

I got the idea for trying this from Mark Bittman. The idea is simple - go vegan during the day, no meats, dairy or otherwise uber-processed foods - and eat pretty much what you want for dinner.

Meg and I are trying this for two weeks, starting yesterday.

Since I work full time and don't get to cook dinner every night of the week, cooking separate vegan dishes for work lunches isn't really feasible for me. So I'm doing more or less the "raw vegan" thing until dinner, and snacking pretty exclusively on fresh fruits and veggies at the office.

As of day 2, I've already eaten more fresh produce than I'd eat in an average month. I'm being honest here - I'm not a big fruit or veggie person. But I've done 3 apples, 2 bananas and a 1 lb. bag of baby carrots. Compared to my standard diet, this is significant.

What I am most curious about is how I feel after a few weeks of this - if I have more energy, for example, or think more clearly. We'll see.

Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake

I have never been a fan of pumpkin pie, much less pecan pie-which I find revolting.  So at Thanksgiving I'm just screwed.  I will eat pumpkin pie to be polite, but I really don't care for it.  I will under no circumstances eat pecan pie, since I think it would be most impolite to gag.  Solution: Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake.  That's right.  Liquor and pumpkin together at last.

I searched for several recipes for this cheesecake, and I have to admit that the decorative properties of this one made the decision for me.

I didn't notice until too late, i.e. after I'd already purchased an 8" springform pan, that she uses a regular cake pan.  Oh well.  I don't think it would make that much difference.

I made the unfortunate error of assembling this cake on a time crunch, so I didn't get to follow the recipe exactly.  Instead of putting the cake in a tented water bath, I put a pan of water in the oven with the cake.  The cake came out plenty moist, but I think the tent would have prevented some of the cracking.  Although the cracking could have been more a result of the cooling "process" I used.  I put it straight in the fridge instead of cooling to room temp in the water bath.

I also did not use the sour cream topping for two reasons: 1) I didn't think I wanted that much extra sugar and calories on something already so sweet, and 2) more importantly, I did not have time.  I didn't miss the sour cream in the finished product, but if I were going to do the decorations (which I intend to do) I would use the sour cream topping just for aesthetic purposes.

So, how did it taste?  Very good.  It is definitely a superior pumpkin dessert.  However, I do think it needed more bourbon.  One tablespoon did seem too little to me, but I wanted to follow the recipe the first time. Or I could try putting some bourbon in the sour cream topping.  We'll see.

She does recommend making your own graham crackers, but come on...Who's going to do that?  I'm sure it does taste better.  I was not wild about my graham cracker crust.  I think next time I'll make the crust with ginger snaps, to add a little more depth to the finished product.

Overall, it was good, but could be better.  I like my cheesecake a little more on the tart side, so I might replace some of the cream cheese with sour cream.