Vegan Japanese Curry
Vegan Japanese Curry
A few weeks ago, we had the unfortunate experience of going out for dinner and inadvertently having a non-vegan meal. If you're vegan, it's probably happened to you too. Here's what happened in shorthand. We were Old Town Pasadena on a Saturday night and went to Curry House for dinner. We'd read reviews that their vegetarian curry was actually vegan, and I'd been craving some comfort food. There were two or three options for us on the menu and I was very optimistic. Jane was chatting with the waitress after we were done eating, and discovered that the curry sauce is made with chicken stock! She explained to the waitress that chicken stock is not vegetarian, and we were offered a free drink, but still. I was really bummed. I'd really been enjoying my meal and was looking forward to going there again. Obviously that's not going to happen!
Curry Mix
So, last night, Jane surprized me with homemade vegan Japanese curry. She used the S&B - Golden Curry Sauce Mix (Medium Hot)
Jane said the curry mix was easy to work with but a little bizarre. It pops out of it's plastic tray and looks a bit like a green chocolate bar. She promised me I'll get to see it next time she makes this dish. Our curry consisted of tofu, onions, orange peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and snap peas.
8 Things You Can Do To Cut Your Risk Of Cancer
According to the World Cancer Research Fund (via New Scientist Magazine), lifestyle changes could cut cancer by 1/3 in developed countries and 1/4 in developing countries.
"People think that somehow cancer comes from heaven, or Darwin, or from their parent's genes, but that's not always the case," says Michael Marmot, chair of the WCRF panel that produced the report. "A third are caused by smoking, and approximately a third are related to diet and physical activity."
Cutting the risk of cancer by a third. Sign me up. So what are the WCRFs recommendations? Nothing you haven't heard before, but they're always worth repeating.
- Be as lean as possible without being underweight. WCRF suggests shooting for the lower end of the normal range for your BMI.
- Be physically active for at least 30 minutes per day. The recommendation is actually 30 minutes of vigorous activity or 60 minutes of moderate activity. (Note to self - that doesn't include time spent blogging!)
- Limit consumption of energy-dense foods (high in fats and/or sugars, and/or low in fiber) and avoid sugary drinks. In the olden days that would have been guaranteed if you were a vegan, but today there's a proliferation of vegan junk food and vegan processed foods out there, so make smart choices!
- Eat more of a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and pulses (legumes) such as beans. "Basing our diets on plant foods (like vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, and pulses such as beans), which contain fibre and other nutrients, can reduce our risk of cancer."
- Limit consumption of red meat (such as beef, pork and lamb) and avoid processed meats. Obviously, this is not an issue for those of us eating vegan, but it's important info for our omnivorous family and friends. The WCRF recommendation is to limit consumption of meats to 500g per week.
- Limit alcoholic beverages to 2/day for men and 1/day for women.
- Limit consumption of salty foods and foods processed with salt (sodium). Our daily intake of salt should be less than 6g (2.4g sodium). To determine how much salt a food contains, multiply the sodium content by 2.5.
- Don't use supplements to protect against cancer. WCRF recommends getting nutrients thru whole foods as opposed to eating a lower quality diet and supplementing.
So while the WCRF doesn't come out and recommend a vegan diet, they do stress basing a diet on fruits, veggies, whole grains, and legumes (pulses). Easy enough to do when you are eating vegan.
Tonight Show Comic Disses Vegans
Just as the vegan community had good press on the Today Show yesterday (see yesterday's blog post Vegan Firefighters On Today), we had bad press on the Tonight Show last week.
Comedian Tom Papa did a standup routine on the show. Overall I found it rather humorous, but his wife should train him a bit better. If she really is vegetarian as he mentions, she should have him praising the diet in public.
Below follows a brief transcript of his routine. (I love the part about the billionaires.)
Here we are at the beginning of the next Great Depression. Wow, I'm looking forward to it . I'm so tired of all the old people, "we're the greatest generation, we survived the great de na na."
We can do it too, come on. How easy is it to be poor. It's fun, you don't have to get up early for work, you don't have to get up ever. It's awesome.
How about these billionaires. These billionaires are killing themselves. They're losing their money and they're killing themselves. How insulting is this? They'd rather die than live like us. "You want me to eat at Applebee's - I don't think so."
I think it's good for us. Simplify things. We're gonna be fine. We're America, we'll be fine. It'll be nice. Get joy out of the little things for a while.
Soup. I love soup. A nice chowder, a nice bisque. Get a big stale piece of bread. Gum it for weeks at a time.
I eat like that all the time. My wife's a vegetarian.
We go to vegan restaurants. Ever try that, you ever go to a vegan restaurant? Yeah, that's a bummer of a night. Talk about the Great Depression. You want to celebrate life you go to a steak house. People are filled with joy. Beer and wine, people slashing each other with knives. Blood dripping off your chin. Everybody's laughing, pounding on the tables. Ha Ha Ha Ha.You go to a vegan restaurant nobody's laughing, they're so weak they don't even have the breath. Aaah. They can't even lift the fake buffalo wing made of tofu and bark nuggets up to their mouths.
And there you have it, the stereotype of the weak, helpless vegan.
Anyway, if you'd like to check it out yourself, you can find the Tonight Show episode here. It's chapter 5 if you don't feel like watching the entire episode. It's episode 3717 and aired Friday, February 21st.
Vegan Firefighters On Today
Jane's mom is great. She's probably our biggest fan. She's got our blog in her reader and has our feed on her homepage in the number one spot. She's always touting us... praising our blog to family and friends, and probably strangers as well. (Hi mom!) And more importantly, she's always sharing vegan tidbits she's seen on television.
This morning the Today Show had a segment on the The Engine 2 Diet
According to Essylstyn, " the most basic, profound, and powerful way to take care of your health on a day-to-day basis is to eat a healthy, plant-based diet."
If you missed the show, here's a link to the story about how The Engine 2 Diet was devised, which also includes a link to the video segment.
Seitan Scaloppini
Seitan Scallopini with Lemon Caper Sauce
Jane felt like cooking today, and there's been one recipe she's been meaning to try, but it's not a weekenight recipe. By that I mean, it's involved and takes some time. She broke out the big guns today! The Scaloppini recipe comes from Susan, over at Fat Free Vegan. The only change Jane made was that she swapped out the green olives and used capers instead.
I wasn't sure what to expect. The cutlets looked reminiscent of chicken or veal cutlets. THEY WERE FANTASTIC! Jane was hoping the recipe wouldn't pan out, because it was a lot of work. But after the first bite I knew I'd want this meal again. I'm not sure, but I suspect, a meat eater wouldn't know it wasn't meat. But then, I haven't had any meat in almost two years, so I may not be the best judge of that. Jane's promised to make this dish again, and for company so we can test out my theory, but I don't suspect it will be any time soon.
Jane mentioned that she steamed the seitan (rather than wrapping it in foil), which was a little awkward, but the texture was worth it! Next to Shojin's, this is the best seitan we've had to date!
Vegan Menu At Hilton
Wow, a major hotel chain is offering both a vegan and vegetarian tasting - 7 days a week. Where can you find this gourmet vegan fare? -- At the Hilton Anatole's Nana Restaurant in Dallas, Texas. While the Carrot Marmalade served with passion fruit granita and peanuts, and the Cucumber Spaghetti with pistachio gravel, scallions, and sesame seeds, don't sound all that appealing to me, it's really exciting to hear that Hilton is offering vegan fare!
Over the two years that Jane and I have been vegan, we've noticed a "mainstreaming" of veganism. More and more products seem to be available, vegan cookbooks abound, and even Oprah's talked about it... We've still got a long way to go until we have the same options as omnivores. However, we are no longer the "weird, bark-eating" people. And, although the message that we don't need to eat animals to survive still hasn't gotten through to most people, the fact that you don't have to eat animals at every meal seems to be making some headway.
Mark Bittman And Less-Meatarianism
If Jane ever leaves me, I'll know where to find her. She'll be back in NY looking for Mark Bittman. She loves the man, even if he's older than the typical male who might turn her head. Why does she love him? Well, there's his cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
Bittman's new book, Food Matters
His message to omnivores is to be a "less-meatarian," and vegetarians should strive to be "less-dairytarians." And we should all strive for incremental (and therefore, sustainable) changes.
This is so do-able for everyone. If you've been trying to convince the people in your life to go vegan, you probably haven't met with much success. But THIS message doens't require any major "sacrifice." We can save 6 billion animals if every human cuts down their meat consumption by 10%. (And 1 billion if we get Americans to eat 10% less.) 10% doesn't seem like an unattainable goal.
Taking A Bite Out Of The Global Financial Crisis
These days, you can't look at your reader, or turn on the news, without seeing stories of financial implosion or economic crises. Then there's global warming and the costs associated with fighting climate change. All of this gives us another reason not to eat meat (at least most of the time)... Turns out that eating less meat could wipe $20 trillion off the global cost of fighting climate change.
Earlier this month, "Climate Benefits of Changing Diet" by Elke Stehfest and colleagues was published in Climactic Change, a journal out of the Netherlands. (Source: New Scientist Magazine.)
The underlying premise is that raising animals for consumption causes climate change. By cutting our consumption of animal products, much of that farmland could then be devoted to growing food crops. Vegetation helps to absorb carbon dioxide, and there would be a significant reduction in the methane gasses produced by livestock. These gasses are responsible for global warming.
The current goals to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 are 450ppm. The estimated cost to achieve this goal is $40 trillion, and it will require a 2/3 reduction in emissions..
Cutting our consumption of animal product will reduce the need for expensive retrofits, such as "clean coal" power plants and other carbon-saving technologies. It certainly seems advisable, in this economic environment, for all of our governments to consider promoting a less-meat based diet.
Of course, there are other factors which will mitigate the levels of greenhouse gasses saved by producing few animal products... Will the land be given over to vegetation or urban development? What about the increase in pesticide use to grow additional plant-based food crops? Does this report take into account any projected improvements in animal-farming technologies?
Regardless of all this, there are many reasons to consider eating less/no meat. If you haven't already done so, Jane and I would urge you to read Livestock's Long Shadow, and The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
Valentine’s Day At Shojin
Jane and I aren't really into the whole Valentine's Day thing. We've been together eleven years. It's a long enough period of time for us to have gotten to know what the other wants or expects on these kinds of holidays. For instance, I know that Jane loves it when I bring home flowers, but she can't stand the idea of the ridiculously inflated costs of flowers at this time of the year. Neither one of us believes that this is a legitimate gift-giving "holiday" - so there's no expectation that either of us is going to procure an amazing gift for the other. But there is some sense of needing to make this day a bit more out of the ordinary, we do after all, value and cherish our relationship.
Last year, for our first Vegan Valentine's Day, Jane made us a feast. This year, Shojin (our favorite vegan restaurant in the Los Angeles area) was having a set course meal which sounded wonderful, so we made reservations. By the time we got around to making our reservations, dinner was already sold out, so we took the last lunch seating.
Shojin - Salad
As usual, the food was superb. The meal started with a "three color terrine" which was red pepper, kabocha squash, and edamame in an agar-agar suspension... It was different from anything I've eaten before. Jane and I both thought the red pepper the best of the three colors. That was followed by a cauliflower carrot soup which I thought was excellent. After that we were served a green salad with roasted tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette. The roasted tomatoes were a nice surprize.
Seitan Cutlet Cordon Bleu - Shojin
For our entree, we had a choice of seitan cutlet cordon bleu with ratatouille and colorful rice, or hamburg steak with mushroom sauce and colorful rice. Shojin's seitan is spectacular, so we both ordered the cutlet. It was very good, but we both prefer the barbeque seitan.
Dessert - Shojin
Finally, there was dessert. It was a plate of three different desserts... a sesame ice cream, chocolate gateaux, and berry gelee. My favorite here was the sesame ice cream. Jane, of course, picked the chocolate as her favorite.
Whether you're an avid Valentine's Day fan, or think it's just another Hallmark holiday, we hope you had an enjoyable day.
Vegan Desserts Make The Grade
I'm continually impressed with how mainstream veganism is becoming. Sure, it's not always easy to get a vegan meal at a restaurant without "working with" your server. But it is getting easier. And the number of vegan products seems to be increasing. Now, we're even getting representation in Gourmet magazine. This week, Gourmet says:
Vegan desserts are like the pastry world's version of breast implants: The best ones are indistinguishable from their conventional counterparts. For plenty of vegan bakers, the ultimate compliment is a look of shock.
That's true for Jane. Her vegan brownies and vegan danish have met with incredulous stares when we've revealed they're vegan, as have her cookies. Athough there are still a number of things we've tried which really don't work for us.
Overall, it's really encouraging to read something like this in Gourmet. If foodies think vegan fare is good, then maybe the rest of the world will be willing to try some. But breast implants?
