Opposites attract

I think there’s a lot of truth to the saying that opposites attract.  While similarities and compatibility are important in a relationship, our differences keep things interesting!  Especially in an omnivore/vegetarian relationship, with the obvious difference being that one of us eats animals while the other doesn’t.

In our particular relationship, I consider myself to be extremely lucky in that hubby doesn’t mind eating vegetarian and/or vegan food.  When other people find out about our food differences, hubby usually gets a sympathetic look from other meat eaters, as in “I feel so sorry for you.”  But what they don’t know, and what he often doesn’t share, is that he doesn’t mind going meatless.  If I cook it, he eats it without complaint.  Simple as that.  In fact, we’ve taken two week-long camping trips in the past couple of years and I was in charge of food for both trips, meaning hubby went veg during those trips, no problem. He rocks!

I’d have to ask hubby to be sure, but I can’t help but think that one of the reasons he doesn’ t mind eating vegetarian is because I don’t hassle him about eating meat. He respects my food choices, so I respect his.  I do the majority of the cooking, so we definitely eat completely vegetarian meals at home most of the time.  I don’t have a “no-meat-in-the-house” rule.  The rule I do have is, “If you want meat as part of your meal, you have to cook it yourself.”  And hubby does just that when his meat cravings get too strong to avoid.  He’ll grill burgers or something… a veggie burger for me and a hamburger for him.  Or, when we go out to eat, hubby will order a meat dish and I order veg.  It works for us.  But the majority of the time, we’re a vegetarian household.  I usually don’t have to worry about opening up my fridge to see meat staring back at me.  It happens occasionally, but not often.

In all honesty, one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in cooking for us as a couple is a problem anyone–even an omnivorous couple–could have… and that’s our personal preferences for vegetable foods.  I love squash and hubby hates it.  He’ll only eat it in zucchini bread and pumpkin pie!  I don’t know how many squash-based recipes I’ve drooled about yet passed over making because it seemed like a hassle to peel, roast and cook it just for my consumption.  It’s been particularly frustrating lately because we’ve received so many different squash varieties from our CSA this year.  I’ve made lots of zucchini bread but have also given lots of squash away because I just can’t eat it all myself.  One recipe I did try and LOVED was Vegan YumYum’s recipe for Delicata Squash Bisque…. OMG!  If you love squash, you HAVE to follow that link and try that recipe.  It is too yummy for words!  I felt so sinful and so selfish making and eating it because I knew hubby wouldn’t have any (to his credit, he did taste a spoonful and said it was good yet admitted he didn’t want anymore) … it was all for me!!

Other “problem” foods for us have been bell peppers.  I love ‘em, he hates ‘em.  I’ve passed up so many delicious-looking recipes containing bell peppers… or sometimes I make them and omit the peppers.  But I can’t fault hubby for not liking certain things.  I have my dislikes too.  I’m not a big fan of celery, hot peppers or green olives.

Without a doubt, most people are fascinated by the fact that hubby and I can live harmoniously as a vegetarian/omnivore couple.  But the obvious food difference isn’t what keeps things interesting for us.  It’s our more subtle food preferences that challenge us more than anything. 

Jarred pasta sauce: Bam it up!

Now that the new season of Heroes has started, Monday evenings have become “Pasta Nights” in my household.  Pasta makes for a quick and easy meal that I can make and clean up in the short time frame between when I get home from work and when Heroes begins at 8 p.m.

Hubby isn’t a huge fan of pasta though.  While I could eat different variations of pasta several times a week, once per week is about all he can stand.  In an effort to entice him, I’ve been enriching jarred store-bought pasta sauce by adding in lots of sauteed veggies!

My current fave is Barilla brand pasta sauce.  Last night, it was the roasted garlic flavor.  I sauteed a bunch of chopped up veggies from our CSA share… onion, red pepper, eggplant, green beans and brussel sprouts!  I’ve pretty much worn out my food chopper and am long overdue to replace it!  But the diced veggies really thicken the sauce and make for a heartier meal.

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I’m going to attempt to start blogging again.  I’ve been feeling extremely guilty about not posting.  Part of it is all the stuff still going on in my personal life.  Another part of it is that I struggle with relevance.  With so many wonderful vegetarian/vegan blogs on the Net, I guess sometimes I wonder where mine fits in, and if it’s even worth blogging if I can’t say something new that hasn’t already been said a gazillion times.

One thing that might help, in my mind, is to blog less about food and more about the nuances of being in a vegetarian/omnivore relationship.  Food certainly plays a large part in that, but should I be blogging about what I cook all the time if hubby is extremely favorable to veg food and eats most anything I set down in front of him?  I wonder if my readers might find it more interesting to read about the dinner conversation hubby and I had at my friend’s wedding over the weekend, which started with questions about my vegetarian lifestyle from our table’s guests and was followed by an in-depth discussion about all the weird animal parts one table guest likes to eat.

What do you, my readers, think?  When you visit my blog, what do you hope to read?

Lazy summer

*Peeks in and waves after not blogging for weeks*

Hey all, just thought I’d let you know I’m still here… just been having an extremely lazy summer, as far as food is concerned.

My summer has been an interesting one… trying to sell my former house, which is co-owned with my sister.  We put it up on the market at the beginning of June and, unlike most of the savory dishes on this site, the house has received barely a nibble of interest.  We did some additional work on the house and now will look into renting my half, since a sale doesn’t seem to be in our immediate future.

The other news at the beginning of June was that my boss was canned.   It was a devastating personal blow to me since I’ve worked with him for nearly 10 years and he’s one of the best bosses I’ve ever had. It somehow seems so unfair that office politics ended his career at my work.  He’s stellar at what he does, so I really hope someone snatches him up soon with a job offer because anyone would be crazy not to hire him (just like some people are completely insane to fire him).  In his absence, my work life as I knew it has been turned upside down.  I’m a writer by trade and currently have almost 30 potential or solid stories to work on.  Thirty.  And of course, everyone wants their article done TODAY.  More gets piled on my plate each day.  As the sole writer in my office now, I’m completely buried and come home so burned out… I haven’t been cooking anything elaborate or blogworthy, even with the wonderful produce we’ve been getting each week from our CSA.  They’ve all been quick and easy dinners, many of which are already featured on this site.  There have been a few dishes I’ve photographed, along with my CSA shares, and I hope to find time to post them eventually.  But right now, I’m just being lazy… trying to cope with the unbelievable stress that’s been thrown at me.

Hope you all are well, and I hope to find the inspiration and energy to start blogging again soon.

Jenny

Garlic scape alfredo with pasta

Picked up my second share of the year from the Maple Creek Farm CSA.  Got word through e-mail that we’d be getting two quarts of strawberries, more lettuce, more garlic scapes and some parsley.

Last week, I made pesto with the garlic scapes… you haven’t seen that dish yet because we haven’t eaten it.  The batch of garic scape pesto is hibernating in our freezer till later this summer!  I debated on whether or not I should make another batch with this week’s scapes, but I was feeling too adventurous!

I decided to modify the “It’s ready already alfredo” recipe on the Magic Bullet web site.  I used Silk creamer instead of heavy cream, and garlic scapes instead of garlic.  I served it over whole wheat shell pasta topped with cherry tomatoes.  As you can probably tell from the photo, the sauce didn’t thicken much.  Otherwise, it was quite tasty!  Hubby and I both enjoyed it!

We had some of the strawberries for dessert, but I’ll wait for another post to share what we did with the berries.

We’ve got six heads of lettuce from our share, so lots of salads this week!!

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Also, I still need to update everyone regarding the pig roast this past weekend.  That post is coming… I promise!!!

Surviving a weekend with meat eaters

Let’s face it.  Although vegetarianism is growing in popularity, it’s still a meat eater’s world.

That’s why my first “rule to live by” as a vegetarian is…. be prepared.  How you prepare depends on the situation.  When you’ve been invited to a three-day camping event with nearly 20 of hubby’s immediate and extended family members who will be cooking omnivore meals exclusively, there’s no question that some advance thought is needed.

So how did I prepare for this trip?  First, since this is the infamous pig roast event, I took the liberty of e-mailing the campground to find out as much information as I could about the roast.  According to the reply I received, the roasting of the pig–supposedly in an enclosed barbeque–will begin at midnight.  Dinner will be about 4 p.m. the following day.  The campground reports that most people never see the full pig, noting that they are aware that kids, and some adults, might be squimish about the sight.

With an idea of what to expect regarding the pig roast, my next order of business was food.  Although this is a family campout and most people will take turns cooking the meals for everyone, I am the only vegetarian of the bunch… which means, I can’t expect anyone to cook meatless meals.  That’s why I make sure to take along enough food for the duration of the event/trip.  Often, I am able to eat a side dish here and there, but I always plan like I won’t have any other food to eat aside from what I bring.

In the photo above, you’ll see I’m taking some Tasty Bite meals, which are awesome and true lifesavers in this type of situation.  They are perfect for camping because you can drop the foil pouch in a pot of boiling water for several minutes and voila! Dinner is ready!  I’ve been using the Tasty Bite meals at the family campouts for the past few years.  I wouldn’t think of camping without them.  I was a bit bummed that my local grocery store only had three varieties in stock tonight.  It appears they no longer carry my favs, which are the chickpea and potato based dishes.  I’ll have to look around at some other local shops or order online at the company’s well-stocked Web store.

Similar to Tasty Bite are the Kitchens of India meals.  My local store didn’t have a wide selection of this brand either–Grr!–but I managed to get enough meals to last me for three days.  A new item I spied was the Gourmet on the Go meals by St. Dalfour, which are canned mini meals that don’t need refrigeration.  The packaging says it’s a product of France, but they appear to have a U.S. Web site.  Sometimes canned items scare me, but I bought the three vegetarian varieties to give them a try!

Also, I’ll be taking along a few veggie burgers–which will allow me to blend right in with the family if they cook hamburgers–and an array of snack items including Zone bars, trail mix, rosemary and olive oil Triscuits (omg, I love these!) and granola for breakfast.  This is probably waaaaay more food than I’ll need in three days, but I’d rather have extra and bring it home than find myself without a veggie meal while on the road.  Like I said, my motto is “be prepared.”  I feel I’m ready for this event!

Maple Creek Farm CSA Week #1

Woohoo!  The CSA season is officially a GO!

Tonight I picked up my first share as a member of the Maple Creek Farm CSA in Yale, MI.  I feel extremely lucky because my pick-up location is just minutes from my house and very easy to find.  Not to mention the pick-up hosts were very gracious in helping me understand the process of my first pick up!  It’s actually very simple… check your name off the list for that date, bag the produce in one of the boxes (bringing along a tote bag is encouraged so that the farm can reuse the boxes),  break down and fold the box leaving it in a pile with the others and voila… you’re ready to go home and enjoy your bounty!

Isn’t my bounty beautiful?  What you see in the photo is a quart of strawberries, a bunch of garlic scapes and lettuce… I originally thought this was two giant heads of lettuce but it was actually, I think, five heads of three (?) different varieties (green, red and an unidentified type).  All organic and beautiful!

Our cupboards are a bit bare at the moment, seeing as how we’ll be camping soon, but I managed to scrounge together a delicious meal tonight using some odd items I did have on hand.  I put together salads using the organic lettuce, some chopped apples, pine nuts, raisins, honey-roasted almonds and pan-fried tofu.  As a side, I fried up some onion, smashed baked potatoes and great northern beans.

I actually really enjoyed cooking tonight.  It’s been awhile since I’ve felt this inspired to cook.  I’ve been in a rut, per se.  But something about the excitement of receiving my first batch of locally-grown organic food… something about washing the dirt from the lettuce, knowing that only hours ago it was picked from a farm in my state for me to enjoy.  There was something very satisfying about that.

From what I hear, today’s share was pretty small by most standards.  Produce from the farm is reportedly running a few weeks behind due to the cool weather we’ve had here in Michigan.  The pace of the harvest should pick up as the weeks progress.  And I cannot wait to continue this adventure!

The great pepperoni nightmare

I must be more stressed over the impending pig roast than I realize.

Over the weekend, I had a very strange dream that my hubby tricked me into eating REAL pepperoni.  Can’t even really go into details because the dream (or what I remember of it) was that short… but I do recall him feeding me beef pepperoni and once I realized I had eaten meat, I was completely disgusted and extremely angry with him.

In retrospect, it wasn’t an unusual dream to have given that hubby and I have been at odds over the pig roast event, which is this coming weekend.  This discussion has been a very difficult one for us.  I feel he’s asking me to compromise a belief that’s part of my core.  Vegetarianism is something I’m extremely passionate about, and he knows that.  He doesn’t see the difference between the pig roast and cooking hamburgers like they do at every campout.  I’ve tried to explain the difference, but hubby and I feel very differently about animals.  I know this will not be the first difficult situation we find ourselves in.

I have decided to go to the campout/pig roast.  Why?  Because I love my husband.  That’s the only reason I’m going… for him.

I informed him that I do plan to blog about the experience.  I’ll have my camera in hand this weekend anyway, so I hope to come home and share a candid look at how our mixed vegetarian/omnivore household deals with the event.  Watch for that sometime next week.

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On a lighter note… I pick up my first CSA share tonight!!  I’m so excited!  I hear we’ll be receiving strawberries, lettuce varieties and garlic scapes.  The shares reportedly become more bountiful as the weeks wear on.  Look for my assessment of tonight’s share in the next day or two!!

Top 5 vegetarian meals for omnivores

OK, OK… maybe not ALL omnivores will dig this list, but I thought I’d share the top 5 vegetarian meals that MY favorite omnivore–the one I’ve been married to for nearly eight months–requests most often.

I’m so thankful that my omnivore hubby doesn’t mind vegetarian, or even vegan, food.  Although he’s a great sport about trying more exotic dishes and ingredients, I’ve found that his favorite meals—the ones that he asks me to make over and over again—are veggified versions of his favorite omnivore dishes.

If you ever wondered what a vegetarian cooks for her omnivore husband… rejoice!  Here’s a quick look at the meals I cook regularly, much to hubby’s delight.  These are tried-and-true omnivore tummy pleasers!

1. VEGETARIAN CHILI – I make a big pot of this nearly every weekend; hubby takes it to work for lunch.
2. VEGETARIAN SLOPPY JOES – He would eat this every day if he could.
3. VEGAN BISCUITS AND SAUSAGE GRAVY – The “real” thing gives hubby heartburn, so he LOVES the vegan version, which leaves his body feeling good!
4. VEGAN ‘EGG’ SALAD SANDWICHES – If we want a quick lunch on the weekend, this is hubby’s first choice.
5. BAKED VEGAN TACO RING – We don’t make this as often as we should, but when we do, hubby eats it up, devouring leftovers for breakfast!

An honorable mention goes to the vegan sweet and sour meatballs.  This dish is fairly new to my cooking repertoire but hubby’s eyes light up anytime I suggest making it.

Vegan Sweet & Sour Meatballs: Beware the Bugs!

This slow cooker sweet and sour meatball recipe got a big thumbs up from hubby when I made it.  I subbed frozen vegan meatballs for “real” meatballs and it came out great!

Hubby really loved this recipe and took some of the leftovers to work for lunch.  He said his coworkers envied him (though he didn’t reveal they were veggie meatballs).

If you’re in a hurry or don’t have a slow cooker, you can still make this dish.  Just cook the meatballs in a conventional oven per package instructions while heating up the sauce and then stir everything together!

I will caution you to read carefully the ingredients of any sweet and sour sauce you might buy.  I’m normally diligent about this since some ethnic sauces contain fish sauce.  But I must have hastily purchased the-brand-that-shall-not-be-named because I was mortified when I took a closer look at home and realized the sauce contained carmine… or crushed bugs.  Yep, if you didn’t know, carmine is red pigment from crushed female cochineal insects.  Appetizing, eh?  If you don’t already own the book Animal Ingredients A to Z: Third Edition, it’s a wise education in identifying animal ingredients and all the different ways animal substances are used in things we use and consume everyday.

Animal Ingredients reports that 70,000 beetles are killed to produce one pound of this red dye, which is used in cosmetics, shampoos, red applesauce and other foods (including some of those supposedly healthy bottled nutrient waters).  The dye has been known to cause allergic reactions, too.

Knowledge is power: Beware the bugs!

Vegan Potato Salad

I know… I know.  How original, right?  Bet you’re surprised to hear I made potato salad over what is traditionally a long holiday weekend in the states.

Burgers and side dishes like potato salad and coleslaw go hand-in-hand with summer holidays.  What I love about these types of foods is that they make for a quick and easy meal for both vegetarians and omnivores.  Hubby grilled up my faux burger just as happily as he did his.

The long weekend gave me a chance to experiment with making side dishes; I’ve never made potato salad, coleslaw or anything like that yet.  And of course I had to try vegetizing them, LOL

The verdict?  Not too bad!   I settled on this potato salad recipe, subbing Vegannaise for the mayonnaise and a 14 oz. package of firm, diced tofu for the egg.  It worked well and actually tasted good for “yellow” potato salad, which I’m not a big fan of in general.  Hubby said he couldn’t believe how well tofu substitutes and tastes like egg in these sorts of recipes.  Like the vegan egg salad, once you mix everything together, it’s hard to tell you’re not consuming egg!

For the coleslaw, which I failed to get a picture of, I followed the wonderful apple raisin coleslaw recipe over at Vegalicious.  We both really liked the addition of cinnamon in this recipe.  Was a nice twist.