Healthy Eating

Here is my rant.
I like Dr. Oz and Jamie Oliver and how society is starting to promote health eating. It's great. Really.
But when I sit and watch my day time tv, I see them discussing oil usage, inclusion of vegetables and fruits, low fat, calorie, sodium intake blah blah blah.
So I find myself yelling at the television. Don't wanna get fat, get diabetes? IT'S CALLED A PLANT BASED DIET OR JUST GO VEGAN. I don't say vegetarian because in my opinion most people/beginners rely on dairy and chips and not the good stuff.
I see the ads for fiber boosted cereal and even, get this, balls of fiber to add on your icecream and benefiber, which you dissolve in your water...it drives me nuts. Just eat your vegetables people and stop eating crap.

grr.

Soy cream cheese

We all know how boring and bad soy cream cheese and cheese substitures usually taste amiright? When I was making my potato skins last night, I decided to add two garlic cloves, minced, some lemon juice, salt and pepper to the soy cream cheese and mixed it in.
Tastes so much better, almost like when you ad garlic to yoghurt. Win.

More SNACKS

Yesterday´s snack included sliced red onion on a cracker with some sweet chili sauce and soy cream cheese. Awesome. I love onion, thanks for existing onion.

Munchies

A SNACK

Avocado and soy cheese on a biscuit thing. 

So this is sort of a copy from what my mother makes with cottage cheese. Basically, you get a whole wheat cracker; a vegan one. Then you spread some avocado on it, soy cream cheese, cracked pepper and a tiny but of lime juice. Tastes pretty damn good. I also add Vegemite to it, gives a good flavor.
When I say a tiny bit of lime juice I mean it guys and don´t consume orange juice at the same time I nearly gagged.
Avocados are very good for preventing prostate and breast cancer, lowering cholesterol, regulating blood pressure it also contains folate and is a good source of monounsaturated fats. For vegans, avocados are a great source of essential fatty acids. 

Risotto!

Let´s get started. I love risotto and this is my vegan version. It´s pretty easy.

So you will need the following...
- Aborio rice, about 2 cups.
- Mushrooms, whatever type you want, I choose whatever they have in stock, usually portobello. They´re all the same to me. I use a lot as they do shrink after frying, so keep that in mind when you to cook them. Recipes usually call for about 250grams.
- 1 large brown onion.
- 4 garlic cloves. I use about 6 because I love garlic and can´t get enough.
- about half a cup of white wine if you want.
- 5 cups of vegetable stock
- about 30 grams of vegan butter, I use nuttelex, tastes pretty damn good.
- salt and pepper to taste

Start by dicing the onion, and mincing the garlic and add it to the fry pan with a fair amount of olive oil and allow the onion to cook until it´s close to see through or whatever. I´m sure most of you know when onion is cooked. After that I add the mushrooms, stiring them in so they are coated with the oil, garlic and onion. You need to cook these until they shrink and are slimy. Most recipes say ´golden´. I have never seen the mushrooms go golden, so small and slimy is the best description I can give. If the mushrooms absorb all of your oil, add some more.

You then need to add the aborio rice and stir it in so it´s coated with the onion, garlic and mushroom juice.   Again, recipes say, until the rice is translucent, if you wait for that to occur, it´s going to be a while because it doesn´t happen in my opinion. So I wait about 5 mins. This is mostly done to allow the rice to absorb the mushroom flavor.

While you´re waiting, here is some information you might like to know:
MUSHROOMS ARE, low in calories and about 80-90% water. Low in sodium and fat, high in potassium and copper, both good for cardiovascular health. Potassium is also good for period pain ladies. They also have fiber and antioxidants. Eat up.



Add the white wine after 5 mins then...
Measure a cup of room temp vegetable stock, this is where it gets sort of difficult. Not really, but you need to pay attention here.
Let that stock cook off, then add another cup, let it cook off and just repeat until all 5 cups are done. Now the trick I have heard is, don´t stir it as much as possible, just shake the pan every now and then. Do it like you´re a professional to.

So after that last cup of stock has reduced, your rice is probably pretty pasty and nice looking, take it off the heat. This is where I add the butter and stir it through and then your risotto is ready.

I don´t have any pictures. But as soon as I make another batch I´ll add some. I like to see what I´m cooking. I judge a book by it´s cover.

Here is a stand in for now, courtesy of Google images (minus the beans and stuff).



PS. If you havn´t already guessed, my spelling can be pretty shocking. Apologies.

In the beginning

Vegan vegan vegan. Hmmm. Where do I begin?
Well I guess I should say why.
Why? I went vegan primarily for my health, so yeah nothing exciting there. I am lactose intolerant so I already avoid dairy, with the occasional slip up.
This video has a lot of the health reasons that had me go vegan also, I will admit that it is outdated and some information is incorrect, such as cholesterol in eggs.

I enjoy the company of animals too, I talk to the dog or the frog in the bathroom more than people and so I do feel better not contributing to the slaughter of animals.
As I mentioned, I am vegan mostly for my health, so if some of the recipes I put up contain small amounts of dairy or egg I apologize, very small traces of dairy and egg do not concern me as much as it might for others.
Finally, I will use this blog for recipes, rants and personal stuff. I enjoy reading about other vegans and vegetarians and thought I would ad my take on things or whatever.


ahh.