I don't like labels, unless they're designer.

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!

Didn't you miss me? Don't lie. I know you did.

I'll be upfront and honest. I took a month and a half hiatus from veganism. It did not fare well. I realized I don't even really like meat, so why was I eating it? And every time I did I pictured all the horrible images from Food, Inc. and felt quite guilty about myself. However, this is not why I have re-veganized myself. Along with all the guilty feelings came my sicknesses. They came back in full force times 5,000 of whatever they used to be. It sucked. I'm not happy. And now I'm a vegan once again.

This is not to say, though, that I'm not going to have happy eggs every once in awhile. I think having the proper amount of protein consumption is essential and I have a tendency to not get enough when eating vegan. It was also the deal I struck with the madre to have her back aboard the vegan train. I think seeing how sick I got when I stopped with the veganness was enough to get her cheerleading for the campaign. However, she did now warn me not to go and carboload like all those other vegetarians and vegans and gain tons of weight. Thanks for the warning, madre.

And while some of you may now say that I'm not a true vegan if I'm occasionally eating happy eggs, that's fine. I don't really like to label myself a vegan anyway. The madre told me I would be considered and omnivore if I eat eggs (looks like somebody was doing some research). But I have yet to eat eggs since I reveganized and I don't think I'll really eat that much of them anyway, so I don't know that I'd call myself an omnivore either. Maybe I should change the title of my blog to "The tales of the sometimes vegan." We'll see. I really just dislike labels in general in all aspects of life, unless they happen to come on shoes or purses and bear some sort of fancy designer's name. In that case, I love labels.

My first week back to veganism was not without some drama. We had friends up to visit this weekend and we went to Restaurant Row for dinner. After wandering for a bit, the huz was annoyed and chaperoned us all into a Chilean restaurant. There was not one thing on the menu that was vegan happy. I was going to just sit and enjoy with everyone, but then it was discovered that there was nothing I could eat and a nice little hub-bub occurred and we created a little scene and left the restaurant. Luckily, I found out my friend was not impressed by the menu and also wanted to leave (and, by default, her huz therefore wanted to leave, isn't that the way marriage goes?) so I didn't feel as bad. We ended up at a Thai restaurant and ate like kings and everyone was happy. Gotta love Thai for all of the vegan happy options you can find there. Plus, a free appetizer with every cocktail? What other restaurant does that? Love.

My house had also unfortunately lost a lot of its vegan friendliness over the last month and half, so the huz and I did a major shopping trip to Fairway yesterday to stock up. Love that market. Look at my lovely kitchen table now! I've decided I must always have a fresh fruit bowl full to the brim in my house from now on. It just smells so good and looks so pretty!

I'm excited for all the fun recipes I'm making this week. Tonight is homemade falafel. For lunch today I made an almond butter, strawberry and soy milk smoothie. Delish.

All in all, I'm glad to have returned from the dark side. I even kinda missed this blog. :)

Cheese is a gateway drug.

So as of yesterday, I would have said being a vegan was a piece of cake. (And obviously I would mean a vegan-friendly piece of cake.) But today, it was rough. I've made it a month (I missed my anniversary! Sadness...) with no issues, but not anymore. We went out to brunch in Hanover Square with friends to finally get our 'H' date done since the weather was too ick to make the drive to the Hamptons. This brunch turned out to be quite a boozy brunch. Loooove the all you can drink $10 champagne special. The restaurant obviously didn't know who they were dealing with when they decided upon this marketing campaign. Soo, two bottles of champagne later, it was very very hard to resist the cheese the restaurant smeared all over my otherwise vegan happy potatoes. I miss cheese. I miss milkshakes. I miss whipped cream. I miss all things cow related. However, I was still a good little vegan and gave the yummy cheesey potato goodness to the huz and got yet another veggieburger for brunch. I sense a pattern forming...

For dessert the huz and I split a banana and Nutella crepe which was crazy delish. Buttttt, like everything else delicious, I came home to find out there's freaking MILK in Nutella... Something else delicious I have to cross off my list. I'm wondering if I can find a recipe to make a vegan friendly Nutella....

So I suppose I technically cheated today. However, my philosophy is if I didn't know there was milk, egg, etc. in it, it's ok. I just won't have it again from there on out. I guess today was my farewell party for Nutella. I'll miss you more than you'll know, yummy hazlenuty deliciousness...

Thank goodness champagne is vegan friendly otherwise I might actually die. No, really. I'd die.

But the good news is, the champagne did wear off (is that really good news, though?) and I am no longer so obsessed with my cheese cravings.

Have you ever noticed that though? We all crave dairy products like we're strung out on coke. We all assume that dumping cheese on a meal will automatically make it more scrumptious. Why is this? Why are we all soooo obsessed with cheese? Might I even say we're addicted to cheese? Yes, I might.

We are all totally addicted to cheese. There's a protein in all dairy products called Casein, but it is found in a more heavily concentrated form in cheese than in other dairy products. And... "Opiates hide inside casein, the main dairy protein. As casein molecules are digested, they break apart to release tiny opiate molecules, called casomorphins. One of these compounds has about one-tenth the opiate strength of morphine" (healthdiaries.com). So in other words, cheese is a gateway drug. We're all freaking addicted. You better watch out. The next step might actually be you sniffing a line in a dirty NYC bathroom...


But now it makes perfect sense to me why I don't miss eggs or meat in the slightest, but cheese makes my mouth water and gives me horrible cravings. I'm an addict.


The same is also true of a protein that's found in gluten. It also causes addictive behaviors. I love how the two food groups I'm not supposed to eat, gluten and diary, are the two food groups that are actually addictive. It's like God is punishing me for all the times I've told smokers that they need to stop whining and quit smoking already. I'll take this moment now to apologize. Addiction sucks, even if it is only to cheese and gluten. I totally feel like a junkie who is way overdue for a fix...


But, the good little vegan that I am is resisting. When I first read The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone, I remembered her saying that there would come a time when we all missed the food so much that we would debate going back to eating the animal nasty foods. She recommended we reread the section in her book where she outlines all the junk that goes into our food and all the horrible treatments the animals go through to become our food. It was a good suggestion. I am totally back on the bandwagon. 


I am no remembering that when I sat down I totally meant to write this post about a yummy pizza and tofu "mozzarella" sticks that I made the other night... I was obviously sidetracked. Maybe the champagne hasn't really worn off yet... 

Keen-what?! (Emphasis on the what a la Ebonics phonetics)

So apparently Quinoa isn't pronounced key-no-ah like I have been saying, but rather keen-wah.

Whatever. Way back when when it was the staple of the Aztec diet, it was kinwa. This is just another horrible example of how English takes a word, messes with its spelling and makes it utterly phonetically undecodable just to screw with us. No wonder everyone hates our language. (Trust me, they do. I teach ESL.)

But no matter how you say it, this is a grain you should acquaint yourself with, vegan or not (and you should totally be a vegan).

One of the main arguments for eating meat is that animal flesh (and yes, it is flesh you are eating) is a complete protein. We as humans need an essential set of amino acids that build and make up protein within our bodies. These amino acids are all found in animal meat. It is more difficult to have the proper amino acid intake when eating a vegan or vegetarian diet. However, it is not that hard and definitely not impossible. That's what's so great about Quinoa. It is a complete protein, just like meat. All of your essential amino acids are there! The bad news is, though, that Quinoa is one of the few complete proteins in the vegetable kingdom. Sad face.

But that doesn't mean that vegans need to eat Quinoa at every meal. There are plenty of combinations of foods that, when eaten together, provide all the essential amino acids that you would find in meat. For a quick synopsis, click here. Basically, if you combine a grain with a nut, or a grain with a bean, you'll be getting the same amino acids you would be getting by eating flesh. (Ew, flesh.)

There is an extremely bright side to this, though! If you get your essential acids through a plant-based diet, your food is in and out and doesn't have the chance to mess around with all your tubing (all 24 feet of it). Think of what would happen if you threw a slab of meat outside and let it sit for three days. It would rot and get totally rancid and disgusting. That's what's happening when you choose to eat meat. It takes our bodies 72 hours to process meat. On the inside we're running a temperature equivalent to a nice and toasty central Florida day. As that meat sits in our systems for those 3 days, it basically begins to rot inside of you. Filth.

I'm not trying to argue that no one or no animal is meant to eat meat. However, I think if we compare our internal structures, it's obvious that as our bodies have adapted and evolved, we no longer are made to process meat. Take a jungle cat, like a Jaguar. Their intestines are crazy short, so the meat they eat is in and out in a day. It doesn't sit around and cause problems in their systems for days on end. These cats will usually go and rest for days after a feeding as well as their bodies need to recover from the energy expended in digesting their meal. I don't know about you, but I definitely don't have that time or energy to spend just on recovering from a meal.

Although my opinion is clear, it's obviously your own choice what you want to do and eat. But if you are going to pick a meat to eat, at least eat fish and steer clear of pork and beef. Fish is the easiest for our bodies to deal with where as pork and beef are torture for your poor grumbly tumbly.

So, now that I'm done with my lecture (and it was quite riveting if I say so myself...), I'll move on the recipe section of tonight's blog. While you may object or disagree with the above sentiments, there's no way you could disagree with my Cinco de Mayo extravaganza's yummy deliciousness (and it was totally vegan!!).

First, I made a super yum guacamole. 3 avocados (make sure they're squishy when you squeeze them), half an onion finely chopped, tomatoes (I use about 20 grape tomatoes cut into fourths), the juice of one lime, fresh garlic, salt and pepper, and chopped cilantro. Mix it all together and you've got beautiful yumminess in a bowl. It's always a pleaser. Add some fresh hot peppers (like jalapeño) if you want some extra spice. Serve with your favorite chips.

Then I made the best recipe ever. Black beans with Quinoa. You all definitely need to try this. Even the meat-loving huz gobbled it up. You'll need:

3/4 cup Quinoa
2 tblsp. oil (I like olive)
1 1/2 c. Vegetable Stock
1 onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 can black beans
1 can corn
1/4 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
Salt and Pepper
1/2 c. chopped Cilantro

So now, that you have everything. Make it.

Sauté the chopped onion and garlic in the oil till they're a bit brown. Then throw in the Quinoa and the veggie stock. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat, add the spices, cover it, and let it simmer for 25 minutes. Drain and rinse the beans and corn then mix them and the cilantro in with the cooked Quinoa. It's uber delish. If you like it hot (and who doesn't, nudge nudge wink wink) add a little extra cayenne pepper.

I then made myself a margarita garnished with a strawberry (organic strawberry of course).

So I am now looking at the time and realizing that this blog took wayyyyy longer to get through than it should have. I have a feeling the margs had something to do with  it....