Chasing around for rocks

My love of baking is not exclusive to baking for the human species.  In our house you can find three cookbooks of recipes for dogs and a random smattering of loose recipes floating about for our four-legged furkids.  Spoiling those brats is not a hobby around here, it is a full-time job that we take on with pride and gusto.

If you have not been blessed with a great big Bailey-yawn in the face, let me try to describe to you the stench that miniature dachshund emits from within her little muzzle.  It is as if our town decided to use her mouth as a landfill.  Or she became a garbage disposal.  Or a fish graveyard.  Or perhaps all of the above.  Bill, our "tweenie weenie,"  is not much better in the oral department.

Randomly flipping through one of the doggy-cookbooks a few days ago, I spotted a recipe for after-dinner mints for dogs.  PERFECT!  Overexcited?  Yes, as I usually get when it comes to anything canine.

*Note:  I will handle meat products to be fed to dogs (or cats or any other naturally meat eating animal.)  Reason?  Dogs are naturally carnivorous and need the meat and it's nutrients to live a healthy life.  We have bred dogs to also digest grains and vegetables, but nature created the dog as a primarily carnivorous animal.  Just look at the animal's jaw, for Dingo's sake!  On a happy note, I have not yet found a cookie recipe that requires meat products that I've wanted to bake...those usually look nasty anyhow.

Most of the ingredients for these mints were pretty easy to find: parsley, mint, gluten-and-wheat-free flour (which is a plus because Bill has corn and wheat allergies), olive oil, and water.  The one thing that had me all over and in a craze was the activated charcoal.

What??

Okay, so the cookbook said that any good health food store would have activated charcoal.  I first went to Whole Foods because, well, they have everything.  Their charcoal only came in capsules.  I bought them in case I could cut the capsules open and use what was inside.  My parents convinced me to look for powdered charcoal.  I returned the capsules and went to a health food store 5 minutes from my house.  Only capsules.  I bought them.  I checked www.gnc.com and www.walgreens.com and I'm pretty sure powered charcoal is either not buyable or VERY hard to find.

So, tonight I snipped open those capsules and got to it!  But I didn't realize there would be such a POOF with each snip.  Before I looked like Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, I settle on half the charcoal the recipe called for.  I knew as I mixed the dough that it wouldn't turn out right.  The picture in the book showed beautiful round cookie-mints of a golden yellow hue speckled green with parsley and mint.  My dough was gray and mucky from charcoal.  After baking the necessary 25 minutes, they were little rocks of gray muck.

I followed the directions minus half a tablespoon of charcoal.  I read the recipe several times over to figure out my mistake and it was too simple to have gone wrong anywhere.

So now sit 29 rocks on the stove which will be tossed tomorrow because I don't want to kill my spoiled beasties.  If I feel generous, I'll look in a different cookbook and whip up some other tasty treat.  Did I mention they're supposed to be on diets?

Mushrooms and Mistakes, Oh My!

Yesterday I wanted something tasty and interesting for lunch.  I was bored with the usuals, you know, peanut butter, hummus and veggies, cereal, etc.  I thought I'd make myself a little plate of pasta with sauteed mushrooms for a change.  There was what I thought to be just enough eggless pasta left in a bag in the cabinet for me without having to open a new bag or box, and we have had a carton of mushrooms sitting in the fridge for awhile now.

I popped the pasta in a small saucepan of water.  I know, I know.  Start lecturing me now.  You're supposed to give the pasta plenty of room to swim and you're supposed to salt the water because it's the only time you can season the pasta itself.  I've heard it countless times on the Food Network, that channel is always on in this house.  But, I'm a nut for saving water and not using a bigger pot than I really have to.  I'm also a nut for using as little salt/sodium as possible.  High blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, you name it and somebody in my family probably has it.  I might be a little crazy about the salt thing, but every little bit adds up.  Plus, I've never really tasted the difference between salted water pasta and plain water pasta.  *Shrug*

While the pasta boiled, I sprayed a frying pan with cooking spray (I also try to use as little oil as possible because I'm trying to trim the waistline.  I know you need oil in moderation so I usually save it for dinner and things like hummus.)  I dropped in the mushrooms and let them sizzle away in their own juices.  Mushrooms are fantastic that way.  You can get mushrooms nice and browned and deliciously sauteed with no oil at all because they always let off so many of their own juices.  Yum yum yum!  I sprinkled some garlic and herb seasoning on them and some red pepper flakes.

Note to the pantry keepers of the world:  Keep your seasonings up to date.  In this house, we use until it's gone.  The stuff we use on a regular basis is gone before it goes bad or goes bland, so we never really noticed how old some of our herbs and spices were until we started getting creative and using new recipes.  Those red pepper flakes?  They came from our old house and we've been living in this house for over six years now.  I could not taste them.  We need some new flakes.  I've been buying new stuff little by little, but spices are not cheap!  Giving a house warming gift or bridal shower gift?  Give SPICES!

Anyhow, my lunch was delicious, except a little oil could have helped.  That, and the little bit of pasta I thought I was making ended up being enough for two servings...and I ate it all.  Uh oh.

I think I get more joy out of cooking these dishes than eating them sometimes.  That's why I had to take a picture of my beautiful mushrooms.

I bought wheat flour yesterday so I could make a scone recipe that's been lingering on my invisible to-do list of recipes for a long time now.  It's a soda bread scone from Vegetarian Times magazine.  I didn't tinker with the recipe other than using dried cranberries instead of currants.

At least I didn't think I was tinkering.

Until I put the scones into the oven.

And realized.

I used the 1 tsp. measuring spoon instead the 1/2 tsp. measuring spoon for the cinnamon, baking soda, and coarse salt.  Oops.

Despite that nearly fatal mistake, they came out quite tasty.  They are just barely sweet as soda bread should be and are quite good for you, too.  I got 15 out of the recipe instead of the 6 it said I would get because we have a mini scone pan here that I used.  That might also contribute to the texture.  They're a little chewier and crispier on the edges than I imagine they might have been had I used the correct amount of baking soda and perhaps cut down on the baking time for large scones.

But have no fear.  They are being eaten.  Mmmmmm.  This morning I had one with peanut butter on it.  I love peanut butter.  Peanut butter and I have a special relationship.

I suppose my "book" review today will be the magazine, Vegetarian Times.  I've been a subscriber for about a year now and I absolutely love it.  It's for lacto-ovos and vegans alike.  Not only is it chock-full of great recipes that I've even tried successfully on my omnivorous parents, but the health and beauty articles are a bonus.  I try to push the health articles on my parents all the time to their chagrin.  There have been articles about digestion and joints and whatnot that I found fascinating but I get the feeling they push off reading them because they come from a vegetarian magazine.  I read the articles out loud to them if I'm feeling pushy enough.  I'm a fabulous daughter that way.  They can't wait for me to move out.

Anyhow, if you need a good resource that comes to your mailbox on a regular basis, I highly recommend VT.

And So Begins a New Year

It's been longer than I wanted in between posts here.  Generally when I start a blog, I post a few times and then the blog dies.  I told myself I'd blog here A LOT and here I went a weekend without even reading my friends' blogs.

But I have an excuse!  It was a holiday weekend for me.  In case you didn't catch on, I'm Jewish.  It was the Jewish new year this weekend, Rosh Hashanah.

So, to update everyone, I made my own challahs for the holiday.  Challah is a traditional Jewish egg bread, but seeing as I only eat humane certified eggs I couldn't just eat any store bought challah!  So I made my own.  Four adorable little challahs.  Even my mom called them cute.  I don't normally bake bread and I've never made a challah from scratch (bought the pre-made dough already braided in the freezer section and popped it in the oven, yes).  Let me tell you, kneading dough should be a sport.  But the challah turned out better than I expected.  It was a bit doughier than I would have liked, but it was good enough for my parents to eat with me.  We still have two in the freezer, but they won't go to waste.  We love bread here.

I also made those butterhorns I posted about earlier.  I bought vegan sour cream and used all vegetable spread instead of butter.  They didn't turn out half-bad, either.  It wasn't easy.  The dough didn't chill to the firmness that the original dough does.  That could be because I didn't chill it overnight as my mom does, but I have a feeling it was the ingredient swap.  The dough consistency made rolling the cookies especially difficult.  The fragile dough was sticky and tore on many of the cookies.  Oh well, it was an experiment!  The final product tastes pretty darn good.  They are a little drier than the original and less buttery in flavor, but tasty nonetheless.  Of course my mom prefers the original.  I'm sure I would were I not almost-vegan.  This baking thing is all about experimenting and trial and error right now.

My next experiment will be with agave nectar.  But I'm running into conflicting information about the sweetener, so I'll have to do a little research first.

Happy eating!

Being a Crybaby

I could tell you all a fabulous rendition of what happened today (and it's only 2:23pm CST!) but I think it would be easier on my lazy-ass self and perhaps a bit enjoyable on your part if I simply copy and paste the email I sent to my parents whining like a small child.

First, you may need a mini glossary:

Butterhorn- a cookie often compared to rugelach that my mom is famous for baking.  The recipe can be found in The All New Portal to Good Cooking, 1972 edition.  I am attempting to make a dairy-free version of this recipe.

Bill and Bailey- My family's two spoiled dachshunds.  If we leave the garbage can in the kitchen on the floor when we leave, Bill knocks it over and they feast on grossness.  Eww.

Dingo- Not to be confused with the canine from down under, this is a brand of dog treat.  The original (the brand has now created a whole line of treats) is a knotted bone with meaty, jerky stuff wrapped inside.  Bill and Bailey LOVE them and steal them from each other and hide them from each other and LOVE them.

Dominick's- The local grocery store chain.

Trader Joe's- an awesome grocery store chain found nationwide that carries amazing stuff



Okay then, here's the email...

Mommy and Daddy,

This is my five minutes of being a complaining five year old.

I slipped out of the house soooo easily today after giving Bill and Bailey the pre-used dingos on the kitchen counter.  I drove to Dominick's to buy some stuff we need for butterhorns and the spiced tea recipe Mom and I want to try (as well as band-aids and foot spray...)  Well, everything was fine until I got to the stick margarine.  It turns out that Dominick's only carries butter and partial vegetable oil spread in stick form.  There are no purely vegetable-based options.  That means the stick stuff we've been using has DAIRY in it.  UGH.  I took two boxes for you guys to use but was full of the irritables at the fact that only tub stuff was vegan--and not recommended for baking.  

But I figured nothing I was buying would rot/spoil/curdle/or do the like in the 5 minutes it would take me to park, run into Trader Joe's, buy some vegan sticks, and get back in the car.  

I was nearly hit by 2 different cars in the same aisle of that darned parking lot!  AHHHH!!!!!  It's a Wednesday afternoon, why aren't people at work???  

So I went into the store all shaking with adrenaline and frustration.  I get to the buttery section and it's all PURE BUTTER!  Of all places, Trader Joe's only has pure butter???  What????  So I start looking at the tubs and see that some of it is vegetable junk.  There was a vegan brand.  I looked it over and on the uses suggested it said baking.  So I bought it.  I know it goes against the don't-use-tubbed-butter-or-margarine-for-baking, but it says it right on the tub!  And the cashier complimented my ring.  So I felt a little better.

Until I tried carrying the two paper bags I requested at Dominick's at the same time to the garage door (because my opener still doesn't work on Mom's side I had to open it with the key pad).  One of the bags broke.  I finally got inside to woofs and squeaks (Bailey was hiding with a dingo under the blanket she was under when I gave her the dingo upon leaving) and was so happy for it until....GARBAGE!  I was so proud of myself for my get away that I forgot to put the damned thing up.  UUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHH.  There wasn't much inside and I think a fruit fly died being sucked into the dust buster, but I think I might need a tranquilizer now or something.  Maybe that entire chocolate bar from the freezer.  

*sigh*

I hope you guys are doing much much better.

xoxo

Me

The Elusive "D"

Elusive may not be the precise word I am looking for, but I like it and so I will stick with it.

Growing up in a Reform Jewish household, I learned at a young age what the two possible kosher symbols on food were ("Circle K" and "Circle U") and what words following these symbols meant.  Meat obviously means the food contains meat.  D or diary means the food contains some sort of milk related product.  Parve means the food contains neither meat nor dairy (but for vegans, it could still contain eggs).  As a vegetarian, this became exceptionally useful.  Things labeled "chicken flavored" or the like may not actually contain meat.  Suddenly I didn't have to read all labels all the time.

This was all fine and dandy until I gave up dairy.  Suddenly anything certified kosher seemed to have the big fat D hanging off of it.  My once nifty trick has turned into a nightmare.

What's worse?  I started becoming skeptical.  It started when I noticed that the hazelnut syrup I bought for making coffee drinks had the "D" on it.  Hazelnut syrup?  What?  So I read the ingredients over and nothing popped out as dairy to me.  I had Mom look it over.  Same for her.  We had my dad look it over since he's all food-technology-expert-dude and he said that nothing was dairy in it but he saw a lot of "really nasty chemicals."  Fabulous.  Let's put some really nasty chemicals into our coffee!  His explanation?  Maybe the ingredients were grown on whey.

But how does that explain the exhorbitant varieties of popcorn that are not butter flavored nor do they list dairy ingredients but are marked as dairy?

I could go on.

So now the question stands: Do I eat these "supposedly" dairy products?  Or do I forfeit their deliciousness to the kosher gods?

I just said "kosher gods" on the week of Rosh Hashanah.  That can't be good.

What Most People Don't Think About

I went on a job interview yesterday.  In addition to dancing in my seat while driving the hour to get there (the economy really does hit hard), I started to think about food.

I brought a peanut butter sandwich and coffee in the car with me as breakfast, so I wasn't hungry.  Why was I thinking about food?

As I got closer to the office, I scoped out the restaurants nearby.  My thoughts?  What kind of vegan options do they have around here?  What are the eating habits of the people in this office?  What would they think of an almost-vegan coworker, should I be hired?  

Leave it to me to think about that on the way to an interview.

I'm not so sure about how the interview went.  I know I could have done better but I also could have done a whole lot worse.  We'll see!  Until then, let's go drain that tofu sitting in the fridge...

I Do Not Like Plastic Wrap

I do not like plastic wrap for several reasons.

1. It sticks to itself. Once plastic wrap has stuck to itself, it is incredibly hard to unstick. There goes some perfectly good wrap.

2. If you are trying to preserve freshness, a plastic container is more eco-friendly and does a better job anyhow.

3. The serrated edge. I have never been good at the pull-and-tear of plastic wrap which causes the earlier mentioned sticking. But as I learned last night, the serration is dangerous.

After Mom sent me a lovely forwarded email about the amazingness of bananas (they are truly amazing), I decided banana bread was in order. Mom doesn't like bananas unless they are mashed into goop and baked into a delicious bread with chocolate chips dancing throughout. I don't blame her--it is quite decadent.

Since I've been on a look-through-Jill's-own-personal-cookbooks thing, I decided to check out what sort of new recipe I could find in The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book, a cookbook my parents bought for me, knowing full well that I have no willpower against peanut butter.

After messing with the recipe a bit to make it more waist-friendly, along came a peanut butter banana bread (with chocolate chips added, of course) to kill any peanut allergy. Moist and peanut buttery and chocolaty and mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

So I pre-sliced the loaf in order to see how many "servings" I could get out of it and calculate the Weight Watchers points. There wasn't a proper container tall enough for all the slices, so I thought a temporary lid of plastic wrap would do. Until I went for the box of wrap.

I felt each serration in my finger. The thought sends chills down my back. Slice, slice, slice. Of course I jumped, squealed, and stuck my finger in my mouth in a matter of 15 seconds. Did you know that we stick our wounds in our mouths instinctively? Our saliva contains a chemical or compound or something that helps to heal wounds more quickly. So, go ahead, lick your wounds!

My right index finger (and I'm a righty, gosh dang it) is still tender to the touch and sports a nice white line if you take off my neon colored bandage. I thought it would be cool to go around with a bright band on my finger so people can say "and you're how old?" Actually, they're the ones with the antibiotic junk already applied. Spiffy. But the cut is all white from being moist, so my picture can't give you the full effect of my injured glory. I tried to make up for it with my face.

In other news:

I am going to start recommending/reviewing books. They will have something to do with food and/or vegetarianism. Yea, I know how much you wanted to know my thoughts on Pride and Prejudice, but I have to stick to the theme!

It's only fitting to start with the Ultimate Peanut Butter Book. There are many meat dishes in the book, so don't dive in expecting a vegetarian heaven, but what is animal friendly is creative and delicious. A recipe for a peanut butter sandwich is not just spread some pb on the bread and go, it involves baking the bread and making the spread! Duuuuude. You can also fiddle with the recipes as I like to do and use meat substitutes, dairy substitutes, or just get ideas for your own dishes. Mmmm, peanut butter. Now I'm hungry. And my finger needs a rest.

A Labor of Love

I hope everybody had a fabulous holiday weekend.

I can't say I didn't get quite a bit of rest and relaxation in. Sleeping until nearly 11am isn't exactly a back breaking effort.

But, trying to be a vegan on Labor Day weekend is a bit of a workout.

Friday:

Mom and I went to see Julie and Julia, finally. Everybody and their mothers (quite literally) had seen it without me while I sat there talking about how much I really really wanted to see it. But the thing is, everyone saw it with her mother! So I dragged my mom who wanted to see it anyhow so I guess that's not really dragging...

It was an adorable movie. Critics really don't know a good movie when it's slapped in their faces like a non-dairy whipped-topping pie. The entire movie I had the criticisms of the At the Movies guys going through my head and boy did they just have sticks up their butts the day they saw it. It really is a mom-and-daughter movie. Even the amount of animal-devouring didn't bother me. Heck, if it bothered me, I wouldn't be able to survive in this world. I was a little bothered by the lobsters. That's all I'll say so that I don't ruin anything for those who haven't seen the movie.

The moral of the story is: If Julia Child can live into her 90s after that much butter, then maybe Paula Deen actually does stand a chance.

As for me, I'll stick to my margarine and soy milk.

Saturday:

This past weekend was Irish Fest in downtown Long Grove. For those not familiar with the town, there is a "downtown" area that is composed of very old buildings circa 1800s that have been converted into shops. It makes for a nice little shopping day if it's sunny out and not too hot or too cold. My parents wanted to go because this would have been the weekend they came home from Ireland had their anniversary trip not been cancelled (long story short, they were supposed to go on a week-long tour of Ireland to belatedly celebrate their 30th anniversary but my dad busted his knee again. Ouch.). It was cute, but we didn't stay long. We hadn't entered Bill or Bailey into the dog contests and we hadn't come at a big event time. We didn't eat anything, either. My parents bought some cookies at a baked goods stand, but there was nothing egg-and-dairy free there. To my surprise, I wasn't the first person to ask about those ingredients...I just don't think the women selling the stuff had any idea what it meant. I'll just have to have Robyn, over in her little Irish world outside Baltimore, bake me some vegan goodies and send them over.

Sunday:

Dad wanted to take Mom and I to Apple Holler. Apple Holler is an apple orchard/farm/restaurant/bakery/how many slashes can I get in here? on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. It was a pretty good idea, actually. There had been quite a bit of alpaca talk at our house lately and he remembered that I wanted to visit an alpaca (take me to a farm to play with the animals and I'll be happy for hours. Yea. I'm a kid.) The "alpaca" on site turned out to be a llama moseying around with the goats, but he was cute nonetheless.

Apple Holler is definitely designed for families with small children. You can feed the goats, go through a child-friendly corn maze, pick apples, play in their kiddie corral, etc. So, after watching the kiddos do their thing for less than 5 minutes, we went inside for lunch. The breakfast buffet was just going down as we sat down and the lunch buffet was going up. As a lacto-ovo vegetarian, breakfast buffets were heaven on Earth. As a vegan, it's like hell on a plate. This buffet was the smallest I had ever seen. A cute little menu listed what we'd find and the three of us knew before going up that I couldn't eat anything because it would either contain butter or be cooked in butter. Nope, not even a bowl of oatmeal.

Rule #1: Don't be afraid of the wait staff and cooks. They aim to please. Dude, they work for tips.

The waitress talked to the cook who whipped me up some oil-fried potatoes (mmm, crusty arteries!) and a thick slab of white bread toast with jelly. I'm not one for white bread or jelly, but it was actually quite tasty. I really wanted cinnamon apples, cornbread, and pancakes, but I take what I can get. I had a stomach ache earlier that morning anyhow. Maybe it was destiny?

We then bought a big bag of fresh picked apples so we can bake a delicious apple crisp with margarine. Woohoo!

Now, what to make for dinner tonight?

Let me introduce myself...

Hello!

I am going to make this as straightforward as possible while still being myself. Ha. Here goes nothing.

So, as you can see I have started this blog, The Adventures of an Almost Vegan, to document my glorious journey through the path of veganism. That makes it sound like I'll be finishing at some point, doesn't it? Well, have no fear, friends. I don't intend to take up animal consumption again. With one exception which I will explain shortly.

Who

I am Jill. I am a recent graduate of an MFA program meaning I have 3 degrees and no job. I like to call myself a writer. I am also a daughter, sister, pets' human, cook, consumer, and so forth. I am many things. I am a vegetarian.

What

Yea. That almost-vegan thing throws a lot of people. Sometimes I call it pseudo-vegan. I completely understand if the terms bug you, make you angry, or make you want to gauge my eyes out. I can see how it is like fish eaters calling themselves pesca-vegetarians. There is no such thing. If you kill an animal to eat it, you are not a vegetarian. Simple as that. So what's the with the almosts and pseudos? I refuse to eat dairy, but I will eat eggs that have been certified humane or that come from farms overseen by the American Humane Association. I don't eat them often because they are pricey, but they are in my fridge. See? I'll show you...

When

Nine years ago as of August 28, 2009, actually. I was in middle school when I started my quest towards vegetarianism and by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian. Just this past month I cut out dairy and most eggs.

Why

This is the big one. I don't do it for health reasons, although I am healthier and happier than I ever have been. I do it for ethical reasons. I don't believe animals should have to suffer or die for my consumption. Back in high school I thought dairy and eggs were okay. Cows and chickens aren't dying to give me milk and eggs. This summer I read a couple of books (well, one and a half...I'm still working on one...) and was reminded of the truth. Most egg farms don't treat the chickens well at all and the conditions are horrendous. There is no humane way to get dairy. I immediately went vegan. Then I found a few brands of eggs that are "humane." These eggs are either humane certified to ensure the chickens are treated properly, or overseen by the American Humane Association for the very same reason. I have no problem eating an egg from a happy, healthy chicken. And let me tell you, you can taste the difference!

And so, folks, I present to you the Almost-Vegan. And here are my stories, which should be far more entertaining.