Retro Wrap

Back in the '50s and '60s, plastic wrap was just coming into use, and the wrap of choice was waxed paper. When cooking pudding, waxed paper was placed directly on top of the pudding to keep a skin from forming on top. My peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunches for school were put into waxed paper sacks and folded up, stapled shut or rolled up.

In the last few years I have been painfully aware of the amount of plastic bags I use--whether for garbage or storage, and the plastic wrap that became a staple of my food storage plan worries me in how its touching my food might be contaminating it in some way. When I first considered becoming a vegan in January 2010, the video and books I consulted stressed re-thinking the kind of wraps used for food storage.

Waxed paper is becoming my new best friend in the kitchen. It does not leave me with slimy stuff in the bottom of the refrigerator. I have covered cut onions and tomatoes with it, by pressing the waxed paper against the cut side of the vegetable, and twisting the long excess paper around the rest of the vegetable. They stay fresher longer and do not get slimy or white, brown or smelly at all. I was wrapping my fresh herbs in paper towels and then putting that in plastic in the refrigerator, but still ended up with slime a few days later. Instead of plastic I now wrap the herbs in paper towel and wrap the whole thing in waxed paper. It seems to allow it to breathe but protects it from drying out or decaying too quickly.

I've begun also putting waxed paper on top of gooier foods like open yogurt containers or other similar products -- putting the clean waxed paper directly onto the surface of the contents and pulling the excess paper down the sides and putting a rubber band around the top to hold the paper onto the container. It feels retro, but it makes a world of difference in the flavor and texture of stored foods. In the freezer, I still use zip lock bags to store baked goods, but I wrap the baked items individually in waxed paper first to keep the plastic from touching the food.

It's interesting that "green" recycled parchment paper, waxed paper , and other similar packaging materials in the local grocery store are about twice the price of plastic wrap or non-green products. It shouldn't be that way. We should automatically take these steps to produce what we need, and only as much as we need instead of ruining our world and landscape to produce packaging. I'm glad to see that it is starting to at least appear in stores as an option.

I have not seen waxed paper bags in the stores in years, but I make bags from waxed paper by rolling the edges up and then taping them with masking tape in strategic areas to keep them closed.

Aside from storing food, waxed paper has a lot of artistic uses, but fellow Baby-Boomers might remember the best use of waxed paper...making a slide really slippery.

Brown Rice is Nice

I’ve been a fan of Jay Robb Whey Protein for years—it tastes delicious, is sweetened with Stevia and it is hormone-free. But a few months ago, when I decided to eliminate animal products from my diet as best I can, I was not a fan of soy protein powder, and in fact, did not see that Jay Robb was offering Soy Protein anymore. Checking the web site for a recent blog post, I saw they listed Brown Rice protein powder as their vegetable-based product. Having never heard of it, I asked them if I could try it and give it a write-up. Beth Napolitano in their PR office sent me a nice package of Jay Robb products that included the Brown Rice protein powder in Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry. Not being a fan of strawberry flavored drinks, I gave that one to my police officer son to try for his night-shift snack.

I used to drink lots of chocolate milk back in the day (even up until December), so I tried the chocolate packet first. When I first tried Jay Robb’s chocolate whey protein drinks, I didn’t think they had enough chocolate flavoring and I always added my own cocoa powder (and a banana, raspberries or cherries). The Brown Rice chocolate protein drink was similar in that the chocolate flavor was not strong. But the brown rice gave the drink what I thought was a nutty flavor, and it reminded me more of a maple nut taste, but not chocolate. So I added cocoa powder and it tasted like a chocolate hazelnut or almost a mocha flavor. When using the vanilla powder, I added it to freshly squeezed orange juice, with a banana and a few strawberries and it was almost the same as the whey vanilla, but a little nutty flavor was noticeable. The shake is substantial and thick, which I have not found to be the case with egg protein. I add flaxseed meal ( I use Bob's Red Mill) for fiber and Omega 3 benefits, but also find that adding Flax Seed Oil gives my protein shakes a creamier consistency, as well.

My son, on the other hand—not a fan of the brown rice protein. He tried the strawberry protein mix and said it did not taste at all like strawberries. When I suggested he add real strawberries, he said he wants the powder to taste like strawberries without having to add his own flavor. He felt it was chalky – I would say gritty or nutty. He and his brother both like and use Jay Robb’s vanilla whey protein powder – and when we all lived together, we used to order the 5 lb. bucket. Now I notice they have eco-friendly packaging that is available in 24 and 12 ounce sizes and small single-serving packets. I like that better than the big plastic containers—when I used to take my protein powder to Europe, I had to put it in a zippered plastic bag and it looked like I was carrying illegal substances, so Jay Robb’s new packaging eliminates that problem from my travels, especially if I want to buy a larger size than the small individual servings.

The site has lots of other products and the shaker cup with wire mixer was one of the things that Beth sent me. I gave it to my son to try at work (since I am working at home lately, and I have a blender). He tells me that it does a good job mixing the protein drink. The site also sells stevia powder and books and supplements, as well as protein bars and YAMMIT—a sweet potato based product. For those who are willing to use whey protein powders, they also sell pina colada and tropical flavors in addition to the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. I did like the pina colada when I had it—mixed with crushed ice.

What I like about Jay Robb, the person and the company , is the mission to keep the products made from healthy ingredients – hormone-free, preservative-free, earth friendly, and good tasting products. Whether I personally like the taste or not, they put a lot of effort into giving customers something they believe will be good tasting and good for their health. Jay Robb also has a spiritual focus that impresses me as giving the company a higher purpose, as well.

Sparking My Interest in Staying Healthy

When I began my vegan quest, many people asked how I would get enough protein without meat, eggs and dairy in my diet. Everything I had read indicated that there was not a real measure of protein to go by, and that certainly there was not a protein shortage in the American diet. If anything, I was being told that too much protein can cause calcium to leech out of our bones, leading to osteoporosis. I’m not a doctor so I don’t know that this is true, but the other health benefits seemed to indicate that cutting out the animal products would not hurt, and that protein was available from plant-based sources.

So I decided that the best way to satisfy the naysayers and prove to myself that I was making a good choice in my decision was to be more definitive about my diet as well as accountable. A few years ago, I joined the *free* website www.sparkpeople.com to track calories and exercise in an effort to lose weight. Lots of life changes and responsibilities – and a major move – caused me to fall behind on my posting to the site. But I logged back on this week.

Sparkpeople is an amazing resource, which is touted as a free diet website, but it is really so much more. Users can not only log in what they eat, but to make it easier to continue doing so, the site will save favorite foods and favorite recipes with calorie and nutritional breakdowns so if you eat the same thing frequently, after the first time you eat it and plug it into the daily calorie counter, you can save it and just click on the food to add it on another day. If you eat pretty much the same meals regularly, you can also click on a button to place that meal on other days of the week or month.

Tracking the calories alone is an eye-opener, but Sparkpeople will also make suggestions for meals in your calorie range – and that is something other online and off-line diet plans charge for. What is more, Sparkpeople breaks down the nutritional value of the food choices and creates reports in the form of tables and graphs that make it easy to see just how healthy your meal choices are and when you are going overboard on things like salt, fat, cholesterol and carbohydrates, or not getting enough fiber, calcium, protein or folate, among many other nutritional options. And it reminds you to drink enough water each day too, by showing an empty glass that you can “fill” by logging in 8 glasses of water consumed.

This go-round, when I started plugging things in to see if I was nutritionally in good shape, and not so focused on weight loss per se, it opened my eyes to the fact that I was eating close to 2000 calories a day when I did not pay attention to my food intake. Not only that, my fat and carbohydrate choices were through the roof even though I was eating a lot of vegetables and had cut back on my cholesterol intake. What I now am doing is plugging in my meal plans and seeing how they add up. If I don’t like the numbers I see, I plug in other options until I get a good balance and as close as possible to the ideal numbers.

I’ve cut out a few hundred calories a day overall and made better choices to keep the fat and carbs at reasonable levels. It was no wonder I wasn’t losing any weight while eating my favorite veggie dumplings. They are high in calories, fat and carbs, and I thought the choice of vegetable filling was healthier. So I allow myself to eat them when I cut back on other treats. My Green Market puree comes in handy as a filling, low calorie, low fat, high protein option and when paired with vegan “cheese” melted on whole grain bread, along with a salad, it’s a large and filling lunch for under 500 calories.

While I did lose a good amount of weight in the beginning of my quest to eat a plant-based diet, I was also in the middle of a winter move across town—which meant lots of physical activity. Packing, lifting, carrying, and unpacking boxes; shoveling snow to get to the truck; going up and down three flights of stairs to my new apartment; and not having time to eat mindlessly allowed me to easily burn off calories and not eat unless I was really hungry. Since the move, I have been writing so much that sometimes I barely move away from the computer. With sparkpeople.com, I can plan a fitness regimen by choosing what type of activities I want to do each day (cardio or strength training) and add my own extra goals, which for me is to walk about 5 miles a day in addition to a 30-minute minimum workout. The web site makes suggestions for exercises that I can do, and for strength training will demonstrate them with computerized animation. It calculates the calories burned for cardio and gives me a goal per day.

Since my pedometer didn’t survive the move, I don’t know how many steps I am walking each day, but Sparkpeople has a great feature, especially for someone like me who lives in a big city. They have a mileage calculator with a map that allows me to designate my starting point and my route and to estimate the time I expect to take walking that route. The program will tell me how many miles I will cover and based on my estimated time spent walking, it will calculate calories burned.

Today I plugged in a walk to and across Central Park and back and logged in more than 2.5 miles. In addition, I did a core workout laid out by the site, and made up cardio that I had not done on Monday. In total, I burned more than 1,000 calories and only ate 1700 calories.

The site offers the chance to interact with others based on interests, age, location, goals, etc., as well as articles that are informative or inspirational. There is a point system that allows you to earn avatars based on how much effort you put in and how involved you become on the site. And every day you get to spin a wheel to earn points just for logging on—anywhere from 1 to 25 points. While I know I am not getting anything in exchange for my points, I find I am motivated to do something to earn more points. I suppose it is like playing a video game to try to up my score each time I play.

Sparkpeople also offers trivia questions, polling opportunities, a place to manage your budget, ways to share with social media, and many other options, like appointment calendars, journaling, blogging, and goal setting—all of which can earn you points toward new avatars.

This free site was set up by Chris Downie, who made a lot of money in developing another online site that he sold to E-bay. He has put millions of dollars of his own money into this website for the sole purpose of helping others. There are some small ad spaces on the site, but they are very discreet and certainly not overwhelming in the way that many other sites have to do to stay profitable. I like the idea that a man who succeeded in making himself rich is giving back to the rest of us out of the goodness of his heart without expectations. Just for that alone I want to spread the word and keep on logging in.

Hankering for a “Slice”

There are times when “bad” food just tastes so good, no matter what food one considers to be bad. It must be a psychological thing – like the good girl who wants to date the bad boy (wasn’t that the storyline to “Grease”?) Well, grease is a good metaphor since most of what I am no longer eating is greasy or high in fat. Even though I am endeavoring to make my diet totally (or almost totally) plant-based, every once in awhile I get a hankering for pizza. Most of the time I’m good about it – I look in the window and see all that cheese, and I realize that as good as it tastes, it really isn’t the best choice for me. And most pizza places don’t offer non-dairy options.
So you can imagine my surprise and my excitement when walking down First Avenue in New York a couple of weeks ago I saw a chalkboard outside a pizza store that boasted “Vegan Pizza.” I had to stop to look at the menu. The store—SLICE on First Avenue between 73rd and 74th Streets in New York City—offers not only vegan pizza, but a variety of thin honey wheat crust options. But for folks who are looking for wheat-free or gluten-free options, they offer that, too. For meat eaters, there are free-range, antibiotic and hormone-free chicken in dishes like Sesame Chicken salad, Buffalo Chicken Chili, and chicken sausage on the Master, The Bomb, The Miki and The Guru pizzas.
I was told that I could order any of the pizza choices with vegan cheese (minus the chicken), although some pies use goat cheese and there is no vegan version of goat cheese. In addition to dairy-based part-skim mozzarella and goat cheese, the restaurant offers Daiya vegan mozzarella and vegan lactose- and casein-free cheese. When I was choosing, they told me they only had Teese. Being a vegan virgin, I had never tried it, but was really, really surprised at just how good it tasted, even just raw shredded, which the pizza maker gave me to try. On the pizza, it melted niceIy. I chose the “Advanced” which featured marinara sauce and three types of mushrooms sprinkled with parsley on a crust so thin it was cracker-like. It was by far the best thin-crust pizza I’ve ever had.
There are no ready-made pies sitting around waiting to be reheated—everything is made fresh to order. They encourage creating your own custom pies as well as recycling their packaging. In addition to a variety of soft drinks, Slice serves wine and organic or gluten-free beer. Desserts also include vegan chocolate brownies and a chocolate chip muffin-top cookie. Although I did not try the chocoloate chip muffin cookie, I did try the brownie, and it was very comparable in flavor to a “regular” brownie. It was NOT carob, as a friend of mine assumed it would be. A good treat.
The shop caters parties and school lunch programs with bite-sized options, and they deliver locally on the East Side of Manhattan. They also offer delivery to three drop-off points in Central Park—the Great Lawn, the Sheep Meadow, and Fifth Avenue at 72nd Street. So the ball game or birthday party in the park can include a great thin-crust pizza, or an Upper West Sider who doesn’t want to trek so far east for pick-up can arrange to get delivery in the park and bring it home from there. Other NYC locations are in the West Village and on Hudson Street between Perry and Charles.

Check out their blog at www.sliceperfect.tumblr.com.

What's for Breakfast?

Before adopting a vegan diet, I literally ate eggs every morning with some sort of starch -- normally with unsalted rice cakes but also liked a buttered bagel or an English muffin with butter and raspberry jam. Sometimes I added turkey sausage to the mix. My last cholesterol blood test was 250. I am waiting for my most recent numbers since cutting out meat, dairy, and eggs two months ago.

When you're in that kind of a habit, you don't even have to be fully awake to prepare breakfast -- just go to the fridge and crack two eggs on a frying pan. You don't even have to think about it. I LOVE the taste of eggs. I loved eating eggs every day. But within a half hour of eating them, I would become congested deep down in my throat and cough so hard I thought I was choking. And people around me would ask if I was ill ("Are you getting a cold?"). No, this happens every time I eat eggs (and cheese, and milk, and butter). My Asian friend said, "Then why don't you stop eating them--they obviously are affecting you negatively." I liked eggs despite the fallout afterwards.

But I've been really good -- only ate eggs on two occasions in the last two months. The best substitute I've found is potato patties from Trader Joe's. specifically Lamb Weston Home Browns.
They do contain oil and flour, but they do NOT contain eggs or egg whites, as did most other potato patties I looked at. If I don't get a chance to get to Trader Joe's, I make my own version--a little more time consuming--by grating a potato and a half an onion together and mushing them into a patty shape, spraying my cast iron skillet with some cooking spray, and heating it up. It has the nice hot, tasty sensation that eggs do, and if I add in a soy sausage or two, it does feel like a normal breakfast sans eggs. These can also be eaten at other meals. Once in awhile I will eat one of these with some vegetarian refried beans. Yum!

I have tried a tofu omelet (there's a good recipe or two in the Engine2Diet cookbook), and my feeling is, it tastes okay, but if you want an omelet, eat eggs and save the tofu for a recipe that is more suited to tofu. The omelet recipes DO have a nice flavor, but they are not eggs.

I also make pancakes with egg replacement products and soy milk instead of the animal-based products. And spray Smart Balance spray on my food instead of using the hunks of butter I used to use.

If I am awake enough, and have the time, I will make my breakfast shake extraordinaire! My nutrition counselor -- a doctor from the Columbia Weight Management Center--did advise me to eat fruit rather than to drink juice, but one of my favorite weight management authors and product producers -- Jay Robb -- indicates that fresh squeezed fruit juice is better than store bought. Since for me orange juice is easier to manage than eating a real orange (I am a messy fruit eater), I juice a bunch of oranges and refrigerate the juice. I then add a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice (my favorite oranges for this are the normally unavailable Mineola oranges--or honeydews) to a blender with a banana, and something strawberry. Here I either add some strawberry soy yogurt, real strawberries, or V8 Fusion Light strawberry banana juice (which includes vegetable juices, as well). To this I add a scoop of Jay Robb protein powder.

Jay Robb's Whey protein (vanilla) is the most delicious tasting protein powder I have tried. It is sweetened with Stevia, a natural herb sweetener which is the basis for Purevia and TruVia sweeteners. It is also hormone free. It does make me cough, though, the way dairy does to me. I notice on the web site for Jay Robb products that he has a new Brown Rice protein powder, which I was not aware of. I will have to try it and compare.

Finally, before blending, I add either flax seed meal (I use Bob's Red Mill) or I add Metamucil (orange flavored is nice) with a shot of flax seed oil. This adds fiber and Omega 3 fatty acids.

I blend it all together and even if I am on the run, I can bring it with me in a disposable cup (which I try to use more than once, to make it less wasteful), or a water bottle. Tastes like a creamsicle, but the banana and strawberry adds some punch. It's a nice late-morning snack or meal replacement if you're not really hungry.

The great thing about the shake is that I can make it up in the blender when I have the time and put the blender pitcher into the fridge until I am ready for the shake later in the day, when I may be less free to go through all the steps. Then all I have to do is put it back on its base, give it a whirl, and pour it out -- a nice, chilled mellow fruit shake with fiber, protein, and other nutrients.

So while I sometimes miss the eggs for breakfast, these other options are opening my eyes to plant-based alternatives.

Next up on The Vegan Virgin -- desserts.

Green Market Puree

I love going to the various green markets around New York City, especially in the summertime when the nearby (and sometimes not so nearby) farmers bring their fresh, homegrown, and homemade produce, meats, dairy products, wines, jellies, jams and baked goods. There is so much to choose from at the height of the season that I know is good for me, but I am not sure how to incorporate it all into my meal plan. One day, when I had a variety of vegetables in my refrigerator, but not a lot of any one, I decided to cook them all together into a soup. Starting with onions, leeks and garlic, I began to sauté them on the bottom of a large pot. Going through the supply I had available, I added cut-up broccoli, carrots, a potato, peas, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, and the old Simon and Garfunkel staples—Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. I sprinkled in some white pepper, salt, and Herbs de Provence, and poured in about a cup of chicken broth. Now that I am following a vegan diet, I add vegetable broth or Imagine Organic No-Chicken broth and I use the soup starter packages from the produce section, which often include leeks, celery, turnips, parsnips and dill, in addition to the vegetables I already mentioned. I sometimes add kale or asparagus, collard greens or cauliflower if I have them on hand.

I have heard that juicing is lacking because it separates out the fiber, so I figured that this concoction, which just softens all the vegetables into a sort of stew, would be more beneficial. Once they have all cooked into a soft blend, I blend them even further into a puree with an immersion blender or, after letting them cool, putting them into a blender or food processor. What results is a creamy green mixture that brings to mind guacamole or a concentrated broccoli soup. But the flavor is rich and tasty. In the pureed form, it has a versatility that makes it useful for its own soup (add extra vegetable broth, heat and serve with croutons or a crisp baguette). In the more thickened version, I often will pour it over sliced and fried polenta. When I am in the mood for a simple meal of pasta and marinara sauce, I add about one-quarter cup of the vegetable puree to the pasta sauce to add nutritional value and fiber to the meal. I might also add meatless meatballs or soy crumbles to make a Bolognese sauce.

A tasty way to use the green market puree is to make a Green Pizza with it. Bake a store-bought pizza crust and top with the green puree and some soy (or real) mozzarella cheese. I like to add chopped mushrooms and onions to it sometimes, though both those vegetables are already in the puree. It is a delicious alternative to red pizza. You can serve both or mix the sauces together to have a veggie pizza in disguise. Looks like a regular slice, but the secret sauce has veggies mixed in.

Another way to use the puree is to add a few scoops of it to mashed potatoes. The green puree adds flavor, a touch of color, and a lot of fiber and nutrients. As a kid I would not eat my peas unless they were mixed into mashed potatoes. Here I can mix a dozen vegetables at once into my potatoes. Add some vegetable broth to it all and have a potato soup with vegetables.

I keep the green market puree in a bowl in the refrigerator and use it up within a few days. If I don’t think I will, I might divide it into small plastic freezer containers or pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. Once they are frozen, take the cubes out of the containers and store the mini-squares of puree in a sealing freezer bag for future use.

My Vegan Valentine -- peacefood cafe

Between my moving at the end of February and not having had a proper Valentine’s Day celebration, I decided to treat myself to an excursion to find a vegan eaterie; now that I am meat-free, I’ve only eaten what I cook myself. In NYC on the Upper West Side, I didn’t have to go far. Only a few blocks actually.

Between 83rd and 82nd on Amsterdam, I found peacefood café. I knew the word “peace” equaled vegetarian. Probably there for years, it was the first time I had noticed it. A peek at the menu made my mouth water, and I was in the mood for Asian dumplings. Their pan-seared shanghai-style dumplings are filled with chives, shitake and wood ear mushrooms, marinated tofu, vegetarian protein and served with a ginger balsamic dipping sauce ($7). I could already taste them as I walked through the door. The place was packed for lunch (President’s Day), so I ordered to go. The soups of the day were posted on a board behind the cash register and the cauliflower and parsnip soup called to me. I ordered, and while I waited at the counter drinking filtered water, I was mentally picking out my next visit’s choices. The vegetable tamale served with jalapeno and cilantro oil ($6) sounded good. So did the panini with pan-seared French horn mushrooms with sun-dried tomatoes, arugula, artichoke, aioli, mint and basil pesto ($9.95).

Sandwich orders for other diners made their way past me and I made a mental note that the tahini sprouts sandwich ($9)with sprouts, avocado, cucumber, onions, shredded carrots and miso tahini with poppy seeds spread was another possibility . Salads were another option and the other Caesar sounded tasty, as did the Asian greens ($9.95 each).

Once home, a taste of soup revealed a thick puree with small bits of cauliflower spiced up by the more piquant parsnip flavor. The puree had a hint of potatoes mixed in. A nice mild but tasty dish served with crispy bread slices to crumble on top. The shanghai-style dumplings were absolutely wonderful. The meatiness of the mushrooms and the subdued tangy balsamic sauce blended perfectly for a hearty lunch.

Next time, I’ll sample their desserts…mmm, brownies, cheesecake, tiramisu and chocolate ganache. Who needs a date for Valentine’s Day when food this good can fulfill your passion and be good to your heart at the same time?