VeganMoFo 30: Oat, Amaranth & Carrot Porridge + Weekly round-up of vegan news and MoFo recipes (10/30/11)

by JL Fields on October 30, 2011

Did you hear?  You can enter to win a copy of Vegan Pie in the Sky!  That’s news, right?!

Before I get to the rest of this week’s news, Vegan MoFo recipes I must try and a round-up from my own blogs, let me share a new breakfast creation. I couldn’t resist jumping in for the final Vegan MoFo Iron Chef Challenge #4. Secret ingredients:  carrots and oats!

JL’s Oat, Amaranth & Carrot Porridge
PRINT RECIPE

Ingredients

  • 2 T Earth Balance buttery spread
  • 1/4 cup yellow onion, diced
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 1 cup amaranth
  • 2.5 cups filtered water
  • 1 t salt
  • 1/2 t cinnamon

Instructions

  • Add all ingredients to your rice cooker and select the porridge cycle.
  • Serve with a dab of Earth Balance, a sprinkle of cinnamon and sea salt to taste.

Can you say best “cream o wheat” ever?  You must try this!  Amaranth is packed with protein and calcium — such a great way to start your day!

***
On to some vegan news…

I will start with news I could do without.  It friggin’ snowed yesterday! I don’t mean cute little flakes where you find yourself charmed by the October oddity. It was a vicious snow storm. Trees and branches down all over Westchester County (and my backyard).  And my garden.

Saturday at noon

Oh, my sweet, bistro garden.  It’s abruptly over.

Sunday, 7:00 a.m.

Fortunately Dave harvested the garden for me Friday and I have a big bag of kale in the garage and the final eggplant and peppers to cook up today.

Since we’re talking WTF news, explain this please. Why would that Ohio teacher who had sex with 17 year old students try to blame her vegan diet as part of her insanity plea?

In other news, I stumbled upon two articles about mixed-marriages (in this case, mixed means an omnivore spouse and a vegan spouse):

The second article really challenged me.  I felt judgmental, thinking I couldn’t possibly tolerate a hunter lifestyle in my home but, really, how is tolerating a spouse eating meat any different than knowing the animal died at the hands of your spouse? In the end it’s the same result– an animal needlessly died.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Here’s something totally random and totally cool:  Amtrak is introducing vegan meals!

Finally, there was was some celebrity news that I feel obligated to share, though you’ve probably read it a million times this week:

***

I have saved so many wonderful recipes from my fellow Vegan MoFo Bloggers this month!  This week:

On JL goes Vegan this week:

And on Stop Chasing Skinny:

Have a beautiful Sunday, friends!

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Tagged as: urban garden, vegan mofo, vegan news, veganmofo, weekly round-up

  • http://twitter.com/TheVeganAsana Lorin

    Thanks for the wrap up and the yummy looking recipe!

  • Farrah Pileggi

    What a great recipe for amaranth. I am always looking for something new to do with that grain. Wonderful weekly round-up!

  • Princessfiona911

    I don’t have a porridge setting on my rice cooker. Now what?

    • http://jlgoesvegan.com JL

      Hmmm, if you have a brown rice setting you could use that and keep checking (and adding liquid as needed, because porridge should be a little runny). Or, you could just use a stove top method?

  • http://northwestherbivore.com Rhean

    Actually, Amtrak has had vegan meals available for years (though whether they actually put them on the train for you when pre-ordered is another question, as I learned the hard way). I will say that the quality I ran into on a trip on the Coast Starlight a year ago was pretty grim–worse than airline food by a substantial gap. But since my previous long-haul train trip had involved two days scraping by when they failed to put my meals on the train (after two reminders!), I was grateful to have something hot and semi-balanced to eat. I look forward to trying the new offerings, which do sound promising!

  • http://twitter.com/therawproject Christine

    Yum on the breakfast creation, it sounds wonderful! Just added amaranth to my shopping list! Yikes on the snow, wow! Beautiful pics, but I hope you won’t have to put up with that again for a bit. And OMG on the Ohio teacher! Horrible! :-(  

    Interesting on mixed marriages for me since I’m in one. I knew I couldn’t expect hubby to go vegan just because I did and I wasn’t when we were married. For the most part our marriage is fine, it teaches me to be accepting of each person’s dietary path, to not be dogmatic, and to focus on being a positive influence. One day he may go vegan and I see that as an epic challenge on my part to shine positive light on the lifestyle. Who knows.

    Awesome celebrity news!

    • http://jlgoesvegan.com JL

       Christine, your approach is really great and I try to follow the same with my husband.  As Colleen Patrick Goudreau says “before you were vegan, you were not”  So when I’m dealing with non-vegans in my life I have to remember that maybe they just aren’t vegans yet.  No one brought me to veganism– I came to it when I was ready.  So I can’t expect to change others but I can try to lead my example.

  • lynn_eva_barber

    xo! thanks for the mention about scissors and spice! 

    and soooooo crazy about that teacher. super wtf!

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  • http://twitter.com/RunCrissieRun RunCrissieRun

    I can’t get over the crazy winter weather!  It didn’t snow here, but it was really cold (high 40′s), windy, and wet.  It was 80 earlier in the week, and now I want to turn the heater on!  Glad you got your last harvest out though!

  • http://www.gggiraffe.blogspot.com JohannaGGG

    Thanks for the link!  Great round up of some interesting stuff – love all the snow on your chairs (and I am sure I would love it less if it was my backyard) but it does look pretty. 

    The question about partners who eat meat is interesting but I think that (in my case of having a meat eating partner) my partner eats less meat because he is happy for me to cook at home so I might be able to claim that I have an impact on his diet.  whereas if he was bringing carcasses into the house like that, I would probably just say no because it is flaunting the kill and just would seem disrespectful to my feelings.  Not sure if that answers the question but those are my thoughts.

  • http://www.tiedyefiles.com Kaitlyn@TheTieDyeFiles

    Carrot cake for breakfast? Yes please! The mixed marriage articles are interesting to me. My boyfriend and I live about an hour from each other, but when we cook on weekends it’s always vegan for my sake. I get really upset when he talks to me about his hash and cheese omelettes or other animal product-laden meals but I hate to judge. In all honesty I want him to be as healthy as can be, and I’d love for him to adopt a vegan diet. I know pushing isn’t the way to do it, so I don’t, but I often wonder how things would go if we lived closer or lived together. I definitely don’t think I could handle meat in the house. I admire the hunter’s wife for loving her husband enough to live with it, but I’m not sure if I could!

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  • Sarah Husband

    I recall one time my omni sister saying she thought hunting was cruel.  I said I didn’t think it was all that different than eating meat from the grocery store.  She said it was different because you were getting pleasure out of killing an animal (with the implication that that is sort of sadistic).  Later I thought to myself, what is eating meat other than getting pleasure from a dead animal?

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