Today I thought I would share a couple of quick and easy meals I have enjoyed this week but first, an update on I Eat Plants!
Last week in my column I “confessed” that I am not a perfect vegan. The response was overwhelming. Overwhelmingly wonderful. There were some folks who took exception to how I defined veganism in the piece. I didn’t take it personally because I realized that if they read my blog they would have a far better notion of my own vegan experience.
I stand by how I described veganism. When I claimed the label “vegan” over two years ago, I still wore wool and leather. On my vegan journey I learned more and more about veganism – once you know something, you can’t not know it – and I moved beyond wearing animal products. I have a ten-year old car and the seats are leather – am I less vegan? I don’t think so. Will my next car have leather seats? No. I’ll be as vegan then as I am right now.
My Small Bites editor was really impressed by the volume of comments and went so far as to highlight it in the print edition of The Journal News yesterday!
She also wrote a story on the variety of blogs in the food section on LoHud.com. Check out Thursday:
It brings me so much joy to see the word “vegan” in my local paper!
It also brings me joy when I give my I Eat Plants column readers vegan options to making foods they know and love. Today I shared my Coconut-Gingered Infused Black Bean Brownies recipe. Just last night a reader let me know how the brownies turned out for her:
Yay!
You know what else brings me joy? Quick and easy vegan meals!
We were out of town over the weekend so Sunday night it was all about meal delivery.
Our local Turkish restaurant delivers – thank goodness! – so I ordered the Mediterranean salad (hold the feta) and the cold chickpea salad appetizer, which I promptly spooned over the salad. A side of whole grain pita rounded out this lovely, made-by-someone-else meal.
The next day Dave went to the grocery store for us; I just asked for vegetables and a few multigrain bread products (because I have tons of grains and beans in the cupboard). He wisely picked up tofu pups because he noticed that I had not moved from my office in hours. When I finally got around to making dinner I opted for a very simple open face “hotdog” salad wrap.
This thing was loaded! I spread a thin layer of vegan mayo over a whole grain tortilla and topped it with chopped lettuce, tomato, onion, and cooked tofu pups. Then, for good measure, I added sauerkraut and yellow mustard.
Yesterday I got it together. I literally scheduled cooking into my work day.
11:00 a.m. Quinoa in the rice cooker + soak beans
6:00 p.m. Pressure cook the pinto beans
6:30 p.m. Eat an easily prepared, delicious, home-cooked meal
Oh, did I ever love this vegan dinner bowl!
I prepared the red quinoa in my rice cooker with vegetable broth (homemade), peppers, onion and pinch of iodized sea salt. I set the rice cooker on the brown rice setting, jumped onto a conference call, and, just about the time the call was ending, I heard the beep on the cooker, indicating my quinoa was perfectly done. I fluffed it and let it cool on the counter before refrigerating it later. After letting my pinto beans soak for about seven hours I rinsed and drained them. In the pressure cooker I heated up avocado oil, onion and garlic. I added the beans, a bay leaf, and about half a teaspoon of chipotle powder. I covered the beans with half water – half vegetable broth. I cooked at pressure for about 13 minutes, allowed the pressure to release naturally, then simmered the beans, uncovered, for a few minutes after adding a few pinches of salt.
Here’s how it came to be a dinner bowl: I started with baby spinach and chopped romaine, added cooked quinoa, and heated it up for a minute in the microwave. I added the freshly cooked pinto beans and topped it off with raw, chopped yellow pepper and a dollop of vegan mayo mixed with Sriracha. A dash of chipotle later, I was eating a fantastic meal!
Back tomorrow with a new recipe for a tasty one-pot vegan meal!
17 thoughts on “Vegan perfection makes the paper + Quick and easy dinner ideas”
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How about you mail me some of those brownies? 🙂 xoxo Totally felt excitement to even have the word “Vegan” appear in your local newspaper! And then you wrote that you felt like that too. Isn’t that interesting?
I think you would like these brownies, Wendy! Of course, the nuts are optional! 😉 (referring to your post today!)
Ooooh that dinner bowl looks good JL….I’ve been eating quite a few bowls myself. While the others in the family eat a sauce or saucy beans over pasta, I head to the garden, cut a few leaves of kale, chop and put on my bowl (washing first! Many spiders like to live in my kale plants!), top with the sauce or beans and add in whatever veggies we have that night, plus some chutney, salsa or tapenade– and sprinkle a little nutritional yeast on top. Maybe this week I’ll add a hot dog. 🙂
You can never really go wrong with a vegan hot dog, Jen (you heard it here, first!) 😉 Your bowls are sounding YUMMY!
your food looks amazing. i don’t know if i told you that i loved your interview on HH. So inspiring. Anyway, i love your vegan perspective on things. I have tried to phase out most of my non vegan products but i am still using some of my pre-vegan shoes until they need to be replaced. it’s a journey and it doesn’t have to look one way. thanks for reminding us of that. peace to you.
@twitter-219078851:disqus , I want to thank you for such a lovely comment – it means the world to me. And thank you for sharing a bit of your own journey; it’s great for everyone here to see the variety of ways in which we live our lives more compassionately. Peace to you.
I just posted about quinoa and beans myself, although in a slightly different context. 😉 At any rate, congrats on the additional coverage in the paper! It’s great that you have that avenue to help spread a message of compassion and educate others with the vegan lifestyle.
As for the “perfect” vegan argument, I’m very turned off by the voracious vegans who preach compassion and then fail to extend that to the people who are trying their best to live a vegan/veggie lifestyle. No one is perfect, and I would rather accidentally slip of the path than intentionally make hypocritical statements. You are a great example of compassion and that it’s all really just a personal journey!
Thank you, @twitter-334811425:disqus! I think context is always important to consider. On this blog – a vegan blog – I have certainly asked readers to think about their level of veganism. For a mainstream paper, it seems we would want to be waving the welcome banner, not the my way or the highway banner. Anyway…
This is a little off topic, but I immediately thought of your “I’m not a perfect vegan” article this week when I was advised to go buy fresh chicken to cook for my elderly ailing dog. Talk about not being perfect! I’ve been vegetarian for 25 years, I didn’t even know how to cook chicken! I felt so guilty on so many levels (not to mention my house smelled disgusting) but now my dog was so excited and is eating again. Of course her kibble also had meat in it, but for some reason that isn’t as offensive to me. I guess because it doesn’t look like meat? Anyway, before I get my next round of pets, I’ll do some research about vegan food options.
Hi Mary! I’m glad you commented! I think it’s very much on topic when we think about “how vegan” someone is. I can’t say I that don’t buy animal products – because I do buy cat food because they actually are carnivores. Thanks for bringing it up!
As much as I love my vegan lifestyle, I have made chicken and rice for an ailing pup. I would do anything for my babies, and that was the only thing that eased her and made her feel better. I think as long as we do the absolute best that we can for ourselves, isn’t that good enough for now? 🙂
I so appreciate your take on things. I have been vegan for a long time and, I am here to say, there is no perfect vegan. As I am also a non-consumer as much as possible, I still have wool sweaters from 20 years ago and I still wear them.
Constance, thanks for jumping in on this! I’m a knitter – spent a few years post-40 /pre-vegan learning how. I made some gorgeous things, with wool and silk, and they sit in my closet. I haven’t knit with those yarn fibers since going vegan but I most certainly have not discarded the items I spent hours and hours learning how to make!
I just love your blog. I don’t think a post goes by that I don’t get something useful from! Keep up the great work and I am so happy for the leaps and bounds your vegan career is taking you on!
~Lolly
Lolly, thank you SO much!