My Favorite Granola

People are always asking me: “Darcy, what do you eat for breakfast? How can I make it to lunch without eating an enormous amount of cholesterol –laden, fatty foods?” OK. So they don’t actually phrase it that way, but I do frequently get asked what I eat, so I thought I would share with you all my favorite weekday breakfast: granola. I love it, love it, love it.

I began playing around with this recipe about a year ago, tweaking things here and there to get it to where I think it is perfect for me; not too sweet, and with far less fat than other recipes. One of the great things about granola is that it is so forgiving. You can add and take away and play to your heart’s content. So please, take this recipe and make it your own.

Darcy’s Granola

4 cups old fashioned rolled oats

2 T whole flax seeds

¼ cup raw sunflower or pumpkin seeds

½ - 1 cup raw nuts (my general rule of thumb is ½ cup for chopped or sliced nuts, 1 cup for whole nuts)

½ cup raisins or dried berries

¼ cup vegetable oil such as sunflower

¼ cup honey (or other liquid sweetener)

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Stir well to make sure everything is coated with the oil and honey. Transfer oat mixture to a large baking sheet or jelly roll sheet and spread evenly. Bake granola for 15-20 minutes, stirring well every five minutes or so. For a darker granola bake longer, but check on it every two or three minutes. Once the granola gets past 20 minutes in the oven it begins to darken rapidly. Cool granola in the pan, continuing to stir every few minutes. Store cooled granola in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Also freezes well. Makes approximately seven 2/3 cup servings.

Book Review: Veganist by Kathy Freston

If you ever were interested in exploring reasons to transition to a vegan diet (or even a partial vegan diet), this is the book for you. It, of course, covers the common anti-cruelty reasons, but Freston also pulls in experts in the area of nutrition, medicine, and the environment to explore myriad other reasons to leave behind eating animal products. The tone is non-judgmental and encouraging. The point, she says, and the reason she calls herself a veganist rather than a vegan, is the attitude. It’s not about being preachy, dogmatic, or self righteous, but making a positive change in your life and influencing those around you.

The book is organized into chapters Freston calls “promises.” Her promise is that switching to a vegan diet will change your life. Having eaten mostly vegan for nearly a year, I can personally attest to what she is saying. There is something to be said for making conscious and conscientious food choices every day. It connects you to your life, your body, your health in a way that not even physical exercise does. You will feel lighter and more energized, healthier. That is a promise.

Freston does not recommend making a drastic switch from a junk food, fast food filled diet to vegan all at once, but transitioning, one animal or animal product at a time. Soon, she says, you will find that you want to make more changes and by giving your taste buds a chance to transform themselves, you will desire real, whole foods even more than the cholesterol and saturated fat laden things you had been eating.

Veganist demonstrates that there is no down side to eating vegan. It improves your health, helps the environment, diminishes the demand for meat, thereby diminishing the public health risks associated with factory farms, and even can save you money. For example, the price of a pound of organic black beans at Whole Foods is $1.69. One pound of chicken breast at Walmart would cost me $2.99, and doesn’t feed nearly as many people as a pound of beans. And what about the environment? Freston argues that if every American ate vegetarian only one day a week it would have the environmental impact of removing half a million cars from the road.  

What about you? Would you be willing to cut back on your animal consumption if it meant a healthier you, a healthier wallet, and a healthier planet?

Just Substitute Tofu

Lately I’ve been trying more Asian cooking, primarily a little basic Chinese and Indian-style food. Nothing too fancy or complicated. Once I started this culinary ball rolling I began thinking of favorite Chinese take-out dishes, especially kung pao chicken. I love the spicy sauce, the crunch of the peanuts, the green onions. Could I, I wondered, recreate this favorite in my own kitchen using tofu instead of chicken?

A simple Google search for “kung pao tofu” brought up thousands of results through which I began slogging looking for recipes that didn’t require an unreasonable amount of ingredients or those that would require a trip to an Asian market. I settled on this recipe, substituting a red bell pepper (my favorite veggie) for the water chestnuts and celery. The result was delicious if just a little salty, though I think that was my fault. When salting the sautéing vegetables I forgot to account for the soy sauce and salted peanuts I would be adding later. Woops.

I also had a little trouble with my tofu. I had read that freezing the tofu, even just over night, would change its texture, making it a little chewier, and more like chicken. The only catch was that it needed to be well-drained before going into the freezer to keep water crystals from forming all throughout. Guess who didn’t drain her tofu thoroughly enough? The tofu ended up being a little more spongy than chewy, but still tasted good. Again, my fault.

One of my favorite things about cooking is finding a recipe I want to try again and again to tweak it until it’s exactly what I want. This kung pao tofu recipe will definitely be showing up on my menu again in the pretty near future.

Chaco Canyon Organic Cafe

I love food. Wait. Strike that. I LOVE food. And no trip home to the fam is complete without shopping for it, cooking it, ordering it, and eating food. Lots of food. On my recent trip to Seattle my mother introduced me to Chaco Canyon Organic Café. Located on the corner of 12^th Avenue and 50^th Street in Seattle’s university district this café represents the best of the Seattle lifestyle in food form. As the name states, the ingredients are organic (the restaurant itself is USDA certified organic), and the menu is vegan (the exceptions being dairy milk as an option for smoothies and coffee drinks). They even offer raw vegan dishes, such as the blueberry cheesecake I sampled (okay, I ate half of a slice, but to me that’s a sample).

Sustainability and responsibility are also hallmarks of Chaco Canyon. They use stainless steel beverage cups instead of breakable glass or plastic. Their dishes and furniture are second hand. The walls are filled with denim, repurposed as insulation. As I sat there eating my pesto melt sandwich (cilantro and pumpkin seed pesto, alfalfa sprouts, tomato, vegan mozzarella, and marinated red onion on ciabatta) I wondered if my corner of South Carolina offers any restaurants with a similar menu or philosophy. I simply have to find out. Downtown perhaps? If I find anything I will certainly try it out.

 
As I mentioned, I ordered the pesto melt sandwich. I also sampled the hummus and cucumber sandwich, the Tai peanut grain bowl, and (ahem) a few desserts. They also offer freshly made juices. I tried the Belly Rub, made with apple juice, lemon, mint, ginger and fennel. Everything I ate was wonderful. Those of you living in the Seattle area owe it to yourselves to try Chaco Canyon. The food is great, the desserts are scrumptious (and that is not a word I use in everyday conversation), the atmosphere is relaxed, and you can be happy knowing that your money is supporting a local business that cares about more than the bottom line.

Seattle VegFest 2011

Last week I made a trip out to the great Northwest to visit family and my vacation just happened to coincide with Vegetarians of Washington VegFest in Seattle. What a great event! We arrived and went straight to a cooking demo class sponsored by Pacific Coast Co-op, a chain of natural food stores out west. The first recipe was Braised Kale with Chickpeas and Smoked Paprika. Not only did we get a good view of her making this recipe but we also got some good information in general on cooking greens. I’ll be the first to admit that greens are not my favorite vegetables and I need to do a better job at incorporating them into my diet, so I was the tiniest bit nervous about trying this dish, but it was delicious. Seriously. I added the ingredients to my Whole Foods list as soon as I made it home to South Carolina. I cannot wait to try it.

The second recipe was Spicy and Sweet Caramel Corn. This also was delicious. You know you have a cook recipe when you can taste all of the different ingredients and when I tried this caramel corn I could taste the spice of the cinnamon, the heat from the cayenne, the sweetness of the brown sugar . . . yum. 

After the class we wandered through the exhibit hall visiting vendor booths and tried all sorts of vegetarian and vegan food products, everything from Coconut Bliss non-dairy ice cream to Gardein “beef tips,” from cultured almond milk to Field Roast “sausage.” It was a great way to try new products without having to buy an entire package in a store. There were also samples to take away such as mini Lara Bars and Odwalla energy bars.

 

It was a good time, good event, brushing shoulders (sometimes literally) with other people who have embraced the vegetarian lifestyle. If there are similar events in your area do yourself a favor and check it out!

Now that you have the information what are you going to do with it?

Everyday we encounter bits of information. Some we ignore, some we file away for future reference (either figuratively or literally), and some information requires us to make a decision. Oprah Winfrey recently aired an episode of her talk show that I know many of you saw. It included video footage from a beef slaughterhouse. Interestingly, the knocking and sticking (rendering unconscious and bloodletting) were not allowed to be taped.

Outside of “What do you eat?” the most common question I get is: “Why did you become a vegetarian?” The reason is twofold: first, I believe eating a meatless diet is healthier than one that includes meat. The second reason is that I could no longer justify giving my money to a segment of the economy in which cruelty to animals is an industry standard. Groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Mercy for Animals have spent years documenting the horrors of slaughterhouses, pig farms, feed lots, layer hatcheries and more. Whenever I tell someone my second reason for being a vegetarian I never cease to be amazed by the response. I always expect an argument, but instead what I get are nods of agreement, tongues clucking in sympathy, and furrowed brows. They know just as well as I do what happened to the pig that suffered for their morning bacon, but they are happier not dealing with the information they have. They prefer to live in ignorance, they say. The only problem with that is they are not ignorant. They know what goes one and yet they still choose to partake.

I posted the video embedded below in my opening post on this blog. It is not pleasant, but I urge you to watch it.

If you understand the horrors of the meat industry and are okay with it, then fine, by all means keep sending them your money.

I Don’t Do . . . (Fill in the Blank)

First off I want to thank my co-workers for providing me with what is turning out to be a nearly endless supply of blog post ideas. I recently had a conversation in the lunch room with a teller that led to a discussion on food. It started out the way my workplace food conversations normally start: “So, I heard you’re a vegetarian?” After the requisite questions, including “What do you eat then?” the conversation turned to healthier eating in general. She had recently watched Oprah (there’s another future post idea) and now was thinking more about what she was eating.

The conversation was actually very enjoyable as she seemed to be open to making some changes and learning about new foods, but then she stopped me cold when she said, “I don’t do fruit.” Don’t do fruit? What does that even mean? It was a solid declaration like, “I don’t do drugs.” End of story. She said she’ll eat an occasional apple, but that’s about it. She hates bananas, strawberries, etc., etc., etc. I still don’t know what to make of this. And truth be told, she is not the first person to say this exact same statement to me. I’ve also heard variations such as, “I don’t do vegetables” and “I don’t do whole grains.”

 

We all have specific foods we don’t like. I recently saw a TV ad for Miracle Whip that asked people to pick a side. I chose to side with the man who says he’d rather lick a boot than eat Miracle Whip. But to disregard an entire food category? Before you jump in and say, “That’s what you’ve done!” keep in mind that vegetarians make a conscious decision to remove meat from their diet, which they are careful to replace with other protein-rich foods. It is not a casual dismissal without regard to the diet as a whole, which is what the “I don’t do . . .” people seem to, well, do. Why don’t I ever hear someone say, “I don’t do artificial sweeteners,” or “I don’t do fast food”?