Day One - Learning Curve

I talked to a few vegans before I started this. They all had a similar response, "you should try vegetarianism for a while first." Granted, a vegan diet is very strict, but I have been fairly confident that it won't be a problem to change a few things in my diet. The first day was eye opening. It's not the type food that is so hard. It's the access to it that make it so difficult. Specifically, you have to make. Yes. Food comes in this weird unfinished state and you have to cut, blend, cook, boil, and do all kinds of things to make it worth eating. Crazy, right? The sad thing is, my mother is a family science teacher, so I was raised to know how to cook. I can follow a recipe, but I'm not a domestic goddess. So here is what happened.

Meal One: Breakfast - oatmeal + smoothie.

Oatmeal with dried cranberries and almond milk
I cooked it in the microwave, so it was an easy 2 minutes from start to finish. I love oatmeal, especially with cranberries. The almond milk was new, and is thicker than my usual skim milk. It was kind of like treating myself with whole milk. The texture was a little different, but I was diggin' it. It kept me full all morning, lots of good fiber. Overall, Winner.

Smoothie - AKA the sludge in the cup - (banana, strawberries, blueberries, apple juice, kale)
It took a while for me to find the right blend and consistency, but that was due to lack of practice more than anything else. I'm not going to say how long. Let's just say, it's a little embarrassing how long it took to get it right. Smoothies aren't complicated. I saw an idea to put kale in, so you get veggies, but it tastes like fruit. Sounded great and there was a picture of a cute little pea-green smoothie. I was excited to try it and was fun to watch the blend change from pink to green. Then I realized it was only had fruit and it was way too thick. I added apple juice, but it over powered the taste, so I added more strawberries. And then the smoothie turned to sludge. Despite the appearance, it tasted great. Not a hint of kale. Double rainbow in my mouth. Albeit a brown rainbow.

Meal Two: peanut butter & banana sandwich + homemade hummus w/pita chips.

Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich
Not just for children, PB+B is tasty. Easy to make, transports well, totally vegan. 'Nuf said.




Hummus and Pita chips
Homemade Hummus

Ingredients

• 2 cups canned garbanzo beans, drained
• 1/3 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cloves garlic, halved
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pinch paprika
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley

Directions: Place the garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, salt and garlic in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Transfer mixture to a serving bowl. Drizzle olive oil over the garbanzo bean mixture. Sprinkle with paprika and parsley.

Another supposedly simple recipe. Pretty much you just throw it all in and blend. For the record, I followed the recipe and the finished result was almost perfect. I made one mistake. But sometimes, one mistake makes a big difference. While shopping, I had a hard time finding tahini. I had to google what it was. Something about sesame seeds. I bought sesame seed oil. 1/3 cup sesame seed oil is not the same as 1/3 cup tahini (which I now know is a sesame seed paste). Luckily I'm okay with the taste, but it is very strong. Not really good dip material. Such a pity. I love hummus.

Meal Three: broccoli + rice + hummus-esque sauce.

I gave up for dinner. Frozen broccoli. Left-over rice. Hummus that tasted like failure. But, wait! I kid you not, it was darn good. The "hummus" was not a dip, but it was really good on the veggies. I think I'm on to something here. It pretty much is just sesame seed oil paste, but with other things, it is like sparkles of excitement to my taste buds. Really!