Chipotle

Trying to eat cheaply and vegan has proven to be difficult.

At fast food restaurants I’m limited to fries or a garden side salad. I once tried a hamburger without the meat (bun, onion, lettuce, tomato) but that proved unsatisfying. I can’t eat delicious pizza, and if anyone finds a Mexican dish that does not include meat or cheese please let me know.

There is one exception, though. One reasonably priced and tasty restaurant that has a special place in the hearts of college students everywhere.

Have you guessed what it is? Oh, wait, it’s the title of this post..

Chipotle! Obviously not everything is vegan, but I don’t have to eat a meatless  hamburger and that makes me happy.

This is my favorite. A burrito bowl (the tortilla is 300 calories!!!) with black beans, fajita peppers, tomato salsa, and chili-corn salsa. Top it off with lettuce and guacamole and I’m set for at least 3 meals.

I once finished an entire burrito in one sitting. I don’t want to talk about it.

As a former Chipotle employee, I can eat there confident that nothing in my bowl has hidden animal products, as so many processed foods do. The only thing off limits besides meat, cheese, and sour cream is the pinto beans because they are cooked with bacon. I can even have a side of chips and salsa! There aren’t a lot of places where I can consume 1500 calories of veganness in one meal, that’s how I know Chipotle is special.

One potential problem is that a stray piece of meat might fall into the beans or peppers along the assembly line, but I’m not worried about it.

Look at all that color. It’s like a party in your mouth. And besides the taste this one bowl has protein, fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, and antioxidants. It also has a LOT of fat which is why I usually eat it over 2-3 meals. But sometimes it only lasts one meal. I don’t want to talk about it.

Piquant Pesto Pasta

To prepare for the GRE I have been trying to expand my vocabulary.

Piquant (adjective)- flavorful; biting

I think that’s the perfect word to describe this pesto pasta that packs a punch. I like alliteration. Back to the pasta…

Fresh Basil Pesto

Yield: 1 cup, about 6 servings

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic1/4 cup pine nuts
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Combine the basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a blender or food processor and until coarsely chopped. Add the oil and process until fully incorporated and smooth. Season with a little salt and pepper if desired.

This pesto goes really well with linguine, just make sure your noodles don’t list egg in the ingredients.

I also like to chop up a little bit of Roma tomato to make it prettier and tastier.

And then I like to warm up a piece of sun-dried tomato and herb bread that I found on the clearance rack at Wal-Mart.

Mmmm. This dish gets extra points because it looks fancy and makes me feel accomplished. In reality the entire dish took about 20 minutes, and 5 of those were me figuring out the blender. I always love any type of pasta and it’s so easy to make vegan versions, especially with simple sauces like this one. Also green sauces make the cook and the eaters feel elegant, which is something I strive for since all my meals are served on brightly colored plate-bowls from Target.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have noticed a definite lack of comfort food when looking for vegan recipes, so when I came across a recipe for chocolate chip cookies I knew I had to try them.

It only has a handful of ingredients and most of them are pretty common, so that was handy.

You need…

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
cinnamon, to taste
handful vegan chocolate (carob chips are ok)
1 cup raw turbinado sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water

Yields 2 dozen cookies

Pre-heat the oven to 35o°. In large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add the chocolate chips and mix those in, too. I could only find a chocolate bar so I went ahead and chopped that up and it worked just as well.

Looks fancy, huh? It’s just an illusion. So add the chocolate and make a little well in the middle for the wet ingredients. Speaking of….

In a medium bowl mix sugar and oil

Mmmm…sugar-oil. My nutrition professors would be so proud. Now add the vanilla and the water and mix that all up.

Now is the magic moment. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix (make sure not to over-mix or your cookies will be flat and sad.)

Don’t bother eating the dough..without eggs as an emulsifier it’s kind of grainy. And it takes away the excitement of playing Russian roulette with salmonella poisoning.

Scoop the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet in about 1 inch balls. It works best to flatten them a little because they don’t really flatten out by themselves.

Cook for 10 minutes and then check the cookies. They won’t brown much so I gave them a little poke to check how squishy they were. Really squishy= 4 more minutes. Slightly squishy= perfect.

Let them cool for a couple minutes and enjoy!

Just look at that beauty. The texture of these cookies was actually really good…a little crumbly but still chewy and moist.

The taste…well…yeah. They don’t taste like your mom’s chocolate chip cookies, but they don’t taste bad either. One friend gave them a 6 out of 10, and no one asked what was wrong with them after the first bite like I was expecting. Maybe I was just overly critical because I’m so passionate about cookies.

Just for fun I decided to do a taste test with my roommate…a battle royale between my cookies and a vegan chocolate chip cookie I found at People’s Grocery.

The store-bought cookies were chewier and looked more like an authentic cookie, but the taste wasn’t much better. I actually enjoyed the crispness of my cookies. Basically I’m a way better baker than this national company.

I will be on the hunt for more veganized comfort food, if you try this recipe let me know what you think!

People’s Grocery

Yesterday I needed vegan chocolate and/or carob chips for a recipe. Not knowing exactly where to find either of those things, or really knowing what they were, I decided to try a grocery store I had always heard about but never been to- People’s Grocery Co-op. They did have vegan chocolate…and so many other wonderful and strange things.

Tofurky is a real thing! Who woulda thought. And they make vegan pizza! Even better.

Everything on this shelf is vegan. I may have shed a tear when I saw it. That is the great thing about People’s Grocery…they have weird groceries for people who eat weird food. I found vegan burgers, turbinado sugar, cheese-less pesto, and vegan chocolate chip cookies. They did not, however, have vegetable oil or baking soda. The store is pretty small and specialized, so with all the handmade soy milk smoothies, organic dog food, and local raw honey I guess there just isn’t enough room for vegetable oil. They did have organic sunflower oil, though.

Local raw honey! So cool. Question…is honey vegan? I decided to Google it and find out. The first two links were “Why Honey is Vegan” and “Why Honey Isn’t Vegan,” respectively. From what I could tell there is a pretty heated debate in the vegan world about this honey situation. In a nutshell, vegans don’t like anything that exploits animals, but bees aren’t animals. I have decided not to partake in the sweet local nectar pictured above, but that may have something to do with me not liking honey anyway.

SMOOTHIES! Almost all of the smoothie choices were vegan and they were all based on juice or soy milk. These people definitely knows how to serve their demographic.

I just wanted to show you this because it’s funny. By golly, the cheese melts! Vegan cheese doesn’t really taste all that much like cheese. And it doesn’t really melt. And it’s really hard to find. But People’s Grocery has it! I think that’s the moral of this story…go to People’s Grocery if you need vegan cheese, but don’t expect to find vegetable oil.

Grilling…Vegan Style

There is nothing like the Kansas State campus in the spring. Everywhere there are people playing frisbee, reading by a tree, and just sitting on the new green grass. And grilling. There is only so long I can watch other people eat their tasty burgers and smelling their delicious food before I have to join in. Willpower has never been a strength of mine. Good thing I found these at People’s Grocery yesterday…

Vegan burgers! I’ve actually been eating these almost every Friday since I’m Catholic and it’s Lent. My boyfriend and his roommates like to grill at the end of a long week of classes, and these are the perfect way for me to be able to enjoy the weather with friends and still eat vegan.

I like to add a dash of Siracha hot sauce for a little kick, but these burgers taste really good by themselves, too.

Just ask this guy. If a meat-eating neighbor likes your vegan burger you know it’s good. Boca vegan burgers are soy-based and offer 13 grams of protein for only 70 calories. That means it’s ok to sneak a few of your boyfriend’s waffle fries while he isn’t looking…a girl can’t live on soy alone.

Isn’t he cute? I think so too. He lets me cook Boca burgers on his heavy duty manly meat-cooking grill.

See, you can’t even tell the difference! Ok, you can. And your friends will make fun of you for eating soy patties with painted on grill marks. But when you make them try a bite they will take back their hurtful words.

Radina’s Coffeehouse

After a long weekend of procrastination my roommate and I decided to visit Radina’s Coffeehouse for a little caffeine and a lot of studying. Finding vegan options here proved difficult since almost all the specialty coffee drinks are made with dairy and most of the food consists of things like muffins or quiches.

I did find a tasty sandwich called the Kaw Valley Veggie, ordered sans cream cheese. The sandwich was served on a multi-grain baguette and had sprouts, cucumbers, red peppers, green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar. The sandwich came with a side salad which was scrumptious.

Being used to meat-laden sandwiches like clubs, the first couple bites tasted like I was eating a salad on bread. By the end of it, though, I found myself really liking how light yet filling it was. It wasn’t quite as satisfying as the meat-and-cheese sandwiches I usually get, but I think that’s something I just have to get over.

Along with my meal I had the Radina’s house brew instead of my usual mocha.

Aren’t the mugs cool? Radina’s roasts it’s own coffee and makes it’s own blends which is pretty unique around here. Mr. Radina is a professor at K-State and our new Leadership Building has one of his shops right inside, so Radina’s is something everyone in Manhattan knows about.

It was a little hard to find a vegan dish, but that’s to be expected because the specialties here are coffee and desserts. They did offer several vegetarian sandwiches and salads, however, which could be modified to be vegan.

Don’t go if you lack willpower, though, because eating a salad while chocolate-chip muffins stare you down from the display case is not for the weak of heart.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Oprah spoke to me yesterday. By some stroke of divine intervention  yesterday’s show was devoted to veganism. On the same day I started my blog. Her power knows no bounds.

Her guest, vegan health expert Kathy Freston, warned against becoming a “junk food vegan,” someone who lives off potato chips and french fries instead of trying to eat a well-balanced meal. This got me thinking about the challenges and benefits that come along with a vegan diet…

The Good

• Vegans are almost guaranteed to eat less fat that omnivores. Even lean meats such as chicken and fish still have some fat, and any milk that isn’t skim has a high fat content. Fun fact: If you are a 2% milk drinker you are getting 2% fat by weight, not by volume. The fat content is actually closer to 30%! But I digress..
• By eating more fruits and veggies vegans get more vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Many Americans are deficient in at least a couple vitamins or minerals. Whether or not having those few extra milligrams of micronutrients truly provide health benefits is unclear, but they can’t hurt. Antioxidants, especially Vitamins C and E, have been proven to reduce your risk of cancer.
• Cutting out animal products reduces your carbon footprint. The morality of eating animal products is completely subjective so we won’t get into that. No one can deny that less pollution is a good thing, though. For every burger you don’t eat there are fewer emissions from a meatpacking plant and a little less fuel used to ship that burger to your local grocery store. The impact may be small, but those burgers add up.

The Bad

• Protein deficiency is avoidable, but only if you’re careful. A serving of black beans has only 7 grams of protein compared to chicken breast’s 26 grams. To put that in context, a 150 pound person needs about 55 grams/day. Eating nuts, beans, and soy products can help herbivores bridge the gap.
• Iron deficiency is something to worry about because the only really good sources come from meat, especially red meat. Leafy greens, enriched cereals, and beans are also high in iron but research has shown that for some reason the iron from animals is absorbed better by the body. Women of reproductive age are especially at risk for iron deficiency, so it’s something to monitor closely if you aren’t eating meat.
• Calcium deficiency is a big problem for women until they are in their 30′s because the way we treat our bones now affects our chances of getting osteoporosis later in life. I take calcium supplements even though I usually eat dairy because my anatomy and physiology teacher scared me into with her lecture about osteoporosis and how much calcium is needed every day to keep your bones strong.

The Ugly

Cold Stone Creamery’s  Chocolate Devotion is not an approved vegan dessert. This is not necessarily related to the rest of the post, but it is something that deeply troubles me.

Disclaimer: While I tend to think I know all there is to know about everything, I am not a nutritionist nor an RD. For more info about a balanced vegan diet go here.

Pictures:

http://onerichwineguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/weird-wine-gifts-for-2010.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gamany/2255838283/