My Dog

I have been arguing with my husband about getting a dog since pretty much the day we met. I love animals. All animals. When we met I had one cat (Willow) and our relationship pretty much started when I convinced him that it would be a good idea to trap and adopt a feral cat that lived in the blackberry bushes by where he worked.

When we got married and were having the ‘are we going to have kids’ conversation, I told him that I would really be happy just getting  a dog. He (jokingly) said that if I signed a legal document saying that I didn’t want to have children I could get a dog that day. My reply? ‘You show me where to sign, I really don’t even like kids!!’ I don’t think that is quite what he was expecting, considering I had never really said anything about not being much of a kid person.

I didn’t get a dog the next day. Or the next month. I ended up getting 2 more cats over the next 4 years, and finally, finally when we bought our house 3 years ago, he agreed that I could get a dog ‘if the right one came along.’  Don’t get me wrong, he is a huge animal lover also, but he knows that if I am given any kind of leeway when it comes to getting one animal, I will come home with 2 or 3.

I was given a list of things that I agreed to adhere to in my dog search (housetrained, preferrably female, spayed, would rather not have a puppy, and that it had to be from a rescue agency or shelter somewhere)  I am flexible, I can work with what I’m given. And if it meant looking hard to find all those things in a dog, then I would do it.

Just before Christmas of last year I put in an application for a dog with the BC Poodle Rescue (www.bcpoodlerescue.ca)  She was a tiny little poodle, and met all of the things I had agreed to look for. It wasn’t to be though, as her foster mom had also applied to adopt her only days before.  They suggested I go look at another dog, she had come in from California and they thought it might be a good match. So, on my lunchbreak from work I drove out to Central Saanich to look at this dog. I had been told that she had kennel cough and was malnourished, but was not expecting it to be as bad as it was. The dog was literally skin and bones. She had no fat at all, and I could feel every bone in her body. Every rib, every vertebrae in her spine, I could even feel the joints where her body and legs met, where there is normally fat and muscle. It broke my heart. She was so timid, so shy, but I sat down on the floor and after about 5 minutes she came over and carefully climbed into my lap and pushed my hand with her nose so that I would pet her. I left the house thinking that she wasn’t my dog, she was too sick, too shy. I called my husband telling him that no, this was not our dog either. Then I spent the entire weekend stalking her picture on the website, making sure that she hadn’t been adopted. I went back to see her again the following week, told the foster mom that yes, I would be taking her, and made arrangements for picking her up on boxing day.

When I brought her home she had gained a small bit of weight, but was still really sick. The kennel cough wouldn’t go away, she was on heavy duty antibiotics, and my husband spent the first week of her life with us sleeping on the couch, so that I could sit up all night in bed with the dog who couldn’t stop coughing, wheezing, and throwing up.

Fast forward 6 months. Looking at pictures you would never know it is the same dog. Her kennel cough has completely dissappeared, despite the vet telling me that it was the worst case of kennel cough he had seen and she would probably always have a bit of a cough. Where I had to hand feed her, she now eats everything and anything in sight. She could barely stand, she now hikes with me and loves every minute of it. She used to be terrified of people, now she waites for people to come visit and see her. It is amazing what a bit of love can do. When we got Sasha, she had all but given up. When she came into Canada from the States, she couldn’t even stand. Her legs would not support her body. When we got her she was better, but not by much. Now she is living a happy and healthy life, and waking up each morning ready to take on the day.

You may ask what this has to do with being vegetarian. Directly, nothing. However it is simply and example of how people treat thier animals. Some people could care less. Others would go to great lengths to save the life of an animal, big or small. I am one of the latter. I have gone running down the street to rescue dogs that are running in traffic. 2 months ago I brought home a dog that I found wandering on my street. (He later got returned to his family) Regardless of if it is a dog, cat, cow, or pig, all creatures just want to live. They want to be happy, with full bellies, to be allowed outside to feel the sun and the wind on thier face. So how is it that we can put so much effort into saving some animals and making sure they are well cared for, well fed and loved, but then turn around and eat others for dinner?

Every now and then I falter, I think that maybe vegetarianism isn’t what I am cut out for, but I also remember why I am doing this. I don’t want to come across as preachy, telling everyone that they should not eat meat ever (it’s not my place to do that, and also it’s unrealistic) but if one person who reads this thinks that maybe they will choose a non-meat option for dinner, or braves a tofu dish, or even just nods thier head in agreement, then I will be a happy girl and it will make my journey even more worthwhile.

Chilli

This past week the company I work for had a chilli contest. People from all the different locations made different types of chilli, and then the staff could come and try it and judge it. A group of us decided to walk over to where this was taking place, which at first caused me a bit of anxiety. The chances of there being many vegetarian chillis were slim, as most chilli has meat. (duh)I went anyhow, thinking I would just try the veggie one(s) and leave it at that.

Things changed on the way over. It had been almost 2 months without meat, and I wanted to know if my opinion of meat had changed. So, I gave in and decided that I would try them all, meat or not.

The first one I tried was amazing. Lots of flavor, tasted fresh, was delicious!! I figured it wasn’t too bad, maybe cutting out meat hadn’t made the difference I thought it had. The food tasted fine!! I later learned that this first one was the lone vegetarian option. No wonder it tasted amazing.

The other ones all contained meat, anything from ground beef, bacon, steak, bison…..it was quite a selection. I only tried about a tablespoon of each of the meat chillis, and thank goodness for that. While the flavor was good, I couldn’t help but taste….well, meat. And after not eating it for a long time, it actually tastes kind of….rotten. Rancid. Icky. Bleck!!! By the time I got to the last table I was done. I was greatful for the bun they gave me to accompany the chilli (bison and beef sausage) and drank a ton of water.

On the walk back to work I noticed that my tummy had started to hurt. Not extreme pain, but kind of a dull throbbing, the kind that you would normally expect to have in your head. I felt extremely heavy and uncomfortable, but the real surprise came the next morning.  Since I had cut out meat I usually wake up before the alarm goes off, I snuggle my dog for a bit, and then get up and take her for a walk before I begin my day. I noticed this change about a week and a half after cutting out meat, and since I am not a morning person at all, was pleasantly surprised by it. I thought maybe it was just because of the change in season and weather, but no. It was the meat.

The morning after the chilli was like the darkest dawn I had ever felt. I did not want to get up, hit snooze repeatedly, and barely made it to work on time. It was not a good feeling. The dog did not get her walk, my husband had to help me get organized and out the door, and all day I felt off. It took about a day and a half before I started feeling ‘normal’.

The positive thing is that this just re-confirmed my decision to not eat meat. Clearly it is not my friend.

Easy French Bread Pizza

This is one of the easiest dinners I know to make….and so tasty too!! I like to add a fresh green salad or a bowl of soup on a rainy day, but sometimes I am lazy and just have the pizza.

What you Need:

1 loaf of french bread (the bigger kind, not a baguette)

Tomato sauce (or paste, whichever you prefer. I like tomato paste as it is thicker.)

Basil, oregano, or any other spice you like to put on your pizza. I like Epicure’s pizza seasoning too.

A nice selection of pizza toppings. I ususally like roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, roasted asparagus, zucchini and onions, green peppers (not roasted) mushrooms, I have yet to try the veggie pepperoni, but have heard it’s not too bad. This is good for carnies too, my husband prefers his half to have pepperoni, bacon, ham and green pepper. Also the odd sundried tomato.

Cheese (either regular or soy)

What you Do:

Preheat your oven to 350.

Cut the french bread in half longwise. I like to toast mine in the oven before I put all the sauce and toppings on, it usually takes about 10 minutes. If you are doing this you will need to watch it carefully, as once it starts to turn that yummy golden brown color, it doesn’t take long to burn. Also it helps to put the bread on cookie sheets. You don’t have to do this, but it just gives it a bit more flavor and crunch.

Once the toasted bread comes out of the oven, spread the tomato sauce or paste evenly over the 2 halves of bread. Top with basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and whatever tasty spices you have decided to add. (make sure you add the spices before you add the toppings….I have done this backwards  a few times and it’s not nearly as tasty)

Add your toppings and load up with the cheese.

Put the 2 halves of bread on a cookie sheet (you may need two sheets) and bake for about 20 – 25 minutes, until the cheese is all melty.

When you take it out of the oven, let it sit for about 5 minutes before cutting it into slices. This lets the cheese firm up a bit so you don’t end up with a mouthful of only toppings, and a handful of soggy bread.

Re-meating.

So, with summer coming and all, I realized today that I kind of miss meat.  Not the meat its self, because really, the idea of meat doesn’t really interest me, I think it’s more the idea of meat. Summer comes, you throw a steak on the bbq, it smells super tasty, and then you crack open a beer……yum.

There isn’t a whole lot that I have discovered that you can do that would give you that same feeling. Don’t get me wrong, when I ate meat I quite enjoyed it. A good hamburger, a nice grilled chicken breast, they were all very tasty. And so many options. You could marinate them in pretty much anything for a long time, throw it on the bbq and in 20 minutes, dinner.

It’s not quite the same when it’s a veggie skewer. I mean, yes, you are outside, you can have your beer and wine, but it’s not quite the same as a steak.  I had kind of a small meltdown today while walking through Winners and announced to my husband that I was going back to eating meat. Well, if he wasn’t a fan of my not eating meat when it started, he has definitely changed his tune. He turned around and began telling me that no, I was NOT going back to eating meat. Not after all the changes he has seen in the last month. No, he decided that I was definitely not going back to eating meat. So, the decision was made….I am still not going back to meat.

Although, I have no idea what I will do when summer actually comes and bbq season is upon us……I guess I will deal with that when it happens.

Sugar Fix

So, I fell off the wagon this past weekend. Things were going great until Saturday night, when I gave into my craving and went to the store for a bag of candy. (Love those sours!!)

I’m sure part of the cravings stems from my just having finished writing a fairly major exam, and I decided that one small bag of 5-cent candies wouldn’t hurt. Oh boy was I wrong.

I felt so incredibly sick after eating them (I only bought $2 worth!) and the next morning was my tummy ever angry at me. Not only that but I felt tired, was kind of irritable throughout the day, and just seemed to be….run down.

I know that everyone had said that I would notice a difference, but I didn’t realize how much sugar was affecting me!  My husband and I went on a mission when we went grocery shopping this past week, the mission being to find foods that were sugar free or had very little sugar in it. Juice? No. Jam? Uh-uh. Crackers? Nope. Even the stuff that said ‘No sugar added’ was still ridiculously high!!!! I was blown away. Juice was by far the worst. Then cookies, followed by jams and jellies.

Changing how I eat has definitely made me more aware of these types of things, but it still amazes me to see that the things I thought were healthy are far from it!

Easy Ground Round Vegetarian Chili

What you will need:

1 package of Mexican Ground Round

2 small onions

1 can of sliced mushrooms, or about 1/2 a pound of fresh sliced mushrooms

2 cans of tomato soup (you will also need 2 cans of water)

about 2-3 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp cumin

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 can of black beans (drained and rinsed well)

1 can of kidney beans (drained and rinsed well)

1 can corn niblets (or about 1/2 cup fresh or frozen)

Any other veggies you think would go good in chili. I sometimes add zucchini, peppers, carrots, whatever you think would go good.

What you Do:

Dice your onions and saute in a bit of olive oil or butter until soft and kind of see-through.

Add your mushrooms (if fresh saute until cooked) and tomatoes, beans, corn, 2 cans of soup, 2 cans of water, spices and ground round. Stir, and cook over medium heat for about 2 hours.

If you like it hot, add some hot sauce or some spicy peppers. I like to add a bit of chipotle puree to mine, it gives it a bit of a kick without being overpoweringly hot.

**Also works well as a slow cooker recipe, and requires much less effort. Dump everything (except Ground Round) into the slow cooker and cook on low for 6 – 8 hours. Add the Ground Round about an hour before you will be eating, and let it heat through.

Is it Hard to Give up Meat?

I am just coming up to the end of my second meat free week, and have had a few people ask if it is hard to go from eating meat for 31 years to not eating it at all.

In a way it is, and in a way it isn’t. For me, the hardest part was making the decision that this is something I wanted to do. I mean, I knew it was something I wanted to do, but as it was a complete lifestyle change and a commitment to something I wasn’t 100% sure I could do, that was the scary part. Meat is convenient. Meat is easy. There have been countless times when either myself or my husband has been rushed to make dinner, and it is so easy to marinate a chicken breast or grill a steak. Throw in a baked potato and a salad, and you have a meal. Not having that requires a little more planning, and I will admit, there are nights when I get home later than normal and I have no idea what to make for dinner, it’s 7:30, I am hungry, and am at a complete and total loss as to what to have. One of these nights was the horrible miso soup incident, the other I had a veggie sandwich.

I have found that meal planning helps with this, it helps a lot. I figure out what I will be having for the week, ususally on a Sunday afternoon I will sit down with my cookbooks and see what I can find to try. I try and find at least one thing that will make enough for 2 meals so I can rely on the leftovers for either lunch or dinner the following day.

The other thing that that was a concern to me (before researching vegetarian eating, of course) was that vegetarian cooking was extremely time consuming, and that you ate a lot of wierd stuff. Like hemp and quinoa, couscous and brown rice, beans, lentils, and countless other things that I am now trying. I have a bit of a background in cooking, but never really used any of those items to cook with in any of the restaruants I have cooked in. It turns out that while vegetarian may initially seem intimidating and scary, once you get the basics and begin to try different things, it is actually quite easy. Brown rice is super easy to make in a rice cooker (use the same proportions on the bag of rice for stovetop cooking) and couscous is something you can throw together in 15 minutes. Beans can be soaked, cooked and added to pretty much anything (my husband added them to our spaghetti sauce the other night!) and in a pinch, Ground Round can be turned into a tasty vegetarian chili. (recipe to follow)

I still see pictures of steaks and hamburgers, and will think ‘wow, that looks tasty!’ but that is followed by ‘but I don’t eat that anymore’. It’s not even in a sad way, like I feel like I am missing out on anything, it’s just kind of a realization that meat is no longer part of my diet. I have no desire to eat beef or chicken or pork, and the idea of a hamburger kind of turns my stomach at the moment. It’s almost like it has taken on a life of its own inside my body.

My husband and I went for coffee this morning at the coffee shop in front of the organic market, and he asked if I was really feeling better than before, when I had meat on a regular basis. I told him that I felt amazing, that I wished that I had done this a long time ago, and while I didn’t expect him to understand, I felt like my insides matched my outside. It’s a happy feeling….one that I hope gets better the longer I continue on this journey.

Miso and Mustard

I decided that I would try 2 new things this week. I bought both of them sometime last week but haven’t actually had a chance to give them a try. The first thing is aka miso. The  girl working at the Community Farm store where I bought it from told me that the cafe uses it for thier miso gravy, and that the gravy is delicious to no end. I was convinced! The second product is a orange chipotle mustard (also purchased at the Community Farm Store) but it is made by a small company called Hot Chick Spice Company in Cobble Hill. They also make an amazing chocolate and wine sauce, but I will save that for another post.

The mustard was easy. It’s mustard! What can you NOT do with it? I used mine on a veggie sandwich after being stuck in traffic for 3 hours getting home. By the time I got home at 8pm, I was done. For dinner I ended up throwing together a sandwich with some fresh organic tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, some really tasty swiss cheese, broccoli sprouts, and this orange chipotle mustard. I also had a glass of wine with this, and let me just say, for those of you who think that wine does not go with sandwiches, I strongly disagree. This mustard is kind of spicy and sweet at the same time, but it’s not overpoweringly either. It’s not super mustardy either, like an overpowering mustard. It would be good on so many things…it would be fantastic on a veggie burger, you could mix it with a sweet and sour sauce and brush it on prawns, good with chicken or steak (for the meat eating population!) and I’m sure it would be good to add to a stirfry of some sort too! The Hot Chick Spice Company has a website (www.hotchickspicecompany.com) that provides lots of tasty recipes too. For those who are a little more daring, they also have a spice rub called duqqa, a salt and sesame mix called Gomashio and that deadly chocolate wine sauce. The chocolate wine sauce I would not hesitate to use as a festive holiday beverage, the way some people use gravy.

Now, the miso. Not entirely as successful as the mustard. You see, I have never cooked with miso. I have had encounters with miso soup in sushi restaruants, the stuff that comes with the few squares of tofu, some spring onions and maybe a bit of nori cut in. It’s tasty enough, kind of that sweet but slightly salty flavor. On Wednesday after getting home late yet again (this time due to puppy training classes) I decided I would make myself a cup of miso soup. When I bought it the girl told me ‘Just put a spoonful of the miso paste in a cup, add some hot water and you have instant miso soup!’ This sounded easy. I figured I could handle it.

I cracked open the container, and took a spoonful of the paste. It’s really quite thick, and having never used miso before, I had no idea how concentrated it truly is. I put the miso in the cup, added my hot water, stirred it up, smelled it (yep, it smelled like the stuff I get at the sushi shop) and thought I had done good, until I tasted it.

It turns out that miso paste is super concentrated, and you don’t need a lot. I put one heaping teaspoonful in my average sized mug, I could have done with about a quarter of what I put in. The soup I had made was extremely salty, very miso-y, and while it was nice to have something warm, trying to drink it was a bit difficult due to the overwhelming salt content. I made it through about 1/3 of the cup, and then admitted defeat. Next time I know, only add a bit of miso paste. This is something I should have known to begin with, I am forever telling my husband when he is cooking that it’s easier to add things rather than try and take them out. I could have added more water, but would have probably ended up with the equivalent of a bathtub of soup.

I have a recipe for miso grilled scallops that I am looking forward to trying, it gives me specific measurements of miso to use, which I am sure will make this a successful recipe.

For dinner that night I ended up making a brulee’d grapefruit in exchange for the miso soup, and it was delicious. To make this is super simple. Take 1 grapefruit, cut it in half. Top it with some brown sugar and broil it for about 5 minutes, until the brown sugar gets all melty. Then eat it. You get the warm, yummyness of the brown sugar, but the cold and almost sour-ness of the grapefruit. So good!

All in all, the food adventure is going well. Sure, there have been a few hiccups, (my husband trying to ‘help’ and adding black beans to my spaghetti sauce, the miso fiasco) but there have also been a lot of really good things too. The mustard, my discovered love for black beans providing they are not in a spaghetti sauce, couscous (so easy to make!) and just learning about the different options out there.

The next food experiment: Soy Nova Smoked Tofu.

What do you do with smoked tofu? Any ideas?

Going out for Dinner?

I’m supposed to be going for dinner this weekend with friends. Also, for lunch too. 2 different days, 2 different friends.

For dinner I am going out for thai food. I’ve looked on the online menu for the restaurant, and the vegetarian choices they have are pretty good. Some things with tofu, some not, but there was a decent selection of things to choose from. It all looked really tasty, and I am looking forward to going.

For the lunch (not at an ethnic restaurant), I have also looked at the menu online, and have discovered that I am pretty much limited to…..salad. Or really expensive fish. There is no good reason why fish should EVER cost that much! (Kind of the way I feel about sushi on the island vs the mainland….why is a spicy tuna roll on the island $6, but on the mainland it’s $4?)

This got me looking at a few more online menus, and I have discovered that in ethnic restaurants there is much more of a selection of vegetarian choices. Why is it that if I go to Siam (my favorite thai place) I have the choice of an entire page of things, but if I go to Boston Pizza, I have basically a salad, an overpriced pasta dish, or a vegetarian pizza? Never mind asking for substitutions, because you will get charged $1.00 for replacing this for that, $3.00 to add this on, and so on. I understand that the business has to make money, but does it have to be such a pain to get a decent meal that has no meat, and is a reasonable price?

And I may as well forget about fast food….not that I would reccomend fast food all the time for anyone, but we all know what it’s like to be rushed for dinner or lunch, not have time to cook and think ‘I’ll just swing by McDonalds and get a cheeseburger and small fries’ There is basically nothing on the McDonald’s menu that is meatless. Burgers, McNuggets, Wraps…they all have either beef or chicken. The same with Dairy Queen. And Burger King. The only place in my town that has any kind of vegetarian option is Subway. The option? A veggie sub. I vaguely remember hearing something about them having some type of veggie patty, but I’m not 100% sure about that.

I don’t mean to sound like I am winding up, I don’t want to be one of those harping-type of vegetarians where the whole world is out to get me, but is it too much to ask for a little bit more selection in the non-ethnic restaurants? Besides a salad.

Dinner tomorrow is at the thai place, I am looking forward to it. Good food, good friends, always fun. As for lunch….well, I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Even if I have to create my own meal =)

Roasted Squash and Bean Enchilada

What you will need:

2 medium squash (I used butternut, but acorn would be nice too)

Half a small onion, diced medium

1 can each black beans and pinto beans, drained and rinsed.

1 can corn niblets, drained

1 can diced tomatoes (or use fresh) drained

2 tbsp chili powder

2.5 tsp chipotle puree or 2 chipotle peppers, mashed.

1.5 tbsp maple syrup

Juice of 1 lime

Salt (to taste)

8 whole wheat flatbreads

1 cup salsa

1.5 cup cheese of your choice. I used mozzarella and marble, but montery jack would be good too.

What you do:

Preheat your oven to 350. Peel the squash and cut into about 1 or 1.5 inch cubes. Place in a bowl with the onion and toss with the chili powder, syrup, lime juice, salt and a bit of olive oil. Pour into a baking dish and roast for 20 – 25 minutes, flipping half way through. Place the corn in the same bowl and toss with a bit of olive oil, and add to the squash and continue to roast for another 10 minutes.

While this is roasting you can put your beans (washed and drained) and tomatoes in a large bowl with the chipotle puree and season with salt to taste. When the squash/corn mix is finished roasting, add that mix to the bean mix and stir. Taste, and season if needed.

Get 2 9×9 casserole dishes and cover the bottom of each with 2 tbsp salsa, to ensure the enchilladas won’t stick.

Take one of the whole wheat tortillas, place about 2/3 of a cup of the squash/bean/corn mix in the center. Roll, and put in the casserole dish with the seam side down. Repeat until you run out of tortillas, squash mix or both. I was able to fit 4 enchiladas in each dish, but could have fit 5 in if needed.

Spread salsa over the top of the enchiladas and cover with the cheese.

Bake, covered, for 35 minutes. Remove the timfoil and bake for an additional 5 minutes to melt the cheese.

Enjoy with your favorite salsa and sour cream.

Serves 8

**Recipe inspired by one I found in the Rebar Cookbook, I just added a few things to it**