What I Ate Wednesday #65
Before I dive into regaling my weekly eats, I’d like to direct you toward the essay on Michael Pollan’s that I recently published on the blog. In it, I demonstrate how Pollan manages his audience’s emotions in order to persuade him both of the acceptability of eating meat, and of the impossibility of vegetariansim. I also argue that Pollan wrote the book essentially to justify his own meat-eating. I do hope you’ll check out the piece. Thank you.
Breakfast: A plate of baby kale water-sauteed with cumin and fennel seeds, wilted down, and mixed with nutritional yeast, Bragg’s liquid aminos, ground ginger, and coconut oil—my new favorite way to prepare greens, introduced to me by The Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen cookbook. I accompanied the greens with a bowl of Whole Soy’s unsweetened plain soy yogurt, 1 tbsp homemade sprouted almond butter, about 3/4 cup Hemp and Greens Superfood Cereal, and about 1 tbsp goji berries.
Since returning to Ferry Haus from my two-week-long spring break, I’ve eschewed my habitual morning smoothie in favor of this new breakfast pairing of lightly cooked, ridiculously flavorful, and (dare I say…) downright buttery greenswith a crunchy-creamy bowl of granola, soy yogurt, goji berries, and almond butter. After returning from Austin, I ventured straight to Whole Foods to purchase more of the absolutely astounding raw sprouted granola from Live Superfoods that I enjoyed while in Texas. To my sheer glee, Whole Foods now stocks that very granola in their bulk section, along with a fairly large selection of other sprouted granolas, trail mixes, nuts, and grains. I also partook in a large bag of sprouted almonds, with which I pureed up a batch of homemade sprouted almond butter. After experiencing the ease and frugality of homemaking nut butter, I’m never again purchasing another jar of the stuff. Yay, economics! I’ve seen on a number of blog posts offering directions on how to make almond butter that the almonds take quite a long time to transform into creamy lusciousness; however, my sprouted almonds made the shift from ground to buttery relatively quickly—after about 7-10 minutes as opposed to the 20 that I’ve commonly heard other bloggers experiencing. Moral of the story: if you want more digestible almond butter more quickly, use sprouted almonds.
Breakfast Checklist: Protein—soy yogurt, sprouted almond butter, sprouted sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, hemp protein. Whole Grain—sprouted buckwheat, brown rice bran & germ. Fruit—coconut, bananas, sultanas, goji berries. Leafy Green—baby kale. Superfoods—spinach powder, spirulina, chlorella, alfalfa powder, dandelion leaf powder, goji berries.
Morning Tea: Eden Organic Genmaicha tea.
Lunch: A waffle sandwich of two herbed carrot-chickpea waffles slathered with pesto chutney from the Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen and encasing a brown rice-beluga lentil-roasted sweet potato & broccoli burger inspired by Gena’s Leftover Grain & Bean Burgers. I served the sandwich alongside a simple salad of mixed greens and dulse seaweed flakes tossed with Liquid Gold Dressing and topped with brown rice and kimchi.
Waffles: A savory take on my Spirulina-Mango Waffles with Goji Berries that omits the cardamom, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and spirulina while replacing the mango puree with the parsley and thyme carrot sauce in the Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, the plant-based milk with salt-free vegetable stock, and the goji berries with chickpeas.
Pesto Chutney: a generously herbed and spiced spread of tahini, dulse seaweed, lemon juice, flax oil, dill, parsley, fennel seeds, and cumin based on the recipe in the Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen. Perhaps due to my minor substitutions as well as my accidental purchasing of lemon-flavored flax oil, the pesto imparted much too harsh of a flavor for my liking and adopted a displeasing bitterness after a few days of refrigeration, even though the directions assure that it will keep for up to three weeks.
Burgers: Based on Gena’s instructions, in a food processor I mixed together 3 cups of leftover short-grain brown rice; 2 cups of a salad of beluga lentils, roasted broccoli, and sweet potatoes in a lemon vinaigrette (a take on this recipe from Cookie and Kate); and 1/4 cup flaxseed meal to create 14 hearty patties of smoky, crispy deliciousness.
Meal Checklist: Protein—chickpea flour, fava flour, flaxseed meal, chickpeas, tahini, beluga lentils. Whole Grain—sorghum flour, brown rice. Vegetables/Fruit—carrot, parsley, dill, sweet potato, broccoli, dulse seaweed, kimchi veggies. Leafy Greens—broccoli, mixed greens, dill, parsley, cabbage in kimchi.
Afternoon Beverage: Choice Organic White Peony tea.
A bottle of GT’s Kombucha in Original flavor.
Dinner: The French Lentil Salad with Creamy Yogurt Dressing from the Modern Vegetarian Kitchen served alongside roasted brussels sprouts and brown rice.
Peter Berley, author of the Modern Vegetarian Kitchen and former executive chef of 37-year-old NYC vegan restaurant Angelica Kitchen, combines toothsome French lentils; finely diced carrots, celery, and bell peppers; and plenty of fresh herbs with a tangy dressing of yogurt, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, and olive oil in his French Lentil Salad with Creamy Yogurt Dressing. Naturally, I substituted soy yogurt for dairy-based, added mixed greens along with the rest of the veggies, and served this refreshing, light salad to my fellow Ferries for dinner to yield rave reviews.
Meal Checklist: Protein—lentils, soy yogurt. Whole Grain—brown rice. Vegetables—carrots, bell peppers, celery, dill, parsley, brussels sprouts. Leafy Greens—mixed greens, parsley, dill, brussels sprouts.
After-Dinner Beverage: Traditional Medicinals’ Organic Eater’s Digest tea.
Happy WIAW!
Until next time, Ali.
