Day 131 -- I Love My Sweeties -- Seeds and Roots

In the second installment of my study of sweets, I'm going to explore sweets made from seeds and roots.

The starchy seeds of certain plants can be transformed into sweeteners by using the enzymes formed during germination or from bacterian cultures.  Corn  is the most popular type of seed sweetener and high fructose corn syrup can be found in a wide range of foods.  Some studies link HFCS to health problems, with fructose as the culprit.  HFCS has more fructose than regular cane sugar which is a mix of fructose and glucose.  This article, on the Scientific American website, gives more info -- How Corn Syrup Might Be Making Us Hungry -- And Fat.  Since I don't eat much processed food anymore, I don't have to worry so much about HFCS!

Some other sweeteners made with seed starch are barley malt syrup, which is made from germinated barley grains and brown rice malt syrup, made from rice grains cooked and then cultured with malt enzymes.   Amazake is made from rice fermented with Koji (Aspergillus oryzae).

The juice extracted from the tuberous roots of certain plants is, much like sap, can be concentrated to make sweeteners, usually through drying or boiling.  Sugar beet syrup is made from the tuberous roots of the sugar beet.  Sugar beet molasses, a by-product of the processing to make refined sugar, also exists but is mainly used for animal feed.  Yacón syrup is made from the tuberous roots of yacón.

Tomorrow, I'll look at sweeteners that come from nectar and flowers, and fruits and leaves.

Day 130 -- I Ate It -- But Can I Say It?

In my quest to try the Holy Trinity of meat substitutes -- tofu, tempeh and seitan -- I ticked off tofu early and now I can tick off seitan.  But before I started blogging about it, I had to learn how to say it.  Was it see-tan?  Or say-tahn?  Or say-tin?  And where to place the accent.

According to this online dictionary with a handy "man in a can" announcer, the pronounciation is SAY-tan.  Kind of like the devil, Satan.  So, now that I figured out how to say it, I can talk about it.

I've tried many new foods over the course of the past four months, but my rate has sort of slowed over the past month.  But now I can add seitan to the list.  Seitan is wheat gluten flavored with soy sauce.  It's kind of rubbery and chewy, a bit like chunks of cooked steak.  I think it comes in a block but the only seitan I could find in the store came in bite size chunks.

I decided to try it in one of my favorite dishes, my Cremini Mushroom Stroganoff.   I stir-fried a sliced sweet onion and about a pound of sliced Cremini mushrooms, then added the drained seitan and 4 cloves of minced garlic.  My sauce was:

2.5 cups vegetable broth
1.5 T. cornstarch
4 T. nutritional yeast
3 T. tamari sauce

Add this at the end, bring to a boil to thicken and then serve over pasta or quinoa with a dollop of vegan sour cream.  Yum!

And just an interesting bit of info.  Did you know that white button, cremini and portobello mushrooms are all the exact same mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, just different stages of maturity?  Cremini and "Baby Bella" mushrooms are the same thing!  So white (button) mushrooms are the youngest, portobello are the oldest and cremini are in between.  I did not know this!

Day 129 -- You Can't Outrun Your Fork

Once again, my friend E posted a little tidbit that caught my eye and I just had to write about it.

Now, the first thing I love about this is that, according to this meme, I'm at least 80% fit.  I'm not a big one for exercise.  In truth, I hate exercise.  And it's nice to know that my efforts to eat healthy will have a more profound effect on my fitness than any attempts I make at exercise.   Yes, I do want to start exercising, but I'm going to focus on things that make me limber instead of things that get my heart pounding.  I'd like to try yoga because I think that's something that will complement my eating plan.  I'm also going to start lifting weights for my arms because the weight loss has given me some serious batwings.  And then, I want to exercise via recreation -- things that are fun to do.  I'll walk places I need to go rather than just go out walking for exercise.  But you won't see me running or hitting the gym anytime soon.  That has never worked for me in the past and it certainly won't now.  I find that way too boring.

I also love the last little bit -- You can't outrun your fork.  So very true.  It can mean that no amount of exercise, including running, will mitigate a diet filled with junk food. Or it can also mean what you put in your mouth stays with you.  It becomes part of your body and your being.  I'm satisfied that I'm doing good things for my body by eating well and I don't have to outrun my fork.  Good thing, because I really hate exercise.  Especially running.

BTW, I did come across another 80-20 rule on the Livestrong website.  This has to do with eating right 80 percent of the time and cheating on your diet 20 percent of the time.  I'll talk about that one later.

Day 128 - Hold The Phone! Vegan Parmesan Cheese??

Of all the things that I miss eating, cheese ranks number one on my "no-can-eat" list.  And parmesan cheese is at the top of that list. I hadn't come across a vegan/soy version of parmesan cheese in my local supermarket and just assumed that none existed.  However, today, I saw it mentioned on food blog and I immediately went to search it out.  Soy parmesan cheese???  Oh, boy!

The Vegan brand is soy-based and I'm working on finding a mail-order source where I don't have to buy a case.  Also, Parma is a parmesan-like topping made from walnuts and nutritional yeast.  But further research found that I can actually make my own parmesan-like topping out of nuts and nutritional yeast and salt.

I looked at a number of recipes.  Raw unsalted cashews were used most often, but some cooks use a mix of raw cashews and raw almonds.  The most common ratio of yeast to nuts is 1:1, but I have seen a few recipes where the ratio is 1:4.  Add a little salt and whip it up in the blender until it has the consistency of grated parmesan and there it is.  It's best to store it in the fridge, or even in the freezer.  So, I'm going to pick up some raw cashews and give this a try.  Along with this wonderful Vegan Lasagna recipe from FatFree Vegan.

Day 128 -- My Microwave Can Make WHAT????

I've never used my microwave for anything but warming up food and drink.  I'm well aware that you can actually cook with it -- wait, I have made rice in my microwave -- but I've never really explored that side of the appliance.  But now, I may have to look at my microwave a little differently.  I found two recipes that sound very interesting.

Both recipes come from a new blog I discovered called Foodgal.  The first is an English Muffin Bread that you can bake in the microwave!  And the second is a recipe for Microwave Potato Chips.  Since I don't really eat a lot of bread anymore, I thought I'd give the Microwave Potato Chips a try, except I wanted to try sweet potato chips.

The great thing about this recipe is that it doesn't use a lot of fat -- just a spray of cooking oil -- and you've got a crispy, crunchy treat.  I"ll report back on how these taste.  The English Muffin Bread will have to wait until later.  Now, if only my microwave could load the dishwasher.  Then it would be my best friend.

Day 127 -- Happy Birthday, Sissies! And Bro!

Today, May 2nd, is the birthday of both of my sisters.  They aren't twins.  They were born exactly two yeaars apart on the same date.  Two years later, my brother was born on May 8th.  In honor of their birthdays, I went in search of a cake recipe that meets my vegan requirements and is also low in fat -- a tall order, but not impossible.

Vegan baking comes with it's own complex set of problems and most of those start with the eggs, butter and oil usually used in traditional baking.  How does one replace such important elements with plant-based alternatives.  I've used egg substitute for several attempts at baking, but bananas also work as well.  Applesauce is a good choice to use as a binder, but it can also be used to replace fat in a recipe.  For more info on vegan substitutes in baking, use this extensive list from VeganBaking.net!

This recipe for Vegan Chocolate Cake, from the CHOW website, uses all the goodies -- vegan margarine (a pound and a half between the cake and frosting!), but a birthday only comes once a year.  So I guess it's okay to just let 'er rip.  Happy Birthday, L and E and B!  I'm not going to make this cake for you, or for me, but it's the thought that counts.  For me, just looking at the picture is enough.

Day 126 -- Hooray, Hooray, It's The First Of May!

It's May Day!   After a long winter, I wondered if this day would ever come -- but it has!  May Day has been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. The day is most associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility (of the soil, livestock, and people) and revelry with village fetes and community gatherings.  I'm having my own little celebration today.

Though summer doesn't officially begin until June, I've always considered May to be the beginning of summer.  Spring is that time between the last snowstorm and the first really warm day.  Once I can go outside regularly without a coat, it is -- in my mind -- summer.  This is a good thing since our summers in the Midwest are always too short.

This is my first summer as a vegan (and hopefully not my last) and I'm looking forward to the bounty of fresh fruits and veggies that summer brings. The modern day supermarket can supply me over the winter months with a nice variety, but now I'll be able to find golden beets and zucchini and sweet corn and cukes.

My father plants a huge garden and is always happy to share.  And I'm ashamed to say that I've never visited our local farmers' market.  In truth, until I started eating vegan, I was never very interested in vegetables.  Vegetables were like vitamins -- something you should be eating but something that got pushed aside for something more tasty.  I hadn't yet learned to cook with the ingredients I had at hand.  Instead, I would always cook what I had a craving for -- often ignoring the veggies I had in the fridge.  Sad to say, man of them ended up in the trash.

This year, I'm going to dig up a corner of my perennial garden and plant a few tomatoes, some basil and maybe some peas.  Nothing big, but it will be nice to eat sun-warmed tomato and basil sandwiches.  I have the perfect whole grain bread!  The farmers' market doesn't open until the June 2nd, but I can wait.  It's not to early to start looking for new recipes, though.