Lightly Seasoned Spinach, Mushroom & Tofu Scramble

Most tofu scramble recipes require a handful of spices, both to give the tofu flavor and to make it yellow. Some people, myself included, may prefer a more natural-tasting tofu scramble. I was inspired by the "Vegan Popeye" tofu scramble from the Rutherford Pancake House in Rutherford, NJ, whose vegan menu items are worth checking out if you're in the area.

Ingredients:
• 1 (14 oz.) package of firm tofu, crumbled
• 1 cup of cooked, chopped spinach
• 3-5 button mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon of canola oil
• Pinch nutritional yeast, onion powder, salt, and pepper, if desired

HINT: Make sure everything is chopped and ready before you begin cooking! I have made the mistake of chopping as I go, which will cause mayhem unless you are some kind of pan-frying superhero.

1.) Heat up the oil in a pan, then add the garlic. Cook 1-2 minutes or until brown. Do not overcook; it will make your dish bitter.

2.) Add the chopped mushrooms and cook a minute or two longer or until browned, giving it a few good stirs to make sure each piece cooks equally.

3.) Add the crumbled tofu and stir well. Cook 2-3 minutes. If the spinach is stuck together, use a fork to separate it before adding it to the pan.

4.) Add the spinach, and make sure it is divided evenly throughout the tofu. Sprinkle in the nutritional yeast, onion powder, salt, and pepper to taste. If you want your dish to look yellow and you like nutritional yeast, add more gradually, stirring each time until it reaches your desired color.

5.) Cook until the tofu is lightly browned or reaches your desired consistency. Make sure to keep stirring and scraping from the sides so that it cooks evenly.

I find this very tasty, and it is also healthy and fully customizable. If you do make it, send me the photos. I love drooling over good vegan food photos!

Amanda's Easy, Delicious Soup & Salad Pasta!

This is an easy pasta dish I discovered yesterday, perfect for a pantry sweep. I made up the clever title "Soup & Salad Pasta" because the sauce is made up of greens and soup. This is more of a guide than a recipe, so use your own judgment and experiment with different kinds!

Ingredients:
• 1/2 package (or 1/2 lb.) pasta [I used white Rigatoni]
• 1/2 cup greens, or as desired, torn into small pieces [I used kale]
• 1/2 cup cream soup or flavorful broth, or as desired [I used Imagine brand Creamy Butternut Squash Soup]
• Toppings or seasonings, as desired

Instructions:
1.) Cook the pasta al-dente, as instructed on the box. Rinse with cold water when finished, then return it to the pot.

2.) Pour the soup on first, then the greens, then any other seasonings you wish to use. Mix very well.

3.) Turn the stove back on medium, stirring frequently. The soup should thicken into more of a sauce. If it doesn't thicken within 5 minutes, add a SMALL amount of thickener such as flour or cornstarch. Cook until heated up, and serve.

I am hoping to start eating and living healthier this summer. (My break is going to start in a week, after I complete my final exams.) Stay tuned for more adventures!

Project Food Budget: Week 7, Getting Healthy

I haven't been eating too much this week because I wasn't feeling good. But really, that's all the more reason to eat balanced meals every day. This week, I'm going to make a shopping list for nutrients and weight loss. I haven't run out of any staples, so I decided that I'm going to buy $15 worth of vegetables and a box of $4 flax seed cereal. Then I'm going to go through some awesome vegan blogs, cookbooks, and recipe sites, and make the healthiest, easiest meals I can find.

I've got Veganomicon and a couple of whole foods cookbooks, as well as tons of pretty good recipe blogs favorited.

There's not much I can say for this past week, but I'll try to post another update before next Thursday.

Other participating blogs:
Reluctant Vegetarian
Maria Marz
Veggie Converter
Ashley's Dairy Free Cooking Blog
Motor City Girl In the Steel City
Veggie Burgher
Baked Beans and Broccoli...Vegetarian Budgeting
Sweet Rehab
The Happy Cactus
The Vegetarian Salmon
Test Kitchen Tuesday
Newly Vegan
Always Sick and Tired
Veggie on the Cheap
MeloMeals: Vegan For $3.33 A Day

Project Food Budget: Week 6, Free Week!

Okay, late again. Next week I'll write my entry when I go to school. I'm kind of in the process of overhauling my life, so I've gotta get back into the swing of things.

This week, I didn't have to buy anything! Everyone should try to do this one week. I bet everyone can plan a week's worth of meals one Sunday (or Thursday) using things you already have on hand.

I didn't make anything fancy this week, but I just mixed together what I had on hand: frozen vegetables; some fruit; rice; pasta; bread; and plenty of condiments, sauces and spreads, including my leftover peanut sauce and garlic sauce.

It made for some pretty good meals. Some meals I just ate a PB&J bagel or a bowl of garlic rice. Other days I made a whole pasta dish with veggies and sauce. There are also a lot of good sandwich options in there. It all depended on my mood. But it was really a decent menu and I didn't have to spend anything. So clean out your pantry!

I'm sure these people are doing better than I am!
Reluctant Vegetarian
Maria Marz
Veggie Converter
Ashley's Dairy Free Cooking Blog
Motor City Girl In the Steel City
Veggie Burgher
Baked Beans and Broccoli...Vegetarian Budgeting
Sweet Rehab
The Happy Cactus
The Vegetarian Salmon
Test Kitchen Tuesday
Newly Vegan
Always Sick and Tired
Veggie on the Cheap
MeloMeals: Vegan For $3.33 A Day

Project Food Budget: Week 5, Better Late Than Never?

Well, I'm about a day late for this blog post, and it's not going to be a very good one. I'm so busy lately.

Anyway, my goal is $20 and I spent $26 today! Pretty good. I've been eating: bagels with Earth Balance or peanut butter and jelly; Subway sandwiches (okay, that added $10); Smart dogs; and some odd snacks and frozen meals I had on hand.

Today, Dave and I picked out some new recipes and bought ingredients. He made some (Daiya) cheesy garlic bread, and I made broccoli and garlic sauce from VegWeb. It was pretty good, but a little too spicy, and that's with half as much garlic as the recipe suggested. Then we made homemade peanut butter cups with semisweet chocolate chips and natural peanut butter. Yuuummm. I know those things don't go together, but it's what we were craving.

Some other things we wanted to try are Mexican rice, cheesy potato bake, spring rolls, cinnamon rolls, and tofu scramble. I want to replicate the Vegan Popeye (spinach and mushroom) from the Rutherford Pancake House... and we really wanted some kind of creamy potato soup recipe, but I couldn't find one.

Tomorrow, after my Saturday morning class (UGH), we're off to Asbury Park for the weekend to see the Bouncing Souls tomorrow night. I'm thinking Subway sandwiches for the train ride, and then I have to get a vegan sandwich from the Twisted Tree Cafe and a triple decker, deep-fried PB&J from the pub. It just comes with the territory. So that might set back my budget a bit.

My goal for next week is to write a real entry, on time!

Other budgeteers:
Reluctant Vegetarian
Maria Marz
Veggie Converter
Ashley's Dairy Free Cooking Blog
Beauty, Fitness, and Health...Oh My!
Motor City Girl In the Steel City
Veggie Burgher
Baked Beans and Broccoli...Vegetarian Budgeting
Sweet Rehab
The Happy Cactus
The Vegetarian Salmon
Test Kitchen Tuesday
Newly Vegan
Always Sick and Tired
Veggie on the Cheap

Project Food Budget: Week 4, Major Slacking

Well, my eating healthier and cooking more goals were not achieved. I would probably have tried harder if it were not for school starting up again. I happened to get a terrible schedule that couldn't be avoided: 3 night classes (3 hours each!), one day time class twice a week, and a 3-hour Saturday morning class! So between doing homework, staying up late, and spending so much time on campus... I haven't had much time to think about eating right, much less actually do it.

The good news is that I'll be under budget this week. When I "cooked," I only ate my famous lazy pasta dishes... all I needed was my leftover peanut sauce, and the pasta, marinara sauce, and nutritional yeast that I already had. Today, I was desperate enough to buy a footlong Veggie Delite from Subway ($5). If I go shopping tomorrow or this weekend, which I hopefully will, it will only be for some fresh produce for recipes, not totaling more than another $5. That's $10 less than, or half of, my $20 budget. Awesome!

Now, I know the lack of time is just an excuse. There are lots of blogs, websites and books out there devoted to telling someone how to live who has a low budget and little time. And I already know that I have plenty of supplies on hand to make sandwiches or wraps... besides that, I can make anything that tastes good cold, pack it in my old insulated lunchbox, and be set for the day.

* Read and utilize information on fast, low budget meals.
* Buy nothing but fresh produce, whatever I have to do.
* Do one yoga video from YouTube every day. (Unrelated, but I'm getting out of shape.)

We'll see what happens. Here are the other participants this week:
Reluctant Vegetarian
Maria Marz
Veggie Converter
Ashley's Dairy Free Cooking Blog
Beauty, Fitness, and Health...Oh My!
Motor City Girl In the Steel City
Veggie Burgher
Baked Beans and Broccoli...Vegetarian Budgeting
Sweet Rehab
The Happy Cactus
The Vegetarian Salmon
Test Kitchen Tuesday
Newly Vegan
Always Sick and Tired

Vegetarians Who Hate Vegetables, Help Is Here!

I have a guilty pleasure for watching The Rachael Ray Show, but sometimes it pans out. Last week, I learned about classifications based on taste buds. One group of people, called supertasters, naturally hates bitter tasting foods like vegetables. We simply have more taste buds, so we are more sensitive to all kinds of tastes. One young audience member had a diet just like my old, omnivorous one: white pasta with butter and cheese, and chicken nuggets. About a quarter of the population has this issue. That's a lot, and there is no reason to think such people are less likely to be vegan. After all, not hating vegetables is not usually a primary reason for veganism.

This brings us to a unique challenge: While everyone should consume vegetables for a long, healthy life, vegans need them more. Without bitter vegetables and other whole foods, we can fall short of nutritional needs. Besides, what is left, besides whole grains and fruits, are unhealthy processed foods and meat/dairy substitutes. This can also be a disaster socially, since well-meaning omnivores inevitably think of salad and roasted vegetables when they hear "vegan." For a supertaster, you can be faced with the painful dilemma of either turning down a sincere attempt at catering to you, or suffering through a disgustingly bitter plate of food. You want to learn to work around that.

I have not tested myself scientifically, but supposedly all you have to do is dye your tongue with blue food coloring. The more blue you see on your tongue, the fewer taste buds you have. If barely any of your tongue is stained, that means you are a supertaster. But you really don't need any test. If foods that others enjoy have seemed too bitter, sweet, salty, or sour to you for your whole life, then you probably are a supertaster.*

Fortunately, there are ways to ease yourself into healthy eating. They are not painful and they will not break your budget! Ultimately eating more vegetables will make you healthier, save you money, and make your life easier, so it's worth the effort. The key is not to force it, and to make sure that eating is pleasurable.

• Start with what you already like, and build onto it. Adding kale or spinach to a favorite vegetable soup will hardly be noticeable. But after a few helpings, you might be able to tolerate it on pizza. And someday you might be able to eat it steamed with nothing but garlic and oil to flavor it! The idea is that 10-15 exposures will get you accustomed to a food. Looking up yummy photos of the food can't hurt either.



• Use a little spice. If you have favorite spices, use them to their full power. Otherwise, look up recipes to get used to common flavor combinations and see which you like most. You can also try healthy condiments like nutritional yeast or natural ketchup and mustard. Apparently, salt is a good way to leech out bitterness. It is also easily available and often iodized, which is great news for low budget vegans. But use salt sparingly because it is far from a health food.



• Eat with someone who loves vegetables in all forms. I learned in a developmental psychology class that children will typically be begging to try a food if they watch you enjoying it on several occasions without pressuring them. I say, let's apply that to ourselves and watch people enjoy vegetables. In nature, we avoid bitter foods because they might be toxic. But if your friend eats broccoli five times and is still thriving, you're probably okay to try it, right?



• Set some goals. It might help you if you choose one particularly beneficial vegetable at a time to incorporate into your diet. That way, you can experiment with it in various foods, and you will not feel overwhelmed. If you fail, try, try again. Seeing as these foods prevent cancer, in some ways it really is a life or death situation.



• If all else fails, deceive yourself. Kale in your soup shouldn't bother you, but if it does, you might have to trick yourself. It's very important to get your vegetables in somehow, even if you hate them. So experiment with deceivingly nutritious desserts, toss a small part vegetable into a fruit smoothie, or throw a vegetable for good measure into pretty much anything you're blending up.

I myself am only in the first steps of this journey. I have been eating progressively more vegetables since becoming vegetarian 6 years ago, but I still gag when I eat most of them not covered in sauce. Now that I know it comes from my taste buds though, I am not beating myself up (or my mother) over it so much anymore. Hopefully I can try some of these experiments myself and report back.


*Notes on tastebuds: The four aforementioned tastes, and supposedly "umami" or MSG, are the only ones affected by taste buds. Any others, more rightfully dubbed "flavors," are purely based on the textures and/or smells of the food. Sensation of smell (and thus flavor) does decline with age, but taste usually does not.