Don't Nobody Know Nothin' 'Bout Nothin'!

"...what does it mean?!" (comment from loyal reader Heather)

Veganism will save our plant. Anyone who doesn't eat some kind of animal product can't maintain long-term health. Without the massive amount of greenhouse gasses caused by dairy cattle our atmosphere would be far, far healthier. Free range, grass raised and finished beef is nearly the perfect human food.

Nobody's right...everybody's right. The fact that LG and I are embarking on this vegan Engine 2 Diet, doesn't mean that know we've found the penultimate answer. It only means we're searching and willing to consider and try an approach we haven't previously experienced. Am I the smartest person in world about this and many, many other issues...well, I don't like to brag... Anyway, we're still doing this thing and still pondering the meaning of life and health and...still thinking about some rich, red sangiovese...and maybe a nice double Maker's Mark of Jack Daniels on the rocks.

Did you know you can make a pretty decent pesto sauce without adding any olive oil? Are you tired of seeing questions marks in this blog entry? I am, so that's the last question today...or is it?

The evening's Hardware

We had a pretty darned delicious pesto with whole wheat gnocchi last night. It accompanied a bowl of rich mushroom soup and a black bean "burger patty". I didn't take a photo because it was all a little too "brown" to make a really appetizing shot. Instead, you can see the tiny appliances I employed...how fun! One thing about this diet. Even without the bright, fresh, photogenic vegetables that constitute much of our intake, our meals have plenty of plant fiber and nutrition.

But about that pesto - in a small food processor (so much easier to clean than the big one) I put about a half cup of pine nuts, a bunch of fresh basil, a tablespoon or so of almond butter, and 3 large cloves of fresh garlic and pulsed for a bit. Then I added WATER ( I know, but it turned out great) a little at a time until the pesto was the consistency I wanted. The pine nuts and almond butter add a significant amount of natural fat and I have to admit to the addition of a bit of pink sea salt.

The mushroom soup was a "had to" dish, as the big container of criminis I'd purchased at Costco was beginning to issue an olfactory alarm. I rinsed them in water since I was going to cook them in liquid anyway, and simmered them in organic vegetable stock with half a diced red onion and some black pepper. After they'd simmered about a half hour, I used my immersible blender (see photo above...aren't you glad I figured how to post pics?!) and almond milk to get it smooth and "creamy." Not bad, actually.

About that vegetable stock. They're not all the same. See, I assumed they were all like the cheap ones I'd used before - pretty tasteless and bland. The box we picked up at Trader Joe's was certainly not tasteless. For some things, that's good, for others...not so good. This stuff has a definite "orange" flavor. No, I don't mean it tasted of citrus. It had a definite tone of carrot and/or squash. If I were cooking something besides the delicately flavored mushroom, something like - say - carrots or squash, that would be fine. The soup was still good, but would have been even better with a more subtle stock. It was kind of like showing up at a funeral with a stupendously hot girl in a short, low-cut red dress (the role being played in my mind by LG.) Everybody knows she's there and in a different setting she'd be the perfect exclamation point, but in the pews many doubt she was the most appropriate addition to the event. Kind of like that. We'll keep trying different iterations of our ingredients and let you know what we find.

I'm not being real anal about my sodium intake. Those delicious black bean chipotle "burger" patties, for example, have 700 mgs each. LG said - in spite of their deliciousness - she's not going to have any more. I - ever the cheap bastard - will eat the rest of them, then consider whether to find an alternative. Honestly, though, except for my salt intake, I'm being surprisingly (to me anyway) dedicated to the tenets of the Engine 2 Diet.

LG gave me a hug when she returned from work and said, "You're feeling thinner." Whether true or not, I love her for that...and so many other wonderful qualities. In truth, though, I DO sense I'm a bit thinner, firmer, leaner. It's nice. On top of that "giddiness" thing I talked about yesterday, I'm feeling very happy about this adventure. Four weeks of it isn't going to be a hardship at all, except - maybe - for coming up with 28 days' worth of blog ideas...