Reflections

I started this blog so that I could remember the recipes I created this year using veggies from our CSA share. We joined the CSA in February, and in March, before getting any veggies from our share (these didn't come until June), I took the leap and decided to become a vegetarian. This was not a spur of the moment decision, nor was it a leap I took blindly, or all at once. I am coming up on the six month anniversary of this change and felt it a good time to reflect on how why I did it, how I did it, and not only renew my commitment to this lifestyle, but to also inspire myself to work toward the next step (giving up dairy completely), and perhaps show others how it can be done.

I have spent several years thinking that I was living incongruously. I am an avid animal lover, activist, educator and sometime rescuer. I would use denial tactics; rationalization, justification, same as everyone else, to justify my continued eating of animals. The cognitive dissonance was getting to me. Then, one March day I ate a Five Guys hamburger for lunch. This was a rare choice, as I considered the Five Guys hamburger the ultimate hamburger and saved it for a special treat. Most days I ate salad or soup and salad for lunch. That night I happened to get the flu. I spent the entire evening re experiencing that hamburger in the very worst way. It was a really bad flu and I could not keep anything down, outside of toast, for at least three days.

In my weakened state I had a brilliant idea! I thought, I haven't been able to eat for several days, why not make the leap to vegetarianism? It would be easy, just don't eat meat again from this point. I had done the same thing with coffee a couple of years earlier. Once I recovered from the flu I thought about what I knew about change. As a former smoker, and having spent 12 years as mental health counselor who dealt primarily with addictions, and the last five years as a probation officer, I know a thing or two about preparing to make a change, making a change and maintaining that change (stages of change). Cold turkey, for lack of a better term, rarely works. This was a change I wanted to maintain long term so I knew I had to stage it, plan it and make the changes in a way that was going to help me commit every step along the way. Including finding support in making and maintaining my change. All this was going to take time.

I decided to start somewhat small, I would not eat meat from the point of my recovery on, I did not immediately stop eating fish. I wanted to have options while I figured out how I was going to maintain this change long term, and find my support. I set a goal date of 90 days to stop eating fish, after my annual coastal vacation. I kept this goal and have stuck to it. I gave up milk immediately, this wasn't difficult, I find I like almond milk better in my cereal. Giving up all dairy has thus far eluded me. I have been going out of my way to find dairy that is 'cruelty free' and cheese that uses non-animal enzymes but, thus far, giving up sour cream, butter and cheese has been quite a challenge. I have significantly cut down on all of the above. I haven't set a date yet to give up dairy, but I am working that way; the cognitive dissonance, once again is becoming unbearable, and my defenses are useless.

My family and friends, with a very minor exception, have been quite supportive. My devoted husband has happily eaten every vegetarian meal I have prepared at home. There will always be those people who don't understand or who don't want to understand. Most of my support has come in the way of online resources and books. To name a few: Vegetarian Times magazine, Forks Over Knives (book and DVD), Happy Herbivore (online blog and several cookbooks), on Facebook; Rip Esselstyn and Engine 2 Team, Why Veg, Our Hen House and Vegucated. All of the aforementioned I find to be helpful resources that are not what I consider to be 'over the top' with scare tactics and judgments, which seem to be the common tactics of some of the other groups and resources I have found.

With the growing season coming to an end, our own garden as well as the CSA shares will stop producing soon. I suspect winter in Ohio will be challenging as I will have to find other resources for fresh food. Food Inc ruined me for the grocery store!

More recipes soon!
Thanks!

'Peasant Style' Bruchetta with Root Vegetables

1-Fennel Bulb, cleaned and trimmed
2-4 Leeks, cleaned and trimmed
4-5 Carrots, scrubbed
2 large Garlic Cloves
2-3 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1/4 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tbsp. Agave Syrup
4-5 thick slices of French, Italian, or sourdough cut in cubes
2 sprigs fresh Rosemary
1 sprig fresh Thyme
Kosher Salt

Preheat oven to 400. Slice fennel and leeks thinly, cut carrots into coins, smash and chop garlic. Toss all with olive oil in a glass baking dish. Pour balsamic, and agave over vegetables and cook in 400 oven for 45 minutes. Remove pan from oven, add cubes of bread, rosemary, thyme and a good sprinkle of kosher salt. You may add more oil or balsamic if your veg has dried out too much. Put back in 400 oven for 20 minutes or until bread is nicely toasted.

Roasted Tomato Sauce with Penne

This week we got some lovely heirloom tomatoes from our CSA. I am getting a fair amount of tomatoes from my own garden, so I decided to roast these and turn them into a nice sauce.

4-6 medium tomatoes
2 heads of garlic
6 fresh basil leaves
6 fresh sprigs of Greek oregano
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400. Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and water. Blanch tomatoes by bringing a large pot of water to boil. Cut a small 'x' in the bottom of each tomato, put the tomatoes in the boiling water, 2 at a time, for 1-2 min, or until skin starts to peel back around the 'x'. Remove and place immediately in the ice bath for 2-4 minutes. Once all tomatoes are blanched peel them.
Cut peeled tomatoes in half. And place in a parchment lined baking dish. Break apart the garlic heads and peel the cloves. Stuff the whole cloves in each tomato half anywhere the tomato will allow. Then roll and stuff the basil leaves (typically best to stuff this in the seeded softer area). Stuff in the oregano sprigs. Bake in the 400 oven for one hour, or until the tomatoes start to caramelize.
Allow the tomatoes to cool slightly, place in food processor and blend until smooth. Add the balsamic. Serve over penne.

Enchilada Stack

Tons of fresh veggies in this! Great recipe to make with your sweetie, as there are a lot of ingredients and a lot of steps in this one. This week brought us some heirloom peppers, more onions and more summer squash from our CSA, and this recipe made use of those ingredients well.

Makes four servings
Preheat oven to 375
Line a jelly roll pan (or cookie sheet with sides) with parchment paper

1-16oz. jar prepared enchilada sauce (you could also make your own)
9 vegetarian corn tortillas
1/2 cup shredded cheese (can you vegetarian cheese, vegan cheese shreds or skip it altogether)
1 can black beans run through food processor (or use refried beans)
1 Tbsp. olive oil

Veg Mix
1 summer squash, peeled and diced
1 large onion diced
2 large portabella mushroom caps diced
1 large mild pepper diced (can use green, red, purple, orange, yellow)

In a large skillet heat olive oil, add all veg and cook down until caramelized (10-15 mins), over medium heat.
While veg mix cooks down line jelly roll pan with parchment. Place four corn tortillas on the pan. Spread enchilada sauce on the tortillas. Spread a layer of beans on each of the tortillas, top each with a sprinkle of cheese and another tortilla. Spread enchilada sauce on tortillas, top with a layer of the veg mix. Place a third tortilla on top of the veg mix, layer on sauce and cheese. Cook in 375 oven for 25 minutes. Remove from oven when nicely browned. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before using a pancake turner to remove each stacked enchilada to a plate for serving. Top each enchilada with fresh salsa.

You could also use any veg you wish in the veg mix! Zucchini or corn would work great! Could also add a bit of cumin in while they cook down!

Fresh Salsa

I make salsa a couple of different ways but, both have the same ingredients.
The first way I like to make salsa is to blanch the tomatoes to get the skins off. This takes time, and if you are in a hurry you can just as easily leave the skins on the tomatoes. I find that if the skins aren't too tough this works out just fine.
Recipe makes about 1 cup of salsa.


4 medium tomatoes, in a large dice
1 small onion, chopped in a small dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 minced jalapenos
1 Tbsp. lime juice
dash salt
Fresh cilantro, chopped roughly, to your taste

Mix all ingredients. Serve immediately. Bear in mind jalapenos grow hotter in the fridge, so any leftovers you have will be hotter than what you started with!

Pepper Relish

Great way to use up all of the peppers coming in right now. You can use any peppers you like in this relish. Depending on the peppers you use your relish can be sweet or hot, or somewhere on the continuum between the two. I used a lot of mild banana peppers, some hot banana peppers and a couple of jalapenos, and my relish came out a really nice hot that is easy to eat.
This recipe makes about 1 cup of relish. The recipe could easily be halved or doubled.



10-12 peppers, minced
1/4 cup vinegar (white, red wine, or rice wine are best)
1 tsp. kosher salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. olive oil

Mix all ingredients in a jar, or in a plastic storage container and let sit several hours or overnight. This relish is a great topping for baked potatoes, potato salad, pasta salad, anything you'd like to add a little pep to. It's my experience that if you use rice wine vinegar the flavor is a lot more smooth and less sugar is needed.

Squash Bread

Great way to use up yellow, crookneck & summer squash that are coming in like crazy now!

Makes 2 loaves







3 eggs
3/4 C sugar (or 1 C agave nectar)
1 C applesauce
1/4 C oil
1 Tbsp. vanilla

3 C whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or 1/2 tsp. cloves, 2 tsp. cinnamon & 1/4 tsp. nutmeg)
3 C grated, peeled squash

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease or use non-stick spray on 2 loaf pans
Sift dry ingredients together & set aside
Beat eggs until foamy and bubbly
Add in sugar or agave, applesauce, oil and vanilla
Beat in dry ingredients by the cupful, until well mixed but, not over mixed
Add squash and mix until just incorporated, do not over mix
Cook 80 minutes, or until pick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean
Cool pans on wire rack for 15 minutes, turn out loaves and cool on wire rack for 30 minutes
Wrap loaves tightly, will keep for a day or two on the counter, or up to a week in the fridge

You could add, nuts, raisins, dried cherries or other dried fruit to this recipe as well, stirring in with the squash.

I made the applesauce myself by coring two medium apples and putting them through the Ninja Master Prep. My loaves were quite dense and I suspect if you used less applesauce and more oil they could be lighter, or no applesauce and 3/4 to 1 C of oil might produce and even lighter loaf. I try not to use oil, or as little oil as possible because oil is a heavily processed food.

Cucumber Salad

This week we have been getting a lot of English cucumbers from a friend. I love cucumber salads, all kinds, and I discovered a great secret recently; rice wine vinegar! If rice wine vinegar is used to make the salad there is no need to add sugar! This cucumber salad is dilly and delicious! Perfect for making up and taking to your next family get together too! Requires little effort.

Feeds a gaggle!

3 large English cucumbers
1/4 C very thinly sliced onion
1/4 C rice wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. dill
2 tsp. salt

Pare cucumbers neatly from end to end, cutting off every other strip of the green peeling. This leaves a nice stripy pattern on the cuke. Cut off ends, discard. Cut cucumber into slices about 1/4" thick. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with salt. This will bring the water out of the cucumber and give you a little more liquid to work with.
Slice onion very thinly and toss into the cucumbers. Add rice wine vinegar, give a stir. Sprinkle on the dill and stir well. With the dill, fresh is best, freeze dried is the next best and dried is a last resort. Use a lot less dill if you are using dried.
You can enjoy this salad immediately, after a few hours, or let marinate over night. Flavor changes slightly as it sets, but always remains delicious. You will want to eat it within 2-3 days or it gets a little droopy.

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes with Farfalle

Tonight, I used the cherry tomatoes I roasted on Sunday to make a pasta dish. I borrowed heavily from the second part of this recipe at Epicourious

Feeds 4

1/2 box Farfalle, cooked al dente
1 recipe roasted cherry tomatoes
2 Tbsp. kalamata olives (may be omitted)
2 oz. reduced fat feta
Fresh parsley

Cook pasta al dente according to directions on the box, drain, return to pan, toss with cherry tomatoes, olives and feta. Garnish with parsley.