Asian Dinner

Somehow I feel a little wrong cooking a vegan or vegetarian recipe with a side of meat, but it happens a couple days a week now that I'm finding so many good recipes in vegetarian and vegan cookbooks like the collards in Vegan Soul Kitchen and the tamarind lentils I made tonight from Veganomicon that it happens more and more. As long as I'm eating healthier on the whole I don't think it's incredibly bad.

So, tonight's dinner was tamarind lentils, mentioned above, and one more Robin Miller pork recipe, hoisin pork chops. One dish was more Indian inspired, the other Chinese inspired. I used a few new ingredients tonight, which was interesting. Tamarind is a nice flavor, garam masala also helped to round out the spicy-sweet lentil dish, and hoisin sauce is a pleasure, at least mixed in with a little orange juice and balsamic vinegar.

So far I have discovered a lot of new foods, healthy foods, as I have experimented. Granted, I have not commented on them as such during the course of this blog yet, but my palate and nutrient base has been expanded. Instead of eating only one kind of green in two dishes (a soup and a salad that used baby spinach) now I also have several recipes for cabbage that I enjoy such as won ton soup and cayenne coleslaw, and citrus collards, as well as experimenting with mustard greens and kale. I enjoy a couple of tempeh recipes so far, with home-made barbecue sauce, and hoppin' john. I've been making my own vegetable stock almost every week to have it on hand, using collard stems and other basic ingredients, which has also been more fulfilling to used than the boxed stuff.

Husband and I are getting a share in a csa this summer, and the first box comes next week. I am even more excited about trying new recipes I wouldn't have thought of without getting some fresh from the farm. In addition, I've started to make a list of recipes I will be trying this summer so that I branch out even more, and don't have to look too far to find one that I've been interested in trying out.

I feel like worlds are opening up before me. For many years, when I would agonize over what to eat for dinner, and settle for Taco Bell, a baked potato, or cereal for dinner if I didn't have money for a frozen pizza or want to spend money on one from a pizzeria. Occasionally I would make meat loaf or spaghetti, or make dinner from a loaf of bread. I've been cooking for years, but it was usually confined to breads and deserts. Now, however, my horizons keep expanding further and further. I like more food than I thought, and I'm eating better, too.

Friday's Sins

I almost have a whole weekend of leftovers in the fridge at present. I shall conquer my Friday dinner experiment first.

Two of my favorite cookbooks are written by Robin Miller, who has a show on Food Network that I have not seen. Though I don't like her most recent book much (too many fish recipes) I make frequent use of Robin to the Rescue and Quick Fix Meals. My recipe for balsamic pork loin came from the first. I made it, in part, because it is a "morph it" recipe, in which one overmakes a main dish, such as pork loin, and freezes extra portions (or refrigerates,depending on how many days in the future you want to use it) to make an even quicker recipe later in the week. Wonton soup and pork sloppy joes both come from this recipe.

My side dish was stir-fried greens. It is a recipe from my vegan cookbook, Veganomicon. Should I feel bad I made a vegan dish with pork to go with it? It smelled good, and tasted good, but knowing this made me feel a little dirty as I ate my stir-fried kale.

The pork roast tasted better than the kale. The balsamic vinegar, honey, and mustard made a nice sauce, though I dropped the roasting pan, causing a minor mess. I did not lose the pork loin to the floor, but a good portion of the sauce splattered all over the kitchen, my shirt, and my hair. Even though I quickly grabbed a towel, my dog was also still able to help me clean up the mess as well. She liked the sauce.

She also liked the kale. Whenever I dropped a piece (as I was stirring vigorously, as I was chopping) she ate it off the ground lickety-split. I liked the kale as well, though the mirin, garlic, and oil were not as evenly distributed as I would have liked. The mirin really made it much tangier and less vegetative.

Mission Statement

Inspired by the film Julie and Julia, as well as the blog 101cookbooks.com and my own attempts to eat a larger variety of healthy foods while still catering to my particularly picky tastes, I have decided to venture out into the food world a little bit more and try new recipes from cookbooks I already own and from the internet.

Some ground rules, shaped by my particular tastes are as follows:

1. No fish. No matter how many times the nutrition and diet books recommend it, I don't like fish and have no interest in spending my limited calories on them.

2. No desserts or snacks. At present, I already like plenty of desserts, so I will be attempting to expand my main course, side dish, salad, and soup recipes, not desserts.

3. I would like to make sure at least half of the recipes are vegetarian or vegan.

4. Whole grains should be used in place of refined when possible; whole wheat pasta, brown rice, etc.

5. 95% of recipes should have calorie counting (as well as taste) in mind. I wouldn't mind learning some new special occasion or holiday meal every once in a while, but I'm already running as many miles a week as my knees will take. I want to create a sustainable, tasty, and healthy diet for myself.

I have lost about 5 lbs so far with my gowearfit and calorie counting, and I want to keep going for about 15 more, and then sustain my weight loss with healthy and tasty foods in the long term. I am not overly fond of vegetables, so I am hoping that this experiment will introduce new veggies into my diet, or find more ways of including veggies in general.

Since my husband also enjoys to cook, and since I already have a few healthy favorites, and since I'm in rehearsals for a play right now in addition to teaching 8 classes and running 18 miles a week and taking 4 kickboxing classes, you can expect that I will not be able to cook a new recipe every day of the week. My goal is 3 recipes a week, though I might share with you some of my old favorites, some weight loss and exercising experiences, and general life-ness.

Wish me luck! If you, too, have a favorite healthy meal or cookbook to recommend, let me know.