the meat (and wheat!) free bookclub

When I was in library school (full disclosure - I'm a librarian), a group of us organized a book club, which I used to blog about on this site. I gradually stopped updating that blog, and am now thinking I'll just post some "book club" thoughts on this blog.

And the reason that it fits with this blog is because we're a vegan, and mostly wheat free, group of bookworms.


Way back when we began, only three of us (Mark, Danielle and I) were vegetarian, and on book club nights we just ordered pizza. Then Annalise and I went vegan, and the group of us decided that we would turn book club into a pot-luck affair, and a vegan pot-luck to boot.


When Cindy gradually came to realize that she and wheat didn't get along very well, we took the "wheat-free" challenge upon ourselves (which isn't really that hard, as long as you have spelt in the house), and lo and behold we became a vegan and wheat free group of readers and cooks.

We had a meeting yesterday afternoon at Laura's place to discuss "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Hadden (general verdict - decent, but light, read). As the host, Laura made the main course, a vegan Sheppards pie (spelling?). I changed my plans at the last minute, and found myself surfing the net yesterday afternoon for a new dessert to make. I was initially very happy to find this meat free / wheat free blog, but the author uses lots of eggs and even fish so it wasn't going to work for me.
I eventually settled on these banana oat bundles, and with lots of help from Annalise, they turned out pretty good!

beans and salad dressing

So when you read some of the veggie blogs, most notably Megan the Vegan, (and sometimes, when she writes about things like pumpkin bread, my girlfriends' blog), you cannot BELIEVE how delicious the meals they describe are, and when you're a guy like me, you cannot really comprehend how the meals are prepared.


I'm on my own up in Orillia at the moment. Annalise is still at our place in Toronto until early December, when she'll be moving up here. So that means I'm also preparing my own meals. I'm neither a good or a bad cook, I just don't have much patience for it. I tend to make an effort to learn one dish, and then just keep making it for weeks until finally I think I should try something different.



So - the point of this post is that even dumb males can be vegans if you're willing to pour salad dressing over canned beans and call it a meal. I googled "easy vegan bean salad" and the recipe pictured above was one of the first ones I found. It basically is beans covered in salad dressing. Incidentally I don't own a can-opener at the moment, ergo the Swiss Army knife in the above picture. I made a few alterations in the above recipe - I don't know what navy beans are so I just bought chick peas, and I really dislike celery so I used a red pepper instead, and I threw in some almonds and lemon juice as well.


And this is what I've been eating all week!! Fibre, protein and iron. Next time maybe I'll throw in some spinach as well for some of the health benefits of dark greens. So to bona fide cooks like Megan and our Veggie Triathlete (p.s. - the Rockies have a Canadian so I'm cheering for them) - this post isn't meant for you, but for all those clueless in the kitchen guys like me.

Luck of the veg-head

It was really nice in Orillia today.



Orillia, my new hometown, is a smallish city of about 35 000 people, and Annalise and I were a little bit worried about what sort of vegetarian/vegan dining we were going to be able to find in our new town.



We decide to go to the town's main pub (there are several pubs here, but Brewery Bay is the "Cheers" of Orillia - the iconic one on the scenic main street), and when we opened up the menu we couldn't believe how many veggie options there were.



After gushing to our waitress about all the veggie alternatives, and the ability to substitute veggie "chicken" for regular meat, we learn that the owner and his entire family are all vegetarian, and therefore all the VegHead stuff.



Orillia otherwise doesn't seem to have much vegetarian cuisine on offer, though the supermarkets are well stocked with soy icecream etc etc. but thank god we at least have one place that we can go to and eat.

Canadian Thanksgiving

I apologize for the lack of blogging recently. I've taken a new job and am in the process of moving cities, so finding veggie and factory farming stories to write about hasn't been possible.

This weekend is thanksgiving in Canada, and for the first time in ages I commuted INTO Toronto, rather than out of it, on a long holiday weekend. So instead of being with my parents and siblings up north, or with Annalise's parents in Waterdown, we spent the weekend on our own in the city.

Thanksgiving dinner came out of Vegan Planet - Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas. Hopefully you can get the gist of the recipe from this photo (clicking to enlarge).

I'm not the biggest fan of sweet potatos, though I should mention that I'm not a very discerning eater and can eat the same meal for about a month without getting bored of it (which I'll probably be doing a lot of when I'm cooking all by myself up in Orillia until Annalise moves up in December).
But, these enchiladas were pretty yummy - we used mild salsa though, and I think I would have enjoyed them more if we'd had medium or hot salsa.



These are the enchiladas being prepared for the oven, and this is Annalise hiding behind the finished product.

Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair

Anna and I spent some time at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair today. I took some quick photos of random things as we walked around. I remember it being a lot busier last year, but maybe we just picked a good time to go.

Sound of Music

For those few of you who only visit this blog and don't check my "everything else" blog (which is supposed to be about cycling but wanders far off topic most of the time), you're missing some good (I think!) music to download.

Check the last two posts on Story of a bike and a stubborn cyclist for the links to the zipped music files.

Have a great weekend!

Captain Caveman

While Krista is playing with sprouts and our triathlete continues to make delicious sounding meals like lemon blueberry waffles and tuscan bean polenta, I've been on my own for a week (girlfriend has been canoeing in Algonquin Park) and I've basically regressed into a single male's diet (although a vegan one). I started off well, eating the leftovers in the fridge, such as spinach salads with walnuts etc. But last night I was down to two veggie burgers and thank God Anna is back today because it might have come down to me eating all the sunflower seeds in the house, along with some raisins.

Thankfully I haven't fallen this far. I found an article in the Independent newspaper about the "caveman's diet." Basing his diet on some stuff he read by Arthur DeVaney, this Independent writer spent a month eating a Stone Age diet:
Rule of thumb: If you can't gather it from a bush or tree, or spear it, it's probably best not to eat it. What you can eat: Lean meat and fish. Fresh fruit and vegetables. Eggs. Dried fruit (without added sugar or vegetable oil). Nuts and seeds. What you can't eat: Sugars, grains (no oats, wheat, barley or rye, etc.), beans, peanuts (a bean, not a nut) and starchy vegetables (such as potatoes). Dairy products.

To the writer's credit, he quotes a few people like Dean Ornish who state that the emphasis on meat in this diet will lead to heart-disease, and he also mentions some interesting stuff about how all the refining that has happened to food over the last hundred or so years is what has actually caused such a massive drop in the quality of our food (and therefore an increase in illness).

I don't know - it sounds like a fairly good diet to me. I'd obviously switch the meat for the beans (and some B12 pills), but I can see it being healthy for you (though still terrible for the animals - I wonder if he tries to get free range/organic eggs & chicken etc).

At least it isn't like like Owsley Stanley's diet. Apparently this guy ONLY eats meat.
Stanley recently posted his seven rules for healthy eating on the Internet. They are:
* Eat only food from animals
* No vegetables
* Limit liver intake
* Avoid milk (except for butter and cheese)
* Eat as much fat as you like
* Don't cook your food much
* Avoid salt
Stanley had a heart attack in recent years, but he blames it on the broccoli and other"poisonous" vegetables his mother used to feed him as a boy.

Y.I.K.E.S.

P.S. - I noticed that the Independent has an entire section of their site (and maybe their print newspaper?) devoted to the environment. Well done dudes!