Meatless March

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, it is time for us to reflect on our blessings. I'm grateful for health, a lovely family, the means to live the high-flyin' Jennie lifestyle, and all that. But for the purposes of this blog, what you need to know is that I'm grateful that Thanksgiving never, ever takes place on a Wednesday. That said, not only did I pull off #VeganVednesday today, but I even made a Thanksgiving-style vegan crockpot stuffing as our dinner entree, in a nod to the holiday upon us. And it was good! I could legit see stuffing a turkey with this stuff(ing). Still sporting a bandage, I'm afraid, although it's mercifully smaller than the original version Not gonna, however, because on special occasions, I say bring on the butter and meat . Also, I have the luxury of not cooking the meal tomorrow, a challenge that my mother-in-law has bravely assigned herself. I'm merely bringing sweet-potato muffins. Back to our " Crockpot Stuffing with Wild...

Before we dive into the food, indulge me in a moment of silence for my beloved suede boots, which finally sprouted holes after serving me well since (gulp) COLLEGE. I actually remember the moment I first laid eyes on them, in Rosedale Mall. I didn't have much money but I had to have them, and I think we can all agree, *cough cough* years later, that they turned out to be a phenomenal investment. They lasted about as long as my high school soccer shorts, which I just had to throw away a few years ago. I have visions of the shorts and the boots frolicking together through the wispy clouds of my wardrobe's afterlife. Ahhh. My departed clothes, may they rest in peace, are not entirely off topic for this blog, because this blog is about environmentalism, and they illustrate the environmental virtue of waste avoidance. Hang onto your stuff as long as you can. If you don't want it anymore but it still has life left in it, find it another good home. I embodied another env...

You know that tomato pie is one of my favorite summer recipes. Don't pretend you don't know this. I go on and on about it at the drop of a hat, ask anyone. You may also remember me recently making a tomato and goat cheese tart , after which I had some pastry left over. I portioned it out and stuck it in little ramekins (which I purchased secondhand at a thrift sale - earth-friendly!) and froze them, and today I retrieved them from the freezer.  Without thawing them, I gave them the slightest brush of dijon mustard, and then stuffed them with luscious fresh tomato and the filling from my tomato pie recipe, which is superb etc. etc, as you know.  Then I stuck them in the toaster oven at 350 degrees. Then I started writing this blog post, while I waited impatiently. Then I took a selfie with one hand behind my back to illustrate my blog writing, which is hard to do, but just one of the many impressive skills that I bring to my environmentalism. ...

This blog has become a record of how I sashay into every Wednesday with full confidence that I can pull off #VeganVednesday, then probably half the time, I end up unwittingly thwarting my own good intentions. This morning, trying to find some solace in these dark days of November, I decided to treat myself to a (vegan!) coffee. Coffee makes my cold heart feel things. I try not to drink it too often, lest the magical effect should wear off. I stood stupidly at the display case at the coffee shop, not even daring to imagine that any of the pastries might not contain butter, but LOOKING at them wasn't cheating on #VeganVednesday. DROOLING wasn't cheating. I turned away. And then not two seconds later, I ordered a latte, and drank half of it before it dawned on me that I had not specified soy milk or oat milk or coconut milk or really any darned kind of milk that did not come from a darned animal. And then I was filled with dismay at my darned self. I veered back to the pl...

" Skillet Farro and Turkey Sausage Casserole with Kale and Sweet Potatoes " (This Gal Cooks) is really just a cassoulet with a name geared toward search engine optimization. And when I make it, which I'm definitely going to do again, it has fake sausage! All my experiences with Beyond Sausage have been positive (see here and here ). It tastes and feels and performs like real sausage. I highly recommend it. For this dish, I found that just like real sausage, it does have a casing, which is peeled off easily enough. I used homemade veggie stoc k. Do yourself a favor, and make a batch of it some weekend, then freeze whatever you don't use right away. Tonight, I pulled a four-cup container of it out of the freezer, dumped the lump of veggie ice into a pan over high heat, and thawed it in minutes. Everyone liked this cassoulet. Count it among the meatless winners, and if you leave off the cheese, it'll be vegan, too! I'd just sprinkle some flaky salt ...

Making " Crock Pot Vegetable Minestrone Soup " (The Spruce Eats), a week or so ago, appealed to me for several reasons: It was vegan It showcased some produce from one of the last farmers markets of the season (I'm trying not to cry) A soup is always a welcome cold-weather entree I wasn't going to be home in late afternoon, but I could throw it early into the crockpot and it would be waiting for me at dinnertime It allowed me to use up some egg noodles that had been languishing in the back of my cupboard (I substituted them for the macaroni) So it checked a lot of boxes, and it turned out well. We enjoyed it with toast on the side. AND YET... To tell you the truth, for as long as I can remember, I have always found minestrone boring, and nothing has changed. NOTHING HAS CHANGED! Minestrone is still boring. I am afraid that minestrone will always be boring. We deserve better from food, don't we? I just read an opinion piece arguing that Ameri...

I rocked Vegan Vednesday today, people! I didn't even have a MOMENT when I considered dairy or eggs or meat. Having a plan is the key. Oatmeal for breakfast, soy milk hot chocolate, leftover pasta with chopped tomatoes for lunch. And then I tried a new recipe for dinner: " Pasta Aglio Olio With Butternut Squash " (NYT Cooking; subscription required). Why am I in a beret? WHY NOT?! I wasn't familiar with cooking an oil-based sauce like this, but it went off without a hitch, and my regular readers (all four of you or whatever, ha ha) know that for me, that's really an accomplishment! Denuding a squash You can see from the photo above that I reduced the amount of chili flakes to just a sprinkling, keeping my backup dancers' tastes in mind. As a result, the dish had no discernible heat. Also, I think you could probably get away with slightly less oil. It didn't taste like too much oil, but I was thinking dubiously about the quantity as I...

After a weekend of stuffing myself with things like french fries and chicken wings and the world's most wonderful cookies , yesterday I was craving something balanced and vegetable-heavy (and, of course, meatless). I landed on " Roasted Veggie Grain Bowls " (Love and Lemons). The page with the recipe offers something very valuable: general guidelines on throwing together a grain bowl. It need not have quinoa; it need not have parsnips and cauliflower and broccolini and Brussels sprouts; it need not have chickpeas; it need not have kale-cilantro sauce; it need not have sauerkraut. If you have a grain, a protein, an acid, some crunch, and a sauce, you're in excellent shape. With that in mind, I left out the broccolini because there was none at the farmer's market, and instead I used a little extra of this truly splendid romansco broccoli. Sooooooo prettyyyy I also skipped the sauerkraut and substituted homemade pickled radishes (credit to Alexandra'...

Another veek, another Vegan Vednesday. It's gotten easier over time, and I hope it will continue to get easier, but still I struggle to avoid animal products on these Wednesdays. Why do I keep it up? Because of " Vorld Scientists’ Varning of a Climate Emergency " (misspellings my own), that's vhy. Read it and literally weep, friends: "more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world" stated "clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency" in the new (Nov. 5)  Bioscience piece. It's only about a five-minute read that summarizes evidence from other sources, and suggests areas for action - including reducing meat consumption. After the Trump administration waved away its obligation to address the problem by withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change on Monday , I hope you voted on Tuesday, Election Day, for candidates who are brave and smart enough to face the climate emergency and take...

When I was a kid, my mom had a book called "Jane Asher's Fancy Dress," a costume how-to book, and my sister and I loooooved paging through it. Now the book sits on my own bookshelf, and it is my daughter who likes imagining herself in the costumes. She asked whether I could make her a pixie-on-a-toadstool costume, and that was the genesis of our family Halloween costumes this year. Those aren't her real legs! I have made a lot of elaborate family Halloween costumes in the last few years, and guess what? We've never won a costume contest, though we've placed second or third repeatedly. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, so maybe we'll dress up as bridesmaids next year. 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 Back in the present, my friend Ginge "The British Realtor" Calhoun and her real estate team offered a refreshing alternative to the usual candy at Maplewood's Halloween parade: environmentally friendly ba...