Friday, November 27, 2009

Vegan Spicy Lentil Stew/Soup



Ingredients:
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot sliced
• 1 slice celery
• 6 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup dry lentils
• ½ a cup of brown rice
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• dash salt
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• Franks red hot (optional)

Preparation:

In a large pot, sautee the onions, celery and carrot in the vegetable oil for 3-5 minutes until onions turn clear.

Add the vegetable broth, lentils, rice, pepper, thyme, bay leaves and salt.
Reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook until lentils are soft, about 1-2 hours (rice takes a while). Stir in franks red hot or hot sauce if you want spicy. Remove bay leaves and stir in lemon juice before serving. Makes 4-6 servings of lentil soup.

Of coarse you should add or subtract if you like a certain taste! Best with pita!

Notes:
One thing about making any soup or stew is the temp that your oven gets to. I dont have a gas stove so its harder for mt to get a standard temp. CHECK! If it looks like you are running low on liquid add more veggie stock as you go.

Health Points
- Full serving of veggies in ever cup.
-lentils: http://www.healthrecipes.com/lentils.htm (I cant say it any better than that)

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Veggie Girl

In the time that I have eaten a plant based diet I have run into far more obsticals than I thought that I would. People who talked about how others judged them were being overly senstive...because why would anyone give a damn if I ate meat?

But for some I guess it did matter that I ate...alot. I have been told anything from "Do you take iron? Cause you cant get enough iron." to "You're going to die." Stupid myths of course. In a plant based diet you get more than enough iron and you are most certianly not going to die any sooner because you dont clog up your arteries with red meat like the common American. In fact people who are vegitarian and vegan, just by the mere virtue that they pay attention to what they eat, are less likely to die early.

But thats not what I want this blog to be about. I will write about trails and myths of the vegan/ veg way of life, but mostly what I will do is talk about cooking. I have always loved to cook. Perhaps its because of the italian in me or maybe it was the fake that one of my first memories is of hand making pasta dough with my dad. Either way it lead me to an appreshation of food and the finer art of cooking. So when I started the vegiarian life style my first wonder was what I was going to eat.

As I soon found out there was plenty. That is what I am going to share with you. Food that will not only keep you going until the next class or meeting. Food that will norish your body instead of making it harder to keep moving. Food that will taste great and feel great going down. I'm not trying to force anyone into this life. My boyfriend is still a die hard texan hunter. But if you just eat these foods once or twice you'll find that your stomach will thank you.

Plus, as many meat eaters say to me: WOuldn't it be nice to have some varity?