Sunday, June 26, 2011

A Challenging Week

This week I went on a work retreat for Americorps. I will not name the place that we went but I will say that is a very distinguished tennis ranch that runs about at least 300 dollars per person for a day. It is not cheap.

I am not the only Veg that is in my group, the only vegan yes but there is another vegetarian in the group and one of the facilitators is a vegetarian was well. My program manager called them ahead of time and told them that she had us in the party and about our food restrictions (Plus we had been there in December as well).

Now this is the problem that I have. We live in a connected world and when you are advertised in all of the premiere tennis and health magazines and we pay out the nose I expect you to be able to google what a vegan is. It is not hard to sautee some veggies in olive oil or steam some rice.

No, the first lunch we were told that they were going to get the ingreiants. Salad it was. Dinner we were served fish. Salad again. Breakfast the next morning....there was nothing I could eat. Not even a bowl of granola and soy milk. Luckily I had brought green juice. Lunch...pulled pork sandwiches so I had a salad again. There was pesto but that has cheese and my lactose intolerance will not be happy with me if that happens. Dinner I was brought out two plain potatoes which were rock hard and was told that there was cheese and sour cream in the buffet...Salad.

Now, I do not like making a big deal about my food when I travel but two days of salad and green juice was starting to make me feel...woosy. My other Americorp members told me that I could not be so demanding. I, however, feel like if your stay is being paid for and you inform them of your food sensitivities they should be able to accommodate, most of all when there was a grocery store right down the street that I know for a fact has an abundant of vegan burgers.

Three days and I ate nothing but salad and green juice. I still feel sick.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Cabbage Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing

Dressing:


- 1/2 cup of grated cabbage
- 2 Tbsp of freshly chopped ginger
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 1/2 white miso paste
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp grape seed or canola oil
- 1 tsp agave syrup

Salad:
- 4 cups of thinly sliced cabbage
- 1 medium radicchio thinly sliced
- 1/2 sweet onion thinly sliced
- 1 avocado sliced
- 2 tablespoons of hemp seeds (optional)

To make dressing: Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth.

To make salad: Toss together all of the dry ingredients. Pour in the dressing and toss gently. If you are using the hemp seeds sprinkle over the top of the salad and serve.

Watermelon Sorbet

This is such an easy way to make your own desert. Say bye bye to ice cream, cause this will rock your world! It is perfect for a hot summer day.



7 cups of chopped seedless watermelon/ juice.
1/2 cup of raw sugar or agave
Juice from 1 lemon

Combine all ingredients into blender and blend well. Pour into several or one large Tupperware container. Freeze.

After frozen you can spoon out. This recipe will make 8 large servings.

Friday, June 17, 2011

The Power of the Internet.

So I am deciding to take on a more challenging task and that is to blog about vegan things that are not just my favorite mouth watering recipes. So here it goes.

Today what I really want to talk about is the power of the internet in subcultures, specifically the vegan subculture. Technology is a wonderful thing and embracing it gives us such an amazing power. The power is to Connect. There is of course the ability to find information and recipes but that connection is just as valuable.

I think that sometimes we forget how much has been given to us with this amazing gift. I live in an isolated area when it comes to veganism. Texas does not have a lot of vegans and most of them are in Austin which is about an hour drive from where Will and I live.

It wasn't exactly easy becoming a vegan or even a vegetarian in San Antonio Texas. There are many judgement about people who are vegans here. As a friend said at dinner tonight. "You tell people you're a vegan and suddenly everyone is a nutritionist." I could not agree more with this statement. Even at my job, which is in the sport and health industry, there are jokes made about me drinking green juice.

Because of this I have found a lot of support in the web community. Twitter, Facebook and even meetup.com have huge veg communities where support is constantly glowing from people. I find this to be the most helpful thing in any life style change. There are web communities like The Crazy Sexy Life and The Kind Life that have message boards where support and ideas are constantly offered, free of judgement.

Search out support on these websites, even if you are a hard set vegan. You can support new veg-curious people. These communities make us powerful. Education is power!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Amazing Raw Lunch

So I tend to eat more raw food in the summer and it does my body good work. I get less bloated, feel lighter and the people who have to look at me in a swim suit while tubing thank my veggies!

Here is my amazing raw lunch for today.

Summer

Salad:
-one avocado, chopped
-1 red chili, diced
-2 roma tomato's, chopped
-1 1/2 cup of corn
-handful of cilantro
-1/2 cup of red pepper, chopped
- salt and pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients into bowl and mix well. Place on two leaves of butter lettuce. You can either roll these into the leave as rolls or just eat as a salad. This will go a long way. Refrigerate rest.

Tomato Cucumber "Caprese"
-1/2 tomato, thinly sliced
-1/3 cucumber, thinly sliced
-1 teaspoon lemon juice
-pepper to taste

Take thin slices and arrange alternating. Squeeze lemon juice over and then sprinkle pepper.