Vegan Junk Food vs. Vegan Fast Food

"What's the difference?" you ask. Well, from my point of view, vegan junk food is food which I do not know to violate vegan principles, but which likely may. Vegan fast food, for me, is simply vegan food that is easily and quickly thrown together in less time than it takes to go through the drive-through.

Here are examples of each:

This delectible pizza was ordered at Campania, a new, Neopolitan-style restaurant in Alpharetta. This establishment boasts an authentic ceramic pizza oven all the way from Italy, "Double Zero flour", a warm, dark wood interior, and a lovely wine list, all in the incongruent location of a strip mall. "Coins and Firearms" is right upstairs and "Auto Zone" is next door. Seriously, though, the restaurant is worth a visit. The food is phenomenal and different from your average pizza joint.

This fabulous pizza, to me, is vegan junk food. The rare and coveted "Double Zero flour" is still white flour, which I try to avoid, and I have no idea what else the recipe for the dough contains. For my health, I cannot eat dairy in its basic form, but my system has not been bothered overtly by dairy that may exist in baked goods. Still, I usually try to avoid it. So the crust, as gourmet as it is here, is junk to this vegan. All the rest is fabulous, while lacking in basic grains and greens.  This lovely establishment has a very small menu with specific pizza creations. Each item on the menu is so special that I got a little nervous asking for this pizza without the meat and cheese. I could see a thought fleet across the mind of the server for a split second, but then he thought better of following through by speaking it, which I really appreciated. In the past, elsewhere, I have actually had servers try to talk me into eating meat and/or cheese, as surprising as that may be. Once, I have even had a pizza I ordered without cheese brought out with parmesan cheese all over it. When I pointed this out to the server, the response was, "No, that's not cheese, that's parmesan," (!) I had to come off my high horse a bit to gently, patiently, explain that parmesan is, indeed, cheese. Everyone else was finished by the time I received my pie.

I chose to eat this divine vegan junk food because my family and I went out to dinner together and we all wanted to try Campania, of the famous zillion degree oven (roughly) that bakes each pizza, one at a time, in 90 seconds flat! I'm glad I did -- it was delicious! I left the crust ends untouched though.

Vegan fast food is much more common for me, and it normally begins with leftovers. After my yoga class today, I was so zen that I wanted the feeling to linger, so grains and greens it was! I dipped into my already-prepared amaranth and onions from a couple of nights ago, and warmed it with baby kale leaves on top, then drizzled an artisanal olive oil on top and sprinkled it with Gomashio (sesame seeds ground together with sea salt). It took me three minutes to assemble and warm my delicious lunch. That's fast food to me. Sadly, there is no photographic evidence of my fast food lunch since I gobbled it all up without thinking.

To compensate for the missing photo of my vegan fast food, here's a bonus shot:

I harvested these Chinese longbeans in my pajamas this morning before waking Wynne. Forgive the cell-phone graininess. I get a batch-o-beans like this every couple of days or so now. They really grow quickly. These legumes could feed a village. I've pulled out my barren tomato plants already, but left the wire cages for the bean plants to enjoy.  They are entertaining to grow -- always very busy -- so it would be fun to grow these with young children. I don't really get tired of these beans. I have made them into soups and stir fries, I've grilled them in a pan with other veggies and fresh herbs, I've sauteed them with ginger and seaweed and pickled them with ume plum vinegar. It's a great crop.

Each vegan comes to the lifestyle from a different perspective. Some of us were primarily motivated by health concerns, some by compassion for our fellow earthlings, and some by a combination of both. Whatever the case, the lifestyle must be doable. To this end, I choose flexibility occasionally, in the form of a cheeseless pizza. Wholesome, whole food, fast or not, will always be my first choice since the most important thing for good health is to directly tend it most of the time. So for this girl, "vegan fast food" trumps "vegan junk food" but I'm still gonna have that pizza from time to time!

I Win Some, I Lose Some

Lately I've noticed there are some benefits to being the only specimen of one's kind, i.e. a midlife vegan in the deep south. I'm exaggerating, of course. There must be others in similar circumstances, but I've not yet met them.

The other day I was shopping at Kroger for a few items that cannot be found at Walmart, and I got a couple of freebies. I like to check myself out since I have a lovely reusable shopping bag the check out clerks tend to struggle with. I can more expeditiously do it all myself.  With produce, there is a procedure for typing in the name of the item while weighing it. The last time I did this, I found no radicchio (!) and no watercress. The attendant had to come over to assist me in finding the codes.

"Well, I guess we haven't gotten around to coding these yet, so just take 'em," she said.

This didn't feel right, so I suggested she just assign a fair price.

"No, that would mess with the system too much."

Okay. I left with my free leafy veggies. Still, there was an uneasiness in the back of my mind . . .

Do you believe in karma? I find that, whenever I receive something seemingly unfairly, an unsavory result will surely follow. On a couple of occasions in my life I have found $20 bills lying on the ground, unclaimed.  When I have kept them, both times the following days were pretty rough. It could be my imagination, but the result is the same. The photo above is what happened to my free radicchio. Isn't this sad? It's supposed to look like this:

You remember my "Yoda-food" as my son calls it. It has been the stuff I dream about -- so delicious with the mild, wilted radicchio, tofu cream cheese and truffle oil. Eye-rolling good. But the free radicchio was different. I recognize there is an element here of human error. Yes, I burned the pizza. It's the occasional collateral damage of a vegan cooking for herself and also a pack of carnivores. I've sometimes got too much going on in the kitchen. But here, after I trimmed and discarded the charcoal-encrusted portions, the radicchio was bad too. I had worried as I was removing the first few slimy leaves from the little head, and rightly so. I think it was just old. Radicchio is a bitter "green" (really purple) but shouldn't be this bitter. It was thoroughly unpalatable. I am sad it has quelled my craving for Yoda-food for the time being.

Sometimes we really do get what we pay for. But other times:

Here's my free watercress. Yes, you have seen this photo before. It is what became of the other free greens, and it was lovely and delicious. I am grateful for this portion of my free bounty.

To continue to wind down this post in a more positive vein, here are some recent yummy sandwiches:

This is marinated, baked tofu from the Natural Foods Warehouse, on eziekiel toast with vegenaise, avocado and a pile of arugula. Sublime.

And here is more of the aforementioned tofu, this time in a multigrain wrap with hummus, black olives and arugula. Delish.

There, see? There's always plenty for which to be grateful.  Mistakes are bound to happen (or karma) so gather ye watercress while ye may!

Beefless Stroganoff!

I adapted this from the Beef Stroganoff recipe in The Joy of Cooking. Here's the recipe:

Beefless Stroganoff
Ingredients:
a package of Gardein "Beefless Tips" 9 oz. ("Joy" calls for 1 1/2 lb. of beef!)
2-3 Tbsp. Earth Balance butter
1 large diced onion ("Joy" only calls for 3/4 Tbsp. of onion!)
3/4 lb. of sliced mushrooms, or as much as you want
salt, pepper, fresh nutmeg
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 c. dry white wine
1 c. tofutti sour cream


In the butter, saute the onion and mushrooms until onion is transluscent, about 5 minutes, stirring periodically. Add "beef" and wine and saute another 5 minutes or so over medium-high heat, stirring so it won't stick. Season with salt, pepper a generous grind of nutmeg and basil. Add sour cream, warm through and serve over noodles or potatoes, whatever you like.
Serves 2 


This recipe was very easy and quick. The Joy of Cooking version serves 4, and you could double the "beef tips" to achieve that amount, but I didn't, since I wasn't even sure if my carnivore would go for it, "fake meat" and all.  Guess what?  He DID! He even ate seconds and called it delicious! I'm so excited!!

We had the stroganoff over whole wheat linguine. I really wanted brown rice fusilli, but didn't want to overload my good-sport carnivore with new experiences!

Another meal that I wasn't going to feature since it is only a different combo of lots of the same leftovers I've been eating lately is this:

See those big bite marks all along the front edge? I was well into the nirvana that is assorted-vegan-leftovers-on-a-flatbread when my son walked in and said, "Wow."

"What? It's good!" I responded.

"Yeah, I think if I were vegan that would be good to me too. It just looks really healthy." he said.

"That's part of what makes it so good!" I continued.

"Seriously, it looks like you just scooped that out of a really healthy jungle," he added, diplomatically.

I started to giggle.

"That looks better than that Yoda-food you were eating the other day!" He continued.

He meant this:

One of my radicchio pizzas extraordinaire -- my very most favorite thing to eat of late. It looks even more like Yoda-food after it's been under the broiler for a couple of minutes.  I'm not offended.  Very wise, Yoda is. Honored to dine with him, I would be!  I'm just glad my son is noticing.

Almost a Year In -- Cravings Still Changing

On February 11 I will have been vegan for one year. The year has passed so quickly, and I only mention the milestone because I have had occasion recently to realize that my vegan body, which speaks to me so clearly, is evolving even still.  I must have had more animal sludge stockpiled than I thought!

I judge what's going on within by how I feel, and by the extreme cravings that come barreling through. I always answer my cravings by indulging them to the best of my ability. I had reason recently to open Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet, something I realize I haven't done in a while, my tried and true recipes from the tome being so ingrained already in my mind. The way I realized I hadn't recently flipped through is that certain recipes that used to make me grimace were now calling to me, namely the Radicchio Pizza and the Braised Daikon. So I had to try both yesterday.  Something else I suddenly had to have was cheezy cashew cream sauce, which I had recently noticed from various sources. I made up a recipe for it too. So I had a big hodge-podge cooking day yesterday!

Here's what I came up with:

These are the slices of daikon cooking in the mirin mixture that is finally getting syrupy after about an hour. I think it took so long because my daikon wasn't very large and so didn't fill the pan very well, so covering the slices required too much liquid. Alicia says that size doesn't matter here (I see what you did there, girl!) but, um, I think it does!

Verdict -- wasn't too crazy about these at first -- too sweet on one side, too not on the other (I can't stand sugar now, almost a year in) I really really liked the refrigerated leftovers, eaten cold with my fingers the next morning. Weird, but there it is. Also, I really liked how the daikon got everything moving. The effect was very energizing. Food as fuel.

When I had been thinking the daikon would be my lunch, I planned a cabbage dish to go with it -- just cabbage, leeks, shoyu and lemon.

Here is the bowl of lovely clean veggies -- see the root end of one of the leeks there? I washed it well and included it. I love the texture -- I don't remember liking it last year.

And here is the sauteed veg, complete with shoyu and lemon. Four shakes tasted too salty to me (I am recently intolerant of salt as well) so I put some of it on some whole wheat linguine and topped it with my cheezy sauce:

That's the ticket! Since I had made the sauce just for me, I put very little salt in it, and it is luscious! The sauce with the veggies and plain whole wheat pasta was exactly what I wanted to eat!

Here's my cheeze sauce recipe:

Cashew Cheeze Sauce
Ingredients:
11.5 oz. whole raw cashews
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. mustard
1 tsp. barley miso
4 Tbsp. nutritional yeast, plus more for sprinkling


I've heard the cashews should be soaked overnight, but mine weren't. I was in a hurry. I soaked mine for a little over an hour, rinsing them well and changing the water 3-4 times. Then, in a high-powered blender, cover soaked cashews with fresh water and process until completely homogenous, incorporating all ingredients.


This is a completely raw sauce and turned out to be just to my taste. You could easily tinker with the ingredients to create the sauce of your dreams too.

Whew! What a lunch-creating frenzy all that was! It was fun though, and the daikon really went straight into the fridge for the lovely cold next day breakfast that it turned out to be.

My family decided it would be fun to make our own pizzas for dinner, a few hours after the above frenzy. So I put out some ingredients and left them to it, while I again opened The Kind Diet for myself. I decided to create a sort of morph of two of Alicia's recipes, The Radicchio Pizza and the Thin Mushroom Pizza. I used two Whole Wheat Flatbreads, spread with tofutti cream cheese (I was over making sauces at that point) and topped with radicchio, salt, pepper and black truffle oil (couldn't find white truffle oil). It was TRANSCENDENT. I know all-caps is like yelling, sorry, but that is how very delicious this meal was to me. I am so sad I just finished the leftovers.

Yum. This is the best food in the world to me right now. This and my own homemade apple sauce. I actually dream about those foods.

Yes, the vegan transformation has been drastic and surprising. It is still an adventure, and I wouldn't have missed a second of it! Um, maybe those first 6 cheese-addiction-detox-tremens weeks, but other than that, not a second! I look forward to what's next.