Wednesday Meant Errands and Cooking Class

Today was very busy for me. I ran errands (the library, health food store, Wegman’s, Tuesday Morning, Costco, and bookstore) and then I went to cooking class. As you may have guessed from my list that meant that I was out of the house about 10 years today. Needless to say this is going to be a quick post given the time constraints.

I found some nice glass dishes at Tuesday Morning that I thought would be good for the blog. Since I get tired photographing the same plates I assume you get tired of looking at them too. Also I just like to change things up for fun.

I was brave and picked up kelp noodles today at Wegman’s. This is a different brand from what I have purchased before so hopefully we will like these. We were running dangerous low on dried organic beans so I had to replenish my inventory today. Thankfully Wegman’s sells a nice selection of dried organic beans. I also found a sprouted then dried three bean mix at Costco that I also picked up. In the end I think I bought over 15 pounds of beans today. My home pantry will no longer short on beans.

After the bookstore (no cookbooks today) it was time for cooking class. Donna (the cooking teacher) was kind enough to come up with substitutions allowing my dishes to be vegan and the remainder omnivore. I thought that was very nice of her since I am clearly the odd man out when it comes to food.

I will show you the original omni dishes and then the version for me. For those of you that have omni families and struggle with how to make something that you can both eat and enjoy I hope this will give you some ideas. The major components of the dishes are all vegan but with a slight addition here or modification there you can make something that works for everyone in the family. As much as I am sure this will shock the other people in the cooking class I think my dishes were excellent and I know they were healthier.

The first dish was a salad with citrus vinaigrette with fruit (berries and citrus) and pistachio crusted goat cheese.

My vegan variation omitted the cheese and only had the pistachios. However if you had nut cheese at home you could certainly roll that in some chopped nuts for yourself though that would be a little silly. I would probably roll it in fresh herbs instead. ;-)

The second dish was braised baby artichokes over baby arugula. The omnivore version was stuffed with a crab salad with jalapeno.

My vegan version had pine nuts which I thoroughly enjoyed.  If you wanted something more similar you could use jackfruit for the crab and vegan mayo.  If I were making something like this at home I probably would have stuffed the artichoke with a brown rice and veg salad or bread crumb and veg.

The entrée was a honey mustard glazed pork over sautéed spring veg over fruited couscous.

My vegan entrée was chickpeas and sautéed spring veg over fruited couscous.

Dessert was a lemon tart.

My dessert was fresh berries and mint.

The crazy thing about my meal was that for me this was much heavier than I make at home but some of the people in the class thought that my meal was austere. It is enlightening for me to be reminded how and what other people eat. I tend to live in my little healthy vegan bubble and forget what other people consider a meal. I was surprised that some of the new people were questioning why my food was different. Mind you they didn’t ask me which I found to be a little rude but not as bad as someone answering for me and this person had no idea why I eat the way that I do but instead gave incorrect information regarding my choices. Other people’s bad behavior always surprises me even at my age. On the bright side I did manage to keep my mouth shut (a minor miracle) during this situation. I can’t say for certain that I will behave myself if this happens again. However, at least I could find the humor in it by the time I was driving home.   Clearly I will need a little meditation tonight before bed.  ;-)

Getting home after 10:30 at night, needing to unload the car and write a post makes for a long evening. Oh well it is my own fault since I stayed after class to talk to the regulars. I haven’t seen these guys in a while so it is fun to catch up with them and hear what they have going on.

Happy thoughts:

• While the day started off cold and rainy but mid day the rain had lifted and we had sun peaking through the clouds. It was nice to stay dry while I was running from place to place today.

• I found some interesting things when I was shopping today. Since I love trying new things I am looking forward to the experience.

• I picked up a couple of books today that will go into the rotation for me to read. I found another book by Debbie Ford so I grabbed that since I am enjoying the consciousness cleanse so much.

• It is wonderful that Costco is carrying sprouted organic beans. Each time they have something healthy like that I also buy it because I want them to continue to buy things like that. Not to mention the price is always fabulous when they do have those things.

• I picked up seaweed snacks at Costco and brought some to class. Everyone was brave enough to try them and other than Amy (love you) they were well received. It makes me happy to share healthy food with others. One lady said she would never have bought them if she saw them in the store but she will buy them now. I love hearing things like that it just makes me feel all warm inside. As Dan likes to say I am trying to change the health of the world one person at a time. He may have a point with that. LOL

• It was nice to be back at cooking class this week. I greatly appreciated that Donna made dishes which could be easily modified for me. I hate the idea of putting people out. However it says a lot that she is willing to do that and is a reminder that there are a lot of nice people in the world even if the not so nice ones tend to be the attention grabbers.

• Tomorrow I am going to get to spend some time with my sweetie. I don’t have all the particulars yet but will tell you about it tomorrow evening. I will be taking my laptop with me so that I can get the post written long before we get home.  *fingers crossed*

Signing Out:

It is getting very late here and I still need to do a few things before bed. Looks like another late night here. I hope you had a good Wednesday and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Good night.