Seitan Sausage Variation Requests?

First, what does the picture of the National Aquarium have to do with the post? Nothing. It is a picture I took a few years ago at lunch with my husband and it is one of my favorite photos from the Baltimore Inner Harbor. I wanted to share it with all of you so you could see a little bit of the town where I live.

Today I am moving very slowly. The morning after cooking class I always feel a little unwell and this morning it is worse than normal. My head was screaming at me this morning as though it spent the night in a vice (probably the vino since my body isn’t used to it now). We had a lovely Nero D’Avola last night that happens to be one of my old favorites and I think my body is telling me to give up the vino 100% (darn it, you would think a glass once a week would be fine). After my morning green drink, goji and mixed berry smoothie and green tea with ginger and vitamin C I am beginning to feel more human and ready to start my day (at 11 am, yeesh it is almost lunch time).

Today my plan is to make whole wheat bread and turn it into breadcrumbs so that I can spend the afternoon making various versions of seitan. If anyone has any requests for particular seitan sausages please post a comment. Otherwise I will be making chorizo, andouille and another variation of a cutlet, yet to be determined.

I hope everyone is having a great day today. While I have a little motivation I am going to get my bread dough rising and do a little yoga. Does anyone else think yoga improves a headache, or is it just me?

I will be back later today with a few seitan recipes.

Vicious Mousers – Yeah, Right!

Pictured above are my boys. The oldest boy Massimo is on the left, and the baby Nicco is on the right. My feline children are 8-year-old Turkish Angoras and are still extremely actively. In fact they still act like kittens. They run and play multiple times everyday and love toys, particularly chasing toy mice.

So, you would expect them to catch a wayward mouse that found its way into our house, right? Well I thought they might do something. No chance. I think they believe the mouse is a new show on television to be watched and nothing more.

Not only are my felines terrible mousers but the no kill traps are completely ineffective. I have had the traps down with peanut butter for a month and we have not had a nibble. Either this little mouse is a descendent of Albert Einstein, or I have the world's worst luck when it comes to removing “unwanted houseguests”.

If anyone has a suggestion for humanely catching a little field mouse I would love to hear it. I am a city girl and this is my very first mouse in the house (I had one at work but that is long story) and I am not too happy about sharing my home with the little puffball. I want him to return to his native outdoor habitat, and the sooner the better. Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Favorite Health and Nutrition Books

I love to read about health and nutrition. As my husband can attest, I am obsessed with feeding him healthy food. The problem with my health obsession was that with two degrees in finance I had no science in college so I really was starting at ground zero regarding nutrition. Not one to let something stop me I dove right in and read every book I could get my hands on regarding health, nutrition and cancer. I am one of those nerdy people that always read endnotes. When a book has 50 plus pages of scientific endnotes I am much more likely to read that book. Over the past five years there have been a few books that stood out to me in terms of the quality of information and research.

I was having an off line conversation with someone regarding the health and nutrition books I have learned the most from and wanted to share the list with everyone. Here are what I consider my go to books:

- “Anticancer” by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, great information about lifestyle changes you should make to prevent and/or fight cancer
- “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell, PhD, if this doesn’t change the way you eat nothing will
- “Food: Your Miracle Medicine” by Jean Carper, a well researched book
- “Eat for Health” by Joel Fuhrman, MD, a classic book everyone should read
- “Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrman, MD, this one started me down the vegan path
- “Life Over Cancer” by Keith Block, MD, indispensible if someone you love has cancer

Some of these books are current and others are older, but all of them contain good information. If I had to choose two books it would be “”Life Over Cancer” and “Eat for Health”. However if you can pick any of these up at the library I hope you take a look at them. Each has a different style and focus but all of them contain excellent information. The book by Jean Carper was definitely ahead of its time. I have had this book for at least a decade and still use it as a resource when I have a question about a particular food.

Do you have any favorite books on health or nutrition? What are they and why do you like them? I know I would like to know and I imagine others are also curious.

VeganMoFo - theme?

For those of you that don’t know VeganMoFo runs for the entire month of October, and I will be participating. If you don’t know what VeganMoFo is you can read more about it here.

During the month of October I will be posting everyday, not much of a stretch for me. However I would like to have a theme for my October posts and want to know if any of you have thoughts on this. I am considering the following ideas:

o Veganizing recipes from the CIA’s “Professional Chef” each day
o Recipes from a different non-vegan cookbook a day, made vegan
o Focus on recipes using local in-season farmers market produce each day in October
o Veganize a different sauce from James Peterson’s “Sauce” cookbook each day and use it in a recipe
o Focus on a different vegetable or fruit each day
o Classic comfort food made vegan

Do any of these ideas appeal to you? Is there something else you would rather see? If you have any ideas you would to share please let me know. Otherwise I am leaning toward either item 1 or 2 above. Please let me know if you have an opinion. Thanks!

Finding Healthy Vegan Food in Tulsa …. Not So Much

(source: ars.usda.gov)

My husband has reported that while traveling for work in Tulsa it was little difficult to find vegan food. He was in Tulsa for less than 22 hours (much of that sleeping or in meetings) but told me that finding acceptable food was much more difficult than it is on the east coast.

He ended up at Subway, which was the best choice he could find. When he was in the airport he got a veggie salad from Subway. Needless to say a few hours later he was hungry again found another Subway and this time got the veggie sub from Subway.

Dinner in cattle country was another story. He asked a local he was meeting with for a vegetarian or vegan restaurant and was reminded that he was in cattle country and they didn’t have vegetarian or vegan restaurants. The guys ended up doing the best they could at a seafood restaurant. Not optimal, but better than most of the options he had on the road.

What was most surprising to us was that the hotel near the airport didn’t have soy or almond milk. So much for the muesli I sent with him. We had no idea it would be so difficult to find basics like soymilk in the mid-west. Here on the east coast if you are in the train station in DC you can buy soymilk in little containers next to the dairy milk. Foolishly I expected the same thing in airport and hotels in mid-west. Well, at least we know now for the next trip.

What do all of you do if you need to travel for work, and don’t have the time to search out healthy food on the road or any way to refrigerate items from home? Not being able to carry much liquid on the plane was a pain for me in terms of planning this time. Any suggestions you have for the next time would be greatly appreciated.