My Journey toward a life of Vegetarianism

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

They are yummy with dark chocolate around them.

I once made mango and ginger jam using crystallized ginger I had diced into tiny squares.

 

[Kenbushway]

crystallized ginger, its fun to try to mince it. Its like playing chicken with your own fingers.

I had some extra mushrooms, onion, carrot, green bean. So I chopped them up (kept the green bean whole though) and poured about 2 cups of olive with about 1 T of oregano, thyme, rosemary and just shook it up. It was meant to be a quick meal for people. When you cooked it though, you had to drain about 1/4 cup of olive oil as it was cooking because the mushrooms to just sucked up all that olive oil. You literally didn't need a non stick pan, there was that much olive oil.

 

[CorporalClegg]

There's only one way to mince crystallized ginger; it's the same as fresh. Use one of these:

 

[Pondwater]

I use a Bullet.

 

[thestrangequark]

crystallized ginger, its fun to try to mince it. Its like playing chicken with your own fingers.

I had some extra mushrooms, onion, carrot, green bean. So I chopped them up (kept the green bean whole though) and poured about 2 cups of olive with about 1 T of oregano, thyme, rosemary and just shook it up. It was meant to be a quick meal for people. When you cooked it though, you had to drain about 1/4 cup of olive oil as it was cooking because the mushrooms to just sucked up all that olive oil. You literally didn't need a non stick pan, there was that much olive oil.

Two cups?! Of oil??? I might cook with two tablespoons, but two cups?

You'd be much better off with two tablespoons and some water to keep it moist. Not only for flavor -- food will be lighter and you'll be able to taste your spices better -- but for health; two cups of olive oil is 2000 calories!

Another handy trick: olive oil, along with other low-heat oils, are very unhealthy if they're heated too high. It shouldn't be used for frying, or sautéing unless it's slowly over very low heat. I'd recommend good old rapeseed oil (way cheaper than olive oil, too) for cooking and olive oil for drizzling on salads and breads.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Oils with low smoke-points are fine for cooking vegetables as they should never be cooked over high-heat.

At best you're killing the flavor. At worst, you're killing the nutrients.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I cook practically everything oil free. I start off a stir fry with a little water until the vegies start making their own. I use olive oil as a flavour to add later, once the food is cooked. Same with sesame oil.

 

[Mage]

I just had a great curry, with chicken, but it could very easily be made without.

First off, I made a curry paste with two small red onions, fresh ginger, about 4 cloves of garlic, a fresh red chili, heaped table spoon of garam massala, some soy-sauce (see if you can get Kikkoman) and a splash of water to make sure it blends well. Put all of it in a blender or small foodprocesser and let it rip.

Fry of the paste, then add a diced purple aubergine/eggplant and stirfry that for a few minutes, then add a tin of diced tomatos and a drained tin of chickpeas. I know some people think that using tinned tomatos is a sin, and when you have proper, ripe tomatos those work a treat, but tinned tomatos can be great quality as well, depending on brand.

Give all that a stir, lid on, then let simmer for about 25 minutes. Add some hot water if you think it's getting a bit dry. You could always add some coconut milk aswell, didn't have any the moment though, and it can be quite fat. When I use it, I always use light coconut milk. Plus, my girlfriend isn't big on it. In between, give it a taste. A good curry has a good balance between hot, sour, sweet and salt. Adding some palmsugar for a slight sweetness, or some limejuice for a bit of sour really works wonders.

When done, season to taste, I prefer seasoning my curries with fishsauce, but some extra soysauce or just salt work fine as well. I served it with some homemade flatbreads and sourcream. I always like to put some slices of lime or lemon on the table, with some extra fishsauce and some fried onions or sjalots for those who like that, and sprinking some chopped fresh coriander on top is amazing, however not to everyone's liking.

But yeah, like I said, I also added chicken this time, but without it's still an amazing curry, packed with flavour.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

That sounds great!!

I am devoted to fish sauce myself, it is the secret flavour to many meals (shh.. don't tell the vegetarians but it is in most vegetarian asian food you buy out).

A wad of tamarind would work well in your curry. Also canned tomatoes ftw, they are always intense and work very well I think, more tomato flavour than the insipid things that are often on sale.

 

[thestrangequark]

Oils with low smoke-points are fine for cooking vegetables as they should never be cooked over high-heat.

At best you're killing the flavor. At worst, you're killing the nutrients.

Regarding the nutrients thing -- this isn't personal, it's just that I hear people make such a big deal about optimizing nutrients (usually linked to some pseudoscience BS diet like Paleo or raw food) -- and all I can think is: does micro-managing nutrients really make that much a difference? I mean, I know boiling my veggies can leech out some of the nutrition, and cooking them at high heat can do the same, and that some veggies are more nutritious cooked than they are raw, and that the broccoli is at its most nutritious al dente, and that microwaving veggies retains more nutrients than stove-topping them, and blah blah blah. But really, my brussels sprouts aren't going to become Twinkies if I boil them and my sweet potato fries aren't going to become PopTarts if I fry them with the burner at full flame, so as long as one is eating a varied and balanced diet, does it really matter that much?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

^I don't think so. I was raised with that whole "you will destroy them!!!!" thing and obviously al dente is tastier anyway but I think a varied diet covers all bases. It's that old style boil it all into pulp that was the problem and also made everyone hate cruciferous vegetables.

 

[CorporalClegg]

That depends on how you look at it. Is a cooked Brussels sprout better than a Twinkie? Of course. But a raw Brussels sprout is still better yet. And if you add the difference up over a lifetime, it's a lot. In other words, a person who "drinks" a bushel's worth of carrots a day in pure carrot juice is going to have better eye sight (sort of speak) than the person who boils his carrots everyday.

How much is lost really depends on the vegetable. Leafy greens are the worst. Spinach can lose up to 90% of its vitamin and mineral content when it's cooked.

It also depends on how fresh the vegetable is. Plants can stay "alive" for a long time after they're pulled out of the ground, continuing the cellular processes that create those nutrients. Once the plant is heated over a certain point, the processes stop and the cell structure breaks down. At the same time, the water inside them boils and the nutrients are pulled with the vapor.

So obviously there's a direct coloration between how much it's cooked and how many nutrients remain. It doesn't really matter how heat is applied or hot it is, eventually you'll get to that "dead" point. Which brings us back to what I said before.

Cooking something like a bell pepper in some EVOO in a nice sauté over medium heat will net nice soft yet firm pieces. They'll be "cooked" but still retain most of their notorious value. Frying them in peanut oil over high heat, for even a short amount of time until their that flaccid blob a mush and you may as well be eating empty calories.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

"notorious value"?



Well I eat my veg every possible way. Brussel sprouts I roast, they are plenty crunchy still. At the end of the day I am a foodie first, a nutritionist last.

 

[thestrangequark]

^That made me giggle too!

And: You'd seriously eat a raw brussels sprout?

I'm just not convinced. Like I said before, as long as a diet is varied and balanced, and one is not eating only "flaccid" bell peppers, I just don't see how it could matter.

 

[Mage]

That sounds great!!

I am devoted to fish sauce myself, it is the secret flavour to many meals (shh.. don't tell the vegetarians but it is in most vegetarian asian food you buy out).

A wad of tamarind would work well in your curry. Also canned tomatoes ftw, they are always intense and work very well I think, more tomato flavour than the insipid things that are often on sale.

I'll go and find some tamarind then. And yes, canned tomatos forever! These days, in the supermarkets, it's difficult to get really wellflavoured tomatos that are ripe enough to use as a base for a good sauce.

 

[CorporalClegg]

^That made me giggle too!

This is the interwebz. I thought a high notoriety value was good?

And: You'd seriously eat a raw brussels sprout?

I'm just not convinced. Like I said before, as long as a diet is varied and balanced, and one is not eating only "flaccid" bell peppers, I just don't see how it could matter.

True. But, as I also pointed out overcooked veggies just don't taste good.

Take something like a stir-fry. Most Americans overcook the vegetables when they cook it at home. They hear "fry" and just toss everything in their all willy-nilly. However, a go to a proper Chinese restaurant, and the veggies will be as I described above. They're cooked on the side of the wok and only tossed together at the very last second.

There's also the issue of "digestive" leukocytosis. It's actually a fairly common problem amongst most westerners. Eating cooked food (especially veggies) has been proven to be a cause. Of course there are lots and lots of things that can cause it, and it (usually) isn't as severe as the raw foodies claim. But it still isn't good. And I figure why not do my part to eliminate one of the causes?

The raw foodies also suggest a diet to of at least 51% raw at each meal to prevent it. But that's based on research done 80 years ago. While there have been studies done since to support the presence of the phenomenon, there really hasn't been further study that supports the 51% number. I look at it more like a daily number--or even weekly and think it's more like 30%. Such that, if you juice regularly and eat an orange, apple, banana, etc. for breakfast each day and some veggie sticks for a snack, you're probably fine.

Also, some students out in San Francisco (And I can remember if it was Stanford or Berkeley.) actually came up with a sort of diminishing returns temperature to cook vegetables to. I tried to look for it, but couldn't find the exact numbers. But it was something like 25-35C depending on the vegetable, I think.

Oh. And Brussels sprouts are good provided you can find really fresh ones. (Much easier to chew.) A little soy sauce and dip them in sesame seeds. Yum.

 

[Mage]

I'll confess, most of the quick stirfry's I make, I don't pre-cook the veg like you really should.

I do make sure that not everything goes in at the same time. Some veg require longer then others, and I will in no way eat overdone veg. Ever.

 

[thestrangequark]

^That made me giggle too!

This is the interwebz. I thought a high notoriety value was good?

And: You'd seriously eat a raw brussels sprout?

I'm just not convinced. Like I said before, as long as a diet is varied and balanced, and one is not eating only "flaccid" bell peppers, I just don't see how it could matter.

True. But, as I also pointed out overcooked veggies just don't taste good.

Well, I'm not going to argue with you there! That's just a given. Just like an uncooked brussels sprout would taste terrible!

There's also the issue of "digestive" leukocytosis. It's actually a fairly common problem amongst most westerners. Eating cooked food (especially veggies) has been proven to be a cause. Of course there are lots and lots of things that can cause it, and it (usually) isn't as severe as the raw foodies claim. But it still isn't good. And I figure why not do my part to eliminate one of the causes?

Hmmm...it looks like all the evidence goes back to two papers dated 1930 and 1937 by a single author, and the results have never been replicated. Very not convinced. Not saying it's not possible, but that's just not enough evidence to make any sort of claim.

The raw foodies also suggest a diet to of at least 51% raw at each meal to prevent it. But that's based on research done 80 years ago. While there have been studies done since to support the presence of the phenomenon, there really hasn't been further study that supports the 51% number. I look at it more like a daily number--or even weekly and think it's more like 30%. Such that, if you juice regularly and eat an orange, apple, banana, etc. for breakfast each day and some veggie sticks for a snack, you're probably fine.

So, I read the Kouchakoff paper (the original...and only...paper cited) and he says 10% raw at every meal, but that's again just one researcher's opinion on data that has never since been replicated. This whole scenario is not implausible, but I'm extremely skeptical.

Oh. And Brussels sprouts are good provided you can find really fresh ones. (Much easier to chew.) A little soy sauce and dip them in sesame seeds. Yum.

Sounds horrible to me, but I'd be willing to try it.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Raw brussel sprouts would be perfectly good sliced very fine in a coleslaw.

They would also be very good roasted with some balsamic vinegar drizzled on top.

 

[Kenbushway]

crystallized ginger, its fun to try to mince it. Its like playing chicken with your own fingers.

I had some extra mushrooms, onion, carrot, green bean. So I chopped them up (kept the green bean whole though) and poured about 2 cups of olive with about 1 T of oregano, thyme, rosemary and just shook it up. It was meant to be a quick meal for people. When you cooked it though, you had to drain about 1/4 cup of olive oil as it was cooking because the mushrooms to just sucked up all that olive oil. You literally didn't need a non stick pan, there was that much olive oil.

Two cups?! Of oil??? I might cook with two tablespoons, but two cups?

You'd be much better off with two tablespoons and some water to keep it moist. Not only for flavor -- food will be lighter and you'll be able to taste your spices better -- but for health; two cups of olive oil is 2000 calories!

Another handy trick: olive oil, along with other low-heat oils, are very unhealthy if they're heated too high. It shouldn't be used for frying, or sautéing unless it's slowly over very low heat. I'd recommend good old rapeseed oil (way cheaper than olive oil, too) for cooking and olive oil for drizzling on salads and breads.

I have grapeseed oil, is that okay for sauteing vegetables? Yes I found out the hard way 2 cups of olive oil was to much lol, it was interesting having to strain my vegetables because there was to much oil and not to much water.