My Journey toward a life of Vegetarianism

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

When you come to visit me I will take you on a Chinese tour of food and you will be in shock at how nuanced and diverse it is. And after that we will eat Korean for three days straight.

We have lots of Chinese and Korean bakeries here, that stuff is addictive. I love all the taro and green tea and red bean and pork floss and .... THINGS! I love all the THINGS!! Yeah everything. My favorite is wife cake with candied winter melon in it.

Indian I am meh about, I enjoy it but I like other flavours a lot more and like my vegetables fresher and brighter than a lot of Indian seems to have them. Japanese is dull to me because of chilli not being very present. I eat sushi rolls autotomatically because they are very cheap and everywhere but as far as a meal goes they are overpriced here compared to other asian food. I can get bento box with Korean food in it and I'd rather have that as far as cheap goes.

We grew up eating seaweed though and that is still one of my favorite things. That is seaweed salad in the pic I posted, that stuff is delicious. Crunchy with some seasme oil..

Now I want wasabi peas. Full of delicious palm oil LOL.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

MORE PHOTOS!!

tsq I want to see the falafels. And anything else you buy out and about.

 

[thestrangequark]

OMG, teacake, you do not know how desperately I want that to happen. Though I am too poor right now, so it might have to wait till we're both old biddies -- which might be even more amazing!

And more pictures! Well, I didn't buy any falafel today, but I made something nice and colorful. I was inspired by this exchange:

Aussie Burger with The Lot, from corner stores everywhere:
Beef pattie
Lettuce
Tomato
Onions
Cheese
Bacon
Beetroot (sliced)
Pineapple (slice)
Fried egg
Tomato sauce
On a bun (sometimes toasted)

Glorious.

I was with you till the egg. Seriously, that's like a day's worth of food for me! Breakfast: bacon and egg, lunch: pineapple/beetroot salad, dinner: beef patty, lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese, sauce on a bun.

And for dinner I put together a little salad of beetroot, pineapple, and edamame with a splash of soy sauce, chilled for 10 minutes. It was delish!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

That looks WONDERUFL. There is really nothing (and I mean nothing..) that fresh pineapple isn't delicious in.

 

[thestrangequark]

^It's true. It's that perfect combination of super sweet and super tart. The sweetness will compliment anything savory, and the tartness will complement anything sweet.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yes, well in chinese cuisine they talk about dishes having sweet, salty, tart/sour, bitter balance. It creates beautiful food.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

OMG, teacake, you do not know how desperately I want that to happen. Though I am too poor right now, so it might have to wait till we're both old biddies -- which might be even more amazing!

Oh I will be an old biddy loooong before you but that's cool, you can push me around in my wheel chair and I'll hit people with my cane and we'll get all the best seats at all the best restaurants because I will be fierce in my biddy-ness.

 

[thestrangequark]

^This trip is sounding better and better.

I did a variation on the other night's dinner, and I won in taste, but especially in color. I'm at the point where I have to be very creative to eat up the rest of my food without going shopping before I leave for vacation on Friday. Tonight's dinner was the beet and pineapple salad, but this time with broccoli steamed al dente and blueberries. Tossed in soy sauce and sesame oil:



Ken, I think you'd said you didn't have much experience mixing fruits and vegetables. I'd suggest just experimenting -- you'll never know what's going to work together until you try it, and you might be pleasantly surprised. The blueberries are perfect in this salad!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

OH delicious!!

One of my big fruit and veg winners was lychees and black beans.

Really though, there is no way to fail. And if you add oranges and sesame oil to any vegetables at all you have created perfection.

(And that's a few drops of sesame oil btw, not cups LOL)

 

[thestrangequark]

Lychees and black beans sound perfect together.

I've quite enjoyed cooking a plum in with a mixture of kale, onions, beets, and zucchini. Plums just become so much more tart and potent when they're cooked.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

^It's true. It's that perfect combination of super sweet and super tart. The sweetness will compliment anything savory, and the tartness will complement anything sweet.

Yes, well in chinese cuisine they talk about dishes having sweet, salty, tart/sour, bitter balance. It creates beautiful food.

That's the main reason I'm not crazy about Chinese cuisine. I don't like sweetness in my main meal! Fresh fruit in a green salad is heavenly, but that's the only exception I can think of. I'd much rather have Japanese, Thai or Vietnamese.

One of my favorite (non-vegetarian) meals is sushi with a seaweed-sesame salad. And then go to my favorite ice cream place for dessert.

The veggie equivalent would be baba ganoush or a falafel wrap at my friend's Middle Eastern restaurant, followed by the ice cream place.

 

[Emher]

My dinner tonight after the gym, a simple mozzarella salad.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Those gooey sweet sauces in chinese food are a food court invention for the most part.

That mozarella salad is lovey Tomatoes look awesome !!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Today I ate all this food and LO! it was all vegetarian.

It's a hella carb load, but hey it's freezing out.

Also I ate it with other people, no I did not eat everything on that table.

 

[Emher]

Looks delicious!

The mozzarella salad is my quick dinner. Some cocktail mozzarella, some cherry tomatoes cut in halves for ease of eating mostly, some fresh basil leaves, olive oil over that and some salt and pepper. Really yummy stuff.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I'm thinking if we make a montage some time of all the food photos posted in this thread it will make vegetarian life look very very yummy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The veggie equivalent would be baba ganoush

I heard that!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I love a very smoky babaganoosh. Sometimes they reach perfection. And sometimes they are just muck, LOL

 

[thestrangequark]

While I was visiting her my mom made me her famous vegetarian chili, and overfilled the bowl just a tad!

 

[Amaris]

All of this looks so good, and vegetarian life is very yummy!