Breakfast Plantain & Veggie Scramble

Back in the day when I happily noshed bagels or English muffins, I loved to make breakfast sandwiches and things that resembled Benedicts. I still love a good eggy/cheesy brunch, but I've had to retool my starch a bit.

There are recipes out there for grain free muffins, breads, bagel-like things, cookies, crackers, and pizza crusts readily available, but I've come to the conclusion that trying to make grain-free versions of my favorite carbs turns out to be akin to the veggified versions of meat products - expensive, time consuming, and not very much like the item you are trying to fake. I ended up preferring lentils and beans to Chik'n Nuggets or ToFurky, and I've discovered that bread cravings can almost always be quelled without Fava bean and flax meal "sandwich flats".

Here's my #1 tip for anyone trying to cut down on conventional grain-based foods: Rethink your base.

This morning I woke up craving Eggs Benedict. What did I really want? Bread, Eggs, and something saucy. No bread, no interest in making hollandaise. But it is my day off, so I had a bit more time to tool around in the kitchen, so I rummaged around and got started with a new breakfast melange.

Let's start with the new base:

Satisfying little discs of starchy goodness: Plantains

I'm sure there must be some way to roast plantains, but honestly, if you fry things hot enough and blot them quickly enough, flash frying is not a terrible way to cook things. I did these up in some grapeseed oil, because it can handle high heat and quick cooking.

Plantains do not taste anything like the bananas they resemble. They remind me more of sweet potatoes than of fruit. And they are an excellent bready substitute.

After the plantains were cooked up, I started dumping random bits of veggies from the fridge into the same quick-cleaned saute pan:

leftovers from a can of fire roasted tomatoes

some unused black beans 

handful of baby spinach

the rest of a can of black olives from an ill-fated recipe earlier this week

And then I tried to fry up an egg quickly, but the pan was so hot it ended up overcooked. No matter. I stacked up my odds and bits onto a plate and scraped some disappointingly not-quite-ripe avocado on top.

There you have it!

And it was really, really good. Filling and carbish and proteiny. You could put cheese on top, but I'm trying to go easy on the dairy these days too and this is plenty rich. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper and you are done. All the breakfast, none of the grains.

More With Less Part 3: Why I Don't Eat Meat

Thinking about writing this post has been giving me the cold sweats all week, so let's just go with the blunt opener, shall we? Rip off the bandaid and get to it.

My decision to keep a meat-free diet (both times I have made it) has been, in my opinion, the most significant lifestyle change I have made to live closer to my spiritual convictions.

There. I said it.

Can we still be friends? I've intentionally avoided talking much about vegetarianism on the blog because I know this is a touchy subject. How do I know? Because I've been rehearsing my "Please don't think I'm a self-righteous far-left Neo Pagan. Please know that I am not judging you for savoring your burger. Please believe me that this is a personal decision and I am not going to hand you a PETA pamphlet when you ask me to have lunch" answer to the oft-asked question of "So, why don't you eat meat?" It feels, at least to me, like there is often an assumption that vegetarians judge omnivores, and/or feel sorry for them and their slowly-clogging arteries. I eat a lot of cheese. My arteries are clogging if anyone's are (Oh, I'm not even going to tiptoe towards my vegan daydreams in this post). And I don't judge you for eating meat. If it looks like I am turning my nose up at your plate, it's because I'm trying to get a good whiff of your steak.

As my wise co-conspirator Jackie reminded me a few month ago (about a totally different subject, but her comment rings true in this discussion), we are not all convicted about the same things, and that's OK. Not everyone is going to feel compelled to give up meat. But I have been, and the thing about convictions is that once they settle in and grab hold of you, your heart makes it really uncomfortable for you if you continue to pull against them.

The simplest answer I can give to the "Why don't you eat meat?" question is this:

I am convinced that the meat industry is bad for people and terrible for the environment and I don't want to support it. It exploits animals and exploits people and causes intense suffering. I believe that God cares about  all of His creation, and that the inhumane treatment and death of millions of animals each year grieves Him, and it certainly grieves me. I am fortunate enough to live in a time and place where there are plenty of healthy ways to eat a balanced meat-free diet, and I'm thankful that I can opt out of an industry that I do not want to support. Plus, my mom died of cancer, and I'd just as soon hedge my bets against a diet that puts me at higher-risk for serious illness. Doctors know that high meat consumption (aka: the typical American diet) increases your risk of cancer and heart disease, and I'd really rather do what I can to avoid those.

But that's not how I put it if someone asks me face to face. Especially here in the South, the land of pig-pickin's and intensely devoted adherents to tradition, southern food, and family recipes. Even in Chicago, though, I hedged a bit. Diet and food are deeply personal, intimate topics of conversation, and people (including me) tend to be very protective of their food choices. I get it. I respect your choices! My diet is not exactly a pillar of virtue. I eat lots of sweets and other things I know to be bad for me and bad for the environment. But giving up meat, for me, was a simple and obvious step towards living in a More With Less attitude towards my food.

Yum! Totally tasty, filling, and meatless.

The More With Less cookbook (at least the older version that I got from the library) only had a half page devoted to considering the role meat should play in a simple diet, and while it used that space to encourage readers that a balanced meat-free diet is healthy and provides adequate nutrition, it acknowledged that most North Americans were probably not going to give up meat entirely. It pointed out that meat production requires a lot of resources (water, grain, land) and produces a lot of pollution, and encouraged readers to limit their meat consumption to 1/4 pound per person per day, and flatly calls anything more that that "waste".

I haven't always been convicted about meat. In fact, after eating meat-free for 5 years, I gave up on it and starting eating chicken and fish. Eating vegetarian is an omnivorous world can be a lot of work. Especially if you don't know a lot of other veg people. Chicken noodle soup and sushi and grilled salmon are their own sort of comfort-food, and I was in a place in my life where I was strongly inclined to turn to food for comfort. But then, I met Les. Les had been eating a vegan diet for 5 years, and also happens to be an excellent cook (I'm a lucky girl!). So, when we got married, one of our first major joint decisions was to meet in the middle and keep a vegetarian diet together. He added eggs and some cheese back in, and I said good bye to meat. Being a team about it is incredibly helpful, but even when I was single, eating veg was doable. I've learned a lot since that first foray into meatless menus, and I can honestly say that my diet is a lot more varied and interesting now than it ever was. Beans, lentils, quinoa (a complete protein!), some soy/tofu, (though I'm not a huge fan), and lovely armloads of vegetables that I never thought I could learn to love are now the mainstay of our diet. I still eat eggs and cheese, and Les has them once in a while. When we get up the motivation to go to the big Farmer's Market here in Raleigh, we can even get small-farm raised eggs and Animal Welfare Certified goat's cheese, which is awesome, but honestly, we don't drive out there as often as I'd like. We acknowledge the inconsistencies, and do the best we can.

My "conversion" from omnivore to herbivore, like many major life changes, is a plodding and circuitous story. The short version is that I was 23, living in Chicago, and starting to swim a bit deeper into the sea of social justice issues and realizing that following Jesus meant more than church and prayer and "trying to be good". I was reading about the growing movement of believers and "Creation Care" advocates who believe that the Bible teaches us to care for the Earth and to speak out about wastefulness and disposable culture. I read an excerpt from the classic "Diet for A Small Planet", and I can still picture the inverted pyramid diagram that showed the staggering amount of water and land it took to produce a pound of edible meat. And, I learned that the Tyson meat-packing plant in the Chicago suburbs is staffed almost entirely by low-wage, no-benefit workers, most of  whom are recent immigrants or refugees who can find no other work. Human suffering and environmental damage were the first pieces to fall into place for me. Even for me, the animal lover. I had grown up in farmland and watched cows roam lazily through the fields. They didn't look unhappy. My relatives were hog farmers on an mid-sized farm. The pigs looked more-or-less chill. I knew that meat was made from animals, but the brutality of Big Agriculture and factory farming hadn't really sunk in yet. But then I started reading. And, heaven help me, watching videos online. And that nearly pushed me over the edge to give up meat altogether. But not quite. It wasn't until I killed a couple of tree frogs that I decided "enough is enough".

My pet goldfish had died, and I went in search of an apartment-friendly pet. I brought home two adorable, zen-faced tree frogs and a little terrarium. I loved those little guys for the 4 days they survived in my care. I was eating a turkey sandwich at work when my roommate called me and told me that my tree frogs were dead. Really dead. "WHY?!?" I begged her. And she, a vet tech and zoo keeper, convincingly informed me that they had starved to death. I hadn't gotten them the right food, and they hadn't eaten in 4 days. A dry sob chugged in my bread-and-lunchmeat-choked throat, and I decided right then that if I could cry for those frogs then I should cry for the turkey in my hand. And for five years I didn't eat meat again.

And now, it has been over 2 years on this second go-round. I will confess that I have had a nibble here or there. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes not. When I did my grain-free elimination diet this winter, I ate some chicken. I was so hungry and anxious and I thought I was going to go bonkers. And I may or may not have taken a sample of grilled shrimp at Whole Foods one day and devoured it with slightly guilty glee. But 99% of the time, I'm veg and happy. And if I ever feel myself waffling in the direction of a fish taco, I look at AugDog and remember that I do not want to be part of any animal's death. I also think of a line from the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that one of my friends posted on Facebook several months ago:

"I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death."

I wish I could soften it a bit, because meat = death sounds harsh, even to me. But it's true, and I'm goin' with true over nice on this one. The Bible paints a beautiful picture of a New Heaven and a New Earth, when the world will be renewed, and not even the animals will eat one another. Of lions and lambs lying down together, and the end of all death. Woot! I'm all for that. Death sucks. I prefer to have no part in it.

There are a lot of great resources out there if you'd like to give Meatless Mondays a try, or do want to learn more about the meat industry in America. Even cutting back on meat will help your health and the planet. Check out any of these from your local library:

The Kind Diet - yep, its by Alicia Silverstone of "Clueless" fame. But it's a readable, engaging book about transitioning to a meatless (or vegan) diet. I've linked to her Kind Life website.

Becoming Vegetarian - slim book that I read many years ago when first trying out veg.

1,001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes - simple, cheap, and tasty. Helpful when trying to avoid the pitfalls of gaining weight from all the fries and bagels you may or may not lunge towards when first leaning into a veg diet.

Whole Foods Vegetarian Eating page of their website. Yeah, they're a big company. Yeah, they can be really spendy. But it's a helpful resource.

Eating Animals - I haven't read this because I don't need to be convinced, but I've read enough commentary on the book to know that if you are looking for an in-your-face 360-degree look at the meat industry, this is the book for you. I've included 2 articles about the book below, if you prefer the "light" version.

10 Good Things Vegetarianism Can Do For You (And the World) from Sojourners
Eating Animals: 10 Reasons to Avoid Factory Farmed Flesh, also from Sojourners (somewhat graphic!)

There are not a lot of faith-based vegetarian books/websites out there - If you know of some, please let me know! Most that I've found are pretty low-tech and home-made and, well, dorky.

And, not for the faint of heart (be advised that there are graphic animal photos on the main page): www.chooseveg.com

Last but not least, a delightful YouTube video called Vegan Myths Debunked. LOVE. IT. Enjoy.

Up with Veggies!

Several Mondays ago, I whipped out my hammer and hodge-podge of random upholstery tacks and nails and went to town on a pile of natural burlap and a plywood scrap (from our friendly neighborhood Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $3) to make my Vertical Garden dreams come true:

My wonky little scrap of plywood.

Supplies: nails, hammer, burlap.

Technique: eyeball your burlap strips (double thick) into thirds and tack up some pockets.

Editor In Chief supervised my lazy math and reminded me that a  ruler or tape measure would have been handy.

I tacked up my vertical garden slab, but none of my plants were robust enough to plunk them into the burlap. Remember my little basil and tomato sprouts?

They were sweet little munchkin nubs when I built the Vertical Garden.

I waited impatiently for weeks (over a month!) for them to get bigger. And today I decided they were finally ready. But I had 6 pockets in my vertical garden, and only one tomato and 2 little basils had actually survived my ignorance and instruction-non-reading, so Les and I went to the Farmers Market to get them some friends. 

This afternoon, I gave Tomato his own room and transplanted his basil brothers to one of The Pockets.

My how you've grown!

Yay! You were just seeds a couple of months ago! And now you look like food!

Here's my Vertical Garden with all of her pockets stuffed with herbs and stuff!

1. Upper Left: The only 2 green bean sprouts to survive the Heat/Rain/Rain/Heat/Bugs of the last couple of weeks.
2. Upper Right: 3 different types of thyme
3. Center Left: The Basils!
4. Center Right: Rosemary and I think Lavender (crazily, I can't remember, and it smelled more like Rosemary to me than Lavender when I planted it)
5. Lower Left: Mint
6. Lower Right: Feverfew - pretty little flowers, and good for drying and mixing into tea for headaches, which we sadly get a lot at our house.

I'm hoping that by making this garden tall rather than low, it will get a lot of sun. I moved the whole operation to fit under the roof overhang, because I noticed that my tomato and basil leaves were turning a bit yellow from a little toooo much water. I want to be able to have a bit more control of their moisture.

Now, I'm sure there is a proper way to plant these bad boys. I know several of them spread like mad and may need to be moved into bigger containers. But I wanted to try this, since the whole thing cost a whopping $8 ($3 for the wood, $5 for on-sale burlap). It's an experiment, like most of these endeavors.

Oh! I also bought a 6-flat of green peppers at the Farmers Market, and planted them in halves of the Trader Joe's coffee cans I've been hoarding (with holes poked into the bottoms/lids for drainage.) I knew they would come in handy for something.

The other little starter pots are the beans that I haven't quite been able to give up on yet. They have slim signs of life.

I did have to give up on the peony bulbs I planted. Sad. They just never came up. So I assuaged my grief with these lovely little dahlias, grown by a more capable farmer, and transplanted into the pot I bought for the peonies.

In addition to my joy at finally filling the Vertical Garden, adopting some flowers, and using the coffee cans, I ALSO skipped to the car with this little beauty tucked under my arm:

My long-dreamed-about Meyer Lemon tree. Yep. I'm going to grow lemons on the porch. The grower assures me that they will fruit even at this sprouty age. She can grow up to 5 feet tall, and needs to stay indoors in the winter, but during the spring, summer, and fall, she should make us some lovely sweet lemons. Oh, be still my heart. If that actually works I am going to freak out with joy. Living in the Midwest for so long I forget that people actually grow fruit in their yards in our very own country.

Last but not least, I also gave my own dahlia bulbs a late-starting shot by planting this little guy who had courageously sprouted inside the bag that I was planning to wrap up and put into storage until the fall.

Come on up and join the Porch Party!

I'm super excited about these new plant friends! Keep your fingers and green thumbs crossed that they actually do their thing and I don't kill them off before they bloom/fruit/veg.

When New Plans Start Early

My year-long experiment will wrap up in February, and I feel like I've made some strides, but when I look back on the last 11 months, I see what looks like groundwork for a much bigger trajectory. I used to think that I was going to have to look a certain way or weigh a certain number in order to love and appreciate my body, but one strange thing that has happened over the course of this first year of G3 is that I noticed that the more I cared for my body, the more I loved it. I was doing the practical (eat healthy, eschew toxins, keep it simple), but I was feeling the ephemeral. An unexpected sense of well-being and acceptance that I expected to have to earn "the hard way". If you've known me a long time, you know that body-love seemed about as likely as a lottery jackpot.

But little by little, something started to change. I stopped grimacing in the mirror and loathing my gray hair and started actually loving it. I started looking at food as something to choose thoughtfully rather than a system of rewards or punishments ("I ate 3 cookies yesterday, so today it's spinach and veg broth for me..."). And I started feeling that my stuff was, miraculously, just stuff. And now that most of it has been packed in boxes for 2 months, I realized that I don't miss 85% of it. So when we move into our new place next month, I want to be super-hardcore and honest with the question "DID I MISS THIS?" and if I didn't, maybe I'll put it back in a box for a while, and ponder whether it's time for some stuff and I to part ways. We have 3 dozen boxes of unopened belongings, but we have somehow managed to scrape through almost 2 months without any of it. Hm.

Anyway, all of this has felt really really REALLY good. And exciting. So I didn't plan to give up on the blog or the goals when Feb. 22, 2012 rolls around. But my hair will be totally grayed out by then, so I won't need to worry about that part, so I was going to focus on the food. We'll have space for container gardens in our new place, and a much more cooking-friendly kitchen, so I was all jonesing to announce that 2012 G3 would be a Real Food Year. We'll just replace the gray of hair with the gray areas of knowing the best way to go about that.

But, as they say, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

And so, after suffering in silence for a few months, I finally went to the doctor about some persistent GI unpleasantness that I was SURE I could "healthy-eat" my way out of. But 4 months later, I had not succeeded, so I went to the doctor. And guess what? That was a really good idea. She recommended a very strict elimination diet to try to determine whether a late-flaring food sensitivity may be the culprit. So, for the last 4 days I have eaten veggies, nuts, eggs, fruit and some particular grains like quinoa and spelt. And do you know what? (I would NOT have believed it if it were not so dramatic) I feel SOOOOOOOOOOO much better, I can't even describe it.

Sure, it is a lot more work. But I was going to spend the whole next year un-processing food and learning to really embrace large armloads of produce, so it really feels like the boot in the pants I needed to jump start a clean start.

Grain-free is even more restricted than gluten-free, but after I've been on the strict diet for 2 weeks, I can try to add corn or oats or something back into my diet and see if I have any adverse affects. Honestly, I feel so much better after being so uncomfortable for so long, I'm not sure I even want to do the "untest".

What is different?

• GI symptoms have largely gone away
• After 4 days of anti-inflammatory food, I am wearing my "skinny jeans" for the first time in months without them feeling tight, and my muffin top has vanished. At least in these jeans.
• My skin is clearer
• My joints don't ache like an old lady
• Even my back and neck and legs feel, weirdly, less tight and more limber

I really REALLY hope that this is not all in my head. I still have some more medical tests to do to make sure that food sensitivities are really the only issue to deal with, but I am hopeful that eating "clean" will turn my digestive ship around.

Les and I bought this book to help me get started:

All the recipes in here are vegan and gluten free, so it's a good resource. I am not vegan, and she uses some grains that are technically gluten free but still on my "eliminate" list, but this book goes a long way towards getting me started with a new food plan.

Please remember that I'm not a doctor, and I'm not recommending a grain-free diet to anyone, and we haven't made many of the cookbook's recipes. I'm just sharing what's up with ME these days, and how it has helped me to follow my doctor's advice. Go to your doctor, and get her advice before doing anything that anybody mentions on this blog :)

So there you have it. I'm a grain-free vegetarian for the time being, and I'm about to start planning out a grander-than-practical container garden scheme, chucking out unneeded possessions, setting up a Cooking Kitchen, and re-teaching myself how to eat. And keeping the Grace always in focus. Oh, and trying to keep greening along the way.

Tastiest Vegan Thing I Have Eaten So Far

"Vegetable Noodles With Tofu" from the Thai/Japanese lunch place near my work.

Asian and Indian food is a good bet for vegan fare. Lots of veggies, little or no dairy, and you can usually get anything made without egg if the dish usually has egg in it (like Pad Thai).

Vegan MOFO has been really hard for me, and I am totally just eating "more vegan" than I was before. Breakfast is no problem. Lunch is usually pretty easy since I work downtown and can acquire pretty much any food my little heart desires. Dinner has been trickier, but Les just came home from the grocery store, so I am hopeful about our future dinner options. I'll keep ya posted.

Veganish

Ugh! Eating vegan is hard! Not that it is not good and awesome and everything like that. But so far I have managed an average of 1-2 vegan meals per day. I have had only one FULLY vegan day so far, and I'm barely a week into it. Yesterday and today were total flops.

Here's what kills me:

Cooking.

Yes, there are tasty vegan options to be had when eating out, but they are fewer and farther between (even in Chicago) than many of us can reasonably plan on when going out with friends on the weekends. And I have not been organized enough this week/weekend to cook balanced vegan fare. I've ended up with weird odds and ends that leave me a little hungry, which is then quickly remedied when seeking out the crucial next meal. Often purchased on the fly. And this weekend, almost entirely un-vegan. (Still veg, of course, but cheese-laden and egg-tacular).

Anyway.

I set my sights on a new week, and plan "grocery shopping" into my to-do list.

Vegan MOFO is a thing. Who knew?

So apparently October is also "Vegan MOFO", more politely known as Vegan Month of Food, which is a blogosphere celebration of vegan eating and vegan bloggers. Or something. It depends on who and what you read, and my internet is behaving poorly tonight so I couldn't look it up very easily. I think also part of the intent it to help people see that you can eat a plant-based, animal-free diet and still, you know... eat.

And in that spirit, I must confess that my first two days of vegan experiment were hit-and-miss.

Yesterday, I ate:

Granola and almond milk (turns out the granola had honey in it - technically NOT vegan, but I'm not going to stress about honey)

Veggie rice bowl and an edamame dumpling from Wow Bao + an apple

Um. For dinner I had half a slice of deep dish pizza. FAIL. Allow me to explain.

Les went out to the burbs to see his family yesterday during the day, because Mondays are his mom's day off. He ordered a pizza. He very thoughtfully brought a slice home for me, forgetting that I had just announced that I was going vegan for the month of October. As a former strict vegan himself, I thought he would be totally gung-ho about this plan. And he is. But I couldn't resist a sliver of Lou Malnati's pizza. Good thing we can start fresh every day.

Today I ate:

Granola and soy milk

Pasta and sauce from home, apple, cup of minestrone soup and saltines

Soy latte + KIND bar (it had honey in it too)

English muffin + peanut butter

Handful of spiced almonds that Les made

And now I'm sitting here blogging, wishing I had made it to the grocery store tonight so that I could have some ACTUAL dinner. But I was lazy and didn't make it, and we don't have a whole lot in the house at the moment. So hopefully the rest of the vegan month will be more interesting. And more vegan.

October Gray Update and The Scariest Challenge Yet

So here is a camera phone shot of my October gray hair:

Not the most flattering photo of me, and yes, I am sitting at my desk taking random snaps with my camera phone, but I've been wearing my hair like this A LOT lately (messy bun, teeny-bopper elastic head band), and I think you can really see the silvery stripes quite nicely. Anyway, I'm diggin the stripes. I like the messy bun so far. But I'm eager to have an actual hair style rather than just a thick mass of hair, so I'm excited that I finally made a hair cut appointment for Oct. 22. Yay.

But really, the gray is the least of my worries these days. Because today marks my official first day as a 5-day-a-week Vegan.

Yep. 5 days on, with 2 days of wiggle room.

I'm going "mostly vegan" for the month of October. The idea has been stirring around in my head for a while now, and it actually part of a larger effort to overhaul my sugar-fat-cheese-crap laden diet and see if I have more energy and sleep better than I currently do. And force me to get deliberate about my protein management. And it was one of those things where all of a sudden it seems like reinforcement for your inkling idea just keeps flying at you from the universe. The farm that sold us our Happy Eggs at the farmers market told us this weekend that they are no longer "doing eggs". And while generally my cheese consumption is over the top ridiculous, we are actually out of all our usual cheese products at the moment, so I'm just not going to buy any more. For a month.

And I'm reading "The Emperor of All Maladies"  about cancer. And last month I finished "In Defense of Food" which, while not promoting veg or vegan eating, still smacked me in the head with all kinds of plant-based encouragement. But what really pushed me over the edge was when I sat down at the laptop last night to distract myself from some other life stresses and Netflix suggested "Forks Over Knives" for me to watch. So I did. And right there, I decided that the vegan experiment was a go. It's not that all the facts and figures in the movie are unquestionably accurate (there are plenty of online critiques you can read about how the material was presented, and the facts on which they base their claims). It was just the last nudge I needed to look at my fridge, my waistline, my cupboards full of processed food, and my values about creation care and animal welfare and decide to try something different.

It's almost time for lunch, and I know just where I'm going to go. Wow Bao is an Asian food place with several delish vegan options. And I'm going to take some vegan cookbooks with me to lunch and make a shopping list.

So, wish me luck! I'm pretty excited, actually. I'm pretty bored with all of my current food ruts, so bring on the Veg!

Cooking Win!

I made this recipe tonight for dinner:

Udon Noodle Soup with Bok Choy and Poached Egg from The Kitchn

I had never tried to poach an egg before, and it didn't exactly turn out, but it was still delish, quick, easy, healthy, filling, pretty, comforting, brothy.... Many good things.

I couldn't find the nice plump rounded udon noodles anywhere except in those pre-packaged noodle bowls. And the extra packaging, plastic bowl, etc, was not worth it to me so I bought the skinny dry noodles instead. Oh, and I didn't want to bother buying the star anise (for 2 stars!), but I did have the cinnamon stick which added a nice spiciness. Used veg broth instead, of course.

This recipe gets two enthusiastic thumbs up. I'm almost (ALMOST) looking forward to cooler weather so I can whip this up when I am craving noodle soup like crack fiend.

Hippie Chickens

Les and I keep discussing leaning into vegan diets, and I have to admit that I'm convinced that it would be the best diet for the planet and my arteries. But I just can't give up cheese. I LOVE cheese. With all my cholesterol-choked heart.

I see cheese as my primary vegan roadblock, but I I have also grown to appreciate the practical and tasty elegance of eggs, especially considering how processed and packaged most meat substitutes are (even tofu).  So while I keep practicing my vegan recipes and stretch my experience with non-meat protein, I've also gotten into egg dishes over the past couple of years. But I can't stomach the knowledge of the truly horrific conditions under which most of those eggs are produced. Which is why I'm very happy that Les and I shook on a deal to go ahead and spend the $6 a dozen it costs to buy only real cage-free eggs from now on.

We've been buying our eggs from the Farmers Market in Rogers Park since this winter, but I'd never actually talked with any of the farmers to check and make SURE that the chickens that laid our cute little eggs were really as happy-go-lucky as I wanted to image them. Since, you know, the terms "cage-free" and "free range" are not regulated by any governing body. I could slap a "cage free" label on apple sauce if I wanted to, and no one would stop me. Anyway, this weekend I talked to the kindly farmer who sold me my dozen eggs from Midnight Sun Farms.

Me:  Can you tell me more about your eggs?
Farmer:  Sure. Our chickens live in a pasture during the day, and roost in a coop at night. They do not live in a cage. They eat bugs, and an organic meal ration, and also get some left over hops from a local brewery, which they seem to really like. These eggs were laid sometime this week and were transported from only about an hour away. So you can't really get any fresher eggs unless you have your own chickens.
Me: Cool! I'll take a dozen.
Farmer:  Did you have any other questions?
Me: Nope. Just wanted to know how these eggs are different from the other eggs sold here.
Farmer: They're not. Except ours are about $1 cheaper.
Me: Even Better. Keep up the good work.

If anything about this exchange strikes you as ridiculous, check out my favorite Portlandia clip:

The farmer was so resigned to his "city-living socialist left-wing hippie freaks who want to know if the chicken who laid their eggs had friends, and what her favorite flower is, and whether the other chickens in the pasture are nice to her" speech that I felt like I should try to cheer him up. Maybe I'll send him a thank-you card to give to his chickens.

Midnight Sun Farms in Grayslake

The makings of a tasty egg sandwich

Look at that beautiful yolk!

I read in The Omnivore's Dilemma that you can tell if a chicken was really cage-free by whether the egg white stays really close to the yolk when you crack it. Something about how exercise effects the protein structure. This one checks out!

Delish finished product. YUM.