Day three is nearly over, and I'm excitedly close to the half way mark. The first two days of this challenge went swimmingly well, despite eating dinner out two nights in a row. Actually, it was probably because of eating dinner out.
Last night I went to Zengo, and vegan dinner was fantastic. They had a separate menu that they brought with gluten-free and vegatarian items, and it even had instructions on how to make vegetarian items vegan. Thus, no stress of interrogating the waiter about whether there is fish sauce or butter used in various menu items. Plus, the food was delicious. We had a payapa salad, some rice noodles with snow peas and cashews, fingerling potatoes, and best of all, arepas with shitake mushrooms.
And then came Day Three. The day I stopped worrying and started to love the bomb. Er, the day I decided that my newfound love for lentils was an illusion. Partially because I have eaten them for too many meals in the past three days, and partially because I am the victim of a bad recipe. Or two.
Dinner tonight was a disaster. I made a sweet potato and lentil stew. Somewhere along the way, the idea of sweet potato and lentil stew became cemented in my head. Maybe it was a NYT article. Maybe it was a cooking website. Anyway, this fall I went looking for something using sweet potatoes and lentils, and fell upon a Thomas Keller recipe. So, when I was thinking about going vegan, I thought perfect -- I'll make the Thomas Keller recipe of delicious lentil stew. Until I looked at the recipe again. And realized it involved a pound of bacon. Which was probably why it seemed so delicious.
Anyway, I figured that I couldn't leave out all the bacon, and went looking for a vegan-friendly recipe. Instead of a beautiful, bacon-scented stew, I ended up with a big bowl of sweet potato and lentil curry mush. It was like the sweet potato casserole from Thanksgiving. But instead of marshmallows and brown sugar, there were lentils and spinach. And lentils.
Still, I ate the dinner. And as I was choking down spoonfuls of curry mush, I was thinking that if I had to choose a healthy meal, I'd much rather eat my mediocre vegan stew than an omnivore's plate of chicken and brown rice. Maybe this is how the conversion begins...
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2 comments:
Now I'm starting to worry. Mush over healthy chicken and brown rice? Oy. That is my least favorite meal, too. ;)
I love arepa, yum. Though I like mine with cheese, please.
Oh and I make a lovely curried leek soup though it doens't have much protein. I do make mine with chicken stock but you could substitute evgetable stock. It's delish. I'll email you the recipe when I'm home.
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