Miss Rachel

Last Saturday, my mom and sister and I went Passports Restaurant in Gloucester for lunch.

It’s a pretty restaurant with a very charming atmosphere, but I didn’t get a very vegan-friendly feeling from our server. I know waiting on tables is a hard job (I’ve done it) so I always try to be very polite, but I got a sense that the waitress, once hearing that I was a vegan, was focused on what I couldn’t have, and didn’t seem very helpful about what I could have. The veggie wrap was really the only vegan choice, but first the waitress told me I “couldn’t eat” the wrap because the tortilla probably wasn’t vegan. But she checked and found that it was and then offered my choice of sides saying I “couldn’t have” the macaroni salad. She was right about that: I asked her why I couldn’t have that and she said it had mayonnaise in it so I said I’d have the pan-fried potatoes. I also asked her to include any kind of vegan condiment so my plate came with a big dollop of yummy mustard. Despite the limited menu, my lunch was tasty, and I enjoyed being there with my mom and sister.

On the way home on Sunday, I stopped at a rest area to buy gas, and I also noticed there was a farmer’s market advertised. There were only two vendors, one selling produce and the other honey. I like to support local farmers so I bought some zucchini. On Monday night, I cooked it my favorite way, as “fries” in the oven. I served it alongside quinoa and Gardein “Beefless Tips” with barbecue sauce.

I was never a big meat eater to begin with so it’s not something I feel needs to be substituted, but I serve vegan meat products sometimes because they do taste good and offer protein. I try not to have them too often because they’re highly processed. Vegan meat is also usually made from soybeans, and there is a lot of debate now as to whether soy is good or bad, but I think it’s safe to say that too much of anything is not good, and if you’re going to eat food made from soybeans, the less processed it is, the better. Here is an article from vegan author John Robbins that presents a reasonable perspective and debunks some of the most damning claims that have been made against soy: What about soy? It’s a bit long, but well worth a read.

How do you feel about vegan “meat?”

One of my favorite foods is squash, but I always found summer squash and zucchini a little ho-hum until I learned some different ways to cook them. See, I was steaming them which results in a somewhat bland and mushy product. Tasty with some salt, pepper and Earth Balance, but still a bit lackluster. Then with the help of google, I discovered a recipe for Pan-Seared Balsamic Baby Squashon the blog Vegan Yum Yum. Oh my, summer squash has never been the same since. I’ve made it several times, and I have been so pleased with the discovery. Yum yum indeed.

Here it is served up with some quinoa, a nice summer dinner we had last week.

Cooking sqaush this way has sent me in a whole new direction with it even when I don’t follow that exact recipe. For example, a couple weeks ago, I cut the squash into rounds and seared them that way, without vinegar. I like my food cooked, and sometimes even a little burned so these were A-OK with me. I don’t think I’ll ever become a raw food aficionado, but then I never thought I’d become a vegan either. I served it with some seitan and fried rice Sweetie had bought frozen at Trader Joe’s.

And then there’s zucchini. I found a great way to make zucchini “fries” on this “flashback” post on the blog Peas and Thank You: Groundhog Day. I think I cooked mine a bit longer than she recommended, but they were delish. I seasoned them with nutritional yeast and served them alongside some seitan. I don’t think I want my zucchini cooked any other way.

Unless it’s grilled. I don’t own a grill, but my mom does, and when we visited her on Fourth of July weekend, I suggested we have a grilled dinner. I had brought some Gardein BBQ Skewers with me for this purpose. Sweetie and I had those and my mom and sister had some kind of beef. We also had corn on the cob and some Swiss chard I steamed up. My mom suggested that she would cook the zucchini with some stewed tomatoes and onions as she likes to do, but I said, “You know what I’d really like – if you’d grill it. As long as it’s not too much trouble.” She replied that grilling them would actually be easier. She sliced them lengthwise, scored them and seasoned them (I’m not sure with what – probably oregano was involved). I’m not sure how long she cooked them, but they were pretty much perfect. And they made a delicious addition to this summer holiday meal.

The Summer Solstice is tomorrow, and boy it certainly feels like it. The temperatures have only been up into the 80s, but the humidity is really high so we’re sweltering. Thank god Sweetie bought that air conditioner for our bedroom a couple weeks ago when we had the first little heat wave of the season. I’ve been really busy this weekend, doing all kinds of chores and errands, and I’m trying to mellow out now, but I’ve got the Sunday Night Anxiety Blues so I’m not really feeling so great.

ANYWAY, the good news is that I got a new MacBook Pro – the 15-inch one. I still have some file transferring to do from my other two computers (an eMac and a MacBook), but I’ve got some of it done and I’m just really happy with my new machine. It’s fast; it’s efficient; it’s light. It’s just great all around. It cost a pretty penny, more than the tax refund money I set aside for the purchase, but it was a good investment. I don’t feel any buyer’s remorse about it.

The weather has not put me in the mood for cooking at all so we ate out every night this weekend, instead of just the usual Friday. I had never been to Chipotle, but I heard great things about it, and one came to our town recently so on Saturday Sweetie and I checked it out. Can I just say yum!!! Wow, I see why people seem so excited about this place. The menu is small, but the vegan options are delicious. Sweetie had the Vegetarian Burrito and I had the Vegetarian tacos. I ate all three of them even though I probably should have stopped at two. But they were just so darn tasty. We’ll definitely be ordering from there again.

I do most of the cooking for dinner in our house, but Sweetie is big on breakfast. Every weekend he makes pancakes or scrambled tofu. and then he continues eating the leftovers on the weekdays, reheating the tofu or frying up up pancakes before going to work (!) – how ambitious, cooking on work day mornings – ! I’m not much for big breakfasts, but today I joined him for some scrambled tofu and vegan sausage patties, and they made for a delicious breakfast.

It’s still pretty hot and humid, but I’m going to take a nice cool shower and hope the Sunday Night Anxiety Blues wash down the drain.