Easy Vegan Meal Idea for Summer

These tofu kabobs are not low-carb, but they are also not that high either.  The big culprit (other than them being delicious terrible because they are fried) is the flour you need to roll them in.  When they have a little coating of flour it makes them crispy on the outside.

Who wants to eat slimy, slippery, mushy tofu?  Not me!  Really, I'm not a huge fan of tofu anyway.  It gives me a belly ache, so as delicious as these are, they are probably not for me anyway.

If you have a vegan or vegetarian guest at your BBQ this summer, this is an easy way to please all.

Preheat your oven to 450.

Spray a cookie sheet with your favorite cooking spray and spread your cut veggies on top.  I used mushroom, zucchini and onion for these kabobs.  Sprinkle the vegetables with a bit of garlic pepper  or another seasoning that you're particularly fond of!  Pop them in the oven for about five minutes.

In the meantime, heat oil in a large pan.

Cut your extra firm tofu into cubes and roll each cube first in soy sauce and then in flour.  When all of your cubes have been coated cook them in the oil, keeping a close eye on them and turning them often.

Remove them from the oil and let them cool a bit before kabobbing them.

I'll be serving these with a store-bought peanut sauce.

Enjoy!

Kale Chips

I received a bunch of kale in my Planet Organic order this week and decided to give kale chips another chance. I overcooked a batch that I made a few weeks back and they ended up brown and bitter. And I'll tell you, when kale chips go wrong, they go to a very dark place. Everything about the experience is just putrid. There's no peeling off the crispy edges and salvaging a bite.

I've never had much of a sweet tooth. My weaknesses are all crispy, crunchy and covered in salt. When we ate dairy and wheat I loved Cheese-Its (especially the giant kind). As a matter of fact, outside of them being horrible for you, I'd probably prefer to eat a Cheese-It more than anything else (embarrassingly). But, things like Cheese-It's and pretzels are snacks of the past and kale chips are my food of the now.

I have to admit, they were very easy to make and when not overcooked they were delicious. I was really enjoying the snack until my children discovered them and confiscated the plate. I found them to be quite filling too.

Here's how I did it.

I preheated the oven to 375 and lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

I cleaned and removed the stems from a large bunch of organic kale. After rinsing again I dried the kale in a towel.

I ripped the kale into pieces and spread it on my baking sheet and drizzled olive oil over top. I then sprinkled on a bit of garlic salt and just a few cracked fennel seeds. We're not huge fennel eaters in our house, so I wanted there to be a little burst of flavor every so often, but not in every bite.

Then, I baked them for 10 minutes and they were done. Delicious!

The Impossible Task of Eating

I feel like I have struggled with food pretty obsessively in my life. As a little background information, I was a vegetarian for around a decade but began eating meat during my first pregnancy. In the eight following years I have gone back and forth between some pretty extreme lifestyle choices. There have been huge periods of time when I have healthfully mastered the Atkins diet and others where I have eaten an entirely plant based vegan diet (and subjected my entire family to it too). I know that food impacts the way you feel, your energy, skin, hair, sleep, emotional health, but for me food seems to entirely construct and dictate the way I feel in pretty much every respect.

Back in 2008 I was diagnosed with hashimotos. My doctor suggested that I go from vegetarianism to a very low carb, high protein diet of meat and green vegetables. I did this and felt a million times better. I lost a tremendous amount of weight, had wonderful energy and felt better than I have ever felt in my life. The problem, of course, is that I really don't like to eat meat. Inevitably, I'd begin skimping down on the chicken and adding a serving of pasta to my plate. The more carbs I ate, the worse I felt and I'd eventually return to Atkins and feel better within a matter of days. The difference is extreme for me. When I do not eat carbs I feel fantastic and when I do I feel horrible. The relationship is undeniable and clear. At one point I was even tested for celiac (which I do not have) because eating bread makes me feel so awful.

Recently I met someone who also has hashimotos but her doctor recommended that she use a vegan, gluten free diet. My interest piqued, I decided to do a bit of research. As it turns out hashimotos and celiac have some sort of relationship that I honestly don't understand (dispute reading several research pieces and patient testimonials). People with hashimotos are not able to process gluten as well and removing gluten from the diet will ease the symptoms of hashimotos.

So, all along, every time I had miraculous improvements after giving up carbs and returning to Atikins, it wasn't the chicken hat was helping me! The culprit was the gluten.

I am pleased to say that I have been able to make a return to vegetarianism while being gluten free and feel fantastic! Because we have casein allergy in our home, we don't' actually have any dairy in the house. I would call myself vegan if it weren't for the fact that I will always happily accept cream in my coffee and cheddar cheese in my black bean soup.

It's a strange world. Eating should be something so simple, and yet tackling it has been the one of the hardest journeys for me.