Not Veggie

Well, myself aka nearly vegetarian, a flexiatarian, insert label here has had a few days of not-even-near-being-vegetarian.

I had a few days in the city and indulged in my favourite urban takeaway - McDonalds chicken. However, at the hotel Hubbie and I were staying at served me chicken that definitely made my stomach turn - it was a really expensive hotel (his work was paying cause he was there for a work conference) so I expected the food would be fantastic. None of the veggie options sounded ever close to appealing to me, so I ordered a chicken breast filled with herbed mashed potatoes, roasted tomatoes, and basil pesto. The veggie part was fantastic. And so was the chicken... at least the cooked part was. The breast fillets (there were 2 of them) were incredibly thick which I know from doing it at home, makes them harder to cook - especially in a restaurant environment where there's the pressure of time and perfection. And there was just way too many blood vessels in my chicken.

Tonight I wanted to try an apparently easy and delicious recipe my friend gave me. Its for carbonara and it was easy and very yummy. But the problem I have is one of my own - the cheese is not good. It had some white solid stuff on the outside (rennet I assume) but I just grated up some cheese and thought it would melt down and be fine. It isn't. Every now and then I get a crunchy bite and its just gross. So much that I don't want to finish eating. But the meal itself is fantastic so I'd like to buy different cheese tomorrow and try again.

The Perfect Pizza

When I was vegetarian in my teen years, my mum made the best veggie pizzas. The base was made from scratch, and the topping were whatever I wanted (usually pineapple, capsicum, broccoli and carrot). Its an incredibly cheap meal (even if you just have plain old tomato and cheese) and its delicious and can be adapted to anyones tastes.

This weekend I've been making the easy and yummy tomato and cheese, and tomato, capsicum and cheese.

The base is: 1 cup of plain flour, 1 tsp dried yeast, a pinch of salt, 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil, 5 tbsp warm water. Mix the dry ingredients and make a well in the centre. Add the oil and the water and mix until a dough forms. Turn onto a floured board/benchtop and knead for a few minutes. Leave in an oiled bowl (pour some olive oil on a paper towel and wipe over a bowl) and leave for an hour - the dough should roughly double in size.

Preheat your oven to 240 C. Use your fist to punch the dough, and then knead slightly. Roll out the dough until about big enough to fit a 27cm tin. Spread tomato paste over the dough, put your toppings on (cheese goes last) and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Voila! Perfect home cooked pizza. No frozen or fast food pizza can beat that. Plus, you know exactly what's gone in it. What more could you ask for?

My stance on Aussie animals

Now I know I won't win any fans with my opinions on the following, but hear me out.

I live in rural SA, a fair way from our state's metropolis (ok, only 250km - I'm not out on a station off the Stuart Highway or anything...). Our primary industries are sheep, cows, barley, oats, lentils, peas. I haven't personally witnessed mulesing (because I'm a sook and can't stand the bleating of the lambs) but I do support it.

Now before you package up that hate mail, have you ever seen a fly struck sheep? Its a million times more inhumane than mulesing is. Our little pocket of the world isn't exactly up with the latest technology and methods - our farmers (bless their cotton socks) do what's been done and handed down through the generations. Well, partially. I don't think our original settlers had GPS units in their tractors - but then again, only our more prosperous farming empires do. We know there are new techniques being developed for a more animal friendly way of preventing fly strike. But for now, all they have is mulesing. Which is better than fly strike in my book any day.

Ok, topic number 2.

Kangaroos. Every so often, numbers of kangaroos soar and they approach on being defined as a pest (like our disastrous imports, the fox, and the rabbit - I know kangaroos are native, but in their massive numbers, they can be put in the pest box). So, what happens to the roos? They get culled. And every time there is a big outcry about animal cruelty but what would happen if the culling didn't happen? We'd be over run with our pesty kangaroos and crying out for a solution to stop their destruction. Its not like culling transforms them into an endangered species.

Alright, now send your hate mail. But respect my right to an opinion, and I'll respect yours.

Mmm, veggie delight

I've taken inspiration from AlmostVegetarian's post at Amy's blog and made my own concoction.

Enter: crusty bread roll, fresh green capsicum, luscious red tomato, shiny red onion... and pineapple out of a can. I also added some sundried tomatoes, tomato paste (Leggo's Pizza Sauce), and some cheese. Unfortunately, I'd turned my frypan up too high (in an attempt to cook the capsicum quickly), and then it didn't cool down fast enough for the other ingredients, so it kinda stuck and burned a little... But, not to worry! The pineapple was left out to put in the roll last, and the sweetness of that masked the slight hint of burnt tomato sauce. It sounds gross, but it was honestly really nice. My only disappointment is I used the last of the cheese we had in it, so now my second helping will be sans cheese.

Going Veggie

Since I'm new to the adult world of vegetarianism (I've been veg before, but that was during my teenage years where I didn't know anything about nutrition - basically, I lived on potatoes and cheese sandwiches - it was when my husband and I first started seeing each other and he thought I looked like a ghost!). Anyway, where was I? Since going veg again, I'm eagerly devouring anything good I can find on the web. I'm an avid reader of both Amy's blog and Almost Vegetarian's blog and am always on the lookout for blogs or articles that catch my eye.

Tonight I've been reading some new stuff at about.com and its really reminded me of stuff I've read before, but about weight loss, not vegetarianism. It seems to me that they're writing as if people are addicted to meat which surprises me - I'm overweight because I'm addicted to food and I eat a lot of calorie dense food (junk food). I'm not addicted to meat at all. I take a vitamin supplement because I'm still educating myself and trying to get all the right nutrients etc and don't want to end up lacking in iron like I have in the past. Good thing I love my greens.

Morbid Obesity... and Soup!

Tonight I've come home from netball training and was ready to put a batch of soup (a new red lentil & sweet potato recipe from taste.com.au) and turned the tv on for some company (Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was wrapping up - a giblet club sandwich? Eww, no thanks!!!). Anyway, after that, some sort of medical show came about morbidly obese people - in particular, the most obese man alive. I've only heard snippets, but its making me sad and happy at the same time. This man hadn't had a shower or bath in 4 years. He had massive fat deposits hanging between his legs - they went int surgery to have them removed, and it took them 5 hours to just remove one. Its just really sad. But the happy part is more acceptance of myself.

I weigh 94kg - this is the heaviest I've been in my life, but I'm making changes. I don't know if I will ever be super skinny (I'd rather be healthy looking with a bit of muscle definition) but I can take pride that I'm able to get out of bed easily every day (ok, maybe not on the cold days, but that's got nothing to do with my weight!), I can wash myself, walk somewhere, run on a treadmill, play netball, know the difference between healthy and unhealthy (although that doesn't mean I always choose healthy!) and take responsibility for myself.

Not so long ago, one of our casuals at work was required to come and work. She's quite a large lady and was having meal replacement shakes so she could lose enough weight to have gastric bypass surgery. Please forgive my naivety, but isn't that cheating? I would much prefer the personal satisfaction and pride of losing weight all by myself - without the aid of surgery.

Now that I'm done ranting, my soup is just about done! I'm really surprised at how quick that's been. I wonder how good it'll taste!

---

Edit (added 5 minutes later): oh my god, this soup is heaven. The sweet potato really gives a beautiful sweet twist, and the lentils make is so hearty. Delicious, cheap, healthy, perfect.

Disgusting

The long weekend has brought me much disgust with myself. We went out for dinner at the golf club on Saturday and the menu options were: fish or chicken. I've never liked seafood, so I chose chicken and planned to eat bugger all of it and just chow down on the salad and bread. Hubby got the same because he doesn't like seafood either. After a long wait, we got our food and sat down. We'd already been forewarned that the chicken might not have been cooked properly, but could be taken back and cooked more. It was not cooked. They deep fried it, so it was crispy on the outside, but still raw and juicy on the inside. And, to make matters worse all I could think of were beakless chickens in disgusting overcrowded cages.

Not appetising.

So, we sent the chicken back, got it fried a bit more, and tried again. I'd already freaked a little and told hubby there was no way I was going to eat it. He got annoyed with me so I asked him if it would make him happy if I had some. He said yes, so I proceeded to take 2 bites, find a blood vessel and refuse to have anymore. He thought I was over-reacting until he cut his entire schnitzel in half and found it pink and raw on the inside.

Needless to say, we got free dessert. That was delicious. And the coleslaw was fantastic too. But I was still hungry, so I popped home and munched on a few of my mini veggie pasties (see previous post).

The rest of our night was great - lots of drinking, catching up with friends, and playing a drinking game version of jenga. But the next day we were all hungover, so indulged in our new projector and watched movies all day long. Seriously, we watched about 6 or 7 movies. It was kinda gross. We got take away food - the first time I got chips with gravy - the shop's deep fryer had only been turned on so they tasted a bit gross. The second time, I asked for a hotdog bun filled with chips and gravy, but they accidentally got me chicken and gravy. So, not wanting to make a scene, I ate it up. And I must admit it tasted damn good... but I couldn't help feeling disgusting. Add that to the diet coke I had, and I just felt bad.

Hubby is going back to work tonight so I'll be alone in veggie heaven for the next 2 weeks. Can't wait to make a really filling lentil and veggie soup - for one, I'm craving it, and two, sooo cheap to make (I'm desperate for a nintendo wii, so I want to save as much money as crazy!).