A Veggie Sandwich to Make Hardcore Carnivores Convert

When I first became a vegetarian (way back before it was cool), I had a really hard time finding animal-friendly lunches (especially sandwiches). Dinner was easy because I could cook anything I wanted. But, lunch…lunch had to packable and, preferably, not something that needed to be served hot. (I was never the kind of person who could eat lukewarm spaghetti).

Everything changed the day I discovered hummus. It was exactly what I had asked for and more. Not only was it low calorie enough that I didn’t have to measure every teaspoon as with peanut butter, but it tasted good with everything. And I do mean everything (including things like cheese, that peanut butter couldn’t even touch).

I know I’ve written extensively about my love for hummus, but I simply cannot help doing it again. Yes, peanut butter was my first great love, but I have long since divorced it’s nutty goodness in favor of hummus’ tangy charm that pairs nicely with sweets and sours and savories all at once.

I feel I should stop now and just get on with the recipe. For fear I may remove the hummus from its resting place in my fridge and, lick by lick, devour the whole container.

You can even toast the wrap and do it as a pizza!

Broccoli, Hummus and Cheddar Cheese–in a Wrap
serves 1

• Tortilla, wrap, bread, etc of choice
• Hummus (try my homemade recipe here)
• Chopped broccoli, steamed, baked or stir-fried
• Fat-free (or regular) cheddar cheese, shredded

→Lay the wrap on a flat surface.

Spread hummus on top.

Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top.

Dump the broccoli on. I like lots of broccoli so my sandwich is always overflowing.

See how I tried to make that seem as hard as a real recipe?

 

10 minute pizza

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Low-Calorie Pizza Crust

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Mini Eggplant Pizzas

I was supposed to post on Monday. It’s now 6 days later and I’ve been through both a very “high, happy” period and a “suicidally depressed” period. Ironically, I’m not bipolar–I’m just pre-med.

Most of last weekend/Monday/Tuesday was spent studying for my anatomy exam, during which time I was feeling great on a new ADD medication my shrink put me on. I was comprehending stuff, remembering it, etc. Then (of all times), I crashed DURING my anatomy exam and had a panic attack.

Of course after that there was the suicidally depressed “oh no I failed” and then the EVEN MORE suicidally depressed “oh no here’s how bad I failed” (when the scores came out). Keep in mind both of these were accompanied by other suicidally depressed forms of self-destruction, i.e bingeing/purging, cutting, etc and their subsequent increased self-loathing.

Now, I’ve entered the confused/questioning phase of “should I talk to the professor about what happened and see if anything can be done about the grade?”

This is like some convoluted version of the stages of denial.

The following recipe, which I’ve been meaning to post for awhile, is a little convoluted too. I had an exorbitant amount of eggplant (bought in the trickery of the “10 for $10 sale”) and needed something to do with it. I considered eggplant parmesan for awhile but, come on, that’s just kind of boring: slice eggplant, top with sauce, top with cheese, bake.

The more I pondered the eggplant parm and why it’s considered a culinary masterpiece, the more I realized it was the breading-that’s the tricky part. Of course then there was the thought, Why bread eggplant parm? It’s unnecessary calories. One thing that DOES need breading, though, is a pizza base. Mainly because, if you try to use a vegetable (like eggplant) as a pizza base, you end up feeding your pants instead of your visceral body organs (one of the many things my panic attack made me get wrong on the exam).

This came out better than I expected, to be honest. I thought it would be a pretty basic pizza crust but what I ended up with was a crust that was somewhat soft inside and crunchy outside. I suppose I should have realized this would happen given the training I’ve received from Alton Brown’s show. The breading acted as a casing (much like tinfoil) around the eggplant while it baked. The end result is a pizza crust that not only holds the toppings (like a pizza crust), but also gives a comfort food effect (like stew).

Enjoy!

Pepporoni "pizza"

Mixed veggie "pizza"

Mini Eggplant Pizzas makes six

• 1 medium eggplant, sliced into 6 rounds
• Eggbeaters, egg whites or whole eggs, lightly beaten
• Oat bran/Wheat bran
• Spices: garlic powder, onion powder, salt/pepper, cayenne pepper (if you like your pizza a little spicy)
• Pizza sauce or a mixture of tomato paste, garlic powder, onion powder, italian seasoning and salt/pepper
• Fat free mozzarella cheese (or lowfat, or full fat, or vegan substitute)
• Pizza toppings of choice ((vegan) pepperoni, mushrooms, broccoli, etc)

→Preheat oven to 450 F. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray.
Mix the oat bran, wheat bran, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt/pepper in a shallow dish (I used about 75% oat bran and 25% wheat bran. The total amount doesn’t matter all that much because whatever sticks sticks and whatever doesn’t doesn’t).
Put the egg substitute in another small baking dish.
Dip the eggplant slices first in the egg and then in the breading mixture. Place on the cookie sheet.
Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes (mine was a toaster oven so it probably finished a little faster), turning over half way through.
Spread some sauce over each “pizza”. Top with cheese and toppings.
If you want the cheese a little melty, put the pizzas back in the oven for a minute or so (I ran it one “toast cycle” in my toaster oven at the lightest setting).

Zen #7: Garlic and Grown-Up Comfort Food

I just spent the entire morning peeling garlic cloves. I would like to say it’s because I wanted to cook something with garlic but that’s really not the reason. Don’t get me wrong, I love garlic–in everything. But, usually, when I’m cooking, I end up just using the powdered stuff. (I know, I know).

No, the reason I spent the entire morning peeling garlic cloves is because there’s something meditative about it. It’s tedious and time consuming but mindless as well. Mindless in a way that allows you to sit there for hours on end…

The only goal is to get the skin of the garlic clove and the only thing you know at that moment is that you can’t lose THIS clove, you have to get the peel off. And then in starts again with the next clove. And again. And, after awhile, you find that it makes you feel successful, a little less worthless, a little less miserable.

You almost feel like you did when you were thin, when you had friends and went out and wore nice clothes, when you didn’t care what other people thought of you because YOU knew you were thin and that was all that mattered to you. You wonder, was that happiness?

Minutes pass, hours even and the memories start to flood your mind, the ones you avoid because they make you sad and nostalgic for those simple pleasures of having your friends teach you how one “frolics” properly. Surely, that was happiness. Surely, that’s the way life is supposed to be lived, at least for a few days out of the year.

The radio asking when you forgot it was your life and the cat scratching at your feet stop bothering you so much. If the phone rang, you wouldn’t even answer it, not even if it were your parents who you always wish would call you (even though you pretend it doesn’t matter) because you need to know that they care about you as much as you still need them too.

You think of what he said to you yesterday, the one who sits by you in your self-esteem-draining journalism class whose name is unknown yet who has become somewhat like “John by my locker John”. What did he say?
“Self-pity’s no good.”
“Oh, I live on it.”
“Well, that’s sad, you’re going to spend your entire life being miserable. What if you actually succeed?”

But you know that’ll never happen. Because success for you lies only in one thing and your greatest nightmare has come true: you know you’ll never have it again.

And then there is no more garlic. You look down and realize you’ve peeled it all. And you start to worry about the mess, your misery returns as you realize you’re not in that world anymore, the world with the perfect Steve Madden shoes (no leather AND a size 11!), the perfect Old Navy dress pants (grey, size 8 long), the blue, collard, button-down tops (Gap? Size M) and the perfect body to wear them all.

No, you’re in this world. And you’re sure you must have died that night and gone to hell.

Mac and Goat Cheese

Mac and Cheese with Zucchini

• 9.5 oz macaroni
• 1 lb zucchini (about 2-3 of them), sliced
• garlic, minced (I used about 2-3 cloves)
• 4 oz goat cheese (or more if you like)
• lemon zest, and or lemon juice
• salt and pepper

→Cook the pasta.
Saute the zucchini with the minced garlic and add to the cooked and drained pasta.
Mix in the goat cheese, adding enough water to make it into a sauce. I suppose you could also just use more cheese, but that might throw off the taste.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Top with some lemon zest and a squirt of juice.

Quick and Easy Pizza Wrap

One of my biggest annoyances in life is when you go to the grocery store, think it might be a good idea to pick up some of those frozen pre-made wrap thingies, and then realize the company stopped making them. Replace “frozen pre-made wrap” with any multitude of discontinued products and you have the story of my life. It took me years to find a store-bought hummus I actually WANTED to eat and, after a few months, they discontinued it.

Do I just have this knack for picking foods that the rest of the world doesn’t like? I guess the whole vegetarian thing doesn’t help either.

On that subject, I came up with this little wrap do-hickey during the week of final exams for the summer semester, so it’s not exactly a new recipe. It’s easy though, not even really worth being called a recipe, but I thought I would post it for any freshman who happened upon this blog wondering what to do with those microwaves they bought in their “oh my god, I’m going to college” buying frenzy.

As to myself, the only thing I’ve eaten ever since my birthday on August 27th that’s not a sugar-laden protein bar/cookie/other junk food or low-calorie bagel is the lunch I had at Altu’s today (which was delicious but more about that later).

Veggie Pizza (with Yves Pepperoni)

Tortilla Pizza

• 1 wrap/tortilla
• Pizza sauce (or not)
• any toppings (veggies, cheese, fruit, etc…be creative!)
• your microwave

→This is really easy. Put all the toppings on the tortilla/wrap in the order desired (do you like sauce on top? you can do that). Microwave until the cheese is melty and everything is warm. Wrap and eat.
OR you can use the microwave crust recipe I talked about earlier and then just put the toppings on the crispy tortilla.

I’m hoping to start exploring a culture soon, I just need to pick one. And, I’m waiting for the editor to put my new layout up so I can organize the blog into better categories. Hopefully, that’ll be soon!

Nachos, Taco (Salad), Pizza and so much more

This is more of a technique than a recipe, but one worth sharing nonetheless. I got the idea from an Indian snack called “papard,” which is basically a wafer thin piece of dough (I think) that you microwave on top of a paper towel to make crispy. At least, I think you microwave it…that’s what my mom does anyway. Apparently, the same thing works with most tortillas (although sometimes you need to microwave them for a little while, not to mention using a few paper towels in the process).

So, take a tortilla/wrap (preferably low calorie and/or low carb), put a paper towel underneath it and stick it in the microwave for…about a minute and a half. Make sure you check it every 15-20 seconds though because these things burn fast!!

A cool trick that I figured out with this technique is a taco salad bowl. Instead of putting the wrap on a paper towel flat in the microwave, you take a bowl, flip it upside down, put the paper towel over the bottom of the bowl and then put the wrap/tortilla on top. You might want to press the edges down to give it more of that taco salad bowl shape. A little while in the microwave and you’ve got a great base for a healthy taco salad.

Then of course there’s nachos, which are a lot easier or pizza which can get a little tricky. The thing with pizza that I find is, after you put the sauce on, microwaving again isn’t a good idea because the wrap goes soggy. The best way to make pizza is to microwave the wrap, put the stuff on and stick it in the (toaster) over for a little while. Sometimes, depending on the water content of the sauce you’re using, you might be able to make it work in the microwave, but is it really worth the risk?

I know I said this wasn’t a recipe, but here’s one anyway that I came up with using this technique…

Goat Cheese Pizza
1. 1 wrap/tortilla
2. paper towel(s)
3. an ounce or so of crumbled goat cheese
4. white mushrooms
5. onions
6. 1T balsamic vinegar
7. rosemary (if desired)
8. red bell peppers (about 1/4-1/2 of one)

→Prepare tortilla using microwave method. Crumble goat cheese over “crust”. Dot the surface of the tortilla with mushrooms, red peppers and onions, dispersed evenly (if you have the time, it’s probably a good idea to saute them in pam beforehand). Drizzle with vinegar. Bake in the (toaster) oven at 350 until edges are browned (usually about 10 minutes).