Wednesday, February 15, 2012

My routine and a little about vegan cheese

My morning routine is so solid. It's basically set in stone. And I like that.

Every day, the first thing I consume before anything else, is a glass of pure grapefruit juice. I am too lazy to squeeze my own and too cheap to buy a citrus juicer, so I buy the organic stuff with NO ADDED SUGARS or concentrate or any other crap.

Then, I get the kids off to school.

Then, I get my veggies juiced. I get 2 tall glasses of green juice. Usually 1 cucumber, 1 green pepper, spinach or romain hearts, 2 tomatoes, 1-2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery and maybe one other thing, depending on what I have. But those I've listed are staples and always a part of the drink.

Then, I take my supplements, which I've scaled WAY back. What I take now are Prograde Metabolism, Prograde EFA Icon, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Multi-vitamin, BCAAs, glutamine. (but the last three I take later)

Then, I eat my oatmeal with a splash of almond milk. Unsweetened.

Every. Single. Day.

I have had this same routine ever since I bought the juicer. And I'm not the least bit sick of it. It makes me feel good. I have energy to workout. It sticks.

By the way, I tried a couple of vegan "cheese" recipes. This is how I know I'll never be able to be vegan. I just love cheese way to much. And meat. And eggs. Dang! I know it's like uber healthy for you but it's just never going to happen for me. I'm not passionate enough about it.

So here was sauce number one:


Looks chunky. And it was. It just had a weird texture. It called for ground oats, which I didn't understand the need, mostly because it made it chunky. And it called for Tahini. If you don't know what that is, it's sesame paste. But it made the cheese taste sort of like peanut butter. I just wasn't impressed with this recipe. Although after it had cooled down, it sort of took on a consistency of Velveeta, and I decided to save it and try it again today. Cold.

Sauce number two:

Much creamier. This was taken from a vegan alfredo recipe, and it had a very alfredo texture. It was pretty good. I didn't find any vegan parmesean like the recipe called for but I'm sure if I had, it would have tasted even better. This is the sauce I chose to put on my pizza last night. My pizza was good but everyone else's pizza looked SO MUCH BETTER, with real cheese.

I saved this sauce too. I figured I could pour it over some brown rice noodles or something one of these days.

Oh, and this is the nutritional yeast I was talking about that is supposed to give the "cheese" it's cheesy flavor. There is a recipe for cheese sauce right on the package.

So that was my vegan cheese experience. I like the slices they sell in the store better.

In the end, I have discovered that being a vegan is just not for me. At least not until it might become necessary in old age, for health reasons.
For now, I'm happy to stick with healthy eating as usual, including meat and dairy.

1 comment:

Amanda said...

hi charlotte i did vegan for a while but the enthusiasm wore off! i found it too hard to combine foods to make a whole protein for every meal. my iron went down (a bit of an issue with me at the best of times) and all i was doing was cooking all the time. and its too hard when you eat out or just out with the kids for the day (my kids were little then and we were always out at playgroup or friends house for coffee). and it was too expensive in the end. but that's another "approach" and you've gotta try it!!! remember - clean and lean!!!
those knees look sore! good for you for continuing. xxx