30 days are done!

Sorry I haven't posted on here for awhile, I guess my interested waned some. That doesn't mean that my dedication did. I finished it out.

Like I mentioned before, I had to eat some toaster pasteries for breakfast with some milk product in them and a few other stores, bread that potentially had milk, stir fry with fish sauce, ect. No meat and absolutely no cheese for 30 days.

Would I do it again? Sure, if there was money in it or something. It was a great learning experience and really helped me to assess my diet. I really recommend that people try doing this. I lost 5-6 lbs total, which is pretty good in a month for not really doing anything else besides changing my diet. I'll do another post or two, one about my celebratory meal!

Vegan pizza

Yes, it can be done. It's even pretty good. I posted on this earlier, but I was in the field and made the stuff on the grill. This time I made my own dough.

Basically you just start out making this like any other pizza, just make sure your toppings are vegan if you're abiding by that code. No cheese, just bake. Once it's done take it out and smear guacamole all over the top. Seriously, it's pretty good.

Farmers market pictures

Sorry that some of these are overexposed, to bright, whatever. If you've never been to Hawaii here are some pictures from the Thursday farmers market where I get a lot of fresh produce.



Here's my friend Josh, we trade a lot of meat for veggies!

Meat sounds good

So week 1 was hard, week 2 not so much. Week three and I'm starting to want things like a hotdog, or an icecream cone....a steak.

From out in the field and back

So day 12, 13, and 14 were the hardest so far. That's because I went up into the Hawaiian mountains for work. It's harder because:

1. I work harder therefore need more calories
2. I at least feel like I need more fat and protein in my diet to feel full
3. Food isn't readily available, we have a lot of food stored but it's all canned or dried. There's a lot of vegetarian stuff but very few things are actually vegan. I had to plan ahead and I still had to cheat for two breakfasts.

I had two toaster pastries, the organic version of poptarts. They were listed to have milk in them. Alas I'll try to stay on the straight and narrow from now on.

While in the field I did enjoy some good vegan food. Some packaged stuff known as "Tasty Bites." They're basically either a stir fry or curry in an aluminum pouch. Really good actually, especially when eaten with hot rice. Easy to carry and cook in the field too.

Last night I grilled pizza for everyone for dinner. Some were meaty pizzas (I didn't eat any), but two were vegans. Here's what you do:

With your grill on medium put on a prebaked pizza crust upside down, either buy them or comment and I'll give you a pizza crust recipe. Throw your toppings on the grill at the same time to cook as well. Once the crust has started to brown flip it. Next add your cheese (if you're not vegan). The cheese should go down next so it's closer to the heat and will melt. Next add your sauce, then toppings. Grill till brown on bottom. Makes for a really nice crispy crust. Takes a little practice but well worth it.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of food but here are a few of where I work.

BBQ

Looks good huh?

Do you think I cheated?

I've been thinking about what I may have accidentally eaten that has an animal product the last 11 days.

I had an eggplant sandwich at a cafe that came with a creamy sauce that I wiped off.

On day 3 without thinking i took a hershey's kiss and put it in my mouth, but spit it out.

Last Saturday I was at a party and someone gave me a veggie burger with cheese on it. I took it off (it looked good and I was drunk)

am I doing well so far?

Weeklong challenge

So I'm on day 9 and so far it's gotten easier after day 7. I was talking to a fella today about dieting and he told me about a friend of his who lost a lot of weight by not eating starches with his proteins. For example he no longer ate a potato with his steak. He'd eat vegetables with his steak, or a potato with his veggies, but didn't cross the two.

Now I got to thinking about how I used to think that I could never do that. A burger without fries! Stirfry without rice! But then I got to thinking, "I'm being a freakin vegan! If Pat Jackson can go 9 days (so far) with no milk, cheese, bacon, or meat then dammit I can do whatever diet I want."

And I think that's correct. So I challenge anyone reading this post try going vegan for just 7 days. It sucks, you'll miss meat, you'll want cheese, and you'll probably be a little gassy, but if you do that then you'll know you can follow any easier diet.......I can't think of a harder one than vegan.

Why doesn't anybody comment?

I want comments! I feel like I'm writing this but the last person on earth so no one reads it. Kidding, sort of.

I think I turned a corner today. Since say one I've felt kind of weird, I don't know if it's in my head or my body getting used to this diet but I feel fine now. I ate pistachios from Costco yesterday and today, that might have something to do with it. They're a special kind, they have salt AND pepper!

I don't think I've lost any weight but my face looks thinner or so my wife says.

Tonight I had spring rolls, purple sweet potato fries, and quinoa salad. All excellent. The purple potato is called an Okinawa sweet potato. Man they're good, super sweet. The quinoa salad is pretty simple stuff. Take 1-however many cups of dry quinoa and cook it just like rice. Cool and then add:

italian dressing or pesto(not a vegan item, we added Italian dressing tonight)
chopped bell peppers
carrots
cucumbers
peas
whatever you want



The sky is really the limit here on what you want to add. It's really good, really healthy, and a great alternative to a traditional bbq side dish like coleslaw. It's also cheap.

Here is the link for the spring rolls that I made. It's really straightforward. Rice paper is pretty cool and really delicious.

link

I made a really really really great dipping sauce that doubles as a great sauce for wings, ribs, or asian pulled pork but you have to leave a comment on here or I won't post it.

vegan wings?

I really like hot wings, I love them in fact. Since I didn't want to go 30 days without any I just made up a recipe that I believe is pretty damned good.

Take a box of firm or extra firm tofu and press the water out. You can place the whole block in a towel and set something heavy on top to press out more liquid. After that I cut each block into 8 strips and pressed them between two paper towels to get out more moisture. It's important to get out as much moisture as possible so that the tofu will be crispy.


Yucky nasty plain cold tofu strips.

After that I battered them in one of two ways:

Way 1:
3Tb yeast nutrient
2Tb flour
2tsp garlic powder
1/2tsp salt
1/2tsp pepper

Way 2: (really good for onion rings too)
1/2 cup flour (plus a tad more)
1/2 cup beer
1tsp paprika
1tsp seasoning salt

After battering them I dropped them into hot safflower oil and fried them on medium high heat, 4 minutes on 1 side and 3 on the other. A few pieces stayed in a bit longer to become crispy. It's important to get these pretty crispy or they'll still be gross.



Getting better....

While all this is going on I had my wing sauce going which was:

1/2 can beer
3TB margarine (normally butter)
3TB Hot sauce, more if you like it hot (I use tapito)
1-3TB bbq sauce, I make my own but your favorite is fine
1 block vegetable broth cube (normally 2 chicken stock cubes)
1TB favorite bbq rub or seasoning salt
crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Melt butter in saucepan. Add stock cubes and whisk till dissolved. Add rest of ingredient and bring to rolling boil. Bring down to strong simmer stirring occasionally until it coats the back of a spoon or you like it.


Add sauce to fried tofu and enjoy.

Now one might ask why not just do this to a chicken wing? I'd admit that's a good point. Here's a few reasons why:

Tofu is cheaper than chicken wings
Tofu has less fat
It's something different, why not?

Also these were by no means better than the hot wings I make. That said they were really good. I made them at a party and I had 3 different guys come up that have no interest in anything to do with being vegan and told me they might as well be eating chicken because they were so good.

Don't knock it till you try it. I love meat and these were good. I'm only 7 days in so I don't believe I can be crazy from a protein deficiency yet.

I approve this recipe

I've actually made this for a while but I'm making it more often. It's really great as the meat substitute (I know I sound gay saying that) but it's also really good as a side dish for grilled or bbqed dinners.

I can't stress how important it is to SALT the eggplant before you grill it to get out the moisture. Don't skip this. Also I've used regular and asian eggplants, I recommend the regular over the asian.

spicy grilled eggplant

Not that bad...

.....most of the time. I've had some things that I really like, such as a eggplant sandwich at the Hanalei Gormet, just with no cheese. I'm also getting good at making hashbrowns which are pretty easy to make vegan style. That said I can't seem to get them crispy, they're turning out more like fried potatoes than hashbrowns....still good though. Post a comment if you can make my hashbrowns crispy.

The hardest thing I've had to do so far is watch a friend eat a footlong sub from subway. It was very meaty and cheesy and smelled good.

Oh, and vegan sushi sucks. I thought it would be a staple in my diet, no so much.

Sure looks good huh? Well with no fish it's not!

I caught another pig today too. She was what you might call super pregnant. I doubt that pigs are pregnant for 9 months like humans, but if they are she must have been 8 months and 29 days pregnant. Did I get one or a whole bunch? Again I'm probably the only vegan in the world that snares pigs and trades them for vegetables!

piggy!

I can't eat it but I still caught it! I'm cooking a back leg for my wife and her fried who is in town to make carnitas for burritos. Just beans and rice for me




Look, it's take an eternal nap. Something that all invasive species should do.

Vaginitis

I've been feeling like I'm coming down with it lately. Yesterday I asked a lady at the farmers market if there was milk in the chocolate the covered the bananas she was selling. Today I ordered a grilled eggplant sandwich and had to say no cheese.

How it's gone so far

I never said anywhere, to kick off this whole thing the night before I ate a 1 pound burger! It was pretty good and super meaty. Organic 85/15 beef, perfect for a big ol burger.

I haven't really been "jonesing" for meat yet, though I'm never as full as when I eat meat or an animal product.

First day: breakfast: bagel & peanut butter, lunch: pasta with veggies, dinner: spaghetti with veggies (I'm going to try to not double up on pasta for any one day)

Second day: breakfast: bagel & peanut butter, lunch: vegetable stir fry with sticky rice, bought at the thai stand down the road from my house. Was super good. Dinner: spring rolls that I made myself. I love springrolls, I'd never made them before, super easy. If you want to know how ask me on here, that way I know if people are following or not.....

Getting started

Let's face it, meat is good. It's really good. It's so good that it's the only food you can exclusively eat and survive off of indefinitely. Except rabbit which won't supply you with enough vitamin A, so don't try to survive off of just rabbit.

Anyway, I like to eat meat. I like cooking it too, especially bbq and cooking whole animals. I believe meat is an important part of a well balanced diet. I also believe it's to easy to eat too much of the wrong kinds of meat.

Then on the other side of the isle are vegans. To be honest they're pretty nuts, not only excluding meat from their diet but also any animal products whatsoever. But hey, maybe they know something I dont.

So I'm gonna try it! I'm going vegan for 30 days. No meat, no dairy, no fish, no animal products whatsoever. We'll see how it goes. Feel free to follow my adventure and even try to join in. I'll do my best to post how I feel, what happens to me, what kinds of good (or bad) food I experience along the way.

First on my culinary list to master are spring rolls and buffalo tofu strips (I made the idea up and I'm going to invent a recipe too.)

Ready or not, here I come!