veggie stir-fry

OK, so I haven't quite started on the whole vegan cookbook challenge thing (oops!), however, I did actually cook a REAL meal at home tonight! It was super easy, delicious and ridiculously healthy, not to mention gluten-free and vegan! So, I thought I'd share it with you. It took less than 30 minutes, cost less than $10 (and it even left me with plenty of left-overs), and requires minimal kitchen skill!

What you'll need

• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 onion (sliced)
• 1 green bell pepper (sliced)
• 1 red bell pepper (sliced)
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• Liquid Aminos (or wheat-free soy sauce)
• agave nectar (optional)

Directions:

• First bring 2 1/2 cups water to a boil (add salt to taste), then stir in brown rice.
• Once it begins to boil again, reduce heat, cover and simmer until the rice has absorbed all of the water
• While the rice is boiling, heat a large skillet on med-high heat add a touch oil (just so the veggies won't stick)
• slice onion and add to heated skillet
• then, slice peppers and toss in with onions
• follow with the mushrooms and bean sprouts
• cook for about 5-10 minutes, stirring/tossing occasionally (be careful not to overcook...nothing worse than soggy veggies)
• add in some liquid aminos (or soy sauce) to taste...I probably use way too much!
• remove from heat
• makes 3-4 servings
• serve veggies on top of rice and enjoy!
• I like to top mine with a little agave nectar to give it that sweet savory sort of flavor. You can even stir in a 2 TBSP of natural chunky peanut butter for Thai inspired flavor! :)

The world through her eyes...

My oldest daughter, Emma, has always loved taking pictures. I began letting her use my camera to take pictures when she was about 2 years old, she is almost 5 now, and I am pretty impressed with how great she is at it! As I have mentioned before, I love looking at the pictures she takes, and seeing the world through her eyes. I would like to start sharing them with you (hey, what can I say, I am a proud mama!)

Here are a few she took last year...

flowers on the steps

her baby sister

her proud mama!

And some of her most recent work...

a self-portrait

chasing Abby through the hall

When I see these pictures, it reminds me of a time when everything in the world was new, exciting, and special. As we get older, we become more focused on the things we must do, and forget to appreciate the little, exciting things all around us. I want to begin taking a moment each day and reminding myself of all of the wonderful little things that surround me.

My New Recipe Project

Many people ask me what I eat as a gluten-free vegan. It does become a little complicated and unconventional when you are unable to eat anything containing wheat, oats, barley, rye, beef, poultry, pork, eggs, dairy, or any other product made from an animal. Sometimes, I am even at a loss as to what to eat! I find that I have become increasingly bored with my current menu, and cooking at home rarely happens anymore.

Luckily, my amazing sister gave me a wonderful cookbook, The Gluten-Free Vegan by Susan O'Brien. It contains 150 interesting and yummy recipes that are perfectly suited for my diet. It has given me some new motivation to cook, really cook, at home and make healthy, delicious, and exciting recipes for me and my girls. My goal is to test each of the new recipes out and share them with you. Then, maybe you can try them out for yourself, or at least find some inspiration to try to incorporate some vegetarian meals into your diet.

Go Veggie! for the planet

Everyone can pretty much guess that being a vegetarian is good for you health, but for the planet? Definitely! It affects more than you may realize. According to a study conducted by the United Nations in 2006, "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." Chooseveg.com breaks it down perfectly into 4 major categories: conservation, extinction, pollution, and global warming.

Meat production in the United States is very inefficient and wasteful of our natural resources. Just think of all the crops that are simply produced to feed the animals that we are only raising to kill (I'll go into detail on that aspect in my ethics portion) so that we can eat them. A person living mostly on animal protein requires 10 times more land to produce food than someone living on vegetable proteins (wikipedia). So, that also means 10 times as much water is needed for that land. As a matter of fact, of all of the water used for any purpose in the US, more than half is used for livestock production. Just think about how much of the land and its resources we could conserve. Such an unnecessary waste. There is also a massive use of fossil fuels used to run all of the machinery now used to "raise" and "produce" livestock. Now, there are more energy efficient ways to produce meat using a natural-grazing method. The natural-grazing method is pretty much how we like to picture meat production...cows roaming free on a grassy hill...but that is not the reality anymore.

According to United States Department of Agriculture, in 1997, there were 1,315,051 farms that carried livestock.  That's crazy! Just imagine the acreage need for all of those farms to exist. How many forest were chopped down to make room for the fields needed to provide for all of this livestock? However, it is not just the trees we are losing, but also the countless animals, insects, and other plant life that were occupying that forest. The United Nations reports that "ranching-induced deforestation is one of the main reasons for the loss of plant and animal species in tropical rain forests." Think about it, the rain forests are being destroyed in order to clear land for cattle grazing, so we can over-indulge on double cheeseburgers and 16 oz steaks.

Then, there's the poo...seriously, the run-off from the farms is polluting our water making it toxic in some cases. The manure also produces methane gas, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide and releases it into the air. (Not to mention the amount of chemical fertilizers used on the crops grown to feed the cattle.) Methane gas, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are some of the most destructive gases in our air today and they are being produced at an alarming rate due to the incredible number of livestock needed to keep up with the high demands for meat.

Now, combine the effects of wasteful production, fewer forests, and higher levels of toxic gases and what do you get...global warming. In 2006, the United Nations reported that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined! So, maybe we should carpool AND put down the cheeseburger to reduce the effects of global warming!

Let's take care of this gorgeous planet God made for us! Reduce, reuse, and recycle...and Go Veggie!!!