Music and Veganism

First off, I finished 7 days of raw, and the last two days were awesome but I ran out of food and didn’t feel like spending another $50 on groceries.  But it was good!  I recommend that everyone gives it a try.  Since ending it I haven’t been eating great, but I have consciously been eating more fruit (I bought another big bag of oranges and have one or two a day in addition to my daily apple).  I always tried to include either a salad or steamed green veggies with both lunch and dinner, but sometimes I’d let the lunch salad slide, so I’ve been better about it.

But it make me think about food & my body a little.  Although I know I’m not fat, I do think my ideal body weight is about five pounds less than I am now– because that weight is the weight I’ve stayed at for about five years, until the last 12 months or so.  I eat really well.  Probably better than about 85% this country.  I made that statistic up, but I bet it’s right.  So what’s changed?  Well, the obvious answer would have to be exercise.  I started running in September, but once the cold weather hit, I lost my steam.  I need to start hitting the gym before work (btw, my gym is 24 hours and right next door to my work.  I have NO excuse).  And I have an Achilles heel:  snacking!  I come home from work at either 2 or 3 PM, sit down to relax, and eat about four snacks.  I also tend to snack on bakery goods throughout the day– a muffin, a bagel, a cookie– but that habit was pretty successfully nipped in the bud during raw week, so that’s good news.  So… what’s your “Achilles heel” in the quest to live a healthy life? Does that even make sense?

Anyways, enough about that.  Let’s talk about cottages.  If you know me in real life, you may know that my favorite dish is shepherd’s pie.  I make it lot during the winter and I’ve blogged about it before.  I almost always make it different, and I rarely follow a recipe.  I’ve made it with tempeh, tofu, seitan, mushrooms and lentils before.  Today I decided to use beans leftover from when we’d cooked beans to make chili with earlier this week.

Today’s meal was inspired by a conversation with some coworkers today.  One of them began talking about shepherd’s pie, and the other didn’t know what it was.  So the first, M, described it being made with lamb.  It got us talking about what it’s called when made with beef, and for the life of me, I could not remember the name, “Cottage Pie”.  We also wondered what you would call a pie made without meat at all.  When I got home I looked up shepherd’s pie on Wikipedia and noticed that some people believe the use of Shepherd’s pie for a pie made with lamb and Cottage pie for one made with beef is a more modern tendancy, since the term “Shepherd’s pie” didn’t appear until the late 19th century and “Cottage pie” had been around for about 100 years prior.  Cottage pie was just a general term for a pie made with leftover roasted meat and a potato crust, usually made by poor people who, surprise, lived in cottages.

Well, I decided that cottage pie doesn’t need meat in it, because it’s name doesn’t suggest any animals the way shepherd’s pie does.  It can have beans instead.  Or lentils, or tempeh, or whatever.  But you should try the gravy I made, cause it was tasty.

Charlotte’s Cottage Pie

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

Potatoes:

• 3 russet potatoes
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 Tbsp. Earth balance or olive oil
• 1/2 c. unsweetened non-dairy milk of choice
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• ground black pepper to taste

Filling and gravy:

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 tsp. fresh thyme
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 3/4 c. water
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. tamari
• 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
• liquid smoke
• 2 1/2 cups plain cooked beans or lentils, or 1 package crumbled tempeh, or the equivalent of whatever you want to use in lieu of meat
• 1/4 cup frozen peas
• 1/4 cup frozen corn

Okay.  Peel and cube potatoes, and peel the garlic.  Cook them all together until tender.  Drain them.  Mash them with Earth Balance and slowly add the non-dairy milk until desired consistency is reached.  Add salt and pepper to taste, set aside.

Now preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  In a skillet, heat the oil for the gravy over medium heat.  Add the onions, carrots and thyme and cook for about 7 minutes, until the onions are transluscent.  Add the flour and stir until it everything’s evenly coated in the flour.  Now, slowly add the water a little bt at a time– pour some in, stir until mixed, add more, stir, etc.  Keep doing this until the water is gone and you have a whitish gravy.  Lower the heat.  Add the tamari and liquid smoke (however much smoke you want)– stir.  Add the balsamic vinegar– stir.  You may need to add more water if it’s super thick still, but the aim is to have no lumps of flour left.  Finally, add the beans or whatever, mix well, and remove from heat.  It should look like this:

In a casserole dish, layer the gravy mixture in first.  Spread the peas and corn on top.  Finally spread in the mashed potatoes.  Pack it down and poke some holes in the taters.  Stick in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Serve with a light salad (ours was toasted walnuts, baby romaine and orange!  yum!) or steamed greens.

I also made this quilt for my nephew.  It’s super cute!