Veggie Tales: Day 0

My boyfriend, Alvin, and I have been in a food rut for a couple of weeks now, so I made the suggestion that we try to eat vegan for a week.  Our excitement over our endeavor quickly faded as we realized that meant we couldn’t use butter, so we changed to vegetarian meals and continued to Google new recipes.  While I would love to rant more about food, here is Alvin to explain our first attempt:

Alissa and I decided to make vegetarian (and some vegan) food for a week.  Before that, we tried eating cheap because we’d realized we spent way too much on food, but that just resulted in chicken or pork every day.  I’d grown pretty sick of cooking the same things and wanted to do something different.  Alissa suggested we put it on her blog because it’s basically sewing.  Consider it a trial run for Noodlepoint, the food/sewing blog we’ll frequently talk about but never actually make.  We know the posts will need improvement, so we’d love comments and suggestions.  It’s a learning process.

Inaccuracies: we didn't use onion or soy sauce.  We weren't kidding when we said it's a learning process.

 

Day 1 0

We started off with Grilled Chinese Five Spice Peaches with Cold Noodles from Thug Kitchen.

http://thugkitchen.com/post/57429431512/summertime-is-the-best-time-for-fruit-but-dont

So we screwed up on the very first day.  Whoops.

We were still in the process of moving everything into Alissa’s new apartment, so most of her kitchen supplies were still in my kitchen.  We don’t cook in my kitchen because my stove is an upscale easy bake oven.  Look at this thing.  Just look at it.

We forgot the soy sauce at my place but didn’t have a lot of time before Alissa had to leave for work, so we used oyster sauce instead of soy sauce.  Not so vegan.  Or vegetarian.  We also substituted arugula for watercress and used only 8 oz of noodles, but those weren’t mistakes.  Well, the noodles were a mistake; we should have had more.  We also served everything hot because Alissa doesn’t believe in cold dinner.  We had gazpacho recently and she couldn’t get over the fact that you eat it cold. 

Everything about the recipe was delicious. I thought the dish struck a great balance between the sweetness of the peaches, the bitterness of the arugula, and the savory flavor of the sauced noodles.  The five spice added some depth to the flavor without distracting from the peaches.  It worked out to about $3 per person, but I’m starting to think we spend too much on food because we eat like a family of four.  The page says 4-6 servings, but we finished the entire plate.

The finished product

Alissa here.  I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed not eating meat.  Generally, I don't consider anything a meal unless it has pork, chicken, or beef.  At the end of the meal, I was full without being stuffed; probably the healthy kind of full you're supposed to feel.

Please leave any questions or comments you may have!  We would love to hear about vegetarian/vegan dishes you like or would like to try.

Sincerely,
Alissa and Alvin