Vegan Chronicles -- Day 1

So my (lovely) husband bet our vegan friend that he would beat him at fantasy football this past week.  If he won our friend would eat a burger; if he lost my husband would have to go vegan for 3 weeks.  I’m fine going without meat and most dairy.  My husband, on the other hand, is very picky and needs to have meat with pretty much every meal.  So this would not be easy.

Well obviously he lost the bet…. So here we are exploring veganism for the next 3 weeks.  I look at it as an exciting challenge.  He’s not thrilled about it.  But, hey, he should have thought about that before he made the bet!

Today I went to Costco and Trader Joe’s without a list.  I just went through the aisles trying to find anything vegan I thought my family would eat.   

I’ll be sure to share any interesting recipes and findings from our culinary vegan adventures.

If all else fails he can live off PB&J ;)

Day 1:

I have never made tofu before.  It looks utterly unappealing in most cases, and therefore I’ve never eaten very much of it.  But I decided to take the plunge and buy a giant box of it for about $5 at Costco.  I figured if it’s bland there has to be some way to make it taste delicious.

Tonight, for our first vegan dinner, I decided to make tacos.

I chopped some sweet potatoes and cooked them in coconut oil in one pan.  In the other pan I put some drained and diced tofu also with a little oil.  On both I put some taco seasonings: garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder.  To the sweet potatoes I added some cooked brown rice and black beans I had in the fridge.  (See my previous post for a simple way to cook black beans.) 

I heated some corn tortillas in a pan with a tad bit of oil for crispiness.  Then I just spooned the tofu and sweet potato mixture into the tortillas.  I added some avocado and salsa to my tacos.  Here’s the finished product.

Notes:

• I use coconut oil for almost everything so I don’t mind the flavor, but you could easily substitute with your oil of choice.
• You could totally leave out the tofu if your intimidated by it or just don’t like it.
• I would definitely add cheese if I wasn’t trying to be a good vegan!