My Vegetarian Diet

So I promised to talk about this while I was doing it, but I'm not anymore. Oops. However! I will talk about it now. I decided to do various diets on a whim, and I started on vegetarian because it was the least radical leap into the diets. Actually, pescetarian would've been, but I never buy fish and I want to go meat free first. I've learned a few things about myself over the course of this month.

1. I used eggs A LOT. 
2. Somehow the majority of my meals had spaghetti sauce. I apologize to my roommates for turning the tupperware and plastic bowls orange. 
3. I love eggplant. However, I am sick of it right now because I've got nothing but eggplant parmigiana in my fridge. That was not eight servings. It's more like ten. This segways into #4.
4. I need to start halving recipes because I get really tired of leftovers after a few days. 
5. I really like almond milk.

Although I could still drink milk, I decided to buy a half gallon of regular milk and a half gallon of a substitute for the sake of finding a substitute I liked when I go vegan for a month. At first it was soymilk. Soy milk tastes really odd, so after I finished that, I vowed never to get it again. I bought almond milk at Nate's suggestion and found I really loved that. So I'll be drinking almond milk more! 

Being vegetarian actually got me to read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. If you would much rather not know what your meat goes through, I would not recommend this book. However, I would recommend this book to everyone. It's not a case for becoming vegetarian. Foer simply puts forward what goes on in the meat industry and leaves it up to the reader to decide. It is a personal journey. 

Time for a recipe I made towards the tail end of the month! It's spaghetti. I noticed I ended up eating a lot of spaghetti or macaroni and some recipes called for half of the box. I had half a box of spaghetti, half a box of macaroni, and a lot of random vegetables. That weekend, I got the urge to go exploring. I went into Trader Joe's and bought some tofurky sausage links and a jar of spaghetti sauce. 

What resulted was some pretty delicious spaghetti. You can throw in whatever vegetables you want! It's pretty good for leftovers.

Leftover Spaghetti

Ingredients

• One broccoli crowns
• 1/2 portobello mushrooms
• 1/2 red peppers
• 1/2 medium onion
• Handful of spinach
• Favorite spaghetti sauce 
• One box of spaghetti (I think mine was approximately 12oz or 16 oz, I'm not too sure)
• Cinnamon
• Two tofurkey sausages
• 1 tablespoon of oil

Directions

1. Cook noodles according to directions on box. When there are five minutes left of cooking time, put chopped broccoli in. Drain and put back into pot.

2. Cut up all the vegetables. Dice mushrooms, pepper, and onion. Cut tofurkey into 1/2 inch balls. 

3. Cook tofurkey through. Put the tofurkey into a bowl. Put oil into pan and saute peppers and onions until onions are slightly translucent. Add mushrooms and cook for another two minutes.

4. Put all the vegetables into the pot. Empty jar of spaghetti sauce and put a dash of cinnamon into the pot, then stir it until it's just about evenly distributed. Put on cover and cook for ten minutes, or until heated through.

5. Take pot off of stove and serve!

You may want to put in more spaghetti sauce, depending on your tastes. I found it tasted just fine with the amount of spaghetti sauce I used. Experiment! That's what everything is about. 

Tuna Rolls

My mom made tuna rolls for me and my brothers when she doesn't feel like cooking a full-on meal or can't go out and get something. I love tuna rolls. They're the only rolls I do eat at home. At restaurants, I eat most rolls. But that's beside the point! I recently asked my mom how to make these, and I've made them twice so far. Delicious! Plus, I have plenty of leftovers for when I want a snack.

Tuna Rolls

Makes 10 rolls

Ingredients

• 3 cups rice
• 5 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• A little bit of salt and pepper
• Few spoonfuls of mayonnaise
• 1 large can of tuna
• 1 packet of seaweed

Directions

1. Wash and cook 3 cups of rice. The method doesn't matter. I prefer using a rice cooker because I have one.

2. Mix the vinegar, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl, then add the rice. Mix well. Attempt to coat all the rice with this mixture.

3. Drain the tuna and place in a bowl. Add mayonnaise and a little bit of salt and pepper. Mix well.

4. Use a roller with a paper towel underneath or a piece of plastic wrap. I cannot guarantee the plastic wrap will work because I've never used it. Place a piece of seaweed on top of the roller/plastic wrap, then cover the 3/4ths of the seaweed with rice. you shouldn't have to use more than a scoop of rice because it needs to be spread thin.

This is what the roller I use looks like.

5. Put tuna in the first fourth of the rice. Then, roll up the roll. This is kind of tricky to do initially. Roll up a little bit of the roll and press. Then, take the bit you just rolled up, then roll it so it's larger. (I may have to do a tutorial for this if it's really confusing...)

6. Repeat until the ingredients run out. I wrap my tuna rolls up in plastic wrap if I'm not going to eat them immediately. They'll keep for a few days in the refrigerator.

And there you have it! Tuna rolls! 

Pasta with Homemade Tomato Sauce

Today was such a good day! I didn't have to go to class today, so I sat home until I had to go meet my student for tutoring. Did I mention it snowed today? So I got to spend the majority of my time sitting in the snow and freezing my butt off. Once I got back to the dorm, I ended up sitting in the room refusing to move. I made myself some egg drop soup. It ended up tasting pretty bland, so I had to pour more soy sauce in it. Time to make some changes to that recipe...

A little while ago, I made some pasta using this recipe. I made some changes to it. I had my own tomato sauce hanging around, and I added mushrooms. That's pretty much all of the changes. My sauce had cinnamon, basil, and  in it, so it's tastes much different that using, say, Ragu. Maybe I'll post that sauce recipe up sometime. It was something I did on the fly.

Pasta with Homemade Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package bowtie pasta 
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 large yellow onion, chopped
• 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 pound ground pork
• 2 cups homemade sauce OR 1 (16 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 mushrooms

Directions

1. Chop green pepper and onions and slice mushrooms. Place into a small bowl.

2. Bring a large pot of hot, lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until done al dente; drain and set aside. 

3. Melt better in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion, bell pepper, and mushrooms until onions and bell peppers are soft, about 5-6 minutes. Add ground pork and cook until evenly brown. Drain excess fat. 

4. In a large pot, heat spaghetti sauce until bubbling. Stir in pork mixture, pasta, and sour cream. Cook until heated through, about 5 minutes. 

Just a warning, if you don't use a large enough pot, pouring everything in will be messy. That silver pot I used wasn't large enough to accommodate everything, and some of it spilled out. Enjoy your pasta!