Going plant-based for a bit

I decided to give veganism a try for a couple of weeks. I was very nearly there anyway so my diet hasn’t changed a ton.

Here's why I’m giving this a try. When I did a lot of research after I was diagnosed with breast cancer, foods that cause inflammation should be avoided by people who’ve had breast cancer, and a lot of those foods tend to be animal based. Plus as I learned from the Arthritis Foundation website, foods that cause inflammation may also have a bad effect on some types of arthritis. My mother’s got it pretty bad, especially in her fingers and my fingers are getting a bit twingy. So I figured why not give this a try—it won’t hurt and it might help.

At first I thought I’d run this trial for two weeks. Then I realized I’d probably have better data if I stuck with it for four weeks, which is what I’m doing. On Sunday I’ll have completed two weeks.

So far, the biggest change for me has been breakfast: every day I ate Kashi Go Lean original cereal with unflavored Icelandic yogurt and blueberries. Turns out that flavor of Go Lean isn’t vegan and of course neither is the yogurt. So now I’m eating the cinnamon crunch flavor with almond milk (but not blueberries, that would just be wrong).

I also have what I call an inappropriate relationship with butter. So that’s a change but really if I’m not eating crusty hot rolls at dinner, I don’t miss it as much.

Here’s the kind of food we’re eating (while Kent isn’t going 100% vegan, he’s pretty plant-based in his eating these days):

"tacos"

• Curried Chickpea Salad. This is incredibly yummy. We eat it as a sandwich on Trader Joe's Super Bread and it's so, so good.
• Black Pepper Tofu with Asparagus Broccoli. I changed this recipe and now bake the tofu in the oven with this recipe. While the tofu bakes, I also roast the broccoli mostly following this recipe, except for the oven temperature. Since the baked tofu already has soy sauce, I don't use as much when I pull it all together. Oh and I saute a ton of sliced mushrooms in the pan before combining everything. This is absolutely amazing. If you don't have a tofu press, I got this one from Amazon and it's great, far better than using heavy books. 
• Chickpea Salad (very different from the curried salad above). I altered this one too, and used sundried tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes,and tossed in artichoke hearts and mushrooms in addition to the roasted peppers and olives. This was another big hit.
• 1-Pot Smoky Lentil Vegan Taco “Meat”. Another huge hit. I was shocked when Kent didn't use any cheese but as he said, they didn't need it. Boy those were good. 
• Porcini Pecan Burgers. This was a recipe we learned at the Kansas City Culinary Institute's class on plant-based burgers and they are good! However, I have a much loved daughter-in-law who is allergic to pecans but good news. You can use walnuts instead! We did that and they were as good as the original recipe. 
• No Bake Cookies with Tahini. Oh. My. WORD. These cookies are absolutely delicious and have NO sugar. None. 

For Saturday, we're going to fix fairly traditional 4th of July food, only it's all vegan:

‘Pulled Pork’ sandwiches, potato salad, grilled corn with sriracha aioli and cheesecake.