The Shopping Has Been Reconsidered

Considering that I started this blog to demonstrate that eating incredibly delicious, home cooked, vegan meals every day was downright easy, I hate to admit that I was concerned about my move to rethink grocery shopping. I usually start each week on Sunday by going through cookbooks to choose some recipes, writing the menu on my kitchen whiteboard, checking my stores for what's needed, and finally going to the market for the necessary supplies.

Easy.

This all changed when the CSA pickups started on Tuesdays. Not wanting to buy a bunch of food, then have food delivered, I shifted my process to Tuesday evenings, and chose recipes that used the CSA haul.

Still pretty easy, if mildly annoying to have to try to use up pounds and pounds of greens for the first few weeks.

But now, I have to work with what I have. That's kind of scary.

My first stab at this was inspired by my macro-living sister. She loves to eat brown rice and pickled things all the time. So I made brown rice with umeboshi plum vinegar, frozen corn and peas, and the kimchi that had been languishing in the back of my refrigerator since I first tried it and was not impressed.

I have to say, for a meal that was so easy to make, and not heavily spiced, I was pretty happy. I'm still not in love with kimchi. But that was it for the brown rice.



That was a devastating moment, since that and wild rice are my go-tos for base grains. What would I do when I made green curry? It turns out that the answer to that is ignore the doubting Thomases, use barley, and revel in a wonderful heavy and filling meal! Barley added a surprising amount of decadence (and buffer for the jalapenos I added) to my usual dish.

I won't bore you with the day to day method of devising meals. It's now the fourth week of this mode of eating, and I couldn't be happier.

Last night, I moved my oils to the food cabinet and now I have plenty of space for my cookbooks. My large pantry holds trash bags, and a few bulky items, but the food is otherwise removed. My small pantry boasts plenty of space for restocking and nothing is hidden. My freezer is a dream. Once stuffed to the point that each door opening was a direct threat to one's well being, I now have the space to put a giant sheet of no bake cookies to set. Finally, my refrigerator is easy to navigate and I won't have to risk losing the smaller storage containers behind everything else, only to discover a fuzzy nightmare months later.

Granted, it's gone on this long because of the weekly CSA box and the generous coworker who has gifted many squash, peppers, and tomatoes. Also, I have a rediculous stock pile of dried beans, nuts, grains, and fruits all about the house.



So, the best part? I'm not sure. On one hand, my grocery bill has dropped dramatically. I know this is temporary, as someday I will have to buy food again, but for now I'm living on dollars already spent. So the balance is restored. On the other, I'm more adventurous and intuitive a cook. I wasn't bad before, but now I'm getting hit with strokes of genius and I'm unafraid to combine spices and herbs in new ways.

It turns out I gleaned quite a bit from my devoted reading and use of cookbooks. I have always believed that recipes are a guide, not the law. I don't cower under what Dynise Balcavage refers to as the tyranny of the recipe. Now I look at recipes for ideas, put the book down, and go about my dinner prep.

This experience has also changed the way I eat in another way. This Saturday, I treated myself to a video game binge. Usually on those days, I subsist by popping something in the microwave during load screens. But this weekend, each time, I got up and prepared something. It was usually just sautéing some squash, eggplants, or whatever was available with some couscous, but it was prepared each time. I can't help but feel like I'm getting ever closer to my goals of cooking for myself with whole plant foods, as opposed to turning to convenience foods out of laziness.

I will return to the cookbooks eventually. In fact, when I discovered that I had just 1/2 cup of vegan sour cream tucked away in the fridge, I followed Tamasin Noyes' recipe for Cinacrunch Muffins almost to the letter (I was a little low on brown sugar) and they were incredible! I love cooking from my books, and I have two more on the way to my house now.

So in the end, my fears were allayed. I enjoyed the creative process that cooking should be. I also realigned my relationship with food and shopping. I have brought a good deal of simplicity to my kitchen and some resourcefulness to my planning.

I went to the farmer's market yesterday and came home with cantaloupe, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and onions. This week, after I pick up my CSA box, I may pick up a few extra things at the store. My return to grocery shopping will be gradual and I doubt that I'll return to doing the once weekly full-cart mega trip, though.

So I declare this experiment a success! And I declare it easy as well. It was actually so easy that I'm embarrassed to have admitted my trepidation. But I take great comfort in the fact that I'm right: it's easy to eat well and eat vegan, even when you don't have access to everything you could ever want.

I’ll share more about the recipes I used in an upcoming post, along with some after shots of the pantries. Below, the before shots!

Rethinking Grocery Shopping

My Google Reader has been informing me for the past few days I have 1000+ unread items. Oh man. If I like an entry in a blog, particularly a vegan blog, I'll throw it in the list. Some days, when work is slow, I'll add one person's entire blog role to my list. So I have a very full reader.

But then I don't feel like reading, and I let it go, and next thing you know I have 200 posts on squids to read.

So I removed the ones I've stopped reading or that haven't been very interesting, but I kept all of my vegan blogs. (And just now, I added a new one - I usually write in snippets throughout the day).

All of this led me to actually reading my blogs, including the four unread Savvy Abby entries. A particular post repeated an idea I'd read there before and also in Robin Robertson's work, and this time, it really struck a chord.

The brilliant idea was this: put off grocery shopping and clean out the fridge/pantry.

Time to Clean!

I am definitely guilty of over-stocking. I love food, I love shopping for food, and I love sales. Sales are only economical if you use the products you buy though. I also love new things, so I've amassed quite a few exotic ingredients that don't get used much.

In the past few months, my household of two found that it was hemorrhaging money at the grocery stores. I'm fine with that in some ways. Waste isn't much of an issue and quality food is worth the price. Even still, it was out of control. And I'm normally quite frugal.

Robertson authored a guest post some time back on Savvy Abby, and I revisited it for what might end up being her most important tip:

Postpone Grocery Shopping. See how long you can put off going to the supermarket by using up what you have on hand. You may actually be able to go nearly a week beyond your normal shopping day, cutting the total monthly grocery budget significantly. This also encourages you to rotate on-hand items such as frozen foods that are approaching their "use by" date and nonperishables from your pantry, as well as stray produce that might otherwise go bad. It also stimulates your creativity. I like to choose a few items from my stash and put them on the counter, then let my imagination take over how to combine them. For example, a can of white beans, crushed tomatoes, garlic, and a box of pasta have "yummy dinner" written all over them. Some rice or quinoa, walnuts, frozen peas, and an onion can make a flavorful pilaf [...]

So this is my new project. I already subscribe to a CSA and already have to figure out how to use up loads of greens each week. Maybe this will free me from scouring my cookbooks for ideas. Now I have to get creative.

But I've been having to do that thanks to CSA and I don't mind admitting that I sort of resent it. I have a nice little cookbook collection and the vast majority of the recipes have gone unmade. Restricting my ingredient list annoys me at times, but I know that it's the better option.

The good news is that I have loads of canned goods and spices and sauces. I also have jar after jar of rice, grains, beans, and nuts. And you know what those go well with, right? Greens!

So I may get a little bitter and resentful at times, but I'm confident that this experiment will do a few things:
1. Clean out my cabinets
2. Inspire and foster (and probably demand) culinary creativity
3. Save me some money
4. Get me to rethink my buying habits

I'm really curious to find out how many days I can put off grocery shopping. (I'm declaring coconut coffee creamer exempt from this arrangement now). I can't start for another week, since I'll be out of town, but Tuesday is my normal shopping day, so I'll post my innovations, frustrations, and durations. (OK, I know, one duration, but can you blame me?)

Oh I'll be starting this at the same time I begin my bike commute to work!

Trying New Things

Subtitle: Something You Should Do

Sometimes I brag that, thanks to my veganism, I try so many great new foods. That's a bit of an oversimplification though. Sometimes I have to remind myself that my transformation to master chef happened less than a year ago. I spent the first couple years as a vegan lazily grazing on packaged and pre-prepared foods. So why am I now so involved in cooking and eating?

The real credit goes to effects of my diet on my health. I was healthy in that I had no diseases or medically diagnosed problems, but I began to suspect that my diet was the culprit in some specific problems I was having, so I decided to cut out some soy.

Soy is unfairly demonized, but it is also in everything. I cut soy as an ingredient in things I purchased, meaning that the Chik Patties and soy milk were out, but tofu and tempeh could stay. That meant that my options for standby meals were greatly diminished and that's when I decided it was time to start cooking.

So theoretically, I could have gotten really involved in cooking without being a vegan, but could I have stayed that way?

I don't know. What I do know is that as a vegan, food is about active and meaningful choice making and my cooking is encouraged by a community. I am extremely conscious of what I eat; fair-trade, organic, non-GMO, compostable and sustainable are all labels that mean something to me because compassion and justice for all are what my veganism is about. I read about food, I familiarize myself with the facts and numbers, and I select the best I can. It's not a difficult process, but it's one that involves me and draws me further into the eating experience. Rather than simply eating food at meals, I now feed myself.

And many of the ideas and information I read comes from the vegan community. I'm stuck online all day at work and between deadlines, I kill time reading a number of vegan blogs and threads on the Post Punk Kitchen. The more I see pictures of and read about other people's kitchen experiences, the more I want to have and share my own. It's like a delicious cult.

This past month has been full of new experiences; I've blogged about some, but in the past few days I tried the following new foods: Chia, Dulse, Arame, Soba Noodles, Millet, Bok Choy, and Dandelion Leaves. All but the dandelion leaves were because of Get It Ripe, which is fast becoming a favorite after less than a week of ownership.

For the record, the totally amazing dishes I made from it were: Sesame Kale Soba Noodles, White Bean Bowl with Pesto, and Barbecue Baked Tofu with Mushrooms and Bell Peppers. I used the Cilantro Pesto from the book and it is a keeper. Extra points for using pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

I also used Corona in a marinade and agar powder to botch a pudding (still delicious, but kind of oddly solid).

I also bought a cast iron pan. Viva Vegan showed up on my doorstep last week as well, and I figured it was about time to go cast iron. I also found this Have Cake entry and so I think it's time to dust off the bread machine and actually use it.

On the horizon, my sister is going to teach me to do some macro-inspired cooking and my journey with raw foods continues.

So while I can't let veganism take all of the credit, it deserves a good bit of it. It's a lifestyle that requires innovation and an open mind. I feel so fortunate that I almost never make the same thing for dinner twice and that my kitchen is cruelty free in the process. I'm a better and more interesting person and I'm also more satisfied. Eating is never a mere necessity, but a statement, an experience, and a joy.

What new things have you tried leately?

As for more new things to come, I am excited to whip up a batch of raw cupcakes for Raw Wednesday in my adorable new silicone cupcake moulds! Stay tuned!