Dropped the Salad Ball Again

Why did I think I could do this 52 week challenge again? It's amazing how quickly a week can fly by without you noticing. Particularly if that week is filled with a lot of driving and apartment hunting. Lucky for my blog, I found an apartment. Next up, however, I must buy a car. How on earth will I manage car shopping, a Sens game, AND 2 salad blogs in one week? Yes, 2 salad blogs, since I must make up for last week's fail. After all, if I make 52 salads in a year, it all evens out in the end, right? That's the theory I'm going with anyway.

The first of this week's salads features quinoa (pronounced "keen-wah"). This illustrious little seed hails from the Andes in South America. It is in fact a seed, though it is used as you would a grain. It was considered a sacred food by the Incas, which is actually why it is little known today. Despite its supreme nutritional content, the Spanish explorers shunned quinoa because of its association with Incan religious ceremonies (read: non-Christian), and instead brought back the potato as their prize from the new world. Far be it from me to say anything negative about potatoes, but they can't hold a candle to quinoa as far as nutrition goes, and the Spaniards clearly made the wrong choice.

Quinoa is unique in that is one of a noble few plant-based foods that are a "complete" protein source. Complete, for anyone who is unsure, means that it contains all the amino acids that humans need to obtain from diet. This is often cited as the reason why animal products are a superior protein source. It is also why soy, which is also a complete protein, has become so dominant in the world of veg cooking. A cup of cooked quinoa contains 8g protein, 5 g fiber, and 15% of your recommended daily intake of iron.

So what does it taste like and how do you use it? Well, let me put it this way - if rice and couscous had a lovechild, I think it would turn out to be something like quinoa. Use it as you would rice. In fact, you'd be better off eliminating rice altogether and eating only quinoa. It has twice the protein content of brown rice (for the same number of calories), and cooks in 1/4 of the time. In this fresh and healthy salad, I've used quinoa as I might use couscous.

Quinoa and Black Bean Salad

Makes about 5 cups

2 cups cooked quinoa

1 cup cooked black beans

3 green onions, sliced

3/4 cup red pepper, chopped

3/4 cup cucumber, sliced & quartered

1 plum tomato, slimy middle stuff removed, chopped

2 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp cumin

a few dashes of cayenne, to taste (optional)

Mix all the ingredients together. Refrigerate a little while, serve cold.

One of the things I have come to dread as a vegan is potlucks. Usually full of things I can't eat. I of course bring something that I can eat, but it is important to bring something that everyone likes, and offers a complete meal in one so I don't feel like I'm sacrificing my nutrition. This would be the perfect pot-luck dish that would feel quite at home at a barbecue as well.

Salad Challenge Countdown

Salads made: 11 Salads left: 41

Blue Days Salad

I'm sure it's not surprising that this week's Salad Challenge recipe is based on my last entry on the Blue Days Diet. As a review the blue day diet includes: tryptophan (to boost serotonin), spiciness (to release endorphins), B vitamins (increase energy & elevate mood), carbohydrates (increase tryptophan uptake), and chocolate (cause it's awesome).

Ok, so this salad doesn't have chocolate. I couldn't come up with a way to do that, so i'll just have to make some hot cocoa later. Since I was eating this salad with a stir-fry that I served over quinoa, I figured that satisfied the carb requirement, and really, when are we ever lacking in opportunities to incorporate more carbs in our diet? So lets focus on the other three, tryptophan, B vitamins, and heat.

As I already mentioned, I was making a stir fry for dinner, so I decided to go with an asian influence in this salad. This salad features crimini mushrooms, which have nearly all of the different B vitamins as well as being an excellent source of tryptophan; cucumber, miso, sesame seeds and the baby greens are all sources of tryptophan as well. The dressing contains a good dose of cayenne pepper which will warm your tongue and get those endorphins flowing.

Crimini Mushroom Salad with Spicy Miso Dressing

Makes 1 salad

Dark leafy greens

4 or 5 crimini mushrooms, sliced

soy sauce

cucumber, sliced

sesame seeds

Dressing:

1 tsp miso paste

1 tsp oil (use sesame oil if you have it)

1 tsp rice vinegar

1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)

1/2 tsp water

Saute mushrooms with a bit of soy sauce until well cooked. Set aside.

Whisk together dressing recipes. If you're not partial to spicy food start with a little and add more until it suits your tastes. You may want to add more or less water depending on how thick you want the dressing to be.

Drizzle dressing on top of greenery, cucumbers, and mushrooms, and top with sesame seeds.

Salad Challenge Countdown

Salads made: 10 Salads left: 42

Blue Days Diet

The Brothers Gibb once asked "How can you mend a broken heart?". I don't have the answer to this age-old, disco question, but I have been told that time heals all wounds. The problem with that is that you're probably going to feel pretty darn miserable in the meantime. The good news is that food can help take the edge off. Think of it like nature's morphine.

You're stressed, had a rough week at work, or just had your heart broken, and what do you do? You reach for a bar of chocolate or your favourite starch-filled comfort food. Why do we do this?, you might ask. Well you're in luck, because I'm about to tell you!

Many people are emotional eaters, and there's good reason for it. Foods have the power to elevate your mood by releasing endorphines, and increasing serotonin, among other methods. Deficiencies in certain nutrients can also cause depression symptoms. Here is a breakdown of important mood foods.

Tryptophan

Tryptophan is an amino acid that our body uses to synthesize serotonin. When serotonin levels are low, we become depressed, lose focus, and disrupted sleep patterns. Many anti-depressants act on serotonin levels, such as the ever-popular SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) such as Prozak. But you don't need drugs to increase your serotonin, all you need is more dietary tryptophan. Many of you know that turkey is high in tryptophan, but there are many excellent sources as well.

Vegan sources of tryptophan (for a complete list go here):

• Mushrooms
• Dark leafy greens (spinach, kale, mustard greens, swiss chard)
• Soy (beans, tofu, tamari, miso)
• Lentils & Beans (Kidney, black, pinto, navy etc)
• Cauliflower, cucumber, celery, peppers, eggplant
• Seeds (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower) and Nuts (walnuts, cashews, almonds)
• Whole grains (oats, buckwheat, rye, bulgur)

Endorphins

The word "endorphine" comes from the words endogenous morphine, suggesting that it is a morphine-like substance that is produced by the body. They are natural pain relievers that are released when we experience pain and danger, but they are also released by good things such as exercise and orgasms, which is why people tend to feel so great after exercising (the so-called "runner's high"). Essentially, they are released when we experience excitement, good or bad. Eating spicy food is also known to cause the release of endorphins. Who needs morphine when all you need is a hot pepper?

B vitamins

There are 8 B vitamins (oddly named 1,2,3,5,6,7,9,12) but are frequently known by other names: thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), and folic acid (B9). Many of them are known to have effects on mood, energy levels and cognitive function. They are also important for supporting metabolism. Unlike many nutrients, B vitamins can be harder to obtain in a vegan diet. Good sources of B vitamins include:

• Bananas
• Lentils & beans
• Chili peppers
• Potatoes

Vitamin B12 is the only one that can not be found in plant based foods. Nutritional Yeast is a good vegan source of B12, can be easily added to soups and sauces, and is easy to find (locate it at Bulk Barn in the spices section).

Chocolate

Perhaps the best known go-to mood enhancer is chocolate. It's not just that it makes us feel better by virtue of it's luscious deliciousness, it boasts a laundry list of natural mood boosting chemicals. Chocolate contains tryptophan, theobromine (a stimulant similar to caffeine), anandamide (a cannabinoid- aka similar effects as cannabis), and phenylethlyamine (a neurotransmitter that is a precursor to amphetamine). It's no wonder chocolate makes us feel better.

Carbs

Think about our favourite comfort foods - bread, pasta, potatoes - all carb heavy foods. Why is that? It's because carbs affect our tryptophan and serotonin. When we eat sugar and carbs, blood sugar rises, triggering the release of insulin, which lowers blood levels of all amino acids except tryptophan. When tryptophan outnumbers the other amino acids, it enters the brain more quickly, where it is converted to serotonin, and ultimately making us feel better (for more details check out this site). When we binge, we're self-medicating. Try to self-medicate with healthy carbs such as fruits, whole grains, and potatoes.

Sunlight

Ok, so sunlight isn't a food, I know, but it can still play an important role in our mood. I'm sure you're all familiar with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) aka the winter blues. Those of us who live in the snowy north have probably felt its effects as the days grow shorter and we spend more time indoors. Tanning releases endorphins, which is why it feels so good to lay out in the sun, or why people become addicted to tanning booths, causing us to engage in these cancer-causing activities against our better judgement. Sun exposure also affects our melatonin and serotonin levels, causing us to sleep better and feel happier. Best of all, sunshine is free and totally vegan. So when the weather permits, get out and enjoy the sunshine, but be smart about it, and wear sunscreen.

You can't have-a-da Mango!

Actually, you can, and should have-a-da Mango. Just as long as you don't steal mine! I absolutely love mangoes, but I don't buy them as often as I should. I was in the grocery store the other day picking up some bananas when I spied a basket of mangoes, and inspiration hit. Mango salad. Mmmm.... what a delicious idea. I grabbed the least cement-like mango, not having any idea what kind of dressing I would make to compliment the fresh fruity flavour.

Factoid: Mangoes are often used as a symbol of fertility in Indian culture, and it's no wonder - mango trees can live for over 300 years and still bear fruit [1]. They're also a symbol of love, so next valentines day, ditch the chocolates and buy your sweetie a basket of mangoes for a sensual and healthy treat.

One of my pre-vegan favourites was the Mango Lassi. For those of you who are not familiar, it is essentially a mango-yogurt smoothie found in Indian restaurants, and not surprisingly, India, which is the mangoes home and native land. It's tangy, gently sweet, creamy and luscious. So I set out to create a gently sweet, tangy, creamy dressing. I've also brought in a little extra south Asian inspiration by incorporating coconut and curry. I had some coconut whip in the fridge and just used a spoonful of that, but feel free to use coconut milk, or add a drop of coconut extract to soy milk.

Mango Salad with Creamy Coconut Curry Dressing

Makes 2 salads

1 Mango, peeled and sliced

1/3 red bell pepper, slivered

1 green onion, sliced

Salad greens

Dressing:

2 tbsp soft silken tofu

1/2 tsp coconut milk

1/4 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

soy milk

Whisk together all of the ingredients until the tofu is blended smooth, adding soy milk a little at a time to reach desired consistency.

If I hadn't added the green onion and pepper to this salad I might have confused it with desert, it was so good. It has a bright, clean, fresh taste, and the perfect accompaniment to the warm and spicy chickpea curry I had for dinner.

Salad Challenge Countdown

Salads made: 9 Salads left: 43

Thriving for Gold

So, I don't know about you, but the Olympics have completely consumed my life these last few weeks. So much so that I nearly forgot about salad of the week. I wanted to create some kind of salad inspired by Canada's 14 gold medals.... or maybe something to symbolize both of our fabulous hockey teams that conquered their american foes. I really wanted to.... but I couldn't think of any way to represent hockey in salad form. And I don't have the money to make a salad dressing with real gold flakes in it.

So I decided to be inspired by fitness instead. One of my favourite vegan Canadians is Brendan Brazier, a professional ironman triathlete. He is living proof that you can be a top athlete and a vegan, getting all the protein and nutrients you need from plant based sources. He takes it one step further, he gets his nutrition from mostly raw, whole foods. He wrote a book on vegan nutrition, the Thrive Diet, one on fitness, Thrive Fitness, and created his own product line, Vega, of vegan meal replacement powders and energy bars. He's pretty impressive, and I may or may not have a wee crush on him. I have the Thrive Diet, and it's an excellent book, filled with the knowledge amassed by Brendan on his quest for ultimate fitness, treating himself as a guinea pig to find the best food, not only for athletes, but for all of us who want more energy and better health.

After last week's cake-filled binge-fest, I was feeling pretty lousy about myself, and decided to get inspired again, and he is usually my go-to guy for healthy inspiration. I noticed that he has a new program, called "Thrive in 30". It's a 30 day program in which you get emails, lessons, and videos featuring our favourite vegan/triathlete/hunk. I've signed up for it and I'm hoping that this will help me stay healthy, and avoid mug cake temptation. One of the basic tenets of the Thrive Diet is to have a nutritious smoothie and a large green salad every day. The book contains a number of recipes for tasty salads and dressings.

Unfortunately, I was unable to go to the store to get any ingredients I needed to make a snazzy salad because I was too engrossed in the hockey game. So, I made the one recipe that I had all the ingredients for - Creamy Ginger dressing, and put it on a basic salad of romaine, cucumber and carrots. Now I know I can't reproduce the recipe here, I will tell you it's creaminess is created by the addition of tahini, with apple cider vinegar providing zing, and of course, ginger. The recipe didn't contain any sweetness, so I added a bit of honey to take away the bitter edge that tahini often has.

I'm not going to say it was my favourite salad dressing in the world, but it did have a satisfying richness that I'm sure will inspire future recipes. It was also a fully guiltless salad, as Brendan never puts anything frivolous into his food, everything is nourishing. Now that I've eaten such a healthy salad for dinner... does that mean I get to have mug cake tonight?

This is kind of a weak entry for the salad challenge, but let's face it, I was bound to drop the ball sooner or later. I was just hoping it would be later.

Salad Challenge Countdown

Salads made: 8 Salads left: 44

Heaps of Ruination

You know when you make weight loss or diet goals and everything is going well, you feel great about yourself and your excellent will-power, and then something happens. It can be any number of things - you injure your foot, derailing your running regimen, or you go through a busy spell causing you to eat entirely too much falafel. These set-backs can often be overcome after an undetermined period of moping and regret. Sometimes something happens that threatens your entire future health, no end in sight, no foreseeable solution, and you feel that you might as well give in to a life of muffin tops and flabby arms. This has happened to me.

What could possibly have occurred to ruin years of hard earned health and fitness? What could be so epic so as to cause a blog entry of such extreme melodrama? A part of me warns me not to tell you, for it will no doubt destroy you as well, but like those who sucked me into the swirling void of diet-ruining bliss, I must share this bittersweet epiphany. It can be none other than...

THE 5-MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE!!!!

Yes folks, just 5 minutes stands between you and chocolate cake at almost any moment. I was infected with this affliction via it's facebook page. I tried it later that night, and at that moment I knew, it would take all my will power to avert obesity. 4 days and 4 warm, melty, chocolate mug cakes later, my will power has yet to even show up for battle.

The accused is pictured here, accompanied by SO Good vanilla soy ice cream, and a dollop of coconut whip. Take note of the still melty chocolate chips. I already have a head full of ideas of different variations that I want to try out. I'm doomed. At least by sharing it with my mom I'm only ever eating half a mug each time... that justifies it right?

Edit: So obviously on facebook this is not vegan, so I used soy milk and commercial egg replacer. I have also discovered that nuking it for 3 minutes and 20 seconds is perfect in my microwave. Your microwave may be different still.

"Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom." Thomas Carlyle

You may not believe it, but we really wouldn't survive without fungi. Often unseen, fungi are all around us and exert a powerful influence on the world. They are the major driving force of the nutrient cycle, they possess the necessary enzymes to break down tough plant material, returning the nutrients to the soil. There's hardly a natural molecule in the world for which there isn't a fungus that can break it down. Mighty trees are no match for these potent decomposers. Many plants form important symbioses with fungi, known as mycorrhizae, without which they could not get all the nutrients they need to survive.

Mushroom overlooking UWO campus, London

We are no exception. Yeasts are fungi too, and they make up an important part of our intestinal flora. You know all those Activia commercials with the happy bellies? They're happy because they're getting good yeasts that help them digest food. Yeasts are used to ferment soy to create soy sauce, miso, and tempeh. Yeast is used to ferment beer and wine. It is added to bread to make it rise. It is grown on a nutrient medium to produce nutritional yeast, an important food additive for vegans with no other means of obtaining vitamin B12.

Factoid: Fungi produce awesome antibiotics, including penicillin, which is often celebrated as one of the greatest discoveries of all time. Millions of people owe their lives to the everyday genius of a simple fungus.

Many fungi produce fruiting bodies, commonly known as mushrooms. These fruiting bodies are like the tip of the iceberg. The mushroom is used only for reproduction, the main "body" of the fungus stays in the soil, and the mushroom is akin to a flower bearing pollen. There are major biological differences in the life cycle, and the life cycles of fungi are very complex, but this analogy will do for the purposes of a food blog. Mushrooms are quite beautiful and fascinating structures. When I photograph mushrooms I often feel that I am stealing a glimpse at a magical world that is hidden away from us. Some mushrooms are so tiny, and yet to some organisms, they would seem like towering trees. Mushrooms always serve as a reminder to me that there are millions of organisms in a teaspoon of soil, a thought I find very humbling.

Sunlit Mushrooms, Ojibway Park, Windsor

It may or may not surprise you to know that only 1% of the mushrooms we know of are edible. Most of the rest are actually poisonous. According to my mycology textbook, The Fifth Kingdom, all mushrooms contain carcinogens, even the ones we eat all the time. Lucky for us these are easily destroyed by cooking them. The author warns to always thoroughly cook all mushrooms before consumption, even though they are routinely served raw. Sorry raw foodists, but it turns out there is at least one thing out there that isn't better for you raw.

Not surprisingly, mushrooms are quite nutritious. Because they are soil organisms, they are good sources of many trace minerals. They are an excellent source of selenium, an element necessary for DNA repair, thus making mushrooms a good member of your cancer prevention roster. Mushrooms are also good sources of copper, manganese, zinc, potassium, and iron [1]. And they're a good source of B vitamins to boot.

Agaricus bisporus is the species to which button, crimini and portobello mushrooms belong. Portobellos are my personal favourite because of their large cap and rich savory flavour. They easily stand in for beef in many situations because of their flavour and texture. They also pair well with the same bold seasonings usually used with beef, such as Montreal steak spice. And it just so happens that these are the focus of this weeks salad challenge.

Entrée salads became popular a little while ago when the western world became obese and realized that it needed to eat healthier. So what did they do? They created the steak salad, often smothered in blue cheese dressing. Somehow people convince themselves that since it's served atop lettuce this is a health food. But you and I know otherwise. The thing that steak salads do have going for them is that they are bold and hearty, and those are good things. I've taken that inspiration and created a healthy and vegan alternative to this entrée salad favourite.

Week 7: Montreal Spiced Portobello Steak Salad

Serves 1 for a main, 2 for a side

1 large portobello mushroom

1 roma tomato

Robust greenery such as romaine and radicchio

cucumber, radish and green or red onion slices

Dressing

2 tsp vegan worcestershire sauce

(or roughly: 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce, 1/2 tsp cider vinegar, pinch brown sugar, dash garlic & onion powder)

1 tsp montreal steak spice

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp olive oil

Remove mushroom stem. Heat up a lightly oiled pan or grill to medium-high. Fry or grill mushroom cap, about 10-15 minutes per side with a splash of balsamic vinegar or worcestershire sauce. Slice tomato into 4 thick slices, add to pan/grill during last 5 minutes. Slice portobello into thin strips. Assemble salad portobello and tomato slices arranged on top.

Whisk together dressing ingredients and drizzle over salad. Top with some freshly ground pepper. Enjoy with a glass of red wine and a clear conscience.

Salad Challenge Countdown

Salads made: 7 Salads left: 45