The Vegan Experiment

My husband, the carnivore, decided he wanted to try to lower his cholesterol.  He suggested a week of vegetarian meals, but I pointed out that there was a lot of cholesterol in animal products (like eggs and dairy) as well, so I (foolishly?) said that if was going to do it right, he needed to eat vegan.  So, this is from the week we all ate vegan (well, we are ate it when he was around...when he wasn't here, we turned into carnivorous beasts, devouring all the meat and dairy we could!).  I also found out that week that I was pregnant with twins...both boys!  So, it was an adventurous week for us!

After doing a lot of searches on Pinterest for vegan recipes, my husband perused the mouth-watering pictures, and chose the ones he thought looked the best.  That particular board also has vegetarian recipes on it though, so I have had to do some modifications to some of the recipes.  Next was shopping.  I figured I would start at WinCo to see what they had.  I was pleasantly surprised to find about 90% of the items on my list there!  After that, I headed to Sprouts, an expensive specialty organic grocery store (coincidentally, that is where I broke my finger while Thanksgiving shopping a year and a half ago).  I will post every day's menu, and if the recipe strays far from the original, I will include my own recipe with the review.

Sunday

Vegan Spinach Lasagna Roll

Breakfast: fasting
Lunch: zesty refried beans on a flour tortilla with tomatoes, red bell peppers, mushrooms, salsa, and cheddar cheese substitute.
Dinner: spinach lasagna rolls, bruschetta, garden salad

Lunch review: My husband said it was pretty good.  He didn't like the raw mushrooms.  He said he would have preferred it if they were sauteed to soften them up a little.

Dinner review: The lasagna rolls were a HIT!  We shared them with 4 of our friends (it made a lot more than the 9 rolls that the recipe says it will make...I used 2 boxes of noodles), and they said they never would have known they were vegan.  My husband said he wouldn't mind eating it more often.

Vegan Spinach Lasagna Rolls (based off of a combination of this recipe and this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 9 lasagna noodles, cooked
• 10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and completely drained
• 1 block firm tofu
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1.5 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• salt and fresh pepper
• 1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce
• 9 tbsp (about 3 oz) Daiya mozzarella cheese substitute

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine spinach, tofu, olive oil, nutritional yeast, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper in a food processor and process until smooth. Ladle about 1 cup sauce on the bottom of a 9 x 12 baking dish.

Place a piece of wax paper on the counter and lay out lasagna noodles. Make sure noodles are dry. Take 1/3 cup of spinach mixture and spread evenly over noodle. Roll carefully and place seam side down onto the baking dish. Repeat with remaining noodles.

Ladle sauce over the noodles in the baking dish and top each one with 1 tbsp Daiya mozzarella. Put foil over baking dish and bake for 40 minutes, or until cheese melts. Makes 9 rolls [Note: I did not put as much of the spinach mixture on the noodles, and I was able to make about 20 rolls, which easily fed 6 adults and 3 children, with left-overs for 2 lunches].

To serve, ladle a little sauce on the plate and top with lasagna roll.

Balsamic Bruschetta

Ingredients:

• 10 Roma or 4 regular tomatoes, chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh basil or 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 cup fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 jar of sundried tomatoes in olive oil (or one pouch), chopped
• 1/8 cup olive oil + extra for basting bread
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbs crushed garlic
•  1 french baguette or french loaf, sliced
• Optional--2 cups of mozzarella or Parmesan cheese, shredded

Directions:

1. Chop up all of the ingredients except the bread & cheese and mix together.
2. Slice the bread into 1/4" slices.
3. Place the bread on a baking sheet, baste with olive oil, and cover each slice with cheese.
4. Broil bread until the cheese is melted.
5. Top the bread with the tomato mixture.

Monday

Spicy Asian Noodle Salad

Breakfast: toasted English muffins with peanut butter, smoothies with banana, frozen fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches), vanilla soy milk, coconut milk, flax seed meal, oatmeal, vanilla, and sugar
Lunch: left-overs from Sunday's dinner

Dinner: Spicy Asian Noodle Salad.  I used whole wheat linguine noodles for the pasta.  For the dressing, I used jalapeños and I didn’t use cilantro (I did put some in the salad though).  Instead of mincing everything for the dressing, I just threw it all in the blender to make it smooth.

Dinner review: My husband doesn't like cilantro or onions (I chopped them really small so he wouldn't see them), and he instantly picked out the flavor.  But, I used them in the salad because I felt it was a major flavor enhancer.  This recipe makes A LOT!  We shared it with 3 other people, and they had enough to eat for a couple days.  2/3 of the people we shared it with requested the recipe.

Tuesday

Sweet Potato Veggie Burger

Breakfast—at mom’s

Lunch—Hummus with mixed chopped veggies

Dinner—Sweet Potato Veggie Burger I used 1 extra sweet potato because I was feeding 2 missionaries too, but this made it way too soft, so I had to add a lot more flour than the recipe called for.  I also added some Panko crumbs to the mixture as well.  We also had baked potato wedges and fruit salad based off of this recipe.

Dinner Review:  This was another hit.  My husband and the missionaries said they wouldn't mind eating it again.  It ended up making a lot, and it was filling, so my husband was able to eat them for a few days.  It would be interesting to try some other varieties of veggie burgers.  I've seen a lot of black bean options out there. 

Wednesday

Breakfast—hash browns with bell peppers and fake bacon

Lunch--leftovers

Dinner-- Southwestern eggrolls, Balsamic cucumber salad

Breakfast review: This also made a lot.  Everyone liked it, but my husband said it tasted much better with salsa.

Dinner review: I didn't get a chance to eat this dinner (OK...so, really, the babies had a major craving for Jack in the Box jalapeno poppers and a strawberry milkshake...), but I heard the eggrolls were a little bland.  It might have something to do with the fact that I forgot to add the cheese substitute...oops!  But, my husband said they were better with salsa...hmmmm...that sounds familiar!  He took the leftovers for lunch the next day, so they couldn't have been too bad.  However, the balsamic cucumber salad was a flop.  It probably has to do with the cilantro again.  I blended all the flavoring together so it was smooth, but the cilantro flavor was still pretty strong.

Thursday

Enchilada Casserole

Breakfast—slow cooker steel-cut oats with coconut milk, prunes, and dried apricots

Lunch—leftovers

Dinner—Black bean and chorizo enchiladas, Oven roasted garlic Brussels sprouts

Breakfast review: Nobody liked it, so I didn't even bother trying it. They even tried adding some maple syrup to it, and they still didn't like it.  Oh well...

Dinner review: This was the biggest hit of the week!  My husband LOVED it!  I was tired, so I made it into a casserole, layering all of the ingredients, instead of individually rolled enchiladas, but I think it turned out just fine.  Since I (and the kids) don't like mushrooms, my husband doesn't like the texture of onions, and my kids wouldn't be able to handle small bits of jalapenos, I blended them all up together until smooth instead of having them in chunks...nobody noticed they were eating things they didn't like.  My husband asked me to start making this weekly (that won't happen, but I will make it more often).  We shared it with our neighbor, and she said she didn't even realize it was vegan, and she asked for the recipe.  I know the Brussels sprouts didn't really "go" with the enchiladas, but they are my husband's favorite veggie, and I only like them when they are fresh and roasted, so I had to fit them in somewhere.

Friday

Breakfast—bagels with peanut butter, smoothies

Lunch—leftovers

Dinner—Spicy bean and rice burrito

OK...so between finding out I was having twins, my son starting karate, and a bunch of other things going on in our lives, I didn't have a chance to make this dinner.  There was still plenty of leftovers from the night before, so my husband ate that while the rest of us scrounged around for something to eat. I would like to try it soon though because it really looks good!

Overall, the week was a huge success!  My husband dropped his cholesterol 67 points in just 6 days!  He had one slip-up of eating a couple small pieces of milk chocolate, but he recognized his mistake, and moved on.  He now isn't liking the taste of meat/dairy as much, and is preferring to eat more vegan and vegetarian meals.  I'm not anywhere near ready to give up my Big Mac and other animal based proteins, but I don't mind incorporating more vegetarian and vegan meals into my weekly menu...for as long as I'm able to still cook (I'm anticipating going on bed rest soon due to the pregnancy).