A few bits about getting all my vitamins

Good morning everyone, thank goodness it's Friday. Our 18 month old daughter is going through a phase of clingy, whininess and night waking, it's exhausting, so I need to make sure that I get proper nutrition. This was one of my concerns when turning vegetarian. Chatting with a friend while picking up our son yesterday, she mentioned that a good friend of hers was debating becoming a vegetarian but was always anemic. There are lots of ways I have learned to make sure you get your iron, especially for us women, while being a vegetarian.


The one thing I learned is that when you are eating a food with iron, always have it with something with Vitamin C, it increases the absorption. Spinach salad (tons of iron) with a citrus dressing, oatmeal with orange juice, etc. For me, I also take an extra iron supplement during a certain time of the month. Although I don't always keep up on my iron, I can always tell when I am lacking, when I have good sleep but still feel very tired and no energy, that is when I take some extra iron supplements.


Another vitamin I was concerned about was B12; I do take a B12 supplement, but have also discovered Nutritional Yeast. Full of B vitamins and a complete protein, I try to add this to one of my meals a day (it has a cheesy flavour).  I usually add it to my pasta, pizza, anything that would taste good with a cheese flavour.  


Here is a great looking broccoli and cheese soup that uses nutritional yeast, again from Vegetarian Times...

Of course, I am not an expert and you should read up on all the nutrients and where to get them yourself if considering becoming a vegetarian.  Also talk to your doctor or a nutritionist, hopefully I have offered some insight into what you need.  I always consult the vegetarian food pyramid for my daily food choices.

Too little sleep

Good morning everyone, well I didn't do very well on dinner again last night.  After having a very sleepless night, thanks to our 18 month old, I was not in the mood to fiddle with polenta lasagna.  Instead we had pizza, I love my breadmaker as I can make pizza dough in it.  Last week I made about 4 batches and froze them, very convinient, espically last night.  The daughter and I had Meatless Chicken strips, sundried tomatoes and cheese, the boys had their usual meat laddened pizza.  Fast, good and home made, what more could you ask for. 


Today I am going to attempt to make seitan!  A bit nervous, I have found a few different recipes on the internet, I have picked one and am going to give it a try.  Although it's going to be a busy day, I hope to fit that in somewhere.  Does anyone know, can I freeze seitan?  And how about some good recipes?  Pass them along.


I also have a home based business, so for the next couple of days I am going to be getting ready for a fund raiser and a craft show.  So the posted might be a bit scattered.


Also, very excited about the juicer I have ordered.  I am hoping to get some extra vitamins into the kids, our son espically, we love smoothies and hope this will be another avenue for good nutrition.  I ordered the Jack La Lanne's Power Juicer Pro, did some reading up on it and it seems to be pretty good.  Comes with a recipe book and has recipes on what to do with the pulp, so no waste.  How great is that.  Will keep you posted on juicer and our juicing experience.

Well I have to run, hope everyone has a great day!

How I've done so far and what's coming up

Well a quick review of how yesterday's dinner went, my Spicy Tofu Bento Bowl didn't quite go as planned.  First, I couldn't find a ripe avocado for the life of me, second, I forgot to cook the rice for the dish and then I noticed I had no yoghurt.  So my dish ended up being a spicy tofu salad and it turned out pretty good.  For lunch yesterday, Leya and I had President's Choice Meatless Chicken Strips in a quesadilla. All in all, the meatless chicken strips were not bad, so far the best I have tasted.  And we had carrot sticks with Ranch dip, I am looking for a vegan Ranch dip if anyone has any suggestions, please pass along.  So today I am going to make some home made bread, and the polenta lasagna.  Might be a little more work then I would like, but I am anticipating that it will be pretty good. 

Nov. 19th, is pizza night, I make home made pizza dough and freeze it.  A whole bunch of veggies for me and the daughter and salami and cheese for the son.  Dad is at a meeting that night.

Nov. 20th is curry night, I LOVE CURRY!  This to me is a no brainer vegetarian dish.  You can add what ever you want.  We love Deep Fried Tofu, which I can only find at Superstore and some great rice.  Unfortunately my husband only likes white rice.  I am going to start making brown rice and freezing it for myself.

One of my favourite cookbooks for Asian cooking is Wok It.  It was a $4.99 discount special at Chapters and I use it all the time.  I constantly substitute deep fried tofu for the meat in most of the recipes.  It has a wonderful vegetarian spring roll recipe that I have tried and my husband (Chinese) says it's not too bad.  A great compliment coming from him. 

Well that's what I got for today, any comments would be great, any recipes as well.  Have a great day!

A little history of the why

Well today I am going to start with a little history of why I decided to become a vegetarian. I was always raise a meat and potatoes girl, my family had to have meat, potatoes and some sort of boiled to bits vegetable for dinner. For about the last two years the thought of cooking meat has made me sick, I remember opening a package of ground beef and being grossed out by the blood that was at the bottom of the tray. Then I started getting mental images of the cow it came from and that was that for beef, but I still ate chicken. Then one day I was making some sort of dish with chicken thighs and when I bit into it I hit a small piece of bone, gross, again. So that was it for chicken. Now all I had left was seafood, then I got a bad bit of shrimp and there goes the seafood. I still eat some dairy, real cream for my coffee, the odd bit of cheese, mostly Goat Cheese and some Brie. I don't eat eggs as well and that stems from cracking open an egg to find blood and other bits inside and I thought I was going to throw up right there and then. That is when I decided on being a veggie, I read alot of books as I knew this was going to be a major change to my life and families as well. We have a very picky 6 year old and if he doesn't eat meat he would get no protein, so for now I am keeping him a meat eater. My husband, doesn't like alot of meat, but occasionally likes his double cheese burgers or meatloaf, I actually make a pretty good meatloaf (which I will now have to show him how to make).
My favourite book is "Becoming Vegetarian by Vesanto Melina and Brenda Davis", the bible for me. I wanted to make sure I was going to get all my correct nutrients, protein, calcium, etc. and this book had it all. Then I started, I went to the grocery store, stocked up on what I thought I would eat and away I went. It has been a bit difficult in the sense that the rest of the family still eats meat, so I try to make dishes that I can substitute tofu for the meat or I'm cooking two separate meals. Not always fun. Also I am a mother of a 6 year old and a 18 month old, so I need fast and easy recipes, nothing fancy here. I have a few good cook books, but rely on the Internet for alot of recipes as well. But I am finding it difficult to find fast, easy and inexpensive recipes. So, here starts my journey of blogging what I eat, hopefully I can help others out there that need some meal plans.

Here is what I have going to have for dinner for the next couple of days, I thought I would start with dinners mostly, as breakfasts for me are pretty simple, I need to get a 6 year old off to school. I eat mostly cereal, oatmeal, waffles, fruit that sort of thing, so nothing special in the vegetarian world there.

Nov. 17, I am going to have the Spicy Tofu Bento Bowl that is in this month's Vegetarian Times, it looks super yummy and if my version looks half as good as the picture, it's going to be great.

Nov. 18 I have planned a Polenta and mushroom lasagna, another Vegetarian Times recipes.

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10175?section this is the recipe for the Spicy Tofu Bento Bowl, tell me that doesn't look yummy.

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/9770?section= here is the polenta lasagna, yum.

My journey to Vegetarianism

First, I wanted to blog about my journey to vegetarianism, am I new at this journey, pretty sure I'm not. The rest of my family is not converting, well maybe our 18 month old daughter, I do the cooking, so she doesn't have a choice, LOL. Also my written English is going to be bad, just to let you know off the bat, so don't email me with corrections. I'm going to post what my menu plan is for the week, probably all three meals and some snacks, if I'm feeling ambitious. If there is a recipe involved I shall post that as well. Since I am a visual person, I need a map to make this conversion and creating a meal plan for me was that map. I couldn't find anything on the Internet that catered to this option. So I hope you enjoy my blog, if you have suggestions, I would love to hear them, if you just want to criticize my choice of being a veggie, I don't want to hear from you. Thanks and will post tomorrow my week of meals.