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{Guest Post} Sgt. Curt’s Meatless Marching Band Part 1 – Prelude

February 28, 2013 – 9:00 pm

Hello All! So nice to be writing here with you as we close out the longest, shortest month of the year in sunny MN. Of course we are writing today the prelude of three pieces about the grand, quasi-Lenten experiment championed by my esteemed contemporary, Nicole, yes it is almost time for…


Meatless March

You know I was actually vegetarian for about two and a half months some ten years ago when Nicole first started being devoutly herbivorous. And you know it wasn’t that bad; see I was working at Quizno’s and gorging on delicious veggie subs almost every day. This time I don’t work at Quizno’s anymore. No, this time I have other help like you can find at THIS COOL SITE!

I think for me, forgoing the meat things might be a little easier than for most people. I ate PB+J sandwiches almost everyday from like 4-12 years old, and my study abroad time in London probably saw about half of my food being meatless-pastas. I delight in Nicole’s curries (let’s cook curries!!), in veggie stir-fries, in quinoa and couscous stuff, and not too mention pretty much every dessert that’s not on Top Chef (bacon ice-cream… really?). Plus which I have about 25 lbs on my old college weight and I don’t think it’s all muscle-so I’M FINE. Incidentally, my prelude weight at the end of Feb is 160 lbs. Let’s see if that goes anywhere, eh?

So I am taking this grand experiment as somewhat of a spiritual cleansing, not just of my own meat consumption (which I ballpark around 6-8 oz a day), but more importantly a cleansing from the idea that it even needs to be a hard thing to do. We have so much, at least here in Northeast Minneapolis, in the way of exotic vegetarian-friendly restaurants, co-ops with legumes and vegetables, and regular stores with pasta and peanut butter (hheeeeeyyyy don’t let me just eat those things!) that it all seems quite manageable.

The journey of Meatless March, not unlike Lent itself, is a journey of self-reflection and self-denial. A journey that might hopefully show me that denial of eating meat (which I DO like to do, BTW) doesn’t need to make me feel like I’m not content with myself and the world. Rather, I hope to learn that I am taking away a new appreciation for the comforts of Italian subs, or hot dogs or round steaks (although I appreciate them plenty much to the max already). The trenches of habit can run deep, deep into our souls but never are they unchangeable. If Lent or Meatless March or whatever it is gives me an excuse to prove that to myself, then I say Let’s Do It!

In closing for now, wouldn’t it be cool if I found that I was in many ways happier eating more sustainably, and maybe even further lower my meat-per-day average? I could spend money encouraging businesses who may think more responsibly about our planet and its resources. I could inspire maybe even my grandmothers that this 14oz a day meat thing isn’t even the funnest or tastiest way to eat, I could honor those radiant folks whose compassion extends beyond humans, maybe I could learn how to cook my own darn curry. Who knows, it might even be good for me.

Can’t wait to check in with y’all at the half-way point about March 15th. Lastly, join me in Meatless March, and all your wildest dreams will come true. Peace out, Napoleon.

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{Guest Post} Meatless March

May 1, 2012 – 5:10 pm

Today’s post comes from a new friend of mine, Nicholas, who recently went meatless for the month of March. Enjoy!

I love meat. I love consuming it in many different forms. I love pairing beautifully-crafted wines from all over the world to meat. But I’ve come to love it in moderation for three primary reasons:

1) Health – I want to spend as many years as possible enjoying the company of my wife, our respective families, and our dear friends. Eating less meat will help with this.

2) Appreciation – I find that when I eat less meat, I appreciate its flavors, textures, etc. far more than I do when I’m constantly stuffing my face with it. Since it was once a living creature, I feel a sense of obligation to appreciate what I’m eating.

3) Quality – Factory farms are vile, nasty places that exist for one reason: lack of consumer responsibility. If we pay attention to where our meat comes from and demand less of it, these factory farms, which exist solely to meet consumer demand, will cease to exist.

In November of last year, I began participating in Meatless Monday, in large part due to these three reasons and also because Nicole’s powers of persuasion are not to be underestimated. I don’t exclude seafood from my meatless diet; I refer to this as “Minnesota Meatless”. Growing up and living here in MN, I never knew a vegetarian who didn’t eat seafood until a handful of years ago; pescatarian was a word that was not in my vocabulary.

Meatless Monday was easy. There were a couple of challenges here and there, days where I would be eating two meals at the office or a family holiday dinner that is traditionally very meat heavy, but I adapted to it without issue. The biggest challenge, really, was just remembering, getting into the habit. And Nicole’s frequent tweets were tremendously helpful with that. I decided at the end of January that if I could get through Meatless Monday in February successfully, I would take on a much larger challenge in creativity and discipline in the form of Meatless March. Why March? Momentum, and because alliteration is fun.

I didn’t have much of a game plan going into Meatless March. Breakfast is almost always meatless for me, so I didn’t have to change anything there. I knew that I would have to be diligent about bringing my lunch to work; the cafeteria options, especially meatless options, are… depressing. I brought a lot of tuna salad sandwiches for lunch. Not terribly creative, but not depressing either. I actually love tuna. It’s horribly overfished, of course, so as I increased my consumption of it I made sure to buy only sustainable options that were pole or line caught. It’s more expensive, but it’s more responsible and it’s actually a better, more flavorful product.

I did bookmark a number of different meat-free recipes that I thought would be fun to try for weeknight dinners or weekend lunches & dinners, but, frankly, I didn’t get to most of them. Meat actually lifts right out of the majority of the meals that we make at home, especially the pastas. That meat does a lot for variety though, so we introduced a couple of new pastas into our rotation: a tomato bruschetta pasta that we threw together randomly one afternoon and the creamy avocado pasta from ohsheglows.com. Here’s our take on the latter’s ingredient list; I’ve bolded where we’ve slightly modified the original:

1 medium sized ripe Avocado, pitted

1 small lemon, juiced + lemon zest to garnish

2 garlic cloves

1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste

1/4 cup (packed)  Fresh Basil

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

5 ounces Cavatappi pasta

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

We’ve made this creamy avocado pasta at least seven or eight times now, and we’ve had a lot of fun pairing different wines to it. Even with the extra lemon juice, the pasta really needs some acidity to cut through the creaminess of the avocado. Our most successful pairings have been a Sauvignon Blanc from Saracina Ranch, which played nicely with the greener ingredients in the dish, and the recently-released 2011 Indica rosé from LIOCO. I really enjoyed the LIOCO because the dish elevated the wine, really popping its citrus notes, as much as the wine elevated the dish.

Dining out, which we do on a fairly regular basis, was a fun part of our Meatless March adventure as well. We didn’t try a lot of new places in March, but our meatless effort took us to different items on the menu at our regular spots. It was really easy to go meatless at Pizzeria Lola; I love their classic Margherita and Old Reliable. We also enjoyed some terrific meat-free options at Amsterdam Bar & Hall in St. Paul.

I’m not going to lie; as the end of Meatless March approached, I developed some serious cravings. The Cuban panini at Pairings Food & Wine Market. Natedogs. Bacon, in general. In the end, the first meat I stuffed in my face was the Nic Burger at the bar at the Nicollet Island Inn, and it was glorious.

My wife Katie has been tremendously supportive during all of this. She has been an active participant in Meatless Monday, and she only deviated from Meatless March thrice. All three deviations were with her #MeatMistress Miranda. I can’t thank Katie enough for tolerating my newfound hippie ways.

This has been a lifestyle change and an educational process. I have no aspirations or desire to become vegetarian or vegan, but I am now attempting to be “Mostly Meatless” by continuing to participate in Meatless Monday and by not consuming (a conservative portion of) meat at more than one meal each of the other days of the week. I think this is quite achievable. For my next challenge, I’m planning to convert from Minnesota Meatless to truly meatless on Meatless Monday beginning in November. If that’s successful, it could lead to a very challenging Meatless March in 2013.

Follow my meatless adventures on Twitter!

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{Guest Post} Thai Style Roast Pumpkin Soup

September 30, 2011 – 4:06 pm

Photo by Stephanie Meyer

Today’s guest post is from a local Minnesota food blogger, Keane Amdahl. Keane writes the blog Food Stoned and is very involved with the MN Food Bloggers group. He’s been working hard to put together the group’s 1st potluck this coming Sunday.

Nothing gives me warm fuzzies as much as hearing about people profess their love for vegetables. Reading Keane’s post made me so happy. I hope it does the same for you.

Give Veg a Chance: Keane Amdahl


I am an adventurous eater. I may not be Andrew Zimmern style crazy, but I’ll pretty much try anything twice. I’ve eaten some of the oddest cuts of meat off of some of the oddest animals. I’ve eaten blood and I’ve tasted guts. If you were to have asked me eight months ago what’s one culinary adventure that I couldn’t see myself embarking upon, I probably would’ve responded somewhere upon the lines of, “vegetarianism”; which is precisely why eight months ago I set upon the one thing I dared to never consider.

I spent an entire month as a vegetarian.

It was something I had been thinking a little about a few weeks prior to my start, but I really never thought that I’d go through with it. In fact, on that very first day, when I first awoke that morning, I hadn’t even decided that I was going to do it. Then, when faced with actually having to make that first and most dreaded decision, I decided to go veggie. This rang true the next time as well. Decision after decision I managed to stay on track with something I wasn’t even sure I was going to do in the first place. Day after day I kept making these decisions and I somehow managed to stay the course.

The next thing I knew the month was over…

It honestly felt like some kind of crazy miracle. I managed to make it through a holiday and several special events (including the Super Bowl!) without slipping.

I did it and I felt good.

My little recant might at first make it sound as though it was an agonizing process, but the truth of the matter was that it was frighteningly easy. I found the challenge of creating vegetarian cuisine an absolute blast and I still enjoyed making regular meat food for my significant other. It didn’t bother me at all. It was fun to try and create like dishes; one version veggie and one version meat. You might actually be surprised at how easy it is to substitute a vegetable for a protein, and the results can often times be stunning.

It’s now been just over eight months since my little experiment and I can honestly say that I no longer fear ordering vegetarian food in restaurants for fear that they may not hold up to their meat filled counter parts. I often find myself turning to veggie burgers now instead of the beef burgers I had become so reliant upon. Would I ever consider trying this experiment again; perhaps on a more full time level? The answer is that I’m not really sure, but I do know now that I could and that in my mind is a pretty big win.

So what’s the big take away here? If I had to say anything, I would say that

this little adventure definitely sparked a love for vegetables that I didn't really realize I had.

I’m now more prone to hunt and peck through the produce isles looking for new and interesting items. I peruse the farmer’s markets with an eagle’s eye looking for the nicest and freshest looking veg, all the while plotting new and exciting recipes I can subject them to. It’s also sparked an interest in foraging; not something I’ve done as of yet, but you better believe I will be soon! Vegetables are obviously a great healthy option, but from a purely culinary perspective, they have more to offer than a lot of people tend to realize.

Next time you go to the store, pick up a vegetable you don't recognize. Bring it home and do something with it. Anything.

If you really don’t know where to start you can try the Internet, but I bet once you first cut into it, you’ll figure it out.

Just give the veg a chance.

I’ve decided to provide a recipe here for a really great fall soup that is easily served with one of my favorite accoutrement. This soup would make a great starter for a nice dinner or as a simple supper all on its own. This Thai style pumpkin soup is particularly awesome when topped with my quick pickled onions. These onions also make a really versatile topper for a lot of other things (tacos, sandwiches, eggs, etc). For the soup itself, I’d recommend adding a dollop of sour cream and topping that with the onions. Serve with some cilantro leaves and should you feel even more daring, you can toss on a few Sriacha peas and a few drops of chili oil! It’s a total win!

I sincerely hope that you’ll give the produce section at your local supermarket a more thorough inspection the next time you pass through, and that you’ll really give some of those oddball veggies a better chance. I promise you, both your health and your palate will thank you!

Quick Pickled Onions


Quick Pickled Onions

Ingredients:
1 large red onion; sliced
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
Salt and Pepper

Preparation:
1. Place sugar and vinegar in a sauce pot and simmer until sugar dissolves.
2. Add sliced onion to pot and cook until onions soften.
3. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Cool, chill and serve!

Thai Style Roast Pumpkin Soup

Thai Style Roast Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients:
2 small-medium sized pumpkins
1-2 Thai red chilis
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon all spice
1 tablespoon diced garlic
2 teaspoons grated ginger
2 1/2-3 8oz cans coconut milk
Juice of half a lime
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt

Preparation:
1. Remove skin, guts and seeds from pumpkins and dice into ½ inch cubes.
2. Place pumpkin in a roasting pan and toss with all ingredients except for coconut milk, lime juice and salt.
3. Once pumpkin is thoroughly coated, place in a 425 degree oven, stirring occasionally to avoid scorching.
4. Once pumpkin has softened, place into a dutch oven or stock pot with 2 cans of coconut milk. Simmer over medium high heat until pumpkin becomes very soft.
5. In increments, place soup in blender until smooth. Add additional coconut milk in order to reach desired consistency.
6. Place back in pot and add lime juice.
7. Salt to taste
8. Garnish with sour cream, pickled onions, and cilantro leaves.
9. Eat and Enjoy!

Have you ever thought of going veggie for a month, or have you recently done it? Share your story with us in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

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