Spinach Mushroom Quiche

And Easter Tradition!

1 (9 inch) deep dish pie crust
Butter
1 c. chopped raw onion
small splash balsamic vinegar (for caramelizing, optional)
8 oz. fresh mushrooms (I prefer the Baby Bella's)
8-9 oz pkg. frozen spinach
1 c. shredded Swiss
1 c. shredded cheddar
1/4 c. shredded Parmesan (optional)
4-5 eggs, beaten
splash or two of milk
salt and pepper, to taste

PREP: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Caramelize onion with touch of butter, a pinch of pepper, & optional splash of balsamic vinegar (just a light touch). Lightly saute sliced mushrooms in butter. (I cut back on the butter use by added a touch of water if needed.) Heat or thaw frozen spinach.

COMBINE caramelized onion, mushrooms, spinach, & cheeses. (OPTIONAL to save some of cheese for top once in the pie shell.) Mix well.

BEAT eggs, season, & add splash of milk.

ADD egg mixture to mushroom mixture. Combine well. Season to taste with salt & pepper.

POUR egg & mushroom mixture into pie crust.

BAKE in 400 degree oven about 35 minutes until brown and bubbly.

Update!

UPDATE: Still cooking when I can. Dating a vegetarian (now there IS a new one) and have been for a few months now. Survived Christmas. Almost couldn't find vegan Worcestershire sauce for the Chex mix (thankfully, I found Annie's brand at my local Meijer). Explored some new holiday main dish ideas, keeping the Vegetable Wellington for Thanksgiving, but made a mini spinach and portabella mushroom mix inside a puffed pastry (inspired by the Greek spanakopita) with a bit of onion, garlic (of course), and cheese. I have extras of both in the freezer. New computer (the old one crashed, it will be missed).


Now, for something to remind me (or us as the case may be) that we are not alone. There are more of us then some would like us to think. :-) Enjoy!

Been Awhile...

In the words of 'Monty Mython,' I'm not dead yet. I just got otherwise distracted which ended up with me living for a season out of the regulalr internet zone in the middle of pretty darn near nowhere. Now that life has somewhat settled down post holiday season, I'm baaa-aaack.

Life in my world has been full of its rather typical ups and downs. Over the summer season I shared a communal kitchen with a bunch of non-vegetarians. I started seeing someone, who like most of the people I meet around here, is also not a vegetarian. He's considerate of our difference in eating habits, but also rather comfortable in his omni ways. the seven year mark of my meat-free lifestyle quietly came and went. The holidays came and went and now the new year is upon us.

There is something about the start of the new year that gives so many people inspiration and energy that can help us get through the rest of the chilled winter months yet to come. We see promise and potential, not only in ourselves, but in the world around us. For myself I am somewhat relieved for the holiday season to be over, not only does it mean a calm to things, but it also means a break from the heavy holiday foods, the regular family style feasts, and all the snacks and treats that threaten to bury us alive during this season. I am now onto a new challenge. During the summer and fall months when my family (and extended family) was in the midst of canning and freezing my aunt canned a box of assorted beans for me. Black beans, lentils, split peas, one I'm not excatly sure what it is, and a combination of all of them. I use black beans pretty regularly, but feel the need to branch out big time and take advantage of the pantry full of home-canned goodness. I've never really worked with lentils or split peas, but I intend to find a way. I'm just not sure how, yet. Inspiration will come... eventually. Wish me luck.

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men. " - Alice Walker

Happy New Year

I haven't forgotten, it's just been a rather busy time with the holidays and all the family stuff that goes around it. For Thanksgiving I made my own version of a Portabella Wellington for my Grandpa and myself and for Christmas dinner I made something between a Portabella Wellington and a Meatless Shepard's Pie inside the puffed pastry I had leftover from Christmas. Both are things I will probbaly try again.

The last couple days I have been back to my cooking self, making sure I had stuff tucked away in the freezer for my upcoming show. I made bulgar/black bean chili and black beans and rice. (Both with extra helpings in the freezer.)

Today, I decided to make the meatless version of the sandwhich the fast food chains wish they could make. My not sausage biscuit breakfast-inspired sandwhich. I made two biscuits (we keep the kind in the freezer where you can make one or the whole bag) and two Morningstar "sausage" patties with a single egg scrambled with a couple sliced mushrooms, a bit of green onion, salt, pepper, and a dash of milk, topped with a small bit of cheese. The mushrooms and green onion made a nice addition to the sandwhich. Served with apple slices it made a nice lunch.

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanksgiving Ponderings

Five Thanksgivings as Vegetarian have passed and I am welcoming number six. Gives me a chance to take a look back and then towards the present. The first year was probably the most daunting. I was still new to the whole vegetarian thing only by a couple months. Outside of my immediate household the rest of my family still did not know the scary, dirty secret of my vegetarian decision (and yes that is how my mother treated it). At the family gathering, I ate around everyone else, without anyone paying any attention to my plate. No one noticed what was on my plate or what I wasn’t eating… until the car ride home where an argument ensured about me offending my unknowing grandmother because I did not eat any of her turkey. (By Christmas the rest of the family has been told, but is a whole different story.)

In the Thanksgiving that have followed I have added foods with my own meat-free twist, including my mushroom gravy and dripping-free gravy. This year I am ready to take the next step in the whole vegetarian feast… a meat-free alternative to their turkey thing. I’ve been playing with a few ideas. The first, and probably most obvious, is the whole tofurky idea. I’ve looked into the pre-made kind (by ordering or finding a store nearby) or by homemade, but I continue to have my doubts. I am hesitant to the idea of making something to look like meat. I even contemplated the idea of using my own stuffing/dressing recipe in a pumpkin and roasting (seemingly another popular idea). Of course a simple net search brings about all sorts of recipes and ideas of casseroles, roasts or whatever else. They got me thinking.

At a wedding over the summer they included “Vegetable Wellington” as the vegetarian option. Mystified and curious I did a net search to get a heads up on what we would be eating. My interest was piqued further. At the side down reception it was a surprisingly nice and savory entrée’ for ones who are accustomed to eating around salads and side dishes as such events (or the ever-present pasta). I’m contemplating my own version for Thanksgiving (and/or Christmas). Sounds like a yummy option for my and for my semi-vegetarian grandparent (the doctor has severely limited his meat consumption for health reasons.) Oh, the near endlessness of my options.

"Vegetarian: A person who eats only side dishes." ~Gerald Lieberman

Holiday Preperations Underway!!!

It was a rather simple day meal-wise. I made a pasta with olive oil and herb thing for dinner, adding some fresh sliced mushrooms and spinach, then a touch of parmasan. A lovely meal with a peice of oat bread. I was talking to a friend of mine that used to be a vegetarian online while I ate and she talked about how she has been really thinking about going back. (Her vegetarian days were in high school and she started eating meat only when she was accepted as a foreign exchange student and she worried about food options.) Now past college, law school, married and into the real world the draw seems back. The numbers nationally are growing, but more so in cretain areas and the options out there are in constant growth. The options for vegetarian and organic foods are so much easier to find than they once were... even in the last six years.

The holiday food planning has begun. I spent awhile this evening on the phone working my way through the potluck list for the big family Thanksgiving. (And I mean it'll be a big one.) We are working on balancing a feast for for vegetarians, semi vegetarians, and meat-eaters alike. At a minimun that puts us at around three different types of dressing/stuffing to uphold various traditions and dietary needs. This means regular poultry inspired stuffing, oyster dressing (a family tradition), and my very yummy mushroom dressing (depending on whether or not I decide to stuff in inside of a pumpkin and roast it). The one thing with me doing the organizig is that I get to make sure there are enough vegetable type dishes and salads. At least one other fmaily member is limited on his meat consumption and it is important that there are options for both of us.

In the words of Jeremy Bentham: 'The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" '

An introduction of sorts

Welcome to my vegetarian world. Think of this almost as a mission statement of types. There are a lot of blogs and bloggers on the web. It’s a huge world out there with all sorts of different interests, purposes, and ideals. Vegetarianism is growing, but sometimes it still feels like a rather lonely world. I believe that living a life without meat should be a celebration and not some thinking of restrictions and explainations. This is my life… and one of the best ways I can think of celebrating it is to share.
Five years ago I found myself at the threshold of vegetarianism. At first the idea seemed a bit scary; I am after all from a long line of Ohio hunters and farmers. Life here often seems centered around football games, deer season, and shared meals for holidays, picnics, or just because. Thanksgiving is a marked a huge turkey and sighting guns in and the prep for deer season. Christmas Day is marked with steak and shrimp. Burgers, hotdogs, and chicken BBQ seem the obvious choice in summer-fare. Then at nineteen, I got sick. What I ate often caused pain, but the pain came from not eating as well. I tried the route the doctors laid before me, but was unsettled with the idea of spending a life on medication. I tried herbs and initial diet changes, but I often felt as though I had hit the glass ceiling. I could see where I wanted to go, I could almost touch, but somehow it stayed out of reach. I wanted to be better and I wanted my life back. I had researched from the beginning, constantly reading and talking to others. It kept coming up… vegetarian. At first it seemed extreme and far-fetched. While, I myself had never hunted, I had to taught to handle one at a young age and it was somewhat expected that one day I would join my cousins, uncles, brothers, Grandpa, and Father in the woods one day. Hunting and farming was a tradition after all. We had been brought up with a respect for the animals whose lives were taken whether from a farm, water, or woods. Nothing was taken that was not going to be used. Game was often shared with family or friends who either did not hunt or did not get anything. It was all I had ever known. But I wasn’t getting any better. And I had to try something. So I made the original goal of one month. Thirty days to let my body adjust (think detox almost) and see if it made any real difference. I woke up one morning and knew that was the day. Without looking back I armed myself with determination and willpower that would get me through the first days. I had figured after the thirty days I would then decide if it would make any different and if it was something I would stick to. By the end of two weeks I knew there was no going back. Five years later, here I am. I got my health back without drugs and potentially dangerous side-effects and I have lasted far longer than most predictions.
For me, I don’t think much about the things I gave up. I may have gave up the sense of my family’s normalcy, but I also gave up the pain. I also gained a sense of awareness about what I put into my body and about the world as a whole. Slowly my family as adapted to the reality that vegetarianism for me is not merely a phase that I will “grow out of.” They accept the veg-friendly food at picnics, cook outs, and even Holiday dinner tables. Most of them have stopped picking about when I will just “go back to normal” and eat meat. The adjustment from omnivore to vegetarian has not be nearly as difficult for me as it has been on various members of my family. Sometimes, I still feel as though it would have been a easier if it had been a road I had not taken alone, but I am almost everyday glad that it is a road I have taken.