Seven Pound Vegan

Christmas is in less than a week!  Incredible!  I am going down to my in-laws tomorrow and had to finish that shopping today.  Shopping is exhausting.  

Anyway, I ended up with a lot of food today.  I made some bread, then made dinner for my family, then made lunch/dinner for my travels.  I usually take prepackaged sandwiches on the road but I haven't been eating that well, and I know everything will be screwed up this weekend while I am gone, so I wanted to make sure I had something hearty at least.  

Without further ado, I first present dinner.  It was from the January 2009 issue of Vegetarian Times; the Spicy Tofu Lettuce Wraps.  It was good.  It did not look appetizing though, I cooked it much longer than the recipe said to, letting it brown so that it got a nice color.  Anyway, sorry but these are the best pictures I could get! 

Toppings (Bell Pepper, Peanuts, Carrots)

Lettuce Wraps

(Nutrition Info is given in the magazine, which I don't have with me, oops!)

We had some rice with it, brown rice with grapefruit and scallions.  

I made the White Gingerbread from the current VegNews, which I believe was one of Hannah's features?  I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but..umm..her byline was on it.  I made it gluten free by using spelt and brown rice flour.  It smelled like French Toast when it was baking, and I agree with Shelby that it has a chai taste, which makes sense given the spice combo.  Nevertheless it is delicious, and it went perfectly with my pear butter (which was why I made it)! 

I used Smart Balance Light, and some kind of artificially-maple syrup that my family had.  I think it was a light version.  Ugh, okay, ::checking::...okay, it is Aunt Jemima Light.  So it definitely affected the calorie count.  But with those two things, this is how it worked out...

Serves 12  

Nutrition Information:  157.8 Calories;  4.3g Total Fat;  1.2g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  27.6g Carbohydrates;  2.1g Fiber;  2.6g Protein.  

Because I would have preferred to use real maple syrup, I calculated it with that also:  

Nutrition Information:  175.4 Calories;  4.3g Total Fat;  1.2g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  32.1g Carbohydrates;  1.9g Fiber;  2.6g Protein

My lunch for the road is the Chipotle Chili with Sweet Potato and Brussels Sprouts from the PPK blog.  

I told you the pictures were bad today. 

I halved the recipe, eliminated the oil, and calorie-wise, it made two servings.  However, I was definitely full before I finished it.  

So, if you serve 2 (or 4 if you make the whole recipe)

Nutrition Information:  337.0 Calories;  2.1g Total Fat;  0.3g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  70.6g Carbohydrates;  18.5g Fiber;  20.0g Protein

I have to tell you, I wasn't thrilled with this.  I cooked it for longer than it said to, and I still don't think it was cooked enough.  The flavor was good, but nothing spectacular (sorry Isa).  

Anyway...I don't know when this will post, because I started it yesterday and finished it today, and that always confuses me, but I'm at my in-laws now.  I discovered Clif Bars today.  Yeah, I know not an incredible discovery, but I thought they had less protein or something.  I dunno, I had a reason for not buying them before.  I got the carrot cake flavor, it was delicious!  

I hope everyone has a good weekend.  Anyone get snow?  My family got a lot of snow (New York).  I left at 5AM to drive down here (Maryland), to avoid it.  There was just lots of rain here, gross.  

We saw Seven Pound today, the current Will Smith movie.  It was very cool, I thought, how often veganiam/vegetarianism showed up in the movie.  One of the main characters was a vegetarian, one of the supplementary characters was a vegan, and when Will Smith was sitting in the hospital waiting area, at one point, in front of a white board, and right over his left shoulder was VEGAN in big letters.  Besides veganism being featured, the movie was also really really good, but definitely emotional.