What I Ate Series
The purpose of this series is to capture my cooking method rather than tried and tested recipes. I rarely follow exact recipes, but instead follow a general template for building a plate. Based off of that template, I create meals using whatever ingredients I already have on hand. So any measurements provided are estimated, since I often eyeball things and adjust to taste.
In this post I share everything I ate on my very first fully vegan day!
Breakfast
I started the day as I often do with some porridge and a smoothie.
This porridge is a combination of oats and fonio. If you aren’t familiar with fonio it is a fun little grain. It almost looks like sand or brown sugar before it’s cooked and becomes a very fluffy cooked grain, similar in texture to a very fine cous cous. But I like to use it in my breakfast porridge and mix it with oats for a bit of texture variation.
The fonio only takes about 5 minutes to cook on the stovetop, so I start with the oats. I use a total of about a cup and a half to two cups of liquid, usually a combination of water and plant milk. Pour all of the liquid in a pot with about ¼ to ½ cup of rolled oats. Once the liquid boils, I simmer the oats for about 5 minutes and then add just shy of ¼ cup of fonio and continue cooking for another 5 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed. You can always add more liquid as you cook to make it more creamy if you want.
Then I spiced this up with a mix of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and a pinch of cardamom. Stirred in about a tablespoon of almond butter, and topped it with about a tablespoon mix of flax and chia seeds, and a few sprinkles of chopped pecans.
I didn’t take a picture, but the smoothie included about ¾ cup frozen blueberries, a few slices of frozen banana, about a cup of spinach all blended together with water. Of course you can use plant milk to make it creamier, but sometimes I just like it simple with water.
Lunch
For lunch, I got a little fancy. I made a massaged kale salad. Have you ever heard of massaged kale? I only recently discovered this and really it is quite fun to make and pretty tasty. It also lets you eat a lot more kale a lot easier. Of course raw kale on it’s own is a bit of a chore to eat as it can be tough and many do not appreciate the texture. But if you literally massage it, the cell walls start to break down and the leaves wilt and become silkier and therefore much easier to chew.
It is also a workout! You just scrunch the leaves up over and over in your hands for maybe 5 to 10 minutes—your forearms might get sore—until liquid starts coming out of the leaves. The volume reduces by at least half. Fair warning, your hands will turn into a green mess, you might want to wear gloves if that bothers you.
After massaging the kale, I simply added in some already cooked and cooled chickpeas and sorghum. Also added some goji berries for a pop of sweetness. Then mixed a garlic, mustard, tahini dressing and tossed it all together. This gets better as it sits, so I made it the night before to really bump up the flavor. Then topped it with sliced almonds before serving!
I also had an apple with almond butter and a few squares of vegan dark chocolate. Yum!
Dinner
Ok, I admit, dinner looks a little weird, especially because of that dressing. I can’t remember what the dressing was made of, but I think it was just mustard, coconut aminos, and maybe some kind of vinegar. It may look weird, but it was delicious! Started with a bed of lettuce, and topped it with these gorgeous assorted roasting radishes from the farmers market as well as some black lentils. Ate this with pistachios and a side of kiwifruit and mango.
Reflection
Hopefully this post shows you how easy it is to be vegan. Each of these meals was created using the food that I already had. If you want to meal plan you totally can. But when you eat this way you can mix and match as you please! I prefer to just buy whatever fruits and veggies look good. I keep my pantry stocked with dried beans and grains. So I just mix and match the veggies and add grains, legumes, and spices.
It’s kind of funny that I happened to eat two salads this day. Everyone thinks salad is the only thing vegans eat. But it seems people think we’re eating the typical “side salad” as our main source of fuel. Hopefully these samples show that salads are so much more than that!
Anyway, my method works for soups, stews, and stir fries, too! You really don’t just have to eat salads. You can mix and match the veggies and cook them any way you like. My point is, it doesn’t have to be complicated. There is nothing special about vegan food. It is just food. You prepare it the same way you always have, you simply leave out the meat, eggs, and dairy. But everything else is just normal food you would be eating anyway.
If you’ve been on the fence about trying a vegan diet, why why don’t you challenge yourself? See what you have in your pantry and see if you can try a whole day of vegan food. You might find it is easier than you think!
