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24 April, 2007Quinoa, Leek & Potato Casserole
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel largely disconnected from the whole political system and perceive that I don’t have much of a say about what goes on in this country in that regard. One thing I do believe I have power over is how I spend my dollars. Call it lame, but I take my consumerism seriously and a very large aspect of that is consuming food. In the past year, I’ve made many changes to the way I eat and especially the way I shop for food. Reading books like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma as well as some research I’ve been doing independently have opened my eyes to the skewed system of food production in the US and have changed the way I think about things I put into my body.
I think the American food industry is extremely flawed and backward. I believe the way food (namely meat) is raised, slaughtered and processed is dangerous, problematic and wrong. I haven’t eaten beef in many months, and what meat I have eaten, I’ve researched its’ sources and made sure it was acquired ethically and processed as safely as possible. I have cut down the amount of products I buy at the supermarket to about 10% of my total consumption, and am shopping at organic markets and patronizing local farmers instead. But for the past few weeks I’ve been thinking and eating differently, and I’m fully ready to make the jump to a vegetarian lifestyle.
I will be going vegetarian first and foremost for its’ environmental impact as well as a social protest against the cruelty inherent in killing animals for food in the US, both in the dangerous factory conditions and negative mental health impact for the workers who kill those animals as well the way they are raised and slaughtered. I know there will be health benefits as well. I am considering going fully vegan, but since I obtain my milk, eggs and cheese locally, I don’t feel that’s a decision I need to make at this time, but I’m not ruling it out as a possibility. (Edited to add: On May 7, 2007 I made the decision to go vegan!) Here are a few links that explain how going vegetarian is the single most effective impact you can have on benefiting the environment (then, on to the recipe).
Meat and the Environment — Would you ever level 55 square feet of rain forest for a single meal or dump 2,500 gallons of water down the drain? Maybe you would.
Vegetarian is the new Prius — The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.
Tip the Planet — Environmental reasons for becoming a vegetarian
Going Vegetarian and Vegan, a Sustainable Choice — has some good tips about how to gradually adopt a veg diet
All that said, I didn’t become a vegetarian overnight, and the times I tried that, it didn’t work for me. I slowly phased out different animal products, and after a while I didn’t even miss them. Ok, I still miss shrimp and would probably still request it as my last meal before execution, but you get the point. Try vegetarian or vegan dishes a couple times a week, they can be delicious and you might be surprised at the new foods you come to enjoy.
One new food I highly recommend people try is quinoa (pronounced keen-wah). I use it as a blank canvas to pair with other foods, much like I would use rice or polenta. The awesome thing about quinoa is its’ extremely high protein content. There’s a great post from the Nutritionista on just that subject. Quinoa has a nutty flavor and a satisfying texture and I personally think it looks cool. Here is a recipe for a delicious vegan dish you should try out.
Quinoa, Leek & Potato Casserole
makes about 6-8 servings
this recipe is vegan
1 cup quinoa
1/2 tsp olive oil
1/4 onion (preferably Vidalia)
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp fresh dill (more or less to taste)
1 leek, chopped into rounds (just the white & light green part)
3 small red potatoes, sliced into bite size pieces
1 can pinto beans
1/4 cup or so of Panko flakes (you could also use breadcrumbs)
salt & pepper
- Preheat your oven to 425. Meanwhile, cook the quinoa (just like you cook rice). Get an 8x8 glass dish and line the bottom with the quinoa.
- Saute the onion and garlic with the olive oil in a small skillet. Add the pinto beans, leeks and dill and let simmer. Add salt & pepper to taste.
- Boil the potatoes in water for a few minutes to soften.
- Now layer everything up. The beans & leek mixture goes on top of the quinoa. Then drain the potatoes and layer them on top. Then cover everything with a generous sprinkling of Panko flakes or breadcrumbs. These will toast and give it a crunchy texture.
- Bake for about 15 minutes. Serve up hot.
I know many people that read this site are vegetarian or vegan, so please feel free to share resources or suggest new foods or especially cookbooks. I’m definitely trying to increase my vegetarian cooking repertoire and would love advice. Thanks!
Comments
Post more recipes. I didn't eat meat last night at dinner. I would like to keep it going. Thanks.
Yes! I fully plan to take advantage of free meals!
I love quinoa-- try it cold, with lime juice, feta, and quartered grape tomatoes...
2 favorite cookbooks-- Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking, and a not 100% veg cookbook, but still a great resource, Once Upon a Tart. It is full of salads and soups and sandwiches (and cookies and scones and tarts...) and it is much more vegetarian than not.
Millet is another grain like quinoa that is full of iron. I've just begun cooking with it a lot as well.
And, of course, beans are a veg's best friend. Last night my boyfriend and I rinsed off some canned black beans, and tossed it with lime juice, salt, diced up avocado, diced orange peppers, tomatoes, and some salt, and dipped blue corn chips in it. A warm weather, no cook, no meat favorite.
A friend of a friend of mine has a vegan food blog: http://veganfeed.blogspot.com. I'm not a vegan, but there are many yummy-looking things she's posted that I want to try. I'm sure you could also get some more info through her if you wanted to. :)
Good luck in your vegetarian endeavors!
I'm sure you know about Organic Food Depot. I ordered from there all last summer, then I sorta fell off the wagon over the Holidays. I need to get back in there. I love Wilda's Eggs, with the pictures of her chickens on the fridge case?! How can you NOT buy them?
good luck! I was a vegan for five years and a veggie for fifteen. . .it becomes second nature.
Way to go!!! I've been a vegetarian for about 10 years now and there's no way I'd go back. Although at times I do have cravings for this or that from time to time. One of my favorite veggie cookbooks is the Complete Italian Vegetarian by Jack Bishop (from Cooks Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen fame). His recipes are seriously yummy and easy to make.
score. we can eat together ALL THE TIME now!
i was a vegetarian for 8 years and i started eating meat again. since then, i've put on a decent amount of weight and i just feel heavy and lethargic. i know this isn't *always* true of a carnivorous diet, but i feel as if it is my body's way of telling me that i'm meant to be a vegetarian. i'm slowly trying to cut it out again and remember that good meals don't have to be centered around meat. also, i recently started buying all my produce at the local farmer's market. while all of it isn't organic, this is good because: a) it's cheaper and b) it's good knowing i'm supporting my local farmers.
are you giving up seafood/fish as well? that's the one thing i've never been good at resisting.
i just read about this book in a magazine and it looks pretty interesting. maybe check that out.
anyway, good luck with this.
Heather, yeah giving up seafood is definitely going to be the hardest. Sushi, ugh! And shrimp is my favorite food. But I plan on going completely vegetarian, so yeah. Thanks for the book recommendations!
good for you!
i've been vegetarian for 12 years and my favorite, favorite, cookbook is Debra Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. You need to have it!
Michael Pollan has an interesting article in today's NY Times about farm subsidies and why junk food is so much cheaper than healthy food (there are subsidies for corn and soy bean growers but not for kale, carrot and black bean farmers)
Our primarily vegan diet (we eat seafood and the occasional egg/dairy) has been very good for our health. My husband had extremely high cholesterol levels and blood pressure. After six months off dairy/eggs/meat my husband's blood pressure dropped, his cholesterol went from scary to awesome.
This recipe with the addition of cubed tofu and some shtiake mushrooms is the new favorite in our house. (you could cut dow the oil used)
That looks delish! We found quinoa during Passover one year. Botanically a berry, it doesn't "count" as a grain. It also makes a nice, tabbouleh-like cold salad.
I love the Vegan Lunchbox blog and cookbook. I just munched some awesome chocolate chip cookies I made with her recipe. The kids and husband also like the menus.
hooray! i think you're right...you'll find that the longer you're away from meat-eating, the less and less you miss it. i've been a vegetarian for ten years now and really don't miss much. i still really enjoy the smell of fried chicken, but once somebody rips into a piece and i can see how nasty it really is, it's just not that appealing. it only gets easier.
that recipe looks great, by the way, and i think i'll try it out on my (omnivorous) husband.
Aw, good luck on going veg! I've only been vegetarian for a little less than 3 years (and haven't consumed any eggs or dairy for 3 months) but have never regretted it. I second Erin about the fried chicken. But a veggie diet brought so many new (mostly food-related) possibilities to my life, ah. I'm lovin' it. Hope you're too.
Way to go! Going veg is a huge and personal decision.
heckyeah! i am all about the boy/buy-cotting. it really became a way of how i spent my money when i was vegan. i'm not vegan anymore but still do my shopping at the same places i used to (whole foods mostly) and am fastidious about buying free range meat and eggs.
the one thing though that i'm not so good about is buying out of season and tropical fruit which is pretty environmentally costly considering the cost of refrigeration and gas to transport all of it.
anyway good for you for doing the research and being so thoughtful about this decision. i'm really impressed! i always pick up and read a few pages of omnivore's dilemma when i'm at the store but i think i'll have to buy it next time. & ps that meal looks delicious!
They have a new thing in the supermarkets here- big yellow labels on products that are sourced within 200 kilometres of the store so that you know which products do not spend half their life sitting on the back of a truck!
Kudos to your decision! The earth and cows thank you. I've been a vegetarian for 10 years or so. It wasn't for environmental reasons, it makes me happy to see someone converting for that reason. Bonus!
I'm impressed! I've tried and failed at being a veggie.
I've been vegetarian for 13 years, and I love it. I also eat all the time, and usually too much! That said, my favorite book for outrageous food recipes is The Voluptuous Vegan. So good. Otherwise I have about 10 cookbooks that I just go through finding the veggie recipes for. I also record Alton Brown and Nigella Lawson's vegetarian-friendly recipes when they have them. I've personally gotten a lot more involved in where my food comes from, and have gone as organic as possible and really upped my 'raw' food intake. I've noticed I'm not hungry for the stuff I used to crave and recreate without meat; I now use all those fun recipes to 'fill out' my meals, because the fresh stuff is really filling on its own. Good luck, and have fun!
while katie and i aren't veg-heads or have any plans to become so, we have decided to go green and switch to non-toxic biodegradable chemicals and such in our house.
you ought to check out www.methodhome.com, www.seventhgeneration.com, and www.shaklee.com. Another good site is www.earth911.org.
good luck on your vegeterian lifestyle. i can appreciate why you are doing it.
I had mongolian today.. white rice, noodles, snow peas, mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, baby corns, and zuchini....screw meat.
I love this cook book. Everything I've tried has been really good.
http://www.amazon.com/000-Vegetarian-Recipes-Carol-Gelles/dp/0025429655
Also thank you for posting a quinoa recipe, I've wanted to try it for some time but haven't found a recipe that sounded worthy for my first try.
Great post;recommended your blog.
Thanks for the mention, but would appreciate if you could update the link as we moved to our own domain! The post is up at our new home at http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2007/03/02/going-vegetarian-and-vegan-sustainable/
Thanks!
it's so great to hear about someone actually putting thought into their vegetarian diet. i'm not a vegetarian myself, but am incredibly tired of hearing "i don't eat anything with a face!" and that's it.
i work in a bakery, and sadly we can't buy only local or really research where our ingredients come from and your post makes me feel guilty, but in a good way (if that makes any sense). hopefully i can do more in my household buying. great post, really.
cheers, amber!
I was veggie/vegan for a number of years, and can back up Heather: since I've started eating meat again, I've gained weight and become more lethargic. I've been cutting back on the amount of meat I consume and increasing the fresh veggies and whole grains. I even ate salad for breakfast the other morning, and was so energized that day! Congrats on the transition, and best of luck with it!
So youre totally veggie now...
and you're dogs totally not...
Fantastic. haha.
You two are officially the healthiest duo in all of America!
I'm super happy on a number of levels: one, because you've been posting hella awesome vegetarian/vegan recipes (thanks for posting the pancake recipe - it turned out great!), two, because of your commitment to diet change and saving the environment, and three - because you just posted a quinoa recipe. And lord knows I have never been able to make quinoa taste edible.
I have even less of a political voice than you - I can't even vote :D
This ruleeeeeees! Congrats on taking this big step, Amber! I know you'll love this lifestyle change!!!
xo
