Vegan Dinners and Breakfasts
- December 2010
- Vegan
Hi Steph
I just read an article about you in “American Lifestyle” magazine and I’m fascinated with your rock climbing. I have a thing about heights and the pictures in the magazine of you climbing were amazing. I checked out your website too and found some good recipes. Why do you not eat wheat? Do you have a food intolerance? I found out I have a food intolerance to wheat and dairy products. My nutritionist told me not to eat too much tofu because of the way the soy is processed. Any thoughts on this?
Do you have some good stir fry recipes?
What do you eat for breakfast?
I’m an athlete too, but I have trouble keeping weight on, so I don’t exercise as much as I’d like. Otherwise I feel like I’d be cooking and eating all day. I don’t really enjoy cooking.
Thanks for your feedback.
Andrea from Massachusetts.
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for writing! I try to avoid wheat (though I do still eat it), because I find that if left to my own devices, I eat a lot of it. And it makes me feel lethargic in general, and gives me a stomachache, especially if I eat it at night. I find that if I work to avoid wheat, the amount I actually do eat is probably fine for me. So perhaps I have a slight intolerance, because I feel much much better if I try to cut down on the amount of wheat I eat. Though of course I love it 🙂
I make stir fry or salad for dinner most nights. My vinaigrette recipe is listed on the side bar. If that seems like too much cooking, you can just pour olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top of your salad. So if I’m having a salad, I make that vinaigrette, and use lettuce and sprouts (I grow my own sprouts), and anything else I have that sounds good. I like to saute walnuts in a pan (no oil), if I want to make it extra fancy 🙂 I always put lots of nutritional yeast on my salad, because I love it.
When I make stir fry, I always start the same way: chop up a few cloves of garlic, a serrano pepper and some fresh ginger, all very fine. I put that aside in a small bowl, and then chop up whatever else I’m going to stirfry. I usually use onion, carrot, broccoli, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, zucchini, sweet potato, tofu (though I know you’re avoiding that), or any other vegetable I have that would be good stirfried. When I use broccoli, I shave the skin off the stalks and chop up the stalks as well, it’s really good!
Next I put grapeseed oil in a big pan and stirfry the garlic, pepper and ginger at high heat. I add the slower cooking veggies next (carrot, sweet potato, brussels spouts), and then the softer veggies (onion, mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli), and the tofu last, since it is the most delicate. Sometimes I add raw cashews too. When everything is good and tender, I add some Bragg’s liquid aminos and fry it for another minute or so.
I eat this with quinoa (if I’m in a hurry, since it only takes 20 minutes), brown rice noodles (if I’m really in a hurry, since those take 10 minutes), or brown rice (if I planned ahead, that takes about 50 minutes), or even plain sometimes. You can sprinkle sesame seeds on top, and lots of nutritional yeast.
Stirfry and salad are my main dinner options, and I don’t ever get tired of them! They’re always easy and always delicious.
For breakfast, I eat fruit if I’m not very hungry, and Ezekiel toast with almond butter if I am hungry. Occasionally I’ll eat kamut cereal with rice milk or soymilk, or muesli, either hot or cold. I usually start my morning with tea, and it takes me a while to actually get hungry, usually at least an hour or so after tea. So a lot of times I don’t even eat an actual breakfast, and just eat Clif bars later in the morning if I start to get hungry. I think my breakfast options might suit your cooking preferences a little better 😉
I hope that helps!
Steph
