Vegan January Status Report

I don't actually miss meat... or eggs... or cheese really. Everything I've managed to eat has been good and satisfying, though honestly, there are a lot of vegan things I've been making at home anyways, so that doesn't surprise me.

My Casserole

This weekend, I made a chickpea casserole in which I substituted peanut butter for tahini (wound up with a Thai peanut sauce vibe) and added copious amounts of Kale. I packaged it up to eat during the week, and I honestly can't really see myself getting sick of it because it's pretty damn tasty. The original recipe is HERE. I doubled the "tahini" (peanut butter) and I left out the basil and parsley due to the fact that I didn't have any. The Kale more than made up for it.  I've also done a vegetable bake with quinoa, and continued my love affair with oatmeal.

Eating out is a little different. I haven't really done a lot of exploration away from the safety of my internet connection, and yes I know that I love across the street from the Ecopolitan, but aside from that once conveniently located totally raw totally vegan restaurant (which I have not tried due to my feeling very weird about purchasing food prepared in the same building where they do colonics), I'm not finding a lot of options where you don't have to irritate your waitress with substitutions of tofu (I still dislike tofu) and fake cheese (not sure yet).

Noodles & Company does have a couple of vegan options: the Japanese Pan Noodles and the Indonesian Peanut Saute. Obviously these are only vegan if you don't add meat. Durr.

Of the restaurants that do offer vegan options, almost none of them are restaurants that my friends like. This is important to me, because I find dining out to sometimes be an important social activity.

I think that for ease of use and for the social aspect, after January is over, I will probably either go back to the type of diet I had before or go vegetarian, because I do feel excellent. It will be interesting to see what changes about my opinion over the next couple of weeks.