Vegetarian: Day 13

Breakfast: Starbucks.  Egg sandwich wasn't going to do it today, I had a coffee cake and a grande iced coffee.  I'm ready to dominate.

Lunch: Falafel. Oh man falafel. See "falafel food coma" post. Typing is hard to do right now. Breathing is hard to do right now. Here is a poem:

The chick peas, the hummus,
The lettuce and tomato,
Try this falafel,
it's like a flavor tornado.

Dinner: I was going to get a vegetable quesadilla at my favorite Monday night place, but the kitchen was closed because there were only two other customers besides me.  So, I made Ellio's pizza.  I actually have the ingredients to make some pretty boss veggie quesadillas, frozen vegetables are key. They are good and they are wicked cheap.  I will hook that up some other night.

Falafel Food Coma

Ughhhhhhhhhh

That is all.

Thank you for reading.

Vegetarian: Day 12

Meal 1: Samosa

Meal 2: Mac & Cheese, Beers

I also had iced coffee and a couple granola bars, and some grapefruit juice.  Here's to having a normal day of eating tomorrow?

Indian Food: The Final Frontier

I checked out a couple Indian grocery stores, and I'm starting to think I have found the key to making this vegetarian thing work.  First off, I bought a samosa to eat for lunch.  These things are great.  It's this crunchy chewy empanada kind of deal, and it has potatoes and peas and spices in it.  Until mashed potatoes on a stick is a real thing (pay attention carnies) the samosa is the way to go.  Also, it was only 60 cents. What the hell is that?  I'm alive to tell the tale, so it couldn't have been that bad.

I bought some "roti", which I believe is basically just tortillas, but they are half the sodium of tortillas and I think you're supposed to heat them up in the oven, even though I think the microwave is probably fine.  I have been making my veggie burgers in tortillas, which while delicious, is probably doing a number on the old sodium.

I also bought some black tea and I bought a frozen food meal of "channa masala", which is chick peas in a curry sauce.  I have learned that "masala" just means mixture, so if you've ever had chicken tikka masala, it means...um, chicken tikka mixture.  What does tikka mean?  I'll get back to you on that.

Pretty much everything at this store is vegetarian, because I guess a large part of the population in India are vegetarian.  There are maybe six guys from India at my company and I think all of them are vegetarian.  So I don't think I will be bored by trying new things from this new supermarket, although I'm sure I will find plenty that I do not enjoy.  There is thing called "paneer", which I believe is just cottage cheese...I'm not looking forward to it, I might just skip it altogether.  (If you're reading this and paneer is actually delicious, because let's face it, cheese is delicious, then let me know)

I may have to convince the guys here at work to take me to the Indian buffet down the street, I've never been in, but it looks pretty legit.  I am no stranger to Indian food but I am no expert either.  I just know there's a certain Indian buffet in Framingham that has left my stomach in shambles on more than one occasion *shudder*.

Alright that's all I've got for now, thanks for reading, leave a comment if you want...I will smile if you do.

Vegetarian: Day 11

Weekends are always strange.  Shout out to my friends, who considered both my vegetarian diet and my friend's lactose intolerance: we got pizza AND wings.  Case closed.

Meal 1: Egg White & Cheese on a Multigrain Bagel, Dunkin' Iced Coffee

Meal 2: A bunch of pizza with green peppers on it

Tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day parade!

Vegetarian: Day 10

Breakfast: Iced coffee.

Lunch: I went to Taqueria El Amigo, home of so many delicious and different meats. My typical go-to there is the burrito combo, featuring a burrito with "chorizo con papas" (sausage with potatoes) and a "lengua" taco...and yes, this is tongue.  Which is surprisingly and magically delicious.  Don't knock it til ya try it.  At this moment I have lost all of my vegetarian readers.

Anyways today I ordered the "plata vegetariano", which was surprisingly and magically delicious as well.  It was a plate with rice, beans, lettuce, hot sauce, salsa, guacamole, with a cheese quesadilla stuffed with potatoes, and a poblano pepper stuffed with cheese.  It was awesome, especially the stuffed pepper.  I also enjoyed a cool refreshing tamarind soda, which for those of you don't know, is a soda made with some weird kind of fruit, which may or may not be crab apple.  Maybe dinner will be less weird, but let me tell you, I am in a frame of mind where work does not currently seem possible.

Dinner: I cooked a bake & rise pizza from Hannaford, it was roasted vegetable kind (red & green peppers, broccoli, onions & mushrooms). I ate some now and I'm saving the rest for later, could be good weekend grindage...bud-dy.

Vegetarian: Day 9

Springtime, it's in the air.  Happy Thursday.  And March Madness.  Did I forget anything else? No? Ok moving on.

Breakfast: Dunkin Donuts Veggie Egg White Flatbread Sandwich

Lunch: I sat outside and enjoyed an eggplant parm sub.  Delicious.  I also drank an Arnold Palmer, wishing I was watching basketball and drinking the alcoholic version.

Dinner: Bud lights.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Dunkin' Veggie Egg White Flatbread

Alright so before I write my Day 9 entry, let me get the low down on this breakfast treat.  I should start making my own breakfast.  Then again, I should start doing a lot of things. 

This sandwich has the same calories as the Starbucks one (280), also roughly the same fat content (9-10 grams) and almost as much protein (16 grams vs. 18 grams).  The sodium is lower (690 vs. 900) but still pretty high.  I think sodium is hard to avoid unless you don't eat restaurant food, and even still, I feel like they are adding sodium to everything.

As for the taste, it's alright.  I think Starbucks wins the taste test, but it's probably because of the spinach and the sundried tomato cream cheese, which is probably the source of that extra sodium.  Basically, you just can't win.  I am going to experiment with cooking with egg whites, because I want a vegetarian source of protein without destroying myself with cholesterol.  I think that one of the greater advantages of vegetarian eating is a reduced cholesterol intake, because cholesterol is only found in meat products and by-products, which does include egg yolks, cheese, milk, etc...but the diet on the whole is lower in cholesterol.

So in conclusion, egg whites for the win.

Vegetarian: Day 8

Breakfast: Office coffee & graham crackers...once again I was running late. Note to self: buy more graham crackers

Lunch:  I don't feel like walking in the rain to get a falafel, so instead I am ordering a spinach & feta calzone.  It was alright, but I think I was expecting more spinach, more feta and less mozzarella.  So I can see myself eating more graham crackers today, maybe a boca burger later.

Also, I had a pretty sweet idea on my walk to pick up lunch.  Breakfast sandwiches with veggie burgers.  I would scramble up some eggs, get some good cheddar cheese, then use either english muffins or those frozen food section bagels.  I think it could be good, maybe I'll try it this weekend.

Snack: Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Cashew Bar. Meh.

Dinner: Veggie burger from Morningstar, fries and a Frosty from Wendy's.  Call it a reward for making it through one week.  I went shopping tonight and got more good stuff, including the ingredients for those breakfast sandwiches.  I bought MorningStar black bean burgers, eggs, sharp cheddar cheese and whole wheat bagels.  Probably going to end up putting salsa and hot sauce on these bad boys.

As a side note, I'm not crazy about Wendy's french fries, I think I'll skip those next time.  Frostys on the other hand, are as delicious as ever.  But I noticed tonight that fast food does not cater to the vegetarian.  Each of their salads has some combination of chicken, chili, bacon and eggs on it.  The only vegetarian items, correct me if I'm wrong, are the frostys, fries, drinks and broccoli cheese baked potato.

I'm going to stay away from Wendy's for a while.

Vegetarian: Day 7

Breakfast: Coffee and graham crackers.  Looking forward to lunch.

Lunch: I was going to have a falafel but I will have that tomorrow at lunch, to commemorate 1 week of "meat-free". I don't know if I can call myself a vegetarian yet.  That being said I had the "Vegetarian" sub at Athens Pizza today.  Ingredients: Grilled vegetables (pepper, onion, mushroom, broccoli, tomato), American cheese, sub roll. 

I added Frank's RedHot when I brought it back to work, because hey, I put that sh*t on everything. I think I deserve some free hot sauce after that shameless plug.  I also think I am going to be hungry in like 2 hours.

Afternoon snack: I had one pita bread left and had some hummus with it.  Just remembered I had 3 more Boca burgers in the freezer, maybe I'll eat those tomorrow. Note to self: get burger buns.

Dinner: MorningStar Farms Garden Veggie Patties, whole wheat tortilla, lettuce, Sriracha ...and if you're not down with Sriracha, google it for yourself.  I've been looking for recipes on veggie burgers, but it's my first week, baby steps...

Vegetarian: Day 6

I'm really getting after it today...

Breakfast: Egg White Spinach & Feta Wrap (read previous post)

Lunch: Small Salad, but I went kind of overboard (Baby spinach, cherry tomato, red yellow orange & green pepper, cucumber, feta, chick peas, kidney beans, croutons, Italian dressing...cheaaa). For the record this was only 1/2 a lb. at the salad bar, so $2.50 suckas...also, Boca Burgers were on sale so I heated one up, cut it into pieces and threw that in the mix too.  Note to self: don't get Bocas again.

Dinner: Granola bar, sweet potato fries.  The bar before my basketball game, the fries after. Woops. Not a real meal.  But I wasn't that hungry...

"Almost Perfect Breakfast" (or "Why Processed Food Will Make Our Hearts Explode")

That, my friends, is the Egg White, Spinach & Feta Wrap from Starbucks.  This thing is [BEEP]in tasty.  I was eating this thing and thinking "Damn I don't care about being a vegetarian, this is the best breakfast ever".  It's a good sized wheat wrap, heated up in one of Starbucks' diesel "warming ovens", with egg whites jammed inside.  To make the egg whites taste that much more delicious, they throw spinach in there, and what I have learned is sundried tomato cream cheese.  Holy [BEEP] that's tasty.

I ballpark the calorie count at 500.  Wrong again, I'm off by over 200 calories.  280 calories for the wrap, which is a normal person's serving of chips, assuming they eat only 2 "real" servings...at least they estimate how many chips is in a "serving"...who eats 8 chips? C'mon man.

Speaking of chips, there was one blatantly terrible awful thing about this perfect breakfast that pretty much ruined it for me and I will most likely never eat this again, unless I eat it after a workout.  But before I get into that, let me give you some more of the nutritional facts.  Under 300 calories makes it great for low-calorie diets, because I kid you not, I am full right now. 

The 18 grams of protein probably have something to do with that.  18 grams of protein in a vegetarian breakfast wrap, are you kidding me?  I feel like a friggin genius right now.  As if I invented this beautiful sandwich, basically the polar opposite of the pancake-wich made famous by the global powerhouse of fast-food aka "that Scottish restaurant" as my weird family sometimes calls it.

The wrap sits in at 10 grams of fat, 3.5 of that being saturated fat, to which I say "not bad".  One meal down and I'm at 16% daily value for fat, I'll take it.  I may never have a sausage egg and cheese on a croissant ever again, which at Dunkin Donuts means you are putting down 51 grams of fat, which after a night of drinking may be incredible...but you just ate 80% of your fat intake for the day and it's not even noon yet.  For reference, a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese from "the Scottish place" has 41 grams.

Low in cholesterol (thanks to the egg whites), 6 grams (25% daily value) of fiber (wheat wrap), I think I've found the super food.  What could possibly be wrong?  Oh wait, how much sodium is in this beast?  Oh wait, 900 mg! [BEEEEP].  For reference, that's the same as THREE medium french fries, THREE.  Or you could have 1 Big Mac, which is close enough (but more) at 1080 mg.

Okay, I'm done writing about this, I'm going to fill my water bottle again and drink up.  Damn that was a tasty breakfast though.

Vegetarian: Day 5

This episode is brought to you by: MorningStar Farms Sausage Egg & Cheese Biscuits.  They're...just ok.

Brunch: You guessed it, MorningStar Farms Sausage Egg & Cheese Biscuits.  They're...just ok.  And they are vegetarian, I've had at least one person suggest the "crumbles" from MorningStar, which would be the veggie sausage ingredient in said fake sausage egg and cheese biscuit.  It's weird, it's not a sandwich, but rather a biscuit...and all that stuff is inside of it.  I won't get them again, but they were edible.

Dinner: Homemade Mac & Cheese, homemade hummus, not-homemade pita bread, salad (green lettuce, red lettuce, onions, peppers, oil & vinegar).  I think it's important to break down what the salad is.

That's all for now.

Vegetarian: Day 4

Okay so for the record, this was my first Saturday as a vegetarian and it was by far the hardest day.  Overall this was a weird day, this was the night of "springing forward", so technically I was at the bar until 3 in the morning.  Lots of meat eating going around, but I'm learning to be a hunter of vegetarian options, because I am a hungry person.  This is also the first day I skipped breakfast.  I thought we were having brunch or lunch at my friends' apartment but we never got around to making lunch. So, here's the menu.

First "meal": Milk Duds, Corn Nuts and Sweet Tarts (Pauly Shore reference anyone? I hate Pauly Shore.)

Second "meal": We were all starving so we got pizza. I've been eating a lot of pizza. Today's was green and red peppers, it definitely hit the spot and I thought we were getting just cheese.  My relationship with vegetables is changing, I'm starting to like them more, and I'm starting to eat the ones I don't like as much because my choices are limited

Third "meal": Waffle fries and Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Til 3am.  I'm really happy to start new tomorrow, I think I'll have a salad.

Vegetarian: Day 3

Breakfast: Iced coffee and graham crackers...hey it was Friday

Lunch: had a stupid lunch meeting but get this...spinach & feta pizza, vegetable pizza...I think Friday's will be easiest because a few other people don't eat meat on Friday's...also a lot of the IT guys are Indian and are vegetarian, and there were a lot of IT guys at the meeting. So I kind of won here.

Dinner: This was my first date as a vegetarian, and I picked a place that makes the best mac & cheese in town.  I also drank a lot of Guinness, which is also vegetarian.

Note: The weekends are going to be harder with more temptations / reminders of my vegetarianism.  I met up with some friends after my date and they were eating burgers with cheese and bacon on them...mmm bacon...(sorry vegetarian readers)

Vegetarian: Day 2

Breakfast: Clif Mojo Bar - Peanut Butter Pretzel flavor.

Snack: serving of Sun Chips - Jalapeno Jack flavor.  Off to a delicious start. Hmm what's for lunch...

Lunch: Hummus, Pita Bread, Small Salad (Lettuce, Cucumbers, Red Peppers, Baby Corn, Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil)...note to self, next time turn all this into a sandwich, maybe add chick peas

Afternoon Snack: Peanut butter granola bar, Navel orange

Dinner: 2 veggie tacos from The Gaff...they gave me the energy I needed to wield my guitar and melt faces off with my "wonderful voice"...I also enjoyed several Narragansetts, another great vegetarian option

ROCK

Broccoli & Cheddar Roasted Potatoes

Not vegetarian.  You sons of bitches.

Notable Vegetarians

Hey - so I think I'm going to end up learning a lot about being vegetarian because I am a major nerd and I will learn and learn about things because quite frankly, I spent a lot of alone time as a kid.  So you have been alerted, nerd alert complete.

My source is the almighty Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetarians#United_States) but I don't expect you to read all of that.  The most important search for me was to find athletes who can sustain their performance while being vegetarians.

Right off the bat, no pun intended, Prince Fielder.  That tub of lard? Or shall I say vegetable based fats? He surely gets his protein, averaging some 40 home runs a season for the Milwaukee Brewers and hopefully the Boston Red Sox someday.  How about Bill Walton? That hippie.  He's been through a lot though, and he seems like a pretty smart dude.  Raja Bell, a basketball player who makes a living on playing good defense.  Herschel Walker, one of the nastier running backs on Tecmo Super Bowl.  Tony LaRussa, he's old and seems pretty healthy.

Okay so there aren't that many on this Wikipedia article, but I'm on the search for more.  How about non-athletes, according to this 100% accurate and totally reliable source?  Albert Einstein. Boom! Paul McCartney. Bam!  Hayden Pennetiere. Schwing! Leonardo da Vinci.  Code!  And numerous former Playboy playmates, which I believe would include Miss Pamela Anderson.

I feel like people have been keeping this vegetarian thing from me for all this time, and to that I say, screw you, screw you you big jerks.

Vegetarian - Day 1

I am giving up meat for Lent.  Two days into this I can already tell I am going to learn a lot, from learning new recipes, to trying new things at restaurants I frequent, to angrily discovering that something that is seemingly delicious and vegetarian had to contain meat in it, for no apparent reason what so ever, other than to just sprinkle some dehydrated beef broth in there.  Through all of this, I will also connect with friends, family, coworkers and others to learn about why they gave up meat, for a couple months or forever.  This should be fun.

I am going to try to keep it to one post a day, just to share my menu for the day, but I'm sure other stuff will come up along the way, and as expected I might miss a day but I'll try and post the menu anyway.  And, if I cheat and eat meat along the way, I'll come clean about it.  And if I eat a chocolate frosted donut or I drink 10 beers, I'll probably come clean about that too. Probably...

Day 1:

Breakfast: Egg White Flatbread (veggie) from Dunkin'
Lunch: Falafel from Crown Cafe
Dinner: Frozen pizza (cheese)

I can eat healthier than this, but I felt good today.

Note: No booze today, so technically I have given up meat AND alcohol so far...the alcohol part will most likely end tomorrow night at open mic...