| Back to Back Issues Page | ||
 |
||
|
The Golden Banana - Issue #38 - Seitan, Recipe Management, and Digestive Disturbances! August 03, 2010 |
||
| Hi Welcome to the VeganCoach.com newsletter focusing on everyday vegan advice. The Golden Banana Newsletter is dedicated to assisting you with your everyday vegan cooking and nutrition questions. Hope you are keeping cool out there. It's been a crazy-hot summer for most of the country. And our normally scorching Reno summer has been peppered with some rain (awesome!) and even last week a bit of HAIL! Hail in July? What is this world coming to? ;O)
Did you enjoy last month's Golden Banana? We took a detour from our normal newsletter with a tour of the entire VeganCoach.com website (over 300 pages in all). Thanks to all who wrote to express your appreciation, and I am happy you found some cool recipes and nutritional information you had never discovered. This month, we'll talk about the unfortunate outcome many experience after eating fiber-filled foods (read: gas), we'll chat about seitan, and we discuss a recipe management system I have been using for years that you will love. We'll round things out with the Recipe of the Month, Vegan French Dip with Au Jus! Yummmmmmmy. As always, you will find new and interesting Q&A in the Vegan Diet Frequently Asked Questions feature -- simply click those that interest you to learn more or to share your unique perspective or expertise. Each month, The Golden Banana is created by you with the questions you send me. Do you have a question, comment, or something else you'd like to share with our growing community of Vegan Coach fans? Please don't hesitate to fill out the form on my Contact page. I look forward to hearing from you. :O) It is my sincere hope that the information I provide on VeganCoach.com assists you in being the healthiest Vegan you can be. As always, thank you for joining me and for your support of VeganCoach.com. Big hugs to you, IN THIS ISSUE:
Vegan Frequently Asked Questions  Vegan Frequently Asked Questions. Please join in on the fun! :O) Recent questions which have been answered:
Recent questions which need answers (please assist if you can): Help! Have Any Vegans Relapsed? What to do with French lentils? Do you have a nagging question about vegan cooking, general vegan nutrition, or the vegan lifestyle? Then please visit the Vegan FAQ and ask away! Enjoy!  Hi Sassy - It seems to me that my digestive system started revolting once I started regularly eating more fruits and veggies, etc., and almost completely cut out meat. This was very discouraging for me because it seemed like the healthier I was eating, the more issues (code for gas!) I had. Have you or does anyone you know gone through this? Would it be easier to eat cooked veggies than raw? Thanks! Hi there, Sorry to hear about your...ahem...challenges. ;O) Switching to a diet with more plant-based foods means you are taking in more fiber, which can be a little difficult on your system at first. Also, the addition of foods like beans can make it seem like there is a MAJOR party going on in your intestines. So I recommend you take things more slowly. It sounds as if you are attempting a raw food diet, perhaps? Personally, I am not raw and it's not what I teach on my site. But I have done raw in the past, and it can be hard to digest some of the bulkier veggies, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and dark leafy greens like kale, Swiss chard, and mustard/turnip/collard greens. So perhaps you need to lightly cook your veggies for a while until your body can deal with things a little easier. And if/when you do raw veggies, eat them in smaller amounts until all is well. As far as beans are concerned, if you are not used to eating them your body needs the chance to build up the necessary enzymes to digest them. Start with very small legumes such as lentils, then when you can handle these move to small beans such as black beans, and then onto larger beans such as kidney. Digestive enzymes should also help move you in the right direction. Take 1-2 before meals to help digest your food. I love the enzymes from Simplexity Health and have been using them since 1994. These are only available online - click the link to order. All the best,  Hi Sassy - What should I do with seitan? I have never cooked with it before and I'm not sure what to do with it. I was thinking to throw it in a stir fry. Thanks. Seitan is the Vegetarian's answer to "roast beef". It's made with the gluten from wheat, which makes it very firm and chewy. So if you can imagine some of the ways traditional roast beef is served, this might help to steer you in the right direction. You are correct, tossing it into a stir fry is a fabulous idea. I also like to thinly slice and mix with sliced bell peppers and onions and serve on a thick crispy roll with some homemade au jus. (Vegan French Dip with Au Jus is this month's Recipe of the Month found below.) Whenever I visit my favorite vegan restaurant in San Francisco, Herbivore, I must order their Shawarma, which is made with seitan. While they don't list every single ingredient and spice on their menu, the basic recipe is grilled seitan w/ seasoned onions, tomatoes, hummus, hot sauce, pickles & tahini in a wrap. You might seek out a traditional shawarma recipe, and substitute the meat with the seitan. Here's another idea. Chop up your seitan and add it to a grain to make a yummy meal. Here is a recipe for Vegan Seitan and Rice. Hope this has given you a place to start. Enjoy! xo  Hi Sassy - I notice some of your recipes include the nutrition information. How are you able to figure out the calories, carbs, fats, etc.? -- Sue, St. Louis Park, Minnesota Hi Sue, Since I was a Personal Chef and my clients always wanted to know this nutrition information (as do some of my site visitors), I use a tool called Mastercook Mastercook helps you to see information such as this: Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 621 Calories; 16g Fat (18.6% calories from fat); 24g Protein; 131g Carbohydrate; 12g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 772mg Sodium. (Note how the nutrition info reads "OMG! No cholesterol!" tee-hee) The only thing is, most of the ingredients that are automatically listed in their HUGE library of ingredients are not necessarily vegan or organic, etc. So I have to enter my own ingredients. I had to do this more when I first purchased the program, but now since I used the same ingredients over and over again, I don't have to do this as much. For instance, it might list marinara sauce in their library of ingredients. I use an organic marinara. So I simply pull out my marinara jar and create a listing for this -- the information Mastercook needs can be found on the side of the jar (nutrition information). Then, whenever I add a recipe that includes this ingredient, it will pull this information out of the database for me so I have up-to-date nutrition information for each recipe. Mastercook is a wonderful way to keep your recipes organized too. Thanks for writing, RECIPE OF THE MONTH  French Dip used to be one of my favorite sandwiches BV (Before Vegan). This is a tasty version, and is fun to eat. Enjoy! Click here to visit this recipe on my blog Everyday Vegan Cooking and Nutrition. Vegan French Dip Sandwich With Au Jus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil Vegan Au Jus 1. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add green pepper and onion to the pan and saute, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender. Push peppers and onion to the side and add seitan slices. Sprinkle generously with freshly ground black pepper and a touch of sea salt. Brown both sides of seitan. Remove from heat and cover until ready to serve. 2. In the meantime, slice each baguette in half, being careful to leave one edge uncut so the baguette stays together once filled. Open baguettes and place face down in a toaster oven or regular oven, or face up on a low-heat grill. Toast the outside of the baguettes until warm and crisp. 3. Make the au jus: Place all ingredients in a small pot and heat, whisking occasionally, until hot. 4. Place the baguettes face-up on a serving plate. Add cheese slices (or grated cheese) to the bottom half of each baguette. Cover with seitan slices, followed by the pepper/onion mix. Close baguette. 5. Pour au jus in a small bowl and place on plate. Serve with a crisp green salad tossed with Sassy's Seedalicious Topping . Get DOWN With Sass!  Get DOWN With Sass! The Skinny On Lasting Weight Loss (Vegan-Friendly. Totally.) Get *SAUCED* With Sass!  How To Create Delectable Meat-Free, Dairy-Free and Egg-Free Vegan Sauces without Recipes! Get Dinner On The Table FAST!  With the best pressure cookers by Magefesa. The Magic Machine  There is nothing else like it! Click here to learn more and get FREE shipping on your order!
Vegan Diet & Nutrition Coaching: As a Vegan Nutritional Consultant I assist my clients by examining their current diet to figure out areas that might need more attention. It’s nice to have someone you can go to for advice that's YOU-nique. "Working with you, I felt at ease right away. You were very concerned with what I was or was not doing and helping me eat right as a Vegan. I felt like you were a good friend and even a family member."
"Last week Sunday, I began following your advice from our coaching call. There was no feeling of coming home and wracking my brain about what to eat, and then passing out before I even make a decision, going to sleep without dinner. "I've had a fresh and colorful green salad every day, and something good and nutritious to eat in the morning. Thank you so much for your advice. I can literally feel myself getting healthier!"
"You have a bubbly personality and although I have never met you in person, I was very comfortable sharing personal information with the knowledge that you would be able to offer healthful insights. "Reinforcement of the necessity of eliminating sodas was a huge thing for me, as was the guidelines for purchasing organics." If you...
...then working with me, your very own personal Vegan Diet and Nutrition Coach, may be just what you need. For more information about this service, please visit the Vegan Diet and Nutrition Coaching page. Created just for my newsletter subscribers, otherwise known as the Vegan Coach VIPs! ;O) You'll have access to articles and advice that nobody else does -- just my way of saying "thanks for keeping me company in cyberworld". The following pages are "password-protected" and will require a password from you. This password will change occasionally and you will always find the most current password in the most current Golden Banana Newsletter. CURRENT PASSWORD = cucumber A handy dandy Seasonal Produce Guide to help you choose the freshest (and hopefully least expensive) produce next time you go to the grocery store. A totally personalized and completely simple vegan nutrition test that can help to pinpoint specific areas of your YOU-NIQUE nutrition profile. After taking the above Vegan Nutrition Test, visit this page to understand your results. How To Create A Vegan Diet Menu Plan Discover how to put together an easy everyday vegan menu for you and your family. Stock Your Kitchen With These Vegan Ingredients These basics will help you to create a delicious dish any time -- just add fresh whole foods. The Vegan Mashed Potato Martini Bar A Mashed Potato Martini Bar is an interesting and fun way to provide food at a wine tasting, dinner party, or martini party. That wraps it up for this edition of The Golden Banana newsletter. VeganCoach.com has been created to help YOU. To contact me with questions, comments or suggestions, please fill out the form on my Contact page. Thanks! :O)
|
||
| Back to Back Issues Page |
Well, I hope it all adds up to a glorious year out at 
, which is a recipe management software that works beautifully.
