Good to know...

Knowledge is power! Which is why I've been sharing pertinent articles lately. I've been coming across a lot of good ones! For me, a good article that addresses the issues of eating meat/not eating meat is one that tries to address the facts (instead of just the feelings) and be as unbiased as possible. We are SO far beyond vegetarianism/veganism being a diet for hippies and weirdos. It's common place enough these days that people can discuss or debate the issue without it turning into a huge emotional mud slinging fest. I like that.

Anyway, on that note, here's an article for anyone interested in how their eating habits affect our planet. It's pertinent to people of all diets. Check it out!

The #1 Best Protein for Your Health and the Environment (and the Worst to Avoid)

Special K Loaf

Sometimes I wish I could do this for a living. Blog that is. I follow at least 20 recipe blogs and it appears that several of the writers are doing just that. Testing recipes, setting up the perfect lighting to take pictures of their dishes, editing photos, writing articles, and doing it every day. They have literally thousands of followers, tons of sponsors, add dollars just flowing in and publishers knocking on their doors for book deals. Sigh…. That is the LIFE! Maybe someday, but right now, I have fewer than 50 followers, most of which I know personally.

However, occasionally I’ll get a follower I have never met before and this is always the highlight of my DAY (sometimes week). And it’s for these few followers (not that they’re even following regularly…) that I’m going to give a little background to today.

I’m a card-carrying, lifelong member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Some of our beliefs are similar to other faiths, some are vastly different. One integral aspect of Adventist culture is what we like to call the health message (not sure if that warrants capitalization or not…). In a nutshell (which is sort of a pun if you know much about the health message), this “message” advocates for clean, temperate living. Some strict no-no’s are unclean meat (if that sounds weird, just google it), alcohol, tobacco and drugs in general, including marijuana (which I guess is pretty standard unless you’re a Rastafarian J). While vegetarianism used to seem like a must, at least among Adventists in America, it’s by no means “required.” Regardless, many of us were raised in vegetarian homes.

Growing up, Mom almost never prepared meat, except for an occasional turkey at Thanksgiving. However, we sometimes ate meat at restaurants or at relative’s houses. What we did consume on a regular basis was veggie meat. For better or worse, Adventists were the leading pioneers in the creation of veggie meat. The oldest companies specializing in faux meats (think Worthington, Loma Linda, Cedar Lake), were originally all Adventist owned. Although meat knock-offs can be found in almost ANY grocery store now, this wasn’t always the case. Once upon a time, you had to go to Adventist owned grocery or book stores to get your supplies. Happily, that’s not the situation anymore, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the price: it’s always been expensive.

For this reason, Adventists had to find ways to make something seem “meaty” without actually using even a fake meat. I think the best example of this has GOT to be the Special K Loaf.

Named for the corn flakes that play a leading role, this dish is a church potluck blockbuster. It’s not much to look at, but it's super easy to make and to adapt. And it's very yummy. The recipe I’m sharing is my mother’s version. You can find many others online, but they’re more complicated and in my opinion, just not as good. I’ve had MANY Special K’s in my day and I’m telling you, my mom’s is the best. A lot of other recipes go the “golden” route, using vegetarian chicken seasoning instead of beef. In my humble opinion, this is a mistake. It comes out way too yellow instead of actually looking more like meatloaf, and it’s not as savory.

I plugged the recipe into Caloriecount.com and it got a B+. It's kinda high in fat, but the majority comes from the walnuts, which means that only 3.7 grams are saturated. It’s LOADED with protein (26.4 grams per serving!) and it’s also high in vitamins B6, B12 and selenium. I’ll cover some ways to improve it health wise in the tips.

Special K Loaf
Serves 8

I large onion, chopped (or 1 pkg Lipton's Onion Soup)
1/4 c of corn oil
5 eggs beaten
4 cups of small curd cottage cheese
4 cups corn flakes
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 1/2 T. McKays Beef Seasoning (omit if using Lipton Onion Soup mix)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

Place in a lightly greased, 11 X 9 inch casserole dish and bake for one hour.

Tips: The pictures actually show this recipe cut in half, so don’t be alarmed if it looks like too much. If you don’t have a food processor, don’t actually CHOP the nuts. Throw them in a baggie and pound them with a rolling pin, heavy cup or bowl, etc. If you’d like to get the cholesterol down in the recipe (which is definitely something to think about), you could start by using egg whites instead of whole eggs (I’d do 6 large egg whites). An egg replacer would work fine too. Firm tofu instead of cottage cheese is another option. I would add some additional beef seasoning to punch up the flavor in that case.

Hot Topic

I'm sure no one has been obsessively checking my blog, waiting for me to post, but it has been a while. We were gone for a long weekend and then lost power (and water!) for about three days. Sigh... I thought I left that behind in Yosemite. Anyway, here's a link to a really great article on the meat vs. vegetarian dilemma. They're basically compiling all the best arguments from both (or all) sides. Good stuff. Give it a read! And look out for the meatless meatloaf recipe I'll be posting in the next few days.

Meat or No Meat: Tell Us What You Think And Why

Shish Kebarbeque Kebobs

I don’t know if other parts of the country have been experiencing this, but the weather in Southwest Michigan for the last few weeks has been… disappointing. I mean, it’s JUNE for crying out loud! We’ve had so very much rain and so many cool days. I was really getting tired of it. That’s April and May weather, NOT summer weather! But I believe the worst is finally over and you can thank my friends and me for that. We did the opposite of a rain dance to usher in the sunshine: a grill out.

Donnie and I try to host grill outs on a pretty regular basis. We have the space, we have the time, and we have a grill, which is more than a lot of people are age can say (priorities are a funny thing, aren’t they?). However, this grill out was not hosted by us. It was hosted by my friend Kasper who had the sensational idea of doing shish kebabs instead of burgers! Maybe some people out there do this on the regular, but for some reason, doing kebabs on the grill with a big group had never crossed my mind. I’m guessing Kasper was inspired by his recent trip to the Middle East. Regardless, it worked out so well. I was in charge of telling people what to bring, so instead of having them bring cheese slices or buns, they brought peppers, onions, pineapple, summer squash and so on. We whipped up a couple of marinades, built our kebabs and totally enjoyed hanging out while they cooked.

It was one successful shish-kebarbeque (as we took to calling it) and it was even documented and rapped about by my other half. If you’re interested, you can view the video on my facebook page under the videos I’m tagged in.

Anyway, I’m not just sharing this so I can brag about the awesome time we had. I’m sharing because you can recreate the same kebabs at home, whether you have a bunch of friends over or not. The following recipe is just what we used, but you can really get creative with it. I’m not going to tell you amounts, because it really depends on how much of any particular thing you’d like to use. And when it comes to the veggie meat, pretty much anything that’ll stay on a stick will do. We had a few options, but Worthington Super-Links seemed to be the favorite! Where the marinade is concerned, I mixed up a homemade one based on a recipe I got off of the Foodnetwork website, but the store bought one Kasper provided was really good too. It doesn’t really matter, as long as you have SOME kind of marinade to slather on.

Also, there’s a few different ways you could do this: on the grill, in the oven, or even on the stove (I draw the line at the microwave…). Check the tips following the recipe for oven/stove instructions.

Shish Kebarbeque Kebobs

Kebabs
Peppers (we used red, yellow and green)
Onions (we used red and white)
Zucchini
Summer Squash
Baby potatoes
Mushrooms
Pineapple
Grape Tomatoes
Veggie Meat (we had Super-Links, Chic-ketts, Grillers, and Worthington vegetable steaks)
Kebab skewers

Marinade
3 Tbls vegetable oil
1 tsp ceyenne powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
3 Tbls lime juice
2 Tbls water
2 Tbls fresh cilantro, chopped (use 1 tsp if dry)
1 Tbls tomato paste
1 1/2 tsp honey
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt, to taste

If using wooden skewers, follow prep directions (you’ll probably need to soak them).

In a small bowl, mix marinade ingredients together until smooth.

Boil potatoes until you’re able to easily pierce them with a fork, but they’re not quite soft enough to eat (about 10-12 minutes).

Cut peppers, onions, zucchini, summer squash, potatoes, pineapple and veggie meat into kebab size pieces (no smaller than a square inch and no larger than two square inches).

Skewer desired ingredients, lather on marinade with a basting brush and lay over hot grill. Watch cafefully and turn occasionally until desired tenderness is reached (this totally depends on how hot your grill is, but the marinade should be partially soaked into the veggies).

Tips: If you don’t have a grill, one option is to roast them in the oven. While I haven’t tried this yet, I would set the oven to 425, and either lay them out on a greased roasting pan, wrap them in foil, or lay them on a pan with parchment paper. I’m guessing they’d need at least 35 minutes, but probably more. If you happen to have a grilling pan for the stove, that will work great too. Searing them in a regular, well-oiled pan would work, but it would take a while. If you want to try that, I would cook them at no higher than medium heat and maybe cover them part of the time. Like I mentioned before, you can really go nuts with ingredients, if you can skewer it, you can grill it. I think an all fruit kebab with a sweet, buttery marinade could be amazing. I’ll let you know if I ever try that.