sarah's sustainable life

don’t we all love chinese food? what fond memories of endless buffets of exotic flavors we bid farewell to when we took the vegan plunge. well, not today! this dinner of sizzling hoisin-glazed stir-fry wrapped in cool lettuce leaves will make you wonder why you ever paid someone else for chinese food!

serves four
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/4cup rice vinegar
2cloves garlic, mashed or pressed
few drops of sriracha hot sauce (optional)
3T sesame or peanut oil
1package chicken style seitan, drained & sliced
2large carrots, julienned
1red bell pepper, juilenned
1 white onion, sliced into thin half moons
8large leaves red lettuce, for wrapping
2-4cups steamed white rice*

whisk together the hoisin, vinegar, garlic, and sriracha (if using); set aside. heat a large skillet or wok to high. coat with oil, then very quickly stir-fry seiten, carrot, bell pepper, and onion (in that order). when veg has achieved desired doneness (i like a little char on mine), pour over with the hoisin glaze and cook about one minute more. remove to a serving dish. serve immediately, providing 2lettuce wraps per person and a good scoop of rice on the side.

*because it is quicker, and always perfectly steamed, i spring for rice from my local chinese takeout. i am a starch nut, so i love just plain rice, but you can serve with soy sauce or extra hoisin for a garnish.

warehouse shopping meets green living? apparently, that’s what the folks at costco are going for now! treehugger.com reports that for somewhere between $3,600 and $18,000, you will soon be able to purchase the means to convert your home to solar energy! this may sound very expensive on the surface, but think of what this means! change is on the way, and the more demand we have for home greening products, the more these companies will produce (and of course, the more affordable they will become). i hear you now saying, “but sarah, i don’t know what to do with a solar conversion kit!” you are not alone, and grape solar has contracted out over 5,000 local installers across the country with people like you and me in mind. you are probably calling me a cock-eyed optimist at this point (you are not alone, mary martin). i realize it is not practical to believe that every person will go solar and vegan, and if they all did on the same day, the world economy would more than collapse and we’d all be in big trouble. but if we can slowly go one at a time, give up our dependence on crude oil and animal products, those things would go the way of the horse and carriage, slowly but surely being replaced by better ideas. and the world would be a better place for it. don’t let others stubbornly clinging to antiquated ways of living keep you from doing what you know is right for yourself and the environment. do your part everyday to make sure you are leaving the legacy you want to leave for your children.

i do not have a gluten allergy, not even a sensitivity. so why are people shocked to find a vegan that eats gluten? i believe there is a great deal of confusion surrounding gluten, what it is and is not, and who should and should not consume it. i am taking the time today to write about gluten from my point of view, and why i am not in any hurry to do away with it in my diet.

what is gluten? gluten is actually a protein that occurs naturally in wheat, barley, rye, and some other grains. it gives dough made from these products elasticity and helps it to rise. it is a 100% naturally occurring protein that helps give baked goods their proper texture and lift.

what is it not? gluten is not an additive, preservative, or chemical. it is not synthetic and, for most people and animals, has no side effects.

who should not eat gluten? some folks have developed gluten sensitivities, which make most bread-type products uncomfortable to digest. then there are people with gluten allergies or coeliac disease, for which eating gluten products is downright dangerous.

if you think you may have gluten sensitivities or allergies, you should be tested immediately. this is nothing to fool around with! gluten is in MANY foods, and it takes a rigorous makeover of your diet to eliminate it. if you do not have gluten problems, relax. stop trying to find the secret mystery food that is causing you to gain weight or be tired; gluten is not an evil particle waiting in your bread to sabotage your health.

i, myself, do not plan on going gluten free ever, because i have no need of it. i eat what i know is healthy, including whole grains, knowing for sure that when gluten is taken out of bread products, many other chemicals and additives are put back in to give the chewiness that gluten naturally provides.

my dear friend, yebroxy, introduced me to all i know about lebanese culture. i don’t know if it is a typical trait there, but she is also a bit of a self-proclaimed health nut (luv you, roxy!!). this dinner is inspired by the many creative dishes she would bring to work for us all to try.

serves four
1large loaf whole wheat lavash
1recipe sarah’s garlic hummus
1/2medium fennel bulb
1/2small sweet onion
1recipe jenan’s spinach salad
good quality olive oil

preheat oven to 375. (if not using leftovers, whiz together the hummus while the oven is heating.) place lavash on the middle rack of the oven for just a few minutes to crisp up. remove from the oven and spread over evenly with the hummus. place lavash back into the oven for about 5-8 minutes, until the bread is brown and crispy and the hummus is piping hot. meanwhile, using a mandolin slicer, slice the onion and fennel bulb as thinly as possible. this would also be a good time to assemble the spinach salad. when the lavash “pizza” is removed from the oven, sprinkle it over evenly with the fennel and onion, then drizzle with the olive oil. use a pizza cutter to slice it into four squares and serve each with a nice pile of spinach salad.

when his doctor recently recommended we put my then 2-year-old son on nasonex in addition to his twice daily dose of children’s zyrtec, i became quite alarmed. how did we get here? i am so cautious for my son, and never wanted him to be on any type of medication. i could not stand by and watch him become dependent on several types of prescription meds just to get through a normal day. on my next trip to the market, i was searching desperately to find an alternative…and i did: hyland’s homeopathic for kids! imagine, on the shelf of a modern, lifeless megamart, carefully blended homeopathic potions! from complete allergy relief, to cold and cough, to earache drops, to bedwetting relief, hyland’s has your back (you green parent, you!). check out the website and look for it on your market shelves the next time your child comes down with a sniffle.

i just wanted to remind you (and myself) of a fun and functional website every vegetarian/vegan should visit often. happy cow is basically a search engine designed for hungry herbivores. you simply type in your city name or zipcode, choose from vegetarian, vegan, restaurant, or stores (or all four) and click to get instant happiness! the search results will give you the name of all restaurants and stores in your area that are veg friendly and registered at the site. for me, it opened the door to a gourmet pizzeria that offers vegan cheese and meat toppings AND a bakery/cafe with lots of vegan offerings. what will happy cow do for you?

who doesn’t love a BIG pile of sprouts on their salad or sandwich? such a nice change from normal greens, and full of unique vitamins, minerals, and allergy fighting properties, you would think every supermarket and restaurant should be pushing these. so why don’t we see them on salad bars, deli sandwiches, and produce isles? two words, folks: escherichia coli! that’s right. because conditions ideal for sprout growth are also ideal for bacterial growth, animal manure is used for fertalizer, and sprouts must be eaten raw, they have been linked to a large number of e coli and salmonella outbreaks in the last 40 years. alas, another natural crop of goodness that should be fighting for us is fighting against us because we allow others to grow all of our food. but there is a solution! most health food markets carry sprouting kits, which are basically a sterile jar, some seeds, and a screen to fit tightly over the top. sprouting your own seeds is a fun project to do with the kids, and can greatly decrease the risk of contamination. josiah loves science projects, so i believe this is one we will be taking on sometime in the near future. which is good news for me, because the only thing i love to roll into sushi better than avocado are sprouts!

this is for those of you who, like me, missed the first round of all these “bugs” being passed through the city, but caught it on the way back from your kids (or work, or something). just a small reminder, there is a mineral that can act just as well if not better than any cold and sinus medicine you might purchase. what’s it’s name? – ZINC!! – yeaaaah!! zinc is found in noticeable amounts in most nuts and seeds, some legumes, berries, and other fruit. but to get enough concentrated zinc from those sources to do a direct hit on a cold that is already here, you’d be stuffing your face day and night (and i don’t know about you, but when i am sick, eating is absolutely the LAST thing on my to-do-list). so, how can you get enough?

1) zinc lozenges – these are quite effective. they look like cough drops, but taste like quarters (if you can still taste anything). they work well because you keep them in your mouth until they dissolve, allowing the zinc to pass directly to your blood stream from your porous gums and tongue. they do taste awful, though.

2) sublingual zinc tabs – any vegan should be familiar with sublingual tabs, as this is the main source of vitamin B-12 recommended for veggies. basically a little medicine tablet you put under your tongue until it dissolves, usually less than a minute. this is nice, because you can’t really taste anything under your tongue, so you don’t have to feel like you are sucking on a metal bolt.

3) zinc oral spray – this is my favorite! so quick and easy, you just spray the zinc solution four times into your mouth (inside cheeks, roof of mouth, and tongue or gums), wait 15 seconds, and swallow.

hope this info helps get you through the rest of this crazy cold and flu season with herbal ease;)

a word of caution: zinc is considered a homeopathic medication, and may not be suitable in high doses for very young children or others with weak immune systems. make sure to read the label of your chosen product very well before using it. high doses of zinc can also be upsetting to your tummy, so never take it on an empty stomach.

as i did my first trip to the market this month, i was left with one thought on the way out, “wow! prices have certainly changed since i got married!” but as i put away the groceries, another thought came to me. “wow! my shopping habits have really changed since i got married!” nine years ago, when i did my first marketing order as an adult cooking for a household, i never would have dreamed that i would be spending extra money to get organic bananas, free-range eggs, non-hydrogenated vegan margarine, or gluten-free tofu steaks (mmmmm, tofu steaks…)! but alas, as we become more aware of the impact our everyday purchases make on the world at large, we are left with little choice but to change our priorities and put our treasure where our heart is. this never became more apparent to me than when we had a child. expensive? YES!! but because it is important to make sure our son has the best that we can give him, somehow it’s easier to let go of the money. i would like to leave you with a challenge for the week, inspired by a green parenting publication from the UK i came across today at Borders: change ONE item in your shopping cart to organic and/or fairtrade. make it something your family uses/consumes on a regular basis, and just decide that it is worth the extra few cents to see the impact on the world and on your family’s health. and never go back to the “conventional”;)

today i would like to share with you two of my favorite sweeteners and why they are nutritionally and culinarily superior to their traditional counterparts. first the dry sweetener!

stevia vs. sugar: we’ve all used white sugar, and we all know how bad it can be for your teeth, hips, and mood. as an added yuck factor, white sugar is quite often processed with animal bones for whitening purposes, and is not most technically vegan. stevia, on the other hand, is an herbal sweetener from a leaf. it has been used for centuries on other continents not as a sweetener, but as an herbal supplement. (the sweetness is just a great bonus for those of us who grew up with sugar on everything.) it has no calories and does not effect blood sugar levels.in its most unprocessed form (if you decide to grow the leaves yourself), stevia can be a little bitter, but luckily there are many brands available at well-stocked supermarkets that are “debittered” and even measure cup for cup like sugar, for easy replacement in your recipes. my favorite brand: stevia in the raw, from the makers of sugar in the raw. i’ve talked about this product before and stand by it still. fairly inexpensive and perfect for any situation calling for a dry sweetener – you will not regret this switch over!!

but what if you need a liquid sweetener?

agave nectar vs. honey: oh, honey. you have had your day! there are unique antibiotic properties to raw honey, and it has a great culinary history. having stated that, have you ever tried to cook with honey? it’s IMPOSSIBLE! you have to melt it or mix it with something boiling, then cool it down to incorporate it into the rest of the recipe. on top of that, it has essentially the same effect on your blood sugar levels (and hips) that white sugar has. (and containing little bits of bee legs makes it NOT AT ALL vegan!!) but what could possibly replace this ancient essential in your kitchen pantry? AGAVE NECTAR!! a natural product squeezed from the agave plant, this syrup has a very low glycemic index (i.e., it enters the blood stream slowly so as to avoid a spike in blood sugar) AND mixes easily into any temperature recipe! in fact, i have seen alton brown on good eats say he is stirring in honey, but actually use a bottle of agave nectar!! if you are a first time user of agave nectar, make sure you go for the lighter liquid, as the raw, dark nectar has a very distinct flavor. (on the other hand, if you are accustomed to heavier tasting honeys, you may want to go right for the raw.) agave nectar can be very expensive. i tend to buy the type i can get in bulk at my local market, but have occasionally found a large bottle on sale at whole foods for a reasonable price.

i hope you are encouraged to get out of your old sweetener rut and try something new. your teeth, hips, and mood will testify to the superiority of these products – i promise!!