short post about dubious feelings regarding this blog.

So apparently, I may be breaking the rules by cooking this kind of seyami food.

Right, so: the point of the Seyam is to eat to live and reverse our backward thinking that we live to eat. There is supposed to be a certain amount of pain and suffering involved, a certain amount of asceticism and relinquishment involved.

For me, enduring veganism for 55 days is all of that, and it doesn't matter how good it is, it's hard for me, because there's more than just veganism involved. It's hard for me to break my serious, hard-core habit of going out all the time. It's hard for me to have to forego all of the things I'm used to. I kind of see cooking well and creatively as a respite, a way of getting through the seyam successfully, seeing as I've seen people just give up because it's very hard.

Advise, please. If anyone is out there reading. I have a couple of meals that I took pictures of, and Ihad intentions of at least posting the recipes, but I need to know that what I'm doing isn't derailing anyone, or actually making the seyam harder. If so, I'll stop right here.

thanks, all.

the meatball-type things we made tonight

Okay, so maybe they're a lot more like croquettes, but they were awfully good.

First, I saw this post,http://tinyurl.com/yj6yu8o and followed the recipe. But I added some things, and here's how it went.

Instead of a fresh sweet potato, I took the lazy woman's way out and used ore-ida steam and mash yams: http://www.oreida.com/products/sweets.aspx

and I used frozen mirepoix mix (carrots, celery onions; diced). I also charred it on purpose, to give the meatballs a smoky flavor.

I used about a fourth cup of nutritional yeast. It tastes delicious...

and, as for spices, I used a fourth tbsp. of seven-spice, a fourth tsp. of this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Pyramid-Mediterranean-Salad-All-Natural-Herb-Seasoning-1.75-oz/10324512

cayenne pepper, paprika, garlic, and a sprinkle of my special ingredient that makes everything wonderful: Ranch dressing powered mix. (Yeah, I went there. It was awesome, too.)

I rolled the mix into little balls and fried them in Smart Balance (It's vegan, yay!) and set them on a bed of Egyptian rice, made with "not chicken" veggie broth: http://www.veganessentials.com/catalog/natural-vegan-chicken-and-beef-bouillon-cubes-by-edward--sons.htm

I put it on a dollop of hummus, seasoned with turmeric and paprika, and shredded some almond vegan pepperjack over it: http://www.lisanatticheese.com/index.php?Itemid=8&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=1&item_id=4

And I tell you, it was HEAVEN. When was the last time you were able to say that something seyami was heaven?

pictures forthcoming (like when I can figure out blogspot's way of incorporating HTML), or go look at the album here:http://www.facebook.com/mmemaledicta#!/photo.php?pid=697297&id=1643391810

Cheers until tomorrow, when we make seyami green chili burritos. OH BABY!

~Audra

first of all...

Tired of eating fool, koshari, and salad for 55 days during Great Lent?

So am I. Will you join us on a journey through the best of vegan food? I plan to maintain this blog during fasts only. during feasts, you can go eat whatever you want. You don;t need this blog if it's feasting time.

A little about me:
I am Audra, I have a nice, wonderful husband, who went to culinary school and taught me how to cook. Before that, the only things I knew how to cook were Hari Krishna foods, weirdly enough, because I spent a year living with them, back when I was super-rebellious.
We converted to Coptic Orthodoxy in July of 2009, but at that point, we'd been going to the church for a year, and had been researching it before that for quite some time. It was one of those things where it was glaringly obvious that this was where we belonged, as strange as that sounds coming out of a protestant-raised, American-born mouth. In any case, we are parishoners at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox in Denver. And we need fun seyami stuff to get us through until Easter. So here we go...