Day 6 ~ Make a Vegan Meal

by Carrie Wells, Ed.D.

I lost a few days in my food challenge because I had to get all 4 wisdom teeth removed, but I'm back! Today's challenge was to create a vegan meal. Now, I may have been a vegetarian/pescatarian for several years, but the vegan thing is a true challenge! I decided to go with a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern flavor.

Here are most of the ingredients that I used

And here was the outcome

I made vegetable kebabs that I brushed with a lemon-garlic-dijon vinaigrette and grilled. I brushed some flat bread with olive oil, added Italian seasoning, and grilled that, too. I made a salad of garbanzo beans, read onion, celery, salt, pepper, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. I served this with some hummus and a decent-quality pre-packaged mix of whole grains (brown rice, bulghur wheat, and a few others). It was pretty delicious! Although one thing I will say, because this contained absolutely no animal products, it also contained absolutely no animal fat. This means that in order to get nice grill marks (which means flavor), I had to use a lot of olive oil. The nice thing about meat products, dairy, etc. is that they naturally contain fat, so you do not have to use as much additional oil. I think I forgot about this as I moved toward eating a more well-balanced diet.