Day 5 - Almost There!

You, my friend, are a tasty little slice of vegan heaven.

Vegan enchiladas officially rock my world.  Not only were they really fast and easy to make, but they taste incredible.  Not much like enchiladas, really, but they didn't have to.  I was a little scared when I first tasted the hummus/nutritional yeast "cheese" sauce, because on its own it mostly tasted like powdery hummus, but when added to the tortillas and veggies it blended in with the dish perfectly.  One note on the recipe - mine definitely made for more than two enchiladas.  I got three out of the deal (lucky me!) and could easily have made a fourth had I not run out of space in my baking dish.  I also added a little bit of ginger to the dish to take some of the bloat out of the beans.

Given that I'm completely incapable of going to the grocery store without forgetting something (in this case, three separate times), I decided to make my own tortillas for the enchiladas.  They're quite simple and tend to hold up to toppings much better than store bought.  The recipe I used comes from this site on Texas cooking and provides some useful tips on getting your tortillas to come out well.  The recipe was for "chewy flour tortillas," although I subbed in some almond milk for the regular milk (with no change in the taste or texture).  These tortillas tend to be a bit smaller than store bought and mine always end up looking slightly crazy since I have no patience for making them perfectly round, but like I said, they don't tear or break if you overstuff them.

Oh, and speaking of the dreaded bloat (I know, such a lovely topic when writing about food.  Sorry about that), after some research yesterday I found that it's perfectly normal to walk around looking three months pregnant when you first change your diet.  I also found some natural remedies online that seemed worth trying.  I already knew that ginger and chamomile make for stomach-calming teas, but I didn't know that fennel seeds will also help.  Due to my distaste with looking like I'd eaten a whole cow rather than just veggies I combined the three of them.  I normally don't much like fennel because of the licorice taste, but combined with some grated ginger, agave nectar, and a chamomile teabag it was quite pleasant and really seemed to help.  And thank goodness, because that was going to make me one cranky temporary vegan.

I also got some good news today from my sister.  I told her about my pancake disaster the other day and she said that her husband, Calvin*, has a stellar vegan pancake recipe.  I can practically taste the maple syrup right now.

*Funny story about the name Calvin.  It's not his real name, but I didn't know that for about 9 years.  In fact, I didn't know that until the signing of the marriage certificate, when I inquired as to why his nickname was on the paper.  I thought we just called him Keith (his real name) because Calvin was such an unfortunate name to be stuck with.  So now I just call him Calvin anyway because it amuses me.  Sometimes I'm so brilliant I practically knock myself out.