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The We Love Our Lurkers Open Thread

Tuesday’s over and I’m about to dig into the finale of The Good Wife, a show I think we should seriously consider covering here.  It’s been a great day at Persephone, and hopefully a decent day for all of you as well.  Hop in the comments and tell us what’s going on.

I can’t think of a good song to post, so I’m just going to stand here and hum.

By [E] Selena MacIntosh*

Selena MacIntosh is the owner and editor of Persephone Magazine. She also fixes it when it breaks. She is fueled by Diet Coke, coffee with a lot of cream in it, and cat hair.

16 replies on “The We Love Our Lurkers Open Thread”

Any veggies in the house? I’m going on a month-long vegetarian kick soon, and would love any pointers, your favourite vegetarian receipe blog… any help at all?
I also plan to steal some cookbooks from my veggie friends, so any recommendations there would be great.

I’ll point SlayBeau towards your question. He’s the primary cook in our house and we’re a (mostly) vegetarian household.

I don’t know how strict you want to be about your vegetarianism for the month, but if you’re going whole hog, check the ingredient list of your favorite products. There’s a lot of things that seem like they’d be vegetarian but actually aren’t because of byproducts and flavoring ingredients — Doritos and Sun Chips aren’t vegetarian. Jello isn’t either, which you probably know, but most people don’t make the hooves connection.

A lot of your favorite recipes will still work with easy substitutions. — vegetable or mushroom stock for beef/chicken. Quorn is a fantastic meat substitute that our family is really fond of. We use tempeh instead of beef in beef bourguignon and love it. A frittata with vegetables and soy sausage is really delicious and filling when paired with a nice salad.

Thanks! I’ll look forward to reading his thoughts. I’ll definitely check out tempeh as a red meat replacement.

I’m aiming to go the whole hog (pardon the pun… though it’s not so much the consumption of animals but the environmental consequences that have me leaning towards a veggie or mostly-veggie diet). I have good few vegetarian friends and they’re some of the best cooks I know – I think vegetarianism definitely makes you pay more attention to what you eat and how, which is no bad thing.

I started label-reading today and I was happy&amused to find out that my emergency stock of ‘chicken flavour noodles’ are a-ok because they just have ‘artificial chicken flavouring’ and no actual chicken…:)

Slaybelle pretty much gave you what would have been my first suggestions. Italian cooking has some marvelous bean recipes that eschew the whole lentil/Mexican bean event horizon. White beans are lovely with broccoli or broccoli rabe or kale. I quick saute dark, bitter greens (rabe and kale especially) with red pepper and garlic and serve over pasta. I’ve recently fallen in love with polenta, which is a good base for other bean and greens based dishes.

Tempeh can be daunting at first. It sort of tastes horrible by itself (I think), but it has a lovely texture that soaks of a bazillion flavors with ease. marinate it with red wine, fennel, tarragon and a bit of onion before rowing in oil on all sides (my base for veg. bourguignon); OR

crumble and cover with water, simmer until water is mostly gone, then saute with sausage spices for an easy replacement (this works with chorizo seasonings, Italian, southern, etc…just experiment with whatever makes your favorite meat sausage taste good). I’ve used this to replace chorizo in Mexican food and to make biscuits and gravy, for instance. I’ve also mixed this with a bit of egg and bread to bind and made sausage patties.

If you’ve great veg. cook friends, I’m sure they can tell you as much or more than I, but if you get stumped feel free to PM me.

Hello. I’m suppose to be studying but hey! Here I am. :)
So, the giant pile of vegetables from the Vegan post got me thinking about this show I used to watch on BBC America about 2 years ago (back in the days of fancy cable). I’m not sure what the original air date was but it seemed a bit dated when I watched it. Anyway.
The show is about this nutritionist who finds a family that is incredibly unhealthy and helps them convert their lifestyles to a more healthy one. It was truly awesome. She got their eating habits for a week (a ‘normal’ week) and then put them through a full physical – the discussion on poo helped get me to eat more yogurt – and an exercise regiment that fit their lives. They then had to eat her meals for a week and document how it went. The updates were always awesome and full of glowing people who had awesome BMs.
I miss that show. And I can’t for the life of me think of the name. Or if there are ways to watch it online? The woman hosting was goddamn adorable. I kinda want her to start a show here in the states. (but, you know, not shot to hell like all the other shows that get converted from BBC to American. Bastards.) Any help?
Thank you!

Oh, man. It’s totally entertainment value only! :) But whatever gets people to be more aware of vegetables and fruit is pretty damn good.

There was one episode where a woman had very little knowledge about different kinds of vegetables to the point that she had to literally label some of the items in her fridge (she took a magic marker to a turnip and such). I think she learned a lot.

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