THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230488
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: HOME COOKS
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH J. ATKINSON, SPECIAL TO FLAVOR
LENGTH: Long : 162 lines
Elizabeth J. Atkinson is a Virginia Beach wife and mother who recently converted her family's fare to vegetarian. This is her story, the first in an occasional series by or about home cooks.
SWITCHING THE FAMILY to a meatless diet is no picnic, even in the comics.
``For Better or for Worse'' recently followed Mom Ellie's attempts to introduce her family to a healthier, more compassionate and ecologically sound diet. The Pattersons have been less than receptive - the kids slipped their dinner to the dog and Dad snuck out at lunch for fried chicken.
It hasn't been easy in our house, either.
My attraction to vegetarianism goes back to the mid-70s, when I went meatless with fervor after reading the veggie bible, ``Diet for a Small Planet'' by Frances Moore Lappe (Ballentine Books, 1971).
But my resolve didn't translate in the kitchen: The recipes from ``Diet's'' cookbook, ``Recipes for a Small Planet,'' were heavy, time-consuming and just didn't taste good. My Grand Experiment failed when a neighbor grilling in his back yard gave me a chicken leg.
I still avoided beef. Good enough, I reasoned, to piously call myself a vegetarian, while regularly eating chicken and fish. Soon, I didn't bother to pick the pepperoni off my pizza.
Some 20 years later - unhappy with the way the back side of 40 looked - I jumped on the exercise/low-fat bandwagon, lost 50 pounds and read books about on aging, exercise and nutrition. Repeatedly, meat cropped up as a dietary villain.
Then, I stumbled upon ``New Vegetarian Cuisine: 250 Low-Fat Recipes for Superior Health'' (Rodale, 1994) and remembered why I went vegetarian in the first place: concerns about my health, animal rights and preserving our environment.
Nutritional bargains
Beans, lentils and grains, I learned, provide fiber and protein without fat and cholesterol.
Beans also are nutritional bargain. Compare, for example, 3 1/2 ounces of cooked kidney beans with the same size serving of broiled sirloin: The beans have 9 grams of protein, no fat, and no cholesterol; the steak contains about 30 grams protein, 9 grams fat and 90 milligrams cholesterol.
A pound of dried beans (about 2 cups) costs about 50 to 70 cents. Cooking expands them to six cups. Now that's a bargain food.
Today's vegetarian knows that man's protein needs can be met with a combination of peas, beans, legumes and grains - a magic marriage that has been adopted by many world cultures for centuries. In the Far East, it's soybeans and rice; in India and the Middle East, it's lentils or chickpeas with rice or wheat; in Mexico, it's beans with corn tortillas. Meat, if present at all, is used in small quantities.
In my Virginia Beach home, the urgency to eliminate meat was rivaled only by the reality of pleasing a husband and two young sons.
Certain meals, like spaghetti, easily can go meat-free. Other, more adventurous dishes turned our dinner table into a war zone.
Our 11-year-old made it clear he will not eat anything with winter squash or peppers - and his radar always spots them.
The 5-year-old goes strictly by appearances. Fried tofu (soybean curd) and falafel (croquettes made with chickpeas) are fine, but a casserole that falls apart on the plate or an unfamiliar soup - no way. One night, after eyeing a bowl of bean and barley, he volunteered to go to his room.
Vegetarian tips
If you want to serve vegetarian fare without dinnertime fireworks, here are some tips I picked up along the way:
Meat substitutes are a good bridge into vegetarianism. Check health-food stores for frozen, canned and dry mixes.
Be sure to read labels. The frozen veggie ``burgers'' sometimes sold in supermarkets, for example, can contain a high amount of hydrogenated oil, which has been linked to heart disease and other ailments.
Occasionally, I buy Morningstar Farms Meatless Deli Franks. A great addition to macaroni and cheese, they get the thumbs-up from the kids.
Textured vegetable protein, or TVP, is an inexpensive, dried-meat substitute often sold in health-food stores. Add it to recipes calling for ground beef, including chili, sloppy Joes and spaghetti sauce.
You can use tofu to make TVP at home, even though the purchased product is less expensive. If you bought some tofu and forgot to use it within a few days, don't throw it out. Make TVP. Here's how:
Submerge the tofu in clean water and freeze it. Take it out of the freezer in a few days - it should be tan in color - and refrigerate for a few days until it thaws. To dry it, set your oven on low. Squeeze the tofu like a sponge, break it into small pieces, spread it on a cookie sheet and leave in the oven for a few hours, stirring occasionally. When dry, refrigerate it in a closed container.
Tofu, or soybean curd, is to soy milk what cottage cheese is to milk. Because it is bland, it absorbs the flavors of broth and spices.
Tofu is inexpensive: At an Oriental market I frequent, tofu is 38 cents for a cake the size of a couple of decks of cards.
More importantly, the kids like it - plain, fried, in soups and stir-fries, or microwaved with a glop of ketchup.
Other quick vegetarian meals come straight off the supermarket shelf. For instance, try adding veggie hot dogs to Mahatma black beans and rice, Vigo red beans and rice, and canned chili beans or barbecue beans.
Canned beans can save a meal. They're convenient because they don't have to be rinsed. Supermarkets have the largest selections of beans. Look for vegetarian or fat-free varieties.
Dry soups containing beans and grains make tasty take-along lunches. I use soup cups by Spice Islands, Fantastic Foods, Casbah Hearty Harvest and Nile Spice, among others. Caution: Some dry soups contain animal products or high amounts of salt and fat.
Health-food-store safaris can yield exciting discoveries. They often stock exotic dry beans, fromthe beautiful burgundy and white anasazi to the giant fava. Cooking times differ but, generally, soak beans overnight and discard the soaking water (the secret to no-gas gastronomy). Cook on the stovetop without salt until tender.
Grains are nutritious and good-tasting, too. Experiment with couscous, bulgur, quinoa (pronounced keen-wah), amaranth, spelt, Kamut, African teff and basmati, Arborio or sticky rices.
Many vegetarians eliminate milk, cheese and eggs from their diet. We use some dairy products but try to limit the fat. It's hard to ban such kid-pleasers as cheese sandwiches, string cheese, egg breakfasts and yogurt.
I use egg-white products, such as Eggbeaters or Scramblers, because they contain no cholesterol and pose no salmonella danger.
Many nonfat and low-fat cheese products can stand in for their heavier counterparts.
Here are some recipes worth trying. [For copies of recipes, see microfilm for this date.] MEMO: SHOPPING AROUND
Shopping in health-food stores and ethnic markets can be a lot of fun
- the number of tofu permutations at my Oriental grocer's is
astonishing, for example.
The following shops offer new culinary worlds, but this list is not
exclusive. Check the Yellow Pages for grocers near you. The proprietors
often are delighted to share their knowledge.
The Heritage Store, 314 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach. Call 428-0500.
The supermarket of health-food stores. Besides packaged and frozen
foods and organic produce, there are extensive selections of nutritional
supplements and other products, a deli and a bookstore.
Health Food Centers, five locations in Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
These small stores have more in the way of nutritional supplements and
cosmetics, but do carry a well-rounded selection of foods.
Whole Foods Co-op, 119 W. 21st St., Norfolk. 626-1051.
Lots of great stuff, including bulk food items and organic produce,
is packed into a small space. Membership means a discount, but the
market is open to everyone.
Azar's Natural Foods, 5032 Southern Blvd., Virginia Beach. 490-7309.
Wonderful products from the Mediterranean and Middle East. Bulk food
items, including unusual spices.Try the meatless Nada Burger. (Note:
Azar's is moving to 108 Prescott Ave., Virginia Beach, on March 1. The
new phone number will be 486-7778.)
Swaagat Indian Market, 309 Aragona Blvd., Virginia Beach. 499-7317.
Wonderful fragrant foods and spices you won't find elsewhere.
Lin's Oriental Food & Gifts, 3452 Holland Road, Virginia Beach.
468-5456.
A stroll through this store is like the grand tour of the Orient. It
has everything, plus one. Unusual produce and inexpensive tofu.
Elizabeth J. Atkinson
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Moroccan Bean and Pepper Stew is a quick, delicious and fragrant
vegetarian dish. Total preparation time: about 20 minutes.
Elizabeth J. Atkinson's two sons love macaroni and cheese with
meatless franks.
by CNB