Meatless Monday Missteps

No - I'm not vegetarian, or vegan. Just a foodie tryin' to avoid becoming a statistic in the (cue ominous music) obesity epidemic. Seriously, the way this is talked about in the media, you'd think it was the zombie apocalypse.

I've been doing the lacto/ovo vegetarian thing on Mondays for a while now. That means milk and eggs but no animal...um...flesh? And at the risk of offending the pescavegetarians...fish are animals so they are not part of my Meatless Monday routine. Of course, I'm an unrepentant carnivore the rest of the week so I'm pretty much offending someone 6 days a week anyway. Why stop on Mondays!?

At any rate, I've found it pretty easy to do vegetarian once a week so I figured, how hard could it be to do the full on vegan thing?

Apparently, it's pretty freaking hard!!!! No dairy or eggs is takes some planning.

Week 1, I had made my lunch for work, planned dinner and packed snacks - all vegan. Ate vegan breakfast and grabbed my coffee. Annnnnnd realized I couldn't put half and half in it. I take my coffee seriously, folks. The almond milk I tried to lighten it with did NOT cut it.

See what I mean...ewwwwwww!

Week 2, I figured would be easier because I got through week 1. After eating O'soy for a snack did I read the cup to find the active cultures came from milk. Why make a cultured soy yogurt and put a milk based item in it? Why?????!!!!! Then I made my vegan pizza with the home made dough for dinner. Cause I never just follow a recipe like a normal person, I brushed the dough with olive oil and seasoned it up my way. Not a prob until I realized halfway through grating parmigiano reggiano over it, that it was no longer vegan. Dammit! But I built it anyway with the vegan mozz and Italian seitan and it was might tasty.

Now THAT's a crust! (and why do I have man-hands in this pic?)

Never do I back down from a challenge - even when I should - so I am determined to make this happen! (I am so gonna Ahab this Vegan Monday thing until I take the whole boat down with me...)

-DK