Vegetarians?

Recipe time!!!
I decided to do a little experiment today. I made BBQ chicken pizza, except that I used Lightlife's Chick'n style Smart Strips instead of real chicken pieces. However, I didn't tell my parents this (if my dad knew he was eating tofu I think he would've started throwing things around the kitchen). So the moment of truth came when they ate it and everybody loved it. My parents were shocked/delighted when they thought I was eating meat again. But of course I let 'em know what was up and they actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. Anywho, my recipe for (vegetarian) BBQ Chicken Pizza goes something like this:

Ingredients:
1 tube premade pillsbury pizza dough
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (my favorite is from Trader Joe's yummmyy)
1 small can crushed pineapple
1 small red onion
1 package of Lightlife's Chick'n style Smart Strips (I get them from Whole Foods)
2 cups grated mozzerella (or goat) cheese


Directions:
-preheat oven to 400 degrees F
-roll out premade pizza dough onto greased cookie sheet (mend if any wholes)
-bake pizza dough for 7 minutes
-while baking, thinly slice red onion into crescent shapes and sautee until soft and lightly browned
-take dough out of the oven and spread BBQ sauce before adding cheese, pineapple, red onion, and chick'n strips
-place back in the oven for another 7-8 minutes
-turn off oven, but leave pizza inside in order to stay warm while you set your table and prepare the rest of your meal


Happy cooking, and let me know if any of y'all actually try this

Little Eden wrote:

The problem I have with produce is how quickly it spoils and then I've wasted money on spoiled food. Peaches can be very tempermental.

Maybe you have to go shopping more often, but fresh food won´t hurt ... I don´t think being a vegetarian takes any more effort than eating meat ...

Little Eden wrote:

ShieldYourEyes wrote:

Vegetarian, here. It was hit or miss and trial and error but it has finally clicked for me and I'm so happy about it.

That's definitely how it was for me. It took a few tries before I was finally like "hey, this is what I want and nothing is going to influence me otherwise"

It's incredibly hard in the area where I live. It's heavily focused on fast food and fattening diets. Luckily, I have a couple friends who are Vegan and my fiance is on board with the lifestyle change, so I feel pretty confidant. We should help each other out on here. If someone needs a boost of confidence, recipes, cooking advice, etc. let's make this a real community!

Tobi wrote:

Little Eden wrote:

The problem I have with produce is how quickly it spoils and then I've wasted money on spoiled food. Peaches can be very tempermental.

Maybe you have to go shopping more often, but fresh food won´t hurt ... I don´t think being a vegetarian takes any more effort than eating meat ...

Thank you! Definitely making this when I get back home from traveling these next couple weeks! I love pizza!

Speaking of my trip(s) this week, tomorrow I'm heading to Columbus, OH for the Gaslight show, which hopefully I can find a good Veggie friendly restaurant to eat at while I'm in town. I hear Bento-Go Go and Aladdins Eatery are pretty good.

Then, I'm off to Fort Wayne, IN. My fiance is in a wedding, so I've got to research for food options out there.

Lastly, we're going to Chicago before coming home to see her parents. Chicago Diner, here we come! Vegan and Vegetarian food since 1983. Google their site and check out their Summer 2010 menu. I'm salivating over the "Buddha Burger."

ShieldYourEyes wrote:

Tobi wrote:

Little Eden wrote:

The problem I have with produce is how quickly it spoils and then I've wasted money on spoiled food. Peaches can be very tempermental.

Maybe you have to go shopping more often, but fresh food won´t hurt ... I don´t think being a vegetarian takes any more effort than eating meat ...

Thank you! Definitely making this when I get back home from traveling these next couple weeks! I love pizza!

I just ate some of it out of the fridge and it definitely falls under the "amazing as leftovers" category. Nomnomnom!!!

well hello, fellow veggies.

little eden, i want to move back to santa barbara and live with you so we can rock out to gaslight and cook scrumptious veggie dinners together! haha...i mean that in a non creepy way.

i haven't eaten meat since i was 17. when i told my mom, she basically said that if she thought about it, she could have seen it coming for many years. when i was a toddler, she used to have to tell me that the thanksgiving turkey we ate was a "store turkey", not a "real turkey," and that when we went to the grocery store and passed the fish in the deli, i always thought the fish had tears in their eyes cause they knew they were going to be eaten.

when i first stopped eating meat, i basically became what some people call a junkatarian. let's just say, french fries were a major food group for me. in the last couple of years though, i've really tried to make an effort to eat more healthfully and whatnot. at first i just stopped eating meat, but over the years i've cut out beans that are made with lard (might sound like a minor thing, but arizonans eat a lot of mexican food!), milk (try to do just soy milk now), and i basically avoid eggs, too.

no one else in my family is a vegetarian, but my family for the most part has been pretty supportive. when i lived with my dad, he would make a separate veggie gravy, veggie packaged fakemeat, mushroom in place of meat, etc. so i guess i was pretty lucky in that my family didn't make it any more difficult for me than they have to.

and i agree, kieran, the argument that meat is somehow "manly" is bullshit. sticking to your guns and what you believe in takes more cojones. i do feel like a lot of people need to question why anyone would be vegetarian...and it is frustrating, especially when they use a lameass argument like "god put animals on the earth for us to eat," and it makes me really upset to think of the torture that animals go through just because someone "can't give up their chicken sandwich/thanksgiving turkey/mcdonald's hamburger." i'm sick of people thinking they are somehow better than every other creature in the world. i think everyone that wants to eat meat should have to go out and watch it be slaughtered. it's easier to say you don't have a problem with it when it's been killed and gutted and remade into the shape of a burger and you have no real connection to what your food started out as.

okay, END RANT! haha.

Little Eden wrote:

Recipe time!!!
I decided to do a little experiment today. I made BBQ chicken pizza, except that I used Lightlife's Chick'n style Smart Strips instead of real chicken pieces. However, I didn't tell my parents this (if my dad knew he was eating tofu I think he would've started throwing things around the kitchen). So the moment of truth came when they ate it and everybody loved it. My parents were shocked/delighted when they thought I was eating meat again. But of course I let 'em know what was up and they actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. Anywho, my recipe for (vegetarian) BBQ Chicken Pizza goes something like this:

Ingredients:
1 tube premade pillsbury pizza dough
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (my favorite is from Trader Joe's yummmyy)
1 small can crushed pineapple
1 small red onion
1 package of Lightlife's Chick'n style Smart Strips (I get them from Whole Foods)
2 cups grated mozzerella (or goat) cheese


Directions:
-preheat oven to 400 degrees F
-roll out premade pizza dough onto greased cookie sheet (mend if any wholes)
-bake pizza dough for 7 minutes
-while baking, thinly slice red onion into crescent shapes and sautee until soft and lightly browned
-take dough out of the oven and spread BBQ sauce before adding cheese, pineapple, red onion, and chick'n strips
-place back in the oven for another 7-8 minutes
-turn off oven, but leave pizza inside in order to stay warm while you set your table and prepare the rest of your meal


Happy cooking, and let me know if any of y'all actually try this

that sounds really good and im definitely going to try it sometime!

steph wrote:

well hello, fellow veggies.

little eden, i want to move back to santa barbara and live with you so we can rock out to gaslight and cook scrumptious veggie dinners together! haha...i mean that in a non creepy way.

i haven't eaten meat since i was 17. when i told my mom, she basically said that if she thought about it, she could have seen it coming for many years. when i was a toddler, she used to have to tell me that the thanksgiving turkey we ate was a "store turkey", not a "real turkey," and that when we went to the grocery store and passed the fish in the deli, i always thought the fish had tears in their eyes cause they knew they were going to be eaten.

when i first stopped eating meat, i basically became what some people call a junkatarian. let's just say, french fries were a major food group for me. in the last couple of years though, i've really tried to make an effort to eat more healthfully and whatnot. at first i just stopped eating meat, but over the years i've cut out beans that are made with lard (might sound like a minor thing, but arizonans eat a lot of mexican food!), milk (try to do just soy milk now), and i basically avoid eggs, too.

no one else in my family is a vegetarian, but my family for the most part has been pretty supportive. when i lived with my dad, he would make a separate veggie gravy, veggie packaged fakemeat, mushroom in place of meat, etc. so i guess i was pretty lucky in that my family didn't make it any more difficult for me than they have to.

and i agree, kieran, the argument that meat is somehow "manly" is bullshit. sticking to your guns and what you believe in takes more cojones. i do feel like a lot of people need to question why anyone would be vegetarian...and it is frustrating, especially when they use a lameass argument like "god put animals on the earth for us to eat," and it makes me really upset to think of the torture that animals go through just because someone "can't give up their chicken sandwich/thanksgiving turkey/mcdonald's hamburger." i'm sick of people thinking they are somehow better than every other creature in the world. i think everyone that wants to eat meat should have to go out and watch it be slaughtered. it's easier to say you don't have a problem with it when it's been killed and gutted and remade into the shape of a burger and you have no real connection to what your food started out as.

okay, END RANT! haha.

I took it in a non creepy way! LOL! If you're ever back in Santa Barbara PM me and we can meet up!

And you have extremely impressive ranting skills. I envy thee.

haha. i will, i haven't been up there in awhile, but i still have a good friend that lives up there that i usually can talk into going on last minute trips to see Gaslight with me, but she couldn't go this last time, so next time I'm hoping to coerce her into hitting up a bunch of shows. if my car can survive another road trip.

i'm vegetarian too, for about 2-3 years, don't plan on going back. hasn't been too difficult. i dont see how people "can't go a day" without eating meat. i could go a day without doing literally anything pretty much, save breathing and all that jazz

vegeterian for 2 years now. no problems here. actually, feeling better than before.

Just hit up my favorite sandwich place in the city, Ike's Place, and got a BLT w/vegan bacon and "dirty sauce". I am such a happy girl right now

seems like there's kinda lots of veggies around here, i like that =)
any other vegans except for me? or people who tried or want to try?

I tried being a vegan. it only lasted 2 weeks. i love Cheese way too much

steph wrote:

especially when they use a lameass argument like "god put animals on the earth for us to eat," and it makes me really upset to think of the torture that animals go through just because someone "can't give up their chicken sandwich/thanksgiving turkey/mcdonald's hamburger." i'm sick of people thinking they are somehow better than every other creature in the world. i think everyone that wants to eat meat should have to go out and watch it be slaughtered. it's easier to say you don't have a problem with it when it's been killed and gutted and remade into the shape of a burger and you have no real connection to what your food started out as.

okay, END RANT! haha.

And this is why lots of meat eaters get annoyed at vegetarians, do you have the right to tell people what to eat or how it should be prepared any more than they have a right to disrespect your choices.

Little Eden wrote:

Just hit up my favorite sandwich place in the city, Ike's Place, and got a BLT w/vegan bacon and "dirty sauce". I am such a happy girl right now

Im so checking this place out. Is it a purely veggie place or do you have to ask for the vegan/veggie choices?

Theres this place called the Veggie Grill here in Orange County. Soo good. Defiantly worth checking it out if your in the area

kieran wrote:

Little Eden wrote:

Just hit up my favorite sandwich place in the city, Ike's Place, and got a BLT w/vegan bacon and "dirty sauce". I am such a happy girl right now

Im so checking this place out. Is it a purely veggie place or do you have to ask for the vegan/veggie choices?

They have a menu of over 100 different sandwiches. Half have meat, the other have just vegetables or vegan meats.

JadedGoober7 wrote:

steph wrote:

especially when they use a lameass argument like "god put animals on the earth for us to eat," and it makes me really upset to think of the torture that animals go through just because someone "can't give up their chicken sandwich/thanksgiving turkey/mcdonald's hamburger." i'm sick of people thinking they are somehow better than every other creature in the world. i think everyone that wants to eat meat should have to go out and watch it be slaughtered. it's easier to say you don't have a problem with it when it's been killed and gutted and remade into the shape of a burger and you have no real connection to what your food started out as.

okay, END RANT! haha.

And this is why lots of meat eaters get annoyed at vegetarians, do you have the right to tell people what to eat or how it should be prepared any more than they have a right to disrespect your choices.

except that i keep my mouth shut instead of getting into pointless arguments with people about it, i was voicing how i feel, not saying that was what i have ever said to someone. i really am not interested in getting involved in an argument with you.

I get asked all the time why I don't eat meat. I just tell them there are a lot of reasons and then I try to avoid a pointless conversation, really, it's just a waste of time. seems like they care more about what I eat than what they eat, good for them.

if you´re talking to real "bros" about this and wanna avoid any numb, mindless conversation just tell em that "you`d love to kill it for them, but don´t wanna eat it" ... usually shortens the whole conversation process a little ...

I'm new here, and I'm not a full vegetarian, but I eat a lot of veg/vegan things. I've turned more into a clean eater, not eating things that have ingredients you can't pronounce, haha.

Learning to cook a lot of my own meals, using fresh ingredients whenever possible, and just overall healthy eating. Do I still eat some trash? Yes, who doesn't? But I love eating and cooking new veggie dishes.

Yet another veggie discovery in San Francisco!

Greens is an amazing all vegetarian menue restaurant in San francisco's Marina district. The upside, the food is sinfully good. The downside, reservations must be made way in advance and it is quite pricey

But if you're ever in my neck of the woods, it is definitely worth it!!!

vamike wrote:

I get asked all the time why I don't eat meat. I just tell them there are a lot of reasons and then I try to avoid a pointless conversation, really, it's just a waste of time. seems like they care more about what I eat than what they eat, good for them.

yeah that's same with me. i got into a stupid (albeit friendly) argument with this woman on a plane once and she asked why and i was like animals, don't agree with how it's done, etc. and she was like that's nice...for that i guess you have to believe animals have feelings, and well, that's nice.

to me that's the most retarded argument (closely followed by "god put them there for us to eat"), because my simple response is how the fuck do animals not have feelings...they have a nervous system...and my guess is they don't exactly enjoy being killed...

a lot of times when i answer the animal cruelty argument i get into how i saw some videos that peta put out there one night and it got me thinking, and i saw more and learned more and decided i wasn't cool with what was going on and their responses are either 1) well why'd you watch those videos then? which i think is stupid because you can't just pretend something you don't, or even might not, agree with doesn't exist. or maybe people can, but i couldn' or b) well it's not alll done like that. which is also stupid because clearly it is happening, videos like that aren't staged, and even if it's not all done like that maybe i'm just not cool with killing anything in any way, "humane" or not

so now when i asked i'm just like uh animals mostly, and the environment. the environment is usually easier to explain and is less likely to lead to a silly discussion, by the end of which neither party will have ceded.

[/rant]

speaking of veggie food, burger kings veggie burger is astonishingly delicious