A Proper Vegetarian Brekkie: A Lesson in Vegetarian Nutrition

"If beef is your idea of "real food for real people", you'd better live real close to a real good hospital."

Today is my day off, so I woke up early (9am) and cooked up a storm for breakfast for Will and myself. In school at the moment, we're studying seafood and preparing food according to special diets and cultural requirements and it's had really got me asking myself this question, "How healthy am I?". As a personal exercise, I'm keeping track of every single thing I put into my body. I've recently been worried about not eating enough protein, but yesterday I consumed 57 grams, when the minimum I need is 40 grams, which includes 13 grams of vanilla flavoured protein I add to my Weetbix in the morning. Unfortunately I didn't consume nearly as much fibre as I needed, but something surprising was the amount of fibre present in Jols Sugar-Free Pastilles (Forrest Berry flavour). It has 9.5 grams!

You can't get fibre from animal products, so today I vowed to get more serves of fruits and vegetables to see if I can make the 30 gram fibre mark without exceeding my calorie allowance of 1300 calories.

The Menu:
1 grilled Roma tomato with fresh coriander, parsley and fresh pepper
1 small potato, sliced and grilled with rosemary, sea salt, pepper and olive oil
steam wilted spinach with sea salt and pepper (no oil)
pan-grilled capsicum (no oil)
1 egg, pan "fried" with non-stick cooking spray
1 slice of wholemeal toast with vegan margarine
1 soy chai latte

Our "Big Vego Brekkie" provided us with 464 calories, 22 grams of protein, 9 grams of fibre
and 20 grams of fat. A bit high for fat due to the 1 egg and the olive oil and vegan margarine, but double the calories I usually consume for breakfast.

My average breakfast of tea, weetbix, soy milk and vanilla-flavoured protein is just 227 calories, 2 grams of fat, 19.5 grams of protein and 4 grams of fibre.

It's needless to say that I probably won't be hungry until well into the afternoon. It always makes me laugh when I see the results of studies that say that eating lots of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains is the way to keep your weight in control and lead a long, healthy life. All you have to do is is have a few vegetables, fruits and proteins (legumes, tofu, tempeh, eggs) at each meal, which keeps your energy levels up with proteins and carbs and you insides squeaky clean with the fibre.

Lesson of the day: eat your fruits and vegetables!

A Tribute to All Things Moorish, etc.

I fell in love with the unique taste of olive oil in Spain, but only at the every end of my 3 years in Spain. I remember my father always had it drizzled over his salad with a bit of white vinegar. I tasted it once, in secret of course, and I wanted nothing to do with it. One of the first few days in my off-campus (university-owned) apartment, I was set up in the kitchen, ravenously hungry from who knows what and about to cook myself some potato product that looked charmingly round ("Oh look, globe-shaped potato product, let's eat this for lunch", I said to myself in the supermarket). Upon extracting the potato balls from the oil and letting them sit on a pile of kitchen towels, I popped on into my mouth and just as quickly spit it out. I had mistakenly purchased olive oil instead of standard vegetable oil and found the new flavour quite unpleasant on my poor undeveloped palate.

It was my first year away from home and my first year cooking food for myself as new vegetarian. I'll be honest, I lived on cheese sandwiches, tortilla (española) sandwiches, chips, candy and pasta for the first two years in Spain. That sounds absolutely horrendous to me know, but back then I never dreamt of buying a cookbook or eating tapas in the bars. Every time I browsed over the selection of tapas in the bars I could never decipher one greasy pool of food from the one sitting right next to it, plus, most of it didn't look vegetarian, which is why I lived mostly on potatoes. It wasn't until I left Spain at the end of two years and spent a year and a half in America, that I learnt about Spanish cooking and began to cook with olive oil and never looked back.

I've been back to Spain twice since then and it was during my time living in the southern tip of Spain, Seville to be exact, that I began to appreciate the vegetarian-unfriendliness of Spain and how to work around it to get what I wanted. I went out for tapas, drank sangria by the litre, dowsed myself with tinto de verano when it was hot -- I was like everyone else, for once. There was no longer a need to stuff my face with hot chips.

Some weeks ago I borrowed a book titled Shaha: A Chef's Journey through Lebanon and Syria along with Moro Cookbook. The cuisines of the Muslim- Mediterranean all share so much in common. For some reason, I like to throw Italy in there as well -- there is a focus on simply cooked food and good ingredients.



On a previous Dirty Tuesday I posted photos of Manoushi Bread, which is a Syrian/Lebanese bread similar Italian pizza, but with chewier tendencies and an all-together different vibe. It's typically not loaded up with toppings and sent to the oven to cook until crisp. These fantastic little rounds of bread cook up in about 3 minutes and taste best just out of the oven, although they can be reheated under the grill for a minute or two.

Manoushi Bread (makes 12 rounds) adapted from Saha: A Chef's Journey Through Lebanon and Syria

355 g plain white flour
1 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar
175 ml - 200 ml warm water

1. Sift the flour, yeast and salt into a bowl. Dissolve the sugar in the water.
2. Slowly add the water while using one hand to mix. The dough should be on the stickier side, but you should be able to form a ball and knead it until smooth. This should take between 5 and 10 minutes.
3. Roll the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and leave to rise for 2 hours. While the dough is rising, prepare the toppings for your bread. Less is more in this case as the bread itself imparts it's own delicious flavours.
4. Divide dough into 12 pieces and form into balls on a lightly floured surface. Preheat oven to highest temperature if you're using a baking stone or 230-40º C if using a baking tray and set balls aside until ready to use. Roll out the balls into rounds and top. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Try caramelised onions and feta or minced sun dried tomatoes and Granda Padana cheese (or a proper Parmesan if you're not that strict with your vegetarian diet)
5. Bake for 3 minutes, cool only slightly and enjoy.