Bountiful

The dictionary defines the word Bountiful as :

Large in quantities, abundant or plentiful

 That is how I feel about food. There is a bounty of amazing, delicious healthy whole foods out there to eat. I am obsessed with food. I love to plan meals and cook them, I dream about them and then eat them. I am a foodie.

I wasn’t always this way. As I child I lived on spaghetti-o’s and in college I ate nothing but Belgian waffles and sugar puff sandwiches. Seriously. It is no wonder I had so many health problems and mood swings.

Becoming vegetarian and then vegan put me on a path of wellness--mind, body and spirit--that I never dreamed possible. Yes, I am vegan because I care about the suffering of all living creatures, but also because a whole foods, plant based diet has been scientifically proven to be the healthiest diet not just ON the planet, but FOR the planet. It is the environmental choice as well. What’s not to love?

I have often had people say I could never go veg as I would have to give up so many things. Okay, I can count on one hand (meat, dairy, eggs, honey, animal parts for clothing like leather, fur, wool or silk) that I have given up but the amount of foods that I have embraced is…well…..bountiful.

Some people ask me, “But what do you….eat?” Like they can’t think of what other foods are out there beyond meat, dairy and eggs. When I was in hospital having the horrible hysterectomy, the dietician asked me about my diet. She was so hesitant as she was thinking must eat…..I dunno…..leaves and twigs that she didn’t know what to plan for me. So I said,

“Um….fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils, mushrooms, nuts and sometimes tofu.”  She seemed so surprised and relieved like, “Hey! Those are real foods! I have heard of real foods! Those are good foods!”   She talked to me for ages after that about what a healthy diet it was and she had never actually met anyone who ate like that.

Seriously?

I often get the most sympathy around the holidays where people think because we eat a plant based whole food diet we can’t enjoy a delicious holiday meal. Because it’s not a holiday without turkey, right? I will be the first to say that once turkey was my favourite meat. I looked forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and only ever ate the turkey and the white yeast rolls.

No wonder I was so constipated as a child.

But now, turkey doesn’t look like a meal, it looks like the body of an animal who was bred to get so fat so quickly it could barely walk. It doesn’t look like food anymore. It looks like death.

So what did we eat? Well…..we started with amazing food on Christmas Eve and ate our way to Boxing Day.

Christmas Eve:

Savoury Chestnut and mushroom risotto with roasted parsnips and carrots in a maple syrup glaze.

Christmas Day:

 Nutroast made from black beans and walnuts, golden crispy roast potatoes, tangy orange cranberry sauce and peas. Oh and gravy. Lots of gravy.

I love the juxtaposition of green peas and red cranberry sauce. It looks so festive.

Boxing Day:

Left over nutroast, a huge portion of roasted parsnips and carrots in a maple syrup glaze, fluffy mashed potatoes and leftover gravy and cranberry sauce.

For pudding we had the Choc Chunk Cookie Pie from Including Cake‘s blog: http://www.includingcake.com/recipes/?recipe_id=6029970  (you may need to scroll down to see the recipe) I didn’t manage to get a picture but since it was made with chocolate and hazelnuts it was like eating a nutella cookie. Yum.

My crap photography do not do justice to the deliciousness of these meals. They were amazing. Plus I discovered that I am in love with parsnips.

My childhood self would have laughed her socks off to think that should would later actually dream about vegetables. I actually dreamed about roasted parsnips so much that I ended up composing a love song to the parsnip in my dreams.

Seriously.

But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear it.