#vegetarian

This can be a vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free recipe if desired.

This is another recipe whose ingredients you can keep in the cupboard for days when you walk in the door and say, “God, I’m tired.“  You only have to have the brain power to open cans, pour things, and stir things.

This is a small batch.  You can make up to a gallon of this by using bigger amounts.  It freezes very well.

• 1 flat can clams or chicken or 1 can cream-style corn
• Milk, buttermilk, or cream; can use cow milk or goat milk or any kind of unsweetened vegetable milk you are used to
• ¾ cup potato flakes
• Optional: up to 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• Celery salt, onion powder or dried minced onion, and pepper
• To serve alongside: Crackers

Drain the can into a large measuring cup.  Add milk, buttermilk, or cream to make 2 ½ cups.

Put the mixture into a saucepan and heat on Medium.  DO NOT let it boil.  Just let it get nice and hot.

Stir in the potato flakes until they dissolve.

Stir in the butter or margarine, if using, and let it melt.

Season to taste with celery salt, onion, and pepper.  Add more potato flakes if you want a thicker chowder.  Keep stirring and tasting.

Add the contents of the can, stir again, heat, and serve with crackers.

Variations:

• Replace the celery salt with ½ stalk celery (with some leaves if possible), diced, and/or the dried onion with ½ small onion, diced.  Saute them in the butter to begin the recipe, then add the can broth-milk mixture and go on, using only salt and pepper for seasoning.
• Simmer a handful of diced peeled potato in the can broth-milk mixture until soft before adding the rest of the ingredients.
• Stir in some cooked or canned vegetables such as green beans or broccoli florets.
• Serve very hot and have some grated cheese for people to stir in if they want.

Vegetable Mash, AKA “A Plea For My Grandmother’s Rotmos”

• 3 medium potatoes
• 1 beet
• 2 carrots
• 3 garlic cloves
• Optional: Other root veggies like parsnips, rutabagas, or turnips. Autumn and winter squash like pumpkin or butternut also works great!
• About a quarter cup liquid, for mashing (milk, butter, broth, or other rich liquid)
• Seasonings
• Optional: cheese (Parmesan or cheddar is typical, but if you happen to have goat cheese on-hand, I highly recommend it)

(NOTE: you can vary the type and ratios of veggies based on what you like or have on-hand. I like to have it be about half potato, since that gives me the smoothest mash, but anything works!)

Peel any vegetables with especially thick skins. Roughly chop vegetables— the slower-cooking ones like carrots will need to be in smaller pieces than something like potatoes.

Boil everything in water until tender. You can put some milk into the boiling water to make the mash creamier, but you really don’t have to. Drain, return to warm pot.

Mash with your liquid until the vegetables are mostly smooth. Add salt, pepper, and whatever spices you want (I use paprika, cayenne, and thyme) and stir in optional cheese until melted.

Optional protein: put a serving of the mash into your Eating Plate, and make a divot in the middle for an egg. Cover and microwave for about a minute until the white is set.

I also like to eat it with leftover meat, or nuts (pine nuts or sliced almonds are very tasty)

Day 2
Once I went to sleep I had a good nights sleep which was good as I have recently been waking up after 3-4 hours

Went to make juice but the infernal contraption is broken.

Have contended myself with hot water and lemon and sucking on orang segments.

Got a message saying my new juicer will arrive between 10-11 am! Thank goodness for that!!!!

Used the new juicer to make a carrot, sweet potato, kale and collard green juice. Tasted fine. This new guy works 100x better than the old bit of tat!

Lunch today was a beetroot, red cabbage, apple, ginger and celery juice. It looked like a galaxy in the juice jug and didn’t taste too bad. I also added a little lemon juice.

“Snacks today have been hot water with lemon and sometimes ginger .

Dinner. A kale, broccoli, celery, spinach, cilantro apple and lemon juice. Like eating lawnmower clippings but hey, it must be good for me!

Dessert. Fresh pineapple juice . It speaks for its self really, the best thing ever.

I have had a headache all day which I guess is also party to do with lack of coffee. Still wanting food but I feel some what more hopeful that it will get better.

I will endeavour to actually take picture of the juices I drink tomorrow as I honestly could not me bothered today haha

As the debate of meat eating versus vegan diets continues to resonate online and across the supermarket isles, I was surprised to read what can be regarded as something of a rare happening with Tyson Foods investing in non-meat produce crafted by a vegan start up.

Has hell frozen over? Not exactly even if major changes do happen across the industrial realm where some companies manage to understand what’s the future like. By saying this I’m not making a prediction that in near future we will stop eating meat all together; however, winds are blowing towards a direction that sees valid alternatives to traditionalism in food.

I’d like to point out first one issue that is often ignored when we debate meat and how it’s delivered on out tables. When speaking of animal farming we are all aware of the poor conditions some pastures are placed in order to maximize profitability. Endless quantities of meat constantly appear across thousand of supermarkets of all size in our country, creating a market behavior that does not directly reflect the consumer demand, but it’s the correlation between animal farmers and distributors (aka supermarkets) where the game is played.

We can asses that by analyzing the large amount of beef, pork, chicken, along with the relative byproducts, which are thrown into the garbage every week by grocery stores because it becomes unsold and close to expiry date. So, in essence blaming families as the main cause of animal conditions is not fair, but it’s the display of abundance distributors (aka supermarkets) perpetrate which drive the production demand high with the waste.

Tyson Foods is one of the largest North American dealer in terms of animal products from big restaurant chains to the frozen food section where many shop. The scale of manufacturing and client sale is very big and very lucrative, with a noticeable impact that comes with influential behavior since millions of people eat these products.

Beyond Meat, the vegan startup, has been producing valuable alternatives to burger patties that aesthetically look like any ground beef you could use to slap on your BBQ grill, and allegedly critics who have tasted it can confirm the similarity with the original animal product. Packages are already available across different grocery stores in the US and are planned to expand beyond the border. It’s essential to monitor if this deal continues and how this protein alternative can influence the markets and competitors.

This shift in behavior is nonetheless very interesting because it places a name like Tyson, often denounced for cruelty against its chicken and cows, changing the tune of their score and able to understand the trends happening out there not only on the internet but among communities.

Tyson knows that meat prices will continue to go up and its product consumption risks to go down; a major shift in dietary habits among the population translates in billions in losses. In the last twenty years we have seen all sorts of boycotting against fast-food meals and processed food, fields in which Tyson is fully responsible and well placed among.

In order to begin a portfolio diversification to develop with solid grounds, Tyson is making the smart move not to continue placing all its eggs in one basket. Investing in future trends proves to be a test against core industrial values that defy the traditionalism of certain markets. This also plays well on Tyson’s PR strategy so it can wield the ‘environmentally friendly’ card to the media, and who knows, perhaps a change in their marrow philosophy.