Almond Milk Chocolate Pudding

It really is quite remarkable how a little infection can turn a once functional human being into a fussy, immobile, bundle of distraught.  Not to mention one that can no longer eat solid food on account of a bright red throat so swollen that speaking is no longer an option.  In case you were wondering, yes, I was suffering from the aforementioned symptoms.  My diet for the past four days has mainly consisted of easily swallowable foods, such as applesauce, smoothies, yogurt, butter infused scrambled eggs, soup, and a not so easily swallowed slice of stollen.

Having been restricted to liquids and very soft foods and being denied my favorite sweet holiday bread, I refused to live without delicious food items.  Even if I couldn’t completely taste everything.  Damn congestion.

The most delicious candidate for swollen throat friendly foods I could think of was chocolate pudding.  And seeing as chocolate pudding is obviously the most nutritious food one can eat while ill, I surrendered.  I’m convinced it was the pudding, and not actually the antibiotics that made me feel better.  Okay so maybe a combination of the two.  My point is the pudding was really good.  Exceptionally so.

When you’re sick, you deserve chocolate pudding.

Almond Milk Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 1/3 cup 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup coco powder
• pinch of salt
• 2 cup almond milk
• 1/3 cup of your favorite chopped chocolate
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation

1. Mix the cornstarch with the water until a thick paste forms.
2. Combine the sugar, coco powder and salt in a small saucepan.  Over medium heat, add the almond milk a little bit at a time.  Stirring constantly, cook until steam rises from the surface but do not let the mixture boil.
3. Take the saucepan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate, swirling to prevent the chocolate from sticking to the bottom.  Let rest for three minutes, then mix to incorporate the chocolate.
4. Return the pan to heat and mix in the cornstarch mixture, stirring constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens, a few minutes.  At the end, mix in the vanilla extract.
5. Pour the chocolate pudding into desired containers, covering with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming.  Refrigerate at least two hours before eating.
6. Feel better!

Dumplings

I declare myself to be a flexitarian.  For me this means striving to maintain a vegetarian/vegan diet most of the time and only eating meat when I know it’s source, how it’s been raised, treated, and what it’s been fed.

Today is my friend is having a small celebration of her birthday with a close group of friends.  Her mom will be making the best dumplings in the world that are well worth all the labor and preparation that goes into them.  These dumplings contain meat.

Is this a dilemma?  Not really, because there is no question in my mind that I will take those dumpling with gratitude and even eagerness.  It would be rude not to do so.  However, knowing what I know, it’s hard to block out the negative thoughts.  As a foodie who is concerned for animal welfare but yet wants to explore and travel and experience different cultures and their food (which more often that not will contain meat) this is a conflict that I know will arise frequently throughout my life.

Here’s the deal.  I think the cultures that surround food are the most important thing when we go to sit down at the table.  Our food cultures tell us what is okay to eat and in which quantities, they are what make eating certain things a taboo and others a delicacy, they bring us together, and they tell the stories of our past.  Without a food culture, we could forever roam the supermarket shelves with nutrition facts screaming in our heads and without a clue of what to prepare for your family’s thanksgiving dinner (which unfortunately many people these days are condemned to do).

So we can agree that the culture that surrounds food is one of the most important things when you sit down to eat.  But what about morals and beliefs?  Some people die for those sorts of things.

Here’s the thing, I have incredibly strong convictions about the wrongs of factory farming.  I cannot imagine how an industry, and the consumers that support this industry, can treat these feeling, suffering, sentient beings as little more than objects.  When I think about the injustice done unto the 10 billion animals slaughtered each year merely for our taste preferences I feel like part of the suffering is projected onto myself and some days I emerge from a stupor after sobbing for an hour.  No wonder people like to avoid the concept of what goes on when they really eat a hamburger.  It’s depressing.

Since I’d like to avoid depression and can’t help thinking of where my food comes from I strive to lead a vegetarian/vegan/responsible flexitarian diet when what I eat is in my control.  Undoubtedly, I can’t always be in control.  And so, as in any relationship between people, compromise is necessary.  I can respect a person who is a die hard vegetarian or vegan – but we can’t expect our acquaintances, friends, and businesses that serve us to uphold the same dietary ethics.  Of course one could just stay home and cook every meal, but to me, equally as important as eating responsibility, is the culture and relationships we form around food.  And these relationships we form around food require compromise as does any healthy relationship.

So when I sit down today to eat dumplings with my closest friends to celebrate one of my best friend’s eighteenth birthday, yes, I will eat pork dumplings of which I do not know the exact origin except that they came from her mother’s hard work and desire to feed us with one of the most delicious things she can make.  I will set aside my flexitarian beliefs to enjoy a meal with my closest friends who are leaving in a matter of days to start a new chapter of their lives (in which I will not be with them nearly every day) in college.

Well I’m glad I got that out of my system.

 

 

 

To go vegan, or not to go vegan, that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the kitchen to cook

the products of animals and of the like

or to take arms against a society of omnivores

and by opposing, uphold ethics.  To buy, to eat,

no more, and by a meal, to say we end

the guilt, and inhumanity

that meat and dairy eating is heir to.  ’Tis a idealistic world,

devoutly to be wish’d.  To cook, to eat,

To eat, perchance to consume responsibly.  Aye, there’s the rub,

for in that meal, what immoralities may lie,

when we have thrown off this bliss of ignorance,

must give us awareness.  There’s the facts,

that make calamity of so many a meal:

for who would bear the sick and sad animals,

the CAFO’s wrong, the business man’s greed,

the pangs of rising fossil fuel consumption, used in great amounts for meat and dairy production,

the insolence of Agribusiness, and the wrongs

that patience try of the state of the food industry,

when he himself might his meal make,

with responsible food selection?  Who would bear,

to chew and swallow under a cloud of doubt,

but that the hope of better food,

that seemly unnatainable concept,

that millions hear not of, puzzles the consumer

and makes us rather question these pop tarts

than buy more than we ought to?

Thus, conscience does make prudent consumers of us all,

and thus, the native hunger for meat,

is sicklied over with the bright light of humanity

and enterprises of animal abuse and profit,

with this regard, their target markets turn awry,

and lose the name of evil.