Veggie Cooking: Baked Buffalo Cauliflower Wings

Don't let Bertie's expression fool you, he was also impressed by the final product! (11/11/17)

Attempting to maintain a less cruel diet, I haven't eaten meat, fish or chicken since July 1. While I have also tried to reduce/eliminate products harvested from animals, by replacing animal milk with Almond for example, a satisfactory replacement for some favorites has thus far eluded me. By far the two animal-product-based meals I most miss eating are ice cream and chicken wings. With the ice cream absence addressed by a delicious banana-almond milk-peanut butter smoothie, the chicken wing "loss" is one that often aches at my gut, especially on Sundays.

After recently enjoying some baked cauliflower buffalo wings at a local vegetarian eatery, I sought to duplicate the epicurean experience at home. Fortunately an easy to prepare recipe for Baked Buffalo Cauliflower Wings online at Gimmedelicious.com was quickly found, and after carrying it around on my cell phone for a month, my tummy prompted me to action. On this wintry November afternoon, Bertie, our English Springer Spaniel puppy, and I set about making our first batch.

I am an unremarkable cook, choosing rather a clichéd path of learned helplessness when it comes to the kitchen. Even with this culinary handicap, I found this recipe remarkably easy to prepare, in addition to being incredibly rewarding. That the sauce consisted of two favorite ingredients (butter and Red Hot) was a bonus.

A key ingredient: classic Frank's Red Hot! (11/11/17)

Baked once in batter for 20 minutes. (11/11/17)

At this point Bertie had other plans. (11/11/17)

Twenty more minutes after being drizzled with buttery Frank's. (11/11/17)

Plated and ready to SLAY! (11/11/17)

The final product proved an excellent gustatory eexperience. Though too spicy for milady, my stepson and I quickly gobbled down the order of "wings" with a side of dressing. The crispiness of the twice-baked flowerets was solid and the overall flavor VERY reminiscent of the far less fowl-friendly original on which it is based. I am excited to have discovered, and actually tried, a recipe from GimmeeDelicious and look forward to attempting another cauliflower recipe, the Sticky Honey Sriracha Cauliflower “Wings” in the very near future!

Makin' Granola!

Finished product (with skim milk) prior to entering my belly. (6/30/14)

Recently, while stopping off at the local megalo-mart for groceries, I attempted to place a bag of packaged granola in the cart for purchase. My wife, who has recently taken to making her own yogurt, suggested that we should try making our own granola too. Back to the shelf went the packaged granola and onto the web went my wife as she pulled up the most basic granola recipe she could find, quickly determining which ingredients we already had and what needed to be purchased. Though I tried to balk at the idea of making something I could simply purchase, my wife assured me that it was very difficult to screw-up the making of granola.

Mom's Best Granola from AllRecipes.com was the first search result to come up and so was the one we prepared. As with most recipes, and especially one's as flexible as granola, I did tailor ingredients to suit my own (admittedly basic) tastes.

Dry ingredients: Rolled oats, wheat germ, raisins, coconut, sunflower seeds, and sugar. (6/29/14)

Wet ingredients: vanilla extract, vegetable oil, boiling water, (6/29/14)

Dry and wet mixed together (with some cinnamon added for good measure)! (6/29/14)

Into the oven. (6/29/14)

Ready to eat. (6/29/14)

The final product (as seen at the top of the post) was very tasty. While flavorful, the texture was further improved by the addition of raisins and, after cooking, banana slices. This issue of texture is one I have with most granola that do not include fruit, and not a function of this particular recipe. My wife was, not surprisingly, also correct in asserting the ease with which the granola can be prepared: it was very easy to do, requiring little more than mastery of dry and wet measuring cups and an adequately supplied pantry. As an added preparation bonus for the cooking impaired--or those like I who successfully feign the inability to cook--it is very difficult to overcook granola.

During the course of the summer weeks ahead, I'm hoping to try some different recipes. in search of one that hits the right mark, and "Mom's Best Granola" was definitely a good place to start!

A Challenge to Practice Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is not reading about mindful eating. It is not reading while eating.
Following on the heals of the recently concluded ninety-day Big Sit "challenge," Triciyle's on-line community is hosting a two week Mindful Eating meditative experience. As was the case previously with the Big Sit, there will be daily on-line suggestions and support, this time offered by Dr. Jan Chozen Bays. Just like any other form of meditation, Bays, reminds us that "mindful eating involves bringing the mind’s attention to the sensations of eating, then discovering that the mind has wandered off."

In her first article, Dr. Bays makes the suggestion that we begin this "challenge" by first practicing the skill of assessing the seven hungers (Stomach, Body or Cellular Hunger, Eye, Nose, Mouth, Mind, and finally Heart "Hungers"). While this activity sounds very esoteric and maybe even "weird," I am looking forward to the challenge of carefully considering what I ingest, not with an eye towards weight loss, but with a focus on maintaining the moment while eating.

Mindful Eating

Not to do any evil,
To cultivate good,
To purify one's mind,
This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

As part of my recent efforts to follow the Big Sit mediation practice, I have been studying a number of the precepts by which Zen Buddhists live. One of these "rules" centers around the concept of causing no pain to other sentient beings. Of course one of the questions which came to my mind (and was not often asked in my Catholic childhood home) is whether the eating of animal products, such as meat, "counts" as causing pain to a sentient being.

A complicated discussion, to be sure.

As I perused the response to a number of different perspectives on the precept, I recalled a book I had read in college by Thich Nhat Hanh entitled Present Moment, Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who has also done some popular writing around the similarities between Buddha and Jesus.

In his book Present Moment..., Hanh offers some suggestions for increasing mindfulness in eating, including the following short gatha, or "mindfulness verse" to be recited prior to eating a meal:

In this food,
I see clearly the presence
of the entire universe
supporting my existence.

Recently, while eating lunch (which fro me generally consists of tuna, crackers, pears, and pineapple) I had been wondering to myself how to reconcile the conflict inherent choosing to engage in this Buddhist "experiment" and eating tuna and other "meats.". One possible "solution" suggested by others was to celebrate the inherent communal nature of ingesting the food in a way that recognizes the contributions of the being to be eaten, as well as, the individual eating. Now, this may seem a bit esoteric but (stay with me), when one chooses to eat something for which another thing has given of itself, is it not appropriate to celebrate that beings contribution?

I seem to remember in my Catholic upbringing giving thanks prior to eating not just to my Higher Power but also to those creatures that "gave" to the meal I was about to eat. Years ago when I first revisited Hanh's book, I copied some of these gathas and placed them strategically around the house so that I would not forget to remember these things in my thought. It was during a rough time in my life and it helped to ground me in the important little moments that we often
take for granted... especially when I was feeling sorry for myself.

Perhaps it is once again time to return to the use of these gathas during the course of my day the day... all in the interest of experiencing the moment.