Red Curry Soup with Rice and Spinach

While I have had a copy of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Veganomicon that I am madly in love with and am a huge supporter of her Teal Cat Project, I never went to her website until very recently. I've been nominally vegetarian since 1998, but it's only been since the beginning of 2012 that I have been 90-95% vegan. (D and I eat vegan when we're at home, mostly because I'm doing the cooking, but if we eat out, it's vegetarian.)

I finally got around to visiting The Post Punk Kitchen, and I've found some many recipes I'm mad for and can't wait to try. If this site isn't the site for vegans to start at, I'm not sure I would be able to believe it.

Oddly enough, though, the first PPK recipe that I tried was Red Curry Soup with Rice and Red Kale. This one actually is quite odd, because I generally try to steer clear of both spicy foods and kale; like the song says, "we just disagree". I decided to give it a go, though, due to my overwhelming love of both jasmine rice and sweet potatoes.

I let spinach tag in for the kale. I also cut the amount of red curry paste down to 1.5 tablespoons, in deference to my GERD.

Overall, I think it was one of the most flavorful soups I have had in a long while. It's definitely one that I'm going to repeat -- and maybe even show off to certain folks that this is what vegan can be and taste like (and not just be salads).

So, for your consideration...

Red Curry Soup with Rice and Red Kale

Observations from a Brand-New Vegetarian

As y'all can probably tell -- quite clearly -- from the recipes that have been posted here of late, K has decided to fully embrace the vegan lifestyle. It's far easier to eat vegan at home than to eat out as a vegan (Tallahassee is notoriously veg-unfriendly as a whole, although there are options such as Soul Vegetarian and Sweet Pea Cafe), and I'm discovering that the same holds terribly true in this town as a vegetarian.

Admittedly, I'm new to being vegetarian; I've been flexitarian (only chicken and fish, with the occasional pork and turkey) since 1996 or so, and cutting out meat completely hasn't been easy. But I made the decision to go meat-free when K and I started on the 21-day vegan diet back in January, and I haven't regretted it for one simple reason:

I feel much better and healthier than I have in years.

That isn't lip service either. Since about 2005, I've been slowly but steadily gaining weight and losing energy. Chances are pretty good that this could be a thyroid thing (my younger sister has had hyperthyroidism since she was fifteen, and she's going to be thirty-two in May), but the fact remains that my energy level had dropped from I can work a whole nine hour shift at Walmart in the stock room and still be up to go out when I get home from work to I just got off a nine hour work shift, why the hell should I get up and do something? Because of being so sedentary at both work (I spend most of that nine hours at a desk with occasional bouts of ten minutes to deliver documents around) and at home, my weight went from about 130 lbs -- a healthy weight, although not necessarily the ideal for my 5'4" frame -- to where it currently hovers constantly between 155 to 165 lbs.

Since January, when we started eating totally vegan at home and vegetarian while eating out (even with the minimal options, a lot of places do serve things other than salads that a vegetarian can dine on -- my current favorite treat is Red Elephant's hummus dip served with freshly made pita chips), I've actually felt a little more energetic. True, I can still feel worn out after work, but I'm more likely to be willing to go walking Lake Ella or taking a stroll or bike around the neighborhood. Hell, we actually had the energy and gumption to start rearranging our living room -- which has been pretty much set up and not changed since we moved into the current homestead almost three years ago -- with decent success.

So I'm not going to sit and tout the vegetarian lifestyle as something you guys so have to try, omg, I feel like a new person!; I'm just going to say that it's a good lifestyle fit for me and leave those sorts of decisions up to you.

After all, we're all adults here. The decision shouldn't belong to anyone but yourself.