Vegan "pepperoni" pizza

So, this probably won't be my official Vegan Recipe of the Month for September, but I thought it was worth sharing. Last weekend, Brian made a pizza using our homemade vegan mozzarella, as he's done this many times since we found the recipe. But this one had a new twist: it was a vegan "pepperoni" pizza. After his success making a facsimile of Polish sausage from Soy Curls, he started wondering if he could also turn them into a close approximation of pepperoni. He searched online for "vegan Soy Curl pepperoni" and found a recipe for exactly that on a site called Courtney's Homestead, and since he happened to have all the ingredients on hand, he decided to give it a try. 

The recipe was pretty straightforward. After hydrating the Soy Curls, he tossed them with oil and a mixture of ground spices—fennel, garlic, smoked paprika, and crushed red pepper—and roasted them on a baking sheet. The recipe called for a whopping two teaspoons of crushed red pepper, but Brian halved this to keep the spice down to a manageable level. He also made only a half batch, using one cup of Soy Curls instead of two, and found that to be a sufficient amount for a whole pizza. However, since he wasn't sure how I would like it, he hedged his bets by putting it on only two-thirds of the pie.

As you can see, this vegan substitute doesn't look that much like real pepperoni. It looks a little bit more like sausage, and to me, it also tasted much more like it. Granted, it had been a long time since I'd had any kind of meat on a pizza, so my memory might not have been accurate, but the main flavor I could taste was fennel, which I associate more with Italian sausage. If garlic and paprika had been the dominant flavors, I might have found it a bit more convincing as pepperoni, but it would still have lacked the "characteristic tangy flavor" that, according to The Spruce Eats, comes from Lactobacillus bacteria. (It also wasn't greasy enough to be a really convincing copy of either sausage or pepperoni, but I didn't consider that a bad thing.)

Although I wouldn't call this a very close facsimile of pepperoni, it was still an enjoyable addition to the pizza. It provided a little added flavor and texture variety, as well as a welcome dose of protein (which our vegan mozzarella doesn't really provide). So, on the whole, I'd say this vegan pizza topping is worth trying, but maybe don't call it "vegan pepperoni." People who are expecting pepperoni will most likely find this disappointing, but if it's labeled as something like "Soy Curl sausage," they'll probably eat it up quite happily.

An ecofrugal fashion makeover

So, remember how I said last month that Brian had gotten all his back-to-school shopping done for under $50? Well, it turns out he'd like to change his major. 

After forty-plus years of the same basic jeans-and-tees look, he found himself wanting to break out of that box a little. Not to change his look completely, but just to jazz it up with some more unconventional pieces. A little bit arty, a little bit bohemian, a little bit more in touch with his feminine side. Kind of like the stuff at Free People, but for guys (and ideally, a little less expensive). However, since he hadn't bought anything but jeans and tees for so long, he didn't really have any idea how to do this. He wasn't even sure what he was looking for, let alone where to find it. So he basically asked me to be his personal stylist—to help him define his style and upgrade his wardrobe. 

I was happy to help with this, but being me, I also wanted to do it as ecofrugally as possible. Searching for inspiration on fast-fashion sites like LightInTheBox or Coofandy was okay, but I didn't want to buy a bunch of new stuff there. Unlike me, Brian hasn't taken the Dress Retro challenge limiting him to three never-used garments this year, but I still wanted his new-to-him clothes to be sustainable picks: secondhand if possible, and eco-friendly as a second choice. And, of course, I wanted any no-longer-loved pieces removed from his wardrobe to go to a good home, if at all possible.

We started the process by going through his entire closet and getting rid of everything he didn't like. Out went all the clothes he'd been given as gifts and never really worn, all the once-loved pieces too battered to wear, and most of the stuff bought for a heavier Brian that fit like a tent on his current frame. (We kept a few outsized pieces he particularly liked and transferred them to our office closet, just in case he ever needs a larger size again.) By the time we were done, we had filled up three bags with clothes in decent condition to donate to the thrift shop and one with completely played-out clothing to go to the textile recycling bin.

As we worked, we also looked at the pieces he was opting to keep and discussed what he liked about them. For instance, although he kept some shirts and sweaters in dark, solid colors, his favorites were generally the ones with bright colors or interesting patterns. When it came to T-shirts, he was all about the designs and slogans; even a freebie from the blood bank with some message like "I gave blood and all I got was this awesome shirt" was more appealing to him than a plain one. And for most garments, he liked a body-skimming fit: neither baggy nor skin-tight.

Armed with this information, we set out on stage two of our ecofrugal wardrobe makeover: hitting the thrift shops. Since there's a dearth of good ones in our area, we set aside a Sunday afternoon for a trip to  Princeton, where I knew of two stores with a good selection of high-quality items. (Their prices are also on the high side—possibly higher than we might pay online—but I was willing to pay extra for sustainability.)

Our first stop was the textile recycling bin at Westminster Choir College, which we managed to find after driving around the campus a bit. After dumping off the worn-out garments there, we took the three bags of clothes in good condition and hauled them up the steps to the Nearly New Shop, where we handed them over at the front desk before heading off to browse the menswear racks. Brian tried on two short-sleeved shirts and opted to buy one, a white-and-teal check with snaps, rather than buttons, down the front (which he said would come in handy if he ever needed to impersonate the Incredible Hulk). 

He also tried on a very heavy wool cardigan, standing right in front of the mirror first because he didn't want to have it on in the summer heat any longer than necessary. He'd owned cardigans before and worn them regularly, but always in plain, neutral shades; this one had a sort of Alpine pattern to it that he didn't think would be to his taste. But once he had it on and I asked him, "So, would you wear a sweater like this?" his response was, "You know, I think maybe I would." He was a little hesitant because he thought it would probably be too warm to wear at the office, but my position was that if it sparked joy, he should have it. Besides, as I pointed out, he can always treat it as outerwear, since it's certainly warm enough to take the place of a light jacket on chilly fall days.

Flushed with this success, we headed down the street to Greene Street Consignment. Brian tried on a couple more shirts here, but he didn't love any of them—and one that he did particularly like the look of, a color-blocked Henley, proved far too small for him. But he did hit on one unexpected find: a pair of slip-on canvas shoes, labeled as "sidewalk surfers," in a bright Guatemalan print. They were unlike anything he'd ever worn before, but with a price tag under $20, he figured they were worth taking a chance on. We then celebrated our successful shopping expedition with a quick trip to the library bookstore, followed by a snack and a game of cribbage at Starbucks, before heading home.

Cost-wise, our haul from this trip isn't as impressive as our previous one from Goodwill. We spent a total of $76.95 for just three items: one shirt, one sweater, and one pair of shoes. But more than half of that was for the cardigan, and when you consider the sheer weight of that thing, it's not so expensive on a per-pound basis. More importantly, adding these three new pieces to his wardrobe will help him feel a little more like himself—and without adding to the environmental burdens caused by fast fashion. And if that's not money well spent, what is?

Ingenuity > spending

A big part of living ecofrugally is finding ways to solve problems without spending, substituting a combination of work and imagination for money. Appropriately enough, this Labor Day weekend has given us three opportunities to fix problems using our own labor—a bit of physical and, even more important, a good dollop of mental.

Problem #1: The mismatched rain barrel hose

Our new rain barrel didn't come with a hose to drain off excess water. To fill this need, we picked up a cheap garden hose for $7 at Ocean State Job Lot. Brian screwed it on to the overflow valve at the top of the barrel, then stuck it through the garden fence behind the barrel to direct the flow away from the house. 

This was perfectly functional, but it didn't look great. Every time I opened the kitchen door to dump something in the compost bin, it really bugged me to see our nice, new terracotta-colored barrel marred by that incongruous piece of shiny green plastic sticking off the side. (I didn't get a photo of it, but here's a little picture I mocked up with Microsoft Paint to give you the general idea.)

The simple, spendy solution to this problem would have been to go to the home center and buy a new hose in a more unobtrusive black for $15 or so. But in less time than it would have taken us to drive there, I was able to fix the problem with less than a dollar's worth of black duct tape. I just started at the valve end and wrapped it diagonally around the hose until I got to the bottom.

Seen close up, this doesn't look perfect. But we don't spend that much time looking at it close up anyway. It was the view from a distance that bothered me, and that problem is now fixed with minimal cost and effort.

Problem #2: The off-color sandals

No, I don't mean that they were any way suggestive (unless you're into feet, I guess). It was their actual color that was off.

As I've noted many times on this blog, I have a lot of trouble finding shoes that fit my needs. I spent a good portion of this summer looking for a pair of off-white wedge sandals, and several pairs I ordered online either got returned because they didn't fit or, in one case, never arrived at all. So when my latest purchase, a cheap Chinese pair with adjustable hook-and-loop straps, actually felt comfortable the minute I put them on my feet, I knew I was going to keep them, no matter what.

But these shoes had one glaring flaw that hadn't been obvious in the listing. Since my feet are wide, I had to loosen the straps, leaving a portion of the hook-and-loop tape (the generic name for Velcro) visible. And while the uppers were a light beige color, the tape was white. Not off-white, but bright, optical white. The contrast between it and the shoes was very pronounced and very distracting.

A quick Google search led me to this blogger, who said she had successfully painted Velcro using an art tool called a Paintstik. I didn't have any of those, and a quick search suggested that they didn't really come in the off-white color I was looking for anyway, so I started hunting for other alternatives. First I tried tea, which I knew could be used as a fabric dye. (In All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown, one of the girls has to use it on her sister's dress after she spills iced tea on it.) Pressing a damp tea bag repeatedly over one of the hook-and-loop bits turned it a little darker, but it was a big hassle and not all that effective. I thought of trying shoe polish, but the brown shoe polish we had was significantly darker than the shoes, and too-dark tape would look just as bad as too-light.

Searching for a closer color match, I hit on the tube of concealer in my purse. And this turned out to be not only effective, but also extremely easy to apply. I just scrubbed it onto the hook-and-loop tape with an old toothbrush, and it sank right in with just a few seconds of work. The color isn't a perfect match for the sandals, but it's close enough now that you only notice the mismatch if you're staring straight at it. And when is anyone ever going to do that?

Problem #3: Making room for under-sink storage

Lately, we've taken to washing our cleaning rags separately so they don't transfer dirt or oil to the rest of our laundry. At first we put a little mini-hamper for them next to our main clothes hamper, but that system turned out not to be ideal. With the two baskets right next to each other, sometimes we'd absentmindedly toss a rag into the main bin, and occasionally small items like undies and socks accidentally ended up in the rag bin. 

So we decided it would make more sense to keep the rag bin in a separate location. The kitchen seemed like the logical spot, since we could toss rags in immediately after using them. Unfortunately, the only place we could reasonably put the bin was under the sink, and we already had two trash cans there—one for actual trash, and the other holding miscellaneous items like foil, parchment paper, sponges, and zip-top bags. In order to make room for the rag bin, we'd have to find another way to store all that other stuff.

We found some room for the smaller items in a drawer that was only partially filled with dishtowels. For the longer items, we figured the best option would be a cabinet-door organizer like this one. However, we couldn't find anything along those lines at either Target or Home Depot. So, rather than order one online and wait for it to arrive, Brian just measured the cabinet door, made a quick sketch, and disappeared into his workshop. 

When he emerged, he was holding a simple box made of unfinished scrap wood with some little tabs on the back that could be screwed to the cabinet door. We can always finish it later if we want it to look nicer, but for now, it does a perfectly good job of holding the foil, zip-top bags, and parchment paper. In fact, we have much easier access to them now than we did when they were shoved into a trash can with a bunch of other stuff on top. And we now have a spot for dirty rags under the sink, right next to the dispenser that holds our clean rags.

So there you have it: three problems solved with less than a dollar's worth of materials and less than an hour of labor. In every case, the solution is at least as good as something we could have purchased, and in the case of the sandals, it's clearly better. Given how little luck I'd had finding sandals all summer long, this is a problem I probably couldn't have solved at all by throwing money at it.

A farewell to CFLs

This week, Brian and I received a free "Quick Home Energy Check-up" from our utility. Basically, they sent a guy out to our house who looked at our heating system, insulation, appliances, and so on, and made recommendations about ways to save energy. Most of what we learned from this was not news to us. Overall, our home is pretty efficient: our attic is well insulated, our faucets low-flow, our appliances mostly up-to-date. The contractor pointed out a couple of changes worth making (sealing the attic hatch and repairing a compromised double-glazed window) and one that we don't consider worth making (replacing our water heater solely on the grounds that it's over 10 years old, which I already knew was rubbish. We do eventually want to replace it with an electric one, ideally an efficient heat pump model, in order to get our whole house off of fossil fuels, but I see no reason to rush the process.)

The best part, though, was that we got a bunch of free stuff. As part of the checkup process, the checker-up made a whole series of minor efficiency upgrades on the spot. He insulated the one bit of our water heater's pipe that wasn't wrapped already and replaced both our 2.5-gpm shower heads with shiny new 1.5-gpm models that have proved just as effective and satisfying to use. And he replaced all our old compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) with new LED bulbs. Or at least, almost all.

We'd already installed LEDs in the fixtures where we thought they'd make most difference in terms of lifespan, looks, or performance. But other fixtures still contained CFLs, since we already had a bunch of them and figured we might as well use them up before replacing them. So this helpful fellow went through and upgraded the bulbs in our living room table lamps, our guest room lamp, and all the fixtures downstairs—all, that is, except the overhead fixture nearest the stairs. On that one, he spent several minutes turning the "nipple" that held the cover in place, and it just would not come off. It turned freely, but it refused to part ways with the bolt it was attached to. It was a baffling problem, one he'd never encountered before in 15 years on the job, and eventually he had to leave those last two lonely CFLs in place.

After he left, though, Brian messed around with the light for a bit and eventually managed to get the cover off. (He just grabbed the nut with his locking pliers and kept turning the entire bolt assembly until it unscrewed at the other end.) And once he had the light reassembled, he was able to replace those last two CFLs with two extra LEDs that had been removed from the fixture in our downstairs bathroom. (They didn't quite match, so the contractor had replaced them with a matched set of nicer-looking LED globes.) And with that, our interior lighting was finally 100 percent LED-based. 

This left us with a new problem: what to do with all our old CFLs. We had a pretty big collection of them, some left over from previous bulk purchases and some that we'd removed from the fixtures we'd already upgraded to LEDs, and there was no real chance we'd ever use them again. Normally, when we have stuff we no longer need, I try to Freecycle it, but I had a hard time believing anyone would want these old CFLs now that LEDs are so cheap and readily available. (You can buy them at Home Depot for as little as $1.75 apiece now, which is less than we paid for most of our CFLs.) And, as Brian pointed out, even if someone took them just because they were free, they wouldn't be taking the place of less efficient incandescent bulbs; as of this year, those are no longer on the market. All they'd be doing is delaying the transition to the still more efficient, longer-lasting, less-hazardous LEDs. So in the end, we bundled up the lot and hauled them all to the nearest Home Depot for recycling. 

We also brought with us two other CFLs that the contractor hadn't replaced: the two in the exterior light by our kitchen door. We figured if we going to Home Depot anyway, we might as well look for LED replacements for these bulbs as well. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to us to measure the fixtures first, so the pair of EcoSmart bulbs we picked up for $15 turned out to be too wide to fit—and we'd already disposed of the old CFLs. Fortunately, we had another exterior fixture by the patio door, so we just installed the new LED floodlight bulbs in that one. Then we transferred the two ancient incandescent floodlight bulbs from that fixture, which had been there since we bought the house and possibly for several years before that, to the side door.

So now, ironically, the only fixture at our house that doesn't have LEDs is still using old, ridiculously inefficient incandescents. But since that light doesn't get used very often, it's not that big a deal. We can pick up some new LED bulbs for it (that actually fit) the next time we're at a home store, and dispose of the old bulbs with our regular household trash. And at that point, we'll finally move all our home's lighting into the twenty-first century.

Doing the same for our heating and plumbing, now, that will be a much bigger job. But at least we've made a start.

Good hunting at Goodwill

I've been a regular visitor to thrift shops for decades now. Based on a quick count, roughly two-thirds of the clothes in my closet are secondhand, including many unique pieces that I dearly love. But that doesn't mean that I normally have good luck at thrift shops. On any given thrift shop visit (including most of the ones I made during Thrift Shop Week in 2016), the most likely outcome is that I'll find nothing useful and walk out empty-handed. I've only managed to accumulate such a sizable secondhand wardrobe through perseverance; even if I strike out nine times out of ten, my occasional lucky shopping trips add up over time.

The same, however, does not hold true for Brian. In the past month, we've visited two different Goodwill stores: our usual store in East Brunswick and one up in Bound Brook that we decided to check out for our anniversary, because we're weird that way. And between the two, he has filled pretty much every gap in his wardrobe for less than $50. I, meanwhile, came away with a grand total of one item, but given my track record, I still consider that a victory.

Here's Brian's haul from the two trips combined. It includes:

• Two pairs of shorts. They're both cargo shorts, which aren't his favorite, but they both have the above-the-knee length he prefers, rather than the knee-length fit that seems to be all you can find in stores these days. The light grey pair is actually a 30 waist, so it's quite snug on him, but wearable. Both pairs cost $6.
• One pair of jeans. He actually found two pairs in his size, 32/30, on the trip we made yesterday—a rare occurrence for him, since usually he hunts through the racks and doesn't find any. But one of the pairs turned out to be skinny jeans, and he decided he couldn't quite pull that look off. So he bought only the more conventional Levi's for $8. They had a little splotch of paint on one leg, but he was able to scrape most of it off with an Exacto knife, reducing it to only a barely discernible smudge.
  
• One V-neck shirt. Brian's usual uniform for winter is jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt over that. He'll occasionally choose a sweater instead, but typically just for slightly dressier occasions. This shirt is kind of a middle ground between the two. It has an inner layer of comfy knitted material like a sweatshirt, but the outer layer is a woven fabric that's a bit more presentable. It also has a neater, trimmer fit than the typical bulky sweatshirt, so it will take his everyday look up a notch. Marked as a sweater on our receipt, it cost $6.
• One pair of sneakers. This was the biggest coup. Brian's favorite pair of shoes is a pair of classic canvas sneakers in a nifty plaid fabric, which he bought for $20 at Old Navy close to 15 years ago. They were the first pair of shoes he ever saw in a store and thought, "I want those shoes," as opposed to, "Well, I need new shoes, so I guess these will do." And other folks agree with him; he regularly gets compliments on them from friends, relatives, and even strangers. Unfortunately, after 15 years of on-and-off use, they're starting to fall apart. Mind you, that's a pretty impressive lifespan for a $20 pair of shoes, but it's clear he won't be able to use them much longer. But of course, after all these years, Old Navy no longer makes them, and until today, he couldn't find anything he liked nearly as much at a price he considered reasonable. But on yesterday's trip to Goodwill, he found three pairs he liked enough to try them on, and this was the most comfortable fit of the lot. Its solid green fabric uppers aren't quite as snazzy as the plaid ones, but the shoes have the basic old-school styling he likes and were well worth the $20 price tag. He might eventually find something else he likes better, but at least now he isn't at risk of having to go barefoot when the plaid ones finally give up the ghost.

So that's Brian's back-to-school shopping done, all for a grand total of $46. Add in the one item we bought for me, a white cotton turtleneck, and the total is still only $52. 

Just for fun, I calculated what we'd have paid for similar items purchased new from a good but not fancy retailer like L.L. Bean. My calculations: $50 each for Brian's two pairs of shorts, $60 for his jeans, $65 for the closest thing to his shirt, and $50 for his shoes (assuming he chose the color that was on sale). Add in $37 for my turtleneck, and the total for the lot comes to $312—six times what we spent at Goodwill. Even buying everything on sale at Kohl's would have cost us about three times as much.

Of course, if we'd had to buy everything new, we probably wouldn't have bought most of it in the first place.

What's the new Etsy for budget-conscious brides?

Sometimes I fantasize about having a little side business helping people plan ecofrugal weddings. I wouldn't be like a normal wedding planner, who makes all the arrangements from start to finish and charges a grand or two for the service; instead I'd let couples hire me by the hour to do exactly as much of the work, or as little, as they wanted taken off their hands. And I'd use the techniques I learned planning my own wedding, and all the tricks I've learned in the years since, to help them have the wedding of their dreams on a budget they could live with in real life.

Since one particular item that takes a big bite out of many wedding budgets is the dress, I'd want to have one of my services be helping brides-to-be (or anyone who wants a dress without the gendered label to go with it) find affordable alternatives. When I got married 19 years ago, I wore a Renaissance-style bodice I bought on eBay for about $35 and a skirt Brian's mom made for me with about $25 worth of fabric. But that was before Etsy existed, so I've always assumed that if I were trying to recreate the same look now, that would be the best place to look.

Recently, out of curiosity, I decided to check the site and see what kind of options it would offer these days for a bride who wanted the same kind of fantasy-woodland-Renaissance vibe I was going for in my dress. I'd done similar searches a couple of times in the past, and I'd found lots of interesting choices in a wide range of prices. But this time, that wasn't what happened at all. I did a whole series of searches on different terms like "white Renaissance dress," "white fairy dress," "white corset dress," and so on (specifically avoiding the word "wedding," since adding that to the front of any phrase usually adds an extra zero to the end of the price tag). And instead of seeing lots of unique designs by individual artisans, I kept seeing the same few listings over and over under different sellers' names. More frustrating still, no matter how carefully I tried to craft my search terms, most of the dresses Etsy kept showing me looked nothing like what I was describing. I knew there used to be lots of sellers on this site who had the kind of things I was looking for, so where had they all gone?

When I asked Google, "What happened to Etsy?" I discovered that this was not just my imagination. There were tons of Reddit threads discussing the problem, and the consensus was that the site had been taken over by "drop shippers" buying and reselling cheap manufactured goods from China. This flood of cheap stuff had completely drowned out the independent sellers who remained, making it impossible to find their wares. And since the site was also making no effort to make sure item descriptions were accurate, these resellers could slap as many popular labels as they wanted onto their products, so that even a search as specific as "white renaissance fairy dress corset top handkerchief hem" would turn up almost nothing that fit all those descriptors and many things that fit none of them. (Cory Doctorow argues in an essay that this same process, which he calls by a whimsical if rather rude name, is inexorably happening all over the Internet.)

But that still didn't entirely answer my question. It explained why I couldn't find the good stuff on Etsy anymore, but it didn't tell me where I could find it. Presumably, the home tailors who used to make these interesting garments were still out there somewhere. So were they still on Etsy, just buried in the search results? Or had they moved on?

To answer this question, I tried searching for "What is the new Etsy?" That turned out to be kind of dead end. There was a story that sounded promising about angry Etsy sellers creating a new platform called the Indie Sellers Guild, but when I checked that site out, it turned out to be more of an informal union for artisans than an actual platform for them to sell their wares. The site did have a directory of member shops, but it didn't provide any descriptions of what they provided. It might be useful for tracking down a specific creator you'd already heard of, but not for finding creators who sell a particular type of item. And a search for "Etsy alternatives" turned up mostly tools for artists to create their own stores, not marketplaces where you could search a whole bunch of those stores at once.

So I tried a different approach: I took the searches I'd been doing on Etsy and plugged them directly into Google. And this time, I started getting a few useful results. I had to get pretty specific with my search terms, but I started turning up thematically appropriate garments from a bunch of retailers I'd never heard of before, like Devil Inspired, Holy Clothing, Scarlet Darkness, Dolls Kill, and Rosegal. Most of these goods weren't handmade, but then, neither was my eBay bodice 19 years ago. The point is, these retailers had the specific styles I was looking for, and all of them had at least some pieces in those styles for under $100. 

The bottom line: affordable dresses for unconventional weddings are still out there. It just takes a bit more work to find them. And the same probably goes true for any of the other fascinating finds Etsy used to offer up, from woodwork to jewelry.

Now, if anyone would like help finding an affordable venue or assembling a tiered cake, I happen to know a bit about those topics too. Reasonable hourly rates!

Recipe of the Month: White Bean Tomato Cucumber Salad

Our cucumber vines have been very productive this year. They're the same varieties that gave us such a disappointing crop last year, so we can only assume the difference is due to the weather: a really hot spell in late July, followed by a few days of heavy rain. Whatever the reason, we've already harvested 18 medium and 6 large cucumbers, and the vines show no signs of slowing down.

At this point, we've already made all the pickles we can reasonably eat, so this week Brian started hunting for a good salad recipe to use up some of these cukes. On a site called Nourish and Fete, he found an easy-looking one called "White Bean Tomato Cucumber Salad." As written, the recipe called for English cucumber, baby spinach, and quartered small tomatoes—all things our garden wasn't precisely supplying. But it seemed like a fairly minor change to substitute one of our large cucumbers, some New Zealand spinach (a new crop we tried these year with mixed success), and halved Sun Gold tomatoes. The recipe calls for fresh herbs such as "parsley, basil, oregano, dill, etc."; he went with parsley and oregano. With the exception of the red onion, every vegetable in the dish was fresh from our garden.

The salad certainly was pretty and colorful, with its combination of light cucumber, darker green spinach, yellow cherry tomatoes, purple-red onion, and white (or rather off-white) beans. The combination of flavors worked pretty well too, although the dressing was a little heavy on the vinegar. If we make this again, I'd probably scale back the vinegar to two or three tablespoons—closer to the traditional ratio of two parts oil to one part vinegar—so its brightness wouldn't dominate the flavor so much. Or maybe I'd increase the oil instead to make the dressing thicker so it would cling to the veggies a little better.

But this salad's real weakness was that it wasn't very filling. Even with those white beans in the mix, even with Brian's hearty whole-grain bread on the side, I couldn't eat enough of it to satisfy my hunger. I feel like this dish would do fine as a side to accompany a more substantial main dish, such as vegan Swedish meatballs, Soy Curl kebabs, or the grilled Impossible Brats we tried last weekend. (Brian really liked these, saying they were almost indistinguishable from a real bratwurst. I concluded that I must not like bratwurst that much.) But as a main course, it doesn't really do the job.

Eventually, I ended up opening a can of tuna and adding some of it to the salad in my bowl to give it a little more substance. The tuna blended pretty well with the other flavors; in fact, the original recipe suggests it as an add-in to give the dish a protein boost. After mixing in a little over half the can of tuna, I was finally able to get enough food into my belly to feel satisfied. But it did seem like cheating to add this animal product to what's supposed to be a Vegan Recipe of the Month.

So, bottom line: if we make this again, it'll be as a side dish. It could do a pretty good job of adding a little extra flavor to a protein-dense but not that exciting main course, such as plain grilled fish. But as the basis of an entire meal, it just doesn't cut it.