New Traditions, New Comforts, New Ideas Through A Meatless Lifestyle

I love food. I love good food. Sometimes, there is the sad misconception that vegans & vegetarians can't be "foodies" or that their diets are boring. This is not true. Early in my meatless journey, I knew that I would never last long with a boring diet.

Mushroom-Almond Stuffing

Vegetarianism gave me many things. For, and probably foremost, it improved my health. For those who knew me in high school, I was probably not the first one they would expect to go veg, but after a decade... here I am. My journey was headed by health issues with my stomach and the desire to get my life back without drugs or surgery. it was a journey that started with dragging feet, but it worked. An unexpected result of vegetarianism was a lighter spirit and consciousness. This is the part that a lot of people don't expect and can make some people uncomfortable. I didn't expect it, but it happened and it altered some of my view of the animal and human world. The third big thing resulting from vegetarianism was to force me to experiment and become more adventurous food. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life surviving on grilled cheese, peanut butter, or baked potatoes. (Baked potatoes were my main go-to food for the first six months and are now something I tend not to eat a lot of.)

Food is an adventure. Food has become something more than just a necessity for survival. I have created new traditions, experimented with new foods & recipes, found new foods & cuisines, and forced me to challenge myself. Many of the foods I now eat are built on the food traditions I grew up, now altered. Holiday traditions have been re-imagined & new traditions have built upon the old ones (We will get to those.) One concept that has altered along the way, is comfort food. We all have different things. Overtime, one of my unexpected comfort foods has become Indian food. It just makes me happy. Sometimes, I still cling to the "typical" middle America comfort foods like mashed potatoes topped with mushroom gravy or a bowl of ice cream. On bad days or after a long week, sometimes this Ohio girl just needs a some Mattar Paneer over rice with Samsoas & garlic naan bread. Lucky for me there is a local restaurant near my work place that I can stop or  call ahead to grab take out. Depending on the day, it may also be veggie eggrolls and dumplings from my favorite local sport, Greek (yay falafel), or Mexican (from restaurant or homemade at home). Just because someone grows up in Ohio, doesn't mean that have to eat like they've never lived or eaten anywhere else.

Homemade mushroom tacos topped with lettuce, homemade salsa, cheese, & black olives in soft flour tortilla

Falafel platter with spicy feta spread from local Greek restuarant

Jamming With the Ohio Pawpaw

Ohio pawpaw

Until a few years ago, I had never heard of the native Ohio fruit the pawpaw. My brother has made a yearly tradition of going to the Ohio Pawpaw Festival and had the t-shirts and beer glasses to prove it. This year he came home from the festival with a bag of pawpaws and a plan. A plan that needed my help. He was going to turn is approx 5 pounds of fruit into jam, inspired by a couple jars a friend had made and given him. To learn more about the Ohio pawpaw check out some of these links to start your exploration: Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association or Pawpaws: America's Best Secret Fruit.

The phone call was simple and rather typical, starting along the lines of needing a favor. Somehow, growing up in our house, he had never learned how to can fruits, vegetables, or anything else. He could read a recipe, but he needed someone who had made jam and jelly before to help him turn his not yet ripe fruit into jam. Somehow, he got me to agree, knowing its hard for me to turn down a challenge. Despite stories and pictures, I had never seen, tasted, or worked with the Ohio pawpaw.

A couple days before the fruit was to be turned into jam, I got another call with another of my brother's great ideas. He wanted to combine the recipe I used for my habanero jelly with his friend's family recipe for pawpaw jam to made a habanero pawpaw jam. I scoured the internet for ideas, looking for others who had combined the Ohio pawpaw with spicy peppers, with little luck. My brother told about a sauce he had tasted at the festival combining such flavors and we decided to try it.

It was a messy process

Raw pawpaw

My brother owns no canning equipment and his kitchen is still a bit sparse for cooking equipment, but he made do. (I might have a few new Christmas ideas for someone now as well.) His girlfriend is vegan, loves pawpaws too, and he needed my help no only in making jam, but also in making sure the jam we made was vegan so he could share it with her. Using PETA's Baking Reference page as a guide and reassurance, we hit the local grocery to get supplies. Jars, sugar, brown sugar, pectin, a new canning funnel, lemon & lime juice filled the cart as we made our way to pick up the habaneros, but to our misfortune, they were out of habaneros. We decided to pick up a pablano pepper and a a handful of serrano peppers to give part of the jam a kick.

A pawpaw seed

Pablano Pepper Halved

The recipe was simple, with equal parts mashed fruit and sugar with lemon juice and pectin. We had just enough fruit for about once batch, so we split it in half and made two half batch. The pawpaws were carefully washed in the sink and prepared. The process of cutting up the soft fruit and removing the large seeds took quite awhile and the work of two sets of hands. Seeds were cut out and the soft flesh was scooped out with a spoon. It was a messy job, but more time consuming than difficult. My brother carefully collected the seeds in a a cup to be planted later and hopefully have his own crop after a few years. Johnny Pawpaw Seed?

Cooking Pawpaw jam

Cooking spicy pawpaw jam

The first batch was more tradition with lemon juice and substituting half white sugar with brown sugar to give a richness. The second batch was all white sugar, with finely diced pepper mix, and lime juice cooked a little longer to let the peppers and pawpaw fruit cook together. Jelly jars were filled with the hot jam, lids secure, and the entire collection spent 20 minutes processing in a hot water, before set to cool on the kitchen counter. Before I left, I carefully explained how to check for the jars to seal the next day, what to do with any that did not seal, and to be prepared for the sounding of popping as the jars seal. I was told the popping started before I was out the door very long. The results were deemed very tasty and rather successful, with great plans on how to use the treasured jam and even greater plans for next year.

Pawpaw Jam cooling to be enjoyed later

We got about 4 jelly jars from each half batch, making 8 finished jars, with a little bit extra for tasting. Everything sealed for long time storage (although I'm not sure how long they will sit unopened and uneaten). As payment, I got dinner at a local Indian restaurant (he knows my weakness) and offered some of the convented jam. A new food and recipe was conquered. And maybe someone who had never canned anything before in his memory is ready to try it again.

Would you try a pawpaw? Have you tried it before?