food oct 29 & 30, 2008

oct. 29.

Breakfast: apple, some pineapple, pumpkin seeds, strawberries

Lunch: collard green smoothie, potato skins (made baked potatoes for house-mate and she doesn't like skins--they were good and sweet)

Snack before dinner: carrots, apple, strawberries, rest of a cantaloupe (not a lot, not too bad, not too great). The strawberries were better than usual even though it's the same brand, whatever that ubiquitous organic strawberry from California is. It seems the smaller ones are better.

Later dinner at my vegan cooking class: lots of different kinds of soups (3 of them from the Fuhrman member site, so I can't share, sorry): Black Forest Cream of Mushroom Soup, Carrot and Red Lentil Soup, Dr. Fuhrman's Famous Anti-Cancer Soup, and French Minted Pea Soup. For dessert, we had blueberry-fig sorbet. It was fun having all the soups together to taste-test. I was surprised to find that I liked the Anti-Cancer Soup more than the Cream of Mushroom, though maybe it's because I had 3 bowls of the mushroom soup on Tuesday! It's hard to pick the best. I think I'd pick the pea soup; and maybe the carrot-lentil soup next; and maybe the anti-cancer soup next. That's interesting because the cream of mushroom was hardest to make, so why bother?

oct. 30

Breakfast: apple, some pineapple, some pumpkin seeds, made a collard green smoothie and had the leftovers (3 oz maybe?).

Lunch: wasn't very hungry from yesterday, just had some steamed broccolli, and a few bite's from housemate's soup (carrot-lentil)

Dinner: collard green smoothie, carrot, some strawberries, and a banana with some walnuts. this was so good I had another! then I was too full. I may go on a banana with walnuts kick for a while. it's a great easy dessert.

I'm in a mind to just eat what I enjoy and see where that leads me to. I seem to really like fruit and the green smoothies more than anything else. But it goes in phases. I like cooked vegetables too, but probably just had too many of them this week with all the soups I was making. I don't like how the soups make me feel so full, due to the beans. I guess the solution is not to eat so much! Next week for the last cooking class, by student request, I'll make something with tofu, perhaps tempeh, and then some potluck type things.

oct 28 ramble

I have been feeling self-conscious because I told my cooking class about the blog and I'm embarrassed that someone might actually look at it.  Compared to normal people, I eat really weird.  This makes me think I'm weird and I tend to look down on myself at these times without asking why.  I was thinking, will people think I have an eating disorder?  Do I?   I happened to make one of my self-deprecating remarks out-loud in a conversation and it was then that I realized how self-critical I am.  I should be proud of myself, or at least happy with myself for becoming healthy through nutrition.  I'm reluctant to be proud of myself because I can't stand it when people feel superior about anything.  It is my biggest pet peeve (actually I have another biggest pet peeve which is women who pee on toilet seats!  these are such different pet peeves that it's hard to compare them.  but this is off-topic).   Anyway, so I can't be proud of myself, but I should be happy with myself.  Maybe I should be proud of myself in a non-superior way.  I think I'm proud of myself in a non-superior way for being vegan.  I'm still trying to figure out why it's easy for me to be vegan but more of a struggle to be a healthy eater in social situations.  I don't care what others think about my veganism.  I feel strongly about it and no one can make me eat animals.  With the healthy stuff I'm much more worried about not offending or rocking the boat.  oh well, I gotta get back to work.   

oct 27-28 food

oct. 27

breakfast:  apple, some walnuts and strawberries

snacked while making lunch and dinner

lunch:  leftover carrot lentil soup.  salad (lettuce, avocado, strawberries) + dressing (orange juice, almonds, figs blended)

dinner:  collard green smoothie

oct. 28

breakfast:  apple,  sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds

snacked while making lunch

lunch:  made "Black Forest Cream of Mushroom soup"  from the Fuhrman web site (which means I can't share it, sorry...).  It took a while to make but was wonderful and makes lots of leftovers to freeze so the time investment is worth it---though it's harder to do on a weekday than a weekend, I was rushed today.  I'm going to bring all these soups to my Vegan cooking class tomorrow.  

dinner:  leftover salad and dressing from yesterday.  a very small bowl of soup leftover from lunch.  collard green smoothie.  Last night we had our first freeze in the garden.  The collard greens barely survived but the kale mostly looked okay.  if they freeze tonight, I'll cut them up and freeze them.  I think I might have another week's worth of collard greens and kale from the garden.  The growth rate has slowed a lot.  This has been such a great crop though.   I haven't had to buy any collard greens or kale!  And I eat a lot of them!  

Oct 25-26 food

Oct 25

I fell off the wagon today.   I bought a bunch of muffins and cookies for an all-day work event and I ate some of them.   Then later on, housemate and I decided to go to the Blue Plate Diner for dinner.  I had a barbeque seitan sandwich, curly fries, and a vegan mint/vanilla chocolate chip shake!   It was good and I enjoyed eating it.   Oh, I also had a cup of decaff coffee in the morning.  Well, I guess both the coffee and the chocolate in the shake was too much caffeine for me--I slept very poorly and was wide awake and more animated than usual.   I can't believe how sensitive I am to caffeine now.  And the salt in the dinner made my fingers swell up.  geez louise I'm like this this caffeine/salt/sugar sensitivity meter now.  So I don't know what to think.  Is it okay to splurge every once in a while?   Or is it easier to be 100%?  I find it completely easy to be vegan, as it requires one rule--if it's not vegan, don't eat it.  No emotion or feeling of feeling of deprivation accompanies this because I have no desire to eat animal products.  But I go through different thought processes with healthy eating.   A lot of the time my splurges are just because I'm wondering if I am missing something.

Oct. 26

Breakfast:  apple, some delicious carrots

Lunch:  collard green smoothie

Dinner:  carrot lentil soup.  It was a Fuhrman recipe so I can't post it here.   It only had 3 ingredients:   carrot juice, red lentils, and onions!  It was sweet and good.  I'm trying to make crackers from the leftover carrot pulp, based on what someone from the Fuhrman forums posted.  I don't know if my first attempt is not going to be post-worthy.  I'll let you know if it is.

Food Oct 23-24

Oct. 23   

Breakfast:  still full from yesterday and last night!, no breakfast

Lunch:  leftover salad and dressing from yesterday's cooking class.  good!  for dessert, a cup of warm soy milk with carab powder.   For fun, I experimented buying some raw and roasted carab.  tried both out. Usually I make my own soy milk but bought some for the cooking class.  It is sweet!  They must add a lot of sweetener to it.  It is good I admit that.  the best brand in my opinion is Organic Valley.  

Dinner:  collard green smoothie.  ate some grapes and an apple while making it.   had a cup of warm soy milk with the carab again.  I think I like the raw better.

Oct. 24

Breakfast:  apple, some sunflower seeds, a little of last night's green collard smoothie--it filled more than 2 glasses.  and finished off with warm soy milk.  this time without carab.  that was best of all I think.  

Lunch:  took some of that Fuhrman's famous anti-cancer soup out of the freezer.  I'm sorry but that name does not appeal to me.  It gives me visions of cancer and medicine.  But it's great that it makes so much and I still have a few more containers in the freezer.  I also had some carrots and an apple.  I'm running low on food which made me break in to my first bag of locally grown carrots for the season.  Boy are they good.  Amazing how much better the locally grown stuff is.  That's why I've been eating a lot of apples too because they are local and they are so much better than the ones shipped from Washington and New Zealand.

Dinner:  rest of yesterday's collard green smoothie (I freeze it to keep it fresh and it thawed in the fridge during the day).  more carrots, an apple.  then 2 vegan "cowgirl" cookies at a gathering I went to tonight.   these are the co-op's healthier version of chocolate chip cookies and I think they taste better than their regular vegan version.

Comment:  I've noticed that my breakfast time is pretty close to lunch--only about 2-3 hours difference because I go to my exercise class first and then often grocery shop or run errands on the way home; and then I'm not really hungry at lunch.   So I'm experimenting with eating less for breakfast and then having the smoothie at dinner.  I have funny work hours so dinner for me is more like lunch for most people and lunch for me is more like dinner for most people.  So the smoothie is easy to make for dinner.  It is very filling, which is why it's problematic to eat at breakfast.  

Oct. 22 food

Breakfast:  apple, some sunflower and pumpkin seeds

Lunch:  mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, very good.

snacks all day:  I was preparing for my first ever vegan cooking class (as teacher!).  so I cooked a bunch of stuff and ate all day and night.  Boy was I ever full.  No wonder chefs are often portly.  Well, I didn't have to eat it, but I don't resist desserts very well.  So here's what I made during the day:

Almond Chocolate Dip

Pumpkin Pie Pudding

Salad: lettuce, mushrooms, edamame

The first two were from Fuhrman's member site so I'm guessing I'm not supposed to share them.  They were both good.  Dip the strawberries and apple pieces in the chocolate dip:  YUM.  And I love pumpkin pie so the pudding was a treat too, without all the unhealthy stuff in it.  I ate too much of that during the day, whew.  

Then at the class I made

Fruit smoothie

Green smoothie

Orange-walnut-fig salad dressing (like the orange-cashew one only with walnuts since I didn't have cashews), which went on the salad

Banana walnut ice cream

The ice cream was the surprise hit.  Who knew that frozen bananas, walnuts, dates, and soy milk could be so delicious?  and easy too.  I'll have to remember that one.  You really need a vita-mix for that one though---it even stresses the vita-mix.  But it makes a real creamy half-frozen mixture, like custard in texture.

oct. 21 food

Breakfast:  Collard Green smoothie

Lunch:  Leftover black-eyed pea soup, cabbage salad, snacked while preparing the food, so got really full.  I think my breakfast and lunch are too close together, and I get too full.  My smoothies are very filling. 

Dinner:  cabbage salad, and random scraps (strawberries, figs, grapes, mushrooms)

Oct. 19-20 food

Oct. 19

Breakfast:  oatmeal and fruit salad.  I went to a brunch and brought my own oatmeal and fruit salad for the group.  I'm glad I did because they served something non-vegan, even though they had vegan toast.  The oatmeal was really good and no one seemed to care.

Lunch:  green smoothie (was out most of the day so this was a good take-along)

Dinner:  snacked on fruit and leftovers while cooking.  This was stupid because then I overate.  I steamed brussel sprouts and beets for about 15 minutes, and then added about 2 oz of arugula and raisins and vinegar for another 5 minutes.  It was good but then I was too full, so that was dumb.

Oct. 20

Breakfast:  Collard green smoothie.  yum

Lunch:  black-eyed pea stew.  yum.  apple for dessert.  yum.  and about 4 oz warm soy milk.

Dinner:  brussel sprouts and cauliflower.

black-eyed pea stew

I made this up following Dr. Fuhrman's philosophy of combining juice, greens, vegetables, and beans to make a delicious soup. I had in mind the combination of black eyed peas and sweet potato (or butternut squash).

Ingredients:

2 cups dried black eyed peas (about), soak overnight. or 2 cans no-salt black-eyed peas

1 large sweet potato or 1/2 butternut squash, peeled and chopped

1 onion

1/2 cup rice (I use a brown/wild rice mix, yum)

2 bunches kale or collard greens or other leafy green, cut up one, juice the other

1 green bell pepper (optional)

1 Tbsp veggie zest or some veggie powder or nothing at all

5 cups veggie juice (combination of carrots, greens, beets, celery, or just carrots at a minimum)

~1 cup water

some fresh or dried herbs (I had fresh tarragon, thyme, basil, marjorum, parsley)

Soak the black-eyed peas overnight, if using dry. Rinse them. Juice the veggies, add to the peas, start cooking. Add the rice. Chop the onion and throw that in. Add the water as needed while cooking. Chop the kale and bell pepper. Peel and chop the squash or sweet potato. Add these all in the 2nd hour of cooking. Add the herbs. Total cooking time is about 2 hours, or until peas are tender. If using canned peas, total cooking time is one hour (determined by rice), so add the ingredients as they are chopped.

Oct. 16-18 food

Oct. 16

Breakfast:  green smoothie.  Lots of locally grown spinach at the co-op so it's been competing with my collard green smoothies.

Lunch:  mashed potatoes, broccoli & carrots.  dessert:  fresh cut pineapple (perfect ripeness, delicious).  small cup warm soy milk (made from my new soymilk maker which I love!).

Dinner:  Brussel sprouts (locally grown, yum) and some odds and ends (orange, pear, figs, carrot)

Oct. 17

Breakfast:  green smoothie

Lunch:  salad (lettuce, mushrooms, boiled and shelled edamame) with dressing (fresh squeezed orange juice, handful of walnuts, about 4 figs).  very yummy!   finished off with a small cup of warm soymilk (my coffee substitute).

Dinner:  this was surprisingly good:  I steamed brussel sprouts for about 15 minutes, added a bag of arugula and about 5 chopped figs for another 5-10 minutes.  added some vinegar (Dr. Fuhrman's black fig vinegar.  This sat for several hours (in the fridge) since I made it at lunch and I think that allowed the flavors to blend more.  Then I also had some leftover lunch salad.  And then I was full and should have stopped but I had some fruit salad too (strawberry, pineapple, grapes, pear, figs).  ugh.  I was too full.  so already failing on the Fuhrman plan.

Oct. 18.

Breakfast: wasn't hungry after too much food last night!

Lunch:  this was also surprisingly good:  I cooked up some quinoa (about 1 cup quinoa and 2 cups water), with some chopped onion, Dr. Fuhrman's veggie zest (1 Tbsp or so), and later on in the cooking, some chopped mushrooms, and 1 cup each frozen peas and corn.  oh, and some chopped figs (can you tell figs are in season?).  These added a nice sweetness.  grapes or raisins would work too.  Total cooking time, about 30 minutes.  Then had some fruit salad--cut up strawberries, banana, apple, grapes, raisins, figs.   Lunch was a picnic at a nearby state park.  a beautiful day hiking and viewing the fall colors.

Dinner:  Green smoothie

I went grocery shopping tonight and there is so much great local produce now!  wow, so that's what I'll be eating the next several days.  About the only non-local vegetable I got was carrots because I want to make cabbage salad.  And lots of the fruit was non-local because I have to make a fruit salad for a breakfast gathering tomorrow.  But the apples and pears are local and much better.  All of this local produce is much better than shipped stuff.

update

So from Oct 6 - 10 I continued my 16 hour work days and did fall off the wagon a few times.  I ate some dark chocolate covered almonds (vegan) on Oct. 6.  It seems that the caffeine in chocolate keeps me awake so I ended up working all night!  and went to exercise class at 6:30 am the next morning without sleeping.  I felt a little crazy and by that I mean mentally insane.  But the workout did relax me.   Then on Oct. 9, the day before the proposal was due, I thought it was crunch time so okay to do the drugs so ate some more chocolate almonds and stayed up late.  Then on Oct. 10, let myself splurge with some cookies (always vegan) and decaff coffee (yes, this stuff affects me now that I'm totally off caffeine!).  Then I splurged some during the next week with some vegan cookies and a couple of muffins, and some seitan stroganoff from the co-op.   It was good but salty and oily, and the salt in all these things bothered me more than the oil.  I think once your body gets used to no salt, it has a hard time dealing with an onslaught.   Now I'm back on the wagon and I have to say, I feel better and am not sure what the point of these splurges are.  It is a psychological thing where I feel I deserve a treat.  But I think next time I will consider a non-food treat.  Like a massage. 

Dr. Fuhrman has this program where you can become an "Eat for Health Counselor" and I'd like to try it.  You have to read a bunch of books and take an exam.  I figure if I wanted to actually become a counselor (and I do as a community service to help people improve their health, not as a job since I currently have one), I should be able to follow his plan.  So I am trying to do that for 6 weeks.  To show you how much confidence I have, I don't think I will succeed.  This isn't a diet so much as an eating plan, but I have never succeeded on either in my life.  It is true I usually eat super healthy.  So I have succeeded at becoming healthy.  But sticking to a plan, I'm not so good at that.  But I'd like to try it.  So as of two days ago I've been trying to eat as Fuhrman recommends.  However, I'm busy busy as always, so don't have much time to make recipes so am just throwing stuff together.  I did make his "famous anti-cancer soup" last weekend and that was quite a production and I have to admit it was fun, and it made a gazillion servings, so I still have a bunch in my freezer.  It involved juicing 5 lbs of carrots and two bunches of celery!   But that added a nice flavor I have to admit.  Then it had 8 zucchinis!   and mushrooms and a few beans and cashews and onions.  wild.  but quite good!  

Anyway, one thing Fuhrman emphasizes is to let your body have time to digest and detoxify between meals, so to only eat 3 meals a day and no snacks.  Well, this took me forever to adopt but when I do it, I do feel better.  And it does seem like a reasonable thing to do!  Otherwise, I will just eat all the time because I like to eat.  I notice that after about 2-3 hours I feel hungry in my stomach, but then if I just wait another hour, I'm no longer hungry until about another 2-3 hours have passed.  So I can go 5-6 hours without any problem really.  And then I am truly hungry at my next meal and the food tastes better.  So I'd like to try this as part of adopting the Fuhrman plan.  

oct. 3-5 food

I'm still super busy at work for 5 more days.  I think eating healthy is helping me with the endurance on this work project.  You can use drugs (caffeine) for an all-nighter but you can't keep it up and this work project has been going on for over 2 weeks of 14-16 hour days.  It helps to get a little break too.  Yesterday I only worked for about 8 hours (it was Saturday.  believe me, I can't wait to get back to a normal life!).  I had a great workout at the gym too.  and I took a nap in the afternoon.   So I sort of relaxed (sort of).

Oct. 3 

Breakfast:  collard green smoothie, this one had mangos and OJ and two bananas, very good

Lunch:  rest of yesterday's spinach-berry smoothie.

Dinner:  went grocery shopping, bought tons of fruit, salivated over that, so just ate a bunch of stuff from the produce aisle for dinner--apples, figs, strawberries, pineapple, a carrot, some grapes, some mushrooms, made some blueberry fig sorbet and ate half that.   It was yummy.

Oct. 4 

Breakfast: another  spinach-berry smoothie

Lunch:  "spaghetti."   I didn't have onions, so used a bunch of mushrooms instead.  I added figs too, at the end.  figs are great in just about anything!  I'm realizing if you don't use oil and salt, some sort of fruit is a good flavor addition.  Oh, I didn't put the carrot in because I was just making one serving and didn't feel like it. See, you don't have to follow recipes exactly!  --unless you are baking, which is why I'm such a lousy baker.

Dinner:  cabbage salad, rest of yesterday's blueberry-fig sorbet

Oct. 5

Breakfast:  rest of yesterday's spinach-berry smoothie

Lunch:  cabbage salad, some mushrooms, lots of grapes, a small pear, 2 figs

Dinner:  edamame and pesto.

at least, that's the plan...

sept. 30 - oct 2 food

I'm super duper duper duper busy at work right now, basically working every waking hour, sleeping less than usual, and trying to mix in exercise when possible.    So I've been having green smoothie for breakfast and dinner, and making something for lunch.  Two days ago I made red beans and rice which is great because it's lasted 3 days.  I used the recipe from fatfreevegan.com which is excellent.  I just threw all the ingredients together and didn't bother to cook the onions and garlic separately--it's easier and when you don't use oil, I don't see why "frying" this stuff separately makes a difference.   I used a mix of  brown and wild rice I get from my co-op.  We had salad on the side (lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes, all garden or local!) and orange-almond dressing (soak some almonds, blend them with fresh squeeze orange juice, easy and good!).   Today for lunch I baked a sliced ripe plantain (put it on a pizza pan, bake for 10 minutes on 350 F.  I don't remember the time actually.  when it starts smelling good and gets a little toasted, it's ready) and threw that on top of the red beans and rice.  It was a nice touch.  I also had steamed broccoli rabe with it.  That was the first time I ate that and it was pretty good.   Oh, I've also been eating carrots and apples to supplement the smoothies, not that I needed them but just wanted them.

My green smoothies have been the usual collard green smoothie, though today I did a spinach-berry smoothie since the store has locally grown delicious spinach now (fall harvest!).  It was excellent.   Tomorrow I'll be out and about so will probably have smoothies at breakfast and lunch and then will have to figure something out for dinner.  I have some edamame in the freezer so will probably do that.  I'll be hungry when I get home.

spinach blueberry cherry smoothie

Serves 2

Ingredients:

4-8 oz spinach

1 frozen bag blueberries

1 frozen bag cherries

1 banana (optional)

2 Tbsp sunflower seeds (optional)

1 Tbsp ground flaxseed (optional)

some liquid -- juice or water

blend the seeds, liquid, and spinach.  add the cherries, blueberries and banana and blend some more.  add some liquid as needed (i.e., if it's too thick).   Lately I've been having this without the banana or flaxseeds, and with the sunflower seeds and fresh squeezed orange juice.  If you want something sweet where you cannot even taste the spinach, include the banana and use a berry juice for liquid--or add some grapes.