Friday, January 30, 2009

Jan 30 food

Brekky:  small morning smoothie.  This time I was hungry at 6:15 am.  So salad for dinner before 6 pm worked.

Snack after workout:  3 date nut pop'ems.  celery with raw almond butter.  I got an order from Dr. Fuhrman's website yesterday.  I decided to try out his date nut pop'ems and almond butter along with replenishing my vinegar and vitamins.  The date nut pop'ems are a bit too rich for my tastes I think.  They are packed with calories and sugar, so if I eat a little, I feel okay but it doesn't seem very satisfying to me; and if I eat a lot, I get a sick feeling from the richness and sugar high.   The chocolate ones are really good but I don't like the caffeine.  However I really like the raw almond butter.  That was great with celery.  So I think that will be a good morning snack.  

Lunch:  baked sweet potato (mashed with a fork), leftover pureed rutabaga and turnip and parsnips, steamed cauliflower, edamame.   How's that for a colorful dish?  As I said yesterday, the only reason the pureed rutabaga is pink is that I didn't clean out the blender after making a beet dressing.  But it's pretty!  For dessert I made baked apples stuff with date nut pop'ems (a Fuhrman recipe--core the apple, stuff 'em, bake 'em).  They were good, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort.  I think I don't like sweets as much as I used to.


Dinner:  chopped arugula and spinach topped with cashew-orange dressing and orange slices.  Wow, this was really good!   For dessert I had two date nut pop'ems.  For someone who says she doesn't like sweets and desserts, I ate a lot of date nut pop'ems today.  Well, I wanted to try them out.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Jan. 29 food

Brekky:  morning smoothie.   I wasn't as hungry as I'd like to be (it was 6:20 am).  I guess last night's giant salad should have been a little smaller.  I'll keep adjusting my evening meal.

snack:  banana + 1 oz walnuts; carrots and celery

Lunch:  last of the black eyed peas, steamed veggies (broccoli, cauliflower and carrots), and pureed turnip/rhutabaga/parsnips.   The pureed root vegetables look purple because I didn't clean out the blender after making beet dressing.  so it's kind of pretty.   Dessert was a small juicy valencia orange.

















Dinner:  salad with creamy beet dressing.   yummy yummy.  salad was just chopped lettuce, spinach and red bell pepper.   Finished dinner at 5:50 pm---hopefully early enough to digest before 6:20 am tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Jan 28 food

Brekky:  morning smoothie.  I eat this at 6:30 am so I need to eat a smaller dinner or earlier, to make sure I'm hungry.  

snack:  banana and 1 oz walnuts

Lunch:  my black eyed pea stew (from the freezer) and fruit salad.  When I stop at the store now I am drawn to the strawberries and blueberries (I stopped at the store today).  The strawberries were big, and big strawberries usually aren't as good, too much water.  But they were still good, just not fantastic.  Same with the blueberries.   Dessert:  cup of warm soymilk (freshly made).

Dinner:  Large arugula-apple salad (I used arugula, spinach and lettuce, 2 apples, and 2 Tbsp sunflower/pumpkin seeds to make it extra big).  I'm still out of D'Angou pear vinegar so I used the blood orange, which was also very good.  Snacked on carrots and celery while making it.  Dessert:  2 small valencia oranges.  I finished at 6 pm so I hope that's early enough to make me hungry tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I can't follow the 6-week plan

I think I develop eating disorders when I try to diet or follow diet plans.  I wanted to follow Dr. Fuhrman's 6-week Eat to Live plan because I would like to become a "Certified Eat for Health Counselor."  I figured if I'm going to advise people, I should be able to follow the plan myself.  My plan was to start Jan. 1.  So I over-indulged before that, mostly on healthy stuff, but still, it was more than I normally care to eat (as my posts at the time show).  Then I did pretty well for a few weeks, but I occasionally overindulged on nuts.  And I've been tempted by things I never really cared for in the past, like baked goods.  Why did I not care for them in the past?  Because I felt kind of yucky after eating them.  I mean, I would eat some occasionally but I didn't crave them.  So I'm tired of trying to follow a plan, as it's too much mental work.   I'm just going to go back to my way of eating, which, ironically, is the Eat to Live plan, but with more nuts and seeds and fruits and dried fruits if I want them, since I don't need to lose weight.  It's just weird psychology that I can't diet or follow a plan, but if I don't follow it, then I can follow it.  When I was about 18 years old I started dieting, because I noticed I was gaining weight, and over the next few years I gained about 20 lbs.  I would say I had something of an eating disorder, along with most other women in my college dormitory--we would eat a bag of Oreo cookies and say, tomorrow I will start my diet!   Then my senior year I got tired of it and didn't care about my weight and I lost 20 lbs and stayed a healthy weight until my late 3os when I started gaining a couple of lbs a year like everyone else from the Standard American Diet (SAD).  

So I seem to be in a similar situation, though I have no desire to eat a bag of Oreo cookies, fortunately.  But I didn't like how I would eat too many nuts and say, okay tomorrow I'll start over, and then I would eat more than I even wanted, like it's my last meal.  I don't want to waste mental energy on this silliness anymore.  I'm not starting over with anything and I'm not going to deny myself anything.  As a vegan, I don't feel like I'm denying myself meat.  I just don't want it.   I'll just have to tell my clients that I can't follow a plan myself, but I still manage to eat healthy as if I am following a plan.  I'm sure that will make perfect sense to them, haha.

jan 27 food

Brekky:  small morning smoothie.  
Snack (after exercise):  apple, carrot, clementine.  The smoothie only has 185 calories so I don't think that's enough to get me through until lunch.

Lunch:  Last of the lentil soup from Sunday over steamed broccoli and cauliflower.  Fruit salad for dessert.  yum!   Just strawberies, blueberries and sliced banana.




























Dinner:  snacked on carrots, celery, arugula and 2 clementines while making cabbage & apple dish.  I added beets to it since I have a lot.  And I forgot the onions.  It still tasted good.  I realized I didn't have any nuts/seeds with dinner and I considered making a banana walnut pudding (ripe banana+walnuts+blender) for dessert, but I was no longer hungry after ingesting the large quantities of food.  So I ate a few walnuts, oh, and a small valencia orange.  Maybe I'll try the pudding after my yoga class tomorrow morning.  I have nicely ripe bananas.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Jan. 26 food

Brekky:  morning smoothie.  I was not hungry but thought it would give me more energy than if I didn't eat.  I think I should have waited because I was feeling pretty bloated in exercise class and yoga.  I definitely need to eat Sunday dinner earlier because I tend to eat more on Sunday.

Lunch:  Leftover soup from yesterday over an entire bunch of steamed kale.  The soup was better than yesterday. I think the spices got a chance to meld into the soup more overnight.  I like it.  Unfortunately, housemate doesn't like the aftertaste.  I'm thinking it's the fennel seeds.  I like them.  also had a raw carrot, 2 clementines.

Dinner:  oatmeal.  People keep wondering why I don't eat more grains so I decided to eat some oatmeal tonight.  What is so great about grains anyway?    They are cheap, yes, I agree.  When food gets unaffordable for me, I'll start eating more.  But for now, I can still afford the expensive produce from all over the world--I figure I may as well enjoy that before the party ends.   Grains have no flavor on their own so you have to add stuff to flavor them.  I'd just as soon eat the stuff you flavor them with.   My oatmeal was good because I added an apple, a banana, some walnuts, and spinach (got the spinach idea from Howard's blog--it's good).  It's filling but so is fruit and nuts and beans.  Beans are good for you and very filling.  I think I'll continue with my produce binge and save the grains for the future world economic collapse, or I lose my job.  I also had a few carrots (I'm addicted to Wisconsin carrots), and celery and 2 small valencia oranges (much better than the clementines).    I was thinking I eat like a rabbit with my love of carrots and then I wondered what the rabbits eat in the winter.  I googled it and the answer is moss, twigs, bark, and leaves.  So maybe I don't eat like a rabbit.  

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Jan 25 food

Brekky:   morning smoothie

Lunch:  baked sweet potato, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, 1 raw carrot, 2 clementines.  Housemate cooked this for me while I was out and about (after prep from me).

Dinner:  LiLo's spicy red lentil soup with Indian spices from the Fuhrman forums.  This was good but I think I undercooked the spices.  You are supposed to toast them and I burned the first batch and then only had enough for one more batch and I probably undercooked them.  I think the fennel seeds left an after taste.  I snacked on 2-3 raw carrots while cooking.  Oh, and a nice bowl of fruit salad with strawberries, blueberries and banana---the blueberries were particularly good, as was the banana, strawberries not quite ripe but not bad.  I drank some warm cashew milk that I made for the soup (1 cup cashews, 4 dates, 4 cups of water blended until smooth--super easy to make in a vita-mix).  I ate two bowls of soup.  Orange for dessert.   So I was plenty full after all that.  I probably won't be hungry for a smoothie at 6:30 am tomorrow.  That's okay, I can have it after exercise.  

Saturday, January 24, 2009

tahini sauce

This is similar to my tahini-cashew sauce but I didn't have any cashews.  I am getting to like plain tahini more and more.  It's an acquired taste I guess, like many things.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raw unhulled sesame seeds.
juice of 1 lemon.  It was a juicy lemon so at least 3 Tbsp, which I believe is 1/4 cup.
1 clove garlic
2-4 dried apricots or 1-2 dates (optional)
small zucchini (optional)
or banana instead of zucchini and apricots/dates (optional)
1/2-1 cup soy milk or water
1 Tbsp veggiezest (optional--I didn't add it)

Rinse the sesame seeds and add them and soy milk and garlic and lemon juice to the vita-mix and let it blend up and get warm and cook the garlic a bit.  That takes maybe 5 minutes?  Add liquid as needed for desired consistency--today I'm using it as a sauce for a bunch of kale so think I used 1 cup of liquid.  Then kind of experiment.  see if 1 apricot added tastes better or worse.  if better, maybe add another.  I added 4 but actually thought it tasted fine without any.   I added a small zucchini (peeled) to make the sauce go a little farther (and because I had one left in my almost empty refrigerator)--I thought this worked well.  I considered adding a banana instead of the zucchini and apricot.   I don't know if it'd be good or not but it would dull the strong taste of the sesame seeds, extend the sauce and add some sweetener.

Jan. 24 food

Brekky:   A giant bowl of oatmeal.  Giant.  I used 1 cup of dry oats which makes 2 cups cooked. Then I decided to add some berries. I thought it was a half bag because it was opened, but I had combined a half bag of raspberries and blueberries into one.  So it was 9 oz of berries.  And the raspberries were too strong.  I also wanted a banana so sliced a banana, and 1 oz walnuts into the mix, and 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed, and some soy milk.  So like I said, giant 2 bowls of oatmeal.  It was a late breakfast and I ate the whole thing.

Smaller late lunch:  small apple, small banana, small orange, a bowl of arugula.  

Dinner:  Kale and a lemon-tahini sauce.  

Friday, January 23, 2009

another baked beet dressing

I'm continuing my experiment with baked beet dressings.   

Ingredients:
4 small baked beets (throw in the oven as is at 350 F for 1.5 hours)
1/2 cup soy milk
2 dried apricots (optional)
1 Tbsp flavored vinegar (I tried black fig today)

I added the apricots for no good reason, just thought it might add something.  But the beets are so good, I think I should have left off the apricots to see if it needed something else.   But it was still good with the apricots.  Anyway, I soaked the apricots in the soy milk for a few hours.  You could probably just microwave it for 30 seconds and soak for 5 minutes.  or not even bother soaking.   After the beets cool, peel the skins and eat them, as they are good for you.  Then blend everything in the blender.  I ate this over lettuce, arugula and chopped red pepper.   It was great.  Oh, and you don't have to be stingy with this dressing.  Think of it as a big plate of beet dressing with some salad in it.  Okay, I actually had a huge plate of salad too, but I ate all the dressing.   

Jan. 23 food

Brekky:  morning smoothie

snack after exercise and biking:  cup of warm soy milk.  then, uh-oh, decided to nibble on some dried fruit I bought a few months ago.  Ate way too many pieces of dried apple, mango, and pineapple.  I was taste-testing them and decided I didn't really like the mango and pineapple, but definitely liked the apple.

Lunch:  baked sweet potato (mashed) and cabbage salad.  For house mate I was going to make mashed potato but decided to puree it like I did the rutabaga and turnips.  Well, it's not the same!   It has a weird syrupy consistency.  Mashed is definitely better with white potatoes.  Interesting though, I like pureed turnips and rutabaga better and it's healthier.  I never would have expected that!

Dinner:  apple, salad with another baked beet dressing, which was good.  2 small oranges for dessert.

snack:  oops, at a gathering with friends I ate 2 vegan chocolate chip cookies and some more dried fruit!   They had apples, and spicy mango.  Both were good.  I definitely felt the effects from the cookies--the flour and sugar gives me a sugar buzz and makes me kind of ADHD.  Now I have a wee bit of  a tummy ache which is probably the combination of overeating all the dried fruit and the cookies today.  And a weird feeling in my heart.  interesting.  

What should I make this weekend?  Well, I know what I will make tomorrow,  kale with some kind of sauce on it.  But I need to make something on Sunday that will last a few days into next week--a soup or main dish.  

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Jan 22 food

Breakfast:  morning smoothie  + 1 cup warm soymilk.  I decided I've been dissing the soymilk too much lately.  Soymilk is cheap and easy to make in my SoyQuick maker and it's healthy and good.  I had a cup of warm soymilk after making it.   I didn't add anything to it because I'm out of dates.  It was good as is, just soybeans and water.  When you drink it, it's good to think of it more as a broth than a milk; i.e., it is beans so if you are expecting it to taste like beans and not cow's milk, it's good.

Lunch:  Lightly steamed dipping veggies and black bean hummus.  This was soooooooo goooooood.  The dipping veggies were carrots, beets, broccoli and cauliflower.  Also celery but I didn't steam that.  This picture is a bit washed out because there was steam rising from the veggies.  I should have put a fork in for scale.  That was a big bowl of vegetables!
The black bean hummus was from the Fuhrman forum website.  That has cooked black beans (I soaked 1 cup dry beans over night, and cooked it this morning--or you can buy a can), fresh lemon juice, vegizest or other no salt seasoning, raw tahini (I ground up raw sesame seeds in the coffee grinder), small amount of low sodium soy sauce, cumin, garlic, cayenne pepper, and I forgot the paprika for garnish.  To make the garlic less potent, I put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 400 F in a metal measuring cup.  That cooked it just enough.  It was soooo yummmy.   We ate the whole thing.  I think I ate quite a bit more than housemate because she is tentative with the dipping and doesn't want to get her hands dirty.  I had a tiny little apple for dessert.  The local apples are starting to get more bad spots on them, but the good spots are still crispy and fresh tasting.  But it's clear the end of local apple season is approaching.  

Dinner:  pureed turnip.  This was soooooo goooood.  yes, I say that a lot.  I made the soy milk for this purpose.  I soaked a few dried apricots in soymilk during the day, steamed a large cut-up turnip and a very small local onion.  Then blended the turnip, onion, apricots and soymilk in the vita-mix.  It was yummy yummy.  Also had cabbage salad, and 2 oranges.  I was very full.  The lunch was still with me so I did eat too much at lunch. 

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Jan 21 food

Brekkie:  small morning smoothie

Lunch:  baked sweet potato and cabbage salad.   This sweet potato was particularly good.  I just peel off the skin and mash it with a fork, no need for anything else.  Now I'm looking forward to my next one.  I ate a lot of the cabbage salad, probably too much, though I have to say I'm glad now because I'm still on campus at 6 pm, and will get home late.

Dinner (planned):  salad with banana walnut dressing.  I have ripe bananas and I've been eye-ing this recipe from the Fuhrman site for a while.  It has bananas, walnuts, raisins, and riesling raisin vinegar.  Sounds really weird but got good reviews.   But if I get home really late, maybe I'll just have cabbage salad and save this until tomorrow.  Edited later:  okay I did get home pretty late, but still made the banana walnut dressing.  It was a bit too sweet, would probably try it without raisins next time.  But it was still enjoyable, like having dessert on my salad.  Finished off with 2 small oranges.  This batch of oranges is not nearly as good as usual.   oh well, it will go fast and then I can hope for better.   The bananas are now a little past ripe so I froze the rest for smoothies (peel, break into pieces, put in individual plastic bags).

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Jan. 20 food

Brekky:  small morning smoothie

Lunch:  steamed veggies--broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, edamame--topped with Russian fig dressing.  I microwaved the dressing for a couple of minutes to cook it a bit and that made the garlic/onion less strong.  Hmm, maybe I should modify the recipe.  It was a very good lunch.  I had my usual raw carrot while fixing it, and orange for dessert.

Dinner:  Last of the garlic-greens soup, and arugula-apple salad (with pumpkin seeds instead of sunflower seeds; and Riesling Raisin Vinegar instead of D'Angou Pear--all good); and my usual raw carrot and celery while fixing it and orange for dessert.  The celery was good today.  Lately it hasn't been so good.  I made the soup a few days ago because housemate had a cold.  She made the fastest recovery from a cold I've ever seen, knock on wood.  She's still a little snively but not bad.  I've been feeling tired and wonder if I'm fighting it too.  I hope my body wins.  hmm, my throat does seem a bit sore.  oh no...

Monday, January 19, 2009

jan 19 food

Late Breakfast:  banana, apple, carrot.  full from last night.

Lunch:  cooked apple & cabbage (yummy!).   then pigged out on almonds (while making Russian fig dressing), and some dates & walnuts.  you put a walnut in a date (in place of the pit) and warm it in the microwave for a few seconds.  It's soooo good, and sooo addictive.  So I was a bad, bad veganbarbie.

Dinner:  carrot (I love Wisconsin-grown raw carrots) dipped in that Russian fig dressing (yum!), 2 oranges, a bowl of garlic & greens soup.  I was making housemate a salad and nibbled on some lettuce and red pepper dipped in the dressing.  I was totally full from this modest meal, due to my earlier pigfest on the nuts.  

I seem to go in well-behaved modes of eating, and then splurge modes.  not sure why...

russian fig dressing

I got the idea for this dressing from Dr. Fuhrman's recipe site but my version is pretty different and I want to remember it so I'm writing it down here.  The reason I changed it is that I use canned tomatoes from our garden in place of all other tomato concoctions (e.g., tomato paste, tomato sauce, tomato juice); and I use nuts instead of nut butter.  The original recipe is here if you prefer that.  And there's a similar one here.  Oh, I didn't think to use veggiezest.  I'll try that next time.

Ingredients:
1 16 oz can tomatoes (mine are from the garden--if you don't have canned tomatoes you can use tomato sauce if you want).
1 garlic clove
a little bit of onion (1/8 cup?)
1/3 cup raw almonds
1-2 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman's black fig vinegar (or other mild flavored vinegar)
1 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman's veggiezest or other powdered veggie broth (optional)

Optional:  Pour the canned tomatoes and almonds in a bowl and let the almonds soak up the juice for several hours.  Throw everything in a blender and blend until nice and smooth.  This has a peppery taste from the raw garlic and onion.  If it's a little strong, just microwave it for a few minutes to cook the onion and garlic a bit.  Then refrigerate if you are going to have it over salad.   

Sunday, January 18, 2009

pureed rutabaga and/or turnips


I learned this one from Picks Over Peas:

Ingredients: 
1 rutabaga and/or some turnips
parsnips (optional)
part of an onion (optional)
1/2-1 cup nut or soy milk OR  
1/4 - 1/3 cup raw cashews and 1/2-1 cup water
(the amount depends on the size of your rutabaga--start small and add more as needed)
1-2 dates or dried apricots (optional)

Peel the rutabaga/turnips/parsnips, cut up and steam along with onion for 20 minutes.  You can microwave the milk for 30 seconds to warm it up.  Blend the rutabaga with the nut milk (or nuts and water) and dates.   It's delicious!  Now, I used the dates because I was fearful of rutabaga.  Picks Over Peas didn't use dates.  I thought I didn't like rutabaga but I really like this, so don't let your fear of rutabaga stop you--you can ease into it with the dates like I did.  I've tried this with rutabaga, turnips, and rutabaga/turnips/parsnips.  It's all good!  Today I had this with steamed carrots, peas and corn.  Super easy meal that tastes great.  And it's healthier than mashed potatoes!   We still get local all these root vegetables from our co-op.    Note in the picture, my pureed rutabaga is a little brownish in color--that's from the color of my nut milk made from a bunch of different nuts and seeds.  If I'd used cashews or almonds or soymilk, it would be whiter.

Jan 18 food

Brekky:  small morning smoothie.  banana & 1 oz walnuts.  Every breakfast this week has been on-the-go so this is a great breakfast for that.  If I'd been able to have a leisure breakfast this morning I probably would have had cabbage & apples.  I think I'll have it for dinner this week--not lunch because housemate claims to not like cabbage and I make lunch for both of us.   

Lunch:  a carrot and leftover Gorgeous garlic greens soup.  This will last a few days.  2 oranges for dessert.   I'm into raw carrots before my meal and oranges afterwards, not sure why, besides it's easy and good!  

Dinner:  pureed rutabaga and peas & carrots & corn.  I thought I didn't like rhutabaga but this was wonderful!  and so easy.  I got the idea from Picks Over Peas.   She also gives a little lesson on cruciferous vegetables too.   This is much healthier than mashed potatoes and I think it's even better!  It was also super easy to make.   Dessert:  orange.   Then I blew it.  I was making mine and housemate's smoothies and started eating some brazil nuts and didn't stop.  Dammit.  Now I'm going to mess up tomorrow because I won't be hungry at 6:30 am.  I also gave up swearing as a New Year's resolution and I just broke that too.  of course, I could delete what I wrote but then you wouldn't see my emotional state.  Okay, I'll get back on the horse now.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

nut and soy milks

I was considering making soy milk today because I want to make turnip or rhutabaga puree soon.  But I'm not the biggest fan of soy milk so I thought I'd make a nut milk instead and then make hot chocolate for house-mate, who is feeling under the weather.  I figure I have three options when a recipe calls for soy milk.  
1.  make soy milk with my soyquick soy milk maker (add some dates to give it a touch of sweetness).
2.  make nut milk with same machine.
3.  make cashew milk by blending some cashews and water in the vita-mix. 

The latter takes less time, has less cleanup, is more flexible on amount made, has the best taste and texture (most creamy), and costs less (than option 2, probably costs a lot more than option 1).  That is the conclusion of this post, but here is what I did:  I did option 2.  I didn't want to make almond milk because you are supposed to soak and blanche and resoak for hours and hours.  Too much work.   So I decided to make nut milk with the soyquick machine, and just use some other nuts that are soft and don't need soaking.  The manual calls for 2 cups of nuts.  Wo, 2 cups of raw organic nuts and seeds is a bit pricey.  I didn't have 2 cups of any one nut so I used a mixture of cashews, pecans, and pumpkin seeds (all raw).  All you get out of that is 32 oz of milk, and a lot of nut pulp that you throw out (or compost).   Anyway, I made the nut milk, and it was not white because of the mixture I used but I don't care about that.  I added 3 dates by the way.  The nut milk did taste good, though there was pulp in it.  I drank a large, warm, mug of it with 2 tsp of date sugar and raw carob powder and it was very yummy.  But, I could have made the same amount of cashew (or the same mixture I used) milk in the vita-mix with fewer nuts and no pulp---essentially it is using all the nuts in the milk, and it blends so thoroughly that it is much more creamy and is less pulpy than my drained nut milk from the soyquick machine.  I made hot cocoa this way once and it was the best I've ever had. 

So my take-away message is, when I want soymilk, the soyquick maker is good to use and is pretty easy to clean up, and is very cheap.  It makes over 32 oz so I have to plan to use it over the next several days, which is easily accomplished.  But if I just need a milk-like substance and maybe I only need 8 oz, I'll just blend up some cashews and water in the vita-mix.  I'm not a fan of nutmilks made in the soymilk machine because it's expensive and wasteful (all the good nut pulp going to waste) and not as good as vita-mix cashew milk.

Baked beet dressing

My friend Mary said baked beets are good on salad.  I had some beets and I baked them, and they were outstanding.  I think they are even better blended up into a dressing.  



Ingredients:
1 medium to large baked beet, or steamed if you are in a hurry (cut into pieces before steaming)
0.5 oz raw walnuts (or other nut or seed)
1/2 cup pomegranate juice
1-2 tsp Dr. Fuhrman's wild blueberry vinegar or some other mild vinegar (optional)

Blend it up in the blender.  Makes 1 serving for a large salad (or two if you aren't as hungry as me).

Total calories:  274, protein 9 g (11%), carbs 43 g (33%), fat 9 g (29%)

baked beets

Mary over at resolution1.wordpress.com told me that baked beets are way better than steamed and boy was she right. She also said they are good on salads. That will be my next post.

To bake the beets, put them in the oven at 350 F for 1.5 hours. If they are big, leave them in longer. Then let them cool. They look ugly and shrunken after they cool. Don't panic (as I did), just slice off the ends, and the peel will come off easily. The peel tastes good and has lots of nutrients so feel free to eat them, if organic. The baked beets are sooooo gooood. I made 4 and I just had to eat 2 of them as is. The other two I made into a salad dressing. We still get local beets here and they are really good, better than the ones shipped from 2000 miles away (I won't say where from so as not to offend). I will be baking a lot of beets now.

Edited later: Mary suggested using foil when baking beets so I'll try that next time.

Jan 17 food

Brekky (Breakfast):  small morning smoothie, banana with 1 oz walnuts.  I love bananas and walnuts.  and my bananas as just getting ripe.  

Late lunch:  salad with baked beet dressing (yum)  followed by fruit salad.  Even though that was plenty I seem to be in the habit of finishing off with an orange.   I think I had a tangelo.  Nothing seems as good as the small valencia oranges though.  I was grocery shopping and the berries looked good even though they are from far away (Mexico, Chile) so that's where I got the idea to make a fruit salad.  This had strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and a sliced banana.  The strawberries were fantastic, and the blueberries were quite good too.  Raspberries were good too.  As were the bananas.  So it was a good fruit salad.   

Snack:  I was experimenting with nut milks so I had a warm mug of nut milk with 2 tsp of date sugar and 2 tsp raw carob powder.  It was yummy.   Of course, I shouldn't be snacking on a regular basis and I usually don't so I think it's okay.   Fuhrman recommends at least 90% compliance to his program and I think I achieved that this week.

Dinner:   Gorgeous garlic greens soup.   You have to pay $5 to get this recipe (along with 4 others) from Compassionate Cooks, and I recommend it because they are good.   This is a good soup when you are sick (or anytime), and housemate has come down with a cold.   I modified it a bit to Fuhrmanize it some more.  It includes lots of greens, potatoes, onion, a head of garlic and a carrot.  I put in even more greens, used part white and part sweet potatoes (housemate likes white potatoes so I didn't go all sweet potato), and in another pot I cooked up some zucchini and leek and then blended that up and added it (just because it was there, in the fridge).  And I cooked up a cup of lima beans (1/2 cup dried) and added that.  And I used Dr. Fuhrman's pomagranate balsamic vinegar instead of seasoned rice vinegar (which has salt).  That was good.  And I added some dulse and some celery, so that has some sodium in it but not too much.  It turned out quite good.  I ate two large bowls and followed this with two (smallish) valencia oranges.  These valencia oranges we're getting are soooo goood.  Anyway, I did overeat.  I notice if I snack, it leads to overeating.  I basically just don't stop eating.  But it was a lot of liquid so hopefully will pass through quickly.  Uh-oh, I'll probably wake up a lot to pee tonight.   

Friday, January 16, 2009

jan 16 food

Breakfast:  small smoothie.  This eating the smoothie at 6:30 am (so early!)  is working out really well.  I think I have more energy during my workout and bike ride home.  And then I am nice and hungry at lunch.  I just have to make sure to not eat dinner too late, but that is a good thing to do anyway.

Lunch: red beans and rice.  I decided that rice mixture I made yesterday was good for this--gave us some healthy kale and the apricot adds flavor to the red beans, as I was discussing yesterday.  Also had my favorite apple-lettuce salad.  I decided the orange is better left out for dessert.  And the D'Angou pear vinegar is still the best by far compared to others I've tried.  yummy.

Dinner:  baked sweet potato (then mashed) and beet with steamed cauliflower and zucchini.   I never baked a beet before.  it probably needed more time or to be cut in half.  But it was still good.   no seasonings.  everything was good as is.
Dessert:  orange, which was ao good, I had another.  Our co-op gets these great organic valencia oranges.  they are fairly small almost always good and juicy, unlike those dry navel oranges from California.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Jan. 15 food

Breakfast:  small breakfast smoothie

snack:  banana with 1/2 oz walnuts.  absolutely needed this after my long cold bike rides and gym workout and it was delicious.  My bananas are just starting to ripen.  

Lunch:  Red beans and rice.  I used leftover red beans from the freezer made using the recipe from fatfreevegan.com.  I cooked the brown rice and halfway through added finely chopped kale, an onion, some veggiezest, and some chopped dried apricots.  The rice tasted kind of funny on its own (probably from the kale), but when mixed in with the red beans, I thought it was pretty good.  Maybe it would have been better to have the kale as a side dish but this was less work.  The apricots add a little zing to the red beans.  As I stated yesterday, when you take regular recipes and subtract things (oil, salt), they become a little bland so you need to be creative about adding things to them.   Dessert:  orange and some apple slices while making applesauce.

snack:  I taste-tested some applesauce that I made for housemate while doling it out into bowls for freezing.  I probably ate a small bowl's worth.  It has refined sugar in it so counts as junk food in Fuhrman's view.  But it was fun to try a little bit.  I only try it when it's freshly made.  Otherwise, I can resist it.  

Dinner:  apple-orange-arugula lettuce salad.  This is just so easy and we still have local crisp and delicious apples, so you might have noticed eat it a lot.   Today I tried the Riesling Raisin vinegar.  My favorite is still D'angou Pear but I'm going to try all of them.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

housemate's smoothie

Edited Aug. 29, 2009, still tweaking.

Since housemate was told she has a little bit of macular degeneration in her eyes, she is willing to let me put spinach in her smoothie as long as she doesn't taste it and it doesn't have a green color--the solution to the latter is that I put foil over the top so she doesn't see it (see picture below). I also want it to be sweet and appetizing.

Ingredients for 4 18 oz (I think--large glass) servings:
2 Tbsp hemp seeds
2 Tbsp sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup raw walnuts or cashews
2 Tbsp date sugar (optional)
16 oz fresh squeezed orange juice
1-2 bananas, fresh or frozen (peel before freezing, break up and put into individual bags)
2-3 bags frozen berries (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, or mixed berries)
4-8 oz fresh spinach
water as needed

Put the nuts, seeds, date sugar, vitamins, DHA, and some of the orange juice (8 oz to start) in the blender. Add the spinach on top. Start blending, letting the bottom stuff blend first. Then smash down the spinach with the plunger and let it all blend together. Then add the berries and bananas and rest of liquid and blend until smooth. This 4 ~16-oz servings. Freeze the ones you don't drink. Take out one each night and put in fridge. It thaws overnight. Here they are ready to put in the freezer:









Jan 14 food

Breakfast:  my new small breakfast smoothie

4 hours later after getting home from exercise, a small apple and a carrot

Lunch:  mushroom stroganoff over a mixture of steamed sweet potato, beet, kale, broccoli and cauliflower ( a little of each).  This was really good.  The mushroom stroganoff is another Fuhrman recipe.  The reason I like the Fuhrman recipes is that they don't just take away ingredients from the unhealthy recipes.  If you take a normal vegan recipe and make it healthy according to Fuhrman's rules, you take out the salt and oil and refined sugar.  Well, you are often left with something bland.  But Fuhrman's recipes add great stuff into them, like carrot juice or ground nuts.  So for example, in this mushroom stroganoff, the ground up sesame seeds (or tahini) and lemon give it the sort of sour and meaty taste you get from the beef broth and sour cream in beef stroganoff.   It also has onion, garlic, lots of mushrooms, paprika, tarragon, and vegetable broth, in addition to the tahini and lemon.  It was great, and the stuff I put it on top of was great too.  love those sweet potatoes!
Dessert:  orange

Dinner:  repeat of lunch.  The recipe made four servings so I split it with housemate over lunch and dinner.  

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

other morning smoothie

Used to be called my small morning smoothie but it's grown a bit, so I renamed it.   This is what I have most days.

Ingredients:
1 large banana
2 10 oz packages frozen berries (going for mixed right now)
16 oz pomegranate juice and/or water mixture
2 Tbsp flaxseeds
2 Tbsp sunflower seeds
1 5-oz bag of spinach

Blend the juice, seeds, and spinach.  Add the fruit and blend some more.  Divide into 3 servings (it's about 16 oz each).  Freeze.  Take one out the night before and refrigerate.  may need to microwave for 15-30 seconds in the morning to help it thaw.  

Total calories per serving:  300.   Protein:  6 g (6%).   Carbs:  61 g (72%).   fat:  7 g (21%)

jan 13 food

Breakfast:  my new morning smoothie.  it's small and I eat it right when I get up before going to exercise class (I don't want too much before exercising).  Otherwise I eat breakfast 4 hours later when I get home and it's too close to lunch.  Plus the food probably helps me survive my verrrrry cold bike rides.

Late lunch:  a large bowl of the rest of the black forest cream of mushroom soup over arugula

Dinner:  apple-orange-arugula salad.  I just love this easy to make salad.  Today I used Dr. Fuhrman's orange vinegar instead of the D'angou pear.  I'll try all the different flavors and see which work.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Jan. 12 food

Breakfast:  apple and carrot.  wasn't hungry after the weekend nut over-consumption

Lunch:  1/2 bunch steamed kale with Russian fig dressing.  I didn't follow closely Fuhrman's recipe so I can say what I did:   blended a small garlic clove, small part of an onion, canned tomato (from the garden, drained), and I think it was about 1/4-1/3 cup pecans (would have used almonds but didn't have any), and Dr. Fuhrman's black fig vinegar.  This is really good and tastes kind of hot from the garlic.  dessert:  orange

Dinner:  thawed some soup from the freezer: black forest cream of mushroom (sorry, another fuhrman recipe).   ate this over steamed broccoli and cauliflower.  also had a carrot, celery stalk, a bowl of arugula and some red bell pepper.  and an orange for dessert.  I didn't even think to add the last of the russian fig dressing over the arugula.  darn, this would have been a good idea.  

I finally got hungry today before dinner and before bed.  That's good.  It's good to get hungry before you eat.  I'm going to eat a small smoothie tomorrow morning before going to my exercise class so it's okay to go to bed a bit hungry.  I sleep better when my stomach isn't too full.   I decided the solution to my breakfast being so close to lunch is to eat a small breakfast right when I get up, at 6:15 am!   So I definitely don't want to eat a late dinner.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

the rest of my trip

After the business portion of my trip ended, I visited my family.  This went well but I did falter a few times including today when I returned home.   I now realize that family brings a lot more emotional/psychological issues into it than friends and business, which is hard enough until you get the hang of it.  My mother made vegetarian soup for me and it's hard to turn down your mother, so I ate some.  It was good but salty and my fingers did their usual swelling when I eat a lot of salt.  One thing to note:  when people say they don't eat or use much salt, don't believe them.  They aren't lying, they just think they don't eat or use much, but compared to those of us who add none to our foods, it's a lot.  My family is used to my weird eating habits, so they took me grocery shopping when I arrived and I cooked most of my meals.  This turned out really well.    I faltered by eating too many of their unsalted peanuts and almonds.  I did that twice in the four days I was there.  and I really did eat way too much of them--I'm sure I gained weight because of it.  I'm disappointed in myself but you just have to get back on the horse.  I don't think I should say I'm on the 6 week plan anymore (Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live plan), I'm on the life-plan.  If I'm on the 6-week plan, I'm inclined to say to myself, okay I'll restart tomorrow and pig out today.  
I made my meal plans and grocery list on the plane ride to see my family.   As in the business trip I just planned a few meals that were then repeated over the 3 days I was there.  Here they were:

Breakfast:   berries and banana over spinach or other chopped greens.  sometimes a few sunflower seeds.    I bought 3 bags of frozen berries:  raspberry, strawberry, and blueberry.  I combined them into one large plastic bag and every day took out 1/3 of them.  Put them on the plate, microwaved for 2 minutes to thaw and warm.  I bought a bag of spinach, arugula, and salad greens.  Chopped a bunch of them (sometimes all spinach, sometimes a mixture), and put them on top of the berries.  Sliced a banana on top.  This is a very enjoyable breakfast. 

Lunch/Dinner entrees:   chopped an onion, added a can of beans, and a peeled, chopped sweet potato, and some spinach or other greens (add a little later).  cooked until the onions were tender.    This lasted 2 days, then made another batch.

cabbage/apple/onion dish (without raisins):  Chopped an entire (relatively small) cabbage, 2-3 apples, an onion, added cinnamon and curry powder.  This lasted a few days, made another batch on the last day.

salad:  my mom made a salad with lettuce, other greens from my bags, sliced onion and tomato.  I added sunflower seeds soaked in my D'angou pear vinegar and sometimes and apple and orange.  

My parents tend to only eat two meals a day, a late breakfast and a late lunch.  so I had the entrees at the late lunch usually and then snacked on apple, orange and banana later on--and those darn peanuts and almonds.  You really have to watch out eating those things.  They are very high calorie density so you can eat a day's worth of calories in one sitting if you don't watch it.  And I think I did that, to my chagrin.  And they weren't raw so were not terribly healthy.  But at least they weren't salted.  So how do I keep from doing that next time?   Discipline?  I'm really bad at discipline, but I could give it a try.    I might try getting out of the habit of eating nuts by themselves.   Maybe just eat them as part of meals.  I'll have to work on it.  

My other indiscretion was having a few sips of a beer last night.  I might have had 4 oz or 6 oz total.  So no big deal.  I did feel more groggy than usual this morning and maybe it was because of that I don't know.  It did taste good to my surprise.  It was a  Leinenkugel's red, which is one of my old favorites.   That's probably what made me go for it.   When I think about it though, I usually drink a lot more when visiting my family, so this was quite an improvement.

Now I'm on my way home, with more food than I need for the airplane ride.  If anything, I prepared too much food the last 4 days and definitely overate.    But at least it was healthy food.   Edited later:  now I'm home and I ate a bunch of cashews when I got home and a nice big bowl of oatmeal.  But too many cashews!   I have to put a stop to the nuts!   I definitely overate 3 out of the 4 days I was with family.  Of course, when I think what I went through emotionally, I think I'll cut myself some slack and just get back on track now.   Dr. Fuhrman's response to that would be: no excuses, and he's right.   I'll have to try no excuses from now on.  No excuses and no nuts.

business trip update

Here's the summary of the business trip portion of my trip.  It was an unqualified success, actually both foodwise and business-wise.  On the night I was supposed to eat out with my colleague, the party grew to 5 people including myself and the suggestion was to go to a nearby brew pub.  It was the end of a long day and most people just want to go somewhere nearby to eat, and then go to their hotel to collapse (or go out drinking).   This is the classic situation I get into at these meetings.  But this time I had my salad with me.  It worked beautifully.  We went to the pub.  As expected, there was nothing on the menu I could have as a vegan or a "nutritarian" (as Dr. Fuhrman calls us).  I could have ordered one of the salads with most of the ingredients removed.  But since we had a big group and the server was going to get a good tip from us anyway, I decided it was okay to order nothing.  If it had just been two of us, I would have ordered a salad with most of the ingredients removed.  But instead I told the server I had food allergies and brought my own food and could I just get a plate.  She said, sure, no problem.  Then my colleagues asked me about it and I said, actually I'm just vegan.  And then we had the usual jokes about my being from the star system Vega and people told me how they eat grass-fed beef and free-range chicken and then the conversation moved on.   So it was no big deal at all.  And I realize it was a copout to say I have food allergies, but this was effective and easy.  I'll practice other explanations in the future. 

So everything worked great on the business trip.  Breakfast, lunch and dinners were good and I had plenty to eat.   It seems it's not that hard to find a hotel that has a fridge, and then you just have to find a grocery store, bring a bowl and some utensils and you are set.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

jan. 6 trip update

My business trip food experiment is going great.   So far I've only gone to a few casual restaurants and they haven't complained about me bringing my own food in.  I've been meeting students for lunch and telling them to get something take-out and we'll eat at the beach.   I'm probably going to a nice restaurant for dinner tonight and I will bring my food, but will order a plain salad so the server doesn't complain.  Then I'll just dump my food on it.  The meal plans are pretty much how I posted here.  I edited that post as I tweaked them.  

At first my roommate kept saying, "wow, this must take so much discipline and planning on your part," after she saw my utensils and groceries in the room.  I said, yeah, but now I can relax at the meeting and not worry about what restaurant we're going to and if I'm going to get anything to eat.  Plus, I pointed out that she did a lot of planning beforehand to make sure she could go to her Bikram yoga class.  She found a studio ahead of time, mapped it out, and rented a car in part because it was too far to walk.  So I was joking that it must take a lot of discipline to do that.  I was trying to argue that it's not really discipline if that's what you want to do.  

Yesterday, we got up at 5:15 to go to yoga and then were at the meeting all day talking to people and going to talks, and the last thing we wanted to do last night was go out to dinner.  And then we realized---oh my gosh, we don't have to go out to dinner, we can eat in the hotel room!  So I fixed us my dinner salad (greens, apple, orange slices, ground sunflower seeds & d'angou pear vinegar) and roommate liked it.  So the funny thing is, she's planning to have it again tonight.  And tomorrow she's planning to have the lunch in [edited later:  the next day she and her student ate in the hotel room and so did me and my student--too funny!].   We went grocery shopping this morning and loaded up on supplies.  So it's been great.  I've benefited from her yoga obsession and she's benefited from my food obsession.  

Today I ran into a friend who said he can't find any good food around here (in the restaurants).  I recall that from my days even before I became vegan.  These touristy spots tend to have expensive, mediocre, and very unhealthy food.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Jan 4 trip log

Day 2 of my business trip.  (edited over the next few days)

Today's meals were as planned.   My roommate came up with a good idea for dinners and I came up with another good plan for lunch.  We're near a beach and I'm going to suggest to whomever I eat lunch with that we get take out and go to the beach, where there are a lot of benches and casual restaurants.  [edited:  we did this every day.  one day we went to a restaurant at the beach but they were totally okay with my bringing my lunch.]   For dinners, if I go to a nice restaurant, I'll order a salad with nothing on it and then I'll pour my salad with apples and oranges and vinegar & ground sunflower on top.  I'll pay the $15+tax+tip to keep the server from telling me I can't bring my food in.  Tonight we went to a very casual restaurant and I ordered one of my companion's side dishes which she ate.  I ate my salad.   No one said anything.  Interestingly it was a restaurant that made my favorite southern foods.  My companion had red beans & rice, collard greens, and candy yams.  Full of salt.  I have to admit I have good memories of all this good food, especially southern fried chicken.  But I don't really desire it anymore when I think about it, and I make great red beans & rice, collard greens, and sweet potatoes so I was not missing anything.  And my salad was great!   I feel very energetic eating all these salads.

I felt the salt from the can of beans I had on my lunch salad.  My fingers swelled up.  I got organic because they had less sodium than even the "low-sodium" brand.  Obviously there were no no-salt cans.   I didn't rinse them.  The can says there's about 450 mg of sodium in a whole can (I ate a whole can every day).  Fuhrman says we should consume less than 1000 mg of sodium per day, and this is well under.  But I had it all in one sitting, and I must usually consume much less (natural foods have some sodium).  Several hours later, I feel fine.  [edited:  the rest of the days I rinsed the beans and had no problems, I probably also got use to the little extra salt, but it's not much].

We went grocery shopping again and I got some curry powder and cinnamon and a peeler for my apples.  And, my roommate has DHA supplements so she gave me some.  Now what are the chances of that happening?  

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Jan. 3 food

First day of my business trip.  

Breakfast:  arugula-apple-orange salad.  Ate this in Milwaukee airport in a slight rush before boarding a plane.  So I probably didn't chew enough. 

Lunch:  lots of fruit as I was not able to fix a salad yet but managed to stop at the farmer's market:  2 bananas and my daily portion of nuts (0.75 oz walnuts, 0.75 oz brazil nuts).  then a little later, 2 small apples, 2 small oranges, a carrot, some grapes.  Probably overate a bit

Dinner: lettuce topped with strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.  Probably pretty low calorie but with all the fruit I ate earlier I wasn't that hungry, so it was just right.  I got some beans at the store so I'm all set for tomorrow but didn't feel hungry enough to have them at dinner.

I don't think I'll be posting my meals for the next few days as they should be what I posted here.  Plus I will be busy.  Oh, one thing that surprised me:  I'm in California.  I thought the produce I bought at the farmer's market was going to be great, since it's local.  It's not great, and my roommate informed me that's probably because a lot of it isn't local either this time of year, e.g., the strawberries, oranges and apples.  All were mediocre, even the carrots which I would have thought could be local.   It makes me really appreciate my co-op.  Their produce is expensive but it is really really good even when not local. It's totally worth it!  And carrots from Wisconsin are way better than the ones from California.  Who knew?   And to think I have a 5 lb bag at home in my fridge.  I meant to bring some but forgot.  

business trip

Note:  this post was edited over the next few days as I figured things out.

I started an 8 day trip today, the first part business, then seeing my family at the end of the week.  This post addresses the business portion of my trip:   I decided this time I'm not going to eat restaurant food!   However, much of our socializing takes place at restaurants so I will go to them, I just won't eat their food!  (Any suggestions on what I should tell the server?)  I brought a couple of bowls and utensils and nuts and seeds (daily portions of the nuts doled out), and some flavored vinegar, so really not much.  And enough food to get me to my destination today.  Then I got a refrigerator in my hotel room (had to ask 3 times and the last time I said I had food allergies, which is sort of true--my body doesn't like unhealthy food).  There was a farmer's market a few blocks from my hotel today, and a grocery store just a bit further.  So I went to both and got all stocked up.   Call me crazy, but I love fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and beans.  Why bother with the unhealthy stuff?  I saw a lot of unhealthy people today eating a lot of unhealthy food.   Maybe I am crazy but I'm a lot happier doing this than suffering through trying to find a restaurant that will serve me a healthy and well-balanced meal (a $15 salad with nothing on it but some lettuce is healthy but not filling or well-balanced).  

Anyway, here's my plan for my meals.    

Breakfast:  sliced banana, berries, chopped walnut over salad greens.   Right now I have strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.  yum!

Lunch:  beans & fruit over salad greens.  I finally perfected this on day 3.  Put the salad greens in a bowl.  Add a can of beans (rinse first and drain).  top with apple and banana slices (I used an entire apple and banana--this is my big meal of the day!).  Add cinnamon and curry powder and some Dr. Fuhrman's D'Angou Pear vinegar and stir it around.  I did this on day 3 with black beans and it was yummy!  Day one just had an apple and pinto beans.  Day 2 had an apple, chickpeas and the spices.  Day 3 added the banana and vinegar and that was really good.   

Dinner:   salad with apple and orange and D'Angou Pear vinegar mixed with ground sunflower seeds.  Only I don't have any arugula, just lettuce right now.  

Also brazil nuts and a carrot.  I usually ate the brazil nuts at breakfast, and the carrot at dinner.

Supplies I brought: 
- small mortar & pestle for smashing the sunflower seeds.  (this didn't work so well--will just soak the sunflower seeds in the vinegar next time).
- Can opener for the beans.  
- plastic bowl and lid for the salads.  Unfortunately it leaks a bit---will get a better one.
- small plastic bowl for mixing the vinegar & sunflower seeds
- daily portion of nuts, 0.75 oz walnuts, 0.75 oz brazil nuts, 1 Tbsp sunflower seeds.  (not as many nuts and seeds as usual because I doubt I will be as active though I will try to exercise every day---actually I did pretty well with jogging on the beach and yoga).
- Forgot my DHA supplement!  (but it turns out my roommate has some!)
- Remembered my daily Gentle Care and Osteosun
- fork, spoon, sharp knife (I checked my luggage)
- smallish (low volume anyway) plastic cutting board
- Forgot carrots!   and it turns out the Wisconsin carrots are way better than California
- Forgot a peeler for the apples--since I can't always get organic on travel  (bought one at the store)
- Forgot curry powder & cinnamon (bought some at the store)

How did I cart all this?  Well, once I decided to check my luggage, I used a bigger suitcase and had plenty of room.  One of my carry-ons was a bag of fruit from my fridge that would go bad if it stayed home:  bananas, a few apples and oranges.   A bunch of carrots would have easily fit in there!   Also I was able to purchase everything I forgot except the DHA.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Jan. 2 food

Breakfast:  cabbage salad

Lunch:  Leftover black-eyed pea stew, zucchini & peas & corn (had a zucchini in the fridge, trying to get rid of produce before my trip tomorrow).  Dessert:  easy arugula apple salad, which I added orange slides to.  I love this salad and it is sooo easy!  The combination of  the bitter greens, tart and sweet apple and orange, and acidic vinegar--it's just an excellent explosion of taste.   I'm going to make this a lot on my trip next week because it should be easy to make in a hotel room.  I'll talk about my plans in another post if I can get packed in time.   Here's my dessert:   

We had housemate's family over for lunch and she fixed them their traditional meatloaf dinner.  They had ice cream and cake for dessert.  This is an example of how weird I am:  I totally loved my salad way more than I would have liked even vegan cake and ice cream.  Well, okay, I would have been tempted by vegan cake and ice cream, but it wasn't vegan, it was cake from a box and frosting from a can and ice cream from a factory, so it was not tempting at all.  And the salad was really good.   Oh, I probably did eat a bit too much for lunch.  The reason is that I was thinking I have to eat a bunch of salad before leaving town so will need a salad tonight for dinner.  But I guess I shouldn't think that way.  I should let food go to waste?  hmmm, maybe I could make a smoothie--yeah, I can make some green smoothies and put them in the freezer.  So then I don't have to feel I need to eat so much today.

Dinner:  well, I'm trying to get rid of food from the fridge before my trip.  and I wanted some blueberries and know I'll be eating a lot of salads on the trip.  But I have lots of salad at home to eat up.  So I made a green smoothie consisting of a bag of baby greens (5 oz), a frozen bag of blueberries, an apple, an orange, a little bit of pomegranate juice, and, this is where I think I made a mistake, half of a sweet potato.  It was okay, but I think replacing the sweet potato with another orange (both are small) would have been better.  oh well, it was pretty satisfying, in fact I overate--normally I'd only eat half the smoothie at a time but I didn't think it was good enough to freeze the rest so I just ate about 2/3 of it and...poured the rest down the sink.  I then proceeded to make 9 smoothies for housemate, in 3 batches.  Now, to get her to eat spinach, I make hers much sweeter than mine.  I use a sweet berry juice, and I got rid of the last of my dates and maple syrup in her smoothies.  So I did taste-test them and boy were they good.  Perhaps I taste-tested them a bit too much.  So I'd say I overate tonight.  Darn!  okay, I'll get better.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Jan 1 food

Breakfast:  spinach cherry-blueberry smoothie from the freezer

Lunch:  cabbage salad.  Snacked on a carrot and a clementine while making it.  and nibbled on the cabbage and apple.

Dinner:  black eyed pea stew.  It's good luck to eat black eyed peas on New Year's Day!  Dessert: orange.  

I was good today and didn't snack and didn't overeat (I think), and it's 9:40 pm and I don't even feel hungry.   Good start to the New Year!