Friday, July 31, 2009

veggie pot

I'm going away for the weekend and wanted to empty the fridge so I cooked everything that was in my fridge (except some potatoes):

beets, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, celery, zucchini, carrots, bag of frozen edamame, and hemp seeds; and herbs from the garden (dill, basil, chives).

The beets, onion, carrots, and broccoli stems take longer so I cooked them for 2 minutes in the pressure cooker, then added the rest (except the seeds), and cooked for another 2 minutes. Then put it into three big tupperware bowls. Then ground 3 Tbsp of hemp seeds and put them in each bowl and stirred.

So this has everything you need: veggies, greens, beans, and seeds. And it tastes great! I love beets and edamame combination, well, and everything else. yummy. so I'll be set with food for the weekend. fun!

july 31

another long day at work which I just finished at 11:30 pm, though we did play this afternoon too. My visitor is gone now. He enjoyed our healthy food. He couldn't believe the smoothies didn't have cream in them. I showed him how to make them today and he wants a good blender now.

brekky: um, 2 smoothies. first a mango-spinach one from the freezer. then I made too much of the visitor smoothies so had some of their leftovers. then I also had some lentils because I was pigging out.

lunch: lots of cabbage salad, raw carrots, celery, peas

dinner: banana-berry sorbet (1 banana, frozen blueberries and hemp seeds blended up in the blender--it was good), and ate some of the food I was preparing for the weekend (veggie-pot). also, grapefruit, and orange.

I wanted a cupcake today. That's why I had the banana-berry sorbet as my first dinner course. And I ate too much today. Maybe I should just get a cupcake at my favorite bakery and get it over with. But after reading Dr. Fuhrman's books, I know that stuff isn't good for you because of the fat, sugar and refined grains. Plus it makes me feel crappy. I actually don't want to eat it, and that's why I didn't give in. I guess I'm at this point where I'm saying, so I can never eat this stuff? I think I'm mourning it a bit. Maybe I should buy some flowers and put them on a grave of cupcakes. ha.

july 30

brekky:  spinach-mango smoothie, 1/4 musk melon.  yummy

lunch:  1/2 cup lentils (cooked with onion, added some dill & basil from the garden, and 1 Tbsp black fig vinegar).   cabbage salad.  corn on the cob with avocado butter.

dinner:  repeat of lunch without the corn on the cob.  grapefruit for dessert.  I really love grapefruit.  It's better than a cupcake.  I should remember that...

busy day, worked from 10 am and still working at 1:45 am.  got a lot done though.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

July 29

Brekky: 1/2 visitor smoothie. grapefruit

Lunch: the usual this time of year: leftover beans&greens from yesterday; steamed broccoli, cauliflower carrots and new potatoes; corn on the cob + avocado butter. I had 3 pieces of corn! usually have 2 but there was an extra...it was all local and delicious (except the avocado). yum.

snack/dinner. dinner was one long snack. let's see, raw carrots & peas, some grapes, last of the beans&greens (1 cup), 1/2 musk melon, an apple. it was all good. the musk melon was really good, from a local farm. the apple was really good. those are hit and miss these days. I probably shouldn't get them this time of year since they come from so far away, but I want to make cabbage salad tomorrow so I bought some today.

It doesn't seem like too much food but I overate. I'm still in this weird indulgent phase. I stopped at the grocery store and almost bought a cookie. It attracted me because they were freshly made, plus there's the nostalgia factor. Then I thought, I don't even really like these cookies, and I don't like how I feel afterwards, and remember how chocolate affects me? oh yeah, I thought. so how about brazil nuts instead? (talking to myself is like talking to a child). I thought, okay--but then there weren't any brazil nuts. so I was fine and moved on. At least I'm being rational about it. I know if I indulge, where does it stop? do you ever get satisfied? no. it's better to stop before. but I'm still wondering, why am I wanting to to be indulgent? I've got some slightly stressful life issues going on but I've had those before. Maybe I should just think of something else to be indulgent about. I do have an idea though. I buy too much food, especially too much fruit. I shop every few days so I'm going to think about how much groceries you need on that time scale and ration it better. It will save money too, and make it easier to transport on my bike.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

july 28

brekky: visitor smoothie, grapefruit

lunch: another pile of veggies & greens cooked in the pressure cooker: tons of collard greens, tomatoes, onion, zucchini, ground sunflower and hemp seeds, white beans, basil, chives, and dill. For preparation tips, see this recipe. For housemate and visitor I also made potatoes, green beans, and sugar snap peas with the same herbs. We also had the usual sweet corn and avocado butter. We have this every day we are home during sweet corn season. We count the days until sweet corn season starts. We reminisce in winter. My computer is named "sweetcorn".


late dinner: a pile of raw veggies and fruit in a bowl that I just ate as finger food. It took a few minutes to prepare. It was totally satisfying. I am weird. why on earth do I sometimes get influenced by society to stray from these simple and lovely meals? Here's what went into my bowl: salad greens, carrots, a plum, some cherries, some grapes, an orange cut into 8 pieces, a bunch of sweet peas. Then I added more salad greens.

homemade granola

this is kind of a weird idea but I liked it. My visitor was eating granola so of course I wanted some too but I wanted healthy granola. So I essentially took the ingredients for a bowl of oatmeal and turned it into granola.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oats or 1/4 steel cut oats
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
1 Tbsp date sugar
1/2 cup water? (I didn't measure)

combine everything in a bowl. microwave for 2 minutes. let it sit for a while until all the water pretty much soaks in. maybe microwave and let sit again if using steel cut oats. spread onto a cookie sheet. put in the oven at 275 for...30 minutes? Stir. put it in the oven again for...15 minutes? stir. repeat until it's a consistency you like. longer for crunchy. I found it more entertaining and long-lasting than oatmeal.

Monday, July 27, 2009

july 27 food

Brekky:  visitor smoothie.  this made 2.5 servings.  I had 0.5 serving, gave the others to visitor and housemate.  I also had a grapefruit.

Lunch:  I cooked up some kale from the garden with some carrots, and mixed it in with yesterday's black bean hummus.  I didn't log my food yesterday but for dinner we had black bean hummus and veggies to dip (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, all local and delicious!), and sweet corn.  I love that black bean hummus.  And I love the fresh veggies this time of year.  can't be beat.  Anyway, so I enjoyed the kale and carrots and hummus too.  I also made potatoes, carrots and green beans for visitor and housemate, topped with parsley and chives from the garden.  The potatoes were new and fresh and really good.  I usually don't eat potatoes but had a few bites.  The corn was fabulous of course, topped with the avocado butter (simply a mashed avocado).  Visitor loves the avocado butter.  I had a peach too.

Dinner:  salad pretty much like this one.  Let's see, it was salad greens, chopped apple, chopped walnuts, sugar snap peas, and blood orange vinegar.     had some cherries and grapes but not too much.  and half an orange.  and a bit of leftover potatoes and beans from lunch.  

visitor smoothie

a smoothie that a visitor would like.  Serves 3

Ingredients:
4 Tbsp hemp seeds or 1/4 cup raw cashews
5 walnuts (about 1/2 oz)
2 bananas
1 bag frozen blueberries
1 bag frozen raspberries or strawberries
12 oz water
2-3 Tbsp date sugar

Combine the date sugar, seeds or nuts, and 4-6 oz water.  Blend until nice and creamy.  Add the banana and berries.  Blend until smooth.

busy and overeating

It's been hectic the last week. I went on a trip, hosted a visitor, gave a sermon at church, and right after that went to the airport to pick up another visitor who will be here all week. All the traveling and visitors have been work-related so I'm working too. I've felt like splurging food-wise. I'm not sure what drives this. True, I've been feeling some stress and I'm sleep deprived. But it also seems to be part of a cycle where you eat well for a while and then want to splurge. And it's partly outside influence---being in close quarters with people who eat very SAD (Standard American Diet) food does influence me. So I'm not sure what the main reason is, or maybe it's just a combination of all those things. We went to a restaurant on Friday and I brought my own food but the restaurant had a lot of vegan options. I was wondering if maybe I should allow myself a nice splurge of vegan food at a restaurant. I have a $50 coupon for one restaurant that has a lot of vegan options. Friday night I drank a sip of wine from a very good bottle my visitor was drinking. It tasted good and I could feel the effect immediately and wasn't sure I liked it. plus I knew I'd feel yucky the next morning. So I didn't want more.

So for the last 3-4 days, I've been debating with myself about whether or not I want to have a planned splurge. I think it's okay since I haven't eaten unhealthy food in a few months, but do I want to? that is the real question. I don't feel so great after a splurge. In the meantime as I've been debating, and this is where I'm getting to after all this rambling, I've been overeating the fruit. I ate a whole watermelon this weekend. I ate some cherries and grapes at 11 pm last night. Okay, in the grand scheme of things, that's not so bad, but I don't feel so great. Too much sugar, even if it's fruit, makes a a little groggy the next morning. Just an observation. I hurt my foot on Saturday so don't plan to exercise much this week so I think I'll try to eat proper amounts of food this week. I'll try to get back to logging my meals too. This week's visitor is easy to host and he enjoys eating our food. He loves the avocado "butter" on the corn on the cob--says it's way better than real butter. Now there's an open-minded chap.

Anyway, the past few days I've been eating our usual kinds of food this time of year: fruit for brekky (cantaloupe, watermelon, or grapefruit) or smoothie (had one sat. morning), corn on the cob and veggies and leafy greens and beans at lunch, too much fruit at dinner along with leftover veggies, and not enough greens at dinner.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

regular hummus

Here is my plain hummus recipe. I like this more and more as my taste buds change. Okay, this recipe looks almost identical to leangreenmama's, but I promise I didn't steal it. Over time, I finally learned how to do this using sesame seeds instead of store-bought tahini. You have to use the blender for this. It makes a real creamy hummus.

Ingredients:
1 cup dried chick peas or 1 can
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup sesame seeds (raw, unhulled)
1 tsp low sodium tamari or soy sauce (optional)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1-4 garlic cloves

If using dried chick peas, soak overnight, then cook for 4 hours. or quick soak by boiling in water, then letting sit for an hour. You can pressure cook them in about 12 minutes I think.

I like to cook the garlic so it doesn't taste so strong. This worked well for me: put the garlic in a metal measuring cup or some tiny pot you can put in the oven. Add part of the lemon juice to cover. Bake in the oven for, I don't know, 10-20 minutes, until you just start to smell the garlic.
Next, the sesame seeds. Rinse them and put them in the blender. Add the lemon juice, some cooking liquid from the chickpeas, maybe 1/3 cup, and a few chickpeas, maybe 1/4 cup. Blend up. If you need more volume, add more water and chickpeas, but not too much. Let this blend for a few minutes so it starts to thicken--that's when the sesame seeds are well blended. Then add everything else. Add the bean juice as needed to reach your desired consistency.

trip notes

Just a couple of thoughts about my trip. I don't want to say too much to protect the privacy of my friends. They are gourmet cooks and they made meals like the kind Julia Child used to make, full of meat and fat and dairy. There was lots of alcohol too. It did make me nostalgic for old times when I joined in. I'm sure the food tasted really good, and I used to enjoy a good gin and tonic and a good bottle of wine. So part of me wanted to partake. But since there was nothing vegan, I wasn't tempted. I definitely would have been tempted if it had been vegan gourmet food. But I'm kind of repulsed by animal products now. Anyway, it was interesting. While I did feel a little nostalgic, I also felt very good physically and wanted to keep it that way. I went running one morning and got lost and ended up running about 6 miles, twice my usual amount, and I felt good the entire way. In fact, I speeded up at the end because I was late. I also felt that today's lunch was as fabulous as the gourmet meals that were served up. I don't feel deprived. I think my hosts thought I was, but that's just because I was in their environment without my groceries, so my choices were more limited than usual. I don't mind being limited for a few days. I still ate well. My meals pretty much followed what I planned in this post.

July 23

Okay, I can't resist. I kinda think the strength of this blog is the daily log of food prep and intake, because I don't have too many deep thoughts or great insights to offer. I find I learn well by example and I'm probably not unusual in this regard. Also, I want to log it for myself, as I try to improve my diet and achieve "black belt nutritarian" status. I'm not there yet...

My schedule might be changing around with exercise first thing in the morning--that's what I did today. Then I'd have a light breakfast of fruit at about 10 am--light because it's close to lunch. Then my big meal of the day is lunch at about 1 pm. Then scrounge for dinner. You would want to adapt the size and timing of your meals to your schedule too. Here's what I had today.

Brekky: some grapes and brazil nuts. I was grocery shopping after exercise class and got breakfast size portions of both. Well, I got too many brazil nuts and ate them all because I have no self-control. Lesson learned: buy smaller quantities.

Lunch: this was fabulous, as shown in the picture:



















that's sweet corn, and broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots and hummus; and avocado butter for the sweet corn. and blueberries and banana for dessert. the vegetables were all local. they are sooooo goood. Dessert was definitely not needed, because as usual, I snacked a bit while preparing (carrots, sugar snap peas, salad greens).

Dinner was some raw carrots, celery, and sugar snap peas dipped in hummus. and a grapefruit for dessert. I love grapefruit. Oh, I ate some salad greens too.

Monday, July 20, 2009

trip update

This smoothie is really good--it's better if it doesn't thaw all the way and you eat it with a spoon.  When it's completely thawed, it has a different consistency than when it was prepared.  Wow, I never thought 4.5 oz of collard greens & spinach would taste  good.  Keep in mind though, my tastes have probably changed--I don't like sweets as much as I used to.  But it's got 2 bags of berries in it!   It's a big one, but it's good on a trip because it fills you up.  The beans are filling me up too, which I need because I don't have as many extras to eat like I usually do at home.   Here's my post on what I brought on this trip.  The frozen smoothies and dishes have stayed frozen and it's working great.  I have an electric cooler plugged in keeping them cool.  It was a tiny bit uncomfortable at dinner last night but that's because we're adjusting to my being so different and bringing my own food, and my hosts are used to preparing lovely meals for their guests.  Everyone feels a little self-conscious about it at first.  Hopefully we'll be all adjusted by tonight.  

okay, I'm here to work.  gotta go.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

my eating plan

Here is where I am in my eating plan. At the Health Getaway Dr. Fuhrman talked about different levels of being a "nutritarian", analogous to karate: so white belt, yellow belt, brown belt, black belt. I feel I'm a brown belt but I'm close to being a black belt. I think to get there, I will focus on the simple diet plan in the Eat to Live book where every day you eat 1 lb of raw vegetables (including lots of leafy greens), 1 lb of cooked (lots of leafy greens), 1 cup of beans, 4-5 servings of fruit, and at least 1 oz of raw nuts and seeds (in my case, that should be 2-4 oz). Okay, I don't think I'm going to count the lbs of veggies, or maybe I might try it once just to see if I'm close. To start off, I'm going to aim for 1 cup of beans, 2-4 oz nuts and seeds, lots of veggies, and some fruit. The 1 cup of beans is the part I have been working on since returning from the Getaway. I find I have to regulate the other quantities in order to get this in comfortably. I now see why people say when you eat this way, you won't be hungry. I also want the beans and nuts&seeds to provide protein to add some bulk to my frame if my body chooses to use it. So that's my plan. I will try to be simple at first because that's easiest. I don't like to prepare more than one dish for a meal because of time constraints, so a main dish + salad is too much food prep for me at lunch (the meal I spend most of my time preparing because of house-mate's schedule). So here's a plan that could work for me:


lunch: this barbiebeangreens (my new name for beans, greens, nuts&seeds dish; too dumb?) or this one (my favorite). + sweet corn right now---ooh, I could add it to the main dish. maybe fruit another time. 1 raw carrot while preparing (I love raw carrots).

dinner: leftover barbiebeangreens (or should I call it beangreens?), salad+fruit. 1 raw carrot while preparing

When I'm out, a smoothie + 1/2 cup beans can substitute at lunch or dinner. It satisfies the requirement of the big 4: beans, greens, nuts&seeds, and fruit.

Okay, I'll see if this works and report back...

trip

Tomorrow I'm going on a road trip for 4 days, visiting friends for work and pleasure. As I mentioned in a previous post, they eat a completely different diet from me, truly opposite ends of the spectrum. Fortunately they are not offended at the idea of my bringing my own food. So a few nights ago I made a bunch of smoothies and my tomato-y beans, greens and seeds dish, described in this post. Our friends love Wisconsin sweet corn, so we bought 3 dozen ears today! And I'll bring some random stuff from the fridge that I don't want to go bad--some lettuce and red bell peppers, a couple kiwis. Oh yeah, I made some cashew-orange dressing a few days ago when trying to use up the cashew butter, and froze that into three small jars. So one cooler will just be full of frozen food, another corn, and another miscellaneous stuff. Should be fun! My friends love food and cooking and so do I, we just love different kinds of food. :)

party

Today I went to an afternoon party. It's quite an affair, not fancy, but a lot of work goes into it: My friend builds a home-made mini-golf course in his yard and his partner prepares lots and lots of food. People bring lots of food too. It's almost entirely SAD food (Standard American Diet): cheese and crackers, sausage, barbeque, cake, cookies, brownies, macaroni salads with lots of mayo and meat, potato salads with lots of egg and mayo. It's interesting how my reaction to this situation has changed over time. I'm not tempted by most things, because most greasy stuff looks unappealing to me, though I enjoy some of the smells. The one thing that looked and smelled good to me were the chocolate chip cookies. If they were vegan, I wonder if I would have had some--I'm not sure because even those are starting to look less appealing to me because margarine kind of grosses me out now--big chunks of solid fat with salt? A few hours into the party, watermelon and cantaloupe showed up, and I ate a bunch of that, too much. This was influenced by watching everyone else eat so much. Then when I got home I wasn't hungry for dinner. I ate the rest of my greens, beans, and seeds dish, which was really good. And then I wanted to try my dessert idea in part because I wanted to enjoy a dessert like everyone else did. If I just went by hunger and real desire, I'm not sure I would have eaten anything at all at the party, because we ate a delicious lunch before going. Maybe I would have tried a little watermelon and cantaloupe to enjoy the taste--they were both good but not great. I was planning to go jogging after the party and before dinner, but eating so much of the watermelon and cantaloupe prevented me from doing that.

In conclusion, I've definitely changed very much in my desires and I'm not as much influenced by others' choices as I used to be, though it does still seep in a bit. I find it kind of interesting to observe this change over time. For those who are starting out, I say, if this is the kind of eating plan you want to adopt, and if you keep trying, you will change over time, so be patient and keep trying. If you are like me, you will give in maybe a lot at first but if you can establish an upward cycle where you give in less and less over time, your preferences will change and it will just get easier. It's easy to resist something if it's not appealing.

banana-mango ice cream

Yuck. This is to remind me that I don't like banana mango ice cream or sorbet. I've done this twice already and neither time did I like it. Tonight I wanted to use up a mango before a trip, so I mixed mango, bananas and hemp seeds. It's funny because I love this mango-spinach smoothie that has mangos and bananas in it, but it also has oranges. The oranges must round out the flavor for me. Maybe I should try making mango-banana-orange ice cream next time. I could use a frozen bag of mangos, frozen banana, nuts, and an orange, essentially the smoothie recipe without spinach. but then I may as well make it healthy and add the spinach and make the smoothie. I'm not a huge fan of desserts usually. But I am still influenced by social situations, which is the topic of my next post.

heaven



















beans from the garden, sweet corn picked today from a farm 10 miles away. heaven.
I use mashed avocado (1/2 of one) for butter. yum. Resist the temptation to add anything to the avocado (like herbs, lime juice etc). The corn flavor is most important!

This wasn't enough calories of course. I also had a peach and some leftover beans, greens, & seeds dish (I need a new name for this dish?). Then I resisted the temptation to eat more. I have some food to get rid of before my trip and have a new dessert planned for later on. I was tempted to try it now. I'm full enough...

By the way, this smoothie tastes good. I had a frozen one that I thawed overnight in the fridge and had for brekky today.

okay, I said I wouldn't do a food log as much, but it's the weekend. Plus, I am in such a habit now...

Friday, July 17, 2009

changing the blog

I've been doing this blog for 13 months now. I was planning to do it for a year, to cycle through all the seasons. I think I want to change my approach a bit now. For one thing, I don't have a lot of free time and want to use some of that time for studying to become a "Nutritional Excellence Trainer" for Dr. Fuhrman's program. As a "NET", I'd coach people who want to adopt this program, tailored to their needs: it could involve shopping, cooking, support.

So I'm thinking instead of writing my daily food log, I will give more occasional updates on my eating habits, and still log my recipes (they are useful for me to refer to), and more thoughts and ideas. For example I can write about things I'm learning as I study, or tips I'm learning for how to adopt the program. I'm coaching a friend and her family right now, and definitely learning a lot about what kinds of advice works and what doesn't.

Please send feedback about this idea. Do you like the food log or is it okay with you to change things up a bit?

cost of seeds

I noticed that hemp seeds cost about 6 times more than sunflower. At my store, hemp seeds cost $12.89/lb and sunflower are $2-something. Flaxseeds are similar in price to sunflower. I forget what pumpkin seeds are. So 1 oz of hemp seeds cost 80 cents and the others are only 15 cents (I'll have to look up pumpkin). Let's say I ate 3 oz of seeds a day, 1 from hemp, and 2 from the others. That's still only about $1.10 per day. Considering how much I spend on fruit and berries, this is nothing! So I think I won't worry about the price of hemp seeds!

large collard green smoothie

I've been tweaking this recipe. I don't know why I like this but I do. It's not that sweet compared to others. I have lots of collard greens in my garden so this is a great way to use them. .

Ingredients:
2-4 oz collard greens and/or spinach or chard (note to self: I don't like kale or parsley in smoothies).
1 bag frozen berries (e.g., blueberries, strawberries)
1/2 bag frozen pomegranate kernels (just became available in my co-op, yum!)
2 small oranges, peeled, cut in quarters to remove seeds
2 Tbsp seeds (hemp, flax, sunflower, pumpkin) = 1 oz
1 cup water
1 Tbsp blueberry vinegar (makes the greens less bitter tasting)

put the seeds in the bottom of the blender. add 1/2 cup water, the orange, vinegar, and the greens. Blend until smooth, then add the berries and rest of the water. Makes about 24 oz. You can freeze some for later.

Nutritional info: total calories: 531. carbs 107 g (71%), protein 14 g (9%), fat 12 g (20%).

July 16 -- Sweet corn!

Brekky: finished off the cantaloupe and honey dew melon. and the last ripe peach. yum.

Lunch: Sweet corn season is finally here! We have a corn stand a few blocks from our house with corn picked fresh each day. How great is that?! So of course, lunch was sweet corn. I also made a big batch of greens & beans, using my last kohlrabi and leaves from the garden, some fresh local beets, a little zucchini, black beans, and almond butter instead of seeds. I think I like the ground seeds more than the almond butter. I think I'm not a big fan of the almond butter. Anyway, this is at right in the picture:













For housemate, I made a potato & greens dish. For the corn, instead of butter, mashed avocado tastes fabulous. I have to resist the urge to add anything to it. I didn't resist today and added a few chives and basil, but it's better just plain. Then you taste the sweetness of the corn and the added fat and flavor of the avocado. I think this is better than butter. So you don't have to feel deprived. If you don't have avocado I just like it plain. The corn is really good on its own. Of course, it's been engineered to be way sweeter than it should be probably, which explains why it tastes so good. Here's housemate enjoying her corn:




















Dinner was some watermelon, leftover greens & beans dish, and an apple with almond butter. Again, I'm not a big fan of the almond butter. I did a whole bunch of food prep after this and I guess I ate more than I thought while munching on the food. I occasionally nibbled on the almond butter. Well, I must have nibbled too much because I got really full. I am still full and it's 9:40 am the next morning. I hope I'm hungry by lunch. Anyway, I made a huge batch of greens & beans to freeze and take on my trip. This version was more of an Italian take, like this post. I used eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, tons of kale from the garden, herbs from the garden (basil, dill, garlic chives), a leek, scallions, fennel, and 2 cans tomatoes (almost done with last year's garden cans!), about 6 cups of cooked canonelli beans (at least, it was 1.5 cups dried) and almond butter instead of seeds. I thought the almond butter would go better with the tomatoes but I still didn't like it as much as seeds. I also added some nutritional yeast. I forgot to get garlic at the store so didn't have that. It was good but I felt it was missing something--maybe the garlic. Maybe a touch of vinegar would be good too. This made a huge batch. I had fun preparing it. Here are four big pots. At top left are the short-cooking vegetables (zucchini, mushroom, herbs, chard), top right are the beans (cooked 8 minutes in the PC), bottom left, ton of kale shrunk in volume using the food processor, then bottom right, the rest of the veggies. I combined the bottom two pots, cooked for 3 minutes in the pressure cooker (PC), then added the short-cooking veggies, cooked for another 2 minutes, then added the beans, nutritional yeast and almond butter. It made about 12 generous cups which I dished into 6 plastic bowls for freezing.
















After this I made 4 giant collard green/spinach smoothies to freeze. Now I'm all set for my trip. We are visiting friends who's eating style is completely opposite of mine--I mean, the complete other end of the spectrum. Everyone agrees we'll all be happier if I bring my own food. I'll just bring the frozen stuff and put it in their freezer. I also made a batch of cashew-orange dressing that I froze. So if they have some salad I'll eat that too.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

July 15

Brekky: 1/4 cantaloupe, 1/4 honey dew melon, a peach, some walnuts (~1/2 oz)

Lunch: avocado-mango salad. 1/2 orange. a carrot while preparing. My salad was big and had plenty of fat in it with the 1/2 avocado and 1/2 cup edamame and 1 Tbsp hemp seeds. But it turned out to be about right. I was hungry by dinner-time. Here's a picture of the big salad:



















Dinner: leftovers from yesterday, the beans, greens, and seeds dish. an apple and an orange. then when I got home I was a bit hungry and I don't want to lose any more weight, and I found some cashew butter on my doorstep (ordered it from Dr. Fuhrman), so I had a carrot dipped in cashew butter. sounds weird but it was pretty good. A banana would have been better but they were frozen. and I was out of apples.

After dinner I made a bunch of smoothies to freeze for housemate. We're going on a road-trip soon and will be bringing lots of food. Plus I don't trust myself with that cashew butter so decided to put most of it in the smoothies.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

July 14

brekky: 1/4 cantaloupe, 1/4 honey dew melon. some walnuts and pumpkin seeds (probably 1/2-1 oz total). some salad greens.

Then my stomach was bothering me again. I'm not sure why. I did eat too many cherries last night, but I've done that plenty of times. Last night's smoothie had 4 oz of spinach in it. But I've done that plenty of times. But maybe the combination of that plus the 1 cup of beans a day is too much. I need more food when I don't eat beans, but I probably should cut back on volume when I include the beans. Or maybe I just ate something with some bacteria on it, I don't know.

Anyhow, I therefore ate a light lunch. I just snacked a bit on things as I prepared dinner for later since I wouldn't be home. I made another greens, beans & seeds dish, because I really want to adopt Dr. Fuhrman's advice to eat lots of greens, beans, and nuts and seeds. And I made a nice fruit salad--strawberries, raspberries, mango, and kiwi (2 servings, one for housemate). I ate 1/2 orange while making housemate's orange juice. And I ate some more nuts and seeds, probably 1 oz. That seemed like plenty of food for lunch. Then dinner was those dishes I prepared. It was yummy. I feel fine right now, so hopefully all will be well.

another beans, greens, and seeds dish

This is as easy as this one, just a little different.

Ingredients for 2 servings:
about 5 oz chopped greens (collards, kale, chard, bok choy, etc.)
some starchy veggies (carrot, beets, zucchini)
1 cup beans
3 Tbsp seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, hemp). Hemp make the creamiest sauce, so I like 2 Tbsp hemp, 1 of something else. Grind in coffee grinder
some herbs or spices if you want (today I used a lot of parsley, and some dill and basil).

Cook the greens and veggies and herbs together (easier that way). Collards, kale, carrots, eggplant, and beets take a similar time to cook so I like that combo in the pressure cooker for 3 minutes. or steam for 25 minutes (for collard greens). Add the beans and seeds and the water the veggies cooked or steamed in. It turns into a creamy sauce. I made this today with kohlrabi and its greens, 2 small beets and their greens, and a carrot for the veggies & greens; black beans; and the herbs I mentioned above. It was really good. The beets and carrots made it sweet so it doesn't really need more flavoring. This is in contrast to this version that combines eggplant and mushrooms with tomatoes. zucchini can go in both recipes.

Monday, July 13, 2009

July 13

Brekky: 1/4 honey dew, 1/4 cantaloupe, a peach


Dinner: was out so made a mango-spinach smoothie, 1/2 cup black beans, a kiwi, and a plum. After grocery shopping I ate some cherries and blackberries and brazil nuts. so I ate quite a lot, as usual.

I'm going to be out every night this week so I guess I'll be making smoothies every night. I'd make a salad but my meals will have to be quick and salad takes a while to eat. So I guess I'll make some salads at lunch. or breakfast...

beans, geens, seeds and a cream sauce

Ingredients for 1 large serving

4 oz greens (e.g., collards, kale, chard)
a vegetable or two--e.g., carrot, beets (optional)
half of leek or onion
1 small zucchini or 1/2 large
1/2 cup beans
1 Tbsp hemp seeds
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
juice of 1/2 lemon

steam the greens, zucchini, onion, and vegetable. I cooked them in a pressure cooker for 3 minutes. I peeled the zucchini but didn't cut it up, since it cooks faster than collard greens if it's cut up.

In a blender, blend up the zucchini, seeds, and lemon. It makes a nice creamy sauce. Pour that over the vegetables and stir. It's tastes decadent because of the sauce, even though it's healthy. Here I used carrot for the veggie, and black beans.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

July 12

ugh, I got sick this morning. I am not sure what I did wrong. Well I ate too many raw carrots and sugar snap peas before dinner last night. That combined with the large (again raw) salad which I probably didn't chew well enough, and the 1/2 cup beans must have overloaded my system. Oh, I also ate a bunch of broccoli sprouts on my salad and I've never tried those before and I wasn't sure how to eat them, eat the whole things or the tops? Maybe I overate those. Anyway, I woke up at 5:30 am and had diarrhea for the next few hours. I'm sure the whole world enjoys reading that. So my meals today were pretty light.

no brekky.

lunch: plum, kiwi, 1/4 honey dew melon. For housemate I made: potatoes, carrots, sugar snap peas and corn, with garden herbs (chives, rosemary, parsley) and ground seeds. I tasted that and it was good. I realized I could have had that instead of the fruit because it was all cooked and easy to digest. I'm a big fan of hemp seeds now. Grind them up, add them to the water the veggies cooked in, and it turns into a creamy sauce!

dinner: peach. then cooked up a kohlrabi + its green leaves (from the garden), a carrot, sugar snap peas, with herbs (chives, tarragon, basil, parsley from the garden) and ground hemp/pumpkin seeds. 1/2 small orange for dessert. Let's hope that settles nicely in my tummy. Oh, for both lunch and dinner, I used the pressure cooker and cooked it up in a few minutes!

Tomorrow I want to get back to the beans. I want to follow Fuhrman's advice and eat 1 cup beans every day. That means I need to cut back on the volume of the other food at lunch and dinner (unlike yesterday I guess)--that should cut back on my food bills too because dried beans are cheap!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

July 11

This morning I weighed myself. I felt like I overate this week, and thought for sure my weight would be up, but I was still at 118. I've been trying to eat more beans and nuts and seeds this week to help build muscle--yeah, I want to a buff 49 year old! The beans really do fill you up. I think I'll learn to moderate my intake of other foods so I don't feel too bloated. My boobs have shrunk lately, maybe there's where the weight came off, ha. I think I'm going to need new bras.

Brekky: cabbage and apples. love this. plum. also had sips of housemate's smoothies. I'm changing that recipe, still working on it.

Lunch:
We went on a bike ride and took a bag of carrots and sugar snap peas to dip in the leftover zucchini-sesame sauce. and I also had 1/2 cup bean, fruit salad (strawberries, raspberries, bananas--I don't like the current batch of blueberries at the co-op---too soft), and a kiwi. Housemate had peas and carrots and a candy bar for later. It was a yummy lunch. We were at a popular biking spot and everyone was going to a local coffee shop to eat. I think my lunch was way better!




















Dinner: had the rest of the carrots and sesame-zucchini sauce from lunch while preparing my favorite avocad0-mango salad. also ate an orange, which I really didn't need. oh, and ate 1/2 cup of beans. time to soak some more for cooking tomorrow.






zucchini-sesame sauce

This is a summer version of the tahini-rutabaga sauce (rutabagas last well into winter in Wisconsin). I didn't think to add onions. That would probably be good too.

Ingredients:
1 zucchini (yellow or green)
2 Tbsp sesame seeds, well rinsed
juice of lemon
some water
herbs from the garden or cupboard (optional)

Cook the zucchini in a little water. It cooks fast. In fact, I'm not sure you even need to cook it but I haven't tried it raw yet. I will and edit this if it's good. Combine everything except the herbs in the blender. Blend for a while so the sesame gets ground up. It gets creamy once the sesames are all blended. It gets warm and steamy too. Add the herbs and blend for a second if you didn't chop them fine. My herbs were chives, tarragon, basil, and parsley, because that's what in the garden. This is a good sauce, really good with collard greens. Housemate liked it a lot. She's going to get irritated when she reads this because she will find out it has zucchini in it and she claims to not like it.

July 10

Let's see if I can remember (It's July 11 now):

Brekky: cabbage & apples. yum.

Lunch: Collard greens and zucchini-sesame sauce and 1/2 cup red beans. The combination of all three was very good. I cooked the collard greens in the pressure cooker for 3 minutes--so easy! I'm trying to eat 1/2 cup beans at each lunch and dinner. Had a carrot too. I'm sure there was more. maybe snacked on sugar snap peas while preparing. maybe had a kiwi for dessert.

Dinner: met housemate at the co-op for shopping and dinner. Had a carton of blackberries (6 oz I think, so good!), some brazil nuts, a carrot, and some sugar snap peas. When I got home I had 1/2 cup beans and an orange.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

new spinach-mango smoothie

This is a more nutrient-dense version of my original spinach-mango smoothie.

Ingredients for 1 large serving (about 20 oz):
1 medium or large orange or 2 small
1 10-oz bag frozen mangos
1 4-oz bag baby spinach
3 Tbsp total sunflower, pumpkin, hemp seeds (whatever combo you wish)
supplements if you wish (vitamins, DHA)

Throw the seeds and supplements into the blender. Peel the oranges, cut in half, then quarters to remove the seeds, throw in blender, add spinach. Blend until smooth. then add the mangos, and blend until smooth. yum!

Nutritional info. total calories: 533 (that's a lot!); protein 15 g (9%), carbs 91 g (61%), fat 17g (29%).

July 9

Brekky: grapefruit, delicious ripe peach, cherries, salad greens.

Lunch: avocado-mango salad. I think this is my favorite all-time salad. The avocado and
seeds make it so creamy even though they aren't blended. The mango adds a really nice sweet and tart flavor. I used fresh local sugar snap peas instead of edamame. Dessert was fruit salad: strawberries, raspberries, banana.












It was a wonderful meal eaten out on the deck. Here's housemate ready to eat after working in the garden:














Dinner: wasn't home for dinner, so brought a mango-spinach smoothie, cup of beans, and 3 carrots. I've been doing pretty good this week eating beans, greens, and seeds and I think I do have more energy for my workouts--could be my imagination though.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

the garden

okay, one more post and then I have to get back to work...here are pictures from our lovely garden.

The dill is amazing this year. We've never got these giant stalks before. One of them came up from last year so it's not a different variety.













Italian parsley:



















tarragon:











curly parsley:
















mint. I don't use this much and it takes up valuable space, so I think it will be out next year:















basil. we have two plants:



















This is just some of the tomatoes. We have 16 regular, 1 cherry plants. We will can a lot of them.











We have 6 collard green plants and 3 chard (in the back):



















garlic chives. I like these better than regular:













kale. I don't think these are ready to harvest:



















A large russian kale plant that came up from last year. I harvested half of it today:



















Kohlrabi. We had 6 plants, I've harvested two. I don't like that it doesn't grow back. But I suppose that's okay because we can plant something in their place, like spinach! I do enjoy eating the kohlrabi (the bulb at the bottom) and the greens.



















Mustard greens. These aren't what I thought they would be. They are different from the ones in the store. But I guess they are okay. I expected bigger leaves and therefore more to eat.














Regular chives:




















Arugula. This has been good. It's strong but the plant is reasonably small so I can harvest small amounts for salads and not have too much growing in the garden.


















Then we also have beans and bell peppers. I didn't take pictures of those, I guess because I'm not eating them yet. And the eggplant plant doesn't seem to be doing much. It's growing but not very much. I also forgot to snap a picture of the rosemary.

easy beans, greens, and seeds

This is a high-protein meal, good for building muscles (if you exercise), and easy for me because it uses garden produce.

Ingredients for 2 servings:
about 5 oz chopped collard greens or other greens (kale, chard, mustard, bok choy)
1 leek or onion
1 16 oz can tomatoes
another veggie if you have one: e.g., zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, about 1 cup chopped.
various herbs (today I had chives, dill, tarragon, basil, parsley from the garden)
1 cup cooked or canned beans
1 Tbsp each sunflower, pumpkin, hemp seeds (or any combination, all sunflower, whatever you have), grind in coffee grinder

Collards and kale take the longest to cook. Cook them and the leek/onion on stove top for 20 minutes or pressure cooker for 2 minutes (get a pressure cooker!). Then add everything else, cook for a little longer (5 minutes on stove, 30 sec in pressure cooker).

This was even better at dinner. Maybe it was the herbs. They added a nice flavor, especially the dill.

Things I learned at the Getaway

A reader asked me to post things I learned at the Getaway that might benefit a newbie. So I'll just run through things I wrote down in my notebook. It will probably be kind of random, but actually that's part of the learning process--there were tips to be learned all the time, at the food line, from other people, from Dr. Fuhrman's answers to questions, and of course, from the lectures.

The first lecture was an overview of "Eat for Health." I didn't take careful notes. Right now I'm interested myself in why refined grains and sugar are harmful---are they harmful in themselves or do they just cause a person to eat less of the healthy food? It seems they are harmful in themselves. I'm rereading "Eat to Live" with a mind to this question. Also my notes at the Getaway were probably more focused on this question too. So that explains why I wrote "refined foods (bagels, pasta) are cancer causing." So they are harmful. Dr. Fuhrman said, "To create cancer, eat a diet high in meat and cheese, high in refined carbs, and low in veggies, fruit, beans, nuts, and seeds." And of course, do the opposite to prevent it. He also reminded me that fruit protects against cancer. I love fruit. You'd think something so delicious wouldn't be so good for you, but it is! What good fortune!

Another concept I learned was the definition of addiction: when you have trouble stopping something because you experience discomfort.

And the Mindset of Champions:
Determination, Initiative, Perserverance, Repitition, Correct Attitude...
And then the slide went away. I really liked this and I am not sure I wrote everything down. It's so important to have a positive attitude. This would be good to write down and put on your fridge.

The next lecture was "Healthy Pantry" by Lisa Fuhrman. This would really benefit a newbie and my notes only reflect things I found new or interesting, even though there was tons of information. The best grains (roughly from top to bottom) are steel cut oats, quinoa, bulghur, wild rice, brown rice, coarse whole wheat. (Keep in mind that vegetables and beans are more nutritious than grains). Most "whole wheat" bread is white bread with coloring added and some whole wheat added. Look for the ingredients list to verify, should say "whole wheat" as the first (and only grain) ingredient. Some good whole wheat breads are ezekial, alvarado, essene and manna (frozen).

Next, "Reversing and Preventing Heart Disease and Strokes." New studies are showing more and more the benefits of nuts and seeds! If you are trying to lose weight, 1 oz a day is sufficient but don't eat less. Rebecca, who lost 300 lbs, said her weight loss stalled for a while, and then she was reminded to eat nuts and seeds, and then it started coming off again. They actually help with weight loss! Also, low-fat diets with no nuts and seeds may dramatically increase your risk of ventricular fibrillation or other life-threatening arrythmias. I speak from experience because I tried a low-fat diet for a couple of weeks and my irregular heart beats (which I used to get before eating healthy) returned with a vengeance. I asked Dr. Fuhrman for advice on the forums and he said eat nuts and seeds! And it worked. Anyway, this lecture made me realize I shouldn't skimp on these. I am thin and probably need even more than the average. So my minimum should be 2 oz a day. Given how much I exercise, 3-4 oz is probably fine.

Next was a lecture on Diabetes. First were the amazing statistics: 7/10 adults deaths are caused by chronic diseases, all preventable by diet. Medical costs for chronic disease are 75% of US healthcare expenditures. Diabetes is really an awful disease, and type II diabetes is caused by being overweight. The more fat you are, the more insulin you need to push the glucose into the cells (which are covered in fat), so the pancreas produces more insulin, and the insulin makes you more fat (I'm not real clear on why but it seems to more efficiently convert calories to fat, see Eat to Live, p. 38-39 and 158-164). So it's a negative feedback situation that spirals you into weight gain and higher insulin production. In addition, all that insulin in your bloodstream is an athleroschlerotic agent, i.e., makes your heart disease worse. But too much glucose contributes to blindness and kidney disease. The good news is, if you start losing weight, you set up a positive feedback situation where you need less insulin and that makes you less fat, which makes you need less insulin, and so on. Dr. Fuhrman is writing a book on diabetes. Anyway, the other main point of this lecture was new results on how great beans are. They have resistant starch which is not digested and causes lots of beneficial short-chain fatty acids in your large intestines. Because of the resistant starch and lots of fiber, they effectively have fewer calories than advertised. I'm going to try to eat 1/2 cup of beans at lunch and 1/2 cup at dinner. Spreading them out over 2 meals works better for me, as I discovered at the Getaway. Some random useful facts at the end of the lecture were: green apples are lower in sugar than others. Some low-sugar fruits are blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, kiwis, papayas, and green apples. I love all of those except I don't get good papayas in Wisconsin.

There was a session on the Nutritional Excellence Institute and becoming a certified Nutritional Excellence Trainer (NET). I plan to do this. There will be a variety of programs, from individual counseling, group counseling, food prep services, meetings, resellers of products, and corporate training. The website describing this more will be up soon.

Next was a Nutritional Research Update. I was happy to learn that grapefruits may not be bad for you if you are at a healthy weight and eat a healthy diet. There is a link between grapefruit and breast and prostate cancer but this may be because most Americans are overweight and have excess estrogen. Then there were words like ITC which I already forgot what it means, but I did learn that if you cut up your cruciferous veggies and onions and let them sit in the air for a few minutes, a chemical reaction occurs and produces ITCs, which are anti-cancer compounds. They survive the cooking process. So when you make Dr. Fuhrman's anti-cancer soup, change the instructions so you precut or pre-blend the cruciferous veggies first and let them sit for a couple of minutes, then add. Tomatoes and carrots have more anti-cancer compounds after cooking. I love raw carrots, so I guess I am missing out on the ITCs in carrots but I'll make up for it in tomatoes and collard greens and kale. Mammograms detect cancers earlier but don't increase lifespan. Chemo causes as much harm as good. Caffeine has much worse effects on diabetics. AGEs: Advanced Glycation End products (I think) are an important cause of the horrible side effects of diabetes. AGEs are increased when starchy foods are cooked at higher temperatures, like baked or roasted potatoes, (or french fries, of course!). Cooking with water insures things won't overheat. Raw cocoa has theobromide, not caffeine? Is this true? This was new to me.

Then we had a fantastic cooking demo with Lisa Fuhrman and Chef Charlotte. Here's something I learned: you can freeze bananas with the skin on it! Just throw them in the freezer when ripe. When you want to put them in a smoothie or ice cream, let them thaw for a few minutes so the skin gets soft enough and it will peel right off. All these years I wasted time peeling and breaking into pieces and putting into plastic bags. Some handy kitchen tools include a T-peeler for peeling mangos and other large fruits; a microplane for citrus zest, a good french knife, a French mandolin. Charlotte rattled off some fun recipes she made and I didn't get them all written down. She made a stir fry with cashew butter, coconut milk, ginger, lime zest, and I lost the rest, but probably you can go with veggies for the rest. We taste-tested the banana-flag cake--it was really good! Here's a nice sounding easy dessert: heat up apples, raisins and cinnamon in water, top with banana freeze (frozen bananas and soy or other milk blended up---or frozen banana, nuts and water will work just as well).

Next, a lecture on Hormones, supplements and Vitamin D. Vitamin D is amazing amazing amazing. You must take vitamin D. One study showed that it lowered the risk of breast cancer by 50% over 4 years. This suggests that is reverses growth because when breast cancer is detected, it's been growing for 20-30 years. The risk of vitamin D deficiency is at least as severe as smoking cigarettes. Don't hope that sun will give you all you need. A study on surfers in Hawaii showed some to be very deficient. Fuhrman has a newsletter on vitamin D. It also helps with depression, with calcium absorption, so many things. And you need DHA too. I didn't write down some interesting stuff because I take Dr. Fuhrman's supplements and don't worry about it. Vitamin A in supplements is very bad for you. Same with folic acid--cancer causing!

Finally, a Q&A session where you could ask whatever you want of the doctor. Some odds and ends I wrote down: for mushrooms, the white, crimini and portabella are the least nutritious! Shitake, elephant (others?) are the ones you want. Juicing vegetables removes protein! And there are lots of calories in juice, since you removed the no-calorie fiber. Pomegranate juice is the best fruit juice.

That's all...

Watermelon gazpacho soup

This is something we had at the Health Getaway a few weeks ago. I haven't tried it out yet (the recipe that is, the soup at the Getaway was great!) and am not sure I wrote everything down right.

Ingredients:
2 cucumbers peeled
1 watermelon
some mint
zest of lime
small amount of lime juice (optional)

I think that's all! blend most of the cucumber and watermelon in the blender. save some to chop up and add to the soup.

July 8

Brekky: delicious perfectly ripe peach. delicious grapefruit. then I thought, I should have some greens too but I didn't feel like working so I just ate a bunch of romaine lettuce leaves. They were really good. That's all I felt like having. The fruit was really tasty.

Regarding grapefruit, I had stopped eating it because Dr. Fuhrman pointed out studies that show its link to cancer. At the Getaway, he said he suspects this applies mainly to overweight people with excess estrogen, and that grapefruits are okay if you are thin and eat healthy, but there are no studies to prove this definitively (yet). So I think I will go back to eating it occasionally, or maybe even more than occasionally. I missed the best season, spring, when they come from Texas. Those are the best ones in my opinion, but this one I ate from California was very good.

Lunch: collard greens, tomatoes, beans, small zucchini, herbs and ground seeds. I really liked this so will probably make it a lot because I have lots of collard greens in the garden, lots of herbs, and lots of tomatoes. I ate a carrot and some snap peas while preparing. had a ripe delicious peach for dessert.

Dinner: brazil nuts and cherries, followed by leftover lunch (greens dish), and a plate of salad greens, snap peas, carrot and orange pieces, followed by more cherries. I ate too many cherries. I overate. oops. The plate of food was super easy to prepare and was good. I am often too lazy to make a salad, but throwing a bunch of things onto a plate is easy. That's at left; at right is the leftover lunch dish which was even better at dinner.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

July 7

Brekky: some cherries, blackberries, and leftover cabbage salad. some raw spinach. some sips of house mate's smoothies while preparing.

Lunch: big salad made from stuff in the fridge and garden. There was lettuce from the garden, romaine lettuce from the store (local), grape tomatoes cut in half, sugar snap peas (so good!). Then for dressing I ground up some sunflower and hemp seeds (in the coffee grinder), and mixed that with some d'angou pear vinegar and chives and basil from the garden and the tomatoes. While eating I decided it needed more liquid so I added some spicy pecan vinegar (ran out of the d'angou pear, didn't really care what flavor it was). It was very good.



















Dessert was fruit salad: strawberries, raspberries, banana














Dinner: I had big plans for building muscles with a "power smoothie" after a hard workout at the gym, following Dr. Fuhrman's advice: after exercising, eat a meal with greens, beans, and nuts and seeds. So I prepared a smoothie with 4 oz kohlrabi leaves (needed to harvest another kohlrabi from the garden), 1 Tbsp each of sunflower, pumpkin, flax and hemp seeds, 1/2 cup edamame, and a bag of frozen berries, oh and a peeled orange, and 1 Tbsp blueberry vinegar. It was a bit of a disappointment. It didn't taste bad, tasted decent even. But I love eating an orange by itself, and I love the taste of sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds and berries. It was all just mixed together into one okay taste and there was no satisfaction of chewing. So I don't think that's going to be how I get my high-protein meal on a regular basis. This time of year, the produce is so good, I think I am not in the mood for blending it all up into one taste. I also ate my smallish but good-tasting kohlrabi, some carrots, and some cherries. I was plenty full after all that.

July 6 food

Brekky: smoothie. made this from kohlrabi leaves! I harvested a kohrabi from the garden. I sliced up the bulb (the "edible portion" you find at the grocery store) and ate that too. I love kohlrabi. I have 5 more plants and will probably harvest those over the next few weeks. I don't like that they don't grow back. I really like the leafy greens because you can harvest them for a few months and the leaves just keep growing back. Collard greens are amazing this way. Talk about cheap eats. Anyway, the leaves made about 5.5 oz of greens so that was plenty for a smoothie. It was good.

Lunch: was out and about, brought a large bowl of leftover cabbage salad. and a carrot and an apple.

Late dinner: stopped at the grocery store on the way home, threw a bunch of delicious produce on a plate, and ate a huge bowl of lentil soup (described in yesterday's post). I ate too much. Anyway, the produce meal was really good. It's so easy to get full in the summer on fresh produce. I started with a large carrot. I really love raw fresh organic carrots. They are sweet. Then I had some brazil nuts (I just got one portion at the store so I wouldn't overeat them), some cherries, blackberries, raw spinach, sweet snap peas (local and delicious!) and watermelon. and a small orange for dessert. I would have been fine stopping here, but no, I had to taste the soup. That soup is so sweet I can't stop eating it. So I got really full. overfull. I think I'll avoid that really sweet carrot-based soup for a while. Plus I'm not a big fan of juicing and then throwing out all that pulp, even if it's going into the compost pile.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

mango-cashew dressing

I learned this at the Health Getaway. They were demo-ing cashew-orange dressing but didn't have oranges so they used a mango and the started improvising. Here's my version which is sort of a hybrid:

Ingredients:
1 ripe mango
1 orange, peeled, remove seeds (optional)
1/4 cup cashews
1 Tbsp blood orange vinegar
lime zest
lime juice to taste (try 1/2 tsp to start) (optional)
a bit of cilantro or dill or chives if you have some (optional)

back home

Let's see if I can recount the last several days:

On Wednesday, we had our last breakfast and lunch at Dr. Fuhrman's Health Getaway. It was yummy of course. Then we took the shuttle to Miami and stayed in a hotel near the airport. Gail and I shared a can of VitaBeanaVegaMin soup. Gail informed me that that name is a take-off from an old "I Love Lucy" tv show.

On Thursday morning for breakfast I had two more cans of soup. I still had them leftover from my trip out, plus they gave us a free can at the Getaway. I also wanted to empty my suitcase a bit. Well, I'm so glad I ate two cans because after many delays, I arrived in Chicago at about 5:30 pm, about 10 hours after breakfast when you account for the time change. I bought an apple and banana and that satisfied me for a while. But I missed my connection so had to catch a bus home and didn't arrive until 9:30 pm. I was dreaming of banana walnut ice cream on the ride home. When I got home, I ate a bunch of carrots and a smoothie. I guess I wanted some greens more than the ice cream. I'm now getting the greens from my garden so will probably have this smoothie a lot.

Then on Friday morning I had my banana walnut ice cream. Oh, then I went grocery shopping and ate lots of delicious fruit---cherries, blackberries, and some brazil nuts. For lunch we had fruit salad (the usual strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and banana). Then for dinner I had a smoothie at a friend's house. They thought I was weird. I don't care.

Yesterday I wasn't home much, had a smoothie and cherries at brekky. Lunch was a big salad (lettuce, avocado, red bell pepper) with cashew-mango dressing, extremely yummy. At dinner I was at a barbeque and didn't make time to prepare food for myself. I nibbled on strawberries, spinach and tomatoes. I was still hungry when I got home so made a fruit and veggie platter (carrots, celery, apples, red bell pepper) which we dipped into the rest of the mango-cashew dressing. It was good.

Today I had a smoothie for brekky, and a half a cantaloupe and a kiwi. I finally had some time to cook something so made some carrot-lentil soup (from the Fuhrman recipe site: I used 2 cups red lentils, 3 sweet onions, and carrot juice made from 5 lbs of carrots); and cabbage salad and had that for lunch. For dinner, I kind of pigged out. I had more of the soup and salad, then an apricot, a kiwi, then made some cashew dip (cashews, water, date sugar blended up), and dipped a banana into that. It was yummy, but I ate a lot of cashews. I think I have a problem with sweet things triggering me to overeat. The soup is very sweet with the carrot juice, and I think it's a problem for me. So even though the Fuhrman plan has many delicious tasting soups and dressings and desserts, and I can handle them at the Getaway where the meal ends and the food is no longer available, when I'm at home, I don't handle them as well knowing I can just go to the refrigerator and eat them. So my food logs will probably return to less sweet and more boring things because they don't cause me to eat well past fullness. Plus, from what I'm learning about nutrition, it's harmful to spike your system with sugar and insulin, and I can definitely feel the spikes when I eat these sweet things. So, I'm sorry that my blog won't be full of delicious sweet things, like we ate at the Getaway.