Aug 5 food

had visitors today but since I'm the cook I'm in control.

Breakfast:  smoothie, snacked on fruit while fixing lunch, oops.  cherries, grapes, etc.

Lunch:  boiled sweet corn, steamed potatoes, salad (lettuce, ripe garden tomatoes, mushrooms, red pepper, avocado) with cashew orange dressing, fruit salad, pinto beans.

Dinner:  Leftovers from lunch + watermelon

The beans made me bloated and gassy.  So forget the beans for a while. The guests also had meatloaf, milk, frozen custard and special K bars.

cashew-orange dressing

Ingredients:

1/3 cup cashews or some cashew butter (or walnuts or hemp seeds)

2 medium oranges: peel, cut into quarters and de-seed

1 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman's blood orange vinegar

some grapes or pineapple or figs if you have them (optional) (figs are best!)

Put everything in a blender and blend until smooth. I've modified this recipe several times and it evolved into something that was different from the original recipe from the Fuhrman site, and now it's evolved back into the Fuhrman recipe, so I probably shouldn't post it here. But that is my excuse for why it's here, because at one time it was different. Note: you can substitute for the orange or part of them a variety of things like grapes, pineapple, mango, and/or figs. This keeps for a few days in the fridge or you can freeze smaller portions of it.

boiled sweet corn

Just in case you don't know how to do this...

Ingredients:

large pot of water

sweet corn

Boil the water while shucking the corn (removing the outer layers). Add the corn cobs--I prefer to only do 3-4 at a time but if you have a crowd of people, add as many as you can. once the water starts boiling, set the timer for 5-6 minutes. after it's done put them on a plate and serve. They are delicious as is, with nothing on them. lately I've been adding chives to them because I am really into chives this sumer. or you can add a no-salt seasoning but I think they taste better without. I know, you've always put on butter and salt. But just try it a few times without. If it's really fresh sweet corn, it tastes great all by itself!

Aug 4 food

Today I seemed to return to normal.  The produce in the Co-op looked so good that I didn't want anything else.  I was thinking that even though I have had to admit my failings to be perfectly healthy on this blog, I am really fortunate to be in the situation I'm in.  In fact, I can't believe my good fortune.  I am lucky to have discovered how to be healthy, and it was an accident of becoming vegetarian for environmental reasons (and buried deep down, liking the idea of not killing animals).  Like everyone else, I didn't think what you ate mattered for your health.  But after becoming vegetarian and then vegan and then learning more about it, I discovered the health benefits.   I also finally had the nerve to try out yoga and the Monkey Bar Gym.  That has made me stronger and more fit than I was since I was 20.  And I'm 48 years old!  Now compared to other reasonably active people, I'm average strength, but compared to how I was 3 years ago, I'm noticeably stronger and I'm likin' it.   Then there is my fun job, and I love the place I live in.  I love how the weather changes so much in the summer.  We get the beautiful dry days, but it's nice to get the occasional hot and humid day too, and the thunderstorms.  So no complaints here.  But this is a food blog, so here is what I ate today.

Well, breakfast wasn't until 11:30 am and I got up at 6:30 am, so there was a plum after my exercise class, and a nectarine after yoga, both perfectly ripe and delicious.  Then the breakfast smoothie.   Lately I've been putting in 2 Tbsp of raw sunflower seeds instead of soy milk or other nuts (that's 1 Tbsp per serving).  I figure it's a good thing to eat after exercising, has a lot of protein.  Today I made some soy milk, so I'll put that in for a few days also, or maybe instead of the sunflower seeds, we'll see.

Late Lunch:  collard greens, boiled sweet corn, pinto beans.  snacked on cherries, grapes and mushrooms and a few bites of watermelon.   I decided to buy a coconut at the co-op, since my experiment with the pineapple a few weeks ago was so successful.   I googled "how to open a coconut" and found this website which explained it well.   I decided the coconut is more work than it's worth.  Opening it is easy enough but then trying to cut out the meat is hard work.  And it's not as sweet as I thought it would be.  I added it to the collard greens and it was good, added a good texture and taste.  But I think I'll be lazy in the future and stick with shredded coconut which I can get in the bulk section and is reasonably unprocessed.  I also added a Tbsp of vinegar early on and I think the advice is correct that it removes the bitter taste.  Oh, the collard greens were from the garden and they are great.   For the pinto beans, for spices I used ground cumin, then towards the end added thyme and oregano from the garden.  then at the very end chives and a little basil from the garden.  I am choosing these herbs because they are in my garden.  Everything for the next month will be topped with chives and basil.

late afternoon snack:  raw carrots and kohlrabi.  I really like kohlrabi.  You have to try it a few times before it grows on you.  It's got an apple-like texture, but not sweet,  but just sweet enough to make you want more. 

dinner:  leftover collard greens and watermelon.  and a few strawberries. 

I snack too much.  but at least it was healthy today.

Aug. 3 food log

We met friends and went to an all-day event (7:30 am - 7:30 pm).  We went to the Co-op and got some treats before we left.  uh-oh.  So I got another "nothing muffin".  I still have to find out how unhealthy they are, i.e., how much canola oil they have in them--the rest of the ingredients are fine if not as nutritious as fruits and green vegetables.  Then for the rest of the day had my breakfast smoothie, fruit (plum, grapes, cherries, apple), green smoothie, and some mushrooms when I got home.  oh yeah, and  a couple of bites of UR's vegan chocolate chip cookies.  So, not perfect but not too bad.   

Oh, I made a good treat for UR when I got home.  I don't consider this real healthy since it's white bread, but it's a good transition food (from Standard American Diet to healthy).  I had some frozen baguettes from my neighbor.  I thawed one in the microwave, thawed some pesto, sliced the baguette into coins, spread the pesto on them, and toasted them in the oven.  UR said it was really good.  I also made her a guacamole sandwich with another of the baguettes today.   I made some guacamole out of avocado, lime juice, chives and basil (our garden cilantro is long gone whereas chives and basil are going strong)--forgot the garlic but it tasted good anyway.  Then just put that in the baguette.  Again, it's not super healthy but compared to the alternative, which would have been hotdogs and fries, this was a good meal.  so UR ate well today, I think.  I have an idea for a healthier treat with pesto that I'll post when I make it--well, it's pesto on corn tortillas, toasted.   But we have to test it out first and see if it's good.

popcorn with chocolate maple syrup flavor

Ingredients:

popcorn

maple syrup

cocoa powder

air-pop some popcorn.  pour some maple syrup (say, 1 Tbsp), some cocoa powder (say, 1/4 tsp), and some water (say, 1-2 Tbsp) in a small spray bottle.    shake well.  spray on popcorn and mix it around.  

really good!

July 30 - Aug. 2 food

Work is going to get really busy for several months so I'm not sure how much daily blogging I can do.  Also after the last few days I'm realizing I may not be such a good example to others on how to eat healthy.   I need to switch gears a bit and go back to eating regular sized meals and not snacking.

So, going back in time.  July 30, I had pretty normal meals except for those 3 beers, oops.  Let's see, usual breakfast smoothie, for lunch I had brought a green smoothie but also got a tofu dish at a food cart.  This was tofu in peanut sauce over salad greens.  The salad greens instead of rice won me over.  The peanut sauce was probably too salty but wasn't overly peanuty so probably not too bad.   Then I had my green smoothie later.  Then the 3 beers with the out-of-town meeting attendees.  whew.    I didn't eat much dinner, just snacked on the food I prepared for the next day.  

July 31 I was very bad as the food provider at my meeting brought in a bunch of vegan cookies.  So I had 3 chocolate chip cookies and 4 Newman oreo-like cookies.  I had my usual breakfast smoothie, didn't have hunger for the green smoothie so wasted it!  and for dinner had a healthy meal at a restaurant followed by a vegan cupcake!   So much for being a good example for you.  But at least I didn't have a beer.  I was definitely not in the mood for that.

On Aug. 1, the meetings were finally over and I returned to normal.  Had a smoothie for breakfast, lunch was corn, green beans, salad and fruit salad.  Yum.  for dinner I had curried greens.  It was like the version I posted but I didn't use cashews (wasn't in the mood after the rich food from the previous day), added beets and their greens, and used a large bag of saute greens from a local farm, instead of the mustard greens.  It was good.

On Aug. 2, today, I was gone from 4:30 - 7:30 am, ate a peach during that time, stopped at the co-op for groceries and got a fresh "nothing muffin".  okay, this is not as good as fruit but it's not awful. it's a "healthy" muffin and it tastes very good and is filling.  Canola oil is in the ingredients list but it's pretty far down.  It has flaxseeds and oat bran and soy milk and that flour that's not wheat but isn't gluten-free, I forget.   I'm going to find out how much oil is in one of these and see if I can add it to my list of occasional items.  Maybe that would satisfy my splurge urges and prevent me from overdoing it.  Anyway, that filled me up and then I was gone again for several hours so didn't eat again until our late lunch of sweet corn, potatoes, leftover curried greens, and watermelon.  yummy!   For dinner we sort of splurged and had air-popped popcorn topped with maple syrup and cocoa.  okay, this was good and the amount of maple syrup and cocoa we ingested was very small.  I put maple syrup, water, and cocoa powder in a squirt bottle and squirted it on the popcorn.  This was really good.  I will do this again!   The only reason I call it a splurge is that it's not unhealthy itself but it replaces food that would be much more healthy.  So these sorts of things should be limited.  I shouldn't do one meal of a muffin and another meal of popcorn in one day.

One thing I am forgetting is I'm doing this for my health (well, not the vegan part), so I should keep that in mind when I'm tempted to splurge.     Well, let's see if I can improve over the next few days.  Otherwise, why am I writing this supposed advice column?