Oct. 19-20 food

Oct. 19

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

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

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

Oct. 20

Breakfast:  Collard green smoothie.  yum

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

Dinner:  brussel sprouts and cauliflower.

black-eyed pea stew

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

Ingredients:

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

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

1 onion

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

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

1 green bell pepper (optional)

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

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

~1 cup water

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

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

Oct. 16-18 food

Oct. 16

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

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

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

Oct. 17

Breakfast:  green smoothie

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

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

Oct. 18.

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

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

Dinner:  Green smoothie

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

update

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

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

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

oct. 3-5 food

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

Oct. 3 

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

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

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

Oct. 4 

Breakfast: another  spinach-berry smoothie

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

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

Oct. 5

Breakfast:  rest of yesterday's spinach-berry smoothie

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

Dinner:  edamame and pesto.

at least, that's the plan...

sept. 30 - oct 2 food

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

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

spinach blueberry cherry smoothie

Serves 2

Ingredients:

4-8 oz spinach

1 frozen bag blueberries

1 frozen bag cherries

1 banana (optional)

2 Tbsp sunflower seeds (optional)

1 Tbsp ground flaxseed (optional)

some liquid -- juice or water

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