dec. 5 food

Today was smoothie day (making a week's worth for housemate), and I tend to eat a lot of the "profits" as they say, while making them. It's fun and pretty harmless as long as you watch the nut intake. So it was a high fruit day and I have no regrets.

Late brekky: grapefruit, 2 carrots, 1 small apple, a few grapes.

lunch (smoothie prep): 1 oz cashews, 3 cups grapes (yeah, I love grapes), bite of a banana, few berries, and about 1/2 of a smoothie leftover from all the batches. and a small pomegranate (didn't need it, but it called to me). yummy. very filling.

Dinner: beans over about a pound of collards and kale from the garden. I'm still harvesting this from the garden, in December! Awesome. And the legend is true: kale and collards taste sweeter after a hard freeze! I also steamed a carrot and half a leek with the greens (in the pressure cooker). And did my usual grinding up 1 oz seeds (flax, sunflower, pumpkin) and mixing them with the leftover water from steaming. The flax made it a bit gooey. Flax is better in the cold dressings since it doesn't get gooey as quickly. Oh, I added 1 Tbsp pomegranate balsamic vinegar. It was very good. yummy! dessert was an orange.

Total calories was 1771; protein 52 g (9%); carbs 368 g (77%); fat 27 g (14%).

dec. 4 food

Brekky: beans & ground seeds over steamed broccoli and cabbage. I mixed the ground seeds (hemp, pumpkin, sunflower) in the leftover water from steaming, to recollect the vitamins lost from the steaming. This was yummy of course. I ate this after exercising and while meeting colleagues in a coffee shop.

lunch: 1/2 butternut squash + 1/2 cup chopped pineapple (used frozen) + 1/2 oz walnuts + 1/8 tsp cinnamon. I cooked the squash by cutting it in half, turning it upside down in a pan with a little water on the bottom, at 350 F for and hour. The squash was good by itself. I think the pineapple overwhelmed it. I think next time I'll just have squash + cinnamon, and maybe a few walnuts if I think I need some nuts.

Dinner: small pomegranate and cabbage salad (unlike the posted recipe, I just made a large single serving, by chopping up stuff on the cutting board). I ate the salad at a restaurant with friends, on my way to another event.

Dessert: at a get-together with friends, the host made baked apples with cinnamon and walnuts, with all the toppings on the side. Without the toppings, it was healthy and yummy! Good to remember for the future.

Total calories 1831; protein 57 g (10%), carbs 319 g (64%), fat 54 g (26%)

Dec. 3 food

I've started logging my food again in cron-o-meter. It's kind of fun and is a good guide.

Here was today's brekky:

I'm loving this big meal for brekky. I usually eat a late breakfast after a hard workout so am quite hungry. This was lima beans over steamed broccoli and carrots and raw spinach, and 1 oz hemp, sunflower & pumpkin seeds. I ground up the seeds and mixed them with the steamer water (about 1/2 cup) which made a creamy sauce. This was yummy and filling.

Lunch was a big grapefruit and a small pomegranate.

Dinner was my yummy cabbage/greens salad using kale, bok choy and cabbage (all raw), and sweet pea dressing. I added a small mango and small pear to the dressing instead of oranges. It was yummy. I had a few carrots and a small apple for dessert.

My calorie intake was only 1544 today which seems a bit low. But it felt like plenty of food--maybe that's because I ate more yesterday. I got lots of protein today, 62 g. I had 2 oz of nuts and seeds. That seems about right to me. It allows me to eat more of the other things I like and to feel very satisfied.

Here's the breakdown:

calories 1544. Protein 62 g (13%); carbs 280 g (67%); fat 34 g (20%).

Dec. 2 food

Brekky (10:30 am) cabbage/bok choy salad

lunch (1 pm): some fruit (banana, grapes, small pomegranate).

I was out with a friend during the dinner hour, so we stopped at the co-op and I got a grapefruit and some brazil nuts. Then when I got home I snacked a little bit on the smoothies I made for housemate. But not too much.

This doesn't look like that much food but here's my nutritional breakdown:

calories: 2022, protein 53 g (9%), carbs 311 g (55%), fat 82 g (36%).

The nuts and seeds add up the calories! It was mainly the brazil nuts at dinner. It's hard to get a 1 oz size portion from the dispenser at my grocery store. that's my excuse, ha. so I ate closer to 3 oz.

cabbage/greens salad

There is a big advantage to this salad compared to lettuce: If you pack this up to eat later on, you can add in all the ingredients and it won't get soggy. In fact, the dressing will help marinate the greens a bit.

Ingredients:

any kind of cabbage (green, purple, savoy), chopped

another green you might like: e.g., kale or bok choy, chopped

1/2 cup edamame (optional)

sweet pea dressing or other dressing

Mix everything together. I really enjoyed this--the greens felt more substantial than lettuce. I made the sweet pea dressing with pomegranate juice and it was just a little tart which was a great flavor.

back in town

I'm back from my "holidays". I was taking care of a sick relative so I wouldn't call it fun, but it was worthwhile. I ate well, though less than normal, due to the sad circumstances. I summarized some of my meals here. I came home and got some more supplies halfway into it. I loaded up with all those pomegranates I've been socking away. And made a really good collard greens & root veggie sauce that I used to extend the beans another three days. The root veggie sauce was very simple: rutabaga, onion, beet, lemon juice, and sesame seeds blended up. I really like it. I had that mixed with the beans over lettuce twice a day and then fruit for the third meal (pom, apple), and raw carrots too.

New housemate's smoothie

Another version of housemate's smoothie. I think I like this best of all and it will become mine too when I have one. Though I would add more spinach and different kinds of greens, and a little vinegar.

Ingredients for 3 x 16 oz (large glass) servings:

1.5-3 oz nuts and/or seeds (today I did hazelnuts and almonds, blanched first to soften, yum!).

vitamins and vitamin D

DHA supplement

3 cups grapes, or 1 bag frozen cherries

1 cups fresh pomegranate and/or orange juice (prefer pom)

0-1 cup water, as needed

1 banana, fresh or frozen (peel before freezing, break up and put into individual bags)

2 bags frozen berries (usually 1 blueberry, and 1 strawberry, raspberry, or mixed berries)

5 oz fresh spinach

Put the nuts, seeds, vitamins, DHA, and some of the juice 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 everything else and blend until smooth. This makes 3 ~16-oz servings. Freeze the ones you don't drink. Take out one each night and put in fridge. It thaws overnight.

Calories per serving: 374; protein 7g (7%), carbs 63 g (61%), fat 13 g (31%).