Tomorrow's confetti salad

Exact amounts don't matter (I just divided my veggies into 4 because I'm going grocery shopping in 4 days), but I happened to measure them so here's what went into this salad (note: 1 oz = 28.4 grams or g):

romaine lettuce, 200 g (one head)

bok choy, 77 g

cabbage, 163 g

cauliflower, 150 g

broccoli, 150 g

kale, 56 g

arugula, 35 g

spinach, 35 g

cilantro, 10 g

yellow bell pepper, 80 g (1/2 pepper)

mangos, 288 g (1 bag frozen)

apple, 173 g (1 apple)

blueberries, 170 g

seed mixture 29 g

blood orange vinegar, 3 Tbsp (I'll add tomorrow)

Everything but the blueberries and seed mixture are chopped in a food processor. It tastes quite good. I look forward to eating this. So let's see that's 956 g of veggies, or 2.11 lbs, 631 g fruit or 1.4 lbs, and 1 oz seeds. oh yeah, and then I have a thing for carrots (because our local carrots are to die for) and often eat lb a day, and then there are my orange remainders after making housemate's OJ, and then there's my big bowl of beans. So that makes 3 lbs of veggies and 2 lbs of fruit. That's a lot of veggies!

This is my typical weekday diet. weird eh?!

Confession time

I feel I should 'fess up when I go offplan. It may not be as inspiring as if I stay on plan all the time, where you can think, if she can do it, so can I. Instead, now you think, she failed, so will I. But I want to be honest and share my mistakes--maybe there is something to learn from them without repeating them yourself. So last week, I deviated for a couple of days. The last time I did this was in early December when I was in France. So I guess I made it about 10 weeks; the previous stretch was 10 months, so this is a bit disappointing. Oh well, try try again. What were my reasons? Well, the brain can manufacture good reasons any time, any day, so I don't think that matters. I can tell you that being tired is a big warning flag so watch out for the rationalizations when you are tired--you are much weaker. And it also started out by eating too much rich healthy food, so that's another warning flag. For me, being tired and/or overeating healthy food are both danger zones where vigilance against excuses should be exercised. Your brain is always ready with millions of excuses and they are just that, excuses, so you have to learn to ignore them.

So on Wednesday and Thursday, I had some decaff coffee, some dark chocolate, a vegan burrito', 2 big cookies, 2 small cookies (vegan), some granola and soy milk, some tortilla chips with salt, and some nuts with salt. Well, the salt was very appealing. That is what makes the burrito taste good. But it had a negative affect especially on my healing arm. My arm and hand swell very easily so of course they swelled even more after eating that salt.

I felt quite yucky upon eating this stuff and got even more tired. For the first time in years, I fell asleep during a talk. Fortunately, I got tired of this after two days and started lusting after my healthy foods, and I got back on track on Friday. Both Friday and Saturday, I felt very tired and headachey--I never get headaches when I eat right!. Amazing, isn't it? Today, Sunday, I feel good again. whew. This week I will have a visitor and we will be going to nice vegetarian restaurants, but even there, I can't eat the food. It is so salty and oily. The salt is good going down but too unpleasant afterwards. It is a shame that I can't partake in the restaurant food because I really enjoy communal eating. But that is just the way it is. I will bring my food or eat beforehand and then just order some plain unappetizing salad.

As a good friend of mine says, "Onwards!"

Easy Pot o' beans

This is tasty and simple.

Ingredients:

1 lb dry beans.

1 onion, chopped

1/2-1 lb mushrooms, chopped, any kind
1-5 cloves garlic (to taste), minced (optional)
herbs, dried or fresh (optional), e.g., thyme, basil, cilantro

Soak the beans overnight. Replace water and cook for about 1.5 hours. Add the onions, garlic and mushrooms, cook for another 1.5 hours. Cooking time depends on the size and freshness of the beans, usually ranges from 2-4 hours. Today I used rancho gordo "good mother stallard beans" and portabella mushrooms. This makes for tasty beans. You can add seasonings and greens and veggies and turn it into a soup. Or add these to your various dishes throughout the week.

If you are in a hurry, you can cook the beans in about 10 minutes in a pressure cooker (see your PC instructions). In this case, I'd add the onions, garlic and mushrooms at the beginning.  I freeze the beans into daily servings to eat during the week.

Food this week

I don't have much to report that would excite a reader. I've been enjoying my food but you might find it boring. I still only have about 1.5 arms to work with, so have been eating the usual: salads and soups. Actually it's pretty much what's described in this post. Some of my salads were fruity, some savory. All have a base of lettuce, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, seed mixture. Then add apple, orange, frozen berries, and sweet vinegars to some, add sweet corn, peas or edamame, onion, vinegars to others. Actually onions taste good on the fruity salads too, and apples taste good on the savory salads. I bought a sample pack of Dr. Fuhrman's vinegars and have been having fun trying a different one out every meal. I'm still rating them so might make a report at some point even though I don't think it's helpful to others because it's completely a personal taste preference thing.

I'm almost out of the soup I made two weeks ago. I'm making a new batch of beans tomorrow. That will be good mother stallard beans, with onion, garlic and mushrooms. Those will last me the week, since I'll freeze a lot of it. Tomorrow's cooked meal will be kale & sweet potato sauce, to which I'll add some of the beans. Next week I'll probably make confetti salads--I have a new version in mind so I'll try to post it tomorrow night after preparing Monday's food.

Today I made an excellent batch of housemate's smoothies. I make them pretty sweet for housemate's tastes, i.e., with extra juice and sweet fruit and dates, so I also enjoy sampling the leftovers when I prepare them.

update: here was Sunday's lunch. kale & sweet potato sauce with seed mixture on top. and beans. yum!

Corn, walnuts, and coconut

This is a nice little dessert for me. It might sound odd, but it's good. The trick is to get high quality sweet corn; otherwise, it's not dessert.

Ingredients:

High quality sweet corn, fresh or frozen

chopped walnuts

spoonful of unsweetened coconut shavings

Combine in a bowl, heat in the microwave until warm. This follows a similar theme as my sweet pea snack and berry dessert.

lunch

Sometimes I am really lazy:

At least I cut up the carrots and celery! (easier to bite).

Breakfast was a housemate smoothie--leftovers from the weekly prep. I also ate a medjool date with a walnut half stuff in it and heated in the microwave. I can't believe I'm saying this but it was too rich and sweet for my tastes (today!). I've eaten mostly salads this week and that must have reset my taste buds. Salads feel just right when you aren't very physically active.

I think I'll have time, energy and desire to make kale & sweet potato sauce tonight--it's easy and I should be hungry. Update: I did make this and boy was it yummy! I added a small leek, and used pignolias for the nuts. And I added mushrooms steamed briefly in the microwave (1 minute, stir, 30 sec, stir). I was sorry I had to share it with housemate!

Update

Hi everyone,

With my broken elbow, I can't make the time to post much these days but I decided to take a break today and post a little on the Fuhrman forums, and give an update here too. Then I'll have to get back to my daily routines of sleeping, showering, preparing food, bending bending bending my elbow until it hurts, and trying to work.

Foodwise, I'm focusing on the fundamentals because I want optimal healing: beans (1 cup), greens (tons), cruciferous veggies (tons), fruit (1-1.5 lb), and nuts & seeds (1-2 oz).

This weekend I made a bean soup from 1 lb of white beans, 2 cans tomatoes, my last bag of frozen collard greens from the garden (lasted all the way through January!), onion, mushrooms, garlic, turnip (not sure I liked that addition), and italian seasonings. I put those into 12 plastic bowls to freeze.

My fruit this week is bananas, apples, oranges, pears, and kiwis. I've been having the banana, pear, and orange early in the week, then will have kiwis, apples, and oranges later (eating the more ripe ones first).

I'm making a gigantic salad every day. Today's has lettuce, bok choy, spinach, cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower, red bell pepper, corn, onion, pear or apple, seed mixture and flavored vinegar. It's yummy!

I spread the salad between 2-3 meals. I have soup with dinner. And 1-2 fruits at breakfast. Oh, and tons of raw carrots. We get these fabulous carrots grown locally (tipi produce). My visiting parents said they are the best carrots they've ever eaten in their lives and I completely agree. I don't know how long the harvest will last so I've been eating even more than usual in anticipation of the very sad day when they disappear from the shelves until next summer. Fortunately, that's also a sign of spring, and fresh greens and berries. Anyway, I'm getting off track. I eat a lot of carrots because they are so darn good. I enjoy my carrots the way housemate enjoys her tostada chips and chocolate.

So those are my meals this week. Last week I made confetti salads, but this week I wanted to taste the ingredients separately.

Oh, I forgot the weekends. This is when I get a treat! I make house-mate's smoothies. In the process I make a date-nut cream to sweeten the smoothies. This is so delicious. I either have some of that over fresh berries, or make a small sorbet from this combined with frozen berries. yum-yum. And I also let myself have a date with walnut piece (or 2) in it, heated up in microwave. boy is that a sweet treat. I sample the smoothies too. All of those treats end up being my breakfast and lunch, usually. Other meals are just whatever I feel like and have the time to make, maybe greens in sweet potato sauce, or a Fuhrman recipe, or snacking on veggies. I like to cook more on weekends since I don't do much during the week. On Sunday, I make soup for the week.

Any nutritarians who want to comment on my meals and suggest improvements, please do! I welcome advice.

Regarding my injury (broke my elbow, had surgery), my elbow, lower arm and hand are still bruised and swollen, though both are much better and improving daily. I just wish the swelling in the hand would go away faster. I am working to bend my elbow to 90 degrees by tomorrow but I'm only at 82 today so won't make it. I'm hoping when I see the surgeon tomorrow, he will tell me that I can do a lot more with my arm. Right now I'm not allowed to use my triceps muscle. We are having a blizzard so I might not make it to the doctor tomorrow. That gives me more time to get to 90 degrees, but more wait to hear that I can use my arm more.

okay, time to go eat my giant salad for dinner. I'll be back next time I have a break, maybe on the weekend.