7/31/13, I can't believe how good dinner tasted

For breakfast I did the oat-fruit bake (frozen sour cherries and blueberries in the bottom of a pan, add cinnamon, water and oats, bake for 30 minutes or so). It was fantastic.  

Lunch was

I also had a few strawberries. Then a few hours later I had a nectarine and a plum. And then some sugar snap peas. I snacked too much...

Dinner was unbelievably simple and good. In the morning, while baking my oats, I also baked onion and beets in parchment paper (idea from Char!). I had chopped them into bite-sized pieces.  They are unbelievably sweet! like candy! In the morning I had also cooked up some black beans and lentils, which is a great combination. I combined the onions, beets, and beans/lentils in a bowl, that's it.  I couldn't believe how good it tasted. Maybe I'm just weird though. I also made a salad from lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and balsamic vinegar. It was also awesome because everything was local (except the vinegar). For those in California, you always get local stuff, so you might not be familiar with lettuce shipped from 2000 miles away. It's just not the same.  We only get this a few months a year. I had a bunch more strawberries which I didn't need.  I can't resist delicious fruit.

7/30/13, great day!

...though I ate too much but come on, I'm only human and the food was too good. I didn't feel the greatest when I got up, similar to the last 5 days, starting after I tried my wheat experiment, so I'm ready to drop it again. Fortunately I didn't feel I was missing anything when I reintroduced it.  I think the spelt berries were okay so I'll experiment with those some more eventually.  

Breakfast was white wheat berries (I made my decision after eating that) and blueberries.  It was good but I like spelt berries more.  

My plans changed from yesterday, and we went shopping this morning and boy was that fun, picking up backpacking equipment, and stopping at a favorite produce and foodie store. This was fun for three reasons: First I got 10 lbs of Michigan blueberries, my favorite; and about 7 lbs of Door County pie cherries, which I used to think were awful and sour and now I love them. Second, they have samples of all their fruit and they have a lot of fruit! I sampled all the peaches and pears and plums and picked out a few to buy. Third, I shopped for some foodie friends who I'll be visiting on my way out to Plant-Stock, so I got to pretend I'm a foodie and shop for fancy beer and cheese. It had some of the pleasure of enjoying that stuff without the pain of actually ingesting it. haha. Here's a picture of the blueberries,

and one container of the cherries

Lunch was corn on the cob and collards and kale and onion that I cooked up last night.  Last night I also baked up some beets and kohlrabi.  I cut them into bite sized pieces and baked in foil.  Oh my gosh, were they good.   After I fixed my dinner, I had some leftover and couldn't resist eating them even though I was full.  Here's what they looked like:

These are so good just plain, as is.  Amazing.

Dinner was my experiment I discussed yesterday, putting spaghetti sauce over kohlrabi and beets instead of spaghetti. It was a success and a surprise. I thought it would go good over kohrabi and be a little weird on the beets. It was the opposite. That's why I love experiments. I also had the rest of the collards and kohrabi. I ate with friends by the lake.  

Then I went to my meditation class and while I was supposed to be doing a mind/body/space meditation, I was thinking about what I was going to eat tomorrow.  I thought stop thinking about that, think about my body and space, but I was thinking ooh, baked oatmeal with blueberries and cherries, ooh, I'll bake another beet and cook up some beans and get some sugar snap peas for dinner. Then I thought, oh just enjoy thinking about this, so I thought about those awesome blueberries and cherries and all the great bounty we have and then I got back to the topic at hand.

When I got home I prepped and froze all the blueberries and cherries and ate a lot of the cherries.   so I did overeat...what do you expect from me?! 

7/29/13, besghetti

oops I forgot to post here the last few days.  I've been posting over at E2X.  Well, here's today's:

I'm in a wheat phase. I don't normally eat wheat because I think it bothers me a bit, but I've been wondering how much is real and how much is me falling for all the wheat-bashing going on.  From my recent experimenting, I don't think the Spelt berries bother me. Today's breakfast was 10-grain cereal from Bob's Red Mill. That did bother me a bit, made me feel groggy, but maybe it was instead because I overate last night. I made spaghetti for dinner tonight and that didn't bother me, but I used that ancient Eikhorn grain. Bread bothers me, makes me stimulated, then groggy. Neal Barnard says it's because the bubbles in the dough give it a huge surface area which allows it to digest very quickly which causes a blood sugar spike, then crash. What was interesting today was that I didn't like the cereal that much, and I liked the spaghetti even less. My spaghetti sauce was good but combined with the pasta it tasted too wheaty.  I think for me the pastas and breads and cereals (except for the wheat berries) don't taste as well without salt or fat or sugar slathered on top. Maybe that's just because that's how I used to eat them before I became plant strong.  Well, enough rambling about that, but it relates to what I'm going to eat tomorrow.  

Food for today: Breakfast was the 10-grain cereal and blueberries. Even with a tsp of maple syrup, it wasn't as good as wheat berries and oat groats (or steel cut oats) in my view.  Lunch was corn on the cob and green beans from the garden. I prepared dinner before lunch: spaghetti and sauce, and a whole mess of collard greens and kale and onion. I called it besghetti in the title because I added little red beans to the sauce which I liked. I worked later than planned so when I got home I had 15 minutes to eat dinner, before going to a meeting. I snarfed down the besghetti, then remember the greens so snarfed some of them. Here's a picture of the besghetti before I remembered the greens:

Also in the picture is a book I just bought for some daily inspiration, as I like veganism for it's own sake, not just health. Anyway, the sauce was good, with lots of local and garden stuff: onions, garlic, tomatoes, shitake and elephant mushrooms (I prefer just the white and crimini and will use those next time), lots of basil, small red beans. I had that over the whole wheat eikhorn spaghetti, and topped it with a smashed walnut half. I know, not part of the captain's plan.  I weighed it and it came in at 3 g, or 19 calories. I decided 21 days into Captain's plan, if that's all the nuts I had, I'm okay with that. Even the coaches say no one is perfect. Plus it has 0.3g of omega 3s. I'm not a big fan of the flax seeds so I'd rather eat a walnut half.   

Anyway, the final thing I wanted to say was, as I was eating my besghetti, I was thinking, yuck on the pasta, I wonder what this would be like on potatoes. But it's not potato season in Wisconsin yet, and I think it's fun to eat what's in season, so I bought some beets and tonight I chopped and baked up some beets and kohlrabi (again with the kohlrabi?) for tomorrow. I also cooked up some white wheat berries (for more experimentation) for breakfast. I'll be gone all day and evening tomorrow. So I'll have the wheat berries before I go, then the tomato sauce on the veggies for lunch and dinner along with the rest of the greens. I have no idea if this will taste good! could be a complete disaster. I mean, beets and tomatoes? I don't think I've had that combination. could be yucky.  But I think it's fun to do this sort of thing so I won't mind even if it's a flop.

Exercise:  biked 14 miles, walked 3.

7/26/13

This morning, I headed to a yoga class without breakfast, which is not unusual, but I didn't eat a big dinner last night, so I was hungry when it was over. I had a lunch date with friends so I stopped at the co-op to get some food. All their prepared food is loaded with oil and salt, so I got some sweet cherries, a small banana, and a bunch of sugar snap peas. I thought that would carry me over to dinner, but Dr. McDougall really is right when he says starches are what carry you over to the next meal.  After lunch, I went to work and worked later than I planned. I was going to walk the 6 miles home but I was hungry and had visions of corn on the cob waiting for me at home; so I walked to the co-op, stopped in to get a little more food for the weekend (sugar snap peas, banana, carrots), then caught the bus home. I ate a couple of small carrots while waiting for the bus and that staved off the hunger. Then on the short walk home I went past my favorite mulberry tree that I seem to be the only one who knows about, and boy was that good. At home I had my glorious corn on the cob, and a salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber. I snacked a little while cooking for the weekend (sugar snap peas, carrots, kohlrabi, and jicama, not too much, fortunately).    

I'm going away this weekend, will bring my own food as we are visiting a plant-weak home. :) But it's easy, 5 bowls of food for BLD,BL on Sat and Sun, fruit for the breakfasts,  and raw veggies to snack on. I'll describe that tomorrow or the next day. I gotta go clean up the kitchen and pack now!

7/25/13

Breakfast was my favorite right now, the wheat berries and oat groats I had cooked up a few days ago, and frozen blueberries, heated in the microwave.   This time I didn't put in the refined sweetener (my favorite being maple syrup) and, I can't believe I'm saying this, I liked it better?  I could taste the flavors better and the tartness of the blueberries added spunk to it (or something like that).  But I like knowing I can put in the maple syrup if I want to.  

Then I went on a 26 mile bike ride, and rode fast for the last 7 miles to get home in time to have lunch with housemate.  We had sweet corn, a sliced garden tomato, and I made a quick salad using my 5 ripe garden cherry tomatoes.   here's a pic:

everything was local and good.

Then I sat down to read a Ph.D. thesis and just finished.   I feel like a zombie.  For dinner, I grabbed stuff from the fridge:  sugar snap peas, kohlrabi and the rest of the grains that I was having for breakfast.  

7/24/13, hiking!

Today we had a lovely day hiking at Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin.   Last night I cooked up some wheat berries (spelt and kamut) and oat groats, had those for breakfast this morning with blueberries and 1 tsp of maple syrup.  That was my first refined sweetener in 6 weeks and, I can't believe I'm saying this, it was a little too sweet.  1 tsp?  So I'm thinking I don't want it tomorrow. What?  whatever.   I'd also baked a potato last night and I had that for lunch, along with some sugar snap peas and jicama.  That was all great.  It helps when you are hungry from hiking but it was all great regardless.  After the post-lunch hike, I had some kohlrabi and carrots.  Then a quick dinner at home before an evening meeting of leftovers from yesterday:  the greens and kohlrabi and zucchini and corn meal and beans.   Then post-meeting, a dessert of some cherries and banana.   

Exercise was lots of hiking and climbing on the bluffs.  Oh and I was wearing my full backpack as I'm starting to train for a backpacking trip.  It was loaded with about 20-25 lbs, which is light but a good place to start practicing from.  Here's me and my partner in crime, Blackie Bear, getting ready to climb the bluff:

Don't worry, there are steps carved into the rocks.  Many passersby were excited to report that they saw a blackie bear at Devil's Lake.

7/23/13, progress report and food logs

I'm on a 28-day challenge over on the E2X website, and today I'm supposed to check in with my week 2 progress report so I'll share it here too.  This week I did most of the stuff asked for:  I worked out plenty, I watched several videos, including Milton Mills and the Engine 2 rescue.  Rip is great and makes it all sound so reasonable!   I didn't eat a big salad everyday though I ate raw veggies every day so I could call those salads.  :)    I did the blogging and checking in.   Where I fell down was in overeating--that was about 3 days worth starting on the weekend when I had guests over and was watching them feast and so I felt I wanted to feast, which I did on fruit and then on grains too yesterday.   I definitely went overboard.   This makes me wonder if allowing just a little bit of salt and sugar in my diet would work in a psychological way to keep me from thinking I'm deprived somehow.  I did an experiment of going without it, which I started on June 11.  So that's 6 weeks.  Now I'm thinking of experimenting with adding it back in in small amounts.  It's still within the parameters of all the plans on E2X, which is what I like about them--the flexibility to find what works for each of us (which may vary in time too).

Today's food was great.  I wasn't hungry at breakfast, so skipped that.  Lunch was  

mmmm, good.  Even housemate will eat this stuff and rave about it.  Dinner was a classic salad--lettuce, tomato, cucumber, balsamic vinegar--, snow peas, and a cooked dish of onion, kohlrabi, zucchini, beans, corn grits, and seasoning (cumin, tandoori mix).   Dessert was a few cherries and a small banana.

Exercise was swimming 55 minutes and: It was a beeeeautiful day, so I walked to this meeting 3 miles away, only I was late so I walked fast.