Today's food logs--July 16

Today I logged my food and calories--see the bottom of the post for a breakdown by food category (some of my nutritarian friends were interested to see how my diet has changed).  

I was going to take pictures of all my meals, but I forgot to take my cell phone to work, so lunch is missing.  

Breakfast was buckwheat, cinnamon, mango, and a bit of soy milk.  I combined buckwheat groats and buckwheat cereal.   I won't post a recipe until I improve on it.

Lunch was red beans and rice-yum yum yum yum, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, and baked sweet potato (topped with pumpkin pie spice).   Snack was baked kohlrabi and 2 big carrots.

Dinner was potato fries, using Jeff Novick's method for cooking (awesome!):

I seasoned them with Penzey's mural of flavors, and dipped them in soy yogurt.  yum yum yum;

and a  giant salad:  head of romaine, big yellow tomato, cucumber, 1 T ground flaxseed, d'angou pear and some other flavored vinegar).   I snacked on this while doing a whole bunch of food prep.

Now this food prep I did is something I'd prefer to do on the weekend.  But we decided to go shopping tomorrow at lunch and Wednesday is usually a rush too, so I decided to make a bunch of stuff ahead.  I made Jeff Novick's kasha burger which I really like!   I just taste-tested it.  I pan-grilled (just heated it in a pan) one of them for tomorrow.  I'll split it in 2 for collard wraps at lunch and dinner.  Here are the other three for later.  I'll freeze two and probably eat the other one on Wed.   They almost look too much like real burgers...

Then I had to make all the fun toppings.  An excellent salsa with a little mango and grapes and corn for added flavor (and used the rest of the tomatoes from the can---I only needed 2 T for the burger recipe).  yum yum:

I also prepped onions and cucumbers soaked in a little fruit-infused vinegar.  and some fried mushrooms.  it will be fun tomorrow!

Here is the calorie summary of today's food:  The total was 1465.  protein was 60 g (12.5%), fat 12 g (7%).

The percentage of calories from different food groups was:

starches:  626 calories, 43% of total

grains:  293 calories, 20% of total

vegetables:   354 calories; 24% of total (3.55 lbs!)

fruit:  112 calories, 8% of total

seeds:  27 calories, 2%

vinegar: 28 calories, 2%

So you can see that starches and grains dominate the calories even though I ate 3.55 lbs of vegetables.  I prefer having starches dominate my calories rather than fruit and nuts.  It feels more satiating.  It is almost impossible to have non-starchy vegetables dominate your calories.   

Dessert

So what does a girl who doesn't eat wheat or processed sweeteners, and is lazy, do for dessert?   This is a good one:

That's frozen fruit and soy yogurt.  The fruit is what I use for housemate's smoothie.  So it's in the freezer, ready to go.  It's a mixture of berries and some sweeter fruit like bananas and pineapple.

Random thoughts

In the last few weeks, I've been exploring being less strict with my eating choices--a little maple syrup here, a little salt there, low-fat graham crackers, ezekial cereals and breads and wraps, some decaff coffee and green tea once in a while.  And I am surprised to report that I really do prefer not eating those things (except the decaff coffee and green tea).   Now I wouldn't normally object to ezekial cereals and breads (these are sprouted whole wheat mostly), but I discovered that I'm allergic to wheat!  One day I had all three of the wheat products:  a bowl of cereal, a sprouted wheat tortilla and a piece of sprouted wheat bread and it was just like the old days when I had allergies--my nose got runny, I got congested, and I was nauseous--blech.  I felt yucky the next day too--I didn't even go mountain biking on our designated Camrock Friday--that's a first for me.  This makes me wonder if all those years when I had what I thought were seasonal allergies, maybe I just had a wheat allergy.  They did get worse in the summer though.

So for me, wheat is out.

And the maple syrup tastes really good but, alas, it is too stimulating for me--it gives me a sugar high followed by an unpleasant low.  I remember when I was a kid, and on the rare occasions we got panakes with syrup I always enjoyed eating it, but always felt sick afterwards.  Dang, why does there have to be a consequence from something that tastes so good?

I'm very surprised to report that I don't like any added salt.  I thought I'd enjoy just a bit--under 1500 mg per day total which is considered healthy.  But I actually prefer the unsalted taste better.

I have enjoyed a cup of decaff coffee with a friend in a coffee shop a few times.  I don't do that often enough for it to be a problem I think, less than once a week.  and there is this decaff green tea that has 10 mg of caffeine per cup.  I like that too.  I don't think I need it every day but if I decide I do want it every day, I don't think that's a problem.

So thanks to my many years on the Fuhrman program, I really do prefer foods as unprocessed as possible:  without added sweeteners and salt.  And I will stick with gluten-free intact grains, such as rice, buckwheat, and quinoa.  I'm still experimenting with the oats.  I'm suspicious that I have a problem with them too, even the gluten-free ones.   But I will enjoy some decaff coffee occasionally, maybe even with sweetened soy milk (my one sugar concession and it's not much).

Another random observations is that my favorite no-salt herb mixture is Penzey's mural of flavors.  The lemon and orange peel in this actually resembles a salt bite.  (it also has citric acid in it--I hope that's not bad).

The other thing I wanted to tell you is that a lot of people have been asking how different my diet is now, so now that I've settled on a pretty stable way of eating, I'll start posting my food logs again.  I'll try to get started on that tomorrow.  I may do an occasional calorie analysis since people have been asking about that too.  Thanks for your comments and questions.  I enjoy hearing from you.

veggie broth

I've been pursuing cookbooks and was reminded how easy it is to make veggie broth and how I could use that in my cooked rice and for all kinds of things.  So today I made veggie broth out of my veggie refuse:  that was celery ends, carrot ends, watermelon rinds (no one ever said not to, right?),  broccoli stems, cauliflower leaves, broth from boiling sweet corn, and broth from steaming broccoli and cauliflower.   Here is ti cooked up.

I'll strain this into a bowl.  I guess I will freeze it into smaller container because I'm not going to do much cooking over the next few days.  I have lots of leftovers and easy meals planned.

The Bravo! cookbook provides this useful tip of things not to include:  artichoke and eggplant trimmings, and the outer layers of onions.  They add a bitter flavor.  

Today's broth tastes a lot like celery because I trimmed a bunch of celery for serving up with salsa.  But it is quite good.

oatmeal

I've tried different ways of making oat breakfasts and this is one I like (which also means it's pretty easy).  

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup soymilk

1 prune

a small piece of fruit (or half a large one).  e.g., peach, apricot (in season right now), banana.

cinnamon

two methods to make this:

1)   chop the prune.  soak the oats and prune in the water and soy milk overnight.  heat in microwave for a couple minutes until hot, (time depends on your power setting).  Chop the fruit and add, along with cinnamon  If it's a hot summer say, you don't have to heat it much.

2)  chop the prune.  combine the oats, prune, water and soy milk.  heat in microwave for a few minutes until very hot.  wait about 5-10 minutes.  heat again.  Chop the fruit and add, along with cinnamon.

Here's this morning's with a peach:

salsa

I was checking the ingredients on store-bought salsa and, besides the usual tomatoes, onions, garlic, bell peppers, and cilantro, the two main flavor ingredients are salt and sugar.  I taste-tested a few of these, one with less salt, the other with less sugar (hard to find one with less of both); and decided I could do better.  I can, and it's easy.  But I got a good idea from the store-bought salsa, and that is to add a fruit of some sort to sweeten it up, since I don't use salt.  I'm sure there are lots you could use, but I found grapes work great.  Mango would probably be good too.

Ingredients:
1 can tomatoes (no salt)
a little bit of chopped red onion
a little bit of got pepper, or I just use a little chipotle powder
cilantro if you like it
bell pepper (any color) if you happen to have one around
a handful of grapes, chopped
anything else you think would be good

Combine it into a bowl, stir, serve. It tastes as good or better after sitting for a while in the fridge but is good at any point.

Yesterday's version before stirring:  tomatoes, orange bell pepper, cilantro, red onion, grapes, chipotle powder:

after stirring:

today's version--can tomatoes, cilantro, grapes, some chopped yellow tomato (didn't have bell peppers), chipotle powder:

catch up

Wow, so much has happened in the last 3 weeks, I haven't had a chance to post.  I have so much to write about but 1) maybe it's not that interesting after all, and 2) it might be hard to remember it all.   So I'll just give a photo tour of the last month, starting from today and going backwards.

Tonight's dinner was leftovers from yesterday's cookout and whatever veggies I could find in the fridge.  The veggies were surprisingly good:  1/2 onion dry fried, to which I added water, then beet greens, zucchini, and at the end, red bell pepper.  I seasoned with date balsamic vinegar.  Wow, was that good.  It was like a really good stir-fry.  It would have been good over brown rice but I wasn't hungry enough for that because I also had an ear of corn and a collard wrap with 1/2 of a veggie burger in it (more on that in a sec):

Today's lunch was also leftovers from yesterday's cookout.  I made Jeff Novick's "burgers and fries" from his Fast Food 2 DVD.  I love these!  The burgers are a bit bland on their own, but when you top then with "pickles", salsa, mustard, tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and soy yogurt, and wrap them in a parboiled collard, they are quite yummy!  plus they have a smoky flavor from grilling.  The fries are outstanding!  I highly recommend JN's way of making oven fries--best I've ever had, and to me better than french fries.  Here's my lunch with the partially eaten corn on the cob.  The home-fries are topped with the salsa and soy yogurt.

The other excitement for today were the first tomatoes from our garden, and they were good!

Here's the spread from yesterday's cookout.  It was so fun!  Oh, the "pickles" I made were simply cut up cucumbers soaked in d'angou pear vinegar and fresh dill (length of time doesn't matter, 0 minutes to 2 days).   I made home-made salsa with canned tomatoes, onion, cilantro, bell pepper, and the secret ingredient:  chopped grapes.  well, the store-bought salsa (and ketchup) often has sugar in it so the grapes are my substitute.  Of course, you'd want peppers too but our guests don't like peppers.

Here's my JN burger collard wrap.  I learned from this that 1/2 burger fits better than a whole.  Today I made 2 collard wraps from one burger and had one at lunch and one at dinner.  This was much more eatable:

Sweet corn season started this week for us when we got back from the golf tournament.   It is picked daily and is part of our lunch most days.  It is fantastic.  On this day, we also had kale, summer squash and onion on one side of the plate, a little potato salad (potato, soy yogurt, dill) and cucumber tomato salad (similar) on the other side of the plate.

Here was another day this week with kale, onion, potato, green beans, and corn:

Now for a couple of pictures from last week's golf tournament (US Women's open in Kohler WI).  The food at the tournament was all inedible for me (hamburgers, hotdogs, ice cream, chips), and you can't bring in food, so I usually biked in the morning, ate lunch, then joined my friends at the tournament for the afternoon.  We stayed with family so I had a kitchen and could prepare my food the night before: baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, kohlrabi, cooked kale and onions and zucchini, and JN burger collard wraps with soy yogurt.  Worked good.  Breakfast was oats, fruit and soy milk.  One day I rode my bike by the farmer's market downtown.  I love the festive atmosphere of farmer's markets, but I often feel left out because the prepared food is all off limits for me:  pastries, cookies, sausages, fried this and that.  So I was momentarily mopey until I saw the roasted sweet corn!

Then I spotted the watermelon!

So I was quite delighted, and got to eat my yummy food and listen to the music with everyone else.

Before the golf tournament was the Farms to Forks weekend immersion!   This was WONDERFUL.  Rip Esselstyn was a great master of ceremonies (and extremely handsome!).

Caldwell Esselstyn explained how to prevent and reverse heart disease:

 

Ann Esselstyn had great advice about food shopping and prep.  She describes Rip's book (Engine 2 diet) as Plant-strong, and Caldwell's book (Reverse Heart Disease) as Plant-perfect.

 Jeff Novick gave outstanding lectures about why we're fat, calorie density, reading labels, and fast food demos.  He's my hero!

Doug Lisle gave us lots of great advice on psychology.  I am in love with him.

Here we are having dinner on the farm:

No midwest outdoor summer event would be complete without a severe thunderstorm:

There's a funny story there with my friend Gail who spent the storm in a lean-to with a donkey and a lamb.

Here's the farm peacock.  (Gail, what was his name again?)

Finally, going back further in time was our emergency trip to Colorado to ferry a family member home.  That was a fun little unexpected adventure.  I cooked up a bunch of starchy veggies to take with me--potatoes, sweet potatoes, jicama, and carrots:

This was supplemented with large salads.  I should have brought oatmeal for breakfast.

Whew, so that was the last month.  I have some more things to post about--maybe tomorrow.