Mixed Mushroom Dahl and 2 Movies Today

I love sleeping in on Saturday morning. It is the only day we get up when are bodies naturally want to wake up and it makes for a much nicer start to the day.

Guess who had another double shot of espresso this morning? Yep, it was me. I need to get a handle on this immediately. Having a machine at home that you press a button and espresso arrives magically is not good when you love the stuff like I do. I am a bit disappointed that I had a double shot of espresso two days in a row. My goal is to go back to avoiding the stuff. We will see if I can do it. I will report in if I fall off the wagon again. *rolls eyes*

Breakfast:

This morning Dan had a smoothie made with: 2 tablespoons oats (grind into a powder first if not using a high speed blender), 2 frozen bananas, 1 cup frozen wild blueberries, 2 kale leaves and stems, 2 collard leaves and stems, 1 tablespoon chia seeds, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger and water to process. I would have used cold processed green tea but I didn’t wake up early enough to make it before breakfast.

My breakfast, other than the double shot of espresso, consisted of nothing more than 4 large glasses of iced water with lemon slices and cucumber. After my espresso this morning I decided I needed to encourage my body to eliminate the caffeine. Clearly this vicious cycle needs to stop before it gets out of hand like prior times in my life.

Lunch:

As usual we had my parents over for a late mid day meal. I had no idea what I was going to make for since cooking for my unhealthy omni parents is always a bit of a challenge. I ended up making my variation of mixed mushroom dahl over brown basmati rice. Here is what I did:

Mixed Mushroom Dahl
Serves 8

Ingredients:

2 cups moong dahl (split mung beans)
8 cups water or no salt veggie stock
2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
1 ¾ teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds (crush in your hands before adding)
½ teaspoon cardamom powder
1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
1 red onion, minced
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced or grated
3 carrots, finely diced
14 ounces reduced fat organic coconut milk
1 poblano pepper, finely minced (use a jalapeno or serrano if everyone at the table likes heat)
½ pound fresh criminis, thinly sliced
¼ pound fresh shitake stems, thinly sliced
4 diced Roma tomatoes, for garnish
cooked brown rice to serve under the dahl (I cooked 1 ½ cups brown basmati)

Directions:

Combine all the ingredients except the tomatoes and rice and simmer until the beans are tender. If desired you can use a little cornstarch to thicken the soup. Just before serving add the diced tomatoes so that they can heat through. Serve on top of the cooked rice.

Nutritional Information (includes the brown rice):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 394.51
Calories From Fat (12%)-  48.39

Total Fat - 5.21g
Saturated Fat - 2.94g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 48.29mg
Potassium - 1199.5mg
Total Carbohydrates - 70.65g
Fiber - 12.65g
Sugar - 8.11g
Protein - 17.77g

Comments:

Three of the four of us loved this. Oddly my parents didn’t even add salt which was quite the shock. No surprise my mother thought this was entirely too hot even though we thought the heat level was mild. If you like heat add more red pepper flakes or use a hotter fresh pepper. If my mother is any indication this is too hot for children or the elderly. *rolls eyes*

To go with the dahl I made a quick salad. The best part of the salad was the dressing which I put together quickly and without measuring. Sorry about that I was running behind schedule.  It was a very simple dressing of Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and stevia. This took my under a minute to make and it reminded me of honey mustard only without the honey and its resulting increase in serum blood glucose. This dressing will be happening at my house often from now on.

Dinner:

We opted for a quick salad tonight for dinner after we finished watching our second movie of the day. Since we weren’t exactly active today we thought something on the light side was in order. This salad, which we shared contained: 1 head of romaine, 1 cucumber, 2 carrots, 4 Roma tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of cashew crème fraiche and ½ avocado.

For dessert I made an extra big batch of strawberry banana soft serve in the Vitamix. These measurements are approximate but should be close: 1 handful walnuts, 3 frozen bananas, 2’ish cups frozen strawberries, ½ teaspoons cinnamon, ½ teaspoon powdered ginger and about a cup of water to process. If you still use sweeteners you may want to add a little stevia to the mixture. The Vitamix turns that into a delicious thick frozen dessert that my husband is addicted to. Tonight I had a little of the soft serve with him (about 1/4th of the total) since I had not had much to eat today.

Movies today:

Dan picked the movies today and I didn’t pay a lot of attention. The first one was “From Paris with Love” with John Travolta. It was definitely an action movie which means it was not my thing. The second movie was “Knowing” with Nicholas Cage. I would describe it as a mystery, sci fi sort of thing. It was okay, better than the first movie but not something I would have chosen to watch. As you can tell Dan and I have very different tastes in movies.

Signing out:

Tomorrow is the farmers’ market which means an early morning for us. I hope everyone had a great Saturday and stayed cool in the unseasonably hot weather we had on the east coast today. Things are supposed to cool off tonight and tomorrow at least. Rumor has it we go back to fall tomorrow. I hope the weathermen are right this time. Talk to you tomorrow. :-)