Long Weekend Recap

Where did the last four days go? It started with a hot water heater which decided to leak so it had to be replaced. In addition to the plumbing problem Dan didn’t feel well on Sunday and Monday. To top things off I was up for 4 hours Monday night in the middle of the night. Tuesday Dan went back to work and I ran around trying to get caught up on the things I neglected the prior three days. Getting anything accomplished on less than 5 hours of sleep felt like a major undertaking. I should have taken a nap Tuesday but I was too busy. That wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did but at least I was able to cross a few things off my to-do list.  ;-) Tuesday night I slept for 10 hours which was a good indication that I was exhausted. I tried to post this last night but I was too tired to get it finished. This morning I feel great after catching up on my sleep.  *happy dance*

I am going to give you a quick recap of the food from the weekend. Sadly I was too busy to write anything down so there are no recipes. However I did make little okara sliders/bean burgers that Dan thinks are the best use of okara yet. That recipe/method will appear very soon along with the sesame/lemon sauce I made for dipping which was also very well received. Here is some of the food you missed with a quick description.

Breakfast for us was either savory oatmeal or green smoothies. The savory oats contained broccoli, nutritional yeast, ground flaxseeds, salsa, garlic, cumin and raw pumpkin seeds. The green smoothies were our usual with banana, kale, walnuts (for omega 3 and richness), cinnamon, powdered ginger and water or homemade soymilk.

For one meal I took the bean soup from the other night and changed it by added canned diced tomatoes. This is something I do often to change soup leftovers. I served it with a dollop of nut cheese.

Here are the okara and oat sliders with the sesame/lemon sauce. I have made these twice now because Dan really enjoyed them and I have a ready supply of okara from making soymilk everyday. I will post the method for these later this week. They are extremely simple to make and healthy too.

I also made a pot of vegetable barley soup with mushrooms. This type of soup is always a winner with my parents.

Since we hadn’t had Asian food in a while I also made a quick pot of soba noodle soup with broccoli, edamame, onions, garlic, ginger and finished it with black and white sesame seeds with dried ginger bits.

For another meal I used the mixed organic beans that I found at Hmart to make bean soup. I made the beans in the pressure cooker by cooking the beans for 10 minutes which was 2 minutes longer for the black eyed peas but less than the other beans called for. The result was that the black eyed peas disappeared but the other beans held there shape. Once the beans were cooked I added diced tomatoes, thyme, rosemary, oregano, minced garlic, hot crushed peppers (wet hots) and finished the soup with lemon zest and juice and fresh cilantro and served it over quinoa.

There was another bean soup that I made specifically for Dan since he loves red lentil and tomato soup. This time I used Indian seasonings and added turmeric, black mustard seed, coriander, ginger, and ajowan. I finished this soup with lime zest and juice and fresh cilantro and served it over brown basmati rice.

Of course we also had a number of salads. Some of the salads were made with veggies and others with fruit. I did make an interested dressing from reduced-fat almond butter, miso and apple cider that worked well with fruit. I will be making that again and measuring so I can share the proportions.

Increasing Water Intake:

Even with all the activity I have figured out how to keep my water intake up. I have started making my green tea double strength to decrease the overall amount of liquid while keeping my EGCGs where I want them. That seems to be working very well so far. I have been drinking the equivalent of 6 green teas and 6 mugs of water every day. With all the water rich food I eat (fresh produce and soup) that has been more than enough water.

Happy Thoughts:

Plumbing and body aches aside it hasn’t been the worst four day just hectic. Here are my happy thoughts today:

• I am happy to have the plumbing issue behind us. It is never fun to wait around for someone to come fix things.

• It is great that Dan only had some body aches, very minimal fever (less than 1 degree above normal) and was back to his usual self in less than 48 hours. It was also nice to have him home on Monday even if he did spend part of his sick day responding to work email. At least he was home so he could rest part of the day.

• I was fortunate to not need to go anywhere today given my sleep deprivation. Since I am one of those people that need their rest I would not have been a joy to be around today. ;-)

• The felines seemed to sense that “mommy” was cranky and exhausted Tuesday and gave me a wide berth to get to my to-do list. Wasn’t that sweet of them?

• I am grateful that Dan made a run to Costco for me Tuesday night since we are expecting snow and freezing rain Wednesday and Friday this week. That didn’t leave me much time to get there for groceries. Like always we were running low on many times. It is wonderful knowing I don’t need to drive in the inclement weather. I have been in Maryland so long I am turning into one of the weather wimps, LOL. I don’t like driving in this but it is pretty. ;-)

Signing out:

Hopefully today will be back to normal around here. *fingers crossed* I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the week. Unless something else unforeseen happens will talk to you again tomorrow. I need to make more soymilk which means I will okara to use again today. I should have the okara slider recipe up tomorrow.

Sorry for disappearing on you the last few days. It was definitely one of those periods of time where I felt like I was draining the swamp while being up to my behind in alligators. ;-) I hope the week is going much better for you.