Baked Veggies in Red Sauce topped with “Melted Mozzarella Topping”

Don’t you just love Saturday? I think it is my favorite day of the week. It is wonderful to sleep in until your body wants to get up. Saturday is my only day to sleep in which makes me appreciate it all the more. A girl could get used to this but someone needs to feed my hubby. Even though Dan knew how to cook when we met has forgotten how to do anything in the kitchen. I guess that should be expected since I have done all the cooking for the last 20+ years. Dan will tell anyone that there are two types of people in the world cooks and eaters and we all know which one he is. ;-)

When I asked Dan what he wanted for breakfast he choose a green smoothie again. Like always this one contained: kale, frozen banana, cinnamon, powdered ginger, freshly ground flaxseed, walnuts, a pinch of stevia and fresh soymilk. I processed it in the Vitamix until it was completely smooth. Since the machine was already green I made myself the same thing only with less banana and walnuts and I used water instead of soymilk.

Every weekend not long after breakfast we start to discuss what I am going to make for the 3pm meal with my parents. We both decided I have been making soup and beans too often lately and that I needed to do something different. We talked about a few options but decided that I would bake veggies in red sauce and top it with “cheeze”. I thought about adding beans to the dish which meant I also needed to make some of those since the freezer inventory of home cooked beans was empty.

First I made a pound of pressure cooked garbanzo beans. To 1 pound of dried beans I added 9 cups of water, 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves of peeled cloves of garlic and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. I cooked them on high pressure for 32 minutes and allowed the pressure to reduce naturally. In the end I didn’t use them in the meal so they went straight into the refrigerator. If I don’t use them Sunday or Monday they will be frozen in 2 cup containers for future meals. Beans freeze well and are great to have on hand since I don’t like canned beans. It seems to me that canned beans taste metallic plus I don’t like the sodium and other additives they typically include.

Next I knew I needed some red sauce for the next meal. Instead of making a small amount I made a large pot so I would have more intentional leftovers. Why make a little when I can always freeze the extras? This is part of my philosophy of cooking once and eating many times. Every time you do this you are saving yourself a step later. Having items like this in the freezer is a huge help when you are short on time or cooking ambition.

Next I steamed veggies to add to the sauce. In this case I used crimini mushrooms which I cut in quarters, carrots cut into bite-sized chunks and broccoli florets. I stored them in the refrigerator until I was read to put together the dishes to be baked and broiled quickly before dinner.

The last step was making the “mozzarella” to go on top. This literally comes together in 5 minutes. I got the basic recipe from my friend Courtney who always has tasty and healthy recipes to share.  Thanks again for sharing this Courtney.  I made very minimal changes to the recipe, here is what I did:

Melty Mozzarella Cheeze
Serves 8

Ingredients:

2 cups water
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/3 cup oats
1/4 cup raw sesame seeds or tahini if not using a high powered blender
4 tablespoons arrowroot (you could use cornstarch too)
3 or 4 tablespoons lemon juice (I used 1 Meyer lemon)
1 tablespoon dried onion granules
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/8 teaspoon mustard powder
white pepper, to taste
salt, to taste

Directions:

Combine all the ingredients in your blender and process until completely smooth. The mixture will be very thin when you pour it out of the blender. Don’t worry it gets much thicker when it cooks.

Pour into a sauce pan and cook over medium heat stirring constantly until very thick and smooth (it will get very very thick--just keep whisking/stirring).

I made it right before using it and poured it warm over the prepared dishes.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 91.01
Calories From Fat (35%) - 31.82

Total Fat - 2.34g
Saturated Fat - 0.33g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 2.77mg
Potassium - 56.25mg
Total Carbohydrates - 8.3g
Fiber - 1.16g
Sugar - 0.41g
Protein - 1.32g

Comments:

Much to my surprise my parents cleaned their plates. No one asked what the white topping was, though I am sure they know it wasn’t cheese. They did however eat it all which I thought was great. I guess you can say this recipe is omni approved. 

To make the entire veggie dish place the par cooked veggies in small casserole dishes, top with red sauce and then the melty mozzarella. I baked them until they began to bubble and finished them with dehydrated leeks when they came out of the oven.

I tried to keep the 3pm meal with my parents light because we were thinking of going out to dinner on Saturday. Even though we hadn’t decided I had a feeling we would end up going out. Dan and I both like to relax and chat with everyone at the restaurant so it was a good bet we would end up going which we did. Not to mention when we went tea shopping last weekend we picked up a couple of bags for “the kids” so we had to drop that off. Since we were going to be at the restaurant we might as well go to eat right? ;-)

To accompany the veggie dish I made a side salad of shredded romaine, pineapple, strawberry, dried apricots and sliced almonds. I made a quick dressing of white miso, reduced-fat almond butter and apple cider.

At 5pm we called the restaurant and made a 6:30 reservation. Since we didn’t give them any notice we told them we would make something up from what they had and not to go to any trouble. Did they listen? Of course they didn’t. I felt very guilty because the restaurant was packed and there were people waiting when we got there. Much to our surprise they had our dinner all planned so we went with it. We both love not knowing what is coming to the table other than it is vegan. Are we the only people that like to eat that way? ;-)

When we walked in Jeannine was behind the bar and had to give me a kiss. On the way to the table I got a hug from Corey. I guess you can see why Dan and both feel like part of the family every time we are there. Of course we sat in Aimee’s section where else would we go when she is working? She had our pot of tea waiting for us. Can you tell we are spoiled? I guess you are all starting to understand why we almost always end up at the same place for dinner when we go out to eat.

Our first course was a tofu Caprese salad. Will had skinned the little tomatoes which I thought was a great touch. The tofu was either baked or broiled I didn’t ask which and it had a touch of sesame oil and I think I could detect rice wine. The dish was finished with fresh basil. It was definitely a twist on a Caprese salad but we both really liked it.

The second course was a curried chickpea and spinach dish. The dish was flavored with curried powder, habanero and a touch of red sauce. It had really nice flavor and I appreciated that the spinach was just lightly wilted. This was an extremely filling dish.

The last course was an Asian veggie dish with broccoli, shitakes, edamame, red bell pepper, carrot, snow peas and onions. The sauce included sriracha, rice wine vinegar, agave, habanero, ginger, garlic, and I thought I could detect a hint of five spice. Dan liked the sauce so much he was dipping whole wheat pita into it long after he said he was full.

We like to take our time and talk while we eat so we prefer to have our courses come to the table very spread out which everyone knows. We also have to talk to everyone and find out how they are doing while we are there. I imagine other customers wondered who we are since we hug and chat with everyone at the restaurant all evening long.

Like usual we were still there talking when everyone was cleaning and setting up for brunch. By then we had moved to the bar and were catching up with Jonathan, Will, Jeannine and Jen. We always have to chat and find out how things are going with them and what they have going on. Will has some fun stuff going on with his Master’s thesis that I can’t wait to hear more about, Jen’s boyfriend has almost finished his first month as a commercial flight instructor, Jeannine has her other job as a realtor moving along and we just learned that Jonathan is almost finished with his finance degree. I love talking to people and getting to know them since they are all so unique and interesting.

On the Aimee and Michael front things are going very well. They are both enjoying their classes this semester and Michael is doing extremely well in his MCAT prep class but we knew he would. He is taking it near us at Hopkins and has developed a good relationship with the instructor. He is going to make a wonderful doctor.

We ended up talking to everyone until Michael arrived to pick Aimee up a little after 11 and then walked out with her to say hello to Michael. We are trying to plan our trip to DC with them over spring break since he is very busy with school and MCAT prep.

When we got home we were both wide awake and needed time to wind down before bed. Somehow we were still up at 1:30 in the morning. It will be hard to get up Monday morning at 5am for the gym since we have gotten back to our old night owl ways. I hope we can make that happen since I would like to get back into the routine. I like having my workout finished earlier in the day.

Happy thoughts:

As you have probably guessed we had a good Saturday so I have many things to be thankful for. Here are my happy thoughts today:

• I am very thankful to have such a great neighborhood restaurant where we can go to get a great vegan meal even though it isn’t a vegan restaurant. As you must have noticed by now we always have a great evening when we go there. Both Dan and I are looking forward to the weather change which means we can start enjoying dinner under the trees on the patio again. When the weather is nice we are there quite often relaxing, talking to everyone and enjoying the weather. ;-) We both love having dinner al fresco. There is just something incredibly relaxing about a leisurely dinner outside.

• It was great that my parents ate dinner this weekend both days without complaint. Who knows maybe eventually I will get through to them. Nah, what was I thinking? *shakes head* LOL

• Dan didn’t work at all on Saturday or Sunday which was wonderful. It was nice to spend an entire weekend with Dan where both of us had a chance to relax.

• It was also nice to have our temperatures get over 40 on Sunday. We needed some of this snow to melt. It is time to start warming up now. ;-) I am looking forward to the return of spring.

• I am also grateful that we are both happy and healthy today. That is something that we both used to take for granted. When you are at risk of losing your health it becomes much more precious to you, at least that is what happened to us.

Signing out:

We had a great weekend but it is coming to an end. We spent a relaxing day at home on Sunday we had my parents over for dinner and then we went back to catching up on season 6 of Criminal Minds. It looks like we aren’t going to be finished for a few more days. I am not sure why but I love this show. As my girlfriend Deirdre says it may have something to do with "that fine piece of man candy" on the show. LOL, she does have a way with words doesn’t she? I wonder which actor she could be referring to. ;-)

I hope you had a great weekend and found time to recharge your batteries for the week. Talk to you again tomorrow.

Slightly Spicy Macadamia Nut Cheeze and Healthy Sun Dried Tomato Pesto

Where did the week go? I have no idea how the weekend got here so fast. I guess time flies when you are busy wallowing. However it happened I am very happy to be starting the weekend. As you all know I love my weekends with Dan even when we stay home and hang out together.

I finally got back into the kitchen today and enjoyed relaxing and cooking. Maybe all I needed to get back to myself was time in the kitchen. ;-) I will have to try that next time and see if it works.

Friday:

For some reason I didn’t sleep well last night. I am not sure why but I got up this morning and was moving more slowly than usual if that is possible.

Breakfast for Dan was his favorite green smoothie: frozen banana, raw kale, cinnamon, powdered ginger, ground flaxseeds, water to process. You can add a little stevia to taste if you think it needs to be sweeter.

I wasn’t particularly hungry when I got up so I decided to make a cup of green tea with ginger and peach and work on the last post. Somehow working on that post was a 2 hour project and part of it I had written the prior day. Wow, I had no idea I spent that much time preparing a post. No wonder I always seem to run out of time to get things done, LOL. Any suggestions?

After I got the post up I had a quick orange with two Brazil nuts (for the selenium) and ran out the door to check on my folks so that I could get home and exercise.

Once I was home and ready to do things for us it was noon. Hard to believe that I got up before 7 and still had almost nothing accomplished 5 hours later. *sigh*

For my lunch I had a smallish bowl of the curried lentil soup from Wednesday. This time I topped it with cilantro that I stirred into the soup once I had taken this picture. I love to add fresh herbs to everything. They seem to add a nice brightness to any dish as well as fresh pops of flavor.

After lunch I was back to reading about nutrition. This textbook I am reading is quite good. Though I suspect not all of you would find textbook reading interesting I always have when I enjoyed the subject matter. Back in the day, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, I loved school. I would have been a professional student if I could have. ;-)

For my afternoon snack I had few cucumber rounds that I spread with macadamia nut cheeze and sun dried tomato spread. These are the two condiments that I made yesterday. Here are the recipes:

Slightly Spicy Macadamia Nut Cheeze
Serves 12

Ingredients:

1 cup of macadamia nuts, soaked in water for at least 4 hours, then drain well
½ lemon zested and juiced
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon hot crushed peppers (wet hots), optional but adds a little background zip
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon miso

Directions:

Combine everything in your food processor and let it run into the “cheeze” is homogenous and smooth. It will be thick like spreadable goat cheese.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 81.58
Calories From Fat (87%) - 71.04

Total Fat - 8.49g
Saturated Fat - 1.35g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 9.5mg
Potassium - 45.8mg
Total Carbohydrates - 1.88g
Fiber - 1.02g
Sugar - 0.6g
Protein - 0.94g

Comments:

If you are still eating dairy this may feel a little “clean”. Also if you are still using oil this might feel clean. When I first transitioned to vegan food I added olive oil to my nuts cheeses to make them more similar to dairy. However as I have gotten away from oil I have found that nut cheese without oil is not only perfectly fine but feels rich and decadent with just nuts.

This spread has a light spiciness in the background and a hint of complexity from the mustard, garlic and miso. You could also add fresh herbs (rosemary, parsley, cilantro or thyme would be good) if you want to change the taste.

Dan loves the “red stuff” Ian makes at the restaurant. Ian’s version has fabulous flavor but a lot of olive oil and white wine. I finally decided to make a version that I could feel good about Dan eating whenever he wants. Here is my healthy version of Ian’s red stuff:

Sun Dried Tomato Pesto with Golden Raisins
aka: Ian’s Red Stuff Made Healthy
Serves 12

Ingredients:

1 cup dried tomatoes
½ cup golden raisins
1 cup water
½ red onion, peeled and well cooked in some of the soaking water
2 cloves garlic, peeled
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Drain the tomatoes and raisins well and move them to your food processor. Use a few tablespoons of the soaking liquid to water sauté the onions until very soft. Move the drained onions to the food processor. Add raw garlic to the processor and process until all the big chunks are gone. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 32.45
Calories From Fat (4%) - 1.45

Total Fat - 0.17g
Saturated Fat-  0.03g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 95.24mg
Potassium - 201.84mg
Total Carbohydrates - 7.9g
Fiber - 0.9g
Sugar - 5.27g
Protein - 0.93g

Comments:

This worked out much better than I expected. I used the onions to add creaminess in place of the oil and it worked. This spread is a little sweet but still with a pronounced tomato flavor. Even Dan was happy with how this turned out and he loves Ian’s original version. *pats self on the back*

Dan went out for lunch today with some of the young guys from work and sent me pictures and descriptions of his lunch. They went out for Vietnamese food. Dan ordered spring rolls with peanut butter to which he added sriracha.

He also ordered a pan fried tofu with the same peanut sauce. Of course I would rather he not order pan fried anything but he enjoys hanging out with the kids at work and since he doesn’t get out often I should not be too concerned. ;-)

After I had my afternoon snack I made a batch of soy milk from the beans I soaked overnight. I don’t normally make soy milk now because almond milk is much quicker. However I decided that I want to add soy milk to Dan’s oatmeal and smoothies for additional calories. I will continue to use water in mine since I don’t need the extra calories to burn off.

While I was hulling the soy beans today I stumbled across a trick to speed up the process. When you are rubbing the beans together to release the skin do it in an 8 cup measuring cup. Then add extra water and the skins will float so that you can pour them off. That is much faster than picking them out. I had the beans hulled and in the soy milk maker in less than 20 minutes which is a record for me.

Word of warning on the soy bean hulls and okara if you have cats …. Mr. Binky thinks soy is the bomb and was a serious pest while I was trying to make the soy milk. He tried to eat the soy hulls/skins and tried to eat the okara as the soy milk was draining. Who knew cats liked soy? Since I am not certain if it is bad for them I wouldn’t let him have it. In case you have cats I wanted to you know about the potential problem.

Once I made the soy milk I decided to make okara pate. I didn’t measure the ingredients but I will next time I make it because it turned out really well. I used okara, reduced fat almond butter, raw garlic, raw ginger, and red miso. It is a bit like Asian flavored hummus. I really liked it but was surprised that Dan also thought it was very good. That definitely means I need to come up with exact measures so I can share it with you.

I also finally used the reduced-fat peanut butter idea on almond butter and it works fine. Once again I didn’t measure but just follow the directions for making reduced fat peanut butter. The next time I make it I will measure so that I can figure out what the revised nutritionals are.

Dinner tonight was a very simple affair. Dan started his meal with a bowl of the curried red lentil soup. Then we both had a big salad that consisted of: mesclun greens, salsa, marinated mushrooms, avocado, chickpeas, grape tomatoes and raw pumpkin seeds.

After dinner we relaxed in front of the TV and sipped more green tea. Dan was a little disappointed that there were no frozen bananas in the house since he wanted strawberry banana soft serve for dessert. I guess he will just need to tough it out while the bananas ripen so I can get them into the freezer.

Making Dietary Changes:

Yesterday I received a message from someone who isn’t currently vegan but wants to live a healthier life. I get a message like this at least 5 days a week which always brightens my day. Normally they start by saying that they aren’t vegan and neither are any of their friends but that they want to make some changes. Each time I get a similar message once I finish my happy dance I think about how I can help. Typically I end up regularly emailing with these folks about changes they can make to improve their diet. Since I know many of you read but never comment or email I wanted to add a new section to the blog to give you ideas for little changes you can make. This section will appear periodically, maybe once a week, so it doesn’t become overwhelming.

For the first change I would strongly suggest that you learn to start your day with a healthy breakfast. I have not always been a breakfast eater. This is a habit I started about 20 years ago though it was also the first thing I dropped when I was frantic at work. Needless to say I know that was wrong but at the time I didn’t have the quick ideas that I do now. Giving up breakfast would not happen again in my life. Here are some ideas for a quick and healthy breakfast:

• Oatmeal with frozen berries and nuts
• Savory Oatmeal with veggies, ground flaxseeds and nutritional yeast
• Green Smoothie or actually any smoothie
• Hummus and raw veggies to dip
• Okara pate and veggie dippers
• Nut based dipping sauce and raw veggies
• Banana and nut butter
• Fruit and nuts of any sort
• Flax crackers topped with nut cheese and sun dried marinara
• Dinner leftovers
• Big green salad with cold cooked beans, salsa and chopped veggies

Some of these are not traditional breakfast foods but they are all very quick if you keep intentional leftovers in the refrigerator. One thing I hope you noticed is that all the items contain a little healthy fat as that helps you to stay satiated longer in addition to helping you process the fat soluble vitamins you are ingesting. I prefer the dishes that have veggies because I love to get veggies in every chance I get. However dark berries are also healthy so that works well too. We always keep frozen berries in the freezer to add to smoothies, oatmeal or healthy desserts. The quickest item on the list is the banana and nut butter (or fruit and nut) which makes a fast grab and go item when you are extremely short on time

Why eat a healthy breakfast? First your body has been fasting since dinner and it is hungry. You blood sugar is low and you need food before you get famished. When I start my day with a healthy breakfast it sets me up to make good choices all day. Eating breakfast helps to keep me from eating something that I shouldn’t for lunch. I don’t know what happens to you but when I don’t eat until lunch time sometimes I am tempted to eat things that aren’t the best for me. Having a healthy breakfast helps me to stay on track and make good choices all day long.

If you are new to eating breakfast start with something small like the banana and nut and move up to more substantial meals. I would also suggest that you experiment with different dishes to see what you like better. I was surprised to find that I really like savory oatmeal for breakfast though Dan prefers fruit and nut in his oats. Also you may find that you feel better when breakfast is the largest meal of the day. Try lots of options and see what works best for you.

Happy thoughts:

Friday was a good day but far too busy to actually be as productive as I wanted to be. Here are my happy thoughts today:

• I loved the okara pate I came up with today. Thankfully it was simple so I know I can recreate it even though I didn’t measure today. It is so much fun to come up with recipes from the stuff most people throw away. I have learned to enjoy the okara more than fresh soy milk. To think I used to throw the okara away. Shameful! That won’t be happening ever again. ;-)

• Dan had a good day at work and I am thankful for that. He had a nice lunch out with the boys and doesn’t need to go into the office this weekend. You know having my hubby home all weekend, even if part of it is in his home office, makes me very happy.

• I was also pleased that I was able to reduce the fat in almond butter exactly the same way I do with natural peanut butter. It may be because my tastes have changed but I actually think it tastes better with less oil.

• Dan really likes my version of the healthy red stuff which also makes me happy. I really enjoy taking recipes that I know Dan likes and making them good for him. I suspect this may turn up as often as the strawberry banana soft serve and that is saying something

• I am also happy that Dan worked out with the guys at work before he came home. It makes me so happy that he has gotten on board with regular exercise. *happy dance*

• Friday was a good day because I was able to read more of the nutrition textbook I am trying to finish. I have read almost the entire book in a few days I am enjoying it that much.

• Every day or so I get a message from someone that isn’t vegan but is trying to clean up their diet and add more healthy foods like quinoa, mushrooms or bean dishes. Each time this happens I am thrilled and very grateful that I am making a difference no matter how small. Any time any of you want to ask me any questions feel free to ask. Use email if you would rather not comment.

• I am also thankful for all the very kind words from all of you. Sorry I needed to take most of this last week off to get myself together. I am not normally off my game that long. I think I am definitely improving and should be back to posting daily for the foreseeable future.

Signing out:

It is time to get my Saturday started. As usual we are planning to have my parents over for a late lunch and do a few things around the house.

Garbanzo Cheeze, Marinated Kale Salad and Indian Spiced Soup

Thank you all for your kind words, they meant a lot to me. I am very lucky to have many thoughtful readers. If I haven’t said this recently you guys are the best. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and making me smile. Today started better than the last few days. I think it was getting moving early and shopping for local organic produce that helped my mood. There really is nothing like have two refrigerators packed with local produce to put a big smile on my face.

This morning started like every other Sunday with an early morning trip to the farmers’ market. Yes it was pitch black when we left the house. Leaving the house in the dark always feels wrong but turns out well in the end. As usual we headed for Rudy (Cat’s Paw Organic) first just in case he needed help unpacking the truck, and he did. Rudy was in the truck when we arrived so Dan and I carried the baskets and boxes to the table for Rudy to move around later. Once the truck was unloaded (which only took a few minutes) we had time to chat about my favorite subject …. nutrition. Since Rudy has a master’s degree in biochemistry he is great to talk to about this stuff. The topics we discussed today: the U and J curves and vitamin D, the impact sugar has on the immune system, the danger of the notion of “everything in moderation”, eliminating saturated fat to the extent possible, and epigenetics. As you can imagine I was in nutrition/health heaven. It is nice to have people to talk to about this stuff.

Next we headed over to our CSA (Calvert Farm) to pick up our weekly share. Pam and Paul weren’t around this morning; I hope they were somewhere relaxing. However the other guys were very talkative this morning. I always enjoy chatting to people and sharing experiences. One of the guys is having elderly parent struggles which I can relate to. We shared stories for a few minutes and it was nice to know neither of us was alone in that particular dilemma.

Our haul from the market today seemed bigger than usual and included: 6 cucumbers, 3 bell peppers, 1 head cauliflower, 2 heads broccoli, 1 butternut squash, 3 beets, 2 bags baby spinach, 1 head cabbage, 1 bunch radishes, 1 pound shitakes, ½ pound fresh ginger, 2 bunches kale, 2 leeks, 1 bunch cilantro, 1 bunch dill, 1 bunch broccoli rabe, 4 small yellow zucchini, 5 small eggplant, 5 pounds sweet potatoes, 1 big bag of apples for juice (probably 25). I suspect I missed some things but you get the idea. Both my refrigerators are packed top to bottom and front to back. I will be concentrating on eating produce today to make space since air flow in the refrigerator is a good thing. I am always in heaven when my house is packed with food particularly when it is fresh produce. Weird right? ;-)

Breakfast this morning was designed to make room in the refrigerators. Gee, I wonder why, LOL. We had a pot of green tea (using the new cast iron pot I bought for home) and a big salad. This salad included: tatsoi (a dark green leafy in the cruciferous family), shaved beets, shaved carrots, shaved cucumber, dried blueberries, sliced almonds and a dressing made of Dijon, red wine vinegar and stevia. Yes there was a lot of chewing but we covered all the colors of the rainbow with a little fat (from the nuts) to help with the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins. This is my favorite type of healthy breakfast. Dan doesn’t love salad for breakfast as much but he understands that they are good for him and therefore he doesn’t fuss … well not much anyway. ;-)

After breakfast I started a batch of dehydrated leeks because we are running low. This time I made them plain (no liquid aminos and no balsamic). Since they always get used on salad or on top of dishes I don’t know that they need added flavor. I will let you know how they turn out once they are finished which probably won’t be until tomorrow.

Dan left earlier for work today than yesterday since he has projects to ship out on both Monday and Tuesday. I wish he had more free time since I feel certain stress is not good for anyone’s health. However at least I know he eats well, gets plenty of rest and love. I am going to work on that relaxing issue just as soon as the last package goes out on Tuesday.

Last night I felt a sore throat coming on which is very rare for me. I think my mood caused a dip in my immune system, but that is only a guess. I always try to get ahead of a sore throat or cold when they happen. I gargled with salt water with a few drops of tea tree oil. When I woke up this morning my sore throat was gone. If I had still had the sore throat this morning I would have added the “raw garlic cure” which is what we call it at my house. When I don’t feel well I finely mince a raw garlic clove and let it stand for 10 minutes so the allicin can develop. Then I swallow the garlic with water (no chewing) and I do this with every meal. I have read many articles about garlic being used by the Russians as an antibiotic during World War II and it seems to help. I tried chewing the garlic the first time, wow that makes it much more potent than I can take. Don’t try this without food as it can upset the stomach. But other than those two issues the garlic “cure” has worked very well for both me and Dan.

Exercise Endorphins:

The plan today was to use cardio to get my endorphins pumping. Since this has worked in the past I decided to try it today. No surprise I felt a nice nigh once I finished exercising. This is going to be my new plan when I need to boost my mood.

Post exercise snack:

When I finished exercising I had a banana, 2 Brazil nuts (for selenium) and a few hazelnuts.

Kitchen experiment:

I mentioned in a prior post that I wanted to use garbanzo beans as a base for “cheeze”. I had been in such a funk I didn’t get around to that until this morning. This was a successful experiment in my opinion and I will be using garbanzo beans for other “cheezes” in the future. Here is what I did:

Garbanzo Bean Cheeze Experiment
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups cooked garbanzo beans (the equivalent of 1 – 15 ounce can)
1 – 2 cloves of garlic peeled, depending on how much you like garlic
½ lemon, zested and juiced
¼ teaspoon dill weed, dried
½ teaspoon dry mustard
nutritional yeast to taste (I used about 3 tablespoon since Dan isn’t a huge fan but more would be great too)
add as much bean cooking liquid (or water) as you need to make a smooth paste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

This is more of a method than a recipe. I placed the garbanzo beans, lemon zest and juice and ¼ teaspoon of the dill and dry mustard in the food processor (a blender would work too) and processed. I added the maximum amount of nutritional yeast (1 tablespoon at a time) I thought Dan would find palatable. Then I added bean cooking liquid until I liked the texture. I added more mustard and the second garlic clove because I wanted to make certain it wasn’t bland. I think one garlic clove is more than enough for most people. Next I added freshly ground black pepper to taste. That is all there is to it. If you want something that has a more rich taste and texture you can add soaked raw cashews, tahini or reduced fat peanut butter. I thought it was fine without those but my palate has become accustomed to cooking and eating this way.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 149.36
Calories From Fat (13%) - 19.57

Total Fat - 1.92g
Saturated Fat-  0.19g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 6.42mg
Potassium - 229.3mg
Total Carbohydrates - 21g
Fiber - 5.61g
Sugar - 3.67g
Protein - 6.56g

Comments:

Dan and I differ on our love of nutritional yeast. Had this been just for me there would have been much more nutritional yeast but since I wanted him to enjoy this I kept the level lower than I would like. I increased the flavor in this by adding the dry mustard (you could use Dijon) and two cloves of garlic. The dill added a nice background flavor. If you aren’t a fan or dill tarragon would also be great in here. Overall I was very happy with how this worked out.

What would I do with this? It would be great on a sandwich (collard wrap around here) like hummus, on a pizza to hold the toppings, on top of a salad, or with veggie dippers. I think this has many uses. It is a nice change from hummus and I am always looking for a new way to use garbanzos.

Lunch:

In keeping with my idea of eating fresh produce to reduce my refrigerator stash I had a salad for lunch. Today’s salad included baby spinach, ½ of an avocado, a few tablespoons of salsa and a dollop the garbanzo bean cheese. Given the post exercise snack this was more than enough to hold me until my next meal.

Being Productive:

I wanted to work on my to-do list today. Since Dan was at work being productive I wanted to do the same thing at home. For some reason there are always things that I can do at home. How is it that tasks always seem to pile up? My plan is that being productive will enhance my mood. Also I made good progress yesterday and I wanted to keep going before I lost the momentum.

It turned out that while I didn’t get as much accomplished as I had planned (nothing new) I still made a nice dent in my to-do list and that feels great. I love crossing things off my to-do list. ;-)

Mid afternoon lunch snack:

I had another salad at about 4:30. This one contained a head of romaine, ½ of avocado (the remaining half from earlier), more salsa and garbanzo bean cheese. One of the things I love about having salad is that they are filling. I also love the coldness and crunch.

Marinated Kale no oil or salt:

Today I decided to try an experiment to see what I thought of a kale salad with apple cider vinegar. If you look at most recipes for marinated kale they use a lot of oil and salt. I don’t use either one and my kale was still tender. In the past I have used lemon juice but thought apple cider would be nice since it is fall and I wanted to use apples in the salad.

I thinly shredded 1 bunch of kale (leaves and stems) and tossed that into a zip top bag with two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. I squished it around in the bag and tossed it into the refrigerator to marinate. I left the kale marinate for an hour and it got nice and tender. I tossed it with shredded apple, shredded carrot, sliced almonds and dried blueberries and a little stevia. This salad actually exceeded my expectations. I am not a lover of raw kale in salad but this was really good. You will be seeing variations of this coming up in the future.

Indian spiced vegetable and red lentil soup:

In an attempt to reduce the amount of produce in the refrigerator I ended up making a quick pot of soup for us to eat for a couple of days. This soup was simple and contained the following: 1 red onion, 12 cloves of garlic, 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, 4 cups of peeled diced tomatoes, approximately 6 cups water, 1 cup red lentils, 2 carrots finely diced, 2 stalks celery finely diced, 1 pound mushrooms (any mushrooms will work but I used shitake), ½ tablespoon turmeric, ½ tablespoon cumin, ½ tablespoon coriander, ½ tablespoon black mustard seed, freshly ground black pepper to taste, crushed red pepper flakes to taste, 4 cups cauliflower finely diced, 1 red bell pepper. This made a lot of soup, probably 6 big portions.  I had two small bowls with my kale salad tonight for dinner.

Signing out:

That is going to be it for me tonight. I hope everyone had a great weekend. My weekend ended much better than it started. With a little luck this coming week will be a good one and I will be back to posting every day.

Cheeze Dip made from White Beans

I wanted to start this post with a recipe because I enjoyed this so much. This idea came from a recipe that arrived in my email from AICR a few days ago. My version is different but kept the overall vibe of the recipe. I was very surprised how well this worked. Something tells me this will be a regular recipe at my house. Here is what I did:


Cheeze Dip made from White Beans
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

2 cups white beans, cooked and well drained
2 tablespoons raw sesame seeds (use tahini if aren’t using a high speed blender to make certain the seeds get completely pulverized)
6 tablespoons of nutritional yeast, or to taste
1 clove garlic, peeled
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon turmeric
4 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoons water (to process)
black pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine the ingredients in your blender and process until smooth. The mixture will be thick so that you can use it to fill a tortilla for a quesadilla or mixed with roasted veggies and stuffed in a pepper. I think this will have a lot of uses.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories-  153.19
Calories From Fat (21%) - 32.19

Total Fat - 2.97g
Saturated Fat - 0.45g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium-  47.05mg
Potassium - 314.07mg
Total Carbohydrates-  17.34g
Fiber - 6.88g
Sugar - 0.04g
Protein - 6.47g

Comments:

This turned out much better than I expected it to. I did not expect beans to make such a nice cheese substitute. This is a concept I will be playing around with more in the future. White beans are nice mild canvas to flavor.

Monday Means Lots of Life Administration at Our Place

As I mentioned earlier I was on the road first thing Monday morning with a run to the library. Other than taking a little while to start reading “Engine 2 Diet” I was moving since early morning. However it has been good because I was able to accomplish a few things that have been on my to-do list last week. It always makes me feel better to cross things off my list. I wonder what that says about me. Hmmmm. ;-)

Dehydrated Leeks:

Since I had a little time I prepped a big batch of balsamic glazed leeks to have on hand for topping salad and soup. After reading an article about how effective raw leeks are at stopping cancer growth I first tried making the crispy leeks. They work well to top cooked food just before serving. I try to keep these on hand in my pantry.

Vegetarian Restaurants in the DC area:

For those of you that are local I wanted to share this dining out guide from the Washington Post for Vegetarians. There are a few restaurants I will be checking out from this list when I am near DC.

Snack Yesterday Afternoon:

Late yesterday I got a little hungry so I grabbed a few baked falafel from the freezer and popped those into the microwave. I had them with a little bit of salsa. If it weren’t for falafel and salsa I swear I wouldn’t know what to eat sometimes.

Dinner:

At about 7pm Dan called and said don’t wait for me for dinner. He has meetings out of the office all day today (Tuesday), Wednesday and Thursday which means he doesn’t have much time to actually get work done. This meant he worked late last night and grabbed Chinese (steamed veggies and cashews) with sauce on the side for dinner. Thankfully the Chinese place near his office is open fairly late so he can always find something to eat in a pinch.

Since I was on my own for dinner I really didn’t feel much like cooking. If I had not had 2 collard wraps already I would have grabbed one of those for dinner but the novelty had worn off my dinner time. The only food that was appealing to me was frozen grapes. I tossed a cup of those into a bowl and had 6 walnut halves to go with them. The nuts always seem to make the fruit more satisfying to me.

Tuesday:

Holy moly it was downright cold this morning! I didn’t check the weather channel but it felt like it was in the 50s. When Dan left for work I thought I would hit the pavement and get my cardio in. Three houses from my front door I turned around to grab my fleece. It was not warm enough this morning for running pants and a long T shirt. I was happy to get finished so that I could get home and warm up a bit. Brrrr, it was cold. This was the first morning I was actually cold not just cool.

Breakfast this morning was a smoothie like yesterday containing: 1 frozen banana, 3 kale leaves and stems, ½ avocado, 1 ½ cups green tea, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger, and ½ inch fresh ginger. It was a good smoothie and very creamy.

I made something similar for Dan this morning before he left. His had twice as much kale and banana and I added ¼ cup of oatmeal to his as well. He said it was good, not like banana soft serve good, but good nonetheless. ;-)

To warm myself up I made a couple of mugs of hot water with lemon slices. I love hot water with lemon slices on cold mornings because it is warming but still refreshing.

Exercise Ball Review:

I have had the chance to play around with the 8 pound exercise ball that I bought a couple of weeks ago. It has been very useful in terms of abdominal work. I was a little concerned that sharp cat toes may be the end of this, like an exercise ball that my youngest popped before I could use it once. However either this is tougher rubber or it hasn’t interested the cats.

Benefits over using a dumbbell or a plate: 1) more quiet and less destructive when dropped, 2) more comfortable to use for weighted bridges 3) more comfortable to hold on my chest for weighted crunches 4) can also be used as a medicine ball in partner exercises which wouldn’t work with a dumbbell or plate. Overall I like the ball and find it to be a nice addition to my equipment. Not to mention I couldn’t beat the price at Marshall’s. For $12.99 I knew I had to bring it home when I saw it.

Lunch:

Today for lunch I made myself an enormous salad because I was really hungry, or at least I thought I was. My salad included 1 pound of spicy greens (mizuna, tatsoi and arugula) 4 Roma tomatoes, ¼ cucumber thinly sliced, ½ carrot thinly sliced, 1 cup cold cooked cannellini beans, ½ cup of salsa and 1 tablespoon of raw pumpkin seeds. I thought I could eat all this but I was no longer hungry after I finished ¾ of the salad. I saved the remaining ¼ of the salad to eat as my afternoon snack.

Book Review: Engine 2 Diet

I picked up this book from the library for obvious reasons. It is written by a healthy vegan athlete so I expected it to be right up my alley, and it was. The book is segmented as follows:

The E2 Diet

1. Engine 2
2. My Story
3. The Engine 2 Diet
4. Crazy Myths About Food
5. The Medical Proof Behind the Engine 2 Diet
6. The E2 Exercise Program

Making it Work

7. The E2 Attitude
8. E2 Vital Signs
9. Label Reading
10. Making it Work for Life

Recipes and Meal Plans

11. GettingE2 Shape
12. E2 Easy Weekly Planner
13. E2 Recipes

I enjoyed this book more than I expected. I liked that there was a lot of decision about the interconnectedness of health and nutrition. The author does a nice job explaining why a whole food plant based diet without oil is the best choice in terms of overall health.

The exercise section of the book provides body weight only strength training that would be very handy for those just getting back into exercise.

The recipe section is much more extensive than most “diet” books. I was a little surprised to see TVP listed given the soy protein isolate issue. There are also baked goods included with use flour and sugar so you know I won’t be making any of those. However these are my only substantial complaints about the recipes. For the most part the recipes are whole food plant based with little or no oil and sugar.

Overall I think this is great book for someone that wants to either clean up their vegan diet, or wants to jump start their health in a dramatic way.

Signing out:

That is going to be it for me today. I will be back tomorrow with another update. I hope everyone is enjoying their Tuesday.

Lettuce Wraps filled with Lemon Marinated Veggies and Topped with Flavored Nut Cheese

Today has been a busy one for me. I had a few errands and need to check on the parents. By the time I got everything finished there wasn’t much time for cooking. When this happens I turn to salad, like I often do. I got some nuts soaking for nut cheese since two hours is enough soak time to make them easy to turn into cheese. At the same time I cut up veggies to marinate in lemon juice. Instead of making salad I decided to go with lettuce wraps tonight. However this works just as well as a salad if you prefer. Dan thinks it is easier to eat as a salad. ;-) Here is what I made tonight:

Parsley and Sun-Dried Tomato Macadamia, Cashew and Sunflower Seed Cheese
Makes 16 servings (approximately 1 ounce each depending on how much water is absorbed by the nuts)

Ingredients:

1 cup macadamia nuts, soaked in water for at least 2 hours, and well drained
½ cup raw sunflower seeds, soaked in water for at least 2 hours, and well drained
1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for at least 2 hours, and well drained
1 lemon zested and juiced (less if you aren’t a fan of lemon)
1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed
2 tablespoons white miso
6 sun-dried tomatoes, finely minced
¼ cup fresh parsley, finely minced

Directions:

Drain the nuts and seeds well and place them in your food processor. Add the juice and zest from one lemon, garlic and white miso. If you aren’t a huge fan of lemon don’t use the zest and start with half the lemon juice but I think it needs the lemon flavor. Puree until the mixture is smooth. If you want it thinner add water a tablespoon at the time until you get the texture you desire. Stir the sun-dried tomato and parsley into the cheese. If you use the food processor you may get the parsley and tomato too finely ground resulting in a muddy appearance. This will keep in the refrigerator for at least 5 days.

Nutritional Information for 1/16th of the recipe:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 126.45
Calories From Fat (75%) - 95.1

Total Fat - 11.36g
Saturated Fat - 1.7g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 97.92mg
Potassium - 139.57mg
Total Carbohydrates - 5.31g
Fiber - 1.59g
Sugar - 1.38g
Protein - 3.07g

Comments:

This is another variation of a mild nut cheese. I posted it to show that you can use many different nuts and seeds to make vegan cheese. I added sun-dried tomatoes and fresh parsley to this one to add a little flavor to an otherwise mild cheese. This recipe makes a lot of nut cheese. If you are single start with ½ or maybe even ¼ of the recipe.

Next Recipe: Lemon Marinated Veggies

One thing I have learned about food without added oil is that it needs flavor. Acid like lemon juice and vinegar works well. Adding a little garlic, ginger, sriracha also makes a big difference. Here is the remainder of the recipe:

Lemon Marinated Veggies for Lettuce Wraps
Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced into half moons
1 red bell pepper, stemmed and seeded and cut into thin strips
2 carrots, thinly julienned
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 head romaine lettuce for wrapper
2 servings Parsley and Sun-Dried Tomato Macadamia, Cashew and Sunflower Seed Cheese from above

Directions:

Combine all the ingredients except the romaine and nut cheese in your refrigerator. Stir periodically to make certain all the veggies get coated with the lemon juice. They need to marinate at least 2 hours so they absorb lemon and garlic flavor. Overnight would not be too long to marinate the veggies. I think they are just as good 24 hours later so you may want to make double which is what I do sometimes. To serve eliminate the excess juice so that your salad isn’t soggy.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 262.84
Calories From Fat (41%) - 107.99

Total Fat - 12.91g
Saturated Fat - 1.91g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 219.68mg
Potassium - 1565.5mg
Total Carbohydrates - 34.83g
Fiber - 13.5g
Sugar - 14.53g
Protein-  9.34g

Comments:

This is a good hot weather dish. The components can be made the night before of in the morning so that all you have to do is put it together when you get home from work. If you are like my hubby you will prefer this as a salad. I like it as lettuce wraps. Either way it tastes great to us.

Fun Facts Friday:

Since I bailed on your guys last week on Fun Facts Friday I knew I shouldn’t overlook it this week. I have some interesting questions for you all today.

1. What is the most unusual food you have ever eaten, not limited to vegan food? I have eaten some pretty crazy stuff so this one is actually a tough question for me. I guess the strangest thing was cotton candy wrapped eel at the MiniBar in DC. Oddly it was excellent and not at all what you would have expected. The couple we were there with was also hesitant to try this but we all agreed it was strangely good. For those of you that can get seats at the MiniBar they can accommodate vegetarians but not vegans or at least that was the case the last time we were there. Just to be clear my husband and I spent the vast majority of our life as omnivores. I suspect many of the things we have consumed in the past would make most of you cringe that is not my intention, just answering the question honestly.

2. If money were no object where would you retire? For me it is Italy hands down. My heart belongs to Dan first and Italy second. Both Dan and I love our trips to Italy. The only problem is where in Italy and that is a very tough question. We love Tuscany, but the Veneto is gorgeous and the Amalfi Coast is so welcoming. I don’t know that we could ever actually narrow it down to one place. ;-)

3. How many fruit and vegetable servings do you eat on average per day? I have been chatting with some friends about this one a lot lately. I have read that most Americans only consume 3 servings of fruits and veggies per day (total not each) and most of those are in the food of potatoes which I don’t even count as a veggie that is a starch. *rolls eye* For years I have thought the minimum fruit and veggie servings per day should be 10 and many of my friends thought I was nuts. So I tracked our servings for a while to get an average. Excluding our fresh pressed juiced which adds many servings we are averaging about 20 servings a day. How about you? And, if you don’t eat a many vegetables and fruits why not? This is a question that has stumped me for a while so I would love to hear the reasons why not.

Vegan Friendly Restaurants in Indianapolis:

Dan will be in Indianapolis next week for a day and a half for work. Does anyone have any restaurant suggestions that would be good for one vegan and one omnivore? I found a few places on line that may work but was hoping one or two or you have personal experience with a restaurant or two in town.

Unrelated note:

As I mentioned today as a little hectic at our place which is why this is my first post of the day. Like all Fridays I needed to take care of the few things and check on my parents.

After I finished with my errands I got a chance to try out a small handheld vacuum I purchased to clean the carpet on our stairs of cat hair. Much to my surprise this little machine has great suction. It performed much better than I expected for the price. As you all know I have three long hair cat hair makers so our stairs tend to get a little fuzzy. This machine cleaned beautifully. If you own animals and need a hand held vacuum I can vouch for the suction on this machine.

The 2010 Dr. Greger DVD arrived today. If time permits the new DVD will be on my viewing schedule this weekend. I will let you know if I learn anything new and exciting.

For now I need to go clean my kitchen and do a little meditation with Dan. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Vegan Mozzarella - No Soy

It seems I finally remembered where my kitchen is located, LOL. I have had this on my to do list since Monday. Can you tell I have been unmotivated this week? Sometimes I just don’t feel like making a fuss in the kitchen and that is good description of this week. ;-)

I wanted to make a firm vegan cheese without soy and I think this is the best recipe so far. The touch of nutritional yeast adds a bit of buttery flavor to the cheese. I added the smoked garlic to give the cheese a more complex taste. But you can use simple poached garlic and get a similar result. Here is what I did:

Vegan Mozzarella - No Soy
Makes 8 slices

Ingredients:

¼ cups almonds
water to cover the almonds to 1 ½ cup mark
¼ cup raw cashews
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 large smoked garlic clove (or clove that was blanched to remove the sharpness)
1 pinch sea salt
1 ½ teaspoons agar powder (agar flakes will require a different amount don't substitute them 1 for 1)

Directions:

Place the almonds in a 2 cup measuring cup and add water to the 1 ½ cup mark. Allow the almonds to soak for at least 4 hours. Then pour the almonds and soaking liquid in your blender and process until smooth. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve that is lined with cheese cloth or a damp paper towel. Rinse out your blender and return the strained almond milk to your blender and add the other ingredients through the garlic. Process until completely smooth. Taste the mixture and add salt or other seasonings to suit your taste. Add the agar powder and process.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and allow it to sit for 5 minutes so the agar can bloom. Now heat the mixture until it begins to thicken and bubble. Ideally you want to use a thermometer to ensure it reaches 185 degrees. I used this hand held laser thermometer. Now pour the mixture into a container so it can cool. Refrigerate when it is close to room temperature. The mixture will solidify as the temperature falls below 110 degrees.

Nutritional Information (this is an estimate because I did not adjust for the removal of the almond pulp):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 48.59
Calories From Fat (68%) - 32.95

Total Fat - 3.58g
Saturated Fat-  0.41g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 37.32mg
Potassium - 59.13mg
Total Carbohydrates - 2.25g
Fiber - 0.65g
Sugar - 0.41g
Protein - 1.55g

Comments:

From a flavor perspective this is my best vegan mozzarella yet. It has a little more flavor than dairy mozzarella but has the same overall mild character. The texture is firm, but not too firm. I think this turned out really well. I hope you give it a try.

For those of you that are wondering how I got the heart shape. I took a small heart shaped bread tube and covered the end with aluminum foil and then poured the hot cheeze into the tube. When it was cool it slid right out.

Unrelated Notes:

Last night I read a post at Heather’s blog that took me back to graduate school. Heather asked if anyone sets goals. OMG, do I set goals? Seriously, I set goals for everything that I want to accomplish and measure my progress so I know how I am doing. Her question made me think this would be a good topic to write about:

Goal Setting:

Many years (okay decades) ago when I was in graduate school I wanted to finish ahead of schedule and crammed as many courses in as I could. In order to graduate early I ended up needing to take a few doctoral courses that I would not have otherwise had. One of them was a PhD level course in Organizational Behavior, specifically work motivational theory that included goal setting. I was fortunate enough to have the father of goal setting as my professor, Edwin Locke. It was great course and I learned so much that has helped me throughout my life. When Heather mentioned goal setting on her blog I knew I should write about this topic because it has been so beneficial to me.

The most important thing I learned from the course was that in order to get the results you want from setting goals you need to follow five guidelines or principles. The principles I was taught applied to how to set goals in the corporate setting but I adapted them to my personal use long ago. Here are the principles as I remember them:

1. Clarity

2. Challenge

3. Commitment

4. Feedback

5. Task Complexity

Clarity speaks to the fact that you need to set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. In other words if you want to eating healthier you need to define what that means. It would look something like this. I will eat 5 servings of fresh vegetables every day for the next month to further my overall goal toward better health.

Challenge means the goal can’t be too easy. Dr. Locke found that more challenging goals are more motivational in general. What this means is that if you currently eat 4 servings of vegetables per day setting a goal of 5 isn’t challenging enough. But if you currently eat one of two servings then five is probably a challenging goal for you.

Commitment isn’t quite as straight forward as it seems. Dr. Locke found that the more difficult (or challenging) a goal the higher the commitment tended to be. I translate this to always set goals that a little bit of stretch and that relate to your other goals. The vegetable goal would make sense if you are focused on improving your health.

Feedback comes back to being able to measure your progress and comparing your actual performance to your goal. You can only make adjustments if you know how things are going. Looking at this a different way you won’t know if you have reached your goal until you are monitoring your progress. Back to the vegetable goal example you need to know how many vegetables you are eating every day compared to your goal.

Task complexity speaks to making certain the task isn’t overwhelming. Tougher goals will need more time to reach and that should be taken into account. Additionally it is important to remember that the purpose of goal setting is to be successful. Returning to the vegetable example if you currently eat 1 or 2 vegetable servings per day it may be a bit too difficult to reach 5 servings each day in a month. When you monitor your progress then you will be able to determine if you need to extend your timeline.

I hope some of you found that helpful. If you are interested in the topic you can find more information from Dr. Locke here. He is a fascinating man and was a fantastic professor. I hope I explained his approach in a way he would approve of. Thank you Dr. Locke for having such a profound impact on my life.

Thank you:

I wanted to say thank you to everyone that commented yesterday or sent an email. Please know how much your kind words mean to me. I only hope that a few people will be inspired to live a healthier life and to enjoy every minute that you have. One thing that cancer has taught me is to not worry about the small things. In the end it doesn’t matter if your hair isn’t right (or is grey), whether you have wine with dinner, or how much stuff you have. The most important thing is that you enjoy those you love and every moment you have with them.

Today:

Today is Friday, YAY, which means I need to run my normal errands. I will be back later today with the garlic scape pesto and Fun Facts Friday. I hope you are all having a wonderful Friday.

Quick Macadamia Nut Cheese and Tomato Tarragon Cashew Dressed Salad

There definitely seems to be a lot of doom and gloom in the blogosphere these days that seems to be contagious I really hope I don’t catch it. Generally I am a happy person and I would like to keep it that way. Those of you that know me know that I have plenty that I could get depressed about but I choose to look on the bright side. I hope those of you that are down find something to smile about very soon. I really hate to see nice people be glum.

After lunch yesterday Dan and I moved our enormous existing television downstairs. This is where exercising comes in quite handy. Not that it was why I started strength training but it did make it much easier to move that behemoth thing down the steps.

After the original television was in its new home Dan started working on installing the new TV. Binky (aka Nicco) is definitely in a mourning period at the moment. He wants his old TV back where it was with a cat tree on each side so he can climb and run ove the top of the TV. It looks like the cat mommy and daddy will be in trouble for some time over this transgression. Dan wants to lose the cat trees from the family room completely but something tells me the cats are not going to allow this. We will see who wins. My money is on the cats, LOL.

Dinner last night was nothing worth blogging about, so I didn’t. After moving the TV I was not in the mood for anything complicated in the kitchen.

This morning we made our usual trip to the farmer’s market downtown. We left about 30 minutes later than normal and arrived at 7:30am. The market was a mob scene. Needless to say we learned our lesson and will be back to our regular schedule next weekend. This is what happens when we you stay up too late watching a movie. ;-)

Since it is a weekend we had a mid afternoon meal with my parents. I think yesterday’s meal was just a tad too healthy for them so I added some fat in the form of nuts to this meal. I made a quick macadamia nut cheese to top the panelle and polenta triangles from yesterday and a tomato raw cashew dressing for the salad. Here is what I made:

Tomato Tarragon Cashew Dressing
Makes approximately 17 tablespoons

Ingredients:

1 cup cherry tomatoes, washed
juice of ½ lemon
¼ cup raw cashews
2 olives, pitted
2 tablespoon tarragon, fresh
1 small garlic clove
black pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine everything in your blender and puree until completely smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning as you desire. Refrigerate until needed.

Nutritional Information (for 1/17th of the total recipe):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 12.45
Calories From Fat (49%)-  6.12

Total Fat - 0.73g
Saturated Fat - 0.13g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 5.2mg
Potassium - 49.64mg
Total Carbohydrates - 1.35g
Fiber - 0.23g
Sugar - 0.13g
Protein - 0.47g

Comments:

This dressing is light but also rich in flavor. It would make a nice dip for veggies as well as a dressing. I added the olives for salt as well as background richness. If you aren’t an olive lover you can substitute capers for the olives. Tarragon is something I don’t cook with often so I was trying to find ways to use it more and it works well with tomatoes so it was good here. The cashews made the dressing creamy without an overly fatty feel. Be careful not to add a huge clove of garlic as this could easily overwhelm the sauce. Overall this is a good dressing that I will be making again.

Next recipe:

To go with the salad I decided to add a few of the panelle and polenta toasts with some nut cheese. I wanted to make something different to show how quick and easy nut cheese really is. I soaked the macadamias briefly and only added a few seasonings. Everyone liked this including my mother who is always the hardest sell in terms of healthy food. Here is what I did:

Quick Mac Nut Cheese
Makes approximately 16 tablespoons

Ingredients:

1 cup macadamia nuts, soaked for 30 minutes and drained
1 tablespoon mellow white miso
1 small garlic clove, peeled
1 lemon zested, juice from ½ of the lemon
white pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine everything in your food processor or blender and process until smooth. Refrigerate until needed.

The nut cheese will be thick it is easier to remove from a food processor than it is from a blender. You can also make it with a mortar and pestle but that is much more work.

Nutritional Information (for 1/16th or approximately 1 tablespoon):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 63.31
Calories From Fat (85%) - 53.69

Total Fat-  6.41g
Saturated Fat - 1.02g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 40.55mg
Potassium - 37.35mg
Total Carbohydrates - 1.76g
Fiber - 0.84g
Sugar - 0.51g
Protein - 0.82g

Comments:

Using macadamia nuts is quicker than using almonds since they don’t need much of a soak, though they are easier to process if you remember to soak them. I was busy at home today and forgot to soak the macadamias until there was only 30 minutes or soak time available, but that wasn’t a problem.

Nut cheeses are something that I make often. These nut cheeses are how we incorporate fat into our diet since we hardly use any oil. While we could just eat nuts, they are much more interesting as a cheese, in my opinion.

This cheese is neutral but lemony, if that makes sense. I particularly liked the flavor. It is very rich though so you don’t need much to be satisfied.

How to get your potassium:

After I posted the blurb on sodium and potassium I went back to look at where we get our potassium and found that normally we would be short without our veggie and fruit juice. Lately I have been making a fresh juice with the following:

Ingredients:

1 beet including beet greens
2 kale leaves
1/3 pound spinach
1 red delicious apple (they are highest in antioxidants)
5 carrots
3 celery stalks
½ lemon
1 inch ginger

Directions:

I run these all through the juicer and add two frozen wheat grass shots to the juice to chill it. One half a serving of this juice contains 2,640mg of potassium. We have this juice morning and evening so we have no difficulty reaching our 4,700mg of potassium per day.

Unrelated Note:

Have any of seen the new Cooking Channel? I didn’t bother to check it out until this weekend because I thought it was going to be like the Food Network. As you can tell I am not a fan of the Food Network. After you have seen the fifth “celebrity chef” prepare a dish it gets really old and tiresome. Not to mention watching clearly unhealthy people swoon over fat and sugar is not what I call fun, call me crazy. With this in mind, I actual have enjoyed the Cooking Channel this weekend. They seem to have mostly “real chefs” not cooks with TV shows. There are two shows that have stood out to me. They are “Chuck's Day Off” and “David Rocco’s Dolce Vita”. I will admit that the appeal of the David Rocco is the setting. Who would expect me to love a show filmed in one of my favorite cities on the planet, Firenze (Florence), Italy?

Since we had a late mid day meal with the folks dinner will probably happen here until after 8:30. But I will get it posted tomorrow morning if I think you will like it.

I am signing off for now to make dinner. Talk to you all later. I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Birthday Details and of course the food

We started the day slowing yesterday morning by going to bed without the alarm set. There is something wonderful and indulgent about sleeping in on your birthday. Next we took our time getting to breakfast and enjoyed a lazy morning. It was perfect. After breakfast we finished chatting and Dan went upstairs to his home office to get ready for his conference call. This gave me a chance to get in a workout and make myself presentable. Good thing he was upstairs for quite a while. ;-)

The weather did not cooperate for my birthday. It has now been raining since Sunday night.  However having a spring birthday this sort of thing happens more often than not so I am used to it. We are expecting rain until Wednesday. This is typical of weather in the mid-Atlantic this time of you. At least the little plants I put in yesterday will enjoy it.

We considered heading to Annapolis for the afternoon but the gray skies will not make for good photos and that was what I had I mind. Annapolis is such a lovely old town that I have not spent enough time photographing. I may take a day and do that on my own when we have a little sun. There is also a Sur La Table there that I have been wanting to check out for a while now.

My hubby bought me jewelry for my b’day as usual. I have not had a chance to take a picture yet. I will try to do that today to include in tonight’s post.

Birthday wishes:

I was stunned by the number of people that left birthday wishes. Thank you so much to all of you for taking the time to do that. It was very thoughtful and each message made me smile.

My food day:

As promised I tried to keep track of my food today. Nothing spectacular to eat today until we got to dinner. I will tell you that I really enjoyed the cannelloni last night. However I paid for it by a little upward tick in the scale this morning which I realize is temporary. It was worth the price though. ;-)

10:00am – breakfast

½ cup oatmeal
1 cup water
1 cup mixed frozen berries (blueberries, raspberries and Marion berries)
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
1 tablespoon walnuts, chopped
Sprinkle cinnamon
Double green tea with fresh sliced ginger and ascorbate C
Green drink powder (1/2 serving)

2:00pm – lunch

3 cups mixed baby lettuce
2 – 3 tablespoons salsa
1 scoop super flavorful fat free hummus (approx 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon raw pumpkin seeds

6:00pm – dinner salad course

3 cups mixed baby lettuce
¼ English cucumber
3 tablespoons salsa
1 larger scoop super flavorful fat free hummus (approx 1 cup)
6 grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 teaspoon raw sunflower seeds

7:00pm – dinner main dish

2 zucchini cannelloni stuffed with almond feta, spinach and walnut pesto and artichokes on sun dried tomato marinara (recipe below)

9:00pm – snack

Double green tea with sliced ginger and ascorbate C
Fresh juice (recipe below)
Green drink powder (1/2 serving)

Recipes:

Dan and I seriously considered going out to eat tonight for my birthday. But we are having dinner out on Wednesday with my girlfriend Deirdre so we decided to stay home. However this didn’t mean we weren’t going to splurge. After all birthdays come only once a year so why not live it up. Dan had beautiful raw cannelloni at "105 degrees" in Oklahoma that I have wanted to make healthier for some time. Since I had soaked almonds in the refrigerator I thought that would make a perfect dinner tonight. I did not time myself but I think I was in the kitchen well under 45 minutes and I made everything this evening. Here is what I did:

Zucchini cannelloni stuffed with almond feta, spinach and walnut pesto and artichoke hearts on sun-dried tomato marinara
Makes 6 cannelloni

Ingredients:

½ zucchini, shaved thinly top to bottom on the smallest setting of your mandoline (I sliced the entire zucchini the leftovers will got in my lunch salad today)
1 recipe for almond feta - no oil
1 recipe sun dried tomato marinara
3 canned or frozen and defrosted whole artichoke hearts cut thinly, into approximately 8 pieces each

Spinach Pesto Ingredients:

6 ounces spinach
1 garlic clove, peeled and smashed
1 lemon, zested (use organic only)
½ cup of walnuts (or what is necessary to create a thick texture)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Make the almond feta and sun dried tomato pesto according to the recipe directions and refrigerate separately.

To make the spinach pesto combine the spinach, garlic and lemon zest in your food processor and process until uniformly fine. Add walnuts a few at a time until the texture gets creamy and thick. Add salt and pepper to your taste and refrigerate.

Cover you counter with a sheet of plastic cling film. You will use this to help roll the cannelloni. Lay the thin strips of zucchini in the cling film. Overlap the strip by ¼ or a third and stop when the sheet of zucchini is approximately 8 or 9 inches. Much large won’t fit well on a plate.

Place a little of the almond feta on one edge of the zucchini, followed by the spinach pesto and the artichoke pieces. Using the plastic wrap roll the zucchini and fillings like you are making sushi.   You want the roll to be fairly tight.

Using the plastic wrap move the cannelloni to a bed of the sauce. Serve cold.

Nutritional Information, per cannelloni:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 308.16
Calories From Fat (54%) - 167.22

Total Fat - 19.98g
Saturated Fat - 1.75g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 477.12mg
Potassium - 2167.66mg
Total Carbohydrates - 25.5g
Fiber - 11.91g
Sugar - 6.91g
Protein - 16.77g

Comments:

Dan loved this tonight. He thought it was better than what he had at 105 degrees. At much fat as this has it is much lower in fat than the original recipe. This dish was so popular it may show up more regularly at our house, at least for Dan. I think next time this will be an appetizer (1 roll) versus as an entrée. I highly recommend this to anyone that is looking for a celebratory meal. It came together quickly and was better than the sum of its parts. I would make this for dinner guest omni or vegan no doubt about it. As I said earlier this has much more fat than most of my recipes but when you want to indulge this is a great way to do it.

Next Recipe:

After dinner we were both full. I am sure it was those 40 grams of fat in the cannelloni. But I wanted us to have more nutrition. Since we had picked up some organic spinach I decided we NEEDED a mug of fresh juice. Here is what I made:

Fruit and Veggie Juice with Beet
Serves 2

Ingredients:

½ pound baby spinach
5 carrots
1 apple
½ lemon
1 inch fresh ginger
1 beet
2 wheat grass shots (we juice the fresh wheat grass and freeze it in ice cube trays and used 2 cubes)

Directions:

Cut the larger objects into pieces that will fit in the juicer. Place the frozen wheat grass into juice catch container so the fresh juice will fall onto it and slowly melt it. Juice the fruit and veggies. Serve the juice cold.

Nutritional Information: **

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 178.19
Calories From Fat (6%) - 9.98

Total Fat - 1.2g
Saturated Fat - 0.2g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 263.43mg
Potassium - 1553.23mg
Total Carbohydrates - 40.9g
Fiber - 11.4g **
Sugar - 21.1g
Protein - 6.24g

** Note the fiber can’t be right because the veggies were juiced. The other measurements may have been impacted but I have no idea in what way.

Comments:

Dan and both liked the addition of the beet to the drink. The color is beautiful and the beet taste is very mild. Not to mention the wonderful nutrition the beet adds. This will be our standard fresh juice for the foreseeable future.

Each serving of this juice contains approximately 44,450IU of vitamin A, 60mg of vitamin C, 195mg of calcium, 4mg of iron, 310mcg of folate, 575mcg of vitamin K, 155mg of phosphorus, and 140mg of magnesium. For those of you that have been wondering why we are drinking fresh fruit and veggie juice this is why. The nutrition is amazing. However it also tastes really good. Dan and I both enjoy it.

Other notes:

Today I need to spend a little time in the kitchen. I am going to make more broccoli and onion flax crackers. I am also making another batch of almond feta – no oil and sun dried tomato marinara so Dan can have raw pizza as part of this lunch this week. We are almost out of fat free hummus so that is also on my to do list today. Additionally I need to do some work on my last Cornell course and a little house work and catch up on my nutrition reading. But other than that I am a lady of leisure today. ;-)

I will check in with you later today with an update on what I make for dinner tonight. I picked up some beautiful fresh shitakes so there may just be a little Asian food this evening. I hope you are all having a great Tuesday. Mine is gray and rainy so I will probably stay home today. As my hubby likes to say “stay dry cotton candy melts in the rain.”I roll my eyes every time he says it but it is cute in an over the top way. He always makes me giggle.