Dinner With Friends and Cute Cats

Like usual I had a very hectic Friday. I had so many things to do today that I bailed on most of my food on Friday, sorry. I will describe the first two meals at home and then go into more details about dinner.

I went for my usual morning walk but held it to two miles today since I was so short on time. Given the time constraint I opted to go up and down hills to get a little extra oomph in this morning. Darn those hills can be tough. ;-)

When I got home breakfast was green smoothie containing the usual suspects: raw kale, banana, chia seeds, cinnamon, powdered ginger, wheat germ, water and ice.

After breakfast I walked to the grocery store to pick up provisions for the evening with friends. I had a few things that I knew I needed to make but dessert was up in the air. I considered a few dessert items: tofu chocolate mousse, avocado chocolate mousse, fresh fruit salad, and chocolate dipped pineapple with coconut. However the beautiful organic strawberries that I found out the market dictated that chocolate covered strawberries were a strong contender. I did also buy soft tofu in case I decided to go with the mousse.

Knowing that I would be eating too many calories for dinner I decided a giant salad was a great idea for my lunch. This one was simple consisting of organic mesclun, salsa, cucumbers, shredded carrots, red peppers, and raw pumpkin seeds.

Then it was time to prep everything that I was taking to Walid and Jackie’s for dinner. First up were the chocolate dipped strawberries some that I rolled in nuts. These are very simple you melt chocolate (either chips or candy bars ... it isn't hard to find vegan chocolate) and then dip the strawberries and roll them in chopped nuts. Refrigerate them on parchment until the chocolate is hard. This is a very simple preparation and everyone loves them.

Since I had leftover melted chocolate I made some quick chocolates with fresh blueberries that I finished with chopped walnuts. For the mold I used a silicon heart shaped ice cube tray from IKEA. The only mistake I made with these was not putting a little chocolate in the mold first, then blueberries and finishing them with more chocolate. These disappeared quickly so I don’t think anyone minded. Both Walid and Dan really liked the combination of blueberry and chocolate.

I also made a batch of my cheeseless queso which Jackie had requested since both she and Walid really like it. Next time we get together I am going to make this with Jackie because they would definitely make this even though they aren’t vegan. Can you get any higher praise than that for a healthy vegan dish? ;-)

In addition I thought we needed some artichokes tossed with dill because you can never have too many artichokes. I am fairly sure my love for artichokes is an Italian thing.

I baked some tofu to take with us since Jackie was making a veggie stir fry for the entrée. Later in the evening we water sautéed the veggies and they turned out great. Jackie and Walid added shrimp to their stir fry and we added tofu.

Jackie had put together some crudités, hummus, pita, marinated cauliflower, peppers, olives, salsa and grapes. Do you think we had enough food? LOL, we were laughing that we had enough food for double the number of people that we in the house. Oh well, leftovers are good right? The funny thing is that we never even got to the soup I brought. I left some of that so they could try it later.

There was lots of talking (nonstop actually) and carrying on like usual. We had a great time as evidenced by the fact that we didn’t get home until after 2:30 in the morning. Just imagine how long we would have stayed if Jackie didn’t have to work on Saturday? LOL

Here are a couple of pictures of her adorable felines (Buddy has long hair and Skipper short hair) who were also part of the festivities. I adore Jackie’s cats because they behave just like ours. The entire evening they were right in the middle of everything that was going on.  I think the pictures of the cats say it all. They are so laid back and content. For years I have said Jackie is the only person I would trust to watch my fur children.

This is a picture of our friend Walid who is one of the nicest men I have ever met. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of Jackie and I, we were both too busy talking. Something tells me all the ladies understand that.

Here is Dan looking a little tired but it was after 1am by the time I took this so he should look tired.

Sunday we were both dragging all day after being up so late. At least Dan managed to sleep in later than I did. For some crazy reason I was up by 8 that morning. I will try to get up an abbreviated Saturday post later today. There isn’t much to share about Saturday other than a German inspired mushroom soup that was well received.

Happy thoughts:

• We both had a fabulous time Friday night. It was great to spend time with Walid, Jackie and the boys (Buddy and Skipper). There is nothing like spending time with friends.

• Saturday we were fortunate not to have anything pressing to do so that we could take it easy after so much fun Friday night. ;-)

• I am pleased with how the German inspired mushroom soup turned out on Saturday. Even though my husband and father both have German backgrounds I typically make my favorite Italian food. However I do like German flavors so I should make that more often if for no other reason variety.

• The farmers’ market was great Sunday morning. We are back to our usual routine of helping Rudy unload his truck. We came home with more plants for the herb and tea garden (basil and lemon balm) as well as leeks, baby collards, beets and organic hot house tomatoes. With the beets and collards I had to break out the juicer this morning. It is nice to be back into juicing season.

Signing out:

Since yesterday was extremely unproductive we have a lot to get done here today. I am hoping to get another post up about yesterday’s soup late today. At least I documented the recipe so I need to do now is the write the post. ;-)

If any of you want to follow me on Facebook send me an email at veganepicurean@gmail.com that way I will recognize your friend request. I hope you are having a great weekend. Talk to you again soon.

Wild Mushroom and Corn Lasagna and Miscellaneous Stuff

Since it is the weekend that means a mid-day meal with my elderly parents today. I have noticed that they seem to prefer cooked food to raw. Dan loves lasagna and because the weather was somewhat cool today I decided we could crank the oven up. Lasagna is a meal that everyone enjoys. I wanted to make a different version of lasagna for the one Dan loves which is posted here. I decided a simple mushroom and corn version would be good today.  I wish I had taken the time to let this cool longer before I sliced it. I am not happy with the photo above. But the taste is good which is more important.  I am working on not being so much of a perfectionist. ;-) Here is what I made this afternoon:

Wild Mushroom and Corn Lasagna
Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 cups mixed dried mushrooms
3 cups water
1 red onion, thinly sliced (allow to stand 10 minutes before cooking)
6 cloves garlic, finely minced (allow to stand 10 minutes before cooking)
6 whole wheat pasta noodles
14 ounces extra firm tofu, drained
2 tablespoons brown rice flour (any flour will do)
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
½ tablespoon dehydrated minced onions
1 cup frozen corn, defrosted
1/3 cup raw cashews, soaked for 30 minutes and drained
½ cup oats, ground into flour
strained mushroom soaking liquid from above
½ teaspoon thyme, dried
black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Combine the mushrooms and water and microwave until the water is hot. Allow the mushrooms to soak for 30 minutes. Then strain the mushrooms and cooking liquid. You want to make certain to capture any sediment from the dried mushrooms. You can use a strainer lined with two of three layers or cheesecloth, or damp paper towel. You can also use a chinois. Make certain the mushrooms are bite-sized pieces.

Cook the onions and garlic in a little mushroom cooking liquid (start with ¼ cup) until they are soft and starting to get brown. You may need to add a tablespoon of liquid while they cook if the water evaporates.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place a slice of aluminum foil across the longest sides of the loaf pan and bottom. You will use this foil as a sling to lift the lasagna out of the pan. The aluminum foil is optional but will make things easier. 

Cook the pasta noodles until they are approximately 75% done. You want them underdone so they absorb some of the mushroom sauce and provide additional structure to the lasagna.

In the food processor combine the tofu, flour, nutritional yeast and minced onions and process until mostly smooth. You will still have little bits of onions in the tofu filling. Stir the corn into the filling by hand so it remains whole.

In your blender grind the oats into flour, add the raw cashews and half of the mushroom cooking liquid. Process until everything is completely smooth. Pour this into the pot with the onions. Place the rest of the mushroom liquid in your blender to clean out the remaining ingredients. Pour this into the pot with the onions and simmer until you have a thick sauce. It should look like a thick béchamel, like you would use to make croquettes (the consistency of mayonnaise). It needs to be this thick so the lasagna will have some structure.

To assemble start with a little of the mushroom sauce about a ¼ cup spread across the base of a loaf pan. Layer in noodles, tofu with corn, mushrooms, sauce, noodles …… etc. I ended with tofu filling topped with mushrooms. Cover the loaf pan with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes.  Test the lasagna with a paring knife inserted in the center to confirm the noodles are fully cooked.

Cool for at least 15-20 minutes to make it easier to serve. Otherwise it will slide apart like mine did. My timing today wasn’t good so there wasn’t sufficient time to cool the lasagna before I needed to plate. But it still tasted good. ;-)

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories 302.05
Calories From Fat (30%) - 92.07

Total Fat - 10.07g
Saturated Fat - 1.3g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 18.87mg
Potassium - 393.04mg
Total Carbohydrates - 37.75g
Fiber - 4.99g
Sugar - 1.35g
Protein - 15.78g

Comments:

I intentionally kept the components of this on the light side (flavor wise) so that the mushrooms would be the star of the dish. This lasagna has a big mushroom flavor. If you like mushrooms you should enjoy this lasagna. My father really seemed to like this and didn’t even grab for the salt shaker. I would say this was a success. Dan and I would absolutely have this again.

Mexican Zucchini Salad:

To start the meal I made a quick salad as follows: Spiralized zucchini, thinly sliced red bell peppers, diced tomatoes, defrosted sweet corn, salsa, avocado, parsley and cashew crème fraiche. This was a start to our meal.

My spiral slicer:

I get a lot of questions about my spiral slicer. I don’t have a separate slicer mine is an attachment to my mandoline. I bought this a few years ago at Williams Sonoma. But have not seen it there since. It is a DeBuyer mandoline with a spiral cutting attachment if you want to look for one.

Breakfast this morning:

We had a bowl of tropical fruit salad this morning for breakfast which included fresh pineapple, kiwi and dragon fruit. Dan also had a bowl of oatmeal with wild blueberries, flaxseeds and walnuts.

I am posting the dragon fruit separately because I got an email asking how to open the dragon fruit. I cut the fruit in half top to bottom,pictured above.

Then you can peel the skin from the fruit and cut it into chunks. It has a very mild flavor. I buy it more for the color; I like the white flesh with black seeds. The tastes reminds me of a kiwi with the flesh being more firm

Dinner tonight:

Dan and I were just chatting about dinner. At the moment we have no idea what we are going to do. The weather is gorgeous and we are considering a little al fresco dining but with such a late lunch we won’t be hungry for hours.

Unrelated notes:

The weather has been so beautiful the last few days. We have been enjoying the fresh air in the house. It is such a treat to have the windows open in July. Typically the weather this time of the year is hot and humid.

Since I doubt you read the comments on the blog, I wanted to point out what great success Lolly is having with E2L. I am so thrilled for her. You can read her comments here. She is going to be updating her blog with results soon. I for one can’t wait to read the details. However having her blood pressure drop significantly and quickly is fantastic news. Go Lolly! I am so thrilled for you! For those of you on the fence on the health benefits of E2L Lolly is regaining her health and fast.  I am so impressed with her results so far and wanted to share the great news. 

Time for me to get a few things done around here and figure out what we are doing for dinner. I also need to make a list for the farmers’ market tomorrow. Talk to you all again soon.

Fresh Mangosteen and Gratuitous Cat Pic

I cracked into the fresh mangosteen a few days ago. I am sorry to report that they are just not worth the price. The skin is very thick and the fruit is small to begin with so you don’t get much from each piece. The taste is good, very reminiscent of a combination of peach, orange and cream.  The only problem is that there is very little fruit to eat.   Each mangsteen is two bites max.

Overall I would say they aren’t worth the price. Very depressing as I was looking forward to these. =(

If you decide to buy them you need a very sharp chef knife to get through the outer shell of the fruit.  It is much touger than anything else I have tried to "open".  I cut mine at the equator and tried going around the ouside so I could pop the shell off. That didn't work well since I didn't know how thick the shell was.

Unrelated note:

A fierce little summer thunderstorm rolled through about 30 minutes ago. The rain was so heavy the forecasters posted flash flood warnings. Only a few hours earlier today they were predicting a 40% chance of precipitation. Why is that whenever I listen to the forecast (and water the garden) it is always wrong? *rolls eyes*

Here is a rare picture of Massimo (aka Masi) with eyes open, in the window watching the storm (until I disturbed him that is). ;-)  My cats are saints for putting up with me, LOL.

Talk to you later.

Soup Tips and Breakfast

Yesterday Dan spent about 8 hours downtown at his office. *sniff sniff* Today he is working from home, which somehow makes it better. I like knowing he is at least in the house even if he is in his home office.

Soup Tips:

Dinner last night was nothing spectacular. I made a quick pot of red lentil and vegetable soup since it was rainy and gray. Plus the soup could cook while I did a little reading, an added bonus. If you have a slow cooker they are also great to use to make summer soup. I think we all sometimes overbuy veggies; soup is great for those times.

If you are trying to reduce your salt and fat consumption like we are I have a few tips. Add a little acid (lemon juice or vinegar) to your soup after you ladle it into your bowl. If you still think you need salt sprinkle a little sea salt on your portion. I also find that adding hot peppers seems to help reduce the need for salt. Adding a tablespoon of tomato paste also adds richness to soup that you can’t get from whole tomatoes and also seems to reduce the need for salt.

Farmers’ Market:

As usual we started our Sunday morning at the farmers’ market. I wanted to highlight what we bought and how much we spent since some of you are finding E2L to be cost prohibitive. Today we bought:

2 bunches kale
1 bunch collards
2 pounds beets
½ pound fresh ginger
1 pint nectarines
1 quart fava beans
2 pints blackberries
1 large watermelon
6 tomatoes
6 cucumbers
4 big zucchini
2 yellow squash
1 cabbage
1 quart Italian beans
1 bag mixed salad greens
1 bunch cilantro
2 large beets (for raw ravioli)

Part of that was our CSA share ($20 a week) and the remainder was purchased for $32. This $52 dollars of produce will last the two of us most of the week.  To give you an idea of volume it filled 4 reusable grocery bags. If you are having difficulty finding reasonably priced organic produce I highly recommend your local farmers’ market. Costco also carries quite a bit of organic produce which we make great use of in the winter.

Breakfast today:

After our early morning trip to the market we both wanted blackberries. We had a very simple fruit salad as follows:

Fruit Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 cantaloupe
2 cups black berries
½ cup blueberries

Directions:

Toss together and enjoy.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 176.42
Calories From Fat (6%) - 11.27

Total Fat - 1.35g
Saturated Fat - 0.17g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 45.96mg
Potassium - 998.11mg
Total Carbohydrates - 41.61g
Fiber - 10.99g
Sugar - 32.33g
Protein - 4.59g

Comments:

Sometimes you just want a fresh bowl of fruit and that was the mood we were in today. If you want to make this more “gourmet” you could add some fresh mint or a little cashew crème fraiche that you have sweetened with stevia. I also like my fruit salad with hulled hempseeds if you enjoy those.

Each serving of this fruit salad contains approximately 9,600IU of vitamin A, 135mg of vitamin C, 70mg of calcium, 1.5mg of iron, 2mg of vitamin E, 95mcg of folate, 40mcg of vitamin K, 75mg of phosphorus, and 65mg of magnesium.

Next recipe:

Surprise, surprise to go with the fruit salad we had another variation of fresh juice. This is the version that I seem to make most often. I suppose you could call it Dan’s favorite juice. Here is what we include:

Dan’s Favorite Juice with Beet
Serves 3

Ingredients:

½ pound of baby organic spinach
2 kale leaves
10 carrots
2 apples
1 lemon
2 inches fresh ginger
3 stalks celery
2 medium beets

Directions:

Run everything through your juicer and pour into a cold glass. As usual I used glasses that I store in the freezer just for our morning juice.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 214.27
Calories From Fat (6%) - 12.08

Total Fat - 1.51g
Saturated Fat - 0.24g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 311.54mg
Potassium - 1742.25mg
Total Carbohydrates - 51.58g
Fiber 0.00g**
Sugar - 25.08g
Protein - 6.83g
**manually zeroed out

Comments:

We both really like this juice. It is slightly sweet but not in an overwhelming way. I would say it tastes fresh and is very refreshing. It has a little kick from the fresh ginger and tartness from the lemon. We think it is good mix of flavors.

Each serving of this juice contains approximately 55,800IU of vitamin A, 100mg of vitamin C, 240mg of calcium, 3.9mg of iron, 3.6mg of vitamin E, 0.7mg of vitamin B6, 250mcg of folate, 600mcg of vitamin K, 180mg of phosphorus, and 120mg of magnesium. This is why I love fresh juice. You really can’t beat the nutritional value.

Unrelated notes:

It was wonderful yesterday to get a temporary break from the heat and we really needed the rain. The farmers this morning the farmers were all talking about how much we needed the rain. However, today the temperatures are supposed to go back to the mid 90’s. This means I want cold food today. The soup I made yesterday may end up the freezer.

Today I will be making something with spiralized zucchini for the meal with my parents. I don’t know what that means yet, but that is what I am thinking now. At the moment I am torn better pesto, Mexican and Asian. I suppose I need to figure it out soon. *rolls eyes*

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Talk to you again soon.

Strawberry and Banana Sorbet

I hope you all had a great evening and your Wednesday is starting out fairly well. I wanted to post a quick recipe before I started my day since it is going to be a busy one.

Last night after dinner we were still a little hungry. After realizing how few calories we had eaten I decided to make a quick frozen dessert. Both Dan and I like strawberries and bananas so I decided to combine the two to make a quick healthy dessert. Here is what I did:

Strawberry and Banana Sorbet
Serves 2

Ingredients:

4 cups frozen strawberries
1 cup frozen banana pieces (this is approximate)
1 cup water, or what is necessary to process the frozen fruit
Cinnamon, to taste
Stevia, to taste, if extra sweetness is desired

Directions:

Place everything in your high powered blender and process until smooth. It does help to place the bananas in the base of the blender. Taste and adjust the sweetness and flavorings as you like. In the past we would have added a sweetener to this but we don’t find that necessary now. Serve immediately, preferably in chilled bowls.

If you don’ t have a high powered blender try allowing the fruit to defrost a little before blending so you don’t burn up your blender. I burned up the motor of at least 5 blenders with frozen fruit smoothies before I bought my Vitamix so I do know these types of recipes are hard on blenders. You may also want to consider starting this in the food processor and finishing it in the blender to be kinder to your blender.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 164.03
Calories From Fat (6%) - 9.62

Total Fat - 1.16g
Saturated Fat - 0.13g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 7.35mg
Potassium - 734.81mg
Total Carbohydrates - 40.48g
Fiber - 8.03g
Sugar - 24.04g
Protein - 2.85g

Comments:

If you like fruit you will enjoy this dessert. It is fresh and light and tastes great to us. It reminds me of strawberry banana yogurt which used to be a favorite of mine.

Each serving of this dessert contains approximately 185mg of vitamin C and 55 mg of calcium.

Unrelated Notes:

Today I had planned on trying to get things accomplished around the house. However my hubby has had a horrible headache since last night and will be staying home at least part of the day. The world at our house stops when my husband doesn’t feel well. He isn’t accustomed to feeling sick and he likes attention when he is ill. Something tells me some of you can relate to this. Since he is generally very low maintenance I don’t mind that he likes the attention. It is actually sort of cute, but don’t tell him that, I don’t want to encourage bad behavior. ;-) 

I will be back later with a dinner update.  As the weather gets warmer I seem to gravitate more toward raw food. It is a safe bet that dinner may be something raw again tonight. I don’t have any particular recipe in mind, just a general desire for raw food.

Fall Wheat Berry and Fruit Salad

There is something about knowing that I am suppose to keep my grain servings to 1 cup a day that has had me thinking about nothing but carby goodness. Since wheat berries are the healthiest carb I can think of I decided to start a batch of wheat berries having no idea how I was going to use them. Then I remembered the apple and celery salad I made this weekend and wanted to make something similar, yet different. This salad turned into something that was healthy that I also really enjoyed. Here is what I made.

Fall Wheat Berry and Fruit Salad
Makes 7 – 1 cup servings

Ingredients:

1 cup hard winter wheat berries
4 cups water
1 pinch sea salt (approximately 1/8 teaspoon)
1 cinnamon stick
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
4 tablespoons apple cider
3 apple, diced (amounts to approximately 3 cups)
1 cup celery, finely minced
¼ cup currants
½ tablespoons celery seeds
salt and pepper, to taste
chopped walnuts for garnish, optional

Directions:

Combine the wheat berries, water, salt and cinnamon stick in a heavy pot (I used an enameled 2 quart Le Creuset) and bring the water to a boil. When the water is boiling reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for an hour before you taste them for texture. The berries will take between one and two hours to achieve a nice chewy texture. I prefer mine chewier so I cook them about an hour and a half. I have friends that cook them as long as two hours. I encourage you to taste them after an hour. You may need to add more water at the one-hour mark. I try to make certain the wheat berries are covered by at least one inch of water while they are cooking. If you want the wheat berries finished faster you can use a pressure cooker. Those instructions are given here.

When the wheat berries are the texture you desire drain them thoroughly in a wire sieve. Place the wheat berries a large mixing bowl and add the apple cider vinegar and the apple cider. The warm wheat berries will absorb the dressing better than cool or cold wheat berries.

Once the wheat berries have cooled add the apples, raisin, currants, and celery seed and toss to combine. Taste the salad for seasoning and add salt and pepper as desired. As the salad sits in the refrigerator the flavors will begin to blend. It was definitely better after 3 hours under refrigeration.

When you are ready to serve, walnuts can be added if you wish.

Nutritional Information (without optional walnuts):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 151.14
Calories From Fat (5%) - 7.1

Total Fat - 0.86g
Saturated Fat - 0.13g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 61.79mg
Potassium - 271.28mg
Total Carbohydrates - 34g
Fiber - 6.51g
Sugar - 10.07g
Protein - 4.87g

Comments:

This salad is more savory than sweet, but definitely has background sweetness from the apples, currants and apple cider. Celery is the predominant flavor in the dish. This salad would also be good with a mayonnaise based dressing if you like your grain salads creamy.

Each serving of this salad contains a little less than a ½ cup of cooked wheat berries (specifically 3/7th of a cup for those following eat to live) and has approximately 19.5 mcg of selenium.

Unrelated note:

I am off now to start work on dinner. My recipe for dinner we be posted either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Healthy Yet Unorthodox Breakfast

Since I have been rereading “Eat To Live” (E2L) last night I was reminded of some of the bad habits I tend to fall back into. Primarily I am a grain addict. I love anything made with grain. Oatmeal is our normal breakfast, another grain. Since Doctor Fuhrman wants you to have a maximum of one cup of grains or starchy veggies per day on the six week plan I knew the oatmeal needed to go for the next 6 weeks. Additionally I tend not to always eat my four fruit servings a day that he recommends so I wanted to make certain I got some fruit this morning. What did we have for breakfast? Believe it or not we had a fruit and green salad. Weird? Yes, but it was good. Here is what I made.

Healthy Apple, Clementine and Arugula Salad with Miso Dressing
Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 ½ tablespoons miso
1 ½ tablespoon mirin
4 apples, cored and sliced
2 clementine, segmented
4 cups arugula
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
2 tablespoon walnuts

Directions:

Whisk the miso and mirin together. Add the apples to the dressing and toss to coat. The vinegar keeps the apples from oxidizing. Now add the clementine segments and arugula and toss to combine. Serve the salad with the cranberries and walnuts on top.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 391.39
Calories From Fat (15%) - 57.18

Total Fat - 7.09g
Saturated Fat - 0.72g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 497.02mg
Potassium - 731.59mg
Total Carbohydrates - 88.05g
Fiber - 12.13g
Sugar - 37.28g
Protein - 5.03g

Comments:

I made the miso dressing without the nut oil since E2L doesn’t advocate adding oil. The dressing without nut oil is acceptable. It is better with the oil, but I can do without it for 6 weeks. Who knows, maybe I will get used to it and not need to add oil when the 6 weeks is over.

Since I omitted the nut oil I wanted to add a few walnuts to the salad this morning for flavor. Once I did this I remembered that I am suppose to have a maximum of 1 ounce of nuts per day. It looks like I just had my daily allotment of nuts with breakfast. I won’t make that mistake again. From now on I need to remember to have my 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseeds with my morning fruit.

On the positive side I did get in little more than 2 and ½ of the 4 fruit servings I am suppose to eat everyday on this plan. Since eating fruit with breakfast worked well I am going to focus on having it each morning.

Overall this worked well and I feel satisfied. I plan to use the miso and mirin dressing for the next 6 weeks as my primary salad dressing. I also think that fruit salads or fruit smoothie are going to be showing up a lot for breakfast. I prefer the chew of the fruit but smoothies will be nice sometimes for variety.

Unrelated Note:

I am off to cook a pot of beans now so I have those ready for the plan. Since the doctor recommends one cup of beans a day at a minimum I know this is something that I need to make a few varieties of and stash in the freezer since I don’t buy canned beans.

I hope you all have a great day. With a little luck I will make something interesting for lunch that I can share later.

Fresh Berries, Matfool and Arugula Salad

The weather is still cool and gray here. It is one of those days when all you want to do is curl up on the sofa with a warm throw, a mug of hot tea and a good book. This type of weather is much more conducive to a nap than doing anything productive.

When it was time for lunch today I was feeling more than a little uninspired. I wish I could say I always love to cook and have ideas in my head but that is not the case. I started lunch while the hubby ran to Whole Foods to pick up more miso since we were almost out. When I looked in the refrigerator there were fresh berries staring back at me waiting to be used. I had just made a berry salad on Thursday so I wanted to make something a little different today. Opening the pantry the matfool was right in front. This is how lunch was born.

If you are unfamiliar with matfool it is a large grain couscous. It looks to me like toasted Israeli couscous. It is soaked in hot water and plumps quickly. I tend to use it in cold salads but it would also work hot. I have found matfool at both Middle Eastern and Mediterranean markets.

Arugula was used as the salad base because it is a member of the cruciferous vegetable family and has the same benefits as broccoli. Walnuts were included for their healthy omega 3 fats. I used raspberry vinegar as a counterpoint to the sweetness of the berries. Miso was added to empty the container and to provide a little salty sweetness. Honestly, I couldn’t taste the miso in the final dressing. If you like the taste of miso add more to your dressing. Here is what I made for lunch today.

Fresh Berries, Matfool and Arugula Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:

½ cup matfool
1 cup water
1 ½ tablespoons raspberry vinegar
½ walnut oil
½ teaspoon miso
2 cups arugula, chopped into bite sized pieces
½ cup strawberries, hulled and cut into quarters
½ cup blueberries
¼ cup raspberries
¼ cup toasted walnuts

Directions:

Combine the matfool and water and heat in the microwave until hot. Allow to stand for at least 10 minutes so the toasted pasta (matfool) softens. When the pasta is soft, drain the excess water and rinse with cold water to cool the pasta.

Combine the dressing ingredients (vinegar, oil and miso) and whisk to combine. Add the matfool and toss to coat it in the dressing.

Place the arugula in the bottom of a bowl. Top the greens with matfool, followed by the fresh berries and then the nuts.

Serve cold.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 434.21
Calories From Fat (45%) - 196.02

Total Fat - 23.3g
Saturated Fat - 2.2g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 68.25mg
Potassium - 399.29mg
Total Carbohydrates - 49.28g
Fiber - 7.15g
Sugar - 7.41g
Protein - 11.36g

Comments:

This salad is sweet from the berries, tart from the vinegar, and bitter from the arugula. Matfool was added to the salad to absorb the dressing and provide a few additional calories.

Having the fat from the nuts in this salad made it very satisfying. Both the hubby and I were full for 5 hours after lunch.