Lemony White Bean and Kale Soup

I haven’t been posting many recipes lately so I thought I should get one on the blog today. Here is the soup that I made for dinner on Saturday.

Lemony White Bean and Kale Soup
Serves 6 – as an entrée

Ingredients:

2 cups dried great northern beans
8 ½ cups water
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, minced (or substitute ¾ tablespoon dried)
approximately ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (depending on how much heat you want)
1 red onion, peeled and finely diced
no-salt seasoning to taste (I used about ½ tablespoon)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ - ¾ cups whole grain soup pasta (I used ½ cup of pasta)
8 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 bunch kale, finely shredded (approximately 6 cups shredded)
2 lemons, zested and juiced

Directions:

Combine the sorted and rinsed dried beans with the water and bay leaves. Pressure cook on high for 25 minutes. Allow the pressure to reduce naturally then add the rosemary, crushed red pepper, red onion, no-salt seasoning and cook until the onion is soft. Now add the pasta and garlic to the soup and cook until the pasta is al dente (mine took 8 minutes). You may need to add more water to the pot before you add the pasta depending on how much evaporated. Turn off the heat and add the kale and stir it into the soup. Add the lemon zest and juice to each serving.

Friday:

Now that the obligatory recipe is out the way let me fill you in on what we have been up to lately. Friday morning started with a quick trip to Tuesday Morning to pick up a space heater for Dan’s man cave, otherwise known as his third floor home office. We don’t normally venture out on Black Friday but a very similar heater to the one we bought for the boat was on sale for 60% of list price so we had to go pick it up.

While we were there a 5 cup rice cooker happened to jump into the cart on us. I picked it up for the boat to facilitate cooking when we are there. As soon as we got home I made some quinoa in the rice cooker to test it out and all systems were a go. Rice cookers can be used to cook not only rice but quinoa, bulgur, millet, steel cut oats, soup or to steam veggies. Not bad for such a compact appliance I thought.

We ended up having a salad for breakfast. I know that is a bit unorthodox but it is filling and nutrient dense so why not?

After a few other errands (which included new glasses for me which I will show up as soon as I get a picture that I like) we stopped to see Ian and the gang for lunch. Fortunately we had made reservations because there were still people waiting to be seated at 2pm. According to Ian to say lunch was busy was an understatement.

Janine knows us well so she started us a pot of green tea before she asked what we wanted to drink. The only question was hot or cold tea not what beverage. Are we predictable or what? ;-)

We ordered a cup and bowl of black bean and tomato soup which I know from experience is always vegan here, and it was. This is my cup of soup.

We had a big salad for breakfast (yes we do often eat salad for breakfast) so we weren’t terribly hungry after the soup. We asked the guys to make us a salad of mixed greens, fruit (they used grapefruit, orange, granny smith apple and pear), drizzle with balsamic glaze and finish with nuts (they used walnuts). Dan and I split this and we were completely content.

Next we went to the marina to get started winterizing the boat. I was nothing more than moral support during this process. I made us hot tea, took pictures of the beautiful day, made notes in the boat maintenance log and changed the music CDs. Dan knows from experience that I am anti-mechanical so he only lets me hand him tools.

By the time we arrived at home it was late (almost 10pm) and I was ravenous. Since there wasn’t much cooked in the refrigerator I decided to make us salad for dinner. This is my idea of fast food which took me literally less than 5 minutes. This salad included: arugula, baby spinach, cooked quinoa from the frig, salsa, marinated mushrooms, roasted peppers and onions from the frig, avocado and no-salt seasoning. Simple, easy, tasty and ready to eat in mere minutes. These are the sorts of things I make when I am ravenous and don’t have much in the way of intentional leftovers.

Happy Thoughts:

I have had a few people ask me why I include the happy thoughts section on the blog and the reason is very simple. It is too easy to focus on the guy who cut you off in traffic, the rude person in the store, or things that are going wrong. However if we focus on the positive things that happen every day it reminds us that life isn’t all bad. I hope by reading my happy thoughts it reminds you to reflect on what went right in your life.

• The weather this weekend was been nothing short of magnificent. Friday we reached 72 degrees and people were eating outside. Saturday and Sunday it was also over 70 degrees. How often does that happen after Thanksgiving?

• My father is healing nicely and now feels comfortable going up and down steps though I am trying to encourage him not to do that much. But he is a man so I am sure you can imagine what has been happening. ;-)

• We were able to get the first Christmas tree up and lit.  This 9 foot spiral topiary tree is old but I still love it. It still needs to be decorated but since the lights take the longest I feel like we made good progress.

• It took three long days to winterize the sailboat but that is done now. Needless to say we are both relieved to have that crossed off our list. It is always good to have one last thing to worry about.

• While we weren’t able to cross off everything on our to-do list we did knock off the critical items. The remaining items can wait until next weekend or beyond.

Signing out:

After a day on the liquid diet I am looking forward to the end of today. If you have time please keep us in your thoughts tomorrow morning. We both appreciate all the prayers, love, light or anything else positive you believe in. I will be back as soon as I can but probably not before this coming weekend. Talk with you again soon. *fingers crossed*

Fats 101: the First in a Series

I had the idea for this post when I posted a link on Facebook for an article that was discussing the impact of essential fatty acids (EFAs) on Alzheimer’s risk. As soon as I posted it I realized that EFA’s (omega 3’s and 6’s) is one of those topics where there is a lot of conflicting information so no one knows what to believe. I knew this because I have been that confused person. As I have told you many times I have no “formal” science training unless you count the e-Cornell certificate which I don’t think counts. When I was in college in my teens and twenties the only “science” courses I had was computer science (which doesn’t count) and statistics (only related on the periphery).

Given my educational background once I realized that cancer and I needed to have a show down I felt a bit ill equipped for the battle. I taught myself what I know about science and believe me I struggled tremendously in the beginning. There were actually times when I was tears because I was so confused and I knew that I needed to “get it”. Believe me you don’t want to be under the gun like I was trying to learn something that is unlike everything else you have been taught. My quest to understand nutrition, health and science began in early 2004 and now I am finally starting to feel very comfortable that I have a good solid understanding of the basics. I realize that I know more about nutrition and health than most people but I am still a work in process and probably always will be. I also know that is much more for me to learn, but at least I have a solid foundation to build on now. *whew* Essential fatty acids were tough for me so I want to break it down for you so that you get it too.

Initially I had planned to write about EFAs in one post and be done. However once I started writing I realized that is a big topic that should be broken down into smaller bite-sized chunks to make it easier for everyone to digest (pun intended). I am not doing anyone any good if I throw out a lot of information but it doesn’t make complete sense. Instead you will be a seeing a number of posts on this topic that will build on each other. Hopefully that approach will make this subject click for everyone. As you are reading this series of posts if anything doesn’t make sense or you want clarification let me know. I really want everyone to get his because I think it is vital to our collective health. Ok here goes nothing. ;-)

Fats:

What are fats? What makes fat different from protein, or carbohydrates? Do you know? Well if you do you are much better at this than I was back in 2004. ;-) Fats (aka lipids) are a macronutrient that is very energy dense (in other words it contains a lot of calories 9 per gram to be exact compared to 4 per gram for carbs and protein and 7 per gram for alcohol). Lipids are insoluble (don’t mix well) with water. Fats are made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The major fats that we carry are: fatty acids, triglycerides, phospholipids and sterols. I will explain all of these during my “fat series”.

Fats are formed by a chain of carbon atoms. These carbon atoms are linked to hydrogen by chemical bonds. These carbon chains have two ends one is the alpha end and the other is the omega end. The alpha end of the chain contains the carboxylic acid group and the other end contains the methyl group. The omega system is a naming convention that tells you where the first double bond is located relative to the methyl end of the molecule. Specifically for an omega 3 fatty acid the first double bond is located between the third and fourth carbons from the omega end of the chain. Simple right?

Saturated versus Unsaturated:

Omega 3’s and omega-6’s are both unsaturated fatty acids. We can spot an unsaturated fatty acid easily because they are more liquid at room temperature. Saturated and unsaturated are chemistry terms which only refer to whether the carbons in the chain are fully saturated with hydrogen. In other words every position on the carbon chain is filled by hydrogen. In an unsaturated fatty acid there will be at least one carbon-carbon double bond in the backbone of the chain.

Cis and Trans Double Bonds:

You also need to know that unsaturated fats can have either cis or trans double bonds. This refers to the way the hydrogen atoms are arranged at the carbon-carbon double bonds on the chain. Cis double bonds are natural but trans double bonds are man-made. I wanted to point this out so that you knew that man-made trans fats are unsaturated but that doesn’t make them healthy. You need to read ingredient labels to make sure that you don’t see any “partially hydrogenated” fats in the ingredient list. Does the term hydrogenated make more sense now? Remember earlier we discussed that saturated and unsaturated is related to the hydrogen on the carbon chains?

Short-chain and Long-chain:

When you read about short or long-chain fatty acids all this really refers to is the length of the carbon chain. Fatty acids with fewer than 8 carbons are called short-chain. Those with 8-12 carbons are medium-chain and those with more than 12 carbons are long-chains.

Chain length has an impact on both the melting and boiling points of fat. The short-chain omega fats have lower melting and boiling points. Additionally short-chain fats are more water-soluble. Since humans are mostly water short-chain fats are easier for us to absorb.

Specific Fatty Acids:

There are a number of fatty acids and each has its own name. These fatty acids are:

palmitoleic acid – omega 7
oleic acid – omega 9
linoleic acid – omega 6
linolenic acid – omega 3
arachidonic acid – omega 6
eicosapentaenic acid (EPA) – omega 3
docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) – omega 3

Of these omega acids only two are essential which only means that the body cannot make them and therefore we need to consume them. These are linoleic and linolenic acid. Why can’t the body make these two? For some reason the body can not add a double bond in a fatty acid chain prior to the ninth carbon from the methyl end. The body can use the linoleic to make longer-chain arachidonic acid. Additionally we can turn linolenic into longer-chain EPA an DHA though conversion rates vary.

There is a lot more to learn about fats but I think this is a good place to stop for today. Tomorrow I will talk more about omega 3 and 6 fatty acids and how this relates to inflammation and why you need to balance your intake. Don’t forget to let me know if any of this in unclear since this is the basics that we are going to build on with future posts.

Friday:

It rained most of the morning and early afternoon and I was not looking forward to running errands in the rain. Typically I would not refer to myself as a girly girl but I really hate rain messing up my makeup (assuming I have bothered to wear it that is).

Anyway I checked on my parent late morning and started running errands for Dan and me. I had an entire reusable grocery bag of books, CDs and DVDs to return to the library. I know, I know, I am not right. One of the CDs was a day late so I had to pay a fine. It was a biggie, $0.25. Since the books don’t get checked instantly when you drop them off I distracted myself a five minutes looking at the new releases. I told myself that I still had 7 books at home that I was reading so I didn’t need any more. Who can read 7 books in three weeks? Needless to say I have no self control when it comes to reading and I came out for 4 more books. I swear that I need help when it comes to reading. Maybe I need to start “Over Readers Anonymous”. LOL

After the library I headed for the boat because we had left the thru-hull opening for the sink in the opened position. For those of you that don’t boat there are literally holes on the bottom of boats for water to enter and exit. Some are for the engine, air conditioning, sinks, etc. We only had the sink drain opened last night but we both forgot to close it. While it probably wouldn’t have been a problem it was still a good idea to close the valve just to be safe.

I wasn’t at the boat long so I only had time to put a few finishing touches on this post, upload and drink some green tea. However I would much rather be on the computer at the boat than at home so I am not complaining.

This evening we are going to see David Sanborn in Annapolis. I have my “real” camera with me tonight and will try to get a few good shots. I have been a fan of David Sanborn for years so I am really looking forward to tonight.

Happy thoughts:

• The morning and early afternoon rain is already starting to clear up and I can see quite a bit of blue sky trying to peek through the clouds. *woo hoo* The weather people may actually be right about this weekend. :-)

• I picked up a few interesting books at the library today and am looking forward to reading those soon. I am such an information junky it isn’t funny. ;-)

• It is starting to feel a lot of sweater season here and that meant I got to wear a cute red Calvin Klein long sleeve sweater that I picked up a Marshall’s marked down to $19.99. As you can tell I really love a good bargain. For those of you who share my bargain hunting passion find a Marshall’s, Ross or TJ Maxx in a neighborhood that serves a different demographic. When you do you will shocked but what great finds you can pick up.

Signing Out:

I need to rush and get this uploaded before I drive to Dan’s office to pick him up for the concert. I hope you have something fun planned for this weekend too. Talk with you again soon, hopefully tomorrow. I seem to be back on a roll with daily posts. Let’s hope I can keep this up for a while. ;-)

Will’s Last Day – Boo Hoo

In case you hadn’t noticed we are practically part of the family at the restaurant probably because we are there so often. ;-) This is what happens when you go to a restaurant multiple times per week I assume. We are there so often that we introduce ourselves to new employees. It is definitely not your standard restaurant and customer relationship to say the least. Of course we had to go to dinner for Will’s last day at the restaurant. We will definitely be in contact with Will in the future. Since Will is also a big fan of Jose Andres we will need to make a pilmigrage to DC for dinner some evening soon. Just because Will is no longer at the restaurant doesn’t mean we won’t see him.

For our “last meal” Will made recipes just for us for the last time (so sad). :-(  The first dish was a salad of cucumber, carrot and red bell pepper in a spicy Asian sauce.

The second course was avocado slices with a black bean, tomato and corn salsa.

The last course was a pomegranate molasses roasted tomatoes and asparagus on a whole wheat flat bread.

We stuck around until Will was ready to leave to chat for a little while and met his lady friend Becca which was nice. Turns out his girl friend Becca is also a sailor which gave us something to chat about besides Will. :-)  It was very sad for us to see Will leave the restaurant but we also know that he needs to be exposed to other chefs to broaden his experience. 

However on the upside, and there always is one, that means Ian will be making more "special" dishes for us in the future. It is tough to be sad about that.  :-)  Ian is so incredibility talented so I love to see what the flavor combinations he comes up with.  Yes I know we are spoiled and we both appreciate it.  The restaurant is really our home away from home.

Happy Thoughts:

• Although my week has been crazy hectic it has also been good. I loved spending Monday and Tuesday with Dan joining him for the “road trip” portion of his meetings. There really is nothing better than spending most of 4 days with my sweetie pie.

• Wednesday was a good day but also busy. I went to cooking class which was a lot of fun as usual and before that I stopped at DSW for shoes. There are few things that get me more jazzed than shoes. Aren’t these Anne Klein flats adorable? Since purple and pink are my favorite colors these were meant for me so I bought them.

• Tomorrow I am meeting my girlfriend Deirdre for lunch which I am very jazzed about. I haven’t mentioned this before but my girlfriend moved from Annapolis close to us a couple weeks ago. Needless to say I am looking forward to seeing her much more often. Hopefully tomorrow will be the first of many girls’ lunches. :-)

• It was nice to not have to rush out the door this morning. I loved being able to take my time exercising. Who said that? LOL

Signing out:

It is almost 11pm and I have only been home for about 30 minutes. Sorry this post is so short but once again I have run out of time. Whenever people say they would be bored if they retired as young as I did I wonder how that can be since I rarely have any free time.

Tomorrow should be a little less hectic. My plan is to translate that extra time into a nice long post. Talk to you again tomorrow. I hope you week is going as well as mine has been.

Who Stole the Last Week of My Life?

Hey guys how have you been? Life here has been a little crazy but in a good way. However all the excitement hasn’t left me any time to blog. I have managed to do some posting on Facebook, so if you aren’t following me there please do. Since it is much quicker to post of Facebook that is why I have been able to work that into my day even when I didn’t have time to blog.

For those of you that are local I wanted to highlight a few shopping locations nearby. Last week there was a little grocery shopping in Columbia. Grocery shopping? Believe me it isn’t what you think. ;-) My friend Sue introduced me to two international markets about a month ago so I took Dan there before our raw dinner at Great Sage last week. I know it doesn’t sound much like a date but since we both love this stuff so it worked for us.

Nazar Middle Eastern Market
6955 Oakland Mills Road #A
Columbia, MD 21045

The first market we stopped at was Nazar which specializes in Middle Eastern food. If you like unusual food items this is a great local place to check out.

They have a nice variety of spices which I love. I found grape molasses here which I bought and have no idea how to use yet. Look for the bulgur in various grinds from fine to coarse. They also carry cardamom black tea and even fermented carrot juice. This is one of those places that you need to give yourself some time to explore. The store isn’t big but they carry some very unusual ingredients that you don’t want to miss.

Lily’s Mexican Market
6490 Dobbin Rd
Columbia, MD 21045

Lily’s also has a nice selection of spices particularly dried chilies.

They also have some unusual varieties of dried beans. This is the store where I found the canned cuitlacoche (corn fungus) that I talked about a while back. It is very close to Nazar so I go to both stores when I am in Columbia.

Roots
5805 Clarksville Square Drive
Clarksville, MD 21029

Roots is what a local natural/health food store should be. If you are heading to Great Sage for dinner make time to stop at Roots. The store is impeccably clean, well stocked, and much bigger than most health food stores.

They also have a nice gluten free aisle with items that I haven’t seen anywhere else. I stocked up on raw nuts and seeds this last trip. If we lived closer I would do a lot more shopping here.

My week:

I have spent very little time at home over the last week. Additionally when I have been at home I have been swamped with work. So much for a relaxing and peaceful retirement I guess! ;-) Even though I have been busy it has all been in a good way. I will be telling you more about it in future posts. There has to be some mystery and anticipation right?

Our weather has been beautiful lately and my broken toe is basically healed so I have been starting my mornings outside each day. I love being outside, getting a little sun, breathing the fresh air and listening to the birds. If I knew mornings were this nice I may have given up my night owl ways decades ago. Okay maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but I am really learning to like mornings. Who said that? LOL

Here are a few random pictures I took the last week to share with you. I am very fortunate to have such a beautiful area outside my door.

How to Get Started Changing Your Diet?:

This is the most common question I get by email. Typically people will say something like “they would love to eat like we do but it is overwhelming so they don’t start.” This is normally followed by "how did we make the change". Those of you that have been reading a long time know the answer to these questions. However since I still get these questions I wanted to make sure that everyone knew the answers

First Dan and I have not always been vegan or even vegetarian. In fact we were very adventurous omnivores for the majority of our lives. I will spare you the details but just know that we had no food rules until we became vegan and that will give you some idea of our prior diet. Toss into the mix a chef friend and you imagine the things we used to eat. We were those people that would eat anything and everything. I look back on that now and I am glad I had the experience to become familiar with so many unusual flavors and textures. However I also can’t imagine ever going back and that is still amazing to me.

While the food we used to eat was delicious it wasn’t healthy for us or the planet. I can honestly say that I was brainwashed by the media into believing that everything in moderation was the way to go. Funny I look at that now and can’t believe I ever fell for that idea. If someone told me a little arsenic wouldn’t hurt me would I have believed that too? Of course I wouldn’t so why did I think the same thing about food? Easy, because I wanted it to be true and didn’t bother to educated myself. The bottom line was that I didn’t want to give up meat, dairy, sugar, or baked goods.

After I threw myself into nutrition research there was no going back. Initially I didn’t believe what I was reading could be true. Being a true skeptic I researched everything that seemed outrageous to me. I used PubMed to try to refute what I was reading. The problem with that was the more I read the more I realized that I had been deceived by the mainstream media. However I was still reading things from well respected “scientists” that everything in moderation was fine. It took me some time to reconcile this in my mind. Eventually I understood that sugar, fat and salt were addictive and this fact explained to me why people (even scientists) are reluctant to make drastic dietary changes.

I can honestly say that if we hadn’t been faced with a crisis (cancer) I don’t know for certain that we would have had sufficient motivation to make such dramatic changes. In retrospect I wish we had made these lifestyle shifts long ago. There is something about a crisis that spurs people to act and we were no exception. The biggest problem we had wasn’t the dietary shift decision rather it was what to eat. For the first six months I struggled to figure out how to feed ourselves. In fact that is one of the reasons why I started the blog. I had such a tough time sticking to this way of eating because I had no idea how to cook without (or with little) oil, salt, etc. Flavor was important to us but so was health. If you go back and look at my earlier recipes you will see that they are not as healthy as my food now. That is because as I learn more our diet improves. It also because the longer we eat this way the more our palates adjust and change which is a very good thing.

When we were new vegans I spent a lot of time looking for recipes to use. The problem was most of the ones I found used oil, sugar, flour, and processed foods (commercial faux dairy, mock meat, etc.). While those foods are vegan they aren’t what I consider healthy now. Initially I used some of these items until we were both ready to give up versions of our favorite foods.

Many of you have asked how we are able to stick to this “austere” diet. There are many reasons that this works for us. Both Dan and I feel great on this diet and that helps us to keep going. Our respective blood pressure is better than it has been in 30 years. My blood pressure is typically in the 95/55 range and I am 49 years old so that is miraculous in my mind. By point of comparison my blood pressure was typically 125/85 before we changed our diet. We both have unmedicated total cholesterol levels below 200 and Dan’s used to be in the mid 250’s. Blood glucose levels are something else that are not a concern since we our fasting levels range between the mid 70’s and low 80’s. When we go to the internist our lab results in general are excellent for people our age. My seasonal allergies that I struggled with for over 20 years have completely disappeared. This may not sound like a big deal but it is huge for me. When I was an omnivore for 6 months out of the year I took Sudafed every four hours to keep my allergies under control. I haven’t had a Sudafed in years and my symptoms are gone. One of my favorite unexpected side effects has to do with my skin. About 6 months after we cleaned up our diet people started remarking that our skin looked so great and what were we doing? Honestly I hadn’t even noticed this one since the change was subtle but I am very happy with my skin now.

Dan and I are only two people so I have no idea if all of these things will happen for you, but I suspect most of them will based on what I have read. I am sharing our experience to give you something to think about. Long ago I read something about human behavior that I never forget. In essence it said that if you continue to behave the same way you will also continue to get the same results. That may seem obvious but from the behavior I see most people they don’t get it.

I will give you an example so it makes more sense. A friends of mine are concerned about heart health so they are trying to clean up their diet. The problem is the family doctor did these good people an injustice by saying that the heart problems are genetic. What do you imagine my friend’s reaction was? If you guessed they were a little demotivated you are correct. My friend’s diet is better than most of America but still includes small amounts of like meat, chicken, fish, oil and dairy. As you may also guess the results of this approach haven’t been stellar either. It pains me to see things like this because I feel certain that Dr. Esselstyn’s approach would work for my friends. However I am also certain that because of their doctor’s comment that the problem is genetic Dr. Esselstyn’s approach probably won’t seriously be tried. If you have been reading me a while you know it kills me to keep my mouth shut because I care. I want so desperately to help but I have finally come to realize that people have to want to be helped otherwise there is nothing I can do. *sigh*

People develop powerful connections to food that still confuse me to this day. There are so many other things in life that are much more important to me, like living, that I don’t understand why people resist change. I wish that I could bottle how I feel so that people would understand the impact of a healthy diet and lifestyle. As someone who lived the standard American life for most of her life I can tell you that nothing tastes better than being healthy feels. Maybe one day more people will know that feeling. At least I hope they will and I plan to continue to share my story as long as I can.

Happy Thoughts:

This past week has been crazy but it has also been amazing. Both Dan and I have a great week and have many things to be thankful for. I am going to hold back a little so I have more to write about tomorrow.

• I am grateful for everyday that I get to spend with my wonderful husband. He is the center of my universe and the most important person in my world. The best decision I ever made was to marry him. I hope that all of you have someone in your lives that loves you unconditionally flaws and all. It really is a fantastic feeling knowing that I am loved and cherished exactly as I am.

• Our weather has been gorgeous lately and I am enjoying it immensely. I have been about to get back outside every morning and that is the perfect way to start my day. I love being out in nature, hearing the birds sing and smelling the flowers. I am also very thankful that my seasonal allergies are long gone so that I can enjoy the outdoors without medication and/or clogged sinuses.

• I am thankful for my friend Laura Jill you urged me to dive into Facebook. I will admit that it seemed a little daunting at first. However having the Facebook page allowed me to keep in contact when I didn’t have time to blog and that was wonderful. Otherwise I would have been much more antsy not posting anything to the blog. For those of you that don’t have Facebook it is very easy to use if I can figure it out on my own. LOL

• We have a new addition to the family which I will tell you more about later. Dan and I are both thrilled and looking forward to getting our new “baby” home. Preparing for the arrival of the new family member has been keeping us very busy. However I expect things to settle down soon.

• I am thrilled that today is Friday and that means the weekend is almost here. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so we can enjoy some time outside this weekend. I am thinking a picnic by the bay would be nice way to spend some time.

• Recently I have been working on a new project. When that is ready to share I will fill you in. Since it is health and nutrition based I am sure you have guessed that it is a labor of love for me. I am hoping to have that ready to go in the next month.

• Last I am grateful for the wonderful people in my life. I am blessed to have so many caring people in my life. In the end relationships are more important than any object could ever be.

Thank You:

I want you all to know that I appreciate you patience with my not blogging daily recently.  Additionally I appreciate those of you that are following me on Facebook and commenting there.  Since it is my goal to reach as many people as possible to spread the word about healthy veganism each comment puts a smile on my face.  Thank you for taking the time to let me know you are there.  :-)

Signing Out:

Today has been speeding along like most Fridays but everything has gone well. Everyone is fine and life is good. I need to get a few more things done around the house so that I can relax this weekend with my sweetie. I hope you have something fun planned this weekend. Talk to you again soon, hopefully tomorrow. I am trying to get back on track with daily posts.

Friday Equals Shopping and Dinner Out … Again

As you know we were up late last night and that meant we were rushed this morning. Dan had his favorite green smoothie for breakfast that contained all the usual items: raw kale, frozen banana, wheat germ, freshly ground flaxseeds, cinnamon, powdered ginger a pinch of stevia and a little water.

I had no idea what I wanted for breakfast because we had a big dinner last night, since we eat out. In the end I made myself a salad that consisted of: mesclun, carrots, celery, salsa, white bean cheeze and raw pumpkin seeds. When I made the white bean cheeze most recently I intentionally made it thinner (but adding more of the bean cooking liquid) because I wanted to use it as salad dressing and that worked our very well. You can expect to see that again in the future since I eat so many salads and I liked the way it worked out today.

I mentioned yesterday that Dan was going try to work a half day today and he actually did it. However before he came home he met Dan Jr. for lunch in Hunt Valley at Jesse Wong's. It will come as no surprise that Dan ordered the faux duck since that is something that we both love. He also got some extra veggies with the duck but forgot to ask for brown rice until lunch came. However he does better when ordering than most husband’s so I am not going to complain about his choices.

My lunch was quinoa, more of the bean cheeze, salsa, cucumbers with pickled onions and dill. As you can you probably noticed I really wasn’t in the mood to eat for some unknown reason. I also grabbed an orange and two Brazil nuts but forgot to photograph it.

Once Dan came home we decided to run out for a little while and run some errands. Since we were already out I thought a quick trip by Marshall’s was a good idea because you never know what you are going to find. As luck would have it I found organic dried fruit (mangoes, bananas, apples, apricots) with nothing else added. I grabbed 8 bags of that since plain dried fruit is so not easy to come by. They also had organic freeze dried strawberries which were a requirement. Sometimes I stop in and find only clothes and other times there are interesting food items like today.

On the way home we were debating stopping at the restaurant for dinner but of course we hadn’t planned or made reservations so we hesitated since they like advance notice. However I hadn’t made prepped anything for dinner so we opted to run with scissors and make reservations when we were 15 minutes away from the restaurant.

Of course I started the evening in the kitchen because I had to say my hellos, get my hugs and chat. We hadn’t seen Ian yesterday and I wanted to talk before he got too busy. We chatted for a few minutes and I offered to make up my own dishes but Will and Ian said they had everything under control so I let it go. Both Ian and Will commented that they didn’t know we were coming which was code for “why didn’t you warn us?”. They were both good sports about the lack of notice though.

When I came out of the kitchen Dan and Alan (one of the owners) were chatting. Alan had just read the NYT article about sugar so that was topic they were discussing when I arrived. We talked about food, nutrition and health…all my favorite topics. I am not kidding when I say we just fit right in. LOL

Jenn made us our usual green tea and hibiscus blend which we had hot tonight since it was just a bit cool. We started out in the sun on the patio but moved under the roof since rain was coming.

Ian actually brought our first course out of the kitchen. This may not sound like a big deal but Ian is a back office kind of guy so that is not his thing. He must really like us, LOL. ;-) We started with a very thin crispy flatbread with an achiote rub that was topped with a salad of radish, red pepper and cilantro. This was so good that Dan asked for a repeat of this for the forth course. It was reminiscent of a pizza but not which I know probably doesn’t help much. I guess you could say it was similar to a salad topped cracker. However you describe it was light yet flavorful and we both really liked it.

Not long after we were finished with the first course the rain rolled through. The wind picked up and the temperatures dropped and it was almost a little chilly. We sat under the roof and watched the rain fall. I really love the sound of the rain as it hits the pavement. For me the sound of rain is almost meditative.

The second course was inventive and right up our alley since it was a combination of flavors that we both love. The base of the plate was an avocado, miso and mirin puree which was topped with fresh strawberries, avocado and baby arugula.

The third course was spicy chickpea with wilted spinach and crispy whole wheat flat bread finished with my favorite thing (sriracha). You cannot go wrong with this combination.

During the evening we had a chance to chat a little with Alan, Corey, Ian, Will, Michael, David, Jenn, Shah, Ahmed, and Stephanie. Doug and Vaz were also working this evening but there were busy this evening. I did get a chance to say hello and good bye to them but not much else. Everyone at the restaurant is so nice. Corey and Ian have really put together a great group of people.

Book Giveaway:

I will be using a random number generator to pick the book give away winner before tomorrow’s post. If you haven’t entered yet you have a little while since I am turning in as soon as get this post up.

Happy thoughts:

Today was another one of those days when I have too many things to be happy about which means I needed to pare down my list. Really? Not such a bad problem to have is it?

• It was great to spend the afternoon and all evening with Dan. We had a good time goofing off, going shopping and having dinner out. We get along so well that I often forget that not everyone is as happily married as we are. However I know I am very lucky to be married to my best friend.

• It was a stroke of luck that I found the organic dried fruit (nothing added) today at Marshall’s. That type of product is never easy to come by. As soon as I crack into a bag if we like the brand I will let you know what it is.

• The rain held off most of the day and that was a very good day. Somehow rain is less of an annoyance when it happens overnight.

• Driving to the restaurant there was a nice moment when the sun was streaming through clouds. My picture doesn’t really do the view justice but it was very nice. It was a nice reminder that there is always sunshine on the other side of the storm which I thought was telling of life in general.

• Our three precious little fur children must really love their human parents since they all met us at the front door when we came home. Additionally they followed us around like little “cat puppies” for over a half an hour. We are very lucky to have them in our lives.

• Dinner out this evening was nice as always. We had a lovely meal and good company. It was also great to sit outside, listen to rain fall and sip tea. What a lovely way to wind down the day.

• We also have plans Saturday and Sunday that we are looking forward to. Of course I will tell you about that later.

• Tuesday we are going to hear Ottmar Liebert and may get to see Jose Andres. *fingers crossed* We will find out about Jose soon and if that happens hopefully I will be able to speak this time and make up for my complete inability to verbalize the last time. I need to redeem myself otherwise Dan will never let me live it down. ;-)

Signing Out:

See what I mean about having too many happy thoughts? This has been a very good week but also a busy one. I could use a little quiet time to wind down. Next week is also going to be a little busy but I am going to try to work in a little relaxing time if I can.

It is after midnight here which means it is time for me to wind down. I hope your week was as good as mine has been. Talk to you again tomorrow (Saturday).

Wednesday Meant Errands and Cooking Class

Today was very busy for me. I ran errands (the library, health food store, Wegman’s, Tuesday Morning, Costco, and bookstore) and then I went to cooking class. As you may have guessed from my list that meant that I was out of the house about 10 years today. Needless to say this is going to be a quick post given the time constraints.

I found some nice glass dishes at Tuesday Morning that I thought would be good for the blog. Since I get tired photographing the same plates I assume you get tired of looking at them too. Also I just like to change things up for fun.

I was brave and picked up kelp noodles today at Wegman’s. This is a different brand from what I have purchased before so hopefully we will like these. We were running dangerous low on dried organic beans so I had to replenish my inventory today. Thankfully Wegman’s sells a nice selection of dried organic beans. I also found a sprouted then dried three bean mix at Costco that I also picked up. In the end I think I bought over 15 pounds of beans today. My home pantry will no longer short on beans.

After the bookstore (no cookbooks today) it was time for cooking class. Donna (the cooking teacher) was kind enough to come up with substitutions allowing my dishes to be vegan and the remainder omnivore. I thought that was very nice of her since I am clearly the odd man out when it comes to food.

I will show you the original omni dishes and then the version for me. For those of you that have omni families and struggle with how to make something that you can both eat and enjoy I hope this will give you some ideas. The major components of the dishes are all vegan but with a slight addition here or modification there you can make something that works for everyone in the family. As much as I am sure this will shock the other people in the cooking class I think my dishes were excellent and I know they were healthier.

The first dish was a salad with citrus vinaigrette with fruit (berries and citrus) and pistachio crusted goat cheese.

My vegan variation omitted the cheese and only had the pistachios. However if you had nut cheese at home you could certainly roll that in some chopped nuts for yourself though that would be a little silly. I would probably roll it in fresh herbs instead. ;-)

The second dish was braised baby artichokes over baby arugula. The omnivore version was stuffed with a crab salad with jalapeno.

My vegan version had pine nuts which I thoroughly enjoyed.  If you wanted something more similar you could use jackfruit for the crab and vegan mayo.  If I were making something like this at home I probably would have stuffed the artichoke with a brown rice and veg salad or bread crumb and veg.

The entrée was a honey mustard glazed pork over sautéed spring veg over fruited couscous.

My vegan entrée was chickpeas and sautéed spring veg over fruited couscous.

Dessert was a lemon tart.

My dessert was fresh berries and mint.

The crazy thing about my meal was that for me this was much heavier than I make at home but some of the people in the class thought that my meal was austere. It is enlightening for me to be reminded how and what other people eat. I tend to live in my little healthy vegan bubble and forget what other people consider a meal. I was surprised that some of the new people were questioning why my food was different. Mind you they didn’t ask me which I found to be a little rude but not as bad as someone answering for me and this person had no idea why I eat the way that I do but instead gave incorrect information regarding my choices. Other people’s bad behavior always surprises me even at my age. On the bright side I did manage to keep my mouth shut (a minor miracle) during this situation. I can’t say for certain that I will behave myself if this happens again. However, at least I could find the humor in it by the time I was driving home.   Clearly I will need a little meditation tonight before bed.  ;-)

Getting home after 10:30 at night, needing to unload the car and write a post makes for a long evening. Oh well it is my own fault since I stayed after class to talk to the regulars. I haven’t seen these guys in a while so it is fun to catch up with them and hear what they have going on.

Happy thoughts:

• While the day started off cold and rainy but mid day the rain had lifted and we had sun peaking through the clouds. It was nice to stay dry while I was running from place to place today.

• I found some interesting things when I was shopping today. Since I love trying new things I am looking forward to the experience.

• I picked up a couple of books today that will go into the rotation for me to read. I found another book by Debbie Ford so I grabbed that since I am enjoying the consciousness cleanse so much.

• It is wonderful that Costco is carrying sprouted organic beans. Each time they have something healthy like that I also buy it because I want them to continue to buy things like that. Not to mention the price is always fabulous when they do have those things.

• I picked up seaweed snacks at Costco and brought some to class. Everyone was brave enough to try them and other than Amy (love you) they were well received. It makes me happy to share healthy food with others. One lady said she would never have bought them if she saw them in the store but she will buy them now. I love hearing things like that it just makes me feel all warm inside. As Dan likes to say I am trying to change the health of the world one person at a time. He may have a point with that. LOL

• It was nice to be back at cooking class this week. I greatly appreciated that Donna made dishes which could be easily modified for me. I hate the idea of putting people out. However it says a lot that she is willing to do that and is a reminder that there are a lot of nice people in the world even if the not so nice ones tend to be the attention grabbers.

• Tomorrow I am going to get to spend some time with my sweetie. I don’t have all the particulars yet but will tell you about it tomorrow evening. I will be taking my laptop with me so that I can get the post written long before we get home.  *fingers crossed*

Signing Out:

It is getting very late here and I still need to do a few things before bed. Looks like another late night here. I hope you had a good Wednesday and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Good night.