Breakfast of Champions:

Yellow squash/yellow bell peppers sauted in water on a bed (hidden) of steel cut oatmeal.  The requisite tablespoon of chili paste, soon to be topped with nutritional yeast.  Nice and bright and full of flavor on this morning when we reckon the loss of that one hour (Daylight Savings Time) over the weekend.

Has it really been since December?

I guess time flies when you're having fun... and eating well!  I am now on day 161 and things are still mainly vegan in my life.  I took at trip to Disneyland and with the help of two avocado sandwiches and a lunch at The Blue Bayou (Portobello Mushrooms, yum!) had a great experience.  Lots of energy and tons of fun!

Here are some recent food pictures:

tacos up at the worksite

veggie and fruit snack

tacos and black beans at Veggie Grill (yum)!

Steel Cut Oats and veg

whole wheat waffle and homeade applesauce

veb over polenta and whole wheat bread

Stuffed bell pepper and salad with golden beets

Who doesn't love a stuffed bell pepper, although it's wicked weird to make them without meat!

oatmeal and veg and coffee, breakfast of champions

Avocado toast... when you get to longing for some greasy KFC...

December 9 2017. Working my way through the CSA box

A CSA box is a box that's delivered to you on a schedule, filled with veggies and maybe fruits.  Farm Fresh to You, my CSA system allows me to customize the box, so I don't get a ton of radishes or something else I don't care for...  works for me!

I love the beets with their greens still attached...  made some pickled beets and gave Dr. R. A nice warm beet with his lunch.  Here is a mushroom, tofu, spinach and green bean scramble that I made  with the green beans in the CSA box:

Here is a breakfast made with mushrooms and the dark green dinosaur kale that was both velvety and  alive in my hand as I went to chop it up:

I am using the receipt that came with the CSA box to make sure I am using it in a thoughtful and careful manner:

I continue to post my food and drinks on the LoseIt app.  They help me track my macro and micro nutrients and give me a good idea of how I am doing nutritionally.  They send me lots of encouragement as well:

Thanksgiving at my house.... It all starts with a plan... and then goes South (but there is LOTS of ice cream!)

It all starts with a plan...

 

 

 ...and then I bought an ice cream maker/machine!  ...here is a short video of the first batch:

I went on to make seven more batches of ice cream, mostly vegan and all non-sugar (stevia in the raw or fruit sweetened).

The house demanded to be cleaned and the good china came out to play with the good silver:

Thanksgiving was a good exercise in going with the flow.  The BrownKorbels brough the turkey, already made into sandwhiches and the Pat and Sue Brown's couldn't make the party.  I didn't get to Moss Landing to buy artichokes or make the vegan cheese.  I decided to ignore the stuffing and made small potatoes instead of mashed, which were perfect with a little butter and pepper.  The brussel sprouts are still in fridge and the apples still need to be made into applesauce, but I made a right mess of green beans that came in the CSA box and two type of beets (whole and pickled).  Ehsan brought the green salad and the cherry tomatoes.  Dad brought a pumpkin pie and whipped cream.  I bought a smallish pecan pie and brought out the ice cream one-by-one for people to have either a taste or a scoop.  My favorite was a banana based one called Sirachacha.

In the end, I got people to take leftovers, so I wasn't left with a whole bunch of questionable foods such as ravioli, hawaiian sweet bread rolls or sandwhiches.  Mama June made quick work of the leftover potatoes.  The best part was that the day after Thanksgiving, Reza and I went out to yet another Ethiopian Restaurant for vegetarian platter:

Happy Thanksgiving 2017!!!  Hope this finds everyone healthy and happy and enjoying the bountiful life that is.

Gotta Love 'em, Orca Beans

 

I made Orca Beans in the pressure cooker last night.  I sautéed an onion, celery, garlic, rainbow carrots, sliced leeks in a tablespoon of avocado oil and then poured in the soaked and drained Orca beans.  I covered them with 2 inches of water and pressured them for 30 minutes.  In the bowl, I added Himalayan salt, garlic powder, ground black pepper, two tablespoons of Sour Supreme (a sour cream alternative) and half an avocado.  I put a tablespoon of avocado oil on Reza's bowl.  Yum!  It was warm and soothing and according to Lose It, 398 calories total including sour supreme and avocado.

Twenty buck Challenge

So, ok, I'm not saying we're broke, but we have to be careful so we have moolah to spend at the end of the month for Thanksgiving...

We drive up here (San Pablo) to work on the rental and we went to Nations for dinner, 13 dollars for two.  I decide that the next morning I will get up early and go to my favorite breakfast place (Tina's, it's amazing!). But when I get up, I decide to go to the 99 cent store and see what the twenty dollar bill that I was planning on spending for breakfast will get me.  Note:  we've cleaned out the kitchen and only have very rudementary tools and spice.

Here is a picture of my haul:

I fixed coffee w/ cream and our own type of sweetener plus a fruit plate for Dr R. and a spinach and mushroom egg white omelette for myself.

Our lunch was a big garbanzo bean salad with balsamic vinagrette, because I found these two bottles in a dusty/musty closet:

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The salads turned out A MAZ ing.  The cucumbers were a little strangely shaped because I don't have a peeler here.  Looks like we'll be taking home half a honeydew, some grapes and a watermelon.  One of the best parts is that I got some off-brand lip stuff for my poor chapped lips!

My first CSA box!

My first CSA box arrived on my doorstep and I was really excited!  I had too much to pack into my already packed fridge, it was the garden of Eden (eatin' !).  The first that I used was the herb packet, that I put bouquet style in the fridge door and used some mint leaves in my jamica tea before I went to school.  When I got home that night, I "harvested" the beet greens, washed and dried them and put the beets themselves in the pressure cooker.  The next morning, I had beet greens instead of spinach in my egg white omelette.  You know how much I love beet greens!   Last night, I cooked half the carrots and all the rutabagas in the pressure cooker, but was too busy to enjoy them.  I made a mushroom/beet green stir fry and put that over a tomato sauce and added a small salad for dinner.  Of course, the salad had a cooked beet and cherry tomatoes and half an avocado (I know, we are sooooo lucky!). This morning I cut up one of the baby boy choys and cooked it with mushrooms in the big skillet.  I added a third cup of egg whites and two chopped up cooked rutabagas and some hot sauce.  Voila! A breakfast fit for a queen!  I have discovered how delicious a rutabaga can be!  

Here's hoping the best of health to all of you!  Thank you Farm Fresh to You (my CSA) for such a great box!

I have finally figured out how to cook an egg white omlette

I have finally figured out how to cook an egg white omlette!  The trick is super low heat!  Anything above a whisper of heat chars the white and makes it stick to the pan like.... you wouldn't believe!

I am finding that putting the spinach in and letting it cook down, then adding the egg whites and turning down the heat and steaming them... makes a pretty darn good omlette.  Today I added a tablespoon of nutritional yeast and that improved the umami taste of the whole thing!  The red patches on the omlette is reduced sugar ketchup.  I am trying to reduce my dependance on ketchup, but it's a slow process.

The Best Thing I ate all week!!

 I'm feeling pretty happy to live in the South Bay Area of California right now!  Dr. R. and I shared a vegetarian platter at Walia Restaurant in San Jose on Sunday.  It seems the injera, the soft bread of Ethiopia is made of a grain called Teff, which has lots of protein... The two best items on the platter were the carrot/cabbage/potato salad (3 o'clock ) and the slightly sour warm kale potage (eleven o'clock).  The other were great too!  We left with our mouths feeling alive!

 

I orders a spiced tea to accompany my meal, while Dr. R. had a "mango madness" that he really enjoyed!

How the heck do you log THIS on LoseIt?

Dr. r and I like to try out new restaurants and since I am cooking in a new way....  I love a restaurant that gives me new inspiration!!
We decided to check out Vegetarian House in downtown San Jose out by the college (off of tenth street).  We set the coordinates into the maps feature of our iphone and away we went!
I knew from reading the menu I wanted to try the avocado tartar and OMG it was delicious!
Here is a photo of it:

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Oh yeah, this was pretty spectacular, avocados, jimica, and cucumbers with a slightly tangy sauce
Reza picked Healthy Brown Rice which was a malty tasting combination of brown rice, wild rice, kale, red bell peppers and pine nuts in another wonderful sauce.
I added schezjuan egg plant which was warm and soft and nummy and we ate and ate....  we brought home half the eggplant and a third of the brown rice.... kinda looking forward to the leftovers for dinner!

Sometimes you just have to laugh...

Checking out the posters on the wall in the forum of my school, I run across a drawing from one of my kiddos.  The purpose of the drawing is to demonstrate good nutrition.  I think the young man that drew this... was having a bit of fun:

I was laughing about his spelling of the word "diabetes" and found upon closer inspection that Mario was catching a Hershey bar from heaven and above it were the words, "this is ok."

Then I noticed that he has an arrow pointing to dietbeties which indicates "Wish is Mc Donalds"

Not all of our kiddos are atroucious spellers... but there is a germ of truth in this...

dietbeties!!