First Food Foray

As my first attempt at a blog post, I'm going to share with you my dinner from last night.  I have to say that cooking and photography don't really mix well.  There were a few times that I forgot to take a picture before the ingredients were mixed and who wants to see a picture of a blender full of blended ingredients?

Maybe I will have to talk to my photographer husband and we can team together.

So last night we had what I call fajita salads.  It's easy-peasy.  I make Chef AJ's lentil tacos in the pressure cooker.  While that is cooking (it takes only 12 minutes) I slice up a couple of peppers and add in some mushrooms.  I didn't have any green peppers, so I just used some sweet ones.  Normal restaurant fajita salads would have onions but since Hubby has a sever onion allergy, they are forbidden in our house.  I used a half of a zucchini that I threw in at the last minute.  With the addition of a clove of garlic and a bit of cumin, this was a great topper to the salad.  Finish off with an avocado and a sprinkling of fresh cilantro & you've got a better-than-restaurant salad.  We like to top ours with salsa and I add a bit of cashew cream cuz I kinda miss sour cream.  Notice there is no cheese on this.  That's okay.  You can get by without it.  There's plenty of flavor!

 Lentil Tacos
Ingredients:
1 cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
14 ounces water
1 cup salt-free salsa
Salt-free seasoning, to taste

Method:
Put everything in a crock pot and cook on high for 8 - 12 hours, stirring occasionally and adding water as needed.  This taco filling can be used anywhere you would normally use a meat taco filling, such as in taco shells and on salads.

Jan's note: I used the pressure cooker and decreased the amount of water to 10 oz.  Chef AJ uses the crockpot.  If you follow the directions for the sprouted lentils (pictured below) on the stovetop, I'm sure you'd have the same results.

Here is my attempt at a photo-journal of my meal prep.  It actually adds a bit of time to take the pictures and it was kind of a distraction.  Nevertheless, the salad was huge, filling and very tasty!

This is one of the best purchases I think I have made (with the exception of my VitaMix).  It's a six-in-one pressure cooker.  I love it and use it at least once a week.  It cooks beans to perfection and hard vegetables such as beets and potatoes are quick easy.

The lentils and the ingredients went in the pressure cooker.  Timer was set for 12 minutes and away she goes!

I picked this lentil mix up at Costco. They are sprouted so they cook quicker and give you less... ya know... gas!

 

 I found these tortillas in the fresh pasta section (near the cheese) at the local Winco.  I have to say that they were very good.  You cook them up on the stove to your desired cooked-ness.  Their only ingedients are corn, water, lime, salt and guar gum.  They fall into a category which I find acceptable for sodium content, so I went with them.  What a treat!

 Water sauteeing is the best way to cook your veggies.  No oil and you taste the vegetables and the seasonings you add, not a slimy film of oil in your mouth.  Plus, it's less messy and cleanup is simple!

 You can see that this was a large meal.  I was fully satisfied.  Satiety is important when you eat this way as it keeps cravings at bay and allows you to receive optimum benefits from the nutrients.

For dessert I had a healthy chocolate cupcake, complete with chocolate cashew frosting.

I am still trying to gain permission to re-post recipes that I have gotten from others because of copyright laws.  Please be patient with me as I go through that process.  If I can Google it and find it, I will post it, otherwise, until I hear from the major contributor, we will be on hold.  

I apologize for the odd format in which the pictures and their captions came through.  I really wanted to get this out by 9 a.m. today, so I'm rushed.  I'm still learning, so hopefully future posts will be put together a little better.

I did get permission from fellow blogger and Nutritarian, Carrie, to share her recipes, so as promised, I am going to share a dressing recipe that is useful for Asian salads and stirfry.  

Peanut Butter Curry Dressing
4-6 servings
Ingredients:
1/3 cup unsalted peanut butter
1/4 cup unsalted tahini
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoons chopped red onion
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
3 large Medjool dates, pitted
1/4 cup unsweetened soy milk
1-2 teaspoons curry powder
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a high-speed blender and process until smooth. 

Jan's note:  I added vinegar for the dressing.  To use as a stirfry sauce, I added a little bit of Bragg's Aminos and crushed red pepper flakes. 

New Heights

I know, I know, I know.  It's been five months since I've blogged.  Does that mean my life has been boring and uneventful?  Probably not.  It just means that nothing that has happened has been worthy of sharing with my friends and people who might now know me too well.  Things that maybe others in my family don't necessarily want all of creation reading about. 

So things are about to change.

I've decided to take my blog to new heights.   What with my passion for a healthy eating lifestyle and time spent in the kitchen, maybe other people would appreciate reading about it, maybe trying some of the recipes and perhaps if I'm lucky, I might pique someone else's interest in trying this lifestyle that has brought me into what I consider optimum health.

This will be new and different for me.  Feel free to tell me how to make my posts better, more interesting.  I think I will have to put new batteries in the camera and have it handy in the kitchen to capture my creations.  I will need to come up with a blogging schedule so I'm not driving myself crazy.  I have a friend who posts on her blog Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That makes a lot of sense to me.  So since today is Monday, consider this the first of more to come!

So walk with me... out of "my midlife mumblings" into something new.  I figured I would find something to distract myself from the deep hole of midlife and I have now come to the realization that the kitchen is that distraction.  I think keep the name of my blog the same as I'm sure I will fall back into mumbling (go figure, Jan mumbling?  Say it isn't so) but I hope to share with you ways to enhance your life through the world of nutrition.

For those of you who don't know of that which I speak, for about 18 months I have been eating a plant-based diet.  Yes, nothing from an animal (except once in a while when it's completely unavoidable).  Definitely a vegetarian diet, and 99% vegan.  In the last couple of months it's been easier to go completely vegan as I don't stray as much from the plant-based concept.  In that 18 months I have lost 47 pounds and created for myself an amazing feeling of health and wellness.  I have learned a lot about the nutritional benefits of food, what causes our bodies to work in the best way possible and what hurts us the most.  I've become so passionate about this way of life, I've enrolled in a self-paced certificate program through the Nutrition Education Institute presented by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  I attended a three-day Immersion in San Francisco at the beginning of this month and learned even more.  I was on track to take my first exam at the end of December, but since it's self-paced, I being the queen of procrastination have not been as diligent as of late to read and study.  One thing about goals, you just erase them and move them on the calendar!  I'm aiming for the end of January now.  Hopefully when I am completely finished with the program I will have the knowledge and tools to coach people through this lifestyle.  I currently have a few people that I mentor, but to have more experience working with clients will enable me to perhaps move into a new realm of
consulting and coaching.  This blog is just one step on my journey there.

I will wrap up today's post with a bit of healthy eating advice.  Replace one meal a day with a huge salad of mixed greens and vegetables... add 1/2 cup of your favorite beans, 1 tablespoon of unsalted, raw nuts and some raw sunflower seeds with an oil-free dressing and you will be miles ahead of most people and well on your way to a healthy lifestyle. 

I will post a dressing recipe on Wednesday.

Crazy Cooking

I like alliterations, can't you tell?  Anyway, earlier this week I saw an ad at a local store that sells mostly restaurant quantity stuff.  You can get a keg o' ketchup, a case of crackers, a shitload of shiitakes or every flavor of latte syrups you can think of.  But what I saw that caught my eye was the 25 pound box of red peppers.  Yep!  25 lbs!  Ahhh, roasted red peppers.  I love them.  We use a jar or so every couple of weeks, so I figured how many could 25 pounds be?  Well, duh!  25 pounds, dummy.  We also eat a lot of fresh peppers -- sliced on a sandwich, in stir fry, they are great roasted with other veggies, and they go well in a curry dish that I really like (sorry, honey, but I do).

So it only took five hours to roast 42 red peppers on the grill.  We saved three out to eat fresh, mainly because I was tired of the every-15-minute trip to the barbecue to flip and rotate.

Here is the timeline of my morning:

Here is the first batch taking a bath

All clean and ready to go

Roasting away

Cooling & waiting for bagging

Bagged and ready for the freezer

I really enjoy the weekends for they are great times to be in the kitchen for long periods.  While most people are out working in the yard, going for a bike ride or drinking beer on the golf course, I'm in the kitchen concocting the next weird thing.

Let's see, in the last month, in addition to my regular fare, I have made oil-free basil pesto stuffed mushrooms (twice), no-tuna salad, roasted red pepper hummus, my own sunflower seed butter (a desperate attempt to replicate the store-bought stuff), Thai coconut curry, Aztec stuffed pitas, mushroom oat burgers and "fries," homemade muesli (that one got shipped off to our son who longs for normal food -- notice I said "normal" and not "Mom's cookin'"), a couple of different salad dressings, creamy zucchini bisque, and a bunch of other things that I can't think of right now.

A friend of mine told me the recently that I spend more time in the kitchen in one day than she does in an entire week!  I love this way of eating.  We try so many new things -- some we don't like & I'll never make them again. 

People often ask us "what do you eat?"  It's like they have the idea we only nosh on heads of lettuce for dinner and nibble on carrot sticks for lunch.  Au contraire, my friend.  We eat incredible food, including green smoothies that taste like chocolate milkshakes, veggies stuffed in a pita topped with dijon/date dressing, and oh, wow, we even eat lasagna or "spaghetti" squash topped with our favorite sauce.  Don't forget the black bean lettuce wraps that are so fresh & tasty you won't even know they're healthy!  And for dessert, you say?  We've had banana "ice cream," black bean brownies and chocolate truffles.  And there's always the old standby dessert, FRUIT!  One of my favorites is an apple sliced up, dipped in almond butter and then dipped for the second time in currants. 

I really do think we have greater variety now that we've been "Eating to Live."  Maybe it's because I work hard to plan our meals.  I don't remember putting nearly this much thought into meal planning when we ate meat and had a processed food at almost every meal. Now our meals are full of things from the refrigerator.  Very few items come out of the pantry anymore unless it's to open a carton of nut milk, or to open a can of beans in a jiffy because I forgot to thaw some out & we need them NOW for our salad.

Well, I will be poring over the recipes for next weekend to see what fun things I can come up with for the following week.  You see, I apparently have orthorexia nervosa, a condition that is specific to those who are healthy eaters.  We tend to focus on food and plan our meals well in advance.  On the self-diagnosis quiz, I believe I scored an 8 (or 9, depending on one answer) out of 10.  I wonder what they cure is... GREEN LEAFY VEGETABLES; that's it!

Fiona? Fiona? Fiohhhnnnnaa!?

So I don't know if you know what a monster smoothie (or green smoothie) is.  I drink them multiple times a week because they're good for you -- blah blah blah.  This morning I make myself a tropical green smoothie, complete with orange, banana, coconut, mango & spinach.  Freshly poured,  my cold cup is sitting on the counter and as I go to put the lid on the cup, I hit a salad bowl that was tilted up on the counter drying and it falls over hitting the cup of green smoothie.  It tips over -- towards me, of course -- and it splashes/spills ALL OVER ME.  So now I'm standing there looking at my shoes and the green goo all over the kitchen thinking, "Oh my goodness, Shrek just shit all over me!" 

Of course, this entire thing happened within 5 minutes of me needing to leave the house.  So, what do I do first -- strip naked in the kitchen? wipe down the counter? mop the floor?  No... I just stand there, staring for a few minutes wondering WTH do I do.!  So I strip down to my undergarments and grab a large towel.  I start from the bottom up, wiping the floor, the cupboard doors & then the countertop.  I finished off with wiping down the fridge, the dishwasher & cleaning my shoes.  Tossing my green-puke blouse & sweater in OxyClean, I trod upstairs to pick out a new outfit.  At this point I've already missed the bus and am wondering if it's even necessary for me to go to work & perhaps I should just climb back into bed.  But realizing that I am a highly-valued employee, I grab some quick-change clothes, put them on & out the door I go, 30 minutes later than usual.  I drive to work, praying the entire way that the start to my morning is an isolated incident and that I can arrive at work on time, unscathed by any further harm.  Alas, I did... only to spend 10 minutes in court and the rest of the day in my office!  So, again, I ask... Can't I just climb back into bed?

Hope you're having a happy day!

These are a few of my favorite things

As mid life cruises along, I've realized it ain't that bad.  I'm wondering more if I shouldn't change the name of my blog to something like My Midlife Mumblings Make Me Miserable.  Because, after all, misery loves company, right?  If you complain, you'll be unhappy.

I think I will focus more on food.  A blog seems to be a good outlet for a lot of my grumbling about unhealthy food choices that I make, mostly sugar!  Most of you know that I follow a diet-style like none other.  Most people look at me like I'm nuts, but (ooohhhh, nuts... yum! Oh, look, a shiny thing)  I really enjoy the challenge of being healthy. 

Recently, I posted a question on the Dr. Fuhrman forums asking what "avoid" really meant since Dr. F has a number of foods that we should avoid for better health.  For me, one of those foods is gluten.  Gluten, as you know, is in wheat and other grains.  It was advised that I "avoid" gluten to help with what appears now to be an undiagnosable autoimmune disease.  (More on that in a different post.)  So there's a couple things going on here.  What really does "avoid" mean?  and   Why avoid gluten? 

First, "avoid" means avoid like the plague.  And that answer comes not only from the forum, but also my handsome husband.  I hate it when he's always right.  If you knew there was a 10-mile backup on I-5 and you were told to avoid the area, you would, right?  If there was a man with a gun running around and you were told to avoid him, you would, right?  So when you're told to avoid a certain food, you don't eat it, right?  Well... only if you want to get sick.  But darn if it doesn't taste good.  I have learned that gluten isn't for me.  (The answer to the second question)  This recent discovery as to why I've felt lower belly discomfort a lot of my life has led me to avoid gluten as much as possible.  It has also made me realize that I need a substitute.  Gluten-free breads are good, though many of them are not vegan & still contain sugar -- Gasp! So does regular wheat bread, duh -- they also are expensive, and really good GF products are only baked at our local bakery certain days of the week.  I have learned to make my sandwiches in lettuce wraps.  It's one of my new favorite meals -- and snacks, for that matter.  Anything you put on bread, you can put in a romaine leaf!

Top it off with some yummy nut dressing & you've got a wholesome meal.  I usually eat two of these.  And no meal would be complete without dessert, so this is my new addiction.  Apple slices with almond butter with currants!

So now, I feel like a million bucks and I have another game to add to my list of healthy eating challenges .  Now, if I could just as happily take on sugar.