Three Strikes...

I've been diligently making my way through the "mystery" items in my pantry, tried several new recipes this week. Unfortunately, not all were winners. I list them here not to criticize the authors because whether due to cooking skills or simply taste buds, the "failure" is mine! I just think that I post so many delicious recipes, my friends think every night I knock the ball out of the proverbial ballpark! Nothing could be farther from the truth, and here's the proof:

Chipotle Mac & Cheese with Roasted Brussel Sprouts:  This is from PPK, can usually rely on Isa for a fail-proof recipe so I must have done something wrong. I  had never worked with cashew "cheese" before, figured a nice bowl of mac & cheese would provide the comfort food I was looking for, and the addition of the chipotle would add a bit of zip and make it a grown-up version of a childhood favorite.  Well, turns out that 4 peppers might have been a little too much spice even for this gal! I ended up with a grainy messy sauce which was so hot, I could only eat a few bites before tossing the rest into the trash.  Sad but true. Maybe my peppers were abnormally large? Perhaps I used the wrong miso or didn't get the sauce smooth enough? I don't know, but I definitely struck out on this one.  No pics because the end result wasn't pretty.

Slow Cooker Sweet Potato and Chard Dal: Well, this dish certainly made up for the over-spiciness of the mac & cheese.  While the spices were blended nicely, there simply wasn't enough of them.  The recipe lacked..something.  I had to add too much salt to perk up the flavors, perhaps more chili powder would've helped? The consistency was kinda weird, too, kinda "gloppy." Not my favorite and certainly not photo-worthy.

Slow-Cooker Bean and Cornbread Casserole: Now, I hesitate to call this one a "strike" because it tasted delicious..until I added the cornbread topping.  Even though I cooked it about an hour longer than suggested, my bread never quite firmed up.  We ate it anyway, kinda picking around & under the slightly-mushy-ness, and could tell that the flavor combo was a real hit! Maybe it was my Crock-pot, have never tried actually baking it in before. I would definitely make the base of this again, perhaps just bake some cornbread in the oven and top when serving.  Again, not a nice picture.

So, after all of this disappointment, I decided to go out to dinner last night. Honestly, we had a reason to celebrate (more on that later) so why not?  We tried a new neighborhood cafe, Broccolini's, known for good Italian food and large portions. I didn't check the website beforehand but I can almost always find something Italian to eat.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the vegetarian options highlighted on the menu, and even though there was only one truly vegan choice, it was a good one! Also, they offer whole wheat pasta for a tiny bit extra, perfect! My Penne Primavera was very tasty and they weren't kidding about the portion sizes! I barely made a dent in it, this will easily provide two more meals for me.



My only complaint is the amount of oil. You can see the shininess even in the photo, right? I understand that we are a fat-loving society but my veggies and whole grain pasta were so good, all of that isn't necessary. Before heating up the leftovers, I'll strain it through a colander.

So, now that I have the strikes behind me, I'm quite sure my next dinner will be a hit! I'm counting on a veganized version of a downhome favorite - Chick'n and Dumplings.  I hope you'll pop back by tomorrow for my recipe and results!

Have a beauty-full day,

Michele

Day of the Dead..and World Vegan Day!

"Sometimes a part of us must die before another part can come to life. Even though this is a natural and necessary part of our growth, it is often painful or, if we don’t realize what’s happening, confusing and disorienting. In fact, confusion and disorientation are often the messengers that tell us a shift is taking place within us. These shifts happen throughout the lives of all humans, as we move from infancy to childhood to adolescence and beyond. With each transition from one phase to another, we find ourselves saying good-bye to an old friend, the identity that we formed in order to move through that particular time....We can surrender to this process, letting go of our past self with great love and gratitude, and welcoming the new with an open mind and heart, ready for our next phase of life." ~ Daily Om

Today is Día de Muertos, Day of the Dead. I thought today's Daily Om was appropriate, especially since I've been doing some deep soul searching of my own the past couple of weeks.  Before leaving on vacation, I began reading a self-help book called The Emotional Eaters Repair Manual by Julie M. Simon. I haven't finished the book but let me tell you, just the first few chapters really stirred things up for me and made me think about exactly why I'm overweight.  Not just the surface reasons such as I eat too much and don't exercise enough, but the deeper issues, the emotional stuff that causes me to eat when I'm not hungry, to use food as a comfort and dare I say, a drug.  I talked to my friend Marion about this, not knowing how much to share on my blog, and I've decided to keep most of it private.  I'm just not comfortable baring my soul to the public, nor do I want to risk hurt feelings for anyone else "involved." I'm not even sure I'm going to stop with just the book and the exercises, have even thought about attending an OA meeting.  At this point I just know that I've got to fix the inside, heal the parts that need healing, and learn to deal with my emotions and not just shove them down with food.  I need to shed that old self, that past self, and hopefully along with her will come the excess weight I'm carrying around.

So, on to lighter things..Happy World Vegan Day!

 

I plan to spend the day cooking something healthy and taking a good long walk with Loki. How about you?

Have a beauty-full day,

Michele~

Well, here we are at the end of Week One. I've been following my program about 80% of the time, had a couple of PMS-related Oreo episodes and a glass too many of vino at a certain happy hour, but otherwise I've been doing pretty well.  I guess the scale agrees because I am down 1.8 pounds! Not bad, but I know I can do better. 

I've been thinking back to the last time I lost weight, when I was following Jenny, and pondering what it was about that program that worked so well for me.  Well, duh, it was a no-brainer: Go to meeting. Weigh-in. Buy food. Eat food. Repeat.  I had little to think about, I just heated up the meals, ate the food, and the weight came off.  Though I certainly don't want to go back to that way of eating, and honestly I missed my own cooking, I can't beat the convenience.  So, how to implement that into the way I live & eat now?

I started out by planning my weekly menu, as I've been doing, preparing my meals as usual.  Then, after dinner, I portion out the leftovers into individual containers and label them.  These become lunches for the next couple of days. If there's more left over than I can safely store in the fridge, or if I'm tired of a particular meal (that rarely happens, I don't mind repetition), I freeze those portions instead.  Same thing with breakfast, have a few containers of Tofu Scramble stacked in there.  I also have a big tub of Vegetable Soup to accompany meals or even as a mid-day snack.  Speaking of snacks, I took a cucumber & a head of broccoli,chopped & divided them up into little ziploc bags and labeled each one with the contents and weight so that logging into Sparkpeople would be a breeze.  These went into a handy-dandy Snaptight container (on sale this week at Publix, if you're in my neck of the woods), so easy to grab & go!




Lastly, I mixed up a batch of hummus and divided it into tiny tubs.  Now, when the snack attack hits, I can open my fridge, grab a bag of veggies and a pot of hummus, I'm good to go! You can see there's also a big bin of crunchy apples there, and a fruit bowl of bananas sits on the counter, nearby, perfectly portable health food.  I also have some cooked chickpeas and pink beans in there, easy to toss onto a salad or into a soup for added protein.





Also this week, I baked several sweet potatoes in the oven, used two of them for the Sweet Potato Beginnings breakfasts..



the other I mixed in with my Spicy Vegetarian Chili. So delicious, filled with fiber and nutrients. Dr. McDougall would be proud.




So, that just about wraps up Week One.  I have a simple pasta dish on the menu for tonight, will share that tomorrow so hope to see you then!

Have a beauty-full day,

Michele~

Hormonal Madness

First of all, this is what I woke up to find on my nightstand this morning...

Can you say, PMS? *blush*

No, I didn't eat the whole carton of coconut milk "ice cream" in one sitting, and I didn't drink the beer along with it, but you get the point. This is Not Good.

And another thing. I picked up Everyday Happy Herbivore by Lindsay S. Nixon, started browsing through the recipes this morning, and while they all look super-yummy, I was shocked to find really high calorie content in some of them.  The Mardi Gras Beans & rice, for example, has 608 calories per serving. Whoa! That's a lot, don't you think? I mean, it's low-fat and healthy but a calorie is still a calorie, right? In order to lose weight you've got to reduce those buggers one way or another!I don't think you can mindlessly graze all day long, even of the "good stuff,"  and still maintain (or achieve) your girlish figure. Since Ms. Nixon does provide a 1,200 calorie menu planning service, I'm thinking she must agree.

So, what the hell does this mean? I don't freaking know. Do I count calories? POINTS? Or just give up and wallow in some more fatty "health food."

Seriously discouraged here, am blaming the hormones.

xoxoxo

rapunzel

Veg-ing in the Outback

As a handfasting gift, one of Beren's friends so very kindly presented us with an Outback Steakhouse gift card.  You all know how much my sweetie loves anything deep fried (groan) and definitely enjoys his meat-and-potatoes, so a meal at a steak house, especially in the land of the Bloomin' Onion, is perfect for him! His newly-vegan bride who's also trying to lose weight..not so much.  However, we wanted a (cheap) night out so I figured I'd give it a go.

Before heading out to dinner, I did my research.  After perusing several websites and blogs, I discovered that Outback's vegan options are very limited. No surprise there, just disappointment.  Not wanting to settle for a plain baked potato and salad, I decided to follow a dear friend's advice.  Kiki said, "I'm a vegan, but socially I'm a vegetarian because I don't want to be a pain in the ass."

So, I went to the restaurant, enjoyed some good brown bread and a glass of wine before the meal, then asked our waitress about vegetarian options.  She was incredibly helpful, told me that the chef would be more than happy to accommodate me in any way possible, that if I were vegan they would hold the cheese on any of the salads, add grilled veggies to the pasta, etc.  I settled on the Fettuccine Parmesan with grilled veggies.  Though I felt a bit guilty consuming dairy and more fat & calories than I should, I feel like I made a decent choice.  It's not a religion and I'm not going to make myself crazy over it, just doing the best I can. (full disclosure: I did have a few bite's of Beren's bloomin' onion)



This morning I'm planning a nice long beach walk to work off some of those calories, stay tuned for pics and a Meat Free Monday recipe later on!

Have a Beauty-Full Day,

Real Beauty

It's no secret that I admire beauty, that I aspire to thinner and therefore more attractive, at least by society's standards.  I post pictures of gorgeous women every day, but I hope you've also noticed that the images I share with you are shapely, healthy-looking women, most of them from another era where curves were encouraged.  No skinny ladies on this site, no anorexic-looking supermodels.  And, no photoshopping!

I have written about this before, and am bringing it up again because of an article my friend posted on Facebook.  This is why I boycotted most "women's magazines" years ago, not wanting to give my hard-earned dollars to an industry that contributes to more self-hatred and weight obsession.

Listen, I want to be the best Rapunzel I can be, inside and out. This means a little bit thinner, a lot healthier.  But I'm also realistic. I'm never going to be a size 0 again, nor do I want to be. And I sure as hell am not going to promote an industry that encourages the impossible, at whatever cost.  Oh, and you won't see any photoshopping of my personal pictures, either. What you see is what you get with this gal!

So let's toss the Glamour, Vogue, Self, or whatever other glossy  makes you feel "less than." Instead, let's head outside, take a walk, commune with nature. Hop on the treadmill with a good book or quality tv show, work off a few calories while moving our bodies and clearing our minds.  And while we're at it how about sharing some positive body images, for ourselves and each other.

Have a Beauty-Full Day,