Surprises!

This weekend I had a Girl Scout campout, one where they were providing all of the food and I was not allowed to bring anything at all.  Not allowed as in strictly forbidden and clearly outlined.

They did have a vegetarian option available, which both FabPreteen and I opted for…but to be honest, I was expecting at best a meatless version of the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet). 

I then became a smuggler…couldn’t help it!  In my car I had a cooler stuffed with “just in case” fare.  Frozen aseptic packs of rice milk, coconut water, organic apples, individual packets of almond butter, and Larabars! 

Hey..I am a Girl Scout and I was prepared!   Especially if I needed a chocolate fix!  Newman’s Own organic chocolate was BOGO at Whole Foods this week and FabHubs each picked one out!  I was not going to sit out and not eat the whole weekend!

Well I wish I had remembered (DUH!) to take photos of the food before I ate…somehow the lightbulb always came on after the plate was empty!

Friday night we were responsible for our own dinner so in a huge hurry to make sure I got to the campout before the gates closed I rummaged through the fridge and threw together this:

This would be a huge salad with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms and maybe other veggies I had in the fridge that I can’t remember now.  

On top I tossed in some leftover leek lemon rice, heated up, and then a generous sprinkling of feta crumbles.  Then on a whim I opened a can of kidney beans and tossed a bunch on top.   I poured on some balsamic, slapped a lid on top of the container and threw it in the car to be eaten later…and I have to say this was one of my best concoctions!  I loved it!

I was good for the rest of the evening!  Okay…I did have a small scoop of ice cream at the ice cream social.

The next morning I walked into the dining hall to find a glorious  array of fresh cut fruits and veggies…apples, bananas, oranges, grapes…it was gorgeous!  and I was so pleased I forgot to snap a picture!  Alongside this was turkey sausage (I passed), scrambled eggs (I took), bagels, cream cheese, and coffee!

Nor did I remember to take photos of lunch, dinner, or breakfast the next day….all equally as delicious with healthy vegetarian options always available.  I was seriously and joyously surprised!

The only sneaking I did of my smuggled goods turned out to be a Larabar instead of a ‘smore at the campfire (‘smores just do not appeal to me anymore!) and I kept going back and forth to the car to fill my cup with coconut water rather than drink the lemonade or fruit punch provided.  Honestly I felt like a high school kid sneaking out to the car to spike my punch!

SURPRISE #2 came from FabHubs and the rest of the boys whom I had left home.  The conversation went something like this:

ME:  So, how much meat did you boys eat while I was gone?

FABHUBS (proudly):  NONE!!!!

ME:  NO!  You are kidding!!!!

FABHUBS:  Believe me we thought about taking advantage…but didn’t!

ME: Can you scrape me off the floor now? 

I was totally shocked…we still have chicken, Bubba Burgers, lamb, and other various meat products I have stuffed into the recesses of the freezer that I thought for sure would be eaten while I was gone! 

And secretly I was thinking some room would be freed up in that freezer for more veggies!  Not that I am disappointed at all…I guess all their grumbling has a touch of showmanship to it but they are getting the message and going along with it after all!

On the other hand…while they may not have eaten meat, they also didn’t go to town on the veggies I had left for them either.  I am not sure they even ate any!

So when I got home I had to get to work on using a bunch up to make room for the new veggies coming in today.

First on the menu was some juicing.  Carrots, ginger, beets, parsley, apples…and I decided to try some red cabbage I had that needed to go!

This month in Prevention Magazine I read an article that said you should strive to eat a Rainbow of Health every day……and this we definitely did today.

This juice was definitely a rainbow.

First of all, the colors were so brilliant…even FabHubs grabbed the camera to take a picture of the purple cabbage juice.

Isn’t that color beautiful????? 

Fun Fact About Me….PURPLE is my absolute favorite color…and not pastelly type purples…but this deep brilliant purple!  My camp chair is purple…my purse is purple (HeeHee)…even my pens are purple.  I LOVE PURPLE!!!!

And the remaining parts of the ROY G. BIV equation…all out of order:

Green Parsley

Ruby Red Beets; Orange Carrots; Cream Colored Ginger; and Pink Lady Apples!

The result….pink, healthy, and delicious!!!!

This post is getting looonnnngggg…and the computer is acting very slow…..so I will have to blog my continued colorful dinner in another post!!!!!

A Super Sunday!

Today was SuperBowl Sunday…and while I am not a football fan, having the game right here in Miami made it all the buzz everywhere I went!

The weather was absolutely super too!  Our church meets outdoors and today we met under brilliantly clear blue skies with a slight chill in the air and no humidity.  Perfect!

After church I ran over to Starbucks for my blogger meetup.  I was a little bit late because I had a stop I had to make in between…but they were nowhere near finished by the time I got there.

I met up with Amanda from Run To The Finish, Meredith from Pursuing Balance, Jessie from Vegan-Minded, and Melissa from Trying To Heal.  Weird how blogging has changed the way some of us identify people!

We had a great time chatting for a while in Starbucks.  What an interesting group of ladies!

When it was time to say goodbye everybody kind of had the same goal in mind next…walking over to Whole Foods to do a little shopping!  So we all walked over there together and chatted up and down the aisles.

I hadn’t eaten since before I had left for church that morning and I was craving a fresh juice…but when I saw the green juice I wanted was nearly $10.00 ($10.00!!!!! for juice) I decided I would just head home and juice my own!

Back at home, ravenous now, I made my favorite blend of carrot/apple/ginger/beet/parsley.  I really wanted to down the whole thing myself…but I had to share with the family!!!

  Then inspiration took over and I decided to compete with FabHubs over the kitchen!

He was making us homemade pizza and guacamole for dinner and snacks…and out of the blue I had a weird driving need to make juice pulp muffins!

So side by side we worked…he rolling out the pizza dough and chopping veggies…

Me throwing ingredients into a bowl for my juice pulp muffins.  Some of us (hint, not me) were a little less thrilled about the space sharing than others!  Good thing we have a double oven so I could have my own!

I found this fantastic recipe on this blog I fell in love with and used it as a basis for my muffins, tweaking it here and there to make it my own.

I doubled the recipe since I had plenty of juice pulp!  I used one cup of spelt flour and one cup regular.  I also threw in some golden raisins, I had some fresh organic cranberries on hand (YAY!), and even some organic orange peel.

Sweetened by honey and no oil added, these are quite healthy.

I mixed all of the ingredients together but they seemed really dry for muffins…so I added a little bit of apple juice for extra moisture.  (I would have preferred to use orange juice if I had any!)

They were still thicker than most muffin batters…but I was afraid to add too much so I just went with it this thick.  I scooped up big handfuls and molded them into balls and placed them in the muffin pan….where ACK!  They looked just like mini meatloaves!!!!   While they cooked I snacked on our homemade guac with my new snack love,  Stacy’s Naked pita chips.Then the pizza was ready…custom-made for various tastes….my half has ricotta, portobellas, pineapple, tomatoes, green peppers,  garlic, and onion.

YUM!  And finally the meatloa….er I mean muffins were ready! 

They were a little dense but still pretty good!  Everyone liked them except….FabHubs of course!

He still made “the face” but on a scale of faces it was not a “10” face (which means I hate this…where is my steak and sausage…don’t you ever make this again) but more like a “3” face (not my favorite and a tad too healthy for my tastes, but I will eat just this one). 

Good enough for me!

Okay…Superbowl is over..Saints are winners and I am tired on this superfun day!

On The Hunt For Tonight’s Plan

This week’s produce box also yielded this!

Aren’t they cute?  They are baby bok choy.  I put my phone in the pic so you can see how small and cute they really are!

They need to be eaten…tonight!  The leaves are starting to wilt! 

I bought those green bags from a boy fundraising for his band…but the jury is still out on whether they are working or not.  The baby bok choy don’t seem to have passed the test!

Anyway…I think I made these once before…the big ones though, not baby, in a meat stir fry.  As of yet I have no clue what to do with them today!  It will probably be a stir fry of some kind…the box also had a huge hunk of ginger and a garlic bulb so some of these will go in there too.  I also have some frozen shrimp and I just might surprise and delight the FabFamily tonight by throwing it in there. 

Still have to figure out the sauce though……FabHubs is not a soy sauce stir fry fan so I have to be careful what I add. 

As far as the rest of today was concerned:

Breakfast was the same old boring usual with a few little twists…but I do love what I am eating so boring is okay.

At 6:15 a.m. while trying to finish up FabTeen’s breakfast, FabStepson’s lunch..and run FSS over to the bus stop by 6:30 I gulped down an espresso….with sugar.  I know!

I then dashed back home to finish up FabTeen’s breakfast and lunch…I made us both Green Monsters and gulped that down.

Working on my third morning shift of breakfast and lunch for FabPrettn and driving her to school, I had oatmeal/almond milk/ water/naners/almond butter…and I tossed in the last of the organic blackberries I got on Monday.  YUM! 

After coming back but before starting work I had another foamy homemade eggnog latte but I didn’t snap a picture.   You will have to look at yesterday’s if you want to see it!  It was really good…and I even liked the cinnamon on it!

This didn’t hold me until lunchtime though…so I decided to make a juice.  Everything organic…but this time the only things from the box was the parsley.  This is a new addition to my juices but I am trying to use it up (I have two bunches now) and it actually adds a very clean and refreshing flavor to the juice.

Before:

After:

The colors are so pretty!

This was in the Prevention magazine I got yesterday and so I am trying to commit to following this routine at least three to four times a week.  I need to do something!  I may be doing okay with the eating….but I am really sucking in the exercise department.  This chair gyrokinesis is perfect for me since I cannot get up and down from the floor.  I did some of it today and it felt good.  I need to really set up a goal to make this happen regularly…my body really really really needs it.

Shortly after that, lunch called.  I had last night’s leftovers and boy did the flavors meld nicely overnight! 

I topped it with 1 TBS of raisins…and we were out of raw cashews so  I opened the can of roasted cashews I bought from our Girl Scout fundraiser.  I used 1 tablespoon of those too…chopped up so they would go further.

On Monday I also got some Cara Cara or blood oranges, which I had never had before.  They are supposed to be naval but they did have seeds…and I expected them to be “bloodier” looking that that…they really looked like a pink grapefruit inside!  I got five of them Monday.  FabPreteen ate one on Monday and when I looked today one was starting to rot!  So those are on the “”Need to Eat” list now! 

I cut one up and had it with lunch.  It is sweet and okay….these weren’t the best oranges I have ever had though.  I don’t know whether it was these particular oranges or this variety, although I suspect it is just these oranges.

Finally…a little indulgence.   Also from the Girl Scout fundraiser, choco-covered raisins.  These are HUGE!  Big like grapes!  I wish they were dark, I am loving the dark chocolate as I get older.  They are not…but they were still good.

One big thing I have learned over the past few months is that is possible for me to take a measured amount of something, like a tablespoon of nuts, or 1/2 tablespoon of almond butter…or in this case 4 or 5 of the raisins, and enjoy that, rather than having a huge heaping scoop of something that is full of fat…or keeping the can of nuts or raisins out and having mindless handfuls. 

It is a nice balance between having a nice treat and feeling deprived. 

A Healthy Cooking Frenzy

Sunday lots of cooking went on in my house….and luckily for a change I didn’t do any of it!

FabHubs traditionally has cooked weekend breakfasts and for those he goes all out!  Bacon, sausage, waffles, eggs, grits, pancakes, english muffins, omelets, homemade biscuits and sausage gravy…you name it, he would make it.  Is it any wonder I had weight issues????

To his credit, he is at least open to trying a healthier way of eating…and this morning asked if he could make me us whole wheat pancakes.  And I said YES (even though I am not a huge fan of pancakes) and I asked him to add bananas and superfood walnuts to them.

And so that is what he did and what we had!  With no smoked meat in sight either!  I had one and a half pancakes, and a cup of my yummy daily espresso.  I also had a small sugar seckel pear while I  waited for my brekkie….I hadn’t eaten much protein the night before and I was starving!

A little while after that, I made everyone a Green Monster!  So far everybody is a fan around here except the FabPreteen…who was at her dad’s this weekend..and who is the president of the “Judge A Food By Its Cover” club.  Yes…she completely judges everything’s taste by how it looks and is the most difficult eater I have in my house….in a sea of difficult eaters (with FabStepSon and FabHubs being next, in that order). 

Now…no pictures of breakfast….but I was good about the pictures the rest of the day and boy do I have some gorgeous meals to show you!

After working  for a while, (yes…catching up with work  on a Sunday…one of the other sides of self-employment) I realized I still hadn’t had enough food at breakfast and I was hungry! 

I  made myself a snack of tomatoes, carrots, and tzatziki I had made for dinner the other night.  It was good, but didn’t hold me over.

So I pulled out the juicer and made everybody and myself a glass of my usual healthy yumminess….carrot/apple/beet/ginger.  Again…everybody loves it except for the FabPreteen, although FabHubs complains that it is not cold enough for him and I won’t let him stick it in the fridge to chill down (you have to drink it right away or it loses a lot of its vitamins and health benefits!).

After juicing, the real cooking began! 

FabHubs decided to re-create the English Muffin recipe for my camping website, in pictures.  I will be loading that up today and will come back here and make the link live for the recipe as many of you asked me for it.

FabTeen decided he was going to make some healthy cookies!  AND….he told me this weekend that he would start doing more of the cooking for dinner.  Since we have switched our way of eating our cook (FabHubs) has gone on cooking strike!  He will eat it but he won’t cook all those funny things I bring home now! 

So, all I had to do was pretty play director last night and the food appeared!

Starting with the cookies.  These are a recipe from my kids’ dad’s side of the family called “Special Cookies.”  They are a really rich and yummy chocolate chip cookie.   What?  What do you mean there is one missing???

FabTeen decided to doctor up the cookies and make them healthy by substituting ground flax meal for the egg and for the 1/3 cup of shortening.  shortening.   By far, he is the one who has taken the most to this healthy way of life! There was still 1/3 cup of butter left in the recipe and we decided that next time we sub flax meal for that too and see how it turns out.  We also used semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies and I would like to check out a healthier alternative for those as well, or at least organic.

The recipe ended up making 33 cookies at 2 Weight Watchers points each and lots of added health benefit from the flax meal.  Flax seed, should be ground to get the most benefit from it.  I remember my ex-MIL making us Red River cereal and adding extra flax seeds…which would come out looking the same as how they went in!  Now I have been researching and I see why!  Our bodies do not break down the husk, so you need to grind it before using…and you need to store it in the fridge so the nutrients and oils do not break down.

Flax is very high in dietary fiber, which helps to relieve constipation (but make sure you drink your water with it!), high in vitamins E and B, and is the richest source of Omega-3 fatty acid, you know, the one they tell you to eat salmon and other fish to get in order to help prevent heart disease.  Flax meal is also high in lignans, which are antioxidants, and can help reduce your cholesterol.   This little seed sure is a power house!  I put a tablespoon in our daily Green Monsters to make sure we get some…but this sure is another painless way!

If you want to read more on the mighty flax seed,  this dietary fiber site has some great information.

Boy these were GOOD!

Now on to dinner…yes!  We made the cookies before we did the dinner!  And sampled too :)

I will put dinner in a Part 2 as this is getting long!

The Very Hungry Lady

Yes….today I am like The  Very Hungry Caterpillar!  I must be off in my intake of something (protein?  carbs?) because all of a sudden, about 20 minutes ago, I nearly instantly became ravenously hungry.   It started as a little nag but I can’t believe how fast and furious the stomach pain and frustration and irritability and feeling  BAD set in!

I quickly fixed it with a sandwich of Arnold’s Whole Grain Sandwich Thins, a staple in my diet that goes with almost everything for only 1 point!  On this I piled some salad and 2 Tbs of  baba ganoush.

Up until then, today I have had:

An original Green Monster, my favorite actually.   Just the Almond Milk, flax seed, spinach, banana, and Amazing Grass today.

Then I finished off the tub of Fage yogurt with the mix-ins.  It had:

5 ounces plain yogurt

About 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin

1 TBS honey

1/2 banana

1/4 cup of Kashi  U cereal

A bunch of cinnamon

 

I thought this would hold me until lunchtime!  But it didn’t.  So around 10:30 when I started getting hungry I pulled out the juicer and had a glass of carrot/apple/beet/ginger (my favorite!).  Today’s was particularly sweet…don’t know why.  Maybe ‘cuz I tossed a Gala apple I had that nobody was eating in there instead of the usual Granny Smith.  Definitely have to make that again…it was really really great!

And then about 11:30 or so is when I had that unexpected ravenous attack!

Now I am trying to decide if I am still hungry or not.  I feel “yes”…but I am trying to give my body some time with the sandwich to see if I can get away without eating for a few more hours.

Kicking Off The Day

Today started the same way I start most.  FabTeenager asked for juice this morning instead of a Green Monster, so that is what I had as well.   His was carrots and Granny Smith apples, mine was the same with a little bit of beet and fresh ginger thrown in.   A very refreshing and energizing way to start the day.

After the school run I was really hungry!   I forgot to put the oats in the fridge last night and originally I was going to have a yogurt mix-in (fresh fruit and cereal mixed with the yogurt) but I was so hungry I decided to pull out the Egg Beaters I haven’t had in a while and make myself some Egg Tortillas.  I used two corn tortillas heated up, on each I put one cooked Egg Beater, 1 TBS reduced fat shredded cheddar, and 1 TBS salsa.  That was really filling.  I also had a shot of espresso with 1 tsp of sugar along with this.

This came to a total of 6 points.