Second day of cooler1- a la GF sort of vegan style

Day 2 of post thanksgiving detox.  No dizziness, at least, but a faint annoying headache all day.  I managed to get more protein in today. Tomorrow I still need more.  I had a funny teaching day, it is Wednesday but I had my Monday schedule so I didn't start teaching until 1:55 in the afternoon.  So I had a lovely morning.  I had my breakfast, then went to the gym for a 30min CXworks class (I didn't think I would be ready for a double just yet).  I surprised myself because I wasn't as out of shape as I thought I was.  Anyway after that I stopped at the grocery store to pick up my coffee and some produce to get me through the day. Then I met with Mark at one of the early years centres to play with kid #3 and kid #4 (aka, Patrick and Ellie-Lynne).  Then home, lunch, cooking food and off to work!  Here are my eats.

Breakfast:
1/2 GF oats
3 tbsp hemp hearts
1 tbsp raw almond butter
1 tbps chia seeds
2 tbps apple sauce
1 tsp cinnamon
unsweetened almond milk poured over
water

snack:
field cucumber
decaf americano with a bit of soy milk(I'm trying to cut it out, I only had about an inch today)

Lunch:
zucchini noodles(most of a small zucchini)  - see pic bellow
a cup of homemade pasta sauce
tempeh (about the size of a deck of cards)
water

snack:
1.5 cups of homemade roasted red pepper (rrp) soup - see pic bellow
3 tbps hemp hearts
decaf coffee with unsweetened almond milk

Diner:
a can of tuna with olive oil drizzled over it
a mug of rrp soup
water

rooibos tea with unsweetened almond milk

Sliced zucchini so it has the look of pasta! I kept it raw.

Tempeh cooked in the pasta sauce Mark made for me last month!


Soup:
3 red peppers roasted on BBQ - skin peeled off (or most of it)
1 onion
1 celery stalk
1 carrot
1 small sweet potato
1 tetra pack of no salt added veg broth
a bit of chili pepper to flavour



After attacking it with my hand blender!

 

Quinoa burgers

Tomorrow we are having friends over for a BBQ and I asked Mark to pick up some veggie burgers.  Guess what the 3rd ingredient is???  Wheat gluten!  Go figure.  So I decided to give quinoa burgers a try. I made quinoa the other day and had some left over. I should or could have looked up a recipe, but you know me... They never completely suit my needs so better to just improvise with what I had on hand (or in the garden, as it may be).

  So I contemplated what I would need to make the quinoa "stick together"... like an egg in some hamburgers, but since I'm nearly vegan I thought I would try something else.  I added ground flax seeds instead, as a binder.  Then I added a bit of extra water so the flax could actually bind and create a jelly (not like I could see this happening) But I figure I'll just go through my thought process.  So base done; now to add flavour, I grated up some red onion (from garden), zucchini(from garden) and sweet potato(I've been told we can't grow these... too bad).   Added some seasonings  (I used garlic powder and oregano), they smelled amazing at this point.  But something was missing, I still didn't think these would actually hold so I added about 2 tbsp of coconut flour.

 Now for these I fried the bottom in coconut oil in my cast iron pan, then transferred them into 400F oven for 25minutes.  I ate 2 tonight, couldn't help myself... They are crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. 

The brown top is from the coconut oil in the cast iron!  (ok so slightly labour intensive but sooo yummy!)

They stick!!!!! (together I mean... not to the pan or baking sheet)

Ready to toss on the grill to re-heat tomorrow! 

What is Dahl???

It's vegan  (or can be) and it's Indian, but I just made it with my own ingredients.  Meh who cares, I made my dish even before looking up what dahl is.  I had tasted the dahl made at The Naked Sprout. and decided to see if I could replicate it, without knowing what was in it.  I'm proud to say I'm happy with the results.  Now I just need to find out how off or close I actually was.  I know mine was slightly different because I didn't have any chick peas or lentils left in my house (apparently those are the main ingredient) go figure I make dahl without them..
I used crushed tomatoes, a can of beans, and a can of coconut milk, then I just added sweet potato, carrot, celery, onion, grated zucchini, parsley (I'm not sure why, it just looked so pretty in my fridge I wanted to use it) and curry powder. 

Well it looks weird I must admit, it tasted fine. But I think if I did it again, I would cut back on the tomato and add something to make it sweeter.  I would also steam the sweet potato first and obviously add chick peas and lentils.  It's kind of more like Dahl Soup! 

Oh!!! You Sweet Potato...you!!!

I love how I eat the meal plan for a week and then I decide to look up the nutritional benefits of a sweet potato.  Of course!  Well I knew it has a lower glycemic index than a regular potato and must have some extra nutrients since it's orange but wow the vit A it has is off the charts. No really it is.  Look! (it's at the bottom of my post)

I'm not sure how much you know about Tosca Reno and her cooler plan, but basically for cooler 1,( named so because you could potentially pack everything into a cooler for the day), is about fast weight loss using clean foods only. Which means, nothing processes, no sugar, no salt, no fatty meats and the minimum requirement of fat, no dairy, no bread, no spreads or salad dressings (except lemon juice and balsamic) = I created my own salad dressings within these limitations and they are awesome, opps sorry getting back to the can't list no spreads or juice.  (well I guess I'm cheating on the juice thing since I'm juicing my veggies because I can't seem to eat the required 10 handfuls- minimum).  You do eat 1 hand sized sweet potato a day and a handful or 1/2 cup amount of whole grains (ex. oats, quinoa, brown rice, millet or creme of wheat). Oh ya and the star of this plan is 5 palm sized servings of lean protein (can be a protein powder also- unsweetened and natural).  Now don't panic, she does have other cooler plan options.  Or make up your own like my friend Maxine does 1.5.  Cool eh!

So here I am again, it's Saturday night and I'm preparing some fast foods for next week.   I tried a sweet potato pancake with oats from this website (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-potato-pancakes-2/detail.aspx) but I didn't really like it so I changed it.  To start I halved the recipe, didn't add the molasses or oil, used only egg whites and instead of yogourt I mixed in almond milk, apple sauce and lemon juice.  I processed everything in my food processor and cooked them up.  The taste wasn't bad (the cinnamon and vanilla are a nice touch) but I found I had to make them really flat for the insides to cook.  So they were more like a crunchy cookie.  My youngest son enjoyed them!   I will have them in the morning when everyone else is chowing down on pancakes at my son birthday party.  This is why I spend time preparing food, to avoid the temptations. 

My second sweet potato endeavor was making more chips.  I feel like they are my saving grace.  They are like junk food to me now! The oven is at 400F, slice them up finely and coat with a bit of olive oil and don't take your face away from the window because when they start to brown they will turn black in seconds.

My third go at the sweet potato was a curry vegetable soup with tofu.  Here are the pics.

The soup is basically the same as my last one, but I modified it a bit.  I used 2 whole sweet potatoes skin on, 2 handfuls of celery, 2 roma tomatoes, 1 cup each zucchini and spaghetti squash,  the container of no salt added broth by Campbells, some garlic powder, ginger and lots of mild curry powder.  I let it boil till the potatoes were soft, took it off the heat added 2 giant tightly packed handfuls of spinach and processed it with my hand blender.  Then I poured the soup over each serving of chopped tofu with some extra curry powder. 

I also made an other batch of chili this time with zucchini and mushrooms (so basically the same recipe as last time minus the broccoli and so many peppers)!

Curried sweet potato and veggie soup with tofu.

http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=64

ps.  The article mentions how studies show that the vitamin A is better absorbed with the presence of healthy fats (ex. olive oil, coconut oil etc..). I will have to do that!