New Goals

How did I go three months without a post? Oh that's right, I moved (again), worked a part time job at MOM's, full time job in DC, full class load, then when I had some resemblance of a break I worked more, totaled my car then started classes again. Fun times.

So currently I am no longer working at MOM's but decided to work full time in DC while in school full time. It is so draining as some of my days are leaving by 715am and not getting home til 10pm. Needless to say, my health and good eating habits have fallen by the wayside. I'm not as active, I eat later in the day/more processed things and I sleep a whole heck of a lot less. I drink less water. AND I CAN FEEL IT.

My body.

Ugh.

I just don't feel great. I juice every day which is probably my own saving grace. I've not gained weight but I haven't lost any and I've gotten soft. It's what happens I guess when you go from working out at least 5 times a week to none. So I'm making my own March Madness challenge that I want to stick with and see where it goes. These are my rules:

1. No alcohol for 30 days.

I definitely don't drink like I did in my early (eh, and mid) 20's but I've been drinking more than my waist would like. So my first challenge is no alcohol for the month of March.

2. Eat a 80/20 raw diet.

I would love to go raw. I love the idea behind it, I think it's a beautiful thing to eat only what you get in it's most natural state. So I want to make exceptions for hummus, tomato sauce and the occasional cooked vegetable meal. Tomato sauce because my coworker gave me a vegetable spiraler and it makes my squash into "pasta" noodles. I love it.

3. WORK OUT

So thanks to livingsocial and groupon, I have a 30 day membership to Hilton Health Club and the Results gym next to my job. I can use the Hilton for the month of March then switch to Results after but seriously. Something has to change, I can't lose all of my hard work and get too soft.

4. Water

Time to up the water again. I regularly drank 100+ oz a day, now I feel lucky if I drink 40. I've replaced so much water with coffee and tea, so time to get back on that bandwagon.

5. $$

I spend too much. It's my hope that limiting my going out with the above adjustments I can finally save money instead of spending too much. So, my final goal is for my savings to be $1000.00 richer by the end of March.

So that's my March goals. I can do this, right? I'll check in here periodically with recipes and updates, hopefully tracking progress like weight loss and savings increase, not "oh btw I failed."

=)

Dirt Cake

Every Wednesday, I teach an after school lit club to a group of 1st graders as part of one of my children's lit classes. It's been fun (well, last week not so much, post-halloween kids are a terror). I was trying to think of something special to do for the last week I had with them. I built a whole lesson plan around food and digestion, so the last day we read Megan McDonald's Beetle McGrady Eats Bugs then I had the kids write me a story about how they thought something that would be nastiest thing they ate wasn't really all that nasty.

Tuesday night I thought "oooooh, I'll make dirt cake." Looks gross but is totally awesome right? One of my friends suggested I make it vegan, so since I've had such issue making vegan baked stuff, I went for it.

Verdict? Pretty awesome. I'm not sure if this is traditional dirt cake but I loved it. My kids all said it was the best cake they ever had. The only thing I'd do different is maybe use ground flax seed/water instead of the egg substitute, but I was short on time and didn't know the correct measurements.

Cake

1 box no dairy cake mix (I used a Duncan Hines marble cake mix), prepare with egg substitute and then the oil and water on the box directions

6 oreos

Mix the cake ingredients, pour in pan and top with broken up oreos. Bake the cake according to box directions, set aside to cool.

Frosting

2 half sticks softened Earth Balance shortening

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2-3/4 c confectioners sugar (just taste it as you go)

4-5tbs peanut putter

Start with beating the shortening then add liquid ingredients. Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time, then mix in softened peanut butter. If it tastes to shorten-y, add more sugar as needed.

Dirt

One package crushed oreos

Gummy worms

Cover the cake with a thin layer of icing. You really don't need that much. I used probably half of what I listed above but it's pretty good and will keep for a long time. Cover the cake with the crushed oreos and top with gummy worms.

Pretty good!

Pumpkin hummus

Please excuse the ugly picture, I've already dug into this quite a few times. It's no secret my love for pumpkin. I think more posts in this blog are about pumpkin than any other food. Anyways, I like to roast pumpkins but there was sale at my store on organic pumpkin puree, so I stocked up on a few cans. I made pumpkin soup last week and want to make pumpkin curry soon, so I needed something else to make with my pumpkin. I was making my weekly batch of hummus and thought that's it, pumpkin hummus!

This recipe needs some tuning but it's pretty good. The pumpkin flavor is really just a hint that shines with cinnamon without being sweet. I've been putting it on my salads and it's not overpowering. Add an apple to the salad and it's the perfect fall meal. Let me know if you try it and put in anything different!

Pumpkin hummus

2 c chickpeas (I rehydrate a cup of dried beans by soaking them over night and boiling them the next morning for 30-45 min. Test 5 to make sure they are soft, boarderline mushy so they blend easier)

1-3 tbs leftover water from cooking chickpeas or from the can

1/2 can pumpkin puree

2 tbs tahini

1 tbs olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

salt to taste

cinnamon to taste

Puree all the ingredients in a blender or food processor except the water. I start with the chickpeas, then add the pumpkin, tahini, oil, lemon juice and salt. Add the starchy water until you get the consistency that you want. Transfer to a container, sprinkle with cinnamon and refrigerate. The flavors will really shine and come together if you let it sit for a half hour or so before serving. Enjoy!

Been a while

Heeeyo,

So it's been a while. Honestly, it's been a while for everything. I haven't cooked really anything above what I can squeeze in a microwave in some time. I work a full time and part time job, I go to school full time and I have a kitchen that is too small to really devote much time to cooking.

That all stopped when I got this little beauty that was marked down for being damaged:

I love this lunch box. It came with a larger tupperware container, a medium sized one and two small ones, as well as a 16oz water bottle. I usually don't use the water bottle because I have my own mammoth sized one, so I just replace that section with my breakfast of yogurt or a piece of fruit.

Since I'm usually on the run, I noticed that I was neglecting my health and in-taking too much processed stuff, so I decided to take advantage of this and make my own lunches. I get some produce from compost, some from my store and others that I eat a lot of, like carrots and spring lettuce mix, from cosco (don't judge) because I can get large quantities (and organic too) for pretty cheap. I spent $30 on produce last week and it lasted me the entire week. Then I do other things like buy dry beans and rehydrate them for hummus or soup. The process is a little more time consuming, but you can't beat the flavor or the price, and really, I make a batch every Sunday that lasts me a week and costs a fraction of what I would spend at the grocery store. Plus, I made pumpkin hummus last week because...why not? Recipe on that later when I can get a picture.

So with that lunch box, here is my typical lunch (and nutritional info just because)

My every day lunch

2 c Spring Mix

1 c chopped broccoli (sometimes I roast this in no oil with mushrooms)

6 grape tomatoes

2 tbs (pumpkin) hummus with 1 tbs dressing of choice (gives is a thinner consistency. This one is Drew's Organic Smoked Tomato dressing)

1/3 c chickpeas - i put 1 tbs of bbq sauce (SWEET BABY RAYS) because plain chickpeas can get boring (I only buy tempeh once a week, so if I have it on hand I use 1-2oz of that instead)

This lunch is super filling, comes in at around 240 cal, 8 grams of fat and 8 grams of protein. And all of this fit in that little lunch box. Although it may cost more than (a vegan version of) ramen, this meal still comes in well under $3, less if I can get a piece or two from compost.

See you can eat well on a budget!

Coming up next....my new obsession. Pumpkin hummus.

...lunch!

I eat pretty well when it's CSA time. I am off today, so I woke up and went to my work out class and now, although I should be a little productive, I'm being lazy. At least my lunch wasn't lazy. I took some leftover kale and yellow squash and broiled them with a little salt, cherry tomatoes from my garden and some paprika for 10 or so minutes, shaking every once in a while. I sprayed the pan with some cooking spray to keep it from sticking. Super delicious!

Drunken Beans

First, I'm sorry, but I don't have a picture for this recipe. I wish I did because holy moley it was awesome. I had off last Thursday which meant I wanted to stay up late Wednesday night. I had some left over dried beans in my cabinet that I wanted to slow cook somehow, so when I got in, I began to soak them, roughly 1 c black and 1.5 c of garbanzo. After a movie and a glass of wine or two, I started to look up recipes for slow cooking the beans. I knew the two didn't exactly go together and I was tired of my usual beans and rice curry, so I wandered to my kitchen and had my own my drunk kitchen experience, only less cute and funny, more cutting my finger with a knife while chopping an onion.

First, my beans had not quite soaked the full four hours but I thought (decided) they were done enough. I found a saucepan that was too small, rinsed the beans thoroughly and boiled them for a few minutes. Really that was all I could do because it was too full and my water kept overflowing onto the burner. I got a majority of my how to cook dried bean information here but it was 2am and I didn't feel like reading all that. I knew that boiling them is most important for dangerous kidney beans but to be on the safe side, I boiled them first on high then on low for about 5 minutes. While this happened, I took out the crock pot and in it added chopped green pepper, onion, garlic scapes (I lacked garlic), 1 28oz can of diced tomatoes, 1 can of tomato paste, and the beans (rinsed again once they finished boiling. Supposed to make you less gassy, fyi). I also added a little of the beer that I was drinking. Anyways, I covered the lid and cooked on low. You apparently aren't supposed to add salt to beans when you are first cooking them because it can make them absorb liquid less.

I woke up around 10 to a house that smelled like tomato and garlic. I went to check on my bean mess expecting the worse but they looked beautiful and I felt like I was a goodfella making the best tomato sauce, only less stirring and more looking for helicopters. It was still a little wet (I'm not blaming the beer) so I added a small can of organic tomato sauce (maybe it was puree?) and seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin, a little red pepper flakes and just a few shakes of cayenne. I covered and let it cook on low until around 2 when I added basil, cilantro and just a touch of thyme from my garden, then turned it off but left the lid on so it could marry and cool slowly.

This was beyond amazing. My goodness. It was warm and happy and comforting like spaghetti without being heavy like pasta. The garlic scapes gave it a mild garlic flavor and I like them, mainly for how they look but I think next time I'll use regular garlic. I love garlic too much. But I can see how this can be varied. Definitely not a regular meal with it being so hot out but for this past week, and really for the whole crockpot (equaled for me 7 meals) coming in at under $7, I'm super happy with it. I think next time I'll add mushrooms though.

How does your garden grow

Answer? Pretty darn okay! I sometimes get over excited and pluck tomatoes too early, but here are some that ripened on my windowsill and tasted amazing.

I need to go get something for my cucumbers to climb on because they are currently reaching for anything they can, which often means choking my basil and cilantro. The thyme and rosemary are flourishing. My mine started off strong and has been suffering the past couple of days, so I trimmed back some of the branches and see if that'll help it. The other night the roommate and I made dinner that consisted of stirfry vegetables, vegan taco meat, and English chips she deep fried. I used some cilantro from my garden for the squash/zucchini/onion/pepper combo and it was pretty awesome.

Other than that, life is...life. I am working full time at the store. I just finished my first grad level class and although it just about killed me, I'm done for the summer. Up next, the praxis! For now though, I'm just focusing on having fun which I am. And getting back into running/being more active for summer. I'm 10lbs shy of a healthy bmi reading and losing 100lbs and I'd like to hit that by the end of August which I feel like I can do. We'll see. I totally won't get there eating deep fried chips/vegan taco meat, but splurging every now and again is okay.