Tuesday, June 3, 2008

A comforting circle.. a world away

I just wanted to thank you all for the support you've given me these past days. My mom read your comments with tears in her eyes "your so lucky to have such a strong supportive group of people"..she couldnt believe that even though I have never met any of you in person, you were all willing to send your love and positive energy to my family and I... and it's true...you all are such amazing people.. it is mind blowing... so i cannot say thank you enough.


SO ANYWAY... this is going to be a long post so bare with me.

Since I've been kind of MIA with the food posts lately, I will catch you up!!!

So I had all intentions of following in Bianca's (from Vegan Crunk) foot steps with her "Raw food Mondays" accept I would be big and bold and do it for a week.... well that lasted for a day! It was fine for a day, but I think with everything I had going on I just wanted some comforting WARM food. 
I have been feeling like I need to do something about my diet. Yes I eat healthy, yes I e
at as organic as I can... and of course I am VEGAN... but for some reason, I feel like my system needs a cleaning. I think perhaps since I have been going out to dinner quite a bit in the past month,(celebrating graduations, and birthdays and such) and all they usually have to offer me is freakin Pasta primavera (and of course the pasta is While pasta) that i just feel icky!

A while ago (before I became vegan) a fellow Rockette of mine mentioned a diet called "The Fat Smash Diet". It is basically a vegan diet... all fruits and veggies.. as many as you want.. and a limited amount of dairy and grains and NO MEAT. This is the detox stage of the diet. After I did it the last time (for 9 days) I felt GREAT! I'm not sure i can explain it, but i just felt CLEAN.
Well I decided I would do it again. SO here it goes
-a cup of oatmeal in the morning (with a fruit) (Or any wholesome cereal)
-a cup of rice milk
-as many fruits and veggies (including beans...and excluding
 white potatoes) as I want (in any form too)
-no more than a tablespoon of olive oil a day
-a cup of brown rice a day

Its been about 3 days, and I already feel a little better...

Ok so here's what has been going into my mouth for the past couple of days!!!

Sunday:
Sunday for breakfast was a smoothy with Mango, Kiwii, and Watermelon (sweetened with some agave nectar)
and a bowl of fresh blue berries, and watermelon

For lunch I had SPRING ROLLS! 
For some reason Spring rolls excite me.. i think because they are
almost transparent and you can see the pretty insides :)
I used Sun-dried tomatoes, Carrots, Pine Nuts, zuchinni, red pepper, and
 dried organic cranberries
Threw them in mister food processor (hes my other boyfriend)
Placed the mixture in a bed of lettuice, and wrapped it all in a spring roll wrap 



I think that night I had oatmeal for dinner... (i wasnt very hungry because of all that was going on with the pup :( )

Monday:
Breakfast was a bowl of kammut flakes with rice milk

Lunch was from wholefoods.... nothing crazy, just a salad with snap peas, sun dried tomatoes, edamame, some brown rice, corn, carrots, and Texturized vegetable protein (does anyone know where to buy this!!! I LOVE IT)


That night... around 9:30, my mom mentioned that she hadn't eaten all day and she was starving but had no motivation to make or get anything...I decided to pull through and be strong for her (she always is for me) and whip up some dinner...

I opened my fridge and realized that I had Brussel sprouts that I hadn't used, and needed to be used within the next few days... did some blog searching... and discovered this recipe on Fatfree Vegan Kitchen .It was Brussle sprouts with garlic and basil.. the only substitution i made was Pine nuts instead of almonds (I have been a little pine nut crazy... the discovery is very exciting to me.)

I also made a crunchy sprout salad.
A while back I bought a bunch of well... crunchy sprouts.. and hadnt used them yet. At my favorite vegan restaurant they serve this salad with a carrot ginger dressing.

Well I tried to mimic the dressing and it came out pretty great!!!

Carrot Ginger dressing
I put two carrots into my boyfriend (food processor)
about a teaspoon of ginger
pinch of salt and pepper
about 3 tablespoons of white wine vinigar
about 1/4 cup of olive oil
add enough water to the mixture to make it liquidy to you likeing

mix all the ingredients and vuala
I also heated up a cup of Butternut squash soup that my mom had made and frozen from about a month ago.
Although it was a nice dinner... neither of us managed to finish it.


TODAY
Today was an exciting food day for me!!
Well... breakfast and lunch were boreing but YAY FOR DINNER!
Breakfast: Oatmeal with a banana
Lunch: Salad with lots of veggies.

DINNER....

....

...

WHAT WAS IT???
....
...
..........


Suspense is killing ya huh


.....
OK ILL TELL YOU ILL TELL YOU

THE BEST BLACK BEAN BURGERS YOULL EVER HAVE!!

YUMMM

Again I got this recipe from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen... but i made
 lots of substitutes so I'll fill you all in on them.

She actually calls them Red bean Chipotle burgers... but I didnt have any on hand so I made blackbean

The Best Black Bean Burgers Youll Ever Have

1 small onion peeled and quartered
1 LARGE clove of garlic (or two small)
1 can of black beans
1/2 cup uncooked oatmeal
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1 teaspoon Chilie powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 tspn salt
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/8 cup whole wheat flour.

preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Put onion and garlic into my boyfriend (foodprocessor) and chop.
rinse beans and put them into a medium sized bowl and mash.(le
ave slightly chunky.. a little chunkier than refried beans)
add onion mixture and stirr.
add the remaining ingredients and Stir well.

Spray a nonstick cookie sheet with pam or lightly oil

make about 6 patties and spread accordingly on the cookie sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes (or until crispy and brown). take out and turn
 ...cook for another 15 minutes.

These have an incredible texture. Seriously.. this is the first time ive made bean burgers and they arent mush in my mouth!! Theyre not spicy, but they have a LITTLE bite to them (if you dont Theyre t like spicy things you could def make these... if you LOVE spicy, pump up the chili powder) slightly crunchy.. and although they dont have a meaty texture...they are certainly a nice alternative to a burger.... IM OBSESSED!!!!


I also made some baked sweet potatoes.... i seasoned them with Season salt and sea salt.. I burned some of them but i like them that way :)

15 comments:

Becca said...

Love the recipes! I like the crispy/slightly burnt sweet potato fries as well, same way with roasted veggies!

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

We're here for you, for support :0)

Sounds like you've been eating quite deliciously lately!

Oh man, those black-bean burgers DO sound like the best; and the sweet potato fries?? Divine.

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh, everything looks so good. Carrot ginger dressing, black bean burgers, sweet potatoes... I want it all!
How did you get your sweet potatoes cut so thin, they look just like chips!

Anonymous said...

That's a lot of tasty looking food! You should make me salads for my lunch...I can't make a salad worth smiling about. By the way, I've added you to my blogroll! Yay!

Vegan Addict

Unknown said...

shame on me for never having had b b burgers.

Amy said...

Must...try....burgers! I am a burger patty addict and a black bean addict, but you're right, they're usually mushy. I can't believe I missed that recipe, I'll be giving yours a try for sure!

Little Miss Sunshine said...

OOOoooo black bean burger and sweet potato fries - ANYTIME!!! I bookmarked lots of burger recipes from blogs that I read but never get the chance to make them coz I'm (ahem) too lazy!

About TVP, I think you can get them at health food stores. Hope you and your mum will start to feel better, I know it's a hard thing to deal with ... stay strong and don't forget to :0), have a great day!!

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

I'm still thinking of you and your family. I'm so sorry for what you have to be going through right now. It SUCKS to lose a four-legged member of the family.

I love black bean burgers... I usually just eat the Gardenburger ones, but I bet homemade would be 100 times better. You've definitely intrigued me with "The Best Black Bean Burgers Youll Ever Have". I think I'm going to have to try em out.

Kati said...

Hi Synthia, thanks for stopping by my blog. Ithaca is great, it's true! As far as vegan eats go, there is always the Moosewood, of course (it seems almost too obvious, but I feel obligated to mention it). In my opinion, it's generally good but way overpriced - plus, they aren't even fully vegetarian since they serve fish. I recommend the ABC Cafe...or, if you're in town on the weekend, visit the farmer's market and get food from Macro Mama's. It's THE BEST - I wish they'd open a restaurant.

So sorry to read about your doggie - he looked like a sweetheart. Hang in there!

Bianca said...

Sounds like you're doing a great job! I can't blame you with only getting by with one raw food day. By the end, I'm always craving warm food...and with what you've gone through recently, comfort foods are very important in the healing process (or at least that's how I justify eating when I'm sad).

The burgers look awesome, and I want some of those sweet potato chips. I like burnt things too. I always burn popcorn on purpose.

Anyway, good job with the detox and know that your blogging family will always be here for support!

Anonymous said...

I have just discovered your blog in the past few days and wanted to thank you for all of your posts! I have had fun reading through the past posts, and I made the bean fudge (can't remember what you called it, sorry!) and it was SO good! Wow!

Thank you!
Courtney

Hungry Hungry Dancer said...

Hey courtney!!

aw thank you sooo much.. your very sweet!
Do you have a blog that I can check out??

Avery Yale Kamila said...

Carrot ginger dressing is one of my absolute favorite things in this world!

Anonymous said...

No--no blog. I have great respect for all of you vegan bloggers out there...I don't know how you do it!

Courtney

Katy said...

I made these burgers tonight using black beans like you did. They turned out great!

A Vegan on STAGE

Navigating my way through a Vegan lifestyle