Sunrise Smoothie

It snowed last night. Again.  And now a lovely sleety ice rain is falling. Bleech! I would love to be on a tropical island again like Vieques, P.R. or back in Costa Rica but since I'm here in Rhode Island enduring what is hopefully winter's last hurrah, I'm making tropical smoothies.

I was at the market this weekend waffling over which fruits to splurge on and then I smelled the strawberries. I'll just give them a sniff I thought as commercial berries can be lacking in flavor, but ohhhh,oohh yes, sold!  Wafting up to my nose was the perfume of perfectly ripe strawberries.  Craving Spring and strawberry season, I had to have them.  

Blood oranges are also in season right now and I just love their deep rich flavor- to me they are the wine of the orange citrus world.  Don't get me wrong I love satsumas and clementines but their flavor is a delicate, ethereal grace note compared to blood oranges .

Sunrise Smoothie:

1 blood orange, peeled and cut into sections
handful of strawberries, washed and green tops removed
1 banana
So Delicious brand coconut milk
or Almond, Rice or Soy milk

Put ingredients into Nutribullet or blender of choice, blend and serve.Coconut milk (and by this I mean the milk you drink and find in the aisle with the almond rice and soy milks, not the one one that comes in a can and is used for making curries) contains some saturated fat but it's form is in MCT (medium chain triglycerides) which are thought to have myriad health benefits.  The Engine 2 Diet says not to use this if you are trying to lose weight. And there are some articles that recommend not using coconut milk if you are diabetic. Definitely work with a nutritionist , consult your doctor and do research so you can make an informed decision as to what's best for you if you have any health concerns. Almond soy or rice milk will work just as well in this smoothie. I

    For extra nutrition you could add flax meal or chia seeds to this . This will make 2 servings if the banana is really large and 1 serving if using a small banana.

Day 5

Day 5

I'm running late from work.  Having just missed a bus, I had a long wait for the next one and was just too tired to walk.  A quick snack I thought.  And then "oh no, what can I eat?"  I went to Starbucks and grabbed a bag of Sweet Potato Chips. The internal monologue : They can't have that much oil can they? It's the Food Tastes Good company, they make good stuff. My belly roars just feed us the freakin chips already before we self implode.

I devour the chips in seconds- they are sooo good and sweet and salty and oily and hey they are really sweet and oily! Post devouringI look at the bag- added cane sugar and quite a bit of oil. There's a funny taste in my mouth  a strange combo of oil and Guilt ...
Happily when I get home Himself confesses that he had teriyaki tofu takeout for lunch that definitely had oil in it and I mention the chip consumption.

And then I made one of our favorite dishes Black Beans and Quinoa...

This dish takes 20 minutes.

Ingredients:
1 cup  quinoa
1 can black beans
Cumin
1 can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes with green chilies or chipotle
1 avocado
1/2 a yellow onion
2-4 cloves garlic to taste
 1 cup baby spinach or chopped kale

 Into a saucepan  pour 2 cups water and  1 cup Quinoa and bring to boil . Reduce heat to simmer and cover.  The water will be absorbed and the quinoa cooked in about 20 minutes. Check  once or twice to make sure it's just simmering. Remove from heat when done.

While the quinoa cooks, saute some chopped garlic and onions in a tiny bit/2-3 tablespoons- of water or veggie broth about 5 minutes then add in the tomato mix and the black beans and  cumin to taste - I tend to use close to a tablespoon of cumin.
 Simmer this while quinoa is cooking.  When the quinoa is done, stir the cup of greens into the black bean mixture.  Serve the black bean mix on top of the quinoa and mix then garnish with avocado.  if your goal is weight loss use less avocado.  Himself gets a small portion of avocado whereas I, who need to maintain my weight, get half the avocado and the remainder goes to my leftovers  for lunch on Day 6.

Variations: spring onion and cilantro.  Add these as garnish or in place of spinach and onion.  Here's a picture of the dish with the spring onion and cilantro.   For extra heat add in different chilies or a dash of hot sauce.  Tabasco Chipotle is oil free.

Day 4

Day 4 

Snow is falling  and I had the afternoon free.   This pretty much never happens so I'm gleefully in the kitchen making a huge batch of granola.   I'm trying out Robin Mather's recipe for oil free granola. It's from The Feast Nearby, a beautiful book about eating locally, bartering and preserving on a budget.www.thefeastnearby.com 

To make the granola you dry roast the rolled oats in the oven and then dry roast the nuts whole and then grinding them after they cool.    Any seeds or dried fruits used should not be baked but instead added in after the oats are out of the oven .   I followed her recipe to the letter choosing vanilla and agave as my flavoring and sweetener.  The granola is delicately nutty in flavor and I will add cinnamon and nutmeg to the next batch.

Granola:

 

Day 1

Day 1
 I stocked the pantry last night ( note to self : shopping on Sunday night is a feeding frenzy - don't do it again) and made kale and lentil soup from the Engine 2 Diet cookbook. The book says it feeds 10 hungry firemen and that's right- it will take us all week to eat this!
 The soup is good and hearty especially with a slice of Ezekiel bread or a whole wheat and no oil pita. The hardest part of shopping was checking on ingredients in packaged foods like stock, chips and bread in the middle of a crowded shopping aisle - Sorry folks, I tried to be fast! Anyhow Whole Foods small pita pockets are safe, no oils used. The big Whole Foods pitas have oil in them.
 Why no oil you ask?
 Well according to Rip Esselstyn, the author of the Engine 2 Diet, oils are plant extracts not whole foods and if you are trying to lose weight and lower bad cholesterol levels you need to eliminate oil or consume a miniscule amount. If you have to grease a pan he wants you to use Pam spray. So far this is my only complaint about the book.
 I REFUSE to use Pam. It's genetically modified canola oil and the propellant can be any combination of propane, food grade alcohol, butane, and/ or petroleum gas. Yuck! Why would you want that in your food??? I plan to get a Misto ( a pump oil spritzer) and use that with olive oil for the few times I really need any oil.  A little water in the pan or vegetable broth works fine in place of oil for many things.  The soup is lovely although the recipe calls for no seasoning except ground pepper. It tastes much better on the second day too ( and the third and the fourth...) I'm thinking maybe oregano and thyme and basil the next time I make this soup.

In which we go vegan...

Two weeks ago my boyfriend( henceforth referred to as Himself or my fella as he wishes to remain anonymous) decided out of the blue that he wanted to try a vegan diet to shed some of the winter weight he's carrying. This from the man who loves his eggs and bacon and porterhouse steaks. Me , incredulous,- You're going to give up bacon? And, um, cheese ? Himself, -Yeah, I can do that. Me - Ok then let's do it. ( Internally mourning cheese before we even get started. Did I mention I really love cheese?) I've done the vegan diet before in college when meat was often well beyond my student income. I eat about a 70% plant based diet now and this means that Himself has been exposed to a more plant based diet since we've been together. Some fish ( mostly sushi), occasional burgers,eggs enjoyed as a weekend treat and often accompanied by their frequent dance-card partner, Bacon , drift in and out of my menu but cheese is pretty much a constant. But if Himself can give up meat then I can go without cheese and truth be told I need to. A persistent bit of eczema that refuses to respond to topical creams indicates there is some underlying allergy happening in my body and this is one way to find out if it's dairy- related. So after getting out all of my Sarah Kramer vegan cookbooks including How It All Vegan and La Dolce Vegan,( Yes I'm afraid I'm a bit of a cookbook addict, a friend mentioned The Engine 2 Diet. I picked up the book and had the brain flash that the author was the son of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn from Forks Over Knives, which I watched on Netflix not too long ago . I also remembered that I sat next to a relative of his on a plane last October who told me that the diet was profoundly transformational for everyone in his family that's gone on it. OK, Cool beans! The diet focuses on whole plant based foods, low sodium, whole grain and cooking with no oils ( yes it's really doable). So I told Himself we would be doing the Engine 2 Diet 28 Day challenge and he was on board. - Welcome to our journey!