I need to start taking pictures of my food but I've never been good and stopping a moment to take one. Especially if I cooked it myself. I don't like my dishes, etc and I never feel I have a picture quality area to take it in. I know....I just need to get over myself.
Last night I wanted to make spaghetti with a red tomato sauce. I have previously, in time saver mode, just heated up a can of Italian spiced diced tomatoes with some olive oil and topped my pasta with that but I wanted something a little more substantial and flavorful. After perusing the chowhound forum discussions on pasta sauces...I found two hints to try. Add balsamic vinegar for some extra oompf of flavor and add some sugar or honey to take some of the acidity out of the tomatoes. I added both the vinegar and some honey to my 3 cans of diced tomatoes along with some sauteed onion and garlic. That is the best sauce I have EVER made...it beat my standard sauce with ground beef that has been my go to recipe since I was 16. I was surprised how flavorful it was. It will definitely be a go-to recipe whether or not I'm doing a vegan challenge. It reheated great the next day as well.
I was hungry later in the evening. I think we need to add a side salad or some dairy free bread to make it more filling in the future.
Our local Noodles & Co was doing a fundraiser for the tornado victims in Joplin on Wednesday night so we headed there for our first restaurant vegan meal.
I did a lot of research online to look for options since my favorite go-to meal there was off limits :( The pesto in my Pesto Cavatappi has Parmesan cheese in it. Their website was very informative and I chose to try the Japanese Pan noodles minus the icky cilantro. It was extremely flavorful and just on the edge of being too spicy for this spice wuss. Looking at the nutrition information later...it does have quite a bit of sodium in it unfortunately.
I don't believe I'm getting enough protein daily. Tracking my food in BodyMedia's tracker is showing that I'm only getting about 45 grams of protein a day when I should be probably taking in double that. I need to try to add in some nuts and other things to increase my protein without vastly increasing calories. Oh..by the way.. both Josh and I are losing about a pound a day so far! Bonus!!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Vegan 21 Day Challenge
I am the ultimate midwest gal. I love me some steak and cheese and BBQ. So why on earth am I committing to eating vegan for 21 days?!!
Because I love a challenge and I think it will help Josh & I get on a better general eating pattern. Our first thought process after giving up red meat for a month was to give up dairy for a month. Josh has year-round "seasonal" allergies. I think there is more to it than just pollen and mold so I thought we could see how we felt if we gave up dairy for a month. Many people have stopped suffering from "seasonal" allergies by giving up dairy because their allergy was not based on pollen....it was actually a mild dairy intolerance. I think this will be the case with Josh.... I was just going along for support and the other 'diet' implications.
Once we agreed to this, I started researching dairy-free recipes and such and entered a contest on a blog to win a book. 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health Well.. I won it and started reading. It basically is a 21 day vegan kickstart. The science behind it is strong and it sounded interesting and I am planning a fall wedding and would really like to lose 40lbs before that. SO....why not start the summer off with a big change. It didn't seem that much harder to go vegan from dairy free. So now instead of a month of dairy-free...we are going 21 days dairy, meat, egg, animal product-free.
It's going to be a long month of label reading. It's amazing....dairy is in EVERYTHING.
We were going to start on June 1st but I am not one to waste food and we had a few non-vegan things left to eat through before we started so June 5 was our start date.
I will try to keep this blog updated with things that we tried and the challenges that we face going from omni to vegan in the midwest.
Because I love a challenge and I think it will help Josh & I get on a better general eating pattern. Our first thought process after giving up red meat for a month was to give up dairy for a month. Josh has year-round "seasonal" allergies. I think there is more to it than just pollen and mold so I thought we could see how we felt if we gave up dairy for a month. Many people have stopped suffering from "seasonal" allergies by giving up dairy because their allergy was not based on pollen....it was actually a mild dairy intolerance. I think this will be the case with Josh.... I was just going along for support and the other 'diet' implications.
Once we agreed to this, I started researching dairy-free recipes and such and entered a contest on a blog to win a book. 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health Well.. I won it and started reading. It basically is a 21 day vegan kickstart. The science behind it is strong and it sounded interesting and I am planning a fall wedding and would really like to lose 40lbs before that. SO....why not start the summer off with a big change. It didn't seem that much harder to go vegan from dairy free. So now instead of a month of dairy-free...we are going 21 days dairy, meat, egg, animal product-free.
It's going to be a long month of label reading. It's amazing....dairy is in EVERYTHING.
We were going to start on June 1st but I am not one to waste food and we had a few non-vegan things left to eat through before we started so June 5 was our start date.
I will try to keep this blog updated with things that we tried and the challenges that we face going from omni to vegan in the midwest.
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