m'ap boule

In Hatitian Creole, they have a saying. M'ap boule; it means I am burning and it is a response to "how are you?" Fitting, hu? If you are doing well, you are burning. Turns out, burning is not just good, it's great!

I am getting older (don't tell anybody!) and my metabolism is slowing down... by quite a bit. It began a few years ago when I was really, really busy. I never had time to eat and I was sleepy a lot so I lived on Full Throttle Slushies from Sonic and Slimfast shakes. Yeah, I know. So at first, it was awesome! I had the energy I needed (and then some!) and lost about 15 pounds. I am 5 foot 3 so 15 pounds is pretty significant, pants falling off and all that good stuff. Problem was, I decided about 6 months later to eat. While I was starving, my body decided to stop burning. I packed that 15 back on in a jiffy and then some! My first inclination was to cut back the calories, but I knew that if I cut down to 700 calories this year, it would have to go down to 600 next year and so on until I was living on 200 calories a day to keep my weight down. No fun.

About a year ago, I decided to do it right and take it slow. So I ate healthy and worked out, just like they say. It worked, a little. I dropped back to a decent weight but was still soft around the edges and still tired. During my journey with veggies I have tried to cut out things like dairy and meats. It makes my tummy feel great but I am not seeing my body respond the way I want.

I think the problem is my fire is dying. I am not burning. It is like throwing wet logs on and wondering why your flames are not rising higher. I blame it on the protien/carb thing. Veggies have lots of vitamins and minerals and happy things in them. I love them and their fiber keeps my tummy happy. Viva Veggies! However, veggies are carbs. OK, no problem. But where are my protiens coming from? Well, all of my protien sources in a veggie diet come from things like nuts, soy, beans, etc. which are high in protien but guess what else? Yup, carbs and also fat. Check out the nurtitionals on your veggie things in the freezer and you'll see 15 protiens and 35 carbs and 15 fats. So every time I am downing those "protiens", I am adding 30 or 50 carbs in my diet plus 15-30 grams of fat (no, it's not all saturated but you can't be eating too much fat period!). Then I am still eating my greens and other veggies that have more carbs. I am basically carb and fat loading and not getting enough protien. Sounds like a recipe for weight gain, even if I am feeling great.

So, what's a girl to do??? I want to be in great shape, I mean like lean with cut up abs and arms and be able to run my 1/2 marathon in June and also feel great and be able to keep up with life.

My plan is this; and you can track my progress with me, I'm going to add back in some lean protiens (wild caught fish and organic chicken and turkey) while keeping my veggies up. That way, I'll have my awesome fiber and carbs from the good stuff and then I will be getting some great protiens to keep that fire hot while I keep fats down. Sound like a plan? Hey, this sounds a lot like moderation, hu?

The great part about being called "vegetarian" or "vegan" is you CAN'T eat a lot of crappy stuff and still use the label. If you eat lean, organic (not tortured and injected) meats along with the vegetables, you don't get a cool label. Well, maybe one, Smoking Hot. That works.

Repentance is hard

So, yesterday was a horrible day. Not enough sleep, too many whiners, blah blah blah. And, since I am so smart, I decided to flush my day out with mass quantities of sugar, fat and MSG. Short term, great solution...Long term, not so much. After eating (and I can't believe I am admitting this) 3, count em THREE full-size candy bars, I decided to run through a fast food hole and get a fried chicken sandwich with fries and a diet coke. Yeah, I know. And no, it gets better, then for dinner I eat a piece of cheese pizza and 2 greasy breadsticks. Awesome. I had class till 10:30 that night and had to lamaze breath the whole way home to keep from throwing up in my car. Needless to say, my night's sleep sucked. I felt like my stomach was a hard bloated brick. And if my body didn't kick me enough, I was awoken at 3 am because my side was killing me and I swear it is because my kidneys just could not process all that crap!

So I think I have learned my lesson and my body really is happier with veggies and earth foods than candy and junk! Who'da thunk!

Homemade Seitan

I decided to try my hand at making Seitan since I can only find it in nuggets and I wanted more cutlets. Could not have been much easier! Here are some pics! Not too many ingredients, athough you will need to go to whole foods or Mother's Market for the Vital Wheat Gluten and the Nutritional Yeast. My only tip is to be sure to keep your vegetable broth on very low while you braise it or it will get too thick and elasticy.

Here's the basic recipe:

In a bowl, combine the following:
1 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten
2 Tablespoons Nutritional Yeast
1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning (I used poultry seasoning tho)
3/4 cup cold water
1 Tablespoon Tamari (or low-sodium soy sauce)
3 Tablespoons soy milk
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

Mix well and knead the dough a few times. Tear dough into 4 sections and roll, pull, squish (whatever) each section into a 1/2 inch cutlet shape. The more you work with it, the easier it stretches and stays.

In a large skillet pour 2 cups of vegetable broth and bring to a simmer. Turn heat to low and add the 4 cutlets to skillet. Cover the pan and cook for 20 minutes, filpping cutlets after 10 minutes. Be sure you do not let the broth boil, only simmer very low.

Now you are ready to use them. Bread and pan cook them like I did and put them in a salad or with some mashed potatoes or even in a sandwich. You can use this product the same as you would chicken. It is delicious and full of protien!!

Yay Chipotle!!

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd be recommending a fast food pork burrito establishment but here it is!

If you must eat meat, be responsible! Find out where it came from, how it was raised and what it was fed and injected with! Almost every fast food chain I have researched will not tell you where they get their meat. All they will say is (Chick fil a) "all chickens are processed under USDA inspection and random samples are tested for residues". Hmmm, yeah, same with the beef that gave us ecoli poisoning! That means nothing to me. We live in a country where the beef and chicken ranchers and farms are contributing huge amounts of money to keep the government off their backs. I don't trust 'em!

Here's what I found that was so impressive:
Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle, will tell you where his meat comes from and even has interviews on youtube at the farms to show the conditions. It is not perfect but here is what he says, straight off the website:

"Food With Integrity" isn't a marketing slogan. It's not a product line of natural and organic foods. And it's not a corporate initiative that will ever be finished or set aside to make room for other priorities. It's a philosophy that we can always do better in terms of the food we buy. And when we say better, we mean better in every sense of the word- better tasting, coming from better sources, better for the environment, better for the animals, and better for the farmers who raise the animals and grow the produce.
The hallmarks of Food With Integrity include things like unprocessed, seasonal, family-farmed, sustainable, nutritious, naturally raised, added hormone free, organic, and artisanal. And, since embracing this philosophy, it's had tremendous impact on how we run our restaurants and our business. It's led us to serve more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant in the country, to push for more sustainable practices in produce farming, and to work with dairy suppliers to eliminate the use of added hormones from their operations.
It's even influenced the way we view other aspects of our business, from the materials and systems we use to design and build our restaurants, to our staffing and training programs.
We like the food we serve today. And, because of our Food With Integrity philosophy, we're confident that we'll like it even more down the road.


It may not be a marketing slogan, but it works for me! Next time my kids want fast food, you can bet it will be Chipotle! Nice job, Steve! I hope others will follow suit!

Baked tofu

I always bought my baked tofu already seasoned and baked and it is pricey and you only have like 3 choices of flavors. The recipe to marinate and bake it in my Vegan Yum Yum cookbook looked so easy so I gave it a try.

I will NEVER buy baked tofu again! I had some leftover raspberry chipotle sauce and some mango chipotle sauce that came from Cost Plus Foods so I just sliced up the tofu and poured the sauce over it and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then I lined a sheet with parchment paper and baked the slices for about 35 minutes at 400 degrees until they were brown on the edges.

The PLAN was to put them in grilled sourdough sandwiches with some veggie mayo, lettuce, and tomato. Problem was, they were so good that my friend (who, by the way, had never had tofu before!) and I ate 10 slices and only had 6 left for the sandwiches. It was enough for the two of us but my poor husband had to eat frozen pizza for lunch.

No pics, either, sorry. We downed them too fast!

Cheese

Vegan cheese is a hard sell for me. I like cheese okay; I can enjoy a sandwich without it but a lot of dishes really gotta have cheese. Bean burritos with no cheese are just sad, plus lots of pasta dishes have cheese as a main component. I have had lots of crappy cheeses and need to try a few other ones. I am using a lot of Follow Your Heart cheese right now. The Monterey Jack is awesome for sandwiches and melts great on seitan or tofu dishes or in pasta sauce. The cheddar is yummy in a burrito and both melt really well, although you will need a bit more time to melt than regular cheese so if you are making quesadillas, turn the heat on med low so they can cook a bit longer without burning.

I want to try Sheese cheese, although I hear it does not melt so it is just for snacking on and maybe sandwiches.

Dr. Cow Teese is supposed to be this really yummy nut cheese but I think you can only get it online (so shipping is crazy) or on the east coast. I'll be sure to post once I try these and let you know! In the meantime, gimme your feedback on vegan cheeses you like!

book review

Took the pictureless books back last night and picked up the new book from my favorite food blogger, Vegan Yum Yum. This one has a picture of every single recipe and most have several step by step pics. You'll love it! Recipes are a bit more complicated than other books I have but that's what makes cooking fun, right?? I already made some baked tofu from it to serve on sandwiches today and it'll be a miracle if I can stop snacking on them before lunch comes!