Appley Goodness

Today we took a break from the drama going on in Russia and a break from work and we drove up to the Hudson Valley to go apple picking. It was a beautiful day, Wonderdog got to come, and Boo had a great time running through the trees, picking one "perfect" apple after another, eating the best fresh mozzarella we've ever had and freshly cooked, still-hot donuts, and drinking "butter beer" (disguised as Boylans Cream Soda so Muggles wouldn't recognize it), listening to the band and playing with the bunnies.

It was awesome. I love being on a working farm. I love the Hudson Valley, which is where I went to college. And I was pleased that this farm is working toward becoming organic. They also have chickens who are allowed to graze under the apple trees, where they eat pests and (I imagine) enjoy themselves immensely. (They weren't out under the trees today, with the hundreds of city people flooding the orchard.) So we bought eggs, too, and they're blue on the inside!

Apple recipe #1 was apple/cheddar omelets that Hopper made for dinner. Apple recipe #2 is an apple crisp that I threw together after dinner. We're going to throw it into the oven while we watch Voyager, and when the episode is over, the crisp should be ready to come out of the oven. I have some heavy cream we can pour over it, too.

Tomorrow we're making baked apples (me), apple pie (Hopper) and probably I'll make at least one batch of applesauce since we have a bushel of apples and the apple peeler/corer/slicer is very easy to use, but hard to clean, so once it's out we like to process as many apples as we can. And I can probably send some applesauce home with my parents, who are coming over in the afternoon.

Apple picking is one of the reasons I love seasons.

Foodie Problems

Hopper was out at graduation tonight, so I was on my own for dinner. I got talking to my mom on the phone and lost track of time, so it was rather late when I started to prepare dinner for myself.

"Okay," I thought. "I don't want to take too much time, so I'll just scramble some eggs with beans, put them on toast, and have some fruit with it."

But then I thought, "Why toast? Beans will fill me up!"

And then I saw some guacamole in the fridge that would go really well with eggs and beans.

And you can't have avocado without tomato, right?

And you've got to salt the eggs or they won't taste right, and cook them in butter, and use the omelet pan, which was in the sink, so it had to be washed.

And the next thing you know, it's scrambled eggs with white beans cooked in butter topped with guacamole and diced tomatoes.

This is why I never cook.

Another VB6 Update

I've been on the VB6 diet since May 28th. That's 3 1/2 weeks. Already I've lost about a dress size. The weight around my middle that was worrying my mother is just about gone. I'd say I'm about where I was at the end of last summer.

I have never lost weight this quickly. And I've even been losing this week while I was on "staycation" with Boo, so I have been having quite a few treats.

It has been a bit difficult to keep to the diet this week, since I've been out and about quite a bit with Boo.  But on the whole, I've made it work. I had two desserts on Monday, but I shared one of them with my dad. On Tuesday I made a point of sticking strictly to the diet and having no treats. Wednesday I had pizza for lunch (though I had only one slice and a salad) and then an egg cream and some of Boo's ice cream for a snack.

Come to think of it, that's all the violating I did, which is not bad for someone on vacation.

Still, I'm really noticing the difference in my body. I keep surprising myself by putting my hand somewhere and finding there isn't as much fat there as there used to be. I'm no longer uncomfortable when I bend at the waist, and some of my newest clothes are getting too big (like my new bathing suit) and I'm able to squeeze into some older clothes that I hadn't dared to try on recently.

I'm not saying I looked great in the shorts I had on today, but I got them on, and that was a good thing since my sloppy shorts that always, always fit got a hole in them yesterday and I had to throw them out.

So I have to say I really like VB6 so far. Hopper has got the hang of grocery shopping, so we have enough fruits and veggies around. When I'm hungry, I have a glass of water and some fruit (between meals, I mean.) If I'm really hungry, I grab a handful of nuts. At meals I eat lots of veggies with nuts or beans or tofu. If it's a salad, I throw in some olives or avocado so that I get enough fat. At dinner, more of the same, with maybe some fish if I feel like it.

Thanks again, Mr. Bittman!

Don't worry...it has a happy ending

I met a kid today who had never tasted fudge. She didn't know what it was.

See, every year, Boo and I make food for her teachers--blondies at Christmas time, and fudge for the end of school. Today we were making fudge, and she wanted to invite a friend over to help. Her friend called when she was ready to come over.

"Boo said I could come over to help you make sponge cake. I'm on my way."

"It's fudge," I replied. "See you soon."

When she arrived she asked me, "So, we're making fudge cake?"

"No, fudge."

"Fudge brownies?"

"No, just fudge."

She honestly had no idea what I was talking about. She had never even seen fudge, she said. Not at the mall, not at the seashore. Never seen it, never tasted it.

It made me sad.

So everyone: go make fudge with someone you love. Then eat all the fudge. There's a recipe for you here, and it couldn't be easier. I even found organic chocolate and organic condensed milk at Whole Foods today. And here's a vegan recipe, for those of you who are more vegan than I am. I haven't tried the vegan recipe so I can't vouch for it, but it looks pretty good, as vegan desserts go.

By the way, I have fixed Boo's friend. She now not only knows what fudge is and how utterly delicious it can be, she knows how to make it.

Another wayward child saved by Xanny.

Time for an update!

I figured it was time for a VB6 update, plus I got inspired.

I've noticed since I've been mostly vegan that I'm eating less at meals. Even when I'm really, really hungry (which can happen on a vegan diet) I can't eat as much dinner as I was before I started the diet (er, lifestyle.) I was wondering about that this morning and I came up with a theory.

It must be that my body, when determining fullness, takes into account not just what's in my stomach, but also what's in the rest of my gut. My stomach is saying it's hungry, and it is, but my gut is full of lovely water and roughage from all the fruits and vegetables I've been eating. So when my stomach is full, my brain says, "stop eating." Before I started eating so many fruits and veggies, my gut didn't feel full, so my brain got unclear messages.

It's just a theory, but it makes sense. Because now I find myself taking smaller portions and sometimes I can't finish them. I just ate half a sweet potato with navy beans, avocado and tomato on it* and just as I was finishing the last few bites, I was totally satisfied. I intend to pack a few snacks when I head out to work this afternoon, but it was nice to eat fresh food and enjoy it and feel sated. That hasn't happened to me too often in my life so I hope it's the start of something new and healthy for me.

Also, I'm pretty sure based on how my clothes are fitting that I'm losing weight, so that's good. I'm really tempted to weigh myself but I know nothing good comes of that so I won't. Eventually I'll go to the doctor for something and they will weigh me and then I'll know my weight. In the meantime, I'll go by how I feel and how my clothes fit, which is better and better right now. I'll take it.

So far, so good! Thanks, Mr. Bittman!

*This potato recipe comes from the VB6 book, and you can top the potato with pretty much anything, as long as it's vegan (if you're eating it before 6. After 6,  go crazy!) Last night, Hopper made baked sweet potatoes for dinner, and put out beans, spinach and cheese as toppings. Boo loves baked potatoes and she enjoyed topping her own with butter and cheese, with some spinach on the side. When he baked the potatoes, he threw a few extra potatoes into the oven, so now we have baked sweet potatoes in the fridge. I put one in a bowl, topped it with beans, salt and pepper, and threw it into the microwave. While it was in there, I cut up some avocado and tomato, then threw that on top of the potato with lots of salt and pepper. Lunch done. This combo is probably a bit messy to bring to work, but the spinach and beans could just be thrown on top in a container and then nuked at work. I intend to do that tomorrow.

Mood swings

It seems I picked a really good time of year to become mostly a vegan. Summer fruit is coming in, the farmer's markets are opening, and salad is literally popping out of the ground. So far, I'm enjoying being mostly vegan. We'll see what happens.

I've also been having an easier time exercising lately. The pool is open, the weather is nice for taking Wonderdog on walks, and Boo wants me to spend my afternoons playing frisbee with her.

And all this healthy eating and activity is working--at my doctor's appointment on Friday I discovered that I've lost 5 pounds. At first, this was a nice surprise. I haven't noticed any differences in the way my clothes fit or the way my body feels (weight-wise.  I do feel pretty healthy since starting the new diet.) So I was expecting my weight to be about the same as it was the last time I was weighed, which was in March, or maybe a little more.

But then I started feeling resentful, and that surprised me. Shouldn't I feel vindicated? Since that doctor's appointment in March, I've been trying to eat more vegetables and to move more. In the month of May, I definitely started moving more and for the past week I've been mostly vegan. So shouldn't I feel vindicated? My plan is working!

Nope. I was pissed. Part of me doesn't want eating less and moving more to work. I guess if it didn't, then I could go back to eating more and lying around with a clear conscience. After all, if I can't do anything about my health, then I needn't try, right? Alas, this IS something I can control and so I'll have to keep at it.

Remember, though, this was Friday. Since then, I've been working at this VB6 diet. We did some shopping over the weekend and bought more fruits and veggies and more silken tofu. This morning I stopped at the market on the way to work and bought some grape tomatoes and a whole lot of nuts to keep in my office. I'll finish the tomatoes this week, and the nuts should last me at least through the summer. I actually enjoyed snacking all day on fruit and tomatoes today, and when I got a bit peckish in the afternoon, I had a handful of walnuts and then I felt fine.

I think this diet will be fairly easy to stick to for the rest of the growing season. The winter will be harder, but I can worry about that then. For now, I'm in veggie heaven.

A cheerful post

I'm feeling much more positive today. For one thing, I survived my fast. I was weighed at the doctor and I'm losing weight, which certainly provides motivation. My doctor was intrigued by the VB6 diet and is going to get the book to check it out. And while I still haven't decided whether I want to stick to VB6 long-term, I did stop at Whole Foods on the way home to buy some oat milk because the only breakfast I could contemplate preparing in my fast-induced delirium was cereal. So I had cereal with oat milk on it and a banana, which is a kosher, if lazy, breakfast on VB6.

Then for lunch I decided I'd have some leftover rice and beans, and then on a whim thought I'd add salad to that, and that's when my mood seriously improved. I went out to the garden and picked a generous handful of greens including a few leaves of mint and some sage, and I tossed it into a bowl with some carrot and cucumber and a few olives and some dressing. It was heavenly. The greens are so fresh and the herbs add some interest to the bowl.

If every day was a day off, I'd eat like this all the time. I used to eat like this when the Kid was home. I'd make her something interesting and then she'd take a nap and I'd make something interesting for myself. It's part of the reason I love growing edibles in my garden. I threw seeds into the ground and now I've got a huge patch of greens that I can just eat from every day. Soon the berries will be in and I'll have both strawberries and raspberries to snack on. And the herbs are inspiring.

I did look up my hunger problem and Bittman recommends snacking all day long on fresh fruits and vegetables and on nuts. So I've got to get more snacks to carry around. Sunday we'll go to the farmer's market and I'll stock up on some goodies and that will help, too. And if some fresh mozzarella falls into my car, I can eat that for dinner!

As with most diets, the most important part of this one is to shop well. Hopper isn't terribly creative with weekday cooking--he wants to make something easy (which is understandable) and he grew up with what Bittman calls the SAD (Standard American Diet) so he tends toward making more meat and fewer veggies. Hopefully we can get our diet into a better balance if we work together. If I make a nice veggie soup each week and we keep growing veggies it should help. Then Hopper can just make whatever he wants, but heat up the soup and throw a salad together and we'll have good, healthy dinners. And if we prep more veggies when we get home from the farmer's market, we'll have snacks ready to hand.

Ooh! And the summer fruits come in soon. Yum.

VB6 Update #3

I'M STARVING!!!!

I clearly did something wrong today. I ate my yummy tofu breakfast, my apple and rice treats, my delicious (if soggy) tofu lunch, and a salad with nuts and seeds in it. I even bought myself a soy milk as an afternoon snack, and yet I feel as if death is imminent.

Fortunately, work is over and Hopper will have dinner ready when I get home, so I probably won't die today.

Probably.

Oh, and I'm having a blood test for my physical at 9AM so no breakfast tomorrow.

But probably I won't die.

VB6 Update #2

Holy olive spread, Batman!

I had left over tofu, so I've mixed it with olives and olive oil to make a spread that will be my lunch tomorrow (on a sandwich with grilled veggies.) I tasted it to make sure I had the proportions right and it is heavenly. Plus, I think the healthy fat in the olive oil will help me feel full.

In other news, my leftover banana mash is looking mighty gross as it blackens in the fridge, but I think I'll bite the bullet and eat it for breakfast tomorrow anyway. There's nothing dangerous about black bananas and it should be super-sweet, too. Watch out, strawberries!

So far, so good. I think the banana-tofu parfait is a good vegan breakfast option for me, so that makes one healthy alternative.

I'm also making great headway at cleaning out the fridge. I made a soup for dinner tonight with some leftover broth from when I wasn't feeling well this weekend, carrot juice (I also had some juice for a snack this afternoon,) beans and Swiss chard. All those things came out of the fridge (well, the carrots came out and I juiced them) and will hopefully be completely consumed tonight, plus the leftover tofu will be made into sandwiches with leftover grilled veggies, and the leftover banana mash will go with the remaining berries in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow.

Go, me!

VB6 Update #1

I at the banana-tofu parfait for breakfast today. It was a nice, big bowl of food--bananas mashed with silken tofu, blueberries, and a handful of high-fiber cereal. I didn't actually make it a parfait because I didn't have a suitable glass, so I just threw it all into a bowl. I'm not sure I used enough blueberries.

I feel incredibly virtuous, but not as satisfied as I usually do when I eat yogurt. We'll see how the day goes. I saved half of the banana mash so I can have it again tomorrow. Since I won't have to make banana mash, I'll have time to slice strawberries. I think that may be more filling because of the added fiber.

I also have half a box of silken tofu that has to get eaten within 48 hours.

So far, so good, but I have a lot to work out here.

VB6

I just got Mark Bittman's new book VB6. The idea is to eat vegan food until 6PM and then you can eat whatever you want, but with the general idea that you're mostly going to eat plant-based food and try to keep junk food to a rare treat.

This is a hard concept for me because I ADORE breakfast--eggs, pancakes, french toast, yogurt--and avoiding meat at dinner isn't a big deal for me. Maybe I should flip it and eat vegan after breakfast. Either way, I've now got a bunch of good, vegan recipes for breakfasts and lunches (and many of those lunches make perfectly good dinners) as well as non-vegan dinner items with lots of veggies in them. Bittman also makes a point of letting you know where you can substitute different veggies or proteins so the recipes become more versatile.

So I'm going to see if it helps. One thing I really like is that Bittman always emphasizes eating real food, so there are no recipes in the book using fake meat or cheese. So hopefully I can balance my diet better, whether or not I commit to the VB6 lifestyle.

We shall see.

Fish Tacos

I just saw a tweet recommending a recipe for healthy fish tacos, so here comes another story Hopper won't like.

Nine years ago, the coolest part of my family had a reunion out in California over Christmas. Some of the relatives were getting on in years, and it seemed like there was a good chance this was the last time we would all be able to get together, so we pulled out all the stops. My dad, the most dedicated teacher I have ever known, took two personal days, Hopper and I scheduled our house closing and adoption homestudy meetings around the dates, and we all flew out to Laguna Beach.

It was an amazing week, and there are many stories to tell, but this one is about the night we went to the fish taco joint. It was one of those places where you order at the counter and pay, and then your food is brought to the table, so it was perfect for a big group like ours--each family ordered separately and then we all sat at a huge table together. I have a great picture of my cousin's baby sleeping on another cousin's lap as they sat on the windowsill, just hanging out. We sat there for hours. It was a perfect family evening.

The next day we drove up to the Aquarium with my parents. While we were there, Hopper got grouchy, then peaky. By the time we left, he was green. That night, he could barely sleep because he was so sick, and by the next morning he couldn't get out of bed to go to the breakfast room. We talked to the family, and found out that one of the teenage cousins, but not the other, had fallen ill, even though they had shared a bedroom all week. One of the grandmothers was sick. And one of the cousins my age. Nobody who shared a bedroom or bathroom with the sick family members had caught the illness.

My parents and I headed out to dinner with some of the Laguna cousins. We chose a deli so that I could get some chicken soup to bring back
for Hopper. We were starting to be concerned that we wouldn't be able to fly home the next day, but he was finally able to keep down some soup, and thought he'd make it.

Eventually we figured out that one person from each family group was sick. Apparently, one cook at the restaurant didn't have clean hands, and whoever ate the food he prepared came down with food poisoning.

Hopper made it home and recovered after a couple of days. But it's nine years later and there's no way I'm making fish tacos for dinner.