It's Saturday and LG and I spent the morning catching up on world news, crosswords and other meaningful pursuits [yeah...that!] We've eaten our now-traditional vegan cooked grain cereals with walnuts and blueberries and are feeling good.
I didn't add a blog entry yesterday for a couple reasons:
1. I was busy moving firewood, mowing, trimming fruit trees and running errands while the sun shone. Sadly, spring arrived on a Friday rather than a weekend day this year, so I had to take advantage of the opportunity to labor outside sans raincoat without LG, who was at her office bringing home the soy bacon.
2. More significantly - there are growing blocks of time during which I forget that I'm on a diet, and therefore also forget that I'm writing a diet blog. I don't mean that I suddenly come out of a fog to find a dripping, greasy, bacon double cheeseburger in my hands. I mean that while continuing to eat healthy, vegan meals my appetite is satisfied and I don't feel my traditional, insatiable I'm-on-a-diet-don't-f*#k-with-me, non-stop, frantic focus on food. I'm pretty jazzed about this whole development.
Now, remember that a "diet" is simply combination of all the things one eats. We tend to think of a diet, however, exclusively as an eating (or starving) plan to lose weight/body fat. I preface the following part of this paragraph with this caveat because I don't have my first weigh-in until tomorrow morning. As you will recall if you've read my previous blog entries, my primary objective for the Engine 2 Diet is - in fact - to lose weight/body fat. So, I'm definitely hoping tomorrows weigh-in will show that I've lost a few pounds during this first week. As a face-saving, no-weight-loss fallback, though, I'll claim to be feeling great (which I really am) and taking comfort in the knowledge that my cholesterol (250-280 over the last decade) is probably leveling off or maybe even declining. I promise to have a blood lipid panel done at the end of our 4 weeks adventure and to share the outcome with you.
Now, let's talk vegan chow. Last night we had a really delicious (if I do say so myself...which I've just done) dinner of spaghetti with a tomato "meat" sauce. We agreed it was the best vegan dinner to date.
The main player - the sauce - included dry-sauteed red onion, garlic and mushrooms, diced Boca Burger patties, crumbled Morning Star vegetarian sausage patties, stewed tomatoes, a jar of vegan tomato/basil spaghetti sauce (Trade Joe's), fresh basil, dried oregano and tarragon. I may have added a few other things, but I made it up as I went and don't exactly remember. I can assure you that every ingredient fell within our current dietary restrictions. It felt very wrong to leave out the olive oil, salt, red wine and parm cheese, but the final product was a delightful surprise. After the sauce has simmered for a half hour, we boiled some brown rice spaghetti noodles.If you're looking for an alternative to refined wheat pasta and grainy whole wheat versions, try the brown rice. It cooked to a nice, smooth, toothy al dente and tasted just like the good old standby stuff. LG tells me I'd better remember all of the ingredients I used because she wants exactly the same thing again soon. Hmmm...gonna have to think about that.
I also made some chocolate "cookies." The batch made 15 large cookies and contained no added oil and only a tablespoon or so of agave syrup sweetener, as well as some stevia powder (a carbless, calorie free plant extract sweetener.) I also used oat flour, oat bran and whole wheat pastry flour; egg substitute, baking powder, 4 oz melted 70% chocolate and a generous pile of dark cocoa powder, then enough almond milk to make a stiff dough. The cookies are acceptable- chocolaty, slightly sweet, chewy and moist - but the dough was even better! I made this one up too, but I made an approximate recipe if anyone wants to try these.
I'm having a lot fun experimenting with my own recipes as I learn what ingredients and alternative products are available at the co-op and health food stores. I just hope I'm not "funning" myself to the point of weight gain. I'll let you know tomorrow!
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