Week Six Review

Booya Folks!

Week six was smooth as silk, and ingredient-confusion-free! I am now more than ten percent through this, and have only consumed three things which I was unsure about (besides cigarettes). I feel great!

While I’m going to be honest and admit that there are things that I really, really want to eat (we got some beautiful looking cookies in at work yesterday, and those peanut butter cups are still haunting me wherever I go), it is getting much much easier to say “no”. Actually, I say “I can’t. I couldn’t tell you what’s in it”. I find that this response usually gets a confuddled look, followed by a great opportunity for me to gab someone’s ear off about this whole adventure, and to get their perspective on food, what they believe it means to eat healthy, and sometimes a good recipe or interesting food story.

It was a similar situation at work a couple of days ago when a customer ordered something because it was his “only option”.

I said “I know how you feel, I’m pretty much only allowed the apples or the oatmeal because…” and this sparked a conversation about food and trying to get healthy. This guy is about to start some kind of cleanse where he can’t eat sugars or grains of any kind, and has to give up a bunch of other stuff as well. I said that that sounded tough, and he explained that he and a group of friends often try out different food things. One month he went raw food. That to me sounds extreme. I would have to give up all meat (I don’t eat sashimi), baking, and hot anything, and that sounds like it would just make me miserable. It does sound interesting though, and I kind of hope that guy comes back in so I can find out what other crazy diets he’s tried, what tricks he uses to get around things (i.e. eating at restaurants), and what made him feel healthy versus what made him feel sluggish and ill.

There were no giant fancy meals cooked up this week, but I did make a pretty yummy dinner from the salmon and potatoes I picked up at the market, along with some asparagus (I used to hate that stuff, but it’s actually pretty yummy), broccoli and red peppers.

I also discovered that a brand called Simply Natural makes a pineapple salsa that I can eat! It contains tomato puree, green peppers, pineapple, tomatoes, sugar, white vinegar, pineapple juice, salt, garlic puree, jalapeno peppers, chopped onions, cumin, cilantro and crushed red pepper, all of which are organic (I realize that I should have typed “organic” before every ingredient, but there are only so many times you can read the word “organic” before you get tired of reading “organic” and forget what “organic” actually means – you would have read “organic” eight more times by the way). I also found some corn chips to eat it with! I do feel a little guilty about buying convenience food as I make a killer pineapple salsa on my own, which tastes better than this one, and is much fresher, but I am also lazy sometimes, and want the stuff out of a jar. It’s not like you cook yourself a three course meal every night or make ALL of your snacks from scratch either, so stop judging me.

This morning (maybe in an attempt to make up for the salsa from a jar) I re-attempted the granola bar. Who’d have thought these things can be so tricky! They are not as crumbly as the last ones, but still fall apart quite easily. They do have a nicer texture this time around though, chewier and sweeter. This is probably due to the fact that I threw in some honey, and a couple of generous spoonfuls of peanut butter. I also didn’t quite measure everything out, so there’s a possibility that there is more butter and more fruit/trail mix/coconut/holy crap like cereal in there too. Even when they are falling apart, this is a good grab and go kind of snack. Plus the last ones kept really well, and they take almost no time at all, so I can bake them once every week or week and a half and have them for lunches. As I am starting a new theatre contract on Monday and am pretty much expecting to be out of my house anywhere from 9 to 17 hours a day, six days a week, this is a good thing. Maybe next week I will even get them right..

I also threw together some more macaroons. I like coconut macaroons because they are sweet, because they are simple, because they are wheat free and are easily sharable with most people (vegans are pretty much out of luck with me because of my love of butter, and often usage of eggs), and because they look pretty darn cute. I like the little haystack looking domes when they get lightly browned.  They are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee, you can make them any size you want, and they are just all around awesomeness. Yay Macaroons!

This was also my third week with my new milk. I’m not sure if it’s just an odd week, or what the deal is here, but I flew through the last litre like crazy. In fact, Thursday I had to go buy a bottle of Avalon because I was almost out of the good stuff. Maybe it’s time to up my dosage to 2 litres a week.. we’ll see what happens next week.

Today also marks two weeks of not smoking. Take that nicotine!! I feel good. My brain is returning to normal, and there are only a few times a day that I am missing it. I find that it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, because my old habit was to grab a smoke, take a pee and curl up on the fire escape and plan my day while inhaling clouds of chemicals. Now I wake up, think about smoking, realize I don’t smoke anymore and spend way too long avoiding crawling out of bed so I don’t feel like I’m missing out. This is silly of course, because once I’m up, I’m fine. But the first 5 – 25 minutes of my day are a little rough. Then there is leaving my house. I have fought this one by eating a piece of fruit or half of my breakfast after I leave the house. Similarly, I make sure I have something to eat or drink when I leave work. The only other time I feel a little antsy is when I get off the bus, but even that is getting better with time.

One of the huge benefits of not smoking anymore is watching the jar of money on my dresser slowly fill up. I decided when I stopped that I would put six dollars a day into the jar (money that would have gone to smoking), and put it towards something or a bunch of things for myself. Last time I stopped I didn’t do this, and the money that I had once put towards smokes seemed to be absorbed by every day things. This time I can see how much I am saving. I also know that when I do buy something, I will think to myself every time I use it “If I still smoked, I wouldn’t have been able to afford this knife/juicer/skydiving adventure/ driving lesson/ espresso machine”. This will hopefully inspire me to keep putting that money away and keep getting better and better things, like a trip to somewhere hot and sunny, a time machine, a freeze ray, a meat grinder, a mansion on a private island, and world peace. Win! I am thinking as a 2 week smoke free celebration that I will spend some of that this weekend. My rules for spending it are simple. It has to be on either an item that I wouldn’t have bought otherwise, or a memorable adventure. No using it for a coffee, or a movie, or groceries. It has to be a treat. I am thinking that this is the week for either a knife, or for a crock pot. Crock pots are on sale at London Drugs, and would make my next four weeks of working too much a lot easier.

As far as next week goes, I will be busy and it will be an excercise in lunch making. I will also be trying out a new recipe for broccoli cookies. Yes, cookies with broccoli in them.

Week 5 (I think) in Review

Hello Folks!

So much for updating on Friday night/Saturday morning eh?

Basically Week 5 went really well. Really well, except for the parts where I was a little grouchy, or a little frantic, or pacing back and forth chewing on my nails waging inner war over why I should not (and conversely, should) have a cigarette.

I am happy to report that I did not have a cigarette, and am now on day 10 of not smoking. I am not so happy to report that for the first week or so, my brain was completely fried. Names for things (and sometimes people) were almost always about an inch and a half beyond my grasp, simple things like attempting to cook dinner felt like climbing a mountain in flip flops, in the rain, while trying to balance a soft cover book on my head, and “huuuh?” became an automatic response, followed closely by a blank stare.  My moods were also a little less than stable. I snapped at a couple of people (my apologies, you know who you are), cried over silly things like the people dying at the end of Saw 3, and did a lot of pouting.

Back to week 5. I am feeling great. There are still a few little moments were I regress into the angry Golum like creature that I was last week, but those times are growing few and far between. I have been putting six dollars away per day of not smoking and am spending a lot of time drooling over what I could buy with that money in the not so distant future (a new knife, a crock pot, a juicer, an espresso machine, a dehydrater, and skydiving). Also, because of the not smoking thing, I have not cheated at all this past week.

That’s right people… last week I could name all of the ingredients (and chemicals… I had some regular milk in a couple of lattes) of everything that I ingested. I am considering this a big giant win.

I spent the week munching tons of vegetables (I was on a little bit of a bell pepper kick), home-made, super crumbly granola bars, loads of fruit, free range eggs, coconut macaroons, and much, much more. The highlight of the week was by far Friday.

Friday after work I wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear for a day. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, cook anything or be seen. I wanted to watch something good and trashy, like Toddlers and Tiaras, or ancient episodes of The Bachelor, eat take out pizza and stuff my face with soy lecithin and vegetable oil laden peanut butter cups. Problem is, I had a commitment, so that plan was out (plus I would have to confess the pizza and peanut butter cups, and I was already full of pride about the not smoking thing and wanted to blog about my 100% cheat free week).

Friday I had agreed to cook Cornish game hens for some friends. The challenge was to cook a meal that a friend of mine, who pretty much can’t eat 80% of anything could eat and enjoy. The dinner was to be held at another friends place where her 1 year old daughter would provide the entertainment for the evening (and did!!).

I arrived, groceries in hand and holding back tears of not-Bachelor-watching-in-my-PJ’s. The hens were still frozen (figures), so they had to bathe for a couple of hours. In the meantime we played, and danced, and giggled. I forgot all about being a huge pain and a super grumpy houseguest, and got my giggle on too. It really is amazing how cute kids can bring out the fun crazy in people. Needless to say, my mood improved about a million fold, and it was time to cook.

I mixed up some lemon juice, butter, paprika, garlic and salt and slathered the hens with half of it. Then I shoved some rosemary up their tiny bums and threw them in the oven.I added the rest of the lemon butter stuff about half way through it all.

Then I threw together a simple salad of spinach, strawberries, avocado, cucumber and nuts (roasted in egg white, sugar, cinnamon and salt). Peppers were chopped, drizzled with olive oil, lightly salted and roasted. Rice was put on to cook and asparagus was prepped for steaming.

It went pretty well. I had never cooked hens before, and I think they turned out alright, though next time probably won’t cook one per person. It was a lot of meat. It was also gluten free, contained no red meat, and if you are one of those people who don’t include better in the whole “dairy free” thing, it counts as dairy free too.

A huge thank you to Sharon for the use of her beautiful kitchen, for washing all the dishes, and for letting me throw her daughter around. Thanks too to Gillian for the challenge, and a hundred thanks to you both for getting me out of my funk. What are we cooking next???

Saturday morning I went to the Farmers Market near Nat Bailey Stadium. The beef bacon lady wasn’t there, but I did find some really delicious sausages…without casings!! A friend later pointed out another vendor who was selling sausages cased in seaweed… definitely something to check out next time. I also picked up some apples, potatos, carrots, eggs, and salmon. Being that it was a gorgeous day and all, people were out in droves. This meant that line ups were a little on the long side, but it was great to see so many people buying local and enjoying the market.

That pretty much wraps up week 5… No smoking, no unknown ingredients, lots of veg, cooking/shopping with friends, finding new and exciting options, eating, talking about eating, writing about eating, and taking pictures of what I am eating. I have tons of energy, my waistline is slowly shrinking, and I am getting my brain back as my body adjusts to the not smoking thing. Life is good.

I started this whole Eat Write Play thing to further develop my love for food, my love for writing (and to develop the skills that go with it), and to re-find that incredible sense of play that you see in the eyes of a small child when they are flying through the air, headed for a mud puddle and wearing their good shoes and nice clothes.

Here I am at the end of week five (yeah, yeah, I know I’m actually into week 6, but humour me please people – I’m about to have a moment), and I am realizing that what I had before for food was a high school crush. It was fun, it was fleeting, and I really had no clue what to do with it all. I’m not saying I have mastered anything food, but the torrid love affair I now have with what I eat is much deeper than it was when I started out. By taking the time to learn what is in my food, trying something new,  giving my body more balanced meals and not over-processed gak, and sitting down to eat (as much as I can), I have developed a whole new appreciation for the things that I eat, as well as noticed the difference that eating good food can make. I am so glad that I am doing this.

Thank you so much to the people who put up with me talking about food all the time, and a HUGE to all of the people who I had food adventures with this week. Thanks to you too, for reading, and I hope to hear your thoughts, insights, suggestions, recipes and what you ate last night in the comments (I wish I was joking about the “what you ate” part…. but really, I would love to know).

Eat well, and check back soon for an update. This week I have no idea what I am making, but hopefully it turns out. If not I get to write about it and you can laugh at me. It’s win win really.

Week Four in Review

Wow People.. 28 days ago I started something a little on the crazy side, and, despite my bad habit of abandoning projects, am still going strong. In fact, this week may just be the best yet…

Since the last week in review I have managed to eat something leafy and green every day. Win! This was mostly bok choy or spinach, either in stir-fry or salad form… kind of boring. I also managed to make a tiny batch of edible lefse. I got new milk and started something else a little crazy..

I used to really enjoy a kale-spinach-fruit smoothies in the mornings, as it was a super easy way to incorporate fresh (and raw) leafy greens into my daily diet. Lately though, there have been no smoothies. My schedule has fallen into a blissful Monday through Friday and either 6am-1pm or 8am-2pm kind of deal. Don’t get me wrong: I love it, and will very, very, greatly miss it when the theatre things rolls around again (in two short weeks: eep!). Problem is: I have roomies. Ones that, I’m sure, would not appreciate the blender running at 4:45am, or even at 7am. Easy solution: use the blender at work! This next week I will be making some smoothie packs to bring to work: all of the ingredients ready to go (chopped, mixed and frozen) so alls I have to do is chuck them in the blender and add a little water.

This week had a few yummy  meals. Chicken parmesan, chicken wings, stir fry, meatballs, and one lazy lazy day where no dinner was cooked (I have a semi-valid excuse for this one though…more later).

I also attempted to bake twice, and failed, saw a garden, got some milk, and did something that right now has me a little twitchy.

LEFSE:

Thursday night I attempted the Lefse, a Norwegian flatbread made with potato (basically it looks like a tortilla, but because the Norwegians are a brilliant people they found a way to add the yummy potato and make it even more yummy) which is spelled “l-e-f-s-e” not “”l-e-f-s-a” although it is pronounced “Lefsaaaaaaaaaa”, unless you have attempted to make it at home, with a recipe that wasn’t quite right, in which case you pronounce it “F%@!&@$@ Lefsa!” while tossing half of the recipe into the garbage.

If you haven’t gathered yet, this didn’t quite go well.

I got the lefse recipe from my Grandma, who makes it wonderfully and usually I get a pack or two a year. It went a little something like this:

-Make a medium sized pot of mashed potatoes

-Add some butter and salt

-Mix in flour until it turns into a dough

-Roll it out into circles on a floured surface

-Fry in an ungreased pan until brown spots appear

Please note the complete absence of measurements (I guess this is where I get it from..).

Also note the lack of cream (which my Mom found on a bunch of lefse recipes while talking me through my angry mixing of dough phase that came later on).

Last, but not least.. ohhhhhhh…. definitely not least, note the complete lack of the direction: cool your potatoes completely until stiff before adding the flour. DO NOT ADD THE FLOUR WHILE THE POTATOES ARE STILL WARM. EVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.

As this last missed direction was, well, missing, I started adding flour after mashing my potatoes. Then I added more flour, and another cup, and some more flour. I noticed that my mixture was not really turning into a nice workable dough, more like a chunky paste. I was on the phone with my poor Mom at the time, so she got to hear my colourful language at this point, as well as some interesting descriptions, and my complete joy at the fact the my Grandma had forgot to mention this one little step of cooling the potatoes. All in all my potatoes ate 6 cups of flour before my mom suggested I chuck out half my recipe and go from there. At this point it was looking and smelling like a really bad batch of home-made play dough. The halved recipe ate about another two cups during the rolling process.

The bottom is the abandoned half, the top was what I tried to save..

After I rolled out about 18 or so lefse I started the frying process. The little potato tortillas of death started doing something strange. When I put them on the hot pan they stared doing this weird thing where they would grow giant bubbly tumours, then the bubbles would move around and expand until they sprung a leak and a geyser of steam would rush out. I think it was due to the extreme amounts of flour that had been incorporated.. the mix had become almost elastic when raw. Whatever it was, it was weird, kind of creepy, and nothing that food should be doing.When taken off the pan though, they actually looked like lefse.

After cooking a few I decided to try it.. I smothered one in butter and rolled it up (it was like a butter filled potato taquito from Norway): not too too bad. In fact, it even tasted like lefse!! The night was finally looking up!

(By the way: this is what I look like tired, after being really grumpy about things not working, in my PJs and stuffing my face with butter soaked lefse)

I got half way through frying my pre-rolled stack when something happened. I guess my dough could have used some more flour (greedy, greedy dough), because suddenly halfway through the stack I went to pick up my next little round, and they all were stuck together. They were stuck together to the point that no matter how carefully I tried, they were not un-stickable.

Imagine if you were to take a stack of potentially yummy pancakes. Now separate the stack and add super glue to the top and bottom of each pancake and reassemble your stack. Now, take a can of varnish, a large can of varnish (yes the whole thing), and pour it over your pancake stack, making sure to completely cover all of your pancake stack. Put the varnish-covered super-glued delicious looking pancake stack somewhere well ventilated and wait 12-24 hours. Then go back, and try to separate those pancakes. That’s where I was at with my lefse at ohhh… about 10:30 Thursday night. Please note that I had put the potatoes on to boil probably around 6:30pm, spent about 2 and a bit hours trying to make a dough out of the stuff, and spent what felt like forever rolling out this precious little stack.

The last face the lost lefse saw

“Then I did something that I almost never do when baking or cooking. I gave up. I threw the half stack of stuck into the garbage (along with the failed half of my original amount). I did learn a couple of things  however:

1) When making lefse, chill your f^(#ing potatoes until they’re stiff.

2) It never hurts to look at more than one recipe when trying something new.

 

GRANOLA BARS:

Friday I felt like I had to redeem myself a little, so I decided to make granola bars because really, how can that go wrong? I mixed up some oats with some melted butter, trail mix, holy crap cereal, coconut and whatever else granola bar additive yummy stuff I could find as well as some sweetened condensed milk.

I like my granola bars chewy, so baked them for about 20 minutes until the edges just started to brown. I pulled them out and turned the pan upside down onto the cooling rack where the whole tray crumbled and fell apart.

I tried to fix this by squashing it all back into the pan and baking it longer. Please note that this doesn’t work. They will kind of stick together, but will still be super crumbly and will fall apart when touched and not be chewy at all. Basically you will end up with slightly bar shaped logs of something that simply turns into crunchy granola when touched. Maybe this is what you’re looking for, in which case, leave a comment and I will tell you how to screw up granola bars.

THE GARDEN:

On a much happier note, I also took a peek at a garden yesterday!!

A while ago I had emailed a woman about taking on a plot in a community garden near my house. Last week she got back to me and explained that she had a wait list of 100 names, and had stopped adding names after that. She suggested I try again late in the spring. Community gardens are a great idea, they use space in unused lots, parks, boulevards for food, flowers or whatever else those people who are lucky enough to have them wish to grow. Usually though the plots are fairly small, very open, very close to the next persons plot and cost about $15.oo a year (which really isn’t a lot).

I was a little bit down about not getting this little patch of Earth, and was telling T about it. While I was being grumpy, he did something wonderful. He looked up a yaardshare program, found one near my house, and even made contact with the woman. Thank you thank you thank you!

As last week was a bit of a weather nightmare in the lower mainland, I waited until yesterday to walk by and take a peek at the space.

I am excited! The woman had mentioned that she doesn’t allow the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers (Win!). There are a couple of girls who used the garden last year who might come back, but there is lots of space for everyone, and it also means that we can take turns watering, as well as share whatever we grow (Win!). There is an odd-looking, but neat pyramid structure for peas and climbing beans, and a small raspberry patch (Win!). She even has a kiwi plant growing! (exciting win!).

I didn’t take any photos yesterday, because, well, I had kind of snuck into the backyard (she did say to come by whenever), and it does need a little work. There is a lot of weeding, soil turning and things that have to happen before anything can be planted. Parsley has more or less taken over one large patch, and there is a fair bit of hay covering another patch. You may think this would deter me a little, but pretty much the opposite. I can’t wait to get in there and dig stuff up. If it weren’t so cold and wet out there I might even be doing that right now. In honesty, it will have to wait a few weeks, but it is something that I look forward to!

MILK:

I got new milk this week, and haven’t died. Yay!

A GRUMPY NEW UNDERTAKING:

Something odd happened yesterday. I got back from the garden and doing a little grocery shopping, had just made some granola crumbly stuff and was outside on the fire escape smoking the last smoke out of my pack. I was thinking to myself “probably should have picked up another pack when I got the groceries. Too bad. I really don’t want to go out again”.

That thought morphed into “I don’t have to go out again. I wonder how long I could go without a smoke”.

A couple of miles down the track and the thought train was speeding along from “Well, I’m two hours in, I think I could do this” to “I must have at least one cigarette in this house somewhere” and back to “three hours.. three hours thirty seconds…”

I have looked up some cheesy videos made with the idea that they will help you appreciate the decision to not smoke. They are cheesy little attempted pats on the back that one minute feel like they are helping a little, and the next make me want to punch the guy who made them because there is no way that he can know what this feels like, then I feel guilty for wanting to punch him because he is, after all just trying to help, and probably made the videos because he himself had trouble quitting and really does know the weird half there state my brain is currently in. I have also downloaded this annoying counter thing that tells me how long it has been since my last smoke, how much money I have saved by not smoking, how many cigarettes I would have smoked in the time since I have quit (though this is flawed because it averages them out over the day, not the hours that I am awake), and how much time I have added to my lifespan since stopping. I love and hate this thing alternatively. I like knowing how much money I have saved, how much longer I am apparently going to live, and how many less cigarette buts there are in the world, but the clock is driving me nuts. It even counts seconds (though isn’t quite accurate because I found it two and a bit hours after stopping and guessed the exact time I took my last puff).

As I type this it has been 22hr., 3min, and 28 seconds (29, 30, 31….)

I have saved $5.85

I have not smoked 13 cigarettes (reminder: flawed because of the all day average thing)

I will live 1 hour,  5 minutes longer.

Also, Ihave about half the brain capacity that I had yesterday morning when I was still smoking. I have managed to misplace two of my bowls (probably containing some sort of life saving snack), I can’t stop wiggling my toes, have an attention span of about 7 minutes and I am sooo grateful that I can keep my fingers busy typing this blog entry (which currently sits at 2,411 words).

Thank you for putting up with this massive post, as well as the mood swings, which I am sure are apparent in this monster of a post. Thank you also for continuing to read (or scan, sorry guys, I know this is a long one), and for taking the time to think a little bit about what it is you are putting into your mouth (or not putting in your mouth, as the case may be).

Keep on reading, let me know what you think!

USEFUL LINKS:

Yardshare: http://www.sharingbackyards.com/browse/Vancouver,BC&welcome_box=3

Lefse: http://visualrecipes.com/recipe-details/recipe_id/113/Lefse/

Non Smoking Stuff: http://ffn.yuku.com/topic/12886/Video-guide-for-those-just-starting-their-quits#.TyRc7YEtvaF

(the counter thingies are called “quit meters”)

 

P.S. : something increduble: I have ZERO things to add to the cheat list this week: WIN!

Week 3 In Review

Yes, I realize that lately my weekly reviews have been coming in a little late. From here on in I will try to post on Friday night/Saturday morning.

In the meantime, week 3 went pretty well, but didn’t have anything really noteworthy. I ate food. It was all to code. I drank some wine Saturday night, and that wasn’t (don’t freak out, I’m adding it to the cheat list as soon as I finish posting this).

I’m still managing to snack frequently (which, despite how it sounds is a good thing), but am noticing that I really should be eating more leafy green stuff. Tuesday I picked up some bok choy and Thursday I did up a happy beef (Whole Foods has instituted a global animal rating and the beef had a step 4!) stir fry with bok choy, peppers, onion, garlic, carrots, and beef – served over more of the yummy volcano rice.

Wednesday however was a little bit of a write off. A friend came by and we ended up baking and eating brownies. All known ingredients, but still, nobody really needs to eat half a pan of brownies for dinner.

I didn’t get the lefsa done. This is mostly due to the fact that I didn’t make a list before grocery shopping, and therefore forgot the potatoes. Fail!!!

So there you have it, a pretty un-noteworthy week foodwise, another cheat and another realization.

Goal for the rest of this week: eat something green and leafy every day (tonight was a spinach salad with cucumbers and strawberries with some garlic toast and a few meatballs on the side).

Also, because I failed to do it last week, I’m going to get that lefsa done.

 

 

 

 

Week Two In Review

I have to be honest here, and week 2 was a little rough. I stuck to my guns, but went through what I can only refer to as Junk Food Withdrawal.

Everywhere I looked were delicious delectables begging for me to just put them in my mouth.. whispering softly into my ear that nobody was around, nobody but me would know: dessert squares at the coffee shop where I work, cookies at other coffee shops, the mountain of chips and crackers at the front of the grocery store, chocolate bars at tills. Everything with soy lecithin, maltodextrin, and loads of other ingredients I cannot identify (or can identify, but am refusing to eat).

Saturday night I wanted something sweet, so I made brownies. Win for me! I knew all of the ingredients and my taste buds were satisfied.

Sunday also went really well. I got up early for a tubing adventure, had some breakfast at home (where thanks to the great purge all is edible) and had an amazing picnic on the mountain of fruit, Holy Crap cereal, veggies, cracker with avocado and tuna. This was also the first time that I ate tuna from a can. It was the flavoured stuff, with all happy ingredients and it was so yummy that I went out and bought a couple of cans for myself.

Early in the week the cravings set in and I scoured the chip shelves at Whole Foods, reading just about every ingredient out there. I caved. I bought a bag of Ms. Palmer’s Panty Pita Chips, containing: pita bread (flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar), balsamic vinegar, white vinegar, butter, canola oil, sea salt, seasonings, spices. Doesn’t look that bad right? That’s what I thought in my initial “I’m hungry, and I want to eat it” rampage. Here are the problems (yes, more than one..). What kind of flour? What is in the balsamic vinegar? (I will admit that at first I thought this was an innocent ingredient, until Debra mentioned it and I remembered that just a week before I had to get rid of my own balsamic vinegar because of maltodextrin). Same goes for the white vinegar. Does the butter that they used say the words I have come to dread “may contain butter” on the wrapper? I don’t like the fact that canola oil was in there, but that’s another post. Which seasonings and spices did they use? They might as well have put those other dreaded words “natural flavours” on the list.

Tuesday night I made a chicken stir fry over volcano rice, using the stir fry sauce that I picked up at the Farmer’s Market (made with Saskatoon berries, salal berries, blueberries, huckleberries, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, sugar, lemon juice, salt, lime leaves and chili paste – double yum!).

Wednesday I made tacos. Yummy! I still think that I could have rolled my tortillas out a little bit thinner, but I am thrilled with what I got and will be repeating this again.

Thursday and Friday were leftover days and nights, with no fail.

Saturday I attended an event where food was provided. Though others have cooked for me this year (thanks!) this is the first time this year where I ate food that was prepared without first scanning the ingredients. Not to say that the options weren’t very healthy. In fact it all looked amazing and the smell of it made me drool. There were homemade chillies, ciabatta buns, rice, potatoes, salad, and pie for dessert. Unfortunately I had to assume that the beans in the chilli weren’t checked for EDTA and that the tomatoes in it were from cans, not jars, so chilli was out. The salad was predressed, so no go there and though the pie looked fantastic there was no way to tell if it was butter or margarine in the crust, and even if it was butter, if it was colour free. I still had an amazing lunch though of rice, potato, fresh chopped tomato, peas, and green onions. For a light dinner there was soup, buns and fruit salad. I skipped the soup and bun and went for the fruit salad. After wolfing down the first few bites I spotted the tell-tale cherry implying that the salad was the same kind that you get in your lunch when you’re a kid.Thinking that this was probably a cheat, I looked it up on the Dole website. To my happy amazement, the cherry mixed fruit is made with fruit, and packed in 100% juice! Turns out what I thought was a maybe cheat, actually wasn’t. There were also added bananas, grapes and kiwis. Yum!!

After the event we had a delicious veggie stir fry over rice and quinoa too. Considering that it was the first eating out experience of this whole thing, I am quite pleased. It was all healthy, ingredient happy, and now that I look back on it, it was also a vegetarian day (though I will never give up meat entirely, leaning towards more veg and less meat is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately).

That wraps up Week #2!

Two weeks, one cheat: not too bad!

This week I want to make some lefsa. I am sure that I spelled that wrong, but it’s one of my grandmas specialties. It’s actually a lot like a tortilla, but made with mashed potatoes, flour, butter and a pinch of salt, rolled thin and fried on a non-greased pan. What makes it better than a tortilla isn’t just the fact that it’s inspired by Grandma. It’s also incredibly yummy, and very versatile. I like rolling mine and dipping them in butter melted with sugar and cinnamon for something sweet, but they are also good just spread with butter, or when you drizzle lemon juice on them and sprinkle them with sugar.

I also want to try making a fully vegetarian meal, something new and inspired by a recipe off the Vegetarian Times site (which was forwarded to me by a lady at work – Thanks!).

Other highlights of the week include procuring a new top secret thing (I was supposed to procure said top secret thing yesterday, but there was snow and the delivery was cancelled) that will eliminate certain vitamin A palmitate and Vitamin D3 in my everyday life. Don’t worry, I will still be getting vitamin A, though not attached to palm oil derivatives, and my vitamin D will be coming from eggs instead of sheep’s wool. I am also in the works of securing some garden space for the spring, and after a 75$ Whole Foods shopping trip will be looking for a cheaper way to make this food thing work.

Stay tuned folks, and thank for reading!

Week One Review

Well Folks, the first week is through and I am happy to report that I am still kicking!

There were a few temptations along the way. On Monday I was offered the same chocolate three times, by three different people and it was tough, but I said no every time (It was a salted caramel too…). Tuesday I was wrapping cookies at work and they smelled soooo yummy, but again, I didn’t go with it. There were double-butter croissants and Napoleons on Granville Island, Florentines at Whole Foods, and chocolate pretty much everywhere I looked. I have become good at saying no. It also gives me a chance to talk peoples ears off about the whole “Eat” thing when they give me a funny look after I say no. It might not be a completely good-hearted thing to do, but I have to admit that I get a little bit of a sense of revenge when someone offers me something I can’t eat, and I can tell them what kind of weird stuff they just ate.. especially if it looks particularly yummy. Ha People! – you will learn, whether you want to or not, what is in the food you are eating…muah hah hah.

After the big purge I had to restock a few things, and did so at Whole Foods. It was a little on the pricey side. I picked up spinach, two apples, two pomegranates, bananas, dried beans, soy sauce, roasted red pepper pasta sauce, rice pasta, jarred tomatoes, three avocados, sugar, jam, and grape seed oil. It was $57.00. I also had to go back later in the week for some bread, rice, lettuce and green beans. The sugar, soy sauce, pasta, pasta sauce, oil and jam will carry me through more than a week though. It’s just good stuff to have around.

I cooked dried beans for the first time! I didn’t know what to do with them, so stuck them into a pasta sauce. I will need to find something more creative to do with them next time around, and probably cook them a little bit longer (they were a little on the tough side). Suggestions are most definitely welcome!

I realized towards the beginning of the week (I have been keeping a food journal out of curiosity) that I wasn’t eating very much, so have made a habit of snacking. Once upon a time, not all that long ago, I would have picked up some cheap granola bars (complete with chocolate chips), potato chips, crackers and that kind of thing, but this week was a biggie for extra fruit and vegetables.  I feel like I have a lot more energy because of it too.

Now that I look back on  it, I ate a pretty decent variety of animals this week as well.. chicken (and their unfertilized offspring), venison, bison and salmon. Yum! Both the bison and bambi were free range (bought at Oyama), and the salmon was wild sockeye caught in Northern B.C. and bought at the farmers market.

Basically this week I ate a whole lot of vegetables, quite a bit of fruit, switched my grain intake to whole grains (and ate less because of it), ate a bunch of different animals, and cut out probably about 75% of my sugar. The sugar thing didn’t happen on purpose, but it’s tough when you can’t eat the cookies, pastries, processed foods that have most of it. The sugar that I did have this week was only in my coffee, fancy pants hot chocolate (from Debra for Christmas) and the homemade marshmallows that went with it. I guess the honey that the salmon was marinated with counts too…

It was  pretty easy (knock on wood). I had already resigned myself to the fact that the only way I would get through this would be to home-cook the meals that I could, and pack lunches for the ones where I would be at work (or take enough snacky stuff to get me through). If I had gone into this thinking that I would just be able to pick stuff up on the way, I feel like I would be having a much harder time.

I also made a challenge with my Mom. The deal is that once a week she has to cook a healthy and nutritious meal for herself, and I will do the same and we will compare. When I spoke with her today she said that she hadn’t yet, but was trying to think one up. I’m counting Wednesday night’s dinner of salmon (marinated in ingredient-happy soy sauce, honey, the juice from half an orange, ginger and garlic), volcano rice (whole grain organic brown and red rice grown in volcanic soil), carrots, broccoli and corn. Pressure’s on Momma!!

Next week I would like to try making tortillas/wraps from scratch, finding something better to do with my beans, and making sure I drink more water. We’ll see how it goes!!