Adding To My Vegetarian Collection

It seems that every time I post a picture of a meal I've made it's a vegetarian meal. That's because I want to be a vegetarian and they usually turn out to be fairly healthy meals. I think I could, without too much trouble, at least get to the point where we are eating vegetarian five days a week. That would be great and it would still leave room for the special occasion meals that have meat, like the turkey for Thanksgiving and the chicken salad sandwiches at Christmas. Ideally, I'd love to be vegan and all that. It's too hard with the gluten free thing though. Isabella has so much she already can't eat. I don't think it would be fair, realistic or maybe even healthy (I don't know) to eat vegan too.

The vegetarian thing for me, it isn't a new advent of the last few years. It's been around for decades.If someone thought, "What happened to her? She's become such a liberal type in so many ways." I'd have to respond, no, I haven't been taken over by liberal hippie types, I've been like this for decades. When I was 18 I was attending community college in Mesa, Arizona. In my public speaking class I gave a speech on vivisection (animal testing). I poured over articles on the microfiche on the subject (haha, microfiche!) In my English class I wrote a paper on the evils of fur. We had to give ideas for subjects for our papers in class and I think I actually raised my hand and suggested "Meat is Murder". Haha, again. (I was a little too influenced by the idea of The Smiths. Not The Smiths music itself though, I'd never really listened to them, just heard of them.)

I don't know where I came up with these ideas, it was all pretty much organic though. Most of the people I knew at the time were Mormons and the idea certainly didn't come from them, I was chastised by a couple of them when practicing my vivisection speech on them at the LDS Institute (place for Mormon religion classes). I don't think I was totally convinced myself of the animal rights thing, I was definitely fascinated by it though and could see nothing wrong with it. As far as I was concerned, you were supposed to be all idealistic about things in college. I wanted to become a vegetarian but my mom cooked all of my dinners at the time and I couldn't expect her to do it for me and Chuck, my stepdad, would never have gone for it. At BYU I wrote a paper for biology called "The Elephants Demise". I remember my roommate MaryAnn (may she rest in peace) laughing at how dramatic the title sounded.

When the girls were little Brent and I both wanted to give it a try. Brent a little more than me at the time. I got a bunch of cookbooks, experimented a little but I didn't cook well enough at the time to make it fly. I have always incorporated quite a few meatless meals into our diets though. When Isabella wasn't growing, before she was diagnosed with celiac disease, I worried a little that my vegetarian meals might be the reason for her issues, scanty as those vegetarian meals were. So now I know that wasn't the problem. I keep experimenting, finding more and more dishes. Most of the dishes I come up with are pretty healthy and have a lot of whole foods in them. They are tasty and you just feel better when you are done eating. I swear, the fact that they are colorful and pretty and look healthy make it a much more pleasant dining experience too.

I guess I figure if I get enough meals on here in photographs, I'll have enough to make it easy to do. No fuss, no muss.

Pasta primavera with spaghetti, veggies and provolone cheese, sauteed with olive oil, garlic and rosemary.

Vegetable soup (potatoes, zucchini, spinach, celery, tomatoes and carrots from the garden, garbanzo beans, garlic, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning), spinach salad, and pumpkin muffins.

Eating Clean!

So I was watching all of these documentaries a while back that were all about eating clean and healing your body through eating really healthy food. It inspired me! Mostly because I really love crap like that. I should have been some sort of dietician sociologist. Does that exist? So I was trying to eat clean too. I took a bunch of pictures to inspire me to keep eating clean. No, I don't eat great everyday but more often and I've been working out really regularly. I'm starting to see some results and I really do feel much healthier. So I know you want to see all of my pictures of my food, right? Right????

Purple smoothie: Strawberries, blueberries, flax seed, greek yogurt, kale.

Salad and cottage cheese.

Veggie pizza and fruit!

Green Smoothie! Spinach, pineapple, mango, greek yogurt and flax seed.

Salad and spagetti with squash, broccoli, kidney beans and mozzarella cheese.

Beans and rice, zucchini and fruit.

Tostada and cantaloupe!

Quinoa salad, strawberries and green beans.

Salad with a bunch of veggies, eggs, and chick peas. With vinaigrette.

P90 Wrap Up

Well I did it! I finished Power 90. 90 days and about 78 workouts later, how did it all turn out? I lost 3 pounds! Ha ha! I know, three teeny tiny measly pounds. I was only down two pounds four days ago so I really made up ground in the last couple days. I told my friend Jenn about my two pound loss the other day and she laughed at me. It's okay, the intent wasn't malicious or anything. I reeeeally don't care that I only lost three pounds. After all, at Christmas time I was up three over my starting weight when I was confused into thinking the true meaning of Christmas had something to do with caramel filled chocolate kisses. So, in a way I'm down six and I now have the muscle mass of a 35 year old. Nothing to scoff at there. So I feel like I'm in much better shape and I've stoked the furnace. Last night I was even able to demonstrate some pretty awesome choreography to a High School Musical 3 song ("The Boys are Back" or something like that) which ended with rolling under a bed and jumping out the other side. Okay, I didn't actually do the rolling. Had Noah do it for me.

Remember the vegetarian thing? Well I guess we made it through that. We did cheat a few times. Have you ever tried to eat vegetarian at Applebee's? No easy task there. I really didn't discover many new exciting recipes. Mostly, I just modified dishes I already made. So I still need to work on my quest to eat less processed food. My favorite substitute was throwing in Morningstar Farms Crumbles in everything that would have normally required chicken or hamburger. The hamburger subbing part was easy since we don't really eat that anyway. So it was crumbles in tacos, crumbles in lasagna, crumbles in crazy casserole (Brent's family's recipe, which is basically taco salad with Doritos). Throwing cans of beans in various dishes worked great as well. Remember, fiber is our friend. One thing that was good was baked sweet potato fries. Just slice up some sweet potatoes, coat in a little canola oil and salt and bake for about 30 minutes. So, I'd say we are healthier for it. After about four weeks I stopped jonesing for ice cream- it was a trying time for the family. ;) We didn't give up treats altogether (which may explain the three pound loss in 90 days). Moderation baby, that's the key! I figure if you lose the weight very very slowly, you'll keep it off easier anyway. Eventually, you have to go off a diet so the closer it mirrors regular life (meaning eating healthy in general with treats every now and then) the easier it is to maintain. I'm some sort of guru now, I tell ya. So I think we'll still eat vegetarian at least half the time. It was cheaper too I noticed. Not something to ignore in these times of economic uncertainty.

Here's one more recipe. If you like chili and enchiladas you'll like this:

Vegetarian Enchilada Bake

About 15 corn tortillas
4 cans vegetarian chili (Nalley's works well)
1 medium can enchilada sauce
1 can sliced olives
about 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese

Tear up tortillas. Spray non stick spray on bottom of 9x13 baking dish. Cover bottom of dish with 1/3 of tortillas. Spread 2 cans of chili over tortillas. Spread about 1/3 of enchilada sauce over chili. Repeat layers of 1/3 tortillas, chili and enchilada sauce. Spread the last third of the tortillas, followed by more enchilada sauce. Top with cheese and olives. Bake in 375 preheated oven for about 35 minutes. Top with lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, etc. Serve with fruit or whatever. Makes enough for two nights for a family of 5. Actually tastes better warmed up on second night.

We're Going Veg!

So I've mentioned to some of you out there that Brent and I are doing this DVD exercise program called Power 90. It's 90 days and we're on day 46. Halfway through, woo hoo! So we did the 1-2 workouts for the first half and now we're moving on to the 3-4 for the second half. They are slightly harder and longer. The first half was during the holidays, of course. We didn't want to worry about the diet during the holidays so now that we're a little in shape and have no excuse to eat chocolate anymore, we're working on the diet. We decided to try out being vegetarians for the last 45 days. Sometimes I think I need to make a major change like that to make it more interesting and easy. Gets the focus off the ice cream (no ice cream is allowed) and onto the veggie diet. I've always wanted to try it out anyway. No, we're not going vegan. We'll still be eating eggs and a little cheese and drinking milk. That makes it a whole lot less complicated.

Thought I'd share our first triumphal vegetarian dinner recipe with you~

Veggie Pasta Salad

1 box Barilla Plus Rotini Pasta, boiled and rinsed (has extra protein and the omega 3s)
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 can whole olives, drained
baby carrots, sliced into quarters and slightly steamed
brocolli, cut up and slightly steamed
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into strips
grape tomatoes, whole or cut in half if you prefer
fresh spinach, torn
italian salad dressing to taste (I used the Good Seasons mix kind)

Toss all ingredients together, sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top, stir.
Refridgerate a few hours.
Makes enough for two nights for a family of five.
Serve with rolls or fruit or whatever.

Good and Pretty!

Update: I'd stir the spinach in right before serving next time, gets really soggy.