Tag: healthy living

Another Recipe Post (Still About Black Beans)

Over the weekend I posted about the giant pot of black beans I made. I also made a big pot of quinoa but the process is infinitely less exciting. Anyway, turns out that when you make food, you are supposed to actually eat it! Thus this week I have been trying to think up/find some delicious healthy recipes for black beans and quinoa.

I use Pinterest for these kinds of things a lot. It’s a great medium for finding recipe recommendations, so it is a go to for new ideas. When I thought of black beans & quinoa I automatically thought of a recipe that was all over the place on Pinterest a few weeks ago. The Superfood Salad. It was one I’d wanted to try for a while so I was happy to finally give myself the opportunity.

The thing is, I had been thinking about making this for so long that I thought I had the recipe memorized. I was wrong. First of all, I used mango instead of oranges. I left out the shrimp and corn. There were probably some other differences too. So basically I only remembered 4 ingredients and went with them!

Still, it turned out deliciously and was easy to make.

Quinoa Mango Salad

The recipe (my version!) was absurdly easy:

Quinoa Mango Salad

  • 1/2 Cup Quinoa
  • 1/2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
  • 1/2 Cup Black Beans (see previous post)
  • 1 Small Avocado
  • 1 Cup Diced Mango
  • 1/4 Pomegranate Arils
  • 1 Tablespoon Lemon Vinaigrette

Dressing:

  • Lemon Juice from 1 Lemon
  • 2 Tablespoons EEOV
  • 1/2 inch Ginger
  • Pinch Salt
  • Pinch Pepper
  • Put in small mason jar, shake, refrigerate extra

First, to cook the quinoa, you can either cook a whole bunch to store away or just make the amount for this recipe. Add the quinoa, 1/2 tablespoon of oil, and then water at a 2:1 ratio. Bring to a rolling boil, then reduce to simmer. Cook until there is no water left (about 15 minutes). Fluff the quinoa with a fork. Set aside to let it cool while you chop everything else.

Chop avocado and mango, and prepare dressing. I buy the pomegranate arils at Trader Joe’s already pulled from the fruit, but if you buy the whole fruit, extract the arils.

Put all ingredients in a bowl. Mix if you want. Cover with 1 tablespoon dressing. Eat. Enjoy!

Note: This is a very large helping and was almost too much for me. Also if you haven’t noticed yet I love avocado so you could put in less if you want!

Another recipe I wanted to try, came from my imagination. Lately I have been really missing my beloved Mexican food. So, I decided to try and make something reminiscent, using the ingredients that are allowed in my diet and are already in my fridge. The result was a combination of taco salad and the superfood mix listed above.

Mexican-Style Power Salad

This salad was really good and insanely filling. The mix of quinoa, black beans and corn provides a a perfect protein, meaning it contains all of the necessary amino acids the body needs. Normally it is difficult to get all of these at once in a vegan diet. In my Mexican craving I broke down and added some reduced fat shredded cheese to the salad, but honestly I think it was unnecessary and I would probably keep it off next time. That’s right, I’d rather NOT have the cheese next time. This is what we call personal growth, ladies and gentleman!!

Mexican-Style Power Salad

  • 2 Handfuls Romaine Lettuce, chopped
  • 1/3 Cup Quinoa
  • 1/2 Cup Black Beans
  • 1/2 Cup Corn
  • 1/4 Cup Shredded “Mexican Mix” Reduced Fat Cheese (Optional)
  • 1/2 Medium Tomato, chopped
  • 1 small Avocado (or 1/2 a large one)
  • 1/4 Cup Chopped Red Onion
  • Couple dashes of cayenne pepper (optional)

I thought about adding a lime vinaigrette (olive oil, lime juice, cayenne, salt) but I honestly think this salad worked better without it. These flavors are strong and blend together well, and if your avocado is ripe enough, it should be creamy and oily enough to seem like dressing, especially mixed with juice from the beans and the tomato.

I’ll be honest. Despite the fact that I could have done without the cheese on this salad, it didn’t take away my craving for some creamy saturated fat filled cheese sauce over a deep fried chimichanga. But now that I really think about it, even imagining eating that makes me feel tired and greasy, which is not a feeling I enjoy too much. So I think if I can just work past the cravings, and keep finding ways to substitute and compromise, I should be in good shape! (Pun definitely intended.)

-lj

lydiakj2 Comments

Adventures in Unprocessed Cooking (A recipe for homemade black beans)

As part of this goal to get healthy and lose dangerous weight, I’ve given myself a lot of restrictions. I’m using a nutritionist’s pyramid, basically. One that I thought looked good was in the movie I reviewed yesterday, Fat Sick & Nearly Dead. That pyramid looked like this

Most people know, at this point, that fresh food from the Earth is better than food produced more or less in a chem lab. But, I was surprised to see it all the way at the top as something to eat only rarely. I guess I thought it would be off the map, more of an aside, like: BTW spinach in your Hot Pocket does not count as a leafy vegetable serving.

I’ve gone off on a tangent. The point is that I am trying to avoid processed foods. And now finally we have gotten to the point of this blog post! The point is I was very proud of myself today because I did some actual slow cooking today that would have made my Texan ancestors proud. I made black beans! It was definitely the longest cooking process I have ever taken on. There are a lot of steps!

Steps to Preparing & Cooking Black Beans

1. You buy the beans either in a bulk bin or in a bag. The market on my street only had the bag, which was fine because it was still organic.

2. Once home, sort through all the beans and sift out any seeds, stones or other weird looking things. I love this part because it really is a reminder that these beans are coming from the ground, not the assembly line.

3. After you’ve sifted through them, wash them. I am a weirdo about water so I sprayed them with the shower head function on the kitchen sink (no idea what the technical term for that thing is!) and then dumped a whole brita pitcher on top of them to make sure they were clean.

4. Once they are cleaned and sorted, they need to soak. Put the beans in a big bowl, then cover with water at a ratio of 3 cups water to 1 cup beans. The bag I bought was 2.5 cups so I put in 8 cups of water, just to be sure. The soaking part takes a long time. It’s best to just let them sit overnight. No worries about covering the big bowl, it doesn’t matter.

5. The fun part starts! Put the beans in a big cooking pot. Out of four sizes, I used our second biggest one.

Clean beans, big pot.

Then you can add some flavor! The spices can vary depending on your taste.  My mom makes some amazing tacos, so I used her seasoning recipe as a guide, and tweaked it since these are beans instead of chicken. Here is my recipe:

Spicy Black Beans

  • 1 Bag of Black Beans (2.5 Cups)
  • 5 Cloves Garlic, chopped*
  • 1/2 an Onion, chopped**
  • 1 Small-Medium Tomato, chopped
  • 2 Tablespoons Chili Powder
  • 1 Tablespoon Cumin
  • 1 1/2 Teaspoons Paprika
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes (or a little more even)
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper
  • 4 Cups Vegetable Broth (1 box)
  • 6 Cups Water

* I love garlic and it is a very cleansing food, but you can use less if you want. 3 or 4 would be fine.

** I was running low on onion, and used leftover scraps from a red and a white. I wished there was more onion, which is why I’m predicting a half of one would be better. Either color really, but white might be a little better.

Even though there are a trillion ingredients, the directions are really simple.

5. Add all the spices and the other ingredients to the pot.

Garlic, Onions and Spices...look at all those colors!

6. Cover ingredients with liquids. I did half the water then the stock, then the rest of the water but I am sure it doesn’t really matter.

7. Bring it all to a boil.

8. Once at big, rolling boil, cover the pot, turn down heat and let simmer. Somewhere in the medium-low range is good. Let it simmer like that for about 1.5 hours.

–I’ve seen other similar recipes say as low as 45 minutes, but I wanted mine to be really soft, and they were still crunchy and grainy at 45 minutes on my stove. I recommend you begin checking them at 45 or 50 minutes, and if they are not ready, stir them up and let simmer at 10 or 15 minute intervals until you like the consistency. An hour and a half for me was perfect.

9. Turn off burner. Let the beans sit for a couple more minutes, just to let them soak in a little more moisture and also cool down.

10. Drain the liquid. There will probably be a lot of it. (A lot of liquid is important to avoid burning.) Drain until there is still a little water left as a sort of juice for the beans, but no free standing water left. This is obviously a matter of taste, but I would guess I left 1 or 1.5 cups of water at the bottom of the pot.

11. Use the beans! Eat them however you want! I put them in a completely delicious black bean and hummus “burrito” (really the world’s largest soft taco):

Black Bean & Hummus "Burrito": Organic Flour Tortilla (soften with 1/4 tsp EVOO and 2-3 minutes in oven at 250˚F), Spicy Hummus, 1/3 Cup Black Beans, 1/2 Avocado, tomato, onion, carrots & arugula (however much you want!)

12. Put the rest in a sealable container and save for next time! They should last about a week.

The final product

This was probably my biggest foray into the world of clean cooking (is that a term?) so far. It covers a lot of hours, but the actual work time is completely manageable.

I’ve been really enjoying cooking. Eating these clean recipes, using only organic, fresh products makes me feel energized and accomplished. Plus, the only way to trust what’s in it is to make it at home! Now I just have to decide what to make next…

-lj

lydiakj4 Comments

Cleansing with (Mostly) Raw Food

Well, I’m almost through the first week of my cleanse! As a reminder for you, it is based on the Whole Living 2012 Action Plan, but I’m not using all of those recipes (though some I am) and I am eating only foods known for their detoxification benefits. I’ve cut out sugar, gluten, animal products, excessive salt, caffeine and alcohol. I’m only eating vegetables, fruits, nuts/seeds and a whole lot of Smartwater. Full disclosure: I did cheat twice. On Day 2 I was so hungry I went to the Fresh Market on my block and bought some brown rice cakes (unsalted). They taste kind of like card stock but they served their purpose. The fact that those are considered cheating makes me a little sad about life! On Day 3 it was my friend’s birthday part, where we had dinner at a bar, and I at the filling of some fish tacos with steamed vegetables. There was still no gluten or dairy, so I don’t think it was too bad.

For the most part, I am loving the cleanse. It is definitely working, and I can tell in two ways: I feel lighter. Not necessarily by pounds, but I feel less bogged down. The other way is less fortunate. I’ve had a terrible headache. The Day 3 headache got so bad that I had to leave that party early. Later in the evening it basically turned into a migraine. After doing a little research, it seems I have been having serious sugar withdrawals. I lamely expected not to have a lot of detox symptoms because I don’t drink much caffeine. I did not expect this sugar detox to have such serious side effects. I guess I eat a lot of things that have sugar even though they don’t seem particularly unhealthy like yogurt, granola bars and stir-fry with sauce. Today hasn’t been so bad, though which is why I’m writing a blog post finally! Even though the headaches have been painful, and really inhibited my ability to work this week, it is nice to know my efforts to rid my body of toxins has been working. Headaches aren’t my ideal signal of success, but I suppose it is better than no success at all!

The actual food has been pretty good. I’ve been having fun trying to create ways to eat these detox foods that are still tasty. I love the liquid breakfast rule , and I think I might try to stick with it long term. I’ve also created a couple different salads that I really enjoy and would be happy to eat even after the cleanse is through, so I thought I’d include those recipes:

1. Avocado & Pepitas Salad

Ingredients: (All Organic)

  • Handful Spring Mix/Mixed Greens
  • 1/2 a handful of Spinach
  • 1 Small Avocado
  • 10 Cherry Tomatoes
  • 2 Tablespoons Diced Onions
  • 1/2 cup Green Pepper Strips
  • 1/4 cup Pepitas
  • Dressing (Below)

Dressing:

  • 1 Tablespoon EVOO (olive oil)
  • Juice from 1/2 a lime
  • 2 dashes cayenne pepper

2. Sweet Potato Slaw

Ingredients: (All Organic)

  • 1 Small Sweet Potato*
  • 1 Gala Apple
  • 1 Cup Chopped Red Cabbage
  • 1 Celery Stalk
  • 1 Large Carrot
  • Diced Onion (to taste)
  • 2 Tablespoons Toasted Almond Slices (not pictured)
  • Dressing

Dressing:

  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons EVOO
  • Juice of 1/2 a Lemon
  • 1 Inch Ginger, grated
  • Salt/Pepper (to taste)

*For the sweet potato, I cooked it 15-20 minutes until it was soft enough to chop. All the ingredients were supposed to be julienned but I am not that fancy so I just cut them into strips or slices.

So there we go. So far, I’ve been enjoying the cleanse (even with the headaches) and I think I am making good progress! I like the feeling of accomplishment, and even with the headaches I definitely recommend it for everyone.

-lj

lydiakjLeave a comment

Cleanse Day 1

The first day of the cleanse was a success!

I feel pretty good. I have a little bit of a headache and, I won’t lie to you, I’m kind of hungry. But overall, I think it was pretty successful.

I am using a modified version of the Whole Living 2012 Action Plan Challenge. I am modifying it to fit a) my tastes and b) my commitment levels (both financially and in time). For instance, I will not be making the beet soup that takes four hours, even if it is super healthy looking. I’d rather just eat some beets and go on my way.

Here are the fundamentals of the cleanse: eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Eat some oils with omega 3, including nuts and seeds. DO NOT eat/consume sugar, gluten, caffeine, alcohol or animal products.

There are a lot of foods that are particularly good for cleansing and detoxing. I’m trying to eat those foods almost without exception. Here is a list of the cleansing foods:

This list isn't completely exhaustive. I also will eat mostly any fruit or vegetables, even if they aren't on the list.

So the Whole Living Challenge suggests starting the day with a cup of hot water with lemon, so I did that. It was nice and refreshing. I don’t have a caffeine addiction, nor do I drink coffee, so I liked the hot water in the morning. I wonder if for coffee drinkers it would have been a rude awakening (or NOT-awakening hehe). Then I set out to make breakfast.

The thing I am noticing already about this program is that I am spending insane amounts of my day in the kitchen. Normally, when I “cook” I don’t do things that require a lot of prep work. I throw some tofu in the over and let it roast for 20 minutes. I throw some salad on a plate and pour on some bottled dressing and go on my way. All this chopping and mixing for this in depth recipes I can already predict will get old. But, the results (today at least) were pretty cool.

The cleanse recommends having juice or a smoothie for breakfast, because liquids are easier to digest (obviously) and it’s a nice way to ease your system into the day. It offers a few recipe suggestions and I chose the one that looked the most appetizing: Grapefruit-Carrot Juice. It is really simple, which I also liked about the recipe going into it. It is simple: 2 grapefruits, 5 whole carrots and an inch of ginger. You just chop them all up and put them through a juicer, which out of kismet and because we are kindred spirits, my roommate had on hand. Although I think if you added a little bit of water (maybe 1/4 cup), it would work in a blender too. (Provided the blender is strong enough to puree carrots.) In the future I think I might put the glass in the refrigerator for a little while before serving the juice because it was a little warm. But it turned out pretty tasty and it looked very good, in my biased opinion:

The rest of the day went well, too, but I think breakfast was my greatest achievement. Lunch was a really good salad/slaw thing that I will probably post some other time. Dinner was not so great. I roasted some cauliflower with garlic and red peppers and it was intensely bland. Blandness is something that is going to be a problem for me over the next two weeks, that’s pretty clear already.

Throughout the day, I didn’t get as much work done as I wanted to. Mostly I think I was distracted thinking about food and cooking. I was surprised though, because I thought I would be exhausted and I wasn’t. I’m supposed to get 7.5 hours of sleep per night minimum, and that might be a challenge. Overall though, I think I will be really happy with this cleanse idea.

lydiakjLeave a comment

Finding a Plan: The Cleanse

I hate the word “diet.” To me, the connotation is a quick fix, where the only goal is to get skinny. Skinny is the least of my concerns at this point. I am more focused on healthy. So, my goal right now (and always) is to change my general way of living. I don’t want a temporary fix.

I started this lifestyle change about three months ago: cutting out fried foods, cheese and saturated fats in general, plus sweets, limiting starches and trying to make sure vegetables and fruits were my major food groups. It was going pretty well. I wasn’t even monitoring weight loss, I just wanted to get into a groove where eating really healthy seemed normal.

Last year I was really dependent on take out food for most of my meals. Turns out, when you let restaurants make your food for you, there is no way to regulate what’s in it. So even if I was eating tofu with vegetables (which I was…some of the time), there’s still the (strong) possibility that it’s tofu, vegetables and like 2 cups of vegetable oil and a pound of salt. And let’s not kid ourselves, for every night 0f tofu and vegetables there was a night of half a cheese pizza and a small pile of breadsticks.

So somewhere in December I finally decided to get my act together. I am not adverse to cooking and eating vegetables, I just needed to start getting used to it again. I started using an online/phone app program for calorie counting (myfitnesspal.com), because I did it once before and was very successful. I like calorie counting because it helps me set limits for myself. I like the simple arithmetic of it: figure out how many calories your body needs to stay nourished but lose its excess, then only eat things up to that particular stopping point. I like how cut and dry that system is–it is easy to understand and thus easy to follow. So things were going great for a while. But then, in February I took the bar exam.

If you’ve never taken a bar exam, be happy about that. It is a terrible, long and grueling process: study for twelve-fifteen hours a day for six weeks, and then take a two day intensive standardized exam, on which your entire future relies. It’s a little bit stressful. Thus, calorie counting was not nearly as a high a priority as avoiding a mental breakdown, so I replaced salads and roasted vegetables with whatever the hell I wanted. After the exam was over I told myself I could have a week where I could indulge in doing eating as I pleased: cupcakes, pizza, noodles in cream sauce, breaded chicken, cookies, nachos and more than a couple 7 & 7’s.

When this whirlwind of gluttony settled down, I felt gross. Instead of feeling like I had finally gotten over the post-bar exhaustion, I felt worse. So, I decided I needed to rejuvenate. That brings us almost to present day.

I’ve done cleanses before, but mass-marketed ones that didn’t really work. This time, I wantit to be different, because again, I’m concerned with healthiness more than getting skinny. I can only assume weight loss is a natural side effect of treating my body better. Since I’m just looking for a quick fix, I did some research.

I’ve wavered a lot over whether my cleanse should incorporate detox supplements or should be just based on foods and liquids. Ultimately I have decided on cleansing through diet, and if it doesn’t seem to be working, maybe I will reevaluate.

A cleanse means exactly what it implies. It cleans out disgusting things that have built up inside our bodies due to things like junk food, alcohol or smoke. It mostly focuses on the colon and the liver, which are the major organs for filtering things, and so that’s where a lot of build up occurs. But, I don’t want to get too gross about stuff.

So I’ve spent a lot of time searching around the Internet for a good cleanse that would make me feel refreshed and less run down, and to rid my body of the bad mojo left behind by the bar exam.

I found one online that I really like: The Whole Living 2012 Action Plan. Whole Living is a site apparently owned by Martha Stewart’s media regime, which kind of explains why the site’s recipes involve a lot of time and money. Sadly, I do not own a media conglomerate and do not really want to buy an entire bunch of fennel so I can use a half cup. But still, I really like the holistic approach of this cleanse. It incorporates simple exercises and meditation into the cleansing process. Plus, the fact that it starts out super intense and then gradually gets easier, will hopefully make it easier to be able to keep up the lifestyle when the actual cleansing is over.

But, like I said a lot of the recipes sound either expensive or inedible, so I have been looking for other options too. There is a lot of information available about what foods are good for cleansing/detoxing. I’ve decided I am going to use the basic setup of the Whole Living program, but incorporate different recipes using only detoxing/cleansing foods.

The gist of everything I read is that this is basically a raw foods diet. A cleanse diet should be almost entirely made up of fresh produce, maybe some oils and a legume here and there, but no sugar, starch or animal products. This is like choosing the hardest level on a video game. Exciting, challenging but there’s a good chance I will die*! (*not resulting in actual death.)

I am really excited to get started on this. I think it will be a great experience and a really good way to get both my body and brain accustomed to healthy living.

ps here are some resources for cleansing foods:

-lj

lydiakjLeave a comment