Leaving my Monster behind. In the freezer.  Which did me absolutely no good at work. I really, really missed the GM today.  I defrosted it and drank it tonight, but I was kinda full from dinner and am now a bit sloshy and poochy feeling.  I also ended up quite hungry at my evening Zumba class but soldiered through and shook-it, shook-it vigorously.  I managed to bruise one of my finger joints during a too-enthusiastic grapevine.

Sigh.

Eats:

Banana, apple, cinnamon and raw and wriggling almond butter

That was supposed to be my pre-Zumba fuel since the class starts at 5:30, which is right around when I likes to eat.  Instead, it replaced my Green Monster at the 10:30 am feeding.

Hey!  I found these random snacks on my camera, I think I forgot to post them yesterday:

'Zeke tortilla with banana and cinnamon

Almost empty Sun Dried Tomato Sabra (not as good as the pine nut flavor, in my opinion, but evidently I had no trouble eating it)

My "chip" to dip into the hummus

Chip & Hummus: Come to mama

Dinner tonight has become a favorite of mine:

Broco, yaller squash, zucchini, red bell peps stir fried.

With the star of the show:

Baked tofu

I had no idea that you didn’t need to fry tofu to get that nice crust on the top.  You can bake it after lightly brushing on some oil with a high smoke point.  Righteous!  I love this.  It has such a nice firm texture when you bake it this way.  I broiled this one a bit to get that nice brown-ness.

For dessert, I broke into this bad boy:

Sweet lusciousness!

I was so pleasantly surprised by this.  It was like… dessert.  I could eat it like a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.  I tried a little spoonful of it and promptly dove in while doing my best Homer Simpson impression.

Stop the presses! This was INCREDIBLE!

Yeah, I couldn’t even take the paper off all the way before diving in.  You wanna start something!?!  Actually, that stupid paper seal is a big complaint about these Peanut Butters.  It’s hard to peel off all the way, and this jar was sitting upside down in my cabinet and some of the oil leaked out before I even peeled the paper off.  That doesn’t seem too tightly sealed.

Anyway, this stuff rocks.  I love it so.  That’s all I can say.  I was afraid there would be a raspberry syrup or something in there.  I honestly couldn’t taste any raspberries, which is hunky dory by me because I find adding raspberry to desserts significantly decreases my enjoyment of said dessert.

Then I realized that white chocolate tends not to be vegan, read the label and confirmed that yep, for the second time* today I am a doofus and, as a result, broke my vegan vow.

The end.

*If you count bruising my own finger in Zumba while performing a grapevine as my second doofus act of the day**, cheerfully devouring white chocolate peanut butter while thinking it is vegan but not actually reading the label is actually the third doofus act of the day.  Depends on how you’re counting.  But I think grapevine injuries occur all the time, so I didn’t count that.

**  Obviously, forgetting another part of my lunch is the first doofus act of the day.  I feel like I did in the third grade when my mom decided I was old enough to get my own breakfast, collect my school stuff and get out the door without her help. I was a complete mess for a week. But that was, like, sometime in the mid 80s and I’m like 30 now.

Whatever, my footnotes are getting out of control.

Peace.

-E.

Speaking of eats, I mentioned before I bought about a dozen of those bars from Whole Foods to bring with me for my trip to Colorado last weekend — I brought some for me and some to share with my mother-in-law, who is the OG greens eater in the family.  She’s been keepin’ it green since the 70′s.  I originally considered bringing a shaker with some Amazing Grass Superfood, but I wasn’t too sure how I’d like the taste, and filling up a shaker from a bathroom tap just isn’t that appetizing to me.

The bars worked out really well, and it brings me to another tip in healthy eating (remember, tip 1 was pre-chop and cook your veggies and tip 2 was to call ahead to restaurant to scout out your food options).  Tip #3:  Take control of your own destiny.  If you are like me, and your family considers fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn to be a balanced meal… well, if you go home to visit, you are going to need to do some preparation.  Gena has some fabulous tips for traveling at her blog when you’re a guest in someone’s home and you have healthy habits you are trying to stick to.

This past weekend, Husband and I weren’t staying with family or friends, we were in a hotel with no mini-fridge or sink to prep foods.  Before we arrived at our destination, I googled around to find vegetarian or vegan restaurants and ended up discovering the Egg & I looked like our best bet for breakfast since it served lots of egg dishes for Husband and oatmeal for me.  Unfortunately, most of the restaurants in the area looked like they weren’t our kinds of places, so I scoped out the nearest grocery store for emergency trips to the salad bar.  Husband is very patient and supportive of my efforts, so it all ended up working out.  Those bars were total life-savers though because when I get hungry, I get HUNGRY.  That means I want to eat NOW, not 45 minutes from now while we search for a restaurant and order and wait for them to bring us our food.

I really recommend both the Amazing Grass Green Bars and the Greens Plus Chia bars as they were tasty and filling.  Sorry I don’t have any pictures again!  I eat my food way too quickly.  The Greens Plus bars were particularly interesting.  I got the chocolate covered kind, and the insides were very fluffy, almost like a 3 Musketeers bar.  I found that intriguing.  The chia seeds gave it a fun little crunch.  I also brought along raw pepitas and sunflower seeds to snack on.

Okay, more food stuff coming later.  The house is a disaster, time to fix it.

Peace!

-E.

I’ve had good luck with soaked oatmeal (although I haven’t had it in awhile because I was going a bit crazy with it).  And Polly’s Oaty Cakes were heaven, obv.

This morning I went back to my eggs and toast roots, vegan style:

Tofu Scramble, 2 sprouted grain toasts with coconut oil

I made my own Tofu Scramble seasoning, although Husband tells me he grew up eating Tofu Scramble made with an official, store-bought packed of seasoning.  I googled for their recipe and just spiced mine with some cumin, paprika, turmeric and a seasoning blend that kind of has a rich, umami taste to it.  Husband smelled it when he got out of the shower and thought I actually went to the store and bought the packet of seasonings, so I guess it was pretty close to the real thing.  It tasted good.  Real good.

I’ve also had luck with these:

Trader Joe's High Fiber O's with Hemp Milk and a droplet of Vanilla Stevia

This is one of the most satisfying cereals I’ve ever tried.  Cereal burns right up when I eat it, I’m starving like an hour later.  Husband has the same prob.  This stuff sticks with you longer though.  It’s nice to be able to have a quick, roll-out of bed breakfast that doesn’t involve dirtying pans or soaking the night before.

This box is your friend.

Can you read this? It might be too small. It's respectable though, take my word for it.

Always a perfect addition to any breakfast - hemp milk, bananas, kale, spinach, watercress, strawberries, Amazing Grass Superfood powder and a wee bit of Vanilla Stevia. My capitalization of proper nouns is getting out of control.

I’ve decided to switch from using hemp milk to unsweetened vanilla almond milk as my regular dairy replacer.  It’s like a $2 difference and if I’m going to be buying enough peanut butter to fill my bathtub, I should save money where I can.  I’ll try and use the hemp milk sparingly because the nutrition is so rockin’, but for things like cereal I will be using the Blue Diamond Almond Breeze because it turns out money really does not grow on trees.   Who knew?

Peace!

Elizabeth

(For any of you readers who were like, born, when that movie came out (grrr!) and don’t remember it, Heathers was in 1988 what Mean Girls was to your as-yet unwrinkled generation.)

Setting aside the fascinating topics of 80s movies and my dumb dog, here’s a handy tip I’ve just put into practice recently at the Granite Casa.  One of the major downsides to eating a veggie-rich diet, or any diet that moves away from packaged, processed, pre-prepared foods, is the amount of time it takes to wash the veggies (if you’re using a pesticide removing veggie wash, which I hope you are), chop, cook and then clean up!  Even if you’re not cooking them and just making them into a salad, you’ll still have a cutting board, knives, and the salad bowl to clean as well as the countertops and, if you’re a sloppy cook like me, the floor.

What has worked for me is to wash a whole mess o’ veggies at once.  Cleaned leafy vegs can keep in the fridge for a few days provided they are DRY when they go in.  Wash them in veggie wash, dry them in a salad spinner, and place them in a large bowl lined with paper towels to absorb any moisture you missed.  It takes me 20-30 minutes a day to wash and dry salad vegs and it gets BORING and I get HOSTILE because I am at the sink three times a day completing the exact same sisyphusian tasks. But if I do a bunch at once, it doesn’t add that much time to the washing procedure and it gives me a break for a few days.

Pre-preparing cooked veggies is an even more versatile way to save time and have quick meal options available.  Check out mine from last night:

• Cooked toppings for raw salads
• Fillings for wraps.  Add some hummus and salsa (and cheese if you’re a cheese eater) to a tortilla with the veggies.  Eat cold, nuked or grilled on the stove.  Add some beans and make a veggie burrito!
• Side dishes to quick meals like canned soups.
• Toppings for make at home pizza.  Or add them to the pizza you buy to improve the nutrition!

I'm so cute! I don't need to be smart!

Husband and I LOVE the Korean food and Sushi at Shira Kiku in Nashua.  Of the two of us, only Husband has been to Korea.  He dug the stone pots with rice and veggies and the little dishes of pickled goodness.  If he hadn’t tried it, I don’t know if I ever would have been brave enough to try kimchi.  I’m so glad I did!

The lady who runs Shira Kiku is so sweet.  Every time we wolf down the kimchi she brings us, she seems so pleased and surprised that we did. Tonight was date night and, partly because of some work-related digestive issues, I was craving Korean food.  Kimchi is fermented so it is rife with healthy bacteria for your digestive system. In addition to all the little mini dishes of kimchi, scallion pancakces, tofu, potatoes, and sweet radishes, I ordered the Kimchi stew with pork, veggies, and tofu but asked for no pork.  Meanwhile, Husband got a spicy pork dish.  No pictures, sorry, we forgot the camera.  BUT!  Later on, the already great meal got even better so Husband busted out his iPhone for posterity.

After we were full of cabbage and rice and spice and other good things, the chef stopped by our table to ask how we liked the food.  He kidded me about not liking pork (last time we were there, he kidded me about ordering an extra dish of his mom’s spicy kimchi) and I explained to him that I’m a vegan.  THAT was when the fun began!  Rob, the chef, is a terrific guy. He immediately told me that I should have told him I was a vegan because he could do any dish I wanted vegan-style.  I thanked him and thought we would definitely be back next week to put his offer to the test.  Little did we know while we were finishing up our tea and paying our bill, Rob had a treat in store for us:

Sweet Potato Sushi

This was incredible!  I’ve never had vegan sushi before (I think the only veggie sushi I’ve had are California rolls, but those have cream cheese in them and I think they’re kind of icky).  Rob proceeded to sit down with us and go over the entire menu and listed the different vegan sushi selections already featured on the menu and the modifications he could make to the Korean dishes for me.  He mentioned one of the other people dining in the restaurant was gluten-sensitive, so he makes special dishes for her all the time. He even knew her by name.

For awesome service, for incredible food and for being so willing to make wonderful food for vegans and no-gluten peeps, I encourage everyone to try Shira Kiku.  If you’re nervous about the more exotic dishes, there are plenty of stir fries and Pad Thai type dishes to try that aren’t intimidating.  In my pre-vegan days, I had the sashimi and fish sushi and it’s super fresh and delicious. I asked Rob how he learned all of his sushi skillz and he told me he got it all from his Dad — a sushi chef of 47 years who works in Boston. It’s a family gig for sure! Meat lovers will certainly find amazing morsels of animal here as well — Korean’s ain’t famous for their barbeque for nuthin’.

I was sort of sad I was so full of Kimchi stew, because I wanted to giddy-up on some of that vegan sushi.  Oh well, the next date night is just a week away!

Peace,

E.

PS.  The kimchi?  Took care of what ailed me.  Bless the Koreans for this magical tummy elixr!

It was 4 miles round trip and it was so nice to be out in the sights, smells and sounds of the real world instead of in my car.  I sometimes will catch a faint whiff of something unidentifiable… a mix of exhaust and hot brick pavement and funky gas smells and it will remind me of the hot summer I lived in Europe.  I think it’s probably a smell common to all cities, I just never notice it at home because I only walk when I’m in foreign countries.  Here’s what I saw and ate:

A really nice, stone public bathroom. A mama lets her baby dabble in the fountain.

Shady trees and a swinging park bench

I received a coupon to order from MMG and got the organic muesli with hemp, chia, flax and amaranth seeds and goji berries.  It was truly a delicious cereal (I ate it soaked overnight in coconut milk or applesauce with cinnamon and it was always fantastic).

So here are my impressions of who was better in some of the key areas:

Website usability:  Tie — each was done well and was fun to use.  MixMyGranola (MMG) has a quirk where if you pay by PayPal, you must go back to your shopping cart a certain way or they don’t know what you ordered.  I ended up having to cancel and re-submit my order.  That’s a PayPal quirk though.  

Customer service:  me and [gogi] (m&g) wins hands down.  MMG was not bad at all, don’t get me wrong.  But it was like ordering from Amazon.com, very little unique interaction.

Company image:  m&g wins here too.  They have a facebook and twitter presence and have that cool start-up vibe.  Remember how the Cliff bar guy started a business living in a garage baking stuff in his mom’s kitchen?  And Ben & Jerry drove ice cream around in the back of their car?  The gogi guys have that feel.  I hope they go they way of the Cliff bar and Ben & Jerry’s!

Customizable Options:  This was tough.  Except from not carrying hemp seeds, me and [gogi] has a lot more options in cereal bases and fruits.  They offer things like mulberries, goldenberries, spelt flakes and currants.  M&g also specifically targets a gluten-free audience, while MMG does not (for some reason, I have a lot of celiacs in my life these days).  However, MMG just introduced a line of enhancers like lucuma or acai powders and it is for that reason that I think MixMyGranola has slightly better options than [me] and gogi.  MMG also offers things like gummi bears chocolate peanut butter balls, which sounds weird in a cereal but some people customize trail mixes with these companies. M&g does not offer candy-type add ins, and that’s fine by me.

Shipping Fees: m&g is currently running a summer special where shipping is $4.99 and each additional capsule is .99.  MMG’s shipping is $4.99 no matter how many containers you order.  Shipping is free at MMG for orders over $40.00. Therefore, MixMyGranola is a tiny bit better on shipping rates.

Cost: m&gi starts between $4.90 and $6.90 for the cereal base.  MMG ranges from $3.99 to $4.99.  The two companies offer very different additional ingredients, but here is a price comparison for a few ingredients offered by both companies:

Gogi berries:  $1.99 (MMG) and $2.00 (m&g).

Dried Pineapple: $1.49 (MMG) and $1.25 (m&g)

Chia Seeds:  $1.49 (MMG) and $2.00 (m&g)

Dried Strawberries: $1.19 (MMG) and $2.00 (m&g)

Note:  MMG’s prices are based on 16 oz of product, m&g is larger at 21 oz.  It seems to me that price-wise, [me] and gogi is the winner.   

Quality-wise, there was really no discernible difference between the two companies. You can’t really order the exact same mix from both companies which is what you should do to compare the two products.  Both companies have high-quality cereals, so I would choose based on which offers the ingredients I want at the best price.  Even though [me] and gogi lacks some of the ingredients that I would want, their prices are good enough and I like their company style enough I would order from them in the future.

Another empty wrapper

Once again, I ate it before taking the picture of the package.  One day I’ll learn restraint.  At least I didn’t actually eat it in the store, unlike some Honest Foods Bars that I bought…

The texture of this cookie was interesting.  I wouldn’t have marketed it as a cookie.  It was more like a cake or a very dry, cake-y brownie.  I actually don’t care for dry chocolate cake or brownies, so, you see, this cookie and I were doomed from the start.  

It was sweet — SUPER sweet with a bit of a sandy texture to it.  All in all, I was not a fan of this cookie even though I really wanted to be:  vegan, chocolate, gluten-free… how could I go wrong?  It just reminded me of those old Snackwell’s cookies from back in the day.

Another factor in my dislike:

Savaged wrapper

It’s kinda hard to tell since I basically ripped the entire wrapper to shreds (am I part werewolf?), but one cookie has 360 calories.If you are self-controlled enough to cut the cookie in half and save the rest for a later treat, you will only get 180 cals, but I am not that kind of girl.  I am not the kind of girl who leaves a half-eaten cookie in a single serving package sitting in her cupboard.  Just for reference, for 360 calories, I could eat a whole Ezekiel sprouted grain muffin with 2 tablespoons of Satan’s PB.

I’m tempted to try the lemon flavored cookie because I do like lemon cake and the texture might be less of an issue to me, but I think it’s not worth it.  I think there are better treats to enjoy so I regretfully have to award the Granite Gourmet’s first “No me Likey” label to Nana’s cookies.    

Don’t forget to check out the second part to my [me] and gogi vs. MixMyGranola review tomorrow!

Peace,

Elizabeth

I digress.

After the appointment, I was too lazy to wash greens or get my blender dirty, so I just ate a banana, a grapefruit and an orange.  I started in that order because bananas peel fastest and I could eat it quicker.  The grapefruit gave me more fruit for my peeling efforts, and the orange was the piece de resistance of the meal.

I was meeting a friend for tea at noon, so I had to have lunch a little early.  Here’s what I had:

TJ's black bean soup, 1/2 a 'zeke muffin, raw bell pepps and cukes, splodge of hummus for dipping, Cranberry Lime Polar Seltzer and a Cherry Pie Lara.

I saved the Lara for my tea time.  I ordered a soy chai latte that was ridiculously sweet but overall it was a nice little treat and I  didn’t even consider ordering one of those buttercream frosted cupcakes.  Normally, I would be fantasizing about swimming in an Olympic swimming pool full of that frosting.  Progress people!  Hello, my name is Elizabeth and I am a recovering frosting addict.

Then I was off to the gym to try to cram three days worth of working out into one sesh (wha?  I think that’s totally going to work!) and then I had to scramble to the store to pick up vegels to bring to our friends’ new house for a dinner party.  Our friends lived in a nearby town for a few years then moved to take a teaching job at a university in Virginia.  They’re back for the summer for some research and it was so incredible to see them again.  We missed them a lot.

Dinner (unpictured because I’m still not sure how my friends will react if I whip out a camera and start photographing my plate) was 2 corn on the cobs, salad, sauteed broccolini and a chickpea, black bean and raisin salad.  Oh, and some locally produced wine. The broccolini was so delicious.  It was just sauteed in salt, pepper, and olive oil but it tasted like french fries to me.

Dessert was a fruit salad with blueberries, strawberries and melon.  It was such an incredible dinner and we are so happy our friends are home for the summer!  Have I mentioned that already?

Today I finally got off my rump and juiced some veggies that needed to be used.  I love fruit and vegetable juices but I kinda hate to wash, chop, juice and then clean the juicer.  Unlike most healthy food bloggers, I am not much of a perfectionist but am very slackerish when it comes to prep and clean up.  So I decided to just juice my heart out so I only had to only clean up once.  I stored everything in an airtight container, so hopefully I won’t lose too many enzymes.

First juice: Green Lemonade from Natalia Rose’s “The Raw Food Detox Diet.” I bought this book about 3 years ago when I lived in Seattle and, at the time, the Green Lemonade and the maple/soysauce salmon were the only recipes I was brave enough to try.   It’s a great book, though, and the Green Lemonade is a great recipe.

I had to switch mine up based on the ingredients I had available.  Above is some Swiss Chard, spinach, sad looking celery, lemon, apple and a piece of galangal (the weird looking thing in my hand).  I bought the galangal a while back while making Thai soups.  It is a little spicier and pine-ier than ginger, but it eats cancer cells.  No really, it gobbles up cancer cells like Pac Man eating those little pellets.

We interrupt this orgy of juicing for a snack -- 1/2 a 'zeke muffin with Satan's PB.

Then it was time for juicing beets, carrots, and some more of the wimpy-looking celery that didn’t make it into the green lemonade.

Taking a swim in veggie wash

Then I had a pre-lunch cocktail while I fixed salad:

Green Lemonade. It burns so good!

And finally, it was lunch time:

Romaine, spinach, chickpeas, tomato, avo, and bell pepps. Also, a slightly burned Dr. Praegger veggie burger with, um, a bite missing.

I love dr. praeger’s veggie burgers.  They taste like egg rolls to me.  I also added a little Eden Foods Umeboshi Paste to the salad after this pic was taken.

That’s all for now!   I am bursting with joy that my Raw Zucchini Spaghetti with Pesto was featured on Jennifer’s ThisisWhyYou’reThin!  I feel… really good about that!

Peace,

Elizabeth

Ah.  Weight.

The short answer:  about the same. 

The long answer:  Sigh.  Thanks to ladies like Angela and Gina, I’m trying to get away from the neurotic calorie counting and scale hounding that I’ve subjected myself to for the past 20-ish years of my life.  First, I’m really bad at math, and turning each meal into an algebra assignment where I have to research calorie contents, multiply by serving sizes and divide as necessary were not fun.  Also, the stricter and more crazy I got about the calories and the scale, the more resistant things seemed to get.  It was like trying to force two magnets together with the same polarity.  The more I pushed, the more they pushed back (they being my sanity and weight).  

Have I shed millions of pounds as a vegan?  Well, no.  The scale is still showing that I weigh pretty much the same as when I was eating 1/2 a pound of chicken breasts and 2 eggs every day.  But when I went in for my annual doctor’s visit this morning, I am six pounds lighter than I was last year.  That’s even after all my snacking yesterday and pizza night (yes, I am so neurotic that I know the scale should be two pounds higher the day after pizza night).  Why this is showing up on the doc’s scale and not on my Tanita scale, I dunno.  It’s not the clothes I wore because (again, revealing my neuroses) I always wear the lightest possible clothes to the doc’s.  I also try to schedule it early in the morning and eat breakfast afterwards so the scale isn’t affected by the weight of my food or clothes.  Crazy?  Yes, but accurate!

As an aside, I always find myself a little surprised when the nurse asks me if I need to “empty my bladder” before I get on the scale.  I immediately revert back to when my mom used to always ask if I needed to go potty every time we passed a bathroom (obviously, that was back in my toilet training days).  I always think about her question for far too long.  Isn’t that too personal to answer? Also, is it really necessary? I mean, I’m just stepping on the scale, it’s not like I’ve got a long car trip ahead of me or something.

Anyway, that’s sort of the update with how veganism is treating me.  I eat when I’m hungry (obviously, just look at my snack record for yesterday) and can eat lots of yummy fruit which is very satisfying.  I still catch myself worrying about the calories in things because, let’s face it, the behavior I began learning when I was 10 isn’t going to go away overnight.  Ironically, because veganism has such a restrictive connotation, I’ve found eating this way surprisingly freeing.  I don’t have to worry about any HFCs, sodium, fillers, or hormones added to my orange.  It’s really an amazing thing.

Peace,

Elizabeth