There are several items I keep on hand that are handy when I need a quick meal. The first one is a good salad dressing. There are many variations of balsamic vinegar based dressings and I do have some that I like but my absolute favorite is one called Spicy Salad Dressing. You can find the recipe with my other recipes or the link above. The dressing can be used on just about any salad, on a pile of steamed veggies or even on potatos or ric
The next one is steamed brown rice. Brown rice can be used for all sorts of things. Mixed with black bleans and thrown in a a whole wheat tortilla (I recommend Foods for Life Ezekial 4:9 tortillas) with a little salsa is great. If you have more time, defrost some stir fry vegetables (just run them under warm water until they are defrosted) and throw them in the burrito too. You can mix up the flavor of the burrito by changing up the veggies and salsas. Another thing I do is throw some frozen stir fry vegetables in a non-stick pan with a little low-sodium tamari (similar to soy sauce) or a good no-oil stir fry sauce, stir fry the veggies and then throw them on top of the rice. Perfect, quick meal and I like to do tons of veggies. Finally, we can never have enough baked corn tortilla chips around here. Heat the oven to 400 degrees, cut a stack of about 6-7 corn tortillas (most do not have any oil) with a pizza cutter or sharp knife into about 6 slices (like pizza). Then spread them out on a cookie sheet and stick them in the oven until they are crispy but not burnt. For my oven, it takes anywhere from 12-15 minutes. I do mass amounts of these and we usually go through them in d-a-y-s. Cari told me today that she went to a mexican food restaurant and had chips and said after having the baked chips, the ones at the restaurant seemed very greasy and salty! (my plan is working, trying to convert her one bite at a time to my healthy diet.....mu-hahahahaha)
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So last night (Friday) was "date night" for Cari and I. We dropped the kids off at mom's for an overnight stay and the evening was ours. Of course, I spent a large part of the afternoon figuring out where I could go and eat and have a meal which fit my new diet. I mentioned my challenge to my brother and he suggested going to the Belvedere Restaurant in the newly renovated Padre Hotel (at one point, he was the lead architect for the project...which is VERY cool!). He told me he would get us a table arranged and would see if the chef could cook a special vegetarian meal just for me. He made the calls and "boom" just like that, we had a place to eat. Part of the deal is he emailed my list of rules to the manager to pass on to the chef. Keep in mind, this way of handling dinner would probably not work at Denny's or Red Robin but at high end restaurants, the chef's sometimes consider it a challenge to try and come up with a good meal for you. We arrived at The Padre about 6:40p (our reservations were for 7p) and had some time to look around the renovated hotel. We told the check-in ladies that we had arrived and they said they would let us know when our table was ready. At almost 7p on the button, they came and got us and told us our table was ready. They got us our water and then our waitress showed up, introduced herself and told me it was her understanding they would be preparing a special dish for me (yes, I felt like a celebrity!). In the meantime, Cari ordered the Grilled Bone In Ribeye (seen in this first picture). After a little while, Cari's steak was delivered. I was excited to see my dish but it didn't show up for about 7-8 minutes after Cari got her meal. Finally my dish showed up........ The dish was simple but tasty. It was basically whole wheat noodles in a soy sauce based broth. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any sign of vegetables in my entree but the noodles were still good. Overall, it was a great experience but mainly because I was in the company of my beautiful wife! First, a big THANK YOU to Brandy (fellow vegetarian and Pepperdine Alumni) for sharing this with me. When she found out that I was officially vegetarian she past on a link to a wonderful summer treat. Ice cream.....made from frozen banana. The recipe is super simple and easy to adjust. First, peel a banana and then throw it in a ziploc into the freezer. Let it freeze overnight. When the kids got home from school Friday, we were ready for a treat. When you are ready to use the banana, throw it in a good blender or food processor until it is the consistency of your typical ice cream. Some cool variations that I did with the kids....for Tristan, added some vanilla extract to make it more like vanilla ice cream. For both girls, we added peanut butter. There are many options....try adding frozen blackberries, blueberries, mango, strawberries, etc. to get the flavor you want. You could even add chocolate to get chocolate flavored ice cream. Very simple and cool summer treat!! Thanks again, Brandy! I always love when others are having dieting or exercise success. Even more so, if they are on the same diet I'm on. When I stumbled on this diet, I was very excited and shared some of the information with my mom. I assumed that because of the extremes this diet goes to, she would not be interested. Boy was I wrong, the very next day, my mom decided to start the diet. She posted the following information on the "In The News...." section in response to the new story I posted there but I think it's important enough to share on the main page. Here's her comments:
"I am Todd's mom and I began this diet a day after Todd. The reason I became interested in it is because I was on cholesterol lowering medication and blood pressure medication. I read the information sheets that come with each medication and discovered that two of my medications (an antidepressant and the cholesterol lowering medication) can cause muscle pain. I was shocked when I discovered this because I had been having horrible pain in my muscles. I weaned myself off of the antidepressant and the cholesterol-lowering medication while changing my lifestyle and learning to eat this plant-based diet. It is fun to try different recipes and I must say most have been delicious! After 3 weeks I began to feel like a new person. I don't have any of the pain in my muscles that was causing me to have such a hard time walking. I hope to be off of the blood pressure medication by the time I go to my doctor in May. I am so excited about this change in my lifestyle because I was just accepting how I felt thinking it was just old age creeping in. Boy! Was I ever wrong. I don't have any numbers to share at this time but I will have after I see my doctor next month." Keep up the good work mom! And for any others out there that would like to share their success as a way of encouraging others, feel free to email me and let me know! I love trying new recipes because it's always an adventure. I grabbed this recipe because it looked quick and easy and I wanted some leftovers. This recipe is from the McDougall cookbook that has 100's of quick and easy recipes. Prep time was listed as 15 minutes with cook time about 20 minutes and that was pretty accurate. The bulk of the prep work is chopping up the onion, bell pepper and hot dogs (Smart dogs....no meat!). The only variation I made to the recipe is to double the cayenne pepper because I like a little kick in my food. Overall it was pretty good. The extra cayenne definitely gave it the kick I wanted. Flavor was pretty good and I'm looking forward to the leftovers. My dear bride even tried it and said, "I could eat that!" which I believe is a compliment to the food.....I think. Prep time: 15 min Servings: 6 Ingredients:
Instructions:
Since a plant based diet requires you to eat a lot more veggies....there is nothing better than eating fresh vegetables out of your own garden. What?.....you don't have room? Not to worry, someone over at the instructables.com website has come up with an answer. The hanging vegetable garden.....check it out! When I tell people about my new diet, they always ask what I eat. Here are the rules:
1. No meat (not even chicken or white meat) 2. No fish 3. No dairy products (including milk, cheese and yogurt) 4. No eggs, not even egg whites 5. No oil, not even canola oil or virgin olive oil 6. No High Fructose Corn syrup When I share these rules with others, they always ask, "What CAN you eat?" and the answer is fruits, vegetables and grains. Yes, I know, it sounds boring but it has been an amazing experience learning to prepare vegetables, fruits and grains in new and exciting ways. I am never hungry, I don't have to worry about portions and the food is amazingly delicious! |
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