The Vegetarian project - day... I've lost track.

I have discovered tofu

When I first started this project I figured I would stay away from "fake meat" I have had veggie burgers before, I like them, but they are expensive and part of this project was to save a little money as well. When I was at the store the other day I was grabbing some salad and it happened to be right next to the tofu section (in my Safeway that is in a bin underneath the refrigerated salad dressings, next to the individual packed celery that is just silly to buy). I was very surprised. It was only $1.99 and that is 5 servings. I hardly ever find meat that cheap so I picked up two packages to see what I could do.

Oh my goodness I am in heaven.

I have cooked with it two nights in a row, and of course have forgotten to take pictures both nights, but here are the recipes I used.

Lemon tofu (like Chinese lemon chicken)

* 1 serving tofu (3oz) pressed (wrap the tofu in paper towels and press between
   two plates with something heavy on top, I used a cast iron pan. Let it press for
   an hour)
* Cut the tofu into small pieces, dredge in a mix of corn starch, garlic powder,
   onion powder, paprika, and cayenne.
* Pan fry in approx 1 Tb of olive oil, cook until tofu is crispy.
* Add 1/4 C water
* In another bowl mix a little less than one teaspoon corn starch with one
   teaspoon hot water. Add 1 Tb lemon juice with 1 Tb sugar (or splenda). Add
   liquid ingredients to the pan with the tofu and cook on low until sauce is thick
   and sticky. Taste test and adjust as needed.
* Serve over rice with some grilled veggies on the side. Enjoy and wish you made
   leftovers.




Hot and Spicy Tofu (been craving Chinese hence why we had it two nights in a row)


* 3 servings of tofu because this time you're going to have leftovers, plus 1 serving
   cooked pork chop for the husband
* Dredge tofu in the same spice mixture as in the Chinese lemon tofu. Cook in a
   little under 1 Tb olive oil that has a little bit of sesame oil added (to equal 1 Tb
   oil)
* After tofu is crispy remove to a plate and cook up your choice of veggies in the
   remaining oil. I voted for red/orange/yellow peppers, a little bit of hot green
   pepper, broccoli (stems and all they are turning into some of my favorite
   veggies), mushrooms, red onion, and garlic.
* In another bowl mix 1 teaspoon  corn starch with 1 teaspoon hot water, 3 Tb
   white vinegar, 3 Tb soy sauce, 1 Tb brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon crushed chili
   peppers.
* Add tofu and sauce back with veggies and cook until sauce is thick and sticky.
* Make up one plate over rice, put two servings over rice in tupperware for future
   lunch, pick tofu out of remaining serving and eat. Add cut up pork chop to
   remaining serving of veggies/sauce and serve to husband over rice.


OM NOM NOM NOM

The strep throat diet

Oh joy oh fun, let me tell you how lovely the last few days have been. It started Tuesday evening, Alex was laying next to me on the couch and he put his hand on my head, "babe you feel warm." 'I'm fine. You're crazy.' Cut forward to 5am Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling like I'd lead a secret double life as a glass eater in my sleep, and I had no voice. I only had a 4 hour shift at work (YAY minimum day Wednesdays) so I decided to just go in.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Around 9:30/10 am I started shivering so bad I had to put my jacket on, while everyone else at work was complaining that the classroom was hot. I'm guessing that this was the beginning of the fever. I spent most of Wednesday on the couch, choked down some macaroni and cheese, and figured I'd be feeling better in the morning. I slept from 9:30-midnight and woke up feeling like it was August during a heat wave. I went out to the livingroom and watching tv until 1:30 (side note, streaming Netflix is the BEST thing when you are sick. You can just pick a show and watch episode after episode). At 1:30 I got back in bed, cuddled my cat (he was sleeping on my pillow) and fell asleep around 2. Up again at 3. Gumby was still nearby so I cuddled him again until 4. Fell asleep and was back up at 5. UGH!! Went back out to the livingroom and stayed there. I called my Dr.s office at 7, and called in sick to work at 730.
Yesterday was TERRIBLE. I didn't want to mask any of my symptoms for the Drs appt so I didn't take any motrin. My fever just kept going up and up and up (maxed at 102.7). I could barely eat oatmeal and the Frosty that Alex brought me (so in love with this man) made me whimper. The Drs appt confirmed what I thought, strep throat. So now I get antibiotics and vicodin. So skip forward to this morning.
After dropping Alex off in San Bruno this morning (he has drill) I stopped at Safeway on my way home. I was in the pajama pants I got for Christmas, a sweatshirt Alex acquired when we were volunteering for the San Bruno explosion, and no bra. I looked hot! (oh yah and hadn't brushed my hair). In the last two days I've barely eaten as many calories as I was eating in one day for my diet amount, that isn't counting the extra calories needed to fight the sickness, and to counter the lack of sleep. So I walked the aisles looking for anything that may whet my appetite. I know that people say that all you need is soup and tea when you're sick, but I have that in my house already and not once did it sound good. So here is what my haul looked like

(ignore the wine bottles, they just hang out on my counter). We have pasta roni, white cheddar macaroni and cheese (I have regular at home, but right now it just tastes funny), boxed alfredo pasta mix, cheesey broccoli rice, greek yogurt (to help counter the antibiotics on the stomach), avocado, better than buillon in vegetable base (I also have this in chicken, this stuff is AWESOME. It really is better than buillon cubes, and I like it more than canned/boxed stocks), tapioca pudding (my home made tastes better, but this is FAR easier), Jello mousse temptations (it was on clearance, not too bad), apple juice, lemonade (I read in a lot of places that warm lemonade feels good so I'll give that a shot), fudgecicles, chocolate sorbet, and peach sorbet.

So far, even with all this yumminess I've only managed one tapioca and one pudding (was curious if they were any good, I normally make both of these at home) and a little bit of juice, and that was after taking half a pain pill. Well if nothing else maybe this will help me finally break my 200lb plateau.

The vegetarian project - day 5

I have found a new recipe I love!! Alex and I are eating dinner right now and he piped up "you should totally blog this" sorry no pictures since I'm eating it as I type.

From Allrecipes.com

• 1/2 cup dry lentils I had some red lentils left over from some jarred soup mix I made for Christmas so I used those
  
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained drained well!!!
  
• 2 tomatoes, chopped I used regular tomatoes, if I make it again in non-tomato season I'll use canned, they taste better right now
  
• 4 green onions, chopped Two green onions and a hand full of diced red onion. (I throw red onion in my lunch salads so I have a tupperware of it in the fridge)
  
• 2 minced hot green chile peppers Used canned peppers, also to go with the tomato comment might just use canned tomatoes with peppers
  
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped Don't like, didn't use
  
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro Mom's allergic so I didn't grow up with cilantro, and don't really like it. I read in the comments that some people used mint so I used that instead.
  
• salt to taste
• onion powder
• garlic powder
• cumin
• crushed red peppers
• sliced black olives
• handful of spinach shredded
  
• a tiny amount of feta cheese (adds almost no calories bc of how little I used, but adds flavor)
  

Directions

1. Place lentils and water in a pot. Bring water to boil, reduce to simmer. Cook for 30 minutes or until tender.NOT thirty minutes!!! That is why we are eating at 8 pm, I cooked them for 30 min and they turned to mush and I had to start over. Mine took 10 min tops.
   
2. In a medium size mixing bowl combine lentils, chickpeas, tomatoes, green onions, green chilies, bell peppers, lime juice, olive oil, cilantro, and salt to taste. Toss well. Chill for 20 minutes. Serve chilled.

I served this over 2/3 C (all my other measuring cups are dirty) brown rice. It tastes kind of like salsa over rice, with the added creaminess of the garbanzo beans and the nice zing of the lime juice. For Alex I gave him more rice, next time I'll probably cook up some chicken or pork for him to go with it. I don't need him losing any more weight on me. :) With the salad and the rice it sits right around 300 calories.

_________________________________________________________________
Since I posted my dinner, I figured I'd post my snack today too

1 serving fat free sugar free chocolate pudding made with fat free milk
5 frozen strawberries (no the exact number does NOT matter, that is just what I defrosted)
2 Thin Mint girl scout cookies
2 Tbs Cool Whip (I bought the off brand bc you got twice as much for half the price, they didn't have light though. Oh well it adds 25 cal/2Tbs. I think I'll live)

Put half the chocolate pudding in a wine glass
Slice the strawberries and add on top
Put second half of chocolate pudding on top
Crumble half a Thin mint on pudding
Add Cool Whip
Crumble second half on top
Eat remaining cookie :)

210 calories (170 if you don't eat the second cookie)
and Yes something about eating it out of a wine glass just feels extra special, a martini glass would achieve the same effect. It also doesn't make the serving look pitifully small (like it does if you put it in a cereal bowl)

The vegetarian project - day 3

Well today I feel much more prepared for the upcoming month and a half. We went to the grocery store :) Now I know that I could have fulfilled this with the stuff that we normally buy, but I tend to get less than enough protein when I do eat meat, so I wanted to make sure that that number wouldn't dwindle down to almost nothing now that I am temporarily not. We got several flavors of yogurt (I put vanilla in my morning smoothies, and use plain to make sauces already, but flavored varieties just sounded yummy, and I had a coupon). We also got several different types of beans, both canned and dry. (Once again we had beans in our pantry already, but I know me, and I'll want some variety).

Breakfasts have been easy to convert as they were pretty basic already. My smoothies needed no altering, and the breakfast burritos only needed to have the bacon removed. Breakfasts on the weekend are usually non existent, or cereal, so no issues there.

Lunches aren't that hard either. For the last two or three weeks I have been taking salads to work for lunch, to convert these over I simply stopped bringing the meat to put on top and tossed some cheese on there instead (the salads are so low in calories even with the meat that I deem it necessary to replace those calories).

Dinners are where things get creative. Since I've been dieting I've been cooking all the dinners anyways. Alex knows how to cook, and he is a good cook, but he doesn't remember to measure the amount of ingredients he uses. Our dinners prior to the challenge were fairly straight forward, 3 oz of some kind of meat (I weigh and individually wrap portions in parchment as soon as I buy meat, makes it WAY easier to cook for jsut two people), vegetables, and a starch. The last two nights, and two lunches (I eat lunch at home on Wednesdays, and I'm eating the last serving of this right now) it's been brown rice with a little bit of jarred Alfredo sauce, and stove top grilled veggies. It is delicious. filling, and an easy dish to add or subtract calories from depending on where I am at the end of the day. If I need a few more calories the veggies are cooked in butter and get a sprinkling of cheese, if I need fewer I use Pam and more seasoning. Tonight we are having Moroccan garbanzo bean wrap things from the recipe on the can. I'm hoping it turns out yummy :)

The vegetarian project - day 1

Yup you read that right, I have decided to forgo meat for a little over a month. Alex and I were talking about what we were going to give up for lent (despite the fact we're not catholic). He chose swearing, and I chose meat. I know that lent doesn't start until next Wednesday, but since I already know that I am going to break the rule on Thursday for a mass consumption of corned beef, so I decided to start a week early to make up for the day off.

Today I had a fruit smoothie, a salad (my go to lunch for the past month and a half), and dinner was brown rice with sauteed mushrooms, roasted garlic, and alfredo sauce, with a side of broccoli and asparagus.

I'm WAY down on my calories for the day, and I am a little hungry, but I'll have a snack in a bit.

Here's to seeing how my body likes no meat until Easter :)