Sometimes it’s Good to be Bored

Posted on May 21, 2012 by

It was a rainy day on Sunday.  We had no plans, nowhere to go.  After being spoiled with an unseasonably sunny week of being constantly outdoors, nobody felt like going outside in the drizzly mud.  How boring, right?

Wrong!  These days are the best, because they give our creativity a chance to come out.  Our kids ended up getting the costume box out from the garage, and suddenly we had a Wolverine, a Captain America, and a Robin (Batman’s Robin, that is) bouncing around the house.    Later, all of the couch cushions and blankets in the house ended up in an elaborate tent in our living room.

My husband escaped to the bathroom and gave himself a haircut.  I went to the kitchen and rolled out a dozen homemade tortillas.   As the afternoon brought a quieter energy, our younger kids got out the poker set and became absorbed in stacking and arranging poker chips on the dining room floor, as my husband worked on his laptop at the table.  Our oldest son disappeared into his room, where he got lost in a book.   I surrounded myself with a stack of cookbooks and made up the weekly menus and grocery shopping list.

I love days like this that allow for spontaneous activities – nobody is following any plan, nobody has anywhere to be.  We are together, but we are all focused on our own things.  It’s the quiet comfort of being a family.  I also love the small little sounds – rain drizzling outside, my husband tapping at his keyboard, the clinking of the poker chips, the spontaneous chitter-chatter of the kids.

These days I fear that we have too much entertainment at our fingertips, children and adults alike!  With so much media, especially portable media, we no longer have to be bored for a minute.  As crazy as it sounds, maybe we should make more of an effort to actually get bored sometimes!

Our brains need a break.  We need time to digest the information we’ve taken in, to reflect on it, to form our own opinions.  To come up with brilliant new ideas.  To simply enjoy being with the people that we love without having to do anything in particular.

I think we all could benefit from a few moments of utter boredom.  Don’t you?

Posted in Kids, Potpourri | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

My 2012 Weight Loss: How it’s Going

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

On New Year’s I announced that I was making weight loss a priority for myself this year, and I’ve been meaning to follow up with a “how it’s going” post.  But I’ve been reluctant to do so.  I had hoped to lose weight a little more quickly and continuously, and have a spectacular success story to share by this point!  But like most things in life, my weight loss journey has had its ups and downs.  I’ve had days and weeks where I felt extremely motivated, and then times where I didn’t seem to care at all.

So, in nearly three months of the new year, I’ve lost about 10 pounds.  It’s a decent amount, but if I had been more focused on weight loss I’m sure I could have lost 15 or more by now.  Oh well…I’ve heard that the more slowly you lose weight, the more likely you are to keep it off.  Hopefully that’s true!

To be quite honest, I had lost 10 pounds by the end of February, but I’ve been in kind of an “I don’t care” phase all month, so I’ve been treading water ever since.  The good news is that even when I’m not actively trying to lose weight, I tend to hold fairly steady and not gain.  But I’m feeling like the time has come for me to get back to work on the weight loss, so tomorrow I’m planning to get back to online food tracking.  Although I find it to be cumbersome, it is the most reliable way for me to make progress toward my goal.   Awhile back I reviewed some food tracking websites, and one of my highest reviews went to MyFitnessPal.com (which is 100% FREE!).   Even though I feel grumpy about it, I’m going to keep track of my food on MyFitnessPal for a few weeks, and start plowing through my next 10 pounds.

And what about exercise?

About a year ago I heard about a new kind of fitness and decided to give it a try:  pole dancing.  I know what you might be thinking:  pole dancing?  Isn’t that just for naked ladies in strip clubs?   Not anymore!  Pole dancing is actually an incredible workout and is quickly becoming a sport and art form in its own right.   I found the most amazing studio that combines the fitness aspect of pole dancing with a beautiful style of dance, and I fell in love.   For the first time in my life, I looked forward to going to an exercise class every single time, and I’ve never had any inclination to skip out!  A year later, not only am I still going strong, but I’m becoming an instructor!   What could be healthier than having exercise built into your job?  I’m so thrilled about this unexpected opportunity, I’m giddy!

Since most of our classes are not cardio-based,  I want to add some kind of aerobic exercise into my routine.  I’ve gone to the occasional group exercise class at the gym, and I’ve gone for a couple of runs, but I haven’t made it a routine yet.  Timing seems to be the challenge here.  With a toddler at home during the day and dance classes late into the evenings, I’m left with the crack of dawn to work in my cardio!  I tried it for a week, taking a 5:30 am aerobics class 4 times, and by the end I was so sleep-deprived that I couldn’t shake the headaches.  If you have any ideas for me, I would love to hear them!

So there you have it.  Ten pounds in three months is a very modest weight loss success, but if I continue at this rate, I’ll reach my 30-pound weight loss goal by October, well before the end of the year.  So I’ll continue to keep my eye on the long-term prize and keep on chugging away!

p.s.  From now on I’ll try not to bury my head in the sand, and update more frequently.  Even if my results are not fast or exciting!

p.p.s.  I apologize for the lack of photos…my camera has not been charging properly lately and whenever I go to use it, it seems to be dead.  I have some food photos on my phone but the quality is nowhere near as good!  I’ll try to work that all out soon.

Posted in Vegan Weight Loss | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Dreena’s New Cookbook!

Posted on February 3, 2012 by

Just popping in for a quick post to let you know that Dreena Burton‘s latest cookbook is now available for pre-order, and will be hitting bookstores next month!

Dreena’s cookbooks are my all-time favorite vegan cookbooks around.  Her recipes are tasty, wholesome, and often simple and speedy to prepare. Like me, she is also a mom of three kiddos, so I know she understands the reality of cooking a quick and healthy dinner while simultaneously helping with homework and entertaining a toddler!

Head over to Amazon if you’d like to pre-order a copy.  You may notice that the book cover on Amazon is different – don’t worry, you have the right book!  That was the original cover idea, but the cover shown above is the finalized version (and definitely the best one, in my opinion).   I had the privilege of being one of the recipe testers for this new cookbook, so I can vouch for the fact that these are some good recipes.  In fact, some of them have already become family favorites at my house!

Last but not least, I have to mention that the gorgeous food photos on the cover and throughout the book are the work of the talented Hannah Kaminsky – head over to her blog Bittersweet and you will see just how amazing she is!

Posted in CookBook Reviews | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Is there such a thing as “Kid Food?”

Posted on January 28, 2012 by

Other moms say, "drink your milk." I say, "drink your kale!"

Food marketers would like us to think that there is.   With all the kid frozen dinners, kid cereals, and kid snacks that are constantly being advertised, well-meaning parents might think that they need to make something special for their children to eat, apart from what the adults are eating.  But is there any need to do this?

In my opinion, the answer is one big, emphatic, no!  Kids will eat whatever they are familiar with.  If you want your kids to be familiar with healthy foods, you have to serve them on a regular basis!  Even if that means taking out the broccoli from the stir-fry for a baby who has just moved on to solid foods, that’s a start.  But for kids older than age 2, there’s absolutely no reason why they can’t be eating that stir-fry, curry, or casserole, just like the adults are eating (minus any choking hazards.)

my 2 year old, as a baby, chowing down on some broccoli.

It’s true that small children have more sensitive taste buds than adults, and may find some foods to be too strongly flavored for their liking.  But goodness, I feel that we as a society don’t give kids nearly enough credit!  We stack the odds against them – assuming that they won’t like what we are eating, and making them something “kid-friendly” instead.  And in doing so we only reinforce the idea that what we’re eating isn’t suitable for kids – not only in our minds, but in theirs.  Anytime we refuse to serve them a healthy dish that we are eating, we are depriving them of the opportunity to acquire a taste for that food.

I would love to get the term “kid food” out of our collective vocabulary!  There is nothing unique about a child’s makeup that requires them to have pizza, hot dogs, burgers, mac and cheese, and chicken nuggets for the majority of their meals.  (If only US school systems would catch on…)  Kids can even learn to like spicy foods!  My 2 year old can go to town on the chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant — we’ve started letting him have his own little bowl of salsa because nobody wants to share his germs and he tries to double-dip his chips!

Just for fun, I thought I would list out some of the less “kid-friendly” foods that are favorites for my three kids.

8 year old son:

  • steel-cut oatmeal
  • lentil soup
  • beets
  • sunflower seeds
  • raisin bran
  • crunchy natural peanut butter
  • raw walnuts
  • hummus
  • green salad
  • mashed sweet potatoes
  • tofu
  • green smoothies

6 year old son

  • split pea soup
  • green smoothies
  • spoon-sized shredded wheat (plain, not frosted)
  • pistachios
  • celery
  • red and yellow bell peppers
  • tofu
  • kalamata olives

2 year old son:

  • sauteed mushrooms with garlic
  • sauteed leafy greens (kale, collards, spinach, etc)
  • hummus
  • guacamole
  • tofu
  • salsa
  • green smoothies

I didn’t list any fruit because I figure most kids love fruit.  What’s not to like about fruit?  My kids get excited about summertime farmer’s markets when they can enjoy a perfectly ripe donut peach, or some fresh raspberries.   Please, let’s not bombard our childrens’ palates with so many sugary sweets that they don’t enjoy the natural delightfulness of fresh fruit!

What do YOUR kids love that is not considered “kid food?”

Posted in Kids | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Vegan Weight Loss

Posted on January 3, 2012 by

What do you picture when you think of a vegan?

Unless I’m the only vegan* you know…you probably think of vegans as skinny, waif-like creatures.  That is certainly the stereotype I had heard before going vegan.

And some people do lose weight when they go vegan.  Their bodies naturally respond to the lower-fat, higher-fiber diet and they lose unwanted pounds effortlessly.   Allow me to be the exception to the rule.  I have never found that going vegetarian or vegan has had any impact on my weight, in either direction.  Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved peanut butter and eaten it in generous quantities.  Maybe it’s because I love vegan cupcakes just as much as I love that healthy hummus and veggie sandwich pictured above.  But I am not one of those who has effortlessly lost weight as a vegan, and I know plenty of others who are in the same boat.

Like countless other moms, I have retained some “baby weight” from each of my three pregnancies.  Recently when I’ve looked in the mirror or at photographs of myself, an unfortunate thing has begun to happen.  I have thought, “who is THAT?!”  I don’t look like the “me” that I remember.  I gleefully walk through life feeling exactly like that thin person I always was pre-babies, and then every now and then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I think, “whoa, what happened?!”

I’m not hugely overweight, by any means.  I am right on the cusp between the “healthy” BMI range and the “overweight” range.  (I checked it by plugging in my height and weight into this handy little calculator.)   My BMI is about 25, where it used to be in the 21-22 range.  I’d like to get back there!

So, as cliche as it sounds, I’m making weight loss my new year’s resolution.   First off, I should acknowledge that I’m already doing a lot of things right.   I have a ton of healthy recipes in my repetoire.  I love vegetables of all kinds, I snack on fruit, and I enjoy brown rice, whole wheat pasta, lentil soup, and other healthy foods.  When I eat sauteed kale with garlic and pine nuts, I’m literally saying “mmmmmm…” with every bite.   As for exercise, I’ve been taking dance classes 3-5 times per week, and I have three kids to keep up with, so I’m definitely not sedentary.

However, there are a few tactics I am using to really get the ball rolling:

1.  Cut down on baking vegan goodies.  I think decadent vegan chocolate chip cookies are great on occasion, but for me baking has become more than occasional.  When I do bake, I’m going to go for healthier recipes, like those of my favorite cookbook author, Dreena Burton!

2.  Watch the portion sizes, and pay more attention to being hungry or full.

3.  Choose green smoothies/green juice rather than coffee to get me started in the morning.

4.  Get more sleep, which is already happening naturally for me as I wean myself off coffee!  Check out this Web MD article about how sleep affects weight loss.

5.  Add cardiovascular exercise (my dance classes don’t really qualify as cardio).  I’m starting by taking my toddler for stoller walks – which will gradually turn into runs as soon as I get a jogging stroller!

Tactics I’m not trying?  Tracking every food I eat, calculating calories, or eliminating my favorite treats completely.  As Kathy Freston says, there is a lot of power in simply setting your intention.  When you are focused on your goal, you will naturally make choices that push you toward your goal, rather than away from it.  I’m setting an intention to lose weight this year.

Is weight loss one of your new year’s resolutions?  If so, what tactics are you using to reach your goal?

* If you’ve followed my blog (or you know me), you know that I haven’t been consistently vegan in the past few years.  Always vegetarian, sometimes vegan, but not always vegan. I’ve recently committed to being completely vegan, which isn’t technically part of my weight loss resolution, but it certainly can’t hurt!

Posted in Vegan Weight Loss | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Posted on November 20, 2011 by

I was browsing the Sunday paper today and an interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz caught my eye.  When asked whether he ever indulges in unhealthy food, he responded that he practices what he preaches, and eats Greek yogurt with blueberries every morning.

Now, no offense to Dr. Oz (and kudos to him for taking his own advice), but I would go crazy if I ate the same thing every morning!  I enjoy variety in my day to day meals, and I also crave different things in the fall and winter than I would want in the summer.  Soy yogurt and blueberries sounds like a fantastic breakfast on a warm August morning, but right now I’m huddled in a blanket and our local blueberry farm is frosted over!  Any blueberries I’m eating this time of year are from the freezer, and usually cooked into pancakes or muffins.  (A smoothie is just waaaay too cold for this time of year.  Brrrr!)

There are plenty of healthy breakfast options that are both warm and seasonal, like my Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal.  Why eat cold yogurt when a steaming bowl of oatmeal will warm your belly?  Why eat blueberries when apples are in peak season?  And oatmeal, like yogurt, is a great canvas for add-ins and toppings, such as flaxseed for those omega-3 fatty acids that we all need.

But don’t settle for those little instant apple-cinnamon oatmeal packets!  It is so easy to make your own, and you get much bigger chunks of apple.

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups water
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 2 large apples, peeled and diced
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 2 Tbsp ground flaxseed
  • 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup
  • cinnamon to taste

Preparation:

Place water and sea salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.  While you are waiting for the water to boil, peel and chop your apples.  Add apples to the water, turn heat down to medium, and simmer for about 5 – 10 minutes, or until apples are tender (this depends on the variety of apple and how large the chunks are).  Add rolled oats, stir through once, and simmer for another 5-6 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in ground flaxseed and maple syrup.  Sprinkle in desired amount of cinnamon.*  Top with any chopped nuts, nut butters, or fruit that you like!**  Serves 4.

Notes:

*Add the cinnamon at the end of cooking rather than the beginning.  If you add it with the water, the oatmeal turns grayish brown.  If you add it at the end, you get pretty little speckles of cinnamon throughout.

**I usually top my oatmeal with either chopped nuts or a dollop of peanut butter.  Apples and peanut butter are such a classic combination, that it’s a natural topping for this particular oatmeal.  The key is to get a little bit of peanut butter on your spoon with every bite, but not stir it into the oatmeal.  You really get to enjoy the various flavors and textures this way.  If you stir it in, it will become gluey!

Posted in Breakfast | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Quick and Easy Vegan Burrito Bar

Posted on November 14, 2011 by

 

Wow, I meant to post this a long time ago!   I’m already feeling a little wistful of that beautiful outdoor lighting that I was able to get this summer while taking photos during and after dinner.  Living in the Seattle area, it is now dark at 4:30 pm!

So, this was a couple of months ago, but I wanted to show an example of a quick, hearty and versatile vegan meal that is a favorite at our house and definitely won’t weird out any omnivores that may be coming to your table.  It’s a simple burrito bar…make any combination of these dishes, lay them out on the table, and let your guests (or family) make what they want!

Pictured Above:  Shredded romaine, whole wheat tortillas, refried pinto beans, salsa, cilantro, whole black beans, pico de gallo, brown rice, roasted zucchini and mushrooms, and vegan sour cream.

Of course there are a lot of dishes you could add to this meal, like guacamole, corn, black olives, corn chips…the sky’s the limit.  (Feel free to comment with your favorite taco/burrito bar additions.)

Some of us chose to make big juicy burritos, and others chose to make a hearty taco salad. (What can I say?  I chose both!)  Check out the awesome salad my husband put together.  Don’t you just want to dig in?

After eating generous helpings of this meal, we still had tons of leftovers!  One of my favorite things to do with leftovers is to freeze individual portions.  This makes it easy for my husband to grab a lunch on the way to work that won’t spill in his work bag on the bus, even if it’s a soup – because it’s frozen solid!  So I made a bunch of burritos, assembly-line style, and popped them in the freezer.  (I labeled these rice and bean burritos as I already had some tofu scramble breakfast burritos tucked away!)

I love this meal because it is quick and easy, you can use whatever ingredients you have on hand, and it is pleasing to both vegans and omnivores alike.  Omnivores, if you are having vegan guests over, consider making burritos!  Our extended family does this for us all the time, and it is always delicious.  And vegans, if you are having omnivores over for dinner, this is certainly a safe, familiar choice.  Best of all, it is such a healthy and balance meal – whole grains from the tortillas and brown rice, protein from the black beans and pinto beans, veggies in the salsa, lettuce, and grilled veggies.

Now, I’m off to add some of these ingredients to my weekly grocery list, as I now have a hankering for burritos!

Posted in Entrées | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments