Well,
I made an excellent vegetable pasta dish that was just loaded with nutrients. I can definitely say it was an awesome dinner. Felt so incredibly full after just one bowl.
It consisted of whole wheat, high fiber pasta mixed with steamed kale, roma tomatoes, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, baby zucchini, carrots and broccoli. Quite delicious and pretty easy to make.
I had a very, very vegan day. Super nutritious day actually! I had hot cereal with blueberries, a banana and fresh squeezed orange/apple/mango juice for breakfast. Then, for lunch, I made hummus, spinach and tomato paninis with popcorn, almonds and orange slices on the side. Then for dinner, I made a homemade whole wheat pizza with roasted red peppers, green peppers, pineapples and almond cheese. For dessert, I blended four frozen bananas with a little vanilla extract, some oranges and pineapple chunks. This makes a very awesome ice cream minus the cream and the load of fat! I drank close to a gallon of water today as well. Funny thing is I thought I would be starving but actually felt more than satiated and maybe a little stuffed!
Tags: Super, Day, wheat, orange slices, homemadeWell,
After a series of medical setbacks in the last two years, I have decided to go vegetarian. I’m excited and nervous at the prospect, but due to the health issues I have had, I’ve decided that a plant-based diet will help repair my body. I will regularly post updates on my progress. I know it will be hard, as I’m addicted to animal proteins, sugar and salt, but I’m going to do it and improve my overall health.
I’ve had a series of food allergies and I got Bell’s Palsy last year. I had a previously unknown caffeine allergy, so I’m pretty much eliminating anything bad for me. That includes sweets, caffeine, etc. I’m going whole grains and foods and pretty much all plant based. No dairy included. Nothing with animal proteins!
I’m combining that with daily exercise of 2 hours and a heck of a lot more sleep. Although I’m in good shape at 15.6% body fat, I weigh 217.6 lbs I definitely want to get down to 190 as I want to do IronMan, some more marathons and other triathlons this year. It’s too hard to do with 27 extra lbs I’ve gotta lug around!
Tags: plant, heck, exercise, prospect, gotta, caffeine, lot, sweets, bell s palsy
Avocado Boats
An unlikely topic for sure, but a great one. As I was making an excellent latin-inspired turkey soft taco dinner this past week, I was also making fresh guacamole as a side dish. I’m slicing and dicing, scooping the avocados diligently lost in processed thought. My daughter Bailey says to me “You should use those avocado shells like bowls to put the guacamole in.” Keep in mind that Bailey is my own personal Martha Stewart, giving the advice of a hostess/sous chef sage since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. I respond to her by saying, “You know Bailey; that is an excellent idea.” So the idea of the “Avocado Boats” started right there from fruition to completion.
So, I started off by completely cleaning the inside of the avocado shells so that they were essentially empty vessels for latin-infused goodness. The idea here was to prevent any kind of bad stuff from growing inside of the avocado shells and to prevent any form of oxidation of avocado remnants. Once I had them cleaned out, I rinsed lightly the inside of the shells to make them nice and smooth.
I then proceeded to put them on a plate and stuck them in the freezer for an hour. When they came out, they were hard shells that could support just about any food dish. I plated the food with Spanish rice in one avocado boat and some of that fresh guacamole in another. Topped it with some cilantro and they were good to go!
As I was taking Bailey’s idea to fruition, I realized that this would be great for those who are on diets and/or worrying about portion control within their diets. Guacamole is high in good monounsaturated fatty acids, but one still shouldn’t eat too much of it. A side benefit of this with regard to guacamole is that it keeps the guacamole nice and chilled. The kids gave a definitive thumbs-up with a cheering “This is a do-again!” approval. Olé! Win for Dad, inspired by Bailey.
Tags: organization, guacamole, avocado, cooking, latin, diet
Græskarsuppe (Vaughn's New-fangled Interpretation of it)
It’s so funny how gourmands and wanna-be chefs with their self-aggrandizing cookbooks, cookware and TV talk shows push the notion of using the finest quality ingredients and the most expensive tools to get the best meal possible. These positions couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’ve developed a really fantastic carrot soup on the cheap. This is a soup I discovered when I wanted a butternut squash and pumpkin soup. A wonderful soup I discovered while dining at Restaurant Els in Copenhagen, Denmark. This soup was so good that I would regularly go into Restaurant Els just to eat the soup as my plat principal. The owner and I were on first-name basis. I would walk in and it would be straight out of Cheers, but instead of “NORM!” you’d hear “Vaughn, Græskarsuppe!!!”. Yes, I’d pay 100 Danish Kroner, or $22 USD a pop for this dish. It is fantastic! When it is in season, it is fantastic! Did I mention it was fantastic?
So the story around my newly discovered soup is that I was trying to replicate my favorite Græskarsuppe from the Restaurant Els in Copenhagen. I had this craving around 7:30 at night at my house back in Ashburn, VA for the soup. So, being kind of lazy, I didn’t want to go up to the grocery store and I didn’t have any butternut squash or pumpkin. What I did have was an onion and a 2 lb bag of baby carrots. I was thinking to myself, “ummm, the carrots are orange and they’re vegetables , that’ll work!” So I preceded to dice the onions and caramelize them with a little bit of olive oil and butter in a boiler. I added a teaspoon of cinnamon, 4 tablespoons of pepper, 2 teaspoons of salt and some chili powder. I then added water halfway up the boiler (roughly 8 cups of water) and preceded to boil them until they were seriously mushy. I boiled them for 45 minutes and then simmered for another 45 minutes.
Restaurant Els, Købnhavn, Danmark
I then took a hand blender and blended the entire soup until fine. It is a very thick and hearty soup. A dash of chili flakes and some truffle oil topped it off. I served it with a little bit of garlic bread. I calculated the cost last week when I went to do the same again. It was $2.50 for the 2 lb. bag of carrots and 75 cents for the onion. So I spent roughly $3.25 for 6 servings of soup that if I was at my favorite restaurant would have cost me roughly $130 USD. So, you don’t need expensive tools, I used a plastic spatula, a $5 boiler pot and a little ingenuity. Everybody that I have served this to has wanted seconds and thirds.
Here is my recipe:
You could use butternut squash or pumpkin with this, but why? This is inexpensive and it is certainly a budget buster!
Cooking time (duration): 90
Diet type: Vegetarian
Diet (other): Low calorie, Reduced fat, Reduced carbohydrate, Gluten free, Raw
Dietary restriction: Kosher
Number of servings (yield): 6
Meal type: dinner
Culinary tradition: French
My rating:
Welcome to my new blog. After years of maintaining a ‘Yay Me’ blog, I have gone utterly simplistic. Gone are the commendations and awards, now just my writings and contributions on my website. I’m trying simply to engage my readers and followers in informative, helpful and inspiring ways. If you are interested in seeing more of the projects that I am working on, please feel free to go on over to my projects page. Eat well, live well and love well. Boy, that sounded kind of prophetic or pathetic?
Best of luck,
Vaughn
Tags: Eat, commendations, page, kind, yay, blog
