Detox Success

The 7-day detox went quite well. The goal was to shed a few pounds and get the sugar out of my system. The sugar cravings are gone, my appetite is down, and I lost 9 pounds. And I feel great! The first couple of days I was a little tired, but the rest of the time I had so much energy I could hardly sleep. The detox diet was strictly raw fruits and veggies. The hardest part was no salt. The next hardest part was no hot food during the coldest weather in 25 years. And I missed cooking. I really wasn’t ever hungry until the final day. Here’s what I ate in one form or another last week.






The seasoning is Bragg's salt free blend. I alway tossed very well before digging in!

These berries are defrosing and were delicious when ready. Some fresh fruits I ate were apples, pears, blueberries, and bananas.

Wednesday my mom and I leave for Alabama to visit my sister and her family for a week. I will be in charge of healthy vegan dinners. I will also be cooking for at least one, but possibly two dinner parties for omni guests interested in becoming vegan. I would really appreciate your recommended recipes – your own or from cookbooks – to wow my family and friends. I’m packing Vcon, Urban Vegan, and Dreena’s books to take with me.

PS: I’m still trying to catch up with all of your blogs. I’m doing the best I can while going to work and packing!

PSS: I just clicked on the new Go Vegan blog in the Foodbuzz box and it crashed my computer. Did this happen to anyone else?

Happy New Year! Time to Detox

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays as much as I did. After finally finding some time to sit at my computer, I need to catch you up on my holiday eats, so here goes.

Christmas Eve Chili with beans, butternut squash, carrots, corn, peppers. So good we even served leftovers for Christmas dinner.



Christmas dinner contributions – mashed potatoes

Shredded Brussels sprouts with cranberries and pecans (Alton Brown recipe)

Tuscan Braised Beans from Urban Vegan (completely awesome)

And treats – gingerbread men (from leftover house dough)

Cherry and Pecan loaf

Mint chip cookies (obviously not vegan)

Banana Oat Bundles (from Vive), half with dried cranberries, half with mini chocolate chips

And my New Year’s Day dinner – blackeyed peas with brown rice, bok choy for greens, and broccoli because I always eat broccoli for dinner.

I enjoyed way too many treats during the holidays and found myself in serious need of a sugar detox. So I signed on for a Seven Day Detox with The Raw Divas. I began Saturday and feel so much better – yay! I’m eating only raw fruits and veggies. It’s not difficult, but I do miss cooking. I moved my mixer off the counter and replaced it with the blender to make green smoothies. Oh, and salt. I do miss a sprinkling of flavored sea salt on my veggies. I mentioned on my last post that I got a new camera for Christmas. Now even my boring salads can look yummy.

Or a handful of almonds.

See you next time with lots of salads….

Beer Food

Not food you EAT with beer; food you MAKE with beer! Beer was the theme for our October Food Bloggers potluck. Now it may not seem like the season for cole slaw, but it’s still warm in Texas. I can even remember making a Christmas cole slaw one year with green cabbage and red peppers. Anyway, I brought Cole Slaw with Beer Dressing to our potluck and got plenty of compliments on it. I admit I know nothing about beer and I don’t even drink beer, but I do keep Budweiser in my fridge for guests, so that’s what I used in this recipe. I would think whatever you have in your fridge would work just fine.




Cole Slaw with Beer Dressing

This recipe serves 12. I also made a tester half batch using exactly half of all ingredients.

Ingredients:
1 pound red cabbage, finely shredded
1 pound green cabbage, finely shredded
1 pound carrots, shredded (I used a preshredded package)
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/3 cup white sugar
1 t. celery seeds
1 – 12 ounce can beer
1/3 cup canola oil
¼ cup cider vinegar
3 t. prepared mustard
1 t. agave nectar
2 t. salt
½ t. black pepper
½ t. red pepper

Directions:
In a very large bowl, toss together the cabbage, carrots, onion, and pepper. Sprinkle the sugar and celery seeds over the mixture and toss again.

Pour beer into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let boil for 5 minutes. Whisk in the oil, vinegar, mustard, agave nectar, and spices. Remove from heat and pour over slaw. Stir until well coated. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to serve, drain in a colander. Taste for seasoning, toss again, and put into a serving bowl.


Our potluck was held at the 512 Brewery. Can you believe I had never been to a brewery before? 512 is a small business, more like a hobby for the proprietors. They had several beers available for sample and of course the head man was available to answer our questions.

As always, the bloggers brought some very creative dishes to share. Some food I could eat:

Beer Battered Fried Avocado

Beer Braised Brussels Sprouts

My slaw and my cousin’s beer braised black bean salad and homemade tortillas (My cousin makes what she calls *hybrid* tortillas, made with half white flour and half corn meal – corn flavored tortillas that don’t break!)

Some rice that went with a meaty stew!


Nonvegan foods that were a hit:

Beer Crust Pizza

Kabocha Squash Pumpkin Ale Cakes; Roasted Cauliflower and Rice

Pumpkin Ale Cheesecake

And the crowd favorites – Beer-a-misu and Beer Caramels.

Kind of a small crowd this month, but the weather was great and 512 was a great host. I look forward to the next event!

Mexican Roasted Vegetables

Yesterday was a big football game day. The ‘Horns played at 11:00 a.m. in Dallas so I fixed up lunch to take to my mom’s and watch the game with her. There were no chips and dips, no burgers or dogs, not even any treats. I went the healthy route and took veggies. With only a few hours in the morning before kickoff, something quick and simple was the best option.

I prepped tons of veggies to roast – zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, radishes, red and yellow and purple peppers, onions, and sweet potatoes. Then I gave them a light coating of olive oil and a good coating of chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper.


After 30 minutes, they were perfect – slightly browned and full of flavor. And a little steamy!

I also made some easy spiced black beans. Just a can of rinsed and drained beans mixed with some spices, a little salsa, and water, and then let them cook until thickened.

I brought along corn tortillas and lettuce so we had our choice of tacos or salad. My mom ate just veggies. She loved them and wanted all the leftovers. I made myself a salad, topped with the veggies and beans – yum.

How do you like my idea of game day food? I know, you’ll probably never invite me to watch football with you!

End of Summer Food

Finally the 100 degree weather has gone and we’ve actually gotten some much needed rain. Perhaps I’ll feel like doing some real cooking soon! Until then, here’s some of what I’ve been eating recently.

First the raw foods:




Raw spaghetti sauce made with sundried and fresh tomatoes over zucchini noodles and shredded romaine lettuce. I wasn’t crazy about the sauce, but I loved the lettuce mixed with the zoodles.

Raw broccoli salad, with mango, avocado, green onions, and dried cranberries – very yummy.

Marinated portobello salad from Whole Foods raw bar – fabulous!

A green salad with mango tomato dressing and sprouted legumes.

And a couple cooked dinners:

Yellow squash stirfry with mushrooms, tomatoes, and green peppers over zoodles.

And a Lentil Veggie Wrap (from one of Dreena’s books – can’t remember which!) wrapped in romaine instead of a tortilla. This was so delicious. I ate a ton of them!

Have a great weekend!

Love Soup

I recently received a copy of Love Soup to review. Love Soup is a huge collection of soup recipes by Anna Thomas, author of The Vegetarian Epicure. The book is very nicely laid out by seasons, and broken out further into subchapters such as Green Soups, Hearty Summer Soups, Holiday Soups, Cold Soups, and also includes recipes for broths, breads, salads, sweets, spreads, and other accompaniments. There are 160 recipes provided, and the recipes are very creative and utilize fresh seasonal vegetables and herbs. While not all the soups are vegan (and this is acknowledged in the introduction), most could easily be made vegan by using nondairy creams, cheeses, and yogurts. I love to use coconut milk and coconut yogurts, and usually find most recipes don’t REALLY need cheese. Ms. Thomas offers variations and loads of helpful tips with each recipe.

As you know it hasn’t exactly been soup weather here in Texas, but I did find nice soup and salad recipes to try. For my soup I made Mung Bean Soup with Spinach and Tomatoes from the Hearty Summer Soups chapter. I have had a 2 pound bag of whole mung beans in my pantry forever. There is lots of information about split mung beans, but I’ve never been able to find proper cooking instructions for the whole mung beans. I learned from Love Soup that mung beans are easy to cook, have a delicate flavor, are high in protein, and burst open when they cook! This soup is perfectly Indian spiced and completely delicious. I did have to deviate slightly and use a large can of fire-roasted tomatoes, because our fresh tomato season only lasted a month. It’s nice to know canned tomatoes work, because I would definitely make this soup again anytime.




For my salad I chose Heirloom Tomato Salad. I had a giant heirloom in the fridge waiting to be dressed up, and finding this recipe was perfect for a hot Labor Day lunch. As you can see, it is simply tomato, onion, fresh basil, and seasonings. In my opinion, heirlooms don’t need much more than that.

If you LOVE SOUP, I would definitely recommend LOVE SOUP. Honestly, it contains wonderful background with each chapter and recipe, and the instructions are about the best I’ve ever come across. Also on my “must make” list are Kale Salad with Tomatoes and Corn; Brown Rice and Chinese Cabbage Salad; Cucumber, Rice, and Fresh Herb Salad; Eggplant and Roasted Garlic Pesto; Deconstructed Hummus Soup; and Butter Bean and Summer Vegetable Soup.

And now I get to have a delicious soup and salad dinner!

Recent Good Eats

Today was the 63rd time this year our temperature reached 100 degrees or more, and it was actually a record breaker at 105. 69 days is the alltime record and we should easily match or beat that by the end of the week as there is no relief in sight. Needless to say, I’m still doing more assembling rather than cooking of food.

Last week there was a food bloggers meetup and we got a free burger at Elevation Burger. Their vegan burger is decent.






They are a green company using organic and sustainable products and environmentally friendly equipment. More businesses should follow their approach.


Okay, everything else here is raw. I love yellow zucchini and there has been plenty at the farmers market lately. Here I’ve spiralized a couple of them, added in some carrots, and topped it with guacamole. Yum.

Here is raw broccoli marinated in lemon juice and garlic, and topped with a cheesy sauce made from my new ebook from Kristen. The sauce was super easy and very tasty.

When I get really into raw foods, maybe someday I can make food as beautiful and exquisite as the food my mom and I ate at Austin's new raw foods café, Beets. We ate there last night and I cannot wait to go back. I’m also pleased to say that every seat in their beautiful space was taken, which is pretty awesome for a place that opened a week ago. Every single menu item was so tantalizing, I literally agonized over my selections. The excellent waitress offered to serve us each half portions of our orders so we could share our food without stabbing at it across the table or switching plates. Here’s what we were presented.

Starting from the bottom going clockwise, Caesar salad with eggplant bacon, pizza, cabbage slaw, and an open face burger with lettuce, sprouts, tomatoes, and special sauce. We also had flax chips and guacamole for an appetizer, and my mom had some tangy goji berry lemonade.

It was so good! Dessert? Why, yes, thank you!

We shared Maple Pecan Ice Cream (almost forgot to get a picture!), and I had my own little chocolate truffle in chocolate sauce. The chocolate sauce was divine, and the waitress told me it was just created that day. Lucky me.

Today I made okra pickles (an Alton Brown recipe) and cooked some fresh field peas.

I also made a raw pie inspired by Shellyfish’s Coconut Cream Pie. I made her pie crust using raw pumpkin seeds instead of walnuts because I’m saving the walnuts for another recipe. It’s really delicious.

I really really wanted to make coconut pie, but I only had ¼ cup coconut in my pantry. I know it’s not a proper substitute, but I used 3 peaches instead. I put it in the freezer to be sure it set up.

So fresh and delicious.

You still have a little time to enter my Flavor Tripping Giveaway. Comments will close tonight and I will post the winner in the next day or two.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.