Friday - dinner

Tonight's dinner was a veggie salad. I usually just take all of the veggies we have in the refrigerator and chop and dice it all up. From top left (clockwise) celery, red onion, cucumber, cauliflower, carrot, green onion, bell pepper, broccoli top.

The darker dressing is Balsamic Mustard Vinaigrette
7 Tablespoons Balsamic
6 Tablespoons Olive Oil
3 Tablespoons Mustard



2 Tablespoon Agave Nectar
Pinch of Black Pepper
Mix it all up together
adapted from Andrea Sylve




The lighter dressing is Italian Dressing
6 Tablespoons Olive Oil
6 Tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
3 Tablespoons Agave Nectar
a dash or two of Italian seasoning, oregano, garlic salt, sea salt, thyme, rosemary
Mix it up.

The lettuce bed is made up of kale, red cabbage, and romaine.


I was strong enough to resist full on bad mac and cheese today, but I wasn't able to say "no" all the way.

I used buttermilk instead of whole milk and olive oil instead of butter. I also added a bunch of spices. Don't ask which ones because I have a habit of looking at the texture, deciding if it'll work, and adding it without looking at what it actually is. But it tasted rather good :) I should write things down more often.

Jason made cake for dinner. He found the recipe on Google and modified it to healthy-ness. It tastes like sweet bread to me. I spread butter over it.
Jason's Yogurt Bread
3/4 cup cane sugar
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
Mix the eggs and sugar together until its nice and frothy. Set aside. Mix the dry ingredients together. Add to egg sugar mixture. Stir in buttermilk, vanilla extract, and yogurt until smooth. Cook at 350 for 30 minutes.

Friday - breakfast lunch

This morning for breakfast lunch (It was about 11 before I actually got out of bed) I had yogurt! I used the same recipe from last night with the greek plain yogurt, agave nectar, and vanilla extract. Then I diced up some strawberries and added some grapenuts. Viola! Strawberry yogurt! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thursday

This was dinner tonight. Doesn't it look magnificent? Assorted fruit plate with fruit dip in a fruit bowl. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I am amazed.

Healthy Vanilla Fruit Dip
1 cup plain yogurt (I used the Greek. I've heard it's healthier than other plain yogurts but I have no actual proof outside of word of mouth. It was definitely drier than most yogurts which made it perfect for this recipe)
3 tablespoons agave nectar (The original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. However, since agave is healthier, I choose that. Also, I have a sweet tooth so I opted for extra, especially since brown sugar is sweeter than agave.)
vanilla extract to taste (The recipe called for 1 teaspoon but again, I have a sweet tooth so I added more. Unfortunately, I didn't measure, I just plopped some in until it looked right to me.)
If you use a wetter yogurt, drain it for a while and the refrigerate. This will make it thicker. The longer you drain, the thicker the dip. I did not drain or refrigerate. I simply scooped it from the tub to the bowl. It was delicious but I plan to try the drain thing next time to see how that goes. After you drain and fridge, mix all three ingredients together. Set aside.
Cut a large naval orange in half. Scoop out the inside guts. Slice a smidgen off the bottom of each half so that it will sit flat like a bowl. Divide up the dip between the two orange halves. Enjoy!

The Assorted Fruit Plate contains a wealth of health and tasty. The outside ring contains 1 mango and 4 strawberries. The middle ring is 2 bananas. The inside ring is 2 kiwis and 4 strawberrys. The center is seedless red grapes (I know, they look black.) The grapes are not superb dipping fruit, it turns out but they were magnificent all the same. The bananas and kiwi were my favorite to submerge in the dip. The strawberry and mango were best with a dip rather than a submerge.


Back up to lunch. I ate my avocado sandwich, a veggie baggie, and a fruit medley. The veggie baggie had about a fourth of a cucumber, half a celery stick, and half a carrot. I need to find a good replacement for
ranch dressing because that's all I could think about as I chowed down on the veggies. The fruit medley had a pair, a few strawberries, a banana, a few grapes, and a small orange. Back up one more meal. I had a small orange for breakfast. Fast forward to afternoon snack. I slipped up once today and ate a kolachi today at the local coffee shop.
I also drank a sweet iced tea. Oops. But it was only two kolachis (did I mention I had to have a second after the first? It was delicious.) and one sweet iced tea. Fast forward to after dinner snack. I bragged about the kolachi to Jason so we went back and split one. I had a vanilla Italian soda. It was very good to my taste buds. Very bad to my diet. Tomorrow night, veggie salad with a balsamic mustard vinaigrette I want to try.


Final things: I believe I promised a story about the dip. I have had sweet fruit dips before. They were delicious. I even felt good about dipping my fruit in them because I figured nothing served with healthy things could be unhealthy. Boy, was I wrong. The traditional sweet fruit dip has cream cheese and marshmallow creme. That's it. Equal parts cheese and creme! Seriously, that's terribly unhealthy. So, I began a desperate search for a healthy dip. I found a few that were pretty promising at first only to find out it was the same thing with a twist. I looked for what felt like ages (It was only a few hours). Finally, I stumbled across a recipe on kaboose.com All I had to do was sub out the brown sugar for agave and I was good to go! Even that substitution wasn't necessary, just preferable. Jason was a bit unsure about this dip because who ever thought of dipping fruit in yogurt? Haha. Well, Yoplait is on to something. Plain yogurt, something sweet, and some fruit is a rather delectable mixture. Glad I found this little secret!

'til 'morrow!
Vegggggg out

Wednesday

Today was a good, on-track day. I grabbed an orange on the way out the door this morning. I resisted the cookies at Bible Study and ate the fruit medley instead. At least for a while, I resisted. I did give in and eat two. Then for lunch, I drank a glass of V8 juice. I nibbled on some chicken that Mrs H cooked. It was tender, straight off the bone chicken. Mmmmhmm! Then for a mid afternoon snack, another glass of V8. For dinner, I had a delicious small salad. I had a few slices of homemade bread. At church, I had Dr. Pepper and then at Sonic afterward, Jason and I split a chili cheese tater tots. Maybe not terribly on track, but partially. Here's my salad:
spinach leaves
shredded carrots
diced bell pepper
crumbled cauliflower
sliced vine tomato
sunflower seeds
parmesan cheese (not the best choice but not the worst)
Mrs H's homemade Italian dressing

As soon as I get a copy of that amazing homemade bread, I'll link it or post it or something. I adore Mrs H's kitchen. It smells like a slice of heaven.
Lunch tomorrow is going to rock. Sandwich, fruit, and veggies. I'm pretty pumped about it. I'm also pretty thrilled about dinner tomorrow night. The sauce is gonna be amazing! I searched high and low for a sweet dip for my fruit. I will tell that story tomorrow with the pictures.
G'night pretend followers! I don't think anyone reads this, oh well. (Julie said something similar on Julie&Julia and then she started getting comments and followers and such. I'm hoping the same happens for me.)

This Weekend

So this weekend wasn't very healthy. I made a few good decisions: salad at dinner on Friday, salad with dinner Sunday night, awesome sandwich last night. I also made some not so good decisions: spinach artichoke dip on Saturday,




bacon with breakfast on Saturday, steak, bratwurst, and pork on Sunday evening for dinner. Mostly, I ate poorly this weekend. We have allowed ourselves far too many cheats. So we are back on track! Tonight, Attempt #3 at Italian dressing. The salad is all of the veggies in the fridge mixed up together in a bowl. The bed is made up of red cabbage, kale, and romaine lettuce. We are shopping tonight for food through Monday.
Wednesday:
lunch - sandwich, left over salad
dinner - at the H house
Thursday:
lunch - sandwich
dinner - fruit medley
Friday:
lunch - fruit medley
dinner - veggie salad
Saturday:
lunch - stuffed celery
dinner - avocado soup
Sunday:
lunch - out to lunch
dinner - salad
Monday:
lunch - salad left overs
dinner - fettuccine not alfredo

I'll be updating with recipes and ratings all week. Keep an eye out for more deliciousness coming soon!

Friday -- breakfast and lunch

For breakfast, I had leftovers from last night and a large orange. The stuffed tomato tastes even better the next day! For lunch, I had the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I have ever eaten (except for ones my daddy had made for me in the past). Genesis bread with natural peanut butter and organic blueberry jelly. Oh boy! It was so tasty! Next time I'm going to try a version of Dad's Special PB&J. His includes peanut butter, jelly, butter, syrup, and a secret ingredient. He mixes them all up together and then spreads it on the bread. I'm going to try peanut butter, jelly, agave nectar, and the secret ingredient. My secret ingredient isn't near as awesome as Dad's but I'll give it a shot :)
Yes. That is a Hercules plate. It says "I'm a meat and potato kind of guy." Ironic much?

Thursday -- dinner

Stuffed Tomato
4 large ripe tomatoes with stems
2 cups sunflower seeds, soaked (6-8 hours) and drained
1/4 cup cucumber, chopped
1/4 cup green onions, chopped
1/4 cup ripe red, yellow, orange, or green bell pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, minced
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 tsp paprika
sea salt to taste

cut of tops of tomatoes, leaving the stem in place and set aside. scoop out the pulp and seeds leaving 1/4 inch around the outside edge and bottom. blend the sunflower seeds with 1/2 of the tomato pulp and paprika until smooth. mix remaining pulp, green onions, bell pepper, basil, and garlic into the blended mixture.
stuff tomatoes to the top, heaping over a bit. Replace tops.

options: add fresh corn kernels, shredded carros, chopped celery, or chopped nuts (in place of sunflower seeds)



Banana Pudding
4-5 bananas
1-2 avocados
1 tbsp flax seed

put everything together in the food processor except for one banana. blend until smooth and thick. set aside. cut extra banana at an angle to create long ovals. set aside. pour pudding into bowl and decorate with banana ovals. sprinkle chocolate powder over top.



I doubled the stuffed tomato recipe because there are people coming over tonight. The recipe above will feed 3-4 people easily. Last time, I accidentally put too much paprika. This time I didn't put enough. I think its better to have too much. Tonight's stuffing tastes a little bit bland.
The banana pudding goes quick. Everybody loves it! Small portions are the key. This pudding is a lot more filling than the pudding we're used to out of a box so you only need about half the portion. The more flax seed, the thicker it will be. You can vary this recipe by putting raw cocoa or agave nectar or honey. The avocado gives it quite a bit of body. Leaving it out is not the best idea, in my humble opinion. The recipe above should feed about 4 people for dessert.

Thursday - Breakfast and Lunch

For breakfast today, I had a banana and Mrs. H's pumpkin bread. It was delicious. For lunch, I at a veggie sandwich and a pear. It was also delicious. The sandwich was Genesis bread, avocado (peeled, pitted, and mashed) spread, romaine lettuce, vine ripe tomato (sliced), cucumber (sliced), red onion (sliced), romaine, avocado spread, and Genesis bread. I usually make two sandwiches at a time because of the avocado. Half of one avocado will spread easily over four slices of bread, or two sandwiches. I put the other half in a plastic bag for later. Also, I use 3 slices of cucumber and 2 slices of tomato on each. This is just how I prefer my sandwich. Jason prefers his sandwich with kale instead of romaine. He likes the bite kale gives it. I think the red onion is plenty of bite for one sandwich. My step mom prefers her spread with black bean and avocado. She mashes up half of an avocado with about a 1/4 a can of black beans (drained and rinsed) until it's smooth enough to spread. It's really delicious but then you have 3/4 can of black beans to deal with. I prefer to just dump em in a salad. It's better than storing them and then forgetting them. My mom prefers hers with cheese. She thinks it's too dry without it but in the sandwich's defense, the avocado was under ripe on hers that she ate for lunch today. Tonight, I'm making stuffed tomatoes! I am so thrilled! Eep!

Veg out!

Wednesday -- dinner

I had dinner at the Hochstettler home this evening. We had carrot raisin salad. There was also turkey noodle stuff but I only ate a little bit of that. Mama H made the greatest pumpkin bread! She gave me the recipe and I am most definitely going to give it a try with a few variations for the hallelujah diet :) She is a fantastic cook. http://www.familychowhall.com/ Check her out sometime.
I hate to admit it, but I am not very strong behind the snack bar. I had a can of root beer and a bag of chips. I do believe I worked it all off laughing though. Jason and I went shopping tonight. Tomorrow evening, we're eating stuffed tomatoes for dinner! Eep! We're also going to have pudding for dessert and a small salad for appetizers. I'm pretty thrilled! I love sharing food with friends.

Wednesday -- lunch

So today, I had pudding for lunch. Last week, I had to freeze like 5 bananas because they hadn't been eaten and they were gonna go bad. So today, I defrosted them, found them to be mush, and blended them. Then I added some flax seed, agave nectar, and raw chocolate. It was delicious. But it was way too much for just one person so it looks like I'm having pudding again for dinner :) Ya, that's right. I sometimes have pudding for meals. Chocolate pudding on my diet. Aren't I snazzy?

Tuesday

Jason made homemade soup for dinner <3 He ate some dumplings. For lunch, I ate some left over salad from last night and he had left over sweet potato. Still got plenty of salad left for lunch tomorrow too :) I forgot breakfast this morning, which isn't good but I didn't anything bad at all today! Woo hoo!

Monday -- dinner surprise!

So Jason and I planned to eat dinner at Olive Garden this evening and then catching a movie. However, when Jason arrived, I had other surprise plans :)



I baked some sweet potatoes and then mashed them up, skin and all. I added a dash of vanilla and a pinch of sea salt.




I also pulled out every veggie in the fridge and made a delicious salad. The lettuce is made up of red cabbage, kale, and romaine. The veggies are cabbage, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, cucumber, and tomato. I sprinkled grape nuts over it all.



I made Italian dressing. This was my second attempt at Italian dressing. It was better than my first, but still not quite right. I think it needed to be sweeter but Jason thought it was perfect. I got the recipe from cooks.com



After I had finished preparing a fantastic meal, I set the table runner (it's actually a scarf) and a few candles on the table. I used the pretty blue plates. Jason was thrilled! It was a perfect evening.

Veg out!

Monday -- breakfast, lunch

In am currently eating breakfast/lunch. It's breakfast food and I'm gonna call it breakfast because I only woke up a couple of hours ago. But it's lunch because it's after 1 PM. Haha. It is very tasty. 2 large brown organic eggs, diced red onion, diced green onion, diced cherry tomato, diced green pepper, cheese (the only thing not good for me), sea salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, italian seasoning, and lemon pepper. I beat the eggs together in a bowl then added the veggies in with the eggs. Then I scrambled them on a cast iron skillet. I had soft scrambled them so that some of the nutrition in the veggies would be there. After the eggs were done, I put them on a plate and put the cheese on top to melt while the whole wheat toast sat on the skillet. I admit, it wasn't the healthiest breakfastlunch, but it sure was good tasting! Tonight, we're going on a date to Olive Garden then off to see the Princess and the Frog. No popcorn or soda for us!

Veg out!

Sunday - Dinne

The Indian food was interesting. I forgot to take pictures before we ate it because I was anxious to try so many new things. I did however, take pictures after we picked through it a bit. We didn't eat vegetarian but it was healthy. We had samosas, chapati, tandoori naam, goat buriyani, and roti. I'm not sure if I spelled everything correct so I hope none of those words are bad words in Indian. My favorite item was the samosas. It was very tasty. We got three dry samosas and one wet one. I thought the wet one was disgusting and awful, although Nuke and Jason ate it all up and said "yummy." Here are the pictures of the half eaten food :)





Veg out!

Sunday - Breakfast & Lunch

My breakfast this morning wasn't all bad. It could have been worse. I forgot to eat before leaving the house this morning, making every doughnut shop along the route to church seem like a sanctuary. I resisted, however, mostly because Ethan wouldn't pull over. I ate a bag of Fritos at church and then resigned myself to nothing more than juice and water the rest of the morning. After church, I went to Subway with some friends. I ate a 6 in veggie delight. I did have pepper jack cheese, but I ate the whole grain bread, didn't toast it, and had the red wine vinegar instead of honey mustard like I used to get. I added all veggies except for the banana peppers and jalapenos. It was very tasty and surprisingly crunchy, despite the lack of toastedness. Although I was able to resist the deep fried chips and the sugar coated cookies, passing up free refills on soda was just too much. I drank 3 full cups of root beer before the afternoon was over. I felt a bit of a sugar rush but I crashed quickly. Now, I'm waiting on Jason and Nuke to pick me up to try a Indian Vegetarian restaurant I found online. I don't know if I will like Indian food or not but I believe it's worth a shot. I'll let ya know.

Veg Out!

Dinner -- Saturday

Tonight I had a baked sweet potato. Normally, baked sweet potato means loads of butter and brown suga. Tonight, however, being the healthy person I am, I added a dash of vanilla and some sea salt. I mashed it up real good, skin and all. It was delicious! I drank some water with it. The sweet potato was rather big so I was completely full afterward and wasn't even a little bit tempted to sneak some mac and cheese that everyone else was eating :)
Tomorrow will be a challenge at church. There is tasty food there but no healthy food. Prayers, please!


Veg Out!

Hallelujah Diet

Sixteen days ago, my fiance (Jason) and I began a new chapter of our lives. We decided that this year, two thousand and win, would be a healthier, happier year. I researched and read and read and researched. Finally, I settled on the Hallelujah Diet, mainly because I know people who have tried it and love it. So on New Years Day, we cooked healthy. We have been eating salads and trying new recipes and over all, enjoying the challenge. Some meals have been scrumptious, like the stuffed tomatoes. Some have been disasters, like the cold sweet potato soup. Some quickly became a staple in our meal planning, like the black bean salad. Here's what I've learned so far:
*food is expensive. you have to plan ahead.
*a meal from my kitchen probably wont look or taste as good as it sounds in the recipe.
*always make extra. if ya don't eat it tonight, it'll make a good lunch.
*clean as you go. it makes the meal tastier because you dont have to worry about cleaning after you're done enjoying the food.
*food goes bad. quickly.
*healthy food can taste good. really, really, good.
*use the energy the food gives ya. go for a walk, do some home yoga, run in circles, dance around the room, something! it feels great!
*eating healthy is not easy. at all. nobody does it.

I've been posting my food on Facebook, but I thought it might be more efficient to have a food diary. It will keep me more accountable, I think. I have not been very good the past two or three days. So here is it! Wealth of Health. To catch ya up to speed a little bit, here's some things I've made so far.

This is the sandwich Jason takes most days to work. Genesis bread (toasted), avocado and black beans (mashed and run through the food processor), kale, tomato (sliced), cucumber (sliced), and then more kale, more spread, more bread. It's my favorite sandwich.

This quickly became a favorite salad. I call it the Caribbean Salad. It has black beans and oranges and grape nuts in it as well as diced broccoli, cucumber, green pepper, chives, and tomato. I use Romain lettuce.
The dressing is 2 avocados, juice from 1/2 a large orange, juice from 1 lemon, salt to taste. The salt is necessary because the orange and lemon make a very sour mix.

This is what I usually eat when Jason isn't coming over for dinner. The dip is a version of the dressing from the Caribbean Salad. I added green pepper (finely diced), parsley (minced), and cucumber (finely diced). I also added a few obscure spices that I thought might be tasty. It worked well.

This was a disaster. Sweet potato soup. It was a cold soup. I didn't even finish eating it. Jason added a bunch of spices to his and heated it up and enjoyed it enough. I won't try this again.

This is my favorite thing I have ever made! Stuffed tomatoes! Oh my goodness! I will post the recipe later. This meal is worth it's own post.

Finally, this is another meal for just me. Its just some cut up veggies. The crackers in the background aren't super healthy but oh well. The dressing I used was okay but not super great. I followed a recipe I found online that called for vinegar, oil, and some spices. It was supposed to be a homemade Italian sauce but it certainly didn't taste like the Italian dressing from the store.

That's all for now. I'm planning to update daily to keep myself accountable. 'Til 'morrow!

Veg Out!