This Weekend

Saturday morning I had eggs, fruit, and yogurt.
Veggie Egg Delight
1/2 cup Green bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 cup Red onion, finely diced
1/4 cup Portabella mushroom, finely diced
1/2 cup Roma tomatoes, finely diced
Shredded cheese to taste (I prefer mozzarella but in the picture, I used cheddar)
3 farm fresh eggs
Rosemary
Thyme
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
Fresh basil, minced
Smidgen of milk
Olive oil

Heat up your skillet. Pour enough olive oil in to cover the bottom. Break the eggs into a bowl with the milk. Whip with a fork until frothy. Add your spices. Set aside. Throw all of your veggies into the skillet. Add a smidgen more olive oil to keep it from drying out. The tastiest way to cook them is let them simmer on low heat for about 8 minutes. The healthiest way is to flash sautee. Turn the heat up and stir them in olive oil for a few minutes. When you bite into the veggies, they will still crunch this way. Add your eggs once the veggies are cooked to your liking. Scramble at medium heat. I prefer hard scrambled so I usually leave them on the stove for about 5 minutes. If you want soft scrambled (more runny), it takes less than 2 minutes. You have to keep stirring them so they don't burn to the bottom of the pan. Turn off the stove and remove pan from heat. Sprinkle cheese over top and let sit while you prepare your yogurt.

Sweet Vanilla Yogurt
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
4 tablespoons agave nectar
vanilla extract to taste
1/4 cup grapenuts

This is a variation on a recipe I used earlier this week. I made this one pretty and didn't stir it up together until I sat down to eat it. If you want pretty, follow these instructions. If you want just regular yogurt, follow Thursday or Friday - breakfast lunch. Although, I made both of those pretty too.
Scoop the yogurt into a pretty bowl in a nice round plop. Using a the back of a spoon, make a shallow lake in the top. Pour the agave into the lake, allowing it to spill over the edges. Pour the vanilla into the lake. Most if it will stay in the top, making it darker. Sprinkle your grapenuts over the entire bowl like tiny, leafless trees. Viola! You've got a bowl of yogurt that looks like a snowy hill in the winter! Not my winter, of course. I live in Texas.

The last part is mostly up to you. Choose your favorite sweet fruits, cut them up, and enjoy! I used strawberries, bananas, and grapes. Grapes don't fare too well with the sweet yogurt but they taste wonderful by themselves :)

By now, your cheese has melted. Slide the entire egg creation onto a plate. Don't scoop it out, slide it, so the cheese stays on top. Serve it all together and you've got a delicious, mostly healthy*, filling breakfast!

*Yogurt gets an 8 on a scale of 10 for healthiness because it's a dairy product and those aren't too good for you all the time. I wouldn't recommend eating dairy daily. Fruit gets a 10, as long as its fresh. Frozen fruits only go down to a 9 though. In deliciousness, frozen fruits get a 6 and fresh gets a 10. The eggs get a 5 because they aren't healthy but they aren't detrimental. The longer you cook the veggies, the less healthy they become. I recommend flash sauteed.




Saturday for lunch was pizza. I did not cook because we went out antique shopping. I know what you're thinking. Pizza isn't on the diet! Oh, my friend, you are wrong! It may not be incredibly healthy, but it sure was close! Its called a Margherita Pizza. No, you can't drink it. No, you won't get drunk. Yes, your tummy and taste buds will scream in delight! We ordered it from a local pizzeria that operates with a stone oven. They claim to have all fresh ingredients and their crust is whole wheat. No, it didn't taste like whole wheat. Yes, the ingredients tasted like they were over nighted directly from Sicily. I have yet to try to make it myself but I can almost guarantee it's on the menu sometime in the next week or two. I have yet to decide on a specific recipe but here's the basic ingredients (I've gathered this from looking at several online recipes: parsley, garlic, oregano, tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, fresh mozzarella, Parmesan, feta. I've seen some that has onion, some that adds chicken, and various other things. Basically, tomato, mozzarella, and basil give this pizza a superb, one of a kind taste.
Saturday snack I had some cut up fruits with agave drizzled over it. Dad cooked chicken breast for dinner with avocado toast. Tasty.
Sunday breakfast was again very difficult for me. I ate chips and drank a root beer about 10 AM. Lunch was a little better but still not fantastic. It was fend for yourself at the Hochstettler home. Which always ends up a tasty meal, regardless. I had a croissant with some very delicious, very soft cheese. I also ate part of an apple and some macaroni. Last night for dinner was semi healthy. We ate at Olive Garden. Spinach artichoke dip for appetizer. We both had creamy soups for starters, and way too much bread. I then had the stuffed chicken with mushroom garlic mashed potatoes. Jason had the seafood fettuccine. To be honest, though, I don't entirely remember what he had only that it was noodles and seafood. He added cayenne to it. Who's surprised? Not I. No, that's not a picture of the dip from last night. That's a Google image. We ate last night's food too fast to capture it on film... er... SD card... I am currently searching for the perfect spinach artichoke dip online because Jason absolutely loves the stuff. It is our appetizer where ever we go.
This morning, I woke up a bit late and decided to eat lunch for breakfast instead of the other way around, which I have been doing the past week. I had left over bread and stuffed chicken from Olive Garden with a homemade Arnold Palmer.

In conclusion, weekends are not very healthy for me. I slip easily and blog lazily. Oops.

Tonight is the chilled avocado soup I've been itching to make and a small veggie salad with avocado dressing.


Til' 'morrow

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

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!

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!

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!