7/11/13

Today's food was the same as yesterday's, but the beans were chickpeas and the spices were curry and cumin and garlic powder.  For tomorrow, the beans are pinto and the spices are chili powder, cumin and garlic powder.  The fruit was mulberries on my bike ride and an apple on the golf course.  The way our day goes is that my friends and I drive to the shuttle parking lot in the morning, and I leave from there for my bike ride.  I eat my lunch at the car and then  hop on  the shuttle to the golf course.   It was a beautiful day, and I had a great bike ride and relaxing time on the course.

7/10/13

This is day 2 of my trip and the 28-day challenge.   First, I wanted to post a few more photos of how I do food prep.   Here is my food gear, tucked under the desk.  That shows what I have to pack in my car in addition to a suitcase.   The electric cooler is to the right of the desk--that works both in the car and the hotel room.  It has the collards and kale.   The green bag on top as the potatoes and sweet potatoes.  The onions and kohlrabi and cabbage are in the fridge.  Everything else is not food-related.

Next is the line-up for prepping today's meal, not including the collards and kale.  I start by cooking the onions with no water, then add water when I think the smoke alarm might go off, then add the kohlrabi, potatoes and sweet potatoes, then the greens, then cabbage.  Let that cook.  Then add the oats,  spices, then to help cool, add the beans and tomatoes--though I added their water earlier.   Tonight's spices were cumin, curry, and a little garlic powder.  It's really good and I had a hard time not eating it while dishing out into tomorrow's bowls.

Today was very fun.  I rode my bike along the Mississippi River, then went to the golf course in the afternoon.  I ate the food I prepared last night.  The bananas in the hotel were not appealing  and there were none on the golf course.  But I got some good surprises.  First, there were lots of mulberry trees on my bike ride.   For your information, here is how you spot a mulberry tree:

from the smashed berries on the ground!   then at the golf course, I got a really good apple!  Pork seems to be the food of choice around here, as you can see by these concession signs:

But one place had apples.  I didn't have high expectations, but it was a really good fresh crisp red delicious, so that was great:

I hope everyone else had a great day today.

7/9/13

7/9/13, Day 1 of the challenge and the start of my trip.

As I mentioned before, I'm participating in the newest E2X 28-day challenge, where I'm logging my daily food  and exercise there and here.   

Today, my friends and I headed to a PGA golf tournament in the Quad Cities (Iowa, Illinois border along the Mississippi River).  I will ride my bicycle in the mornings, and then join my companions in the afternoon on the golf course.  I'm looking forward to both.  I admit to not being a huge golf fan, but it is fun to watch live and to appreciate how unbelievably good the players are.  

For the last week, I've been processing in the back of my mind my plans for food and I think I came up with a good plan.  It's going to be the same food every day, for every meal!  crazy huh?  well, my friends will also be eating much the same every day too, just different from me.  And I don't have to go grocery shopping at all.  There is no food on the golf course I can eat, and you aren't allowed to bring in your own.  So that's another reason to spend only 1/2 day there, so I can eat lunch before and dinner after. 

Here's what I came up with for food.  I bought 5 large potatoes, 5 large oriental yams, 5 large kohlrabi, 5 onions and 5 cans of beans (for 5 days); and there was local cabbage so I picked up a head of that at the last minute.  I also packed 5 cans of garden tomatoes.  Here is the produce packed in semi-thermal bags with with some ice (in those blue bags) to keep them cool.

I picked 38 collard leaves from the garden.  This picture was taken after the collards were harvested!  (the jacket was to protect me from mosquitos).

Here's one of the two bowls of collards:

I put them in my electric cooler. There was still room so I picked a bunch of kale too--two plastic bags worth.  Here they are all loaded into the electric cooler

I also brought 1/2 cup oats per day.   I'll cook a day's worth of this concoction every night, in a big pot.   I brought different seasonings for each day.  I'll  divide it into 3 bowls for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  If I find some bananas at the hotel breakfast or on the golf course, I'll eat 1 or 2.   

Here's the cooking set up in my hotel:

Here it is after cooking

I used italian seasoning today.  In case you forgot, that's onion, collards & kale, kohlrabi, cabbage, oriental yam, potato, beans, tomatoes, and oats.  

Now, I feel kind of goofy about this and expect everyone else should think I'm totally weird for going through all this effort.  But 1)  I spend less time cooking than I would going out to a restaurant;  2)  this is really good!   and 3) If I don't plan something, I am hosed because the only healthy choices available before dinner time are bananas, and I'd have to research finding healthy options at dinner.  

For today, I cooked whatever food I didn't pack for the trip:   onion, kohlrabi, cabbage, oats, and peas; and baked 2 large baked potatoes.  I also harvested the last of the lettuce from the garden.  For breakfast I nibbled on this while cooking it up.  Here's my lunch and dinner.  This picture was taken at a burger joint, where my friends had lunch. 

7/8/13

Tomorrow starts another 28-day challenge on the E2X website.  I like the Captain's challenge because it's presented in a positive way to me, in terms of what to eat, which is simple:  vegetables, fruit, whole intact grains (intact means, not ground to a flour), beans and lentils, and no-salt spices.  They also allow polenta and whole-grain pasta in modest quantities.   Especially this time of year, this is quite a bounty to choose from.  I like the challenge mainly for the community of others who also want to eat this way; it makes me feel less likely to question myself.

The only drawback with these challenges is the day before.  I started their last one a week late and so my version ended yesterday, which meant today could be considered my day off.  uh-oh, a day off, AND one day before the next one starts.  I was fine until the dessert party (I'll tell you right now I did okay so you can cheer for me, ha).   I had planned to bring fruit salad and I knew a friend was going to bring these date-nut balls.  I thought, oh, that will be a nice treat before the challenge starts, so I planned to have some.  I did okay, and thank goodness, decent manners imposed a limit on how many I could eat (I ate 5 and they were small).  But the real temptation were my favorite vegan cookies from the co-op.  I thought, hey, it's your day off, the Challenge starts tomorrow.  geez!  I hate when that "I'll start tomorrow" syndrome rears it's ugly head.  Anyway, all is well and the temptation window closed when the party ended and I came home to a house with no real temptations.

Today I ate things I won't be able to eat on my trip starting tomorrow.    Breakfast was snow peas, some fresh figs, and I nibbled on delicious fruit while making the fruit salad for tonight's party.  Lunch was a big bunch of lettuce from the garden, and some grapes.   Dinner was a largish baked oriental yam and sugar snap peas.  Dessert at the party was fruit salad and 5 small date-nut balls.  oh, and then I had some rice and peas when I got home--I think you'd call that emotional eating, but the consequences in this case aren't too bothersome.

7/713

I got back yesterday from visiting my family, and I'm going out of town again on Tuesday!  I posted my food on my E2X blog and I included a little personal family stuff so didn't post here (I'm sure they would appreciate that).   It was a good trip, and it was good to get home yesterday.  Today was a fabulous day walking, being with loved ones, kayaking, and eating fantastic food (ha, nothing spectacular it's just that the fruit was so good).  I'm getting my fix of really good fruit in between trips:  strawberries, blueberries, grapes, cherries, and mulberries (from the trees!).   Tuesday starts another E2X 28-day challenge so I'll do that.  I have 5 lbs I'd like to lose, but more importantly, I just want to keep eating the right foods in the right amounts.  I start the last one a week late, but continued after it ended and today is day 28.  Wow, that was so easy,  I love the Captain plan.  I'll summarize it in another post, hopefully tomorrow.   I also will tell you what I'm planning foodwise for my trip.  

7/2/13

No time to write, getting ready for a trip, just cooked up 2 days worth of food.  BUT: I wanted to say what I had for breakfast.  I had baked quinoa and fruit.  I think this is my favorite so far!   Better than oatmeal, better than buckwheat.   It's crispy on top and not too mushy on the inside.  My fruit was strawberries and blueberries.   Lunch and Dinner were the usual.  Bought too much really good fruit tonight and ate all of it!  note to self:   don't buy too much delicious ripe fresh fruit at one time!   

7/1/13

Well, today the 28 day challenge ends on E2X.  I started a week late.  I will continue my own Captain's challenge until Aug. 17, when I go to Plant-Stock!   There I plan to enjoy slightly richer fair than is normal for the Captain.  I would like to lose the 6 lbs I've gained over the last year.  I'm feeling good about this.  I enjoy the positive attitudes on E2X and the great feedback.  I'm not sure if I should take time off from my food logs or not, until the next 28-day challenge.  On the one hand, it's pretty easy to log.  On the other, it might be nice to take a break, plus I'm going out of town a lot the next 2 weeks.  On the other hand, I can share how I plan to stay on plan while traveling.  I guess we'll just see.  Meanwhile, here's today's food.

B: Baked buckwheat groats and cherries.  I soaked the groats overnight and rinsed off the slime.  Even then, I don't enjoy them as much as oats or quinoa.  

L:  cooked up my usual veggies:  onion, kohlrabi, oriental yam, collards, asparagus, rice, and fresh herbs.   offered these to my guests who enjoyed them.  and ate some of their yummy fruit salad.

D:  repeat of lunch.  plus some cherries and lots of sugar snap peas.  oh and some strawberries and blueberries that I was prepping for the freezer.

E:  none, resting after yesterday's marathon (first time I can use that word literally, ha).