Raw Smoothie Week

So I've been catching up on some books that I've wanted to read lately.  I just finished Green for Life and I'm about midway through Gorgeously Green. Between those two books and some conversations with Mama K I'm inspired to try going Raw for up until dinner this week.  Being the ridiculously supportive husband that he is the hubs is jumping on the bandwagon to help me.  I just spent about an hour blending all the smoothies for us for tomorrow.  We have a Chia Seed, Apple, Lemon, Kale blend; a Blueberry, Banana, Celery Blend and a simple Banana, Spinach blend.  I tasted them all and they are pretty good.  We'll see how filling they are as the week goes on but I'm excited to try it at least.  

Its been pretty interesting reading in depth in Green for Life on some of the points brought up in the book about PH levels in your stomach and stomach acid in regards to how you absorb nutrients.  Also the comparison to a typical American diet to that of the closest animal to us in genetic composition the Chimpanzee, was pretty intriguing.  Gorgeously Green has some great tips on finding health and beauty items that are good for you, some great tips on getting my body moving and I'm sure alot more but I'm only halfway through that one.  Being a part of a local coop has really helped me switch most of our bath and body products over to healthy choices but there are some holdouts (deodorant is the big one) that we just haven't found a good alternative for.  Its been inspiring me to examine that a bit more. 

As far as getting moving I got my butt kicked by Leslie Sansone's Walk and Fit which tells me that I need to do it some more. I threw in some pilates beforehand but only got ten minutes in before I had to call it quits on that.  The hubs and I have made a promise to each other to do some type of workout three times a week together as I realize I'm less likely to quit doing it if he's doing it with me and he feels the same. 

I literally feel like a page is turning in my life and there is a gorgeously blank slate set before me.  Everything in my life has changed recently but for the first time in weeks I'm kind of seeing some good come out of it.  

Garden Bounty or as Beyonce would say Bountyliscious!

Mmmmmm we're still harvesting the goodness, below is some freaking awesome tomatoes we have going on at Casa de Dirkey.
I think I've said before I'm totally digging on this whole gardening thing! I love having the freshest best tasting veggies at my hand for dinner. I don't know if I've divulged this yet, but I'm kind of a veggie snob (shocker I know). I will not buy canned veggies and it causes great pain to buy frozen veggies but I will do it (rarely).
One of my favorite things that I've been making this summer has been Zucchini Parm. Mmm just typing it makes me drool...

Here's the recipe:
need
3-4 good size Zucchini's
Olive Oil
Diced Tomatoes (preferably fresh)
Mozzarella
Parmesan
2 white onions
7-8 cloves of garlic
Lots of spices (parsley, basil, oregano, etc)

I slice the Zuch's up into disks then lay out a layer of them in a Lasagna Pan. I then will spread 2-3 crushed garlic cloves over them and sprinkle with olive oil. Then I'll put a thin layer of diced tomatoes, diced onions, spices and cheese on. I repeat this all 3-4 times and bake at 350 for about an hour or until Zucchini is tender when you pierce with a fork. You might want to cover with aluminum foil until the last ten minutes of cooking time so your cheese on top doesn't get too brown.

Seriously-SO GOOD!

Garden Update

While I was away my garden exploded... Literally

If you want to see what my garden looked like just a short month ago check here.

I have to say the hubs was a champ for watering. As I get a little further into this gardening gig I'm starting to learn a few things. I know for next year I want to build another box the same size as the one we already have. I know that I also want to build a box that is 1 foot long and 4 feet wide for my zucchini and also for my cucumbers as they are kind of taking over the garden right now. I also want to build a separate box for my herbs and completely rip out everything in our boxes and plant flowers in there. So you can see I want to expand this little enterprise we have going here. I am enjoying this little hobby I started and I can't wait for it to bear some fruit!! (and vegetables)!!!!!

Creation Recap and Detox

So you all know that last week I went away for work and it was an amazing week. There were alot of highlights for me. The most noteable probably was Melody Green talking about her and her husband Keith's ministry. I had read No Compromise about 10 years ago, which is a book Keith Green had written that made a tremendous impact on me and on my faith. Other highlights were seeing friends that I only get to see once or twice a year (boo geography for keeping our states so far away!), seeing new to me artists (I now love Skillet and Flyleaf), and also just seeing a years worth of work come to fruition and see God use what we put our hands to for His glory. For all the fun involved it was also was a tremendous amount of work with most of us pulling at least 17 hrs a day (my boss was easily doing 20+). We all drove home on Sunday and thankfully the hubs had met me up there on Thursday night and was able to drive our car home. I literally slept 80% of the car ride home then promptly fell asleep on the couch and slept until 10 am Monday morning. The no sleeping came with a side of crappy eating (lots and lots of coffee and free access to fair type foods). I did try to grab veggies when I could but it was maybe a handful a day. Needless to say my body is not too happy with me, it feels as if I have a sinus infection, and I think I could sleep for another 3 days easily. So I've decided that I'm doing the whole Vegan thing again for at least the next two weeks until west. Hopefully it will clear out of my system a good amount of the junk that has accumulated there and kind of get me back on track with my eating. I feel like I've been treading water with my weight for the past year despite working at it and following weight watchers most of the time. I'm going to use this time to really focus on this and changing habits. I know its going to take awhile but I also know it can be done. I just pray that I would have the strength and endurance needed to finish this race.
I went on my lunch break to Whole Foods and picked up about $80 worth of veggies for my veggie/juicing blitz. I'll be breaking out my Christina Pirello books and my imagination to cook up some yummie treats for us. As a change from last years Vegan August I will not be incorporating any soy into our diets as soy and I are not friends. I will be relying heavily on my friends, the Legumes. I'm going to try to cut out any processed Vegan foods (except whatever I bring for west if I decide to do it while I'm there). I'm also going to add in the juicing as I've discovered that I love me some beet juice in the morning. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll start harvesting my garden as well.

Wordless Wednesday-What I've been doing instead of blogging

My version of a "Square Foot Garden", we'll see what happens here but if you need tomatoes in a few months you know who to call. The hubs built the box out of recycled wood from a border of a dog run we just took out. I laid out the squares with old embroidery thread and thumbtacks. Lots of good stuff planted; tomatoes, cukes, peppers, beets, onions, squash, eggplant, spinach, jalapeno's and tons of other stuff.

This is a planter box that is built into our deck, I was very excited when we moved in to find tons of mint growing here. Then I realized that mint take over everything so I decided to "plant" planters into the soil so that I could grow some flowers and other herbs. I'm hoping that the mint will continue to grow around them but my herbs and flowers will flourish in thier pots. I have growing here: mint, oregano, basil, parsley, chives, rosemary, bachelor's buttons, dahlia's(I think, I don't remember).

My Meyer Lemon Tree that I just got in the mail from Spring Hill Nursery. Supposedly these can be container tree's as its a dwarf.
The other planter box on my deck that I haven't done anything too yet.

Family

Tonight I'm making my dad his birthday dinner, he cracks me up because he can have whatever he wants and I asked him what he wanted and this is what he said...
"Well hmm you know those curly noodles they look like acordians, I want those. Also some Ragu sauce (the man can have whatever he wants and he asks for Ragu). Then take some ground beef and mix it in and top it off with mozzarella."
Hey said this with his hands brought up to his face in anticipation tapping his fingers together and with a gleam in his eye like he wanted a Red Rider BB gun.
Talk about low expectations, I think he's getting bored of his retirement staple of eating at diners and bringing the leftovers home for the next day.
What really floored me though was dessert, I offered a pie or a cake and his eyes glazed over and his fingers tapped excitedly
"no I want Tapioca pudding"
I laugh whenever I think of this little exchange we had.

Little does he know the Tapioca pudding was made with coconut milk ha ha ha......
The rest of it I'm going to make as he specified but I'm going to make mine separate without the meat or cheese. Maybe I'll throw some seiton in for some texture. Since we are back on the wagon
Schmoop and I have a rule that when we eat out we can eat whatever we want (meat and dairy included). Well it seems we've been eating out alot lately with our trip to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and just not being home alot. We are really going to try and make the effort to cook alot more. I made a big batch of chili so we froze some of it and put some of it in the fridge; I'm figuring that will be a good thing to grab when we're busy or don't have time to cook.

I've been a very bad Vegan

So we took Gracie to her first Mets game, we went up since it was Phillies vs Mets at Shea Stadium. Gracie LOVES the mets and will sing you every Mets song known to man. It was awesome watching the game, Gracie had an amazing time. I think the happiest I've ever seen her was when David Wright (her favorite player) scored a home run. After the game they let all the kids run the bases and she started dancing with Mr. Met. The Phillies ended up winning which made Schmoop very happy but at least Gracie was oblivious to her favorite team losing. Schmoop was talking to her after the game and this is thier conversation:
Me: What was your favorite part of the game?

Gracie: Dancing with David Wright.

Schmoop: Did you dance with David or Mr Met?

G: Mr. Met.

S: Did you enjoy David Wright’s home run?

G: Yeah

S: Did the Phillies get any home runs?

G: Nah.

I think she missed the Phillies Grand Slam :)

So about the bad Vegan part, so we were at a baseball game so you know while your there you have to have a hot dog. Its kind of like a crime against the United States if you don't partake in at least one hot dog when visiting one of the nations finest baseball stadiums. So halfway through the $5 hot dog I realized that it probably wasn't the best idea. So what will make me feel better, why an Italian hoagie of course! We were driving through Hoboken on the way home so we stopped for a real hoagie. Needless to say my stomach wasn't too happy with the drastic one day change in diet and Schmoop and I are determined to be much better with our Veganocity. I feel like a cold is coming on now, and I've been coughing alot so of course I'm blaming it on our one day foray into the world of meats and cheeses.

Vegan Month 1

Hi All,
So I haven't mentioned much about the whole Vegan thing for awhile but we have been keeping up with it. It has been about a month that we've been doing it. I've been pretty good with it, I only messed up 3 times. 2 times were for chocolate ( I just ordered some free trade cocoa powder so I should be able to curb this desire in the future; the other time I thought I bought soy milk but it was regular and I didn't notice till halfway done my serving. In this first month I have not had any soda, at all. This is itself is a small miracle as I used to have at least 3 soda's a day some times as close to 8-9. Also I have not had any ice cream either, I used to have ice cream at least once every single day. If you would have told me the beginning of this summer that I would give up ice cream and soda voluntarily I would have laughed at you. But here I am a month later and HAPPY about it. Go figure.
Mama K and I just got into ordering from Frontier and I have ordered a bunch of wholesale organic spices and also some bulk food items and natural cleaning supplies. Schmoop and I got some big old bags from Ikea that I bring to the grocery store to help alleviate unnecessary waste. I'm excited, I feel like we're doing whats best for us and as a bonus its also whats best for those around us. Nice.
I didn't weigh myself at my heaviest but I know I lost 5lbs since starting this but I believe it might be as much as 15lbs. I'm looking forward to losing more weight and becoming healthier to boot. The weight isn't the reason I started this little quest but its a nice tagalong.
Maybe the tv is the next to go.. we shall see.
Dirkey

Vegan week Day 3, 4 and 5

Day 3 Veggie Burgers.
When I served these to Jason he said they didn't really remind him of burgers but of crab cakes without the crab. So they are now called uncrabby patties in this house. :)


Day 4-Black Bean Taco's-These were awesome I loved them. It was really tasty!


Day 5- Mushroom Broccoli Quiche. This was pretty good, I want to put more veggies in it next time it was too much. You put firm tofu in the food processor for the quicheness and it tastes like eating really thick ricotta cheese just too much needed something to lighten it up more. Maybe would be a good winter food.

All in all I loved this little experiment. We will be keeping this up!

Burdock=Butt (vegan day 3)

So when I told people that one of my recipe's for this week called for Burdock it was mostly met with crinkled noses and disgust. I don't think I know anyone who regularly eats Burdock so I can see why. I was extremely curious to see how todays dinner would go considering that it called for the Burdock.. Well it suprised me in that it didn't taste like poop, yeah I know I'm a positive thinker. :)
It tasted like you would imagine a piece of root tasting. yum.. but with enough ginger and soy sauce it was decent.


So I started out with ginger and sesame sauce in a pan simmering, then I added some onion until it was transluscent. After this I added some Burdock, Carrots, Mushrooms, Cabbage and simmered these for about 5 minutes. On top of this I added some brown rice and raw broccoli added about 1/4 inch of water and some soy sauce and covered for about 10 minutes. I served warm with some Brown Rice Vinegar. It was pretty good!

Vegan Week-Day 1

So today we went shopping for the vegetarian/vegan week. I didn't actually think of beginning this today but only preparing for doing it tomorrow but I realized that I had a menu planned for tonight. Needless to say today we didn't do vegetarian except for dinner. I made the Samosa's, Schmoop is making lentil soup, and we went without the Cauliflower Veggie thing. I think what I'll do is have the Lentil Soup and the Cauliflower thing for dinner tomorrow as its mostly prepped already.
As far as shopping we ended up getting everything we needed but at times it was a bit comical. One of the recipe's for this week calls for Burdock, needless to say I have no idea what Burdock is. I called my resident hippie kid best friend to ask her and she said she had no idea but it sounded like it tastes like butt. To which I replied, well I guess I'm not inviting you over for dinner that night! I ended up calling my other bff Mama K who googled it and told me it was somewhat of a root, weed type thing. So I wandered around whole foods trying to find a root/weed that I couldn't identify; turns out what I found was the fabled burdock. (I'll let you know how that goes!). There were a bunch of spices we needed since alot of the recipes came from the indian cookbook and I don't have any indian spices save some Curry. We ended up spending about $170 (ouch!!!) but we did get a ton of spices and splurged in areas I don't normally (getting a couple of bottles of juice to help kick the soda habit). I'm happy with what we got, all of it organic and it seems we have a good little pantry going of healthy good for you foods. Alot of the things we will not need to buy weekly so I'm thinking our actual grocery bills might stay the same or decrease since meat is such a pricey commodity. Mostly it will be purchasing the organic produce and replenishing whatever we need in the pantry.

The Samosa's are a potatoey filled pastry that you fry in veggie oil.

I made 20 of them and Schmoop and I downed 2.5 each for dinner as well as a Cilantro Chutney, or Dhania Chutney, that I also made (Cilantro, onion, chili pepper, cumin seeds, lemon juice). The Samosa's have in them potatoes, cumin seeds, ginger, peas, salt, coriander powder, green chili pepper, Mango Powder and Garam Masala (indian spice).


You mix it all together and fry each side about 4 minutes each in veggie oil. I know, I wasn't too big into the frying but they actually are not so bad in the nutritional facts with all the veggies in them (each one has 125 calories, 6 grams of fat, 1 gram of dietary fiber and no cholestorol as per my cookbook). Hee hee the chutney has 1 calorie!

Yum!!!!!

Trying New Things

I was reading in Shelly's Blog about the health benifits and other benifits of going vegitarian/vegan. I brought up to Schmoop a few weeks ago the idea of possibly doing this and he kind of gave me a funny look and went along with his buisiness. It wasn't too big of a deal with me so I let it go. Today Schmoop brought it back up and asked if I was serious about it, if I was he was cool with trying it out. So on the way home I stopped and got a barrage of books to read to start out this week. I ended up doing my whole menu plan from two cookbooks I already have, Cooking the Whole Foods Way by Christina Pirello and New Indian Home Cooking by Madhu Gadia.
On deck for this week we have
Monday: Samosa's, Cauliflower Mixed Vegitables and Lentil Soup
Tuesday: Fried Rice and Veggies
Wednesday: Millet and Veggie Burgers and Grilled Veggies
Thursday: Potatoe Stuffed Roti, Lentil Soup (leftover) and Cauliflower Mixed Vegitables (leftover)
Friday: Mushroom, Brocolli Quiche

I will be preparing what I can on Sunday and will post pictures each day of that days meal. This will be our experiment week, no matter what I know in the future we will have an increase in organic foods and fruits and free reign meats. The whole menu for this weeks dinners are vegan, I will be adding in some dairy for breakfasts, snacks so its not entirely but we'll just see how it goes.