Re-Realizations

So since I have been trying to be more conscious of my nutrition an food intake there have been some changes. Not the really important ones but definitely little ones. A really specific one actually that I took note of a few months ago and re-realized today.

A few months ago a friend asked if i wanted dressing with my salad and I said no. I prefer my salad undressed. She was surprised and asked "don't you think its too dry"? I hadn't thought about it. What I did think about was that I like the taste of vegetables so why try to mask it. I kind of feel that way about cheese and other sauces and dressings as well. I like to spice my food not drench it. I like to taste what it originally should taste like (usually, sometime I get a little heavy with the salt, pepper and cinnamon).

Today I am going to the boyf's house for dinner and am bringing some food just in case. I decided to try out black rice noodles that I picked up on my trip to the natural food store.

I made cinnamon roasted sweet potato and salted broccoli along to go with the noodles and added leftover lentils.

But the meal plan really started with this sauce.
I read about it yesterday and wanted to try it. I am looking for sauces and spreads that don't have tahini in them because I felt really sick after having it a few weeks ago so I am abstaining to see if I have a sensitivity to it. Really I think the problem is that it is so damn tasty that I eat too much of it in one sitting.

So while I was making the food I realized that the sauce will probably mask the flavor of the cinnamon sweet potatoes and that it might just flat out taste bad on the veggies. So I left it on the side and will probably add a little bit or add it bite by bite like I usually do with spreads.

But in general I like that I don't require extras. It makes it a lot easier to get food and stay away from the dairy because if I am having Mexican I want to taste the beans and veggies not the sour cream.

To Eliminate?

Or not.

Now that I know I am not across the board sensitive to fruit and dairy I am back at square one.

It seems I will need to do some eliminating and testing. As of now I am on a no dairy, no gluten diet. I also haven't have sesame seeds/tachina since July 14. I also haven't had peanut butter in I don't know how long. I have decided to stay away form dried fruit aside from raisins and cranberries.

I guess the next step is to try something more serious like certain fruit or night shades. The only fruit right now that is available that is on the list of "inflammatories" is pineapple which I could live without. I could also cut out is processed sugar. yikes. I basically do this already. Up until last week when I started baking I hadn't really made anything that had sugar. I haven't had white or brown sugar in months. I have had honey, maple and agave. I am sure I can find substitutes using fruit and unsweetened fruit products. We'll see if our budget can handle it. Some days I feel like such a burden because I can live without dessert but should I have to. I am striving to live a healthier lifestyle than those I live with and than what my budget can handle. I guess that means I am going to live without.

Away today was another day of not really being hungry but eating a bunch.
after drinking 25 grams of fruit sugar (woah, it was super sweet, I think I got a cavity and I think it made me a bit hyper) and finding out I am not allergic to fruit sugar I had more fruit. Probably not the smartest move. I had an energy bar and quinoa, pecan butter, pineapple and mango. Then when I got home I sort of snacked for the rest of the day. Had one rice cake with pecan butter before working out.

Then at around 4 I felt weak/hungry sort of so I had leftover green quinoa salad. I also had a few grapes. We had people over for dinner and I didn't think I was going to be hungry but I had some room for salad so that is what I ate for dinner. Then as a little prize/treat I had a chickpea blondie. I felt bloated like normal today.

White Night (and Day)

My second food sensitivity test was moved up to tomorrow. YAY, now I don't have to miss Hebrew.

That means today is white rice and white potatoes.

Instead I'll post about my success in Pecan Butter making.

I have been struggling with my nut making projects. None of them (sunflower, almond and cashew) came out the way I wanted. Gooey. They all ended up thick and crumbly. Don't get me wrong, they were tasty and I ate them but when I was in America I learned that store bought nut butter can stay thin and spreadable and dippable.

Finally with pecans, it worked. My food processor works much better with nuts that are roasted so I roasted the new batch of pecans I bought. After they cooled I put 2 cups in the food processor and let'er go. Within 2 minutes it was butter. I was over the moon. It needed to be flavored and this is where I messed it up a bit because I am into adding flax to everything these days. I added a tablespoon of cinnamon, flax and agave. It got thicker obvs because I added stuff to it but I didn't want to add oil to make thin again so I whirred it a few more times and then decided to let it be. Next time I'll just add some sweetener and no powdered stuff. But it is really tasty and still more spreadable then my sunflower butter.

I also did this workout this morning which was a bit on the easy side. Next time maybe 3 rounds would be more challenging. But I was exhausted this morning so an easier workout was probably better. Especially since I found out about a half an hour later that I can't have coffee or tea today.

More successful experiments

I made another batch of energy bars. LOVE THEM!

I also made these with a little variation. I didn't have nut butter so I used applesauce. They didn't fully cook in the middle (which is fine since they can be eaten raw and the recipe says to put them in the fridge) but maybe its because of the applesace. Next time I want to try with a nut butter and with less sugar and more fruit jam. They taste sweet but not much else. They are tasty though.

And I made a tasty salad since it waaaay to hot to cook for reals, especially right  before I want to eat. Everything in the salad is cooked but tasty cold. Maybe it's just me but I like food cold even if it was originally hot.

Green Quinoa Salad

1/2 cup quinoa
1/4 cup green lentils
2 cups brussel sprouts
2 cups green beans
ground garlic
salt
olive oil

1. cook lentils and quinoa. Mix and then spread onto a baking sheet to cool. (I also added flax meal and nutritional yeast)

2. coat brussel sprouts and green beans in olive oil, salt and garlic. Roast at 180 C for about a half an hour or until browned.

3. Set aside to cool.
4. when everything has cooled, mix and put in fridge until ready to serve.

The rest of today was an energy bar before the gym, an amazing strength class, a nectarine green smoothie, a few pieces of cucumber from the salad I made yesterday, A taste on a rice cake of the cinnamon pecan butter I made (also a new success!), and some roasted nuts. Mostly today was picking and tasting but I did't do much so it got me through the day. And I didn't overeat which is a success in itself

Eats and Sweats

Monday - Wednesday was on seminars and was stressed and HOT! so no appetite and bad food to eat made me miserable.

Decided I needed an overhaul which unfortunately won't quite work because I am running another seminar this weekend which means no control over food and stress. Mostly I need to keep working on portion control and have appropriate snacks just in case (but not binge on the snacks)

Today I woke up and did some yoga. I realized even 30 minutes of yoga in the morning makes me feel so good. I need to keep doing this.

Met the boyf  for breakfast and wasn't super hungry and had already decided I wanted to have a smoothie for breakfast so I got a mango-strawberry with soy milk smoothie. And I broke me 2 week streak with an iced soy latte. I HAD TO! I also had a few bites of his Israeli salad.

Then I got home and trolled the internet and did some work and got a bit hungry. I decided that I need to be basing a lot of meals with rice or another good grain because it does help with my digestion. I had some buckwheat from forever ago that I have wanted to use so I made that. Then I added a couple spoonfuls to the last of the almond butter and added a handful of raisins. YUM.

Then I  made these again. They are wonderful and finally something worked. I tried another gluten free dessert which didn't quite work because I am dumb and added quadruple the amount of honey so i needed to alter the recipe to make up for that mistake. It didn't bake but good thing it can also be eaten raw. Let's see what happens after it sits in the fridge for a bit. I want to try it again the right way next time.

After my baking exploits I did Bodyrock.  It has been really hard lately probably because of the heat. I almost didn't finish the workout but I pushed through and I am really proud that I did seeing as I did zero working out all week, just a ton of sweating cause its been at least 90 all day every day.

Feeling much better today than I have in awhile

In the dumps

Things are not improving and I am feeling pretty alone. Partly because the house is so empty and I am pretty busy and stressed. I have no improvements on my eating habits, sleeping or how I feel. I have no idea what my stomach is going to want day to day or how to plan for it.

I tried 2 new recipes this week and both failed. Why can't I just cook a freaking veggie burger. Also twice this week I messed up the quinoa tortilla pancake. It's pretty much the easiest thing to make.

I am worried about next week because I will be at the mercy of outside food. I feel like I need to bring my whole kitchen just in case.

Basically I am feeling really down and don't know what to do about it.

Good New Bad News

Good News: my stomach felt kind of better today
Bad News: all I ate was white rice and white potato

Having an allergy test tomorrow and the conditions is that the day before you can only eat white rice, white potato, chicken and fish (the last 2 i don't eat).

Positives: I like not having to think about my meal. I definitely would have liked more flavor but I think having too many choices and wanting to cook so many things and use so many ingredients stresses me out and forces me to overeat. I am going to try to make dishes that include minimal ingredients which I think should also help me pinpoint what aggravates and what doesn't. Although at this point I am bloated all the time no matter what I eat so it probably has a lot to do with quantity.