Last week I blogged about what I ate, with a weight loss slant. I continued with my oil-free cooking (ie not using oil from a bottle), no bread/pasta/crappy carbs eating this past week as well as continuing to cut out sugars (apart from fruit), watching my portion sizes and not giving in to my ‘inner Labrador’– that woofy voice that tells to me sniff around the kitchen for tidbits all day long.
So last week I was pretty happy with my loss of 1.5kg/3.3lbs (I’m recording my weight here weekly for interested parties!) but I’m not a person who goes much by numbers on the scale. I care about how my clothes fit, how I feel and how un-bloated I look! Scale readings can be dodgy from one day to the next, though I have been weighing daily in case I one day decide to put those numbers up publicly somewhere for some reason. Truthfully, I don’t care for daily weighing, happy to do weekly but for me monthly is where I would probably get a more accurate idea of how I’m going. I’m also not counting calories, weighing or measuring food at this point while I do have quite a lot of body fat to lose. Once my stupid feet injuries are history and I begin training again when I have (hopefully!) lost lotsa fat, that’s when I’ll begin paying more attention to eating for fuel and recovery. For now, I’m just getting myself back in to healthier eating habits that I can maintain daily long term.
This week I have lost 900g (1.98lbs), making a total weight loss of 2.4kg (5.2lbs) in two weeks. I’m not doing anything strictly though I do prefer to use fruit in smoothies at breakfast time and not during the day. I’m avoiding using oil and throughout the day I keep a mental note of where I’ve eaten fats. I’m drinking more water too and not eating sweets though as you will see below, going out to dinner is the exception to the rule!
Okay, this week’s foodie goodness!
On Monday we had Easter lunch at my mum and dad’s house. I’m avoiding things like rice and potatoes at home but I put a little on my plate along with some black pepper tofu. Look at me having an okay portion size. In other words, measly. Mum had made some stuffed vine leaves and dip made with roasted red peppers, eggplant, walnut and garlic:
Dessert was the Banana Coconut Pie I made from one of Brendan Brazier’s Thrive books:
That morning’s early breakfast was a smoothie made with a hemp milk, banana, a few greens, orange and lemon:
On Easter Sunday DeeW fell over at a park and broke her arm in one, possibly two places. Husband and I decided that DeeW and I should stay with my parents for a couple of days, just to allow her to chill out a bit more and also be closer to the hospital if she needed to go back for some reason. This meant I had to go back home and scramble fast, like Goose and Maverick, to get all my gear together for a sleepover. This included taking one of those big plastic storage tubs on wheels, carrying my blender, meals I’d cooked for the week, nooch, hemp protein, dressings, stuff from the veggie crisper drawers and canned beans.
I had (over) sauteed some kale and pak choy in water then added in a small batch of red quinoa I’d previously cooked and frozen. I wanted to add this to meals throughout the week. First up was a variation of the Pizza Bowl from Isa Does It. I roasted some eggplant using only a little olive oil spray and well, this makes the eggplant turn out all dry and blergh. I already had a little amount of pasta sauce in the fridge I’d made for DeeW, using an Aldi ‘Just Organic’ pasta sauce with some spinach and lentils added. To that, I followed the Isa Does It recipe for the sauce and I add a small handful of raw cashews, a bottled roasted red pepper a tablespoon of tomato paste that had been in the fridge for almost-too-long, veggie broth and lemon juice. I forgot to soak the cashews, because when I use my power blender I don’t have to soak. But I forgot I was using my food processor when I threw cashews in to the mix, so they didn’t mix well (couldn’t mix them in the blender because there wasn’t enough sauce and it would have gathered under the blender blades). The Isa Does It recipe uses vegan sausage but I used the roasted eggplant and some of Johanna’s Tomato Nut Roast with Buckwheat that I had frozen. This was quite a filling meal though next time I’d want to follow the Isa Does It recipe to the letter… because here you can see the bits of cashews that didn’t whizz up well:
Another Isa Does It recipe was the Citrus Tahini bowl. Here, I marinated some firmer tofu overnight in sesame oil (less than what the recipe states, a couple of drops were enough for flavour), orange juice, lime juice, soy sauce, garlic and ginger (I leave out the sweet stuff like agave or maple syrup). The leftover marinade is mixed with tahini and used as a dressing. I served this over those overcooked greens and the not-very-good roasted eggplant. Yum!
A breakfast smoothie was made with fresh figs, banana, plant milk, cinnamon and hemp protein. I can’t find my photo but it was delicious.
Mum cooked up some big bean things with carrot and potato. I wasn’t very hungry when I ate this because I’d just had those dolmades, so this isn’t my usual dinner. Because there’s not enough of it:
I asked Mum if she could make some of her Greek lentil soup without oil and with all the leftover veggie bits we had. So this soup is made with brown lentils, onion, a bit of garlic, carrots, broccoli stems and kale. I admit that taste wise, this isn’t that fab because the olive oil is what adds that spark. But I kinda feel that every now and then I need something that’s just a simple healthy food, without needing loads of flavour. I need to break out of the mindset I have when it comes to food, I want everything to be fantastic and hate bland boring stuff, even if I know a dish is really good for me. In other words, I’m a spoilt foodie brat. As in, if I’m really hungry and whining about having nothing to eat because we’re going shopping the next day, Husband will suggest I eat toast. And then the scene looks like this:
Anyway, here’s the soup. I had this many times:
I’ve been in a quiche craving mood lately so I decided to try these fab looking Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. After reading through the comments I decided to use a packet of the Morinaga tofu that you find in the non-refrigerated aisles. It seems that using soft or silken tofu that we get here in Australia would not result in a ‘set’ quiche. I thought I had the same problem when I tried to take a quiche or two (or three…) out of the mould after they’d cooled down to warm, but when I let the rest cool completely they came out of the moulds fine. I really liked these but predictably, my fussy family didn’t. I’m going to use the filling recipe as a base for lots of other stuff. I have some vegan vol au vent cases that may work:
This is the non-weight-lossy bit. Friday was ANZAC Day here in Australia and we usually always make ANZAC biscuits. Traditionally they contain butter which can be replaced with a vegan alternative, but this year I looked up healthy vegan versions online. I found one using almonds and coconut oil, but I won’t link to it because it was a bit blergh. I ended up adding some Nutellex because the amount of coconut oil wasn’t enough and I didn’t want to use up the little bit I have remaining. This year I used maple extract instead of vanilla, just for something different. I wouldn’t call them ANZAC biscuits at all, as ANZAC biscuits are something that stand on their own and healthier versions like this are just too different to even call themselves ANZAC biscuits. I’d say the ones I made should be called coconut almond biscuits:
Another non-weight-lossy bit was dinner at Loving Hut on ANZAC Day. All healthy bets are off when it comes to meals out! Though I did factor in what I’d eaten that day and that I had about four meals worth of lentil-veg oil free soup at home to make up for it all a bit! I had some of the fried entrees (spring roll, crumbed prawns. I ordered Husband the wrong spring rolls and he had one and didn’t like it much so I had the two leftovers…) Then for my main I decided on the spicy lemongrass chicken with vermicelli noodles and a lemongrass dressing. The bowl was loaded with mint and coriander which I love and some some salad ingredients. The flavours were great but it was pretty spicy. The ‘chicken’ was layers of (possibly) bean curd sheets and was quite chewy. I only ate a bit because I was already full and took the rest home to have for lunch the next day. Aaaaand I maaaay have ordered the salted caramel coconut ice cream by Zebra Dream…
I saw plantains in a supermarket and decided to try them out. I’ve never had them before and see so many American recipes using them:
I had no idea what to do so I followed instructions for slicing the plantains in to 2mm slices, spraying with a little oil, then a little salt and lemon juice then bake. They looked nothing like the photos of roasted plantains. I didn’t like them at all so I think an expert has to prepare them for me next time:
Okay, that’s about it. I’ve just realised I haven’t got any meals prepared in advance for this week and I haven’t sat down to flip through cook books. Apart from that lentil soup. I have one plantain left so I guess I should do something with that as well as all the veggies. I’ll probably end up with a veggie and chickpea/bean curry and I’d love to replicate the meal I had up there at Loving Hut.
Hope you all have a fabulous Monday!
Although I enjoy smoothies for a quick easy breakfast, I decided to try pancakes. AHA! I hear you say. Pancakes on a diet? Oh Veganopoulous, you crazy kid! Well! I made the blueberry pancakes from 
The pizza was okay and not bland, though I feel the toppings were on the light side. I also picked up the Vege2Go blueberry pear breakfast quinoa as it was half price. That can be tomorrow’s breakfast.
veganopoulous.com <-- I've moved here! 
