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Friday, January 9, 2015

Vegan Cheesy Chili Potato!!! (#Kosher, #Pareve, #Gluten Free!)


Lunch Time!
I had some of the Butternut Squash Chili left over from my last batch.  It gets better as it gets older, you know. So I washed a potato, wrapped it in paper towel and microwaved it on high for 7 minutes. Split the potato and fluff it up a little with a fork.  Spoon on the chili and put a half slice of 
Daiya Cheddar Cheese Substitute on each half.  Garnish with slices of Jalapeno, Pop it back in the microwave for 30 seconds and TaDah!!!  Lunch!
Enjoy the lack of gluten Ann and Mimi!!!



Sunday, January 4, 2015

Simply Veggies! ( KISS Philosophy )

Keeping It Sriracha Simple!  Wash some brussel sprouts, snap peas and chopped kale, slice a carrot, celery, orange and red mini sweet peppers and a sweet potato.  Toss it all with a little salt and crushed red peppers.  Bake it covered at 400* for an hour.  Sprinkle it with  little Sriracha sauce and enjoy!

Friday, January 2, 2015

Beanless, Veggie Chili for lunch at the office!


Cook it up in a crock pot on the weekend. Microwave it at the office and enjoy the heck out of it! Plenty of time to eat healthy. 
Contains butternut squash, kale, spinach and other good things!
My nose is sweating! 

Thursday, January 1, 2015

One Year and One Day. Still a Vegan! Roasted Veggies!

Roasted Veggies with Quinoa
     New Year's Day, 2015.  I got hungry.  A potato, a beet, some broccoli, brussel sprouts, a carrot, an onion, some chopped kale, stop light peppers and shredded yellow squash seasoned with herbs of province roasted in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes. A side of Quinoa cooked with a little salt and pepper and lunch is served!
Roasted Veggies with Ghost Chili
     Same idea, different combination, much hotter.  Look around, see what's on hand and get started.
     Its a new year. What a great time to make a change!

One Year a Vegan!

Happy New Year!


     This is the One Year anniversary of my resolution changing over to a totally plant based diet. Its been a surprisingly simple thing to do and the general benefits have been marvelous.
     The 70 lbs that I've lost, the improvement in my blood chemistry, my lowered blood pressure and reduction of medication, feeling of well being, absence of knee and back pain all directly associated with this tiny change. I honestly haven't made any other changes.
     This years resolution for me is to learn something new every day and to remember what I already know:
     My family is everything and I need to stay as healthy as possible so we can enjoy every day together!          
Happy Healthy New Year Everyone!      
Fall 2013



New Year's Eve 2015



Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Veggie Dinner (How To) No added oil or sugar.


Happy December everyone!  Its getting cold so let's make some hot soup.  I'm thinking vegetable.  Better yet, let's make a hot meal!
Since you're not sure about the whole vegan thing, let's just make a hot meal that's plant based instead (wink wink).
So let's begin. First take everything that isn't a plant, seed, vegetable, fruit or nut and don't use it. Since you have a heart, let's respect it and leave out oil as well.  Humor me. We'll get wild with salt or something.

Here's what I used:
1 small onion chopped, 2 cloves garlic chopped, 2 stalks celery and 2 carrots sliced into sticks, 2 stalks kale chopped, 1 head romaine lettuce chopped, 1 red pepper cut into sticks, one bunch of asparagus, one cup of snap peas chopped, 1 inch of fresh ginger pealed and chopped, 6 fresh dates pitted and chopped, a big handful of black bean noodles, 1/2 cup Quinoa, smoked paprika, sea salt, cayenne pepper, 1/2 cup nutritional yeast.

Toast the onions and garlic. Cook the Quinoa with a pinch of salt.  Add the toasted onions and garlic.  Cover and set aside.
Roast the red pepper sticks and set aside.

Steam the asparagus, salt to taste.  Set aside.

Boil the black bean noodles with a little salt in 4 cups of water.  Keep the water.

In a large pot bring 2 cups of water to a boil with the sea salt, about 3 dashes of Cayenne pepper, a tsp of smoked paprika, a pinch of rosemary and all the stuff that has yet to be cooked in the above list.  Bring it back to a boil and then reduce the heat to simmer covered for an hour.  Add the noodles along with the water they were cooked in. Simmer for another 20 minutes uncovered to reduce the water.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Put 2 cups of the soup with noodles in a bowl. Top with a TBS of nutritional yeast.

Arrange the asparagus on a plate with the roasted red peppers, some of the cooked veggies strained from the soup and the Quinoa.  Sprinkle it with a little rosemary and you've got a meal!
Each bowl of soup with 2 oz of black bean noodles contains 25 grams of protein.
Half a cup of Quinoa with a cup of asparagus is an additional 16 grams of protein.
That's a meal!  I'm stuffed.
Enjoy!

Thursday, November 27, 2014

11 Months A Vegan - Blood Work


Blood work doesn't lie.  These are my results with my current numbers on the left and my old numbers from 8 months ago on the right.   Everything good got better!  I was already on a plant based diet for almost 3 months when the 1st lab work was done and the results were already really good. 

I used to take Zocor (Simvastin) 40 mg daily to keep my cholesterol under 200.

The problem was that after several years on Statins, my joints and muscles were hurting.  Going off the medicine and eating healthier dropped my total cholesterol from the the 190's to the 170's in 3 months. Now, after 11 months its 147!  No more aches.

MY BAD CHOLESTEROL (LDL) WENT DOWN AND MY GOOD CHOLESTEROL (HDL) WENT UP!
Note my Very Low Density Lipoprotein (VLDL), the really bad stuff that can lead to plaque formation, heart attack and stroke went from low at 18 to off the scale low at 13! That means my arteries are now virtually self cleaning.  In other words, any damage I did to my arteries during the 1st 58 years of my life is now capable of reversing itself WITH NO MEDICATION!
That bears repeating. My 58 years of an Omnivore diet with high cholesterol, high blood pressure and the associated damage to my circulatory system is being REVERSED in less than a year with no medication and no surgery.

More numbers:
Blood Pressure before without meds was 149/94.
With meds it went down to 124/84.  Not bad, but when I would bend down and stand up suddenly I would frequently get light headed.
Now with no meds its 112/72 and I don't get light headed.

My weight went from the embarrassing highest ever of 274 lbs down to 202 lbs.
My waist went from 44 to 36.
My neck was an 18.5 and now its 17.
Things keep getting better and better!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Eat, Drink and be Merry!
(Mostly plants and very little oil)