Cuban Black Beans And Rice

Up to now my exercising still leaves much to be desired, so far it's been limited to walking. One trip with Lola, about 15 minutes total and that's with stops at every little thing she wanted to sniff, not a big success. And one walk with Gilles, much better since he has no sniffing obligations ;)) One hour, 4 km.

I've been wanting to join the gym with Katrina but my shoulder (I have Calcific Tendonitis) is starting to act up again and most likely I will need to have a procedure called "Lavage" in September or October. That should be fun. Under x-ray or ultrasound (not sure which) they insert a needle into the shoulder area with the calcium build up and blast it loose, then the insert another needle to suck out the pieces.... doesn't that sound like fun!:-SS  Anyway, for now I'm supposed to take it easy which is a real PITA!!

Well, life goes on....

Last night we had Cuban Black beans and Rice. To me it's like a comfort food. In Cuba it's called Moros y Cristianos - Moors and Christians and it's a staple dish there. Once it's on my plate I mix everything up real good and it looks nothing like the picture below LOL!

You can use regular sour cream or try it with a vegan version. If you're going to do the vegan version, don't forget to use the agave syrup.

Cuban Black Beans And Rice

Serves 4-6

* Ingredients:

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 ½ teaspoons chili powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
2 cans (19 ounces each) black beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups vegetable broth

2 tbs. honey or agave syrup
1 bay leaf, broken in half
1 cup raw long-grain brown rice

2 cups water

2 tsp. canola oil or margarine

2 teaspoons red or white wine vinegar

Salsa

Sour cream or tofutti brand mock sour cream

* Directions:

Heat the oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven. Add the onion and
green pepper and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally,
until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the
garlic, chili powder, and cumin and cook, stirring, for 1 minute
until fragrant. Add the beans, broth, honey, and bay
leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer,
uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the beans have thickened to
a sauce like consistency, about 30 minutes. Remove the pieces of bay
leaf. (The beans can be made 2 days ahead to this point and
refrigerated. Reheat before proceeding.)

Meanwhile, bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a medium-sized
saucepan. Add the rice. Reduce the heat to low, and cook, covered,

until the rice becomes tender and absorbs the water, about 30 minutes.
Stir the vinegar into the beans. To serve, ladle the beans over or

alongside the rice. Pass a bowl of salsa and sour cream so

everyone can spoon some over the top.

Russian Cabbage Soup

So today looks like it's going to be a lazy day. Kinda looks like it's going to rain on and off so I'm going to make soup. Another one of those things I could eat 'til I burst but I will do my best not to :oP

My grandma taught my mom to make this and my mom sort of taught me, I say sort of because she couldn't remember exactly but I used the internet to fill in the blanks and it pretty much tastes like I remember it.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar but today I'm going to try using Splenda and see how it turns out.

I'll let you all know this afternoon.....

edit: Splenda works great! woo hoo! :o)

Russian Cabbage Soup

Ingredients:

1 small onion, sliced thinly (80 gr.)

1 tbs. canola oil (15 gr.)

1 medium carrot sliced thinly (100 gr.)

1 small cabbage chopped (800-1000 gr.)

 48oz. cans Heinz tomato juice

2 tbs. Cyrches Vegetarian Chicken broth (10 gr.)

2 tsp. salt (10 gr.)

1/4 tsp. white pepper

2 cups water

1 cup sugar (240 gr.)
or
* 24 gr. granulated Splenda (about 3/4 cup)

Method:

Heat oil in a large pot and add onions. Cook until softened and add carrots and cabbage. Mix well until coated with oil. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat to low and simmer for 1 hour.

*If you're using Splenda, Add about 15 minutes after you're finished cooking the soup to let it cool slightly.

 

Ramen Soup

Ohayou! (Japanese for good morning)

Today I'm going to tell you how I make Japanese Ramen. It's actually a very touchy subject in Japan but we're not there so, he're my westernized version/s.
For 1 serving I start with 2 cups water and vegetarian chicken broth, put it in a pot and bring to a boil.

In Japan the broth is the most important part of the soup and my version is in no way comparable and likely to cause their hair to stand on end :o) For that I'm sorry...

Anyway on with the show...
Once boiling, add one slab of japanese instant noodles. Not the small packets of instant ramen, those are really fattening (12 grams of fat per packet!) The ones I'm talking about are available in the Asian section of your grocery store and contain only 1 gram of fat per slab. It comes in an 8 slab package:

At the same time add 1/4 of a thinly sliced carrot and one egg to the noodles. Cook for about 8 minutes. Meanwhile in a large Japanese soup bowl, add 1/2 cup of frozen corn, 1 thinly sliced mushroom and one nugget of frozen spinach. Remove the boiled egg from the pot and pour the noodles and carrot into the bowl. The heat of the soup will thaw the corn and spinach and at the same time cool the soup a bit. Peel the egg, slice in half and add to the soup. Sprinkle with a few drops of sesame oil (optional) and voila!
You can leave out the egg for a vegan version and add a few vegetable pot stickers instead. Also a sprinkle of chinese 5 spice gives it a bit of added flavour if you can find it.

Sayonara!

Pasta Primavera

Here we are, Monday morning, weigh in day...

I did well all week, and I did snack in the evening but I watched what I was snacking on. Exercise.... I really have to work on that, one week, one walk, that's really bad! Lola enjoyed it :o)

so the weigh in... drum roll please... 155.5! down 2 pounds :o)

Pasta Primavera

enough pasta for 4

1 jar Pasta sauce

2 tbs. olive oil

4 cloves garlic, quartered

1 zucchini, cut in 4 lengthwise and into 1" pieces

1/4 each red, yellow and orange peppers, cut into 1" pieces

1 cup broccoli florets

5 mushrooms, quartered

1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives

salt and pepper

1/2 tsp. dried basil

Cook pasta and heat the sauce.

In a large deep skillet, heat the oil and add garlic, sauté until lightly browned. Add the remaining vegetables and sauté over medium high heat until cooked but still slightly crunchy. Add seasoning and serve over pasta and sauce.

Perfect Seitan & Seitan Piccata

Woo-hoo! One day until weigh-in. I think I've done pretty good this week, I still need to curb my evening snacking but all in all I think I did fine. :o) So on with our regularly scheduled program...

Today I'm going to babble about Seitan. I love the stuff! It can be barbecued, sauteed or pan fried and it picks up whatever flavours you can throw at it, so what is it exactly?

Seitan is a vegetarian or vegan meat substitute made with wheat gluten, the protein in wheat which has been separated from the grain. High in protein and low in carbohydrates, seitan is an ideal meat replacement that can be made at home. While making seitan from scratch is a pretty time consuming job, it can also be prepared by purchasing vital wheat gluten, and either boiling or baking the mixture.

Most health food store carry gluten in small 1 pound bags.

Perfect Seitan

serves 6

mix together with a whisk:

200 gr. vital wheat gluten

25 gr. nutritional yeast

5 gr. salt

6 gr. paprika

4 gr. powdered vegetarian chicken broth

1 gr. pepper

2 gr. garlic powder

In a measuring cup mix:

275 grams water

30 olive oil

Add liquid to dry ingredients and knead for 2 minutes, shape into a log about 6-7" long and roll in a sheet of cheese cloth and tie the ends closed leaving a bit of room for expansion.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the seitan roll. Lower heat to medium low and simmer for 1 hour. Let cool, unwrap and slice into 12 equal pieces.

 

 after slicing...

And here's just one of the many recipes you can prepare with it:

Seitan Piccata

serves 2

4 slices seitan

2 tsp. olive oil (10gr.)

2 tsp. vegan margarine (10gr.)

2 tbs. almond milk (30gr.)

1/4 cup flour (30gr.)

1 tsp. paprika

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/4 tsp. salt

2 tbs. chopped onions (25gr.)

1 clove garlic, chopped

3/4 cup white wine (187gr.)

2 mushrooms, sliced thin (40gr.)

1 tsp. capers (5gr.)

3 tbs. lemon juice (45gr.)

1 tbs. cornstarch (8gr.)

1 tsp. Cyrches vegetable broth (7gr.)

3/4 cup water

Small handful of chopped fresh parsley

Mix flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a small dish. Dip seitan slices in the almond milk and then dredge in flour mix. Heat the oil and margarine in a pan. Fry the seitan slices until golden brown on both sides, remove from pan and set aside.

In the same pan add onion and garlic and sauté until soft. Add wine, mushrooms and caper and cook until reduced by 1/2. Add lemon juice and reduce again but just slightly.

Mix together water, cornstarch and vegetable broth and add to pan. Cook until thickened and return the seitan to the pan to heat, turning once. Add parsley and serve over rice or with a baked potato.

Weez's Quinoa Taboulé

Today I thought I'd talk about fresh tomatoes, I hate them! LOL... Now here's the weird part, I love spaghetti sauce, ketchup, sliced tomatoes on a pizza, any tomato that's cooked but I just can't eat them fresh. Believe me, I've tried to reason with myself about them and I've even sat down at the table with a sliced tomato on a plate saying to myself "OK, you're a big girl now, so today you're going to eat a fresh tomato" It goes in and comes right back out, skeebie jeebies and all... YUCK!! I wish I could overcome this tomato thing but I think at my age, it's not happening.

So in the following recipe where there should be tomatoes, instead there's peppers! :oD

*Weez's Quinoa Taboulé

1/2 cup quinoa (115gr.)

1 cup water

1 small clove garlic, chopped finely

1 tbs. onion chopped finely (5gr.)

1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley (50gr.)

3/4 cups bell peppers chopped (100gr.)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

1 tbs. oil

2 tbs. lemon juice

Rinse the quinoa and drain well. Add to a small pot with water, bring to a boil and lower heat to low, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for about 30 minutes uncovered. Add remaining ingredients to a large bowl and stir in cooled quinoa.

*Weez is me, Louise. Every little kid that's tried to pronounce my name has always said "Weez" so it stuck.

So I was looking at my smoothie post..... hmmm, leaves much to be desired, so I'm re-posting with a pic and a few comments on the side.

Tropical Smoothie

100 grams bananas

100 grams pineapple

3/4 cup vanilla coconut milk* (180gr.)

throw it all in a blender and Voila!! Mmmmmm

* not the canned coconut milk, see link.

You don't have to use coconut milk if you can't find it, you can use almond milk, soy milk or plain old dairy milk but the coconut milk gives it that tropical flavour you can't get from the others.

Nutrition Facts and Analysis for Tropical Smoothie



Baba Gannouj.... what the hell is that?

It seems not everyone knows what it is which is a shame and yesterday I decided instead of buying it I'd try to whip some up myself. I was surprised how easy it was!
It's a semi creamy mix of cooked eggplant, lemon juice and tahini that you can use as a dip or a spread. There are variations but I made mine with onions and garlic for extra flavour.

This isn't the best picture, I got lazy with presentation but this is what it looks like:

Baba Gannouj

2 medium eggplants, about 1-1/4 pounds each

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

3 tbs. olive oil

60 gr. tahini* paste

60 gr. lemon juice

1/4 cup of lightly chopped fresh parsley

1/2 tsp. or more salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

smoked or plain paprika

Preheat oven to 400f. Bake the 2 eggplants directly on the oven rack (place a foil lined cookie sheet to catch drippings on the rack below) for about 1 hour turning every 20 minutes.

Let cool for about 20 minutes and cut lengthwise and scoop out as many seeds as possible. Scoop out remaining flesh leaving out the skin. Place in a sieve and let drain for about 10-15 minutes.

Cook the onion in 1 tbs. of the olive oil on low heat, let them caramelize and during the last 2 minutes add the garlic.

Add the eggplant, onion, garlic, 1 tbs. olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, parsley, salt and pepper to a food processor and process until almost smooth. It's ok to leave it a bit lumpy.

Pour into a serving dish and sprinkle with paprika and drizzle with the remaining tbs. olive oil. Or put it in an airtight container... YUM!

*You can get Tahini at the health food store, it's made with sesame seeds and pours like liquidy peanut butter.

Kale Chips

If you've never had them you don't know what you're missing! At first they're kinda weird but they grow on you and next thing you know you can't stop stuffing them in your pie hole!! :oD

Kale is also one of the healthiest greens you can find, with so many benefits including cholesterol-lowering ability, cancer prevention, anti-inflammatory benefits and tons of vitamins and minerals... you just can't go wrong.

I get mine at the health food store (AKA the granola store :oP) They have it in big bunches and it comes in a large clear plastic bag which comes in really handy when you make the chips.

Kale Chips

1 large bunch of fresh kale

2 tsp. olive or canola oil

sea salt

Preheat oven to 275f.

Wash the kale (and the plastic bag, dry it and keep it for the next step) cuz even if it's from the health food store, there is still some form of pesticides on it. Then shake off excess water and tear off the spine from each leaf and put the pieces back in the bag. Drizzle in the oil and sprinkle in the salt (you don't need alot, about 1/8 tsp. should be enough) Close up the bag and give it a good shake to distribute the salt and oil. Spread on a large baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes. They're done when the kale is very crispy.

Whatever you do, don't forget to brush your teeth after snacking on these or you'll get alot of funny looks! :oD

Vegan Shepherd's Pie

My niece just landed in France with her dad this morning so my sister and I are off to Ikea to get her a few accessories to redecorate her room. She gets to come home to a new bedroom, lucky kid :o)

So here I am, 6:50am, my eyes barely unglued. I think I'm going to try my new soy coffee creamer......
Hmm, not bad, a little fattening but not horribly so,

So Nice for Coffee

All Righty Then! :oD
Tonight we're having Vegan Shepherd's Pie, for me it's a love hate thing, I LOVE the dish itself but I HATE that there's leftovers because I can't stay away from it. It's one of those things that I could keep eating til it hurts and still keep eating, and the same goes for Sweet Russian Cabbage Soup. I need to learn portion control with certain things!

Vegan Shepherd's Pie

1 pkg. Yves Veggie Ground Round

1 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

15 gr. vegan margarine or vegetable oil

Heat the margarine in a large nonstick pan, add onions and cook til soft and lightly browned, add garlic and ground round and keep cooking for 3-4 minutes.

Continued: 

300 gr. (2 cups) of mixed frozen veggies (I like the peas,corn and carrot mix)

1 cup water

25 gr. Cyrches Brown Gravy Mix

Mix water and gravy mix together and add to ground round, then add veggies and continue cooking for about 5 minutes over medium-low heat. Pour into a 9x9 casserole and cover with mashed potatoes*

Mashed Potatoes*

4 large potatoes

20 gr. vegan margarine

almond or soy milk

Peel and cook potatoes, drain and and return to pot. Add margarine and mash. Add enough almond or soy milk to make creamy. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Summer Bean Salad

Good morning all! Another gorgeous day! Lots of yard work to get done this morning before it gets too hot. Mostly it's weeding, damn I hate weeds.... You yank them out and by the time you're done you turn around and there's just as many! Why won't my plants grow that fast and healthy???

Yesterday I tried to behave with my junk food intake but Gilles (hubby) just kept saying he wanted ice cream, or poutine and even a hamburger and this was right after diner! He's beginning to sound like someone I know (you know who you are.... Dan! :oD) I did make him a strawberry shortcake which he loved....and no, I didn't have one........

Today I'm making a bean salad, it's actually really yummy, lot's of crunchy veggies and of course beans. I will warn all of you who are following for recipes, you'll need to go out and get yourselves a good food scale cuz I make all my recipes with one, I hate measuring cups! :o)

Summer Bean Salad

1- 540ml can of mixed beans, drained and rinsed

300 gr. frozen corn, no need to thaw

150 gr. bell peppers, chopped

100 gr. celery, chopped

100 gr. grated carrots

50 gr. lemon juice

30 gr. olive or canola oil

Mix in a big bowl and refrigerate for an hour or two before serving.

I used yellow carrots and 4 different colors of peppers for added color.

OK, time to go make coffee and drag my butt outside.
Have a nice day! :o)

Tropical Smoothie

It's a beautiful sunny day, sitting here sipping a coffee and a fruit smoothie at the same time...

for anyone interested, here's my recipe for today's concoction:

Tropical Smoothie

100 grams bananas

100 grams pineapple

3/4 cup coconut milk*

throw it all in a blender and Voila!! Mmmmmm

* not the canned coconut milk, see link.

We're off to the clinic to meet my Mom's new Doctor, I hope she likes her.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, yes, today is Monday but I'm not going to weigh myself since it's only been one day, we'll save that for next Monday.

Where to start....

To make it simple I'm fat! I'm at an age where I'm worrying about all sorts of health problems. I was told 15 years ago that if I didn't lose weight I would be dealing with diabetes 10 years down the road.
Hmmm... do the math, not complicated, I should have developed diabetes 5 years ago....

I've been lucky so far but I know it's going to run out sooner or later. Of course there are those who like to say "you gotta die of something" which I think is stupid reasoning but those are the people who don't want to deal with their issues and prefer to sit back and wait for something horrible to happen to them.

So here I am, starting a blog about blubber! I'll be including recipes whenever I can so try to check in as often as possible.

I'm 5'1" and weighed in at 157.5 this morning! What am I hoping to accomplish? What I really want is to lose 42.5 pounds in 1 year. That's a pound every 8.5 days. That equals to 412ish less calories a day. In all honesty that should be a piece of cake, Mmmmm cake.... OK, I'm kidding I don't have a problem staying away from cake, Chinese food is my downfall but I think I'm ready for a challenge!

The plan, weigh in every Monday morning, start eating healthy, try to exercise....

Ready?  3....2.....1  and I'm off! :o) YAY!