Day 13: Be persistent & Black Bean Brownies

After yesterday’s day of mistakes, I’m definitely ready for today’s VegNews challenge: Be persistent. I woke up this morning really not wanting to go to the gym (it’s Sunday after all! Can’t I get a break?!) But then I heard my roommate get up and I remembered what I had ate the day before, so I got my butt up and out of there.

Like VegNews notes in the challenge, balancing “work, family” and they say “activism” but I’ll say “school/social life” is a big challenge. It’s especially difficult when you’re trying to weigh having a good time out with your friends vs. your diet, and it’s difficult when you have to choose between the gym or getting in some extra homework time. There have definitely been days when I just want to throw in the towel and eat something unhealthy, or not get up and go to the gym, but then I always regret it the next day. I either feel gross (from drinking too much or eating too heavy/greasy food) or I just feel lethargic (from not exercising). That’s not to say I won’t “make mistakes” or prioritize friends/school over gym time, but it’s a balance. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s not. Knock on wood, this month has been good to me so far!

As usual, I didn’t regret going to the gym. I warmed up by running on the stairs (6 times, 3 flights each,  12 steps per flight… took me about 10 minutes… it hurt!!) and riding the bike (15 minutes). I then did a leg workout that consisted of:

• 2 sets of 10 leg curls (50 lbs.)
• 3 sets of lunges (body-weight)
• 5 sets of squats
• 3 sets of 50 lbs each on the adductor and abductor machines (vag machines)
• crunches (side planks, planks, regular crunches)
• And a butt workout, of which I’ll share later…

I feel like I did more, but that’s all I remember right now so.. there you go!

Today we’re celebrating our friends’ birthdays that we missed (they are December babies, and we weren’t in town for their birthdays), and I decided to make Black Bean Brownies from Happy Herbivore…

Scene of the crime!

I liked the fact that I could throw all the ingredients into the blender. That was awesome! However… I think I used the wrong type of oats. It called for instant oats, and I used regular oats… :-/

Minus the oats, I have to say the black bean brownies did not come out the way I expected them to. I had heard that black bean brownies can be really good, but these are just weird…

As you can see, I took a chunk out to test them before presenting them to my friends… I’m still going to give them to my friends, because oh well, but I don’t think I’d make this recipe again ever. It’s too sweet, has a weird consistency (not cake-like, probably because there’s no flour in this), and just… not what I expected.

I guess I’m still looking for the perfect (vegan) brownie recipe then!

Okay, off to get ready for our fiesta – then I have work!

Question for you all: Have you ever made vegan black bean brownies? What recipe did you use, and how did they turn out?

Days 7 & 8: All-in-one meal & Get spicy!

Oh man, okay so it looks like yesterday was one of those 20% days where I fail at something… posting on this blog! Luckily I did not fail on the ’31 Changes in 31 Days’ thing. Only day 8? That would be tragic!

Yesterday was day 7, Try to Eat an All-in-One Meal. By the way, if you’re confused about what I’m doing, click here to read about my VegNews New Year’s challenge

My all-in-one meal yesterday was kind of a repeat of the past couple of days… more quinoa:

Plus a Tandoor vegetable samosa

(source)

Okay, so maybe not the most clever thing (and certainly not the “massaged kale salad” that VegNews recommend– btw, wth is a massaged kale salad? Do I have to rub down my kale?), but it worked. Yesterday was super busy, and today will be busy as well!

Yesterday I also hit the gym, but it was all cardio yesterday (plus some crunches) because today was my first ever boot camp class!!! Hooray! And oh my gosh, did it kick my BUTT!! We started off freaking running the STAIRS– there were at least 10 sets of stairs!! I finished about 7 before I was absolutely dead… it wasn’t that my legs were hurting, they’re not hurting at all, but the cardio absolutely killed me! I really need to improve that More stair running for me!

Today we also did:

• 25 inchworms
• 50 back extensions (ow!)
• 50 scissor crunches
• 50 deadlifts
• 30 push ups
• 50 rows
• 50 crunches

And then I did a plank for 30 seconds… owwie! Cross your fingers I can amp it up when I go again on Thursday!

Today’s challenge from VegNews is: Get spicy. Luckily, I made more of Happy Herbivore’s Mexican Dip, and there’s a healthy dash of chili pepper plus a jalapeno, so it is plenty spicy for me! I plan on eating it on a burrito today for lunch, before class.

Due to the fact that the boiler in our apartment complex broke (and was broken for 4 days, DURING A SNOWSTORM), so there was NO heat when it was 15 degrees outside, I have a tiny cold (sore throat, runny nose.) Thanks a lot, living in a crappy apartment. Oh, to be a poor grad student! So I’m going to try to eat healthy and filling:

Breakfast: two slices toast with peanut butter and banana, orange juice

Lunch: Happy Herbivore’s Mexican Dip with lettuce and tomato, side of water or milk

Dinner: Finishing up the rest of the quinoa, making more sauteed broccoli with garlic

Snacks: Apple at class, strawberries and blueberries mixed with yogurt for dessert

Question for you all: Seriously, what is massaged kale?? Also, have you ever done a boot camp class, or had to run stairs? Any tips on how I can survive this cardio butt-kicking?

Day 6: Eat broccoli

One of the words I still find surprisingly hard to spell… broccoli! Today’s challenge from VegNews’ ’31 Changes in 31 Days’ is: Eat broccoli.

First, some health info on why broccoli is so amazing for you:

• Broccoli has nutrients like vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid, calcium, and fiber (source)
• Vitamin C helps with iron absorption in the body
• Broccoli also can help prevent cataracts, and eases the symptoms of the common cold (source)
• According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, broccoli is also likely to prevent colon cancer
• Boiled broccoli has more vitamin C than an orange, and as much calcium as a glass of milk (source)

To be honest… I had no idea broccoli was so good for us! I always knew it was good to eat broccoli, for some reason, and whenever I would buy bags of frozen vegetables, I’d always make sure they came with some bits of broccoli… but wow! Now I’m actually excited to eat more broccoli

I just decided to saute fresh broccoli with garlic in olive oil and a little salt/pepper. I was intrigued by Isa Chandra from the Post Punk Kitchen version, which you can read about here, but then I was too lazy to do it… :-/

Today I decided not to go to the gym because something tragic happened last night: the boiler in our ghetto apartment complex broke! And, of course, it snowed last night. So not only did I go to bed absolutely freezing, I woke up absolutely freezing knowing that the sidewalks would be icy… so, I decided to stay in bed and keep warm.

However, I did go to brunch with friends this morning to a Latin Fusion restaurant, and I thought I was going to be totally screwed for food options… luckily, this was not the case! I was able to get fried plantains topped with cinnamon, and a “sweet potato mash” that came with grilled veggies. Yum! So today’s food choices were pretty good:

Breakfast: Fried plantains w/ cinnamon, sweet potato mash, 2 glasses mimosas (yum!!)

Lunch: A mock-tuna sandwich from Happy Herbivore, small glass of soymilk

Dinner: Roasted broccoli with garlic and quinoa (leftover quinoa)

Snacks: Gala apple, small bowl of Rice Bits with soymilk

Day 4: Work Out & customized work out plans

I have to say, out of all the 31 changes in VegNews‘ ’31 Changes in 31 Days’, Day 4: Work out has to be the easiest for me. Luckily, I was already planning on working out, and I got my work out done with earlier this morning.

In today’s explanation, vegan bodybuilder Robert Cheeke says “consistency and application” are the ways to succeed at exercising, and boy is that true. Over the holiday break, for the few days I didn’t go to the gym (because of travel, or the holidays, or family obligations), I felt lethargic and definitely not in the mood to work out the next day. If anything, I kinda wanted to never work out again.

Lucky for me, I’m surrounded by people who value health and exercise. While I was with my parents, my Mom motivated me to work out and go to the gym with her for our health. I would say my family background is moderately healthy– we don’t have anything too crazy that runs in our family, just the normal things. But for some family members, we’ve seen them deteriorate quite rapidly because they didn’t take care of themselves at all- overweight, smoked, drank, you name it, they did it. And they died fairly young because of it.

Since Mom and I have way too many things we want to do in the future (traveling!), we motivated each other and encouraged each other to go to the gym. It’s always fun having a work out buddy, and it’s even better when that work out buddy is your Mom

Today’s work out was devoted to arms, and consisted of:

• 15 min. warm up on the elliptical (1 mile)
• 5 min. bike “warm up”
• 3 sets of 12 bicep curls (8 lb. weights)
• 3 sets of 10 tricep kickbacks (8 lbs.)
• 3 sets of 12 dumbbell shoulder presses (8 lbs.)
• 3 sets of 10 push ups
• 3 sets of 12 “tree hugs” (8 lbs.)
• 5 min. on the rowing machine

Again, crossing my fingers I feel it tomorrow! There weren’t as many people at the gym today, probably because I went earlier (8 am vs. 10 am). There were, however, a lot of people there with individual personal trainers. Looks like a lot of people are taking their New Year’s Resolutions seriously…

I actually found something really cool from Shape – a customized work out plan! Basically, you choose 8 work outs from their selection of videos (lots to choose from!) and then create your own “play list”. It seems really cool! I can’t wait to play around with this and learn some new routines.

Tonight I can’t exactly share with you everything I’m eating/drinking… I’m going to a friend’s potluck in a few hours, and I have no idea what will be there. I can, however, show you what I’m bringing to this potluck…

Happy Herbivore’s Mexican Dip! Yum! It was such a big hit the last time I brought it to a party, I figured I absolutely had to do it again. It’s quickly becoming one of my go-to party foods! You might notice it looks a little strange in the middle… yeah well, when I took it out of the oven, I couldn’t resist trying a little bit… you know, to make sure it tasted okay

So run down of my meals thus far:

Breakfast: Green drank and half a peanut butter sandwich

Lunch: Happy Herbivore’s Mock Tuna Sandwich and a glass of milk

Dinner: (guessing): Mexican dip and my corn tortilla chips… maybe some soup, if someone brings it (I heard they were)… and wine… and we’ll see!

Snacks: I finished up the rest of the green drank because I needed the blender, and then I’m going to have an apple and some almonds before hitting the fiesta tonight.

Tomorrow’s ‘challenge’ is: Get enough vitamin B12. Looks like I’ll be reading up on exactly what B12 is tomorrow…

Until then! A question for you all: What is your favorite dish (vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore) to bring to potluck parties? Or do you usually stop at the grocery store and buy something pre-made? (We’ve all done it!

Strawberry cupcakes for Oct. 1st!

Happy World Vegetarian Day, everyone! Also known as October 1st It is also the new fiscal year! 3 cheers for the US govt. figuring itself out and hiring more people… I need a job, y’all!

Anyway, a quickie post before I head off to work. Last night, I was craving cupcakes and knew I had an awesome recipe (courtesy of Happy Herbivore, of course) waiting for me… Strawberry cupcakes!

To my surprise, the cupcakes themselves aren’t made out of strawberries. My bad! They’re your typical vegan vanilla cupcake (with lemon zest, if you so choose), topped with a strawberry. Oh well!

And so the process begins...

This was actually towards the end, but you know what I mean

All the usual suspects

El fin!

Sadly, we did not make our own frosting. My roomie had some whipped buttercream frosting, and by the time the cupcakes were done, it was close to 11, so we just decided the frosting from the store would suffice.

My oh my, these bad boys are delicious!!

I have to get those flowers in there too! Such a delicious start to the beginning of fall. Today after class, my roommate and I went to try own costumes for Halloween.. and I ended up getting a super cute costume! More on that later

Right now I’m off to work and homework. Later tonight, a bunch of us are going out to a sports bar for snacks and beer… and of course, sports! My roomie and I are going not necessarily for the sports, but actually for a friend of ours who were trying to set up. Cross your fingers they hit it off! It’s funny that the stereotype is every girl likes to be a matchmaker… normally, I wouldn’t say this is true about me, but I am getting an intense excited feeling thinking that I might possibly play a tiny role in setting my friend up with a great person. Who knows, maybe that can turn into my career? Millionaire Matchmaker Melissa, anyone??

Black Bean Burgers

Happy Wednesday! Oh man, I had the most brutal work out class today. The class is called “Core-ruption” and it’s designed to work out your abs and your core. Typically, most of the classes I’ve gone to here at school have been 75% cardio, 25% weights, which is fine with me. However, I do mostly only cardio on my own, and I’ve been noticing some “bat wing” (floppy arms) tendencies lately, so I decided to use more weights.

Oh. My. Gosh. All we do in this class is weights! Today we started with the ball, doing lunges sideways (both legs) and forward and back. Then we did some abs/inner thigh work with the ball in between our legs for a minute and a half. Let me tell you, in that minute and a half, I almost died. My legs were okay, but lifting the ball up and down was killing my abs!

Next we worked on arms with weights… the lady who taught the class was not letting us “go easy” (which for me is 5 lb. weights), and instead demanded we step it up… so I went with the 7 1/2 lb. weights, which was still probably the lightest weights out of what everyone else in the class was using. However, 7 1/2 lbs. is TOUGH!! I couldn’t actually finish out the triceps exercise, which was a bummer, because I love working out my triceps!

We finished the class with some push ups, more abs, and stretching. I’m not feeling it yet, but I’m pretty sure I will be tomorrow. Actually, I did this class two weeks ago, and even though I was sore, I was sore in a good way. I like knowing that, deep down, there’s some kind of magic working in my muscles where they’ll come out stronger and more toned!

For dinner last night, my apartment-mate Kelly insisted on burgers, so we made the Black Bean Burgers recipe from Happy Herbivore. The only things I changed/added were:

• doubling the recipe so we would have leftovers
• Adding minced green onions because we had a bunch that were getting old

And voila!

The final product

The greasy looking stuff is Pam. You’re supposed to spray each side of the patty so it sticks together and cooks. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of the cooking in progress… surprisingly, my entirely not vegan roommate wanted to make these vegan burgers by herself, so I made the salad and roasted some asparagus while she made these bad boys!

It sucks this photo came out so blurry… it looked okay on my phone, but not so good when blown up. Anyway, this was my burger BEFORE I added my favorite thing ever… sauteed mushrooms!! Yum! Black bean burger with sauteed mushrooms and a little bit of veganaise. That plus a salad and roasted asparagus? Yes please! Another successful meal, thanks to Happy Herbivore!

The best part about these burgers is that they held up really well the next day too. Kelly had a burger for lunch, and I decided to crumble my burger up, and throw it in a multigrain tortilla along with some of the leftover salad for a yummy and easy lunch meal! So tasty and filling.

Overall, this might actually be my favorite recipe so far of this entire book. Obviously, I really loved the banana bread, so that’s my favorite “sweet” recipe so far, but for a substantive, lunch/dinner meal? Oh yeah, Black Bean Burgers!

Okay, back to homework. Pretty sure the guy in the apartment complex next to mine is singing opera. That should complement this law textbook really well, huh?

“Tuna” Sandwich

Hey everyone! Happy Sunday! I hope you’re all having a lazy Sunday for me. I’ve had the ‘Lazy Sunday’ song from SNL stuck in my head all day, and it’s really making me crave red vines! I would share the video, but unfortunately SNL doesn’t let Youtube play it anymore. Wtf?? Lame!

Another quick post today, because I have a group meeting at 3…

I made the “tuna” sandwich recipe from Happy Herbivore the other day! See, I was really craving a yummy sandwich, and for some reason my mind kept going to tuna, which is gross. Then I remembered seeing a recipe in the Happy Herbivore cookbook for “tuna”, and lo and behold, I had all the ingredients! Jack pot!

Yummy “Tuna” Sandwich from Happy Herbivore:

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the tuna actually in a sandwich, but oh well.

I had the hardest time chopping up the celery… I don’t have a food processor or a cheese grater, so I basically just chopped… and chopped… and chopped… and chopped some more. I was glad I cut up the celery so much though, because nothing is weirder than crunching on a tuna sandwich with huge chunks of celery.

Garbanzo bean instead of real tuna is the best idea ever. The craziest thing about it? It actually tasted and smelled like tuna. Say what?! I know, yum! That Lindsay Nixon sure knows how to make some delicious and low fat recipes! I love this book!

Overall: Delicious tuna sandwich recipe with lots of leftovers (if you’re eating for one… like I am). It tastes and smells like tuna, and it simple, easy, and cheap to make. This is going to be my go-to recipe for tuna!

That’s it for today, folks. I actually made some Pumpkin Muffins from the VegNews magazine the other day too, but it was late at night and none of my pictures came out very well. However, I will be making them again next week or the week after (not sure when my friend’s potluck is), so I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures!

Tofu Scramble and Cajun Home Fries

Oh my gosh, right now I’m watching the men’s final of the US Open, and I am SO excited! Rafael Nadal (2) is playing number 1 Novak Djokovic… I’m rooting for Rafa, as always! At first, I thought Rafa was going to be swept in three sets, but currently he’s doing pretty well. It’s in the third set right now, but now it’s 3-4 Rafa! Yay!

Anyway, while tennis plays in the background, let me show you some delicious food I made the other day from Happy Herbivore (my new favorite cookbook!)

First on the list was Tofu Scramble. Here’s how it started out…

Just tofu! In the recipe, it calls for 1 lb. of extra firm or firm tofu, but I decided to put in a little more tofu so I could have leftovers. Accordingly, I added more spices and whatnot…

After the spices! Mmm… look at all the turmeric and nutritional yeast! My friends unfortunately find it hilarious that I eat “nutritional yeast” (they think the name is gross) but I’m really liking “nooch”, as I call it. It has a good flavor and is a great cooking substitute for cheese… and did I mention, a TON healthier for you than actual cheese? Yum! Unfortunately, nutritional yeast is quite expensive, even from the bulk bins at Sunflower… although Cait (from Cait Hates Cake blog) recommended I buy my nooch from KAL’s on Amazon.com. I think I’ll try that next!

Scene of the crime!

Cooking really goes better when you actually use all the spices, am I right? Yum!

The finished product! I chose to add: spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms to my tofu scramble. I put in about a cup or so of each, a little more spinach. I wanted more mushrooms, but my roommate wanted to use the same veggies I did and she doesn’t like mushrooms, so I didn’t put in quite so many.

On my plate! The second dish we made were the Cajun Home Fries. We didn’t use russet potatoes, I think we used the Yukon golds or something. We used the softer yellow potatoes, because that’s what we had. We definitely used all the spices that Lindsay recommended, plus a little more (because we used more potatoes than what the recipe called for.) The home fries were SO good! Lindsay is not joking when she says you will eat all of these in a second. Home fries were one thing we did NOT have leftovers of!

My complete Sunday meal: Tofu Scramble, Cajun Home Fries, and orange juice. Yum!!

Still 3-4 Nadal. Come on Nadal!! You can do this!!

Oh, and in other important news: graduate school started today! I’m in my second to last quarter… then I’ll be DONE with school! (For now…) So excited to get back to school and start cracking out some papers. I’m feeling super motivated this quarter, which is really good, because I’ve got loads of stuff on my plate. Very exciting stuff coming up for me this year, I’m sure!

Red Lentil Dal from HH review plus BANANA BREAD!

As I mentioned yesterday, I made the Red Lentil Dal from the Happy Herbivore cookbook for my roommate and other friend last night. I made it almost identical to the recipe, except instead of using dry red lentils, I used organic canned lentils I had leftover.

Other than some minor issues (our stove is not even, so for the first step where you cook the onions and garlic in water until they’re translucent, it took a while because the water kept pooling in one small corner of the pan) and that it seemed to take a long time for the water/liquid to cook out, I thought it came out really well! In fact, the only complaint we had was that Kelly, my roommate, had not cooked the rice long enough so it was a little crunchy. Luckily, I was not in charge of rice-cooking, so my vegan dish was not blamed for the “crunchy rice.”

Recipes and moving– oh my!

Today’s post starts out with an interesting email I received from my Mom, regarding beets. Here it is in its entirety:

“Baked Beets are truly delish but what happens afterward is a mind blower! I made a beet in the oven and ended up eating the whole thing on Tuesday for my lunch in a delish salad with goat cheese and roasted pecans with romaine lettuce! So 3 hours later, I went to the ladies room and thought I was peeing blood! This continued all night and all this morning so I googled it and this is what I found!

Beets change the color of your pee and your poop. The exciting part is when you eat beets, three hours later you forgot you had beets, and you pee purple and you go oh my gaaaaa but then you remember, then you forget again and by morning you’re pooping purple and freak out again. It is normal for beets to do that. In fact, eating beets has really great effects on your health, they are very very good for you. In addition to that, you can actually test how your system works: eat beets, and see how long it takes for the colour to appear in pee/poop. That way, you’ll know how long your body takes to digest things.

To summarize: you’re ok and there is nothing wrong. Just normal reaction to beets

So was I relieved! Have a great day!“