Month: October 2012

Jeanine Donofrio’s Keys To The Kitchen

Favorites

I really enjoyed Jeanine’s tip to keep citrus and herbs readily available to freshen up any recipe. I get the bag of lemons at Trader Joes every time I go shopping. Citrus an herbs are a great way to add flavor without fat or calories. In my Mexican family, we squeeze lime on just about everything. I love a squeeze of lemon in my soups.

P.S. Love and Lemons is a really great blog if you haven’t checked it out already.

In honor of my current book tour visit to the Lone Star state, here is this key to the kitchen interview with Jeanine Donofrio of Love & Lemons.br/a href=”http://www.aidamollenkamp.com/2012/10/jeanine-donofrios-keys-to-the-kitchen/” class=”more-link”Continue Reading: emJeanine Donofrio’s Keys To The Kitchen/em →/a

via Jeanine Donofrio’s Keys To The Kitchen.

Monday food plan

Menu, Weight loss journey

Good morning! I’m sad to say I did not wake up early enough to go on my run this morning but I did drag myself downstairs, pulled my yoga mat out, and did some poses and strengthening moves for about half an hour. I’m happy I did something!

I went ahead and planned out my day in meals last night and thought I would share it. So far, I have already eaten my oatmeal and am still working on my coffee.

Breakfast:

Oatmeal prepared with one cup unsweetened coconut milk, dried fruit mix, raw walnuts, and cinnamon.

Coffee with soy creamer

Snack: 1 organic pear and 1/4 cup raw almonds

Lunch:

1 cup Snap Pea, Edamame, and Radish Salad with 1 cup brown rice

Spinach salad with tomato and goat cheese crumbles, lemon for dressing

Snack: 2 cups green grapes, 1/4 cup walnuts

Dinner: Big ass Romaine salad with canellini beans, red onion, fennel, parsley, and my delish cumin, lemon, olive oil dressing

After dinner, I am going to stick to tea if I need a sweet fix. I love Good Earth’s Original herb tea. It is naturally sweet and decaffienated. It reminds me of the Market Spice Tea I used to get at Pikes Place Market in Seattle.

I’m going to try to go for a run this evening since it is finally starting to cool down at night. Now I just need to log my meals in myfitnesspal.com so I can really see where I stand. Happy Monday!

Dropping 10

Weight loss journey

OK, I am finally putting it out there that I am trying to lose 10 pounds. I am little embarrassed by it but if I don’t tell someone then I will not have the will power to really push myself to lose the weight. I’m not worried about the “ell bees” (lbs., I’m just trying to sound cool) per se, but I have been steadily growing out of my clothes for the past two years. I am getting close to 30 and would like to blame my age for why I am gaining weight but there has to be another way. My biggest struggle is that I have done low-carb diets in the past and I just cannot do all that meat, eggs, and dairy. Sure, I will lose probably 5 pounds a week but I will be a grumpy, uptight person while I’m doing it, not to mention that I just can’t stomach all those animal products. I eat a primarily vegan/vegetarian diet so “carbs” are definitely going to be a regular part of my diet. 

I’m not sure that my diet is that much of a problem, though. I have heard, “weight loss is 90 percent diet and 10 percent sweating it out in workouts.” I may be in denial, but I think my diet is pretty good. I eat lots of organic veggies and fruits, whole grains, and I drink a ton of water -no soda and little bit of alcohol on occasion. So if weight loss is 90% diet, then what’s my deal? I figured I don’t exercise enough. If I am being completely honest, I do not work out as much as I used to. Lately, I’ve been running 1-2 times a week and yoga maybe once a month. I used to run 5 days a week up to 7 miles at a time, and did weekly yoga. So did I shock my metabolism when I stopped all that?

I could use a bunch of excuses like, “I’m so tired at the end of the day,” “I can’t wake up in the mornings,” “I’ll start next week,” I have too much homework” … the list could go on forever. I do work full-time in a pretty stressful job working with mentally ill adults then have homework and/or class in the evening. My day is pretty full, but, still, there has to be a way. I don’t want to feel like this any more and I don’t want to buy any more clothes in a bigger size. Enough is enough!

I am not going to start next week. I am going to start THIS week, today, right now. I am putting it out there for anyone to see that I have admitted that I have let myself get way out of shape and I want to change it.  I am a planner so I have come up with a short term plan. First, I am going to log what I eat on myfitnesspal.com. I have used the site before for a school project and it opened my eyes to my addiction to sweets. Second, the only “carb” I am going to cut way back on is sugar. I love my sweets! It is going to be hard with all the Halloween candy lying around but I have to do it – no excuses! I am going to switch to unsweetened almond or coconuts milks, leave out the sweetener in my oatmeal, and save my sweets for one day a week treat (I am excited to try Vegetarian Ventures Pumpkin Cocoa Brownies in a week). Third, I am going to do at least 30 minutes of cadiovascular exercise in the mornings before work, either running or a work-out video (my Jilian Michaels, 6 wk abs DVD is exactly 30 minutes), 3 days a week and yoga one day a week. I am going to do this routine for a month and see how I do. Fourth and final step in my short term plan is to share with you what I am doing, because even if no one is paying attention, I will still feel like I am being monitored on my progress. The whole purpose of this goal is to be a better me. I’m happy with my looks but I do feel self conscious sometimes. I just know my body could be better, more physically fit. Even more than that, I want to be a good example to my kids that exercise is important and we show ourselves love by taking care of this body we were given.

That’s enough for now. I have already created a menu for myself for the entire day tomorrow but I will share that with you in the morning – after I work out!

 

Snap pea, radish, and edamame salad

Adventures

Snap pea, radish, and edamame salad

This is another gem out of the Kind Diet book. I had these radishes in my fridge for over a week and needed to do something soon or they were going to start growing roots in my crisper drawer. This wonderfully simple recipe has a yummy lemon “butter” sauce that perfectly compliments the salad. I added some chopped fresh parsley and it was perfect. I ate a little of this salad with some brown rice tonight for a light dinner. I am going to do the same for my lunch tomorrow but more of it!

Homemade pizza and wine night

Adventures

Homemade pizza and wine night

This past Friday was a big day for me so I decided to celebrate with pizza, wine, and friends. I bought some pre-made pizza dough from Trader Joe’s (but dough is super easy to make – just didn’t have yeast) and used what I had in the fridge to make a delicious mushroom, arugula pizza with truffle oil. I had fun showing my friend Monica how to stretch out the pizza dough. I also made a pepperoni and mushroom pizza for the meat-eaters. Fun night with friends!

Quinoa Breakfast

Adventures

Quinoa Breakfast

I made a big batch of Quinoa for the week and ended up eating most of it for breakfast. It’s a brilliant thing to eat for breakfast because it has everything you would want in a breakfast – fiber, protein, whole grain, low-fat. I warmed up my already cooked quinoa with some vanilla almond milk and cinnamon. Then, I topped it with fresh chopped green apple, walnuts, and more cinnamon. I sweetened my breakfast with a little drizzle of real maple syrup. It was so good and filled me up. My whole oats may be sitting in my cupboard for a while now that I have discovered that quinoa is great at breakfast.

Sweet Potato Lentil Stew

Everything else

Sweet Potato Lentil Stew

I absolutely love Alicia Silverstone’s book, The Kind Diet, where I found this fantastic recipe. Here is the final product of the recipe and trust me, it tastes even better than it looks. The recipe made a pretty large batch so I took my leftovers (this stew gets even better the next day) to our office potluck. It was a hit! Everyone was asking me for the recipe. I put it over cooked Arborio rice and topped it with fresh chopped cilantro. Even my carnivore boyfriend liked it and got full with one bowl.

I <3 Spices

Everything else

<img src="https://lovelanguageoffood.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/img_1404.jpg&quot; alt="I

Pictured hear are some of the best spices around in my opinion. There is cinnamon, red chili powder, tumeric, and cumin. These lovely spices went into the Sweet Potato Lentil Stew that I made.

Light Monday Night Dinner

Everything else

Light Monday Night Dinner

Another easy-peasy recipe. I always like to pound out my organic chicken breast before I put it on the grill – I think it cooks faster and more evenly that way. I don’t have a meat-pounder-thingy so I just use a heavy sauce pan and it works like a charm. Olive oil, salt, pepper and Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute and that’s it on the chicken. For the salad, it was a simple mix of spinach, arugula, shaved carrot, cucumber, and peas. The salad was dressed simply with olive oil, sesame oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Simple, light and delicious.

Organic tomato bruschetta

Everything else

Organic tomato bruschetta

This was an appetizer for Monday night’s dinner. I had some sourdough baguette left over and needed to do something with it. While I was making grilled chicken and salad, we munched on this. It doesn’t get much easier than this organic tomato bruschetta (pronounced broo – sket – ta). Chopped up organic tomatoes, basil, salt, and pepper. Put it on sliced bread that I lightly toasted in my skillet with some olive oil. De-LISH!