Day 223 Yellow Split Pea Soup with Spiced Yogurt

Yellow Split Pea Soup with Spiced Yogurt

1 Tablespoon Earth Balance
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Yellow Onion, diced
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
1 Inch Piece of Ginger Root, peeled and minced
1 Branch of Fresh Sage
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cloves
1 1/2 Cups Yellow Split Peas, soaked for at least an hour
2 Celery Stalks, diced
2 Carrots, peeled and chopped
7 Cups Water
Grated Peel and Juice of 1 Lemon

Spiced Yogurt

1/2 Cup Plain Coconut Milk Yogurt
1/2 Teaspoon Turmeric
1/2 Teaspoon Paprika
1/8 Teaspoon Cayenne
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
Pinch of Salt

Soaked Yellow Split Peas

1.  Heat the Earth Balance and oil in a soup pot and add the onion, garlic, ginger, sage and salt.  Cook for a minute and add the cumin and cloves.  Cook 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the peas with the celery, carrots and 7 cups of water.  Bring to a boil, then simmer until the peas have completely fallen apart.

Soup before blending

2.  Use an immersion blender to blend the soup. Season to taste with additional salt, the lemon peel and lemon juice.

3.  Whisk the spiced yogurt ingredients together.  Garnish the soup.

Soundtrack Triple 9 Motion Picture Soundtrack - Various Artists

Addicted to Results 4/25

Breakfast was cereal, apple and vanilla yogurt with a little drizzle of maple syrup on top.  I use the So Delicious almond milk yogurt.  I used the Greek style which is really thick.

Lunch was a hot dog and salad. The salad was a type of slaw made with green and purple cabbage, carrot, and celery.  The dressing was vegan mayo and lemon juice which gave it a nice twang. I like the slaw, but I think adding an apple would make it much better.

For the hot dog, I used the Field Roast brand.  It has a list of all natural ingredients so it forgoes the chemical taste.  I wrapped a corn tortilla spread with ranch dress around the hot dog and squirted on some ketchup.

Dinner was a shepherd's pie and salad.  The salad was a simple spring mix with some avocado and the lemon vinaigrette.  The Shepherd's Pie was made in three parts.  First was a mushroom gravy.  The gravy started with a Earth Balance and flour roux.  I added veggie stock and rice milk for the liquid part.  After it was heated through, I added 3 portabella mushrooms, canned tomatoes, shallot, red bell peppers, parsley, thyme and garlic. I let this cook on low for 45 minutes.  The topping was mashed potatoes with Earth Balance, salt, pepper, and rice milk.  The base was saute onion, veggie crumbles and frozen peas and carrots.  The mushroom gravy was added to the base. Then the mixture was topped with the mashed potatoes.  The potatoes were a bit heavy and sunk into the base.

We had some sparkling wine with acorn squash bread before dinner and a Chianti with the meal.

Shepard's Pie

Green salad

Addicted to Results 5/21

Vegan Lasagna hot out of the oven

Workout - 30 minutes circuit
spin
XPF Cardio

Breakfast - Almond milk yogurt with mangoes, currants, and sunflower seeds.

Chili

Lunch - Chili made with Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, zucchini, pinto beans, corn, and carrots. It was served over white rice.
Salad - mixed greens, olives, mushrooms, pickled beets and pesto dressing

salad

Snack - Crispy Rice Bar

Dinner -  Lasagna.  This is the first time I have tried to veganize  this dish.  I microwaved onion and a log  of my chrizo spiced TVP sausage and added in tomato sauce and paste, oregano, basil and parsley.  For the cheese layer, I used tofu sour cream mixed with whole wheat bread crumbs and the Daiya vegan cheese.  This was a better tasting cheese than the other 2 that I have tried.  It  was not so great by itself, but in the pasta dish it melted and there were no bad tastes.  I layered it in the same manner as traditional lasagna and topped in with nutritional yeast.  I thought that the final product was good, but could be improved on.  Silken tofu might work better than the sour cream.

Serving of lasagna

Snack - dried apricots.

Addicted to Results 5/16

Workout - 45 minutes weights, 15 minutes interval runs
1 hour walk
air yoga

Mango smoothie

Breakfast - Smoothie made from frozen mango, rice milk, banana, chia seed, sugar and almond milk yogurt. This was the  first time I tried the almond milk yogurt.  The consistency is a little thin, but it works for a smoothie.  It does have all the good gut bacteria that you want from yogurt.

Asparagus on the grill

Lunch - Sandwich - 6 asparagus spears, 5 slice of tofurky deli style, tofu mayo, basil and pesto dressing on a  tomato basil roll.

Crispy Rice Bar made from brown rice cereal, almonds and currants. The sticky stuff was made with brown rice syrup, almond butter and vanilla. This is a good alternative to the Rice Krispy Squares with more fiber and less fat.

Snack - granola

Vegetable soup

Dinner - Vegetable Soup of veggie broth, spinach, onion, carrot and nutritional yeast with an Olive Roll.
The bread with made with a whole wheat sourdough starter, white flour and 2 types of olives.

Olive Bread