Haircut Day

Fries with ketchup

My eating schedule was a little off today because I had a noon appointment to finally get my roots colored. Breakfast started out with some Garlic Sweet Potato Fries.  The potatoes were roasted in the oven and coated with pumpkin seeds, basil, oregano, salt and coconut oil.  For serving I created a home made ketchup.

Garlic Sweet Potato Fries

The ketchup was made with tomato, sundried tomato, dates, onion, agave nectar, EFA oil, apple cider vinegar, oregano and salt. The various dressings are starting to look the same in the pictures.

Ketchup

The grabbed a Chocolate Blueberry Energy Bar to eat on the way to my appointment.  These bars were made with soaked dates, almonds, blueberries, cocoa powder, flaxseed, hemp protein, sesame seeds, lemon juice and zest, salt, and buckwheat.  They were meant to be eaten raw, but I baked them on low heat for 30 minutes.  I am not quite ready for a raw diet.  They resembled a very healthy brownie.

Chocolate Blueberry Bars

For a late lunch I had a Adzuki Bean Hemp Seed Salad with Cayenne Dill Tahini Dressing.  The salad was the same as the one a few days ago with buckwheat.  I just substituted the beans.

Adzuki Hemp Seed Salad

Dinner was a Sunflower Seed Beet Pizza.  The crust was made with sunflower seeds, beets, EFA oil, parsley and salt.  Because the other crusts did not crisp up, I cooked this one longer. Of course, part of it burned.  Different ingredients mean different cooking times.  I will get this down one day.  The sauce was the Tomato Basil Dressing.  The toppings were tomato, onion, celery, basil, carrot and green onions,

Sunflower Seed Beet Pizza

I was snacking throughout the day on the Vegetable Crackers,  Some were plain and some I spread with peanut butter.

Vegetable Cracker with Peanut Butter

Headache Day

Banana Pear Cereal

Once a clean eating plan starts, within a few days comes the headache.  It is basically withdrawals from carbs, caffeine, sugar and alcohol.  Thankfully I do not drink coffee so I do not have to deal with the caffeine part.  The Thrive plan is not sugar free, agave nectar is used everyday, just in small amounts.  But the elimination of bread and wine get me.  I woke up with the headache and it lasted all day.  At least it is temporary.  I started out the day with a home made Banana Pear Cereal.  This was a banana, a pear, a date, and some almonds mixed with flasxeed, hemp protein, cocoa powder and ginger.  Almond Coconut Milk was poured over the top.  The banana and chocolate give it a nice savory taste.  It taste much better than the picture looks.

Blackeyed Pea Quinoa Pizza

Lunch was a Blackeyed Pea Quinoa Pizza. The crust was  a blend of blackeyed peas, quinoa, chickpea flour, coconut oil, chili flakes, black pepper, cayenne pepper and salt that was grounded in the food processor.  I cooked the crust for 45 minutes before adding the toppings.  The sauce was a layer of Red Pepper Hemp Pesto. The toppings were red bell pepper, onion, sweet potato, cauliflower and grated beet.  By pre-cooking the crust I was able to make it crispier, but I needed to cook it with the toppings longer.  It still fell apart when serving, but was not mushy.

Pizza after serving

For a post workout snack, I made a Chocolate Almond Smoothie.  This was a blend of banana, dates, cocoa powder, water, almonds, flaxseed, and hemp protein,

Dinner was a repeat of the Cucumber Pesto Salad with Tomato Basil Dressing.  My evening snack was Crunchy Cinnamon Plantains.  They were not very crunchy, but well cooked.  The lemon juice was the dominate flavor over the cinnamon and salt.

Crispy Plantains

The Purge

Apple Cinnamon Cereal

We continue with the healthy food for the New Year, or as I like to call it - The Purge.  Yesterday's breakfast was a Toasted Apple Cinnamon Cereal with almond coconut milk.  The cereal was a granola style mix made with apple, hemp protein, quinoa, almonds, flaxseeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, nutmeg, EFA oil, pomegranate molasses and orange juice.  This was mixed together and slowly toasted in the oven.  The result was dry, but not chunky like granola.

Lunch was a Buckwheat Hemp Salad with Cayenne Dill Dressing.  The salad was simple - mixed greens, buckwheat, hemp seeds, nori and snow peas.  This was more filling that the first salad on Tuesday.

Buckwheat Salad

The dressing was a blend of garlic, balsamic vinegar, EFA oil, water, tahini, dill, cayenne, agave nectar and salt.  I go very light on the cayene because I do not like overly spicy foods.  My post workout snack was the other half of the Ginger Pear Smoothie.

Cayenne Dill Dressing

Dinner was a Adzuki Quinoa Sesame Pizza.  The crust was made in the food processor with adzuki beans, quinoa, sesame seeds. coconut oil and dulse. This was spread in a pan and the Red Pepper Pesto was spread over it.  The cooked toppings were onion, dulse, basil and green onions.  After cooking, I added cucumber and bean sprouts.  The taste was good, but the consistency was not very pizza like.  The outside of the crust hardened, the center did not.  Next time I make one, I will need to cook it longer.

Adzuki Pizza

My evening snack was Vegetable Crackers with a Sunflower Seed Pate.  The crackers were made with flaxseed, celery, tomato, almonds, sunflower seeds, carrot, cumin and salt.  These were nice and crispy.  The vegetables made the taste savory and not too seedy.  These are easy to munch on without a topping.

Vegetable Crackers

Pate

Pate on crackers

The Sunflower Seed Pate was made with sunflower seeds, walnuts, hemp oil, orange juice and sauce.  The result was a flavorful seed spread.  However, spread on the crackers there was just much seed going on.  The spread would be better on some regular whole wheat bread.

Thrive Forward

Wild Rice Yam Pancakes

So today is the first day eating on the new plan.  The food is very seed and nut oriented and it will be interesting to see how I hold up with this.  Breakfast was Wild Rice Yam Pancakes.  My nonstick griddle decided to stick today, so the pancakes did not look that good.  They were made with quinoa, sweet potato, spelt flour, wild rice, flaxseed, sesame seed, baking powder and pepper.  From a taste perspective, they could use some salt.  From a texture perspective, they were very pleasing.  I made 2 pancakes for breakfast, then took the rest of the batter and made muffins instead.  The pancakes were really thick and did not cook in the middle.  We will see how the muffins do at a later date.

Cucumber Pesto Salad

Lunch was a Cucumber Pesto Salad with Tomato Basil Dressing.  The salad was simple, mixed greens, cucumber, garlic, nutritional yeast and sesame seed topping, and pine nuts,  The dressing was the tastiest thing I ate today.  It was a blend of tomato, apple cider vinegar, EFA Oil blend, basil and agave nectar.  The salad was not filling.  It was difficult waiting 3 hours till snack time.

Tomato Basil Dressing

I had a Ginger Pear Smoothie for my afternoon snack.  This was a blend of silken tofu, pear, ginger, honey, banana, hemp protein and flaxseed.

Ginger Pear Smoothie

Dinner was an Almond Flaxseed Burger over mixed greens with a Red Pepper Pesto and an apple on the side.  The burger was made with almonds, flaxseeds, garlic, balsamic vinegar, EFA oil blend, and salt.  Lots of flaxseeds in these recipes. The burgers were baked with coconut oil in the oven.  The pesto was a blend of garlic, red bell peppers, basil, yeast and sesame seed topping, hemp seeds, hemp oil, and salt.  It was a good pesto, but would have been better in the peppers were roasted.

Pepper Hemp Pesto

My evening snack was Zucchini Chips. These were thinly sliced zucchini with salt, oregano and basil as  a topping and slow baked with coconut oil.  These were great.  I would not be able to eat 2 whole raw zucchini, but once they were dehydrated, the chips were tasty and crunchy.

Zucchini Chips

New Year - New Blog

Now that it is 2015, it is time to start up the old blog.  Trying to look back on my old ones from last year, I learned something new.  When I delete a photo from my phone, it also deletes from the blog.  Uggh!  It is much faster to post direct from the phone, but I guess that I will go back to saving everything on the computer's hard drive.  I also discovered a spam folder in the comments section.  I had 90 comments from some guy called anonymous wanting me to buy stuff.  Oh well.

So for the last month, I have been eating pretty poorly.  There was a lot of eating out during the first two weeks of the month.  For the Christmas season, we ate every meal at home, but I was cooking like crazy with a lot of oil and sugar.  I wasn't strictly vegan either.  I roasted chickens and a turkey and did partake.  Interestingly, the fish and pork stews that I made were completely unappetizing to me and I couldn't stomach the thought of eating them.  Tommy said they were good.  I also ate some macaroni pie and yogurt cheese pie that used feta and eggs.  All the goodies from my Greek cookbook left some extra poundage on me. And we can't forget that it was also Champagne season.

Buckwheat

So for the next 3 months, I am doing what I call the Purge.  More specifically, it is the Thrive Forward Program.  Brendan Brazier a ultra marathoner and Ironman triathlete who is also vegan.  He put together a 3 month eating plan to optimize workouts and training.  I am going to give it a go.  Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Yesterday was a prep day.  After hitting the grocery, I started cooking some of the staples for the week.

Evo oil

Quinoa

Wild Rice

Yeast Sesame Topping

Some the basics in recipes for the week include quinoa, buckwheat, wild rice, and a nutritional yeast and sesame seed topping.  I also created an oil mix using hemp oil, flax seed oil and pumpkin seed oil.  If you are not familiar with pumpkin seed oil, it is very dark and looks like molasses.

I also made some Chocolate Blueberry Energy Bars, pesto and salad dressing that I will show with the meals they are used in.