kriskebob-blog

[kriskebob-blog]

Day I lost count

It’s the FINALLLL BLOG POSTTTT~ Maybe. Probably. I didn’t even make it through the full two weeks without getting super slacker with keeping the blog updated lol I told you guys I’m not actually wired for long-term blogging! Apologies to my at least three and a half regular readers. I don’t even have an excuse other than it was my last week of summer break and I just wanted to chill all the time when I wasn’t cooking! Now I’m back at work, but I figured I should give some closure to this blogging project. 

I’m not going to go through day by day in much detail like I’ve been doing. I guess what I’ll do is just post the pictures of the meals from days I’ve not covered, offer some quick commentary on those, and then try and give my ending thoughts as this project draws to a close. 

So this was a sweet potato skillet hash that I did from Dr. G’s breakfast chapter. I believe Sam and I did it last weekend, so it wasn’t too big a deal that it was obviously a lot more prep/cooking time than you’d want during the work week. The avocado toast (the millennial stereotype, it lives) was our own addition and I have to say that after a week without any toast at breakfast time, the avocado toast tasted AMAZING. Literally as good if not better than buttered toast. 

You probably saw this on Facebook already but Sam made a strawberry-banana chocolate smoothie and we topped it with some toasted coconut we already had on hand. It was insanely good, sweetened with just a little of Dr. G’s date syrup. 

This was a spinach salad with cucumber, pistachios, avocado, and a strawberry dressing. I threw in some cannellini beans because we had extra left in the can from a previous recipe. Dr. G writes that he always keeps a can of opened beans in his fridge to remind himself to add them into any recipe that could use some extra protein, and they honestly worked really nicely in this salad! 

This was a quesadilla recipe that Sam made by himself when I was out with a few girlfriends one night. I ate the leftovers a few days later. Definitely not the same as a good ol-fashioned cheese quesadilla but still tasty. This called for onion, garlic, kale, tomatoes, white beans, nutritional yeast, some seasoning, and that was it really! We ate it with fresh salsa and the hot sauce I had blended earlier in the week. 

This was the bottom layer of a vegan shepherd’s pie. This got topped with a mushroom gravy (pictured below), lentils, and cauliflower mashed with roasted garlic and then all roasted together for about 40 minutes. It was time-consuming, definitely a weekend sort of dish, but SO GOOD. 

Mushroom gravy ^

And this is me next to the completed shepherd’s pie holding the flowers Sam surprised me with that night!! I’m pretty freaking lucky. 

And that’s actually it! A lot of these meals gave us leftovers that carried us through the rest of week 2. But we also ended up eating out with friends a handful of times during this second week. How did that go, you might wonder? 

For the most part, pretty great actually! First of all, we went to a backyard party last weekend to celebrate the homecoming and recent marriage of one of my oldest and best friends, Jess. I’m not going to lie, the party was a little challenging at first. I have a lifelong obsession with chocolate chip cookies and brownies, and there were brownies out in abundance at the start of the party. But my vegan inspo Nikki Lee (shout-out!!! Love u) was also in attendance at this cookout and had texted me suggesting we both potluck it and bring food for each other. It worked out so well! She made Dr. G’s black bean burgers and this amazing green sauce, and also brought a lot of fruit that we were able to snack on. I brought our leftover mushroom gravy and purple cabbage saute (both recipes had made a lot when we’d made them for dinners during the week). Sam also had helped me make Dr. G’s almond chocolate truffles, which are not pictured below but came out SO GOOD and definitely took the sting out of not being able to eat those brownies. 

Here’s my meal from the cook-out: 

I had imagined black bean burgers as being kinda wimpy and falling apart, but these things were hefty and delicious. The green sauce was bomb. We added in the mushroom gravy and purple cabbage and then whatever veggie sides were available at the party. 

So then, the night that Sam made the quesadillas, I was out to catch up with another bff I don’t get to see very often, my pal Rebecca! What are the odds that both of my maids of honor are in town visiting the same week? We went to El Pulpo, which is a tapas place in Middletown. I ordered these artichoke hearts topped with guacamole for an appetizer and just requested they leave out the bits of sausage and cheese they normally would come with. They were good but I gotta say, probably not worth the $5 lol. 

At least they looked pretty. 

My entree, however, was freaking excellent. I ordered the one vegan option they had... that’s one kind of nice thing about eating this way...makes ordering off the menu a lot simpler because you usually automatically can eliminate 95% of the options ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve always been a big lover of risotto and wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, which the menu stated was made with vegan cheese, but WOW. It was good. 

So Wednesday night the 15th came and went. This was the official end of our two weeks of following Dr. G’s meal plan. Obviously we didn’t follow it perfectly, particularly when I was out at El Pulpo - I’m sure they used plenty of salt, oil, whatever in those dishes and I frankly didn’t care. But for the most part, we stuck to it and just ate plants and very limited processed foods. 

And my takeaway from this project? Honestly, I see no reason to go back to eating the way we ate before. Sam and I both agree that we feel better and have more energy than we can remember having in a long time, maybe ever. Digestion issues that I never even really knew I had, because it was just always the norm for me, have cleared up - I feel so much less bloated and much lighter compared to how I used to feel after eating. What’s more, we just feel good about eating this way. We like knowing that we’re being kinder and more nurturing not only towards our own bodies, but also to the planet and the animals that live on it. 

That said, I’m totally going to go back to buying store-bought almond milk and a few other processed items that just make life easier. We’ll be trying to cook and eat whole non-processed foods whenever we can, but we’re still going to indulge ourselves occasionally. Last night we went out to the local ice cream barn with our friends and ordered the vegan toasted coconut ice cream, made with coconut cream... and dear god, it was incredible. The texture and taste honestly wasn’t different at all compared to dairy-based ice cream, it was every bit as creamy and thick and sweet and delicious... the only difference was it didn’t feel like a rock in my stomach after.

So I guess this is it, friends...? I mean, I’m always going to love food and I do enjoy writing about it, so it’s possible you might see me hopping back on here every so often to blog about a food adventure that got me particularly ecstatic to share with the public. Until then...

[kriskebob-blog]

Days 7, 8, 9??

What up, folks? Stretching back my fingers and cracking my knuckles to prepare these hands, cause y’all know some hardcore blogging is what all cool people are up to on their Friday nights. In fact, tonight was my high school’s ten-year reunion. I chose not to attend - I actually really enjoyed my high school experience because I had the greatest group of friends in the world, but all of the people I’ve stayed closest to couldn’t or didn’t want to attend. Thanks to Facebook, I already know what the people from my high school class are up to - or at least the ones who I actually liked, and I have to say I’m not super interested in finding out what the rest of them are up to. 

Anywho, I’ve been slacking on this blog. I want to try to see if I can just kind of fly through the past few days in one post. It’s like a challenge within the challenge I’m already doing. Challenge inception. 

Trying to keep things short might already be off to a poor start. Okay, so on Wednesday morning I wanted to try a new oatmeal recipe from Dr. G’s cookbook. I’m thinking that in the future I’m going to be making the same thing for breakfast on every week day, as has been my habit most of my life - but for the purposes of this challenge, I try to follow the meal plan because I figure Dr. G designed it to cover a wide variety of nutrients. 

On Wednesday, I tried the recipe “morning grain bowls.” It looked really simple when I was reviewing it the night before... in reality, it was a little more complicated. It called for mixing the oats with almond milk instead of water, so I had to throw some almond butter into the blender before I could even get the oats going on the stove. It also wanted me to grate a teaspoon of fresh ginger. I have always loved the taste of fresh ginger but disliked the work that goes into obtaining it. I don’t know why. It’s really not actually that hard. It just always feel weird to have to get a spoon and meticulously peel back the skin, even though in reality it only takes a few extra seconds. I had never before peeled and grated fresh ginger in an early morning fog, yet here I was. Once that was done, I still hadn’t finished my prep work before the oat mixture could go on the heat - I also needed to drain and mash 3/4 cup cannellini beans to add in. This, I knew, was Dr. G’s way of sneaking some extra protein into my breakfast. He had explained in his book that many traditional cultures eat some form of mashed beans as part of their breakfast, including the British. Sigh. Ok, Dr. G. Mashed away and then finally I could put everything on the heat. After that, things got simpler. I sliced up some berries and a banana while the oat mixture cooked. Here’s the finished product:

The gooey topping you see is the date syrup that I had finally made on Monday! The oatmeal has a yellowish hue because turmeric was also an ingredient. And yeah, it was extra work, but I have to say I really enjoyed the fresh ginger in there. 

I had been fully immersing myself in Dr. G’s book whenever I could for the past few days. I had some time before an eye doctor appointment, so I settled in and soaked up whatever nutritional tidbits Dr. G. had to offer me that day. Did you know kiwis are apparently conducive to good sleep? 

By about 9:15, I was already starting to feel a little bit hungry. The last thing I wanted was to be hangry during my eye doctor appointment, so I went upstairs looking for a snack. On an impulse - I think I felt inspired after all the reading I’d just done - I decided I was finally going to make fresh hummus, which I had been meaning to do for basically the entire past week. The recipe just looked so easy, and I wanted a dip to use up some of the leftover broccoli in my fridge. 

Happily, the hummus was just as simple and quick to throw together as I’d hoped. I definitely recommend making your own at least once if you enjoy store-brought hummus! So long as you have a food processor or blender or whatever, the hardest part is really just finding tahini in the grocery store. 

Ta-da! Topped with fresh parsley and smoked paprika. It was so tasty I was almost late to my appointment because I kept snacking on it. Okay, and also, I have severe dirty-kitchen-anxiety and will stay to clear and scrub down counters even if I’m running late for something. It’s like a compulsion, I always just have to clean my kitchen before I can move on with any other task in my life. I probably have my dad to thank for that particular habit.  

No pictures or recipes from lunch because I actually went out for lunch with one of my absolute favorite former coworkers, Polly! She was always one of the bright spots in my day at my old job and I miss her all the time at my new(er) one. And because she’s the best, and also a very flexible eater, Polly was super down to go to a place called 21 Oak, which is a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Manchester. I’d been there once before in May and the food had been pretty good. I can happily report it was delicious this time too. I ordered some sort of Jamaican spiced mixture tucked into a foldover pastry (I forget what exactly was in the filling... but it was tasty!!!), which came with a side of rice and beans and veggies. 

On to dinner - on Wednesday I cooked stuffed portobellos with herbed mushroom gravy, with a side of purple cabbage saute. The stuffing is made up mostly of chickpeas, chopped mushrooms, and spinach, as well as some breadcrumbs, tasty seasonings, and a bit of flaxseed. 

It was a little tricky to juggle everything - the baked mushrooms, the mushroom gravy, and the purple cabbage saute... but in the end I managed to time it pretty well! I was proud of myself, not going to lie. 

Here’s a pic:

I didn’t get the best lighting on that shot but honestly, I was really happy with how this came out. The stuffing filling was absolutely delicious, the gravy super thick and tasty, and the cabbage was a nice bit of crunch and tang on the side. And what’s more, the mushroom gravy and cabbage both made enough extra where we’ll be able to bring them as toppings for black bean burgers at a cook-out we’re attending this weekend. And while it was definitely a little tricky to coordinate the timing of all the components of this dish, I think most experienced cooks could handle it no problem. It didn’t actually take any longer than any multi-component dish with meat would have taken - but then, I already had veggie broth and umani sauce premade, so that definitely helped. 

Thursday was a day of mostly leftovers. In fact, I was so confident in the amount of leftovers we had that I decided I wouldn’t need to go to the grocery store. I made up a meal plan and grocery list for the next day. It’d be best to go on Friday so that all of my produce would be more fresh. I did stop at the store that day, though, since I had to run an errand anyways and we were a little low on fruit. I then went to a pilates class for the first time in ages and was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t feel nearly as winded as I’d expected. The power of plants, perhaps?! After that, I loaded up my car with a ton of woven blankets - I get unlimited free yoga/pilates classes from my local studio in exchange for washing their blankets once a month! And also replacing their water cooler jugs (I’m reimbursed for that). Awesome, right? 

I spent a chunk of my afternoon on that chore and then headed home, wondering why I had this nagging feeling I wasn’t actually done with my work for the day. That chore had been my last have-to for the day since I didn’t have to cook dinner that night. Right? But then what were we having for dinner? It couldn’t be the soba noodles and miso soup, because I’d had that for lunch. And it couldn’t be the stuffed mushrooms and cabbage, because Sam had taken that for lunch (it’d been a little easier to pack in a lunchbag compared to the soup and noodles). I went inside and opened the refrigerator door, looking around warily - and my suspicions were confirmed. I had messed up that morning. I didn’t actually have enough leftovers to last us through tonight and tomorrow’s lunch. Crap, I thought. It was 4pm by then. I guess I’ll have to make another run to the grocery store. Ugh. Should I just get the next few days’ groceries today after all? Probably... That would take a good hour and then I’d have to cook. Blah. I really didn’t feel like going out into the heat again. After an afternoon of pilates and laundering 20+ woven blankets, I was pretty tired. 

I flipped open Dr. G’s cookbook, paging through it in hopes of a recipe where I already had most of the ingredients. 

My prayers were to be answered, and in fact, this ended up being the happiest mistake I had made all week. I’d been trying so hard to stick to Dr. G’s meal plan that I had always automatically looked to that when deciding what I would cook next. But when I stumbled on the recipe for “vegetable unfried rice,” I scanned the ingredients list and realized I had everything it called for - except for scallions, which, psh. Whatever. I didn’t have quite as much broccoli as it called for... but what I did have was 4 or 5 baby portabellas left over from the night before. And half a green bell pepper wrapped up in cling wrap (the first half had been wolfed down with hummus the day before). And half of a zucchini from I didn’t even remember what exactly, but it passed the sniff test and that was all I cared about. Of course. Why didn’t I think of this before?? I had been eyeing this mish-mosh of leftover veggies in the produce drawer, hemming and hawing over how I was going to need to make space for the next influx of fresh produce, but I’ve always hated throwing away food that’s still good. More experienced and flexible cooks would have immediately thought of a stir-fry to clear out their crisper, but it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment. I happily threw some brown rice into my rice cooker and went downstairs to read for awhile. 

At 5pm, I came back up and began chopping veggies. I grated up a carrot and tossed that in a bowl with finely chopped onion. Minced some ginger and garlic, of course (I actually got to the end of a purchased knob of fresh ginger for the first time in my life). Chopped up the mushrooms, broccoli, and zucchini. Thawed out a cup of frozen peas. 

Of course, it wasn’t actually a stir-fry because Dr. G doesn’t advise cooking with oil. Instead, I heated a bit of water in the skillet and steamed the onion and carrot before staggering in the other veggies and aromatics. The cooked rice, peas, and a healthy dollop of the umani sauce came next. Sam walked in the door home from work and was surprised to find me cooking, since I had told him we’d just be eating leftovers that day. “Nope, I messed up, I actually did need to cook. But look!” I told him, nearly beside myself with pride that I hadn’t ended up wasting all those leftover veggie scraps. It looked and smelled friggin’ delicious, and dear reader, I’m happy to report that yes, even without any oil or soy sauce or Sriracha, it was. 

Okay. I don’t usually do this but I’m going to report on today’s eatings too. For breakfast, I wanted something simpler than the last oatmeal dish had been, so we made the chocolate oatmeal again. Sam had made some fresh applesauce the night before so we used that as our sweetener this time instead of maple or date syrup. No pics though, sorry friends. Please refer to the last chocolate oatmeal post if need be~ 

For lunch, I had what was left of the miso soup and the buckwheat soba noodles. I ended up not finishing the buckwheat noodles - Sam and I both agreed last night that of everything we’ve made so far, that’s really been the only dish we didn’t care for. It probably would’ve been tastier without the 100% buckwheat. Maybe I’ll re-attempt one day... or not lol who knows. 

And finally - what was for dinner this evening, you ask? Why, vegan lasagna, of course! 

Huh?

How are you supposed to take a dish that’s 85% meat and cheese and make it vegan and any good? Super solid question and I too felt skeptical going in, but this story has a happy ending. 

If I haven’t yet lost the attention of my grandma and my dad, they can confirm that I made zucchini bolognese lasagna for the family when we vacationed in North Carolina this summer. Have you ever made zucchini lasagna? Now think, have you ever made it with an intensely delicious (but also extremely work-intensive) bolognese sauce??? It is seriously A LOT of work. This lasagna was a lot of work too, but honestly didn’t take nearly as much time or work as the lasagna I’d made earlier this summer (it’s Chrissy Teigan’s version in case you were interested - VERY good, but again - lots of work). 

I did encounter some technical challenges with this recipe, though. One thing I wish Dr. G had been a little more cognizant of whilst writing this cookbook is offering weight amounts for the vegetables. You’d think a health nut would be all about knowing exactly how much of each ingredient to allow himself, right? But since the guy literally only eats plants, he can eat as much as he wants. So here’s the deal. He called for 1 head of cauliflower, 1 zucchini, 1 eggplant. I got the latter two ingredients from the farm stand and in both cases, I went with one that seemed solidly middle-of-the-pack in terms of size. But when I got to work with my mandoline slicing up these lovely farm-fresh veggies, I quickly realized that either my veggies were WAY bigger than Dr. G’s version, or my extremely standard-sized baking pans must have been WAY smaller. He expected me to slice the zucchini and eggplant into 1/8 inch thick slices and fit all of that in a single layer on one baking sheet?! Ludicrous. So, I ended up roasting slices of cauliflower on one pan for 20 minutes, and then re-using that pan for half of my eggplant and zucchini after. A little bit annoying, but oh well. And even with two pans, I still had a LOT of eggplant left over. I’m gonna have to figure out a use for it - baba ganoush, anyone?? I’m always up for any excuse to say “baba ganoush” out loud so that might have to happen in the coming days. Anywho, I also chopped up a red bell pepper into small pieces and sprinkled that over the eggplant and zucchini. Into the oven it all went to roast. 

Meanwhile, I began putting together the cauliflower mixture. This, I came to realize, was intended to somewhat resemble the consistently of a ricotta mixture in a traditional lasagna. I pulsed the roasted cauliflower in my food processor and dumped it into a big bowl. To that, I add one can of mashed-up cannellini beans, some almond milk, fresh parsley, nutritional yeast, blended lemon, miso, and all of the typical Italian type seasonings you’d expect to see in a lasagna. Oh, and Dr. G. quite surprisingly had called for “3 cups jarred (emphasis added) or homemade marinara sauce.” You’re telling me to blend my own almond milk but you’re totally chill with jarred tomato sauce, Dr. G???? Anyways, I had thrown together a quick marinara with a bit of garlic sauteed in EVOO (yup, I cheated), a big can of crushed tomato, and some seasonings. 

There were really a lot of moving parts to this. Not gonna lie, I got kinda stressed out as I was bustling around our tiny kitchen trying to stay on top of everything. The sauce! The various pans of roasted vegetables, and Dr. G wanted me to flip all of them halfway through! I had to take out my blender and make almond milk! I had to mash a can of beans! I had to boil water and cook the lasagna noodles! I had to make sure I had everything I needed in this cauliflower mixture! It’s when making something with as many components (and thus, many DISHES) as lasagna that I really feel the pain of a tiny kitchen with minimal counter space. But was I feeling a bit frazzled because this vegan lasagna was so much extra work? Nah. I mean, I guess I just tend to go for lasagna recipes that are work-intensive in general, because I usually go for healthier versions that involve a lot more vegetable prep. Yeah, this was time-consuming and created a lot of dishes - my kitchen was a hot freaking mess and thus my messy kitchen anxiety was in overdrive for a little while there - but I was able to get everything cleaned up on my own without a problem while the final product of the layered lasagna roasted in the oven. My anxiety immediately ebbed away as I wiped away the final marinara sauce stains from the stovetop. And you know what? The end product was absolutely delicious, and my extremely Italian-American husband would be the first one to attest to that. 

In fact, Sam took this pic! He arranged the basil and everything. 1000% the creative one in this marriage. 

Thanks if you read my marathon post!!! Not a terrible length for covering three full days of my plant-based cooking adventures, right? Doubt I’ll be writing tomorrow but I hope to get a post up Sunday night to inform the world about my second weekend living la vida del plantes. Hope everyone has a great weekend! 

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 6: Lots of prep, and maybe turning a corner?

EHi friends. I’ve fallen a little behind, whoops. So I left off with Sunday night. If you recall, on Saturday I felt kind of sleepy and beat after hitting the gym but my energy improved as the day went on. Sunday I honestly felt pretty good all day even with the hike and the heat from being out by the pool. 

Monday, though, I woke up and I just felt so clear-headed. I felt focused and just ready to take on the day. The way you wish you felt every day when you wake, you know? And I was going to need the energy, because it was once again going to be a grocery shopping day. Not only that, I had to thoughtfully meal plan for the first time since I’d started this project, e.g. refer to Dr. G’s two-week meal plan and make sure that his suggested meals for each day would more or less work with our schedule. 

It didn’t take nearly as much time as the first time I’d done it, and what’s more, I had a few produce items I wouldn’t need to purchase because I still had enough left over from the week before. I checked out of Big Y with my smallest bill yet. I went to the farmstand and had a <$5 charge for the first time in weeks - all I picked up were an onion, a couple huge carrots, and a new pint of berries. However, I did have an exotic ingredient that was going to warrant another trip to the Asian grocer and/or Whole Foods: I needed dried dulse, aka seaweed flakes that would be added to a miso soup recipe. 

I got home and ate some gumbo for lunch. There was still enough left for more leftovers the next day; that recipe seriously had made a lot. Then it was off to the races to find my dried dulse. This week, I decided to go to the Asian market first, because I figured if they did have the dulse it’d be a lot more reasonably priced there than at Whole Foods. There were quite a few varieties of dried seaweed there, but no dulse flakes. However, I did spot an 8oz bag of dried shiitake mushrooms for only $10.99. 

...

Do you want to know how much I paid at Big Y for a mere friggin’ HALF OUNCE of dried shiitake mushrooms?? Do you??? 

I paid $5.99 for half an once at Big Y for a product I could buy at the Asian food market for less than twice that price and SIXTEEN TIMES the amount. Let my failures be your lesson, friends: go to your local ethnic grocery stores to stock up on pantry items like dried mushrooms, spices, rice, etc! It is SO MUCH CHEAPER than what the same item will cost at a corporate grocery store, and you’re supporting a small local business at the same time. Like literally you can buy tubs of spices like turmeric, cumin, cayenne pepper, etc. etc. for a fraction of the cost you’d pay for a comparable amount at a place like Stop & Shop for Big Y. It’s totally worth the extra errand for any staple ingredient you use often. 

Anywho, I hadn’t found dried dulse but I still emerged feeling triumphant thanks to my renewed supply of dried mushrooms. I use those suckers all the time to make the veggie stock. I headed over to Whole Food’s. It was every bit as crowded as last time. I’m starting to realize that Whole Food’s is probably just literally always super busy, because there’s relatively few stores in our area that offer the amount of specialty cooking products that they do. And, clearly, there’s a rising demand for that kind of thing! Consumers want to cook in more healthful and interesting ways. And I can’t even be upset that I’m continuing to perpetuate Jeff Bezos’ evil empire when my Amazon Prime membership means I can buy two cartons of organic raspberries for $5. I want a Whole Foods on the other side of the CT river ASAP, honestly. Or maybe Sam and I will move in that direction soon enough. We’ve been considering it! 

Ahem, sorry. A lot of deviations today. Somewhere out there every English teacher I’ve ever had is bowing their heads, ashamed of me. So at Whole Foods, I found dried dulse no problem. I also found a product that had eluded me at Big Y and the Asian market - 100% buckwheat soba noodles. All the other brands I’d found until then had been a combination of wheat and buckwheat - but Dr. G had stipulated 100% buckwheat and, as you know, I’m trying to avoid half measures! 

I checked out and headed home. The whole time, I couldn’t stop thinking about how different this day felt compared to last Wednesday, in spite of how I was running basically all the same errands under similar conditions. Except one condition wasn’t similar at all - the food I’d eaten so far that day. If you remember, when I got home last Wednesday (the last day I’d allowed myself eggs, meat, cheese, sugary snacks, etc.) I was literally so exhausted from my multiple grocery trips that I collapsed onto the couch for a two hour semi-vegetative state in front of the TV. But on this day, I felt calm and clear-eyed the entire time I was running my errands. Sure, it helped that I had a better idea now of where some things were - but not everything. I still had to hunt down unfamiliar ingredients, and while certainly nothing had challenged me so much as the miso, I had still been on the go from pretty much the minute Sam had left early that morning. I’d stopped quickly for lunch but this was typically when I felt an afternoon slump in my energy levels and focus. But I didn’t feel that slump as I headed back into my apartment. Instead, I felt ready and even excited to do some cooking. 

I looked at that night’s recipes. Because I’d be making miso soup, I was going to need veggie broth again - a lot of it. More than I had left over from yesterday’s batch (I’d used a lot of that to make the rice). So for the second time in two days, I was going to need to throw together some veggie stock. I got that going and then took inventory of the recipes coming up. In addition to the miso soup, I was going to be making soba noodles with chopped veggies and an almond butter sauce. One ingredient for the almond butter sauce was “umani sauce,” which of course was a sauce to make in itself. It wasn’t too hard to throw together - more veggie broth (I was literally going through the stuff like water), minced garlic and ginger, a bit of molasses (Dr. G specified “blackstrap molasses” - never heard of it - I just used normal molasses), date sugar, tomato paste, pepper, miso, lemon, and rice vinegar. It made plenty more than I would need for that night’s recipe, but I tasted it and am looking forward to using it in more recipes in the weeks ahead - it’s really tasty.

Behold, umani sauce. 

I figured so long as I was at it getting all this stuff prepped, I would finally make the date syrup I’d been substituting with agave or maple syrup in several recipes so far. This was super easy - I just needed to boil a cup of water and put the dates in to soften for an hour. It got blended at the end with a bit of lemon. Again, not actually hard at all to put together - you just need to have the foresight to do it before you actually need it. 

Ta-da: date syrup. You can see my (terrible) stove in the background with the veggie stock simmering away. 

At this point, I was on a roll. I was still feeling good and buoyed by how much energy I had that day compared to the previous week. So, in spite of how no upcoming recipes called for the “healthy hot sauce” I had wound up not making for the burritos, I still had a couple of bags of habaneros and other red chiles in my fridge. The recipe called for 12 ounces of fresh hot chiles, which is quite a lot of chiles. They were taking up a lot of room in my produce drawer and I wanted them gone, but I wasn’t willing to throw them away... especially not when Dr. G stated that the healthy hot sauce could keep in the fridge for up to six months. I was already on a food prep kick that day - might as well make it. 

Dr. G. advised wearing rubber gloves for prepping the chiles. Great idea in theory, but the only rubber gloves in my apartment are used for cleaning the bathroom, and I wasn’t about to use those on food. So, one by one, with my delicate bare hands, I painstakingly seeded and chopped dozens of habanero peppers and a handful of red hot chiles. This kind of sucked at first (the anxiety that I might accidentally touch my face/eyes is real), but eventually I relaxed and got into the flow of it, and it was satisfying to see the initially giant mound of unchopped peppers gradually go down. They went into a medium-sized saucepan with some water, a chopped onion, and garlic. It simmered for about 20 minutes and then Dr. G said I should let it cool down to room temperature before blending it. Why exactly? Not sure, but I do what the man says (or try). He said to add between 1/2 cup and 1 cup of apple cider vinegar, basically to taste. I started with 1/2 cup and tasted it. And... yup... very hot. It would have to be used very sparingly, but it wasn’t so hot that it was totally inedible, at least by my standards. I wasn’t sure whether or not to add more vinegar. Would that make it hotter? Less hot? More acidic, obviously, but peppers are so acidic already... I wasn’t sure what the true purpose was in terms of taste but felt like more vinegar would dilute the habanero flavor a bit. Maybe? I tried it out and added more vinegar before tasting again. I think it had the effect I wanted in taking back the habanero flavor a little. Who knows. Looking forward to trying it out in the future, even if we wouldn’t be needing it for that night’s meal. Here’s what it looked like:

It was around 4pm by then and a little too early to start dinner. I wandered off to relax for a little while and around 5 I got back at it to prep the miso soup and soba noodles dish. 

I made the almond butter sauce first. Like most things in this cookbook, it was easy so long as you had the ingredients on hand - things like the umani sauce, blended lime, etc. Some garlic, ginger, miso, and red pepper flakes and that was it. I thawed some frozen edamame and chopped some carrot, red bell pepper, and scallion. I actually stopped and read for a little while, because Sam was at the gym and the miso soup looked so quick and easy that I didn’t want it to be ready too soon. Eventually I heated up 5 cups of the veggie broth and added some more edamame to that. Next came a couple handfuls of sliced shiitake mushrooms and scallions. In a separate bowl, I mixed a small amount of hot broth with 1/4 cup of miso - by far the largest amount of miso I’d used at one time yet, but then, it is literally called miso soup. Dad, here’s another shout-out for you - you probably haven’t had miso soup but I think you’d like it! It has a nice salty, mushroomy flavor. This one though was definitely heartier and thicker than the kind you’d be served at an Asian restaurant, mostly thanks to the pureed veg in the broth. When you’re out to eat, miso is mostly a thin broth with a few tiny scallions and mushrooms mixed in here and there, but this was a hearty soup with tons of mushrooms. And then, as is the Dr. G way, you had to add a bunch of greens too - 4 cups of chopped spinach, to be exact. And of course, our friend the dried dulse was added in at the end to get that extra seaweed flavor and nutrition.

Once I knew Sam would be ready to eat soon, I tossed the soba noodles in a separate pot to boil. You then run them under cold water and mix the cooled noodles with the almond butter sauce and chopped veggies. No heating it through - apparently it’s a pasta salad meant to be eaten cold or at room temperature. 

Here’s the finished products:

The verdict? For both of us, the miso soup was our favorite of the two. The soba noodles were decent but I think in the future, I would go for the cheaper (and much easier to find) buckwheat/wheat soba noodles. These 100% buckwheat noodles were particularly chewy and had a stronger flavor than I’m used to from a pasta, it was a little distracting. I’m sure you could get used to it, but eh. The almond butter sauce was decent, although it’s hard to say how much I really liked it when I was a bit distracted by the buckwheat flavor. I think the sauce could’ve used a little more spice but then, I like my food to pack a big flavor punch. The miso soup, though - totally delicious. I probably wouldn’t change a thing if I made it again.

So, a busy Monday of a lot of shopping and prepping food. If it sounds time-consuming and like a lot of work... it is! But a big part of that is just my learning curve with these ingredients and recipes, and also creating my own pantry items that now will hopefully last me for a few weeks or even months (the date syrup, umani sauce, hot sauce etc...). I haven’t minded because this is a hobby and an interest for me, but I can see how it’d be a barrier for the average American working full-time and trying to juggle 4873286 other responsibilities and commitments on top of that. But honestly? This cookbook is designed with ultimate maximum health benefits in mind. Dr. G wrote this thinking of the sort of person who’s been told he probably has 6-12 months left to live due to the progression of their cancer, or the person who’s had to have multiple bypass surgeries due to the advancement of heart disease. That’s why there’s no oil, no added salt, and no store-bought sauces or condiments in this book. But does that mean you couldn’t cook this way yourself? 

I think not at all. This book shows you what the absolute ideal would be - according to Dr. G’s nutritional philosophy, anyhow. There are other big names in nutrition who agree with him but there are others who don’t - a topic to get into more on another day. But if you think you’d be willing to try making a few plant-based meals, or even make a complete switch for a week or two as an “experiment” like I’ve been doing, but the homemade sauces and condiments and milks sound like too much work and you also refuse to give up your EVOO and kosher salt - then don’t! It’d be so easy to adapt these recipes to your own preferences. As I’ve written multiple times, I’ve tried my best to follow Dr. G’s instructions as faithfully as possible just because I’ve been curious about what it’s like to cook that way. If you think all this extra legwork isn’t feasible for you but are curious about the idea of incorporating more whole-food meals into your diet, you can absolutely use these recipes but substitute in your own hot sauce. Your own sweeteners. Your own vegetable stock. Add salt or oil if you want to. Your own pre-made Asian condiments that you know are loaded with salt and sugar. Heck, I’ve done almost all of those myself multiple times already on this journey. At the end of the day, you’re still getting a lot more vegetables and fiber into your diet, and you’re also significantly reducing your carbon footprint for that day - did you know every pound of meat you consume takes several hundred gallons of water to produce? 

The reason why I titled today’s post “turning a corner” is because Monday is the day I first started to really think - Maybe I really do want to live this way. Not just as an experiment. The recipes have been delicious, honestly not that hard to prep (especially if you opt for pre-made condiments!), and I feel more energetic and focused than I’ve felt basically ever - and that’s after only 6 days. How will I be feeling by the end of Day 15? Still remains to be seen, but right now I’m definitely feeling more and more each day like I’m moving in the right direction. I feel like I’m taking control of my health and my life in a way that’s extremely satisfying. 

Oh, and for the record - there won’t really be a Day 7 post, because I had so much leftover food at the end of the day on Monday that there was no need for me to cook yesterday! I’ll still aim to have a blog post up again in the next day, but will just skip ahead to Day 9. 

Happy hump day, friends! See you on the next post. 

Today’s music rec: “American Boy” by Estelle

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 5: Sunny weekend activities, and some thoughts so far on Dr. G’s philosophy

Hi friends. Today marks the beginning of the end for me.. next Thursday I’m back at work! But for now I’m not here to talk about work or Mondays, I’m going to talk about the events of Sunday. 

Sam and I were experiencing something rare and sweet: a summer weekend with literally no set plans (apart from our Friday night group hang). We’d been holed up in the apartment for most of Saturday due to the crappy weather, but sunshine was coming, so on Saturday night we decided that the next day we would visit a hiking spot we’d never been to before called Ragged Mountain Memorial Preserve. We estimated we’d spend most of the morning there but be back in time for our ultra-healthy, Dr. G-approved lunch of leftovers. Then came a discussion - we could pack nuts, seeds, and some fruit to snack on while we hiked, but we’d obviously need a filling breakfast. I thought of the day before, when I’d felt beat at the gym after a breakfast of ultra-light French toast and fruit. So even though it was approaching our bedtime, I went and grabbed our Dr. G cookbook and we found a quick, heartier breakfast recipe - and luckily we had everything it called for! 

That recipe, my friends, was chocolate oatmeal. 

This was really tasty and it took less than ten minutes to throw together when we got up on Sunday. It made me feel sheepish that I’d ever been worried I wouldn’t find a plant-based breakfast staple that was as filling, fast, and cheap as eggs - how had I managed to forget about oatmeal? Probably because I never really ate it growing up. But luckily we did have oats on hand, as well as cocoa powder, cinnamon, flaxseed, pumpkin seed, and some fresh berries for topping. Dr. G once more called for the mysterious “date syrup” that I had yet to take the time to actually make, so we just mixed in a little drizzle of maple syrup. I can definitely see us putting this in the regular rotation. 

We packed up some bananas, apples, a variety of our various unsalted nuts/seeds, and hit the trail. 

You had to kind of veer off the trail to see some of the good views at this place, but overall we had a successful hike! Our oatmeal and snacks held us over just fine while were we out there busting our humps (the trail is moderately rocky in some parts), but we were both definitely hungry by the time we got home around 12:20. We wolfed down some leftover gumbo. There was definitely enough gumbo left for us both to have for lunch again the next day, but we’d be needing more rice. I set that up in the rice cooker and then reviewed that evening’s dinner plan. We’d be making a mango & avocado kale salad and yellow rice with black beans and broccoli. Neither recipe looked difficult in itself, but we were going to need more veggie broth for cooking the rice. With some help from Sam, I threw another batch of carrot/onion/celery/garlic/parsley/etc. into a pot, feeling like a regular ol’ expert after having done this just a few days before. We set it to just a touch over the medium-high line for a gentle simmer (have I mentioned that our stove really sucks?) and boldly agreed together that we felt comfortable leaving it be for an hour and a half so that we could hit the pool. 

One thing I’ll really miss about this apartment complex when we eventually move is the pool. It can get a little crowded on the weekends, but it’s a huge and very clean in-ground pool constantly supervised by a lifeguard, and there’s tons of nice lounge chairs. This was actually Sam’s first visit to the pool all year, which gives you an idea of just how many sunny-weather weekend days we’ve had free of plans this summer. I brought my library copy of How Not to Die and very non-ironically roasted my super pale complexion in the blistering August heat while I eagerly read all of Dr. G’s advice about how I could definitely avoid cancer with my dietary choices. After 90 minutes my phone timer went off and I headed back to our apartment to take the broth off the stove and let it cool some before pulverizing it with my new best friend, the blender. If this sounds like an annoying interruption of a lazy summer afternoon by the pool, I mean.. it kind of was, but the heat was brutal and I didn’t hate the chance to get back into the AC for a little bit. 

I put the broth away and headed back to the pool for another hour or so until Sam and I both agreed we were toast. We headed home and immediately got to chopping veggies for the yellow rice dish, since it called for brown rice and that would definitely take ages to cook on our stove. 

I chopped up a shallot and minced some ginger and dolloped them into our Dutch oven to steam lightly for a few minutes. Next came miso, yeast, turmeric, coriander, cumin, cayenne pepper, rice, and lots of broth. Easy. Now that just had to simmer covered for awhile. I was still wearing my wet bathing suit and asked Sam if he would mind getting the salad started while I showered, and he said sure, because he’s the best. He chopped up a bunch of kale and diced a mango. Once I was out, I tagged in so that he could wash up and I put together the ginger-sesame orange dressing. This dressing was definitely one of the more involved ones I’ve made. It called for me to blend half an orange, rice vinegar, tahini, fresh ginger, garlic, scallion, cilantro, miso, date syrup, turmeric, and cayenne. It took a little time just to get all of the herbs and aromatics chopped, but once I had the dressing blended I tasted it and was pretty impressed. Even without the date syrup (I hadn’t bothered to substitute anything in, figuring if it needed sweetening I’d add something later), it tasted really good. Unlike the other water-based dressing I’d made last week, this one was very thick. 

The rice was also smelling amazing by then. I checked on it but it still had awhile to go because, again, our stove sucks. I chopped up three cups of broccoli and added that in once it seemed like the rice was finally getting close to at least al dente. We sliced up an avocado last minute to include with the salad. 

Annnnd the verdict? BOTH SO GOOD! I didn’t even cheat and add any additional salt to either dish and they both still tasted fantastic to me. I guess it’s true when Dr. G says that your palate adjusts after a few days of reduced sodium intake. Of course, I am a gal who loves any form of rice and beans and I also love broccoli (so long as it’s lightly cooked anyhow - it sucks both raw and as overcooked mush), so this was bound to be a winner of a dish for me. I wasn’t super sure at first how to feel about that much raw kale - usually I eat it cooked or slightly wilted by an oil-based dressing, but I actually really liked its crunchy texture paired with the mango, avocado, and the dressing. Would 250% make both recipes again. 

It was also a momentous occasion today because we finally finished off the final two teensie-tiny “brownies” I had made the week before. Sam, forever the more creative one in this relationship, said “Wait” and I did indeed wait (very impatiently) while he threw together a more special version with some of our farmstand berries and a bit of the berry drizzle I’d made the day before. 

We’re not professional food platers/photographers lol sorry y’all but you get the idea~ 

So that was today’s meals. Now onto some ~Thoughts~ lol but srsly. I have a LOT of food prep stuff to write about for Monday’s post, so this seems like the better post to include some of my current musings at this point in our journey. We’re a little more than a third of the way in right now. I’ve been reading Dr. Greger’s book pretty intently over the past couple of days. It’s fairly dense reading material - the writing isn’t super technical but there is a lot of medical research jam-packed into every paragraph. It’s obvious what Dr. G’s bottom line is - he wants you to eat plants and only plants, and zero animal products whatsoever. Unlike many advocates of a vegan diet, Dr. G’s focus is never on the suffering experienced by animals, or the harm that animal agriculture is causing the environment. His focus is strictly on personal health and wellness, and it’s clear that this man emphatically believes that just about every physical malady the human body can experience could be prevented or remedied by eating whole plant foods. He even has a chapter arguing that a plant-based diet is the best choice for our mental health as well and outlines the results of several studies that explore the relationship between depression and diet. 

Throughout the entire book, Dr. G points to the results of multiple studies as evidence that things we’ve been taught to believe are generally safe and healthy - e.g. eggs, chicken, cheese, even fish - are actually associated with higher rates of cancer and earlier mortality rates. He writes pretty convincingly, and while he definitely cites what sound to be a lot of one-off studies, he also cites several meta-analyses. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, it basically means that a team of researchers went into the existing literature on a topic, dug up literally all of the published well-designed research they could find, and evaluated what the results of ALL the studies combined appear to be telling us. Dr. G also cites several studies he assures us are “gold standard” in nutritional research - meaning double-blind randomized control trials. For those not familiar with research terms, here’s an example: one of these “gold standard” studies took a group of research participants and randomly assigned them to one of two groups. Both groups received a baked muffin to eat each day, but until the end of the study, neither the participants nor the head researchers knew which people were receiving muffins with flaxseed added and which people were receiving muffins that appeared similar in every other way, but no flaxseed. They measure blood levels before the study and after, and try to determine if the flaxseed had any significant impact on the participants’ bloodwork. This is considered to be the gold standard because it can provide evidence that flaxseed alone is the direct cause of any changes. Many studies in nutritional research are correlational, which means that it’s harder to know if it’s really the flaxseed that makes certain participants healthier, or if there are other factors at play (maybe people who eat more flaxseed also tend to exercise more). 

Sorry to get technical for a few minutes there, but I know some of my loved ones have been following this blog, and this seems like an ideal place to explain that not all research is created equal. So when someone tells you “studies show..” or “research shows...”, you always want to try to do your own research before automatically believing what you hear - do some digging and try to figure out how good these “studies” actually are. How many people were in the sample size? The bigger the sample size, the more “true” the results are likely to be. How hard did the researchers work to control for outside variables? Was the work peer-reviewed by other experts in this field? Was it a randomized control trial study? (Again, that’s the gold standard but it’s difficult for a lot of researchers to achieve on a large scale without significant funding support.) 

Dr. G. cites MANY studies to support his claims about the amazing healing abilities of a plant-based diet, as well as the health detriments of consuming any animal products. So then, you probably would ask, if this diet is the cure for every health problem under the sun, why hasn’t my own doctor told me to make the switch to a whole-foods, plant-based diet? Dr. Greger’s answer for this question is simple: there’s no money in prescribing broccoli. Family practitioners also receive startlingly few hours of nutritional training in medical school - Dr. Greger explains that when he applied to medical school, he was accepted by 19 medical schools. He pretty much had his pick of the crop, and he opted for Tufts University because they had by far the most nutritional course training - 10 credit hours, or the equivalent of only 3 semester-long classes (as a former college student I would assume this anyways - Dr. G doesn’t spell out exactly how many courses 10 hours was in his program). So even with that being far and away the most nutrition training a family practitioner would receive, it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to all of the other coursework doctors take. And to some extent, that’s understandable - family practitioners are not specialists, they are general practitioners. They basically just need to know a little bit about everything, just enough to the extent that they know when to refer you to a specialist. 

But, Dr. G. argues, even most specialists aren’t advocating for a whole-foods, plant-based diet. Sure, they’ll tell you to up your fiber intake, eat less fatty foods and red meat, exercise more. But most would never consider advising you to eliminate animal products completely from your diet. Why is that, then? 

I have a small personal tie-in here. When I got back to the car after my hike with Sam, I had a couple of texts from my dad, who has been reading my blog faithfully. My dad has never been a big reader, so it warms the cockles of my heart to know that he’s been reading all of my admittedly very long posts!! Love you Fasha :* Anyhow, Dad texted me to say I might be interested in a study on sodium done by Harvard University. He linked me to it and I took a look. The article is titled “Take it With a Grain of Salt” and explains the commonly-prescribed DASH approach, or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. The DASH approach advises that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grains, beans, nuts, fish, and poultry lowered blood pressure, even with low amounts of sodium added in (1,100mg a day). I thanked my dad for the article, saying it was an interesting read. 

Funnily enough, later that day at the pool, I read about Dr. Greger’s take on the DASH approach. Here it is in his own words:

Why isn’t the DASH diet meatless? Based on the work of Dr. Sacks at Harvard...the American Heart Association acknowledged that ‘some of the lowest Blood Pressures observed in industrialized countries have been documented in strict vegetarians...’ Were the designers of the DASH diet just not aware of Dr. Sacks’s work? No, the chair of the committee that designed the diet was Dr. Sacks. 

The reason that the DASH diet was modeled explicitly after vegetarian diets but was not meat-free itself might surprise you. ‘The primary...goal of the DASH diet was to...create eating patterns that would have the blood pressure lowering benefits of a vegetarian diet yet contain enough animal products to make them palatable to nonvegetarians...’ Dr. Sacks had even shown that the more dairy vegetarians consumed, the higher their blood pressure appeared to rise. But he figured there was no point in calling for a diet he believed few would follow. This is a recurring theme in official dietary recommendations. Instead of simply telling you what the science shows and then letting you make up your own mind, experts patronize the population by advocating what they think is practical rather than ideal. By making the decision for you, they undermine those willing to make even greater changes for optimal health.

Damn Dr. G, go in! Call out The Man! Right? I mean, I don’t know. This book is very interesting but I want to keep doing further research on other opinions on this topic... and you can bet I’ll be blogging about what I find! Another day anyhow. This post is plenty long enough and Sam just came upstairs wanting to know when we’d be able to start Stranger Things. I’ll leave you with a few Sammy Hiking shots:

No gadget or music recs today, sorry! Tune in tomorrow~ 

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 4: Rainy Saturdays are for cooking (and Netflix)

Hi all. As I write this, it’s the winding down of a gorgeous (and HOT) sunny Sunday here in CT but when I woke up yesterday, I actually thought it still had to be 6am or earlier because it was so dark in our room. Turns out it was actually 8:30am and just pouring buckets outside. Good day to stay inside and cook some comfort food items. 

My second breakfast recipe from Dr. G’s cookbook was definitely simpler than the burrito bake: French toast with a berry drizzle. I also wanted to make a fruit compote for an extra topping. The cookbook’s recipe is titled as a pear compote, but pears are out of season right now, and honestly why would you put a few sad-looking Bartletts in your grocery basket when there are farmstand peaches just up the road? To my delight, when I flipped open the cookbook on Saturday morning I read a line I hadn’t noticed before: you could vary it up by using apples, peaches, or plums in place of the pears. Perfect! 

Sam was still sleeping (he tends to be a bit more of a late riser compared to me on most days). I enjoyed the solitude for a bit and diced up four peaches as I listened to the rain. The compote was honestly super easy to throw together once the peaches were chopped. I threw them in a pot with some water, blended lemon, raisins, date sugar, vanilla extract, and some spices. I left that to simmer while I prepped the plant-based version of a dipping mixture for the toast. And in case you’re wondering, no, I did NOT find salt-free bread at the grocery store. I found the whole wheat bread that had the lowest amount of sugar/sodium and least amount of funky-sounding ingredients on the label and called it a day. (As an aside, Sam had thought he’d be required to give up toast completely during these two weeks and was really excited when he came home on Friday and saw a loaf of bread sitting on the counter, it was kind of cute.)   

I had to make my own almond milk for the French toast dipping mixture. Dr. G. doesn’t approve of store-brought almond milk, too many chemicals or whatever. Not a whole food! Luckily, I already had almond butter from my first grocery shopping extravaganza of the week. All you had to do by Dr. G’s standard was blend a couple tablespoons of almond butter with some water and ta-da, you’ve got almond milk that’s apparently less likely to kill you. For the French toast, Dr. G. instructed that I needed to mix some ground flaxseed with a bit of warm water and then add it in with the almond milk. More date sugar, vanilla extract, a bit of turmeric and cinnamon, and boom. 

Sam was awake by now and I immediately put him on toasting duty. He’s become the defacto breakfast-cooking king in our household over the past 5 years, which is odd really when he’s less the morning person of the two of us. But he genuinely enjoys whipping up eggs, bacon, French toast, etc. on the weekends, and I’ve certainly never been about to stop him. He got out our griddle and began dipping the bread while I set about making the “berry drizzle.” Dr. G advised I use this as a condiment for the French toast in place of maple syrup. It has two ingredients: 1 cup of fresh or frozen berries and a couple of tablespoons of date syrup. 

The date syrup became yet another case of my assuming I’d be able to throw together a Dr. G. sauce or condiment quickly in my blender, only to discover I actually needed to soak a key ingredient in hot water for an hour or more. Oops. Oh well. I’d use a tablespoon of agave nectar in its place and that would just have to do. 

Here’s the berry drizzle in a super cute pitcher our family friend Kelly gave us as an engagement gift years ago:

Adorable, right? Ignore whatever that spot is on our table. Anywho, I can report that Sam didn’t love toasting the bread on our griddle without using any oil spray. The slices did stick a little but we salvaged most of it. The peach compote had reduced nicely by then and we were in business. 

It was super delicious. The peach compote is definitely what made the dish, although the berry drizzle was tasty as well. Both were made with local and in-season fruit so it’s pretty hard to go wrong there. 

Sam and I settled in for a lazy morning of Netflix (we’re watching Stranger Things - second watch for me, first time for Sam!). By 11 I had to admit to myself that I really needed to get my ass to the gym, even though it was still miserable outside. I moaned and groaned at Sam (he had gone the night before and wouldn’t be accompanying me) but eventually got my ass into gear. I was curious: I’ve been eating plant-based for, you know, a whole two and a half days now. Would I have more energy at the gym? Would I just be able to sense the power of a thousand vegetables coursing through my veins on the treadmill? 

The answer: NOPE. I actually felt a bit more winded than usual which, of course, set off an anxiety thought spiral in my brain. Damn it. Maybe this diet isn’t actually good for me. Am I not getting enough protein? People always harass vegans about their protein, maybe it’s a legitimate concern! 

I made it through my workout perfectly fine, though, just a little more tired than usual. I trudged home and showered, and then Sam and I had leftover spinach-mushroom burritos and salad for lunch. The weather still sucked and we didn’t have any plans, so we watched some more Netflix but eventually split up to do our own things. I wanted to read more of Dr. G’s How Not to Die book. It was a huge book, after all, and the clock was ticking on my library loan. I settled in but was having some trouble focusing. I just felt tired. Again I had the thought that maybe this diet wasn’t actually for me. That I wasn’t getting enough or x or y since making this switch a few days ago. I stood up and eyed our pantry shelves. I grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds and ate them, but that didn’t feel quite satisfying (go figure). I noticed the giant container of unsalted roasted almonds I’d bought the day before and decided to take the plunge and open them up. I’m used to eating nuts from those giant mixed nuts containers you get at the grocery store, the ones where even the “33% LESS sodium!!!” version is still salty as hell. So I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly when I tried these unsalted almonds, but I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I actually like the taste of almonds when it’s not completely masked by salt. I grabbed a handful and then went to the fridge and got a handful of blueberries. They tasted amazing together. I happily settled back into my chair and felt myself perking up like a wilted plant that had been watered. By the time Sam came upstairs maybe half an hour later, the clouds had lifted outside and in my brain. We went for a walk. I suddenly felt more energetic than I’d felt all day. Maybe it had just been the dreary weather bringing me down. 

We returned home and decided that for the first time, we would try the Monster expansion pack of our beloved Harry Potter tabletop game. It took a long time just to set it up and try to figure out all of the new rules. We then decided to get dinner prepped because it would need some simmering time on the stove: it was gumbo night, y’all! I was excited because I love the flavor profile of Cajun/Creole cuisine. It was pretty easy to prep. Some chopped onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic went into our Dutch oven with one cup of the homemade veggie broth I’d made the other day. I quickly thawed out the frozen okra in a separate small saucepot and eventually that went into the Dutch oven too with some diced tomatoes (BPA-free, thank you very much~), diced zucchini, and lots of delicious seasoning. We then added quite a bit of broth - everything that was left of the batch I’d made. It was a really nice, thick broth since I had pulverized all of the veggies the water had steeped in. We brought everything to a boil, threw in a can of red kidney beans (not BPA-free, alas), and simmered the gumbo for about half an hour. When it was done, we served it over brown rice, per Dr. G’s suggestion. 

Here’s a little pot action before we added in all of the broth and the beans:

And here’s the finished product:

The verdict?? SO GOOD! I loved it and actually got seconds. Sam liked it too; I don’t think he loved it quite as much as I did but then I’ve always been a bigger lover of Cajun food. Dr. G. claims his recipe makes four 1.25 cup servings, but it honestly made WAY more than that for us. I feel like his math was off... like, he accounted for the 6 cups of broth but not the fact that there were a ton of veggies and beans added in to the pot as well?? Not to mention the brown rice. But I’m not complaining, because I love the way it turned out, and it’ll be lunch for the next couple of days now. Oh, and I did salt the veggies a little bit when they were first steaming in the Dutch oven, and our Cajun-free seasoning was definitely NOT salt-free (salt is actually the first ingredient, lawl ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), so I’m sure that helped a bit. 

I think that’s really all there is to report! Other than the fact that we went back to our Harry Potter game after dinner and failed miserably. The creatures/villains completely murdered us on round 1. Oh well. Another day maybe... 

Cheers to what I think might be my shortest blog post yet. See you tomorrow! 

Gadget rec of the day: an electric griddle! We use it almost every weekend. Definitely had to wipe a trace coating of bacon grease from it today though... It’s a lifesaver for us especially since we have such a lousy stove. 

Music rec of the day: (Nothing But) Flowers by the Talking Heads

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 3: My experiment is tested by weekend socializing

Hi friends. Happy Saturday night! Tonight I’m blogging about the events of yesterday, which I think was probably my most uneventful day so far on this dietary adventure... at least in terms of shopping and prepping interesting new meals. Both breakfast and lunch were covered by leftovers - we still had half the burrito bake left and then we polished off the salad and zoodles for lunch. According to the order of recipes as given by Dr. G, our next dinner would be spinach and mushroom black bean burritos. I took a look at the recipe. It looked like one of the simplest ones yet. A can of black beans, some minced onion and garlic, some chopped mushroom, a few handfuls of baby spinach... and then some seasoning in the form of savory spice blend (already prepped), cayenne pepper (duh of course I’d have that), summer salsa (already prepped), and then Dr. G’.s “Healthy Hot Sauce (see page 8)”. Psh. This was going to be nothing after all the cooking I’d done yesterday. Today would actually feel like more of a “normal” day where all I really had to worry about cooking was a quick dinner. It felt good and right for a Friday. Time to unwind a little, you know? We also had plans that night to meet up for a game night with some friends who had recently moved back to CT after a few years out west. 

The one thing I’d have to stop and prep before throwing together these vegan burritos was the “healthy hot sauce” but I didn’t think that’d be a big deal. I had purchased several big handfuls of fresh red chiles at Big Y that morning. The guy bagging my groceries had raised his brows. “Habaneros? Oh, man. I wouldn’t eat those,” he shook his head. I smiled politely and thought to myself, Shit. I had never cooked with habaneros before. I hadn’t realized that’s what these peppers were; the bin had only been labeled “hot chiles.” (Does anyone else’s grocery store have this tendency not to specify which fresh chiles are which?? It’s annoying honestly!) I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ll just... use less or something if I need to, I thought doubtfully. The cookbook hadn’t specified what kind of chiles to use, it’d just specify that they be “fresh hot chiles, a single type or mixed.” I had gone for the red ones because I’d liked the idea of a traditional red hot sauce. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure about my choice, but no turning back at that point. 

Oh, and in case you wondered how my second trip to the grocery store this week went - MUCH easier! I didn’t end up needing nearly as much stuff the second time, in part because I still had tons of produce left over from my earlier visit this week and I also had less pantry items to purchase this time (didn’t need to return to Whole Foods, thank god). I did end up picking up a big container of unsalted roasted almonds and then lots of blueberries from the farm stand because I was really going to need more fast snacking options if I was going to make it through these two weeks without stuffing granola in my face. Even with two pints of blueberries and 22oz of almonds, my bill was definitely improved from last time. I’ve still spent a lot more on groceries this week than I normally would, but I had expected as much. Hard to avoid it when you’re replacing cheap staples like eggs and toast with a heaping plate of fiber every morning. 

Alright so back to the point aka what I expected to be a totally easy day of food prep. All I needed to prep that night were some simple burritos, this “healthy hot sauce” alternative, and then a snack to share when we went to see our friends. I had decided on the edamame guacamole recipe in Dr. G’s book. Since you obviously want your guac to be as fresh as possible when it’s eaten, I’d wait until we got pretty close to our planned departure time to throw it together. I figured it’d take like ten minutes maybe. 

Sam got home early and was eager to help me prep dinner like the gem that he is. “Honestly, we can probably wait another half hour or so,” I told him. “This isn’t going to take that long to prep or cook.” So we got started around 5:15. We wanted to be at our friends’ place for 7:00 so that seemed like plenty of time to cover a quick dinner and then throw together the guac. 

Except then I flipped back to actually read the “healthy hot sauce” recipe more carefully. I blinked as I realized it wanted me to cook down the chiles for nearly half an hour and then “allow them to come to room temperature.” Would have been no big deal at all... if I had bothered to read this an hour earlier. Whoops. Shit, I thought. Within ~10 seconds I decided screw it. I really wasn’t feeling too confident about those habaneros anyways and we still had a big jug of Frank’s hot sauce in the fridge. Definitely not a whole food, but what the hell was the harm of adding a tiny bit of a normal condiment here or there? I looked again at the burrito recipe. It said to just add hot sauce to taste. We could probably just skip it entirely then. Great. Problem solved. I’ll use those chiles and try to make the hot sauce another day, I thought, doubting myself even as I said the words in my own head. 

As expected, the spinach & mushroom black bean filling was super quick to prepare and cook. One thing I’m realizing is that the cooking process for a lot of these meals is honestly a lot simpler than meat-based meals (or at least so long as you have your fancy hand-made condiments, salsas, sauces, raw cashews, etc etc prepped in advance...). The vegetables often only need a few minutes to cook down, you don’t have to stop to wash your hands every time you handle a piece of raw meat or egg, and, of course, you don’t have to worry about actually cooking any animal protein. Just cook those veggies down some, season them to your liking, and you’re golden. And speaking of seasoning, I did end up adding a bit of Frank’s to the mixture in the pot. But just a splash okay! 

Aw yea. And then here’s a burrito topped with the salsa before it got devoured (it was super messy btw): 

The verdict for this one? Tasty... but again, it needed salt. I haven’t been tasting the food for saltiness before sitting down to eat it because I’ve been trying to stick to Dr. G’s sodium substitutes/replacements but I don’t know how much longer I’m going to last! I actually would have liked to see what it tasted like with some fennel seed added in; I always remember one black bean taco recipe I made ages ago that I loved mainly because of that spice’s inclusion. It’s a nice way to trick your brain into thinking you might be eating sausage. 

We cleaned up the kitchen and it was a little after 6. Our friends only lived 15-20 minutes away. “Let’s wait until like 6:30 before we put together the guac, so that it’s fresh,” I told Sam. 

This was to end up being a major mistake on my part. So, first of all, it was definitely a risky move to decide to bring something like “edamame guacamole” to a social gathering. People are really freaking opinionated about what guacamole is supposed to taste like (myself included, admittedly). I’d had edamame before and I figured its addition would go mostly unnoticed under the flavors of lime, cilantro, jalapeno, etc. 

Looks like the right set-up for the makings of a perfectly normal and tasty guacamole, no?

Sadly, it really just didn’t come out good at all. I tasted it and actually winced. There was a sharp bitter flavor that took me completely aback. “I think the edamame is throwing me off,” I told Sam, who had also tasted it and looked as uneasy as I felt. I wasn’t sure what else the issue could be if not the obvious interloper ingredient. I’d even insisted we add in some kosher salt even though Dr. G, of course, called for his “savory spice blend” instead. Guacamole without any actual salt is a freaking crime, I’m sorry Dr. G. “Add more lime juice maybe?” I suggested to Sam, as he was the one who had thrown it together (have I mentioned that he’s the best?). I also added a bit more salt. 

We tried for a long time to salvage that guac. We added plenty more lime. More tomato. We even decided to blend up another avocado to try and mask the admittedly weird presence of the edamame. I tried it again and still winced a little. It still had a bitter bite to it that we couldn’t seem to mask. “I think it might not even be the edamame... it seems like it might be the jalapeno,” I told Sam. Well. This sucked. I’d just bought a handful of jalapenos fresh from the farmstand that very morning. For maybe the first time ever, Johnny Appleseed’s had let me down, and they had let me down hard. 

We were running pretty late at this point. We hemmed and hawed about if we should stop at the store and pick up something else to bring but in the end we decided to grin and bear it, and off we went to see our friends, subpar homemade guac and freshcut veggies in tow. Our friends were perfectly polite about the guac (we had told them why we’d been late), but let’s just say it definitely wasn’t the hit of the evening. Sigh. Our first foray into sharing a Dr. G recipe with friends had not exactly gone well, but it’s hard to say whether it was the recipe itself or the bitterness of that pepper. I do know that if I made that recipe again, I’d add even more salt, cause honestly Dr. G, if even a metric f@*!-ton of vegetables every day isn’t enough to save my arteries from hypertension, I’m not sure they deserve saving anyways. 

We had a nice night seeing old friends and meeting some new ones. I will say, though, that I was agonizingly tempted by the cookies that were set out for any guest to grab. They were the huge chocolate-chip/M&M ones from Stop and Shop and anyone who’s ever been at a party with me knows I love those things, damn it. I tried not to stare too jealously at everyone else as they ate their cookies and instead I ate a couple of slices of watermelon. I’ve actually never been a watermelon fan, but at that point I was willing to take whatever acceptable form of sugar I could get! And you know, it was honestly pretty good. 

We got home around midnight and I kicked off my shoes, still sighing at Sam about how badly I had wanted one of those cookies. Unsurprisingly, he had no sympathy for me and my self-imposed first world problems. It was past our bedtime but I didn’t want to go to bed, I wanted to plop on the couch with a cookie and a beer, or maybe a nice glass of wine. Just yesterday I was writing about how surviving my first complete day of only plant-based whole foods hadn’t been that hard, but now it was Friday night, a night when Sam and I normally celebrated the end of another work week with some sort of indulgence - a dinner out, a trip to the ice cream stand, a bottle of wine or a six-pack... hell, sometimes all three. I changed into my pajamas and thought about the fact that all of my favorite vices in life seem to involve putting large amounts of sugar and/or a few drinks into my bloodstream. It admittedly didn’t seem awesome for my longterm health to be doing that even as often as once a week. And we’d still had fun that night without any of that, right? Right. 

I dutifully stuffed a final late night snack of some unsalted peanuts into my mouth and ten minutes later brushed my teeth and went to bed. Survived another day and managed to cheat only a tiny bit with my defiant pinches of kosher salt and splashes of Frank’s red hot sauce. 

Hope you’ll be back for Day 4′s write-up tomorrow, friends! Here’s a bonus: an action shot of Sammy the Sous Chef getting our veggie platter ready: 

Gadget rec of the day: A good blender! Most of us already have a blender I think, but if you really want to incorporate more whole foods and produce into your diet I think a good blender is an absolute must. I’ve only been following this diet for three days and I’ve already used our blender more times than I can count on one hand. 

Music rec of the day: “Sophia” by Laura Marling

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 2: In which the real challenge is, can she keep it to one post this time?

Hello again friends. I have buddies who have been writing partners with me over many years, some spanning back to freshman year of high school. Any of them can tell you that I tend to provide a LOT of background information and context when telling a story. If you’ve made it with me this far, you too are now beginning to understand my verbose tendencies. But I’m really going to try to keep Day 2 contained to a single and readable blog post. Let’s see if I can pull it off. 

To my pleasant surprise, I sprang out of bed at my 6am alarm with no problem in spite of going to bed a bit late. I was excited to get this burrito bake thrown together and ready for Sam. Since I had prepped all the components the previous night, it didn’t take much time at all to assemble the burritos. I did have to get out the bullet to crush up some pumpkin seeds, which Dr. G advised me would make for a pleasant crunchy topping. I winced as I hit the pulse button a few times, hoping I wasn’t waking Sam. 

Once more I was assembling wraps. Here’s how they looked before I folded them over: 

Please note I prepped them literally on my stovetop because I HAVE NO COUNTER SPACE. 

Anyhow. They were definitely super full but since they only needed to be gently folded over and then placed seam side down, I got them into the baking dish no problem. Topped them with a few scoops of salsa and the pumpkin seeds and into the oven they went. Once they were out, they also got topped with some avocado. 

Here’s a few pics of the finished product. Please forgive the fact that I know nothing about photography, especially food photography. Like, does the rule of thirds still apply? I’m thinking no...

I proudly told Sam breakfast was ready and we devoured these. And... I have to say... it needed salt! Does this Dr. Gregor guy really know what he’s talking about? I couldn’t help but wonder. Sure, he knows about medicine and nutrition and stuff, but food needs salt, and nutritional yeast is a pretty unconvincing substitute on the palate. Hmmm. I decided I might have to do some further digging on this guy and his philosophy. I’d bought his cookbook pretty impulsively, after all. Don’t get me wrong - there were a lot of tasty things going on in this recipe, but I definitely felt like it needed more seasoning. Even a bit of hot pepper flakes or something would probably have helped distract my mouth from the lack of sodium it’d become so accustomed to. 

Sam went on his way to work and I settled in to relax with some trashy TV for a few hours. I felt like I’d earned it after all my running around yesterday, dang it! (Parents everywhere roll their eyes... I know, I know.) I got hungry around 10:40 and ate a banana and felt like I deserved an award for my healthy choice. When lunchtime rolled around, I didn’t really feel like assembling another wrap and we had a lot of shredded lettuce left over, so I put the chickpea mixture on top of that and had a salad instead. I realize I never actually commented on how the curry chickpea wraps came out last night. They were delicious! The sweetness of the apples and raisins helped distract me from the lack of salt, hah. Honestly a really nice combination of textures and flavors, and easy to make. I’d make it again.. probably with more salt but anywho...

Lunch was over and this was around the time I’d normally indulge in some chocolatey granola. I could feel the craving for chocolate kicking in, hard. Alright. Time to put together these no-bake brownies. This was another recipe that was super simple so long as you had a food processor or some kind of chopper - you literally just pulsed chopped walnuts with a handful of pitted dates, then added in a bunch of cocoa powder, and boom. “Brownies.” Dr. G. advised I use parchment paper to press this rather crumbly mixture into a square baking dish, so that it wouldn’t stick to my fingers as I evened it out. Worked like a charm. I pressed some chopped pecans into the surface, covered the pan in foil, and put it in the fridge. Dr. G. said it would need an hour to set before eating. Sigh. That was a long time to wait when I wanted chocolate now. I settled for some strawberries instead for the time being and began looking at the recipes I’d be cooking that night for dinner.

And thank goodness I did, because there were several things I needed to start prepping early. I would be making zoodles with a cashew cream sauce, which meant I needed to put the raw cashews in water ASAP so they’d have enough time to soak before dinner. Took two seconds, but you can see that you need to really plan out your meals and read the recipes well in advance if you’re going to cook this way. I also would need 1.5 cups of homemade vegetable stock or  water. Okay, I definitely didn’t want water in place of that much stock. I flipped to the vegetable stock recipe. It looked very simple to throw together, but it would need an hour and a half to simmer. I looked at the clock. About 1:20. I could’ve started it then, but I really wanted to get to the library. 

See, I’d done a little research after lunch. I wanted more detail about Dr. G’s nutritional philosophy than this cookbook alone could offer me. Nikki had told me about the book he’d written and I had seen it on Amazon. But I didn’t really want to pay for it, and also I wanted it now. It wasn’t available at my local library, but luckily a quick search of their databases revealed that the next town over had it. 

I drove on over to Tolland Public Library, feeling like an interloper with my Vernon library card, but it didn’t matter. I walked out triumphant and more surprised than I should have been at how huge the book actually was. I got home and got to work on throwing the veggie stock together.

This is before I added parsley and some other seasonings, but you get the idea. Took probably ten minutes tops to throw together. I set it to simmer and settled into my armchair to start reading Dr. G’s book. 

I was hooked. A professional sharing their expert knowledge on the science behind living a longer and healthier life is like catnip to me. I was thoroughly bummed by this part, though: To see what effect an increase in meat consumption might have on disease rates, researchers studied lapsed vegetarians. People who once ate vegetarian diets but then started to eat meat at least once a week experienced a 146 percent increase in odds of heart disease, a 152 percent increase in stroke, a 166 percent increase in diabetes, and a 231 percent increase in odds for weight gain. During the twelve years after the transition from vegetarian to omnivore, meat-eating was associated with a 3.6 year decrease in life expectancy. 

Damn it, Dr. G. You’re telling me I can’t eat a burger even once a week without being way more likely to die a prolonged and terrible death one day?? I hemmed and hawed as I read on. Eventually my stock was ready to take off the burner and cool. The next step was to put it in the blender and liquefy it. It made so much I actually had to do this part in batches. Dr. G. also directs you to take out a small amount and mix in 2 tablespoons of miso, which helps add some sodium but in a healthier way, since soy is good for you or whatever. Awesome. My stock was done. I put that away and went back to reading for a little while. 

Alright, still with me? We’re almost there! Just gotta get through dinner. According to Dr. G’s meal plan, this dinner should contain two parts: a huge salad, and also the zoodles with the cashew cream sauce. I honestly wasn’t sure where to start and decided to make the cashew cream sauce first. It was pretty easy - mostly ingredients I already had on hand at this point, such as the stock, blended lemon, yeast, miso, etc. I just had to chop up half an avocado and toss it in and boom, I had my cashew-cream sauce. The next part of this dish was to spiralize the zucchini and steam it lightly. Once that was done, you would combine it with the cashew sauce and some chopped grape tomatoes in one big pot just long enough to heat it through. “Avocado-cashew alfredo” is what Dr. G called it. He also suggested you sprinkle it with “nutty parm” when it was done. Turns out nutty parm is a big heaping handful of nutritional yeast blended with a few handful of nuts. It does not taste nearly as good as actual parmesan cheese, but you knew that already, didn’t you? 

The salad was pretty simple too. Chop up a bunch of lettuce, mix in some baby spinach, some shredded carrot, more grape tomato, etc. The only part that took any extra work was making the dressing. I was really skeptical of the dressing because it had no oil in it. Just water. As a woman who married into an Italian-American family, the lack of love for EVOO in this book hurts my heart a little. But again, no half-measures! The dressing’s base consisted of water.... and then you add raw garlic, yeast, some almond butter, blended lemon, our old friend miso, fresh parsley, turmeric, the savory spice blend, and “salt free stone-ground mustard”. I don’t know what magical land Dr. Gregor lives in where he can purchase salt-free condiments - I stopped at the health food store on my way back from the library and even their condiments still have some salt. I just used the coarse-ground mustard I already had on hand. Finally, the salad also called for a healthy sprinkling of hemp hearts. 

Here are the finished products:

The verdict? Delicious!! Both dishes! I think it helped that I used normal-people mustard for the dressing, and I also added a healthy sprinkling of red pepper flakes to the zucchini dish while it was heating through. And honestly, apart from having to make the stock and be sure to remember to soak the raw cashews early in the day, this really didn’t take more work than a lot of other veggie-forward dishes I’ve made from omnivore recipe books. Less, even, because I didn’t have to worry about handling or cooking meat safely. 

I warned Sam about 5 times that there was dessert “but not like, a normal dessert. Don’t get too excited. It’s a healthy one.” We each took a tiny brownie square (Dr. G advised cutting the already small pan into 16 “brownies”... hilarious) and munched on it, eyeing one another as our respective brownies crumbled between our fingers. “Well?” I asked. “It tastes healthy,” he nodded. “Ha. Sorry,” I said. “No, it’s not bad. I do actually like it, but it’s kind of hard to eat without an egg to hold it all together,” he told me. I’d have to agree. 

And that’s a wrap on Day 2, guys! Since I didn’t have my lascivious FRIENDS luring me out of my healthy haven with their Cheetos and Harry Potter games (love you Tina :* ) I was able to grab some unsalted peanuts when I got my late night snack craving, and that was that. A day of fully whole-foods, plant-based eating, and it wasn’t that hard at all honestly. See you on the Day 3 post! 

 Gadget rec of the day: A spiralizer! You can get one for like 20 bucks on Amazon and turn vegetables into long ribbons that can almost trick you into thinking you’re eating a tasty bowl of pasta. 

Music rec of the day: “Entropy” by Grimes 

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 1, Part 2: My first whole-foods meal, and immediately falling off the wagon

Yo. I stopped and chilled for like ten minutes after finishing my last post and now I’m going to keep on rolling with it. Had to stop and cram a “brownie” (spoiler: it tastes nothing like a brownie but it’s as close as I’m going to get for the next 13 days) into my face because writing about that granola/chocolate combo really had me wistful to stuff some crunchy, sugary, carcinogen-loaded goodness down my gullet hole. But I’m being good today. On Day 1 I was not so good, as you might have inferred by now. How do you like my clickbait-y title? Yup, I fell off the wagon pretty much immediately after my first whole-foods meal experience. Read on and find out why~ 

Feeling groggy and supremely unmotivated after my half-nap through Forks Over Knives, I headed up to the kitchen. It was time to get down to business. So first of all, here’s a photo of my kitchen to give you an idea of what I’m working with here. 

No, this isn’t half of it. This is literally our entire kitchen. That little slab you see above the dishwasher is the extent of our usable counterspace for prepping food. We end up having to use the kitchen table for meals involving a lot of prep. I love our apartment... except for this kitchen. I hate this kitchen with a passion, not only for its lack of counter and storage space but also because the stove is terrible. On many an evening stroll Sam and I have waxed poetic about how one day we’ll have a kitchen where we aren’t constantly knocking into one another. So it’s not exactly the ideal set-up for a ton of veggie prep, but I’ve more or less adapted to it over the years. 

Trying to pep up my brain, I put on Paramore’s latest album After Laughter. Extremely depressing lyrics actually, but they’re sung over fun calypso beats so you don’t even notice! It’s a solid album and you should check it out. In addition to food, my main interests in life are books and music so you’ll probably be seeing a lot of random music/reading recommendations sprinkled throughout this blog. 

Anyways, here’s what was on the menu for dinner on Day 1: curried chickpea wraps. I had figured on literally just going in the order of the meals recommended by Dr. Gregor on his two-week plan. The curried chickpea wraps had technically been a lunch recommendation, but I figured they’d work fine for dinner too. 

This was, on the surface, a really simple recipe. No cooking involved, just making a filling and rolling it up into a wrap. However, there were certain special things you needed to prepare if this was your first rodeo with Dr. G. Specifically, I needed to have blended lemon “(see page 3)” and savory spice blend “(see page 4)” prepped. I decided to do the spice blend first. The only thing I had needed to purchase new for this spice blend was the nutritional yeast. The rest of the ingredients were typical seasoning blend spices: paprika, oregano, onion and garlic powders, dried basil and parsley, etc. A couple more things. I won’t give it away completely lest Dr. G’s publisher come after me for copyright infringement. Dr. Gregor wrote that he uses this seasoning blend frequently “to add flavor to dishes in place of salt.” Fair enough. By the way, if you wondered what nutritional yeast is like... it looks, and yes, I’m afraid also kind of smells, a lot like fish food: 

Next, the blended lemon. Dr. Gregor writes that you get “more nutritional benefit” from blending pieces of peeled lemon and freezing them like little ice cubes. He argues that lemon juice strips the fruit of its fiber. Seems a little extreme but then so does this whole diet. I’d wanted a project and I would commit to it to the fullest extent I could, dang it. So I got out my peeler and peeled the heck out of that lemon skin. Definitely not as easy as a carrot or potato, in case you wondered. Our food processor is pretty big and it felt silly to drag it out to pulverize a single lemon, so I took out our mini bullet blender. Love that thing! Boom. That lemon never stood a chance. I then knocked out an entire tray of ice cubes and hoped we wouldn’t be needing much ice any time soon as I dropped teaspoons of fibrous lemon gunk into the now-empty tray. I stuck it in the freezer. Alright. Now maybe I could actually make dinner. 

Honestly? It was totally easy - so long as you had a food processor, which the recipe does explicitly call for. I grew up in a household without a food processor, so the first time I saw one in action it blew my mind. Grandma, do you have one? I don’t think you do. Guess what you’re getting for Christmas?! 

Anyhow, I dumped some chickpeas into the food processor with some curry powder, date sugar, miso, the savory spice blend, some of the blended lemon, and a bit of water. Hadn’t even needed to chop anything so far other than the lemon. Sweet. Next, the recipe called for chopped celery, shredded carrot, and chopped cashews. I only had to chop the celery, the other two products I had on hand already chopped. I tossed those in and some raisins. Then I diced an apple and some scallion. It all went into the food processor for some quick pulses. 

Ta-da! Really not hard to prep at all, and zero stovetop work involved. Even with putting together the spice blend and the blended lemon, the whole affair took me 30 minutes tops. 

I dolloped this out onto four wraps. One each for Sam and I for dinner that night, and two for us to have for our lunches tomorrow. I added a bunch of shredded lettuce on top of each one and rolled them up rather precariously (damn you Whole Foods for not having bigger whole-wheat tortillas!). 

Maybe it was the Paramore kicking in, but I felt totally energized now, the fog of my earlier half-nap fully lifted. Putting together my first whole-foods, plant-based meal had been a lot easier than shopping for it. 

However... there was more work to be done. Some of you may have been wondering how my husband has been feeling about this little project of mine, which clearly directly impacts his life as much as mine for these two weeks. Anyone who knows Sam knows that he’s a pretty easygoing dude. So, the fact that I got even a little bit of pushback from him says a lot. In the days leading up to this project, I got questions like, “But wait, for every meal? What about our eggs in the morning?” “Does this count for everything? I can still eat my granola bars, right?” “No, Sam.” “Why not??? I think it might be vegan...” “It’s not about vegan, Sam, it’s about a whole foods diet!” He didn’t really care that we would be eating vegan meals for lunch and dinner, but I could tell being deprived of yogurt, granola bars, eggs, and buttered toast was a scary thought for him. And I could hardly blame him. The thought of egg-less mornings bummed me out in a major way as well. So, I had been determined to pick something really good for our first plant-based breakfast to prove to Sam that the next two weeks would be bearable. Meaning I deviated from Dr. G’s plan - his first breakfast for Day 1 was called “summertime oatmeal” - and decided that I instead would go for the “burrito breakfast bake.” 

...

This recipe is definitely not one of the easier breakfast meals in this book. It accounted for a sizable portion of the mounds of produce I had purchased that day. Not only did it call for 6 cups of greens, plus onion, bell pepper, beans, a whole sweet potato, cilantro, hot peppers, and avocado, but it also called for “2 cups of summer salsa (or your favorite salt-free salsa).” I hadn’t even tried to find a “salt free salsa” in the grocery store. What a jokester you are, Dr. G. Nope, I wasn’t taking any half-measures on this project unless I absolutely had to, so that meant I would buy the ingredients and prepare my own fresh salsa. 

The burrito bake was going to need 20-30 minutes in the oven in the morning. Sam tries to be out the door by around 7:15am each day so I knew I’d have to be up at 6:00 just to ensure I could arrange the tortillas and get the pan in the oven. All of the actual cooking and mixing of the vegetables, which involved several steps, I would need to get done tonight. 

But wait. While I’d been prepping the chickpea wraps, one of my group texts had started going off. My friend Tina had had a tough day. She wanted to know if Connie and I wanted to come over and hang out with her that night, maybe play a round or two of the Harry Potter tabletop game I had recently introduced her to. 

Damn it. Of course I wanted to do that. Not only did I want to, I needed to! Tina was one of my best friends and she needed me. But my husband also needed me to follow through on my promise to feed him something delicious the next morning that didn’t involve eggs and buttered toast. I texted Tina back and asked her to give me an hour. I had no idea how doable that actually was; I still had to clean up from dinner and make all of the various components of the burrito bake. 

Luckily, the kitchen gods were on my side, and by that I mean I have a kitchen well-stocked with gadgets that make my life easier. My current favorite is our tomato corer, which I didn’t even realize we owned until recently - I guess it was buried away in a drawer somewhere??? I always hated coring tomatoes - honestly, I’m a bit clumsy with knives and I always feel like I’m going to slice my fingers open. Tomato guts get everywhere and it’s just never a pretty sight. But the tomato corer? LIFE CHANGING. I had those suckers cored and chopped in no time. I coarsely chopped half an orange bell pepper, a hot pepper, and then tossed them in the bullet to mince, followed by some red onion. And of course, Dr. G wanted me to peel and blend a lime so that I could get its full fibrous benefits. But thanks to my tomato corer and my trusty bullet chopper, I had a bowl of beautiful fresh summer salsa prepped in record time. 

Cool, but I still needed to cook down the greens. Dr. G. advised me to steam them and then season them with typical taco seasoning type stuff (oregano, chili powder, cumin, etc) and of course, his savory spice blend in place of salt. I acquiesced when it came to the greens, but decided to cheat and add actual kosher salt to the salsa. It just really went against every fiber of my being to not put salt in a fresh salsa, and if Dr. Greger wants to fight me for it, so be it. 

I microwaved a bake potato and mashed the heck out of it before mixing it with some fish flakes (aka nutritional yeast), cilantro, and a bit of the salsa. Covered it with cling wrap and stuck it in the fridge. The greens got mashed with a can of black beans in a separate bowl and then also covered and stuck in the fridge. I didn’t want the wraps getting soggy, so I wouldn’t actually assemble the burritos until tomorrow morning, but all of the components were ready.

I checked the time. To my surprise and delight, I was perfectly on track to meet my one hour time limit I’d imposed on myself! I even had time to clean up the kitchen, freshen myself up quickly, and stop to make sure I had everything I needed before heading over to Tina’s. I sailed out of the door feeling like a food prep goddess. Maybe this project wasn’t going to be quite as hard as I’d thought. 

And now, the part you’ve all been waiting for: my immediately falling off the wagon. My granola and chocolate chips had been intended to be my last true indulgence of the next two weeks. Starting with our chickpea wraps tonight, I told Sam we were all about that plant-based, whole-foods diet! What did it take for me to lapse from this? A single evening with my buddies, of course. I hung in there for awhile. I had remembered to bring my water bottle so that I wouldn’t get thirsty. But I hadn’t packed myself a snack. I know. Rookie mistake. We hung out for about two hours. Crushed Year 4 on the Battle of Hogwarts tabletop game (So fun!!! Go buy it immediately tbh). It was about 8:30 when we finished, and I was starting to feel snacky. Had been feeling that way since 8ish, really. Tina is a nurse who works long shifts starting at 6:45am so she’s up stupid early each day. She’d also had an especially exhausting day and was clearly tired. I figured I’d be set to go home and dutifully stuff some unsalted peanuts into my face, but Tina wasn’t ready to call it a night. She wanted to keep playing. Connie was down too. Could I, the one person there on summer freaking vacation, be the party pooper at 8:30pm? Of course not. “Alright, I’m down,” I said, “But I’m going to need a snack.” 

“Oh, we have snacks,” Tina assured me. And I knew she did. I’d just been there three nights ago and had eaten half a bag of flaming hot Cheetos, reminding myself it was okay, because I was about to start eating super healthy in like three days! She opened their pantry cabinet. It was honestly a cornucopia of junk food. Pringles in 4 or 5 flavors. Chocolate. Tortilla chips. Mallomars (when’s the last time you saw a box of Mallomars?!). And more, so much more. No unsalted nuts or seeds or carrot sticks to be seen, and frankly at that point I wasn’t looking for them. I grabbed my faithful bag of flaming hot Cheetos, seemingly still untouched since my last visit. I also grabbed the bag of tortilla chips. Those at least said they were baked. That meant healthy-ish, right? Then I saw Connie had taken out salt and vinegar Pringles. Damn it. I love those. And Tina had dill pickle flavored ones and I just had to try those, they sounded interesting! 

I wish I could say I only ate a handful of chips and Cheetos, just enough to take the edge off and then stopped, but nope. I went ham. Okay. Well, today was never really a fully plant-based day anyways, I told myself on the way home, windows down to let in the soft dark summer nighttime air, even if it carried a faint whiff of manure thanks to Tina’s house being out by cow country. I ate my normal eggs breakfast today. Had a normal lunch. Ate all that granola and chocolate. And now I had a normal snack. But dinner was a success! And prep for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be my first real plant-based day. 

As always, thanks for reading, friends. Stay tuned to hear about if I made it through my first ~real~ whole foods day without cheating. 

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 1, Part 1: Me vs. the grocery store

Hi again. It was really nice to hear from some of my friends and family in response to my post last night! I’m really excited to know that some people are down to read my long-ass posts about plants. I’ve also had several people offer me cookbook suggestions or even offer to have me plunder their own stash. Thanks for being my enablers, guys! (No seriously, thank you, I love you all sm.) Also, I can now reveal that my grandma texted me this morning to confirm she did indeed read my first post to its end. She’s the best!!!! This blog is rapidly evolving into a dual-purpose food/my grandma fan page and I can’t be sorry for it. 

So it’s Friday afternoon as I write this but the day I’ll be writing about is actually Wednesday. Can you tell it took me a little while to get going with the actual blogging part of this project? Anywho, I woke up Wednesday and after taking some time to wake up with a coffee, I flipped open my shiny new How Not to Die cookbook to the pages with the 2-week meal plan. I scanned the lists of recipes, already nervous. There were so many listed for every single day. I’m used to preparing dinner each night and eating leftovers for my lunches. For years my tried-and-true breakfast almost every single day has been two hard-boiled eggs and a piece of toast. So I’m really only used to having to prepare a fully involved meal once a day. You wanted to do this, I reminded myself. You have the summer off. You have the time! Trying to calm my nerves, I opened up the notes app on my laptop and began typing the names of the suggested recipes. There are no page numbers referenced on the meal plan pages, which would have made things a lot easier, just sayin’, Dr. Greger! I found the recipes and opened the grocery list Google Doc I’ve shared with my husband since we moved in together. I started typing up a shopping list. 

This was more than 48 hours ago at this point, but luckily I did stop to write down some initial thoughts. I shall share them with you now, verbatim: 

How the f@#! am I going to buy everything we need for all this? How will it fit in my fridge? Will I spend literally all day prepping all of this? Am I even going to be able to find everything I need for these recipes? 

...

16 recipes compared to my normal 4, MAYBE 5. Eating this way is obviously the vanity project of the wealthy wtf

...

It’s only two weeks. I can spend 2374623645 dollars on food for just half a month right? right?? It’s normal to spend money on hobbies? Gah

...

What the hell is date sugar?

...

I am definitely using vanilla extract instead of buying a giant vanilla bean Fresh turmeric? Where would even sell that? Ground sounds just fine to me

I noted that I began this process at 8:55. At 9:21 I wrote:

I give up… because I can already tell I’m going to be buying WAY too much produce to fit into my crisper drawer. The original plan had been to stock up enough stuff to carry me through until Monday but I can see now that’s just not going to be realistic at all. I’ll stock up on enough stuff to get me through to Friday night. I don’t want to grocery shop on the weekend if I can help it. I’ll just go again on Friday. Then I’ll probably have to go again on Monday, maybe Tuesday if I’m lucky. That’ll be three grocery store stock-ups in one week. I wanted a hobby, didn’t I?? Time to go back and redo my list to only reflect recipes for the next three days then.

I put a break in my recipes list. Alright. That brings me from 16 recipes to 8. Feels much more manageable. I look at the huge list of ingredients I amassed on my Google doc and decide it’d be easier to just delete it and restart from scratch than go through and try to remember what I now do and don’t need. 9:30.

9:45 - done. Still a LONG list. This is only for 2 days plus a dinner. But to be fair I did include stuff for a couple of desserts.

I’m a tad concerned by how none of these recipes call for ANY salt.

I was more than a tad concerned, actually. But I had my mission lined out. It was time to head to Big Y. 

Of the common local grocery store chains in Connecticut, Big Y is probably the nicest one. My husband and I used to frequent Stop & Shop but we stopped because the produce kind of sucked and anyhow the set-up of Big Y is a lot more appealing. I drove on over to the Ellington Big Y, hopeful that I’d be able to find the majority of the items I needed, but also aware that I’d probably end up at Whole Foods later that day. 

I’d been so focused on getting together my massive shopping list and hustling out to the store that I hadn’t attended to my basic personal needs with as much care as usual. I realized two things almost immediately as I crossed the parking lot: I kinda had to pee, and I was also sort of thirsty/hungry. Should I get a lemonade or something from the cafe? I wondered briefly then decided against it. I’d be fine til I got home, surely. 

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the produce section. I bagged up two heads of lettuce and an even bigger head of red kale. I bought the biggest container of baby spinach they had and then also the biggest bag of regular spinach. Cilantro and parsley. Scallions. And that was just from the greens section! I was already tired by the time I got to the natural foods section, and I had only shopped for stuff whose location I already knew. 

I spent some time figuring out which seeds/nuts I needed that Big Y sold by the weight. It’s a really convenient and cool system, except the stupid sticker-printing machine is sort of finicky. I must have spent a solid ten minutes before I had the correct amount of almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, etc. Okay. Now I needed to look for some stuff that I genuinely had no idea where exactly it might be. I knew they likely were somewhere in this natural foods section, I just didn’t know where. Stuff like hemp hearts and nutritional yeast (sounded gross but it was called for in quite a few recipes). I found them eventually. Cool. Now I needed canned tomatoes and beans, but Dr. Gregor really wanted me to be sure I bought cans without a BPA liner. Seriously? Was that really going to be the thing that would make or break if I lived to see 100? But I didn’t want to half-ass the Dr. Gregor lifestyle. It was only for two weeks, after all. After way too much time studying the shelves of tomatoes and beans, I ended up with two cans of diced tomato that cost twice as much as the brand I normally purchased... and the same exact generic brand of beans I normally went for, because none of the beans at Big Y seemed to be BPA free. Whatever. I was hungrier and grumpier by the minute. I wanted to stuff something into my mouth full of sugar and gluten and whatever other chemicals were out to kill me, stat. Almost done. Just had to find frozen okra (vegan gumbo, y’all! Stay tuned), and also miso. I wasn’t too worried about the miso. Big Y has a decent Asian foods aisle... one that I paced up and down at least four times before accepting that they didn’t seem to have miso. They also didn’t have date sugar, a key ingredient to a no-bake brownies recipe I wanted to try. I have a major sweet tooth (can you tell?) and the idea of two weeks without chocolate bars or ice cream was something I refused to entertain without some sort of chocolate dessert option. Okay. No miso, no date sugar. I also hadn’t been able to find “whole wheat tortillas - no salt added” anywhere in the store. So, I’d be going to Whole Foods. I had figured as much. 

I checked out with a whopper of a bill and tried not to die too much inside at the fact that this was only two and a half day’s worth of groceries. After all, I had needed to stock up on several crunchy hippie type pantry items I hadn’t already owned. Thank god I already had a pretty sizable spice collection or my bill would have been even higher. I tried not to think of how this wasn’t even everything on my list. Not only did I still need to go to Whole Foods, but I needed to go to the farm stand. 

Shout-out to Johnny Appleseed’s Farm in Ellington. Sam and I love them, and they love us back! Okay, they love Sam back because he told them once that he had gone onto Google and fixed an incorrect listing stating they were permanently closed. They really love Sam for that. They have no idea who I am unless I walk in with him. But that’s okay. Every late July through October, Sam and I buy as much of our produce as possible from Johnny Appleseed’s. I stopped over there to load up on tomatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, and an ungodly amount of zucchini. The woman ringing me out seemed amused. “Lots of squash,” she commented. “What’re you cooking?” I stared at her, trying to remember. The recipe planning I’d done only a couple hours ago already seemed such a blur. “Zoodles,” I managed finally. “You know, like when you try to pretend you’re eating pasta but it’s actually vegetables?” She chuckled and nodded. “You make your own sauce from scratch too?” “Usually,” I told her, feeling a sudden pang of longing for a nice meaty bolognese. Wow, I really wasn’t going to be cut out for this meatless life for long. I told her goodbye and got into my car. It was sweltering outside and 10x worse inside my black interior car. I now definitely needed to pee and I was starving. Home couldn’t come fast enough. 

Of course, before I could eat my lunch I had to go through the battle of trying to fit all of this produce into my refrigerator. Even with the clearing out of the usual cartons of eggs and older produce that I’d tossed earlier that morning, it was definitely a game of Tetris trying to fit all of the extremely perishable items I’d just purchased into my fridge. I didn’t even entertain the thought of trying to fit all the vegetables in the crisper. Just to fit them in the fridge itself was an accomplishment. Thank god I hadn’t been quite stupid enough to try to buy enough groceries to last us through Monday. Dear lord, I was really going to have to go back in two days and do this again? You chose this, you chose this I sang to myself repeatedly in my head as I grabbed the container of my last non-vegan meal for two weeks: zucchini turkey meatballs, romano cheese, and marinara sauce over spaghetti. It was damned good. This is still healthy, isn’t it? Do I definitely have to give up cheese, Dr. Gregor? 

Now came the time for my final real dessert of the next two weeks. Something I end up binging on far too often when Sam leaves me at home unsupervised for too long: Aurora honey nut granola with chocolate chips mixed in. It’s so good!!! And I definitely went especially overboard that day knowing it was my last sugar binge for awhile. 

Alright. It was time to head to Whole Foods. The closest one to me is in Glastonbury and a solid 25 minute drive away. The air felt heavy and oppressive as I headed out into the heat. Ominous dark clouds hung low in the sky. I could feel the nasty air pressure in the depths of my sinuses. Blah. Almost done, I told myself. The parking lot at Whole Foods was mobbed. Why are so many people out on a random Wednesday afternoon, I grumped to myself as I narrowly avoided running over a perfectly nice young family (sorry, strangers!!) and found myself a spot. I walked inside and immediately started rubbing my arms up and down. It was freezing. One thing I love about Big Y is that they keep a lot of their refrigerated items behind doors. I forget how cold other grocery stores are. 

I don’t go to Whole Foods very often. I knew where the ethnic condiments were but had no clue where I might find “whole wheat tortillas, no salt added.” I wandered the entire length of the store twice over and finally found a small selection. They really didn’t have much to offer in the way of wraps. Too many carbs for the Whole Foods shopping crowd, I guess? I settled for normal whole wheat tortillas that did indeed have salt as an ingredient. What do you want me to do, Dr. Gregor? I’m only one person. I at least then found the date sugar no problem. Okay. Cool. Only the miso left. 

I wandered into the Asian condiments aisle... and essentially repeated the same pacing act I’d done at Big Y, except I went back and forth even more times because I had a hard time processing that Whole Foods wouldn’t have what I needed. I mean, they’ve got some weird stuff there! They have like 5 different brands of ghee! Miso sounded like such a basic Asian condiment to me. We’ve all heard of miso soup, no? But it was nowhere to be found. Ugh. Fine. I’ll go to the Asian market in East Hartford. It’s not that far from here anyways, I tried to reassure myself. I could feel a sugar crash hitting my bloodstream. I wanted a juicebox and a nap. 

I checked out and made my way to Je Mart. I wandered up and down their aisles and couldn’t seem to find miso there either. It finally occurred to me that I was obviously missing something here. Like I really should have done at Big Y in the first place, I pulled out my phone and Googled “Where do I buy miso in the store?” Within 5 seconds I realized I’d been looking in the wrong spots of the stores the entire time. Miso isn’t a bottled or jarred condiment like Sriracha or curry paste. It’s actually sold in plastic tubs in the refrigerated section. Look near the tofu, the infinite wisdom of the Internet advised. I turned around and what do you know, literally right behind me was the refrigerated section with the tofu. And within five seconds I spotted it: a tub of miso!!! I grabbed at it ecstatically and scanned the label. Was this the white miso that Dr. Gregor had specifically demanded? It didn’t specify, but it looked pale enough for me. And it was only $5 for a pretty decent sized tub. I handed my money gleefully to the cashier and went on my way. Finally. 

I got home and put away my new purchases. It was about 2:20pm and I was beyond exhausted. I really shouldn’t have eaten that much granola, I thought morosely as I flopped onto the couch. I wanted to rewatch Forks Over Knives (it’s on Netflix!). If I started now it would end right around 4, a good time to start trying to actually prepare some of the meals I’d worked so hard all the day just to shop for. 

I’m not saying that I napped for the entire documentary because I definitely didn’t. I remember some parts of it. But can I guarantee I didn’t nap at all? No, no I cannot. 

This was another long post, so obviously I’m going to need to give us all a break and stop here before going on to Part 2, in which I’ll finally talk about cooking and eating these recipes. These first couple of posts have really just been a lot of exposition, I promise I’m going to get to the meat of the plot soon! (pun intended) 

For now, here’s a picture of the miso I drove all over the state searching for before finally acquiring for the very reasonable price of $5 (fyi - Big Y does have miso but it’s red miso and it’s $7 so I guess all’s well that ends well): 

[kriskebob-blog]

Intro post: What’s the deal with this blog thing, Kristina?

Hi! This is where I’m going to write about my cooking adventures for the next two weeks, because I literally only plan to upkeep this blog for the next two weeks and that didn’t seem like nearly enough time to try to figure out how Wordpress or any other more legitimate blogging medium works. I assume my readership will mainly consist of my grandma and maybe my husband but I think I’ll have some fun with this regardless. 

This mini-project was inspired by one of my oldest and greatest friends, the inimitable Nikki Lee. She’s a super talented web designer and overall awesome human. I highly encourage you to check her work out over at https://imnikkilee.com/. A week or so ago, Nikki texted me trying to pawn off a cookbook she didn’t want anymore (if anyone cares, it was the Fast & Slow version of the Skinnytaste cookbook series). I told her I already had it but then asked, because I have a minor cookbook obsession and am always on the hunt for a good new one - what cookbooks do you find yourself reaching for a lot these days? She told me she’d been using the How Not to Die cookbook a lot, which she explained “is not only vegan but also whole foods so super healthy.” Interesting name, I replied. “Lol yeah this doctor wrote this huge book How Not to Die all about the health benefits of a ‘whole foods plant based’ diet as he calls it, so this is the cookbook to go with it.” I told her it sounded a lot like the documentary Forks Over Knives, which I had watched years back in college. “Ahhh yeah definitely similar. I have that cookbook too. though not as good” Nikki texted back. 

My curiosity was piqued. I had always been fascinated by the main argument of the FOK doc, which summarizes the life work of two big names in nutritional research - physician Caldwell Esselstyn and nutritional biochemist T. Colin Campbell. They argued that the majority of degenerative diseases responsible for the deaths of millions of Americans every year - heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. - could be prevented and in some cases even reversed if patients adopted the “whole foods, plant-based” diet and avoided or minimized intake of all processed and animal food products, including dairy. This pretty much leaves you with only legumes, nuts, seeds, and a LOT of vegetables. 

I know. What the hell is that? No cheese? No ice cream? No cheetos? No eggs?! It sounds like removing everything that’s actually delicious from your life. Everything that makes you love food! Not having cancer is nice and all, but have you ever tried ice cream? But anyhow, the reason the doc was called “Forks Over Knives” is that these guys argue that Americans grow sicker every year and the response of the healthcare industry is to medicate the crap out of them and, when that eventually doesn’t work any more, perform surgery. Double bypasses on your arteries. Removal of tumors. Huge whopping medical bills thanks to that awesome high deductible health plan. The guys behind FOK argue that by changing what you put on your fork and into your body, you can avoid going under the knife for invasive and expensive medical procedures. They discuss a lot of research to back up their argument. They interview people whose heart disease has gone into remission since they adopted the whole-foods diet, people who marvel that they feel and look younger than they have in 20+ years. 

So anyhow. In college I found the documentary really interesting, but obviously back then I didn’t have the time, equipment, money, or know-how to pursue that sort of lifestyle. But I did have a burgeoning interest in nutrition and its connection to overall wellbeing. As a student of psychology, I’ve always been interested in the overlap between our physical and mental health. When I eventually moved out on my own to start graduate school, I was determined to shop for and prepare healthy meals for myself, even if on some days that literally only meant chopping up some broccoli and mixing it in with the pot of boxed mac and cheese I’d prepared for myself. I moved in with my now-husband in 2013 and even though the kitchen in this apartment is terrible, we’ve made it work. Over time, we’ve amassed a pretty nice collection of kitchen gadgets (thanks, wedding guests!), but what I really take pride in is our ever-growing collection of cookbooks. We have a little two-shelf bookcase in our front room that’s now crammed full of them. It’s made it onto my Instagram account more than once, mainly because my life is pretty boring, obviously, but also because I genuinely love my cookbook collection and I want everyone to know it, damn it. 

After my text exchange with Nikki, I promptly hopped onto Amazon so that I could look at the free preview of this How Not to Die cookbook. The cover looked decidedly uninspiring. No photo of a beautifully arranged and colorful meal. No picture of a celebrity chef (or even a stock photo guy) holding a mixing bowl and beaming at the camera, clearly ready to burst with excitement over whatever magnificent thing he was preparing. It almost looked like a textbook. Plain white cover, mostly small black print. The only things that stood out were the words NOT and DIE, which had been designed so that miniature pictures of vegetables made up the letters. They tried, I guess. So, I felt pretty skeptical as I began the free preview. I’ve been burned by boring cookbooks before. But I’m a seasoned cookbook purchaser now, you know? I know about the free previews on Amazon, and you can bet your ass that if there aren’t gorgeous full-color photographs to accompany almost every recipe, I’m not buying it. I’m very visual when it comes to picking out my recipes, ok? I’m not here for you cookbook publishers trying to cheap out with one measly photo thrown in for every 5-6 recipes (or less!!). Yes, I realize that the lack of photos meant you had more room in your budget to share way more of your delicious professional recipes with me at a reasonable cost. Don’t care!!!! Pics or it didn’t happen.

Ahem. Anyways, sorry. Anyone still out there at this point? You still with me, Grandma? Holla at your favorite grandchild if so. So long as my grandma reads my full content I will consider this blog worth it!!  

To my pleasant surprise, the How Not to Die cookbook actually appeared to be beautifully curated with many full-page photographs. The recipes sounded tasty and reasonably approachable. Now, I should put out a disclaimer early on in this project: my threshold for “reasonably approachable” is probably different than that of many others out there. Prepping and cooking food in interesting and new ways is essentially a hobby for me. Last summer I ordered an Indian cookbook, bought a whole bunch of spices whose names I can’t pronounce from the local Asian grocer and good ol Amazon.com, and honestly had a blast throwing a bunch of vegetables and unfamiliar spices into my blender and seeing what sort of sauces I ended up with to spread over heaps of basmati rice and naan bread. I also worship at the alter of Gina Homolka, patron goddess of the Skinnytaste blog (unlike Nikki I plan to nevar let go!!!). Her recipes are delicious but often involve a LOT of time-consuming prep work. So I wasn’t too intimidated by what I saw in the preview for How Not to Die. I added the cookbook to my Amazon wishlist, figuring my parents or mother-in-law (shout-out! Love you guys) would get it for me for Christmas this year. Then, I got to a later part of the free preview on Amazon: a suggested two-week meal-plan. Using entirely recipes from the book, it outlined 14 days’ worth of breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and dessert. Interesting. This was the sort of thing I had wondered about when I had first watched FOK years back. Sure, eating only plants and whole foods sounded marvelous in theory, but how the hell was the typical omnivore American - someone used to cooking with lots of meat, cheese, eggs, processed foods, etc - how was that average person supposed to put a whole-foods diet into practice? And here was a cookbook that would tell me exactly how to do that, for two weeks anyways. That’d be a project to try one day, I told myself. But god, having to prepare a vegetable-based breakfast every day would be so much work! I’d have to do it during the summer. (Quick aside: If you’re reading this and somehow don’t already know this about me - I’m a school psychologist so I have a big chunk of the summer off every year. Yes, it is sweet af. Yes, I do encourage you to go back to school and become a school psychologist so that you too can live this sweet, sweet life with me every year. There’s a lot of jobs in CT for it too, whaddup.) 

Then I sat there and was like... welp. I can either hope I get this cookbook for Christmas and attempt this little experiment next summer. Thing is, Sam and I are really hoping we might be able to purchase a house next spring/summer. So I’m probably going to be drowning in projects by this time next year. So.. “I should just do it now,” I whispered to myself, dramatically. Okay, no. I thought it silently in my head. But it’s a fun visual image of me, muttering under my breath, face garishly lit by the glow of Jeff Bezos’ evil empire, no? 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized there’d probably never be any better time for such a self-indulgent foodie/low-key personal health enthusiast project. No house. No kids. No real responsibilities apart from keeping my husband and I fed and our apartment reasonably clean. And if I ordered right then, by the time I received the book and had time to plan and shop for the initial groceries, I’d have exactly two weeks left until I returned to my windowless closet office to prepare for a brand new school year. The month of July had been pretty busy - we’d gone away a couple of weekends, then a full week in North Carolina with my family, a lot of plans with family and friends - but August was looking a heck of a lot more open. In fact, I was at high risk of developing a certain level of ennui. There’s only so long endless summertime strolls, Netflix binges, and reading by the pool can feel personally fulfilling, you know? Yeah, you’re crying me a river while playing a gentle lullaby for my struggles on the world’s tiniest violin, I get it. 

Point is, I’m experimenting with cooking and eating only plants for the next two weeks, and I’m going to chronicle it on here. (Future posts will have pictures to break up my rambling, btw.) After that, I’ll disappear back into the hole of mostly non-presence on the social Internet I’ve created for myself (apart from retweets of other people’s funny jokes and smart opinions on Twitter, obviously), because I know myself and I know I’m not wired for long-term blogging once I’m back to working full-time. 

But Krissy/Kristina/Bob/whatever it is you know me by (don’t ask re: the Bob thing), why did you decide to blog about this? Simple, anonymous asker: it interests me, and I also enjoy writing. I also think I /probably/ know like two people who are also interested in this sort of thing and might enjoy reading about my culinary misadventures over the next two weeks. Finally, a lot of my loved ones live an hour away or more from me and this might be a fun way to show them what I’m up to lately. If this blog seems like the most boring and pointless thing you could ever hope to read about in your life, I totally get that. If it seems boring and pointless but you might drop in occasionally anyways to hate-read my bougie-ass hobby of buying and preparing a million plants to ingest, I get that too! 

I’m going to try to post every day but I have no idea how good my follow-through will actually be. I’ve actually already made it through my first 24 hours of this project and I have plenty to say on the experience so far, but I think this post is more than long enough already. Thanks to anyone who read this far! (Grandma? Sam? Maybe??)