Whole Food Plant Based Diet

With cooler mornings I’ve been loving starting my day off with oatmeal with chopped apples and cinnamon. Sometimes I add chopped prunes or raisins for a little extra sweetness and grab an orange for calcium and vitamin C to ward of all the viruses of the season

For lunch at work I threw a handful of green leafy spinach in a Tupperware and then added my “Mac and Cheese” with some hot sauce. I made a big pot of this plant- based Mac and Cheese over the weekend. I use penne pasta made from chick peas for a protein boost. I boil this with some fresh kale from the garden and green peas (more protein from this legume we all think of as a vegetable). I love the amount of leafy greens in this lunch. These dark greens release nitric oxide and help lower blood pressure and so I eat them everyday. For the “cheese” sauce I soak some cashews for a few hours in water and then blend them in a blender with nutritional yeast, soy milk, garlic, onion powder, paprika, turmeric and a jalapeño pepper.

The Best Vegan Cashew Cheese Sauce You’ll Ever Eat

I also had a side of walnuts for omega-3s and the rest of my apple I didn’t put in my morning oatmeal.

For a snack I had hot cinnamon tea and some oatmeal cookies. These are a fun no bake cookie that involve using the food processor to blend up oats, dates, raisins, cinnamon, flax seed, and almond butter and then forming into balls and keeping in the freezer. Yum! I curled up on the couch to finish my book for book club with this snack beside me.

For dinner my husband cooked me his pumpkin curry! This is his top secret recipe. I was amazed as a newlywed when he took our uncarved Halloween pumpkin and halved it, de-seeded it, and roasted it in a hot oven. I guess pumpkins are just big squashes! He uses the roasted pumpkin for our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie each year and keeps chunks of cooked pumpkin in the freezer so that we can enjoy this dish all year. He uses coconut milk, black beans, curry and other spices, and tops with cilantro. We serve it over rice and it is delicious!

Happy plant eating, Jolly Hearts!

It started usual and ended fun!

Breakfast was the usual Grape Nuts Cereal with Soymilk with blueberries and a banana

Lunch was curried lentils that I had left over with some geeens and roasted veggies and garden cherry tomatoes with a sprinkle of hot sauce

Snack was simple edamame and grapes

But then for dinner I made an easy weeknight dinner; Costa Rican black beans and potatoes. You just dice up some onion and garlic and saute in a little vegetable broth until translucent. Then just open cans and throw in a can of sliced potatoes, a can of diced tomatoes with green chilis, and a can of rinsed black beans. Add 1/2c water and a TBSP tomato paste and a teaspoon of cumin and simmer 10-15 minutes till thickened. Stir in 4-6 handfuls of spinach and some fresh cilantro and dinner is ready! I like to serve this over rice, but it goes well with whole-grain crusty bread also. Leftovers can be wrapped in a corn tortilla for lunch.

Then came a completely no-sugar added dessert!

I noticed the over ripe bananas this morning and so I peeled them and put them in the freezer. Then tonight I blended the frozen bananas with 1/4c plant milk and a splash of vanilla. If you keep blending, they turn into nice cream. I made my black bean brownies (only sweetened with dates) and ate warm brownies with cold nice cream tonight after dinner!

Happy Plant Eating 😁

*For Brownie recipe see my blog post from Sept 9 What-I-Eat-Monday at thejollyheart.com

Most days are not anything special. It’s ordinary food whether you are plant eating or not. But I do like to learn new ways of cooking with plants. I learn a little bit at a time and this week’s new recipe was BROWNIES!

Breakfast was grape-nuts and Soymilk and blueberries with an orange for added calcium.

A snack of apple and pecans for energy as I had a busy day seeing patients and needed energy!

Lunch was greens topped with some noodles (made from chickpeas for a protein boost) with soybeans and tofu snd some garden cherry tomatoes. I made the same sauce for the noodles and for marinating the tofu. The sauce was some peanut butter melted in microwave, soy sauce, white wine vinegar and hot pepper flakes. Yum! Lots of great protein in this lunch! Especially since the brownie for dessert is added sugar free and made from black beans. More info below.

For dinner I met a favorite church group out at a local diner and got the veggie wrap and some sweet potato fries. I asked them to hold the sugar on the fries as I am trying to cut down on added sugar and they were happy to oblige.

Now about the brownies…

First you soak 2.5c of Medjool dates in hot water for 2-4 hours. Then you blend them up with 1c water to make a date paste.

You then take 1.5c of this date paste and blend in a can of rinsed and drained black beans and 3/4c plant milk.

Then mix in 1/2c cocoa, 1tsp of baking powder and vanilla, 1/2 tsp of baking soda, and 3/4c oats.

Mix it all up and then spread in brownie pan with some chips and nuts on top of you like and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. They need to cool to stay cut in a square and I like mine after some time in the fridge. Very fudgey…These are husband and teenager approved!

Happy plant eating!

People often ask me how I changed to a plant based diet. There seems to be a disappointed disconnect as I shrug my shoulders and reply, “I just decided to do it.”

I really want to give people a 7 step plan for getting rid of all the saturated fat and cholesterol and zero-fiber animal foods. But, truthfully, I woke up one day and decided that for the next 30 days I would eat only plants. I rummaged around and found some oatmeal and blueberries. It was hodge-podge, messy, and creative. Lunch was a baked potato and some left over broccoli. I opened a can of beans and topped it with some salsa. It was ugly at times, but each day I got better, and I learned.

First, I decided. But as my husband points out, I have an unusual ability to go “all-in” on things. He’s not wrong. But I think it comes from the question I asked AFTER I made the decision.

Once decided, and when things get hard, I don’t revisit the decision. I never asked, “Should I keep eating plants on vacation or while traveling?” but instead I asked, “How will I keep eating plants while on vacation and traveling?” It’s a big difference.

How will I eat plants at the Mexican restaurant, or at the barbecue place that my father-in-law picked for his birthday? How will I eat plants at this work dinner? The all-in success was found in never revisiting the “should”. The success was found in asking the “how”.

Too often we sabotage ourselves going backward to re-answer a question that we have already answered. I know I should go to the gym. I should stop drinking. I should cook more. I should get to bed earlier.

We usually go back to re-answer it when obstacles come. I should go to the gym, but work has been too crazy. I should stop drinking but maybe not on football weekends. I should cook more after the kids have less activities. I should go to bed earlier after summer is over.

But what if instead we said:

How will I get to the gym with work being this crazy?

How will I stop drinking during football season?

How will I cook more with all the kids activities happening.?

How will I get to bed on time during the summer?

The “should” statements are a wish for a future that never seems to come, and the “how” questions are committed actions.

How will I stay married to this person?

How will I be successful at work?

How will I stay sober?

The key to success often isn’t just in the decision. It is almost always in the next question.

I try to be honest so this is actually what I ate yesterday, Sunday, but I repeated most of it with leftovers today!

For breakfast I sliced some whole wheat sourdough and layered on some hummus and greens and apple with a drizzle of honey.

Then, for lunch I whipped up some chickpea “chicken” salad by crushing up a can of chickpeas and then throwing in raisins, apple, green onion, and celery. I then take hummus and thin it with lemon juice to make a sauce to hold it all together. I ate this with pita bread and fresh cherries. Yum!

For a snack I enjoyed 3 cookies. I make these cookies using a can of white beans!! They are so yummy and packed with fiber and bean goodness.

Basically mix the dry ingredients: pulse up 3/4c rolled oats in food processor till it’s flour like and mix it with a cup of whole wheat flour, 1tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, sprinkle of cinnamon and salt.

Then drain the can of white beans but save the fluid. Put a cup of the beans in your food processor with 1/4c until sweet applesauce, 1/2c raw sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 1 TBSP of the bean liquid. Purée it all up and add to your dry ingredients and stir till moistened.

Then add in 1/4c rolled oats and the rest of the bean liquid with 1/2c vegan chocolate chips. Make balls and flatten a bit before baking 12-15min at 350 degrees.

For dinner I made an easy summer dinner that was a mixture of a can of black beans (drained and rinsed), a cup of corn, diced red bell pepper, diced cherry tomatoes, diced avocado, and green onions. I add a sauce that is 1 TBSP whole grain mustard with 2-3 TBSP fresh lime juice, 1 TBSP oil, and 1 tsp cumin. Mix it all together and serve with chips and fresh pineapple-strawberry fruit mix for a yummy summer dinner!

Happy eating Plant Eaters!

Well, today, beach week turned into only beach weekend as hurricane Debby arrived to join us. She had us dragging our feet while trying to accept the fact we needed to leave, binge watching The Weather Channel, and then with inward groaning hurriedly packing up the car as the rain started to intensify.

Breakfast was a deliciously ripe nectarine with oatmeal and soy milk and a drizzle of honey. My own “peaches and cream”. We were still in the non-acceptance faze as we drank coffee and stared at the clouds gathering.

Lunch was in the car as we tried to battle the outer bands of Hurricane Debby up the eastern SC coast. I had thrown in our groceries from the beach house and dug out a package of blueberries and a package of edamame. Oreos were being eaten in the backseat, so I had a few of these as well to help calm the nerves.

Dinner was at Mexican with a fancy mocktail to ease the pain of a missed beach week with friends and family and a bowl of black beans, rice, lettuce, and tomato. Followed by a walk to “walk it all off” as my husband says… I think he means the food, but the time in nature helped me walk off a bit of my blues as well.

It wasn’t a perfect healthy diet day, but because it was a super stressful day, it could’ve been worse. Just like this beach week was not perfect, but it could’ve also been much worse: we are all safe and home and Sammy Dog got a long walk .

This morning started off with oatmeal and blueberries. I microwave this for a minute or so and then add a bit of soy milk.

For lunch I did my favorite recipe called “throw stuff in a bowl.” I had some spinach which I topped with farro and white bean mixture that I cooked this weekend. I also added some baked tofu cubes. (See below on how to bake tofu-yum!) I had pulled some small purple carrots and sugar beets from the garden because the cantaloupe vines were running them over. I almost threw them in the compost because they were tiny, but instead I wrapped them in foil and had my husband roast them this weekend while he was grilling. I added those and some cherry tomatoes and hot sauce.

For my sweet tooth snack I love to take Medjool dates and stuff them with peanuts and vegan chocolate chips. I also have been eating more protein in the handy snack of edamame which has 14g for 1/3 of a cup.

I did not want to cook dinner, so we did some Indian take-out from Nawab. I usually get Chana Masala, but opted for the yellow lentil dal. I added some spinach to the rice and dal and it was super yummy!

How to Bake Tofu:

1. Buy a package of extra firm tofu

2. Drain the water, slice to half the thickness/two thinner blocks

3. Press the two blocks between paper towels for 15-30 min. (I pile on a cooking board with canned goods on top for weight.)

4. Heat oven to 350

5. Cut tofu into cubes and dress with favorite sauce. There are lots of recipes online. I love to mix soy sauce, melted peanut butter, and hot pepper flakes. Sometimes I shake it around with corn starch first to make it crispier. Sometimes I marinate it overnight in the fridge for more flavor.

6. Bake at 350 in oven for 10 minutes then flip and do 10 more minutes on other side.

7. Enjoy!

In the winter I roast some veggies each week for lunches and the tofu is easy enough to add into the oven and bake with the veggies.