Spinach is a beauty food that is incorporated into my diet daily - not only do I use it in my Glowing Green Smoothie every morning, I usually have some sort of salad that uses spinach also. On this day of appreciate for spinach, though, I decided to use it in meals rather than a basic salad. I started off my day with my Glowing Green Smoothie - I got some spinach right off the bat. For lunch I cooked up a 'Greens Stir Fry' - In coconut oil I threw in onions, green beans, asparagus, zucchini, broccoli and spinach, seasoned with tamari, onion powder, and brown rice vinegar. For dinner I classed it up a little and did a vegan 'carbonara'. I had been watching Food Network while I was at the gym and was inspired to make my own carbonara, vegan edition. I used my raw taco meat, tomatoes, salt & pepper, spinach, and extra virgin olive oil all tossed with gluten-free pasta. |
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I'm currently in the process of clearing out my fridge to make it more Beauty Detox friendly. I have food left over from before that I don't want to waste (I'm a college kid, everything is about saving money) so I am trying to use it up so I can purchase only BD foods from now on. The foods that I have left over aren't necessarily unhealthy, but they are not vegan or vegetarian. I have chicken, eggs and some cheese that I need to get rid of but I don't really want to waste it, so I will incorporate it in small portions in my meals. Some of the dishes that I made this weekend are: baked oats, brown rice stir-fry, and apple-banana cakes. I have seen a lot of fitness and nutrition Instagrams make posts about baking oats in the oven. I used to make oatmeal a lot for breakfast and its a great thing that I can keep at work, but I was intrigued as to why baked oats have become so popular. So, I decided to try it out. I found a general recipe online, but I substituted all of the unhealthy ingredients for healthier ones. My oats had:
These were baked in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes - and they were delicious. I don't want to make them a consistent part of my diet (egg is not vegan), but this is a good, healthier sweet treat if I'm craving cinnamon rolls or something similar (and I always crave cinnamon rolls). I was feeling a little sad this weekend - being in a long-distance relationship gets to me sometimes, but most of the time experimenting with food can make me feel better. I decided to put together apple-banana cakes. Initially, I wanted to just mush together a banana and very thinly sliced apples with some cinnamon and see if they would cook together like a pancake. It turns out that they don't hold like pancakes do (there is no binding ingredient) but they do make some delicious mush. The last pancake I added some amaranth flour to and it held slightly better than the first two. Finally, today started Kimberly Snyder's Avocado Remix Challenge. I started off simple by adding it to my stir-fry recipe, but it turned out to be incredibly delicious. My stir-fry was brown rice with red onion, yellow squash, garlic, an egg, and some grilled chicken. I know it wasn't beauty detox at all, but the rest of my recipes will be! The avocado added to the stir-fry added a delicious creaminess and tied all of the ingredients together. I won't post the Avocado Challenge daily here (follow my instagram @fightforthefitlife to see it daily), but rather I will do a post at the end of the week summarizing my Avocado Remix Challenge experience. I can't wait to see what this week has to offer! I love that Kimberly Snyder posts weekly challenges for her followers, and they make great blogging assignments. I went through all of her blog posts and made a list of all of the assignments so I can get caught up and always have some kind of challenge or goal to accomplish. This recipe for Glowing Green Soup was the first assignment, so I it is the first one that I tried. When I printed out the recipe initially, the zucchini and tomatoes were covered so I couldn't see them on the list. Therefore, they were not included in my soup. I made this recipe on a gloomy, rainy day so I thought soup would be the perfect option. To be honest, I did not really enjoy the taste of the soup, which could be due to the fact that I had the missing ingredients. I don't know if I will try this recipe again. I was feeling bold today and decided to make a meal with a meat substitute for the first time! I've never eaten or made my own meat substitute so I was excited to try Kimberly Snyder's Raw Taco Mexican Salad! The meat substitute was made with soaked walnuts (I soaked them for 6 hours), some spices and tamari, and I was amazed at how much it tasted like meat! It was a little too spicy for me so I will tone down the spices next time, but I thought it was incredible that it tasted so great and the texture was perfect! This is definitely a recipe that I will try again. It was satisfying and will definitely satisfy my taco salad craving in the future (I always crave my mom's taco salad). It was a simple recipe to put together, though it does require some foresight since you have to soak the walnuts. I can't wait to go home and make this for my mom! Next time I want to make a creamy dressing with cashews, almond milk, melted coconut oil and seasoning! I can honestly say that I really am loving the vegan/raw vegan/vegetarian diet (I can't commit to one just yet). I feel like I'm setting a very good base of nutrition to follow up with exercise once my wisdom teeth heal and I can get back into the gym. Nutrition is such an important part of living a healthy life and I feel like I'm really starting to get a grip on that. I used to always put gym first - I would start a workout routine and try to follow that up with good nutrition. Now I've realized that you have to start with nutrition and then add the gym routine. Now I have been eating this vegan/vegetarian/raw vegan/paleo (I know, it's a lot) diet for about two weeks so one more week to make it a habit. I still have some old food to get rid of that I don't want to go to waste (chicken breasts, eggs, etc.) which are relatively healthy but I will try to eliminate along my journey. With the success of my key lime pie bars, I decided to go for a chocolate raw vegan recipe. I made the Oh She Glows: Two-Layer Raw Chocolate Brownies (http://bit.ly/1jEHyr4) and they were incredible. They were devoured by my friends and I that night, and some of my friends are now starting to understand and accept vegan options. My boyfriend called me yesterday and said he found Gluten-Free Vegan Habañero Chips at the store and he bought them because they made him think of me - and he said they were actually delicious and in the same price range as the other chips. It's nice to know that people are willing to try and understand how I choose to eat, but actually enjoying it as well. Now, I know I can't keep making these raw vegan dessert recipes too often because I just can't stop eating them once they're there - they are pretty guilt free, but still not something to be consumed on the regular. I'll just try a new recipe whenever I'm having cravings.
this morning i made my first, real ggs. i've always made smoothies for breakfast but i would add unnecessary, unhealthy ingredients like honey and protein powder. if you make a ggs the right way, you'll get all the nutrients you need without adding the supplemental ingredients. my ggs this morning was pretty simple: - 1 apple - handful of spinach - red kale - some mint leaves (which we have growing in the kitchen) - cilantro leaves - 1 cup of water I'm about to head out to the grocery store to get my ingredients for the week! i've already pulled recipes off of kimberly's website that i plan to make, and now i have a grocery list that reflects exactly what i need. |