GF One Ingredient Fettuccine with Pumpkin Sage Alfredo...and the importance of movement

Hello vegheads! It's been a few days since my last entry and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and start to your week. Yesterday I went to my first exercise class since I've began this transformational journey at a wonderful local yoga center where I took a semi-private core training class. I felt so great that I signed up for a package of them. I'm going again tomorrow and then going to stay for a yoga class after. I've been really hesitant to start working out, mainly because of nerves surrounding working out around other people. When you're not real happy with your body, the idea of moving it in awkward poses and motions in front of other people can be quite intimidating! But movement is really important.. it can relax us, reintroduce us to our bodies, and help increase our feel good chemicals in our brain.
I have to say that I've become much more comfortable with my body, though, thanks to my therapist who has really helped me overcome some lingering obstacles from my past, womaning up and facing things I'd usually run from, and working on my self esteem to feel confident in my abilities and comfortable with who I am. What I found really cool was really feeling out my new body with all of the exercises we did. When I got home, I wanted to make something that wasn't too heavy in my tummy, but inspired by a heavier pasta dish and also quick to make. I received a spiralizer as one of my gifts over the holidays from one of my aunts (This one is what I have and I highly recommend it; it even holds other blades in the main compartment) and I hadn't had the opportunity to put it to use, so I decided to try it out. What transpired was delicious magic. And guess what? Completely oil and gluten free.
So much healthy goodness!

Su-Su-Succulents!

So yesterday myself and my roommate rushed to comcast to drop off our cable boxes (we had decided to nix our cable and just watch TV via our laptops and Chromecast). Well, we literally get there at about 4 minutes past 1, and of course a sourly looking security guard shouted ''we're closed!'' and forced us on our way. As we sat and thought about what to do after driving a good 20 minutes or so (and only driving an actual 2-3 miles..that's city life for ya), we decided to head over to the home depot across the street (the first HD I've seen in this city) so my roommate could buy a bulb for her ceiling lamp, which has been burnt out for a couple months. Unfortunately (or fortunately for us in terms of height) we have vaulted ceilings in our condo, so we can't reach these lights ourselves to replace them without a heavy-duty ladder, which we don't own. So it's been a battle with the building company to get them to replace the light.

While at HD, we see isles upon isles as we first walk in of SUCCULENTS! I have recently fallen in love with the purple-tipped kind and decided we should make a giant centerpiece for my deep cherry wood dining room table. So we spent about an hour or so picking out succulents of different heights, textures, colors, and widths. We bought the correct soil, stones (since it's the dead of winter here, there was no way we were going to go on a stone scavenger hunt, even though if it had been spring I would have been total game for it), and even moss to really complete it. Now we just need some big glass shallow-ish bowls to find on Amazon or other sites (any suggestions?) to put it all together.

So for now, we set out our succulents on this gold dish I bought at my buddhist meditation center's moving sale I had volunteered for. I originally used it as a big dish to hold my makeup bags on my desk, but thought it'd look so great on top of this black (cheap) Ikea table I bought a few years ago (which btw, this table has been used for everything from holding cable boxes and wifi boxes to a bedside table for my roommate before she bought her own, and finally this, just to name a few. I highly suggest spending the very few dollars to buy one yourself, it's come in handy and has been moved three times!):

Click on it to get a closer look. My favorites are the 2nd one from the right in the front row, the 2nd from the right in the back row, the cacti with the different colored flowers blooming, the aloe vera plant in the back left for its medical purposes; shoot- I love them all!

Which is/are your favorite/s and why? If this is your thing, please share any info or suggestions with me, I'd greatly appreciate it and am interested in learning more about these.

I will update this once we buy a terrarium(s) and get it all set up. Please feel free to send me any sites that have instructions or set up suggestions..Thanks!

With gratitude,
Jessica

Condiments Recipes and Almond Milk...Vegan Sour Cream two ways, Ketchup, and ALMOND MILK! With photos

So I thought for this next post I would give you a few small recipes that go a long, long way.
I know it may seem like a hassle to think about making your own almond milk, ketchup, and vegan sour cream. The nut-based recipes do take some planning, as you have to soak them. However, none of these recipes take more than 10 minutes tops. The recipes that have nuts and need soaking only take a couple minutes to start the soaking. Making things yourself have a lot of benefits. One major benefit is knowing exactly what is put into it; no mystery or ingredients you can barely pronounce-let alone spell! Another benefit is in the long run it ends up being much cheaper. Take almond milk for example; to make a full pitcher, it only takes 1/2 cup of raw, unsalted almonds. From that 1/2 cup, you should get at least 7 cups of almond milk, plus, the pulp you extract-don't throw it out! The pulp you just dehydrate and can use in smoothies, on salads, as an almond flour, for raw bread, etc. I'll give you a few ideas and directions as to how to dehydrate the pulp at the end of the recipe. The sour cream has two recipes, one with tofu and one with cashews. Now, I personally favor the cashew recipe in terms of consistency, but since it's made from cashews, I like to use it more sparingly. Day to day, I use the tofu-based sour cream just to cut down on extra fat and such. I like to infuse the sour cream with herbs, which makes it really, really good. But more on that with the recipe. This ketchup recipe will give you a LOT of ketchup. Like, 20 ounces. I used a glass jar that holds 25 ounces and it was over 3/4 full. Best part? No high fructose corn syrup! So without further ado... 

 

3 Ingredient Weekday Warm Apples (or Applesauce) and Made From Scratch Vegan Pot Pie

Hello vegheads,
I hope your weekend is off to a good start and you all are able to relax at some point and take time for yourselves. Even though it's the weekend, I'm going to share with you a quick recipe for a homemade apple sauce. My mother used to make this during the week for us growing up when there wasn't enough time to make a slow version. It is very easy, only takes 3 ingredients (including water!) and only takes a few minutes. I will also be sharing with you a recipe for a vegan pot pie. The vegan pot pie takes about an hour including cook time, so perhaps it is more of a weekend meal if you don't want to dedicate that much time. Though one of the perks is that you can really just throw in whatever veggies you have. I did not do any shopping for either of these recipes. If you don't have an ingredient and can't think of a good replacement, feel free to ask and I will pass along some ideas.

So on the menu today we have a delicious and easy vegan pot pie and homemade warmed apples.
I must also say that instead of a chunky apple sauce consistency, I like them to be in their normal shape where I just easily cut them up while I'm eating, so mine doesn't look like a traditional apple sauce at all, but it tastes just like one and has a lovely caramelized sauce. But don't worry, I'll also tell you how to make it more of a traditional sauce. If you're just here for the apples, scroll down past the pot pie recipe and the photos of the pot pie to find the apple recipe. Thanks for stopping by!
               
 

How to find the truth in health trends

Here's an example to give you context about how to decipher the truth amongst the trends:
Over the past week or so I have noticed quite a few vegan/health-based articles and blogs talk about how there are numerous benefits to drinking water with 1/2 a lemon every morning. I started feeling like perhaps this is something to add to my routine, especially since I already drink water first thing in the morning to cleanse the toxins my body secreted throughout the night during its nightly fast.
 So this morning I drank a glass of water with 1/2 a squeezed lemon. The results were not as fabulous as other people have apparently experienced. My throat actually burned a bit and I had a little bout of reflux, which I never, ever have. Needless to say, after that experience I decided to do my own research to see what I could find about the real benefits to see if I should keep plowing through it.

Now, if you type it into just plain google, you will find tons of these blogs listing off reasons as to why this new trend is a must. However, if you look into the scientific evidence, based on unbiased studies and not someones personal experience,  you will find it lacking. In fact, the only research I could find to support this as being beneficial was over 30 years old. In the scientific community, we would pretty much consider that outdated, as really anything over 5 years is considered outdated (in grad school, you were lucky if a professor let you use research conducted in the past 10 years). What I did find though, were medical doctors stating that it can actually do more harm than good and cause stomach issues based on more up-to-date unbiased research. Quite different from what I read before, no?

So what am I getting at? I'm not saying don't try the lemon/water for yourself-you may find benefit. What I am saying is do your own research and educate yourself, don't just take someone's word for it. Always throw in a bit of skepticism. This goes for everything. If you don't have access to scholarly websites, start with Google Scholar or search for articles written by experts on non-biased media outlets (random example of bias: finding an article about the benefits of protein powder on a company website that sells protein powder or a website where the sponsor is the company selling the product they're discussing). There are a million health trends out there constantly coming and going (and I would suspect this warm water/lemon trend was probably in 30 years ago when that study was published) and it can be difficult to sift through them all. Sometimes we want to believe something is working when it's really not doing anything at all (placebo effect). Or sometimes if someone we hold in high regard (or someone in a white coat in an advertisement) tells us to do something to gain x y and z benefits, we believe they're really happening when they may not be at all (diet pills work this way a lot of the time, esp the OTC kind...a lot of diet pills are really just placebos). It reminds me of all the remedies that were sold to people in the 19th and turn of the 20th centuries. There were tinctures and cures galore for every ailment imaginable- most of them did nothing at all and were complete scams.

Before I really got into juicing and eliminating processed/refined foods, I did quite a bit of research on the benefits before making my decision. I watched countless documentaries and read countless articles. I had to sift through what was fact and what was opinion and at times it was challenging. The types of documentaries I prefer for information are ones that try to stick to facts and talk about research or different case studies and what the results were instead of interest pieces (most documentaries have some vested interest, but you can find ones that are more about fact than opinion). The Beautiful Truth is a great documentary about Gerson Therapy. Dr. Gerson was a true pioneer in the benefits of raw food, curing patients with cancers, heart disease, polio (before the vaccine was invented), tumors, and a myriad of other terminal illnesses without using one pharmaceutical drug. There is also the Gerson Miracle.

Remember, change takes time. The more prepared you are, the more tools you will have once you take that leap and you will have a better chance for success. And stay skeptical, always.

I hope your week is winding down and your weekend is full of lots of self care,
Jessica

What's something you're doing for yourself this weekend?

Lime Pudding with Coconut and lavender topping (GF,V)

                                                           

                                                                 

This recipe is for a lime pudding with a coconut butter or coconut whipped cream topping and lavender. If you have lavender essence or extract, you can put in a little with the pudding or the coconut whipped cream (or even stir it up with the coconut butter before putting it on top). I only have the edible dried buds, so thats what I used. I call this a pudding, though it is almost more of a mousse. It's much lighter than a typical pudding. 

Lime Pudding

Smoothie of a Beautiful Concoction

I can't believe I forgot to finish and post this! I wrote this a week or two ago and it's something I must add, as it's a fantastic smoothie....
                                                     

Accepting Where You Are

Here's an interesting turn of events..Well, it may not be that interesting, but it made me think about acceptance for where I am with my weight loss.

So my aunt mailed me a scale, as I got rid of the one I had (which ironically was the same one) after this last move this past summer. I was supposed to receive it over a week ago, and the other package she sent me at the same time arrived then, so I assumed it was stolen. Even though I live in a really nice building, theft has been an issue over the past few months sadly (I'm convinced it's a klepto in the building). Well, it ended up arriving yesterday. I hadn't weighed myself since about January 12thish. I had done a three day juice cleanse since then, and my diet has continued to consist of whole foods and vegan. So when I weighed myself this morning, I expected at least 10 lbs. Well, I only lost 3. On the one hand, I was thankful I haven't gained weight, but on the other hand it felt like a let down (especially coming from losing 40 lbs in the previous 1.6 months).

I had to really sit with this for a bit. The more I sat with it, the more I thought about how in the end, I needed to accept where I was and be ok with it. If I beat myself up or even begin to think about the ways that I might have failed or what I should have done, I knew it wouldn't lead to anything good (does it ever?). This way of thinking is quite foreign to me. Over the short years I've been alive, I've definitely been a member of the 'beat yourself up' regime when it comes to anything, really. From getting a B or that unspoken C to the way I've eaten in a day..I only felt OK if I really laid into myself. It's quite sad, really. The world beats us up enough, there really isn't room for ourselves, too. So with that said, I decided to move forward and think about things I could do from here on out. I've been putting off exercising, so that's one thing I'm going to change. I've really stopped my daily meditation and yoga, so that's another I can try to add in during the morning time. While I've stuck to my food principles, I've been eating more calorie dense foods lately, so that's another thing I started changing today. Getting back to the basics. I had a simple fruit salad with tahini and cinnoman for breakfast, and a spring mix salad with black beans, half an avocado, and a dressing I made from tahini, nooch (nutritional yeast), cumin, fresh squeezed lime juice, and paprika. I think I'll make a tofu scramble for dinner. Just firm tofu, some chopped veggies (I like to do chopped red bell pepper, chopped cherry tomatoes, and some kale thrown in at the end) cooked in turmeric, paprika, salt, pepper, tamari, balsamic, and a few splashes of rice vinegar. It's also delicious with some fresh squeezed lemon juice or clementine at the end. Eat with a plain sweet potato with just some fresh lime juice...delicious! (I guess in every entry I have the need to give you some sort of recipe...whoever's out there. :) )

Being Kind to Oneself During Change..and a delicious ginger sauce recipe!

When I was home over these past winter holidays, I cooked quite a bit for everyone. My parents wanted to go on some sort of cleanse, but did not want to commit to a juice cleanse. So I put them on a three day food cleanse full of healthy, simple, and nourishing pure foods. I eliminated dairy, refined sugars, eggs, anything white, processed, or from an animal. However, there was a lot of flavors they weren't used to yet (such as nutritional yeast), so I had to try and edit the recipes to their tastes...it was quite difficult and I felt like I was not able to give them all of the benefits such a cleanse has given me. I really feel that for me, doing a juice cleanse to start with really helped to reprogram my taste buds, as I did the three day food cleanse I put them on immediately after my first cleanse and I welcomed the new flavor profiles I had not experienced in such quantities yet. Of course I first went vegetarian in 5th grade, flirting with it for a couple years before settling on it. I went back and forth between vegan, raw vegan, and vegetarian from ages 16-27 right up until this past November. So even though I see-sawed on these food ways, I still gained enough experience to where these ingredients that are quite foreign to most people had already been introduced. I'm sure that had influence, too. Changing from a SAD (Standard American Diet) to a vegetarian diet at such a young age also made a difference I'm sure, as I changed it at developmental time that was highly impressionable on me.
My parents are not what I'd consider picky eaters at all,  as we spent some years abroad in Japan during my childhood and our diets became quite influenced by Japanese cuisine. This experience allowed us to travel all over Asia and Europe where we were constantly trying new foods. Even after we moved back to the US we still ate a pretty versatile diet comparatively speaking and my parents had many vegan or vegetarian meals that I have prepared throughout the years. I also have an aunt that has lived in Japan for the past 30 years and often cooks vegetarian with lots of spices when she comes home each summer, influenced by the new countries she explored. Because of this, I did not think the different flavors would be so difficult for them..I was wrong, though. However, it must have done something to them, perhaps deep inside their psyche (ok, maybe not that deep). I say this because since my time home, they have really changed their eating. So much so, my dad coined a new term he goes by- a ''vegaflexitarian''. Basically, they eat vegetarian and vegan most of the time, with meat/dairy/fish/eggs once in a while now. This is a huge change for them and I'm quite proud of them for changing their eating habits later in life- this is difficult to do I am sure of it! So even though this food cleanse was not a big hit, seeing how I changed my eating, the positive effects its had on me, and being open to trying these new types of recipes did make an impact. My parents even make their own almond milk now since I did it while being home! That is change, my friends!

So if you are starting out onto a new path, be kind to yourself and understand that it's ok if these changes don't happen overnight. You may be like me where you just wake up one day and decide this is the day, today I change and I never look back. Or you may be more like my parents who became ''vegaflexitarians''. Either way is perfectly fine! Don't let those that are more militant about being vegan make you feel like unless you're doing it all you're a failure. You're not! Changing a habit is a difficult process that takes time. You're not just changing one habit, you're changing several! Celebrate the little accomplishments..such as the first time you successfully make almond milk or a chocolate tofu pie that everyone loves...or eating breakfast everyday if that is a change for you. These little changes will eventually result in one huge change that will be long-lasting. Doing it this way will also give you the time to research these new changes and get comfortable with them, rather than making the jump and then praying you'll land on your feet. Always keep in mind that this is not a fad diet. This is truly a lifestyle change that you are consciously making to better yourself, inside and out.  You're going to feel better physically, emotionally, psychologically, and have positive impacts on your community, the environment, and living creatures! These changes are both micro and macro. If you treat it like a fad diet and focus on restriction and short term results, you will get exactly that- short term results that don't last. If you eat an egg, some cheese, whatever, don't beat yourself up. You are only human. Planning ahead will help to curb the chances of this, however being human and all, sometimes we forget to plan ahead. Don't feel like because you ate an animal byproduct you suddenly are a horrible person. Just go back to eliminating those products the next meal or next day.

Raw Vegan Chocolate (Avocado..shh) Pudding with Vegan Coconut Milk Whipped Cream

                                           
                                                           
As I'm sure it was similar for a lot of you, on birthdays in my house we would always go out to whatever restaurant was the birthday person's favorite (or cook it, whatever it happens to be) along with a favorite dessert. Probably for almost all of the birthdays of my father's that I remember, it was always homemade chocolate pudding pie, sometimes with homemade whipped cream. A couple years ago, I made my dad an avocado chocolate pudding pie, without telling anyone what was in it. Needless to say, it was a huge hit. In fact, a week ago when my parents had some friends over, they told me my dad made a tofu-chocolate pudding pie. My mother said that it was really good, but a bit rich. I thought about the whipped cream my mother used to make from scratch. It was really fluffy, really light, not real sweet. Perfect with fruit or to combat something really rich. So I thought about what could create that consistency. I went to work doing some research, and thought that full fat coconut milk would be the best choice, and simplest. What transpired was whipped cream heaven...oishii desune! as it is said in Japanese. Light, fluffy, easy.  No dairy, no eggs, no refined sugars, none of that crap.