Kale, Caramelized Onion, and Pumpkin Vegan Pizza

Last night I made kale and caramelized onion pizza, instead of tomato sauce I used pumpkin puree with some nutmeg, cinnamon and a bit of brown sugar.

The sweet pumpkin with the savory kale was amazing.

Tofu Scramble With Cheezy Sauce

For dinner last night I made a tofu scramble with a whole lot of veggies.  Michelle suggested we make a cheezy sauce from the Veganomicon (one of our favorite cook books) to put over the top.  It was delicious.

This high protein meal included tofu, carrots, broccoli, peas, russet potatoes, a green pepper, and diced onions.  I started with frying the potatoes, carrots and onions in about a tablespoon of olive oil until the potatoes were tender.  Then I threw in all of the other veggies and crumbled a block of tofu into the pan and cooked everything until it’s heated through.

You’ll have to buy the Veganomicon for the whole cheezy sauce recipe. It involved some vegetable broth, flour (we used rice flour), a tiny bit of oil, garlic, nutritional yeast, tarragon, yellow mustard, and some turmeric.  It is really good and thickens up like a nacho cheese.

Here is the end result:

It was so good, I added a little ketchup to mine which really add to the flavor in my opinion.  Michelle lucked out and got to take the leftovers to work today.

A Changing of Perspective

My perspective on working out has been changing quite a bit as of late.  I have officially had 10 personal training sessions.  With only 2 more sessions left I am kinda sad that I will not be working out with Beth one on one anymore.  I am optimistic that I will be able to continue working out at least 3 days a week and I might even do one of her boot camps that she offers.  What Beth has taught me over these past 5 weeks will stay with me forever.

At the beginning of this whole getting healthy journey of mine (back in August of 2009) I was pretty convinced that I should be going to the gym and just doing as much cardio as possible.  Everything I read said that I should be counting my calories coming in, then burn as many calories as possible at the gym to create a calorie deficit and subsequently loose weight.  While I did this for a couple of weeks and it seemed effective I quickly grew tired of it.

I was too focused on loosing the weight, on changing my external appearance and I eventually stopped making progress and started gaining weight back.  Since the beginning of January I have been going doing full body workouts with every visit to the gym.  My workouts have been dominated by body weight and free weight resistance exercises with a typical warm up of running on the treadmill for at least 20 minutes.  The goal here is to build muscle, strengthen my core, and get my body moving.

The changes I have seen in my body since January 3rd (my first workout of the new year) have been so inspiring and motivating.  I have begun to see definition where there wasn’t any before and the weight is coming off again!  One of the advantages of working out like this is that as I build more muscle my body will automatically burn more calories throughout the day.  The more muscle mass that I have the higher my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which is the amount of daily energy expended while at rest.  How cool is that.  Essentially the more muscle I have the more calories I burn while sitting on my but watching a movie.  Plus, after a full body resistance workout (which is what I have been doing) your BMR is elevated for the following couple of hours compared to a cardio workout where it is only elevated for the next 45 minutes or so.

All of this means that if I continue to do these types of workout and continue to build muscle that my body will continue to burn calories at a higher rate.  If I can just control what I am eating and focus on healthful whole foods most of the time the weight will keep coming off and I will continue on the path of being a healthy vegan.

Coconut Crusted Tofu

I had a moment of inspiration last night.  After peering into our fridge last night I discovered some Tofu and I decided to us it.  Now, I have the tendency to season with the same herbs and spices so that everything sort of tastes the same, well not last night.  I made Coconut Crusted Tofu and it was amazing.

You wanna know how I made it don’t ya?  Well it is surprisingly easy and pretty darn healthy.

The ingredients you will need:

• 1 block of extra firm or super firm tofu
• some non-dairy milk or creamer
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Place a cooling rack inside of a cookie sheet (you can see it in the photo above) and spray with some cooking oil.

Drain the tofu as much as possible, if you like you can freeze the tofu and then drain it, this gives it a nice texture and make it easier to drain.  Cut the tofu into strips.  Pour the milk or creamer in a shallow bowl (I used coconut milk creamer and it worked great).  Mix the breadcrumbs and shredded coconut and place into a different shallow bowl.

Now place as many of the tofu strips into the milk or creamer as possible, just let them hang out in there.  Take one out and dredge it in the breadcrumbs and coconut.  Make sure the tofu gets nice and covered.  Place the tofu onto the cooling rack which should be sitting nicely inside your cookie sheet.  Repeat until you have run out of tofu.  If you are starting to run out of milk or the breadcrumbs & coconut mixture you can always add a little more to the bowl.  After placing all of the tofu on the cooling rack I sprinkled some salt and pepper on top which really brought out some of the flavors.

Cook at 400 for about 35 - 40 minutes, flipping half way through.  Take them out when the tofu appears to be crispy and slightly brown.

It was awesome, we had it over quinoa with two sides; raw massaged kale and some roasted beets, turnips, sweet potatoes, and apples from Boston Organics.

Weigh In, 1/21/2011

I got on the scale this morning and it said 249, I have lost a little over 1 pound in the past week.  This was a bit surprising, I didn’t think I did that well this week.  It’s hard looking back to the first time I dropped below 250 and how exciting it was, I didn’t think I would be here again.  But, I am moving forward, I’m gonna keep loosing and continue to be positive.

What I have done for the last three weeks in a row, is go to the gym for three days.  That’s right, I have been to the gym at least nine times in the last three weeks.  Some people say that you have to do something for three weeks in order to create a habit.  Hopefully I can stick with this habit and keep up the good work.

One of the things that has been keeping me going is that I can feel and see my body changing.  I can see slightly more definition in my arms and shoulders, this is a great incentive to continue working out.

I will be going to the gym tonight with Michelle for an excellent full body workout and am looking forward to more weight loss next Friday!

Weigh In, 1/14/2011

I guess it’s time I fess up and explain why I have not been putting any weigh ins on the site in a while.  After making a conscious decision to take a break over the Holidays I got home from vacation and I weighed 258, I was ashamed.

I let myself go and I shouldn’t have.  Every new day is an opportunity for becoming healthier and I made a lot of poor decisions concerning food over the week and a half that I was back in Maryland visiting family.  Initially I was hoping that it was water weight or something like that and that I would be back to under 250 in a week or so, then I would put a weigh in up on A Healthy Vegan.  A week went by and I did loose some weight, I went down to 252.4, a pretty big drop in a week.  I have no doubt that this weight loss is do to my personal training (Thanks Michelle!).

Then we arrive at today, my “official” weigh in day.  I stepped on the scale, sucked in and I had lost a little under 2 pounds since the last Friday.  The scale said 250.2, I am disappointed but at least I am still loosing.

I will check in with you next week, I promise.

Boston Organics Dogma Box

I posted this photo a couple of days ago letting everyone know that we got our first box of organic produce from Boston Organics and boy are we happy with it so far.  Let me tell you a little about the type of box that we are recieving, it’s called the Dogma Box.

According to Boston Organic’s website the Dogma Box “includes produce sourced as close to Boston as possible.  This is our only box that includes produce restricted geographically!  We source produce close to home and move furhter out until we can provide at least 8 unique items.”  Buying local and seasonal vegetables is an excellent way to reduce your toll on the environment.  One of the reasons that we like to shop at Whole Foods is that they label where all of their produce is from and we can then decide to purchase those items that have traveled the smallest distance.  The further a product travels to the grocery store the more gas and oil has been used to get to my plate.  Part of being Vegan for me is reducing my impact on the environment and buying local helps me do that.  In addition to all of this produce being local it is also all certified organic.

Currently here in the Boston area we are in the depths of winter so being able to get this organic seasonal produce is pretty amazing.  We have been very interested in joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to get fruit and veggies during the spring and summer from a local farm. Unfortunately CSAs typically have a very large upfront cost, one that we always planned to save up for during the year, but never actually did.  Boston Organics has solved that problem for us, the Dogma Box is $29 per week and we pay on a weekly basis.  Plus, we are still supporting local farmers.  Currently we have the box scheduled to come to my office every other week, if we end up eating all of the veggies in a week we’ll switch it to every week.

This week’s box had a bounty of delicious winter produce:

• 1 Huge Butternut Squash from MA
• 1 lbs of Carrots from MA
• 1 lbs of Red Beets from MA
• 1 lbs of Watermelon Radishes from MA
• 1 lbs Purple Top/Scarlet Turnips from MA
• Some Sprouts from MA
• 1 lbs of Red Onions from NY
• 1.5 lbs of Sweet Potatoes from NH
• 2 lbs of Apples from VT

I used some of the red onions and carrots in last nights dinner, I had 2 apples with lunch today and I am excited to figure out how to use the rest of it.  Tonight I am gonna try to make a Butternut Squash Risotto.

One of the exiting things about this particular box from Boston Organics is that it will always be changing a little bit and we will get to taste the seasons as the come and go.  According to their website “in the summer time you’ll get a bountiful harvest of everything from lettuce to swiss chard, sweet corn to salad tomatoes.  As autumn takes hold the box contents start to include more root vegetables, winter squash and apples, and over the winter you’ll see storage crops like carrots, potatoes or onions.  Once spring has sprung, the growing season gets going again and the local box greens up with lots of early season produce.”  It is going to be a lot of fun to experiment with all of the different veggies we get.