What I Ate Wednesday #71

 

Hi everyone! I hope you are enjoying these first few weeks of summer. I know we are. Heat and humidity after a long winter does not seem so bad.  I much prefer summer to winter.  I love the early sunrises and having breakfast outside. I love the outdoors.  I hope to get some hiking, biking, camping and some water sports in this summer. So far it has been food, swimming and office work. Not a bad start, I love working from home. Mya is having a blast having her friends over.  I just love seeing them laughing and having a good time like I remember my childhood summers. 

Update:

I am happy to say I have been gluten free for nearly four months.  This was by choice out of nutritional curiosity. I have many people ask me if I can help with gluten issues in my health coaching practice. What started as a temporary change became a permanent one.  No headaches and a much flatter belly are the things I notice most.  I accidently ingested some gluten last week and bloated up immediately, I was shocked. I am also pleasantly surprised to discover that I have not had any cravings, even when visiting the bakery.  My exercise routine has become much more condensed and I have seen better results with the new effort. Overall, I am quite pleased with my whole program. This WIAW I am sharing some of the meals that I ate this week for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.

Tofu Eggs two ways:

This skillet was a tofu scramble of sweet potato, garlic, onion, black beans, corn, peppers, kale, and diced tomatoes.

This spicy mix is packed with protein and fiber and not many calories.  Two tortillas filled with this scramble are only 285 calories, 14 grams of protein and 7 grams of fiber. I make this big skillet full and have a quick breakfast or lunch in minutes.

Avocado smashed on gluten free brown rice bread with tofu eggs on a bed of kale, mushrooms, peppers, potatoes and onions.

My featured lunch this week is pasta salad two ways.  I used one bag of Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Fusilli Gluten Free pasta and shared the cooked noodles between two bowls to make different lunch options.

The first was a mayo style, but I used Reduced Fat Veganaise, then a mix of broccoli slaw, onions, celery, garbanzo beans, water chestnuts and savory baked tofu. Fresh and dried herbs with some sea salt and pepper brought all the flavors together.

The other style was Andy’s favorite, a hodgepodge of left over salad ingredients including olives, roasted peppers, artichokes, and marinated mushrooms, chickpeas, mixed with some Tuscan balsamic, fresh tomatoes, onion, and garden basil.

The leftovers also served as an early dinner when running out to his horseshoe league All-star game! By making two salads I have plenty of lunch side dishes for the week.

One simple dinner this week Mya and Andy ate was Jasmine rice with mushrooms and broccoli seasoned with a little Braggs liquid aminos with some pan fried plantains on the side.

Broccoli and mushrooms are Mya’s favorite veggies, she ate most of the veggies out of the bowl before I could even serve them!

The plantains were ripe, but not not as sweet as I like them. They were still good, just not my favorite.

While they ate the rice, I was more in a hummus mood.  I had Mya pick a ton of fresh lettuce from the garden, then I made myself lettuce rolls. I smeared Tuscan hummus on a lettuce leaf, added some tomatoes and onions, then rolled it up.  I ate a lot of these.

A rainbow showed up during my lettuce wrap photo shoot. Can you spot it?

Okay, onto dessert. I really wanted to make something that I could use my firm ripe strawberries in. I was inspired by a raw banana cream pie I made earlier in the week, so I thought a raw cashew coconut cream pie with agave tossed strawberries would make a perfect summertime treat.

A raw crust was made from various nuts and dates with a tablespoon of coconut water.  I blended it in the food processor before spreading it in the pan and placing it in the freezer while I made the filling.

I soaked a cup of raw cashews for a few hours before rinsing them and putting them in the food processor with vanilla, agave and coconut milk.

I poured the coconut cashew cream on top of the crust and placed it in the fridge for an hour to set.  I sliced the strawberries and tossed them with a tiny drizzle of agave before putting them on top of the firmed coconut cream.

 

This was a light and refreshing summery treat.  I will definitely make this again with whatever berries I have on hand.  Mya and Andy both really loved it. 

That concludes the meals this What I Ate Wednesday 71!  I hope you are all enjoying all the great newly available ripe summertime fruits and veggies.  I know I can’t wait to be picking more than lettuce and herbs from my garden.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day! 

What I Ate Wednesday #70

      What I ate Wednesday #70 Father’s Day Weekend Edition

I almost did not put this post together because this week has gone so fast and I had so many stressful events, I just did not get to take many pictures. Today, I got to spend the day with PJ, my baby brother, whom I adore, he told me I must post, even if it just a simple post with what pictures I had. Since he made a convincing case, I decided to put the stress aside and write.  So here it is, WIAW, Father’s Day Edition.

The weekend was busy with parties, poker, horseshoes, friends and preparing for Andy’s family to come for a Father’s Day picnic.  Andy’s brother was in town from Florida, he has not seen him in12 years! Mya was so excited to meet her Uncle Pat. Since most of Andy’s family have not seen Pat in twelve years as well, a Father’s day picnic seemed like the perfect way to celebrate his visit and our dads.  My dad came up with his puppy. Prince was so happy to have a playmate! Several of Andy’s cousins came who had never been to our home, we were so excited to have them. 

The morning started with coffee, cards, and a Father’s Day breakfast. Gluten free pancakes, hash browns, and an open face tofu egg sandwich on GF bread was served.

Mine and Mya’s were a smaller version. We split the hash brown, pancakes, and each had one open face tofu egg sandwich.

After breakfast I prepared all the food that was going to be served at the picnic.  I wanted everything as easy as possible so I could spend time catching up with everyone.

Everyone brought a dish. There was a variety of Italian tomato pies, various potato salads, deviled eggs, hoagies, chips, dips, hummus, salsa, bruschetta and bread. I also made a vegan hoagie for Andy, dad and Mya and some GF lettuce hoagie bites for me. I made a dessert tray of slivers of cakes and a bowl of fruit salad.

Everyone seemed top have a really great time. Mya just loved meeting all her relatives. We took several group photos.

Everyone…

Now just the boys…

and now the girls…

Father and Sons…

Me and dad missed our shot, so here we are!

It was a beautiful day, a few spots of rain did make a short appearance.  By the days end I was exhausted! I had some great help with the clean up and all was back to normal by bed.

The next day I woke to make my favorite go to meal of the week, tofu egg tacos!  I made these for breakfast and lunch quite a few times.

Tofu egg, avocado, peppers, onions, salsa, Daiya, and cilantro from the garden on corn tortillas. Only 250 calories for two!

Schools out, playing, relaxing with Prince and snacking take the place of school, homework and chaos. Mya had friends over to play, they were very creative turning our balcony into a Monster High city street!

With kids and friends home in the summer, plenty of snacks are requested.  To keep my sanity and keep the girls from raiding the fridge, pantry and freezer, I came up with a daily snack container.  I used a Tupperware vegetable tray to keep it clean, neat and offer a variety of goodies for hungry girls. A variety of fruits, veggies, crunchy snacks and dip are available whenever the mood strikes, without them making a mess!

When they are not picking at the snacks, the lid goes on and it gets stored in the fridge until hunger strikes again between meals.

How do you manage your snacking kids?

Thanks for joining me this week, I promise next week will be full of summery meal ideas.  I cracked under the pressure of the week and let it get away from me.  Until then, eat something summery!