Raven's Journal

[fitby40]

Amen to that, Wee Speck! I was so inspired I bought 3 kinds of tea on my grocery run last night... of course, I wasn't so lucky as to find either of those!

[raven]

Hi fitby40, We shop at Whole Foods mostly, but also a small chain of health food stores here in Santa Cruz county, New Leaf, that often has odd things that Whole Foods seems to think doesn't sell well enough to stock. Sometimes small health food stores have interesting stuff! But i always look at the teas anywhere i go. I just found some good ones at Cost Plus. Do you have that where you are?

I also shop Vegan Essentials:

http://www.VeganEssentials.com

Hi seestorcoo, Thanks for visiting my journal. I love company here. I put the bengal spice tea on my shopping list.

Yes, i have the blossoming lotus cookbook Vegan Fusion World Cuisine. Another thing i always look at when shopping is vegan cookbooks. I've made the pistachio blue corn crusted tempeh, which is wildly high in fat. I've been wondering how i could make it within the McDougall Program. The sweet and sour tempeh is good, and i plan to adapt that in my blog next year. I'll check out the minestrone and rice pudding. Thanks for the tips!

Hi Heidi, It's always great to hear from you and know that you are out there, resisting holiday treats too.
Raven

[raven]

I worked real hard all day and got tired and didn't feel like eating supper, and went to bed early. I knew we were going out all day today, so i cooked supper for last night and tonight, so i'd have something to eat when i got home.

My husband is meeting his brother for lunch at Hometown Buffet, a chain of all you can eat mostly meat mostly greasy food. He loves that he can eat a bunch of food for a fairly low price. We have a bunch of errands to do too, so i will go with him as far as the parking lot. I used to go there when i wasn't a careful McDougaller, or vegan, and eat cheese enchiladas, grilled cheese sandwich, macaroni and cheese, a big salad, with lousy bottled tasting dressing, and one of their luscious looking but not great desserts. Now i just sit in the car, eat something good from home, and wait for him. A salad is not worth $8 and staring at all that food that i would never eat if i had a choice.

I haven't seen my brother-in-law for a few months. I wonder if he will notice that i've lost weight. It was his starting to inject insulin for his diabetes that got me seriously dieting three years ago, and i lost 40 pounds, but then i gained back almost 30. Which i have now lost again, and more.

Wednesday's Meals:
chocolate mint black tea, sugar and soymilk

Breakfast:
leek and potato soup
quinoa, chard, and lemon mushroom sauce
orange
black raspberry green tea

Lunch:
vegetarian pho with brown rice and lots of veggies
apple
green jasmine tea

Irish breakfast tea, sugar, soymilk

Roastarama tea

Have a great day everyone! Stay warm and dry if you can!
Raven

[WeeSpeck]

Hi Raven,

I hear you on the Home Town Buffet. Great resolve on your part to prepare a healthier alternative and plan for this challenge. Your menu has me craving some potato leek soup!

[bunsofaluminum]

hi raven

too bad buffets don't offer decent food, eh? We have a Chuck a Rama right around the corner but I don't want to pay the price...as you say, THAT much, for a salad with icky dressing?

It's fun to see people after the weight comes off.

keep on doing it, chick!

[raven]

Hi Nancy, Thanks for dropping by. It's rare that my husband actually likes anything vegan that i cook, so the potato leek soup is really special, because he will actually eat it. The recipe is in LFVC on 12/15.

Forty minutes of computer talk between my husband and his brother was enough for me for at least 4 months, which is about how long it's been since they had lunch. It really made me realize how little he shares with me his raison d'être. It is so far over my head and out of my league that i hardly register it... i do recognize most of the words he uses, because he does tell me a little about how he spends his days.

My husband met with three different people, and i read in the car with our young dog, and ate my lunch.

About an hour before we were planning to leave, my husband remembered that he had to get a blood test (he's always getting his thyroid checked, it's really bad, even with lots of medication). I rushed around and got my lunch packed, cloth bags for groceries, leash and water for the dog, etc. etc. ... and i forgot The List!! The list i make all week with all the things i need to get. I reconstructed it as well as i could. I forgot a few things, but when this has happened before, i've forgotten a lot more. I will have to change a couple of meals, but it could have been a lot worse. Living so far away from any store with reasonable prices, we hardly ever go out unless we have a full day's errands to do.

I picked up a bar of dark chocolate for my husband. He is going through a chocolate phase. I held onto it while we were bagging the groceries, sniffing it assiduously. My husband just assumed that i wasn't going to eat any. He has hardly been able to remember that i eat only vegan, and i've been doing that for years. I guess i really am a McDougaller now!

Now i just have to recover from the long day and start planning for next week!

Thursday's Meals:
chocolate spice black tea, sugar, soymilk

Breakfast:
oatmeal, sugar, almond milk
vegetable pho with brown rice
pear
black raspberry green tea

Lunch:
brown rice with carrot, zucchini, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, and tamari/ginger/garlic sauce
apple
green bancha tea

Snack:
rice cakes
green bancha tea

No supper - just went to bed when i got home.

May your day be bright and peaceful.
Raven

[WeeSpeck]

Hi Raven,

It is awesome that your husband and you can work from home. It sounds like he does something with computers, which is intriguing to me. I am waiting for the day I can telecommute with my job. Then, I can live anywhere, and still work without worrying about a long drive each day.

I went to your recipe blog and copied the recipe for the leek and potato soup. I will plan to make that this week. I also snagged your recipes for raspberry banana cocoa ice cream and the Christmas nog. They look great!

I *hate* when I forget my shopping list. I feel like I cannot even function. I have been known to drive all the way back home to get it. Although unlike you, I'm only a couple miles from my grocery store.

Have a great day!

[raven]

Hi Nancy, Thanks for visiting. My husband worked for a start-up and made enough money to put a down payment on our property and build the frame of our house and live for a couple of years. He has been trying to develop a project that can bring in an income that he can work on from home without a boss, but nothing has worked out and we are living on loans while he works on his latest project for which he has a patent pending. He has been looking for work for quite some time, hopefully something he can do from home, and with enough time to work on projects some too, and he had work he could mostly do from home for three months, but it didn't pan out. He belongs to two organizations of computer engineers who do consulting work, which is usually small jobs for a couple of weeks or a couple of months. He's gotten several interviews from that but no jobs.


I'm glad you found some recipes you want to try. I hope you'll let me know how they came out for you.

Take care.
Raven

[raven]

Hello. I have listed everything i would like to have done before Christmas, and estimated the approximate time each thing would take. It is apparent that no way am i going to finish everything. My first priority is to have good, mostly low fat, all Mcdougall program food. I have converted all my traditional recipes to that. I made a schedule for each day with my regular cooking and the extra Christmas cooking i want to do, working backwards from Christmas. Usually i have cooked all day Christmas, but this year i want to have some time to just sit around. I love jigsaw puzzles, but rarely take the time to do one, and i bought a small one a couple of months ago that i thought would only take a couple of hours. So i plan to cook ahead so i have time to do that on Christmas Day, and watch the special movies we generally watch. I usually watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and a Claymation Christmas on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day, we plan to watch Fantasia, which my husband particularly loves. We sometimes eat watching a movie, but for special occasions, i like to eat at the table with candlelight, flowers, or an arrangement of leaves, berries, redwood cones, and acorns from our property, and conversation. Of course i would like the whole house to be neat and clean. Our dog lies companionably at our feet while we eat.

So, the next four days i will do as much as i can from my lists. Then the 23rd and 24th, i will do the regular housework and the extra cooking. I know from years of migraines that the best way to approach work is to set priorities, do them first until i am tired, then do something more restful for awhile, then back to the top priorities. I plan to do as much as i can, but stop at the end of the day and not worry over what i can't do.

Friday's Meals:
rose petal black tea, sugar, soymilk

Breakfast:
oatmeal, sugar, almond milk
vegetable pho with brown rice
pear
Irish breakfast black tea, sugar, soymilk

Lunch:
carrot and jicama
rice cakes
red lentil soup with potato
bancha green tea

taste of the new recipe for a Christmas cooky with no added fat

Supper:
apple
Bengal Spice tea

Have a great weekend, and a peaceful, productive week before Christmas, for those of you celebrating.

I will read a few journals whenever i sit down for a few minutes.
Raven

[WeeSpeck]

Hi Raven,

I made the Christmas Nog last night. Oh yum yum yum! This is way better than any traditional thick egg based nog I've ever tasted in the past. My son agrees! Luckily it is a holiday treat that we will limit to this short period of time, but it is still a great recipe to pull out on special occasions and enjoy with relatively little regret.

Thanks for sharing your repertoire of recipes with us!

[Ege Bamyasi]

Hi Raven!

Sorry I've not been keeping up with everyone's journals so much lately, but from what I see it does sound like you're going to have a very nice Christmas.

One question though: Where is the recipe for this egg nog that you're all talking about? We're not having any kind of special Christmas dinner this year (Thanksgiving was enough for us between the flooding and the rich food, thanks!), but I would be very interested in whipping up a batch of this McDougall-ized egg nog if at all possible, just to have on Christmas eve and Christmas day. Our roommate Joe has a quart of the real thing in the fridge, and there's no way I'll indulge in that, but this other kind really intrigues me.

[raven]

Hi Kirk, Thanks for visiting my journal. I'll post this is both our journals, in case you don't make it back there very soon. The eggnog is in Low Fat Vegan Cooking, which i started writing November 1st this year with two months mostly of the MWL recipes that i use all the time. Starting in January there will be more regular McDougall program recipes on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The eggnog was on November 17th, and you can scroll down from the day's post to find it, or click on desserts on the left side bar. The address is in my signature line, below.

Hope you, Jeanette and your roommate enjoy it!

Take care.
Raven

[raven]

Hi Nancy, Thanks for visiting, and the kind words. I'm glad you and your son liked the eggnog.

I have been busy this morning writing up my post for today for LFVC (address in my signature line). I have gotten my schedule planned so that i cook the big meal of the week a week before i plan to post it, but so far having that week hasn't helped me get it written any faster, because there always seems to be something more crucial that i need to do first...

I am a fairly organized person, but i have learned that living off grid with a husband who works at home, not to mention the occasional migraine, emergencies happen with regularity. I always try to have a Plan A, a Plan B, and a Plan Z. Sometimes i find all three plans fail and i am left scrambling. I don't think too well on my feet, so i find this very difficult.

Yesterday's emergency was the water filter for the gray water overflowing into a stinky, sticky mess. Mellon thought it was tasty, even though she often turns up her nose at the nice meal i fix for her! I yelled at her, but, well, you know, dogs, what can you do with them? They like what they like.... husbands too. She didn't get sick, at least.

My husband often does a sort of MM thing. He fixes on a food and eats it, along with the greens that i make him several nights a week, and the carrot and celery i keep washed and cut up for him. It used to be cheese, or French bread. He found out he's allergic to both of those. For many months, it was soymilk, straight out of the large size asceptic box, especially chocolate. He developed an allergy to it, and now he can't even have tamari.

Now it's turkey burger. He's eaten it practically every night for weeks. I cook it because it's the cheapest meat for Mellon. But my husband smells it and then he wants some too. So i have to cook more the next night and on and on in a vicious circle.

My mother raised me to not be a fussy eater (i used to be, very), by giving me a large variety of different foods to eat. I can't get my mind around eating the same food day after day.

Saturday's Meals:
rose petal black tea, sugar, soymilk

Breakfast:
oatmeal, almond milk, sugar
chocolate mint black tea, sugar, soymilk

Big Cooking Day:
Christmas cookies and fruitcake

Lunch:
carrot, cucumber, jicama, and grapes
red lentil soup
pear
bancha green tea

more bancha
more cucumber

Dinner:
carrot and raisin salad with maple syrup and lemon
potato chowder with wakame
grape juice
cooky

May all your surprises be pleasant ones.
Raven

[raven]

Happy Solstice!

My Mom has made a marker outside of the place the sun hits today and summer solstice, the farthest it hits in either direction. Sunrise here today is 7:19, and sunset is 4:55.

I certainly want to go to sleep when it gets dark. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to affect me when i get up in the morning. I was always an early riser, since the age of 10 being the first one up in the morning. Now i use that time for my Buddhist spiritual practice, and writing here.

Sunday's Meals:
black tea, sugar, soymilk x 2

Breakfast:
oatmeal, sugar, almond milk

green tea

Lunch: about 4 P.M.
black bean, yam, and spinach burrito on whole grain corn tortillas
one unconscious lick of the guacamole i made for my husband
apple
green tea

plum spice tea

no supper

May you reach new goals this winter.
Raven

[bunsofaluminum]

Happy Solstice to you, too! I love this day...it is my VERY favorite day of the year...the day the sun stops going distant, and begins to turn back to us. yayayyayaaay! The days will be getting longer! yayayayyayaya! oh, what a day!

Something I've always wanted to try, is putting a mirror on a windowsill in a south window, and then mark on the ceiling where the sun hits say, every Sunday ...would it be a figure 8 over the course of an entire year? An arc? Hm. Might be a project for me and the kids starting this spring....hmmm.

good going on those menus. After Christmas, I'm going to follow you around. hahahaha! seriously, most of what I'm wanting to try, I've seen mentioned here or on your blog. I do love to cook, but keeping it very simple for Advent has been really good for me in many ways...it'll be wonderful to get back in the kitchen and really explore this way of eating and cooking.

bless you! have a good one