this week's food

This week my lunches are even simpler than last week's!  (I broke my wrist and I'm still doing one-handed, or as easy as possible, food prep).

Breakfast continues to be a large bowl of oatmeal.   That is also getting more spartan.  Sometimes I add a banana but usually just some cinnamon, ground flaxseed, and a splash of plain soymilk.  I may stop using the soymilk soon because I don't use up the 1-qt container before it goes bad.  I'm going  to try some ideas from this post, especially the idea of infusing the water with an herbal teabag before adding the oats.  Interesting, eh?  and nutritional yeast. I gotta try that once.  I'm not so interested in the sweet concoctions but I'm also not interested to add greens to my oats.  I pretty much just want oats.  I also eat several handfuls os spinach while preparing housemate's smoothie.

We are now getting local sweet potatoes so I changed up my lunch a bit.   On Saturday, the sweet potato was so large I just had that with collards:

I ate the sweet potato like a burrito:  :)

Today I had I smaller one, a baked potato, some broccoli, and beans.   The rest of the week will be the same except substitute collards for broccoli.  I prepare them every week as described here.

Dinner is still baked squash with a veggie.  Last night the veggie was frozen okra cooked in tomatoes from a can.  That was great and super simple.  

Tonight was acorn squash with cabbage.   Tomorrow will be brussels sprouts on delicata squash.  I'm trying out all varieties of squash.  Sometime I'll post on my ratings of them.  I should try them more than once to account for individual variations.  Ripeness is a factor and I don't know how you pick out a ripe one.

Snacks are carrots, celery, a small apple, and salad fixings eaten with my fingers:   lettuce and red bell pepper.

Have a good week!

this week's food prep

Today I made a big batch of collards, onion and mushroom for the week--see last week's post on the method.  This time I chopped the onion and mushroom myself.   That was enough for me and that's all the chopping I plan to do until next time I make this.   I made 8 1-cup servings which I froze.

I made a double batch of burgers.   I really like the sausage seasoning in these (Jeff Novick describes how to mix this seasoning on his DVD).  I also added onion and garlic powder and arizona seasoning (sort of a Mexican mix).  it's good!  and will be even better with my ketchup which I also made up today.  I made 8 balls and froze them too (will smash into patties after thawing)

I ground up some flaxseed, added some chia, and put that in the freezer.

I made yogurt last week, should have enough to last another week.  If not, it is really easy to make any day.

That was tiring enough for me.   It's work to do things with just one arm and hand, and even more so when it's not the dominant hand---though I think my hand is really enjoying getting to do everything.

My daily chores will be to bake my squash and potatoes and prepare my oatmeal each night for the next day; then assemble my meals in the morning (will probably eat lunch and dinner at work).   Should be easy.

One-armed food prep

To get ready for the week I cooked up 2 big pots of kale and collards.  Fortunately this only required hammering a couple if big bags of frozen greens:

Housemate had to chop the onion and mushrooms though.

I also made a batch of soy yogurt.  easy peasy:

Then the daily food prep will will be easy.  Here's tomorrow morning's oatmeal (oats, banana, raisins, flax and chia seeds).  slicing bananas is easy enough.  I'll add a splash of soy milk after cooking.

 Here's tomorrow's squash and potatoes (one for housemate).

We harvested a bunch of collards from the garden.  Housemate just had to rinse them and stuff them into plastic bags for freezing.  We also harvested some broccoli that we'll have for lunch tomorrow with potato fries and carrots.

For salads, I'll snack on romaine leaves, salad greens, and these fabulous italian fry peppers--they are like red bell peppers only way better!  no chopping, just eat 'em with my hands.

Weekend food prep

Today was Sunday so I did some food prep for the week.  I got a bunch of groceries at the store:  potatoes, butternut squash, apples, veggies, non-dairy milks, juice (for housemate), oranges, frozen fruit, herbs, rice, etc.  During the week, I stop at the store on my bus ride home, so don't want to carry too much heavy stuff then.

Then I made a double batch of Jeff Novick (JN) basic burgers.  I divided the mixture into two, and added different spices to them.  I seasoned one half with (if I remember correctly) thyme, basil, oregano, and onion powder.  The other was sausage seasoning!   JN gives a recipe for this in his burgers DVD.  It's sage, thyme, savory, garlic powder, black pepper, and fennel seeds.  I think JN's burger method is sheer genius.  They are easy to make, are healthy and low-fat and high nutrition, taste good (maybe a little bland if you don't add enough seasonings), and the genius is in the variety:  regular, mexican, curry, falafel, italian (meatballs), southwest, kasha, and breakfast patties.  It's the breakfast patties I'm after with the sausage seasoning.  I'm going to eat them with my hash browns--starting tomorrow morning!  I made smaller versions for the morning "sausage".

Then we had a cookout.

Then during the rather painful Packer game, I harvested basil and kale from the garden.  Every month or so, I cut down most of the basil plant, pick off the leaves and freeze them.  That's about how often I mow down the kale too.  I don't know how much kale I harvested, several lbs.  After stripping the leaves, I stuffed half of it into a large ziplock bag to freeze.  The other half I cooked up in two large pressure cookers with onion and mushrooms.  After cooking and cooling I put them in bowls to freeze--easy to take out for a daily portion of greens.  Next weekend I'll harvest the collard greens.

Housemate is the tomato harvester.  She has canned 92 pints in the last month!  One reason I haven't eaten too many tomato dishes lately is that I'm saving them for later in the Fall after the fresh tomatoes are gone.  We eat lots of fresh tomatoes on salads and burgers and just on their own sliced.   It will be a treat when they are gone to start eating tomato-based cooked dishes using the cans.

This morning I made a batch of soy yogurt.  That will be ready in about an hour.  That is super easy to do, takes a few minutes in the morning to prep, and a few minutes 12 hours later to turn off the heater, put on the lids and store them in the fridge.

Finally, I cooked up some rice, and soaked beans to cook tomorrow morning.    I make these in fairly small batches because I prefer to make them every 3 days or so, and not have them sitting around longer than that.

weekend food prep

Housemate has canned about 48 pints of tomatoes so far.  This week two of them didn't seal so I had some tomatoes to use up.  I decided to make a chili.  You can find the recipe at this link, scroll down to the third recipe.  I like it.  Here is the pot cooked up:



I cooked up a batch of brown and forbidden rice and combined the chili and rice into bowls to freeze for later.  I also wanted to try it with polenta.  So I cooked up some polenta (corn grits):  1/4 cup dry + about 2/3 cups water.  I heated that in the microwave for 2 minutes then let it sit for about 10 minutes.  it got nice and thick.  I divided it into 2 servings with the chili.  

I harvested a bunch of collards and kale from the garden.  Here are four large bags ready to freeze.

I cooked up some greens, onion and tomato for a daily serving in my breakfast (or elsewhere) next week.   and froze those in individual servings.

Weekend cooking

I made my usual pot of beans and rice this week.  I cooked up a half pound of dried beans--this week I chose white.  I added some dry-fried onions, tomatoes from the garden, oregano, and at the end fresh basil from the garden.  It's good.  I cooked up about 4 cups of brown/forbidden rice.  I combined the beans and rice into single-serving bowls and froze them for later in the week (tomorrow will be leftover "burgers" from today's cookout):

While preparing the beans, I chopped up an eggplant; then I decided that is too much eggplant for the beans so I changed my mind and decided to make a big batch of greens--kale in this case.   So I fried up the onion, eggplant, added kale and water and tomatoes and oregano, and added fresh basil at the end.  I froze this into single-serving bowls to freeze also.  So now I can have a serving of cooked greens every day if I want.  That will save cooking time!

My meal plans are pretty similar to last week:  cooked cereal and fruit for breakfast; then some combination of corn on the cob, potato, cooked veggies (I also have broccoli and green beans and carrots in addition to the ready-made greens), rice and beans, and salad for lunch and dinner.  I mix and match depending on my schedule.

Weekend Cooking

Today I was in the mood for tofu jambalaya.  This is a recipe from Susan Voison's blog.  However, I modified it quite a lot.  I used twice as much rice, and it was a mixture of forbidden (black) and brown rice.  Since that takes longer to cook than white rice, I started the rice up with veggie broth, while cooking up the other veggies in a fry pan.  I added a small eggplant because I had it (without the peel).  I used fresh tomatoes from the garden and farmer's market along with 1 can.   I added some tomato paste at the end for more flavor.  It turned out excellent.  I so love this dish.  After eating a lot of it, I fit the rest in 2 4-cup bowls:

I decided to freeze one.  I hope that works okay after thawing.

I also had a fun idea, inspired by my purchases at the farmer's market (potatoes, kohlrabi) and my overflowing greens in the garden (kale, collards).  I thought:  oooh, hash browns and greens for breakfast!  --or a quick meal.  So to save time later, I prepped and froze the potatoes and greens.

Here's a whole bunch of kale and collards.  I figured, I should start freezing this anyway to have during the winter:

Here they are packed into 3 1-gallon bags  (one is only half-full):

I used the food processor to make "slaw" out of the potatoes:

Then packed them into bags for the freezer:

Then I thought, what about hash brown kohlrabi?    I got this giant kohlrabi (some new version that isn't woody when it grows large):

I prepped that like the potatoes.  

With all the cooking I did today, I also had lots of scraps. I made some veggie broth from some (for the tofu jambalaya), I froze some of them for future veggie broth, and the rest went out to compost.  Here's some of the frozen ones:

I spent about 2 hours on the food prep, and another hour on cleanup:

But it was fun.  I enjoyed it.  My meals should be fun and easy this week.  I'll try to post about it.

While doing food prep...

I spend a lot more time in the kitchen since adopting this healthy eating plan.  To entertain myself I've been enjoying listening to audiobooks.  I've really enjoy this.   More recently I found something else that is fun.  I've been getting these catalogs from this company Great Courses for years (not sure why).  I've never considered buying them because the prices are usually several hundred dollars.  But they are having a 70% off sale right now so I peeked in the catalog to see what's offered.  I ordered three courses:  Buddhism, old testament and new testament.  I've been interested in all three for a while and figured I'd never make the time to read about them so this will be fun to listen to the lectures.  I started the Buddhism course and am enjoying it.

Winter Squash!

How did I go so long without appreciating winter squash?  Oh my gosh, my food has been so good this week.   I've been trying different squashes out.  Here's what I bought at the store:

That's festival, red kuri (I think), acorn, and delicata.  Today I bought a butternut.   The festival, which may also be called sweet dumpling or carnival (I think), was fantastic!   The delicata and red kuri were bland.  I read in wikipedia that red kuri gets real sweet when ripe so I think I'll let my second one sit around for a month and then try it.   Not sure I'll go for the delicata again.  The acorn was very good, definitely a repeat.  I've had butternut before, will have that tomorrow and I expect that will be good.  

Since I am the ultimate lazy cook, here's how I prepared them:   put them in the oven at 300 F for 1 hour and 45 minutes.  Head of to exercise class.  return, turn off oven, let cool, cut open, remove some of the seedy stuff, leaving the yummy stuff, mix that in with soup.  The soup I made last weekend and froze in daily containers.  This had beans, tomatoes, some grains, lots of garden/local veggies, and some spices.   Oh, I also add some grated ginger and pumpkin pie spice to the mixture.  Here's a picture of my daily meals this week.  At left is the soup/squash mixture.  

At right are "micro-salads."  This is a bunch of veggies and fruit chopped in a food processor.  This week it was usually romaine lettuce, cabbage, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, kale, apple, pomegranate seeds, orange juice and fruit infused vinegar.   Very yummy.   Today for a treat I had the same veggies, but mango, strawberries, raspberries, and banana for the fruit.  I had these fruits on hand for a fruit salad I made for housemate.   As usual, I ate carrots and kohlrabi while preparing.  

I might be boring and eat this way for a couple of weeks.  That's kind of what I do.  

Clarification on Grand Canyon Salads

I've been getting a fair number of questions about the Grand Canyon Salads.  Thanks for your interest!  Here are some of my answers, as well as questions for you:

1)  Should I cook the mushrooms?  Yes, to kill some of the toxins.  1 minute in the microwave is sufficient.  And it tastes better!   Though when I'm traveling and don't always have a microwave, I've eaten them raw.  I'm hoping my nutritarian immune system can handle it.
2)  What size container do you use?  8 cup.  I've accidentally said 8 oz here and there, sorry about mis-speaking.  8 cup.  big.
3)  Do you eat all three in one day?  (are you crazy?)  Yes.  (yes).  :)   I go for simplicity and ease and don't seem to mind repetition.   For me the variation is day-to-day with the ingredients (the veggies and fruit), and the repetition is 3 meals in one day.   I'm gone from 8 am until 9 pm every day.  I prepare my food the night before and take it with me during the day.  You should do what works for you!  If you want to have this at lunch only, just make a smaller batch to fit one bowl for lunch.  Then have what something else for breakfast and dinner.
4)  How long will these keep?  24 hours.  I could probably push it to 36 hours if I skip a meal and still have one left the next day for breakfast.  But I don't think I'd do that on a regular basis.
5)  Do you cook the veggies?  I've done it both ways, cooked and raw.  Both ways are good.
6)  What do you do in between your salads?  Is that all you eat?  I usually have a few hundred extra calories to play with.  I fill it with favorite veggies in season.  Right now my favorites are usually carrots, sweet potato, sweet corn, and/or sugar snap peas.

I have questions for you all:  I'm surprised at the interest in these salads.  I was just going after an easy way to prepare food that tastes good and satisfies Dr. Fuhrman's 6-week plan.  Is this what appeals to you too?  Or do you just think the salads are good?

Let me know if you have any more questions or answers!

weekend cooking and potluck

I had a fun weekend of cooking and we had a nutritarian potluck too. It was great fun. I made Dr. Fuhrman's famous anti-cancer soup. It was good but I like my soups better. It makes a huge batch though, which is great. Here it is in my giant stock pot:

We had that at the potluck, and still had tons leftover to freeze into lunch-size portions.

For the potluck, Jim brought spring rolls and dipping sauces which were yummy. Colleen brought baked apples with a raisin cashew sauce. And Sue brought tomatoes and bananas. We enjoyed our food and gabbed for hours. Sue left me with large a ripe banana which I froze and then blended up for breakfast on Sunday--with nothing else! It's yummy.

On Saturday, after I made the soup and before the potluck, I made house-mate's smoothies for the week. But first I had a yummy fruit salad with some of the fruit.

On Sunday, we had soup and manna bread for lunch. Then at dinner I was back into my weeknight routine of making confetti salads for the next day. This is my last week of eating carrots. I have about 10 lbs left but they are probably not going to last for more than a week. It was a great year for local carrots. But the end of carrots is also the start of spring produce. The California strawberries were on special today and they are good. Soon we'll have local spinach and salad greens.

My weekday meals this week will be confetti salads, beans or soup, and manna bread for breakfast and lunch; and carrots and other veggies at dinner.

Food this week

I don't have much to report that would excite a reader. I've been enjoying my food but you might find it boring. I still only have about 1.5 arms to work with, so have been eating the usual: salads and soups. Actually it's pretty much what's described in this post. Some of my salads were fruity, some savory. All have a base of lettuce, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, seed mixture. Then add apple, orange, frozen berries, and sweet vinegars to some, add sweet corn, peas or edamame, onion, vinegars to others. Actually onions taste good on the fruity salads too, and apples taste good on the savory salads. I bought a sample pack of Dr. Fuhrman's vinegars and have been having fun trying a different one out every meal. I'm still rating them so might make a report at some point even though I don't think it's helpful to others because it's completely a personal taste preference thing.

I'm almost out of the soup I made two weeks ago. I'm making a new batch of beans tomorrow. That will be good mother stallard beans, with onion, garlic and mushrooms. Those will last me the week, since I'll freeze a lot of it. Tomorrow's cooked meal will be kale & sweet potato sauce, to which I'll add some of the beans. Next week I'll probably make confetti salads--I have a new version in mind so I'll try to post it tomorrow night after preparing Monday's food.

Today I made an excellent batch of housemate's smoothies. I make them pretty sweet for housemate's tastes, i.e., with extra juice and sweet fruit and dates, so I also enjoy sampling the leftovers when I prepare them.

update: here was Sunday's lunch. kale & sweet potato sauce with seed mixture on top. and beans. yum!

Update

Hi everyone,

With my broken elbow, I can't make the time to post much these days but I decided to take a break today and post a little on the Fuhrman forums, and give an update here too. Then I'll have to get back to my daily routines of sleeping, showering, preparing food, bending bending bending my elbow until it hurts, and trying to work.

Foodwise, I'm focusing on the fundamentals because I want optimal healing: beans (1 cup), greens (tons), cruciferous veggies (tons), fruit (1-1.5 lb), and nuts & seeds (1-2 oz).

This weekend I made a bean soup from 1 lb of white beans, 2 cans tomatoes, my last bag of frozen collard greens from the garden (lasted all the way through January!), onion, mushrooms, garlic, turnip (not sure I liked that addition), and italian seasonings. I put those into 12 plastic bowls to freeze.

My fruit this week is bananas, apples, oranges, pears, and kiwis. I've been having the banana, pear, and orange early in the week, then will have kiwis, apples, and oranges later (eating the more ripe ones first).

I'm making a gigantic salad every day. Today's has lettuce, bok choy, spinach, cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower, red bell pepper, corn, onion, pear or apple, seed mixture and flavored vinegar. It's yummy!

I spread the salad between 2-3 meals. I have soup with dinner. And 1-2 fruits at breakfast. Oh, and tons of raw carrots. We get these fabulous carrots grown locally (tipi produce). My visiting parents said they are the best carrots they've ever eaten in their lives and I completely agree. I don't know how long the harvest will last so I've been eating even more than usual in anticipation of the very sad day when they disappear from the shelves until next summer. Fortunately, that's also a sign of spring, and fresh greens and berries. Anyway, I'm getting off track. I eat a lot of carrots because they are so darn good. I enjoy my carrots the way housemate enjoys her tostada chips and chocolate.

So those are my meals this week. Last week I made confetti salads, but this week I wanted to taste the ingredients separately.

Oh, I forgot the weekends. This is when I get a treat! I make house-mate's smoothies. In the process I make a date-nut cream to sweeten the smoothies. This is so delicious. I either have some of that over fresh berries, or make a small sorbet from this combined with frozen berries. yum-yum. And I also let myself have a date with walnut piece (or 2) in it, heated up in microwave. boy is that a sweet treat. I sample the smoothies too. All of those treats end up being my breakfast and lunch, usually. Other meals are just whatever I feel like and have the time to make, maybe greens in sweet potato sauce, or a Fuhrman recipe, or snacking on veggies. I like to cook more on weekends since I don't do much during the week. On Sunday, I make soup for the week.

Any nutritarians who want to comment on my meals and suggest improvements, please do! I welcome advice.

Regarding my injury (broke my elbow, had surgery), my elbow, lower arm and hand are still bruised and swollen, though both are much better and improving daily. I just wish the swelling in the hand would go away faster. I am working to bend my elbow to 90 degrees by tomorrow but I'm only at 82 today so won't make it. I'm hoping when I see the surgeon tomorrow, he will tell me that I can do a lot more with my arm. Right now I'm not allowed to use my triceps muscle. We are having a blizzard so I might not make it to the doctor tomorrow. That gives me more time to get to 90 degrees, but more wait to hear that I can use my arm more.

okay, time to go eat my giant salad for dinner. I'll be back next time I have a break, maybe on the weekend.

My weekend trip

Okay, it's Christmas this weekend. My situation is not normal. I will be visiting family and will bring my own food--they are used to it--and, let's just say, this is not a situation where I am tempted to misbehave. For one thing, I don't think there will be a vegan item in any house I'm attending, not even veggies or fruit. Believe me, I have many demons and situations that are triggers for me. This just isn't one. So don't get the impression I'm a saint. It's social situations with friends here in Madison or while traveling that are difficult for me, like the last 3 weeks have been. But this other situation is like escaping into a monastery for a few days. In fact I almost wish I could just fast for part of the time because it's so sedentary and quiet with no temptations; but even though they accept I'm crazy, I think they would freak out if I did that. So with all that long-winded description of my weekend, here is what I bought at the grocery store for 3 days + one breakfast:

3 heads lettuce, 3 baby bok choys, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, 3 apples, 3 grapefruits, 4 pomegranates (there's still a few left!). And from the freezer, 3 servings of veggie bean soup, and my seed mixture.

Breakfast will be snacking on salad ingredients and carrots while preparing lunch and dinner. It will be most convenient for everyone if I prepare my lunch and dinner ahead of time and stay out of the way during these meals. That is why the simple salad is the main course.

Lunch: big salad, with the lettuce, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, apple, grapefruit, pomegranate seeds, seed mixture.

Dinner: big salad and veggie bean soup.

Breakfast on the 4rth day: pomegranate.

I'll let you know how it goes when I return.

weekend cooking

whew, I did a lot of food prep today. First made a batch of housemate's smoothies. then some nachos for the football game (we won, yea!). Then some chili for a potluck tomorrow. Then prepped a big pot of beans for taking to work for the next couple of weeks. Then a huge batch of apple sauce for the family--and a small batch for myself. Okay, I'm ready to eat for a week!

this week's meals

My weekday meals are very repetitive but that is because I love them. I've been making micro-salads lately, still following this recipe. I love how every season has a fruit that I love. Right now it's pomegranates! man o man, they are so good. This post describes how to peel them and extract the seeds. So I have one of these microsalads for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I supplement 2 of the meals with a bowl of bean soup. And I add some yummy carrot and kohlrabi sticks, both locally grown and very yummy. However, I think kohlrabi season is ending as there were none in the store this morning. That is very sad. Then I need a snack before bed usually (otherwise I lose weight and I'm already thin), so I eat orange remainders (weird I know), or some frozen peas and corn. This brand of corn is very sweet, like candy. I like this way better than anything else I've tried (except fresh-picked corn on the cob). Their peas are also good and have no added sodium, unlike almost every other brand.

Weekends are less structured. I eat lots of fruit on Saturday while making house-mate's smoothies. I savor eating a pomegranate all by itself. And then whatever is in the fridge that I feel like cooking up. I still have a lot of soup in the freezer so don't have to make that this weekend. I'll make another big batch next weekend.

this week's food

For the last few weeks, I've been in this sort of pattern for my weekday meals--that is, salads and bean soup, and my wonderful local carrots and kohlrabi. The salads have fruit in them along with veggies. This week I'm changing it up a bit.

Breakfast is bean soup, and a delicious pomegranate, and today I added in a kohlrabi because I realized I like them so much I may as well have two a day while they last. Oh, the pomegranate is soooo yummy. It's hard to believe, but this beats out ice cream from the old days.

Lunch is micro-salad--that post I'm linking to was written in the summer when fresh berries were plentiful. Now the fruit is apples, maybe an orange or grapefruit, maybe a pomegranate. I haven't had these in a while and I'm in the mood for them again. And I might have a little bean soup or a piece of fruit.

Dinner depends on how much of a hurry I'm in. Tonight will be a more rushed, so I will have a smoothie and some bean soup. When I have more time, like tomorrow, I'll have micro-salad and bean soup. Wednesday will be rushed again so another smoothie/soup day.

this week's beans

This is a variation on my usual recipe. Today I harvest a brussels sprouts plant so used the leaves for my greens, and added the brussels sprouts. I also added a butternut squash and some parsnips. My eggplants are done for the season so that's gone from the recipe. Darn, I forgot to add the last 2 tomatoes from the garden. And I was going to add sage and forgot that. Oh well, they taste good.

2 lbs beans (1 lb Cannellini and 1 lb Lima from my Rancho Gordo selections)

>1 lb brussels sprouts greens

~2 lb mushrooms (oyster, shitake, crimini)

>1 lb onions

3/4 lb parsnips

3/4 lb brussels sprouts

>1 lb butternut squash, peeled

38 oz carrot juice (about a 5 lb bag juiced)several cups water

Soak the beans overnight, then cook them in water for a few hours. Juice the carrots, add to a 12-quart pot, start the heat going. Now I chop everything in a food processor, starting with the longest-cooking things and adding into the pot. Add water as necessary. The order is greens, onions, parsnips, squash and then mushrooms. By the time that's done, the first ingredients have been cooking for a while. Add the beans, and cook another 30-60 minutes depending on how tender you like it. Let cool. Pour into a gazzillion plastic bowls for freezing. This batch made 34 cups, which I doled out into 16 1.5-cup bowls and 10 1-cup bowls:

Here's a picture of them in the freezer, along with this week's smoothies:

That may be enough for 2 weeks. yeah!

tomorrow's meals

Well, I'm back from vacation, and back to preparing meals for the week. First I went grocery shopping. Then I made smoothies for housemate. I haven't updated that post in a while. I make 8 smoothies at once, in 4 batches. Right now I'm using a lot of fresh seasonal fruit but soon will be back to frozen berries as the fresh fruit selections diminish. I put about 4 lbs of fruit in a big bowl. And I use fresh squeezed orange juice and water for liquid. Then I freeze them all as shown at the bottom of this post.

Next I made a giant pot of beans.

And then tomorrow's salads:

This has kale, broccoli, cauliflower, romaine, lime & lemon juice, sunflower, hemp, and chia seeds, apple, pear, pomegranate seeds, and kiwi.

Divide that into 3 bowls, add kohlrabi (yum) and carrot sticks. For the big lunch salad, I added edamame:

Breakfast is beans & salad; lunch is salad; dinner is beans & salad.

Maybe that sounds repetitive. I'll see. In the summer I had fresh corn on the cob at dinner, so I may have to come up with something else now that the season has changed. Or maybe I'll like this. I love the beans I made this week.

tomorrow's food

As I've posted before, with my new job, morning exercise class, and evening activities, I'm gone from 6:50 am until 9 pm on weekdays. I eat all my meals "out" (but not in a restaurant), so that means preparing them the night before. Here are tomorrow's meals:

At top are salads for each meal: 1 large head romaine lettuce, raw broccoli, 1 nectarine, 2 small apples, chia seeds, and pumpkin seeds, divided into the 3 salads. That's pretty much a random selection from the fridge, though the nectarine was ripe so that wasn't random. The fridge is full of apples, so random selections will usually lead to apples now that the season is upon us. At middle right is a small bottle of D'angou pear vinegar. It's yummy on salads. At bottom are 2 servings of beans & greens plus. I prepare those on the weekend and freeze in serving-size containers. I'll have those for breakfast and lunch. Then at dinner I'll have two boiled ears of corn, courtesy of house-mate--we will cook at eat them at the office. Only one week left of sweet corn season.

Here are the meals packed in bags, along with my supplements, a knife and fork, and 3 napkins:

These stack in one of my bike bags, and my exercise/work clothes go in the other bag. So far so good though I haven't had time to practice my flute. I wish I had one more hour in the day.