Taking a break……again….

Hey guys it’s that time again for me to take a break from blogging. I know I take a lot of breaks but that is what helps me to keep on blogging.

I’ll see ya in probably a few weeks!

In the meantime, here are a few cute puppy moments….

Lulla sleeping on Loomis while in the car. Lulla had Miss Dottie’s harness on, but it doesn’t fit her anymore. She has gain almost double her weight since we got her about 2 months ago…

She gives this innocent little face when she wants something.

 

Loomis and Lulla enjoying the bed together.

~~~Happy blogging!!!~~~

Recap of this past salad challenge

Hello my lovely readers!

I apologize for my participating salad challengers for the lack of blog posts. School just started so, I’ve been pretty occupied mentally. More on that later. Well, this post is to recap my salads. I’ve included the components of each one above each picture.

In summary, I enjoyed this challenge because it gave me many benefits. I feel more healthy than I was before this challenge. I am happy with the # of participants and the fact that Long finally did it as well. BUT! the one thing that I am most pleased with is that I am now more regular. haha. Sorry if I am giving anyone unwanted visuals. I hope that some of you experienced some benefits of your own as well.

Well, I gotta go read for Chemistry. Have a great night and enjoy my pictures below.

08.17.09, Monday

Mixed greens, Morningstar Farms bacon, fig bars, egg/mayo mixture, spinach ravioli, whole wheat waffle wedges.

08.18.09, Tuesday

Mixed greens, boiled egg, angel food cake “croutons”, “bacon",” fig bar, red onion.

Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, vegan Caesar dressing, sun-dried tomato pasta. I forgot the protein content in this salad.

08.19.09, Wednesday

Mixed greens, carrot/jicama shreds, cereal, vegan caesar salad dressing, yves deli slices, croutons

08.20.09, Thursday

This was my FAVERITE SALAD probably because of the sandwich. Mixed greens, carrot/jicama shreds, tomatoes, egg alongside a sandwich.

08.21.09, Friday

Very filling meal. Salad consisted of romaine lettuce, grapes, nutritional yeast, blueberry muffin pieces, carrot/jicama shreds. The other part consisted of ratatouille over farfalle pasta.

08.22.09, Saturday

Mixed greens topped with ratatouille, nutritional yeast, grapes.

08.23.09, Sunday

Mixed greens, farfalle pasta, croutons, tomatoes, red onion, grilled eggplant alongside with grilled asparagus topped with lemon juice, salt and pepper, and balsamic vinegar. The asparagus was soo good that I made another batch.

Salads, Salads, Salads!

Salads for the past few days:

Thursday, August 13th

Okay, I know this wasn’t my best salad, but it fills the requirements. I was super tired and not so hungry, so this was the only thing that would fit in me at the moment. The contents included:

herbs (Asian Mint, cilantro) and spinach leaves.

 

Friday, August 14th

This is loc lac. I realized that this was actually a salad that fulfilled the salad requirements. Yay! I love loc lac.

Saturday, August 15th

This was a GOOD salad. This was a REAL salad for sure. Sort of like my “everything” salad. It consisted of: spinach leaves, kiwi, angel food cake, fake bacon, red bell peppers, jicama/carrot shreds, croutons and tofu.

Sunday, August 16th

I just ate this about 15 minutes ago and it was DELICIOUS! Bed of spinach leaves, carrot/jicama shreds, tofu, red bell pepper and spinach & ricotta ravioli. I used a different brand of ravioli because Bertoli didn’t have the mushroom and cheese flavor. I added butter, so it made the ravioli a bit tastier.

Sweet cake, Loomis exposed!

I have no idea how I overlooked this post. I guess because I kept switching between computers (my laptop and the desktop) that I forgot this one. Well, I’m working on the other one  by organizing the pics and typing things up—it’ll be up tmw, but for now….here’s Loomis Exposed ah!

Tuesday, 08.04.09

Snack: Fig bar with soda. I should really stop drinking so much of this soda. I’ve vowed to let this case be the last case for a while. Hopefully I don’t give in. It’s so good!

Here is the Angel Food Cake. Long and I had a couple of slices each. This batch of berries I added sugar, but I found that the added sugar was overwhelming, especially with the sweet cake.

Here’s a funny picture of Loomis lying down Miss Dottie Style. Look at his eyes!

Wednesday, 08.05.09

For breakfast this morning I had a skinny vanilla latte (SKVL), fig bar, banana and Bi Chay. I bought a new container of bi chay last evening after eating the entire contents all by myself.

Here is the finished Angel Food Cake topped with berries (without the added sugar). It doesn’t look as pretty as I had wanted, but the middle sunk a little, so I wanted to fix the flaw with fruit topping. It was also really hard to cut. This cake is for Long’s work, so it wouldn’t be ideal to bring a serrated knife to a high school….I’m sure they’ll enjoy it because it’s super sweet and often times people enjoy berries.

It’s already 2:00 and I haven’t eaten lunch yet, so I’ll see ya later. I gotta fill my belly!

I need to layoff the latte

Breakfast:

1/2 a savory and crispy crepe filled with fluffy scrambled eggs. I should make this more often it’s super good.

 

Earl Grey Tea

 

I normally buy a Skinny Vanilla Latte from Starbucks, but lately I am lovin’ Peets because many of them do micro-foaming. I have yet to get a detailed Rosetta or the famously easy to do Heart or Apple, which is sort of a disappointment. Well, I sometimes get the deformed apple. ha! Still….Peets coffee tastes better than the ‘bucks. With that in mind, I figured I’d get to know Peets a little better by ordering a Caramel Latte. It wasn’t what I expected….not sweet at all… so, I poured in a packet of Splenda (I figured that there was already lots of sugar from the caramel).

Day 3 of Salad Challenge:

This salad was one of the best so far! It felt like it had EVERYTHING. It probably did. I loved all of the textures and the juicy fruits combined with the savory “bacon".”

• Spinach leaves
• strawberries
• nectarine
• Maui Onion Chips
• Walnuts
• 2 Yve’s deli “turkey” deli slices
• “Bacon”
• A tiny piece of leftover crepe (One O’clock)

Day 2 & New Tricks!

Breakfast:

I wasn’t hungry at all. I thought about skipping breakfast, however a little voice in my head told me I should. A juicy nectarine filled my belly this morning with a cup of Earl Grey

Lunch was a salad, which consisted of:

• Romaine Lettuce
• Red bell peppers
• BBQ gluten
• Dried noodles
• Strawberries

I marinated the gluten in:

• soy sauce
• hoisin sauce
• black pepper
• garlic pepper
• a little brown sugar

Sautee on a hot skillet.

 

These noodles added a nice CRUNCH!

 

Lulla learned “BANG” yesterday. Loomis Learned it today (he’s a little slow) haha. What I am most excited about is this!! Really working on his impulse control. eh? Lulla hasn’t gotten it down just yet. She’s in the background observing.

 

He’s so good!

Day 1 Continued…

I bought Morningstar Farm’s “bacon” to put into my salad today, but I ended up munching on 5 of them all by itself after finding out that there was only 2 grams of protein per two strips.

  

My first salad of this challenge consisted of:

• Romaine Lettuce
• Yellow squash
• Quail eggs
• Nectarines
• Croutons

 

Dinner: Yao Hawn

Veggies:

• Baby bok choy
• Chinese mustard greens
• Yellow squash
• Zucchini
• Mushrooms

 

Veggies cooking in fermented soybean broth

my little plate at one point.

I ate about two tangerines.

Day 1 of Challenge

Good Morning lovelies!

Today is the first day of the Salad Challenge. I hope you’re all ready or planning for the rest of this week. I haven’t gotten all of my salad ingredients just yet, but plan on doing that this morning (after walking the dogs).

I’m going to make this post a quick one because I want to get out of the apartment for the morning. Don’t want to be cooped up in here all day.

As for camping pictures, there wasn’t much. Our car did stop by Whole Foods to get some of their food from the bar. I got Indian Food and gobbled the entire thing up quickly. The rest of the weekend was just things that I made, Sun-dried tomato pasta with a Vegetarian Caesar salad with avocado and munching on unhealthy choices such as chips and soda.

This is what our meals on the camping trip looked like—salad and pasta period. I ate this when I got home.

I had some Stoneyfield’s plain yogurt as well.

 

I also munched on Kettle Cooked onion chips and this bowl of low fat vanilla ice cream from Hagan Daaz while nursing insect bites.

Fig bars

 

Enssaro Ethiopian Cuisine.

 

Left:

Messer-Wot
This spicy lentil dish is cooked slowly with organic, hand crushed Ethiopian spices, a sustaining and comforting dish served with fresh Enjera and salad.

Right:

Yetsome Beyaynetu
Vegetarian combination which includes: Messer Wot, Kik-Alicha, Ata- kilt,
and Gommen.

 

We ate with our hands while using this. There were no utensils at all, which was a little weird, but it was an experience.

 

Angel Food cake with nutella

 

berries and yogurt

 

Whole Foods hot bar. Indian Food

Nutella and banana Crepe, sorry it’s a random picture, but I wanted to get it in there.

Beautiful Lulla

We took a long hike with the dogs, so there are many pictures of them passing out on the trail. Poor puppies!!

Here is the final list of participants:

Long – Leng’s Hubster

Cindy – A Sparkle A day

Valerie – The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

Jessica – Black Cat Kitchen

Ashley – eat, me, delicious

Elise – hungryhungryhippie

Cindy Lowry

Kaneil – Balance is Best

Links of Interest:

Rules and details of Salad Challenge

Gone Camping…

Hi All!

I’ve gone Camping for the weekend……Will see you back on Monday for the start of the Salad Challenge!

-Leng

98%, Salad Challenge Clarifications, Baking Question.

Well, I’m slowly getting back into the habit of taking photos of everything that I eat. I may have missed a couple here and there, but I think I succeeded to photograph 98% of everything.

I’ve come to the recent realization that I was not clear with the “rules” that were posted for the Salad Challenge.

I’ll just write what I wrote in a previous email.

“Not everyone is able to stick with it and be perfect ALL OF THE TIME. We are all human. I also know the rules can be a bit challenging to follow, but that’s the fun part right? haha. In fact, the last challenge I messed up a couple of days. So, just try and stick to the rules as best you can, if you can’t that day(s) it’s no biggie.”

If you forget to eat salad that day, start again the next day. You won’t be “kicked out” or anything.

Here are some clarifications regarding the Salad Challenge Rules:

Salads should fill each of these requirements below. Examples are included.

1. Include RAW leafy greens, but not necessarily in it’s natural state. For instance, the salads can be blended or eaten straight off a plate.

2. Contain at least one serving from each of these food categories (these can be cooked or eaten raw):

• PROTIEN: legumes, tofu, seitan, tempeh, gluten, nuts, dairy
• VEGETABLE (and/or fruit) of different color: carrots, beets, zucchini, sweet potatoes, radishes, bell peppers, red/green onions, herbs,
• CARBOHYDRATES: croutons, pasta,

3. Include something you consider fun (can be anything, but leafy greens):

chocolate	candy	more veggies
Ice cream	pizza	repeat what falls under item #2 above.
cake	dried/fresh fruit	anything else…

 

4. Dressing is optional.

Braggs Amino Acids	EVOO	Lemon Juice (yummy)
Ranch/Italian/Honey Dijon…

Things to keep in mind….

Some items will count more in more than one category.

Example: chickpeas/garbanzo beans will count as protein, vegetable, and carbohydrate.

The carbohydrates portion do not necessarily need to be super filling.

They could include things like croutons, which as you know are common in salads, or anything you can think of.

The protein portion could be either

nuts (one serving is a tiny 3 oz), eggs, legumes (which double counts as a carb and protein).

The something fun part is not really a dessert on top of your salad. It’s just so salad eaters do not get bored with the salad.

It could be dessert or just anything, from processed sweets to fresh fruit.

Sign Up Sheet

Sign Up Date Deadline: Sunday, August 9th

Challenge Begins: Monday, August 10th

If anyone has any questions, please email me at chhaylengtouch@gmail.com or comment. I love receiving emails.

Monday, 08.03.09

Lunch:

Green Beans & Tomatoes

 

Snacks Throughout the day….

StoneyField’s Plain yogurt. It was too good that I had to have two of these 1/4 cup servings.

 

I believe these are concord grapes

 

and red grapes

 

Sushi. The rice I made was a bit soggy, so this meal was super duper filling. Combos included: avocado, pickled relish, cucumber, & green onions.

I later found out that I bought sweet rice instead of sushi rice. doh!!

Bi Chay is a Vegan Pork dish. They are normally found as a filling in vegetarian Vietnamese sandwiches. I couldn’t pinpoint what were all of the ingredients, but from the taste and look of it this is what I came up with:

noodles, carrots, black fungus, “fish” sauce or soy sauce, tofu sheets,

 

I ate the entire thing myself even though I wasn’t the least bit hungry.

08.04.09

Breakfast:

Instead of doing the salt and pepper on top of a boiled egg, I subbed the salt for fermented soybean—lots of salt there. Turned out decent.

 

Whole Wheat fig. bars. SOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!

Snacks:

A very flavorful and yummy nectarine with Miss Dottie in the bkgd.

Dinner:

Pho, but this time with the thick rice noodles. Sorry for the bad photos.

Off to make Angel Food Cake!! It’s my first time making it. Wish me luck!

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I just finished making the Angel food cake…..As odd as it sounds, I don’t know how Angel Food Cake should taste like….this one came out sweet. The recipe I was using called for 1 3/4 cups of sugar. Is Angel food cake normally sweet? Did I use too much sugar?