Tropical Fish Fry

When I have had an especially ridiculous day, I make something new for dinner so that I can focus on just cooking. Cooking is relaxing and helps me de-stress. I had 2 mahi mahi fillets in the fridge that I had planned for dinner tonight. As most of my new recipe escapades, I fly by the seat of my pants. I made up a ridiculously weird recipe tonight. I was really in the mood for macadamia crusted fish with a mango sauce. Seeing that I had no macadamias or mangoes, I puzzled for a moment. I had cashews. Perhaps I would roll the fish in crushed cashews and flour?? Wow. Bad idea. Cashews and cornflakes? Maybe. I opened the cupboard and that is when I spied the box of Mango Peach Passion flakes. Hmmm.... I crushed some of the cereal, and some cashews. As I was getting the basil that's when I spied some coconut flakes. So in went some coconut flakes. Now I had a mix of tropical cereal, cashews & coconut. My plain egg didn't seem good enough to batter the fish in. I added basil & salt, and about 2 tbsp of honey. Definitely not the full flavor I was hoping for, but the fish had a nice crusty layer of tropical-y batter after it was pan fried in vegetable oil. It was definitely something worth perfecting. I'm sure I'll revisit it again soon!

Not so bad for a Tuesday.

Curry Lentils

I had some really good curry-style lentils at the Whole Foods prepared foods bar several months ago. I decided to try to recreate them at home because I really liked them. I didn't expect to be able to nail them on the first try. The one tip I got from the cook was to use as little water as possible to keep the flavor full. I added chopped 6 fresh cloves of garlic, then added cumin, coriander, turmeric, dried onion & chicken bouillon. I initially covered the lentils with water and brought them to a boil, then reduced the heat to a simmer for about 25 minutes. The lentils were absolutely delicious. Halfway through cooking I did decide to add some more water to keep the lentils well covered.

My lentils turned out amazing and were great over brown rice. I can't take a picture because I won't be able to upload it until I get the mouse pad thingie on my computer fixed. Happy Monday!

I Answered 313 Phone Calls Today

ANY QUESTIONS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! 

I DIDN'T THINK SO!!!

37 Days of Vegan Eating!

In June, I started considering veganism. I had been feeling really sluggish and had some joint pain and headaches, and a frequent upset stomach. In the early part of June I started eating vegetarian meals. By June 19th, I was eating completely vegetarian. The vegetarian eating was actually ok, so July 1 I decided to give vegan eating a go for a month. I do feel much better. The most noticeable things for me have been the increase in energy I have had, the lack of headaches, and the fact that my stomach is no longer upset. I have to be honest, I expected that a vegan diet would go hand in hand with weight loss, since there are so many things you cannot eat. All products with any form of an animal product are out. You'd be surprised how many foods have to be cut out! Since I started I lost 4 pounds. Kind of disappointing.... but I do feel so much better. I do not like a lot of the meat replacements that you can eat when you are vegan. I have been getting my protein from soy products, nuts, beans, legumes, etc. The meat replacements that I do like tend to be higher in carbs than meat would be. Also I have had to take a supplement tablet to get my iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B12, omega-3s and iodine.

All in all I have not had a bad time eating vegan food. I didn't intend for it to be a permanent lifestyle but I was curious to see how I would feel after a few weeks. I feel so good that for now I plan to remain a type of vegetarian--I will leave out dairy, but I will be adding fish to my diet. Out of the list of the types of fish to eat that are best for you, I like tuna. Lol!! I am going to start trying to enjoy salmon, as well. :-/ I don't so much hate the taste of salmon but I do not like the smell in the house. I can't stand that fishy smell. My favorite fish is swordfish, which is not a very fatty fish (therefore not as good for you as other fish) but I will have to learn to like salmon. After the different foods I have developed a taste for in the past several weeks, I think learning to like salmon will be a breeze.

I enjoyed my dinner tonight with a side of tasty tunafish. I put in smoked chipotle peppers, vegenaise, chipotle mustard, a bit of relish and salt & pepper. Yum!

We Played Tennis!

So Rich & I played tennis today. We have a tennis court, sand volleyball court, gym & 2 pools in the community. We bought tennis rackets for Christmas in...2009. :-) Mine was still wrapped in plastic...um...yeah. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I would say we played tennis for about an hour, but that isn't quite the truth... It seemed like my arms wanted to play baseball. If we were keeping score in home runs, I would have won by a million. My balls were sailing through the air, out of the enclosure, sticking in the chain link fence, going up so high that I could barely see them anymore. It was about 90 degrees outside with 100% humidity so you can only imagine what we looked like after an hour. My rosacea had flared up so bad, my face was the color of tomato sauce and we were dripping in a mixture of sweat and humidity. GROSS!!!! We had a great time though. I learned a few things tonight. 

1) Buying a tennis racket with a picture of Maria Sharapova on the packaging does not, indeed, impart any special Sharapova skills to your game.

2) Wearing tennis shoes does not make you a tennis player.

3) Tennis is fun! 

This past few days have definitely been busy for us! Rich had yet another start up week starting last Tuesday and has been working a TON. He's left the house by 7am every day and hasn't gotten home till 11pm-1am. This week he got his second raise since we've moved here! He is such a hard worker and a killer business man and I am sooo proud of him! God has really blessed his station since we moved here.  Even though I normally only work 3 days a week, I had four last week to cover for someone else. I ended up work 7am-7pm Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, & Saturday. Normally 3 twelves in a row would be ok, but our air conditioner was acting up all week and so the office was about 85 degrees. I was exhausted & irritable by the time 3 days were through! I was pretty tired Saturday night but I still needed to go shopping for a baby shower. I spent almost an hour at Babies R Us only to find that tons of stuff off the registry was not in stock. I finally found a few items from the list and filled in a little basket with a couple other things. I have never heard so much crying in all my life in just one short hour as I heard inside the Babies R Us!!! Sunday was church, then I went to lunch with some friends, had the baby shower at 2:00, choir at 4:30 and nursery duty during the Sunday night service. I wanted to go home right after but there was a massive thunderstorm. Far be it from me to traipse out in rain like THAT with perfectly good heels on. After waiting around an hour the rain finally let up and I made it to my car without drowning or ruining my shoes.

Today Rich & I both got to sleep in some. He didn't go to work today till about 10:45. I have spent a few hours today cleaning up the house and I still have a bit more to do. As usual I get most everything done and the one thing I never want to do is fold and put away laundry. Thankfully I have tomorrow off too. I'm kind of glad the weather is yucky this week since the pool is being resurfaced. Maybe next week the rain will go away for a few days so I can get back to working on my tan. I'm also thinking about changing the name of my blog. With my slight ADD tendencies I get bored with repetition. Cheers!

Vegan Lasagna

I found a recipe ricotta-style tofu. I thought it was ridiculous until I made tofu fries yesterday. The texture of the tofu really reminded me of ricotta cheese. With that in my head, I decided to make vegan lasagna for dinner tonight. The original recipe calls for lasagna noodles but I didn't have any on hand so I just used 2 cups of cooked mini shells. It was pretty easy and pretty yummy. I used Morningstar meal starters (basically a ground meat replacement) and vegan pepperoni for a little flavor! Easy!! I don't know that there is really a recipe for what I made and I fully realize that I don't know anyone who would be reading my blog and actually want to make a vegan lasagna. But here is the recipe for the ricotta-style tofu:

14 oz extra firm tofu, crumbled

3 cloves garlic

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (I used light tasting)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano (I used 1 tsp dried)

1 tsp fine sea salt (I used kosher salt, 3/4 tsp)

Pulse to puree in a food processor. 

I layered marinara sauce, pasta, meat, & ricotta in the pan two times. On the last layer I added a bit of marina on top of the ricotta and sprinkled it with just under 1/4 cup of daiya mozzarella style cheeze. Bake at 400 till done. If you don't know what done is, I can't help you! 

Since there is no way I could eat the full recipe that they gave, I used a 1/2 recipe and I will easily get 3-4 meals out of it. I made it in a loaf pan. It was definitely not the gooey, dairy-filled delightfulness that you'd expect lasagna to be, but I will say it was a reasonable substitute. I actually quite enjoyed it.