2015 Resolutions - Appetite For Reduction

2014 was, for me, a pretty good year. Unlike 2013, I actually made a net profit from being a full-time musician, and, in traveling to all of the various Renaissance Faires, conventions, and SCA events at which I performed, I got to try so much delicious food! I took tons of pictures from the various places at which I ate in St. Louis and Kansas City, and I plan on getting those posted to the blog this year (Procrastination, thy name is musician.)

Due to a combination of all of the delicious food I ate through 2014 and the fact that I messed up my right knee jumping on a trampoline in late August, I ended 2014 heavier than I started it. My goal weight is 140 lbs, and I'm currently about 176 or so. I have been using the My Fitness Pal app on my iPhone to track my calories, but eating out at restaurants is very difficult to track, unless you're at a big chain (MFP knows *exactly* how many calories are in a tall soy mocha with no whip from Starbucks!) Since I want to lose weight, since restaurant food is so hard to track, and since I'm such a fan of "Julie And Julia", I've decided to cook and blog my way through Appetite for Reduction: 125 Fast and Filling Low-Fat Vegan Recipes in 2015. I think it'll be fairly easy to cook 125 recipes in 365 days, and I imagine I'll be repeating some recipes that are really good. I'm also planning on having lots of healthy smoothies throughout the year, as well as getting more use out of my juicer, and eating a few raw meals.



I'm going to allow myself one "cheat day" a week (where I can eat pretty much whatever I want - mmmmm, vegan donuts), but at least six days out of the week I'll be eating as healthy as possible. One of the things I love about "Appetite For Reduction" is that each recipe has full nutritional information listed. Talk about easy to track in my app!

Since yesterday was January 1 (Happy New Year, by the way!), I started with "Hottie Black-Eyed Peas & Greens". My sweetie and I went shopping on Dec. 31 to pick up black-eyed peas and collard greens, so I was set to make this yummy-looking recipe. My sweetie swears up and down that he hates collard greens, so I made just half of the recipe so that he can eat some black-eyed peas plain.



I thought this was absolutely delicious! I ended up using both paprika and Tabasco sauce, and the flavor was amazing. My sweetie ended up trying a couple of bites, and decided that he loved the dish, but still isn't fond of the bitterness of collard greens. He's going to use the recipe, minus the greens, to prepare his half of the black-eyed peas, though.

Weight - 181.4 lbs. Recipes to go - 124.

RESTAURANT REVIEW - Mamacita's - New Braunfels, TX

Mamacita's
505 Business IH-35
North New Braunfels, TX
(830) 620-6565
Sun - Thurs: 11am - 9:30pm
Fri - Sat: 11am - 10pm
For other locations, see their website.

All this week, I'm office-sitting for my brother and cousin in New Braunfels, TX. So far, I've been bringing my own lunch to work (a sandwich made with Tofurky deli slices, Daiya cheese shreds, avocado, and Asian chili sauce with a side of fruit). Today, however, I had to get up extra early to go with my parents, grandmother, and 3 year old nephew to the Snake Farm and Petting Zoo.




My family was going to Mamacita's for lunch, and my mother said she'd bring me lunch after they'd eaten. I gave her my to-go container, and headed to the office.

Around 1:15, my mother appeared with a giant bag (given to her by Mamacita's, but reusable, like a shopping bag) filled with food. The restaurant had used my to-go container for the fajitas proper (onions, peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms), and given me disposable containers for rice & beans, pico de gallo & guacamole, salsa, tortillas, and chips. Now, the tortillas were simply wrapped in foil, which is a good way of transporting them, and the chips were presented in a plastic bag designed to go into the microwave (pretty smart). I kind of wish they'd just put the rice and beans in with the fajitas, though - I'd rather save a container than keep all my food absolutely separate.


Chips not shown. Also, I accidentally left my bamboo fork at the house, so I'm eating fajitas with chopsticks. Don't judge.

For some odd reason, fajitas don't show up at all on Mamacita's online menu. However, they are certainly on the menu at the New Braunfels location. I've been informed that both the refried and charro beans are vegan, as is the rice, so the only things vegans will have to avoid is the cheese and sour cream (and they'll give you extra guacamole instead if you ask for it).

Mamacita's flour tortillas are some of the best I've ever eaten. They're made in-house, and come to the table (or the desk!) pillowy, hot, and fresh.




If you eat in the restaurant, the waiter will bring out chips and dipping sauces. The salsa rojo is tasty with a fair amount of heat, but stay away from the green sauce - it looks like it's made with avocado but actually has sour cream and other dairy in it, as well as some odd green coloring.

I'm not sure what other vegan options one might find besides the fajitas, though I would assume some of the enchiladas might possibly be made vegan with the right sauce and omission of cheese. I love the fajitas so much, I've never checked.

Ruby Red Stir-Fry

Sorry for the ultra-late post today; I was going to go check out Cafe Gratitude and Mud Pie Bakery today and blog about those, but instead, I've been sewing a couple of Tudor-era shirts for my friend Aaron (who has been so nice as to let me stay with him and his wife pretty much the whole time I've been up here in Kansasouri). The good news is that the shirts are almost done! The bad news is that it's 11:45 pm, I'm not packed at all, and I'm supposed to be leaving to go back to Austin tomorrow morning. The original plan was to leave at 7 am, but I'm pretty sure that I have as much chance of making that happen as I do discovering a TARDIS in the front yard with a certain handsome Time Lord waiting to take me on adventures.

*sigh*

In the meantime, here's some pictures of this really delicious stir-fry I made about 10 weeks ago. I think it fits nicely with my previous beet post.



I started by dicing a tomato, a red bell pepper, and a beet, and sautéed them in a bit of Earth Balance.



When those were nice and soft, I added brown rice and black beans, and made a sauce of peanut butter, mango chutney, Bragg liquid aminos, and salsa. I cooked it for another 5-10 minutes until everything was heated and the flavors had combined. It was super tasty (and so pretty!)

Emerald Green Dip Of Vegan Nominess

Today's entry is my 100th post on this blog! Woo hoo!

Let's flash back in time a week or so, back to before I was having gall bladder issues and I was still trying to figure out different ways to use the large pot of black beans I'd made and what was left of a large bunch of kale.

*sound of flashback music*



While we're back here, let's remind past me to actually write down how much of what goes into specific things when they're being made. *facepalm*

I know I had at least 5 or 6 large leaves of curly kale, about 1/2 a cup of black beans, 1/3-1/2 cup of pineapple salsa, several good shakes of turmeric and ginger, and about 1/4 cup nutritional yeast. I tossed all of it into my BlendTec blender with just enough water to make it smooth.



I ate it with Wheat Thins Flatbread chips, and it was delicious!

Kale, Rice, Bean, & Tomato Wrap

This was something I made last week. Since I had a lot of brown rice and black beans, I decided to put them together with kale and tomato, sauté them in Earth Balance, and season them with a bit of garlic powder, ginger, and salt. Wrap them up in an Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain tortilla, and yum!