Weekly Weigh-In

Weekly Loss: -1.6 pounds
Total Loss (since 8/10): -30 pounds


I thought I would feel more excited when I hit the 30 pounds lost mark, but this week seemed kind of anti-climactic.  I almost didn't go to my meeting.  Partly it was because I had other stuff to do, so I had to go to an early meeting and didn't want to get out of bed, but also because I didn't think I would lose.  I'm still not sure I deserved to lose.  I felt gross all week, and that translated into very little activity and very little tracking.


I feel like I got a pass this week.  If I let myself slip back down the path of "kinda sorta" following the plan, it's going to be pretty tough to get back on track.  So this week, my focus is going to be on tracking everything that goes into my mouth, no matter how tired or busy I am.

Pears!

So many pears!



Liz has a co-worker who lives up by Placerville, near an area called "Apple Hill," where the locals grow many many apples and pears and other tree fruits.



She's got too many pear trees, so she asked us if we wanted to pick some pears.



Now we have all these pears, and we have some big ideas for them. Stay tuned!

Cashew-Tofu "Ricotta"

As promised, here is a stand-alone post with my version of cashew-tofu "ricotta," which is as close to a classic vegan staple as you can get on these here danged modern internets.

• 1 cup of raw cashews, soaked for a couple of hours
• 12-14 oz firm tofu
• Juice of 1-2 lemons (enough to keep the blades in the bowl moving)
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1 Tbsp olive oil

This whole mess gets processed up in the food processor, and, if you are making something Italian-y, you can also add

• 1-2 tsp dried basil, or maybe
• a splash of apple cider vinegar

To give it some zing.



Important notes:

You have to use firm (or at least firm-ish) tofu to get the texture right, if you use silken tofu you end up with a delicious sauce, but not a fluffy ricotta replacement.

Mince the garlic before you add it to the workbowl, otherwise there's too much "stuff" for the blades to get through and you can end up with big chunks of garlic.

Weekly Weigh-In

Weekly Loss: -2.2 pounds
Total Loss (since 8/10): -28.4 pounds

This week was a really good week, WW wise.  After a small gain last week, I got my head back in the game.  I tracked, I moved, I made an effort to get all my good health guidelines in, and when I got on the scale yesterday, it showed.

I didn't have any secret tricks this week, I just followed WW as it is written.  It shouldn't surprise me anymore - when I'm on plan, I lose.  When I'm not on plan, I don't lose.

Ratatouille "Lasagna"

Okay!

Getting back into the routine of cooking after a crazy cross-country move has been very easy given the robust natural bounty of the Sacramento valley.

We recently played host to Liz's sister and I wanted to make something hearty and festive. I thought, hey, maybe a lasagna, but maybe lighten it up a little.

Liz had read about swapping out the noodles for zucchini, and I had some boss Japanese eggplants, and I thought, hey, ratatouille is pretty standard summer business, what if I layered it up with some tomato sauce and cashew-tofu ricotta and served it up in delicious layers.



I got some quick tomato sauce started in a pan by sauteing down

• 1/2 a small onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 stalks of celery, and
• 3 cloves of garlic, with
• a hearty dollop of olive oil.

I added

• 1 sprig of fresh thyme and
• 1 sprig of fresh rosemary and mixed in the contents of
• one 28-oz can of whole peeled tomatoes.

After this simmered for a while, I splashed in

• 1 to 1/2 oz dry vermouth

and hit it with the immersion blender.

This didn't seem to be enough sauce, so I added

• 1 8 oz can of tomato paste and
• a half-cup of water.

Next time I'll just make a double batch, and just deal with any leftover delicious sauce, oh no...



In the meantime, I stemmed and halved

• four Japanese eggplants

and set them in the steamer to soften. When they were ready, I sliced them into strips along with

• about five smallish zucchinis.

I chopped up a handful of kalamata olives I found in the fridge and food-processed up

• 1 batch of cashew-tofu ricotta, (recipe forthcoming).

Then, I set the oven to 400 and started layering in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan.







Sauce, then eggplant, then zucchini, then tofu, then some olives and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast. Repeat these layers once and top with whatever tomato sauce you have left. Bake, covered with foil, at 400, until the zucchini is soft, and then uncovered for about 15 minutes.

It turned out great!

Food Find - Yellow Watermelon

One of the fun things about living in California is that you can grow almost anything here.  As a result, I'm discovering a lot of new food, and I've decided to feature some of it on this blog.

So here's the first food find - yellow watermelon!

Did you know that yellow watermelon existed?  I didn't, at least not until a farmer at the farmers' market told me about it.  We picked it out because I wanted to try something new, and because it was smaller than the red ones.

It still tasted like a watermelon - I couldn't tell a huge difference, but it's been a while since I've had a watermelon.  It was sweeter and more delicate of a taste than I remember, but there's a good chance some of that was because we bought it from the farmer that grew it.

I think this calls for more watermelons, so I can investigate!

We're Back!

It's been a hectic few months.

Since we last posted, we've had a few changes - the biggest one is that we're no longer in Northern Virginia, we've moved to California!

After a 5 1/2 day drive, we pulled into Sacramento, for a nice stay in a residential hotel.  Although we had a small kitchenette, we weren't able to do a lot of cooking that lended itself to blogging (unless you like pictures of salads and canned beans, then do I have some recipes for you)!

We've since found an apartment with a full kitchen, and have been slowly unpacking and getting everything in order.  We've also been finding the grocery stores and farmers' markets.

Our Farmers' Market Haul

We've also been getting other parts of our life in order - namely our finances and our diets.  I've come to realize that the two things are closely related.  Saving money and paying off debt is very similar to losing weight.  Both involve making a budget - if I eat more than my alloted points for the week (i.e. eat more calories than I burn), I gain weight. If I stick to my points "budget", I lose.  If I spend more than I make in a week, I go into debt, but if I spend less, I save money.  To stay within either  budget, I have to make choices.  If I want a latte, I can't buy a cookie later.

I don't really want to go into the details of our financial situation, but I will say that we're making an effort to save.  And since food is the biggest part of our budget that we can control right now, what we eat is going to play a role in that.  So we've decided that we're going to start including that in the blog.

But here's the thing.  I love food.  I really love eating good food.  And any plan, either for losing weight or saving money, that makes me give that up is bound to fail.  That needs to be another focus of the blog.

Hence, the new goal in the header - we want to lose weight, save money, and eat ethically, but we want to do that without sacrificing flavor.