New Year, New Me?

I was going to spend this post talking about all the things I did in 2011 to get healthier.  But the truth is, I had kind of a wake-up call.  When I went back to look at my progress, I realized I've weighed between 228 and 232 since the beginning of September.  I'm actually exactly the same weight I was on Sept. 7.

I've made a lot of strides towards a healthier life.  Matt and I eat a mostly vegan diet.  I've started incorporating activity into my routine.  But that's not translating into results on the scale.

On the bright side, I am 19.8 pounds lighter than I was January 1, 2011.  So I know it's possible to lose weight.  When I look back at what changed in September, it's not that I fell off the Weight Watchers' wagon, it's that I willfully jumped.  Every excuse I could think of, I used.  Traveling for work?  No need to count points, it's just one week.  Halloween?  If I gain from the candy, I can drop it next week.  Christmas party?  Well, Christmas only comes once a year.  Another Christmas party?  Well, I blew it at the last party, what's a couple more glasses of wine and cookies?  You get the idea.

I usually think New Years' resolutions are cheesy.  After all, if we need to make a change in our lives, we should just make it - no reason to wait until a special day.  But this year, I see the point.  I need to hit the reset button, and today has given me the opportunity to look back on the last year and see that.

It's pretty simple.  If I'm just trying to work out and eat healthy with no structure, I gain weight, or  I maintain.  If I count points, I lose.  Sometimes I wish the answer were more complex, because then I'd have an excuse.  But I don't, Weight Watchers' lays it out pretty clearly.  So my resolutions this year are simple, but concrete:

- Exercise at least 30 minutes 4 times a week.  Work up to 60 minutes 5-6 times a week.
- Track every day.  Learn to use the Simply Filling Technique for days that's not practical so I can still be on plan and not use it as an excuse to blow the week. (I will definitely blog about that when it happens).
- Get to a BMI of overweight

And my more abstract resolution - continue to strive to live a healthy lifestyle.  Be it through food choices, deciding how to spend my afternoon, or making movement part of my life, look for opportunities to be healthy, and take them.

For example, when I decided to spend Christmas afternoon doing this:

Instead of sitting inside watching TV.  Yes, that's me and Matt outside in 12 degrees weather.

Happy New Year!

Pumpkin Puree for Coconut-Pumpkin Soup

I may not be able to make a convincing case for this, but -- this is not exclusively a blog about winter squashes.

It maybe be about pumpkin today, but not forever. Eventually we will have to break down and start eating other kinds of foods (preferably squashes).

With the previously mentioned haul of garden goodness from my parents came along a "Winter Luxury" pumpkin, a fancy netted pie pumpkin with sweet, tender flesh and the coolest of all the pumpkin varietal names.

Liz found this recipe for coconut pumpkin soup, and I thought: yes. That is a good idea.

The recipe itself is pretty easy, so here's the scoop (LOL because of the seeds I am so clever) on making your own puree:

Start with your whole pumpkin. Give it a rinse and a dry, and cut it in half with a heavy knife.

Clean out the seeds and strings, maybe you will need a spoon, maybe you will need some scissors and a lot of patience. Anyway.

Roast this, face up, on a baking sheet at 450 degrees for like an hour. I just checked every 10-15 minutes, and when you could slide a knife in, I took it out to cool.

When it's all-the-way cool, scoop out the flesh and puree in a food processor. If you have a big "for realsies" food processor, one pie pumpkin is gonna be like one batch, but if you have only a MiniPrep, it will take like 2.3 batches.

That's it! It's creamy, and sweet, and delicate, and super-pumpkin-y. We took out most of this for delicious soup:

But we saved a little bit to swirl into our morning oatmeal with some cinnamon and maple syrup. This, too, was delicious.

Menu Monday

One of the things I've learned over the past year and a half on weight watchers is that planning is key. If I don't plan ahead, I don't lose weight. I'm finding the same is true with budgeting. If we have a plan, I stay on plan and on budget. But if it's 6:30 and we haven't figured out what we're eating yet, that usually means we're having noodles, take-out, or something from the frozen foods aisle at Trader Joe's. It's hard to make responsible decisions when you're hungry, so it's important to make those decisions before you get hungry.

So a new feature on this blog, to keep us both accountable, is going to be our weekly menu. So here it is!

• Monday: Burritos Especiales - Matt's take on burritos - fat free refried beans and banana squash
• Tuesday: Veganized Twice-baked Butternut Squash (a Pintrest recipe!)
• Wednesday: Tofu Cutlets with Mushroom Gravy and Roasted Broccoli
• Thursday: Tempeh Rice Bowls
• Friday: Black Bean Burgers and Roasted Potatoes
• Saturday: Airport food - Matt and I have a late afternoon flight, so I'll need to do some research on the Sacramento Airport options
• Sunday: Christmas at my parents!

I'll end with a picture I found online, I think it sums up how important the mental part of weight loss is - and planning ahead is part of that.

Rampicante Squash Burritos

So we've been able to reap the bounty of my parents' nearby winter garden:



Behold, a king's ransom in hardy squashes!

The long skinny crazy-looking one is some techy heirloom nonsense my parents are into called a zucchetta rampicante, or perhaps a tromboncino.

It is a magical squash, that you harvest all the way from early summer to winter. It starts out as a summer squash, something like a supermarket zucchini, and just transforms into a legit winter squash with notes of butternut and delicata.



Like all squashes that enter my kitchen, it was destined to end up cubed and roasted. I cut off the necks and the bulb, peeled, seeded, diced, and then tossed it in a bowl with a splash of olive oil and some cracked pepper and coarse salt.



I like to roast vegetables at about 450 degrees, and these took about 35-45 minutes, with a couple of cursory shakes every 15 or so minutes.



To fill up my burritos, I also prepped some black beans in the pressure cooker and sliced up some green cabbage.



A little splash of tofu crema and some red pepper sauce, and these turned out perfectly.

Pear Sauce

What did we do with all of our pears? Well, we dehydrated some of them. Now we have a big bag full of dehydrated pears, and we shall see what happens to those later...


But for the remainder of the pear bounty: pear sauce.


Making pear sauce is like making apple sauce. Only with pears, you see.


So you get a whole giant big bowl of pears. These pears need to be peeled, cored, stemmed, and roughly chopped. It looks like a lot of work, but that's because it involves a lot of standing and repetitive motions.


I got maybe twenty to twenty five pears, and I added the juice of one medium lemon, and a half of a cinnamon stick. They were so sweet that I didn't need to add any sugar.


Then, you cook...


...and cook...


...and cook down the pears into a delicious concentrate. I hit mine with the immersion blender at the end so it would be a smooth consistency. Nothing wrong with chunky, this is entirely a personal preference.


We ended up with about 4 cups of sauce. I froze half, and we had some of it on our oatmeal this morning. It was delicious!

Weekly Weigh-In

Weekly Loss: 0 pounds
Total Loss (since 8/10): -30 pounds

So do you remember last week when I said I was going to track everything? Yeah, didn't happen. I tracked all of Saturday, part of Sunday, and didn't open my tracker for the rest of week.

I guess I should be happy that even without tracking, I was able to maintain.

My leader says that if you go two days without tracking, it's time to mix up your tracking method. I realized after the last two weeks, tracking online just wasn't working for me.

So I bought the "Ultimate 3 Month Tracker" - it's a small notebook that I can keep in my purse, so I can keep it on me. So far I've tracked all of yesterday, and breakfast from this morning.

Garbanzo-Quinoa Burgers

I had some veggie burgers at the local co-op that listed quinoa as an ingredient, and it got me thinking that it seemed like a solid plan.

Since I started buying chickpeas by the case, because that's basically all we eat anymore, I thought: chickpea-quinoa burgers.

To start out, you rinse

• 1/2 cup quinoa

and set it up in your rice cooker with a cup of water, a hefty pinch of salt, and a drop of oil.

Next, you get the savory portion of your burger going by sauteeing

• 1/2 a medium onion, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 carrot, peeled and diced, and
• 1-2 tablespoons of good olive oil

Until soft and delicious. Next, mash up

• 1 15 oz can chickpeas

with a potato masher until smooth, and, in a spice grinder, process

• 1 1/2 tablespoons flax seeds

into meal. You could also just use 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of already-ground flax meal, but then your dinner wouldn't be as much work, which means it wouldn't be as rewarding.

Everything you cooked up goes in a bowl with

• 1/2 cup uncooked rolled oats
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1-2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• salt and pepper to taste

and, if you are looking for some next-level secrecy,

• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Mix into a delicious glop with your hands, and let it rest while you heat up a flat surface. I griddled these bad boys in a little cooking spray, maybe 5-6 minutes a side. This makes six (6) pretty good-sized burgers.

For vegan burgers, they held together pretty well. I'm sold on the quinoa thing, I'mma try it again, maybe with red quinoa and black beans.

We plated this up with some farmstand-fresh ears of corn and some wilted chard. If you're a pro, you'll have buns, but I am totally bush league and - alas! - had only slices of bread on hand. We topped them with some bread-and-butter pickles, but, you don't need me telling you what to put on your dang burger.