Potato & Cauliflower Curry

This recipe was originally posted at my Dare To Become site.  With my husband’s fasting season starting today, I wanted to do a re-post here since he eats a vegan diet during the fasting period.  More and more I think people are looking for simple vegetarian and vegan recipes to reduce their meat consumption.  When I say "simple" I mean easy.  When I see a recipe with a long list of ingredients my eyes start to glaze over.  In the perfect world we'd have two hours to prepare dinner but I just don't live in that perfect world.  Enjoy!
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My little Sous-Chef loves cauliflower.  I try to make as many dishes as I can with cauliflower in it. 
If you are looking at this recipe and thinking "my kid(s) won't eat this" then I urge you reconsider.  One of the biggest insults I think we do to our children is assuming what they "won't eat" without them even trying it.  More so, if your kids "won't" eat or “try” something, it is most likely because we (as parents) enable that.  If we have a knee-jerk reaction to different foods without even trying, then our children learn that behavior from watching us.  You would be surprised what kids will eat if you make it fun for them.  We miss out of a lot of wonderful discoveries in life if we have a closed mind.  As parent our biggest success rate seems to come when we introduce different foods and eating styles slowly.

2 tsp Earth Balance vegan butter (you can use olive or canola oil)
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp ginger powder
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
6 gold potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2" pieces
1 head of cauliflower, cored and cut into 1/2" pieces
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
salt, to taste

I use my wok to cook this dish because I like the high sides (which enables me not to make a mess on the stove top from flipping stuff out of the pan).  Heat the butter and cook the onions on medium until they are soft.  Stir in the garlic, ginger, curry, cumin, mustard seeds, and turmeric and saute them about 2 minutes.  Look how beautiful these colors are.

Add the potatoes, cauliflower, sugar and 1 cup of water. (My little Sous-Chef loves to help peel potatoes.)

Cover the wok (or pan) and saute the mixture until the potatoes and cauliflower are cooked (don't overcook them into mush) stirring frequently.  Add another 1 cup of water as the veggies cook to prevent them from drying out.  Stir in the peas and season with salt to taste.

I made basmati rice on the side.  The rice is optional but was a nice touch.  I put my veggie mix over about 1/2 cup of the basmati as I wanted more veggies than rice.  As my husband frequently says about food...."THIS is LOVE!"

Cooking & Freezing Your Own Beans - SO EASY!

I have been wanting to try this since I read this post at The Prairie Cottage http://prairiecottagerose.blogspot.com/2012/01/cooking-and-freezing-dried-beans-at.html. In her post she described how she cooked and froze her own beans in a high altitude area WITHOUT pre-soaking her beans. I was curious how much shorter the cooking time would be in areas without altitude issues. If I have to pre-soak and fiddle with something overnight, etc, well, it probably just isn't going to get done.

There is a compelling reason why I wanted to learn how to prepare and freeze my own beans so I could eliminate using canned beans. Canned beans are easy to use for sure, but with all the BPA concerns in canned products and the HUGE amount of sodium in canned beans I wanted a safer, healthier method if possible.

I started with a bag of northern beans.

Rinse and pick through the beans to remove any yucky looking beans and/or stone pebbles.

Look at that! 0mg of sodium!!!

And then look at the sodium content in these white beans for just a 1/2 cup serving - 270mg of sodium. I almost fainted when I looked at my garbanzo (chickpea) can and saw that it has 470mg of sodium per 1/2 cup serving. The hummus I make from canned chickpeas requires two cans of beans. With 3.5 servings per can that is 3,290mg of sodium in a batch of hummus in just the canned beans alone. And don't get happy thinking the reduced sodium chickpeas would be better because those are still 230mg per 1/2 cup serving. While hummus can be a very healthy food, all that sodium makes it not so healthy.

I added 1 tsp of baking soda to the water in the beans and covered with double the amount of water and set it right on the stovetop.

Bring the water to a boil and then reduce to medium. I put a lid on the pot but left the lid tilted a bit so steam could escape. I set my timer for 60 minutes as I figured it wouldn't take as long as her high altitude cooking. I ended up checking it at 50 minutes and was glad I did because they were done. Any longer and they would have started to get mushy. You don't want to get to that point because the intent is to freeze them.

They turned out beautifully! No pre-soaking for hours. It took only a few minutes to rinse and get them in the pot. I did other things around the house while they cooked. They required no tending by me on the stove. After I took them off the stove I put them in a large colander and drained them, rinsing with cold water.

I then added 1-3/4 cup of beans to a freezer ziplock bag and added a little cold water into the bag so they won't stick together. One bag I already used for dinner last evening, the other two I froze for later. I plan on doing this with my black beans, pintos, and garbanzo beans this week. I'm pretty sure I paid under $1 for the bag of beans so I appreciate the cost savings over canned beans as well.

Perseverance or Surrender - Who Decides?

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. - Vince Lombardi

Last evening I was walking laps at our gym while our youngest was in Taekwondo.  She spends 45 minutes in class two nights a week and my husband watches her practice while I use the time to sneak in some more walking. I peeked at my fitbit and saw I was at 18,600 steps. That elusive 20k step badge was so close within my grasp. I had 10 more minutes before she was done and I decided I had to go for it. Ten minutes to get in at least 1,400 steps.

What did I do?  I hopped up on the treadmill with my long yoga pants and sweatshirt and ran it out!

People say all the time that once you taste a bit of the glory, you want more.  Not every day will be a 20k day.  Most days we fight for the 10k step minimum.  But I'm telling you, to get anywhere YOU have to want it.  YOU have to fight for it.  I'm especially talking to my #FitCrew buddies right now. (Shout Out!)  Almost everyone on that crew works all day and has kids, yet the 10k minimum steps needs to happen and they are some committed folks!  I am so proud of them.  They make it happen.

The closer you get to goal weight the harder it is to lose weight.  I have to fight like a combat solider for each friggen ounce of weight.  EACH OUNCE!  I have to go twice as long, twice as hard.  When I'm at the gym and I'm on the treadmill or in the weights area I already know I have to fight harder and longer than many people there to get the same loss.  THAT alone makes me focused and drives me.  If you are in this hard place with me, don't give up!  An ounce is an ounce and at the end of the day, the scale is really irrelevant.  Your clothes will fit better and you will start getting stronger and smaller even if the scale doesn't budge.  Personally, I use a tape measure, body fat measurements, and my jeans as my gauge.  The scale is not something I use as an indicator.  It is not where I am right now.  Previously, yes...when I was in this body...remember this before pic?

Before pic

So yes I DO know what it feels like to be big and have my movements restricted.  I DO know how it feels to be tired all the time.  Too tired for everything.  An excuse for everything....my job...my kids...tired.  This is why I'm such a hard ass about excuses because I've used and said them ALL.  It is somewhat like I tell me kids when they try to get one up on me "don't try to out fox the fox."  Once I committed to myself, REALLY COMMITTED, my life started to change.  From hardly being able to walk my dog a few blocks, to walking off the first 20 pounds (never underestimate the power of walking), and then starting to run (remember 4 months to run 1 mile), and then numerous road races, 4 half-marathons, and last year my first full marathon which I ran every step of the way.  It was never easy.  It was always hard, but it I did it and I never gave up.  During all this time I worked full time and had 3 kids to take care of.  Yet I did it....because I wanted it really bad. 

Don't give up.  Break your aspirations down into small manageable chunks.  Believe in yourself and make a commitment each day, but it has to be YOU.  It has to come from within YOU.

Define Yourself Awesome!

The last couple of years I blogged at www.daretobecome.com.  I started it to chronicle my long journey to completing my first full marathon.  It was a way to help me keep accountability and hopefully share some encouragement to others who found every step of a run to be a challenge, yet they were determined to stick with it.  Any athletic sport really.  I still believe that we all can be an athlete right now in the body we are currently in.   My mind and body morphed through many, many changes and I know I still haven't reached my peak yet.  I still believe that there is more out there for me just waiting to discover.  That half-iron still sits at the back of my mind as a possibility.

Ending my blogging at that site felt right for me at this stage in my life.  I completed the 26.2 miles which was a huge bucket list item for me.  I also completed my first triathlon last year.  What didn't feel right to me was that it had totally been a "running" blog.  There are many pieces that make me who I am, and running is really such a small part of who I am.  It is not how I define myself as a human being, friend, or mother.  I enjoy it and I'm not done with it by any stretch of the imagination, but it will not be all that I am.  Could I have just continued on with it and added more about myself, probably.  A fresh start felt needed. 

Even now as I am sidelined still with a raging case of plantar fasciitis which makes any consistent training plan impossible, I'm not mad...I'm not sad...I'm not crazed by it.  It is just part of what has been thrown at me and I don't want to waste any time on negative emotion about it.  I've always credited running for teaching me a few very important life skills.  Patience.  Commitment.  Determination.  Patience.  Commitment.  Determination.  Yes, I repeated those for a reason.

Patience - I will not be a child and cry and whine about this.  I will run again...this too shall pass.  Injuries come and go all the time in sports. I am patient.  In the meantime, I've added so many other wonderful fitness stuff to my life.  More swimming, more cycling, weight lifting, circuit training.  I don't need a medal or t-shirt to prove to me how awesome I am.  I am awesome every day.  You are awesome too!  Years and years ago, a man I interviewed for a job with asked me how I rated myself on a scale of 1 to 10 about something (I can't remember the skill THAT'S how long it was) but I remember replying I thought I was a 10, and then I was a little bashful about it.  He said to me "hey, nothing wrong with that, if you don't think you are a 10 no one else will either".  Those words have ALWAYS stuck with me.  Always.

Determination - I will stay the course and continue to be fit and active.  I will continue to look outside the mentality that if I'm not racing, I'm not good enough.  Because we all know what a crock that is right?  Just ask any non-runner.  They will let you know really quick that you aren't ALL that (I speak from experience because I've been told).  I don't feel the need to announce to the world everyday how many miles I swam, ran, cycled, etc.  I work out everyday...for me...it's enough for me to know. I am enough.  You are enough.  Right now...just as we are.  Be determined in all that you do.

Commitment - I continue to seek to add new and interesting ways to keep myself fit and explore new avenues that previously I didn't have time for because I ran all the time.  Each day I wake up grateful for another day to keep plugging away at myself...consider the alternative.  I am committed to me.  Be committed to yourself.  We have but one life and one body, let's be loving with it.

Daily mantra:

I am awesome every day.

I am enough.

I am committed to me.

Flax Seed Bread - Bread Machine recipe

Today I made a yummy flax seed bread in my bread machine and I wanted to share it for those of you who use a bread machine.  I initially found the recipe on the back of a Bob's Red Mill flaxseed package but I changed it up to add more whole wheat flour and omit two other seeds.

1-1/4 cup water, room temperature
2 Tbls Honey
2 Tbls Oil (I used canola)
1-1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup flax seed
2 tsp Active Dry Yeast

My bag of flaxseed

 Add all ingredients in the order suggested by your bread machine. First the water, oil, and honey.  Then add the flours, salt, flaxseed and yeast.  Use the Basic setting.

Ready for action

It turned out really yummy!  I'm going to keep working at it to further reduce the amount of all purpose white flour but this is an excellent start.

Success!

What are the benefits of Flaxseed? Studies have shown evidence flaxseed may help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes.  Those little seeds contain Omega-3 essential fatty acids, which are "good" fats which have been shown to have heart-healthy effects. Each tablespoon of ground flaxseed contains about 1.8 grams of plant omega-3s.  They also contain Lignans, which have both plant estrogen and antioxidant qualities and contains 75-800 times more lignans than other plant foods.  They also contain Fiber, both soluble and insoluble types.  It's good, good stuff!

Curried Cauliflower, Potatoes and Chickpeas

I am not a vegan, nor am I vegetarian, although we do not eat a lot of meat.  I enjoy using vegan and vegetarian recipes in place of many meals that used to be meat based in our house.  The frustrating part is finding vegan recipes that don’t require a lot of exotic ingredients that can’t be found at a normal grocery store.  Especially since I've now moved to an area that I have no access to a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.  The nearest Whole Foods is a two hour drive from here.   I’ve read many vegan cookbooks and I’m lucky to get two or three out of the whole book that I would even want to try.

A friend of mine who became a vegan shared with me it took her over a year to get used to becoming vegan and branch out so it didn’t feel like she was eating the same thing over and over again.  My husband likes beans, but not as a focal point of his meal, nor does he like a lot of meat, so often we end up with high carb, low protein non-meat dishes…which make me FAT! *giggles*

I made this dish a couple of weeks ago.  The dish itself is vegan, the side of creole tilapia is not.  It then becomes Pescetarian if you are into labels and such.  If I gave this dish to my husband without the fish, he’d be starving again in an hour.  He has probably the fasted metabolism I’ve ever seen and totally unfair 8% body fat.  We’ve tried to substitute most of our meat with fish.  One step at a time for this household.  It's easier to introduce to the kids as well if done in stages.

Curried Cauliflower, Potatoes and Chickpeas

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 small onion cut into ¼ to ½ inch pieces

2 or 3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 tablespoons mild curry powder (you can use more or less depending on your taste)

2 cups vegetable broth (or water)

½ of a large head of cauliflower cut into bite sized florets

4 medium sized yellow potatoes (red would work fine also) peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2 large carrots peeled and chopped into coin sized pieces

½ teaspoon of salt (I used kosher), or to taste

Fresh ground pepper to taste

1 (15 ounce) can of chickpeas (garbanzo), rinsed and drained

2 to 3 teaspoons of lemon juice

I try to add as much organic products and produce into our meals as our budget allows.  If you aren't into the organic thing or can't fit it into your budget, no worries because this is still a healthy meal. 

Why yes, that is a lovely glass of Pinot Grigo!  This is optional of course, however highly recommended.  Sometimes when I am creating something new I like to sip on a glass of wine to stir up my artistic ability. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it)

Ok, here we go!

In a large and deep non-stick skillet with a lid, heat the oil over medium heat.  I use canola oil because olive oil has a tendency to burn.  At the chopped onion and cook while stirring until softened, about 4 minutes or so.  Add the garlic and curry powder and cook about 1 minute while stirring constantly.

Add the veggie broth, cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer over high heat.

Put the lid on, turn the heat to medium and simmer until the potatoes are just tender, say 10 minutes or so.

This is my little doggie.  He says "hello!"  He thinks he is my Sous Chef when I'm in the kitchen.  He eagerly watches my every move hoping I will drop some food.

Now add the chick peas and lemon juice and bring back to a simmer over medium high heat.  Cook, uncovered, adjusting the heat to keep a brisk simmer and stir it occasionally until the potatoes, cauliflower, and carrots are tender, about 5 minutes.

Remove the skillet from the heat and let it stand covered for about 5 minutes.  This will absorb most of the liquid.

This is the option non-vegan part.

I use that Creole seasoning in almost everything!  Even pasta sauce.  It adds a nice zip to the food without burning the roof of your mouth off.  For the tilapia I lightly brushed the fish with olive oil and dusted with the seasoning and pan cook until done.

And that is that.  I served the curry over a small bed of basmati rice with a  piece of fish.  Very simple, very yummy!

Curry powder has excellent health benefits.  It's worth checking out and it tastes divine.

Catching Up

It has been so long since I posted that I forgot my password! Doh!

We are all settled in to our new home here in NW Arkansas.  I love, love, LOVE my house.  My husband did an amazing job.  He was the one who picked out the house.  I didn't have a chance to even see it before a decision had to be made.  That is how fast everything snowballed at one time.

Welcome Home!

My Dream Kitchen!

My running has been very inconsistent...well hardly at all.  What little I can run when my foot cooperates I am happy for.  Most of all I have been enjoying the twice a day long walks with my little dog.  The scenery here is breathtaking.  We live on the outer edge of town so there is still undeveloped land here.  This is the beauty I see while I'm out walking.

There is a peacefulness here that fills my soul.  I am happy.  I am content. I need nothing other than what I have right now in this moment. 

My dear one started her new school on Monday and has been loving it.  I have been enjoying picking her up from school each day and hearing about her day.  One day we made cookies after school and burned them because we were too busy cuddling.  The next day we tried to make brownies and they turned out soggy.  I think there might be something wrong with the oven because I'm pretty good cook.  In any rate, burnt cookies and soggy brownies aside, we are having a wonderful time together.  I am so very thankful for this opportunity to be at home with her instead of working.  I hope to delay my return back to work as long as possible.  Maybe in January I will see about something part time while she is in school.

Oh and here is the killer bonus about being at home and not working outside the home....my house is CLEAN!  It is so clean I can't hardly even believe it.  After I get her off for school, I throw in a load of laundry and do some house chores for about an hour and then I'm done!  I can either run errands or tinker around in my studio.  I've been working hard to get jewelry ready to photograph over the weekend.  I want to get items up and running in my online boutique for the holidays. 

But....I have a bigger mission right now.  During the past two months with all the commotion of the relocation, as well as my inability to run, I regained 10 pounds.  There were also poor food choices during this time and we increased our meat consumption for convenience.  I knew it before I weighed myself because I noticed my jeans were tight.  It took me one week to get up on the scale to find out where I was.  For me, I use the scale as only one measure of where I am.  I already knew from cramming my big arse in my jeans that I had regained some weight.  I haven't been running.  I haven't been swimming because I was between two gyms with the relocation.  Now that I have settled in I can make changes that I need to get back to where I was comfortable and that is at least a 10 pound reduction.

I can't run right now but there is so much I CAN do.  I can walk. I can swim. I can cycle.  I can use weights.  I have a gym.  I have lost 2 pounds already this first week.  I WILL get back to where I feel comfortable in my own skin.

This is what my dog does most of the day....such a bum!