T20 BP Day 1

 Day one of Dr. Furman's Transformation 20

Breakfast

Banana Walnut Breakfast

1serving

1 banana
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup walnut pieces
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk

Slice banana into a cereal bowl. Stir in flax seeds, blueberries, walnut pieces, and non-dairy milk.

Thoughts:

This was good! The frozen blueberries made the almond milk turn a beautiful color of purple. It was tasty and filling.

5/5

Dinner

Creamy zucchini and corn soup

3 servings

1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic,
2 lb zucchini (about five medium), chopped
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
4 cups no salt added vegetable broth
1/4 cup raw cashews
2 tablespoons unhulled hemp seeds
4 cups spinach
2 cups frozen corn kernels
1/4 tsp. Black pepper or to taste

Add onion, garlic, zucchini, basil, time, oregano and vegetable broth to a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 25 minutes or until zucchini is tender.

Pour into a high powered blender (in batches, if necessary), add the cashews and hemp seeds and blend until smooth and creamy.

Return soup to the pot, add corn and spinach, bring to a simmer and cook until spinach is wilted. Add water if needed to adjust consistency. Season with black pepper.

Thoughts:

I made this wrong. First, I sauteed the onion and garlic with about a Tbsp of avocado oil. I used fresh basil. I misread the recipe, and blended about half of the zucchini mixture with the cashews... Oh, and I used homemade chicken stock I had on hand. Also forgot the hemp seeds!

It was alright. Not the worst Dr fuhrman soup I've had. My alterations probably improved it a bit :)

3.75/5

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Day 4 of Dr. Fuhrman 10 in 20: Chia Breakfast Pudding and Chickpea Curry in a Hurry

Chia Seed Breakfast Pudding( after sitting 15 minutes for the chia seeds to congeal the almond milk)

 Breakfast: Chia Seed Breakfast Pudding

½ cup unsweetened, unflavored or vanilla soy, hemp or  almond milk
2 tablespoons whole chia seeds
2 tablespoons uncooked old fashioned or steel cut oats
½ banana, sliced
½ cup fresh blueberries or frozen, thawed

In a bowl, mix together non-dairy milk, chia seeds and oats. Let mixture sit for 10 minutes or for an on-the-run breakfast, make the night before and refrigerate. Stir in banana and blueberries.

This was good. I've really liked all the breakfasts so far on the 10 in 20 program. It reminded me of the chia pudding mom and I made about 5 years ago... wow, has it been that long?

Score: 8/10

Hummus Wrap with Avocado

Luch: Hummus Wrap (repeat from yesterday, should've been a portobello salad with walnut vinaigrette)

I was short on time, so I just repeated yesterdays lunch and added some avocado. The avocado made this even better. The creaminess seemed to cut the onions. I didn't add the vinegar, but didn't really miss it.

Chickpea Curry in a Hurry

Dinner: Chickpea Curry in a Hurry

2 servings

1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas or 1 (15 ounce) can low sodium chickpeas, drained
½ cup low-sodium vegetable broth
1 ½ cups diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons curry powder
1∕3 cup unsweetened dried coconut
1 10-ounce box or bag frozen chopped spinach*

Combine all ingredients except spinach in a large saucepan. Cook for 5 minutes, then add spinach. Cover and continue cooking until spinach is thawed and curry is warm, about 5 more minutes.

Score: 8.5/10

*Instead of frozen spinach, I used fresh. A 10 oz package of frozen spinach is about 1 1/2 cups. After cooking down fresh spinach with a bit of water, that's how much you should be left with.  (many places online say to saute spinach with a tablespoon of oil, but I used a few tablespoons of water and it worked out fine. So, 1 lb fresh spinach = 1.5 cups cooked and drained = 10 ounce frozen package.

Right before we started the 10 in 20 program I made a vegan Indian chickpea dish called Chana Masala. The flavor was awesome. The naan might have also helped with how much I enjoyed it ;) This was a bit different. The sweet coconut (I did't have unsweetened in my pantry, so the stuff i used had too much sweet flavor) was okay, but I found it a bit distracting. The texture may have been the culprit there, really. The smell and flavor of this dish was pretty good.

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Day 2 of Dr. Fuhrman 10 in 20: Berry Bowl...

Berry Bowl with strawberries, blueberries, banana, pecans, flax and chia seed (added the chia later)

Breakfast: Berry Bowl

1 ½ cups fresh (or thawed frozen) blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and/or raspberries
1 banana, sliced
¼ cup unsweetened, unflavored or vanilla soy, hemp or  almond milk
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon ground flax or chia seeds

Top berries and sliced banana with non-dairy milk and sprinkle with walnuts and the flax or chia seeds.

Okay, I really thought just fruit, almond milk, some nuts and some seeds wouldn't be enough for me. This breakfast actually stuck with me for a long while. I ate it at about 11:30 am, almost lunch time! It was so easy, not sure why it took me so long to eat breakfast. This ended up being a good thing because I didn't end up eating breakfast or dinner.

I liked this a lot. I'd definitely have this again. Of course, I love having fruit for breakfast and that's basically all this is.

Score: 9.5/10 

After adding the fruit, nuts, flax and chia

After adding the almond milk

Another pic of the berry bowl, because why not :)

Alright, I think I put off breakfast partly because I didn't have almond milk on hand. Luckily, I'd soaked almonds overnight, so all I had to do was throw them in my Soyajoy with some water. Thank you mom for giving this to me years ago. If I had to make it in my vitamix with a nutbag, it probably wouldn't happen. I tried to figure out if homemade almond milk is cost effective. Actually after trying to remember how much I spent for my almonds, I just googled it. According to a website called Dont Waste the Crumbs, a quart of homemade almond milk costs $1.41 if you buy almonds at $4.23/lb (link to article here). Since it's just a cup to a cup and a half of almonds, some water, salt and sweetener (if you add that), not too complicated.

I made almond okara (pulp) cookies with coconut. The intent was to mitigate waste and provide a healthy-ish post-workout treat for my workout group. I had to make sure they weren't disgusting so I tasted one... which turned into 3! Totally off plan.

My Soyajoy! Thanks Mom for blessing my life with homemade almond milk

It was a beautiful day outside, so after getting Avery to and from preschool, the gym, grocery shopping, etc, we spent some time outside. I did this knowing that Avery needed it (and I promised her that we would, so gotta follow through). I also did this knowing I'd not fixed my lunch yet. After Andrew got home we went over to costco and didn't get back until about 8:15 pm. I wasn't about to try to fix either the kale salad or the zucchini pasta!

Blossoms on our apple tree

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Starting Super Immunity

I read Dr. Fuhrman's Super Immunity while Mark and I were in Victoria last weekend. I was so inspired that I decided to try all the recipes at the end of the book and post my results. I've decided to make the recipes in the order of the meal plan, but will give myself longer than 2 weeks to complete them all.

For each recipe I'll try to give the rating from Dr. Fuhrman's website, Mark's rating, and Jane's rating. Dr. Fuhrman's site uses a 5 star rating system. We will do the same. I don't want to give indiscriminate 5's (like it looks like a lot of people do on Dr. Fuhrman's site) so it will take something very special to rate a 5. I'll base my rating on the following criteria:

5 stars - Amazingly Delicious, can't wait to try it again!
4 stars - Very Tasty, will probably repeat this dish again some day
3 stars - Good, might possibly try again with some tweaks or if the ingredients are all in my cupboard and I can't think of anything else to fix
2 stars - O.K., wasn't awful, but probably won't try again
1 star - Nasty

With that said, let the cooking begin...

Forbidden Rice Breakfast
Mark and I both liked this recipe. I put a large dollop of Greek yogurt on Mark's (someone in the comment section on DF's site had suggested that) and I had mine au naturale. We liked it enough that we'll probably try it again some day - OK, like probably tomorrow since we have enough leftovers for both of us to have it for breakfast again.

Dr Fuhrman's site 4   Mark 4   Jane 4

Forbidden Rice Pudding Recipe
2 cups cooked forbidden rice
2 cups unsweetened almond or soy milk
1/2 cup dried apricots, diced
1 cup frozen blueberries
2 large or 4 small dates, pitted and chopped
1 Tbsp currants
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp chia seed

First cook the forbidden rice either using a rice cooker or according to the package directions. Next, place all ingredients, except chia seed, in a medium-sided pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat then reduce heat and simmer on low for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the chia seed, stir well, cover and let stand for 5 minutes.


Lunch was not super or full of immunity. No more needs to be said.

Instead we had Day 1's lunch for dinner. We started with Spinach Salad with Strawberry Sesame Vinaigrette. The first thing I need to say is that I've never liked Dr. Fuhrman's salad dressings. I was skeptical about this one, especially when I realized I was out of sesame seeds, one of only four ingredients. It was still wonderful.

We both loved the combination of the salad and dressing.

I wouldn't mind the dressing as a topping for waffles and fresh strawberries instead of whipped cream.

DF 5   M 5   J 5






I feel bad about the Tangy White Beans and Zucchini. I had planned on making the recipes strictly by the book the first time through.

Then when I started making this recipe I thought, "Hmmm, maybe this could use some mushrooms and onions."

So I added mushrooms and onions.

Then I thought, "Why this looks bland. I know, I'll add a can of fire roasted tomatoes."

So I did.

What I ended up with was nothing like the original dish. In fact, I thought it was just ok. This was sad since everyone seemed to love it on Dr. Fuhrman's site. One commenter even listed it as their favorite recipe.

We'll try it again at the end and see if it's better as written.

DF 5   M 4   J 3

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Mom's Visit Day 6 (part 2) - Chia Pudding and a Green Smoothie

Chia Pudding - 0 Minutes, 5 Minutes, 10 Minutes, 20 Minutes, 30 Minutes and final with fresh fruit on top

After posting our lunch and dinner, I realized that I didn't tell you about the chia pudding we made! After breakfast this morning. we decided to start soaking chia seeds for Chia Pudding. We added 2 cups of vanilla rice milk to 2/3 cup chia seeds and stirred every five minutes for 30 minutes. I know the constant stirring might not have been necessary, but it made us feel like we were doing something and reminded us to take pictures at each stage. You can tell that the Chia pudding gelled up pretty fast. We were surprised that the Chia seeds remained crunchy. In fact, we left some in the fridge for the rest of the day and tried it again - still crunchy. We liked the pudding. I might try some different varieties in the future and I think Mom will too.

Peach, Strawberry, Blueberry and Spinach Smoothie

Tasted better than it looks, promise

In case you were wondering, for breakfast this morning we had a green smoothie. I didn't keep track of amounts, but it had frozen peaches, fresh strawberries, blueberries, a frozen banana, fresh baby spinach, and some rice milk in it. Doesn't look very appetizing, but it tasted good.

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Mom's Visit Day 6 - Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers, Jicama Cilantro Fiesta Slaw, Vegan Mayo, and The Banana Leaf

Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers

For lunch we made Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers. The recipe was very flexible. The place we got the recipe from recommends using whatever seasoning you like. We tried it with Cajun, but couldn't really taste it. Whatever seasoning we use in the future, we'll add more of. We coated the burgers with plain panko. Maybe mixing some seasoning into the panko might help with the under seasoned flavor... Overall the Sweet Potato Burger was good. My little brother tried it and said that it was good, but didn't taste like much. I think this would be a great veggie burger recipe to keep around (with increased seasoning of course). The versatility and texture (creamy and slightly crunchy) make it a winner.

Tofu-Cashew Mayonnaise (all ingredients pictured except salt)

In order to have something to spread on our burger buns, we made some vegan mayonnaise. I don't have much experience with Vegenaise, Nayonaise, or similar products, but Mom has tried them before. The blog that we got the recipe from talks about her search for a good tasting, less oil filled, vegan mayo (click the link on the photo caption above). Even without really knowing what the alternatives taste like, I know that I like this recipe and will make it again. When I first put everything in the Vitamix to blend I'd forgotten to add salt. We tasted it, added salt, and it was even better. The salt brought out the mustard (we used spicy brown). The mayo was tangy and good.

Cilantro Jicama Fiesta Slaw

We made some beautiful slaw to accompany our Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers. Not only were the colors gorgeous, but it tasted great too. When following the recipe, we decided to use pumpkin seeds and to sub the apple cider vinegar with fresh lime juice. We tried it without mayo first, then added some of our vegan Tofu-Cashew Mayonnaise that we made earlier. Both ways were good, but the creamy version cut the tahini taste a bit. The only thing I would do differently is add less onion. Mom said that she added a little extra because it was a Vidalia sweet onion, but it wasn't very sweet raw.

Banana Leaf  - Sri Lankan Shrimp Kothu (Top) Pa'an (Middle Left) Rice (other middle left)
Ceylon Chicken Tikki Masala (bottom left) and Mango Chicken Sautee (bottom right)

For dinner we went out to eat with Andrew. We decided to try the Banana Leaf in Provo, a Sri Lankan and Singaporean restaurant. Mom and I decided to loosely follow the Engine 2 diet a little over a month ago. Since that time, we've talked a lot about what we'd do after we'd tried it for four weeks. We both decided that we didn't want to be vegan the rest of our lives, but we do want to incorporate a lot of vegan and vegetarian alternatives into our diet, focus more on a plant (and fruit) based diet and keep meat and dairy to a minimum. I think it's about finding the right balance that works for you individually.

With all of that being said, we did something out of our (recent) character, we ate meat. Not a lot of meat. When we asked the server at the Banana Leaf what she recommended, she told us that the Ceylon Chicken Tikki Masala was the customer favorite and that she liked the Chicken Coconut Curry, Sri Lankan Shrimp Kothu, Singapore sizzlin' Garlic Shrimp, and Mango Chicken Sautee. 

We ordered a few of her favorites and the Tikki Masala. The customers were right, the Tikki Masala is good! It was Andrew's favorite. Mom thought it tied with the Shrimp Kothu (minus the shrimp) for her favorite and I agree. 

I don't think we'd get the Mango Chicken Sautee again, it was our least favorite dish and it was the most expensive thing we ordered. The sauce was more like a jelly and  was too sweet. Both mom and I tried a piece of chicken off this dish and almost spit it out. It just tasted too much like meat. Okay, that makes no sense, but the chicken tasted like biting into flesh. 

We also tried a shrimp off the Shrimp Kothu. I used to love shrimp. I don't know if it was the way the shrimp was cooked (Andrew didn't like it either), but it was bland, slightly fishy, and rubbery. We all decided that the Kothu was great. Interestingly enough, when we were ordering, I asked the server about the Vegetarian Kothu and she said that the shrimp was better. We'll definitely order the vegetarian next time.

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Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!

Just went to the store and bought some chia seeds! Okay, I know, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word "chia" is the commercial for the beloved, or at least humorous, 80's Chia Pet. In fact, that actually kept me from purchasing these seeds for a while.

I've heard all sorts of good things about these little seeds. They help stabilize blood sugar, improve your mood and concentration, give you sustained energy, fill you up, lower your cholesterol, help your digestive health, build strong bones, create healthy skin, hair, and nails, help maintain hydration and optimize your ability to absorb nutrients from other foods. 

The first time I heard chia referred to as a super food was in the book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Racethe World Has Never Seen. The book was good, although a little outlandish. The author wrote about real people and real events, but he'd obviously taken a ton of liberties with his material. In the book he talks a lot about the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and their ability to run hundreds of miles, without rest, just for enjoyment. Now, that sounds like torture to me, but apparently I don't know their secrets... Oh wait, I do, because the author reveals them in this book! Okay, so in this book, the author is given what he calls Home-brewed Red Bull, Iskiate, or Chia Fresca. This drink is used by the Tarahumara for strengthening and refreshment. It is brewed up by dissolving chia seeds in water with a little sugar and a squirt of lime.

Here is an excerpt from the book:  

"A tablespoon of chia is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone. As tiny as those seeds are, they’re superpacked with omega-3s, omega-6s, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, fiber and, antioxidants. If you had to pick just one desert-island food, you couldn’t do much better than chia, at least if you were interested in building muscle, lowering cholesterol, and reducing your risk of heart disease; after a few months on a chia diet, you could probably swim home. Chia was once so treasured, the Aztecs used to deliver it to their king in homage. Aztec runners used to chomp chomp chia seeds as they went into battle, and the Hopis fueled themselves on chia during their epic runs from Arizona to the Pacific Ocean."

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