Beating Meat: Days 5 & 6

Nothing much exciting going on in the world of being meat-free....except for that I must say my all-Vegan Split Pea Soup kind of rocks!

Lunches have been fairly uneventful with PBJs and experimenting one day with COLD Boca burgers. Probably not the best plan, but it did the trick for the moment. It was semi-edible. The beloved is kind of liking the idea of eating oatmeal first thing every day (first thing, meaning his first meal, several hours after he leaves for work. That's cool.

I am taking iron supplements again, because I think the lack of meat stuffs is not helping me to get over the long-lingering anemia. Sucks, but what are you gonna do? Taking iron supplements is better than adding the fat and calories of PBJs to my own diet, and thus far I am not consuming adequate portions of iron-rich foods, like beans, spinach, etc. to make up for the loss of the iron in meat. I think if it continues for another month, I'll have to get back to the doc to see what I can do about it, and to make sure it IS anemia and not something else.

I do have to tell you that ALL the changes we've made with regards to food have almost totally ramped up energy levels. There are few to ZERO sugar comas going on, no crashing, no running out of gas, no nothing. Oh, and if  you eat those 'energy' bars, the ones with all the fiber and stuff, the ones they tell you should be GOOD for you?  Full of sugar. All kinds of it. My husband got one, one day during work, thinking exactly what they told him to think, that it would be good for him. Instead, he said he felt just like he used to after eating tons of sugary candy, cookies, etc. Save your money....just eat better foods.

We tried a new 'meatless' product...

Dr. Praeger's Buffalo Chickenless Patties

Results were mixed.  I am thinking I didn't cook them long enough. Due to such undercookage, they kind of gave off the impression of FISH sandwiches.....NOT my husband's favorite. I'm thinking though that if I cooked them longer, the outcome might be better. They were NOT all that Hot & Spicy to me, but to him they were..and fishy.  

So, we made it through SIX DAYS. It's a new first for us! Stay tuned because I'm going to show you what I made for dinner last night. I was fairly impressed and shocked!  

BBQ, Pork Roast and Cake

At work today, Brittany asked me what you do with pork roast. Ignoring the fact that we're starting Day 7 of Beating Meat tomorrow, there are too many things you can do with pork roast and, more importantly, pork roast and a crock pot (Crock Pot, Crockpot, who the hell knows if that's a proper noun or just two words randomly spaced or together?)!

I told Brit about this recipe for BBQ Pork, which works exceptionally well in my antiquated, 23-year-old Crock Pot!

Slow Cooker Barbequed Pork for Sandwiches

I don't have a picture, because every time I made it, I got so excited about eating it that I couldn't be bothered to locate the camera. Just know, this recipe ROCKS, even when you tweak it to account for the fact that you do not have, nor do you want to purchase any sort of bourbon (PUKE). Still traumatized from years of the hard liquors...no need to be reminded of it in the middle of a perfectly delightful BBQ Pork Sandwich! 

Another bonus, when you make this recipe, you can save all the liquid, freeze it and use it again for a different version of pork roast. It is A.MAZ.ING!  

Since I'm long winded, I decided I should just share my recipe for Pork Roast here instead of just tweeting the link, because by the time I see Miss Brittany at work again I will have long forgotten the subject at hand!  ADD. I have it. 

Here's the other thing to do with the pork roast, Brit...

This kind of pork roast, not the Pork TENDERLOIN thing that they have at work, in the plastic shrink-wrapped tubular shaped package....

Gently, very, very gently borrowed from here....(more later on "here")

Season the pork roast liberally with coarse-ground black pepper, fresh or dried rosemary, kosher salt and for added zing, Montreal steak seasoning. Place it in the crockpot, and cover with chicken and beef broth or 1/2 chicken broth and 1/2 water. Add 1 peeled, chopped onion and 1-2 peeled cloves of garlic (or you can crush them if you want). Turn on high for an hour, then turn heat down to low and let it cook for at least 2 more hours, but you can let it go for up to 4 hours. 

VOILA! Pork Roast. Yum. Meat. I miss it. 

Hope that was clear enough, Brit. 

I always served this with mashed taters, pork and mushroom gravy, using some of the broth from the crockpot, and some format of rolls or biscuits...and threw in a vegetable of some sort to make it seem like we were having at least ONE thing that was healthy. :)  

Enjoy! 

More on the "here".....

Bacon & Garlic Encrusted Roast Pork Loin

Dear. God. If we ever get back to meat, I want THIS!!! 

For the rest of you, I am anxiously awaiting the moment when Brit decided to take a picture of the gorgeous cake she made today. It was like a piece of very flourescent pink ART, covered from top to sides with roses. Just roses. Just beautiful!  

Beating Meat: Day 4

What a day Day 4 turned out to be. Frankly, there just wasn't much time to obsess over food and actually it was really difficult to resist the urge to go buy a GIGANORMOUS pepperoni and sausage pizza loaded with damnable CHEESE!

I may have finally encouraged the Beloved to start eating breakfast....that, or I just added to the offerings in his lunch pail, who knows?

His lunch:

Oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon with a touch of sugar
2 PBJs
Bowl of cous cous
2 cookies
1 pop
Tortilla chips
1 black bean wrap on Flat Out whole grain
Grape tomatoes

Enough to keep him busy.

My menu:

Coffee
More coffee
3 Boca sausage links on whole grain white bread (still not sure how THAT works?)
Lean Cuisine vegetarian meal (meaning it probably had cheese....fail).

Dinner:

Roasted veggebles (peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, brussel sprouts, parsley, a tablespoon of olive oil and several shakes of balsamic vinegar, and a splash of sea salt...)
Buffalo Chick'n Burgers on Whole Grain White buns (again, how does that work?)

Later:

1/2 a whole grain bagel with vegan cream cheese
Cookies....2 or 3 each?

Not too shabby for Day 4.

Beating Meat: Days 2 and 3

Day 2...come and gone. Came and went. It was kind of screwy. We both had the day off. I forgot to eat breakfast until about 8:30 AM. OOPS (considering I was up around 4 AM) and forgot to take my vitamins as well.  Oh well.

Got adventurous and made two different kinds of soups so I can have lunch ready every day and not succumb to the temptations in the workplace.

I think the husband is already experiencing MEAT withdrawal...but he's determined to stick this out, which makes me admire him even more than I did before!

The day's foraging included:

Boca Sausages (3 to be exact)
Boca Burgers and baked steak fries (no grease or oils used whatsoever)
A grapefruit
1/2 a bagel with vegan cream cheese (must say, not too shabby at all!)
Black bean burritos with vegan cheese, sauteed peppers and onions and salsa...
Cereal
And probably something else, but since I slacked and didn't write this til now, I can't remember!!!

All in all, it was a fairly successful day, eating wise. I will admit, however, that we did use up the remainder of the sour cream (fat free) with the burritos. Rome was not constructed in a day nor will we become Vegan overnight. But, it's all gone, so that is most definitely the end of that!  And, the end of Day 2.

Day 3...

Let the challenge begin. Mainly because now I have to figure out what to feed my Beloved for lunch, at work.

My day started out with cereal and almond milk and a banana....
Work menu included:
Grapefruit
15-Bean soup with 3 small slices of cornbread


For him, it went something like this:

1 Boca Burger
1 Boca Bruschetta thing (can't remember if it was the chicken or beef varietal)
Grape tomatoes
Fruit salad (banana, cara cara orange and blackberries with a sprinkle of stevia)
Tortilla chips
2 cookies
1 pop
1 yogurt (the last one....his favorite, but now it's all gone).

Dinner went something like this:


Mixed green salad with tomatoes and poppyseed dressing
Peas
Whole grain french garlic bread

Then, I had these:

PBJ
1 cookie

and he had this:

Cheerios with Silk Vanilla



When I mention things like PBJ and cookies, we've been doing lots of explorations into the world of healthier choices and thusly have switched to things like all natural peanut butter....the kind which has only PEANUTS in it. No added anything elses. Jelly? Pollaner All Fruit...in place of colored, sugary, gelatinous stuff.  Of course, it's not quite as cost effective, but if you stop buying the junk, then you can afford the other stuff in place of the junk.

One piece of advice when switching from cow milk to vegan milks.....use LESS milk and pour less cereal....because, I am guessing it's the high water content in the vegan varietals, that cereal gets really soggy, really quick, so unless you can eat all of it in 5 minutes or less, you end up with a bowl of mush. Not so sexy.

Oh and the black beans that I made for the previous evening's menu go absolutely PERFECTLY with the tortilla chips!

I'm thinking that we're going to need to invest in some Beano.....for the foreseeable future. All this fiber, in the form of whole grain breads, beans, grains, and veggies, is causing an ENORMOUS amount of gassy type stuff...which, you know, is all well and good and sometimes FUN, yet more annoying than anything.

3 days gone already and we're starting Day 4 already....it's not TOO bad. Challenging, definitely, but doable, just the same.

Anxious to see how another 2.5 weeks will make us feel!