I am back! Two days in a row. Woo Hoo!
Today is Monday, and for the last six Mondays in a row I have started a new list of the plants that I eat in a week. Somewhere along this plant eating journey, I ran across an article that included a challenge to eat 40 different plants in a week. I had no idea how many varieties of plants I had been eating, but it seemed like a fun challenge and good way to make sure I was getting variety in my diet. Great for gut health too apparently. Keep in mind that I know nothing...learning as I go.
For the challenge, I keep a sheet of paper on my kitchen island with the numbers 1 - 40 written on it. For every variety of plant that I eat I jot it down. The first week I had 51, then 43 the next week and my high of 54 last week. Although I do have some plants that show up every week - onions, berries, jalapeño, garlic, cilantro, etc. I have been trying to add some new plants every week too. I have cooked with some weird things that I have not had before - or at least not cooked with before. I have eaten fennel, mung beans, jicama, sea weed, moringa powder and put sesame seeds, hemp seeds, flax and chia seeds on all kinds of stuff.
It looks something like this....
Started my morning with a whole wheat pumpkin pancake that I pulled from the freezer. Recipe from Minimalist Baker. I wasn't very hungry (kind mad that it was Monday!) so I just ate one pancake and I put pumpkin as the first thing on my list. I think you can count whole wheat since it is a plant, but since my serving size was so small I didn't count it today. Now, when I originally made these pancakes pictured below, I topped them with toasted walnuts which would be a great way to get another plant in the mix.
By lunch time I was really hungry and had some leftover vegan potstickers that I have made a couple of times. I followed Food by Maria's recipe and it is a HOMERUN! I throw all the veggies in the food processor, stir in the rice noodles and it makes a ton of filling. Wrapping the little potstickers is a little time consuming, but I thoroughly enjoy the process. The dipping sauce is fantastic. I know I can't type everything in all caps...but I really wanted "fantastic" to be all caps. I followed the recipe exactly and loved it. Anyway, these were extras from the last time I made the recipe and I pulled them from the freezer last night and let them thaw in the fridge. Heated up some oil and fried them till they got crispy on the bottom (3 minutes) then poured in some water and soy sauce to steam them for about five minutes. All done in less than 10 minutes. Threw together a little salad and it was a fabulous lunch. So many plants added to the list. Arugula, purple cabbage, red bell pepper, pear, green onion, mushrooms, carrots, bok choy, green cabbage, cilantro, ginger, garlic, sesame seeds. Up to 14 plants on my list already!
For dinner, I tried a new recipe from The Healthy Half for Coconut Curry Noodles. I know everything can't be great...but this was so flavorful! I was a little scared of all the spice it called for but I followed the recipe exactly (only adding in asparagus because I had it). It was the perfect amount of spice. In fact, I sprinkled a little extra red pepper on top because I like the kick. I will be having these leftovers for lunch tomorrow and will definitely make this again. So, for my plant list I repeated some vegetables in this recipe (Mushrooms, Garlic, Ginger) that I already had today, so I didn't count those. I added Asparagus, Parsley, White Onion and Coconut to my plant list. In just one day I have had 18 plants. That is pretty good, I think.
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