Plant Challenge

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  Now, when I originally made these pancakes pictured below, I topped them with toasted walnuts which would be a great way to get another plant in the mix.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.  

Now that you understand how it works - join me!  Keep your own plant list and let's compare notes. 

You can see I am clearly not going low calorie...but we CAN'T DO EVERYTHING!  Right now I am trying to eat more plants and not eat meat, and not eat dairy.  Let's just do that and if we have to eat some pasta and an occasional apple pie, then so be it! 

About to head out on a walk with Judy and TWDITW!  Hope you have a fabulous evening!

Hey! How the heck are you?

Is anyone out there in the blogosphere?   It has been a hot minute since I have even thought about posting here.  Well, I did think about posting a couple of months ago, but then my password didn't work and I had to try to reset it and somehow this blog is attached to Chip's account and technology is hard.  But today, I had the time and the patience to work through the password reset business and here I am!  

The whole Blogger site looks different and I have no idea if I will even remember how to do this, but I am going to give it a try. 

How have y'all been?   There is no way in the world I can catch you up on all my antics since my last post taking Cooper to the vet almost a year ago, so lets skip the first 10 months of 2020 (don't we all wish it was that easy!) and just pick up from here. 

Since we last left off with Cooper, let's start with an update on the old boy.  He is almost four!  He is better, but still earning his stripes as The Worst Dog In the World on the regular.  In fact, last night he snapped at me and Chip while we were sitting on the couch.  He hasn't done that in a very long time.  It was probably because we were yelling at the television during the Bama game, but UNACCEPTABLE Cooper!  We fashioned a pretty elaborate barricade to keep him out of our cheering section and he pouted for most of the night. Maybe I should give him two Prozac on game days so he can go sleep somewhere and leave us to our hollering.  Otherwise, he still needs a walk most every day to keep him sane, along with his daily dose of prozac and apoquel for itching.  But hear this, one day a couple months ago he let me touch his paw to pull off a sticky burr and that has NEVER happened before. Finding improvement where we can. He is still a unit....weighing in around 95 pounds.  Maybe a little more since the quarantine. Aren't we all?

Harry is doing well.  He is still working for the Rangers.  The Rangers were pretty stinky this season, but on the upside the NLCS and the World Series are being played at the new Globe Life Park where he works. He has seen some pretty good baseball in the post season. He is a little weary though. Aren't we all?  Long hours. Quarantine. Off days have been few and far between. I haven't seen him in person since he headed back to Arlington at the beginning of May. He is ready to wrap up the season and have some down time with his people to get recharged.  I can't wait. 

Chip is also good.  He deferred his first semester at Texas Tech and is taking a couple online ACC classes. He is really ready to start at Tech so hopefully he can be on campus for the Spring Semester.  Outside of school he is working out regularly, doing his SlawEdit graphic art, doing a little dog/house sitting here and there. He has been pretty bored.  Aren't we all?  It is just a season, but it feels long and he is ready to get on with it. 

I am good. Still working from home, as usual. Working proposals which is steady work most of the time with burst of insanity. Not much has changed on that front. Personally, I am solid. I love being home and quarantine has not been too bad for me outside of missing outings with friends, volunteering and I really miss our Love Box family. With the holidays coming up I am sure I will be missing my family too. We text all the time and have started a regular Sunday morning group phone call that has been lovely and keeps us connected, maybe better than before quarantine.  I keep up with Callie and the girls regularly via text and the occasional phone call.

I got really sick in May although I had been seriously quarantining and had not been anywhere. I tested negative for COVID and my symptoms didn't line up perfectly for COVID, but I was very sick for a couple of weeks. Whatever it was, I do not want any part of that again. It was awful and scary.

I have been walking really regularly with my neighbor Judy.  We take the dogs out for a walk most every evening.  That has been a nice habit and we laugh and get into all kinds of tangles with those mutts.  

I also got a Peloton bike about six weeks ago and I am obsessed with it.  I am riding about five days a week and keep setting new PRs and am trying to build up to more 45 minute classes, instead of 20 or 30 minute classes. It is the most fun I have ever had exercising. The instructors are varied and amazing. The music is great. I holler and cuss when it is hard and talk back to the screen like they can hear me. It is hard and I sweat like a beast even with a fan cranked up on high!  But I can squeeze in a quick workout even when I am busy at work because it is right upstairs.  

Day one. 

Last week after a new PR...still smiling and it was HARD! 

I have also been eating Plant Based for about 13 or 14 weeks. I watched "What the Health" on Netflix and thought it would be a good jump start to fight back the quarantine free eating and be more responsible with what I was putting in my body. My nieces are vegan and mostly vegan and on every girls trip we take we eat at great vegan restaurants.  I didn't think it would very hard to make the switch and it hasn't been. That is really why I want to get back to blogging. I have so enjoyed finding new recipes to make and sharing them with my family, but I think they are sick of me. I sent a photo of my breakfast taco to my Dad yesterday and he said "It is too early to look at that."  HAHA!  He said it had too much green in it for him. Looked like I mowed the yard and put that on a tortilla.  Funny Bob. 

I also want to do a better of job of documenting the recipes and where I found them so I can browse through the blog and find yummy things to make again. So, if you don't want to see food pictures you may want to unfollow this account!  I will, of course, also keep you up to date on all the other adventures we are up to, but things are pretty quiet on the adventures front. 

That is enough for today.  I feel very accomplished for having gotten this far.  I hope this blog posting still works the same and I don't lose all this when I hit the publish button!  If you ever get to read it, then it will have worked!