Health Made Simple - Week 2

As I mentioned in a couple posts last week, I'm doing the Health Made Simple challenge from No Meat Athlete. It's an 8-week meal plan focused on whole foods, plant-based meals. The first two weeks are a ramp-up to the full meal plan. Last week, the only diet change was to have green smoothies for breakfast every week day and healthy, heartier breakfasts on the weekend (more on that in a few).

This week, it's all about snacks! I'm still having the green smoothies for breakfast, but I'm now adding two healthy snacks a day from the meal plan. Next week, I'll be on the full meal plan with breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner recipes all planned out for me.

But let's back up to the weekend. I want to show y'all the healthy foods I ate Saturday and Sunday morning. My Saturday breakfast on the plan was Tofu Scramble with baby spinach, onions, garlic, and nooch. I added a slice of sprouted grain toast spread with coconut oil.

My Sunday breakfast on the plan was Avocado Toast — one of my faves! With tomato slices, pink salt, and pepper.

Snack week/Week 2 started out strong with a healthy green smoothie. The Greens Fruit Flax Smoothie had green apple, spinach, banana, and flax seed. I thought I'd be tired of smoothies by now, but I'm not!

Morning snack was more fruit! We were supposed to have a bowl of any Mixed Fruit we wanted. I made mine with banana, grapes, kiwi, and strawberries today. One of the snacks every day is a fruit bowl, so I bought other fruit to mix these up throughout the week. Later in the week, I'll add apples and mangos to my bowl. It felt pretty good to only eat fruit until lunch time!

The fruit kept me satisfied until noon, but I had a meeting that ran through lunch time until 1 pm, and I was famished by then. I should have taken my afternoon snack into the meeting, but I didn't think of that. Oh well. I was very happy to have this Seitan Deli Sandwich with avocado, Violife provolone, tomato and sprouts on sprouted grain. Plus, Baby Carrots and Hummus on the side. I'm trying to use up my vegan meats and cheeses before the lunches and dinners on the plan begin next week! Excuse the terrible lighting. I had to eat my lunch in the art gallery today.

Afternoon snack was Trail Mix with almonds, cashews, dates, coconut, dried pineapple, and pumpkin seeds. Rather than make the mix from scratch like the plan suggests, I used some trail mix I already had in the pantry (it was a cashew, almond, cranberry, blueberry blend), and I added some of the ingredients called for in their recipe (the ones I already had, like dried pineapple, dates, and coconut). I wasn't terribly hungry for a snack since I'd eaten a late lunch. But still fun to eat!

Dinner was another attempt to use up plant meats. I've had a Tofurky in the deep-freezer for months, one I'd found on clearance for $5!! I roasted that and served with a recipe from Rich Roll's book, Finding Ultra. His mashed potatoes are made with olive oil and Vegenaise rather than margarine. And he tops them with steamed broccoli, mushrooms, bell pepper, spinach. So good!

The Crosstown CDC, which I'm on the board for, had its monthly meeting tonight at Midtown Crossing Grill, where pints are $2 on Mondays! Everyone always drinks at our CDC meetings, so of course I had to get a beer. I've decided I will not be giving up alcohol on this plan, so beer will still be a regular thing. Carbs, am I right?

Bluff City Vegan Eats: DWJ #2

A few weeks back, my vegan co-worker buddy Madelyn insisted that we get lunch at DWJ #2, the Cooper-Young location of an awesome Korean BBQ spot (they have another location out on Hacks Cross). It's located right next door to my home away from home, Imagine Vegan Cafe, but I'd never been. Mostly because if I'm in the Cooper-Young neighborhood, I'm usually eating at Imagine.

But Madelyn had recently tried DWJ when her vegan son was in town, and she really wanted me to try it. DWJ has several vegan menu items, so we found plenty to eat! Madelyn suggested we start with an appetizer of Goonmandu — fried Korean dumplings stuffed with clear rice noodles, tofu, and veggies. These were amazing! I loved having rice noodles inside a dumpling!

For my entree, I went with Bibimbap, one of my all-time fave Korean dishes. The vegetarian version had tofu, zucchini, carrot, mushroom, lettuce, sesame oil, and sweet chili paste over white rice.

You can get it in a regular bowl, but I recommend ordering dolsot-style. That means it's served in a hot stone bowl that continues to cook the the white rice so it gets all crispy and crunchy on the bottom. 

Love this place! Madelyn ordered the Jobchae, a stir fry of clear noodles with tofu, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and carrots. It looked really great too, and I'll have to get that next time.

DWJ #2 is located at 2156 Young Ave (in the original Imagine Vegan Cafe location!). Call 901-207-6204.

Stuff I Ate from the Crosstown Arts Cafe

As I mentioned a few weeks ago in this post, Crosstown Arts, the nonprofit arts org where I work, now has a plant-based cafe. And that means gourmet vegan food is available right outside my office door.

I've tried to limit myself to eating in the cafe just once a week because a) I have a budget for eating out and 2) I like to cook at home too! Since I also manage the cafe's Facebook page and photograph the daily specials as they're plated, this is a challenge. But so far, I'm making that self-inflicted limit work.

Here are a few meals I've eaten in our Crosstown Arts Cafe lately. We had our monthly Vegan Drinks meet-up there a few weeks ago, and I got the daily special of Vegan Chili Cheese Fries with seitan beef and cashew cheese. YUM!! Washed down with a Crosstown Brewing Co. Traffic IPA (brewed just a few doors down at our on-site brewery).

Here's the Curry Tofu Salad. This has grapes, chickpeas, and chunks of firm tofu in a curry mayo. I ordered a slice of baked-in-house rosemary bread to scoop this up with.

Last night, I met some friends for dinner and ordered the Seitan Bourgignon, which is sadly going off-menu. It's being replaced with something else, but man, it was so good! Mashed potatoes, seitan beef stew, and asparagus. Chef Raymond said he may make it again one day as a special though!

Here's a savory Cashew Ricotta & Chive Scone baked by our baker, Ali. She makes fresh vegan pastries, scones, croissants, and other sweet treats daily. I have an especially hard time resisting those.

The next pic isn't something from the cafe, per se. But this plate of deliciousness was prepared by our cafe staff for our last staff meeting. We served ourselves buffet-style from a spread of baked tofu, hoisin eggplant, sauteed green beans, spicy cauliflower, sauteed peppers and mushrooms, brown rice, sesame noodles, and sauteed bok choy. 

We also have vegan cupcakes (from Muddy's Bake Shop) for every staff meeting (they're monthly) to celebrate staff birthdays. I grabbed a Mint Chocolate Grasshopper Cake to eat later in the afternoon with a cup of Maple Walnut Green Tea that I purchased from our cafe.

By the way, Crosstown Arts Cafe has a Facebook page now! Follow us!

Bagels & Oats & Soup!

Since I'm about to start eating lots of No Meat Athlete Health Made Simple meals on a 4-week meal plan (starting week after next), I'm posting all my random meal pics from the past few weeks. Here's a yummy Dave's Whole Wheat Bagel with Miyoko's Creamery Cream Cheese & Hot Pepper Peach Jam. I usually eat my bagels toasted in two halves, but I was inspired by Sarah at Long Island Vegan to try this sandwich-style. It was fun to eat this way!

Another locally made Dave's Whole Wheat Bagel but this one is a Breakfast Sandwich with Tofu Egg and Earth Balance European Style Spread. For my tofu eggs, I fry tofu slabs and coat them in Vegg yolk (made with Vegg powder). Also, I've been loving the new Earth Balance European-style margarine!

One night recently, after having some dental work done, the only thing I could manage to eat was mushy food, like soup and guac. My parents were in town and we wanted takeout, so I got the Carrot-Coconut Soup with Baguette and an order of Chips & Guacamole from Next Door in Crosstown Concourse. The chips and bread were a little hard to eat with a numb mouth, but I did okay.

Another fun breakfast — Tofu Egg & Avocado Toast with lots of sriracha!

When I went to Nashville a couple weekends ago, I brought my breakfasts with me. Oatmeal cups! Here's one (poured into a bowl) with nut butter and berries. This was the Trader Joe's Strawberry Raspberry Oatmeal.

And finally, here's a big ole salad with cashew ranch (from the No Meat Athlete Cookbook) enjoyed on the balcony of Crosstown Concourse for lunch one day. I'm currently reading Let Your Mind Run by elite runner Deena Kastor.

Some Things I Ate Today, Some Things I Didn't

It's Day 2 of the Health Made Simple challenge from No Meat Athlete. It's an 8-week reset with a focus on small steps. And this first week, the only change in what we're eating is to our breakfasts. It's smoothies every week day and a heartier (but whole foods-based) breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.

This morning, I started with my pre-workout snack — an ABC (almond butter cocoa) Bar from Trader Joe's. I'm trying to eat all my sugary, not-as-whole foods-based snack bars before the real meal plan launches in two weeks. Then I went to Les Mills Body Pump at the YMCA in Crosstown Concourse.

After my workout, I had this Blueberry Peach Smoothie with blueberries, peaches, banana, spinach, and walnuts. For now, I'm following the recipes, so this doesn't have protein powder, but the program offers an "ask a nutritionist" feature, and I emailed them about how to handle these smoothies when they're enjoyed post-workout. I might be adding protein powder in the future! We'll see what they say!

My morning snack was Vegan Dream Cowgirl Jerky — a wheat gluten/soy-based jerky. Again, trying to eat up my processed stuff before the meal plan starts! And I knew I needed something high-protein to satisfy me through mid-morning yoga class at the Y (it's in my office building so I like to take my lunch break and do yoga!).

Lunch was Veggie Gumbo with Brown Rice. My friend Susan made a batch of gumbo this weekend and left me a serving on my porch! So I cooked up some brown rice and brought that for lunch today. Wholesome and delicious!

Since the meal plan hasn't started yet, I'm really hoping to get my fill of stuff I don't want to eat on the plan. Like this Vegan Caramel Sticky Bun baked by our Crosstown Arts Cafe baker Ali. She made these this morning, and I COULD NOT RESIST. But I was a good girl and split it with a few co-workers.

Dinner was Pumpkin Pasta with homemade seitan sausage. But I'm saving that picture and recipe for another Explore Cuisine post next week! So I'll share that soon!

Okay, now for some stuff that I didn't eat today. Here's a Veggie Sausage & Roasted Veggie Bowl I LOVED last week. It has sauteed Beyond Sausage with air-fried broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower over quinoa with a hummus-nooch sauce (I just mixed hummus and nooch together and drizzled!).

On Saturday, before heading to Mid-South Pride on Beale Street, I scarfed down some Field Roast Mini Corn Dogs. Not a proper lunch, but I pretty much grazed all day Saturday. Made a maple-Dijon for dipping.

And finally, I'll leave you with this thing of beauty. This past Sunday was Don & Kenzie's third Lulu's Baked pop-up brunch at Fuel. And this time, Don was serving Breakfast Torta with scrambled tofu, fermented tomatillo, oyster mushrooms, rancho gordo beans, and avo aioli. All on his handcrafted sourdough. AMAZING.

Health Made Simple Challenge!

I've been feeling the need for a reset for awhile. After fracturing my foot (for the second time this year) in August, I had to take a break from running, which makes me sad. So to make me feel better, I just kept eating like I was training. I've been taking in the same amount of calories as I was in 50K training without nearly the same level of athletic output.

And that's left me feeling a little blah. Too much processed foods and sugar will do that after awhile. When No Meat Athlete (NMA) posted a new Health Made Simple 2.0 meal plan challenge last week, I was immediately interested! But it was a little cost-prohibitive for me, so I just decided that I'd have to skip it. And then, yesterday afternoon, I got the "last call" for Health Made Simple sign-up email from NMA, and I had FOMO so bad that I just bit the bullet and signed up! It's currently closed to new members, but I'd imagine they'll open it up again at some point.

The sign-on fee paid for FIVE meal plans and a customizable online meal planner that I can use forever. So in that sense, it was a pretty good deal. It also comes with access to a nutritionist during the challenge dates — Oct. 1-Thanksgiving — plus videos and tips and a private Facebook community.

Anyway, this is an 8-week challenge so expect lots of Health Made Simple posts between now and Thanksgiving! The first two weeks are ramp-ups to the full 4-week meal plan, and then there's a 2-week ramp-down to normal life. In the first week, we're only focusing on breakfasts, which are smoothies during the week and hearty, healthy breakfasts like tofu scramble and avo toast on the weekend.

But before my breakfast today, I had my pre-workout snack of two Fig Newman's before going on a walk outside (my walking boot is off but I can't run just yet, so walks have to do) and some ab work. No, Fig Newman's probably aren't on the Health Made Simple plan, but we're only switching up breakfasts this week, so I'll work on improving my pre-workout nutrition later in the month!

Today's breakfast on the Health Made Simple plan was a Strawberry Raspberry Smoothie with frozen strawberries, raspberries, banana, spinach, and walnuts. Very good! And I didn't even miss the protein powder.

Since we're only changing breakfasts this week, I get to eat whatever I want the rest of the day. So I'm deliberately not worrying about processed foods and sweets just yet. And good thing! Because when I got to work today, my co-worker Madelyn had made Vegan Chocolate-Dipped Orange Apricot Biscotti!

I had that with some coffee (very good!), but I was still hungry for my morning snack of Violife Smoked Provolone on Stoned Wheat Thins. This Violife cheese is SO GOOD. Definitely the best one on the market.

I'm trying to use up my processed stuff before the meal plan starts in two weeks, so my lunch was the rest of my Nasoya Tofu-Vegetable Dumplings stir-fried (without oil) with broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. Drizzled with Thai peanut coconut sauce and sriracha.

For dinner, I had plans to meet up with a couple of awesome ladies from Atlanta who are traveling the country and making a documentary on vegan restaurants. Sally and Sunshyne (fellow Libras!!) met me at Imagine Vegan Cafe, and we had such a blast talking about veganism and Imagine's awesome food.

We had such a blast, in fact, that I FORGOT to photograph my plate! That almost never happens, but every once in awhile, if I'm in some great conversation, I'll forget. But luckily, I've got photos of pretty much every dish from Imagine since I've sampled the whole menu many times. Here's an archive photo of the Grilled Chicken Salad with Ranch. It looked about the same tonight!

I wanted something a tad on the healthy side but still decadent, so Imagine's creamy ranch and grilled Gardein chicken hit the spot. And hey, at least I got some greens in. Since I'll be eating so well in a couple weeks, I'm really trying to sow my wild oats while I can.

My posts over the next two weeks may mention Health Made Simple a bit, but since I'm mostly eating normally aside from breakfasts (and next week, we work on snacks), I'll be posting my usual reviews and random meal round-ups. When the full meal plan starts, I'll probably be featuring what I ate each day.

Vegan Dude Foods Potato Chips

I'm on the Vegan Essentials newsletter list, so every month, I get emails highlighting hot new vegan products that I'd previously never heard of (but suddenly can't live without). My dad also gets these emails since he's the best dad ever and often places just-because gift orders for vegan care packages for me!

A few weeks ago, Vegan Essentials showcased some new chips in their email by Vegan Dude Foods. They come in Cheddar & Sour Cream, Cheese Pizza, and Pyro Hot. Now I've LONG been saying somebody needed to come up with a vegan sour cream and cheddar chip. A few years ago, Earth Balance released their Sour Cream & Onion chips (filling a very large chip-sized hole in my heart). But cheddar and sour cream was still missing from my life.

Well no more! My awesome dad took a hint from me when I forwarded him the email newsletter with the note "man, those chips sound good!" A chip lover himself, my dad understood my longing and immediately placed an order for me. Isn't he the best?!

Turns out, those chips were GOOD. So good that I'd say they're the best chips I've ever had. Each chip is bursting with flavor, and they taste just like the classic junk food chips of childhood (not some healthy chip purporting to be junky — as so often happens with vegan chips).

The seasonings vary depending on the flavor, but all contain nooch. I'm pretty sure that's what makes them extra delicious. My fave was, of course, the Cheddar & Sour Cream flavor, but Cheese Pizza (it really did taste like cheese pizza!) was a close second. Pyro Hot were awesome too, but they were only mildly spicy (which is good because too many spicy chips make my nose run — not a good look when eating lunch at the office).

Vegan Dude Foods also makes Damn Good Ham and Premium Pepperoni vegan meat products. I haven't tried them yet, but I'd like too soon! You can find the chips online at Vegan Essentials or in-store at Food Fight, Rabbit Food, and Vegan Haven (if you're lucky enough to live in Portland, Austin, or Seattle!).