Confessions of a plant eater.

I’ve been plant based,  no-oil, eating since November 14th.  The first two weeks were hell, but it gets easier.  One thing is to find things that are familiar to you, yet within the constraints of the diet.  Take potato chips.  But, do so carefully as I may bite your hand.

I have not added salt to food, minimally in cooking, for years now, yet I reached a point in this diet where I would have killed for a potato chip.  I would stick to plant based eating all day, then the lights would go down and I would eat two bowls of oatmeal, just to fill up.  We have a box of small bags of chips, for the boys.  They love taking some downstairs when they watch movies and destroy things on the computer.  But, those little bags of potato chips were like a siren song to me, as I lay down.  And, before I knew it, I was in rapturous joy over a 100 calorie bag of chips. 

I finally found out that I can minimize that craving by slicing potatoes very thin and frying them in a skillet.  I love pepper and I have done it since I started this diet, but when I added pepper, I was able to reject the chips.

Then there is the matter of pizza.  I now realize the men in this house eat pizza about 60% of their meals.  Do you have any idea how good melted cheese smells?  So, I got out my trusty cookbook and decided to make a plant based pizza.

This  is Polenta pizza.  Looks good right?  How can anything look that good and taste that bad?  Now, to be fair, maybe I did it with the oregano I added to the tomato sauce.   I don’t always have the right ingrediants.  I would also like to mention that there must be some trick to making polenta firm up.  It did finally.  The crust wasn’t that bad but put it all together and blech!

On the other hand, this was great.  I was tired of eating oatmeal for breakfast and just wanted something hot and delicious.  I have gotten in the habit of spraying pam in my cast iron skillet and then seeing what I have to throw in.  For breakfast, it was potatoes, a bit of no-meat sausage (yes, I read, it has oil.  You can’t trust husband to read labels.  The other day he mailed the electric bill without a stamp on it.  I had told him two days in a row that he had to buy stamps first, but—-), onions, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, and my spicy hummus.  It was soooooo good! 

So, there are ups and downs.  I may have to buy a slicer to make my potatoes thinner, but this is working.  It is hard to measure the affect on my heart but I have lost seven pounds and I do feel better.  My body just seems to work better on plants.  Gee, bumper sticker anyone?

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Blogs, politics, lists and CAKE!!!

I was killing time this morning, like I have so much extra to kill, well, I really do, I just don’t want to do what I should be doing with it.  Somehow, I think this sentence has way too many commas in it.  I copied and pasted it to MSWord and they are not offering any corrections, so any editor/agents out there, just pretend I meant to do that—Stream of consciousness thing and all.

 

 

 

Anyway, in killing time this morning reading all the neat blogs about Sarah Palin and now I have added an Alaskan blog *Mudflats* to my daily read.  Who could resist this information?   Okay, now that’s another thing you agents/editors need to ignore—my politics.  I was actually going to write about an email I received from a friend, who is so stressed out about the state of politics, I fear for his sanity, but then I remembered that I am not supposed to write about anything controversial.  Ooppps!! Too late for that.

 

 

 

Anyway, again, I only got as far as C’s, in my daily blog troll.  *Cranky Fitness* provided this morning’s blog inspiration with her list.  First, I have to say, who can resist a blog with cupcakes as its banner?  Okay, a nice piece of wedding cake might be better for us cake connoisseurs.  Since her blog is about fitness, I’d say this whole cake thing is off limits; except on your birthday.  Or when you go to a wedding.  Or on the Ides of March. Or—–

 

 

 

This, cakes and lists, is something I have in common with *Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom*.  This is the team who has a whole blog, nearly  (I haven’t read the whole thing yet) made up of lists; and, I know for a fact that one of them would join me in my cake quest or possibly in doing many unmentionable things to Viggo Mortensen.  

 

 

Back to the lists: I find I do get more things done when I make lists. When I was doing Body for Life faithfully, I think it was the fact of having a chart to fill out for exercise and also for what I ate. Those were lists that kept me on track; and away from cake.

 

 

 

Now-a-days though, my lists look something like this.

 

1. Six am  do dishes- no room for dishwasher in this blasted house.

2. Seven am wake boys

3. Feed visiting rabbit and clean the poop out of her food and water dishes.  What is her problem?

4. Water dog, then take her for a walk in the yard and to water the garden.  Talk lovingly to baby watermelons. We will be so drowning in watermelons at some point.  Tomatoes are just starting to get red.  I may go on a tomato and watermelon diet.

5. Call the class ring company and order a replacement for JRockGuitarMan’s class ring.

6. Remind JRock that I will have his hide if it ever disappears from his finger again.

7. Tell EMT Boy he looks good in suit of visiting son, Starky

8. Tell Starky he looks good in cowboy hat, boots, shirts and jeans of EMT boy.  (Hey, they get worse as Halloween gets near.  One year we gave them a box of costumes for Christmas and it was their favorite gift.)

9. Go to mom’s town tomorrow: see vet (for dog pills, not for me), go to license bureau (for mom’s handicapped tag), help her with pacemaker check by phone (which she can do on her own), out to eat (always) grocery store, farm stand for tomatoes and watermelon since mine aren’t ready to pick yet. (never buy a watermelon at Marsh — worse one I ever had). 

 

 

 

I have stretched my limits of punctuation and patience in this blog, so am off to work on my novel to bed.  I shall put my headphones on and listen to Harry Potter yet again.  I have been listening to the CD’s for three years now.  Since memoiries from my last visit in Wyoming roll around in my head too often at night.  The CD’s only put me to sleep because I have them memorized by now. So, new books on tape only work when I am painting or throwing pottery and want to be reading.  Music doesn’t work either.  Both of them just make me stay awake to hear more.  But, my brain calms right down with the soothing voice of Jim Dale.

 

 

 

Sleep well!

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Rabbit Karma, Vegetables and the Olympics

Okay, you may ask what Rabbit Karma, Vegetables and the Olympics have in common. Absolutely nothing! It was just my morning and last night, all wrapped up in one. 

 

This morning, poor little irritating Chihuahua received her rabbit karma. Outside, for her morning constitutional, she spotted a rabbit in the car parking gravel area. If the rabbits are on the grass, and they don’t move, she often overlooks them. Obviously, she has poor eyesight and no sense of smell.

 

This morning though, she must have been tired and only gave a deeply throated half bark upon spotting the rabbit. However,

 

The bunny took offense and chased after the Chihuahua. Irritating Chihuahua took off for the house. She turned around to give the rabbit even lower volume little ruffs several times, then came in the house to hide her humiliation.

 

 

 

We did go out later, after the rabbits were done with their breakfast, and checked out the garden. I am proud to say that, I now have an almost red tomato. I have sprayed the plants twice for whatever nasty thing was eating through all of the growing tomatoes and, I think, they will need one more spray as this isn’t the healthiest tomato on earth, but it is looking better.

 

 

 

The green peppers are healthy and my baby watermelons are growing.  This one is now tennis ball size.

 

I’m not sure what has happened to the cantaloupe and pumpkins. Perhaps the rabbits ate the shoots or maybe I am just not recognizing them. I wish the rabbits had eaten the Mustard Spinach as it was bitter. We liked the New Zealand spinach though. I think maybe they did eat the Buttercrunch lettuce.  Things seemed to just disappear. My garden is a wee bit out-of-control.

  

You can almost see the three active Square foot gardens here. I plant marigolds in front. Last year a turtle lived in the fourth square but, seeing as his home wasn’t planted this year, I guess he moved on.

But, I do think the fuzzy shoots of watermelon, mixed with their flowers and those of the Marigolds are awesome.

 

AND, speaking of awesome, isn’t Michael Phelps awesome? Last night was, believe it or not, my first day of Olympic watching. I totally missed the opening ceremony because I was in Wisconsin. I wish they would show it again sometime. I will try not to miss the finish.

I will say this. China has presented the most beautiful venue of any I can remember seeing. From the buildings to the inside walls, it is just gorgeous. They paid attention to the details; carvings, painting, lighting, etc and it shows. 

It doesn’t hurt to have things like Michael Phelps victories to watch either. Dara Torees just proved that 41 is the new 20. And the 26 mile women’s marathon kept me up last night. The last mile I just kept repeating, in my brain, “don’t trip” “don’t trip” “don’t trip.”

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Attack on my tomatoes

Obviously, it is going to be one of “those” weeks.

First there was:

My tomatoes are off to a good start. 

Oh, wait! What is that white spot on the leaves?

That doesn’t look good. I picked up the leaves and probably dislodged an egg or two. I’m sure there are a few on another plant that I missed.  This doesn’t look good either:

Sorry, this is blurred but the major action is inside the tomato.  Whatever it is, does not eat the skin until the very last thing.

And this is how they end. 

PLEASE, if anyone knows what I can do or what this is, I don’t want my baby melons to end up the same way.

July 25th update: Against every fiber of my being, I have sprayed it with chemicals. Actually, the hose wasn’t working right so I more like drizzled it to death, I just hope I haven’t 1. fried them and 2. poisoned us.

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