Hemp-head

At the request of HS, I've been taking a teaspoon or two of hempseed oil a day. He pointed out that it helps mitigate PMS symptoms. Now, why would he say a thing like that? I need you to tell me why (wail!).

Anyway. Too soon to tell if I'll enjoy that benefit yet, but it does have a yummy flavor and my skin has been breakout-free since I've started taking it.

HS is going for the fish oil, himself, and the chronically dry skin on his forehead has cleared right up. See, it's all about the Omega 3-s. There's, like, three different kinds. Two kinds are used pretty easily by the body, the other kind is not. Algae supplements and fish oil contain DHA. Fish oil also contains EPA. Flaxseed and walnuts contain ALA, the type that isn't as easily used. Hempseed oil is best for the ratio of Omega 6-s to Omega 3-s, a balance that is out of whack for people in most "developed" countries.

Why should you care? The list of Omega 3 benefits is long and contains short-terms (better skin, better mood) and long-terms (better...chance of staying cancer-free?). Especially pertinent to me is its calming effect on blood sugar wackiness. Anyway, I'll report back on the benefits of the hempseed oil in a month or two!

Transitions

I'm having a little trouble adjusting to the fact that it has been 80 degrees here more than one day this month. This may be the new normal for our poor fevered planet, but my closet is still stocked with winter clothes and I'm still prone to making winter dishes. Last weekend, when I actually had to use the air conditioning, I made lentil soup. The picture shows my Good Mother Stallard beans from Rancho Gordo, soaking. I was thinking about making a bean and vegetable stew with them, but that doesn't seem seasonally appropriate. So my new plan is to make a taco salad-esque entree.

Today I went out and bought ingredients to make the Pineapple Cashew Quinoa stir-fry in Veganomicon. So now I've got a fresh pineapple sitting on my counter, ready to usher in spring. I also went to the farmer's market this morning (it ends at 10:30 am and you don't want to know what time it starts) and bought heaps of strawberries and two delicious filo dough creations from the Filo Dough Lady. She has at least half a dozen different varieties of little filo squares, and many are vegan. I passed up the mushroom and green lentil/bulghur varieties this week, but I bought black bean/rice/chipotle and apricot/ricotta.

What are your favorite spring dishes?

Oh, and I know I haven't been a very consistent blogger lately, but I hope to improve. The other transition in my life (the change in my tax filing status a few months hence) has been cutting into my blogging time, but that's OK.

Veggie Vacation

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I went to Europe and then got the flu. The two events overlapped by about 2 days. I'm still recovering from the flu (1.5 weeks later) and have much less energy than I'm used to. I took about a week off from push-ups but am back to my regimen now.

We went to Amsterdam and Paris. I'm not going to lie and say I ate vegan all the time, but some of my favorite meals were vegan.

Fresh mint tea on our first day in Amsterdam helped wake me up:



Maoz makes amazing felafel, and they have branches in the US, including a DC branch coming soon! (Finding this out just made my day.) Every component of the felafel is great. The patties are light and crunchy, the bread is super-fresh, and the toppings are tangy and spicy.



Amsterdam's also famous for its fries, which we got topped with satay (peanut) sauce, due to my intense dislike for mayo.



Where does one get great fries? Why, the Chipsy King, of course!



One of the best meals we had on the trip was when we ordered rijsttafel, the Indonesian meal where they pull out all the stops. About half of the places we saw had a vegetarian rijsttafel. Check out this insane spread for just the two of us (not even showing the first course, a tomato vermicelli soup)! I imagine there was some honey involved but I don't think there was any dairy or egg in the meal. There were "shrimp chips," though. My favorite dishes were the coconut cabbage and the corn fritters.



Paris was not a vegan tour de force but I loved our street, Rue Mouffetard (we rented apartments in both cities rather than stay in hotels). Behold the glories of the street market!



One of the temptations in the farmer's market was morels. But at 80 euros for a kilo, I had to pass. I did see them this weekend at a farmer's market in DC, though, for about the same price, in case I change my mind!

2008: A Push-Up Odyssey

I thought I'd say a little more about my push-up program since it seems to have caught the interest of a few people.

I'd been doing push-ups on my knees for years. Truthfully, I'd been doing most of my workout on auto-pilot, just like with those push-ups. 30 minutes on a cardio machine while I listened to music, read a magazine, or often did both simultaneously, followed by 20-ish minutes of weight machines. At the end of these workouts, I was never sore, and I often wasn't even sweaty. I had a mild amount of muscle tone and was a few pounds above where I wanted to be, but I thought I was exercising 5 days a week and doing all I could.

I don't buy into a lot of wedding hype, but around the time I got engaged (August 2007), I decided I needed to bust out of my fitness rut. Something I read a while back stuck in my head: the writer was saying he really loved to be truly sore the day or two after a workout. It had been a long time since I'd felt that and I craved it. I also wanted to figure out why my hours at the gym weren't showing real results. At the time I had a longer commute and going to the gym meant I got home around 8 pm. I didn't want to keep going if it wasn't worth it.

My gym was running a special on personal training sessions and I decided to buy a few with a trainer I'd observed. I'll call her Jane. Jane had a really muscular body that wasn't in female-weightlifter territory. She was slim but certainly not underweight. She looked strong and healthy, and seemed friendly. I bought 18 sessions in all with her. After each one, I was sore, sometimes painfully so for 2 full days. She re-introduced me to free weights, squats, pull-ups, and, yes, push-ups. We did them on my knees but at the end I told her I wanted to try real ones. My first set of push-ups was pretty wimpy but I made it through (and then collapsed in a puddle).

A few weeks later, I read something in Shape magazine about how doing push-ups on your knees is a very different exercise than full push-ups. They work different muscle groups (the magazine also has an amusing quote: "[Push-ups] seem punishing, but that's only because we spend so much time dreading them"). I decided I was not going to do knee push-ups again. I started doing 10 push-ups before and 10 after each workout. I got a few admiring comments from fellow gym-goers that increased my motivation and I decided to challenge myself to do 1,001 push-ups in a month. You know how that story goes. I've continued to do about 20 good push-ups each day, going down farther than I did during the push-up challenge. Once a week, I do 50 good ones, which definitely leaves me sore the next day.

I've come to see push-ups as emblamatic of the paradox of Americans spending lots of money and time on fitness but not being truly fit. As this excellent article says (and do watch the video too), "the push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness." So many people (my former self included) put in time at the gym but can't do a push-up, full sit-ups, or a pull-up with assistance of less than half their weight. (I've resigned myself to never being able to do an unassisted pull-up, unless I quit my desk job and work out as much as Madonna.) I'm grateful that I've pulled myself out of my fitness rut and am making my workout time really count.

Two from Veganomicon

Sorry about the paucity of posts lately. The next two weeks won't be much better since I'm on vacation--but I'll be visiting two great food cities and will have lots to share upon my return.

I made two recipes from Veganomicon recently (HS gave me the cookbook as a Valentine's Day gift). The first, Quinoa with Black Beans and Mango, is shown below.



This was just a'ight. It needed more salt and the juice of a lime to perk up its somewhat bland flavor. I also threw some chopped up red cabbage in because, well, I had it. I'll make it again, but I'll also add avocado and a diced jalapeno.

I also made Seitan Piccata for a fancy dinner:



This was quite tasty and somewhat unusual. The sauce smelled a little funky in the pan but had a full, complex flavor. We used purple potatoes for the mashed potatoes--can you see the color? I'd defnitely make this again for company.

Get stuffed

I think Theresa is right when she says most people rotate through the same 9 meals again and again. I would like to think my number is closer to 20, and this is one of them.

They are tofu stuffed mushrooms, and they will always have a place in my heart because:
--they reheat beautifully
--they're satisfying; low in carbs, high in protein
--they look impressive and so are great dinner party or special occasion fare
--they are deliciously more than the sum of their parts

They have even temporarily fooled my cat, who thinks there must be meat in there somewhere.

Tofu-stuffed portabellos
3 tablespoons oil (vegetable or olive)
1 cup diced onions
1/2 cup diced sweet red peppers
1/2 cup peeled and grated carrots
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1 cake (16 oz) firm tofu, pressed
1/3 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon miso
1 tablespoon soy sauce
4 to 6 large portabellos

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a frying pan. Add the onions, pepper, oregano, basil, and dill and saute until veggies are tender. Set aside.

In a large bowl, crumble the pressed tofu. Stir in the nuts, bread crumbs, tahini, miso, and soy sauce. Add the sauteed veggies and mix well.

Clean the mushrooms and use a knife to remove the gills. Discard the stems. Brush the remaining 2 tablespoon oil over the mushrooms. Spoon the filling into the mushroom cavities. Place the mushrooms in a baking dish and bake for about 25 minutes, until the filling has slightly browned.

999...1000...1001!

I made it to my goal of 1,001 pushups in February around 9pm on February 29. I did the last 10 pushups with Ceri. In February, I did between 20 and 40 "real" pushups every single day, even after I was in a minor car accident and had mild whiplash.

I did my first set of 10 "real" (not on my knees) pushups in recent memory in December or January. It was pretty tough at first but got easier quickly. I don't go far enough to have my chin touch the floor but that's something I'll continue to work on. I'm doing zero pushups for a few days to allow my muscles to rebuild themselves. Then I'll concentrate on quality rather than quantity during March. I can feel some new muscle tone in my arms but most importantly, I just feel more confident about my fitness level.

On another topic, shown above is our second meal of chickpea cutlets, with tomato sauce, parmesan, and basil on top. The yummy fried things are the best onion rings in the world. HS and I are seriously contemplating buying a Fry Daddy to try to replicate them--but that way lies madness (and sweatpants). The cutlets are flanked by two interesting salts we picked up. One is smoked and the other contains rosemary, sage, garlic, and pepper (can't find a web page for them but the brand name is Feast).

(Pushups completed: 1,001!)