My REAL First Day As a Vegan- butternut squash and pear bisque

2012-01-03T17:42:00.000-08:00

So I don't think this is a good sign but I went out to dinner last night instead of staying home and making lentil balls as planned. I know I know I cheated on the first day :( However if does make me feel better that I stuck to a partial vegan diet at the restaurant. I had french onion soup without the cheese (I know it most likely contained beef broth but I don't abstain from that...I never have), a salad without any cheese or meat and lemonade. Now the bad part is that I did pick at A's hot dog...I know I know...it's been the only "meat" (if you can even call it that) that I have eaten my entire life. I picked up the bad habit when I playing on a traveling basketball team. For some odd reason concession stands only sell junk food, don't they realize players will be eating their food! I also ate some peanut butter "mousse" with peanut butter cups and a few bites of chocolate cake. I am going to go ahead and assume that both of those deserts contained large amounts of dairy. After that I felt terrible about cheating and I am going to do my best to be a good little (I hope) vegan. I feel like I'm confession some sort of mortal sin!

Today went much better then last night. I feel sort of strange posting everything I ate...sort of like telling a boyfriend each thing you ate while griping about being fat...it's just bad taste (I think Dane Cook had a skit about that). So instead I'll just post the things I think you all will want to know about...the strange and exciting foods.

Breakfast- The smoothie I wrote about yesterday. I refrigerated a batch and it was still just as good the next day.

During the day I really enjoyed having roasted vegetable hummus. The kind I buy has chucks of roasted veggies in it and it has a nice kick.

Dinner- I made the best squash and pear bisque I have ever tasted! It was naturally vegan so I didn't have to mess around with substitutions or strange ingredients like soy cheese.

http://www.food.com/recipe/pear-and-butternut-bisque-187207

I also had spring mix with cranberries, almond and straight balsamic vinegar drizzled on top.

At the end of the day I had consumed over 10 fruit and vegetable servings!

I am so proud of myself and I seem to already be feeling like I have more energy.

My first full-day as a Vegan- a green smoothie

2012-01-02T09:51:00.000-08:00

After researching tons...and I mean tons of breakfast recipes that are vegan friendly I was intrigued by the idea of green smoothies. A green smoothie is a smoothie that contains leafy greens and yes...it really is green! I bought various frozen fruits (berries, peaches and mango), fresh fruits, a bunch of baby spinach and some juice so I could concoct a green smoothie. The thought of drinking spinach for breakfast was not at all appealing but hey if I'm going to make a change I might as well try new things along the way. My diet would be pretty restricted if I only took foods away!

The recipe I finally created after much inspiration was as follows:

1/2 cup frozen mango chunks

2 cups baby spinach-I started to take the stems off and then gave up-you couldn't tell as the entire thing blended up and turned to liquid

1 banana

about 1/2 cup 100% Peach juice-you may need more depending on the consistency you like.

I threw all of the above ingredients in the blended and let it whirl.

The end result was amazing!! I couldn't drink the whole thing it was that filling. I tasted no spinach and I honestly wouldn't have even known it was there if I hadn't added it myself. A (our 3 year old) true to form was excited to try this new food (I know she's strange!) and almost drank a full 6 oz. as a second breakfast.

To start this healthy lifestyle off on the right foot we all went on a 2 mile family walk. It was enjoyable despite our wild puppy who has no idea how to walk on the leash properly. I think my elbow got just as much of a workout from being pulled by 60 pounds of dog.

Now I'm off to make Vegan meatballs out of lentils :)

Vegetarian to Vegan...learning to live well

My REAL First Day As a Vegan- butternut squash and pear bisque

My first full-day as a Vegan- a green smoothie