007 Cauliflower

Sneaky Vegtables 

(Sabrina)

Do you know what this is?

It's mashed potatoes. No, really, it is! In the book "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth" by Jonny Bowden Ph.D. C.N.S., Bowden talks about how great cauliflower is and then mentions cauliflower "mashed potatoes".  So, I decided to give it a shot. He has a more complex recipe, but I like keeping things easy. So, here's how I did it.

First, I removed the leaves and stem and then chopped the cauliflower into pieces. 
 

 

Next, I added the pieces to a pot of boiling water and boiled them for about 15 minutes. I added just a sprinkle of sea salt into the water.

 After 15 minutes, I drained the water and let it cool for about 8 minutes. I then added half a package of onion soup mix, a few sprinkles of garlic powder, and a spoonful of butter. I let the cauliflower cool for a few minutes because if you add the butter right away, it melts too much and you get runny mashers. It happens in potatoes too. Let them cool a bit before adding the butter.

 I used my electric mixer to mash them up, because it's a lot easier on my fibro-y hands than the hand masher. You can see the butter and soup mix in here.
Then, I get out a spoon and taste the final product to be sure it's seasoned perfectly.

 Regardless of how good the cauliflower is, you can't serve it by itself, right? Well, I was having a pretty bad symptom day, so I made an easy dinner. We keep some of these in the freezer for when I just can't do much. The calories are pretty low (about 250 per serving), but they don't follow the clean-eating rules. Oh well. It's super easy and I can provide for my family even when I'm hurting.

I added some left over steamed green beans to finish it all off. My family LOVED it. Husband and Daughter cleared their plates and wanted more. Husband even requested the cauliflower mash the next time we have steak. Yummy!

Day 6? - Sabrina

Day 6.... Call a spade a spade and move on

I'm not even going to pretend any more that I'm following the Dr Oz crash diet. So, this week has been a lesson in healthy breakfasts and an attempt to make some better food choices. Still doing the oatmeal for breakfast, although I'm getting a little more creative with it. Wish I had some pictures, but I've been lazy the last couple of days.

We got a gift two days ago. A juicer magically showed up on our doorstep. It was sent by a friend who thought juicing would help me feel better.

I love it! My husband is neutral about it. He loves the juices we've been making, but it takes a LOT of fruit to make a little juice. And then you're left with a bunch of fruit pulp. My husband hates anything that is wasteful.  My daughter is happy. She says we created Polyjuice Potion. (Other Harry Potter fans will know what that is).

The only differences between our juice and Polyjuice Potion is that the potion tastes terrible and changes the drinker into another person. Our juice tastes delicious, but has no magical properties (aside from natural health benefits).

So, the juice above is made from two apples, several strawberries, and a handful of spinach. The spinach taste is completely hidden by the fruits, but you get the nutrients and a really cool green froth.

And, I figured out what to do about the pulp. I collected it out of the machine, saved it in the freezer overnight, and cooked it in with my oatmeal this morning. Most of the pulp was apple, so it added an apple flavor, but there are little flakes of spinach in there. I'm just pretending I don't see them.  The pulp is full of fiber and nutrients, so it's a good idea to use that too. I'm going to experiment with it and see what else I can do.

Later today, I will write about how I get my family to eat cauliflower.

What's for breakfast?

Today is my first official blog post. Now I really feel like i'm part of the team. My updates don't have to be in the coments anymore. YAY ME! So, What's for breakfast you might ask. Well, I've decided that I'm not going to do that week long crash diet...not just yet. I don't have the money to go out and buy new things, and healthy foods, although, half of what we have here can probably be transformed into a healthy meal. What I am going to do is count my points again and I want all of you to hold me accountable. I can use 36 points in one day. For breakfast I made pancakes and eggs. Not just any pancakes, but blueberry ones. It just about melted my heart when my middle child (the picky one) said to me "this is yummy" and ALL, (not one...and not two) but ALL of my kids finished their food. Unfortunately they are still hungry. They had enough for their portion size, I don't know if I go and make more or make them wait and have a snack in 2 hours. Well, my meal was 7 points. 3 small pancakes and one egg. Bon Appétit!

Dr. Oz Crash Diet Day 3

Dr. Oz Crash Diet Day 3

(Sabrina)

Guess what happened for breakfast this morning? Yep, steel cut oats and blueberries. Whoo-hoo!
I'm really going to have to get more creative.
Since I'm getting bored writing about oatmeal, I think this is a good time to point out that this crash diet wasn't actually created by Dr. Oz. He credits "weight-loss guru" Dr. Joel Fuhrman with the diet. 
Fuhrman was a guest on the Dr. Oz show, where he explained how this is supposed to work. Here's a link in case you haven't seen it. Crash diet link


And because I'm still bored, here's a fun picture of my daughter being silly, which is normal for her.

Maybe lunch will be more exciting today. I'm not leaving the house, so I think something healthy will be on the menu.

About 3 hours later....

I was hungry again. Determined to stick to the plan today, I made the recommended pomegranate strawberry smoothie. I also added cranberries and almond milk. It was delicious!

  Hey, guess what! I Photoshopped the picture so you can't see my messy kitchen. But, this is what when in to my smoothie: Half a little bottle of Pom; about a third of the frozen sliced strawberries; about a third bag of frozen cranberries; and a wee bit of almond milk. Yeah, I didn't measure anything. It made about three of those glasses. I drank one, gave one to my daughter, and saved the third for this afternoon.

And at noon: Lunch time!

I did it. I finally had beans for lunch. Not just any beans. I made my world-famous chili beans. Okay, maybe it's not world-famous, but my family likes it a lot. Is SO easy to make, and follows the "clean eating" rules. (Don't know what "clean eating" is? I'm going to blog on that later. Too tired now, but I will do it this week.)

So, my super secret chili recipe:
1 can white beans
1 can black beans
1 can red kidney beans
1 big ol' can of crushed tomatoes
onion
chili peppers
chili powder (to taste)
cumin (to taste)
garlic powder (to taste)

Mix it all in a pot on the stove, cook for at least an hour stirring every now and then (when you can pull yourself away from Pintrest) and voilà! Chili.

Again, I'm no food photographer, but here it is.

Sometimes I brown up some ground turkey and add that in, but you don't have to. Check the cans to be sure you're getting good stuff, without added chemicals and things that you don't need in your chili. If you like to chop, you can use whole tomatoes instead of canned. I hate to chop. It makes my hands hurt a lot. So, I used canned tomatoes and frozen pre-chopped onions. I used to love spending all day in the kitchen cooking a beautiful meal. That was pre-fibro. Now, I look for things that make cooking easier so I can do it at all.


Now I'm going to watch the Dr. Oz video so I can figure out what I'm supposed to do for dinner. It's a good thing I'm only working part time and from home so I have time to do all this.  Hopefully, I'll make it easier for other people who aren't sick all the time and actually have lives.

Dr. Oz Crash Diet Day 2

Dr. Oz Crash Diet Day 2  (Sabrina)

Ok, so Day 2 was actually yesterday, but I was too tired to blog. And, it pretty much went like Day 1.

Great breakfast. Steel cut oats with blueberries. Delicious and healthy!

And then lunch happened. See, every Sunday after church my husband and I grab something to eat and then do so shopping. So, my "crash diet" lunch happened to be a slice of pepperoni pizza. A giant slice. From Costco. Oh, how I love their pizza. It's one of the reasons I'm fat.

I tried to make up for it at dinner time by having a salad. And then some leftover Minestrone soup (from my not-so-diet lunch the day before). And then a home-made bean and cheese burrito. Make that two. I was hungry!

I'm not sure how many calories that all was, but I'm sure none of it is on the Crash Diet plan.  I'm so tempted at this point to say forget it and just focus on healthy eating, but I committed to seven days of trying. So, I'll continue to try, even if I completely blow it each day.

Dr. Oz 7-Day Crash Diet Day 1 (Sabrina)

Dr. Oz 7-Day Crash Diet Day 1 (Sabrina)

Breakfast: Steel cut oatmeal with blueberries.

My pictures doesn't do it justice. This was actually a really yummy breakfast.  I normally do box cereal and almond milk for breakfast. I've known for a long time that it wasn't healthy for me, but I really don't like oatmeal. Adding in the blueberries and a sprinkle of cinnamon made all the difference.  If you try it, make sure you get either steel cut oats or Irish oats. The other kind (rolled or instant) are not as good for you and can be filled with sugar. You might as well stick to the box cereal.

Here's a link to the Dr. Oz site if you want to try this with me. : Dr. Oz 7-Day Crash Diet

Lunch: A Confession

Well, why is it every time I decide to really focus on eating right, my husband wants to take me out? Saboteur!  We were going on a harmless trip to the grocery store to pick up healthy food, when we decided it was a nice day to spend some time just hanging out. We went to our favorite part of town and walked through antique stores. Our favorite Italian restaurant happens to be on the same block, and my husband was really in the mood for Italian.  I did my best to stay on track and ordered a salad and bowl of Minestrone soup. But, I completely failed the bread and butter test. Three slices of bread, all buttered.

We did do a bit of walking afterward, at a meandering pace through the antique stores and then (finally) through the grocery store. We were gone for five hours total. I'm not sure how much of that was spent actually walking, but I hope it was enough to burn off some of those bread calories.  Of course, thanks to my fibromyalgia, I'm now completely worn out and may not be able to move at all tomorrow. I just needed to head to my confessional blog and get out my lunch time sins so I can forgive myself and focus on repenting. Do you do that? Forgive yourself after you mess up and then try to do better? You should. We're so hard on ourselves that we sometimes forget to let go of our mistakes and simply try to do better next time. We are only flawed humans, after all.

By the way, in case you're wondering... lunch was supposed to be something with beans. See the link above for the Dr. Oz website for the explanation.

Wake up call!

Pictures don't lie. (Unfortunately)

This is me (Sabrina) and my kids a couple of days ago at Disneyland. I'm in a wheelchair because I can't walk for any length of time due to fibromyalgia. But, what I really don't like about this picture is how FAT I am! How did that happen? And, there are pictures worse than this from our trip. Gah!

I weighed myself this morning, and the scale actually showed a one pound loss during the trip. I'm excited about that, but I know I need to do a lot of work.

Do you watch the Dr. Oz show? I do, and it's no secret I love him. He had a 7-Day crash diet on his show a while back, and tomorrow I'm hitting the grocery store to get what I need for it. Here's a link to his site with the segment. Dr. Oz's 7-Day Crash Diet Link.  It's very reasonable sounding. Normally, I would never think of a crash diet, but this seems pretty darn healthy. And look at that picture. I have to do something.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Weigh-in Week 0

): Weigh-in Day, Week 0 :(

Sabrina: 202.4 lbs -- "I've never been this heavy in my life! I've been gaining about a pound a week since starting my fibromyalgia medicines. It's time to get this under control."

Dyanna:  - 243.4 --"no comment."

Smile