Clean Eating Challenge: Day 8

Welcome back.  Now begins week 2 of Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge.  In case you are just now joining me, take a look back at the past week to see what I ate and what I thought about it.  Or don't…

Breakfast: Blackberry Smoothie
Yes, I changed this one up quite a lot.  I tried last week, but I just can't eat yogurt anymore :(  I have been lactose-intolerant for many years now and avoid dairy milk and ice-cream, but yogurt used to be fine.  Not anymore.  So sad.  I love Greek yogurt, I used to put it on everything!  Oh well.  I used blackberries because there were no organic blueberries at Trader Joe's and I won't eat non-organic berries.  To add a little protein and creaminess that was missing since I didn't use yogurt, I put in a tablespoon of almond butter.  This smoothie was quite lovely.  The little touch of sweetness from the honey and the hint of vanilla are crucial.

Lunch: Shakshuka
This is the first time I have ever had this dish.  I almost made it with only one egg, because I also wonder if I might have problems with eggs too….  I probably just should have done an elimination diet to be certain…Oh well.  But in the end, I was starving and knew that one egg wouldn't tide me over.  The dish was really tasty, but The eggs overcooked really quickly, so be careful with that.  I didn't get the yummy runny yolks that I like.

Snack 1: Pear Slices with Almond Butter
I changed this one up from strawberries to pear.  Again, I won't buy non-organic berries, so I am waiting to get strawberries from the farmer's market tomorrow.  I also tried out the new tiny coffee place in my hood called Blacktop.  It is brainchild of one of Handsome's previous owners.  But I got green tea, since no coffee is allowed on this eating plan.  I did take a sip of my friend's coffee and while pricey (and comical at how long the barista took to make a pour-over) it was really damn good.  I will be back for a cup of my own whenever this challenge is complete.

Dinner: Roasted Eggplant with Hummus Chickpeas and Cauliflower
This was really tasty.  Again, no yogurt.  For Danny I gave him less eggplant and added some chicken and yogurt.  I was really shocked by the deliciousness of simply roasting the chickpeas and cauliflower then tossing with hummus and lemon juice.

Snack 2: Two Dates and Two Almonds
Gotta love these joke snacks.  When I go back to eating normal, I'll probably have a joke snack every now and then.

Clean Eating Challenge: Day "I took a break today"

Last week we found out that Danny was chosen for a Fellowship he has been wanting to apply for since he started his Ph.D.  He was out of town at the time and I was just beginning the clean eating challenge.  So we set aside tonight to celebrate his accomplishment with sushi from our favorite sushi chef at Hama.  It worked out perfectly because I was needing a break from all the eggs and steamed vegetables, as well as needing time to get to Trader Joe's.  So tomorrow will be Day 8 and I'll go from there.  In the meantime, here's what I ate on my day off.

Breakfast: Strawberry Smoothie
Normally I would have a strawberry banana smoothie, but all the bananas I have in the freezer are reserved for the next week of the challenge.  So I thought I would give a plain strawberry smoothie a try.  It was pretty good.  I put in a tablespoon of almond butter and a tablespoon of chia seed.  Nothing fancy, just simple, good food.

Lunch: Curry Pot Pie, a few bites of Raspberry Coconut Cream Pie, a tiny bite of Mexican Chocolate Pie, and about 1/3 a cup of black coffee from The Pie Hole
This was so good.  I savored every bite of it, saving most of the sweet pie for my night time snack.  The reason I got all of this was because it was FREE!!  That's right, thanks to Belly and the fact that Pie Hole is right between my home and my school, I racked up enough points for a free piece of savory and sweet pie and a coffee.  Score!

Snack 1: Raspberries.  Plain and simple.

Dinner: Hama Sushi
This is the best sushi place ever, especially because they discourage phone use and don't allow pictures. As much as I love taking pictures of my food, I appreciate situations like this more.  Here's what I had:
-albacore sashimi plate
-2 salmon
-1 eel
-1 halibut
-1 red snapper
-1 mackeral
-1 yellowtail
-about 1/2 a glass of Sapporo
-1 cups of green tea

Snack 2: 1/2 of the Coconut Raspberry Pie and a bite of Mexican Chocolate Pie
Thanks Scotty for the leftover piece of your pie!

Clean Eating Challenge: Day 7. End of Week 1

I don't know about you, but I'm a bit tired of this whole challenge thing….but I must see it through to the end!  Though, I will admit that tomorrow I am taking one day off to celebrate Danny's fellowship with dinner at Hama sushi.  In case you are just now joining me, I have been doing Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge and this is Day 7.

Also, it is worth noting that I have quite a few things leftover, possibly because my portioning was a little off at times, possibly because I had to buy a little more than was expected since I shopped at Trader Joes and things like the greens are sold in packages, not necessarily by the bunch….Anyway, I have the following leftover:
-Over half a thing of asparagus
-An entire bag of spinach
-almost half of a container of Greek yogurt
-The whole bag of collard greens (which went bad and I didn't even use, by the way)
-The lime vinaigrette from day 2
-about 1/2 cup roasted cauliflower
-a few scallions
-celery
-cucumbers and zucchini (because I had to buy more than just the one it called for)

Additionally, I may have cheated a little bit.  My friend brought me 3 starbursts: red, yellow, and orange.  I thought I would just sit them on my desk and have them in a little over a week.  Then I thought, "I'll just eat the red one since it's the best." Then I ate them all. Additionally, I may have had a tiny plate of vegetables at a talk at UCLA.  Very, very tiny, and I did not get a glass of wine, so I'm feeling pretty good about not giving in!

Breakfast: Poached Eggs and Asparagus
I like both of these things, and I like them together.  But it just seemed like a weird breakfast item to me.  Look at how weird one of my eggs turned out. When I tried to take it out of the water, the yolk just slipped through the slotted spoon, completely staying intact!  Also, I think I am terrible at poaching eggs…

Lunch: Black Bean Kale Salad
This was so yummy!  It reminded me of Veggie Grill's All Hale Kail Salad.  I could eat this quite often for lunch.  I subbed lemon for lime because I thought I was out of lime.  Turns out I have half a lime in the fridge.  I keep messing up on this whole thing.  Oh well, lemon and lime in this case are totally interchangeable!

Snack 1: One Clementine and two tablespoons of Almonds

Dinner: Tempeh Balls with Tomato Sauce over sautéed Kale and Spinach
I made a few changes here, obviously, given the title of the dish.  I don't eat meat, so instead of turkey, I used tempeh. They turned out rather nice, albeit dry.  Which would happen with the turkey too, I'm sure.  The tomato sauce helps, but it was still a bit tough to eat.  The collard greens had gone bad, but luckily I had kale and spinach leftover and sautéed those up for a lovely bed to place the balls and sauce on.

Snack 2: CHOCOLATE!!!
I love chocolate.  Since my chocolate farm tour and tasting, I can only eat good, dark chocolate.  Koa and Angela even recommended a few places to me for buying chocolate on the mainland: Taza from Boston and Askinosie from my home state of Missouri, both stone ground.  They also said that Trader Joe's has a good bar. Well, what do you think I had for my snack tonight?  That's right, Trader Joe's 85% cocoa Colombian bean bar.  My birthday is coming up, and I dropped a few hints to Danny as to what to get me (all of the above) as well as to finally go to Chocovivo and do their tasting and have hot chocolate.  I'm not obsessed or anything…

Clean Eating Challenge: Day 6

If you are just joining me, I am doing Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge and this is Day 6. Check out my other days below.

Breakfast: Mango Chia Pudding
This has to be prepared the night before.  I am actually a pretty big fan of chia puddings.  I started making them last year and tend to make a chocolate one when I'm craving something super chocolatey but want to be healthy.  This one was particularly tasty to me after a 5 mile run.  My first 5 mile run ever by myself, and my first one in 5 years.

Lunch: Mustardy Salmon Salad
Three cups of arugula is a little ridiculous.  That said, this salad is one of my favorite things from this eating plan so far.  I also still don't like the crunchy, almost raw, green beans, but still, this salad was amazing.  I was going to complain about the plan being wrong again because I didn't have half a lemon left, so I used my lime.  Turns out I did have lemon leftover though, in the fridge.  Whoops.  Anyway, the dressing tasted delicious and gave the salmon a nice Scandinavian flavor which worked well with the arugula too.

Snack 1: Carrots and Cucumber with hummus

Dinner: Vegetable Chili with Spicy Yogurt and Sautéed Zucchini
I didn't think I would like this since it doesn't have any chili powder and it looked a smelled like a boring vegetable stew.  But everything mixed together was amazing.  You have to have the yogurt with paprika in it on top of the chili, as well as the zucchini, because these two things make the dish what it is.  As far as making a full batch of the yogurt and freezing it?  That's dumb. It takes all of 20 seconds to whip up, just make it beforehand.

Snack 2: Pistachios and Blackberries
YUM!  What a great snack.  I will be eating more and more of this in the future.  Pre-shucked pistachios are a dream come true!

Clean Eating Challenge: Day 5

In case you are just joining me, I am doing Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge, and this is Day 5.

Breakfast: Roasted Cauliflower Omelet
This was weird.  The cauliflower is much too big to be in an omelet.  It was good though, but I ate around 11:00 after running 2 miles and doing 30 minutes of cross training…so I could have just been starving.  Also, I didn't use all of the cauliflower because it was just too much!

Lunch: Roasted Fennel, Chickpea, Blueberry Salad
Mistake number 1: This called for 1/2 a cup of the quinoa made on day 1, but guess what?  That was used already for lunch on day two.  Hmmm…  So if you are planning to do this, make more quinoa!  This salad was really good though, the mint and pistachios really made it tasty!

Snack 1: Carrots and Hummus
I really didn't want this as a snack.  I really wanted chocolate, or candy coated nuts I bought in Hawaii, or anything but carrots!!!  But you know what?  They were delicious.  Which led me to the realization that kicking a sugar addiction is most mental.  Carrots are sweet, especially Heirloom, organic carrots.  Carrots can and should be a snack.  I will now eat more carrots! (as long as I can keep convincing myself of this)

Dinner: Roasted Salmon over Green Beans and Lentils
The green beans kind of ruined this meal.  Unfortunately I am not a big fan of super crunchy, super fresh green beans with no additional flavor.  Too bad.  Everything else was good though!

Snack 2: Almonds and Berries
I did half raspberries, half blueberries, where this recipe called for just blueberries.

Clean Eating Challenge: Day 4

Today was great!  I want to eat like this forever and always.  It's funny how much sweeter things taste to you when you aren't gorging yourself with overly sweetened things all the time. (Mauna Loa chocolates that I ate my weight in last week…I'm talking about you!!!)

In case you are just now joining me, I am doing Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge.  This is day 4.  Welcome.

Breakfast: Scallion and Goat Cheese Omelet
Once again, I use goat cheese where this meal plan calls for feta because I couldn't find any vegetarian fetas.  I am such a fan of goat cheese.  We have a great local goat cheese farm called Soledad's.  If you live in the Los Angeles area, you are bound to find them at one of the many farmers markets around the city.  I fell in love with it from the Tuesday Culver City farmer's market years ago, but now we have a lovely Thursday farmer's market in the Arts District, literally across the street from my house, and they sell it there!  Hooray!

Lunch: Greek Style Salad with Cod
I came home to eat lunch after I finished my 45 minute, super intense, Nike Training Club workout and this salad was exactly what I needed! And boy was it huge!  I'm talking medium-sized-mixing-bowl-huge!  I put it in the mixing bowl just to toss it, but ended up eating from it.  But since it's spinach, cucumber, and red pepper, with just a tiny bit of the fish, it wasn't a ton and I was actually able to eat it all.

Snack 1: Mango Banana Smoothie
I blended this while at home and packed it to bring back to school with me.  Pretty straight forward, no special ingredients here.  But I really enjoy the addition of a little bit of vanilla extract that the Buzzfeed food plan adds to the smoothies…It just adds a nice additional flavor and smell.

Dinner: Cod and Roasted Fennel Salad
Thank God this was the last of the cod!  And double thanks for the deliciousness of roasted vegetables, even if when raw they taste horrible…like fennel.  Roasted Fennel is so sweet and tasty!

Snack 2: 2 dates stuffed with almonds
What a silly snack.  But I do love dates.  I only discovered in the past year or so that dates=caramel, so you can use them in vegan baking and to make amazing things like homemade snickers!

And now I go to a party.  I will not drink.  I will not eat anything.  I will just socialize and drink water like a boss!

Clean Eating Challenge Day 3.

Today was much better than yesterday.  I enjoyed everything and wasn't feeling hungry at all!
If you are just now joining me, this is me, Taryn, doing Day 3 of Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge, because I am always up for a challenge.

Breakfast: Blackberry Yogurt Parfait 
Pretty straight forward, plus it has almonds and flax seed.  Too much protein!!  I hit 90 grams today, this is ridiculous!

Lunch: Asian Fish Salad

I thought I would be sick of this cod by the third day, but in this salad it was just another texture.  This salad sounds so simple, but the flavors and texture were really complex.  Adding a little soy sauce to the lime vinaigrette makes it so delicious.  And I usually hate cabbage, but I think after this I am a fan!

Snack 1: Avocado with lemon juice

It's exactly what it says it is.  I prefer avocado with soy sauce and sesame seeds though.  I think I will start eating this as a snack more often.  A whole half of a lemon was a bit too over powering for this snack.

Dinner: Cauliflower Steaks with lentils

Yummy!  I've been intending to do a cauliflower steak meal for years now, I don't know what I was waiting for, this was sooooo simple!!  I would make this again, but with my own lentils recipe which does not include soy sauce (which was really weird to me)  I like my lentils to be very thymey.

Snack 2: essentially hot chocolate

This was really good.  I needed a chocolate fix after last night's clementine snack… I used Trader Joe's 85% cacao bar, recommended by Koa and Angela.  This was no "Mayan Hot Chocolate" but it really hit the spot. (see my previous post)

Chocolate Farm Tour: Kaua'i, Hawai'i

Chocolate is such a delight, I have always been a fan.  I didn't think my love for chocolate could be any more intense, but I was wrong.  My second day in Hawaii, after an amazing breakfast at Cinnamon's in Kailua, my sister, husband, and I stumbled upon "The Chocolate Factory" upstairs from Cinnamon's, so we decided to see what that was about. It is called Manoa Chocolates. We were greated by an eager and friendly lady who told us how chocolate was made, with pictures and tasting of Cacao nibs and we watched the roasting and grinding process in the back of the factory through the glass.  Then the tasting began.  I couldn't believe this was free.  I glanced at the prices of the bars we would be tasting: $9 each.  Eeek, I hoped these tasted good because after all this pleasantry, I knew we would have to buy something!  They were so good!  What a fun experience, we all agreed, and each bought a bar or two.

On the flight from Honolulu to Kauai'i (all of 30 minutes) I decided to check out Hawaiian airlines in-flight magazine to see if it had anything we must do on Kauai'i.  A Chocolate Farm tour filled with tastings of locally made and harvested chocolate?  Ummmm, yes please!  When I looked it up online as soon as we landed and saw the price tag of $65 a person, I was thinking maybe we would skip it.  But Danny insisted!  He said that we had to, that I would really enjoy it, and that 3 hours and "extensive tasting" was worth it. So I called Koa and booked us for our last day on Kauai'i.  They only offer the tours on Mondays and Thursdays, so I got lucky.  

When we arrived we were greeted by Angela and Koa and with a plate of espresso truffles and pineapple.  It was really good, but I only wanted to eat one because I knew we were in for an "extensive tasting" as they say on their website.  We began the tour walking through this beautiful show farm and Koa stopped to tell us about the lime tree in front of us, then cut up limes straight from the tree for all of us to taste.  This continued on with banana, lychee, lemon, and something called a "mountain apple."  Oh, and some kind of a mountain grape, which was very good, but the skin was super bitter and sour.

Then there was the cacao.  What an awesome fruit!  We all got to taste it, and it was really good actually!  Danny and I thought it tasted like a sweet fruit with a doughy texture.  There is a big seed inside each piece of fruit, this is where the chocolate comes from, not the fruit itself.  You can eat the seed, but it is pretty bitter. I ate mine, it was fine.

This is the Cacao Fruit

A Cacao Tree

Cacao grows on the trunks.  So weird.

Cacao is such an interesting fruit.  It grows more on the trunks of trees rather than on the branches, and it will not break off when ripe like other fruits, it has to be cut off, otherwise it will just rot on the tree.  Cacao, why you so weird?!  I love you.

Angela and Koa, tasting time!

Then the tasting began.  It was the most amazing experience of my life.  Ok, I am being only slightly dramatic.  It was really really really great and fun and cool.  I loved learning all about cacao and the process of fermentation and roasting and separating and stone grinding, and tempering, and layering things in the chocolate. And Koa and Angela are obviously very passionate about what they do, which makes it even more exciting.  But more than that, I loved every time the tray came to me and I got to taste the chocolate! (Plus Danny and I were the last two for passing, and there were always extra pieces, so if we REALLY liked it, we got extra)  So, let's see if I can remember the order: First were their 4 commercial bars they sell: 85% cacao, sea salt, coconut macadamia, and mint+cacao nibs.  Then we moved onto their flavor mixed varieties, which they just do for the tours and to play around with, so they change frequently, meaning you could potentially go here twice and not get the same thing. They were: Ginger, cherry, Angela's homemade (vegan!) nutella, caramel, masala curry bacon (the only non-vegan friendly ones), peanut raisin, kava, and a super duper spicy sample before we all headed over to the table to watch Koa make a typical Mayan "hot chocolate."  It was really good, they use 100% cacao, and a bunch of spices and coconut milk and hot water in a vitamix.  Then we all sat back down to finish up the tasting with the plain, single and mixed variety chocolates.  First was a 90% from somewhere, then a single variety from the Big Island, then their favorite- 1/2 Helen's dark bean+1/2 their bean, then one from Belize.  Their favorite was our favorite, but I liked them all, honestly! 

This was a magical experience that no chocolate lover who visits the Garden Island should ever miss!

It's called Garden Island Chocolate and you can (and should!) buy their commercial bars online!

Clean Eating Challenge: Day 2

Today was a bit more of a challenge than yesterday, mainly because of the lunch.
In case you just started following, I am doing Buzzfeed's 2 week Clean Eating Challenge.  This is Day 2.

Breakfast: Blueberry Chia Overnight Oats.  
I began my morning last night actually, by preparing these "overnight oats."  This is something I have made recently, only one other time.  The Oatmeal Artist is a blog where you will find every kind of oatmeal your stomach could ever desire. I made her french toast overnight oats, but I did so without the yogurt.  I recommend the same thing for these oats from this challenge.  The yogurt just makes this far too dense and, to me, too filling.  Also, I'm a little irked about the high amount of protein that this challenge imposes.  As a long time vegetarian, I have heard it all about how I need to make sure I am getting enough protein, blah, blah, blah…  I've also done my research.  I know that Americans eat too much protein, also check another article here, and if you still have your doubts, here it is straight from the NIH.  According to this, I am only supposed to have around 46 g of protein a day. (another trick for people of varying sizes, is to multiple your weight in pounds by .37, this is the amount of protein you should aim for daily) Yesterday, this challenge fed me 70, and today I am on track for about the same.  So yeah, I will make this again, sans yogurt.

Lunch: Shaved Fennel, Chickpea, Kale, Quinoa Salad
So crunchy, so hard to eat.  I definitely didn't eat too much of the fennel.  Too raw for my liking.

Snack 1: Basically a Poor Man's Caprese Salad
Here I subbed goat cheese when they called for feta, see yesterday's post to understand that there are vegetarian and non-vegetarian cheeses and how to check.  I love caprese, so this was a great pick-me-up after a not-so-amazing lunch. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of it, probably because I was so busy eating it.

Dinner: What I'm calling "Sorta Fish Tacos"
So this was a big change up.  These are supposed to be chicken wraps with cabbage leaves as the wrap. Well, Trader Joes' wasn't selling any heads of cabbage, so I got a bag of shredded cabbage instead.  Also, I don't eat chicken…so I used cod again.  Mixed up with the mango, avocado, and tomato, served atop shredded cabbage, with a nice lime vinaigrette?  Yeah, It's basically a fish taco without the corn tortillas.  This was my favorite dish of the day!

Snack 2: Two Clementines
Seriously?!  I thought this was going to be an awful snack…but I must admit that I am quite enjoying it right now.  Maybe by the end of this I won't crave sugar anymore!  Must…suppress…chocolate….cravings…

Clean Eating Challenge accepted!

The other day while I was in Hawaii (just got back, had an amazing time!) I was surfing buzz feed on my phone and randomly saw their Clean Eating Challenge.   I started reading the post and got really excited about it.  1. I'm always up for a challenge. 2. I love clean eating! 3. They break it down for you step by step, with a calendar for the two weeks and grocery lists in pdf format.  Yeah, I'm doing this!

With only a few modifications, here I go! (modifications: I don't eat meat, so I subbed fish and tempeh, and I don't eat non-vegetarian* cheese, so I am subbing goat cheese for both parmesan and feta, of which I could not find vegetarian versions of at Trader Joes.)

So here it is, my Day 1 of Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge:

Breakfast: kale and banana smoothie (forgot to take a picture)

Lunch: Shaved Asparagus salad with fried egg

 Snack 1: carrots and hummus.  These are organic colorful carrots from Trader Joes, so pretty and yummy.

Dinner: cod with kale and quinoa (this is where I substituted cod for chicken, I think I overcooked it a little bit…fish is new to me.)

Snack 2: Pear with almond butter.  I conveniently misread the instructions and put 2 Tablespoons of almond butter on the pear instead of the 2 teaspoons it called for…It was delicious.  I highly recommend upping the almond butter.  I also had a lovely green tea with mint.  Good night.

*In case you didn't know, most cheeses (especially the really good stinky ones from France) are made using animal by-products, called "animal rennet" on the label.  I refuse to eat these cheeses, so I look for those with vegetable or microbial rennet in them.  Trader Joes in Silver Lake makes it really easy for me by putting signs by the ones that are vegetarian.  Anyway, goat cheese is my go-to for this reason, and because it is delicious!