So, welcome to my first day of taking pictures of my food & sharing with you what I'm eating! I hope it inspires you! Enjoy! P.S. My 3 year old DD asked me a couple times today, "Mom, why are you taking pictures of your food?!" lol!
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Day one and I already forgot to take a picture of my breakfast! lol! Breakfast was rather uninspiring. I had a Costco brand of Raisin Brand with Rice Milk and 4 oz of organic orange juice.
Morning Snack was yummy!!!
The cooler mornings inspired me to make some homemade hot cocoa. I simply heated up 1 cup of Rice Milk on the stove (I try not to use the microwave as much I can) and added 1 tsp of cocoa. Since Rice Milk is naturally sweet, I didn't add anything else. For the kiddos (I run an in-home licensed daycare), I made theirs with organic cow's milk, 1 tsp cocoa & 1 tsp vanilla extract, since they don't have the sweet flavor in their milk already. Mine was AMAZING!!! But none of the kiddos liked theirs. Boo-hoo. The raisins were, well, raisins. The portion you see was too much for me... I ate about 1/2 the bowl... too much sugar makes me gag.
My lunch was an experiment of sorts. Sorry for the poor picture quality.
The open faced soy sandwich is on organic 100% whole wheat bread (Kirkland brand from Costco). I topped it with mustard and then with Boca Ground Soy Crumbles that I cooked through on the stove until crispy. It was interesting. The crispy soy reminded me of bacon, which made my mouth happy. :) (Side note for clarification: I am trying to stay away from unfermented soy, but I need to use up what's in my fridge/freezer first!) I also cut up some organic green pepper & that's guacamole, on the side, for dipping my peppers in. Yum, Yum! I heart guacamole!!!
Afternoon snack was soooo good... I wanted to eat 3 of them! Don't worry, I stuck to the 1 you see here. :)
This is a homemade Heart-Healthiest Chocolate Chip Cookie served with Rice Milk. If you click on the cookie name, you can find the original recipe, but I modified it quite a bit, so below you will find my version. I didn't realize that the chocolate chips I used contained milk, so next time I'll use carob chips. Oh well, at least it wasn't a lot of milk in these.
CINNAMON OATMEAL RAISIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
1.5 Tbs. butter-flavored grape-seed oil
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almond butter
1 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1½ cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cups chocolate chips (ghiradelli)
3/4 cups raisins
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 2 baking sheets with cooking spray, or line with parchment paper.
2. Blend walnuts in food processor 30 seconds, or until ground into a fine meal. Add grape-seed oil, and blend 2 to 3 minutes more, or until mixture has the consistency of natural peanut butter, scraping down sides of food processor occasionally. Transfer to bowl. Add almond butter.
3. Whisk together brown sugar and ½ cup water in small saucepan, and bring mixture to a boil. Pour brown sugar mixture over ground walnut & almond butters, add vanilla extract, and stir until no lumps remain.
4. Whisk together whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in separate bowl. Stir whole wheat flour mixture into walnut mixture. Cool 10 minutes. Fold in oats, then chocolate chips, then raisins.
5. Shape cookie dough into 2-inch balls, and place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Flatten cookies with bottom of drinking glass dipped in water. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until cookies begin to brown and tops look dry. Cool 3 minutes on baking sheets, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
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Lastly, this brings us to dinner. I fully intended to cook dinner tonight, but I also suffer from migraines and have been fighting one off since last night. I get them so bad that my fingers start to tingle and last night it was radiating up my forearms. So, I decided to forego the cooking and head to the chiropractor instead, with DH and DD in tow. This is the first time in this restaurant since going dairy-free, so I was excited to try a new option!
Mmm... the #12 Beach Club, minus the cheese, from none other than Jimmy John's. Except, I just looked at the calorie count... Yikes! Now I wish I would've exercised today! I'd like to get back into running & yoga; I've been stagnant for far too long. Ah, motivation, where have you gone???
