New food | Blissfulbritt

For the past week, many of my meals have revolved around rice. Brown rice of course, specifically the brown rice medley from good ol’ Trader Joe’s.

The protein/fiber content is great, and the addition of the radish seeds gives a nice crunch to the mix. Of course I don’t pummel spoon fulls of just rice into my mouth, I make a rice pile and fill the sides with tree’s and bushes.

This meal happened a few times: Rice, asparagus, red bell pepper, vegan sausage, zucchini, Brussels, beets, and broccoli.

Another ricerific meal that was duuhh-lish-ous included this..

I really only bought this to have an excuse to say “punjab” multiple times in one hour, but this stuff was so good. I didn’t like the packaging, and I didn’t like the heating option. Instead of heating the foil like packet in water on the stove, I emptied the contents into a pot and then put it on the stove. Heating foil/using a microwave are two warming options I avoid. I need to get an invincible hamster to run hours on a wheel to produce heat for my food, that would be ideal.

The final product..

This time I made a rice mote, and filled the punjab in the center. Then surrounded the outside with trees and plants.

Moving forward. I have found a veggie (and vegan) friendly peanut sauce to make up for my oops moment, when I bought peanut sauce with anchovies in it. Unfortunately the sauce I bought this time lacked in flavor and punch.

Fortunately I had enough peanuts to make up for the sauce.

As you can see, I put my math studies to good use by using geometry on a daily basis to make a circle out of my meals. That’s really all it’s good for.

As for my vegan update, I have successfully completed one week eating a vegan diet, and I have to say the week FLEW by. I only thought about cheese once and that was the first day of being dairy free. Since then it’s been easy (given it’s only been a week) and I plan to continue eating vegan for a little while longer. I will write a post dedicated to my thoughts and physical state after a bit more time.

I’ve also completed one week cutting out sweets (except the extra jelly I’ve been adding to PB&J’s) and this was a bit more difficult. I thought about cake multiple times throughout the week, but I persevered. I deserve a medal for this I swear. I might even go longer than the week. I’m exuding God like strength with this task.

Running is great, Saturday I ran 5 miles at a 9:52 pace and each mile felt better than the one before it. Cycling is good, Thursday night spin classes are becoming my favorite. Monday nights not so much. Those are all the updates I have for now!

Q: How do you eat your brown rice?

Before I jump into the topic of this post, I want to share a quick and easy Thai inspired meal. You’ll need four items: Rice noodles, peanuts, a sauce, and a vegetable (Or go balls wild and have multiple vegetables!)

Real quick side note, this satay peanut sauce is NOT vegetarian friendly. I somehow missed this while skimming the ingredients. I read the ingredients to a similar product from a different store, and that one was vegetarian friendly. I assumed TJ’s was too. Mistake. Lesson learned- never skimp on reading the ingredients! Regardless, the meal was delicious and the peanut sauce has been donated to a non vegetarian. If you are a carnivore, omnivore, or even a pescatarian (the sauce has anchovies in it) you’ll love it!

After making a head of broccoli hair, I had to resist the urge to make a peanut face. 10 minute meal. Boom.

Onto the Brussels and potatoes of the post. Over the past six years I have evolved into a happy, healthy vegetarian. I started as more of a carb-o-tarian, which is what I call those that give up meat, but replace the meat with carbs instead of fruits and veggies. I have fallen in love with fruits, vegetables, and cooking over the past three years and have never looked back. I don’t crave meat, I find excitement in new recipes, and I enjoy telling people about my lifestyle (until they criticize and are ignorantly closed minded.)

One question I often get is, “have you tried being vegan?” The answer is “sort of.” I have never fully committed to becoming “vegan,” but I have had my experimental weeks, two at the most, of eliminating any and all animal products from my diet. I LOVE cheese, and occasionally eat eggs, and along with this I eat products made with dairy. Although I may not drink milk directly, I am ok with using it in recipes, and eating foods made with milk, cheese and eggs.

I’ve decided to give this vegan thing another go. However, I will not be calling it “vegan,” rather, “dairy free” because I am not going to be picky about where or how the food products are made. If the bread I buy is made somewhere that milk and eggs are present, but not included in the ingredients, I am ok with that. My diet over the next week, two weeks, or however long I plan to try this for will consist mainly of fruits, and veggies, along with the proteins, fats, carbs and other nutrients I will need. I will be completely dairy free including products made with dairy.

This is not a lifestyle change, more of a fun challenge to test my creativity and willpower to resist cheese. Along with cutting out dairy, I am cutting back on sweets. OHH MY HOGSQUASH this will be hard. I love my cookies, but I need a serious detox from sugar!! Notice I said cutting back, not cutting OUT.

With all this said, dinner last night was a dairy free success.

This plate looks like something I eat anyway, but throughout the day my desire for a string cheese and wheat thins was ever so present. This meal made my nagging cheese beast disappear.

Breakfast this morning was egg-less, but better than ever.

Skittle rainbows have NOTHING on my color wheel of food. I will be including cheese, greek yogurt, and cookies back into my diet very soon, but for now I will enjoy the challenge of trying new things! This will also challenge me to figure out exactly what the items listed on the ingredient lists are. The sugar, and cheese beasts in my system need to be tamed for a bit. Did I mention I love cookies?

On a random side note, but along the lines of challenges (running is a challenge I accept daily) check out this race photo from my 10K last week.

I’m pretty much a celebrity because this photo was an example photo on the website before the others were even uploaded. This is why there isn’t a giant PROOF written across the photo to ruin it unless you choose to buy it. Of course I was caught getting my Garmin ready.

“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead.” -Bette Davis

Q: What’s challenging you this week? Not eating cookies.