I’m blogging the day after because I was uninspired by yesterday’s food. It’s the result of not prioritizing meal prep time in my day so I threw together lunch and supper and they were definitely blah. 

The day had a good start, but I deviated from my lunch and supper plans. 

I had to meet a parent at my classroom so I packed a sack breakfast. 

It was easy and good and my staple breakfast of Shredded wheat, yogurt, nuts, and fruit. I was able to grab one of my yogurt cups, so that was a bonus!

I worked in my classroom ALL DAY LONG and ignored the fact that I skipped lunch and felt the pang of hunger all afternoon.  Dealing with that experience prompted this post in the BLE unofficial FB group. 

Of course, I didn’t actually feed my body on time, but I dealt with the hunger feeling by just ignoring it for as long as I could. 

When I finally got home, I was starving and threw together this “lunch” (it was 4pm) in less than 5 minutes. 

I was also in our basement yesterday and grabbed a jar of garden grown black beans that we grew a couple years ago. I sorted out the lighter colored ones and now I’m ready to find a yummy, simple recipe for cooking black beans. We have a lot of these and I want to start using them!!

By the time I was hungry for supper, it was around 10pm. It was another throw together meal. I ended up eating just the patty with salsa and the tomatoes. The celery and garden cucumber were both a little bitter, and since it was so late, I just really wasn’t hungry anyway, so I didn’t finish eating them. 

My core exercises were easy again, so that was a positive aspect of my health/food day!

I already knew what I wanted for breakfast…a big fat peach!  My family has been devouring the box we got from Costco so I decided I better hurry up and eat at least one before they’re gone!

That’s a wrap!

At Day 54 I think it’s safe to say that not much is tempting to me anymore.  I am so focused on the goal, even Costco muffins that my guys brought home tonight cannot call my name or lure me into eating them!  I love knowing that I am stronger than the sugar pull.  I have waited a long time to be able to experience this!

My day began without a plan again and I even forgot to take a picture of my Wellness Journal until after I had logged in my breakfast.

Since this is my “go-to” breakfast, I went ahead and made it again this morning.  I LOVE this breakfast!!

Lunch looked familiar as well.  I grabbed all the same food that I had bought yesterday and took it in the car with me because I had to go pick up the dog from the same out of town vet.  I could have measured things before I left, but….I didn’t.  I did not finish the carrots or cherries and did my best to eyeball what I thought 6 ounces would be for each of those!

I was really hungry by the time supper came around.  I knew I needed to use up the broccoli as it had been in the fridge, in a mason jar, for a while.  It was still good, so I cooked it and then filled out the rest of the veggies with raw cucumbers and carrots.  I do think the Costco black bean patty is a tad over 4 oz. but to me, it’s a serving, so I’m ok with eating the whole thing.

Freebie marinara because I felt HUNGRY tonight after eating my minimal lunch.

I think I’ve turned a corner on my daily core exercises as well.  They were all easy tonight and all those little green circles have nice check marks in them!  Another day in the books.

And that’s a wrap!

This was definitely NOT an exciting food day.  I tried some things that I don’t think really worked, and if I had to eat this way every day, I may abandon the whole BLE idea!  But I think this is a good lesson in life.  Some days are better than others and sometimes you just have to get through the day.  For me, I just got through the meals today!

When I got started with BLE I bought a bunch of different plain yogurts to see which ones I liked best.  I’d heard a lot of buzz about Greek yogurt so that was one that I had purchased.  The first time I ate Greek yogurt, I don’t think I was able to finish it.  After being used to yogurts with sugar, Greek yogurt was just – yuck!!  But I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to make it more palatable.

In the quest for eating more whole foods I’ve been finding things in my freezer that have been ignored in the past.  One of those things was some raspberries from our garden.  After thawing out a ziplock of raspberries, I ended up with this sort of puree, though I don’t think it had been blended before it was frozen.  I decided to mix some blueberries with it and got this…

This is what the raspberries looked like in a jar.  It was pretty “soupy” but didn’t taste like any sugar was added.  I also don’t think it was a jam or anything.  The truth is, I don’t remember when it was frozen but I wanted to see if there was a way that I could use it to make the Greek yogurt taste a lot better!

This is the Greek yogurt that I could barely get down.

I took 6 ounces of the berry combination (which was mostly the raspberries) and mixed it with the whole container of yogurt which was I believe was also 6 ounces.

Um, I think it looked better before it was mixed.

I covered it with plastic wrap and popped it into the fridge to cool overnight.  The next morning came and here was my pre-planned food day!

For breakfast I grabbed my yogurt mix, which did look better the next morning and used my Shredded Wheat as a sort of topping on it.

I call these little wheat “bales” because they remind me of bales of straw.  Surprisingly, they don’t taste as blah as what I imagine straw would taste like, but that is probably due to the fact that my dad always ate this while i was growing up, so I learned to like them (but with honey).  Even so, it is one of my go-to breakfast cereals, so using it as a topping for my yogurt mixture seemed like a good idea.

It wasn’t the most glorious breakfast, but it wasn’t awful.  Just not maybe something I would try again.

And this takes us to lunch, another “recipe” I would not do again!  I sautéed peppers, garlic, onions, and carrots together to create a sort of base for the white beans from a can.

When I put the beans on, it was kinda like, “this needs something else”!!

So I went out to my bucket garden on my porch and grabbed a few sprigs of parsley and lemon leaves.

That made it look a lot better, but the honest truth is I had to muscle my way through this food because it just didn’t taste that great.  I think I used too much garlic, and maybe not enough salt.  I don’t really know.  I just know that I would not do this again.

I was glad for the grapes and tomatoes and cheese because I saved them for last and ended my meal with food that was more enjoyable.

Supper found me tired and unmotivated to do anything creative, so I ate the rest of the beans, which was another 6oz, and then just filled out the meal with raw veggies.  While it was mostly the same foods as lunchtime, I tasted a lot better just boring and raw!!

And that wrapped up my day!

And a note about the food being meh…if I was truly hungry, I would be thrilled with this day of food and eat every drop with no complaints whatsoever!!  I think it’s good to know that there will be times on this BLE journey where the food may not be your favorite. But that’s ok. There is always another day. 

On Day 43 I ate a dish of grilled veggies for supper. I’ve had some questions about how I prepared them so I wanted to take a minute and share the process.

The recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks called “7 Secrets”, by Neva Brackett. I’ve made it many times and mostly we’ve eaten it as a burrito wrap. My family still enjoys it that way, but I just eat it without the flour tortilla and it stands perfectly well on its own.  I don’t know if I can share the exact recipe here in the blog, but this post will give you a good idea of how I prepared the basic recipe.

It was part of my supper meal on Day 43.

I discovered mason jar storage a few days ago so I’ve been putting everything i can into mason jars to see how well things hold up.  I already had these onions cut and in the jar, so it was super quick and easy to grab them and throw them into my recipe.

My zucchinis are almost ready to harvest so I hope this is the last one (these are organic) that I’ll have to buy from Costco.  The yellow summer squash is from the garden at the elementary school and I love knowing that my food is coming straight out of a pesticide free garden!

I chopped the squash into 1/4 inch chunks so I could put them through my Vidalia Chopper.

I love this chopper so much.  It always does a perfect job and it is so FAST and EASY!! I’m all about fast and easy when it comes to cooking!

I’m using the larger blade option for this recipe.

It cuts perfect little squares every single time!

I put both types of squash and my red bell peppers through the chopper.  This sight makes me happy because it was effortless to do.  Cutting these by hand would be too much work and I’d never want to make this recipe.  I bought my Vidalia choppers at Target and through eBay.

The next ingredient is the Soy Curls.  I’ve had some questions about how I prepare these.  I always feel like I need to say that I’m not a gourmet cook.  I never really even liked cooking, though I’m enjoying it much more now with Bright Line Eating.  The Soy Curls come in this little bag.  I bought them at our church’s health food store.  I’m sure a google search would bring up other places where they can be purchased from.

They seem to be nothing but soy and they are hard and crisp in the package.

Since they are hard and crisp, they must first be rehydrated with water.  Then I used a veggie chicken style seasoning and some Brewer’s yeast flakes to season them while they soaked up the water.  You can season them to taste, using whatever type of seasonings you prefer.  They are similar to Tofu with no real taste until you season it.

I let those simmer while I prepped my broccoli.

I love seeing all the colors burst and come to life when the veggies all get stirred together!

The soy curls have been simmering, soaking up the water, and the excess water has evaporated off with the steam.  They are nice and chewy now and soft and “meaty” like!

I added the soy curls to the veggies, including the brothy juice.

I mixed it all together and put it in a large glass pyrex dish that was sprayed lightly with Pam. Any type of low pan works well for putting the veggies under the broiler.  I always set a timer when food is under the broiler.  I’m notorious for walking away and having my food burn under that intense heat.  I’ve learned now to set that timer or just stand there and wait for it to be done.

This recipe is great for using up whatever veggies you have in the fridge.  You can basically put whatever you want into it and it always tastes great!

Yum!!!