Sunday, March 4, 2018

Into Every Life, A Little Elf Must Fall



Well, first of all, Happy March to all you Elfinistas/es everywhere. For us in the Deep South, March is a fickle month...warm one day, cold the next, HOT the next, FREEZING the next. It’s when we see the barren stick figure tree branches begin to soften and get fuzzy and you realize, you KNOW that pretty soon everything will be green again and color will appear overnight! We had such plans for the past week, some ideas to try, and a new Elfin adventure. HOWSOMEVER, it was not meant to be. With apologies to Danny O’Keefe’s country anthem...”Some gotta win, some gotta lose; Our Big Solid’s got the flu”. Yep--thank goodness he'd gotten the shot or it could have been a WHOLE lot worse! And Your Elf wan’t feelin’ so hot either. So, we hunkered down with the vittles on hand after a quick solo trip to the grocery store and did the best we could with comfort food and quick stuff. Sunday, we did try our hand with some Beet Chips in the Air Fryer. They actually turned out OK but not great...gives us something to strive for, as Beet Chips are really delicious.
As you can tell, we used Golden beets which we love. We’ll try again and cook them a bit longer. The rest of the week was just ‘getting by expending the least amount of energy’, meaning we did baked potatoes, broccoli, Delight Soy Chicken Nuggets, and grated Daiya cheese; green lentils and brown rice; Tomato/Avocado Toast; Fiber One with Banana and Raisins. We did manage to put together one dish that was very nice. We got some really nice asparagus at the store that we needed to polish off, so we decided on a Pasta Do-Up’. A ‘Do-Up’ is Elfspeak for slicing whatever vegetables you may have on hand into bite-sized pieces (in our case, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms) and ‘doin’ them up in a skillet with a spray of oil (or in the case of those needing to omit fat, enough water to allow you to soften them up a bit. That means you’d be better to start with small amounts of water and add if you need to than a whole lot of water and have mushy vegetables). So, here we go: We sautéed some mushrooms and Gardein Meatless Meatballs;
Opened a can of artichoke hearts (these were too big so we had to remove a lot of the tough leaves; next time the younger, smaller ones)
and sautéed them;
Snapped off the asparagus and threw them in with the 'shrooms and meatballs to briefly cook.
Added the artichoke hearts.
The leftover steamed broccoli was thrown in and served with bow-tie pasta.
Lemon juice and 1teaspoon of EVVO was all the seasoning we needed for a nice, not too heavy meal. So, that’s pretty much it for the week!
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One recent suggestion from a reader is to try to include more recipes that follow the Ornish Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, so we are going to include at least one Ornish approved recipe each week. According to the Ornish Guidelines, persons in the Ornish program should eat no more than 10% of their daily caloric intake in fat/oil. Now that does call on being REALLY aware of fats (including nuts) and the amount being eaten daily.
The other really cool link we want to share is from our good friend Gigi Carter. Gigi and her husband Kevin have now moved to their home on Orcas Island in Washington State. Gigi has made a complete 180 degree turn in her life by leaving her old job to embark on obtaining her Master’s in Nutritional Science and her license  as a professional Lifestyle Coach. She is ramping up her website and has lots of great information on plant-based eating and lifestyle changes. We MISS Gigi (center) and Kevin and our monthly Vegan Nights a LOT
but know she will do awesome wherever she and Kevin may be. Here’s the link to her site.
To end this wearisome week up and start in the sunshine of tomorrow, we like to share our mot favorite resource site...One Green Planet.
If you'll sign up for their daily newsletter, you'll get some great plant-based recipes and ideas, environmental updates, and the latest in animal advocacy information.
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Our Elfism for this week is:  If you want it to rain, go fill your bird feeders.
With this in mind, we wish you a healthy week ahead, stay plant-based and always remember to LOOK for the GOOD, be an EXAMPLE of the GOOD, and ACT for the GOOD as HARD as you can, in as MANY WAYS as you can, EVERY DAY that you can.

Your Elf

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