A Light One, for a Change

I haven't posted one of these in a while. Open heart surgery gets you distracted like that!

I wanted to share a 100% vegan and so surprisingly yummy dinner combo I made up tonight. Everything is soy free, as well. 

I buy these vegan Marsala burgers at Trader Joe's which are super good, and not too bad for you (0.5 sat fat and 0 trans fat and cholesterol). So I warmed one of those up, then I made a side of cheesy grits with just half a teaspoon of vegan "butter" and half of a teaspoon of vegan cheese, salt and pepper, and then my mom made what I call Romanian coleslaw - it's chopped cabbage and just balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. 

I was dubious of the combo but it turned out like a complete meal and very delicious to top that. 

The finished meal 

Not a Competition

You know what?! Just like everything else in life, heart surgery and heart surgery recovery is pretty much the same thing, in my opinion: NOT a competition. I can see the eyes of at least my best friend rolling in her head right now and  saying in her mind, "Oh, boy. EVERYTHING is a competition, otherwise it ain't worth getting outta bed!", but in my little corner of the world, everything is not a competition. 

We are put on this planet to do our best - true statement. We are put here to give it our all - true again. But we are not put here to compare our faster with someone else's faster, or our longer with someone else's longer - if we do this, I feel, we already lost. And I don't want to feel like a loser. 

Recovering from heart surgery will teach you this easily: you'll read about people recovering in a month. In three weeks, even, and you're at week 3 and you can't tie your own shoes and what are you supposed to do?! Jump out the window? No - because just like we each eat slower or faster, more or less, we run or we walk, we get over a cold in a week or five, we like our coffee cold or hot, we're ALL different. Our bodies are all different. We have different surgeons and every procedure is different - we will all have a unique healing curve and whatever that is for us it is our curve! Sure, if in two years, we're still bed ridden from open heart surgery, there is a problem and a doc should figure out what it is. But if you walk 2 miles on a treadmill after 3 weeks and the dude next to you walks 3.5 after 4 and he's 20 years older than you, it's just what it is. 

Again, going back to my yoga roots, I try to not put judgement to it, and just focus on my breathing, my time, the way my body feels in the moment. I loved one of my yoga teachers that used to say "You know what, my downward dog is where it is today. It's not the best I've done, it's not the worst. It is where it wants to be today". We learn from it, but we won't make a judgement about it. 

And we put one foot in front of the other and we keep at it every day. Progress will happen, if we show up and stick with just doing our thing. 

I know - long rant to say, well, maybe my progress is not as fast as others'. But I am happy - it's all that matters. For the most part, my body is pretty mobile (sitting on my couch, legs under me, laptop on my lap, typing right now), I only have a pillow behind my back for back support and that's that. My left arm is still numb, but I am fully typing with all my 10 fingers, numb and all. I had days where I could not lift my glass of ice water as it was too heavy for my chest - not anymore. I did 35 minutes of treadmill today, and my diastolic pressure is finally in the upper 50's and 60's and not in the gutter (20's) anymore. There is small progress, but it's my progress. I'll get there. One day. At my own pace. 

If there is one promise to make to myself is to not compare myself with others and just focus on me. On my body, on what it wants and what it needs and to give it to it so it will carry me through these changes. 

Eating is still a bit of a struggle, as nothing really sounds good ... We're having stir fry (don't worry, no oil, all healthy veggies, in a wok) for dinner and we'll see how that will affect my INR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prothrombin_time) tomorrow - it usually should take days for diet to affect INR, but not in my case - changes in diet and coumadin doses affect me right away - another proof that we're all different. 

An Accidental Weekend, Some Cravings and a Leftover Aside

I sometimes worry I won't be able to find anything to eat when I go out, especially with company. You always have to "explain" yourself (because they ask, not because you volunteer) and you can hear the eye rolls as you go over the way you eat. But you know what?! Even in Godforsaken Utah, things are much, much easier anymore. And plus, you need to stay a little bit creative, too ...

I had a "team activity" at work on Friday, where they took us out to get cooking lessons. The way it works: we cook the food, after some instructions from a chef, and then, we eat it. On the menu?! A full menu called "Mediterranean madness": chicken kebabs, tabbouleh salad, tzatziki sauce, pita bread and baklava. I cooked the tabbouleh and the rest of my team cooked various other dishes, and then we all shared what we cooked.  I had a pita bread stuffed with tabbouleh and that was more than plenty.

What goes into tabbouleh: bulgur (a grain), tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, green onions, lemon juice, a bit of olive oil. The pita bread was made from wheat flour, and no dairy, eggs or soy products. I definitely recommend the wheat flour over the regular white for the pita, because the nuttiness of the wheat gives extra flavor to your dish.

Tabbouleh salad stuffed pita bread.

On Saturday, my husband and I went to one of the local chain sandwich places, one of those joints that makes a big deal out of using all organic and local ingredients. I was still a little nervous that something might be contaminated by some food that might make me sick, break out, and feel guilty about what I am eating (because of the fats). I ordered a minestrone soup, which was loaded with mushrooms, oddly enough, and it was delicious. In Italian tradition, though, it did have a bit too much olive oil floating on the top, though.

Then, I ordered the hummus plate, which was plenty delicious! I did not eat all of the pita, as it, too, had some extra fat I could taste. What can you do?! You win some, you lose some, right?!     
                                            

Hummus plate and minestrone soup at Blue Lemon

 
For Sunday, I was craving two things (I guess, continuing with my Mediterranean theme from Friday): pasta and baba ghanoush. So, I roasted an eggplant in the oven, and after draining it, I threw it in the food processor with some white onions, salt, pepper and just a teaspoon and a half of vegan mayo (Earth Balance brand, which I can only find at Whole Foods around here), and made this delicious spread. My husband had made some vegan bread, and the combo between the smoky eggplant and the fresh bread was amazingly tasty. Just what the craving asked for!

Baba ghanoush and fresh home made bread

 
For the pasta, I made a creamy tomato sauce, using rice milk, fresh cherry heirloom tomatoes and lots of garlic, fresh parsley, onion and dill, simmered on low for about an hour. I mixed the sauce with the cooked rotinis, fresh sweet peppers and frozen sweet peas and threw everything in the oven for about an hour. That was our dinner. 

                                  
                                    Baked pasta, veggies and creamy tomato sauce 
 
One little "leftover" note I forgot to blog about: we had lots of leftovers from our Thanksgiving dinner. And I usually love to re-invent the leftovers into some other dish, so we won't eat the same ol', same ol' dish all over again. My favorite re-invention this year was also the easiest one to make and so delicious: with the leftover mashed potatoes, I dumped some canned mushrooms into a Pyrex dish with the potatoes, mixed in some vegan cheddar cheese and lots of crushed garlic, and put it in the oven for the mixture to "get happy" for about 45 minutes. I just ate it with home made bread, just for extra comfort starchiness. 

 

Mashed potatoes and mushrooms casserole

Thanksgiving

I never understood why people panic so incredibly about cooking Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, there are people out there who cook nothing more than toast all year round, but those are not typically people who will throw a Thanksgiving dinner party for 20. Typically. I always cook the meal, even when sometimes I go to other people's houses. There is something about making the house smell good to kick off December that appeals to me. And I panic just about as much as getting up every morning. Sure, you don't know what you're going to get, but you know it'll be worth the work.

This year has been the first one when I did not have any turkey to eat myself, although I made it for my husband. I just ate the side dishes and the pie at the end, and they were all vegan and delicious. I thought I'd share it here, just for some ideas for folks who still look for veggie friendly and low fat meals. Everything took about 5 hours to make, including the turkey.

Here's our Thanksgiving in pictures:


We kicked off the day with a semi-large breakfast: smoked salmon (some fish is the only meat I eat lately) over hashbrowns with mustard and a vegan home made biscuit - Bobby Flay was right: the combination of salty smoky salmon and potatoes is dreamy: 

Here's the rest of the day's foods, in the order they emerged from the kitchen:

 I made home made tomato sauce, with the last fresh tomatoes from my yard. I added garlic, onions and parsley to it and let it stew on low for an hour or so. This is what the green beans boiled into. 

 

Green beans stewed in the sauce above it. 

 

Vegan gravy: rice milk, vegan butter-like spread, flour, pureed garlic, onions, dill, salt and pepper. 

No comment here - you all know what this is  ...  

 

As my husband called this: 'this was the star of the dinner': he made the cornbread and the bread (both vegan, with recipes we found online, just googling), and I crisped the cubed pieced first, in the oven, and then built the stuffing: made my own vegan broth, with salt, pepper, fresh carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, garlic, parsley, and baked it all together at the end. It tasted like the whole garden got dumped in the baking dish.  

My personal favorite: the mashed potatoes. The only thing that went in them, besides pepper, salt and garlic powder are:

Roasted cauliflower: you mix it in with onions and garlic puree (see a pattern yet?!), and lay it on a cookie sheet, put it in the oven till it softens and it starts charring at the edges.

  

Vegan pecan pie, and honestly, the best any-kind-of-pie I have ever had! There is no skimping on flavors in this house! I manage the savory, and my husband manages the sweet tastes for sure!

 

 

 

Our table, finished, and my plate. I hope everyone had a plentiful, delicious and peaceful Thanksgiving!  

Let the Holidays Begin!

I have been doing pretty well on my (not so new anymore) vegan and lowest fat diet. It's not so new anymore when it's been a year next month since I started it. One day at a time ...

I am not missing meat at all, which is a common question I get. The minute you stop thinking of "meat alternatives", you're pretty much set. If you're going to continue wanting vegan bacon, you'll never want anything but the real thing. I just learned to color within my new lines. Or better bet, I tell folks that being vegan is not depriving at all. It's like coloring with a limited set of crayons: you can still color, just as much as everyone else. But my crayons box only has 10 sticks  instead of 24, which is what everyone else's box has. You just learn that that's your reality and your "box" and those are the tools you have access to and the tools to keep you afloat and successful. You will survive and then some. You will get creative about recipes and what foods to make for what occasion. And you will be fine. And full, for sure, I am here to assure you of that.

But I was a bit melancholy over possibly missing one Holiday staple that I was sure I will not be able to "adjust" to meet my diet. There is nothing that spells Christmas clearer for me than a good glass of (low fat, lite) eggnog spiked with some rum. So, I was thinking that for sure that will have to be eliminated from my tradition starting this year. Well, think again.

I found this recipe (below) online and my rock star husband, who is my new personal chef when it comes to mixed drinks and bread making and baking goods in general, made it for me. Oh my word, it is so delicious! I skipped the coconut milk because of the fat content there, and I used rice milk which only has 2 total grams of total fat and 0 cholesterol and 0 saturated fat. I did use the cashews, but you can see it's only a third of a cup and one batch makes about 3 small tumbler glasses (servings), on ice. I will try without the cashews next time, as I think the flavors and the dates alone will be enough for consistency and aroma.




                                              

 
Let the holidays begin, folks! I am all set!

Check back soon, as I am about to document my first 'mixed' (vegan + not, for my husband) Thanksgiving prep. Anything could happen, really. I might have forgotten how to bake a turkey. We shall see. One day, and holiday at a time ...

And no, we absolutely do not buy "tofurky" in this house. That just seems wrong! 

 

The finished product. Cheers, all! 

Trying Out Vegan Moussaka

Lots of people wonder "what do we eat" when we have FH?! First off, what we eat doesn't seem to really make a difference, for better or worse. But I personally don't want to add to the badness by eating more stuff that makes me add fat to my arteries. 

I have eaten meat all my life. But as I grow older and sicker, I choose to eat leaner, closer to "natural" and lighter in fats. At least in the animal ones. 

For many other (new) health reasons lately, those who follow this blog more or less frequently know that I am eating vegan and soy free food lately. 

One of my friends asked me this weekend if "I have a new cookbook". Maybe I should write one - because there is no vegan, soy free cook book that I can find. But I come up with recipes that would fit that description every day.

Tonight, I was craving moussaka. I have made this dish all my life - I grew up eating it, but it always has lots of oil and lots of meat in it. I have made it with turkey in my own home, but turkey is off limits for me now. But the one I made tonight, totally invented by me, turned out so delicious that I just had to share. I did use a teaspoon and a half of low fat oil, as follows.

So, this is what I did:

- in a pot, I boiled 4 potatoes just in plain water
- in a (ceramic) pan (so it won't stick!), I sauteed in one teaspoon of canola oil in this order: onions, celery, garlic, cubed fresh tomatoes till everything was a sauce;
- for spices: salt, pepper, Italian herb mix and just any kind of dry herb seasoning you have handy (little salt, and all natural, if you have some); 
- I added to the pan chickpeas ground in a food processor (this is my meat substitute);
- when the potatoes were boiled but still had a bite to them, I peeled them and sliced them in thin slices
- I "lined" a casserole dish (9 X 12 in Pyrex dish) with a drop of grape seed garlic oil (put some on a paper towel and smear it on the bottom and the sides of the dish);
- I put one layer of sliced potatoes, then covered it with the vegetable mix; then repeated - potatoes and chickpea and veggie mix; finish with loose potatoes and add olives on the top
- pour a small can of no salt added tomato sauce and add some water, so the potatoes can finish boiling;
- put the dish in the oven for about 30 minutes on 425F.

I did not miss the meat one bit. I never do anymore, but this is the first time I made the moussaka without meat and it made no difference - the craving was met. My meat eating husband loved it, too. He said it was "creamy" because of the chickpeas. 

I hope you try it and let me know what you think. Or just enjoy it! 

 
 

Camping, Vegan Style

Summer’s been so busy and so beautiful (no wild fires and fair air, for a change – yay!) that I even forgot what the mountains look like with snow on their tops. It’s been toasty, but we needed some heat. I needed some heat, to charge my bones for the long winter coming.

One of the things we do in the summer (and spring and fall, too) is camp. I used to look so much forward to eating while camping: hot dogs, especially (mine were always turkey, fat free), baked beans, bagel and (fat free) cream cheese with turkey bacon for breakfast. Yum!

But since lately I have been eating only a vegan diet, this year’s been the first time when I camped on all veggies. I was a little nervous, really, because I did not know if I could stay “full” for two days, while hiking and doing stuff around camp on simply … plants and fruits. But it worked out nicely – as you can see in some of these pictures.

I have also found some new products, as you’ll see, that are natural and “gunk free” (I hope! – as much as we can trust the labels, of course) and that taste like real food.  

 

For dinner one night, I had baked beans, with polenta (which I made at home and packed in a plastic ware dish) with fresh corn on the cob, grilled on the camp fire. 

 

For lunch, I had a sandwich made with vegan home made bread (thanks to my husband!), Boulder Canyon potato chips (see below) and tomato salad (I cut the tomatoes and onions at home and put them in separate dishes, then mixed them together with salt and pepper at the camp site - you don't want to mix them the day before, because they juice too much and they lose the flavor). 

 

This was a new find for me - the Boulder Canyon brand products - all natural and they are so delicious - nothing but potato taste in that bag.   

 

For "on the trail" snacks I had raisins and fresh cherries. What else says "summer" more loudly than cherries?! 

 

 Another night for dinner, we cooked all these veggies (fresh peppers, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, onions with some curry powder, salt and pepper) in aluminum foil on the open fire, and we mixed it into our vegan baked beans. Then, we had leftover corn on the cob along with it, for some comfort additional starch. It was so filling and delicious!  

 I decided that as far as food goes, you’re only limited by your imagination in how you cook it, and by your palate in what you choose to eat. But the options are there, and are plenty! My rule of thumb is: if there is a people under the sun that live happily and fully with only a plant and fruit based diet(and there are lots of peoples just like that, in countries where life expectancy is even longer than ours), that should be enough testimony for me that humans don’t need meat to live.

Although for an FH patient nutrition is only a very small fraction of what helps  manage our disease (usually, the bigger role is held by drugs), I feel much better when I don’t consume animal products. I am not a chemist, or a biologist, but I am very much in tune with my body. And overall, my body has been the happiest, lightest, less prone to pains since I have switched my diet this way. And every day, I am surprised by all the new options we have out there, including when we pack for a whole weekend in the middle of the woods, somewhere.

I will say one caveat for all the options we have out there: I cannot eat anything with soy, because of a personal intolerance to it, and I have found all the “meat substitutes” out there to be absolutely gross for my taste! However, once you really tell yourself there is no such thing as “meat” in your diet, you’ll stop looking for it, or for anything to replace it. And, to me, I find meat less appetizing now, after not eating it for 8 months. So, there is no missing it, at all. And I have never been an avid dairy consumer anyway, so I guess the “switch” has been easier for me. I am lucky!

Enjoy what’s left in the summer, all, and happy eating, wherever you are!

What to Eat?

Happy New Year, and hopefully, Happy New Health, everyone!

I really do wish this to all, from the bottom of my heart! In Romania, we always say that the most important thing to wish someone is health. Not money, not successes, nothing else. If you have health, we say, you have everything else, or the stamina and foundation to build everything else with/on it.

You might remember that I have been flirting with this pain in my stomach for the past year or so. It’s around my upper liver, or the gallbladder area. Since the beginning, I have felt that it’s coming from something I am eating or drinking or taking (meds included) that no longer agrees with me. My doctor, of whom I don’t think too highly, but up here, where I live, I have little choices, has been convinced that it’s my gallbladder. But he has failed to show me one blood test or one test to clearly demonstrate that it is the gallbladder. He tells me we have to take it out (the gallbladder) and I will see that I feel better. I fail to understand why I should play God with my body, just to “try things out”, without proof that something is indeed broken.

So, after a year of pain, and multiple other symptoms that have just piled up on me (more than usual painful gas, diarrhea, and more recently, huge, painful and itchy welts and rashes), as well as blood tests that show some kind of allergy, he finally accepted that I might be allergic to “something”. So, he finally gave me a referral to an allergist.

I will save you the trouble of reading about the drama of this allergist’s screw ups – the office visit was anything if not mind troubling and a chain of non-professional, half-a$$ events – but I will tell you that he did do a food allergy test (I had a general allergy test before, and I already know I am allergic to pets and dust). He did perform an allergy test that showed I am allergic to chicken, pork, cod and clams. I am not allergic to milk (but they only test for lactose, not the other proteins in milk), and to grains, neither (but he did recommend I would go to the hospital for a gluten blood test which is more accurate than the skin test for grains). He also told me to stay away from all dairy for a week and see if that helps with the discomfort in my stomach and the welts.

I am still not 100% convinced that it’s the dairy, but since I have stayed away from it, my welts are almost non-existent. The pain in my stomach and the extra bloated-ness (past what Lipitor and zetia give me) is better when I stay away from milk and meats. If I simply just eat vegan, I feel great! I have virtually no symptoms at all. No pain. No welts. No rash.

And in the light of the news I got for Christmas Eve I am shooting to eat fat free and vegan, all at the same time, as anything with fat and cholesterol pretty much disgusts me.

It has not been easy, though. Going out to eat is a major challenge. Even when you pay the extra buck and go to “fancy” places to eat, they fail to accommodate “special dietary needs”: I asked them to not put milk in the egg white scramble at one place, and they told me they would not, but they did put milk (or cream, or butter) in it anyway. They also put oil on my toast, although I specifically said I wanted it “dry, with no oil nor butter”. Finding milk free and fat free foods is a huge challenge, and I have not found one cheese alternative like that, for instance. Since I am not allergic to lactose (which is more common), but to milk protein, the market caters very little to people who are allergic to the whole product. I am never easy, am I?!

It’s a learning experience, for sure. And like I said, I am not even 100% sure it is milk. Although staying away from it all does show some improvement now.

The last thing I want to experiment with is my meds. Maybe they are the culprit, but they are the only thing that keeps my numbers down and hopefully the damage to my heart slower to progress, for now, so I am making the call to keep taking them for now. As a last resort, I will drop the meds, if all else fails, to see if they are causing all this.

I figured, trying to stay away from dairy helps two targets: less fat intake, and hopefully, less allergens for me.

It will be tricky to stay away from chicken, as that is the number one meat I eat and cook with. But so far, it’s been OK. I am testing out in the next month or so various vegan meat alternatives, and I hope to have some reviews here on them. I travel a bit for work, and that will be my biggest challenge. But that’s when I stock up on granola bars and feed off them for a week, I guess, when all food options in the airports fail. We’ll see.