hardly working August 13, 2008

yet i always have time for lunch. weird.

today it was two blocks of leftover bbq tofu

and a big salad, same as it has been since saturday when i bought all the ingredients except today’s didn’t have blueberries because i ran out of those. this salad used up the last of my mushrooms as well

spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms and cucumbers with annie’s goddess dressing. and as an afterthought because i didn’t bring a vegan cookie and i’m saving my larabar for pre-workout:

times 2

one week every month i just can’t stay away from chocolate, even milk chocolate, and these just happened to be sitting on the doctor’s desk. and four weeks every month i can’t stay away from dessert in general.

i’m tired August 12, 2008

and it’s getting late so here’s what i ate. snacked on a vegan cookie and an oat bagel earlier

and for dinner, the same as last night, bbq tofu sandwich on an ezekiel english muffin with black beans on the side. while the tofu was re-heating in the microwave and the muffin was toasting i had the rest of my wine

the wine ended up being times 2 and 1/2 and for dessert i had 2 vegan cookies that i didn’t photograph. and i’m so tired i don’t think i’m gonna be able to stay up and see how the girls do in gymnastics.

the tofu experiment August 11, 2008

but first can i just say how crap it is to live on the west coast and have all the results of the olympics ruined for me because espn.com is my homepage? i don’t see anything until 3 hours after everyone on the east coast has already seen it. grrrr.

on the plus side, i’m officially back in the game. i went to spin and pedaled hard after work and i have plans to do the same thing tomorrow. i ate the lunch that i packed for myself and felt satisfied with my food all day and didn’t spend so much as an extra dime. basically, this will be my routine until something (ahem, A NEW JOB) dares to disrupt it. one can only hope…

after working out i wasn’t even hungry right away which is a miracle. i ventured into the kitchen to tackle the tofu but not before i put a load of towels in to wash and cleaned the kitchen a little. by the time i found kath’s bbq tofu recipe and was ready to press the tofu i started to get munchy. of course, the kashi h2h was sitting right in front of me so i dug in for a handful and decided it would taste much better with soymilk, even just a little bit. so i had a mug of h2h as an appetizer

then i pressed the tofu. it was an interesting process because i just ran out of paper towels so i had to use napkins that are substantially thinner (not to mention ones that say ‘happy new year’ on them) to drain the moisture. kath’s recipe called for a heavy cutting board for 20 minutes but i got impatient so i did this

there’s actually blocks of tofu under there

so i waited until 8, not even sure what time i put the blocks under the weight but 8 seemed like the right time to move them to the pan. here they are before i stuck ‘em in the oven

they were pretty juicy and thick which i’m pretty sure is the opposite of what they were supposed to be. but whatever, i wanted dinner so i put them in anyway. while the tofu was baking i poured myself a glass of wine

and sauteed some zucchini and mushrooms in a canola oil blend instead of olive oil because supposedly olive oil isn’t safe to cook with above certain temperatures. since i’m not sure i played it safe and went with the canola for the veggies. i think i went a little overboard on the oil but i drained the excess before i ate them

when i took the tofu out after the prescribed 20 minutes the blocks still looked mushy so i cut each block in half to get 4 pieces and put them back in for another 10 minutes. when i took them out i decided they were done

to prove it, i even ate one. on a toasted english muffin with an extra smear of bbq sauce and some spinach (but i didn’t add the greens ’til after i took the photo)

the verdict: meh. possibly feh. definitey not bad but not life-altering by any stretch of the imagination. pretty decent for my first go round. next time i think i’ll buy extra-firm tofu and actually marinate it after it’s been pressed for longer than 20 minutes. and slice the chunks properly before i put it in the oven the first time. also i’d like to make my own bbq sauce like kath did because the one i used had HFCS! no bueno. i’ll be on the hunt for HFCS-free ketchup…

for dessert i had an uncle eddie’s

and i’m spent. i wonder how long i can stay up watching the olympics before i pass out?

weekend August 11, 2008

another short weekend ends rather unceremoniously. i’ll start where i left off saturday. that lunch i had really filled me up and kept me completely un-hungry for way too long. it was 830 before i felt anything. so i had a heaping bowl of kashi h2h with pecans and blueberries in soymilk

i was full, no lies. but that was when i started to get hormonal and crave-y. the sweetness of the cereal made me want to forget it immediately. so i cracked open two things: a can of amy’s spicy organic chili with tofu AND a bottle of riesling that has been sitting in my fridge since february. i suppose i was waiting to open it for a special occasion that never came along or perhaps to wait to drink it with someone special who also never came along. instead of holding out, i decided to just start drinking it with myself because i bought it at a wine tasting in california so i knew nobody else would even enjoy it as much as i could. it was the perfect olympic-watching companion.

here’s the first glass along with the bottle

glass #2

glass #3

it’s a good thing i took pictures because i thought that was the last one. but my camera doesn’t lie and there was a fourth glass pictured like so:

who knew watching the olympics would be so much fun on a saturday night? i got to watch michael phelps win his first gold medal and completely smash the world record that he set himself… that’s why i love athletes and like to pretend i am one.

after all the wine i really wanted something cheesy, of course. but it was not to be. i toasted an english muffin and called it a night. luckily i didn’t get the spins while i was trying to fall asleep and also managed not to wake up with a headache. i still have about 1/3 of the bottle left which should be gone in no time.

tofu dinner August 9, 2008

dinner was a bit more successful. we went to pf chang’s so i started out with a cocktail (lime juice, tequila and agave nectar)

not the best, it tasted a lot like a margarita mix but i was told it was organic so i went with it. we ordered lettuce wraps for the table and i managed to convince the table to get the vegetarian ones so i could start with tofu. i had one

and for dinner i ordered the buddha’s feast stir-fryed. it was tofu and vegetables… heaven

i ate about 2/3 of this with about 3/4c. of brown rice. and i picked off the other plates, too. i tasted two different varieties of noodle.
and then dessert beckoned. i have had no willpower against dessert this week but the ones we had last night were really cool because they were served in 4oz. shot glasses. you know, for some semblance of portion control. either way, the s’more one was delicious

and i had most of the apple pie one, too. it wasn’t that great, apple pie larabars taste better and richer in my opinion

as if after eating all of that i was somehow unconvinced i had had enough food (?) i even ate my fortune cookie

and that fortune basically explains why i stay home on saturday nights.