OakMonster's Den

No, I did NOT give up on Meatless Tuesday.  However, I’m giving up on blogging about it.

Guys, the Meatless Tuesday experiment has stuck.  16 weeks I haven’t wavered and my resolution is as strong as before.  It’s just that now that Meatless Tuesday has become an established routine, writing about it seems, well, tedious.  And absolutely unimportant.

I have been tempted to drop it and go for meat a couple of times when I was stressed out.  Sure, I wussed out and got nachos or something as bad for me on those days, but I managed to not eat meat.  Or, as of the new added rule, take any swig of an alcoholic drink.

I have a few accidental egg consumption.  And maybe even a few more of disguised eggs consumption that I chose to ignore.  But I’ve being more conscious of the egg content as well.

I just thought, at this point, when it becomes just as normal as my everyday diet, I probably shouldn’t bore you any more with it.

So here we are, the last Meatless Tuesday post.

Also a few weeks before I may fall off the wagon.

You see, I’m traveling to Costa Rica this Wednesday.  The following Tuesday is the day I get back, but we don’t leave until 6 p.m.  Having read the guide book, I could possibly avoid the meat during my last day, but I won’t make anyone’s life difficult especially my friend who’s hosting me for the last few days in Costa Rica.  If meat and eggs show up, I will eat it.  And I’ll take Wednesday off meat instead.  Just this one time to not offend my host during travel, that is one compromise I will do.

So, be happy for me, my friends, that I have made a year goal into a lifetime commitment.

And I’m sure you’re not going to miss reading about my weekly diet. ;-D

Yes. I was at TEDxUSC. My mind was thoroughly blown. That’s another post unto itself so I’m not going into it here much.

Breakfast:

• My Starbucks treat: decaf tall Americano with caramel sauce.
• Leftover plantano frito con frijoles y crema–fried plantains with beans and sour cream–from my Friday’s foray into Salvadorian cuisine. Ahhh…Sarita’s Pupusaria at the Grand Central Market!

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Lunch:

• Mendocino Farms’ Vegetarian BLT.  Yes, you read that right. It has vegetarian “bacon” and pepper jack cheese. And it was wonderful.  You read that right. This bacon fiend actually enjoyed the vegetarian “bacon”!  Then again, I was eating int the sun in line outside of USC’s Bovard Auditorium. It’s like being home again.  Everything tasted better!
• A handful of blueberries

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Dinner:

• A few glasses of wine at TEDxUSC reception and a few noshes, a little cheese quiche and a blue cheese & grapes egg roll.
• Came home and made The Minor Elvis: a grilled peanut butter, banana, and honey on 9-grain toasts.  The real Elvis has bacon in it…

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Satisfactory level: Very satisfied. Again, the surprise that was the vegetarian “bacon”.  It looks horrifying but it tastes like a less salty, not so greasy, crispy fatty part of the real thing.  I would eat that again. And I’d even put it in the Veggie Elvis!

Thoughts: Holy crap. I ate a lot of carbs this week…

Accidental egg consumption! Oh no!!!!

Breakfast & Snack:

• Starbucks decaf hazelnut soy latte.  This is what I’d order when I want a breakfast in a cup.  The tall decaf Americano with caramel sauce is more of a treat.
• Fage yogurt with peach.

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Lunch:

• Leftover half of bibimbap from Cafe Sura, the only Korean restaurant in Long Beach!  Fresh, it came out in the traditional sizzling bowl.  Rice gets all crispy in the bottom.  You crack a raw egg on it and watch it get cooked.  And that’s the part I forgot about the leftover.  Half way through I looked down at a piece of yolk.  Oops.
• Vietnamese green onion pancake.  Nhien bought a pack from 99 Ranch and she heated me one up for my veggie day lunch.  Isn’t she a sweetheart!
• Half an Asian pear.

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Dinner:

• Grilled cheese: sourdough with brie and aged cheddar and a generous sprinkle of bacon salt.
• Chamomile tea and buckwheat honey.

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Satisfaction level: So-so.  Being so stressed out, at some point I just want a big juicy burger to take my frustration out on.  But I calmed down and the meat craving went away.  I did want something meatier and not so starchy for dinner since I had a carb heavy lunch, but I didn’t really have much else in the fridge and I was too lazy to fix up lentils.

Thoughts: Again, now in week 14, going veggie has become a lot easier.  Stress still brought on the craving of certain things.  But once calmed and collected the next day, I didn’t feel the craving as much.

Now that I seem to have mastered the Meatless Tuesday…well, except for the accidental egg incident…I’m thinking maybe I could go a little bigger.

Maybe I can take on, in addition to Meatless Tuesday, a Beef-less August.  No beef or bison or venison.  Follow my mom’s footsteps on not eating beef (aka harming large animals) for the month of her passing.

What do you think?  Should I?  Could I?

Oh my friends, I was down and out on Tuesday. I think I might have had a sinus infection or something but I was wiped out.  I slept for 12 hours (well, woke up at 5:30 a.m. to realize that I really didn’t have any energy to move), and slept some more during the day, AND then another 8 hours Tuesday night.  Came Wednesday morning, I was still pretty wiped out.  Oy!

So, I didn’t have breakfast on Tuesday…

Lunch

• Homemade “cream” of mushroom soup. Essentially I just throw all of my veggies in a pot: cremini mushrooms, onion, garlic, thyme. I didn’t bother to blend the soup. Just added  cream and call it a lunch. LOL.
• Melted brie on a slice of sourdough bread

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Dinner

• I was determined to make this Thai pesto for my March challenge.  Again, throw everything in a blender and made a small batch of pasta to toss in it.
• Stole some of Brandon’s waffle fries from Chic-Fil-A.

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Satisfaction level: blah. I didn’t crave any meat but the blah-ness probably is from being sick.

Thoughts: I know that I said I was exhausted but yet I managed to cook TWO homemade meals?  Yeah, I know. Weird, right?  Well, there was nothing else in the house I could eat that would be vegetarian and nutritious.  I mean, I could’ve had Top Ramen or a can of soup but I did have all of these ingredients I was going to cook with if I wasn’t sick anyway.  I thought I might as well while I had the energy spurts.  After all, making soup means I can sit down and rest in between, and making pesto was just a whirr away.

Breakfast:

• Starbucks treat: the usual.
• Small pink lady apple.
• FREE Starbucks pastry day! So I got a chocolate croissant.

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Lunch:

• Toaster oven panini: 2 slices of buttered sour dough, Irish cheddar, Brie, sliced tomatoes and basil, wrapped in foil and baked until cheese melted then broiled for the crunch.
• Girls Scouts’ Thin Mint cookies

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Dinner:

• Wendy’s plain baked potatoes topped with cremini mushrooms sauteed in butter, a little Limoncello, and chives.
• Fresh & Easy Swiss truffle.
• A handful of strawberries.
• Fage yogurt with peach.

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Satisfaction level: Low. I don’t know why!  I mean, I’ve eaten a lot worse during the day before and yet I didn’t feel such cravings.  I didn’t particularly crave meat but I JUST WANT TO EAT!  I mean, dinner was a lot of food. I had a lot of mushrooms leftover which I sauteed up.  But after an hour, I had to raid the fridge for the yogurt.  Even after that I still felt like I should eat some more.

The funny thing is, though, the next day, I was still feeling the hunger but the thought of red meat totally turned me off.  Usually, I’d run screaming for a burger on Wednesday, but not this time.

Then again, tonight I just chowed down some pastrami sandwich. LOL.

Thoughts: Thai people have a word, “hoay”.  Craving is close enough a translation word but it’s not exactly and famished is not it either.  A feeling of dissatisfaction that leaves you kind of longing or hungry for more even though you’re not physically hungry.  That was how I felt on Tuesday when I went looking for the yogurt.  It’s like a munchy that your brain tells you to eat but you’re physically unable to.  Strange, strange feeling.

Then I realized, I think I wanted a beer.  But I wasn’t supposed to drink on Tuesdays.  So…that might be it.

Oh god. Am I *THAT* dependent on a wind-down bottle?  I hope not…

10 weeks. 1 accidental egg. I think I’m doing pretty good!

Breakfast:

• A tall decaf Americano with half-and-half, Sugar in the Raw, and Caramel Sauce…not syrup.  And YES, I like my coffee like my men: tall, decaf Americano, white and sweet topped with caramel sauce.   I was too stressed out to eat anything else that morning.  However, lunch came at me fast.

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Lunch:

• The Vegan Spicy Soyrizo & Black Bean Wrap from Mendocino Farms in my building.  The place gets PACKED very quickly so by 11:45 I was already ordering.

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Dinner:

• Homemade French Onion soup from scratch topped with a slice of toasted French bread and heaps of Gruyere.
• Ghirardelli 62% dark chocolate and a Cutie orange.

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Satisfaction level: Awesome.

Thoughts: I did VERY well resisting a fondue cheese sandwich at Mendocino Farms for lunch, knowing that I was doing French Onion soup for dinner.  Soyrizo was a total surprise. It WAS really, really good!  This place managed to change my mind on 2 vegetarian/vegan items already.  First is the Veganaise.  I’m hooked on that sucker.  I was never one to like traditional American mayonnaise to begin with, having grown up on mostly the sweeter Japanese one.  Veganaise, however, is still very good without that greasy, oily after taste. And now the Soyrizo.  Don’t get me wrong. As one heck of a pork advocate, I’m never giving up the real chorizo.  But dang, that was super good.

Mendocino Farms is great for Meatless Tuesdays because they have a lot of vegetarian and vegan option that are super tasty.  If anyone is thinking of crossing over, I’d try their foods first.  All of their veggie sandwiches I had there never left me hungry.  If I could eat/cook like that everyday, I would consider becoming a lacto-ovo-bacon-vegetarian.  Heh.

I fell off the wagon.

Just a little bit.

Having been up very late on Monday night, I rolled out of bed on Tuesday and made myself an egg on toast.

*sigh*

Breakfast:

• A slice of buttered 7-grain toast topped with one sunny side up egg cooked in a pat of butter along with slices of vine ripen tomato.
• A mug of English breakfast tea

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Lunch:

• A small Caesar salad with no croutons. Hey, I’m already off the wagon on the egg today, I might as well!
• A few spoonful of butternut squash bisque which was absolutely disgusting
• A big chocolate chips cookies

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Dinner:

• A square of veggie Perry’s pizza…with generous sprinkle of Bacon Salt. – YES it *is* vegetarian!

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Satisfaction level: Very satisfied but incredibly guilty.  Grrrr…

Thoughts: I was doing SO WELL!  Then again, lack of sleep contributed greatly to the lapse there.  Otherwise, the rest of the day I did pretty well.

Holy CRAP! It’s all ready been a week?!

My god. Am I a bad blogger!

But I promise to have something much more entertaining than my weekly food journal in a day or two.

For now, on to Meatless Tuesday.

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Breakfast:

• Open faced “grilled cheese” sandwich: one slice of 7-grain bread, buttered, topped with slices of one whole vine-ripen tomato, sprinkled with Nature’s Seasons seasoning blend, and a few slices of snack-sized cheddar cheese, toasted in the toaster oven until the cheese is melted.
• A mug of full-leaf oolong tea.
• Mid-morning snack: 2 whole grain crackers (they’re like 2.5 inch across!) from Fresh & Easy with generous schmear of whipped cream cheese, my mid-morning snack of choice these days.

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Lunch:

• A bowl of vegetable chili based on the recipe in Food & Wine magazine (which I will blog about later).  In that: heirloom carrots, daikon, red bell peppers, kidney beans, hominy, onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and generous shakes of Chipotle Tobasco.  And a piece of 7-grain toast.
• Late dessert/afternoon snack: a Godiva dark chocolate truffle.

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Dinner:

• Because it was a buy one get another one for $2, I got 2 rustica pizzas from Z Pizza: Moroccan (egg plants, pine nuts, feta, basil pesto, caramelized onion) and Mediterranean (artichoke hearts, feta, roasted red peppers, greek olives, pili pili oil).  I ate a few squares out of each.
• A glass of organic peach oolong iced tea.

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Satisfaction level: Meat? What meat?  Nope.  Didn’t miss it one bit.  And I was full all day.

Thoughts: It’s getting easier and easier each week, I have to tell you.  I even didn’t miss the meat too much today.  But I did have an egg for breakfast.  I did crave some proteins for dinner but I didn’t go for my usual burger or ribs, but salmon.  A little weird, I know.  I’m sure I’m going to want me a juicy burger in a few days.

I’m also more conscious now of what I’d eat on a Meatless Tuesday and Brandon has been helpful in keeping me in check on that too.  He’d try to help me think of places I could get something meatless to eat at.

Now, I’ve been thinking about it today that since I’m doing this a Buddhist reason, perhaps I should also not do alcohol on Tuesdays as well to make the whole religious day out of it.  After all, abstaining from alcohol is one of the Five Precepts a good Buddhist should follow.

By not eating meat/eggs on Tuesday, and having not kill anybody, abstaining from taking life is checked off the list.  Abstaining from alcohol? One day a week, I can do that.  Abstaining from sexual misconduct is everyday…although I wonder if lusting after  Taylor Lautner and/or Sam Worthington or dreaming about Jason Mraz counts.  Abstaining from taking what is not given, no klepto here so check.  And finally, abstaining from false speech aka lying. Well, that might be a little hard to swing in a corporate world, but we’ll do our best, won’t we?

Alright. It’s decided. Tuesdays will be meatless AND dry.

Oh boy.

Breakfast

• Half of a giant blueberry peach scone I got from the farmer’s market over the weekend. I ate the other half on Monday.
• A mug of lemongrass-pandan tea.

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Lunch

• An avocado tomato sandwich: 2 slices of 7 grain bread lightly toasted, mayo (yeah..I didn’t think about the egg content…), seasoning salt, a few shakes of Tapatio, strawberry tomatoes, and half of an avocado.
• The other half of the avocado with seasoning salt.
• Split a giant Asian pear with coworkers.

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Snack

• Beard Papa’s Cream Puff, courtesy of best boss/friend in the world.

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Late Dinner

• Room service at the Marriott Downtown LA: Chicken rigatoni, hold the chicken, with extra mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, and ricotta insalata.
• A chocolate chip cookie.

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Satisfaction level: Very high.  I have to say I didn’t really miss meat at all.  But then again, I was preparing for a work event we were putting on Wednesday morning, so a) I wasn’t really that hungry, and b) I didn’t really care if I was hungry–I didn’t have time to.

Thoughts: I was really surprised that I didn’t miss the meat.  I mean, not even when I got to the hotel absolutely starved.  I didn’t even think to break the deal and get a burger.  As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to having some vegetarian pasta for dinner all day.

I think this whole eating meatless is growing on me.  Being conscious of what I eat does change a lot of things.  I’m sure I annoy people to no end with my new found path.  But hey, I still succumb to factory-grown bacon and I still cook the commercially-farmed chicken because I can’t find any ethical one close by.  A little bit is better than nothing at all.

Asian pears (thank GOD they are still in season because winter fruits are sooo boring!) from farmer’s market over Trader Joe’s blueberries from Chile.  But…well…what the hell, I had a couple of the blueberries anyway.  (Nhien brought it.)

Breakfast

• Ritz crackers with cream cheese
• A mug of Ecchaenacea Defense tea with honey

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Lunch

• A few bites of brown rice and garlic tofu with vegetables from Pick Up Stix before the fire alarm went off in the building.  I came back and just ate the tofu about half an hour later.  Mother fuckers on the 33rd floor really need to get fined for all their burnt popcorn, I swear to god.
• One of my home made dark chocolate covered–are you ready?–Not Quite Nigella’s recipe of salted maple honey bacon caramel.  A failed experiment, the caramel did not set but I found another delivery vessel that works perfectly.  Hehee.

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Dinner

• Garlic mashed potatoes with cheese and green onion, mac and cheese, sauteed vegetables and a little bit of a salad.  All the sides I ordered for our barbecue family pack from Maderas Steak & Ribs.  Everyone else was having baby back ribs and chicken.
• Lots. Of. Wine. 3 kinds to be exact.  Amount consumed among 3 ladies and one taster comes down to one full bottle and half each of the other two.  It was a Fresh & Easy twitter tasting party.

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Satisfaction level: Pretty high.  Breakfast and lunch were both interrupted so I got hungry here and there.  And PISSED off.  But oddly enough, I didn’t crave meat like I did last week.  However, dinner was very, VERY satisfying.

Thoughts: This week seems effortless.  And less junky.  LOL.  And I’m very happy about that.

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MORE on the fantastic all-girls wine tasting night here which was an awesome cap to each of our Day from Hell episodes.