Two articles & Two recipes

I felt better yesterday although nothing changed. The weather was still depressing (crowded and rainy) but part of me wanted to feel better so I felt better 🙂

I read two interesting posts yesterday, both great although I am not agree with one of them.

The great moderation hoax: Basically the author is against of practicing moderation in life, in food, in anything because he thinks that you can only do that when you don’t care much about the thing. If you hate it, you won’t do it anyway, if you love it, you’ll want to do it all the time. I disagree! My understanding of moderation excludes the first two cases. Mediocre is not moderation. And I don’t like something, I’ll never do it. But for things that I do like a lot and I know it’s not good to do it too much: like coffee, kabocha, running. I love them and I’d do them ALL the TIME. But you know, too much of anything is not good. So I try to do it in moderation so I can continue to enjoy them for the rest of my life. It feels better this way, both for mind and body.

Gluten free for health and weight loss?: Gina’s post is enlightening. There is so many myths nowadays about the perfect diet, perfect food. She just demystified one of them: GF diet is not necessarily healthier and the only reason that it leads to weight loss because it is restrictive!

Into Petit Macro Day 3

Breakfast: apple, steamed kale and roasted pumpkin seeds

I found a new snack option: edamame!!!

as you can see. Coffee, which is not allowed in Macro Diet, is still in my diet 😉

Lunch: leftover hato mugi vegetable stew with meatballs (the original menu called for seitan, but I opted for meat ;))

Thesis writing is going slowly, but going. Snacking in between: oatmeal and chocolate 😉

I really like the menu because lunch is usually a quickie but dinner is more elaborated, pretty much like a feast! 🙂

Recipe #1: Vegetable soup. Perhaps it sounds and looks bland, that is also what I thought. But I can guarantee you that it’s delicious. Some food chemistry is working there. 😉

Vegetable soup adapted from Mayumi’s Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 2 stamp size pieces kombu
• 2 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 cup onion
• 1/4 cup carrot rounds
• 1/2 cup turnip cut into thick wedges
• 1/4 cup green peas
• S+P
• 2 cups of kale
• 1/2 tbsp shoyu (or soy sauce)

Method:

1. Soak the kombu and shiitake in water for 30 min.
2. Heat the oil, sautee onion, carrot, turnip and peas for 2-3 min each in that order.
3. Add the kombu, shiitak and the soaking water. Cook for 30 min over medium heat.
4. Add kale, shoyo and S+P.

Recipe #2: Pan-friend chickpea-millet  cakes with tofu tartar sauce from Mayumi’s Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 3 oz. chickpeas, soaked for 12 hours
• 2 stamp-size kombu
• 1/2 cup millet, washed and drained
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1 tbsp brown rice flour
• 1.5 tbsp olive oil
• S+P and dry basil

Method:

1. Cook chickpea with 1 stamp of kombu. I made it in the rice cooker and it came out perfect!
2. Cook millet with 1 1/4 cup of water together with 1 stamp of kombu and onions. About 15 min once boiled.
3. Blend chickpea, millet, flour, S+P and basil and for 6-7 cakes.
4. Heat the oil and fry the patties in both sides until golden brown.

Tofu tartar sauce: add water to the tofu mayonnaise to sauce consistency.

It’s really tasty and filling! 😀

I’m liking macro food more and more. 😆 I thought it was going to be a lot of work, but actually all the food preparation is simple. It just requires some planning: like soaking.

Q: Do you practice moderation? What’s your thought about that?