New Feature: Seen Getting Lean!

I've been eating all "Roy G. Biv" as I call it, since March (red, orange, yellow, and especially green, you name it!), and I have a ton more energy. Now, what to do with all that extra get up and go?

Diet's just one part of the equation. To be the whole package - healthy, fit, and happy - we need to exercise. Cardio and strength training. I'll come up with an acronym for this later, because I do love a good acronym, but now, I want to introduce a new feature to Seen Eating Green. Ready?

Seen Getting Lean. My husband is an NSCA certified personal trainer, a former Marine, and trains in Muay Thai. He loves fitness. You got a fitness question? Pick his brain!

Our first question comes from our friend Jen Hearn.

Jen asks: What common mistakes do people make when starting an exercise program?

Tom says: While there are a multitude of mistakes people make when starting out, the most common are:

1. Not including resistance/strength training into a program
2. Choosing the improper amount of weight to perform an exercise
3. Doing cardio at too low an intensity

This week, I will deal with number one and talk about just a couple of the many benefits of strength training.

At least 80% of my clients have weight loss as their number one goal, and every last one tells me they want to be toned. One cannot exhibit a lean, toned physique if once the body fat is gone, there is no muscle. Muscle is thermogenic. It needs fuel to operate. Think of muscle like the furnace in your home. Turn it way up and keep feeding it fuel, and it cranks through it. (Think about those Winter gas bills!) If you limit the calories you take in, your furnace (muscle) goes to your reserve fuel source (accumulated body fat). Quite simply, muscle can help to burn fat.

So now we know: Muscle burns fat. We need muscle for a lean, toned body. These are just two reasons why you want to include strength training in your workout.  Next week, we attack Part Two.

Keep those questions coming, and stay strong!

Leave your questions as a comment here, or email them to me at cschulien3322@gmail.com. Tom will do his best to come to the rescue.

Hello, Scones!

I don't know why I even bother to put away my baking sheets. I've used them more since I started eating green than I ever did before! Broiled tofu, roasted just-about-any vegetable, baked tempeh, and oh yes oh yes - bakery!

Saturday was a nice, lazy day, so I felt like branching out from my usual weekend hash. Poking around www.theppk.com where I pillage so many recipes from, I found a recipe for Ginger Chocolate scones.

This recipe is easy, and makes spicy, sweet, fluffy scones that I'm pretty sure could get invited to the next royal wedding. These are very forgiving, very easy, perfect when you don't really want to work too hard. Don't over think it, just let it all work itself out!









The original recipe is here, and here's my final recipe:

3 cups flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger (I used 1 TB fresh grated)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch allspice
1/3 cup agave
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I'm trying applesauce next time, save some fat)
1 cup non-dairy milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
About 5 ounces non-dairy chocolate chips
About 1 cup chopped up walnuts


Preheat your oven to 400F. Lightly grease a baking sheet or (like I did) use parchment paper.

Put all the dry ingredients in a big mixing bowl. Swoosh them around a little with a fork just to introduce them all to each other.

Add your wet ingredients; mix it all up with a fork. Don’t over do it, these are nice, laid back treats.

Finally, easily fold in the chocolate chunks and walnuts.

Grease up a quarter up measuring cup, or a huge spoon, or you could even use your hands. Drop scoops of dough onto your baking sheet. Don’t make them fancy. Don’t worry if they seem crowded.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Using my knife tonight!

I love using knives. I do. Knives, forks, spoons. It's the cutlery set I grew up with. Remembering that the sharp side of the knife should face the plate was a badge of honor in my table setting skills. Anyone remember the superstition that if you drop a knife, it meant a man was coming to visit? (A dropped fork meant a woman, by the way. I don't remember what a spoon foretold.)

Even though I don't use them to cut steak anymore, sometimes, I need to pick up a knife-originally-meant-for-steak, and cut into something with a little chutzpah. Tonight, I said, "Urge to use a knife? Meet Chickpea Cutlets!". To make dinner even more comforting, I added Sage Gravy (fat free, bonus!), sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and onions, and steamed green beans.

Easy stuff out of the way first - Green beans. Cut the ends off. Steam 'em. Mushroom, garlic, and onions? Cut any bits off that you don't want to eat, like stems and ends. Saute in whatever oil you like. I'm lucky to have a well-seasoned cast iron pan, so a smidge of oil goes a long way.

The cutlets. The main event. The reason I needed a knife. I used the recipe from Veganomicon, but doubled it. The recipe makes four. Four is ok. Eight is better. I made these cutlets once before and they were good, but I flattened them out too much. This time, I left them a little plumper. Me, I want to be not so plump. My cutlets? Plump is good!

I added a few different spices to some to see how it tasted. A couple have fresh cilantro and red pepper, a couple have dried oregano and red pepper. I also used a bit less oil than the recipe calls for and everything was fine. Here are the balls of "dough" first:

Flattened them out, like I said, not too much:

Then I baked them for 20 minutes on one side, and about 15 minutes on the other, at 375 degrees. Here are the finished cutlets:

Gravy, baby! I followed the recipe straight from the Happy Herbivore. Here's a link!

Put it all together, and could barely keep my mitts off it! BUT, I needed a decent pic or two, and I really didn't want to bother figuring out how to hide the fact that I bit off a chunk-a chunka vegan love before I took a picture!

I'm seeing green! Not with envy though, with "Hello, Mother Nature!" goodness!

Ooooo... one more pic!

My crush on breakfast hash

I love hash. I love a whole lot of different stuff all chopped up and playing nice together. I adore the bits and edges that get stuck to the skillet so they get that caramely toasty crunch. And I'm over the moon if I can incorporate catsup into the entire breakfast experience.

There are two recipes that threw my mind into overdrive, thinking about breakfast hash. One is the Shaved Brussel Sprout recipe in Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Slicing Brussel Sprouts super skinny turns them into a whole new vegetable, in a good way. They become sweeter, and crunchier. Also, the Blue Flannel Hash recipe in Veganomincon, by the aforementioned Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Until I read these recipes I thought I said adios to hash when I said adios to meat. But nope, now it's hello to all KINDS of crazy combinations!

Today's breakfast was a hash a mixed up hooray of Brussel Sprouts, Asparagus, Onions, Mushrooms, Green and Red Peppers, spuds, and oh of course Garlic! Lots of dill, and a little sea salt... set us up for a great day! There's no formal recipe, sorry. Oh, I can tell you the the potatoes were already baked, so I cut them into big chunks and browned them on a cast iron skillet. I started the vegetables like almost every other savory dish I make - I sauteed garlic (4 cloves) and onion (about half a cup) in a bit of oil in my wok first. Then I put everything in the wok at the same time except for the spuds. Varied cooking times? To the wind! Cook it all up and eat it!

We're going to get a grill today, I'm woozy just thinking of what we can throw on it! Watermelon? Oranges?

The What-what, and some back story

This blog is an ongoing, unscripted story about what a raucous, exhilarating, breathtaking good time cooking and eating more of the bazillions of plants that are all around us is. It's not a strictly vegan blog, weight loss blog, a how-to manual, or a lecture. I'm not a doctor, nutritionist, or professional anything when it comes to food. All I know is that discovering new fruits, vegetables, grains, gadgets... all of it, is a blast. And I would love to find out that you think so, too, because there's no way I'm the only one who goes gaga when I finally figure out what to do with that weird fruit that I always see at the market but was too afraid to try!

How did I get here? It's not an especially unique story.  Years of eating heavy, processed, food (and way too much of it), drinking whatever I wanted, and getting about zilcho exercise. Interrupted, of course, by brief bouts of attempts to get healthy that didn't last long - South Beach, pre-packaged meals, hyper-diligent portion control, fiber pills...  How'd that all work out? A figure closer to my sturdy stock dad's than my hourglass, petite mom's, a cholesterol level that was about to give a pill pusher cardiologist job security, and a sad sack energy level, that's how.

Then something clicked. What I eat really does matter. I know. Really? I've known about GIGO for forever! Why didn't I get that it applies to me? 

Now I'm taking that fun-to-say GIGO acronym and swapping out the "G". It doesn't stand for garbage anymore. Good stuff In, Good stuff Out. For even more mixed up metaphor fun, we can even make it, Green In, Guilt Out... Maybe later we can play a little game of all the permutations of GIGO we can put together!

So, now that I have all this crazy new extra energy thanks to Mama Nature, I'm using some of it to get this story started! Seen Eating Green, let's do it!