Today has to be one of the best days I have had in ages. I feel so clear-headed - no headaches or fatigue whatsoever. I have energy to spare, no afternoon slump, and I have cheekbones again. Steroids kidnapped those last February and they have been pretty much MIA since then. Not anymore.
I started the morning with a juice of strawberries, grapes, cataloupe, honeydew, and pineapple. Delicious. Then I got to work on converting my picky daughter to more healthful, whole, plant-based foods, one dish at a time. Here was what I started with:
Pumpkin-pineapple cookies. These cookies have zero fat, no cholesterol, and no animal products. Ingredients are as follows: pumpkin, banana, pineapple with juice, whole wheat flour, old fashioned oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and walnuts. The recipe called for raisins but my daughter doesn't care for them so we left those out. These cookies taste incredible...yes, I tried a bite. Not made of wood, here! I also loved how there was no grease on my hands during or after baking, and the cookies just slid beautifully off the non-stick cookie sheet without oils or sprays. My daughter scarfed down her cookie with a cup of rice milk and begged me to find more 'healthy recipes.' Score two for mom.
Spaghetti Sauce. Now, my family is picky about sauce. I married an Italian man and spent the first five years of our co-habitation trying to copy his mother's sauce. Once I got the 'base' down, I could experiment with adding things; in the past, that was sweet italian sausage about half the time, with the other being a puttanesca. Today I made a sauce with organic canned whole, crushed, and sauced tomatoes (one each), mushrooms, onion, garlic, and TVP. For the uninitiated, TVP is texturized vegetable protein; it takes the place of ground meats in sauces, sloppy joes, chilis, and the like. It has a taste and mouthfeel like ground turkey, and looks like it too. I have made things with it for years but hadn't got my daughter to eat it, mainly because she doesn't care for sloppy joes or chili very much.
I put a cup of it in with the onions, mushrooms and garlic, sauteeing the lot in a bit of olive oil until the onion was translucent, and then added the sauces and some basil and red wine. My daughter begged to try it, because it smells amazing. Since there is no animal product in the sauce, I told her she could eat it cold if she wanted to, but she opted to let it simmer while we assembled cookies. Half an hour later, she wanted a few tablespoons of sauce in a bowl. After that, she asked if she could have the sauce and pasta for lunch AND dinner. Score three for mom.
About time for a juice!
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