Vegan "Egg Salad" Canapé

Ingredients

1tsp turmeric
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon fine chopped chives 
1 tablespoons Dijon or yellow mustard
1 container fresh extra firm tofu (drained on a terry kitchen towel for at least 2 hours... best wrapped up in towels overnight in the refrigerator)
1/2 cup Vegenaise (add more if you like it lighter and creamier)
1/2 cup celery diced fine
4 scallions chopped fine
1/2 cup red onion diced fine

Salt to taste

Mix the mayo, Mustard, spices and fine chopped veggies together. This is the "yolk" mixture.

Open the package of firm tofu and drain.

Rinse the block or blocks of tofu under water and place on a clean terry kitchen towel or paper towels. You can leave the wrapped tofu out on your kitchen counter or in the refrigerator.

Check the toweling and if it's full of water, turn it over to saturate the other side of the toweling.

The main concern in doing this step is to remove as much liquid out of the tofu as possible before starting the recipe creation. Excess liquid will make the egg salad mixture too watery.

HINT: It's even better to do this step the night before so that all the excess liquid will drain into the toweling overnight... put it in the refrigerator if you do this this step the night before.

If you don't take the time to drain the tofu completely, the salad will become watery.

Mocking Boiled Eggs
In the bowl, crumble the drained tofu with your fingers. It will look like boiled egg whites in a real egg salad.

Take your time to make sure that the mixture is crumpled evenly.

If you want it to really look authentic, make sure all the straight edges are crumbled.

Add the Vegenaise, onion, celery and scallions...

Stir until all becomes a beautiful yolk yellow color.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Faux Gras + Blue Cheese & Chives (a.k.a. Savory Seared Pears)

Faux Gras + Blue Cheese & Chives (a.k.a. Savory Seared Pears)

 I will tell you that this  really is delicious. It's a perfect appetizer served with crostini; it's also great on top of some lightly dressed arugula.


Faux Gras + Blue Cheese & Chives


2 ripe pears
champagne vinegar
applewood smoked salt
black pepper
1 tablespoon of butter
Humboldt Fog cheese (or any other light-tasting bleu cheese)
chives


Slice pears into thirds from top to bottom leaving two good slices with the skin on and a core slice for each pear. Using a sharp knife, score the pear in a diamond shape. (You want you knife to pierce the flesh, but not to pierce the pear skin.) 


Lightly sprinkle each scored pear half with champagne vinegar -- just a few drops will do. Next, add a pinch of smoked salt and a turn of black pepper to the cut-side of each pear. Heat a medium-sized pan over medium-high heat. Once the pan is heated through, add the butter. Once the butter has melted, place pears in the pan cut-side-down, and allow them to cook for three to four minutes. (You want the pears to caramelize nicely.) Once you have achieved some good color on the cut-side, flip pears over and heat them through on the other side. Remove pears from pan. 


To serve, place pears on a plate and garnish each pear half with about 1/4 ounce of crumbled bleu cheese and chopped chives. Serve with crostini or soft french bread.

108 pounds lost

332 pounds!!!!!

5 Days Until My Gastric Sleeve

Wow where to start with this posting. So much is going on. 5 days until my surgery. I am on a liquid diet. We are on vacation. My son leaves for college in a month. What doe all this equal? STRESS!!!!! The old me when stressed reached out for one thing. No not BOOZE!!! Geez people!! Its FOOD!!!! In the past stress brought on massive amounts of food.
Having this surgery is really starting to worry me. I mean they are going to remove 75% of my freaking stomach right?  My rational mind tells me everything will be fine. But my irrational side is full of images not so fine.
This liquid protein diet is kicking my ass!!! No other way to put it. Funny thing is for the past 5 weeks I have been on a 5 protein drink/ 1 lean green meal a day. So no biggie to get rid of meal and add another protein shake right??? Hell no!!!! 6 70 to 90 calorie shakes a day. Just barely over 500 calories a day. less than 20 carbs. I am hungry all the time. My stomach hurts. I am sure if I was at work it wold not be as bad. A work I am so busy that there is no time to think about food. But on vacation.... Food is everywhere. Family is eating all sorts of great stuff. Sitting in restaurants watching them eat is the pits!!!

500 calories has stopped my workouts... My cardio was my eating replacement to combat stress.

But through it all I have stayed on plan. I am not going to give up the boat yet. 5 more days of this crap.

Ya I will survive!!!!

"Cincinnati" style Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Well I am less than 2 weeks from surgery. Today I got all of my pre admission testing done. Nutrition class is now complete.

Tonight I wanted to whip up a good and fast meal. I love lettuce wraps. Asian style, mexican style it does not matter. Tonight I made them "Cincinnati" style. The main spices are from a seasoning packet of Cincinnati style chili. Gold Star brand to be exact!!!

"Cincinnati" Style Chicken Lettuce Wraps

6 ounces skinless chicken breast. Chopped super fine
1/2 cup mushrooms. Chopped
3/4 cup shredded cole slaw mix
1.5 tablespoon Cincinnati chili spice mix
1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
chicken broth
1teaspoon olive oil
5 or 6 lettuce leaves

Heat olive oil in skillet. Add fine chopped chicken breast. Brown until cooked. Add cabbage and mushrooms. Sautee a few minutes. Add chicken broth as needed to keep moist. Add spices and mix well. Add more chicken stock as needed. Cook 2 or 3 minutes. Add tomato paste. Work it into the mixture adding chicken stock as needed. Let cook 3 or 4 minutes.  I added a few dashes of Tabasco sauce just like I do when I used to eat at Goldstar... Serve with lettuce leaves.

For those not on my crazy diet serve with Low fat sour cream, low fat cheese

16 Days Until My Gastric Sleeve Surgery

16 days and counting until my surgery date. So how is the 5/1 diet going for me? This week its slow, slow, slow.  Lots of hunger today. Not so bad I would ever cheat but pretty strong. I am still doing cardio 6 days a week. Today I did 3 miles plus in 30 minutes on the cross trainer. I love my workouts. I love that my workouts take me to the very edge of exhaustion.

So how am I feeling about the surgery??? Getting very nervous!!! Not bad enough to cancel but its starting to hit home that its coming real fast!!! I am sure its normal to be so geeked out about it. Lots of people see the changes in my weight and I get asked at least 10 times a day why I would still think about doing it when I am doing so great. Well the answer is I could not do this diet I am on for a super long time. While the liquid protein taste great its still just liquid protein 5 times a day.

Starting Friday I loose my 1 lean and green meal and am on nothing but liquid until surgery. This is so the fat around my liver and stomach can shrink even further to make the surgery easier to perform. That plus its proven that even a 15lb loss can low risk of complications after the surgery.

So I hang in there 2 more weeks...