Crazy Apple Lady

I am WFPB and GF. This combo made me determined to find a bread substitute. You see I love my oil free blender hummus, baby kale and English cucumber sandwiches. I stumbled upon this recipe from “The Savy Vegan”:

http://www.themicrovorediet.ca/single-post/2016/05/07/2-Ingredient-Quinoa-Bread-Microvore-Recipes

It is meant to be a pizza crust but I make small sandwich sized crusts and it’s great!

Carrot Cake Energy Balls. Family and I gobbled them down in moments. Recipe:

https://cookingwithplants.com/recipe/carrot-cake-energy-balls/

Life gets in the way and you stop doing “stuff”! Like not posting for almost 4 months!

I whipped up this pizza the other day. I started sauteeing my vegetables (in vegetable broth) before adding to my pizzas. The vegetables are softer and don’t burn, plus the flavor from the broth enhances the taste of the pizza. This one has black beans, mushrooms, red peppers, broccoli, zuchinni, carrots, spinach and cashew cheese. Got the crust recipe on line (hope I can find it again) and sprinkled some sesame seeds and flax seeds on it. The cashew cheese recipe is from “The Medical Medium”

It was amazing

I’ve started to build quite a collection of whole foods plant based recipes. Today I am making cream of broccoli soup. I am constantly experimenting and scouring the internet for WFPB ways to prepare all of my favorite comfort food. Hope to use this venue to catalog them and share with my uh, 2 or 3 followers!

Wow

I fell into a hole, and am crawling back out.

Little by little I started to add oils back into my diet, sugars, and ice cream cones. Oh yeah, that piece of cake will be okay. I mean I look great, right?

So guess what, I stopped writing, dark circles under my eyes returned, my nose is stuffed up, I have an irritating cough, and I’m breaking out. Nope, I’m not surprised. So I purchased some whole foods plant based audio books for car rides, spent the day prepping my meals for the week, and took a long hard look at myself…naked…in my mirror. Okay, stop it Mindy-lets get back up on that horse.

I want to write so I can look back and remind myself how far I’ve come, and where I’ve tripped up along the way. Going to shoot for a few times a week.

Approaching Tuesday in the beautiful Green Mountain State. I ate chocolate soft serve ice cream and have a bad headache and cannot sleep. Sunday, I had to many corn tortilla chips and slept for 3 hours Sunday night. So, I was thinking (after the motrin kicked in and 32oz of water):

About a year and a half back I had what Dr.’s call a “severe psychotic break”. In the old days it was called a “nervous breakdown”. I was also told by the same Dr.’s I had Bipolar 1, and PTSD. I went for nights on end not sleeping more that 3 hours, I was prescribed 5 different antidepressants ‘till one “worked”. The last two prescriptions I was given eventually gave me severe rhinitis. It was like cement was poured into my sinus cavities and I could not close my mouth because I could not breathe. Then I was given one (my final prescription) that caused severe agitation and restlessness. It was horrible. I would cry because of it. When I told my psychiatrist she gave me another prescription to battle the severe agitation and restlessness. (I was taking another pill to make a pill work???) I began to think, “Mindy, this in not right!” So, I went from 180 lbs to 220 lbs. I did not want to go out in public, began binge eating and drinking laxative tea at night. As much as 6 bags a night. I seriously did not care. Oh, God Almighty, the Headaches!!!

So one day I started to walk, and another day I watched “Forks Over Knives”. My story continues and I watched “Plant Pure Nation”, “Engine 2”, “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”, and “Hungry for Change”. I began reading books by Dr. T Colin Campbell, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, and Dr. Greger. I started cooking again. Everything I could find from Jane, Rip and Ann Esselstyn. No meat, no dairy, no eggs. Lots of leafy green veggies, eating the rainbow everyday, rice, whole grains, exercise. Then wait a minute I’m in a size 12 again! The hairdresser actually had to thin my hair! (She normally asks if I need more volumizing products), my skin is clear and soft, I can breathe, I just kayaked 60 minutes against current in the Connecticut River! Oh yeah and I am starting to jog, not for like a mile or anything but my walks have occasional jogs (like phone pole to phone pole). Best of all, I’m off all medications and my cholesterol gets a gold star from my doctor and I’m HAPPY. I am happy, inside and out.

Just a long story to try to illustrate that the food I was eating was killing my mind, body and spirit. The chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, corn chips and insomnia must be my guardian angel telling me I needed a kick in the butt reminder. To be grateful for my past and what it has given me today-a delicious gift of happiness. (Seriously better than ice cream)

So, now I’m going to listen to my dog and husband snore now.

So I’m back, and I've changed my name

I am still enjoying my WFPB ways and loving experimenting with herbs, spices and great new recipes from my “China Study Cook Book”. Totally loving experimenting with my own salad dressings too. It is pretty cool not buying store dressings, mine are so much better! I get happy about this kind of stuff because I seriously NEVER imagined I would be cooking like this, let alone making salad dressings!

Couldn’t hack trying full time raw. I do raw for at least a meal a day though. I was eating like a half a watermelon at a time…I was just to hungry and was not making a lot of good choices

Totally cleaned up my taste buds and my sense of smell. Here is another smell story.. Peaches!! It has been at least 10 years since my sense of smell was normal. I mean I couldn’t smell a damn thing. It sucked, and messed up my taste buds too. Well, the other day I could smell peaches at our local produce store. This was a seriously big deal. I was carrying a peach around the store smelling it. (The store is used to my eccentric behavior - they call me, with love, “Crazy Apple Lady”)

Have to get moving more. My hiking has slowed down and I miss it. I started a new job and I am not doing so well at scheduling it in. Progress not perfection - but it’s important to get my vitamin D.

My new job is the bomb dot com. Working for a WFPB food company. We are launching mid - August. I am a total lucky duck!

The struggle is real. Fell off the wagon on my “raw quest” over the weekend, but jumped right back Monday. I got real cranky a few times. Since I’ve been married for 28 years and together for 30 my husband has seen worse. His name is Andy.

I found some products in a co-op we go to called “Go Raw” and “Flaxers”. The “Go Raw” product was little sesame and ginger cookies which were delicious. They have other flavors too I will totally be trying. The “Flaxers” are raw flax seed crackers. All flax seed. So when the hit your mouth they are crunchy but get the flax egg, for lack of better words gooey - ness to them. Kind of gross. So after spending $5.99 for the box I brought them home and put avacado and homemade salsa on them. Delicious of course.

My health continues to improve. I am happy, energetic, dropping pounds (size 12 from a size 18!), and noticing some remarkable mental clarity. Can we talk about taste and smell?!? I have not been able to smell in years - I mean anything…no one could figure out why. I was making my husband (WFPB Andy!) dinner and I could smell his twice baked potato cooking. It was remarkable! My taste buds are born again too. Flavors, everything explodes! Needless to say I’m buzzed about it all.

So the journey continues.

I am thrilled! I have landed a job at MamaSezz Foods, Inc! MamaSezz is a meal delivery service and community for busy folks who want to eat clean, healthy foods. We take the hassle out of eating well by delivering ready-made, satisfying, and delicious plant-based meals to your door. Our page is up on Facebook too:

https://m.facebook.com/MamaSezz/