Kandie and I started day 6 with a 4.7 mile walk with the dog. A good way to start the day.
Following the walk, I had a craving for cornbread, so I went to Dr. Google to see if I could get a vegan recipe. I stumbled across this recipe for Johny Cakes from Post Punk Kitchen: http://www.theppk.com/2011/05/fresh-corn-johnnycakes/
My friend Sarah C. had already recommended Post Punk Kitchen to me - so it was ironic that it was Post Punk Kitchen that popped up when I went to do a search for corn bread.
I hadn't intended on Johny Cakes - I've never even made them in non-vegan form - but it looked like a fun and I thought they might taste good. I used vanilla almond milk for the first time in this recipe - it worked out fine.
And they did. They tasted quite good. I would have liked to have put real maple syrup on them, but I didn't want to expend the calories. They were pretty high calorie without the syrup - about 115 calories each. So I just ate three of them (346 cal) with a handful of blueberries (42 cal) for breakfast. With a couple of cups of coffee (7 cal).
Lunch was like Tuesday's dinner - portabella mushrooms in white wine cream sauce.
I fried the portabellas with onions and then deglazed them with some cheap white wine I bought at Trader Joe's.
Now I have to confess a weakness for cheap wine. It's not that I like it. I actually don't. I grew up relatively poor, with parents who grew up in working class homes where money was always an issue. Carelessness with money takes a few generations to develop. The funny thing is, even though I've been firmly middle class for a couple of decades, I still can't resist a "bargain". Trader Joe's "Charles Shaw Blend" wines sell for $2.99 a bottle, and have the nick name, "two buck Chuck". When we went the other night, I couldn't help but pick up a few of them. This sauvignon blanc was cloyingly sweet - which is completely wrong - sauvignon blanc is supposed to be a dry, crisp wine.
Now every market has a place for every level of quality of product. Low quality, low cost products (and services) are just as important in a market as high cost, high quality products (and services). The thing is that a low quality, low cost product is not a bargain if it yields a lower level of utility per unit of cost than a higher quality, higher cost product. Three dollar wine yields four $0.75 glasses, a little cheaper than a decent six pack of beer. I'm pretty convinced it's hard to come by a decent, drinkable bottle of wine for less than $10, which means that the cost per glass is about $2.50, significantly more expensive than premium beer. This is why I'm mostly a beer guy rather than a wine guy. To get the same quality glass of wine as bottle of beer, you have to spend significantly more for the wine. It's really only worthwhile to drink wine when you have friends over and it's worth opening a more expensive bottle. And yet somehow Two Buck Chuck always seems to find its way into my shopping basket.
Portabellas have nice body and a chicken-like consistency. Not a bad substitute for meat.
Lunch worked out to 307 calories, with another 150 for the glass of wino wine I had on the side. The "cream" in the cream sauce was soy milk - I bought sweetened by accident - it worked great. Thickened right up no problem.
After lunch I had a bottle of Black Butte Porter (a really good porter, about 150 cal, and only about $1.25).
We went to see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" in the afternoon, and I ate a huge amount of popcorn (without butter) - about 220 calories.
Dinner was black eyed pea and potato curry (350 cal). This dish was relatively easy to make. It called for two cups of cilantro and some mint leaves. I put in about a half cup of cilantro and about six mint leaves. The two herbs almost completely overwhelmed the other spices, which was disappointing, because I really like curry.
I've ordered a bunch of Indian spices from an on-line Indian grocery supplier that I was unable to find at the local grocery store and World Market. With this dish I had to improvise or skip several of the spices. I think it still came out okay, despite the cilantro and mint, and the lack of onion seeds, but I'd like to keep working on my Indian cooking. I love Indian food, and since they have an extensive vegetarian/vegan culture, it's a natural fit with this experiment. In fact, I just received my copy of The Indian Vegan Kitchen
in the mail today.
I had another glass of the wino wine after dinner (150 cal) while Kandie and I did our in-house date-thing - playing backgammon. Backgammon is a great, mindless game, the outcome of which is largely up to chance. We play nice, rarely bumping each other. I suppose you could be more strategic than we are, and that would make it more interesting, but that would reduce the date quality.
Then we watched another episode of Game of Thrones (where people do not play nice) and I had another bottle of the Black Butte (150 cal).
Day summary:
Calories consumed: 1,878
Calories burned: 682 - 14,387 steps.
Weight: 168.1
Following the walk, I had a craving for cornbread, so I went to Dr. Google to see if I could get a vegan recipe. I stumbled across this recipe for Johny Cakes from Post Punk Kitchen: http://www.theppk.com/2011/05/fresh-corn-johnnycakes/
My friend Sarah C. had already recommended Post Punk Kitchen to me - so it was ironic that it was Post Punk Kitchen that popped up when I went to do a search for corn bread.
I hadn't intended on Johny Cakes - I've never even made them in non-vegan form - but it looked like a fun and I thought they might taste good. I used vanilla almond milk for the first time in this recipe - it worked out fine.
And they did. They tasted quite good. I would have liked to have put real maple syrup on them, but I didn't want to expend the calories. They were pretty high calorie without the syrup - about 115 calories each. So I just ate three of them (346 cal) with a handful of blueberries (42 cal) for breakfast. With a couple of cups of coffee (7 cal).
Lunch was like Tuesday's dinner - portabella mushrooms in white wine cream sauce.
I fried the portabellas with onions and then deglazed them with some cheap white wine I bought at Trader Joe's.
Now I have to confess a weakness for cheap wine. It's not that I like it. I actually don't. I grew up relatively poor, with parents who grew up in working class homes where money was always an issue. Carelessness with money takes a few generations to develop. The funny thing is, even though I've been firmly middle class for a couple of decades, I still can't resist a "bargain". Trader Joe's "Charles Shaw Blend" wines sell for $2.99 a bottle, and have the nick name, "two buck Chuck". When we went the other night, I couldn't help but pick up a few of them. This sauvignon blanc was cloyingly sweet - which is completely wrong - sauvignon blanc is supposed to be a dry, crisp wine.
Now every market has a place for every level of quality of product. Low quality, low cost products (and services) are just as important in a market as high cost, high quality products (and services). The thing is that a low quality, low cost product is not a bargain if it yields a lower level of utility per unit of cost than a higher quality, higher cost product. Three dollar wine yields four $0.75 glasses, a little cheaper than a decent six pack of beer. I'm pretty convinced it's hard to come by a decent, drinkable bottle of wine for less than $10, which means that the cost per glass is about $2.50, significantly more expensive than premium beer. This is why I'm mostly a beer guy rather than a wine guy. To get the same quality glass of wine as bottle of beer, you have to spend significantly more for the wine. It's really only worthwhile to drink wine when you have friends over and it's worth opening a more expensive bottle. And yet somehow Two Buck Chuck always seems to find its way into my shopping basket.
Portabellas have nice body and a chicken-like consistency. Not a bad substitute for meat.
Lunch worked out to 307 calories, with another 150 for the glass of wino wine I had on the side. The "cream" in the cream sauce was soy milk - I bought sweetened by accident - it worked great. Thickened right up no problem.
After lunch I had a bottle of Black Butte Porter (a really good porter, about 150 cal, and only about $1.25).
We went to see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" in the afternoon, and I ate a huge amount of popcorn (without butter) - about 220 calories.
Dinner was black eyed pea and potato curry (350 cal). This dish was relatively easy to make. It called for two cups of cilantro and some mint leaves. I put in about a half cup of cilantro and about six mint leaves. The two herbs almost completely overwhelmed the other spices, which was disappointing, because I really like curry.
I've ordered a bunch of Indian spices from an on-line Indian grocery supplier that I was unable to find at the local grocery store and World Market. With this dish I had to improvise or skip several of the spices. I think it still came out okay, despite the cilantro and mint, and the lack of onion seeds, but I'd like to keep working on my Indian cooking. I love Indian food, and since they have an extensive vegetarian/vegan culture, it's a natural fit with this experiment. In fact, I just received my copy of The Indian Vegan Kitchen
in the mail today.I had another glass of the wino wine after dinner (150 cal) while Kandie and I did our in-house date-thing - playing backgammon. Backgammon is a great, mindless game, the outcome of which is largely up to chance. We play nice, rarely bumping each other. I suppose you could be more strategic than we are, and that would make it more interesting, but that would reduce the date quality.
Then we watched another episode of Game of Thrones (where people do not play nice) and I had another bottle of the Black Butte (150 cal).
Day summary:
Calories consumed: 1,878
Calories burned: 682 - 14,387 steps.
Weight: 168.1
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