cookbooks!

Seriously–I’ve been pouring through Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Brunch, Veganomicon and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (they will, you know ).

I enjoy their attitude (post-punk) and I enjoy their Jewish-mother accent; I enjoy that they cook the way I used to when I was inspired and I enjoy being inspired to cook again!  I also love that they have tried all these recipes out with testers and that means that I don’t have to come up with everything from scratch. These are the books I would have written if I had the time and the opportunity to just devote myself to vegan cooking

So if you need evidence that vegans are not starving people out grazing in their yard, or if you are a vegan who feels that way too often , check out their books!

Blogger won’t ever let me post comments there so she said to just post the link here and she’d consider me entered

http://afreshlymilledlife.blogspot.com/2009/06/giveaway.html

So go enter

I had originally intended to go 40 days with the HCG but have decided to stop at the 26 day mark for several reasons.  I’ll give a final update when I have it but so far I’ve lost 17 pounds (possibly more because eating meat causes me to have edema and I have quite a bit of water weight that should still fall off) and almost 20 inches!  I’m very glad that I did this!  Nothing else has gotten my weight moving and I feel like my metabolism has gotten the reboot that I was told this would accomplish.  I also am, for the first time I can remember, not struggling with systemic candida symptoms.

As for why I’m stopping:  with my unique allergies I’m not able to eat most of the food available, or the alternatives.  No chicken, eggs, low-fat cottage cheese.  Of the vegetables that I can eat there are only a few that I like enough to eat in the amounts allowed–they must be eaten only one vegetable at a time and I’m just not going to eat 2 cups of fennels or 1 cup of onions (I’ve eaten grilled onions a few times but it’s not something I can do often).  This means I’ve been eating combinations of around 6 things and I’m just burned out.

On the positive–my metabolism has been kick started and despite being assured I wouldn’t be hungry on the HCG, the last several days I have been STARVING!  It’s not just psychological either–but my brain is running back through all of the recipes I used to make!  I got Vegan with a Vengeance and am going to pull out some of my favorite books this weekend.  When I start, on Wednesday (you have to eat the 500 calories for 72 hours after ceasing the HCG supplement), with the first 3 weeks of the  maintenance part of the diet I’m going to go full on vegan (with a vengeance *giggle*) and stick to approved foods.  I’m very hopeful that I will continue to lose weight.  As I can add in additional foods in the following three weeks I will keep it to healthy vegan foods and I’m confident that my body will remember what it did the last time we ate this healthy!

If not, I can always do this again in October

Odd title–I know

But I’m so excited about the 15 pounds I had to lead with that   I wore a skirt last night that I retired a year ago. So glad I didn’t get rid of it.

the cookbook is for the solar oven. It’s called “Solar Cooking: A Primer/Cookbook” and it actually has instructions to make your own solar oven very easy on the cheap. We might make a few extras to play around with and be able to cook more things.  It also has information on how to can and dehydrate foods in the solar cooker.

The recipes are all vegan which of course thrills me–and they sound YUMMY! There wasn’t a one of them I’m not looking forward to trying! Which is great because I’ve been very uninspired in the last couple of years with regards to food. No doubt related to my B6 deficiency because it made me have absolutely no appetite. But I used to be very inspired in the kitchen and I remember making wonderful things. When I come off the HCG I have to eat thousands of calories a day so I have to get inspired fast!  I think this is going to go a long way towards that   And while I’m still on the HCG I’ll be able to make easy foods for the family to try out

still having some detox but I’m feeling so good.  I’ve been enjoying the meals I’m putting together (some of which I’ve shared–most of which are simple ) though I did go ahead and order the 101 recipes (sure that most will involve chicken which I can’t have but maybe I can adapt them with vegetable broth or something).

Just to make a note of it–after the c-section my stomach was suffering from muscle damage and I had the c-section overhang.  My stomach is almost flat now and the overhang is shrinking. This is just amazing to me!

And while most of the weight loss has been steady (though during the first gorge day I gained 2 pounds before I started losing, and I had another day of 2 pound water weight gain) yesterday I had 4.4 pounds weight loss.

so I’m recording this–and rejoicing