Monday, November 23, 2015

Dinner tonight: rice, beans & veggies


Dinner tonight was zucchini & squash over rice with a side of beans. It was really good!

I started with a sweet onion and half of a red, green & yellow pepper & sautéed them in some olive oil. I added some squash & zuccini and covered in foil and let it steam while the rice steamed. Also I warmed a can of refried beans.

I served this wrapped in tortillas for the kids (with some leftover cheese & sour cream) they liked it a lot. I added a little bit of salt & pepper to mine and really liked it.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Vegan Banana Pancakes - first try

Tonight I'm making pancakes for my family. I wanted to try a gluten free vegan alternative for Daniel & myself.

I used 2 small bananas
About 1/4 cup peanut butter
(Mixed these together in a bowl)
About 1 cup oatmeal buzzed up for oat flour
(Added to above)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
Plus enough cashew milk to make it a good consistency for batter. (I think 1/2 cup or a bit more)


Yeah, so these pancakes burned instantly. (I think it was the bananas) and they were crazy hard to flip. My first few broke really easy (because of the oat flour and a lack of eggs). They taste really good though. Definitely going to try again!

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Day Two: What I typically eat in a day

I wanted to do a "before" post to show what we typically eat in a day. I try to eat gluten-free and high protein but I haven't
adopted vegan yet. We haven't don't a vegan grocery shop yet so I'm still in a research mode not quite in in a practice mode. Daniel is already trying to make vegan choices as often as he can.

So here is what I ate today:

Breakfast- Luna Protein Bar
These are high in protein and gluten free but they contain whey protein so they are not vegan. These were one of my staples during my last pregnancy. 


I'm also drinking a cup of Twinings Ear Gray decaffinated tea. I used to enjoy this with sugar & milk but I have taught myself to enjoy it without either (fewer calories) I'm taking a break from coffee right now, trying to see if that affects Grayson's sleep at all. Sometimes my coffee drinking can get out of control and taking a break for a bit helps me get myself under control again and become moderate with my coffee consumption.

My kids usually eat cereal (like Honey Nut Cheerios, radon bran, or captain crunch) & milk or PB&J sandwich, oatmeal or eggs. This morning Eli is having a Nutella sandwich for breakfast (he only ate half) and a glass of vanilla almond milk. Considering he was asking for frosted animal crackers I'm going to call this one a win.

Snack Time - yogurt


Eli is eating a tube of gogurt (yogurt in a squeeze tube) & I'm drinking another cup of tea.

Lunch - Turkey, protein cookie & OJ

For lunch I'm eating a couple turkey roll-ups (turkey, ham & sliced cheese all rolled up) an oatmeal raisin high-protein cookie (non-vegan) and a glass of OJ. I'd rather be eating an apple but we forgot to buy more apples the last time Daniel went grocery shopping so we're all out.

Snack - animal crackers & protein cookies
I ate a cookie and had a glass of milk (regular whole) and Eli had some animal crackers. I meant to eat my Greek yogurt but the cookies won. This particular batch isn't the most amazing but it's full of good stuff. Hopefully my next batch will turn out better.

Dinner -  chili + mac
Chili for dinner, plus some leftover mac & cheese. The pot on the back is vegan chili for Daniel. This chili had diced tomatoes, corn, black beans & a can of prepared chili (which contains meat). I recorded another video today - which was fun. Hopefully this one is better that yesterdays. In this video I just kinda talk about when we told the kids about transitioning our diet and a few thoughts about how this is going.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Day One!!

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This morning Daniel & I had the conversation we have been dancing around the edges of for the last two years or so. We have both had a growing desire for our family's eating habits to more strongly reflect our values. But neither of us were ready to take the plunge.

What are our values? 
For me I value eating foods that are simple & nutritious. I value a plant based diet. Ideally locally grown and sustainably sourced foods. For my husband he has had a growing moral dilemma around the issue of animal exploitation. So while our motivations are different we are both coming to this with a desire to transition our family away from a traditional diet and towards a diet that reflects our values and for us, as a couple, that means going vegan.

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What is our family like?
We have six children, ages 13 to 2 months. Our oldest three are girls our youngest there are boys. Our oldest four kids go to public school. We live (for now) in a little house in the Deep South. My husband is in the HVAC business. We don't have a lot of disposable income, so it will be really important for us to find ways to transition to a vegan diet that don't drastically change our food budget.

I am so excited!!
Just making this decision has given me a HUGE boost of energy. I am really really excited about trying new things and having this common interest, and goals to work on with my husband.

Why blog about it?
I really want to remember this journey. I want to use the blog to save (and share) recipes that work for our family. Have a place to vent about the highs and lows of making a big change in how we are doing things as a family.

I recorded a video blog for the first time in forever. I want to try to do these pretty regularly. I just had to dive in and record it, even if I wasn't totally "put together" Grayson is having one of those "I'm going to cry whenever Mommy puts me down" days so I haven't had a shower and I've hardly gotten anything done but here we go...

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View this on YouTube by clicking here