Day 2: Too much salad and Sunflower Mac

Hi everyone!  Welcome to day 2 of my 40 day vegan challenge.  38 days left, but who's counting?


Today brought on some yummy food, a tummy ache, and an interesting recipe.  Here is what I had today...


Breakfast-  oatmeal and a banana (big surprise there)


Lunch-  Marinated cucumber salad and fruit salad from Cafe Max (LOVE that place)


Snacks-   mixed nuts, chex mix, pretzels


Dinner- "Sunflower Mac" and broccoli  


I went to a workshop today with some fellow teacher friends.  Our workshops are very "snacky", and I forgot to bring something of my own.  Therefore, I didn't make the best choices I could have for snacks.  Life goes on!


Lunch was AWESOME!  When you get a group of teachers out of the school, we LOVE to go eat.  This can be a big problem when trying to follow a vegan diet.  Luckily, one of my pals suggested Cafe Max.  Cafe Max is basically a place where you get salads and soups.  I usually get the chicken or seafood salad, but couldn't today, of course.  I choose cucumber salad and fruit salad.  My brother and I grew up LOVING cucumbers, so that was a given.  The problem was, Cafe Max LOADS your plate down.  About an hour after my fruit and cucumber lunch, my stomach was really hurting.  I'm thinking I had too much acidity in my lunch.  So, I had some pretzels and mixed nuts, and felt much better.  That also gave me some extra protein.  Lunch lesson learned!!!


I was super excited about trying out the "Sunflower Mac" recipe I found at Post Punk Kitchen.  She has all sorts of info and recipes for vegans, so check it out.  I'll show parts of my recipe later, but let me summarize first.  The recipe took me an eternity a long time to prepare.  I realized after pouring half my ingredients for the sauce into my food processor that my processor would not hold all the ingredients.  Then I tried transferring to the blender, losing part of my sauce in the process.  A few words might have slipped out, not sure.  The kids were outside and my husband was cursing the legos he was putting together for my middle son, so no damage done to the kiddos.  The main problem I found was that I never got my sauce to totally blend like you were supposed to.  My final product looks nothing like the yummy pictures you'll see on Post Punk Kitchen.  Check out the full directions for Sunflower Mac.

To sum things up, my kids all ate this dinner.  I put it over broccoli, which I knew all of them would eat.  The toddler was excited saying "Yeah, mac and cheese!", but then mainly ate broccoli (totally fine by me).  The middle child ate his and said "It's good".  (My husband might have coached him)  He ate his really well.  The teenage garbage disposal liked it so much that he was horrified to hear I had thrown out the leftovers.  Honestly, I had been in the kitchen for 2 hours at this point and wasn't in the mood to find a container for it.  Lazy...yes.  My husband ate his, but didn't like the gritty texture.  Well, duh, I need a new processor!  I liked it enough to try it again after getting a new food processor (mom...birthday idea if you're reading this) and a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  


Overall, I feel really good tonight with lots of energy.  Is it the new diet?  Time will tell!


Sunflower Mac pics...

My sunflowers soaking

Sauteing my onions, carrots and garlic in olive oil

Added broth, nutritional yeast, tomato paste, sunflowers seeds and...

cornstarch...

tried to blend it, poured some out in a bowl, poured it back and forth,  got a little aggravated, never really blended it enough

The sauce before cooking

after cooking

whole wheat mac

Mac and cheese

put the broccoli in first

put in the mac, extra sauce, and sprinkled it with paprika (a MUST)

A happy and healthy toddler (even if dad did put her in a  Halloween shirt)

A eight year old watching t.v. out of the side of  his eye and  also happily eating


What's for dinner tomorrow?
Okra Gumbo with Chickpeas and Kidney Beans