In Which I Am Suprisingly Empowered By Hummus

Thank you for the wonderful comments on my last post. I am envious of those of you who love, love, love beans and tomatoes! I am missing cheese but I keep telling myself that part is only for six weeks. (Forty more days to go!) Once the initial phase is over, I'm going to add back in skim milk, cheese (reduced fat or small, occasional treats of the fabulous varieties), and egg (whites). I don't think I said so in the last post, but I committed to this particular plan in support of my mother. She is more excited about this food plan than I have ever seen her about any kind of food or health plan. She has been so encouraging and supportive of me in myriad ways - it is literally the least I would do in order to reflect some of that back to her. There is great shared energy and solidarity in working a new food plan with someone else. (Which is why John is doing it with us too!) Don't get me wrong - I have been moving in this direction for months and I'm firmly focused on my own goals. But I wouldn't have become a vegan* (even if it's only for six weeks) for anyone other than my mom.

The first (vegan) phase is focused on resetting your taste buds, digestive tract, and your brain/food coping skills. It's working! Food is already tasting different and BETTER to me. (I still don't think I'll ever like wheat germ on popcorn.) But I am eating a huge variety of new and wonderful foods. I am eating as much/many raw fruits and vegetables as I possibly can. (The goal is a pound of veggies and at least 4 whole fruits a day. That, my friends, is a lot of food.) In addition, the goal is to have another pound of cooked greens, a cup of beans, an ounce (=handful) raw nuts, and up to a cup of grain/starchy cooked veggie (yummy potatoes) a day. Every single day. On the one hand it's a lot of work to eat that much food. On the other hand it's insanely simple. I wash and chop everything as I buy it, so if I don't feel like cooking, all I have to do is pick something up and start chewing. Zero thought.

The "cooking" part has been a bit of a readjustment. No sugar, no salt, no oil. No sugar is easy peasy for me. No salt is killing me. Mrs. Dash is my new best friend! (Thanks Stef for reminding me Mrs. Dash exists!) No oil? You know I loves me some olive oil drizzled on veggies (with sea salt!!) but I'm not missing it too much yet. The pear infused balsamic vinegar I've been using on my (giagantuamongo) salads is delicious as is and I'm lightly steaming veggies instead of roasting them.

And? BIG news. I like some legumes! Leh-gooooooms. Such a silly word. But did you know, hummus is a legume. Ok, ok - it's the garbanzo beans that are the ... well, beany part. I've been making my own hummus. From scratch! It is delicious. And easy. And cheap! Do this: take one can organic garbanzo beans including 2/3 cup of the bean juice (which in some of my cans is all of the juice and sometimes is just most of it), 3 Tbs lemon juice, a bunch of minced garlic, 2 Tbs tahini (which is sesame seed butter and is found with the natural nut butters), and (optional - but OMG it's my favorite part so I put in even more) 1 tsp horseradish (which bizarrely is found at my Harris Teeter in the refrigerated dairy section between the cheese and eggs, WTF?) and puree all that together. Eat it by the spoonful or piled on top of raw carrots, broccoli, bell pepper, or celery stalks. (When I add back in eggs, I'm making "deviled" eggs substituting my hummus for the traditional egg yolk/mayo part!)

Here's the even bigger news about hummus. (I'm sure you're thinking, "Who knew there could be any news about hummus, much less bigger news?" but at the risk of sounding like a wacko vegetable convert - this next bit has changed something fundamental for me.) Did you know you can make hummus out of other stuff? Maybe all of you bean-loving folks knew this but it's rocking my world! I guess it's probably not called hummus then - but it serves the same purpose (i.e. makes it possible to eat beans without gagging). My friend Coffee doesn't like garbanzo beans so she makes her "hummus" out of black eyed peas and pinto beans. I LOVE the way some people think. I'm so willing to experiment with some "rules" (e.g. big ole social conventions) but it doesn't (or hadn't until now!) occurred to me to muck about with set and standard food things. I have long known that my tomato aversion is largely texture based. The only salsa I like is one made by my friend (who happens to be Coffee's husband and whom I call Salsa Man!) His salsa is the least "chunky" salsa ever. It is ridiculously flavorful and not at all filled with lumpy, slimy bits! Ah hah. Total eureka moment. I like hummus. I like edamame. What don't I like about other beans? They are lumpy and slimy. Guess what I did? Last night I made black beans to pour over our allotted cup of rice - which I had mixed with the world's yummiest salsa for flavor and then topped with avocado. I left everyone else's alone, but I pureed the black beans for mine. Same yummy smell and taste - vastly improved eat-ability. Woo hoo! I may hummus-ify every bean I come in contact with and see if I don't find some more I like. I am totally optimistic now.

Speaking of optimistic... love and luck to all the racers this weekend but ESPECIALLY to Steve, Pharmie, Viv and Wil - who are racing the inaugural NOLA 70.3. And to AKA Alice who has the Train Run this weekend. Race hard, have fun, and I can't wait to read the race reports!

TODAY I LOVE: my mother and the unassuming little machine that purees the heckfire out of all those beans! (Of the two, I love my mother waaaaaay more but she'd kill me if I put her picture on my blog so the mini food prep is getting star placement.)


*I had the hardest time typing the word "vegan" and linking it to myself in any way. Vegetarian? A bit of a stretch, but really no problem. But vegan? Me? No freaking way. I probably shouldn't say this - it's akin to begging to be smat (again) - but the few vegans I've met have come across (to me) as righteous, obnoxious, and ... not particularly healthy looking. When my daughter announced last year that she wanted to be a vegetarian, I told her I would absolutely support her but that she was not allowed to be a vegan. Surely there are fabulous, kind, interesting, healthy looking vegans out there. If you are one of that kind will you let me know? Please! I very much want to change my narrow, bigoted perception. If you are one of the dried up looking, scrawny, preachy, mean kind... Why are you reading my blog? And why would anyone give up cheese (glorious cheese!) to be like you?