As I mentioned in my holiday letter, I’m eating mostly vegan. I’ll have a cheat meal or ice cream on the weekends but I’m sticking to the straight and narrow during the week — fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts. Since the holiday, I’ve lost about 10 pounds.
Eating vegan is not hard. To actually loose weight, I’ve had to switch from a mostly vegetarian diet that included dairy products to a vegan diet with dairy only as a cheat day treat. Since making that change, I’ve actually started to loose weight as Dr Furman described in Eat to Live. He writes that if you keep the faith, your weight should settle in near your healthy weight.
The past 18 months has been a search for meal alternatives a meal at a time. When I moved up here, I switched breakfast from cereal to salmon and fruit. After 6 months, I switched to fruit and nuts. Twelve months ago, I stopped fixing meat entrees because I couldn’t find the good lean grass fed beef that I like. I started learning to make chills, curries, etc using beans. Last summer, I found One World Vegetarian Cookbook and began making some of the African and South American fare found in its pages. About six months ago, I stopped eating frozen for lunch and began eating fruits, vegetables, and nuts. At this point, I was pretty much eating vegetarian other than bacon with eggs on Saturday. This fall, I started baking bread with the return of cool weather but was eating too much so I’ve had to give up baking. During this experimentation period, my weight was slowly creeping up so I had to drop the cheese and chocolate I’d also been eating. Since making this change, I’ve started to loose weight.
With the return of cool weather, I’ve been making “Red Soup”, a Hamby family thing. I believe my grandmother served it while my parents were growing up. Dad married the girl next door and went off to war. Mom lived with Dad’s parents during that period and learned to make red soup from my grandmother. (Watsons don’t know red soup.) I’ve since figured it out and started making chicken and Manhattan clam chowder variants. This fall, I learned to make a bean variant that comes out pretty good. I use 6 oz dried beans soaked, onion, cabbage or celery, corn, sweet potato, peas, and a couple of cans of unsalted diced tomatoes. The onion is softball sized. Everything else is 1 cup of whatever. Process is simple. Sauté the onions in a dutch oven or stock pot, add everything else and water to cover plus a cup or so and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low for a slow simmer. Let cook until the beans are soft. Add make-up water as needed. You can add herbs and spices as desired. I’ve tried sherry, fresh basil, dried basil, cinnamon, black peppercorns, dried red pepper, and a red chili power.
Dismal Manor Dispatches 