Leanout Day 1: Beginners Get All the Luck

First official full day of leanout cooking! My house has never been so full of produce, this is amazeballs. As part of the challenge, I'm taking a picture of the ingredients, posting a recipe and posting a photo of the finished product.

Today's meal of choice was dinner: Quinoa salad and a sandwich. It sounds super simple but actually took me like an hour to make (mostly because I'm a pretty hopeless cook - ha). Here's all the raw goods:

This is my first time making hummus, quinoa and tempeh, so I was nervous to say the least. Who tackles three complete unknowns in one meal?? But hey, what's the worst that could happen? So I dove in. Amazingly, everything turned out pretty great. I was *shocked*, shocked.

First up was the quinoa salad:

1. Boil 1.25 cups of quinoa for 10 minutes
2. Once complete, drain the quinoa and leave it in the strainer.
3. Put strainger over 1-2" of boiling water, cover and stream quinoa for additional 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile whisk 2tsp olive oil, 1tsp lemon juice, 1tsp soy sauce, 1/2tsp cumin in a large bowl.
5. Cut 4 bell peppers into small pieces and grill over the stove in olive oil until soft.
6. Chop 1/4 cup of cilantro.
7. Add cilantro, peppers and quinoa to large mixing bowl and toss with sauce.
8. Serve!!

Next was hummus, which was so stinking simple I can't even believe it. I will DEFINITELY be making more of this! All you do is combine the following ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth:

• 15oz can of chick peas (I'm told fresh is even better)
• 1/4 cup of the liquid from the can
• 4tbsp lemon juice
• 1.5tbsp tahini
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1/2tsp salt
• 2tbsp olive oil

I used the crazy Magic Bullet that my mom got me for Christmas. Kind of a random gift - very 3am infomercial if you ask me. I think I actually asked "Is this what's really in the box" when I'd unwrapped it (smoooooth), but it turns out the things is actually pretty rad! Maybe my mom knows me better than I know myself. Eep! Though, I had to dedicate an entire drawer of my kitchen to housing the parts of this blending monstrosity.

Anywho. Lastly, I made tempeh which was also super simple. I just cut it up into 1/4" strips and grilled it on the stove in olive oil and soy sauce until it was nicely browned. Done! To pull it all together, I smeared a whole wheat pita bread with hummus, added sliced up cucumbers, piled on a few slices of tempeh and some sprouts and BINGO - nomwhich, which a side of salad.

And so I sit, fat and happy. Other members of my belly today include:

• My homemade protein shake (Adam's peanut butter, skim milk and ice blended)
• Apples, cherry tomatoes, almonds
• Leftover Sukiyaki courtesy of my dear friend Michelle over at Low Amine Recipes
• A pack of gum I chain-chewed during a 3 hour meeting (natch)

I tracked the nutritional information for most of my meals today. Man is THAT a pain in the ass. I don't think I'll be doing that anymore. It's super simple to track stats when everything comes from packages, but when you have to add up every single ingredient (and there are like 40) it takes forever. FOREEEEVERRR.

But before I gave up, I did notice 2 trends I fully predicted:

1. Protein is NO problem - I had 80 grams by lunch without even eating extra portions (who said vegans can't get whole protein??). I'm guessing by tonight I was up to 100-120 easy. Most people would never need nearly that much, but given how often I workout, it's good to shoot for.
2. Fat is super high - most of the vegan foods that have high protein are also high in fat; think beans, nuts, etc. I think this is okay given that I workout as intensely and as often as I do, but I'm curious to see how my body responds. Stay runed!

All in all, it's really nice to be out of my food rut, I enjoyed cooking tonight more than I thought I would and overall I've been pleasantly surprised with the deliciousness of the stuff I've made. Who knew?? Maybe it's all beginners luck. But I'll take it!

Cheers,
Karla