Crock Pot Meals and Bulk Food Prep

Hello!  It's been awhile since I posted, but I promise I've been staying on top of things throughout this busy winter spurt.  I have some new things to talk about soon, but in the meantime, I've tagged in Erica once again to talk about something fun we did on Sunday:

Last week on Facebook, someone had posted a picture of neatly arranged freezer bags on their kitchen countertop, stuffed full of food.  My first thought was "what is this?" and my immediate second thought was "I want to go to there."  There was a link to this blog post about preparing crock pot meals ahead of time and freezing them. 

I'm jumping on the frozen meal bandwagon.  I haven't really wanted to cook lately, other than usual standards out of necessity, and I love the idea of getting all the work (and clean-up) done in one day to last for several, so that lazier, future me can reap the rewards. 

Since we're trying to stay mostly vegetarian (we do meat meals maybe once a week) I didn't want to use all of the recipes in the link above, all of which called for meat.  I opted for the Healthy BBQ Chicken, which looks delicious, then went around the web hunting for vegetarian options.  I also decided to make a German Potato Soup, Beans Bourguinon (which is like beef bourguinon, I guess, without the beef or bacon), and a Butternut Squash Soup. 

(In hindsight I shouldn't have gone for two soups, and the squash soup is a little light in the bags so we might have to make both of them at once, and that's also not a crock pot recipe so it may very well not work out.  But, onward!)

First I assembled my grocery list and went on a shopping trip.  I don't think I've ever bought seven onions at once before.  Then, I divided up the ingredients into sections per recipe.

My haul.

Then I laid out my gallon freezer bags, labeled them with a marker, and wrote down the last-minute instructions I would be sure to forget, such as what liquids to add and how long to cook. After that, I laid out all of the recipes because I work better with instruction.

The plan.

Then came the chopping.  Lots and lots and lots of chopping.  That's pretty much all it was!  It got pretty Zen, after a while.  Each recipe produced two bags.

And three hours later:

 Ta daa!

We froze most of it, leaving one bag of beans bourguinon in the fridge for dinner this week.  It was easy to clean up since we didn't cook with any dishes, and I really hope these come out tasty.  Only time will tell!

Blueberry Banana Blast Smoothie Recipe

I got a lot of awesome feedback from my last post about smoothies, and I promised I'd share a few recipes, so I'm starting with one I created myself.  It's very simple, but so tasty.  This one currently my favorite, but I think I found some unseasonably good blueberries.  If you try this, I wish you the same luck!

Definitely helps to have Grandma's old school blender--

it works better than anything they make today!

Blueberry Banana Blast Smoothie
2.5  Ripe Bananas
1 cup Blueberries
2.5 cups Milk  (or unflavored soy milk)

In your blender, pour about 1 cup of the milk in and add blueberries.  Blend well on a high setting, until there are no blueberry clumps. (You won't be able to completely mix in the blueberry skin, but that's okay.

Add another cup of the milk and the bananas.  Start on a low setting, increasing to high as the smoothie starts to come together.  Check periodically on the consistency: if it's too thick, add the remainder of the milk.
Yields about 5 cups.

My Biggest Processed Food Holdout

When it comes to striving for "clean eating,"  I've had to change a lot of my food habits.  Winter Sundays used to mean baked potatoes for dinner, ice cream was my #1 comfort food, and coffee (loaded with International Delight) and Mountain Dew were what kept the blood running through my veins.  I've always "known" how to make healthier choices, but it wasn't until a few months ago that I actually started making them.

Part of the reason I chose veganism as my first self-imposed challenge was because I knew that taking away foods I loved would make me crazy, unless I replaced them with new things to love.  So, while I was pining for cheese-soaked chicken and pasta, I learned to love a whole bunch of new things.  During those 60 days, I also cut out the worst offenders, not necessarily just nonvegan foods.  Soda, potato chips, ice cream, some of my biggest food vices, were gone cold turkey.  I don't want them back.

But as I learn more about what goes into processed food and strive to keep away from it,  I'm drawn back to my biggest problem: breakfast.  Historically, I never ate breakfast, opting instead for a cup (or two, or three) of coffee with calorie-loaded artificial creamer.  Sometimes (frequently), I'd get home from work at 6:30pm never having had any solid food all day.  But my problem with breakfast usually wasn't time.  It was simply that I didn't like breakfast foods.  Cereal was boring and cold,  and my stomach could never handle something heavy like eggs or sweet like French toast early in the morning.

When I started the vegan thing, I figured I'd turn over a new leaf on all accounts and force myself to get into the habit of eating breakfast.  Still not keen on eating a lot that early, I opted to make a bowl of Cheerios with soy milk my AM tradition.  And now, five months later, I'm sticking to it with decent regularity.

So now that I've eliminated most processed food from my diet, I face a Cheerios conundrum:  should I give them up and try to find something more healthy and nutrient-rich to take their place, or should I keep eating them and consider this an exception that proves the rule?  And are Cheerios really that bad for you anyway?

The answer to the latter is rough: it really, really depends on who you ask.  It also depends on what you mean by "healthy."  Is feeding a kid a bowl of Cheerios better than feeding them a bowl of Froot Loops?  Yes.  Does a serving of Cheerios have less cholesterol than a plate of eggs and hash-browns?  Well, of course.  There are tons of breakfast options that are less healthy than Cheerios--including my former option of nothing at all.

But at the end of the day, it's still an extremely highly processed food, and really, most of the "whole grain" benefit you think you're getting is processed out or chemically altered.  People who claim it's healthy are quick to remind you that the most prevalent ingredient is "whole grain oats" while leaving out that second and third most prevalent are "modified corn starch" and "sugar."  (Refined sugar, by the way, is near the top of the clean eating blacklist.)

Ideally, I'd like to rid this from my diet.  But I'm at a loss for how to replace it.  Erica has been making her own oatmeal from scratch now, and as lovely as that is, I can't seem to get on board with the texture of the stuff.  We also, since the water-only thing has finished, have started making smoothies again, but I'm afraid a smoothie alone will leave me too hungry before lunchtime.  I'm thinking of making a challenge for myself where I branch out and try new things for breakfast.  I'm open to suggestions!