I realized very early on in this odyssey I undertook to explore nutrition, that one of the concepts also being explored was that of creativity.

Back on Day 8, I made it very clear that I believe eating to be about more than just providing our bodies with the compounds that are needed on a chemical level. Eating (and living) is about beauty, it’s about enjoyment, it’s about color and smell and taste. It’s about engaging the whole self with an experience which nourishes the body and the soul.

To quote myself:

I took the raw ingredients and decided to take up the challenge to make them something beautiful and enjoyable and fun, meal after meal, day after day, week after week. I did it to show myself and the world that flavor, texture, pleasure, and happiness aren’t immature or evil but that they are necessary and holy, that the world isn’t black and white but full of color, that desiring to enjoy things doesn’t make you a sinner or a foolish kid but that it makes you human, and that being “human” isn’t an insult but the greatest compliment you can pay someone.

Over the course of time, something changed. The change was semantical but reflected a deeper change in understanding and perspective. I stopped calling my quinoa, eggs, bread, avocado, kale, tofu, and peas “foods” and started calling them “ingredients”

Although each item could be eaten “as is’ without any preparation what-so-ever; or all 7 could be blended together and slurped down like some science-fiction-esque “future-food” – I came to realize that part of exploring nutrition in this way, allowed and, in fact, demanded me to explore the possibilities and potential in those things. When we look at things as they can be, instead of as they are, we begin to see the things which lay before as “ingredients” as opposed to “foods” and it allows us to realize a multitude of options and unlock the potential in those things and in ourselves.

You see, creativity is all about that. It’s about looking at something and seeing its potential. It about looking at a seed and seeing a tree, about looking at a white canvas and seeing a masterpiece, about looking at a hunk of marble and seeing David, or about looking in the mirror and seeing something more. Creativity is a Divine Quality. It allows us to escape the bounds of time and live in a reality which is fluid and full of potential.

That’s what I want to share. Stop looking at things as “food” and starting seeing “ingredients.” The world – your world – wasn’t created at some point in the past, it is being created at every moment, with every breath, and because of every single choice. A life well lived isn’t focused on food, it sees ingredients.

Before I even start, I’d like to apologize. It’s been almost a week since I’ve posted and for the 3 of you who read my blog (hi, mom) I’m sorry 🙂

That apology brings me to an important topic: Time Management.

I noticed that before I started this Quest I was easily going to gym daily. Once the quest began, though, with all the planning, cooking, eating, and writing that went into it, I found that I just didn’t have the time to go to the gym every day and also get a good night’s sleep and also do, you know, life stuff… So, writing fell by the wayside. So did other things. Check out this email from my mom…

Tonight, however, my wife has a school event, so I had to be home a little early, which means I got just about all of my eating in early. It also means my kids flooded my bathroom while I cooked 😛

It also means that I’m watching the kids and can’t go out, so I can’t go to the gym, which means I can write. Lucky you.

The important point here, though, is that taking care of yourself is a full-time job.

I’m going to write that again, on its own line, in big font. You know, for effect:

Taking care of yourself is a full-time job.

But, really, it is. Between the shopping for the ingredients, the planning of meals, the actual cooking, and then eating the food in a way that is actually mindful and enjoyable (this is a crucial step, I believe, in taking actually good care of yourself – more on this in another post), planning your exercise, doing your exercise, evaluating your exercise, getting to sleep on time so you can get a good night sleep, meditating, spending time with loved ones (also, crucial in taking good care of yourself), spending time on yourself and your emotional well-being, etc. there isn’t much time for anything else. It’s a crucial thing that we need to think through when we commit to taking good care of ourselves. The time investment is real. But, it’s just that, an investment. So, don’t be afraid of the time commitment. Don’t let it scare you away from trying.

The second big learning from these last few day: You will fail.

Again, big font, for effect:

You will fail.

Heck, I planned this whole thing out with a magic spreadsheet and I forgot to eat tofu one day! Failure is just what it looks like when you are still in the middle of succeeding. Failure doesn’t mean a dead end, it doesn’t mean you give up, and it doesn’t mean you throw in the towel. It might mean course correction; it might mean changing things up; and it might mean trying harder, smarter, or differently; but failure does not mean stop.

Declare amnesty and keep going.

When I missed my first post, I was like, “I will just write two tomorrow. It won’t be such a big deal…” Then I tried catching up, I had too much work from, you know, actual work, I needed time to clean the house, prep for the next meal, and whatever else was flying my way. One missed post turned into two, turned into four, and so on. I kept telling myself I was going to write them all and I would just get back on track.

Then I had mercy on myself.

I heeded the words of a very wise man who I have the pleasure of knowing and working with. He said, “Why not declare amnesty and start over tomorrow?” So I did. What’s in the past has passed me by. I’m looking to tomorrow. The more baggage you carry, the harder it will be to right (write) the ship and the harder it will be to start trying again. Remember, growth happens when things get so hard that you can barely make it, but you do anyway. It doesn’t happen if the load is too light or too heavy. Don’t make your load too heavy. You won’t grow. My trainer said it best: “We lift weights, not egos.” Don’t try to lift too much, just to prove that you can. You’ll end up hurting yourself.

With that out of the way, on to the food:

The Making of a Sandwich

Tonight, I made a delicious sandwich. The creation of that sandwich wasn’t just magic or witchcraft, but rather, sandwich-craft. See what I did there? There a few key techniques that I’d like to share, but before I get there, I’d like to discuss the key components of a good sandwich:

1. The Bed (or Bread)
2. The Spread
3. The Filling
4. The Garnish
5. The Sauce/Spice

You don’t need all of these things to make a sandwich. For a basic sandwich, you just need the “bread” with one of the others. It is, however, when you mix and match (or include all of them) that you can create something magical. Thinking about the five components and how their flavors, temperatures, and textures will play together is what allows you to develop your sandwich-craft. It gives you the chance to add that extra “edge” to a sandwich, to push the flavor, texture, and temperature envelope just a little bit farther, and to take a sandwich from convenience to luxury.

Techniques and Ingredients:

Sauces

Let’s start at the top, the sauce/spice. As you probably already know, I love warmed egg yolk. A new technique I developed while cooking for this Quest is the perfect, quick, and simple method for preparing a warmed yolk/poached egg. It’s also a breeze in terms of prep and clean-up.

Essentially, just fill a bowl or mug with some water, plop your yolk in, and pop it in the microwave for about 30-60 seconds. Voilà!

Do be careful to not leave the egg in for too long or you will end up with a mess of egg all over your microwave, but for light poaching and warming and setting of yolks this technique works perfectly and saves having to take out a pot, boil water, watch carefully, and clean a pot.

While we’re on the topic of yolks being used for sandwich toppings/sauce, let’s discuss seasoning. I like to top the yolk with some cracked pepper, kosher salt, and a splash of vinegar. I find the acid complements the richness of the yolk nicely.

Eggs are an incredibly versatile ingredient. Another way to use the yolk is to make an “-aise” style sauce. Basic mayonnaise is simply an egg yolk emulsified with some oil and vinegar. All you need for this technique is an electric whisk. Drop your yolk into a cup, start your electric whisk, and start whisking the yolk. Next, you’re going to slowly drizzle some oil into the cup as you continue to whisk. You’ll notice the yolk begin to lighten and get thicker. You don’t need a ton of oil – you aren’t making a true mayonnaise, just a sauce. Once you get a nice consistency, add some flavor (pepper, hot sauce, vinegar, mustard, honey, whatever you want…), the idea here is twofold: First, the “-aise” adds some body to your sauce, gives it a rich and smooth mouth-feel, and lets it coat better. Second, the egg and oil add richness and fat to the flavor profile which will mellow and harmonize other flavors that might dominate your palate otherwise. Sometimes, sauces can take the form of a dip, which can also add moisture to an otherwise dry sandwich.

Bread

As I said, eggs are extremely versatile, and another way to incorporate them into a sandwich is actually with the bread itself.

An Ingredient Side Note: Bread

Most people think that bread is bread. Just take it out of the bag and put your ingredients down on it. They’d be wrong. First of all, the type of bread you choose makes a big difference, not just in terms of flavor, but texture, and even nutrition. Although I initially chose Dave’s Killer Powerseed Bread for the nutrition. (It was literally the first building block of the “Perfect Nutrition” plan – I wouldn’t have been able to keep the diet so basic without this loaf. It supplies a ton of the basic vitamins and minerals as well as a really nice balance of macros that most other products don’t. But, the kicker for me was that it doesn’t supply these vitamins and mineral by supplementing or adding the refined vitamins or minerals back into the bread recipe, rather it does so by including good, nutritious, whole foods into the recipe itself. The bread is also sweetened with fruit juice instead of sugar, which means your sugar is also coming with some micro-nutrients and other compounds. It feels more like food than chemistry to me.) I really love it for the textures that it offers. It can be really soft and chewy when un-toasted or really crispy and firm when toasted. Also, because it is whole grain and has lots of seeds, the flavor is nice and gets really nutty and rich when you toast it up. That’s key in a good bread: flavors, textures, variations, complexity.

Back to eggs. Although you can just pull the bread out of the bag and throw some stuff on it, the magic happens when you get creative. My mom suggested that I make egg bread or french toast, so I thought, “Why not try that for the bread of a sandwich? I’ve got all these egg whites lying around anyway…” I lightly dredged the bread in egg white and then threw it in a hot cast iron skillet for a minute or so on each side. I used that for my “bread” and it was a game changer. Give it a try!

Filling

Eggs seem to be the star here… Another technique for sandwich-craft is shaping your omelet to fit a sandwich. My mom has a tiny cast iron skillet which I can only assume is purpose-made for this type of thing. It makes omelets the perfect size for a pita pocket or sandwich. I am not so lucky (no, Mom, I don’t need you to buy me one… but I appreciate the offer 🙂 ), but I did find a great tool at the supermarket which has made getting omelet sizing much easier and cleaner:

To make your omelet, break your egg into a bowl, add some room temperature water (or milk, which is how my grandmother used to make it) and whisk really well. I sometimes add a bit of salt and pepper, but will mostly season to taste after it is cooked. Pour the omelet into a skillet which has been heated over medium heat and cover until it has set and you can flip it to brown the other side.

An Ingredient Side Note: Eggs

While on the topic of eggs, I promised to discuss why I specifically chose Eggland’s Best eggs. When I was shopping and planning for this Quest, I stumbled upon them in the store and was doubtful. An egg is an egg, right? Wrong. Eggs are made by chickens, not machines. Although all eggs will pretty much look the same, the nutrition that goes into the chicken comes out in the egg. The nutrients found in eggs are a direct result of what the chicken eats (and what their bodies can synthesize from that food). Eggland’s Best claims to feed their chicken’s special, vegetarian, and natural diets and allows them access to sunlight which means their eggs have higher levels of certain nutrients (like Vitamin D). The FDA Nutrition Label backs these claims up. A number of these nutrient levels were key in allowing me to create my balanced diet plan, so I chose these eggs over the other brands. I do have a student who raises chicken and am getting close to buying some of his eggs instead, although I can’t verify the nutrient content, so I’ll likely wait until after the Quest is over.

Finally, moving on from eggs, let’s move on to tofu. Another star sandwich filling during the Quest. Although tofu is generally a little too texturally weak and mushy for a sandwich filling, I developed a technique which gives it the perfect texture and chew without to much work or mess. It all started with my tofu chip experiments. I realized that I could change the texture of tofu from squishy to crunchy just by using the microwave. I experimented further and discovered that I could get other textures by nuking it for less time. I found that about 4 minutes for a half-inch thick slice of tofu yielded a pleasantly chewy result. A little longer would give me some crisp around the edges. Marinading the tofu for 15-45 minutes gave me amazing flavor to match the texture. Adding some soy sauce on top, allowing it to drip down and around, gave me a deeply flavored crust around the edges. Try difference thicknesses and times in the microwave and see what you can come up with! The possibilities are pretty endless…

Spreads

Tofu is the star again here. Throwing some tofu into the food processor with a bit of fat (olive oil or avocado) and some fiber (quinoa, peas, avocado, kale) and some liquid, will give you a nice, spreadable paste that will be a perfect vehicle for any flavor you want to add to your sandwich. Want an Asian flare? Add some sesame oil, chili flakes, garlic, and ginger. Want Middle-Eastern? Add some cumin, pepper, lemon juice, and garlic. Want Mexican? Cumin, chili flakes, oregano, lime juice, and onion powder. Italian? Basil, garlic, rosemary, and olive oil. BBQ? Liquid smoke, apple cider vinegar, mustard powder, pepper, and garlic. It goes on and on… The secret here is the tofu, it is a great texture for making spreads and takes on any flavor you throw at it.

An Ingredient Side Note: Liquid Smoke.

Liquid smoke is another magical thing I learned from my dad. He tells me that we collectively inherited it from my grandfather.

Side note to my side note: My grandfather was an amazing cook. I’ve been told that during WWII he was the head of Commissary Operations on his US Navy ship and, when he returned from the war, ran his own restaurant in Los Angeles and managed at least 4 to 5 other restaurants. All I know for sure, and all that really mattered to me when I was a kid, is that he would boil kosher hot dogs in beer and sneak them into Dodger’s Stadium so we could eat while we watched the game. I’m sure he also snuck other stuff in that, as a kid, I wasn’t interested in, but that now, as an adult, I would have loved.

Liquid smoke isn’t some crazy artificial chemical soup (which is what I assumed it was when I first went out to look for a bottle of the stuff for my own kitchen). It is actually liquid smoke – water that has smoke infused into it. It’s pretty magical stuff and I recommend every kitchen have a bottle tucked away for a rainy day. Literally, if it’s raining and you can’t get outside to grill, this stuff will save you… It is also great for adding a depth of flavor to just about anything and for creating the flavor of deli meats like salami or bologna (just balance it with some garlic, salt, and umami).

Another Ingredient Side Note: Umami

Umami is that “meaty” flavor that, well, meat has. It is that magic flavor which you need to incorporate in your recipes if you want them to be convincing and deep. Some great umami boosting ingredients include:

• Tomato paste
• Soy sauce
• Anchovies
• Parmesan Cheese
• Nutritional Yeast
• Mushrooms
• TJ’s Umami Flavor
• Stocks and broths
• Miso paste

Mixing soy sauce or tomato paste with dried shiitake or porcini mushrooms will give you an extra boost in umami because of the chemistry involved in forming the flavor compounds responsible for the taste.

Garnish

The main garnish technique I’d like to share is really less technique and more common sense, but I’d never realized it until I sat down to think critically about sandwich-craft, so here it is: If your garnish isn’t easily chomped through (like kale, cilantro, parsley, etc.) cut it into bite-sized pieces so you don’t end up pulling the whole chunk out when you take a bite. Cutting it up into smaller pieces allows for the garnish to end up in every bite. A word of caution, however: Be sure not to cut it up so small that you sacrifice the textural component of the garnish.

The Sandwich – A Final Note

Now that you’ve got all the keys to sandwich-craft, go out and brew something magical and enchanting! Craft a sandwich, but please take one more technique into consideration: Make it beautiful. As I’ve mentioned before, food is about more than just nutrition, but it’s also about more than just taste and texture… It’s about all your senses, including sight. So, cut your bread, drizzle your sauces, clean your plate, add a pop of color, and then stare at your food before you eat it, because eating is about the whole package. It should be something that inspires you and elevates your soul. It should be something that you can do mindfully and that can engage the whole you. It should be uplifting. So, make your food beautiful, not just for Instagram, but for you.

(Also, do it for Instagram… Send me or tag me in your #foodpics @theadamsimon)

I woke up hungry this morning.

I usually wake up pretty hungry but found that, more often than not, I’m actually thirsty. Apparently, we are all so chronically under-hydrated that we often confuse thirst with hunger. I’ve learned to try drinking a few glasses of water if I feel hungry, especially in the morning when it’s easy to be under-hydrated (considering you haven’t had any fluid in at least 8 hours), instead of running straight to find something to eat. As such, my first move was to guzzle down 30oz of water, thinking that, as mentioned above, I was actually thirsty, but it didn’t seem to help at all.

As I mentioned, I usually wake up hungry. But, since I started this quest, I haven’t. So, waking up hungry was sort of surprising. I had assumed that my general lack of hunger had to with the fact that a) I’m actually eating enough consistently, b) I’m making a conscious effort to stay hydrated, and c) I’m eating all whole foods which have lots of fiber/bulk and take longer to digest. But now I was unsure.

I didn’t have much time to think about it because I had a really busy morning, so I kept moving. The hunger was waiting just beneath the surface. It felt like a hungry, submerged crocodile with only its eyes peeking out of the water. If you move quickly, you don’t notice it, but as soon as you stop for a moment…

Once a month I visit a local middle school to teach a group of energetic 7th graders and hand out donuts to students and some teachers around the school (I’m the best, aren’t I?). This particular month, after handing out nearly 3 dozen donuts, I had one donut left… What to do? The hunger was mounting… It was a sprinkle donut with pink frosting. I don’t think I could have felt more like Homer Simpson, walking through the halls with a box of donuts, starving, with only one pink sprinkled donut remaining…

But what would my reader’s think?

I went and found my son, he was at recess. I gave him the donut and took the opportunity to hang with him for a few minutes. He told me about his morning, enjoyed the donut, and went on his way… Woo hoo!

Now to fill the void in my stomach.

I headed back to work and made myself a quick sandwich:

As I was making the sandwich, it hit me. No, not the sandwich. I realized that I hadn’t eaten tofu yesterday! How could I forget? Oh man, if I thought my reader would be disappointed by my eating a donut, what will they think of me now? I left out one of my essential ingredients! Doh!

But, I’m no quitter! And, I now knew why I was so gosh-darn hungry! As disappointed as I was that I had forgotten to eat one of the foods, which was technically a violation of what I had set out to do (“eat all those foods and only those foods every day for 30 days”), it was actually really validating. It validated the fact that I was doing something right. The diet plan I created seemed to be keeping me full and happy (as long as I was actually eating what I was supposed to). I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t waking up hungry until I did. Sometimes that’s just how it works in life, I guess… You don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone, you know?

So, I’m a little glad I screwed up. It showed me how great I was doing otherwise, and reminded me to not get sloppy and to stay focused. If only we could look at every failure that way… I guess that’s the positive attitude again 🙂

After work, I picked up the kids from school and headed home. I try to leave work early once a week and surprise them. It means doing a bunch of work later that night, or early the next morning, but it’s totally worth getting the extra prime-time with the kids. They might not look like they always appreciate it (“Nice to see you… Can we go to 7-11?”), but I know they do; and I know that their future-selves will definitely appreciate the extra quality time with their dad (even if I don’t take them to 7-11).

As soon as I got home, I started trying to figure out what to eat. Remember, I’m still super hungry from having missed my tofu the day before. I figured as a sort of penance, I’d start with tofu first, so I cubed some up and threw it in the food processor.

Now what?

I knew I wanted to do something new and creative, but I wasn’t sure which direction to go. Maybe I’d make some sort of avocado mousse? I added half an avocado and figured I’d go an Asian direction, so I added some soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, TJ’s Habanero Hot Sauce, apple cider vinegar, and some mustard powder and pulsed until it was smooth.

A note and warning about TJ’s Habanero Hot Sauce. It is incredibly hot. Like so hot that even a drop can ruin your dish if it hits your tongue straight. I was really, really hoping that mixing it in with something else and blending it would make it palatable and give a nice heat to the dish. I was right. I think this is the only way to use the stuff, as a flavor inside a dish as opposed to a relish.

When I scraped the “mousse” out, I was pleasantly surprised to find the texture almost identical to good Israeli chumus (hummus), so I plated accordingly:

And served it up with some tofu chips.

I swear to you, that isn’t chumus. It’s not even hummus. I couldn’t believe it. Although it didn’t quite taste like chumus, it was delicious and I ate the whole plate rather quickly with the tofu chips. I decided I needed to try again, but this time flavor it like chumus. I added another half log of tofu (cubed) and half an avocado to the food processor and this time added a little less sesame oil, some soy sauce, mustard powder, 2 cloves of garlic, the juice of half a lemon, TJ’s umami blend, some salt, and olive oil.

I couldn’t believe it. Forgive my sacrilege, but this was pretty much chumus. It was beautiful, creamy, garlicky, zesty, and delicious. I thoroughly enjoyed it, both because it was amazing and because I felt like I had just cheated the universe.

<word nerdiness>
Speaking of sacrilege. I'm a bit of a word nerd and I'm really interested in etymology and word usage. I think it helps us use words better and more accurately if we understand the roots of the word and how it has been historically used. Even if a word has a totally different meaning in modern usage, the historical usage and origins can help us use words more accurately and understand the nuanced differences between words that have similar meanings. But, I digress. I always thought sacrilege came from the same word as religion with a prefix of sac- added to the front. I assumed the prefix meant something like "to defile or profane" or something like that. I'm not sure where I got this idea from, but I know I've had it floating around in my head for a long time, probably since I was a kid. Either way, that isn't the root of the word at all. In fact, the "-rilege" has nothing to do with "religion" and the breakdown of the word is actually the reverse to what I had mistakenly thought. The first half of the word is the part that means "of a religious character or holy" from the same Latin root as words like "sacred" and "sacrifice" and the second half is the "profane" part from the Latin "legere." Legere means "to steal or take" from the same root as words like "anthology" and "collect." What this means, for us, in terms of usage and depth of nuance is that sacrilege didn't historically mean "to make profane that which is sacred" but rather "to steal or take for one's self that which is designated for a higher purpose." There is an important nuance here. Sacrilege isn't about misuse or use for mundanity, but rather about using something sacred to serve yourself. To take something which is holy and make it profane is one thing, but to take something and force it to serve your needs is something entirely different. Food for thought.
</word nerdiness>

I washed my two plates of “chumus” down with a kale juice, this time with a twist… of lime.

Next, after getting the kids to bed, doing some work, and praying, I contemplated an egg.

I was trying to figure out something different I could do with it… Eggs are so versatile, I wanted to try something new. I added 2 eggs and an egg white to the food processor with some kale and my quinoa for the day:

Then I added some red chili pepper flakes, paprika, thyme, black pepper, and salt and whipped it up into a batter.

Into the oven, which was preheated to 350F, she goes for about 20 minutes. Out comes the body of my sandwich:

While it cooled, I got to work on my spread/dip. I whisked together 1 egg yolk with some olive oil until it emulsified and then added some apple cider vinegar, liquid smoke, pumpkin pie spice (to give it some warmth and sweetness), mustard powder, the juice of half a lemon, cracked black pepper, and salt.

Now on goes the base:

And, take the plunge:

The dip really made the sandwich fun to eat, but it was also a little too smoky and the flavors were a little murky and dark as a result. The baked-omelet-base was completely drowned out and the background smokiness just felt like it was always there. Overall, the sandwich was good, but it definitely could have been better had I been a little more cautious with the liquid smoke. I’ll definitely keep trying and tweaking. This is just the beginning of my sand-wich-craft…

Ugh. Mornings. Am I right?

We were all a bit sluggish in starting off the day, but my son was the slowest and so he missed the boat… or should I say car. My wife ended up taking him late. With no specific food plan, I grabbed some hard boiled eggs, half a loaf of bread, an avocado and some peas to eat at work and was out the door. I also drank 40oz of water before I left the house.

My wife brought me the BEST souvenir from her trip to Vegas, mini salt and pepper shakers for my desk! I absolutely love them. And now, I can stop stealing the S+P from home to bring to work everyday 🙂

The morning was mostly uneventful, and specifically uneventful food-wise. I was reluctant to eat too much as I knew I’d be meeting with Tim (my trainer) later on in the afternoon. I wasn’t particularly interested in emptying the precious contents of my digestive system or feeling like I needed to, so I opted to keep things light before my workout.

A cold quinoa salad featuring fresh peas, a hard boiled egg, salt, pepper, olive oil, and the juice of a quarter of a lime, was just what I needed. The peas and lime were bright and refreshing, the egg gave it substance and the quinoa, bulk. It was a pleasant mid-day almost-lunch.

After that, I had a few meetings and then headed out to the gym for my “lunch” break. I had a great time at the gym. Tim and I chatted about things beyond fitness and it was a pleasure getting to know a bit more about him. Chatting also really made the workout fly by, which was a nice bonus.

After the gym, I had a sandwich. Novel, right? I know. I thought it was a little weird that one of my main ingredients was bread and I hadn’t yet made a sandwich…

I think I forget how good a good sandwich can be, I’ll have to focus on that… One of the nice thing about a sandwich is the sort-of food-roulette that you play in eating it. Some bites have different ratios than others. Different combinations of textures and flavors are always fun.

The rest of the afternoon was spent assisting the engineering class with a soldering project. The instructor wanted an extra set of eyes and hands to allow her to focus on helping the boys and to make sure that the soldering iron was not left unattended at any point. I was glad to get my hands dirty (although not literally, that would have been painful) and get back in the lab to do some tinkering.

After lab time, I realized that I had a dinner meeting with some graduate students from the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration and that I wasn’t going to be home until after 9pm. I assumed that there wouldn’t be much, if anything, that I could eat at the dinner, so I ate the rest of my peas instead of saving them for dinner. I marinated them in lime juice and pepper for about 15-20 minutes. They were exceptional! At first, I wasn’t planning on eating all of them, but after the first plate, I couldn’t resist making a second. The sour brightness of the lime juice complemented the sweet brightness of the peas so well + the pepper gave it a nice bite. It was really really yummy, I highly recommend trying it out.

As I said, I mostly expected to not have much to eat at the dinner meeting. I was really going to meet the graduate students and not for the food, so that didn’t really bother me, but I was pleasantly surprised (again) to find that, although the food looked and smelled delicious, I wasn’t hungry and wasn’t tempted. It was really not a challenge. I’m beginning to worry that something is wrong with me 🙂

After a delightful evening with the bright-eyed graduate students, I headed home at around 9pm. After stopping at the synagogue and quickly praying, I made quick work of dinner.

While I cooked, I also tried to clean the kitchen and house. My wife and I usually share the household “stuff” but with her being away for the weekend, all the household responsibilities were exclusively on me. I worked really hard to keep the house clean while she was gone and kind-of went into overdrive on it, which was good. When I got home after a long day, I noticed that the house, specifically the kitchen counters, was a bit cluttered and messy. My knee-jerk reaction was to ask my wife to help me with the chores and tidying up, but before I did, I stopped and realized that nothing had changed. The day before, when she wasn’t there, I was able to do it on my own and it wasn’t too much for me. She doesn’t enjoy cleaning nearly as much as I do, if at all, and she was probably dead-tired from her trip and late arrival, not to mention putting the kids to bed and doing the night-time routine on her own. I decided to just do it. While she relaxed on the couch (she might have been folding laundry) I cleaned and prepared my dinner. I made a conscious decision to not ask her for any help or point out anything that was wrong or messy – I would just pick it up or do it myself. I recalled a statement by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook “The truly righteous do not talk about darkness, they simply add light.”

While I cleaned and prepared my food, my wife and I actually just talked and the conversation was so positive. I guess the attitude of “focus on positivity” even permeated there…

I know that this isn’t an entirely sustainable way of living, partners are supposed to lean on each other and not be afraid to ask for help when they need it. The key is to ask when you need it, and not when you don’t. This newly found negativity-free attitude, a focus on solving the problem rather than talking about it – just getting it done and not looking to someone else to solve it for you – was really liberating and felt, well, good. I know it’s certainly not a direct outgrowth from this whole Quest, but I think it is connected. You see, this whole diet concept is about taking responsibility and focusing on making life better and striving for “perfection”. But the big difference is that it isn’t someone else’s plan and I’m not buying someone else’s food. I did it myself. No one is cooking for me or planning my meals for me. I had a problem and instead of just talking about it or looking to someone else to solve it, I jumped in and started doing the research and planning on my own. I’m going to keep trying this attitude out. I have a feeling it will lead to good things…

Dinner

Wilted Kale Salad

For starters, I prepared a wilted kale salad (the wilting was not intentional, but the result of my refrigerator’s “crisper” – but doesn’t it sound nicer when I call it that?) with a creamy dressing and cubed avocado.

For the dressing, I whisked an egg yolk while slowly trickling in some olive oil until it thickened.

And then I added some apple cider vinegar, mustard powder, fresh cracked pepper, Italian herb blend, and kosher salt and whisked it until it was combined and creamy.

Quiche?

This was followed by a quiche-like appetizer:

Which consisted of a whole egg, about a quarter of an avocado, and a third of a cup of cooked, cold quinoa which I lightly mixed up in the food processor, poured into a mini-loaf tin and baked at 350F for about 15-20 minutes (until the center was set).

The Main Event

That was followed by the main event: Eggs Venedict (vegetarian Eggs Benedict)

A slice of Dave’s Killer, topped with a solar-eclipse egg* and sliced avocado and drizzled with my creamy dressing from the kale salad. To add a crispy + salty element (in place of bacon), I made kale chips from the rest of my wilted kale by tossing them with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasting them until they were nice and crispy.

It was also a great main dish for a late-night dinner. It wasn’t too heavy and yet it was still satisfying. It was spot on.

After the main course, I finished the meal off with a few more slices of toast with avocado and some of the dressing (I’d say the dressing was my favorite product of the night).

Until tomorrow, stay healthy and curious!

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*solar-eclipse egg is what I call a sunny-side up egg with the yolk removed. I had already used the yolk in the dressing.

Sundays are great, aren’t they? I don’t think you can really appreciate Sundays until you live in a place that doesn’t have them… but that’s another blog.

I slept in, prayed, hung out with my kids, even had some time to meditate and write. In terms of food, it was a pretty basic day. I started the day off with 2 eggs and 2 slices of toast and washed it down with 2 glasses of kale/pea juice. I did some experimentation and I think that the right ratio of kale to peas to water is as follows:

• 1 cup of chopped kale
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup of peas (the more peas the more… uhm… chewy)
• Fill the blender to the 20oz mark
• Blend for a few minutes on the highest setting

I took the girls to their grandmother’s for the afternoon and my son had a friend over so I had a really peaceful afternoon. I made myself 28 tofu chips and an avocado’s worth of basic guacamole:

• 1 large avocado
• Juice of 1 lime
• Fresh cracked pepper
• Cube the avocado, add the lime juice, like mash with a fork or spoon but leave it chunky, sprinkle with pepper

I know I made 28 chips because I have now gotten the whole tofu chip thing down to a science: Each log of tofu produces 14 slices.

It was a wonderful afternoon snack:

After the snack, the girls came home and shortly thereafter we headed out to the synagogue and to Trader Joe’s to get dinner for the kids. I made them deconstructed kabobs while I ate quinoa with peas and olive oil.

I’ll tell you the weirdest thing, and I’m not lying, their food wasn’t really all that tempting. I’m a pretty serious carnivore. I love meat. I love grilled food. But it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I’ve felt pretty satiated and happy the whole way through this thing and tonight was probably the first big test of that. I was shocked that it wasn’t so hard…

After I got the kids to bed, I had some toast with olive oil and then, a few hours later, rounded the evening off with a bookend late night snack of 2 eggs and 2 slices of toast, wrapping the day up in a neat little package.

Since I had such a peaceful and contemplative day, I’d like to take a few minutes and discuss something on the more philosophical side of food, as opposed to just the practical. Indulge me, please.

Musings on Food, Flavor, and Hedonism

I started off this quest, in my exposition post, with a reference to the portrayal of what the future of food may look like in futuristic movies. Whether depicting a dystopian or utopian future, I observed that these future-foods were always some sort of perfect singular foodstuff which contained “everything the body needs.” I called out a scene in The Matrix which particularly highlighted this concept and I’d like to revisit that scene together. In so doing, I hope I will be able to explain part of my own philosophy on food and why this quest of mine is different than that of most others searching for “perfect nutrition.”

In the scene, Neo is given a bowl of gloppy future-food:

TANK: Here you go, buddy. Breakfast of champions.

MOUSE: If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you’re eating runny eggs.

APOC: Or a bowl of snot.

DOZER: [matter of factly] It’s a single-celled protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs.

MOUSE: It doesn’t have everything the body needs.

The Matrix (1999), written by Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

That last line is delivered with an almost-wink, as if to say “If you know what I mean…”

The short dialogue which follows is very telling about the philosophical message The Matrix intended to deliver. A message which seems to reflect a sort of silent consensus in the world we live in.

MOUSE: So I understand you’ve run through the Agent training program? You know, I wrote that program.

APOC: Here it comes.

MOUSE: So what did you think of her?

NEO: Of who?

MOUSE: The woman in the red dress. I designed her. She doesn’t talk much but if you’d like to, you know, meet her, I could arrange a more personalized milieu.

SWITCH: The digital pimp hard at work.

MOUSE: Pay no attention to these hypocrites, Neo. To deny our impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.

The Matrix (1999), written by Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

The “woman in the red dress” is, of course, representative of all physical pleasure. In an earlier scene, in which we meet said “woman,” it is made very clear what gazing at this “woman” will mean.

Neo and Morpheus are walking together in a Manhattan-like simulation. Morpheus is lecturing Neo about something. The sidewalk is crowded with drab people dressed in dark suits and business clothes. A beautiful woman in a red dress comes into the frame. Neo is distracted by her and Morpheus calls him out on it, then:

The simulation is meant to be a training drill to help Neo avoid distractions. The woman and all she represents are presented as merely a distraction, a very dangerous distraction, from his true purpose. All who indulge their “impulses” are painted as immature or evil – as making a ‘deal with the devil,’ as the following scene so clearly illustrates:

The Matrix, and our society, paints a picture depicting two extremes: good and evil. Good is presented as focusing exclusively on the “single-cell protein, synthetic aminos, vitamins and minerals” of life, and evil as focusing on the flavors, textures, and pleasures of life. To focus on “taste” is to lose focus on the mission, which is either stupid or evil, or both.

The picture they’ve painted, however, is monochromatic. I’d like to stand up and say that I disagree with the notion that good an evil are so black and white. They are not. Life is nuanced and so must our picture of it be. It must have color and movement and light. It must reflect the true condition of life – something beautiful.

Food is indeed fuel. It sustains life. It could be nothing more than a gloppy semi-solid or beverage that supplies 100% of the RDA for all the nutrients one needs. It could be, but it shouldn’t be.

Food, like life, is also meant to be delicious and colorful. It’s meant to be fun and enjoyable. It’s meant to be fragrant and texturally pleasing. It’s meant to engage all our senses and our souls. Food is meant to be more than just fuel.

The biggest proof that that is true is that it’s true. If food was meant to simply be fuel, it would be. If our world was meant to be drab and boring, it would be. Our world could just as easily have been created as a tasteless, black-and-white, silent film – the fact that it isn’t is proof, at least for me, that The Divine desires that we enjoy the world. It is proof that humans need more than just amino acids, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. It is proof that we need taste, and texture, and pleasure. It is, to quote Benjamin Franklin, “constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!”

Now, there are theologians and philosophers who will claim that all the shiny stuff is just put here by God as a test. That God’s will is that we restrain ourselves and not indulge in the food and pleasure he placed before us.

I don’t buy it.

I don’t buy the image of God being some cranky old man in the sky, constantly testing us in order to try and get humankind to screw up. It doesn’t make sense to me that the God who commanded us to avoid “placing a stumbling block in front of a blind person” would construct an entire world to do just that!

When God creates Adam and places him in the Garden of Eden, he commands him to “eat of all the fruits of my Garden, except one.” It sounds to me like only the temptation of that specific singular tree was meant to be a test, with God being very clear about the rules of the game.

If God wanted us to live in a world where food was exclusively fuel and the pleasure of it all was merely a test, a distraction, or purely evil, it seems to me that a more fitting metaphor would be one, flavorless tree to eat from and thousands of deliciously beautiful trees to abstain from.

I believe that The Divine wants us to enjoy the world. Even in the Talmud, when a piously ascetic lifestyle is described, it is described as eating bread with salt. With salt! A person needs bread – fuel – but a person also needs salt – flavor. I think of The Divine as a loving Creator who desires the best for all of us. If we are ever subject to a Divine test it is so that we can pass, succeed, and grow. Divine tests will always set us up for success.

I also believe, however, that, as I said above, the world isn’t black and white and that the importance of enjoyment, flavor, and pleasure are nuanced and so, we need to abstain from that one tree. We need to know the limits of indulgence and pleasure and strive to understand and live with the delicate nuance.

A person must do what they need to do in order to inspire their soul and fuel their body, but at the same time, one must be careful not to overdo it. We need to be careful not to become hedonistic. Hedonism is a black and white world on the other extreme, it means living exclusively for pleasure and flavor.

The restriction and forced abstinence from the “one tree” forces us to recognize that pleasure mustn’t become an end in and of itself. It forces us to stare nuance in the face and recognize that things aren’t that simple. And, ironically, it is that self-same recognition, the recognition that we mustn’t make pleasure an end in and of itself, that forces us to avoid eschewing it as being immature or evil – because rather than pleasure being an end on its own, it is a powerful means to a greater end*.

I think that’s a big motivation behind this “Quest.” There are tons of recipes and products out there for “perfect food” or “complete foods” as they are becoming known online. But they’ve squeezed the life out of life… Food is meant to be created creatively, to be enjoyed with gusto, to be savored and smelled, to be pleasurable and inspiring to our souls. Food is meant to keep us alive and to make us live.

So, I didn’t stop with just the ingredients. I could have just taken my spreadsheet and blended it all up, glugged it down (although, when I did try that, it didn’t go very well…), and moved on with “life”. But, I didn’t. I took the raw ingredients and decided to take up the challenge to make them something beautiful and enjoyable and fun, meal after meal, day after day, week after week. I did it to show myself and the world that flavor, texture, pleasure, and happiness aren’t immature or evil but that they are necessary and holy, that the world isn’t black and white but full of color, that desiring to enjoy things doesn’t make you a sinner or a foolish kid but that it makes you human, and that being “human” isn’t an insult but the greatest compliment you can pay someone.

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*That “greater end” and our ability to utilize the beauty of our world to elevate ourselves and connect with the Divine is well beyond the scope of this derisory blog…

For the Biblically inclined among my readers: Yes, I am aware of how awesome and rich the title of this post is, especially since my name is Adam.

Moving right along. Friday was quite a day. I didn’t get much sleep on Thursday night. If I’m lucky, I got about 3 hours. My girls both woke up at about 2am just as I was, myself, getting ready to go to sleep. Or, perhaps more accurately, one of them woke up first and then woke the other up. I can’t say for certain which was which – or really, I don’t want to, because this was the topic of their arguing over the next 24 hours. The both felt sick and had a slight fever (their words, not mine). I’m not saying they were faking, but…

At some point, I just sent them to play while I passed out. I don’t know exactly when they fell asleep, but I know that when I woke up at around 6:30am there was no chance I was going to wake them up.

Did I mention that my wife was out of town and I was on my own for the weekend?

When my older daughter finally did wake up at around 8 o’clock, she was grouchy (understandably) and wouldn’t go to school. She was still claiming she was sick and I, who am generally a sucker when it comes to my kids anyway, was inclined to believe that sending her to school with just a few hours of sleep in her – whether she was sick or not – wouldn’t be good for anyone. Plus who wants to be this lady:

So, I told her she could stay home with me. Big mistake. You see, children are like dominoes. Or, maybe that’s landmines. No matter, pick your metaphor. When my son found out that both of the girls were staying home with me, he wouldn’t go to school either. As I mentioned before, I’m kind of a sucker for my kids. Also, I had only gotten like 2-3 hours of sleep, so I caved.

We all went to Disney Land!

Just kidding. Seriously, how bad of a dad do you think I am?

We cleaned the house and I let the girls wallow in their “illness” a bit. But, I did have to get to work for at least half-an-hour to teach a class that only meets once a week – missing that would have been too much of a setback, especially given how often the school schedule has gotten messed up on Fridays lately. So after we got the house clean and I released the robotic vacuum cleaner on our living room, we all loaded into the van. I gave a great lecture (if I do say so myself) on Jewish law and philosophy, and then we went grocery shopping.

This diet actually makes shopping pretty easy:

It was pretty straightforward… Or it should have been, had I not brought my kids. Again, I’m a sucker and I hadn’t gotten much sleep + my kids are cute and persuasive. So, although I wasn’t eating any of it, they convinced me to buy three desserts (and yes, I know, based on the spelling mnemonic you are only supposed to have two) and a whole bunch of other stuff we don’t need…

Right now, my wife is reading this in Vegas and slapping her forehead. Let’s move on.

When we got home, I made myself two sunny-side-up eggs and toast for lunch and washed it down with some kale/pea drink. Yes, go ahead, laugh all you want. It was delicious.

As I mentioned yesterday, as an Orthodox Jew I celebrate the Sabbath each week. Part of that celebration means not engaging in any of the 39 categories of creative physical labor outlined in Jewish tradition. One of them is cooking. So that meant having to plan, prepare, and organize all the food I would eat, from sundown on Friday afternoon through stars-out on Saturday night, in advance.

My wife is, again, reading this in Vegas and slapping her forehead. I know, she does this every week. She is better than I. Let’s move on.

I didn’t have to worry about the kids’ food, they had enough ice-cream, cookies, and babka to last until Saturday night.

Again, kidding. Seriously, just how bad of a dad do you think I am?

My mother-in-law had graciously offered to cook dinner and the synagogue that we attend was having a luncheon, so my kids were taken care of.

I made a menu for myself:

And got to work…

Miso soup is really easy to make and shouldn’t cook for very long, so I left that for last. My son wanted to help. I had him manning the toaster. He made 8 pieces of toast for me. I had him put all the toast into an airtight container, thinking that that would keep it crispy for the next 24 hours.

I was wrong. A word of advice: don’t keep toast in a sealed container if you want it to stay crispy. I only realized when I crunched – or should I say chewed – into the first piece a few hours later that the moisture left in the bread will concentrate and soften the toast if left in a sealed container. Next time I’m leaving it out; or maybe in a brown paper bag.

While he was doing that, I was making my, now famous, tofu chips. For which I now have a more exact science.

Tofu Chips

Slice the tofu into roughly 1/4 inch slices

You’ll want to arrange seven of them on a microwave-safe plate which has been lightly rubbed down with olive oil. Next, sprinkle with salt and pepper and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Check them by poking the middle of one of the slices (careful, they are hot!). Microwave for another 2 minutes (or less if they are already on the crispier side).

I made a ton of them, and these actually did keep nicely in an airtight container.

Meringues

The next thing I started working on was the meringues. I wanted to try and make a dessert for my festive Sabbath meals. I had already successfully made savory meringues, why not try sweet ones? I’ll tell you why not. Because for sweet food you need sweet ingredients. I had none. So, I took the sweetest thing on my list and made a valiant effort.

I started by boiling the peas in shallow water. Something I know concentrates their sweetness and can help shorten their starch molecules into more sugar. I was hoping that may I could extract some of that sweetness into the water and then turn it into some kind of pea-simple-syrup.

The liquid was slightly sweet. Maybe? I could barely tell. But I pushed forward.

I separated my eggs and added the 1/8 of a cup of pea juice, which at this point kinda of looked like its homophone, and started whipping. Yes, again, I whipped it good.

I tasted the fluff. It tasted like egg. That is all.

So, I decided to add the macerated peas to the bowl, figuring maybe they’d add some flavor.

They made it look pretty, at least.

I added the fluff to a gallon sized brand-ambiguous zipper-top bag and cut off the corner to make a piping bag, piped out 8 nice little meringues, and popped them in a preheated 300F oven.

About an hour later I pulled these babies out:

Yes, I am aware that they look like poop emojis.

No, they didn’t taste much better.

That’s probably too harsh. They were edible and I ate four of them on Friday. They kind of tasted like a pea flavored egg-white omelet. Probably because that’s what they were. There was no sweetness to speak of.

But this wasn’t the end of this failure.

I put them in a container to save them for Saturday. Yes, reader, this is my biggest learning from the weekend. Containers aren’t for everything. When I returned the next day, they were wrinkly and mushy. I squished one with my hand so you could get an idea:

That was a fail. I’ll try again.

Salad Dressing and The Exploding Yolk Trick

I had two lonely egg yolks which had been separated from their loving albumens. What to do?

With one, I made a creamy salad dressing. Good!

The other exploded in my microwave. Bad!

First the dressing:

I started with an egg yolk and some olive oil, which I whisked together to form a mayo-like semi-solid. This would be my base.

To that, I added some apple cider vinegar, black pepper, salt, dried thyme, and garlic powder.

It was too vinegar-forward and not creamy enough. It needed something to cut the acid and add a little bit of richness. I already had a raw egg yolk in there. What else could I do? I racked my brain trying to think of what I could use. Honey was out. So was mayo. Then it hit me. Avocado.

I added about a tablespoon of avocado and mixed it up. That’s when it happened. I took my hand off the cup for a second. Boom.

The glass slipped, the whisk kept spinning, and that stuff was everywhere… It was like a glitter bomb of creamy salad dressing. When I say the stuff was everywhere, I meant it. It was actually everywhere. I recruited my kids to help me clean up and scraped as much dressing as I was comfortable eating back into the cup and tasted it. I can’t be sure whether it was the avocado or the time being airborne, but this dressing was really nice so I stuck it in the fridge and moved on to the second yolk.

I just wanted something quick that I could eat on Saturday, so I decided to just pop the yolk in the microwave in some water and let it set using the technique I’d discovered back on day 3. I put it in for a minute and when I took it out everything looked fine.

Famous last words.

I went to the fridge to grab some tofu when I heard it. It was like the sound of one popcorn kernel popping. Like a single bubble wrap bubble being popped. Like a weasel, which is apparently a creature that pops. The yolk exploded.

I guess, although chickens are flightless birds, these yolks, which contained the limitless potential of chicken life, weren’t about to be held down by our labels and stereotypes of what a chicken can or can’t be. They were going to fly, gosh darn it, whether I liked it or not.

I cleaned my egg of my face, and went back to my tofu.

Tofu Salami

I marinated a log of tofu overnight. I think the marinade contained apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, TJ’s Umami blend, a touch of red chili pepper flakes, pepper, a drop of liquid smoke, and lots of garlic and garlic powder.

My thinking was as follows: In my first attempt at microwaved tofu, the texture was slightly reminiscent of dried salami and, I believe, that most of the flavor of dried salami comes from the salty-garlickiness of it. So I added a bunch of those flavors to a marinade and then microwaved the whole log for 10 minutes.

I let it cool and then set it aside for later.

[fast forward about 30 hours]

When Saturday night rolled around I finally cut into this thing. I was good, but nothing like a dried salami. First, the marinade hadn’t penetrated at all, so the flavor was only skin deep. Second, the bottom was crispy and the top was pretty soft. I will probably try flip it during the cooking to get a more even texture. I assume that the heat of the plate conducted into the bottom of the tofu and so it cooked more quickly.

I will try again!

Tabouli!

Tabouli is one of those foods that divides people. Some people love it, others hate it. I heard one person calling it “garnish salad.” I figured: I’m already riffing on traditional tabouli, why not make the divisive nature of this dish worse by adding another ingredient from the love/hate cookbook: Cilantro. I happen to love tabouli and cilantro. And, since I would be the only one eating this food, I decided to double down. I embraced my cilantro-loving genetic mutation and ran with it.

In place of bulgur, I would sub in two of my ingredients:

• Quinoa would provide the grainy and nutty flavors, while
• Fresh peas would provide the chew and quasi-crunch

I would also be adding kale into the leafy bouquet.

I started by processing 2 cups of peas in the food processor until the peas were broken to about the size of coarse bulgur. I then processed 2 cups of kale very finely, about this much parsley and cilantro:

and 3 or 4 cloves of garlic. I tossed all that together in a large glass bowl.

To that, I add 1 1/3 cups of quinoa, a hearty drizzle of olive oil, salt, fresh cracked pepper, finely ground black pepper, the juice of one lemon, and the juice of one lime. I tossed it all up, covered it with plastic cling wrap and stuck it in the fridge for about 24 hours to let the flavors meld.

This was the star of the day. I ate it all day on Saturday and it was delicious. The half-lemon half-lime juice added a nice bright acidity that wasn’t overwhelming. The kale added just a slight hint of bitterness and grassiness that was a welcome addition, the garlic had since lost its bite, but still retained the heat and flavor I was hoping for, the peas added the chew and mouthfeel I’d hoped for, and the quinoa added a nice, subtle nuttiness. It’s something I’d make in normal life 🙂

Miso Egg Drop Soup

Last but not least, I made a small pot of miso egg drop soup. Yes, this is my own invention. No, I’ve never made it before. Yes, I was sure I didn’t make it up. No, I couldn’t find anything like it online.

Prep is pretty simple. mix 6 cups of room temperature water with 1 tablespoon of miso paste, whisk to combine. Add about a cup of peas and about 7oz of cubed tofu. Put it on the stove over medium-high heat until it just boils. Add one whole egg and whisk. Cover and turn to low until ready to serve (or, in my case, just before sunset). Serve with soy sauce to taste.

I ate 3 bowls. The varying textures of the peas, tofu, egg, and broth were fun to eat. The flavors ranged from slightly grassy/sweet to briny and salty to a pleasant egginess. It was also very filling and satisfying.

The Sabbath

That was all the cooking I had time for. The sun was getting low in the sky and the girls, who had been in the bath for over an hour, were pruneier than the punch at an old-age homecoming. I turned off the pot of soup, warned the girls that they’d need to get out soon, and jumped in the shower. Even though I had showered that morning, there’s an old Jewish custom that I like to try and honor: That one should try to bathe, at least, their hands, face, and feet with warm water in anticipation of the Sabbath. The idea of intentionally preparing for something that has import is something I like a lot. I touched on it when I discussed the restriction of cooking on the Sabbath and the need to cook beforehand if one wants to eat on the Sabbath itself.

This custom, though, holds even more depth for me. I like to think of the three parts of the body which the custom focuses on as representative of the three ways we connect with those around us. Our face is what people see when we interact with them – our emotions are betrayed or hidden by our faces. Our hands are what they feel – a warm embrace or stiff push away. Our feet are what carry us to the people we love or away from the ones we hate – the speed and spring with which they carry us says a lot.

The Talmud relates that a person’s eyesight can become dim if they take steps which are too wide during the week, but that the wine which we drink on Friday night restores their vision. The Sabbath is a reset. Each week, the whole world can be created anew if we allow it to be. Whatever happens to blind us during the hustle-bustle of the week can be washed away if we choose to wash it away. To prepare for the Sabbath, for the recreation of one’s world, it is crucial that we wash away all the dirt, those things which act as barriers, from the parts of our body which connect us with others. We do this with warm water to remind us of the importance of interacting with others warmly.

When you rebuild your world, be sure that it is a warm world, free of barriers that separate you from those around you.

Speaking of being separated from those around you. Sometimes separation can be a good thing… Like when you get out of the shower, are half-dressed, and stumble into your living room to find your front door wide open. Luckily, I had the good sense to get back to my room and zip up my pants before asking my kids why the door was open.

“Grandma’s here.”

Oh. I see. Glad my pants are on then…

Thankfully, my mother-in-law was making her second trip to her car to retrieve the rest of the food she had made and so we maintained a healthy degree of separation.

Once she left, the kids and I gathered around the table, set out a bottle of wine (my only cheat on this quest – hey, if “sacramental wine” was allowed during prohibition, I figure I’m OK to drink 4oz of wine on Friday night for religious purposes) and 5 candles as a form of symbolic preparation for the Sabbath, who was about to grace our home with her presence. I lit the candles and welcomed the calm and serenity that the Sabbath brought with her.

Everything that needed doing over the next 25 hours was already done. The food was cooked. The house was clean (and so were we). Our plans were all made. The robotic vacuum was charging. Even the lights were set to properly light the parts of the house we’d use that night. My kids and I hung out. They ate some candy. We read some books. They fought over candy. We read some more books. They got hyper from the candy. I put in earplugs and read a book alone on the couch while they chased each other screaming through the back of the house. Aah. Yes. Serenity.

Finally, my in-laws showed up and we ate, sang, and played together for the next few hours. Unfortunately, I had neglected to tell my mother-in-law about my new dietary quest (I just assume everyone reads my blog, you know) until very late in the day on Friday. She had gone out of her way to hunt down a large kosher brisket which would feed my ravenous kids and me. It was a chicken soup situation all over again. She only made me feel slightly guilty for not eating her food. I responded by making her feel slightly guilty for not reading my blog. She’s a curious and interested person by nature, so she was genuinely interested about what the heck I was doing and that made for good conversation – thankfully shifting the conversation away from the fact that she had cooked extra food for me, which I wouldn’t be eating.

I had 4 slices of toast, which by now was the toast equivalent of stale, with avocado, 3 bowls of miso soup, and a delightful kale salad with my heretofore airborne dressing. I was quite full, happy to put the kids to bed and fall into a happy dream-land as well…

I woke up at about midnight with a crick in my neck and knee in my kidney. What was originally a cute idea, was now becoming a pain in the neck – quite literally. It’s amazing how 3 small humans, who all together don’t weigh as much as me, can manage to take up a bed built for a king. They are like silent sleep ninjas, they slowly spread their nimble, flexible bodies to fill any open space, leaving no room for those of us who can’t flex the way they do.

What’s worse, when I woke up, I realized that I had neglected to eat my quinoa and peas. I needed the thiamine and niacin, not to mention potassium, carbohydrates, and protein! So, at about 12:30am, I stumbled out to the kitchen and ate 1 1/3 cups of cold quinoa with peas and whatever was left of that salad dressing.

I then tried to get some sleep with the sleep ninjas.

The next day was nice. As I mentioned, there was a communal luncheon at our local synagogue. I brought my own back of packed goodies: Tofu chips with guacamole (uber simple, juice of half a lime and pepper), tabouli, and toast (I’m reluctant to even call it toast at this point…) with 2 medium-boiled eggs. I had a nice afternoon and basically just hung out at the synagogue all day.

When we got home, after the Sabbath had departed, I made myself the remaining eggs (I didn’t eat the second batch of meringues and the flying egg yolk wasn’t all that appealing) as sunny-side up eggs with toast.

I realized as I was eating that I’m pretty sure sunny-side up eggs with toast is my favorite food… OK, maybe not favorite food – I’m an equal opportunity food lover – but at the very least it is my comfort food. The runniness of the egg yolk sopped up by the crispy but chewy toast. The rich flavor of the yolk coupled with the salt and subtle heat of the pepper. The ease of preparation paradoxically balanced with the small feeling of victory you feel when you successfully get the egg on the plate without breaking the yolk. The warmth of the whole thing.

I guess, for me, it probably also has an emotional component too. What food doesn’t? My mom is a fantastic cook and she cooks all the time. Not to say my dad isn’t, he is also a good cook, albeit messier, but my mom rules her kitchen. With one exception: My dad makes eggs. Specifically eggs for breakfast. If they were in a sandwich, affectionately known as a chavita when I was growing up (an Israeli omelet my mother and grandmother used to make with a bit of milk, stuffed in a pita pocket) Whenever there are eggs to be made, it’s still this way when my own kids visit, Poppy makes them. He even has a designated cast iron skillet and stick of butter for the job. His favorite is sunny-side up eggs, still runny and messy (kind of like him), sometimes with hot sauce à la huevos rancheros, sometimes with all kinds of weird stuff, like liquid aminos drizzled over the top, or mayonnaise, or Lord know what else.

My dad’s sunny-side up eggs were a Sunday morning event when I was growing up. Maybe that’s why, for me, sunny-side up eggs have to be made in a cast iron skillet, have to be a bit of mess, and you have to smash open the yolk with your bread to access that golden cholestro-nectar. Maybe that’s why, for me, the dish is something of a comfort, no matter what time of day, it always leaves me feeling full, warm, and happy…

Thanks dad.

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Do you have a special food memory? A personal comfort food? Share it with us!

This morning I got out of bed ready and focused. I packed a box of food and supplies and even had time to make a juice.

1 cup of kale, a handful of peas, and about 15 oz of water went into the blender:

And out came…

A frothy, viridescent liquid which was actually quite enticing. Maybe it was so enticing because it looked like a beer that was hiding a pot of gold, or maybe because it wasn’t thick and chewy, but whatever it was, when I drank it at around 11am it went down easy and didn’t make me want to throw up 🙂

Quite seriously, though, this is definitely one that I would add to my repertoire. It was an easy and quick way to bang out some ingredients and it actually tasted OK, was watery enough to just drink, and was satisfying in a weird, Emerald City sort of way.

At work, I didn’t have much time at all. I ate 3 pieces of toast and an avocado for lunch. Even though I brought cooked quinoa, peas, eggs, and half a loaf of bread, that’s pretty much all I ate at work + lots of water.

I spent most of my time at work, well, actually working and teaching. Here’s the main (non-food) product of today’s endeavors:

I was able to leave work early today and pick up my kids from school, which was a real blessing, and get home early enough to see my wife before she left for a high-school reunion weekend with some of her friends. When I got home, I needed to eat something so I whipped up a quick quinoa bowl with half my quinoa for the day. To the cold quinoa, I added a raw egg, a handful of peas, and some salt and pepper. I popped it in the microwave for a minute to let the egg set and warm up.

The texture was just what I was hoping for and the peas had sweetened slightly from the quick spin in the microwave. I honestly don’t remember much more about this dish…

After that, it was time to say goodbye to my wife and then get the kids ready for bed. Just as my wife was leaving, my son noticed that a Lego structure he was working on had broken and he had a full-on meltdown. We’re talking Chernobyl. But, it’s amazing what you can do when you have no other choice… I sat with him and helped him rebuild while doing my best not to downplay his pain. I’ve heard it said that, for a child, losing a toy boat is the same thing as a grown man losing a yacht, so I always try and validate and show compassion for my kids when something like this happens. Other than that, the kids were in great moods and we cuddled and watched a video before bed. What more could you ask for?

“Chorizo Sausage” and Eggs

After they were asleep, which didn’t happen all that quickly, I had some work to catch up on, owing to my early departure from work, and I also needed to eat… I decided that I was really in the mood for salami and eggs or something of the like. Realizing that tofu wouldn’t give me a salami-like texture without some serious time and work – time which I didn’t have – I decided to go for sausage/chorizo and eggs instead. I added about 4oz of tofu to the blender with some apple cider vinegar, liquid smoke, a ton of paprika (à la chorizo), some red chili flakes, a good helping of black pepper, some soy sauce, some garlic powder, TJ’s Umami Blend, and mustard powder and pulsed until it was coarse, like sausage.

I added the mixture to a hot pan with some olive oil and sauteed until it was mostly crispy and then tossed in two eggs and scrambled the eggs in, what we call, “Poppy style”

Poppy is my dad and the way he makes scrambled eggs is by just adding his eggs straight to a hot pan as if he were making them sunny-side or over-easy and then he just mixes them around with a spatula until they are scrambled. That’s the way I grew up making scrambled eggs and that’s how I still make them, but, apparently, it’s weird, hence the term “Poppy style.”

It was delicious. The heat, the sweet, the smokiness, it was all there. The texture was also great. The right mix of crunchy and chewy just the way salami and eggs should be. I honestly didn’t even realize it was tofu.

That held me over for the next couple of hours. I had a bunch of work to do and a chance to meet and study with a mentor and friend of mine. The conversation was pretty deep and when I finally came up for air it was just past 11pm and I had a lot of food left to eat:

• 3 slices of bread
• 7.5oz of tofu
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of kale
• 2 cups of peas
• 2/3 of a cup of quinoa

To be exact.

It was already past 11pm and I still had to plan for my solo weekend, finish up some work, clean the house, and a bunch of other stuff, so I decided to do a…

Speed Round!

I set a timer and had to be sitting down to eat in under 30 minutes.

30 minutes on the clock. And time starts…NOW!

My first thought was to make a dressing with the egg yolk, some apple cider vinegar, olive oil, coarse pepper, salt, and a handful of peas. I wanted to include the kale in the dressing and make a sort of “inverted salad” with croutons, crispy tofu, quinoa and peas in a bowl dressed with liquefied salad greens in the vinaigrette. I thought that would be creative and fun, so I went for it.

I threw some bread in the toaster and carefully cubed half the tofu (I snacked on the other half with some salt and pepper as I cooked). I tossed the tofu into a hot pan with some Umami, pepper, olive oil, garlic powder, and whatever was left in the pan from my sausage.

I let those sear and turned my attention back to the dressing.

I quickly realized that without adding a bunch more water I wouldn’t be able to get this thing to be runny enough to be a dressing… so much water that it no longer had the right texture or flavor for a dressing. I decided to scrap the inverted salad idea and switch gears.

The dressing would become a soup. I added the rest of the peas to the blender and roughly grated them. The toasted bread croutons would go nicely with this newly conceived soup.

I felt good about the whole concept and turned my focus back to the tofu, quinoa, and lonely egg white I had left.

I took the tofu out of the pan, it wasn’t getting crispy enough fast enough, and pulled a new arrow out of my quiver. I put the tofu in the microwave for 5 minutes hoping it would get nice and crunchy.

While that was going I chopped up my twice-toasted bread (which had slightly burnt, I scraped off the char and kept moving) and poured the quinoa into the frying pan from the tofu with some of the peas.

Once the quinoa was hot, I added the egg white and made “fried rice.” This actually worked exceptionally well. The quinoa and egg developed a nice crust which I was constantly scraping back into the mixture and, just as this was coming together, the microwave beeped. I added the, now crispy, tofu to a bowl along with the “fried rice” quinoa and dressed it lightly with some soy sauce and sesame oil.

Now that the microwave was free, I poured my “soup” into a bowl and popped it in for 1.5 minutes, with a quick stir halfway through, put the croutons on a plate and sat down to eat.

Dinner was served… In under 30 minutes!

The quinoa was great, with that cracklingly crispy tofu, the fond picked up from a night of cooking, the toastiness of the sesame oil, and the salty umami from the soy sauce. This was a slam dunk.

The soup was also surprisingly good. A massive step up from my last soup, this one had much more complexity and brightness (owing to the vinegar , egg yolk, and olive oil) plus a really nice chew and sweetness from the split peas, which was balanced by the sour notes of the vinegar and the peppery notes of the… well… pepper. But, the real star of the dish were the croutons. They offered an incredible textural contrast to the soup and also, because of the double toasting and their seeds, an amazingly warm, deeply roasted nuttiness which was really, really, good as a foil to the soup’s brightness and spring-y sweetness from the peas and vinegar.

Yay, Speed Round!

Tomorrow and the Weekend

Just a heads up that, because I’m Sabbath observant, my next post won’t be until Saturday night. One of the things that make being Sabbath observant so special is refraining from cooking on the Sabbath itself. This means that everything must be cooked before sunset on Friday afternoon. As the Talmud puts it, both metaphorically and literally, “One who cooks in preparation for the Sabbath will eat on the Sabbath.”

This life lesson in preparing for things in order to truly reap their benefits is really hitting home right now as I’ve needed to put careful thought into what I’ll be eating over the next 48 hours. I even started some of the preparations already…

Have a wonderful weekend or Shabbat Shalom!*

*the traditional Jewish blessing for a good Sabbath, literally translated it means “May you have a peaceful and fulfilling Sabbath”

Well, today was my first day back at work after Winter Break.

I didn’t prepare enough.

At about 6am my alarm went off, I bolted out of bed, took a quick shower, got dressed, grabbed my laptop, and headed to my car. It was literally freezing. Literally. I’ve lived in California for 25 out of my 32 years and the other 7 years were spent in the Middle East. I don’t do cold.

Once I got to my car, I realized that not only would I freeze to death, but likely also starve as I hadn’t packed a thing. I ran back inside and grabbed a toaster, a package of peas, and some salt and pepper, planning to go to the store during a break. I got to work and drank 28oz while working on a welcome back flyer with some reminders for the students:

The morning was pretty rushed, so I didn’t really eat anything until lunchtime. But, I did manage to get to the store to buy a dozen eggs and a loaf of Dave’s Killer Bread. Why I bought raw eggs instead of an avocado is beyond me… No matter, I found a frying pan from the cooking elective I sometimes teach and made myself a lovely breakfast for lunch. Two sunny-side-up eggs; two slices of toast; and a bowl of peas tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It was light, filling, and reminded me of springtime on such a cold, wintry, day.

The rest of my day was pretty much just water until dinner.

I was able to squeeze a personal training session in with Tim after work. I’m definitely feeling the week-long gym holiday. It’s pretty wild how taking a break from consistent exercise for even just a week can really set you back in terms of stamina. My strength training didn’t take as much of a hit, but boy was I feeling it in terms of cardio… Tim is great. I’m learning a lot about coaching and training from watching how he works. I’d like to share a few of those learnings with you if you don’t mind:

• He’s always looking to learn and not afraid to be wrong.
• He takes his work seriously, but not too seriously. That’s key. He’s got a great attitude and that feeds into a great environment for growth.
• He’s always pushing me to do more, but he is incredibly respectful. He pushes and stretches but watches as I go and is flexible enough to adjust on the fly which lets me feel like I’m always succeeding.
• He encourages and gives positive feedback constantly, which makes pushing myself way easier.

Today, he taught me about “how to be a good spot” – this is some seriously awesome life advice. A good spot (as in a spotter for lifting weights) will gently help you get over the stress point, but not do it for you. Getting over the stress point, the hard part, the challenge, is what builds you. If you fail, you don’t grow. If someone does it for you, you don’t grow. But if someone helps you slightly, just enough that you can do it, you grow. That’s a good spot… A good spot notices that you aren’t going to make it on your own and jumps in, just enough so that you can do it on your own. That means paying attention. It means not jumping in if the person you’re spotting can do it on their own. And, it means helping just enough and not too much. That’s how you help people grow.

OK, enough of the deep life lessons learned from weightlifting, let’s back to why you’re here: Food!

Dinner time!

First Course

To start off I wanted something quick and satisfying and I remembered a dish I used to make all the time called Tamago Kake Gohan, which is basically just a raw egg beaten into a bowl of hot rice with some soy sauce, and other flavoring agents. Instead of rice, I used quinoa and, because I wanted my bowl to have a bit of a bite, I added fresh-chopped, raw garlic. I hit it all with a bit of soy sauce and some salt and pepper and then whipped it with a fork. I whipped it good.

The results were, obviously, not as decadently creamy and comforting as the original – lacking all that oozing starch which rice provides, quinoa wasn’t able to provide the same richness – but it was still delicious and somewhat rich. The garlic did a nice job cutting the richness and providing the bite I was looking for.

Appetizer

It hurts to call this an appetizer because it was really the main event. Remember those “tofu chips” I created the other day? And the “pesto” dip? Well, tonight I fine-tuned them both for something amazing…

First, I sliced the tofu twice as thin as I did before. Next, I ditched the paper towel and lightly oiled my plate with a thin layer of olive oil. As before, I salted and peppered my tofu slices and popped them in the microwave, this time for 5 minutes and then another 2 minutes.

The results were superb. But, like, really… Look at this:

These chips were crispy, had the right flavor – none of the egginess of before – and had that CRUNCH. Pictures don’t do justice…

OK, at the risk of becoming a creepy ASMR blog, just listen to this:

Does that sound like tofu to you?! No! It was awesome!

With my chips complete, I moved on to my dip.

In the blender: 2 cups of kale, about 1/3 cup of cooked quinoa, 3-4 sprigs of basil, 2 cloves of garlic, a splash of apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and some olive oil. I pulsed and then added water as needed to get things moving until I could get the blender into high gear.

Once it was all smooth, I added a bit of psyllium husk powder to thicken and:

It was epic. That is all.

A made another 2 batches of tofu chips and devoured them with the pesto dip. But, I still had quite a bit of pesto left, so…

The Main Course

What else goes with pesto (especially when you have an egg, an egg white, and a few pieces of bread left)? That’s right, an awesome omelet:

I mixed some pesto in with the egg and egg white I had left for the day, whisked it all together with a bit of water and then poured it gently into a decently hot non-stick skillet with some olive oil shimmering inside, dropped the heat and didn’t flip it. That’s right, I didn’t flip it. I turned the heat down a little lower and waited for the top of the omelet to set. This technique only works if you are making a pretty thin omelet (which I like) and if it’s not purely egg (which I like), and it is my preferred omelet making move. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

Next, I slid the omelet out of the pan, toasted me up some Dave’s Killer, sliced up an avocado, and slathered some pesto and olive oil on top, and put it all away. It was a remarkably light omelet, maybe because of the double white content or maybe because of the pesto, but either way, it was a delightful way to end the evening and the day…

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you!

I decided to start the day off with, what for me has been, the hardest ingredient. Or should I say firmest 😛

Tofu. There’s a lot of it to eat and it isn’t all that good on its own. Not to mention that it can get pretty monotonous unless you put some work into it. Now, there’s a reason that there’s so much tofu to eat: Calcium.

Calcium is an essential mineral that most of us don’t get enough of, and for good reason. It’s hard to get enough calcium in your diet. Even if you are drinking milk, you’d need to drink 3.3 cups of the stuff to get your RDA of calcium. That’s almost a liter of milk. That’s a lot of milk. Beyond milk and dairy products, there aren’t many good natural sources of calcium… Except for tofu and kale. But, there’s a catch, only certain types of tofu are rich in calcium, those which use gypsum as the coagulating agent. So just be sure to check the nutrition facts and ingredients. Also, (surprisingly) eating enough tofu to get the calcium you need also adds about 25 grams of fat to your diet, which could throw the ratios off. Tofu is one of the items I’m likely adjusting once I get my new macro recommendations from my trainer.

But back to cooking.

I knew that I needed to get my tofu in early and figure out a way to, more pleasantly, eat large amounts of it. I thought about frying it and decided to try drying it out a little, in the same way one might do for eggplant, by laying thinly sliced pieces of tofu on a paper towel and sprinkling some salt on both sides.

When I noticed little pools of water forming on top, I blotted them off and realized that I needed to speed this process up. I remembered reading a feature in Cook’s Illustrated about more rapidly drying eggplant using a microwave, so I decided to try it. I added some pepper to the tofu slices and changed out the, now drenched, paper towel.

After that, I popped them into the microwave and blasted them for 5 minutes and then 5 more. What came out was an airy, pleasantly crunchy, slightly eggy tasting snack.

A few notes:

• The pepper was key, it gave these things a nice salt and pepper flavor which was reminiscent of salt and pepper kettle chips.
• In the future, I will try to slice them even thinner and reduced the cook time to allow for a chip like texture.
• The paper towel totally stuck to the bottom. I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that I ate quite a bit of paper towel… I’ll just reduce my psyllium husk fiber powder for the day to accommodate for the extra fiber 🙂

Overall, it was a really nice and different way to eat tofu.

After that, I had some avocado toast and took my kids out on a walk. We stopped at a friend’s house for a few hours. I wish I would have brought some peas with me as a snack…

Once I got home, it was pretty much dinner time and I had a bunch of eating still to do for the day. With half of my tofu out of the way, I decided to try and bang out the remainder of my tofu requirement in one fell swoop. I went back to the frying idea but decided to go a different route. I wanted to try and mimic a halloumi cheese salad I had once had in Israel. I used the tofu in place of cheese and kale in place of lettuce, tossed in some fresh and some blanched peas for different textures and flavors, and some cold, cooked quinoa in place of bulgur. For the pièce de résistance I added two warmed egg yolks and dressed it with some olive oil, salt, and pepper.

It was yummy. The textures were all there, the flavors melded nicely, and the eggs + olive oil added a delightful richness that cut through some of the bitterness of the greens. It was a real win.

Now, to preparation.

First, the tofu. I pressed a good amount of water out of the tofu but laying it between two or three paper towels and balancing my cast iron skillet on top, leaving it this way for an hour or so. I sliced the tofu into five equal slices and put them inside that very same skillet with some olive oil until they were nicely browned.

I let the tofu rest for a few minutes while I prepped my eggs.

I’ve heard it said that eggs are really two ingredients which happen to share a shell, so I took that to heart and thought I would try separating the white from the yolk and using them separately (see later on for the whites). I really wanted a warmed yolk to add some richness to the dressing and coat the salad nicely but didn’t really feel like poaching egg yolks on the stove, so I thought I’d try something different. I put about half an inch of water into a microwave safe container and plopped the yolks in.

I popped the container into the microwave for 30 seconds and then 30 more. Upon further experimentation, I’d say about 45 seconds is the perfect amount of time for a warmed and slightly set yolk. 1 minute yielded a more fully set yolk and 30 seconds was still under. Try it out, it was a super easy and quick way to get those eggs exactly how I wanted them with no mess or stress.

With the eggs ready and the tofu rested, I assembled the salad. Rinsed, dried, and chopped kale sat as the base, topped with the tofu – which I sliced into fingers – peas, and quinoa. The egg yolks perched on top of this green nest with a sprinkle of salt, fresh cracked pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Next course was just a simple blanched pea and quinoa salad. Nothing fancy, but it was easy and hit the spot.

Lightly blanching the peas in some shallow water with a sprinkling of spices sweetened them slightly, but also brought out their beautiful green color and made them slightly softer, which was a nice textural contrast to the quinoa.

After dinner, my son had a sleepover with a friend, so we watched Odd Squad: The Movie. While the kids snacked on popcorn and sugar snap peas, I snacked on the rest of my raw English peas for the day. After putting the kids to sleep (or more accurately putting the boys into their beds, they didn’t go to sleep for another few hours… Ah, the wonders of winter break!), I went on a walk and then had a work meeting to prepare for the upcoming return from break.

When I returned, I had 4 egg whites and a few slices of bread to contend with, so I did what any normal, completely sane human being does at 10:30 at night before returning to work the next morning at 6am. I made meringues.

Savory meringues to be exact. It was an experiment I had wanted to try and what better time than now! So, I mixed the whites with some apple cider vinegar and got out my electric mixer:

Until, after a few minutes of whisking, I achieved:

I dolloped that mixture out onto a piece of parchment paper and sprinkled with a variety of different savory spice mixes; TJ’s ‘Everything But The Bagel,’ red chili pepper flakes, chili powder, pepper, Italian spice blend, some cumin, you get the idea…

Finally, I threw them into a pre-heated 350F degree oven for about 10 minutes and voilà, savory meringues!

Now, I’ll be honest. As delicious as they were, it was pretty hard to eat 4 egg whites worth of meringues on my own. Even using the bread as a foil, I was still a little nauseous. But, the experiment was certainly a success and I will gladly make (fewer of) these again to use a garnish, salad element, maybe even for a sandwich. The possibilities are kind of endless… and delicious 🙂

That concludes Day 3 of the Perfect Nutrition Quest. Hope you learned something and enjoyed as much as I am. See you tomorrow!

Another day of unintentional intermittent fasting. I slept in this morning, something I am almost never able to do, and only really got moving at around 10:30am. After praying, I drank my first 30 oz of water and then took my son with me to the gym, he sat there mesmerized as I worked with my trainer. He later shamed me, saying “I can’t believe you can’t do an unassisted pull-up. Come on, I bet if you tried you could do it.” He’s 8. I tried to explain to him that I weigh 4 times as much as he does, but he wasn’t buying it. Oh well, I guess I have work to do 🙂

After the gym, we played some ball and then ran some errands. I didn’t end up getting home until after 2pm which was my first time eating all day. I will say this, one day into this thing and I am definitely less hungry. To be fair, I do drink a lot of water and have been fasting until around noon for the last few months. But still, I wasn’t even hungry when I got home after not having eaten all day and having worked out hard.

First meal of the day was amazing if I do say so myself. I decided I wanted to get creative with the bread, so I broke it down in the blender with an egg and some water – no I didn’t attempt to drink it, I learned that lesson yesterday. I added some salt and a garlic clove and blended until it was mostly smooth:

• 

• 

I poured the “batter” into a microwave safe mug and then nuked it for 3 minutes on high. The result was a deliciously light and airy muffin with a wonderfully subtle garlic flavor:

I flipped the mug over onto a plate and garnished with some fresh basil leaves sliced into ribbons and a little olive oil and cracked pepper:

It was exceptional. Really.

As good as that was, the next dish was even better. I know this because my son kept eating it. He’s pretty picky.

Continuing on the quasi-Italian theme, I decided to make a pesto style spread using tofu instead of cheese. I’d done something like it before using feta cheese and figured other than flavor, the textures weren’t too far off. I was right on both count, the texture was great and the flavor needed some work. But, after a bit of tweaking, I got it just right. In fact, better than just right. It was downright delicious.

I started with about 1/3 of a cup of peas, 1 cup chopped of kale, about 3 oz of tofu (1/4 of a normal size block), about a teaspoon of olive oil, and some raw quinoa in the blender.

I added a bit of water and apple cider vinegar to loosen it up so the blender could do its work and then pulsed until it started coming together. Once it had become a bit more homogeneous, I put the blender into high gear and added two cloves of garlic and a handful of basil leaves. Once it was all combined I added some psyllium husk powder to thicken it up a bit and lightly blended it all together one last time.

The results were spectacular. Smooth and creamy, but still textured; the bite of the garlic was subdued by the other flavors, the sweetness of the peas and the basil notes shown through. The whole thing was finger-licking good. I spread it on some toast and was forced to share with my son.

What a heavenly late lunch that was.

Later that evening, we invited some of my kids’ friends over for a movie night. We set up a projector in the dining room and moved the table out of the way so they could all cuddle up and watch. We even broke out our awesome popcorn machine for effect. I needed a movie snack… But more on that in a minute, after my digression:

Digression

We watched Finding Nemo with the kids. We figured that would be a better option for our 3-year-old and her friends than Incredibles 2, which my son has been begging to watch with his friends ever since they watched it in Hebrew in school. My wife and I watched Incredibles 2 the other night and really enjoyed it (fun movie, great message, good characters) but there were a few scenes we thought might be scary for 3-year-olds + it’s rated PG as opposed to Finding Nemo‘s G rating.

Finding Nemo was TERRIFYING. Seriously. It’s a great movie and all, but I completely forgot how absolutely scary it is for a little kid. The movie opens with the main character’s wife getting killed, then proceeds from there to near-death experience after near-death experience and the risk of Nemo’s death is constantly looming throughout the film. Then Nemo actually fakes his own death, but the viewer doesn’t know he’s faking until a little while passes. The kids did fine, but I’ll be honest I feel like it was more of a movie for adults than kids and I’m boggled by the G rating. Even the message was more geared toward parents than kids… In retrospect, Incredibles 2 would have been a much better choice.

Digression over. Back to food.

I wanted a movie snack to rival everyone’s popcorn, so I decided to toss my peas with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and red chili pepper flakes and toast them. I threw in the rest of my kale and some tofu (which I squeezed as much water out of with a clean towel) and let it roast for 30 minutes at 375F, tossed it and roasted for another 15 minutes.

The kale was crispy and delicious and the tofu was flavorful and had a nice chew. I’d have liked the peas to be crunchier, they were kind of chewy, but the flavor was spot on, so that was good. I think in the future I’ll try doing just the peas on a lower temp for longer.

For the rest of my day’s food I made myself some miso soup (half a teaspoon of miso paste with a cup of water, 5 oz of tofu and some peas, put it on the stove until it just boils then shut it off right away and let it steep) and used the leftover miso broth to cook my quinoa and 2 eggs. Nothing too exciting, but an easy and delicious way to get those food items in.

Finally, I ended my day with a late night toast. One with a fried egg and one with avocado.

One thing I definitely need to work on is planning my meals to be more spaced out and starting a little earlier. It’s definitely challenging to eat all the foods as the night draws on, they are very filling.

I may end up adjusting the ratios slightly to accommodate for calories burned during work-outs and might adjust my macro ratios based on input from my trainer, I’ll let you know when that goes down.

Hope you are enjoying following my quest! Until tomorrow.