VEGAN RECIPE REVIEW: Seitan Turkey

Okay, Friends... remember way back when I started this series of vegan recipe reviews, and I said that I wasn't going to use "weird" ingredients or make "weird" vegan food? Well, as the weeks and months have gone on, I've been more and more adventurous. And some of the weird ingredients have become staples in my house!

But as far as weird vegan food, I made something last week that I never imagined I'd make in a million years... seitan "turkey". (I had no idea what seitan even was.) With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought it would be a fun time to try out making a vegan turkey dinner. I feel like vegan food can't get much weirder than turkey made out of tofu and a new-to-me ingredient called vital wheat gluten.

Vital wheat gluten is pretty much pure gluten--the stuff that a lot of people avoid in their diets. Wheat flour is processed to remove everything but the gluten. I've never worried about eating gluten, so I ordered some on Amazon to give this recipe a try.

I'd heard the word 'seitan' before and I assumed it was another product like tofu or tempeh. But seitan is actually a meat substitute that is made from vital wheat gluten--and it dates back to 2,000 years ago! It has about the same amount of protein as meat and it's very low in carbs (which surprised me, considering the vital wheat gluten is essentially flour--or at least it looks like flour).

The recipe I chose is from It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken. (I'll link to it again at the end of the post.) This one looked interesting to me because of the "skin" you can cover it with, which is just a piece of rice paper. However, after reading more about seitan, I wish I'd chosen a different recipe. This one specifically states not to knead the dough; but everything else I've read says you *should* knead it. I think that's why my final product looks somewhat marbled. But I've never made it before, so who knows?!

First, the ingredients for the dough. The roast is made in two parts, because the dough rests overnight in the fridge.

Firm tofu, vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, white miso paste, vegan bouillon powder, salt, sage, onion powder, thyme, and garlic powder. (Right there--the first four ingredients I'd never used until becoming vegan.)

The recipe had directions with or without a food processor. When I got the Ninja blender, I got rid of my food processor since the Ninja does the job of both. Now I regret getting rid of it, because this recipe specified that you need to use the S blade in a food processor. The Ninja's blade is actually a stack of three S blades. But anyway, I followed the directions for no food processor.

First, you add all of the ingredients except for the wheat gluten to a blender. You don't have to press the tofu; just drain it over the sink and give it a gentle squeeze.

Once you blend it all together, the texture is kind of like hummus...

If using a food processor, you can add the vital wheat gluten right to the processor, making it very easy. Otherwise, you stir the gluten in by hand. I can't even begin to describe how thick the dough was--it was very hard to stir! It was kind of like an extremely thick pizza dough.

I didn't knead it, even though I wanted to--it looked like it needed it. But once it's mixed, you shape it into a loaf. I just made a big oval. In hindsight, I should have pressed it down more so the bottom was flatter. It would have looked better when it was done roasting.

Once it's shaped, you wrap it in a double layer of foil. Then you put it in a steamer basket, cover, and steam for one hour or until the internal temperature reaches at least 160 degrees F. 

After an hour, I stuck a thermometer in and it had surpassed 160, so it was done steaming. (From what I've read, it's better to steam it too long than not long enough.)

Then you put it in the fridge overnight (or up to three days). The next afternoon, I pulled it out and I was really curious to see what it looked like! It looked... like a brain?

At that point, the roast is ready to finish in the oven. These are the ingredients:

Rice paper, vegan butter, soy sauce, garlic, pepper, and thyme. You only need one piece of rice paper, and thankfully I had some left from when I made rice paper bacon. I forgot about that weird vegan food! It was so good :) 

First, you melt the butter and add the soy sauce, garlic, pepper, and thyme.

Then you brush the roast generously with the butter/garlic mix. After that, you run a piece of rice paper under water and let it soften for a minute. When it's soft, you drape it over the roast:

Then you bake for 15 minutes before brushing the rest of the butter/garlic mix on. I overlooked that in the directions, and I just brushed the butter/garlic mix on before baking. I doubt it made a difference, but I felt like I should mention it. This is what it looked like before I put it in the oven:

After 15 minutes, since I was out of the butter/garlic mix, I just used the brush to grab some from the bottom of the pan and I brushed it on top. At that point, it didn't look a whole lot different:

Then you put it back in the oven and bake for another 20 minutes. At that point, it had gotten nice and brown and it looked delicious!

You let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting into it. When I sliced it, the texture was exactly how I anticipated it to be. I wasn't too sure about the marbling, though--I think if I'd kneaded the dough, it might not look like like that. I'm going to try kneading it when I make it in a couple of days, so we'll see the difference.

I cut up one of the slices to give it a taste, and I asked Jerry, Noah, and Eli to try it. Jerry, Noah, and I all liked it, but the true test was Eli... his thoughts? "It's not too bad." Haha, I'm happy with that! He's liking more and more of the "weird" things I make.

I made a couple other vegan recipes--mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. I want to try out a recipe for stuffing and sweet potato casserole this week.

This roast is not something I would completely rave about, but it was definitely good enough to make again. I think it needed a stronger flavor; the taste was pretty mild. Since that is really just about seasonings, I'll try some other recipes. I really liked the texture and I wanted to think of a way to describe it. I just asked Jerry and everything we came up with made it sound really gross!

Some of the comparisons we thought of: the sliced meat in a frozen dinner; Spam; a firm hot dog; bologna. Jerry said, "Pretty much any questionable meat you can think of." Hahahaha! I can't think of a comparison that doesn't make it sound gross. I imagine if you got very thick slices of lunchmeat, it would have a similar texture to that.

Overall, I really liked making this! It was SO foreign to me and I truly had no idea what to expect. I'd never seen seitan before, let alone tasted it. I was very impressed with the texture; the taste was good, but a little too mild--I think it should be bolder. However, that's easy to fix with different seasonings. I'm still unsure of the marbled look, but I will find out after some more experimenting.

I'm definitely going to make another roast for Thanksgiving--I'll just try a different recipe with stronger seasonings. If you know of a good seitan "turkey" recipe, please let me know!

Here is a link to the recipe I tried on It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken.

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(Almost) Wordless

I'm not going to write a post today; I was tired of working on the bathroom, so I decided to work on the FUN part of the remodel project. I miss woodworking! A while back, I bought a solid oak dining room table on Facebook Marketplace for uber-cheap (I think it was $50?). It's been sitting in the garage, waiting for me to mill the boards, so I worked on that today. Now I have several pieces of really nice oak to make shelves with...

This was the second time I bought an oak table on FB Marketplace and milled the boards. To buy boards like these would be insanely expensive--roughly $50 per board, and I have six of them!

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Friday Night Photos

Wow, it is really starting to feel like winter here. The last couple of days it's been freezing cold and super windy. It's the kind of weather that makes me just want to curl up under an electric blanket and read a good book.

Oh! That reminds me--I don't know if I ever even mentioned this on my blog. But you all know how much I love my heating pad and electric blanket--being cold 100% of the time is miserable, and there is nothing that feels better than the heating pad on my back.

Well, a while ago (I think it was in the spring) I noticed that my back looked kind of discolored--patchy, with light and dark areas. Nothing super drastic, but it was weird. I thought maybe it was my vitiligo; I'd never had vitiligo patches on my back, but I didn't know what else it could be.

After some google research, I learned of something called "toasted skin syndrome"--and it's from heating pads (among other forms of prolonged exposure to heat sources, such as laptop computers resting on thighs, etc.). If you catch it early and stop exposure to the source, the skin color can return to normal over time. If you continue to use it, the discoloration can become permanent, and even lead to skin cancer!

As soon as I read that, I stopped using the heating pad and electric blanket, and I haven't touched them since. It's been so hard--I miss them! It took a while, but my skin has returned to normal.

Anyway, that was a tangent I never intended, This weather just makes me wish I could use my heating pad. 

Not a ton of photos (again) this week, but here goes...

My dad had some complications from his recent surgery and my mom took him to the emergency room a few days ago. He ended up having to stay at the hospital for two nights. Brian took Riley to visit him and she brought him a cupcake. How stinkin' cute is she?! 

After making a few recipes with TVP pieces, I wanted to try soy curls (which are similar, but a lot of people like them better). The only company that makes them is called Butler's, and they happened to be the same price as they were on Amazon, so I ordered direct from the company. I'm glad I did, because they gave me a couple of free samples of other products! This jerky was one of them. It's vegan, but I would NEVER have guessed that. The texture is very chewy and the flavor is amazing.

As soon as Jerry and I tasted it, I drove right over to my parents' house to see if my dad would try it. He tasted it and said it's good, that it reminds him of the jerky he used to make. I told him it was entirely plant-based, and he looked surprised and said, "Oh, there's no meat in it?!" This stuff is amazing. And actually not as expensive as I would expect--cheaper than beef jerky for sure. (And that's exactly why they give free samples--now we're going to buy some, haha)

Whenever we get a box in the house, naturally, the cats go in there practically before we even open it. Duck looked so funny--super wild-eyed while he was playing with all the paper--so I had to get a picture of him.

I wasn't sure what to do about Thanksgiving dinner for Jerry and I, so I thought it would be fun to experiment with some really "weird" vegan food. This was my first time making seitan--and I had no idea what seitan was until I made this "turkey". I'm going to review the recipe this weekend, so I'll explain more then, but it was pretty fun making something entire new.

And this was a "practice" dinner when I made the seitan turkey. Vegan mashed potatoes with onion gravy, vegan green bean casserole, and plain old cranberry sauce from a can (why do I love that stuff so much?). Next week, I also want to make a vegan version of sweet potato casserole (my very favorite Thanksgiving dish) and stuffing (Jerry's favorite). Cooking vegan food has made cooking enjoyable again! Using all these new ingredients (or old ingredients in new ways) is fascinating to me.

This morning, I noticed Estelle was sleeping on the pillows next to me and I thought she looked cute. She actually looked really proud, perched up there like that.

Phoebe is still hanging in there! It's amazing how close I came to having her euthanized early this year because she was doing so poorly. Since then, she's actually gained a pound (she was down to four pounds back then and now she's five). She wants nothing to do with the kidney diet food, so I'm not forcing her. She's 15 years old, so if she wants to eat the regular canned cat food, I'm going to let her. We tried a million different brands and flavors and textures to find something she'll eat regularly. That's when she put on a little bit of weight.

Anyway, she likes to sleep in front of the heating vent. If I was her size, that's what I'd be doing, too!

I tried a different recipe for vegan mozzarella today (remember what a mess it was before?). This one uses coconut milk instead of cashews, and it was SUPER easy to make. I had zero problems with it and it tastes really good. It's sliceable and shreddable, too. I'm making tofu parmesan for dinner tonight and I need sliced mozzarella for it, which is why I tried this. I'll have to see how well it melts!

I gave Jerry a surprise gift a few days ago--a stick vacuum, hahaha. I bought one (in the summer, I think) and I posted pictures of a competition between that vacuum and our regular vacuum. It didn't perform as well as I'd hoped, so I returned it. Jerry mentions at least once a week about how he wishes we had a stick vacuum (he loves vacuuming--it's funny, when he sees me get out the vacuum, he insists on doing it because he thinks it's "satisfying"). I finally took the time to research some, and I bought this one by Eureka. I think I'll do another competition between the two vacuums and see how it goes!

Finally, this is just a screenshot of a video that Jerry took of me. I had no idea he was watching me, but I was doing the step aerobics on the Wii Fit U. I love the step aerobics! It's only five minutes long, but I play it back-to-back several times because I like it so much. I'm very good at following along with the feet--but as soon as they ask me to clap along, I stumble all over the place. I'm extremely uncoordinated!

And that's all for now. Have a great weekend! xo

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Three Things Thursday #7: Things That Changed My Life

For Three Things Thursday, the random writing prompt that popped into my head a couple of months ago, I thought I'd write about three things that made a huge impact on my life (aside from getting married and having children--those are a given).

It's interesting how there are certain moments in life that suddenly draw a line--before you get married and after you get married, before you have kids and after you have kids, etc. They become markers for different stages in our lives. The marriage and kids are obvious ones, but there are some that may seem odd to have made an impact.

So, here are three things that really changed my life...

1. Breaking my jaw.

In the evening one day in November 2010, while Jerry was at work, I watched the movie Wall-E with Noah and Eli, who fell asleep during the movie. Noah was six and Eli was five at the time. I picked up Noah and carried him to his bedroom. The boys had bunkbeds, and I lifted Noah onto the top bunk. I suddenly got extremely nauseous, which was odd because I had a stomach like a rock back then, and I immediately thought I had to get to the bathroom so I could throw up.

I could see blackness coming in from my peripheral vision, giving me tunnel vision that was getting smaller and smaller. My hearing became very muffled, and the sounds from the TV made me feel like I was underwater.

I didn't even make it to the door of Noah's bedroom. The next thing I knew, I was waking up facedown on the floor. My head felt SO heavy as I lifted it off the floor to look around. I noticed a pool of blood under my face. And my teeth... I can't even describe the feeling of trying to close my mouth. I had never even broken a bone before, but I instinctively *knew* that my jaw was broken. My teeth were completely misaligned and my lower jaw felt "floppy", for lack of a better word.

The pain didn't register yet, but I panicked because I was worried that I'd lost teeth. I pulled myself up from the floor, went into the bathroom and started rinsing my mouth with water, spitting out blood into the sink. I could see my teeth were still in tact, but my jaw was clearly broken. The bone had even punctured a hole through my bottom lip and another under my chin, which is where the blood was coming from.

I called my parents rather than 911 because my parents live less than a mile from me and one of them could stay with my kids while the other drove me to the hospital. The kids were still sleeping, thankfully--I would have felt terrible if they'd had to see what happened. I didn't know how long I'd been passed out, but I think it was less than a few minutes.

My mom took me to the emergency room, where I was told I'd need to be taken by ambulance to Detroit because the damage to my jaw was so bad that they couldn't treat me; I needed a level 1 trauma center. I spent the next six days in the hospital, having two repair surgeries on my jaw. The level of pain was indescribable--despite being on three narcotic pain meds, I was still pressing the call button every four hours to get the next push of whatever I was due for.

Dead sexy after the first surgery

After the second surgery, my jaw was wired shut to allow the bones to heal. The surgeons had to screw titanium plates into my jaw to hold it together. It had broken completely through in five places: once right in the center of my chin, once on each side a couple of inches back from the first, and then another on each side just before the bone angles upward. So my jaw was in six pieces. I'd also chipped a couple of teeth and cracked a molar.

My dentist was impressed when he saw my x-rays, haha.

The next six weeks are a blur now, and I'm sure the pain meds I was on are a big reason for that! I couldn't drive, so I was reliant on friends and family to help shuttle the kids to and from school. And I think this is what made the entire experience so life changing for me. My eyes were opened to all of the people who truly care about me. I won't get into all of their roles during this time, but I didn't have to worry about anything.

Jeanie and Brian both came in from out of state when I came home from the hospital

One friend got in touch with several other friends, asking them if they'd like to make dinner for my family--so we had a couple of weeks' worth of meals taken care of. I couldn't eat them, hahaha! I was on a liquid diet, but it was a relief that I didn't have to worry about what my family would eat.

Jerry took a couple of weeks off of work (unpaid) and my parents and siblings gave us a super generous gift of money to cover our house payment, car payment, medical deductibles, and bills for the month. My sister even made a chart for all of my medications, because it would be totally confusing for Jerry (or me) to try to remember what time I needed to take each medication (I was on probably five or six different meds). Little things like that made such a difficult time so much easier.

This is getting way too long, so I'll just say that I have such an amazing family and group of friends. I don't look at breaking my jaw as a bad time in my life; it was the opposite, rather. I felt so loved and taken care of and for the first time in my life, I wasn't worried about everything. Everybody was willing to help however they could.

That incident, breaking my jaw, became one of those before and after markers in my life. Before I broke my jaw, and after I broke my jaw. I started thinking of everything in terms of whether it was before or after. (You can read all the details of the incident and see all the gross pictures on this post.)

2. My 30x30 list.

I wrote a list of 30 things I wanted to do before I turned 30 years old. I was almost 28 years old at the time I wrote it, and I looked for some ideas online to include on the list. One of them was "Enter a 5K race and RUN it". I wasn't a runner. I had never been a runner. I didn't exercise. I was still over 200 pounds. In the back of my mind, I don't even know if I really believed I'd ever do the things on my list. I didn't feel determined to do them--I was just a compulsive list-maker. I still am.

Until.

My friends Renee (who I coach cross country with) and Rachael came over for wine one night and Renee asked to see my list. She said she could help me with the 5K one. I was too embarrassed to say no, that I really didn't want to do it, so I said sure. A few weeks later, she gave me a birthday card with a "coupon" for my first 5K race. I couldn't back out then!

And that is how I became a runner. The 5K was in October, so I had nine months to train for it. I hadn't even run a single mile, and I'm not even sure if I knew how far a 5K was! I was training to walk a half-marathon in May, so I started adding a little bit of running to my walks. (You can read the whole story here, if it interests you.)

Becoming a runner opened so many doors for me: I started writing Runs for Cookies with only a few readers; then Sparkpeople featured me on their front page and my page views blew up overnight; then I was on the Dr. Oz Show, which was more publicity (and I was terrified--blogging became less of a private journal and more of a holy-shit-why-are-people-reading-this?- thing); I met Rik through my blog, and we formed a Ragnar Relay team; one of those teammates owned a small film company, and they decided to make a documentary about it; Runner's World magazine(!) was interested and wrote a story about the film, featuring a huge spread with my photos; and Netflix picked up the documentary--how scary is it to imagine videos of you on NETFLIX?!--Well, I was mortified and excited at the same time.

Never in a million years would I have guessed I'd be in a magazine about RUNNING one day

Here is the post about the Ragnar Relay team and documentary

None of those things would have happened if I hadn't written that 30x30 list (probably after having a couple of glasses of wine and feeling too ambitious). I honestly have no idea what my life would be like today if that hadn't happened. I guess I could say that it was starting Runs for Cookies that was the spark to start it all, but I wouldn't have started this blog if not for becoming a runner.

Renee and me after my first 5K

3. Remodeling the house, DIY-style.

I had absolutely NO CLUE how to build things out of wood or hang drywall or even install molding. In August 2018, it all started when I decided to see if removing a textured ceiling was even possible. I found a "scraper" (a drywall knife, although I had no idea it was used for that) and I squirted a little water on the ceiling in the laundry room to test it out. Once the water had a moment to be absorbed, the texture scraped right off.

I was most certainly hypomanic at the time. I immediately told Jerry that we need to take down these cupboards in the kitchen, and remove this little wall here, and scrape the texture from the ceiling, etc. And we started doing it--right at that moment. Each little project led to another and another.

I wanted to save money (I had just paid off $14,000 in credit card debt), so rather than hire people to do the work, I watched YouTube videos and learned to do it myself. You can tell what parts of the house I did first compared to what I did last, because I got more practice and more skilled as each project went on. It's a visual timeline, really, haha.

I learned that I love building things out of wood--again, my first projects are cringy--and I bought some used tools on Facebook Marketplace. Like a lot of my interests, it became an obsession for a while and I learned everything I could get my hands on about it. It's my favorite hobby; I'm sure the things I make now will be cringy later on as I get better, but I still feel proud when I finish a project.

Now that I've learned how to do so many new things, I can't "unlearn" them--so remodeling the house was life-changing in that I am capable of doing a LOT of things I never knew I could. I've made a ton of mistakes along the way and there is not one thing that turned out perfectly in the remodel, but it has character. And I have a new hobby.

Cutting out the new countertops. I didn't even know that countertops could be a DIY thing!

I wrote posts about the remodel all along the way, and you can find a list of them with before and after pictures here. 

And there they are... three things that had an enormous impact on my life. It's funny how a single moment in time, something so completely simple, can change the entire direction of your life!

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Wednesday Weigh-In: Week 77

These are my "work clothes" for when I do things where I'm going to get messy. I've accidentally ruined so many clothes! The pants in this picture are from Lululemon (although I got them at Salvation Army) and I *loved* them. They were so comfy and quality was the best of any yoga pants I've owned. Then I got white silicone caulk on them and that doesn't come out of ANYTHING. Since they were already ruined, I cut the hems so that I wouldn't fall while climbing the ladder (that's happened before--I've stepped on my pant leg and slip off the rung). Now they are covered in wood glue, caulk, and paint. I'm grateful that drywall mud is water soluble! Otherwise I'd have no clothes left.

What a week! My thoughts, plans, and goals have been all over the place this week. And unfortunately, I didn't do very well with minimizing snacking at night, which was one of the things I wanted to focus on. I don't know when or why it became an issue, but it's been so hard trying to get it under control!

I actually wasn't at all surprised that the scale was up today:

I'm still within my maintenance range, which I chose to be 125-135, so I'm cool with my actual weight. I just don't want it to keep climbing; I'm afraid that it won't stop. I'm thinking that I probably need a smaller range--like five or six pounds--because the difference between 125 and 135 is a whole clothing size. At around 130, my jean size changes. It's so odd to have discovered that! 

I'm not sure if the gain is related to this at all, but I tried changing up my breakfast and lunch this week. All year, I'd eaten the same things for breakfast and lunch--I like them, they're very filling, they're convenient, and they're super healthy. I was really cold one morning and decided to make hot oatmeal instead of eating my usual Grape Nuts cereal. And after that, I just started eating all sorts of different things though the week. 

Nothing has been as satisfying (physically or mentally) as my usual meals. When trying different foods I was hungrier throughout the day, so I ate more snacks; but I still never really felt satisfied. My stomach has been feeling like a bottomless pit! So today, I went back to my usual foods and I'm feeling better. It's only early evening, though, so I'll have to see if I can stave off the snacking tonight.

I think I only ran once this week. Once I quit 75 Hard, I started focusing on getting the bathroom done. Finishing up the drywall mudding around the shower, cutting the molding, framing the little cat door/hole at the ceiling, and some other stuff. I'm excited to hang the cat shelves, but I need to paint first and I still haven't decided on a paint color.

Tomorrow, I'd like to prime the walls, but I'll have to see how my carpal tunnel is feeling in the morning. Remember how bad my carpal tunnel was a few years ago? I still have problems with it on and off since then, but usually only for a few days at a time when I overdo working with my hands. Since starting on the bathroom, it's been getting worse and worse. Last night, I woke up during the night because the pain was really bad; I'm going to have to start wearing my wrist braces again. It's super frustrating! Everything I do involves my hands, so there really isn't a way to rest them.

Anyway, the past week has been a challenge in several aspects. I feel really good about the progress I've made on the bathroom, though, and I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as that goes. This week, I (once again) want to try to stop the excess snacking. Why does it seem so hard?!

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Deep Thoughts With Jerry #8

It's been a while since Jerry shared his "deep thoughts" here ;)  I had a big experiment going on in the kitchen--I'm attempting the most stereotypical vegan "weird" mock-meat there is--tofurkey! Hahaha, I'll share about it this weekend--so while I was doing that, I asked Jerry if he'd want to write a deep thoughts post. I never know what I'm going to get from him, so it's always interesting to see what he has to say.

Okay, here's Jerry...

What is your favorite holiday?

Christmas. Hands down. I love the whole season... family get-togethers, cookies, lights, and movies. Over the years I've been feeling nostalgic and wanting Christmas to be like it was when I was a kid and feeling disappointed when it isn't. It's not about the presents, it's more about being around family. Doing things. Seeing friends and family. I hold onto the Christmas spirit by watching some of my favorite holiday movies. My favs include It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, The Santa Clause, Miracle on 34th Street, and Die Hard.

(Katie flipped out on me when she saw I didn't include Bad Santa or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which are pretty much the only Christmas movies she likes. Oh, and The Christmas Shoes. She loves crying over that movie. Bad Santa and Christmas Vacation should have been on my list, I just forgot about them.)

What is your biggest pet peeve? 

Over the last couple years people have been annoying the crap out of me with some of their 'word crimes'. Aside from the whole they're, there, and their stuff... also adding 's' to the end of places like Walmarts, Targets, or Krogers. Most recently I've been annoyed with people saying 'I'm sorry' when disagreeing with someone's opinion before trying convey their opinion. Are you literally sorry for disagreeing with someone's opinion? Another 'word crime' is using the word literally for literally everything. Or when people say something is hilarious when it's not even close to funny. 

Example:

Wife: You'll never guess what happened.

Husband: What?

Wife: I went to Kroger to pick up some corn. I thought I was getting the store brand but I accidentally bought Delmonte. It cost me an extra 25 cents!

Husband: Oh my god, that's hilarious. 

(Thankfully, Katie doesn't tell me boring stuff like that, but we're getting old so who knows where our conversations will go)

What old person things do you do?

I never really paid attention to any of this before but I started to notice a couple things I do that old people do and I started to do it myself:

        -I go outside and check the weather or to verify the conditions when we get a storm watch or warning.

        -I click my tongs together whenever I grill, which is kind of rare... still do it anyways.

        -I groan/grunt when I get up out my chair.

        -When I get out of bed I scratch my belly or side and I stretch out. 

        -I wiggle my toes around when my feet are up, drives Katie crazy. 

        -I question this current generations fashion choices...when I was young the kids were always told to pull their pants up, they were barely covering their asses. Now, the pants are so tight it's like their asses are eating their pants. 

        -I'm turning into that 'get off my lawn' guy and I never saw it coming. 

What is the best prank you've played on someone?

I was at work one day and found a tiny bunny trapped in the plant. I picked up my little buddy and put him back outside and saw there were a bunch of them out there. I went back into the control room and explained how cute they were. One of my coworkers tried to tell me to leave them alone and I told her, "No... as a matter of fact I'm going to take them home to the kids."

Once again, I was warned that I better not mess with them. So I walked out of the control room and came back in a couple minutes later with a box and explained I was on my way to put the little bunnies in the box to take home. Now she was mad. I had no true intention of actually taking the rabbits home with me, I was just messing with her. But, now, I'm going to get her.

I walked outside by myself and stayed there for a few minutes. I walked back into the control room with the empty box closed and said, "The kids are going to be so excited!". She totally thought I had the bunnies in the box. Just after I uttered those words I purposely tripped and face-planted on the ground, completely smashing the box underneath me. The terror on her face was priceless and that quickly changed to tears and laughter from her when I got up laughing my ass off while revealing the empty box. 

What is your favorite job you've ever had?

Easy. I used to work at Game Stop... it was only for seasonal help but I loved every second of it. I was able to nerd out and talk video games with everyone, play games, and get free swag. Sadly, this industry is slowly dying as technology allows for people to download games directly to their console. While this is super cool and convenient it kind of kills the interactions people would have at the game stores and nerding out. You could say the same thing for movie rental stores like Blockbuster. Those were the days... the good ol' days. I miss those days.

Katie here again... 

I completely forgot about the prank he pulled on the woman he works with! THAT was hilarious--and I mean that literally. ;) 

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Admitting Defeat

Something I'm starting to get better at over the years is admitting when my plans and/or goals don't go my way. The biggest example has been my Wednesday Weigh-Ins. While I was losing weight over the past year and a half, I continued my weigh-ins every single week, regardless of whether I'd gained weight or not. Previously, I would just stop posting them because it was embarrassing to share that I'd "failed" or just plain not met a goal. I felt like gaining weight meant I didn't try hard enough. 

Over time, I realize how stupid this mentality was. Nobody *really* cares about whether I reach my goals. Nobody *really* cares about whether I gained weight. They don't think about it all day--or even think about it at all--except for the moment they are reading my blog.

This really changed my attitude about running, too. One day I just realized that NOBODY CARES what my finish times are at races or what my training pace is. The only person that even thinks about it is me! When other people tell me their race times, I don't think anything of it--and I certainly don't judge them. I simply don't care how long it took them to run 5K or 13.1 or 26.2 miles. Unless they run a ridiculously fast finish time, it doesn't even really register. I used to think that it was important--that I had to run "respectable" times--but would anyone even remember what my finish time was, even 60 seconds after I told them? I'm guessing nope.

Did I reach my goal in this race? It was a half-marathon, but I don't know if I finished in 1:50-something or 2:30-something or a number in between. No clue!

I've heard a LOT of people's finishing times over the years since I started running, and I can honestly tell you that I don't remember a single one of them.

The other day, I was trying to think of what my finish time was in my first marathon, in Cleveland. I honestly couldn't remember! I knew it was around 5:30, but if even *I* can't remember, why would I think anyone else would?

When I worked at Curves years ago, we would weigh and measure women. I weighed people so often that the number would never even register in my brain; I just looked at the number and copied it down in their file. It was kind of like when you drive a familiar route every day, you don't really remember the drive because it's so automatic. The number could have been 120 pounds or 350 pounds and I wouldn't have given it any thought, let alone remember what it was. It was sad that a lot of the women felt like they had to explain or maybe worried that I was judging them; in reality, their weight meant absolutely nothing to me.

When I finally had this "aha!" moment that NOBODY CARES but me, it was freeing in a way. I felt so much less pressure--pressure that I had put on myself--and I stopped trying to be perfect all the time. I have failed at a lot of things in my life, and I'm going to fail at a lot more. Anybody who says that they've never failed is lying.

I'm ambitious when I set goals, probably to a fault. I dream big and plan out everything and expect it to go perfectly. Once in a while it does, but most of the time it doesn't. And when I do succeed, it very rarely goes according to plan. One of the hardest parts of blogging about my life is that my goals and failures are out there for everyone to see. If I fail or I quit or I just change my mind about what I'm working toward, it's hard to admit! It's hard not to think about people judging me from behind their computer screens.

Having the "nobody cares but me" attitude has helped with that so much. I'm the only one putting the pressure on myself to reach goals--whether it's weigh loss or running or something else entirely--and now, admitting defeat is getting so much easier.

So what is it that inspired this post? Three days ago, I quit 75 Hard. I didn't just fail at a goal. I quit! Plain and simple. I decided it wasn't a good time for me to take on such a huge challenge--I had SO much going on over the past few months and I need a mental break. A mental toughness challenge is literally the exact the opposite of what I want or need right now.

I know that I was really excited going into it, and I had made up my mind that I was going to finish it, no matter what. I would not quit. I would be "perfect" for 75 days.

Quitting 75 Hard was prompted by my having to stop working on finishing the bathroom/bedroom project to go work out for 45 minutes, only to work on the bathroom again, only to then exercise another 45 minutes. Meanwhile, I was still doing all of the other stuff I had to do during the day. I was hating it! I was in the zone while drywalling and then I found it really difficult to work on it it again after exercising.

And yes, this is the whole point of 75 Hard--it's *supposed* to be inconvenient and hard--but I'm not mentally tough right now. I want to finish the bathroom because it's been weighing on me for three months. I know I could do both if I was feeling mentally tough, but I want a break. I want things to be easy for a little while.

Despite admitting defeat, I feel really good about quitting. I don't feel bad about myself, and I don't feel like I "failed". I just feel like I am doing what is best for me. Maybe I'll try again down the road, maybe I won't... but I am not going to beat myself up over this attempt. I've failed and succeeded in tons of goals or challenges throughout my lifetime--and interestingly, the ones I remember are the successes. 

I don't remember the races that I failed to hit my time goal; but I do remember the ones that I succeeded. And I think that's a good thing! Nobody wants to dwell on their failures.

This photo is a from a race that I remember. I worked SO HARD for months to run a PR in the 10K. I trained my ass off. And I beat my goal time by 19 seconds! 

I do still have the goal of Michael Goggins' 4x4x48 challenge, though--I'd really like to do that one day. And the past week and a half has sparked an excitement about running again. Not because I have to, but because I want to. So I'll continue to run, and if/when I feel ready, I'll take on the 4x4x48!

Now, I'm off to work on the bathroom... and I won't be taking an exercise break ;) 

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Wordless

Sums up the last three days... or months. 😂

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RECIPE: Everything Rice

This isn't a recipe review, but rather a recipe I adapted from a cookbook called 'How it all vegan!" by Tanya Barnard & Sarah Kramer. (In the book, it's called Kieran's Favourite Rice.) I found the book, which was printed in 1999, at a thrift store and even though there weren't pictures--I don't like recipes without pictures!--I figured it was worth a look-see for $1.

Well, let me tell you... if there is only one recipe in this book that is worth making, I'm so glad that I chose to make this. I've made a few others, which were good, but this is extra-level good.

This is my-whole-family-including-Eli-likes-it good! The second time I made it, I changed some things up and was more specific about ingredient portions, so this is the modified recipe. This is going to be a once-per-week staple in my house from now on.

This was my first time cooking tofu in a liquid. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of it because I just didn't want mushy tofu--the thought of it grossed me out. I always buy extra-firm tofu and I press it really well--usually overnight--so get the most liquid out of it and give it a meatier texture.

I was very surprised then, when I cooked the tofu in liquid this way, just how great the texture was! To describe it, I would say that it had the texture of an omelet, only a little firmer. The pieces held up well and didn't fall apart like I expected. AND ELI ATE IT. He only took a couple of the cubes of tofu, but he ate them and he liked them. That alone says it all.

I call this "Everything Rice" because it has a little of everything in it! Rice, lots of different veggies, beans, tofu, and herbs and spices. Even tomato juice instead of broth. This is a recipe that you can basically grab whatever vegetables you have on hand and toss them in. I really liked this combination of vegetables, though. Fresh green beans would be a good addition.

The nutrition profile of this rice is amazing. It reheats well. And it makes a huge amount (you may want to cut it in half if you don't want leftovers; we got six generous servings out of it).

Anyway, here is the recipe in printable form! But I'll post it here as well. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as my family does!

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
2-1/2 cups tomato juice
1 cup water*
1 (14-16 oz) block extra-firm tofu, drained, pressed, and cut in bite-size cubes
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 cups broccoli, cut into small florets
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced small
1 (15-oz) can red beans
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1-3/4 cup basmati rice
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup black olives, sliced

Heat oil in a large stock pot over medium heat and add onions, garlic, and 1/2 tsp. of the salt. Stir frequently and cook until the onions are soft. Add the tomato juice, peppers, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, beans, basil, oregano, black pepper, cayenne, the other 1/2 tsp. of salt, and water. Stir to combine, then gently fold in the tofu and rice. Give it a gentle stir, so as not to break the tofu.

Increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and reduce heat to low. Do not stir or remove the lid, or the rice may become gummy. Cook over low heat about 20 minutes, until the rice is cooked through. Remove from heat and gently toss in the tomatoes and olives. Makes about 6 generous servings.

*Note: You may need to adjust the amount of water depending on how much and what types of vegetables you use. I found 1 cup to be the right amount with the other ingredients as listed.

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Friday Night Photos

Wasn't it JUST Friday... like yesterday? How did this week go by so fast? Last week, I felt like I had a pitiful amount of photos for the week; but that's nothing compared to today! I stayed very busy all week, especially considering I added in 90 minutes of exercise every day, but I guess I just wasn't thinking of taking pictures. Most of my camera roll is just the 75 Hard progress photos I have to take daily.

Anyway, here are the few pictures I do have...

Jerry started installing the bathroom floor last weekend! We probably should have waited until after I paint, but since I still can't figure out what color to do, it might be a little while. It's nice to have (most of) the floor in there now. He still has to do the section around the toilet, but I think we'll wait until I actually do paint. It'll be a lot easier with the toilet removed. 

On Day 6 of 75 Hard, it was so tempting to just click "Oops, I did finish!" and pretend that I followed the rule of having at least one of my workouts be outdoors. It was a totally honest mistake, which made it even more tempting, but I like that the app recognized that I was showing integrity, haha.

My dad called me and asked if I wanted some peppers because he was getting the final harvest of the season from his garden. I love peppers, so I said sure. He said he has a lot of jalapeños, am I sure I want them? I said yes, I'll make vegan poppers or something. When I saw how many he gave me, I was stunned. What you see in the picture is only about 1/3 of them--what on earth can I do with this many jalapeños?! (I'll probably chop some and freeze them for later cooking.)

This looks completely gross, I know, and it certainly wouldn't entice people who are skeptical of tofu to try it, but... I made this recipe for Tofu Jerky and this is what it looked like before and after baking it. (You have to bake it at 200 F for 5 hours!)  I was very surprised at how good it was and how much it resembled jerky in the texture and taste. It looks burnt, but it's actually a chewy texture and not crunchy.

I am really enjoying running lately, and even though I don't care if I'm a slow runner or not, I kind of like seeing my pace improve so much. I've been focusing on breathing in a 4:3 ratio (inhale for four steps, exhale for three), which helps me know that I'm not pushing the pace *too* hard. When I start breathing 3:3 or 3:2 I know I'm probably at a hard tempo pace. And when I get to 2:2, it's more like race pace. These were my splits from my most recent 45-minute run. 

A few days ago, I was writing a blog post and Jerry was working on something at the dining table, being very quiet and focused. He asked me if we had any colorful Sharpies, and I told him where they were. A little while later, he showed me what he made--I love it! The kids (and Jerry, I'm sure) were getting sick of me always asking who has what going on and when. We have to figure out who needs the cars and when, because we have three cars for four drivers. Right now, Noah's car needs tires, so we're down to two cars until we get them (hopefully this weekend). Anyway, Jerry used Sharpies to draw the template, and then we can fill it in with dry-erase markers. 

And last but not least, this is what it's like trying to get anything at all done when Duck wants my attention. I was trying to write a meal plan for the week and I was looking through cookbooks this morning. It's like Duck senses when I am trying to focus on something and then he does everything he can to get my attention. He started chewing on the pages, swatting at the post-it tabs, sitting on the book, and playing with the drawstring on my hoodie. It drives me crazy, but it's endearing ;) 

And that's all the photos I've got this week. Have a great weekend! xo

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