Ready for it? Kimchi fried rice! I never would have sought this out because it just sounded good, it just kind of all fell into place somehow. I got a big head of napa cabbage from the co-op last week along with a daikon radish, and I had green onions on hand. I don’t know why but I just thought “I should make kimchi!” I have never even had kimchi but I’ve seen it around on the internets, and I love all things fermented (so far), so I figured why not?

It was pretty easy. I used this recipe from David Lebovitz, but I didn’t have any chili paste or korean chili. I did have some chinese chili that I got from World Spice and I used that instead. The one bottle of fish sauce I have was the most safe-looking one from the oriental market, i.e. no actual fish in it I made it, put it in glass jars on the counter, and let it sit to ferment. Mine were out maybe 2 1/2 days before I stuck them in the fridge. Full disclosure: the jars smelled awful when I first mixed everything together! After the ferment time it smelled like something I would probably want to eat. When I got it out of the fridge to make the fried rice, it smelled a little wahoo. I thought if it tasted like it smelled maybe I wouldn’t eat it, but it tasted pretty good. Crazy, but good.

Now that I had made the kimchi, I had to figure out how to eat it.  I think lots of people enjoy it as is but I knew we needed to incorporate into something on our first try.  Fried rice sounded better to me than kimchi stew or soup, but I might try that next time.

I loosely used this recipe from Serious Eats for the fried rice. I used:

• About 2 cups of cooked brown rice
• 1 small carrot cut in matchsticks
• 1/2 medium red onion chopped
• 1/2 each yellow and orange bell pepper chopped
• About 1 1/2 cups of kimchi
• 1/2 sheet toasted nori
• sesame and olive oil

I embrace the earthiness!

And now I want some amaranth flatbread.

One thing we have all gotten really good at is reading labels.  M is the one who reads the labels the most!!  It is pretty easy to tell what we can and can’t buy when it comes to packaged stuff, but reading the labels anyway has been very eye-opening.  I mean, I knew we would have to give up most packaged stuff.  I didn’t realize just how many things have food dye, and not just one color but 5 or more!  I was looking at some hostess snowballs – they are white and brown right?  They have every shade of food dye you can think of in them.  It is just chocolate and marshmallow, why do they need all of those colors?!  Also you’d be surprised at how many ‘healthy’ options aren’t so great either, with weird acids added, soy isolates, hydrolyzed whatnot, and plenty of other ingredients I can’t pronounce.  Okay, I can pronounce them but I sure don’t know where to buy them and stock them in my cupboard.  I just wonder why is so much stuff automatically added, and why don’t we question it more?!  I am a big offender too, just grabbing something because I want it (or used to) and justifying the choice in whatever way to make it okay.  Well it really isn’t okay to be ingesting all of these chemicals and food dyes, and it just makes me mad that manufacturers put it in the products and expect us not to care.  Why can’t sour cream just be sour cream???  Or cottage cheese just be cottage cheese?!  Okay, rant over.  I think after this experience we will all continue our label reading practice and try and continue to make better choices. I hope!

I can’t believe that it has been 52 days without booze!  I don’t even miss it right now.  I’m enjoying having energy and sleeping better, it sure helps me keep up with the workouts I need to make a habit of.  I’m most proud of this, seeing how I was only able to go 30 days last year one time without alcohol.  I’m feeling pretty confident that I can make it the whole rest of the year!

Organic Co-op produce $26.50

Produce

• Asparagus $.94
• Bell Peppers $1.61
• Cilantro $.69
• Dates $8.49
• Ginger $1.11
• Asst. herbs $5.18

Dairy

• Buttermilk $3.69
• Cotija cheese $4.99
• Cream $3.79
• Milk $6.00
• Sour Cream $2.69
• Yogurt (to make my own) $1.59

Grocery

• Oat flour $3.51
• Vital wheat gluten $3.06
• Barley Malt (for fun) $7.82
• Balsamic vinegar (Costco) $10.99
• Cashews $6.10
• Baker’s chocolate $3.79
• Shredded Coconut $5.38
• Chipotle Tabasco $3.79 – I want buffalo pizza lol
• Peanut butter (online special, this was for 6 jars) $32.55
• Poppy seeds $6.99
• Sesame seeds $4.85
• Canned tomatoes $7.69
• White vinegar $3.59
• Walnuts $16.89

I guess I should figure out just how cost effective it is or isn’t to make my own yogurt.  I don’t know if it matters though, since I love the yogurt I make.  We spent quite a bit on dairy – I wouldn’t normally be buying buttermilk but I did want to make some ranch dressing.  Worth it to me  We’ve had plenty of produce, heck we even had some this week left from 2 weeks ago!  The peanut butter I got through Open Sky, there was free shipping and I’ve gotten the peanut butter before and we really liked it.  I don’t normally buy from Open Sky but when something seems like a good deal I will take it.  I don’t like having overspent so much  I will really try to do better this week.  I think it is time to focus more on the pantry and move through some things without buying new for a while.  I’ve planned out all of my prospective grocery items for the weekend already, and I ordered an organic basket from Bountiful Baskets for Saturday.  I hope to keep the grand total under $120 next week!!

Pineapple, a mango, tangelos, oranges, a coconut, clementines, a pummelo I think?, napa cabbage, green leaf lettuce, jicama, mushrooms, I think a daikon radish, a few green onions, a bit of cilantro, limes, a lemon, kiwis, and some brownies.

We will give the brownies away since I am sure there is plain old sugar and white flour most likely in them.  I was disappointed when I felt the kiwis because they were really squishy.  I cut one open and it was mealy inside, they had just gone too far.  So those went in the trash  I’m also not sure what is up with the tidbits of herbs I’ve gotten  I’m not sure I will keep going with this one, I may stop in and shop on Thursdays but this basket was a little too random for me.  We’ll see.

We may do a little more shopping today so I will update tomorrow with a full budget report then.

In other news, since fasting for the last 2 days I am already down almost 3 pounds!  I haven’t been full-on fasting, just not eating until 2:00 pm.  Since it was only mildly uncomfortable at times, I am going to continue this pattern until I feel like I need to eat more.  I hit a milestone this morning (under 160!) that I would like to stick, so if the fasting works, I will keep doing it.  I am not a believer in calorie counting anymore since it makes me crazy and is unpleasant in general, so I will do what my body tells me I need to.  I’m not afraid of hunger, it’s not like I am going to die from being hungry for a few hours – its not an emergency!  Honestly once the initial ‘OMG I’m hungry and have to eat now’ from my brain passes, I feel fine and realize that maybe I didn’t need to eat yet.  I kind of just forget about it.  I also like that it gives me a feeling of control, something I need when my eating is getting sloppy or I start to not care so much about trying hard.  Anyway, I’m preaching to the choir here that is myself

Today I’ll be making muffins from discarded sourdough starter that has been in the fridge for about a week.  I also get to make another loaf of whole wheat sourdough, we have been going through a lot more bread lately!  Add in shopping, school, exercise, and cleaning and I’ll have plenty to do today!

We paired it with some tomato sauce with onions, bell pepper, and fresh roma tomatoes.  I added a bit of canned tomato sauce and a pinch of sugar but it really didn’t need it.  It was sweet!  I really liked it and so did The Kid.  She had seconds!!  She also had a great time with her salad ‘appetizer’.  She rolled lettuce tacos and made carrot/avocado skewers, before she knew it she ate the whole plate-ful.  Normally she would complain a little bit about eating it.  That is one great thing that has come of this real food challenge we are doing.  The veggies are plentiful and she is getting to the point where she kind of just eats them without me having to say anything!  I love it.

If you read my earlier post you’d know I started the day kind of frustrated at my lack of progress in the weight loss department.  I had a great day compared to the days I have been having.  I did what works.  I fasted until 2 pm, went for a walk outside and walked inside too, and just ate what felt right.  Lunch was a small bowl of soup, bread with butter, a small apple, and a fruit leather for something sweet.  Dinner was a big salad plate, a small portion of pasta and sauce, leftover veggies from a past dinner, and then I went snacky.  I had two oatmeal cookies, a spoon of peanut butter, and a square of chocolate.  Now I’m done for the day, and I’ll go brush my teeth just to make sure I don’t eat any more  I plan on doing pretty much the same thing tomorrow since it felt so good today.

I do believe that since we started the challenge, I have been eating even more sugar than ever!  I cannot resist the call of cookies, or sweet breads.  Ugh!  I do think that a little every day would be okay, just a little.  Not 3 or 4 cookies, geez.  So I definitely need to rein in it!  We were having a lot of ice cream for a couple of weeks there too.  I used The Kid’s birthday as an excuse to make a ton, and we didn’t use even half of it for her party, so most of the rest went in my belly.

I am eating too much.

So, I plan to change that today!  I am going to focus more on making my meals balanced, and not snacking too much throughout the day.  That seems to be what I did last month, and that worked.  I lost 5 pounds last month!  This month I have gone no where, in fact I’m back up a couple.  I guess I should go back to what worked and didn’t work.  What didn’t work this month so far is eating a lot of treats.  What did work last month was weekly fasting, coupled with eating what I liked within reason.  Too much sugar is not good.  I am only going to bake one treat per week, and when it is gone, that’s it!  I think I will feel better without so much of the sweet stuff too.

(To be clear, we are using evaporated cane juice, which we consider to be an okay sugar substitute, but that still doesn’t mean I should be going hog wild with it, I know.)

So today I am fasting until this afternoon some time.  I am going to eat as many veggies and fruits as I can in the handful of eating hours I will have today.  I probably will have some of the ‘granola’ cookies I made last night, OR some of the cinnamon raisin bread I also made yesterday, but NOT both!  I thought about planning meals again, but that just takes the joy out of eating for me.  I will just focus on keeping things balanced and using what needs to get used so it doesn’t go to waste.  That is one good thing, the fridge has been packed with veggies and our intake has gone way up since I started the doing the co-ops again.

Hopefully I will be un-stuck soon, and my weight loss journey will get rolling again!

A bunch of green bell peppers, roma tomatoes, cabbage, oranges, apples, an onion, mushrooms, celery, cilantro, green onions, a little parsley, yellow squash, lettuce, and cauliflower.  I think it was a pretty good deal, considering it was all organic.  Originally there was an eggplant but I traded it for zucchini.  We just don’t do eggplant.  Been there, done that, tried it, hate it  The only weird thing is that there were just these few little aspargus spears and a little bit of parsley?  I didn’t fully inspect the basket before someone loaded it up for me since I was going to do more shopping.  Overall I am happy with it, I think we did get a better amount for organic than from Bountiful Baskets.

We went shopping yesterday and here is the rest of what we got to hopefully last a week!

Harmon’s:

• Green and Black chocolate bars $5
• avocados $3

I did go there for other things, but changed my mind so that’s why we bought so little there.

Sunflower:

• Cucumbers $1.47
• Lemons $1.00
• 2 pounds organic butter $9.98
• Organic rolled oats $3.97

The Store:

• Chicken $9.52

Costco:

• Baby spinach $3.79
• Cheddar $10.84
• 3 dozen eggs $5.98
• Organic raisins $7.79

So in total we spent $94.33 this week on food.  Not great, but not horrible either.  In my dreams I spend $75 a week  But my actual budget for food on paper is $125 per week, or $500 per month.  So this is actually $30 under!  Even if I charged $25 for pantry items I still stayed under.

I am going to try and plan meals this week, maybe I will give that another post.