Tofu Donuts!?

You know what the hardest part about losing weight is for me? The food cravings, lol. I had a dream the other night that I was eating a grilled cheese sandwich (mild cheddar, goat cheese and sundried
tomatoes, fyi) with a Vanilla Bean Milkshake. Doesn’t that sound delicious!?

And temptation is everywhere, I don’t believe that losing weight is about deprivation just self contol  We had donut day in the office  the otherday. So I made vegan donuts. I modified this recipe from a Cookpad recipe, to make it completely vegan and rounder measurements.
Silken tofu is the key to these donuts, that give them a softness that almost (almost) reminds me of that great North Carolina brand: Krispy Kreme.  Admittedly I don't often cook with silken tofu but I think may more.

Cookpad is a Japanese social cooking site, it has some amazing recipes. Personally for me, recipes in Japanese are easier to read than allot of things. But fear not, there is an English version! What I love about Japanese (and to a great extent-Southeast Asian) baked goods is they tend to have less sugar than their American counterparts. I suppose because we're usually drinking them with green tea? We don't like sugar laden foods?

These donuts are so tastey, especially when they’re warm. The neatest part about these 3 of these only have 110 calories or in the words of a great man.."You can eat like 10 of these and still be under 400 calories"

Ingredients
8 oz silken tofu
2 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
4 teaspoons maple syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons grapeseed oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour
2  teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch of salt

Procedure
Preheat oven to 375 and spray evenly your donut pan with nonstick cooking spray
1. In the bowl of your food processor add in tofu, brown sugar, maple syrup, oil, and extract. Blend until smooth and consistent. Alternatively use a blender.
2. Sift together remaining ingredients (flour, cinnamon, ginger, salt, baking powder, sugar). Whisk to ensure even blending
3. Whisk in tofu mixture into flour mixture. Whisk until smooth.
4. Use a piping bag or zipbag with batter. Cut the tip off about 1/2" diametre hole.
5. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until when lightly pressed they spring back
6. While warm you can put them in bag with some cinnamon sugar for dusting.

Now if you’re listened to the reviews on amazon.com for the mini donut pan than you already have 2 and you can go ahead and bake all 2 dozen. But this batter "keeps" well so the second batch should be fine. Apparently the second time I made them... I had a lot of batter left over and my friends used the batter for pancakes. Nice.

 

And I ate (and ate): veganish

Lemon Israel Couscous

Well the Family weight loss challenge is in full effect.  8 days in, 6lbs down (since Jan 10th) and about 90% vegan . Being a cook that lives in Norcal probably makes eating vegan allot easier. Just like with my vegan and/or gluten free baking for Engineered Cupcake, I view vegan cooking as a fun challenge to create delicious food. Although the one thing about vegan meals is that (for me at least), it involves planning in advanced.
This week I had some amazing meals. I'm surprised at the sheer variety of fruits and vegetables I  ate this week. If you think about it though: 5 cups of fruits and vegetables over 7 days...that's 35 cups of fruits and vegetables! Variety is the key, that could get monotonous real quick.

Monday had lunch with Snow Pea shoots salad with edamame and avocado inspired by this recipe.  For
dinner that night I had Lemon Israeli Couscous with kale and sweet potatoes. Toasting Israeli couscous really brings out an amazing flavor.

Tuesday was couscous left-overs. Carrots with an impromptu edamame guacamole. Red grapes helped save me from the cravings of fruit snacks That night, the baked good cravings had started up. So I made a
pretty wholesome muffin with whole wheat flour, flax, fresh blueberries, and ginger for Wednesday breakfast. Also roasted some brussel sprouts, apples, and onions

Thursday was one of those days when I had ran out of lunch ready left-overs. So I had another muffin for breakfast, for lunch I had brown rice and Saag Paneer (dairy), and snacked on grapes, peppers, and raw broccoli throughout the day. For dinner, I cooked some vegan bacon to go with the rest of the brussel sprouts and had some pan fried tofu.

On Friday I was out in the field, climbing onto things, inspecting things the joys of non-profit energy effiency (I love it!). I drove over 120 miles for work, praise be for Zipcar, wheels when you want 'em.  My field days I definitely need to plan better. I spent most of that day driving resisting fast food. Didn't eat as regularly as I should. For breakfast I had some watermelon and berries. Had salad with greens, peppers, mushrooms, and edamame for lunch with my buddy at sunpower, sipped on chocolate peppermint protein shake the rest of the afternoon. By the time dinner-time came along I was at one of my favorite diners: Can't Fail Cafe, devouring a buffalo tofu salad (with a bit of blue cheese dressing) and Blue Moon beer.

The weekends are always the hardest for me. No regime, no routine, no telling.  Honestly on Saturday, I mostly grazed on a blood orange and raspberry  fennel salad, went and did some grocery shopping and later did some juicing.  Sweet potato, carrot, ginger, apple juice may just be the best thing I've ever drank in life.   Supper was a vegan version of "Beef and Brocoli": Sauteed garlic and onions with shoyu, add the "tofu beef", and then some fresh kale and frozen broccoli. served that with some vegan mashed potatoes.

Sunday I went over to my buddy's place to watch the 49ers/Seahawks game. Their household is on a gluten free kick as is most of the Bay area. So I made sure to eat a good meal before I went over there. Took the left over mashed potatoes and kale, added some soyrizo and made a vegan Shepard's pie in my donburi. That turned into Monday's lunch. A definite East meets west delicious dish.  I brought along some vegan muffins and they served up bacon and brussel sprouts cooked in cream.  The bacon wasn't so bad but my body was not feeling the cream at all. I was standing up after the game and I could feel my body shaking its metaphorical fists at me.  Lesson learned.

While I'd love to take credit for coming with these ideas from pure imagination truth is, Springpad is my go-to source for finding good recipe. In fact, you can find these recipes and more on my "5 a day" Springpad.

Family Weightloss challenge

Remember what I said last week? About resolving to lose weight...

My maternal side of the family is in a "winner takes all" weight-loss (by BMI) challenge. What does the winner take besides "off pounds?" They get all the cabbage, greenbacks, dead presidents, y'know CASH.  lol. Now that's motivation. 

Yours truly is the moderator for the challenge. So I set up the thread and am keeping track of everyone's BMI's on a spreadsheet. Also just keeping the family motivated via e-mail and for those on Facebook with some light-hearted teasing. (i.e Just got back from the Y. Maybe I'll buy some new sneakers with that money I'm gonna take from *tag family members)  

The challenge last for 7 weeks and I have a basic strategy:

1. Eat mostly vegan.   I knew this would be part of my plan. Then I realized Lent starts in the middle of the challenge, then I need to fast. Can I make 1/4 of the year not eating any animal products? Not likely.  Plus I have some dairy, honey in my kitchen that needs to be used. I've thrown in a few break days: Superbowl Sunday and Cheesefare week. 
2. Keep up the 5 a day - That's right, keeping up the 5 cups of fruits and vegetable as a minimum. I finally caved and bought a juicer...Let's see how long I keep it before appliance overload gets the best of me and it ends up at a friends housewarming. 
3. Exercise 4 days a week - This will be the hardest part. So many days after work, I'm just plain tired or I have a very full social calendar. Which sounds awesome (it is) but time-consuming.  Though I realized by drinking less alcohol during the week, I could fit in a quick gym session after some socializing.

I'll be keeping you posted.

Wish me luck!

2013/2014 Resolutions

Happy New Year y'all!

Once again I'm apologizing for disappearing. 2013 was an interesting year in a lot of different ways.

•  celebrated a few awesome 1 yr anniversaries including my first year at CESC  
•  spent a lot more time with my friends
• started my bucket list
•  spent 24 days of 2013 back home
• Did I mention I started a business! Engineered Cupcake in full effect!

It was also a very tough year. I was in an accident around end of May and it totally threw me off for the entire year. Sometimes I thought I should be healing faster than I was, I had to remind myself it'd been less than 6 months. Around December I finally got it and hope that this year everything will gradually get back to normal.  

As far as resolutions go this year, my family has decided to do a weight loss challenge. I have to admit that losing weight has been the last thing on my mind. Just not gaining any dealing with everything going on was the biggest accomplishment. But this particular challenge is for money and that is some good motivation.

That along with signing up for an EIT prep class so I finally pass that test are on my year's to-do list.  Basically, though over anything I'm just aiming for a return to normalcy.