Dinners have been a little cheese and carb heavy this week, and for the most part, equally delicious.

Week 3 Menu:

• caramelized onions and blue cheese veggie burgers (2x, I can’t get enough of caramelized onions and blue cheese)
• veggie lasagna (still eating leftovers of this one)
• tomatoes Provencal
• black bean burritos
• brown rice bowl with shrimp, snow peas, and avocado (remind me I don’t like shrimp that much next time)
• catfish with pineapple avocado salsa & arugula side (best meal of the week! The recipe was from Everyday Food, which called for halibut — which I was told at the store is not in season right now. So catfish it was. And it was delicious.)

Thankfully, no accidental mimosa mishaps this week, although I did take a Mastering Macarons cooking class at Sur la Table (more on that soon) last weekend, so the “less sugar” goal was kind of blown out of the water for Saturday, as I sampled my fair share of macarons.

Restaurant Pick this Week:
Mi Mero Mole. Thus far, we’ve been hitting our favorites on our once a week dining experience, so this week we checked out a new place that’s been on my list. I was left with mixed feelings about Mi Mero Mole. They’ve been open for a couple of months and specialize in guisados, which is Spanish for ‘stew’ and apparently popular particularly in Mexico City. The guisados plate (which was kind of like a build your own tacos plate) I ordered was burn-your-face-off hot. Yes, I’m kind of a wimp with spicy food, but it would have been nice to know that I needed to bring a box of tissues with me. :( So I wasn’t blown away, but I’ll give Mi Mero Mole another shot at some point.

Dear Internet, I have a confession to make. I had a mimosa! What!?! was I thinking? I wasn’t. I completely forgot, because it wasn’t at a restaurant/bar. I had a salon appointment on Saturday and when I arrived they asked if I wanted a mimosa, and they never ask that, so naturally, I said “Of course”, and then on the way home I almost got in an accident when I realized that I’d had a mimosa. Le sigh. So I messed up. I guess I’ll call this Sober January*.   *except for that one morning when I accidentally had a mimosa.

Week 2 Menu:
Breakfasts have been fairly similar to last week: fresh-squeezed juice, green drink, avocado egg chipotle breakfast sandwich, oatmeal, banana peanut butter smoothie, breakfast burritos, and fruit/nuts.

Dinners have been veggie stir-fry lettuce wraps, caramelized onion & goat cheese flatbread with Herbes de Provence, Tomatoes Provençal, and curried lentils with Paneer (a really quick and tasty recipe from the latest Sunset magazine. We ended up doubling the recipe so we could have leftovers for lunches.) I always love finding good recipes in the Sunset magazine. While it’s not the first magazine I think of when I’m recipe hunting, it’s one of the reasons Sunset is one of my favorite magazine — unexpected finds (and it’s always a nice pat on the back to be reminded of how awesome my Northwest is, even though I still think California gets too much attention).

Restaurant Pick this Week:
Bamboo Sushi. Knowing you only get to go out to eat at one restaurant a week, forces you to make excellent dining decisions. So Saturday, we headed to my favorite sushi place in Portland — Bamboo Sushi. For what it’s worth, they’re the first certified, sustainable sushi restaurant in the world (with fairly reasonable prices considering). After ordering their tart blackberry drink (sans alcohol), we gorged ourselves on sushi (the green machine, tataki carpaccio, and albacore carpaccio were our favs, if you ever get a chance to go).

What the what?! Yes, January is [self-imposed] Be Healthier: Cook at Home month. So in the name of healthiness, it’s really not too challenging (like going raw for a month or doing a cleanse), instead it’s about refocusing on cooking at home, being healthy, and saving money. My once goal of going to more new restaurants turned into a bad habit of going out to eat almost every day, and with so much good/cheap eats in Portland, it’s an easy habit to continue. My one loophole since I work from home, is that coffee shops are ok, where I shall order the largest mug of tea available and stare longingly at the pastry case. Otherwise I would be homeward bound for the month!

How the first week went down:
For my bit of complaining, I’m eating fantastic meals, and having a lot of fun actually cooking every night, and wasting less time on the Internet (yes, seriously).

Breakfasts have been avocado banana smoothie, fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juice, green drink juice, avocado egg chipotle breakfast sandwich, oatmeal, banana peanut butter w/Amazing Grass smoothie, pear custard pie, and fruit/nuts.

Lunch and dinner has seen tasty kale, squash, chevre tacos, slow-cooker veggie & chickpea coconut curry and rice, tomato and feta dill orzo, Spanish tortilla, this delicious avocado citrus salad:

and all the tasty leftovers!

The downside? My limited caffeine intake of 1-2 cups of tea a day (& the resultant headaches) took four days to power through. I’m also missing restaurants, so picking my ONE restaurant for this week was a tough choice.

My only meal out this week. Making it count with a fav… (@ Dove Vivi) 4sq.com/xnQaLa

— Olivia Raymer (@poweredbytofu) January 7, 2012

January 31 at midnight, you’ll find me at Rum Club with an Old Fashioned followed by a bowl of cheese. Kidding… kind of.

What have you been cooking up lately?

<<< Funniest yoga ad. Ever.

I ended up going to yoga classes at my regular gym, taking free classes at Lululemon, buying a $30 for 30 days of Bikram deal (which I didn’t use enough), and trying out a few yoga podcasts (which was really hit or miss). I won’t be continuing daily yoga, but will definitely be going 1-3 times a week instead of 0-1 times a month.

Things I learned, liked, disliked etc:

• Bikram yoga is hot yoga, but hot yoga isn’t necessarily Bikram yoga. Verdict: Bikram isn’t really for me.
• You can overstretch in hot yoga, especially 90 min yoga. Hello, hammies.
• Free yoga classes at Lululemon – thumbs up!
• Time-wise, I ended up replacing most of my regular cardio with yoga, which left me with cardio 1x/week for the past month, and a hell of a lot of yoga.
• Noticeable difference: arms and upper abs are more toned (apparently I look “leaner”, but I don’t feel as fit since I’ve been slacking on the cardio). :P
• I love the spiritual aspect of yoga. When I first started yoga a few years ago, it took me a few tries to get the giggles out. I still don’t like super-meditative yoga, but I’ve found that I feel a lot more ‘meditative’ when I’m moving. I love the mind-clearing peacefulness of yoga. Zzzzen!

Yoga fan: yay or nay?

So instead of doing another 101 Things list, I’ve decided to try out a 30 Before I’m 30 list. Aaaaaah! :) So dear Internet, what should I add to my 30 Things Before 30 list? Ideas so far include: buy a house (update: done! I kind of sandbagged this one, but I’m totally going to keep it on the list), visit Iceland, try kiteboarding, start strength training, learn a really hard yoga pose (which one?), run a half marathon or try an easy triathalon (I suck at swimming though), visit all 30 microbreweries in Portland…

What else should be on my ’30 Before I’m 30′ list?

All successful journeys begin with a positive vision.

This post is part of my Apartment Therapy Spring Cure 2010, so if you’re not keen to follow along then come back in 8 weeks. ;)

Now, for some honesty… I didn’t actually do anything cure-ish this week, but perhaps that’s because I already have a “vision” for my apartment and I did the cure a few years ago. Anyway, I did re-read chapter 1 and I suppose this next week will be a little more work, since it focuses on the kitchen. :] Join the cult.

Week 1 To Do List:

• List of repairs – drywall mud to fill all the little holes I made while hanging curtains :P
• Vacuum/mop floors
• Remove one item from your apartment and put it outside – does my kitteh count?
• Buy fresh flowers – purple tulips from the farmers market :)
• Sit for 10 minutes in a part of your home that you never sit in -  in <600 sq ft there isn’t really part of my home that I “never sit in”, unless you count the floor directly in front of my balcony, which I did spend some time napping in the sunshine over the weekend. :P
• Look into earth-friendly cleaning products – I use Method.

On to week 2 and the kitchen! Oh and an update on my Liberty of London obsession… I now have: a storage bin, file box, 2 mugs, tray, gardening gloves, sundress, piggy bank… and. that. is. all. I’ve decided on several occasions not to buy anything else… but I would probably tackle someone if I spotted one of the teapots in-store… and I wouldn’t mind the bicycle either…

How to:
Get the book (or check it out at the library)
Sign-up for the weekly cure emails
Start reading the book, and participate as much as you want with the discussions, flickr pool etc

The Plan: (March 15th through May 10th)
Week 1: Creating Your Vision
Week 2: Clearing a Path
Week 3: The Landing Strip
Week 4: Retail Therapy
Week 5: The Thick of It
Week 6: Light Therapy
Week 7: Sacred Space
Week 8: Throwing a Party
Week 9: Graduation

Should be fun, and I may just have an excuse to pick up some new home goods — Liberty of London for Target is calling my name at the moment. Anyone else a little obsessed with this line right now? The LoL (heh) line is like a “few of my favorite things” roundup: gardening stuff, bicycles, flipflops, piggy banks, dresses, tea pots, and all in the sweetest patterns. <3

Who else is doing the Spring Cure?

“Now in its third year, Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.”

I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on environmental change, but one thing I’m fairly expert-ish at is being a vegetarian. After reading both Food Matters (Bittman) and In Defense of Food (Pollan) this summer, I was reminded again how utterly insane meat consumption — and in turn its affect on the environment — has gotten. Americans eat about 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (and this excludes dairy)!  So who’s eating my 190 pounds? (As a recent pescatarian, I probably eat about 10 pounds of fish a year.) And we eat twice the global average. Obviously, some of that statistic is slightly skewed from other Western nations, as developing nations can’t afford to eat as much meat, but their consumption has doubled in the last 20 years.

So I guess we could probably all agree that it would be smart to eat less meat. As Americans, we’re getting double our daily protein requirements.

3 Ways To Eat Less Meat:

1. Eat more beans. Black beans are a staple in many Latin American countries, and are an excellent source of protein to boot.
2. Don’t go cold turkey. Ahhahaha… sorry about that. Anyway, I’m all for balance. Swearing off meat entirely isn’t for everyone, and if you don’t replace it with something you’ll probably just give up. So try being a “Monday, Wednesday, Friday” vegetarian by only eating meat a few times a week.
3. Think Asian. Asian countries have some amazing ways of creating brilliant meatless food, originally out of necessity, but now a huge part of their cultures… think bean curd (China), tofu (Japanese for bean curd), chai pow yu (Vietnam glutony stuff).

See how I cleverly got on my vegetarian soap box for Blog Action Day, and didn’t have to actually make any personal changes? :) I need a challenge… anyone?

Traveling for a year wasn’t the best for staying in shape… being forced to eat amazing food, with no gyms in site, and conveniently leaving my running shoes at home. I know, I know, poor me. All fun things, but these are certainly not the ingredients for rockin’ abs. I did spend my days exploring on foot though, so it wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to my fitness. Although, by the time March rolled around I was ready to focus on getting more toned. I decided to check out the much-raved Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred — you know I’m a sucker for challenges!  Note: The object of this challenge was not to lose weight, but to tone up. I also didn’t do the Shred everyday because it’s important to have a rest day and I already had a workout program that I was enjoying twice a week.

Benchmark:
Before I started The Shred, I was going to the gym twice a week, one day to a 15 min abs class followed by a 45 min kickboxing class, and a second day to abs class again, followed by a 45 min spin class.

New Weekly Workouts

• 30 Day Shred – 2-3x a week
• abs/kickboxing – once a week
• abs/spin class – once a week

Results:
The first week that I tried Level One, my shoulders were so sore afterward that I waited a week to try again! The second week, I did it twice, and then from there I just added it in two to three days per week, for the last two months.

• Weight Loss: 5 pounds (quite a shocker — I wasn’t anticipating any!)
• Waist: -1 inch
• Butt: oh please, it’s not going anywhere!
• Thighs: -1/4 inch
• Arms: -1/8 inch
• Calves: +1/8 inch

Before & After Pics: Not a huge difference, but I do look more toned!

Bottom-line: The 30 Day Shred is perfect for a quick workout. 25 minutes of “circuit training” in your living room is convenient and easy to fit into your daily routine. My main complaint was the soundtrack. It was so unmotivating that I created my own playlist on iTunes and then just muted the DVD. I’m usually more of an indie/alternative music fan, but alas, the gym is rubbing off on me, and I’m starting to like hip-hop and pop to work out to! Jillian Michaels is all kinds of crazy — she’s like a machine or a drill sergeant — but it works!

30 Day Shred Workout Mix: M.I.A. – Paper Planes, Kanye West – Stronger, Lady GaGa – Poker Face, Britney Spears – Womanizer, Kanye West – Heartless, Lady GaGa – Just Dance, Beyonce – Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)

**Update: I forgot to mention that she says the phrase “phoning it in at the gym” about 20 times per level. ;) Another reason to hit the mute button**

Have you tried the 30 Day Shred? Do share your experience!

I started the week out with a meal plan and using Gyminee to track my calories and nutritional intake, so I make sure to eat enough.

Day 1
Breakfast: Oatmeal, raisins, grapefruit, coffee with soy milk
Lunch: Dave’s Killer bread peanut butter and banana sandwich, carrots, Kettle chips
Dinner: Vegan chili with tortilla chips
Verdict: I missed having yogurt for breakfast, but overall today was pretty typical.

Day 2
Breakfast:  Bob’s Red Mill Old Country Style Muesli, applesauce, almonds, coffee with soy milk
Lunch:  Bay Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant: Mango Curry
Dinner: Asian Lettuce Wraps (butter lettuce, mango, scallions, bean thread noodles) with Chai Pow Yu instead of beef
Verdict: Today was the perfect vegan day! I didn’t feel like I had to worry about getting enough calories

Day 3
Breakfast:  Bob’s Red Mill Old Country Style Muesli, soy milk, Dave’s Killer bread, peanut butter, honey, almonds, coffee with soy milk
Lunch:  leftover lettuce wrap ingredients mixed into a salad
Dinner: Ya Hala Lebanese Restaurant‘s Mezza Plate: hummus, baba ghanoush, tabouli, pita bread, stuffed grape leaves, fried cauliflower, falafels
Verdict: I think I actually ate too many calories today!

Day 4
Breakfast:  Banana muffins (with applesauce substituted for eggs), honey, pear, apple, coffee with soy milk
Lunch:  Chips and guacamole
Dinner: Sweet & Sour Stirfry (pineapple, bell peppers, broccoli) with Chai Pow Yu instead of pork, rice, vegan cupcake
Verdict: I ate a lot of food today, but I’m starting to feel like I’m foraging for food.  I guess I really just felt like snacking or a dessert, so I bought a vegan cupcake at New Seasons deli.

Day 5
Breakfast:  Mother’s Day breakfast at Bar Carlo: Vegan Skillet of potatoes, avocado mushrooms etc and coffee with soy milk
Snack: frozen yogurt (we’ll discuss this later)
Dinner: Brazilian Black Beans, rice, beets, chips, guacamole
Verdict: I accidentally ate a frozen yogurt at IKEA today. It wasn’t even a temptation thing, I just completely forgot that I was going vegan this week. And I’d been there for hours, and I was tired and hungry… oops!

Day 6:
Breakfast: Sweetened Wheatfuls, soy milk, banana, coffee with soy milk
Lunch: black beans, rice
Dinner: pita pockets, hummus, baba ghanoush, tomato, cucumber, apple juice
Verdict: I felt like I was foraging again today.  I’m a little tired of eating a massive plate of rice, beans or vegetables and then being hungry again a few hours later.

Day 7:
Breakfast: Dave’s Killer Bread, peanut butter, banana, applesauce, coffee with soy milk
Lunch:  black beans, rice, pita bread, hummus, baba ghanoush, apple juice
Snack: Starbucks Soy Chai Latte
Dinner: Lentil Soup
Verdict: I was a little annoyed to find out that Starbucks charges you 40 cents extra to have soy instead of milk in a chai.  Lame!

Overall, vegan week has been fairly easy, except for my amnesia day when I bought a frozen yogurt for $1 at IKEA.  Personally, I’ll stay a vegetarian (or pescatarian) because it’s much easier for me to stay healthy.  Being vegan takes a little more work in planning meals and going out, but the main thing is the calorie counting. I hate feeling like I’m not getting enough to eat, and dairy is a much simpler protein source. Plus, I love cheese!