Guest Post: Jack & Trisha’s amazing year!

(Lynne here) I met “Santa Jack” & Trisha of Happy Times Two about a month ago when they passed thru Chicago on their “around the U.S.” RV tour.  Their vegan transformation this year has been nothing short of AMAZING (together, they’ve lost a staggering 120 lbs and counting!).  I just knew that fellow Vegan Vagabond readers would love to hear their story, so I asked Jack to write this guest blog post.  Enjoy!)

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We’re Jack and Trisha, and are currently 6 months into a 7 month RV excursion around the country to celebrate Trisha’s joining me in retirement. When we started planning this trip, we were excited about seeing so much of the country, but as it’s turned out, by far the greatest gift we’ve received from this experience is a total transformation in our health, as we’ve become “mostly vegan!” I can’t begin to describe how wonderful this has been, how much better we feel physically, and how our outlook on life has changed since we started this journey.

First, a little background. All my life I’ve wrestled with being overweight, starting in childhood. Through the years I’ve done probably every conceivable diet, with some success at times, but invariably I’ve put back on the weight I had lost, and steadily gaining more. I’ve often said my closet looked like a men’s store--from slim and trim sizes all the way up to designs by Omar the Tentmaker! Even though I had run a marathon at age 35, in recent years I had become much more sedentary and less active. I started taking cholesterol and blood pressure medications years ago, and my doctors kept having to increase the dosage. In January of this year my doctor added a third BP med to my regimen, and this was pretty unsettling-- I had figured I would always be on these meds, but adding this new one was sobering.

Some “Before” pictures--


Well, about this time we were preparing to embark on our trip and while surfing the web for tips on RVing, I ran across Lynne’s WinnieViews blog, discovering to my delight that she had the identical model RV we had recently bought. Her blog was incredibly helpful, and she was kind enough to answer many questions I had. But by far the most significant thing about her blog was her link to Vegan Vagabonds, and a gift for which both Trisha and I will be forever in her debt.

On a lark, I just started reading some of her posts on this blog, as well as those from Tessa and Evelyn and a light just went off in my head, I mean like exploded!! For reasons I can’t really explain, the picture she posted of the spinach and kale smoothie just hit me like a ton of bricks--just a sudden enlightenment moment!! I was also intrigued by her stories of weight loss due to adopting a plant based diet. I showed Trisha the picture and some of the blog posts and we both just said “Let’s do this!”

At the beginning of our trip!


So I ordered a Blendtec, and we both read Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live, and were amazed at the many success stories he described. What was without a doubt the most helpful advice to us from his book, as well as from all three wonderful women who started Vegan Vagabonds was that you didn’t have to be a slave to this approach. As Lynne says, she occasionally eats non-vegan foods, just doesn’t make a habit of it anymore. We had known some vegans who were just Nazis about it and this approach was something of a turn off. But hearing that you could successfully be “mostly vegan” was just the approach both of us needed.

I had been scheduled to go back to see my doctor in February since she had been concerned about my increasing blood pressure and she wanted to monitor it more closely. We had just started this new way of eating a couple of days before my appointment and when I told her what we were doing she was just ecstatic! She told me that she and her husband eat about 80% plant based, eating some meat/fish/dairy usually on the weekends, but with this way of eating her husband had been able to get off his blood pressure medications completely.

I went back to see my doctor in March, just before we left on our trip, and in this one month I had lost 24 pounds, and my blood pressure was starting to come down! In just one month! So she told me to send her a log of my bp readings so she could decide whether to reduce my meds. It’s now been 7 months since we started eating this way and I’ve lost 80 pounds, and she has taken me off two of the three bp meds! Hopefully, by the time we get back home in another month she will be able to take me off the other meds as well. Trisha has lost more than 40 pounds, and we both just marvel at how much better we feel.

We didn’t have bikes when we started our trip, but bought some 7 speed bikes in Alabama and started riding. By the time we got to Colorado we traded these in for 24 speed bikes and we’ve done some 20 mile rides and one over 30! We’re hiking a lot and just feeling super!



And it’s been much easier to eat a vegan diet on the road than what you might expect. We brought our Blendtec on the RV and have smoothies just about every day for breakfast. When we are dry camping and can’t run the generator, we have oatmeal, with blueberries, sometimes craisins, sometimes a little honey. Our smoothies are variations of the recipe Lynne posted on this blog--we add some chia powder, sometimes a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder and use just frozen blueberries for a dark chocolate flavor/color; sometimes we add peanut butter (we have been able to find stores where we can grind our own fresh), and we’ve just experimented with different frozen fruits. When we’ve been able to get fresh berries at farmers markets or “u-pick” places, we’ve frozen those to use later.

For lunch we usually have tomato sandwiches, made with either whole wheat pita pockets or other whole grain organic breads we’ve found at health food stores along the way, usually just using one slice, open face style. We use tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, avocado, greens of any variety. We’ll usually top this off with some fresh fruit.

For supper we have a variety, lots of times with quinoa or black rice topped with steamed or grilled veggies, a salad made with whatever fresh veggies we’ve been able to find at roadside stands or farmers markets--for grilling, we like to use chunks of onion, beets, carrots, yellow and zucchini squash, sweet potatoes, peppers, cauliflower, whatever. We’ll spray a little PAM over this, use some Mrs. Dash salt free seasoning, some basil, maybe other spices, wrap it in foil and use our little portable grill out on the table at the campsite. We discovered black rice on this trip and really love it, either hot and topped with veggies, or cold added to salads; same with quinoa. I’ll often saute some tempeh, tofu or seitan to put in salads as well.

Always load up the salads with chickpeas, black beans or other types of beans, and add some seeds or nuts. We often use nutritional yeast sprinkled on salad, or over the steamed veggies, great flavor, more protein--good on corn on the cob!

For snacks we usually have carrots and hummus, some we buy and some we make, or some raw cashews or almonds and dried fruit. When we’re out hiking or biking, we take along a baggie of nuts and dried fruit, apples or oranges, and usually some Cliff Bars--the Builder Bars have a really high protein content and this really helps.

We love finding farmers markets along the way, stopping at roadside fruit and vegetable stands for whatever is fresh and in season. We’ve been able to find lots of health food stores or organic/natural grocers along the way, so we can stock up on protein powder. almond milk--unsweetened original--ground flaxseed, dried fruits (especially love white figs!). In Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado and Oregon we discovered Winco grocery stores, where we found wonderful bulk items, including a hummus powder we use to make up batches of our own.

We eat mostly meals we fix in the RV, but we do eat out from time to time, usually when we want to enjoy local specialties, like sampling the seafood gumbo along the Gulf coast, Mexican food in the Southwest, or a lobster roll in Maine. When we do this we try to make sure we avoid side dishes like fries, bread, etc. We’ve had great success using Happy Cow to find vegan friendly places to eat, and it’s always a good bet that at Mexican, Indian, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants you can find several vegan choices. More and more places are responding favorably to requests to make something vegan by either withholding cheese, cream, etc. or substituting a vegan alternative.

Vegan Platter we ordered at a restaurant--


We use recipes from Eat to Live, Everyday Happy Herbivore, and the Blendtec cookbook, but more often than not, we’ll just make it up as we go along, with whatever fresh veggies we have on hand.

Delicious dinner of corn on the cob with a little salt free Mrs. Dash, salad topped with black rice and sauteed seitan--


We’ve found a brand of prepared dishes we really like, called Tasty Bite. Mostly Indian, like lentils or chickpeas, and they also have different rice varieties--great for when we’re late getting into a campground and are tired, just microwave for 90 seconds and you’re done! We make a lot of soups, using some quick dry mixes we’ve found at health food stores, some from bean mixes we brought from home. One of our best purchases was a small microwave steamer we got at Camping World, and we use that a lot. It will steam a meal of vegetables in 5 minutes or less and it’s just so easy!

Now I can honestly say I don’t find myself craving all those foods that I always have, such as ice cream, donuts, fries, etc. People ask how hard this is, and for both of us it has been so much easier than we had ever thought possible. When we go out to eat, if there simply are no vegan alternatives, we just find the closest thing we can and don’t worry about it. When we’ve visited friends along the way, we’ve let them know about our eating pattern, but have always insisted that they not go out of their way to change, and we’ve been able to do okay just eating mostly salad and veggies that are usually part of their meals, and when they have asked, suggesting things to fix that aren’t radically different from what they usually have.

All those times in the past when I would go “on” a diet, I would eventually go “off” of it, which inevitably lead to the regaining of the weight. Now, we look at this not as a diet, but just a different way of eating, and I can’t imagine ever leaving this path. There are so many benefits we’ve already experienced, and I know our lives are so much better now! Not only are we able to exercise more and more, but just simple things of everyday life are so much easier, like walking up stairs, bending down to pick something up off the floor--before, we would tend to find excuses for not doing things, but now we look for ways to be more active. It’s just made a tremendous difference in all aspects of our lives!

We had the wonderful chance to meet Lynne when we were in the Chicago area! What an inspiration she has been to us and thank you to Tessa and Evelyn as well for all your wonderful inspirational blog posts!!

New Goodies for my RV Kitchen

I’m planning to escape Chicago this winter in my little home on wheels.  So, to prepare, I’ve been evaluating my kitchen appliances and trying to figure out which ones I might be able to leave behind, and which new ones I must buy and keep!

The first new gadget is a bit counter intuitive.  It’s a 4-quart Nesco Multi-Cooker and is a bit bigger than my previous 4-quart Crock Pot slow cooker.  So, why would I want a bigger item in my RV kitchen?  Because it can not only replace my slow cooker, but also replace my rice cooker, can steam veggies, and with it’s pressure-cooker features, can also cook a number of foods faster than conventional pots (dry beans without needing to soak them overnight first, for example).

 

It also has a Timer delay, so I can set it to turn on automatically when I’m out during the day, or sleeping at night.  So far, I’ve just cooked rice in it, but the rice has been fantastic and much better than my previous rice cooker.

The next new gadget was something I resisted buying for a long, long time – an Omega 8004 juicer.   I had an expensive Blendtec blender (seen behind the juicer above) and kept asking Tessa and Evelyn why I should now have to pay a few hundred more for a “one-trick-pony” dedicated appliance.  Well, after our visit in Colorado, I finally understood the value!

When I previously tried juicing in my Blendtec, the fiber remained in the juice.  While that might be perfectly fine for a fruit juice (think orange juice, lemonade, etc), it makes more nutritional green or veggie juices more difficult to drink—your body feels “full” and starts refusing to drink the amount that’s really necessary due to the fiber still being in the drink.  Compare how much easier it is to drink a large glass of water vs. a large smoothie, and you’ll get the concept here.

So the second “a ha” I finally learned—juicing is the really the easiest and fastest way to get all the dense nutrients that a vegan needs to consume daily.  Now, that doesn’t mean you must only consume juice -- although some, like Tessa, and Joe Cross (from “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”) have done a juice fast to kick-start weight loss and boost their nutrient levels.

Over the past year, I had started getting lazy about ensuring that 1/2 my daily calories were greens and veggies.  I started sliding towards more carbs, sweets, and fruits, and as a result, gained about 10 lbs back and began feeling rather lethargic.  But now that I have the juicer, I can reduce down that mountain of daily greens and veggies I’m “supposed” to consume into a very manageable single glass of juice that now replaces one of my daily meals.  My energy levels are back and my diet feels in better balance once again. 

When I want to get more aggressive again with weight loss, I can replace more meals with juice and/or add more physical exercise to my day.

So, why did I choose the Omega vs. the Breville that was featured in “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”?  Well, YouTube videos from this guy (as over-enthusiastic and long-winded as he might be!) were very helpful in educating me about the different kinds of juicers.  In the end, I liked the fact that the Omega’s low RPMs would be quieter, do a better job at juicing leafy greens, be a bit easier to clean, break down into a smaller package for storage, cost a bit less, and it would come with a 15-year warranty.  But the kicker?  It also comes with other inserts that allow you to convert it to a food extruder for making pasta noodles, sorbet, and even salsa!

But, back to it’s main role—juicing.  Here’s what it looks like when disassembled:

When preparing to juice, it’s incredible just how much produce it takes to make an 8 oz. glass of juice!  Here’s a bucket full of produce that is to become my morning breakfast and mid-morning snack:

It’s a 1/2 of a papaya, 1 cucumber, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, 1 large handful of spinach, 1 sliver of ginger, an apple, and a pear.  This juicer has a smaller feed tube than the high-speed models, so it does require a bit more cutting to prepare the food for juicing.  I cut the apple and pears into slices and discard the center seed core, but I don’t bother peeling them (as the juicer will handle that).  For the papaya, I spoon out and discard the seeds, and then just spoon out pieces of the fruit to push into the hopper (rather than trying to include the heavier rind as well).  The juicer would certainly be strong enough to still process it, but it seems easier for that particular fruit to just dispose of the rind prior to than after juicing.

 

Once the food is prepped, juicing is pretty simple.  Just throw the pieces into the hopper.  The juice will come out below the auger assembly, while the pulp will push out into the front bucket. 

The plunger helps push leafy greens more easily.  It has a nice gasket that helps prevent even small skinny pieces like wheatgrass from being left behind in the feed tube.

I cover the pulp collection bucket with a freezer bag to prevent the plastic from becoming discolored.  Certainly not necessary, though.  I like that you can used any old container for the juice or the pulp and don’t need to only use the supplied containers.

Finally, the end result—a delicious and nutritious green juice!  I found this recipe and a ton of others on JuiceRecipes.com.  There are dozens of free websites out there to give you new juice ideas.

Now, what about the aftermath?  Well, it’s not really that bad to clean up.  The pulp is virtually dry and easy to dump into a trash can.  The auger and components rinse off easily in hot water.

 

Omega supplies a nylon brush (looks like a big toothbrush) for cleaning the metal strainer.  A few quick brushes around that under hot running water, and it’s clean as a whistle!

From an RVer perspective, the Omega’s slow motor consumes less than 200 watts, making it boondocker-friendly.  However, juicing does tend to need a fair amount of running water for washing the food, and cleaning the juicer components afterwards, so that’s something to keep in mind.

So, now that I have the juicer and am drinking more juices than smoothies these days, will my Blendtec just be staying home unused this winter?  Not a chance!  It still does a great job for hummus, salsas, food processing/grinding a variety of foods, and now something new as well—homemade almond milk!

Trying to find vegan nut milks in smaller stores out in the boonies can often be a challenge when RVing.  So, rather than do without, it’s super easy (and even more delicious) to make your own!  All you need is a high-speed blender and an inexpensive, reusable nylon nut milk strainer bag like this one:

 

I bought mine on Amazon for less than $10.

Making almond milk is easy, but does take a little pre-planning—you need to soak 1 cup of almonds in water for about 12 hours (overnight) to soften them.

Then, drain the soaking water and rinse the almonds in fresh cool water to remove any remaining impurities, and wash your hands well (you’ll be using them!).   Put the almonds into your blender and add about 3 cups of cold water, a dash of salt, 1 tsp of vanilla, and (optionally) up to 2 Tbsp of agave nectar or other sweetener.  Have fun and add some cocoa powder too if you’d like to make chocolate milk!

Turn the blender on, and watch as it instantly turns almonds into milk!

Now you’ll want to pour the milk out of the blender through the strainer bag into another container.  You’ll initially have a cup of liquid still in the bag with the pulp, so you’ll then want to begin squeezing the bag from top to bottom to gently squeeze the liquid out of the bag and into the container.

Once fully squeezed, the pulp in the bag will be nearly dry.  Simply turn the bag inside out to dump the pulp into the trash and rinse it off under hot water to clean it.  When all particles are removed, cover the top of a wine glass with it to allow it to air out and dry.

Store the milk in an air-tight bottle (glass works great) and shake it a bit before serving.  The milk will only stay good for a couple of days, but will have a more flavorful taste than store-bought. 

YUM!

Spice up those cold, dreary days with a slow-cooker!

When the clocks roll back and days start getting shorter and colder, it’s time to put away the grill and pull out the slow-cooker! 

Today, was my first slow-cooker meal of the season, and what a great kick-off it was—Ratatouille, that thick and robust French chunky tomato stew, full of flavorful spices, yet a low-calorie, nutrient-dense vegan meal.

I assembled my ingredients into the slow-cooker, turned it on Low at 9:00am, and headed upstairs to work.  I don’t know why, but smelling a delicious dinner simmering away in the Crock Pot seems to make my work day move along a little better—perhaps it’s that little added thrill and anticipation of what will be waiting for me at the end of the work day at 5:00!  But, it sure makes the cold, gray days of winter a bit more tolerable.

Most slow-cooker cookbooks are filled with meat dishes, so finding good vegan recipes can sometimes be a challenge.  I discovered this Ratatouille recipe last winter when I was RVing down in Arizona.  It fits my 3 1/2 quart Crock Pot perfectly, and that size slow-cooker fits nicely into my Winnebago View making this a great Vegan Vagabond meal!  

Add a few bread slices from a fresh whole wheat French baguette, and a nice glass of red wine, and “ooo la la”—a yummy and comforting meal to warm up a cold winter’s day!

Slow-Cooker Ratatouille:

adapted from: Better Homes and Gardens Low-Carb Slow Cooker Recipes

Ingredients:

• 2 medium onions (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 6 oz. can of tomato paste (as low-sodium as you can find)
• 1 TB olive oil
• 1 TB raw turbinado sugar (or other less-processed sugar)
• 3 small cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 TSP dried basil
• 1 TSP kosher sea salt
• 1 TSP dried thyme
• 1/4 TSP ground black pepper
• 5 fresh roma tomatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 small/medium unpeeled zucchini, halved lengthwise and finely sliced
• 3 cups of unpeeled eggplant, diced into small cubes
  

Preparation:

1. Place ingredients into a 3 1/2 quart slow-cooker in the exact sequence as listed above. 

2. After adding the spices (and before adding the fresh tomatoes), spread the tomato paste to cover the onions, but ensure the onions remain on the bottom of the pot.

3. Add the remaining ingredients and lightly pack down so that the lid will still fit firmly on top of the pot.

4. Turn the slow-cooker on Low and cook for about 7 1/2 to 8 hours.  Leave the lid on the whole time and DO NOT STIR until within the last 30-45 minutes (to allow the tomato juices to combine better with the eggplant).

5. Turn off the slow-cooker and let rest for 10-15 minutes while you warm a baguette in the oven and slice it.

6. Serve in large soup bowls. Makes about 4 cups (2 – 3 servings).

It’s Becoming a Habit! (by Lynne)

They say following something for 3 weeks, turns it into a habit.   It’s now been 3 weeks since I jumped onto the vegan bandwagon and the experience, so far, has been much better than I expected (and it does, indeed, feel like a new habit!)!  I’m really enjoying all the new and interesting foods, and have been learning A LOT!
My daily companion has been my new Blendtec high-speed blender:


This has been my favorite breakfast smoothie most mornings (modified from the excellent Whole Foods Recipes iOS app):

• 1 cup non-sweetened Almond Milk
• 1 TB  ground flaxseed
• 1 banana
• 1 handful of fresh kale (without stems)
• 1 handful of fresh spinach (without stems)
• 2 or 3 Medjool dates
• 3/4 cups of frozen fruit

In less than a minute, the Blendtec spins it into a creamy green milkshake.  While I’ll admit, the color looks pretty gross, the taste is sweet, smooth, and delicious—just like a fruit milkshake.

I’m finding that this single smoothie alone will usually sustain me pretty well until lunchtime, but if I crave a crunchy snack between meals, I’ll have a handful of baby carrots, an apple,  or some celery with homemade hummas (also made in the Blendtec!).
For my lunch and dinner meals, I’ve tried to ensure that one of them focuses on raw veggies (such as a large green tossed salad), and the other focuses on a meal with cooked veggies or homemade soup (creaming soups is yet another use for the Blendtec).  With either meal, I try to also include a protein source such as chickpeas, black beans, walnuts, cashews, or tofu.
If I need an after-dinner snack, I’ll have some kind of fruit again—either whole, or as a fruit smoothie or frozen sugarless fruit sorbet (yep, yet another use for the Blendtec!).
For the next few months, my goal is to continue this strict initial phase of the Eat To Live book as much as I can in order to maximize weight loss (this phase minimizes starches and grains, and avoids nearly all sugar and oils).  My health goal is to lose a minimum of 50 lbs (so that I reach the “normal” BMI range), and by doing so, also hope to see my Glucose and Cholesterol levels decline back into normal ranges as well.
With any other diet, achieving these kinds of numbers would have seemed virtually impossible without severe starvation or extreme exercise.  But with this one, I’m actually eating more than I used to, am not counting any calories, and have not even started exercising yet (mainly because I wanted to see what kind of results I could get from just the diet-change alone).
Well, I’m happy to report that as of today (and with only the diet-change alone!), I have now lost 10 pounds!  10 down, 40 to go!

Lynne

The Easiest Soup Ever (by Evelyn)

Have you ever been super hungry, absolutely did not feel like cooking, and therefore made something from a recipe so easy that you thought it couldn’t be very good?  Today I found a soup recipe in a 20+ year old cookbook that I recently bought in a second hand bookstore that can be prepared in 5 minutes flat and is delicious.
But first a note about modifications:  I decided to double the recipe and put it in my food processor before cooking it.  The second I turned on the food processor a lot of the liquid went flying all over the counter and cabinets because the food processor was too full.  So I dumped what was left in a pot, added a tablespoon of turmeric, brought the contents to a boil, let it simmer 3-4 minutes and then used my immersion blender to make it creamy.  So here to the best of my knowledge is how to make this soup:

Fast Vegetable Cream Soup

adapted from recipe in The High Road to Health by Lindsay Wagner & Ariane Spade

• 4 cups fresh or frozen vegetables (I used a mixture of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots from Costco called Normandy Blend)
• 1/2 cup sesame tahini
• 3 cups water
• 4 TB low sodium soy sauce
• 1 TB turmeric

Put all into a pot and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 3-4 minutes.  Blend with immersion blender.  I tried this recipe in my Blendtec and it was too smooth for my liking.

Trust me, this is very, very tasty and gets an RVEasy rating!

Eveyln