nothing like a cold salad in a blizzard

Well we are almost at the end of our 6 weeks on ETL but towards the end I started cheating with peanut butter and Wegmans sourdough multigrain bread so I think I only lost about 7 lbs. It’s hard to tell because there is a roller coaster of bloats from eating no salt and then eating something accidentally salty. I also noticed that, after basically giving up wheat for four weeks, now when I eat bread or whole wheat pasta I feel just AWFUL afterward. I hope this is just psychological because the only thing more annoying than a vegan is a gluten-free vegan. Other than a raw gluten-free vegan. I think my skin looks a lot better though. And grocery shopping is much easier since you basically just go to the produce section. I guess we will continue after this weekend, because we are going to the Great Sage Valentines Day dinner as long as it stops blizzarding. The blizzard has not been so bad since I have not had to go to work for three days but there was one day of terror when we ran out of lettuce. I have never before used up a whole tub of Costco spring mix before it got slimy but now we do it in two days.

ETL things that are good:

• Lightened-Up Falafels from The Everyday Vegan by Dreena Burton
• sauteed portabello mushrooms on salad
• a medjool date cut in half and the seed hole filled with peanut butter (not technically allowed)
• New England Clam-less Chowder by Nava Atlas (this is REALLY good but you have to eliminate the oil and count it as a starch and it probably has too much salt from the baked tofu)
• Red Lentil Artichoke Stew from The Vegan Table (p. 70) with quinoa and steamed kale
• fake ice cream made with frozen fruit and a banana and some soy milk in the food processor or especially with frozen cherries and cocoa powder
• Fuhrman’s orange-sesame salad dressing (6 cashews, 2 T toasted sesame seeds, 1/2 c orange juice, and some rice vinegar, blended in the blender)

ETL things that are NOT good:

• Fuhrman’s black bean brownies (a good texture but not sweet at all and not chocolatey; perhaps could be rescued by adding banana and more cocoa powder; also can be partially rescued by putting peanut butter on top (not allowed).)
• basically all the desserts besides fruit-in-the-food-processor. Maybe this is on purpose so you shut up about dessert and eat some damn fruit instead.