Last Updated on January 17, 2022 by David Vause
6/16/2021 Lunch on a Holiday
On our unplanned national holiday, we hadn’t thought about meals. Denise put together this yummy Lunch….the salad was from leftovers in the refrigerator. Fresh spinach, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, seedless cucumber, orange bell pepper, carrots, cauliflower, olives and fennel fronds on top. Of course, extra virgin olive oil to help with nutrient absorption from the salad. The meat is pandemic canned chicken breast. This is just the chicken breast, no added salt or flavorings. 100% whole wheat reduced fat Triscuts with rosemary and sea salt Wasa bread. Honestly, the Wasa bread is whole wheat and wheat flour. My beverage was filtered water.
6/13/2021 Simplicity
Saturday Dinner Sunday Breakfast
I adhere the nutritional precept that prefers simple whole foods over anything else. Minimize highly processed foods. Saturday’s dinner consisted of pan sauteed salmon, asparagus, and boiled shrimp. The sauce on the left is a dill/cucumber-yogurt made with, of course, dill, cucumber, and unsweetened no fat yogurt. The cocktail sauce is homemade using ketchup and horseradish, with no added sugar except that which is the ketchup. The beverage is chardonnay.
Sunday breakfast was strawberries, English muffin with a small amount of margarine. The main dish is sliced potatoes, egg whites, and, admittedly country gravy. The country gravy came from a commercial mix, doubtlessly a highly processed food item. Saturated fat is strongly implicated in heart disease. There is none in the gravy. The coffee is Green Mountain light roast.
5/16/2021 Weekend
Sunday Saturday
Two simple lunches this weekend, both salad-based. Saturday, it was accompanied by a bean burrito, Sunday a bowl of brown rice.
4/24/2021 A Day in Food
Breakfast Lunch Dinner
Our Saturday in meals. Breakfast was simple scrambled eggs with some fresh pan-fried vegetables. And has browns. Of course, coffee. Lunch was more of our canned COVID era chicken breast on a freshly tossed salad with an olive oil dressing. We got a French baguette and a bit of grocery store sushi. Iced tea and a bit of coffee from breakfast rounded out our meal. For dinner, Denise dipped grouper in egg white and crushed almonds. The green beans are steamed and with very light margarine. White wine with dinner.
4/18/2021 Bento Box Days
Lunch Dinner
As it worked out, Denise took the Thursday and Friday after her shots off to recover. She’d been wanting to use her bento boxes again for months and this was the opportunity. She made us two meals which were delights.
A Day of Food in our Isolated Lives
Breakfast Lunch Dinner
4/11/2021: We stayed home the day after my second shot. While I didn’t feel as poorly as Denise would the next week, I still skipped my workouts. I diaried our meals that day. Breakfast was egg whites with light parmesan cheese. Denise made a mushroom and broccoli stir fry to go over them. Accompanying the eggs was 100% whole-wheat toast with light margarine. Lunch was a chopped romaine salad with cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli. The chicken breast for the sandwich is actually chunked canned chicken. Denise bought a case of cans early last year in anticipation of meat shortages that never really arrived. I’ve traded the Green Mountain light roast that I had for breakfast for a cup of simple green tea. Dinner was teriyaki salmon. This time, Denise cheated a bit. The teriyaki was leftover from a carryout meal we had earlier in the week. We always order our sauces on the side and it is always too much. So, she used some of it on our own grilled salmon and it came out very well. We had steamed broccoli with it. To my demerit, a glass of wine replaces the coffee and tea. At 150 calories and little or no benefit, it is my one nutritional vice. I fear that it makes up 100% of my ‘wine belly.’

3/29/2021: Mediterranean Tilapia
That’s tilapia breast with feta cheese, olives, cherry tomatoes, and artichokes. Denise thought that just baking it would be boring. Admittedly, I enjoy it with just Shake and Bake…..
Biscuits Fresh out of the Oven
Whole grain biscuit, egg white omelette, veggie bacon strips, and very fine coffee
3/28/2021: From scratch biscuits.
Today, Denise decided to make from scratch biscuits….making her own biscuit mix too. Whole wheat flour, Greek yogurt, salt, and baking powder. She baked them in a small pan so they’d touch each other and the pan sides. That is supposed to help them rise.
The egg white omelettes were with mushrooms and onion.
My coffee was a very strong light roast: Green Mountain.

2/26: Crispy oven-baked tilapia.
Denise dipped the fish in egg white and panko, then baked it for 8 minutes on one side, then 16 on the other at 425 F. Admittedly, the hush puppies are frozen and fall into the highly processed food category. We strictly limit them to one portion. The green beans are fresh.



2/14/2021: Feel Good Lunch for an Icey Gray Day
Whole wheat spaghetti on with a tomato “meat” sauce with carrots, onions, green peppers, and onions. The “meat” is actually seitan, but the parmesan sprinkles are real cheese. The coffee is very real light roast, though only half caffeinated.
From 2/2016: Mystery Soup
We didn’t capture the ingredients. Denise just went and made this wonderful minestrone completely ad hoc. Of course, with fresh ingredients, no added salt needed. She included two types of legumes, kidney and garbanzo beans. That’s unusual.
2/8/2020 – Feel good breakfast.
We tend to stay away from potatoes. Boiled or baked have a glycemic index of 55 to 65. That range includes the GI of table sugar. But today, it was lightly pan-fried hash browns, country gravy made with soy crumbles (…yes…soy…), egg whites, half a small grapefruit (no…..no sugar), and some very fine light roast coffee.
I was lifting today and wanted to push up the protein.
1/26/2021: Breakfast
Soy patty, egg white, a bit of cheddar on a whole wheat bagel. Black light roast coffee.
I avoid highly processed foods. I do not consider a soy patty a highly processed food. Mashing soy beans together, adding spices and water, cooking, and packaging them is nothing like a pork sausage patty with nitrosamines or a twinkie…..regarding health or flavor.
2/1/2021: While in a sea of ice:
Try sencha green tea, won-ton soup, vegetables and chicken in a peanut sauce on rice noodles. The peanut sauce made it amazingly filling.
1/17/2020: Simple Lunch
Roasted, lightly seasoned, chicken breasts, sweet potato, and asparagus.

1/16/2020: Mediterranean cod with roasted tomatoes, kale and spinach, and brown rice cooked in meat broth.

1/9/2021 – Eggplant and shrimp in homemade black bean sauce. Also, green peppers, onions, and a few black beans.
1/3/2021 – Black Japonica Rice
Lightly stir fried chicken breast with Asian spices. Mixed butternut squash, broccoli, ginger, soy sauce and onion with black japonica rice.
1/2/20021 – Chicken Marsala
Chicken breast in a Marsala wine sauce and Portabella mushrooms. The sauce is on the chicken and half baked potato. Steamed broccoli with just a hint of margarine.
1/1/2021 – Tilapia Dinner
Lightly pan fried with a bit of Denise-made cocktail sauce to liven it up. This is along with a stir fry of zucchini, peppers, and cherry tomatoes.

12/20/2020 = Simple post 10-miler breakfast: 4 egg whites with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, a Morning Star Farms breakfast veggie sausage patty, and brown rice cooked with a block of frozen spinach. And, oh yes, cup of coffee.

12/12/2020 – Vegetarian Paella
For lunch, we had paella made with white rice, vegetarian chorizo, and all kinds of vegi’s.