rice cakes and natural peanut butter have been my best friend the last few days. one of those with a tablespoon of peanut butter is the best lo cal breakfast ever. they make a really good snack as well. it is so hard to find snacks that are satisfying, but the pb/rice cake compo really nails it.

tonight i made a jasmine rice to put the leftover curry soup from last night on. i started by toasting the uncooked rice in a blend of olive and sesame oil. sesame oil is really sensitive to heat, and it does burn easily, which is why i mix it with olive oil. so if you go for this, be warned, but the sesame oil flavor is totally worth it. i toasted the rice until i could see the starch released and a decent portion of the rice had turned a toasty brown. then i poured the water that i already had boiling over the rice, turned down the heat, covered it and let simmer. the package said the rice should take 15 min, but it only took 10. i used a little bit more sesame oil over the top and the fluffed it up. it was, by far, the most perfect batch of rice i have ever made. it was quite the treat as well. we only eat brown rice in this house, but i have had such a craving for a good indian basmati rice i had to do something about it. i had zero time to go track some down, and the local grocery had jasmine, so why not. the sesame oil really complimented the jasmine rice, and the curry over the top was fantastic. i used 3 cups of water to 2 cups of rice.

yes, world, vegans eat a lot more then just salad!

i was excited to see the weigh in results from the challenge. everyone is doing so well! 2 weeks down! as a whole, we have lost 140.9 pounds!!! what the heck is that about?! in 2 weeks! amazing, really. i love it!

i think tomorrow i am going to check out another one of the jillian workout dvds, the ‘banish fat, boost metabolism’ one (not that the 30 day shred isn’t fantastic!). in a way it is a little frustrating to know that i eat so healthy, and remain as active as i can with my injury, and still lose weight so slowly. i’m excited to see how she has worked the metabolism boost into her exercises.

i will report tomorrow with my, hopefully, boosted metabolism….