Day 1 of the Challenge

First order of business: Dear whoever makes the weather, I am glad that like the guy who works at pcc you read my blog. Thanks for the nice weather today and I would appreciate it in the future if all rain could happen between the hours of 10pm and 1am.

Ok, next order of business, the 100 Day Raw Food Challenge officially started today. Of course, my real day is closer to day 75, but we are going to say 1. I tried to be mindful of my personal challenge goals today. I definitely noticed points where i was shoveling it in without paying attention but I brought myself back to awareness and slowed down.
The nice weather greatly improved my mood, I was very productive at work, and I ALMOST forgot my coffee tasting anxiety until it was time to go.
It worked out ok... I spit almost all of the donuts and coffee out. They tasted great, but not any better than a lot of the delicious raw foods I get to eat. I did feel a little buzzy after the tasting so I know a little of the caffeine and sugar got in, but not much.
After work a friend and I went to the phinney farmers market and I got peaches, berries, cool round zucchinis and some multi colored bell peppers. Well they weren't multiple colors, I got multiple different colors. I made myself a nice, pretty, satisfying dinner in honor of day one. Now I am going to bed :)
Italian inspired Green Salad with Dill Cheese
Raw Chili from goneraw.com
Berries held in Purple Cabbage Leaves with Banana Cream

oh what a beautiful morning

what a great day to start our 100 day RAW FU challenge. Today totally makes up for the suck that was yesterday. Hopefully it stays nice. Farmers market this afternoon, yum

cookies

Here they are... delicious! I am debating pulling them all out of the d'drator now or leaving them in until chewy. Now they are soft on the inside but chewy on the outside from the nuts and coconut.
Recipe something like this...
Process some nuts for the outside of the cookies, throw them into a shallow bowl with some shredded coconut and cacao nibs or whatever you have that would be yummy.
For the cookie process about 10 dates with cacao and coconut butter and 2 T flax seed, ground up and 2 T Sunflower seeds, ground up, and a splash of vanilla. It should be sticky and kinda soft but able to ball. Make tablespoon sized balls and roll them in the nuts and coconut. Squish em down a bit and set them on your dehydrator screen. My batch made about 24 cookies. I d'drated them for 2 hours before I decided I wanted to start eating some. You could wait longer. They will probably keep getting better.

Baking cookies

As many of my fellow seattlites are aware today is a serous bummer. The weather outside looks like january, much warmer of course, but much colder than it has been. It makes me want hot soup.
Not to mention I feel kinda funky today, not like in a good way. All day I have felt tired and my eyes are dry and I feel sore and unable to deal with any kind of effort or frustration. This led me to cutting out of work a little early today and coming home, putting on pajamas, and sitting on the couch. It's kinda funny because I realize thats how I spent a lot of my time home from work before raw. And I think winter may bring it back a bit, but eating raw food has totally changed my energy level.
Maybe I have some detox going on today or something???
Well I decided to work out my mood the same way I would have back on SAD VEGAN. Chocolate. Fat. and Sugar.
I am making cookies.
Hopefully raw cookies wont make me feel MORE tired and moody (but in an odd way better) than I was to start with, the way SAD VEGAN cookies do.
I will post pics and recipe later, if I don't feel so lazy and cranky. Plus they are still in the dehydrator.
Oh! and another bummer:
Tomorrow, Day 1 of the "100 Day Raw Food Challenge" I have to go to a coffee tasting and donut paring. Which means I will have to taste coffee with donuts. I haven't eaten ANY cane or processed sugar or cooked/refined grain in over 2 months. I am debating spitting like with wine, but am worried I may look like a freak. My other thought is really small tastes and LOTS OF WATER! Ugggh, what a way to kick things off.
:( I need cookies

quick update

One more day until the 100 Day Raw Food Challenge starts and let me just say, I AM SO PSYCHED!
Especially because my local lady friends Aimee and Rosie and I are gonna do some hanging out! Also I am excited because one of my coworkers and another one of my coworkers girlfriend (well she's my friend too I just don't know her as well) are both joining me in the challenge! How amazing!! Raw FU for everyone!
Ok, ate really simple today, just slapped some guac onto a bunch of collard leaves and used what was left of my beet/carrot slaw as stuffing. Super crisp and refreshing.
Someone asked if I would post the FAMOUS onion bread recipe... here ya go
by the way, I can in no way take credit for this gem other than the addition of the apple and the reduction of salt ;)

Ingredients
3 large yellow onions (I use 2)
1/2 a large apple
¾ cup flax seed, ground in coffee grinder
¾ cup raw sunflower seed, (I soak and sprout first) ground in food processor
1/4 cup Braggs Liquid Aminos

Preparation (this is my method, not the original)
Peel the onions. Set 1/2 of one onion aside, using your food processor or superb knife skills slice it into very thin slices... Place the remaining 1.5 onions and the apple in the food processor and chop until thoroughly processed. Add the ground sunflower seeds and combine. Pour into a bowl with the flax meal and mix until smooth. Add the finely sliced half onion and mix again.
Spread the mixture evenly on 2 dehydrator trays lined with Teflex sheets. Dehydrate at 104’f for 4 hours. Flip the trays over onto mesh dehydrator sheets, and gently peel the Teflex sheets off the bread. Return to dehydrator for another 8-12 hours. Once dehydrated, cut into 9 equal pieces (makes 9 cuts horizontally and 2 cuts vertically) per sheet.

Vanilla with Nectarines

Real quick I had to post this because it's like my favorite so far

ice cream, beets, kitchen tools!

I jumped the gun a bit on my ice cream processing, put it through the juicer before it was frozen solid, so it is a little hard from the refreeze. Its okay, I just cut it with a knife... at least this way you get to see the cross section of my vanilla-blueberry swirl raw ice cream. I also made vanilla with nectarine chunks which I will take a picture of later today probably, and orange mango coconut Popsicles. Oh! and yesterday I got a brand new ICE CREAM BOWL. Just a cute little pink bowl to eat my ice cream out of so I will like it that much more! I am sure you will see it eventually.
I cut open my beets yesterday, only to find that they were secretly BEAUTIFUL heirloom marbled beets and I didn't even know. I used them to make a salad that was based on this recipe posted by Jessica on her Raw Blog. I used avo and orange for my dressing as I didn't have any prunes, added a shredded apple and skipped the pine nuts. It turned into a delicious crunchy slaw, which I have been eating TONS of.
Making this salad forced me to finally break out the different tools that came with my Cuisinart. I CAN NOT believe that I have never gone through that box before. I only ever use the s blade. Well guess what? I have a shredding disc and all these other cool cutting tools. Including a disc that will slice my zucchini paper thin. Wow I really could have used this when making lasagna the other day. Maybe I will make it again today just so I can use it!
Another kitchen tool I love is my cherry pitter. It is so awesome if you plan on using cherries in a recipe and don't want to have to spit out pits while you are eating OR if you are using your cherries for decoration on desserts.
It's SO cool!

Ice Cream for the world, and more

so today is ICE CREAM DAY!!! YAY!!! I had to set myself to a non food related task for a while because I was being a muncher today and I needed to STOP EATING for awhile. So I altered this tshirt I got at my work friends show last weekend. As always there were not any in my size, but that is just fine by me because it gives me a project.


A few people have been asking me about making ice cream lately so here is a little primer. This is a fairly INEXPENSIVE and LOW FAT way to make it. I have seen many recipes calling for HUGE amounts of cashews... While that may be delicious my bowels, wallet, and waistline may not approve. Here is the basic info:
Go to whole foods, or another store that has young coconut. Buy a few young coconuts. Open and drain the juice, scrape the meat and keep the two sepparate. Throw the meat in the blender, and for ever coconut worth of meat add one banana and one date. If you have vanilla bean or extract add that too. About a Tablespoon (extract equivalant) for every 2 coconuts. Then add a little of the water and blend the concoction. Add as much coconut water as you need to make it thick but creamy. You can use the extra juice in smoothies for the next day or two.
Thats for plain vanilla, one of my personal favorites. If you want a different flavor just add to the vanilla base
Now, the next part depends on what tool you are using to ice the cream, as it were.
If you have an ice cream maker:
Follow your ice cream makers instructions and you are golden.
YUM!
If you are like me and have no ice cream maker, but you do have a champion juicer (or other masticating juicer), a vita mix, or a food processor:
Pour the cream into ice cube trays and allow to freeze solid. Once frozen you can feed the cubes through your juicer with the blind plate in, OR throw them into your processor or vita mix and let it rip.
If you have neither, thats ok! Here's an option:
Pour your cream into a shallow pan and set it in the freezer, every hour scrape the frozen stuff with a fork, mixing the iced part into the less frozen part until it is all frozen, then dump it into a bowl and stir it up real well until it is creamy.
Hope this helps!

100 Day Challenge

As you can see here, I have printed out my 100 day raw fu work book and calender and updated my safe foods and week #1 personal challenge. Y'all better get on that!

Oh and I started this weeks Ice CREAM early, so tonight I shall be feasting upon banana soft serve with the rest of my delicious red cherries pitted, sliced, and mixed in, with a ribbon of chocolate sauce throughout!

Italian Night

Blogger is totally teaching me how to spell... every time I type something in wrong it underlines it for me. So great. Ok, so tonight is my friday. I am home alone as bf is working, so just me and the pup, I decided to do dinner up! I was inspired by mrs bunny berry's lasagna today and decided I needed some yummy lasagna too!
I used my red sauce from yesterday and made up a variation of the spring onion cheese from gone raw since the site wasn't working, and did layers of zucchini and spinach with my sauce and cheese. I also spread some cheeze on a slice of my nut free bread and spread a second layer, PESTO!, on top. I used what was left of the salad to make a little salad with balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper. OH and can't forget the olives!

So for the Cheeeze: (I spell it differently every time!)
1 cup raw pine nuts
1 cup raw cashews
(soak together for 2 hours in fresh water, drain well)
1 lemon JUICED
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
About a third to a half cup of assorted onions, whatever I had in my fridge
2 T raw tahini
A little basil, dill, and salt

Process til smoooth, you can add a tiny bit of water if necessary.
YUM!
I want to do a cultured cheese someday but so far I haven't made the time, or had the forethought. Anyone try this yet?