eatin' raw!

living the life...

2009-04-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 4th birthday of Blanche the "Angel of Deaf" *cough*SLAYER*cough*
As you can see, she spends most of her day contemplating her place on earth and the meaning of life... which she has indicated is Food, Naps, Toys and Loves. In that order. I can't imagine my life without her.
She and I have a lot in common... Specifically our love of food and eating. Today was my day off work and I took the opportunity to do what I normally like to do on my days off: Emotional eating. Today's lunch was so luxurious and flavorful. Perfect for our 73 degree weather, I ate out on the porch and revelled in it. Most all my eating is to feel good. Either ease hunger, satisfy a craving, or treat myself to something special. Today it was all three.

Lunch was zucchini noodles tomato and shallot tossed in basil/olive oil dressing... so fresh and filling and subtle yet savory Dessert being Sliced Mango marinated with Sweet Ginger Syrup... topped with coconut mmmmm
As Stacey would type "MLR" (my life rules)

Found this...

2009-02-25T19:22:00.001-08:00

My old band, kinda awful sound but glad to have a visual record of me singing since I don't really plan to be in another band. I can show it to my sisters grandkids someday... haha

as long as YOU'RE comfortable...

2009-02-25T18:36:00.001-08:00

Thanks so much for your love and concern for my pup friend... She is doing great and continuing right along in her spoiled lifestyle. As you see above she uses us a furniture as she sees fit, regardless of our comfort ;) Always lookin out for #1
Have had some frustration at work due to the FDA lately. We were made a part of the peanut recall and pretty much bullied into recalling our product with peanuts and made to put out a press release saying so, then were later told that the peanuts we use were never actually part of the recall. We were also informed by a customer that our product had been identified at their store by the FDA as needing to be relabled. We were told we are not allowed to say "made with organic ingredients" on our product, or really make any claims like "fresh", or "healthy", or "natural"... Now I can understand why you can't say fresh, I guess, since that is a somewhat subjective evaluation; saying "made with organic ingredients" is not. They ARE in fact, made with organic ingredients but it seems to say that we have to pay to become organic certified and also make an annual payment based on our unit sales. So we lease the word essentialy. Who owns the word "organic"? Is it copy written? What's more, how long will it be before you can't even list "organic flour" in your ingredients list? All of our organic ingredients are certified, we shouldn't have to be personally certified to mention that. Frustrating.

On a better note, this weekend I am going to 2 exciting raw food "cooking" classes... This is what I get to learn!
Nuevo Mexican Raw Dinner Menu:
Corn Tortillas - These corn tortillas will quickly become a favorite in your house. Make from raw corn and hemp and flax seeds, they are then dehydrated and can be stored for months in your refrigerator or freezer.
Enchilada Spirals – These very special enchiladas will be made using raw corn tortillas and wrapping them around a veggie taco filling like a spiral then topping them with enchilada sauce, pine nut sour cream and avocado slices. These are so flavorful, satisfying and unique.
Mexican-Spanish Rice – It tastes like the best Spanish rice you’ve ever eaten, only there’s no rice! Elaina will show you how to use vegetables and spices to recreate all the flavors and comfort of rice.
Taco Filling – Again, keeping with her low to no nut agenda, Elaina will demonstrate how to take root vegetables and turn them into the most flavorful, juicy, mouthwatering taco filling that can be eaten in a “taco”, on your salad, in your Enchilada Spirals or dehydrated into crunchy snacks or burgers.
Enchilada Sauce – A light and flavorful sauce that can be used in a variety of dishes.
Pine Nut Sour Cream – A light and fluffy version of sour cream with Irish moss, pine nuts and more flavors to make this a raw food staple

Elegant Raw Desserts Class Menu:
Crème Caramel – Experience the sensuous elegance of this melt in your mouth heavenly flan treat while learning the secrets of successfully working with Irish moss.
Hazelnut/Cacao Ganache Truffles – These are real Cacao confections; we will be stepping into the world of a chocolate lovers dreams, I’m talking Willie Wonka goes Raw/Vegan. Get ready to bust open your heart and enter the realm of Theobroma/Cacao.
White Chocolate – Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake – One of the most popular cheesecakes at Café Gratitude and a must have in anyone’s black book of raw desserts. As well as learning to create a truly heavenly cheesecake you will learn the art of swirling, which can turn any plain pie, cheesecake or frosting into a stunning work of art!

rollercoaster ride

2009-02-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

So a certain someone some of you may know...
Decided it would be a good idea yesterday morning right as I was leaving for work, to jump up on the kitchen counter and eat 4 raw chocolate macaroons fresh out of the dehydrator. Now I am normally very careful with chocolate, onions, grapes and other dog poisons but she was in the bedroom asleep with the door shut and I put them on the counter with the intention of putting them away as soon as they had cooled. I didn't think she would be awake until I left for work. I was sadly mistaken and careless. She grabbed them and swallowed them whole before I even knew what happened. I woke up my sister (the vet) on her day off and she advised inducing vomiting. I had to rush to the store, buy a turkey baster and hydrogen peroxide, and race home. Trying to force the hydrogen peroxide down b bears gullet was one of the most traumatic experiences in me, chuck, and blanches lives. I was crying, blanche was red and panicked, and alex was scratched and shaky. The first two times we didn't get enough down and had to do it one more time before it finally worked. WHAT A HELL RIDE! She finally tossed her cookies (well, my cookies) and I was so happy to see them all come up whole, which means no digestion or absorption of the chocolate. I feel so awful to have been so irresponsible and put pup in harms way. Please learn from my mistake and be extra vigilant for your doggies. I am so glad I had alex to help me... We could barely hold her down together, there is no way I could have done it alone.
Today was a much better day. She and I spent the morning cleaning and napping (on her part). I did a whole bunch of grocery shopping later in the morning. Hit Raw Vegan Source (.com) and restocked on all my raw nuts and seeds I can't get elsewhere. Also enrolled for the raw mexican food and dessert classes they are having next weekend. I am pretty excited about that as they will both be using irish moss and I am really curious about that. I was a busy be when I got home... I made more macaroons (since pup ate most of mine) being very careful she couldn't snatch any. Made crackers and cashew cheese. Brazil nut milk. Oh! and of course ICE CREAM. A really good coconut ice cream. So dinner was pizza followed by a bowl of ice cream with a hot macaroon crumbled on top. YUM!

good article

2009-02-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to share this nice article I just read... It is about "falling off the raw wagon" and sets a bit more realistic tone for aspiring raw foodies such as myself.

Lazy day

2009-02-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

I am FINALLY posting (how many of my posts start with those words?) about my trip to California and a life update...
First off, California was great. Not as much Sun as I could have hoped for, and not as much raw food as I needed, but great friends and a great break from routine.
I stayed with BFF Stacey who I have convinced to go on a 30 day raw challenge (so go give her some encouragement!). She and her sister have a nice apartment a mile (maybe less) from the beach in Santa Monica, centraly located near many shopping establishments and raw eateries ;)
The first day I was there I got in the car Stacey said she had a suprise at her house for me... it was my friend ANDY!
He had been around hanging out with a mutual friend (Ben) who was down visiting from Portland and heard I was coming so stayed up in SM to see me :) We all walked to the beach and stood on the pier for a bit dispite the fact that it was raining. Good thing Ben and I brought our RAIN COATS! (to california!!! how wrong!!!) After the pier we went to Juliano's raw because I had been DREAMING of the Raw Tortilla Soup and Mocha Smoothie (hold the Love Honey, ewww). They were out of the soup and that was pretty devistating. We had some other good stuff instead... Sushi bites, Pasta Premivera, Coconut spring roll things, and smoothies.
We did some window shopping and went back to the house for a bit to rest up before the show. The heavans aligned and I just happened to be there when my two favorite (SoCal Vegan Straightedge) bands were playing at a house in Pasadena so we were all excited to go and see Andy's band play. It was like a reunion party just for me... I felt so happy and loved because none of my Orange County friends expected to see me and it was like hug after hug. I even got to see a few people who I had no idea would be there. GREAT FEELING. The show was great, sang along til my voice was scratchy, and remembered again why I love (certain, haha) hardcore.

Ran with stacey along the beach the next morning and got my first actual view of the venice boardwalk. Went to breakfast and had a mostly non-raw vegan meal with some friends from the show. It was a great but not healthy feeling meal, how often can you get vegan eggs benedict, right? ...and so good to spend extra time with some amazing people. Later went to see an awful movie and had lunch at Real Food Daily. We saw the guy who played Bud from "married with children" (my only celeb sighting of the trip) and ate more cooked food. After the second heavy meal of the day Stacey and I were exhausted and ready to go home, rest, and not eat for the rest of the day. We dropped ben at the airport and went home to veg out. The next day we went to ths SM Sunday Market and had a coconut from the Juliano's booth and some snacks. We were on a mission to find a new vegan eco friendly store of some sort we had heard of in Venice but after walking HOURS found out they weren't open on Sundays. We ate at RawVolution on the way and had the highly reccomended Nachos (from Aimee and Chris), a pudding parfait, and choc-chip cookie dough ball. The Nachos were really good, especialy the chip things, they were so fluffy and crispy. Wow. Loved the texture. I did not read the ingredients for the nachos before ordering and found out after starting that they had walnuts aplenty. I freaked myself out and nearly had a panic attack that I was going into anaphalaxis but luckily Stacey talked me down and I was fine. Haha, I am rediculous. After that it was time to go meet up with Alex's sister and nephew and go up to Ventura/Oxnard for the last day of my trip. Ate a bunch of not raw food the last day and kinda gave up trying at that point... figuring I could get back on track once I got home. It was really great to see my boyfriends family. I love them all and they are so welcoming to me. It is really comfortable :)
Took the plane home and have been catching up on work and life since then.
Here are some more pictures from my trip:

Find more photos like this on Raw Fu

Since my trip:
-Got sick from eating too much cooked food, hopefully learned my lesson for a while
-Went to a pretty fun Raw Potluck on VDay with Alex, Aimee, and Chris, met and saw some rawfu friends
- Had a few good runs, feeling good about the fact that it is STARTING to get light earlier.
- Got a new BIG TV with alex for the living room. 32" it rules.
- Worked late last night with one of our Drivers and learned how to do the delivery route. I am supposed to be sleeping right now as I have only had 3 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours but I am taking the opportunity to post this.
- Hanging with Bdog today

Oh Happy Day...

2009-02-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

So far, today is shaping up to be a great one.
- In four days I will be in Santa Monica (it WILL be sunny! Got that, weather report?!)
- I just found out that we may be going to see two of my favorite bands play the first night I am in Ca. I am so happy because they are also my good friends and I didn't think I would end up seeing much beyond my BFF Stacey.
- Had a great run this morning, it was clear and 43 degrees (relativly warm) warm enough that m eyes didn't tear and the breath did not catch in my throat...
- I am hanging out with my other BFF today, Carey (who has a very funny blog, click here) and our dogs... Who are also best friends, though mine is a bit abusive to the black man...

- I think I successfully cultured cashew cheese for the first time the other day. Tasty!
- Looking forward to Aimee's blog post about all the food she got to eat this weekend in southern california... I think it will be a forcast of my weekend ;)

Raw Lasagna Demo

2009-01-30T17:16:00.000-08:00

Please enjoy a little video I made featuring my dinner tonight :)

For Lasagna
1 Zucchini (sliced thin)
2 cups Marinara
1 cup Cashew Cheese
Filling (as recipe makes)

Cashew Cheese:
1.5 cups cashews (soaked 2 hours)
Juice of 1 juicey lemon
3 T nutritional yeast
1/2 clove garlic
salt to taste
water as needed
Blend in VitaMix until smooth

Marinara
1 cup sundried tomatoes soaked 2 hours
1 lg tomato
3 baby carrots
1/4 green bell pepper
1 T miso paste
1-2 t apple cider vinegar
1/2 clove garlic
2 T onion
2T olive oil
chilli powder to taste
salt to taste
Basil and Oregano to taste
Blend in VitaMix until smooth

Filling
1 c spinach
1 c bell pepper
1 c mushroom
12 basil leaves
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper

2009-01-26T16:38:00.000-08:00

When it is clear here seattle is THE most beautiful place... unfortunately these moments are few and far between. I try to get out a few times during the day on the oh so rare sunny days. Luckily, in 11 days I will be in sunny Santa Monica California!!! (yes I know, you all know, I keep talking about it!!!) I am so over do for a vacation though. I am really hoping to get to explore all the raw food available to me in santa monica and surrounding areas. That and spend a large amount of time in the san and warm air. Wearing t-shirts! Last I checked mid day temps have a forecasted high of mid 70's. It was 27 when I woke up this morning. The upside is that I have had LOTS of opportunities to wear my new coat.
Blanche greeted the dawn today and promptly found a sun spot on the couch to catch some rays. She is ready for california too. We decided on a date to leave on our March West Coast Road Trip... March 1st. We had wanted to go a little later in the month but because of other co-workers RTO's we got stuck in the first two week pocket. I am just happy to be going. Well, and it is pretty awesome to go on a trip and have another one coming just 3 weeks later... Just me, chuck, blanche, joe, joe's friend eric, and the open road ;)
I had a few non raw meals over the last few days... Time to get back to my "things that keep me from being raw" list. This time it was Social Gathering and Not Being Prepared that did me in. Today I got back to my good raw behavior and had a pizza and salad for lunch, proceeded by an apple-banana-romaine smoothie. I also have some flax and purple corn chips in the dehydrator. They will be a great snack with lunches over the next week. I went grocery shopping and finally made the big decision to dye my hair. I was letting it grow in grey, which would be cool if it were ALL grey but it isn't, it's salt and peppery... I went back to black (as it were) and I am always happy when I do because it makes my skin look brighter and my eyes look more blue and I feel better overall.

hair cut, new coat, new woman

2009-01-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

I am feeling much more put together this week than last part could be that I got this new coat, which I can wear with the collar up or down... Part could be that I have a great trip planned, work is settling down after the holidays, and raw food is getting routine. After getting my new coat I felt like I had to live up to it and today when I got home from work I went to get a hair cut. Of course I had to come home and fix my bangs, but overall I like it. I think I am planning on growing it out but I am not certain. In the meantime I can't handle the shaggy unkemptness I have been dealing with. So here is my new hair cut
I know I have gotten away from my "things that keep me from being raw" series... I haven't forgotten it. I just haven't had the time to invest in thinking about it lately.
Anyone have good suggestions for things for me to do while in santa monica???

Happy 100th Post to ME!!!

2009-01-19T09:48:00.000-08:00

What an auspicious day to make my 100th blog post. I woke to see the most beautiful foggy morning. The best part? SUN!! That's right! 2 days IN A ROW! Insane right? It sure does a lot to boost the mood here in the great northwest when we have a few days of sun. I am spending my morning cleaning the house, watching a financial "president Obama and your money" show, and waiting for my new jacket (photo coming soon!) to come in the mail.
The other night I went out with friends Aimee and Chris to dinner at Thrive. Again a great meal, and a really good time catching up with friends I hadn't seen in a while. Aimee gave me a container of some raw nacho cheese she made and i had it for dinner the next day. I put it in the vita mix for a bit to warm it up and then dipped all these veggies and some crackers in it. The funny part was that it was basically a more elaborate version of the dinner I had the night before at thrive. It was just so good I had to have it twice!

The other day I made Mock Tuna from RAWvolution and put it into collard wraps with some greens. I made three wraps and froze the rest of the "tuna" for later. I am trying to work on the preparedness part of my raw goals so I am trying out freezing left overs to see how they keep. The wraps are pretty tasty and I have one left to take to work tomorrow. There is something really satisfying about eating food that is bigger than your head.
Let's go back to the above moment in history and remember last June (7 months ago, far too long) when I was in California and went to eat at juliano's RAW with my bff Stacey. What a good time. Things have been dark and gloomy here and I have been working hard so I decided to be spontaneous and use my earned frequent flyer miles to go to LA for a few days. I will be staying with Stacey, definitely eating LOTS of great raw food, definitely running and working out in the sun, and definitely recharging my Vitamin D. 18 days and counting! I am so excited to be taking a little vacation and spending time with a very fun person. Anyone know any scams to get free frequent flyer miles or how to hack into alaskan airlines and give me more? Flying for free is awesome.

Things that stop me from eating raw... Pt. 2

2009-01-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

An explanation first...
I seem to have maybe come off as a bit of a negative nancy. My yardsnacking friend seemed a little concerned about the tone of my last post and asked if my cup was half empty; only if its a cup of coffee buddy! Which I haven't had in weeks!
No, seriously... When I am struggling with a problem the way I am able to turn it around and figure it out is to identify ALL the barriers stopping me from reaching my destination, solve each problem (or decide if the problem really IS a problem) and take down the things stopping me so I can move forward.
That last post was my first step in identifying the barriers to me going back to 100% (or darn close) raw food. The process will be to go through each group of barriers, one item at a time if they are particularly hard to deal with, and see how to problem solve. Seems logical right?
Keep in mind that at this point I am hovering right around 75% overall... I did eat a cooked meal with friends the other day at an unnamed local vegan thai restaurant that has a buffet from 11-4 monday-saturday. It was good but I felt like crap afterwards... I am putting off the first group "social barriers" until I can think on it a little more.
The first group of "barriers" is...

Other Barriers ahh others
1. Not Being Prepared (and Other Excuses)
- Not having food on me when I am hungry
easy enough right?! ALWAYS CARRY FOOD! ALWAYS! I know lara bars aren't REALLY 100% but they are better than a lot of crap I could resort to when I get low blood sugar so if nothing else I will always have a larabar on me. Until I learn to make my own fruit/nut bars.
- Not wanting to eat what IS available that is raw
this is a little tougher... luckily I will pretty much always eat a larabar. Things I tend to turn my nose up at: uncut apples, uncut fruit in general... moral of that story: eat a banana! Or start carrying a knife. That would make me look tougher too.
- Wanting comfort food
luckily this one isn't as hard as it sounds because I am willing to spend the time preparing foods that fill this niche for me... zucchini noodles with red sauce and nutritional yeast (dream come true!) Raw pizzas with marinated mushrooms and olives (OMG!) Pie after delicious raw fatty pie!!! I just have to have it ready when I need it. Luckily I am strategizing how to get and stay ahead on my food prep and make certain things routine so I will always have them. In the past I have shied away from freezing a little bit, I think I am going to be a bit less reluctant to do so this time around so I can make MORE at once and have it keep for those days I just don't feel like being in the kitchen.
- Craving something that isn't raw
This really only happens when I am hungry. I am only hungry when I am not prepared and didn't eat. (See beginning if this list) Also if I really want to try something cooked I will taste it. In the past round this was a great way for me to assuage my cooked curiosity without overdoing it. Usually I taste it and think "no, that's not really what I wanted"
- Having no groceries
I can see this being a problem whenever work gets hectic and stressful. If I only get one day off on a week it is really hard for me to make myself go do all the shopping. I have to rent a zipcar, drive all around town getting the best deals, come put the grocerys in the house and drop the car back off before walking the 3/4 mile home. Not really so bad, and I feel fortunate that at this point in my life I can afford a car share service... but a good three hours of my day, not to mention food prep for the week. I guess I am hoping for this one that my freezing and stock pileing will see me through any weeks like this in my future and if I have several weeks like this on end maybe my boss will let me borrow a van after work one day so I can do my shopping straight from work. Cross that bridge when I get there.
- Wanting something fast and Convenient
Again, being prepared... thinking ahead of time. Always having some kind of fast and convenient option available to me. So after a long day of work if I don't feel like it I can throw something together without much thought.
- "Treating myself" to junk
Treat myself to RAW junk instead... like the coconut cream pie I made tonight!!!
(for recipe see penni's blog)
And really is "junk" really a treat? No, but it does feel like a reward, making an allowance because you deserve it or had a rough day. I just need to substitute the word raw in front of reward and I am A O K.
- Wanting something WARM
This one is a little tough because it has to do with something a little outside my control, weather. This last week hasn't been bad because it has been a bit warmer outside but especially when it was VERY cold before christmas all I wanted was HOT food. I know I can use my dehydrator to warm my foods, and I know I can drink hot tea, or use warming spices in my foods, but sometimes it doesn't feel like enough. I need more good raw soup recipes that I can let the vitamix bring up to 115 for me, and I will eat them in the bath. No really, I will. Mostly, I just need to live somewhere warm, like here where I used to live...

Not to make any of the above issues less than what they are for me, the real problem is a lack of forsight and planning. I do SO love to plan, and make schedules and systems, so if I look at it that way: as a project to try to successfully plan my raw menu, it should be fun and I will do well.

Next time...
Financial excuses!

Things that stop me from eating raw... Pt. 1

2009-01-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

Being inspired by many of my raw compatriots lately I have been thinking a lot about my raw journey and what I am doing with my diet/body right now and why.
Being the ESTJ and Project Manager that I am I made a list of sorts to help me figure it all out...
I know some of things things are irrational and downright untrue... but these are my thoughts so I have to consider them despite their untrueness as they are affecting my overall mental picture of being a raw food eater.
I plan on breaking down each of these areas and exploring my feelings about them in later posts.

Things That Stop Me From Eating Raw
Social Aspects
1. Party's
- wanting to feel included
- not wanting to draw attention to myself
- not wanting to be a hassle to others
- being asked to bring dishes other people like that I am known for
2. Social outings/ dinners out
- not wanting to make others feel they have to go somewhere they don't like or don't want to ALWAYS go to because it is the only place I can eat
- not being able to find satisfying food at a lot of restaurants
- feeling awkward if I eat before hand and sit at the table abstaining from food
3. Dinners at home
- not cooking for my boyfriend as often
- feeling like I am not participating in taking care of our family
- not wanting to cook the favorites because I won't be eating them and I have to make my own food too

Emotional Aspects
1. Fear
- Not wanting to commit because I may decide I want to eat cooked food at some point and I don't want to break even an informal commitment
- Worry that I won't get all the things (protein, vitamins, minerals- I know totally ridiculous!) I need from my diet
- Worry that anytime I am out of my routine eating exclusively raw means I may have to feel like I am making a sacrifice
2. Guilt
- Feeling like I am not giving my bf or friends care through food like I did before
3. Feelings of Sacrifice
- Not wanting to feel that being healthy means I have to sacrifice my joy of food
- Not wanting to give up foods that may me feel good
- Not wanting to give up time with my friends or social outings because of my eating habits
- Not wanting to give up food as emotional comfort/fulfillment
- Wanting to feel full

Other Barriers
1. Not Being Prepared (and Other Excuses)
- Not having food on me when I am hungry
- Not wanting to eat what IS available that is raw
- Wanting comfort food
- Craving something that isn't raw
- Having no groceries
- Wanting something fast and Convenient
- "Treating myself" to junk
- Wanting something WARM
2. Financial
- Raw food requires more frequent shopping
- Fresh foods are more expensive
- All the raw extras I need to have and expensive
- Wanting to make sure I am not using all our food budget on my stuff, making sure there is some for bf too

With all of that you may be asking "then why the hell do you want to eat raw food anyway?"
- When I was eating REALLY high raw I felt better than ever
my energy was up, I was motivated, allergies were minimal, health was optimal, I woke up feeling rested, I was more positive, I never felt weighed down or sluggish, I was more productive, I had more focus, and I was down to a weight I felt pretty good about.
Why wouldn't I want that?

Raw Pad Thai

2009-01-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

Got this recipe from someone on Raw Fu and have been dying to try it. Now that I have my handy zucchini noodle maker it was destined to be. I thought it was really yummy and shared with my love who thought it was good but didn't think it tasted like pad thai.

Carmella's Pad Thai Sauce
Inspired by the creations of Frederic Patenaude and Elaina Love
1 heaping Tbs tahini
1 Tbs almond butter
A few cashews
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, soaked
2 dates, soaked
1/2 lime, juiced
1-2 garlic cloves (we love garlic!)
1 Tbs grated fresh ginger
Braggs, to taste
Curry powder, to taste
Water or tomato soaking water (if unsalted!)
Blend in food processor with some water until you reach the desired consistency. (We like ours on the thick side!) Top with diced red or yellow peppers and marinated Portobellos.

Marinated Portobellos
1 Portobello mushroom
1 part apple cider vinegar
1 part Braggs or Nama Shoyu
2 parts olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp agave nectar
Cut the mushroom into bite sized pieces. Put them in a bowl with other ingredients and mix well. Spread the Portobello pieces on a teflex sheet and dehydrated them for a couple of hours. You can also serve the mushrooms non-dehydrated for an equally delicious treat!

I deviated just a little from the recipe, using garlic powder and ginger powder instead of the fresh stuff (we're in the middle of a recession!) and I garnished it with marinated (not dehydrated) crimini mushrooms, chopped almonds, bean sprouts, green onion, and lime wedges.

update... spirooli

2009-01-09T07:45:00.001-08:00

oh, I kinda look like skelletor in that picture but I am not. I am just enjoying the last of my groceries in juice form. We are out of all greens and all fruits officialy. I had planned on grocery shopping yesterday after I went to the Raw Vegan Source Store in redmond last night but unfortunately I was stuck in traffic FOR AN HOUR... Seriously NOT MOVING. How can people do that every day? It is the reality of a lot of peoples commutes and I just can't imagine that. I would go imsane. Or at least take the bus so I could read or compute or SOMETHING. I saw so many single occupancy vehicles.
Anyway... I ran out of time and had to get the Zipcar back. As it was I ended up extending the reservation to make it back in time. It is ok though because I spent all my money at the rvs as usual. I wouldn't have been able to buy groceries anyhow. We get paid again today so maybe this evening I can shop for food.
Also, I got my veggie spiralizer and it is awesome. I haven't quite figured it out yet but I am getting there. Once I have it down smoothly maybe I will do a video demo illustrating why every kitchen should have one.
The bike is in the process of being repaired. It is nice to have a leisurly walk to work from time to time, but this day after day 2.5 mile walk is wiping me out. Mostly because it shortens my free time at home and makes me feel like my work day was an hour longer. Usually my total commuting time (by bike) is 20-25 minutes a day. Walking makes it an hour and 20 minutes to an hour and 40 minutes depending on how tiredly I am plodding to/from work. At least today I am making my way there in daylight. Makes me feel like the day isn't quite SO long if I get to spend some time outside in the daylight.
The pouring rain also doesn't help me to enjoy my 40 minute walk to work.
Summer! Where are you!!?!!

Peach Cheesecake!

2009-01-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

I made some delicious dessert tonight, a coconut based peach cheesecake. The recipe is an approximation, I kinda just threw it together.
Filling
meat of 2 young coconuts
1T vanilla
2T coconut butter
agave to taste (about 1/4 cup)
juice of 1 lemon
1 T nutritional yeast (weird, right?!)

Peach topping
1 c chopped peaches
2T agave
2T water

Crust
1 c left over almond pulp
6-8 dates pitted
1/4 cup whole almonds
1/4t salt

Process crust, pulp salt and dates until combined add whole almonds and process until whole almond pieces are small but still add texture.
Press crust into a spring form pan.
Blend filling until smooth adding just enough water to allow blending. It is good if it warms just a little while blending to thoroughly emulsify the oil.
Smooth filling on top of crust
Blend peaches and agave and pour on top of filling.
Refridgerate a few hours and run a knife around the edge of your pan while loosening the band.
EAT and ENJOY!

Just said goodbye to some friends who have been staying the last few days. Including our friend Andy seen below ;)

And our friends in Abandon an awesome vegan straightedge band from southern california.

I think blanche will miss them most <3

sad bike...

2009-01-04T13:17:00.000-08:00

Here is my wheel... glad it wasn't my head. Don't worry... I always wear my helmet.

My friend grabbed it today to take my hub out and rebuild the wheel. I might be walking for a few days though :(
Had a big breakfast at a friends house this morning, kinda a late christmas party. Everyone brought food or supplies to make food and i was asked to bring my "famous" cinnamon rolls. Not my words but they are damn good. Vegan desserts rule. Anyway, I ate a decent amount of cooked food with my large portion of fruit salad. I feel bad eating the cooked food despite that being my game plan. It was tasty though! I managed to eat less than half of a cinnamon roll and had NO coffee so I am doing well.
I also made sure to start my day with a green smoothie and a pear. That probably helped :)

Thrive restaurant review and more

2009-01-03T21:41:00.000-08:00

Well first I have to say that my dinner was dampened by being hit by a car on my bike ride home. I am ok, my bike is not. Maybe I will post a picture tomorrow of its sad smashed front wheel.

Review:
4.5 outta 5 carrots
I betcha didn't know I was a food critic! Well informally anyway...
So I went to the thrive gala of pure decadence which was a fund/intrest raising event they did about 2-3 months ago. Very delicious. I have been eager since then for the restaurant to open, and to eat there.
They have it set up as a restaurant/cafe with a small seating area and a little store section. The interior is well designed with a very "warm" earthy color scheme and presents a casual upscale type environment. The coolest thing about the store section is a wall of bulk bins that they are going to fill as they grow with all sorts of raw nuts and grawnolas and other great treats I would otherwise have to buy online. Right now it is sorta slim pickings but I can visualize the future bounty.
I went with my lovest alex and he had the hummos plate and the "shine" smothie. I had the pasta pomodoro. We also treated ourselves to the mochalatte pie for dessert.
The hummos was good but a little mustardy tasting and the server gave us some flax crackers to go with it. Without the flax crackers I may have felt the dipping selection (celery, carrots, zucchini, and bell peppers) to be a bit lacking. Good flavor and alex said very filling for an appitizer.
The shine smoothie was awesome. Alex said the best smoothie he ever tasted. Of course when I make him smoothies I always spike them with vitamineral green, spirulina, spinach or some other healthy additive. This one was just the fluff. Coconut water, coconut butter, pinapple, vanilla bean and from the taste of it some agave. Sweet and delightful.
My pasta was spiralized zucchini with a great tomato basil sauce on a bed of romaine (odd but I happily munched away on my lettuce). Our server, again, gave me a complementary addition of almond ricotta. Without the cheese the sauce may have seemed a little thin, it should just be part of the dish.
I had had the mocha pie at the tasting so I already knew how amazing it was. Didn't let me down. Although not completely raw as it has a shot of espresso somewhere in it, it tastes decadant and was worth the price considering I couldn't have eaten the whole thing myself. It was a two person dessert. Almost too sweet for me but alex said perfect for him.
Portion sizes were about perfect, not so much I had to take it to go, just enough to feel satisfied as I was taking my last few bites.
It is definetly a higher price point than what I can afford on a regular basis, which is too bad or I would probably go more often and end up spending more overall. Two people for dinner with one drink, one appitizer, one entre, and one dessert was over $40 with the tip. I am more of a $25-30 for two people kind of diner.
Good attentative service, very aware of when we needed attendance. The owner (or one of them?) was there and introduced herself as she had seen us around before.
Overall a very good experience.
Only change I would make is to label the few non raw foods they serve as not raw on the menu. I was a little confused as to what was and what wasn't raw.
I would love to go again and try more delicious food, but maybe in a few paychecks.

2009 1st quarter goals

2009-01-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

I can't really make a plan for the whole year... but I think I can come up with the first three months
January:
Diet: Eliminate Coffee (how I love you), refined sugar (how I hate you even though you are so delicious!!!) and refined grains from my diet. Go to one cooked meal or less a day whenever possible. Allow myself to eat above 3 foods in VERY small quantities on special occasions if they arise. Start everyday with a raw green smoothie.
Exercise: Start running again. Even though it is cold and rainy :( And it sucks. At LEAST 6 miles a week by end of January.
Work: Hire some people. Redefine my job description with my boss so I know what I am doing.
Money: Make lots save lots

February:
Diet: Green smoothie every day, leafy green salad every day... listen to what my body is telling me about cooked food and act accordingly.
Exercise: Average at least 9 miles a week running... add 10 miles to my average biking mileage per week (20, so 30 miles per week)
Work: ??? Who knows. Be less stressed and feel productive.
Money: Get back tax returns. Complete emergency savings fund and begin saving for something fun.

March:
Diet: Continue to eat a mostly raw diet with lots of leafy greens. Base my cooked food intake on my bodies response.
Exercise: Consistently run 4 days a week even if my mileage is low. Make it a habit. Continue adding extra mileage beyond commuting to my bike rides. Check out pools for swim lessons for increased efficiency.
Work: Know what is happening in San Diego and have a plan for the next 6 months regarding my future.
Money: Have enough saved to take a vacation

Vacation plans:
Go down the coast with Alex, Blanche, and Joe and visit all our California friends. Eat lots of great live foods! Pick up tons of beach glass. Relax!

Introducing...

2008-12-30T15:56:00.000-08:00

my new friend...

As many of you know I have a passion for making raw ice cream... Well... and eating it.
I looked all summer for an ice cream maker on craigslist and they were overpriced and sold before I could even email the person. Well I got a hunch (no one else would want an ice cream maker in winter, right?!) and searched craigslist for an ice cream maker that was close enough to my house that I could easily get it. Found one a block from my work and picked it up today. It is going to make ice creams soo easy for me. YAY! I can't wait for the bowl to freeze so I can try it out.

busy bee

2008-10-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how hectic life has become. One minute I am thinking, "oh just one more week and things will be back to normal", next thing you know INSANITY. People quitting left and right at work and my trusty co manager got a parasite in Nicaragua so he has been SO sick. Poor guy.
I treated myself to a refurbished IPOD shuffle.
I had no idea it would be so cute and tiny. Keep in mind that my hand is the size of a 7 year olds so it is even smaller than it looks. Yesterday I had to drive all over to fedex and to meet a driver because apple got my shipping address wrong and fedex couldn't deliver. Also Apple has an intense theft prevention policy where fedex CAN NOT change the address. It has to get sent back to apple and they have to resend it. So to prevent that I had to intercept the driver with the tracking number and my ID. Luckily I got my little friend. Some of you, the cooler ones ;) will understand my exclamation of "What is THIS?! A pod for ants?!!" when I first saw it. (Zoolander anyone?!)
Today my "pod for ants" and I went for a run around the lake and I listened to harry potter book on ipod to keep my brain occupied.
It has been tough getting my runs in and eating enough food with work being so intense. I am down two pounds, not in a good way. I shouldn't complain... My poor parasite ridden coworker has lost 22 pounds! I took a whole bunch of days for him so he could stay home and rest up until the doctor confirms the stool sample and will treat him. So only one day off in my future.
In other news I am getting gears for my bike. I am converting it from a single to a four speed, well my good friend is helping me, as I really don't know shit about putting gears and a derailleur on a bike. I want to go faster. I also have been thinking about training for a brick or triathlon, with pressure from my superstar (new) athlete friend stacey
I have no good food stories this week as I have no food. I did get my spud order so I have fruit, but I won't get a chance to grocery shop for a bit.
Smoothie of the day:
1 banana, 1 orange (both peeled) and 1/2 c blueberries
plus 2 T hemp protein
Blueberry Juleus

Raw chocolate

2008-09-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

So I got so many questions about the raw chocolate that I decided to do a little tutorial for you all.
And OF COURSE it is VEGAN!! Never doubt it! Raw too!

Ok, so you need about 1/2 cup solid cacao butter, 1/8 cup coconut butter, 1/2 cup raw cacao powder, 1/4 cup raw agave (or to taste), pinch of salt, 1 T vanilla. These are approximate measurements as I usually just wing it.
Make a double boiler using two different sized thick glassed bowls or dishes. Pyrex is perfect. Chop up the coconut butter so it melts faster. If you pour boiling water into the bottom bowl and stir frequently your butter will not get to hot. Keep an eye on it though.
Once your cacao butter is almost melted add coconut butter and wisk until smooth.
Add cacao powder, agave, vanilla, and salt... Wisk well
Once your chocolate is smooth and your desired sweetness you are ready to temper it. Pour it into a plastic wrap lined dish or chocolate molds and place it in the freezer.
There are limitless possibilities to layer or fill your chocolate. Tonight I used a peanut butter cup mold and put cashew butter in the center of a dozen chocolates. In this picture I am using raisins to fill some chocolates. I made a cashew cream last time and layered it between several thin layers of chocolate in a shallow dish, then cut into bars. Just freeze to solid between each layer.
YUM!

I'm BAAAAAAAAAHHHHHCK

2008-09-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

Hi,
I know its been awhile. Today I am officially ONLINE. I have been absent quite sometime and it feels really overwhelming stepping back into things. I am not quite ready to RAWFU just yet, maybe tomorrow, today I am taking it slow.
Some of you may know that my boyfriend and I "borrow" wireless Internet from our neighbors. It has always been a bit "hit or miss" but for the last several weeks NOTHING! We finally took the plunge and are PAYING for Internet. What the F!? Internet should be free to all, right? Like food and housing.
I was also gone for a week with family in beautiful sand point idaho, where the commercial says "the idaho man: Father, husband, gun owner, fisherman..." haha, despite the fact that half the men in the grocery stores are wearing camo, idaho was still a fun and beautiful place. Plus I got to go on roller coasters at silverwood theme park.
Here are some photos of my food endeavors while I have been away:

Salad wraps

Strawberries and bavarian cream

CHOCOLATE and CASHEW BUTTER Candy bar!

Salad Wrap Platter

birthday fun!

2008-08-26T09:08:00.001-07:00

My birthday weekend has been great, I am sorry to see then end approaching :( I want to stay at home all day and just sit on the couch to try to stretch the time out as long as possible.
So my actual birthday was on sunday. I worked a few hours then came home and hung out with my friend carey and her pup bucky. Bucky is blanches best friend, although sometimes you would never know it the way blanche can bully him. Unfortunatly carey's car broke down when we were out running errands so our plans were shot. Its ok, a friend rescued us and buck and blanche came back to my house while carey went with her car and the tow truck to her parents house. Alex and I were planning on a date night and going to a movie but it was pouring down rain so we were flexable and opted to stay home and play board games together. <3
Monday I went with a group of old friends to wild waves and we did the speed version of the waterpark. Let's just say, it was wild. After that, I came home and was thrilled to find my new VITAMIX on my doorstep. YAY! I used it to make the whipcream portion of one of my birthday cakes. At 630 all my guests came over and we had a great time. It went really well. I always worry about mixing friend groups at parties as I am not a very good host and I have a hard time seeing to EVERYONES fun and needs, however everyone saw to their own fun and everyone was able to talk to others and feel comfortable so that was so comforting to me. All of the non raw foodies LOVED the desserts (or at least told me so) and overall all of my desserts were a success. Aimee and Chris brought a wonderful blackberry cheese cake and mint ice cream, and it was really fun to eat something I hadn't put together. Another friend looked up a raw recipe and brought a mango pudding which was very tasty also.

Find more photos like this on Raw Fu

This morning blanche and I went running and she was not feeling it. She kept stopping and trying to trip me. I felt something kind of roll or pop behind my knee, it felt like a ligament rolling over a tendon or something (I don't know if that is at all possible) . I iced it just incase, it feels a bit stiff, hopefully it won't be a lasting injury.

treat night

2008-08-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

So in the past friday night has traditionally been the night that I would get home from work, get in pajamas, sit on the couch, put on a movie, and order in vegan pizza so that I didn't have to go anywhere. Friday night was pizza night. Kinda like a special little ritual I had. Maybe because it is my wednesday and I am half way through the work week, but probably just because when you are a kid friday nights are TGIF and staying up late and eating pop corn and rootbeer floats. It is a celebration day, a symbol of two more whole days before you have to go back to school. Two days with no obligations but homework (which I never did anyway)... Well I know I am about to turn 27 and I have been dragging out the celebration of friday nights long past their pull date, but you know what?! I like it. It is called emotional eating and I am just fine with that. It makes me feel GOOD. At least now I am eating healthy raw foods instead of dead vegetables, over processed soy foods, and worst of all WHEAT! If I can have my cake and eat it too why not?
Speaking of cake, my birthday feast is taking shape... mmmm it's gonna be good.

For dinner tonight I made zucchini pasta with pesto (fresh zucchini, tomatos, and basil from the farmers market), garlic cheese bread, and a green salad (greens also garden fresh). It was delicious. It felt like a treat. Maybe I will have ice cream next. Believe it or not I haven't had ice cream ALL WEEK! Contrary to popular belief Ice cream isn't the ONLY THING I eat and talk about. Just one that makes me really excited! I made a whole bunch monday, but that is for my birthday so I haven't touched it. I have a tiny bit of vanilla left from last week that I will probably finish off tonight.

vitamix

2008-08-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

I did it. I took the plunge. Bought a refurbished vitamix for a birthday gift to myself today. It was a lot of money. I am feeling a little guilty about dipping so far into my savings, but I know I will use it every single day. Ugggh. Oh well, what's done is done.

My haul

2008-08-20T17:09:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I had the good fortune of visiting the RAW VEGAN SOURCE store in redmond. Holy shit.
That pretty much discribes it.
As you can see, I did some damage. I got so many super foods I should be able to fly by next week by my estimate. Probably have xray vision in a few weeks. Seriously though, out of control. So new things to try are mesquite powder, msm, cacao butter, raweos (which used to have honey but are now VEGAN!), purple corn, carob powder, hemp seeds... Also got a ton of raw nuts, some delicious greens fresh from the garden, gojis, olives, vanilla... mmm

It has been raining so hard today and a little cool... On my ride home from work the sky opened up and gave me a shower. The wettest ride I have had all year probably. It was kind of awesome and crappy all at once. Awesome to be out in it and be cleansed by the earth, not awesome to have wet pants rubbing against your skin every time you pedal.
I got home and made a cup of hot tea (not raw) and ate a raweo (tea and cookies, such comfort food) and alex fell asleep on the couch sitting up next to me.
Dont worry, that is a tattoo on his chest, not a massive clump of chest hair ;)

my kitchen

2008-08-18T21:28:00.001-07:00

It has come to my attention that I am not the only one who likes to look at other peoples kitchen... here's mine

Find more photos like this on Raw Fu

you see my kitchen is shared with my adorable cooked vegan food eating boyfriend. He likes to eat my raw food too. Especially when I count out exactly how many olives I want in my salad... then he steals one off my plate! jerk!
I have a low power blender and have already burned out two so I started getting the same type so I could reuse the blending jar. If anyone wants to get me a vitamix for my birthday I will take it :) Our fridge is very mess right now but you can see the giant salad bin on bottom, where I store my greens... Also all the nuts and seeds are in jars on the top shelf. I posted these charts we got from bastyr on the cabinet that list good sources of calcium and iron... Also you see my dry good inventory I post for alex so that he stops buying more rice. We have SO MUCH RICE!
Tomorrow I am going to the raw vegan source store with chris, of "bitt's husband" fame. I am going to spend SO MUCH MONEY!

It's Hot

2008-08-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

I know... I shouldn't complain since our warm weather is so rare, but as a seattle native I must say 90 degrees is just TOO HOT. Now if I am on the coast and their is a breeze 90 is still ok, but here in the city I prefer 70-75.
I came home from work and took a cold shower then took blanche out for a quick potty break. She thought it was too hot also. I didn't eat a whole lot today because I was super busy at work and, well, hot. So I have kind of been scavenging my kitchen to find something. I ate a date, put a little bit of cashew butter on it, I couldn't resist. Couldn't decide what else to eat. Drank a big glass of water thinking maybe I needed to hydrate before my body could properly register what it wanted. All I can think about is watermelon juice, but no watermelon around my house. I decided to make a juice. Which I never do because it takes so much food and I usually add something that makes it taste gross. I was thinking about this good juice they have at chaco which is apple cucumber and basil. Then I thought, I should add celery because it has lots of electrolytes. Then I did and it tasted gross. So I thought, maybe an orange will drown it out. No, still gross, just spicier. I pretty much downed it, didn't want to waste it. I know you are supposed to drink juice slow but I just couldn't do it. I had another date to wash it down. Now I feel pretty content.
Someone give me some good juicing tips??? It should be easy, I think where I go wrong is in my proportions, oh and adding that extra thing because it's healthy, even if it doesn't go with the other things.

Last night my dad didn't make it to my house until after 10. We were planning on going to get food but by then everything was closed. Instead we all just hung out and visited for about 40 minutes. They met my uncle billy in federal way (about 40 minutes from my house) and left the motorcycles at his house and drove up to seattle. On the right is my Uncle Billy (obviously not biologically related), then my Dad, his daughter (my half sister no one knew about, not even dad, until about 3 years ago. She's nice, you can see the family resemblance), and her husband. Alas, I am not in the picture as I had to take it, but you can picture me a good 6-8 inches shorter than anyone else standing in the front.
I think I will try and take a nap. Maybe when I wake up it won't be so hot!

friday night lights

2008-08-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

Got these new shoes today which will make it totally safe to run in the evenings being that the neon colors will reflect car headlights and keep me from getting hit. At least thats my theory. Having a white dog probably does the same thing. I usually get all my shoes from the sneakery a local woman owned shoe shop by my house... with a cool name... and lots of vegan shoes... but I wore through my old pair of tigers and wanted more just like em. Except a new color. I got them online through zappos and since I was already SURE what size I needed I didn't worry like I would normally if I were ordering shoes or clothes online. They came the next day. Gotta love zappos overnight service with no extra charge. Now I just have to figure out in any of my clothes actually match these shoes. Maybe I will just go naked, they look great with my tattoos ;)
haha
My dad is gonna be blazing through town tonight with some other family members and we are gonna get some dinner. He is at the tail end of a 3 week motorcycle road trip and is stopping here on his way home to ellensburg. No, I am not from ellensburg, don't worry. We are going to a burrito place so my plan is to bring a giant "taco"esque salad and maybe if we eat on the patio they wont notice. Or maybe they wont say anything with my gigantic dad and 6 ft tall uncle there... I mean, bikers are supposed to be scary, right? I will get a family picture.

The end of a long day...

2008-08-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your kind words about the "incident" this morning. I was clearly more bothered by it than blanche as she promptly rolled over onto her back and fell asleep after our run. Dogs are amazing.
Work was long, and hot, and only my Tuesday. Tomorrow should seem like a slightly shorter day as I have (dun dun dun!) another coffee tasting. So donuts and coffee tasting (and spitting out) for me tomorrow. Even with swallowing very little of the stuff I felt like I was buzzing last time after we were done. It will go fine though. I was so worried last time and it really wasn't a big deal. Well the coffee tasting will take up a good portion of my morning and then I have a ton of stuff to do around the bakery. I think the only reason today seemed so long was because I had to stay til 5pm and I am normally of by 4pm these days so my routine was different.
I made a yummy dinner tonight to make me feel rewarded for my hard work. Lasagna and a salad. I didn't have any cheese, which was fine because frankly I have had way too many nuts lately... and a little bit more fat than my body can handle as well. For the next few days I am trying to lay off the denser fats (nuts, seed butters, coconut butter gasp!!!) I can feel that for me nuts are not my best friend. A little on occasion seem to be ok, but if I am eating them everyday I start feeling bloaty and my skin begins to get a little itchy (candida anyone?). Seeds seem to be a little better, especially if I am getting lots and lots of greens. I should probably pay a little more attention to food combining but I gotta say fruit+fat=love.

I think I shall retire to bed with the dog and a book. The mountain was looking especially beautiful last night so I took this photo for everyone to see how lucky I am to live where I do. Alex went with friends to western Washington to the hoh rainforest. I am anxious to see what he thought since he hasn't spent much time in the dense woods being a socal native. Click on the photo for a better look :)

good run, bad dog

2008-08-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

not my dog, she was an angel...
We have been running more regularly and we pretty much follow the same route. I map quested it so I know how far we go. I have been adding a block on every other run or so, gradually increasing our millage. Today was kinda a bummer. Blanche was lagging behind a bit. I don't know if she was tired or just wanted a chance to sniff around a bit. Well we were having an otherwise good run and she had picked up the pace a bit and this dog came out of his house with his mom, off leash of course, and saw us and ran down the stairs to attack blanche. On leash OF COURSE. The mom was yelling after him but he wouldn't stop. I tried to yell no at him and pull her away for a second hoping the mom would come grab him before they engaged, but the dog was biting at blanche so I had to let her loose. I couldn't try to pull her away while another dog was biting her. What a betrayal that would be. I had to let her fight back. Luckily the mom came soon and pulled "washoe" away, I pulled blanche away. Neither seemed to be hurt. It would take a pretty furious lab (which he was I guess, but not mad enough) to put a mark on blanche. She has skin thicker than an otter.
It was a bit upsetting though. You know the feeling after a traumatic even where the adrenaline leaves you and you start to cry? I almost had that. Definitely a little shaky. It's not as if this is my first dog fight. Many of the dogs I had growing up were dog aggressive, we did dog rescue and fostering and we would have dogs in and out of the house and the slightly more than occasional fight. I also taught dog obedience for a few years and saw and had to break up the occasional fight then... but I guess it's different when you have a pitbull. You are so worried about your dog being a good representative of the breed and so worried that if your dog hurt another dog, wether they started it or not, that your dog will be blamed and taken away from you and put to sleep. If someone tried to put blanche asleep we would go on the run. Like fugitives! Also I got a little taste of how blanche must feel... I understand better why she is fear aggressive with other dogs while on leash. We couldn't get away. This other dog was attacking us and ran at us, and he was free and we were stuck. She must feel defenseless and cornered :(

I am pretty bummed because she is 3 and I have had her since 4 months old and NEVER EVER let her get in a fight. I know she didn't start it but I have been working a long time to slowly diminish her aggressive response to other dogs and this may have permanently set us back. I am mad at the lady. I am sure she didn't intend for her dog to get in a fight this morning either but I expect more from someone who knows their dog is dog aggressive. NEVER let your dog outside offleash. Well really, if you don't know 100%, 1000% really that your dog will respond EVERY TIME you call his name he shouldn't be offleash outside by a road aggressive or not. What if they had gotten into the street and a car hit them?!
Anyway, I expect someone to be as responsible with their dog aggressive dog as I am with mine. This psychologicay damaged my dog. Now every time she sees a black dog approach her she is going to react with fear and aggression.
Ugh. Sorry to be dramatic, and post this bummer blog. I have just been working so long and diligently to prevent her from EVER getting in a fight and this was out of my control.

Ice Cream Party!

2008-08-12T18:58:00.001-07:00

Tonight we had an ice cream party... not that I haven't been eating ice cream all day...
Chocolate and vanilla banana splits with sliced strawberries and strawberry and fudge sauce.
Chuck's filling me in on all the olympic scandals while I type this

sunday

2008-08-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

well for ME it's sunday... The last day of my weekend... boo hoo.
It's always so sad. I feel like I got a lot done these last two days so at least there is the sense of accomplishment alongside the grief at the brevity of a two day weekend. I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and picked up a bit in general. Although it could be a LOT cleaner. Chuck (my boyfriend, that's his nickname) and I went grocery shopping together last night and got enough for the week. So I probably wont get a spud order this week. I got to read a bunch yesterday which was nice and relaxing. I made ice cream. Lately I just want Chocolate and Vanilla. Nothing complicated. I got LOTS of salad greens. And for some reason i decided to shave my head. Well this is how it happened. I was like "ugh, my hair feels so dry from ironing it all the time, and I am sick of my mullet." So I thought, oh, I can just go get it cut all pretty short and let it me curly and hopefully it will be cute and really low maintanence. Then I was feeling very impulsive and I was like "I don't want to pay 30-50 dollars for some hair cut that I don't even know if I will like!!!" and then I got this idea that our clippers at home had a comb on them that would be about 3 inches long. HA. So not true. So I set them on the longest setting and started shaving my head. And now I have no hair. It's ok, I have had a shaved head before so no big deal. My hair grows really fast. It is super nice and easy though. Last night I just rinsed it out and put coconut oil on it and I was done. And this morning when I went running I didnt have to figure out how to put it back out of my face, which was a pain with my mul-hawk.
So you should all tell me I still look like a girl and I am cute so that I can feel ok about the fact that I have the same haircut as chuck.
half joking. half.
PS you should all take a glance to the right and note that the next hp movie comes out in 100 days! So like right as I am finishing up with the challenge. Maybe that will be my reward!

green sandwich

2008-08-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

I realized that with my week being so busy I have not gotten salad greens. I actually haven't eaten a green salad in days. Weird! So I had a green sandwich to make me feel better about the lack of green in my diet. I am going to have a green salad for dinner too. Dessert is going to be the same as breakfast though... chocomole pie. We are watching olympics right now. Sychronized diving is CRAZY!

chacamole pie!

2008-08-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

I made a pie for dinner... I am feeling hormonal ;)

Chacamole Pie
Crust:
2 c cashews (dry) ground to powder
1/2 c raisins
3 T coconut butter
1/2 t salt
1 T vanilla
Filling:
2 large AVOS
3 T coconut butter
1/2 c cacao powder
3/4 c agave
1/4 t balsamic vinegar (optional)

optional: 1/2 cup coconut shavings

Get a spring form pan and grease the sides with coconut oil... I used a 9 inch
To make crust combine all ingredients in a processor until it balls up. I probably would have used dates over raisins but the store was out. Press dough into the bottom of a spring form pan.
Dump coconut shavings on top of the crust and spread evenly over the crust.
Put in freezer for a bit while making filling so the coconut oil coating becomes solid.
Process all filling ingredients until smooth. Pour into spring form pan on top of crust sticking to the center of the pan. Once all the filling is in the pan rotate the pan while gently smoothing the filling towards the sides. This will evenly distribute the filling without mixing in the coconut shavings. Once complete refrigerate for at least an hour. To remove from sides run hot water carefully over the outside of the pan rotating as you go. Careful not to get water INSIDE the pan (like I did as you can see by the light colored streaks on the top of my pie!!!). This is a very brief process, the coconut oil will melt quickly. Release the clip on the pan and it should come off perfectly. Refridgerate again for 10 more minutes to resolidify your pie. EAT!

raw fu friends!

2008-08-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

I have been fighting with the internet for two days now... hopefully today it will work and post my blog!
(this was last night)
Got together with some lovelye Raw FU'ers and partners last night and it was awesome. I was very happy to meet people who I had gotten to know so well in digital, and find that I liked them even more in REAL LIFE. We had a great meal at chaco and talked for hours afterwards. Half the time there were up to three conversations happening simultaneously across the table.
It was also really nice to talk to other raw foodies and not feel like the odd one out because all I want to talk about is raw cacao!
Here's all my happy, beautiful, new raw friends... You can find all of their blogs listed to the right of this post. Yardsnacker, HiHoRosie's Place, Bitt's Blog, and Lola Bloom! "This is WAY more fun than the internet!" -Yardy
I am capping off my evening with some chococado pudding. I tried to convince myself it was ice cream by putting toppings on it... some of you may remember I am out of ice cream because I ATE IT ALL the other morning.
ChacoCado Puddin:
1 Avocado
Cacao powder and agave to taste (approximately 1/8c each, but more depending on the size of the avo!)... mix it all up=yum
It is best when you blend it because it will be smoooth and more chocolate puddingy. I just mashed it with a fork cause I was feeling lazy!
I also added a spoonful of coconut butter... you know me.

Yesterday I also got to meet my moms new puppy, shelby. She is an adorable 4 month old Bouvier.

Very sweet and fuzzy!

prepare for battle

2008-08-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

so, the reason work has been a bit stressful lately is that my co-manager, or evening counterpart, is going out of the country for 6 weeks starting today. Today, and the next few days, are going to be espescially busy and hectic. I at least have two awesome highlights tomorrow which will get me through today.
1. my mom is going to be in town for a few hours and she is bringing her ADORABLE NEW PUPPY to come see me at work. Oh, you better believe I will take pictures.
2. I get to finally meet some of my local raw internet friends! yay!
So in preparation for today mostly, but the next couple of days as well I made myself food to last awhile. I made raw thai salad from Aimee's post here. I made it almost exactly the same but I didn't have all the ingredients so my slaw was cabbage, cucumber, mushroom, and carrot. I used braggs like aimee did instead of nama shoyu but I also added the juice of an orange. It is SUPER good! Good call on the mint and basil too... Just like eating the inside of a fresh roll. Next time I may sprout some mung beans to throw in too! I have been eating it just as a salad or wrapped in a cabbage leaf like a taco.
I also made the DELICIOUS chili I love so much but this time added a lot more veggies like corn and carrots. I think it is getting perilously close to tasting like a spicy veggie soup instead of chili now, but it is still good. Today I work at 1030 and I start the night bake. We have a HUGE order today, like the biggest ever and we are starting the bake 1.5 hours early. It will most likely be a long day. I will for sure be bringing a BIG dragon egg nog smoothie along as well.
3 bananas
2 cups of spinach
1-2 T tahini butter
.5t cinnamon
.25 t nutmeg
yummm
Although today it will probably have vitamineral green and spirulina instead of spinach cause I am out!

hot dawg! (blanche!)

2008-08-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

So I must say thanks to Bitt's Blog, miss stacey s, and this little climbing monkey for inspiring me to go get some exercise this morning. B. lanche and I went for a 1.5 mile run this morning, which may not seem like much, but for her was a lot. I am only in slightly better shape than she is. When she was a puppy I used to HAVE to walk her 3 miles everyday or she would be UP THE WALL with energy. When she got a little older and stopped needing as many walks, and alex moved in with us and taught her the fine art of napping, I took a much wanted walking vacation. I mean, we still walk, but usually just a mile or two, and long walks like once a week. Well this pup dog is pretty out of shape and not so great with the heat. She isn't fat but she has a lot of muscle mass and I would imagine you have to be in pretty good cardiovascular shape to move that bulk quickly. We are going to be running more often as long as my ouch will let me. Maybe I will get into the injury at some point, but I prefer to ignore it as much as possible.
Alex even said he would run with us. WHAT?!!! Crazy!
Anyway she is crashed on the floor right now but as soon as we both cool down I am going to make a delish green smoothie to share with her, she earned it...

Oh and aimee, I don't know if I ever answered the question about how she does running with me. When she was a pup she wouldn't keep a steady cadence, it was run, sprint, walk, stop, sprint, stop, run... Now she does much better, mostly because she gets tired quick I think! although hopefully she will be so used to it by the time she is in great shape that she won't revert back to sprinting. I make her wear her gentle leader and only a couple times a run does she try to stop or pull me across the street. I think she mostly is just excited to move forward and see where we are going.

Day 5... long time no post

2008-08-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a bit since my last post. Work has been a little stressful and has left me feeling drained when I get home, unable to make anything more elaborate than a salad, or eating ice cream from the container. We are now on day 5 of the raw food challenge, I hope everyone is getting into it. I have been away from the rawfu a little bit too. I feel like it has grown so much and I don't have the energy to dig around the entire thing. Today I may be able to invest a little time as I skipped yoga this morning to stay up super late watching season three of Veronica Mars (which seriously leaves you hanging by the way) and eating this Banana Split
It is probably my favorite Ice Cream dish I have ever made. Simple, Rich, a hint of Mischief. (mischief because I stayed up and skipped yoga!) Whole Foods had a poor selection of young coconuts this week, I only found three I liked and one of the STILL turned out to be unusable. I am keeping my receipt this time! So I felt like I had to beef up the base a little to make more volume. I added 1/4 cup of cashew butter. I have done this before as well, it really does add something as far as richness. It isn't cheap, and it isn't necessary, but sometimes it is nice for a touch of something extra. I also invested in some cacao powder in addition to my normal nibs and I must say... BIG DIFFERENCE. There is no way I can grind the nibs so fine in the coffee grinder, although I am going to try harder now for sure, and it assimilates so much better. For the fudge sauce I mixed equal parts agave and coconut butter and whisked in cocoa powder until it tasted the way I wanted. For Carmel Sauce leave the cocoa powder out. YUM
Grocery Shopping "Score of the Week" was 10lbs of heirloom tomatos for 25$. I got them at the closest PCC and told the produce guy I wanted a box (case). He started going through and tossing the ones with the scab on the bottom and I was like "OH!!! I'll take them! Don't throw them out!!! I don't care if they aren't perfect as long as they aren't all bruised and rotting." So he gave me a little discount in addition to their case discount for taking the flawed tomatos. Most of them were perfectly fine, just one or two needed parts cut out. I didn't care, I was just going to dehydrate them anyway!
I left a few for salads but the rest went in the hot box.
I just had some chocolate ice cream for breakfast, I feel a little gluttonous but since I am convinced my period is going to start today I am justifying it.

Day 1 of the Challenge

2008-08-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-31T19:05:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

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

ice cream, beets, kitchen tools!

2008-07-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

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?

SAUCEY!

2008-07-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

The other day I was sassy, today I am saucey! I must say, DAMN I am getting GOOOD at making raw spaghetti sauce. Which is great, because as some of you may remember, red sauce is one of my emotional comfort foods, and one of my best cooked food recipes. Here is what i am currently working with (warning, this is the number one time I cheat and use those non raw condiments... really one of the only times ever)

Saucey RAW Sauce
Makes 2-4 Servings
1 Cup Sundried Tomatos
1 Med Tomato
1/3-1/2 cup Onion (depending on mildness of the onion)
1/2 cup Zucchini (I use the cores left over from my noodles)
1 t miso paste (red is what I prefer)
1 T balsamic vinegar
1 T olive oil
Handful of fresh basil
1 t chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Any add in's you want
(also, if you are used to store bought sauce with corn syrup you may want to throw a pitted date or two into your tomatoes while they soak and process it with the tomatoes and soak water)

So, soak your sundried tomatoes in about 1 cup of filtered water, this won't be enough to cover them depending on the bowl you choose, but just flip them around occasionaly until they are soft. Probably about 3 hours or so. If you are in a hurry you can get away with soaking them for less time. If you are going to use a veggie peeler to make your noodles use the zucchini cores left over and throw them in the food processor. Add the sundried tomatoes (with soaking water) and onion and process until combined and only slightly chunky. Add fresh tomato, miso, vinegar, oil, basil and chili powder and process again until smooth. Now is the time to taste and see if you want any salt or pepper. If you want add in's like marinated mushrooms, olives, or any other marinated veggies etc. it is the time to add those and just pulse slightly. I did marinated (in olive oil and balsamic) and slightly dehydrated mushrooms this time. Oh and I threw some raw olives on top. Here is a picture BEFORE I coated it in nutritional yeast.
If you let things set out on the counter as you go it will be room temp and you probably won't see the need to warm it. However you can stick it in the dehydrator for an hour if you want it warm. This makes a thick chunky sauce, if you want it really smooth just process it longer.

dessert for dinner... don't mind if I do!

2008-07-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

Let's start this blog with a picture of the worst beggin-ist dog ever who has fallen asleep on my shoulder begging for my cobbler!

Made a DELICIOUS cobbler for dinner tonight. Inspired by Aimee since she always talks about having cobbler for dessert and it sounds so good!
Here is the first picture, it's for my 811 friends:

Here it is with the topping:

The method to my madness:
I went to the phinney farmers market right by my house today and got 2 lbs of cherries, a pint of blueberries, a pint of strawberries, and a pint of raspberries. I thought what can I do with these delicious little morsels of goodness? Cobbler! Fast, Easy, SCRUMPTIOUS!
For the base I used a cup of each and gently mashed them with a fork.
And for the topping I soaked a cup of the delicious RAW cashews I got in the mail, for two hours and drained them well. I processed the cashews with 1/2 cup of dehydrated coconut pulp and 4 dates (soaked in the juice of half an orange) and their soaking liquid.
SO GOOD! Would be even better with a scoop of vanilla ice cream but I ate it all!
I also scored 11lbs of tomatoes at half price as they were slightly bruised and am drying those for sundried tomatoes

And these awesome bell peppers... I am thinking chili. I might just eat them whole though!

An in...

2008-07-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

Now that I know I have a reader from PCC natural markets I am going to start making subtle subconscious recommendations to get my way, and begin controlling the store.
1) Thanks for carrying really raw almonds, it makes my life much easier (subconscious message: now get raw cashews!)
2) I love all the organic produce! (sm: Get rid of that conventional stuff!!! especially the bell peppers I accidently bought last week thinking they were organic)
3) My birthday in in one month (sm: Make me a GIANT RAW birthday cake and drive it to my house!!!)

;)
Thanks!
love, sarabeth

did I mention... I'm kinda a big deal

2008-07-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

At least heidi thinks so. She gave me this award because I am awesome ;) Unfortunately to prove how awesome I am I have to do a little work... now normally I hate chain letters, but this is just such a feel good, fuzzy bunny, rainbow, hug kinda chain letter that I guess I will just have to take the bait. Here are the rules of being nominated for the brilliant web blog:

The Rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog (you can click here for it).
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate seven other blogs (good luck with this one!).
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

The Nominees: (do I even know 7 people??? Maybe the same ones heidi knows...)
1. Stacey, one of my oldest and dearest, and her blog the discipline where you will find out how to use your sheer will power to achieve corporate domination, a rockin bod, and all the men you could possibly want crawling at your feet.
2. Carey, another of my LONG TIME BFF's, and her blog the following sea where you can learn about her hatred for humanity and love of camping, animals, and all things horror related.
3. Betsy, a non raw, non vegan, coworker/blogger friend of mine, who's obsessive nature contributes to being one of the best cooks i know, and she is only 23! rice and beans!
4. Rebecca, a new interfriend and fount of information for me has started a blog for her 100 day raw challenge You should read it.
5. Oh, and obviously Rubyvroom! Who takes some of the most beautiful photos of her beautiful food I have ever seen!

I think I am off the hook with five! I gotta go get ready for work and take the dog out or I will be late. Read all those blogs or you will have bad luck for 100 years and never have a boyfriend/girlfriend again, and your hair will all fall out.

2008-07-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

Well the real computer (internet we steal) has been acting up again so it is back to posting on my phone. Which is somewhat limmited. First off I want to say I was given an award by hihorosie... and when I get back to the real computer I will post more on that.
Secondly, we are getting closer and closer to our 100 day raw food challenge people. Very exciting!
Thirdly, I got a mature coconut last week and I wasn't sure what I was going to use it for. Last night I cracked it (using the technique shown on the youtube video I posted to raw fu) and it was super easy. I made coconut milk from the meat and juice in the blender and strained it through cheese cloth. It even secreted a little COCONUT CREAM! Which I immediately ate right off the cloth. Mmm fat. I put the pulp in the dehydrator. So I have this big glass of fresh coconut milk and I was thinking "now what to do whith this???" I decided to whip up a delicious curry. I have never made curry personaly, before this, and I am not super familiar with the elements of indian/thai/whoever else uses curry food. Internet was down so I browsed through my copious pile of raw cookbooks... didn't have many of the ingredients for any curry recipe so I just went for it. I used about 2 cups of coconut milk, 1 med/sm avocado, 2 t curry powder, 1/2 t chilli powder, 1/2 t paprika, a squeeze of lemon juice, a pinch of garlic powder. Then I chopped up some veggies: mushroom, tomato, green onion, zuchini, and added them to the soup/saucy stuff. I put some in a bowl and put it in the dehydrator for about a half hour... just long enough that it wasn't cold. I chopped some cilantro and apples and put those and raisins on top. It turned out pretty good. I felt the sauce was lacking just a little bit but I didn't know what to add. All the flavors in the veggies made up for it though so it was still very satisfying. Any one have any curry tips for me for next time?
Fourthly, now I need to figure out what to do with that coconut pulp. I'm thinking COOKIES!
Fifthly, (haha, can you tell I'm having fun with the numbers?) I get my raw raw cashews in the mail today. I am so pumped. Oh! My produce order comes today also! We still have quite a bit of lettuce left, lovest has not been eating his salads this week!
I think that's about it...
Lets all hope my computer is up and rolling this evening!

Sassy Pants!

2008-07-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

I decided to write to PCC one of our local natural markets and see if their raisins were legit. The dude totally sassed me! Not to be out done, I sassed him right back... he doesn't even know sass til he met me!
I'll let you know if there is more to this saga...

Long story short, they are sundried, we can all eat pcc's organic thompson raisins...

My original inquiry:
Hi, I am trying to obtain some additional information on your organic Thompson Raisins that are sold in your store. I am wondering if they can be considered a raw food product, and ow hugh they are heated in the drying process... Any help you can give me on this would be appreciated

Thank you,
Sara Beth

His reply:
Hello, Sara Beth!

Raw foods are those which are not heated to 116 degrees and above. The typical organic Thompson raisins, like several of the brands we carry, are sun-dried. The drying takes place on paper, and as this is in the open air, and on the ground, it seems unlikely that the grapes/raisins ever reach a temperature that hot.

From what I’ve read of raw foods diets, I believe that one can have up to 25% of the diet consisting of food heated up to above the 116 degree limit, and 75% of raw food. So, if the concern might be that a particular raisin was oven-dried as opposed to sun-dried, even then one might not have reached the limit of 25% cooked food in one’s diet.

It all depends on your own opinions, I suppose. Many consider raisins to be raw food, and the above should allow you to judge whether they fit your description.

Cheers!

TJ

My response:

Thank you! While I do not consider consuming 25% of your diet from cooked foods to be part of a raw food life style, nor do I think would many of my comrades, I do appreciate this information and I will definitely eat your raisins!
Sb
PS there is large debate over the temperature at which enzymes loose viability. Many believe it is at 104 degrees. Just to give you a little more info!

Ice Cream Tuesday

2008-07-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

So I prepped it yesterday, froze it overnight, and "juiced" it today. I was feeling lazy this week so no mix-ins. I can just do EXTREME sundaes this week, lots of toppings! I made
"Mangonana" fruit cream (fruit only, no base)
"stRAWbrerry" with a young coconut and cashew base
"very vanilla" this WAS the base cream this week
"simple cacao" I left the cacao a little large so it would have texture without adding more nibs

I tried some cashew butter in my normal base this week... not a lot, just enough to give it some depth without overpowering the coconut and banana.
Should be great! I might have some now!

New Favorite Sandwich!

2008-07-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

I have been having this sandwich often lately, it is two slices of "bread", a slather of cashew or mac mayo, avo, tomato, pickles, and WAY TOO MUCh LETTUCE. I prefer my sandwiches/burgers with WTML, I always have.
I know that eating dehydrated foods isn't as good as eating fresh foods. I get that. It really is "gentle cooking", but right now being able to have my sandwiches with bread on occasion as opposed to a lettuce wrap really helps me to feel more full and satisfied.

Mayo:
Soaked Cashews or Macs, soak 2 hours
olive oil
salt
lemon juice
spices
water

Put your soaked nuts in the blender, add about a teaspoon of olive oil for every 1/4 cup of nuts you use. Add a little water and blend until almost smooth. You will have to continuously stop the blender and scrape down the sides. Add a little bit of salt and lemon juice to taste. I am pretty generous with the lemon juice. Throw in some dill or basil or whatever spice you prefer. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides, adding more water if necessary. Don't let it get TOO watery, but keep in mind it will firm up a bit in the fridge when the olive oil solidifies.

young coconut: CHOP!

2008-07-22T09:05:00.001-07:00

I feel like I am getting a little more comfortable in front of the camera, my bf says I am a robot in the beginning. Hopefully soon, I will be able to be myself!

not about food... wtf?!

2008-07-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

Actually its about my rampant consumerism... but I am not really going to get down on myself about it today as I am excited about my purchases... haha. Plus they were purchased at the fremont farmers/craft market and a local independent shoe store. So I didn't do too bad.

First are these lovely breathable Sanuk summer shoes. They have a foam type bottom and a breathable canvas upper. Super comfy!

Next is the item of my dreams. A Fanny Pack/ Tool Belt/ Purse/ Wallet/ Dog Treat Holder in one!!! It rules. I wore it last night when i went downtown for my coworkers show and it gave me a strange sense of security. Walking on 3rd at 12am it is good to know your hands are free, you aren't carrying a purse or wallet or any tempting objects to steal, and you could run unencumbered if necessary. It is also perfect for me as I have a tendency to set things down (like my phone) and not pick them up again, and loose them.
I am sure I will post again soon as I am thinking about hitting up whole foods for some y(um)oung coconut

if you want to see me look like I am on xanax talking about sprouting, watch this!

2008-07-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

chaco canyon cafe raw dinner "berry bliss"

2008-07-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

amazing and worth every penny, if you can afford it...
I took pictures of everything I ate except for forgetting to capture my "blueberry infused with black pepper" sorbet before I downed it. It ALL tasted as good as it looked. Here is some eye candy!

my adaptation of the raw chef nut free bread

2008-07-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

new Nut-free bread (aka. tastes like multi grain bread)
Makes 18 ’slices’
1/4c olive oil
1 c sun dried tomatoes
2 c sprouted buckwheat*
1 c flax seed (grind until fine)
2 1/4 c peeled zucchini, roughly chopped
1.5 c apple, cored and roughly chopped
2T lemon juice
1 large avocado (or 2 small, or somewhere in between)
1 medium onion
1/4 c minced parsley
2 Dates, soaked or fresh and soft
1/2 t salt or soy sauce product

* for heidi!!! to sprout buckwheat take a large mason jar and put 1.5 cups of buckwheat in it. I use mesh sprouting caps for my jars that you can buy at any health food store but you could use pretty much any breathable matterial that is a fine enough mesh that the buckwheat won't fall through.
Rinse and drain the buckwheat... fill jar full with filtered water and set on the counter for 8 hours to soak. At 8 hours drain the buckwheat and rinse it VERY WELL it WILL be SLIMEY!!! At this point it is ok to use. To make it even more healthy and full of life set the jar at an angle upside down on the counter and cover it with a cloth. Leaving the opening free to breathe. Rinse seeds a couple times a day to keep them fresh, rinse away all the slime. I would only sprout one day with buckwheat as I tend to notice they get bad fairly quick if its hot out.

- Process the olive oil, sun dried toms, sprouted buckwheat, zucchini, apple, lemon juice, avocados, onion, dates and herbs/salt until thoroughly mixed.

- Transfer to a large bowl and mix with the flax meal by hand. The reason you do this separately (not in the processor) is that you are likely to have too much mixture for the size if the processor at this point, and when you add the flax meal it will become quite heavy and sticky and overwork your machine.

- When mixed, process the whole batter in the machine again, but in small batches to achieve a light fluffy texture.

- Divide the mixture in half and place on Paraflexx sheets on dehydrator trays.

- Use a spatula to spread the mixture evenly to all 4 sides and corners of the Paraflexx sheet. If mixture is too sticky you can wet the spatula to make things easier. With a knife score the whole thing into 9 squares.

- Dehydrate for 2 hours and then remove the Paraflexx sheets by placing another dehydrator tray and mesh on top and invert so that your original sheet of bread is upside down. That will allow you to peel the Paralexx sheet off and continue to dehydrate the underside of the bread.

- Dehydrate for approx 12 hours more (do this overnight so you’re not tempted to eat it before it’s ready) or until bread feels light in your hand. If the pieces don’t fully come apart where you scored, use a knife to cut them.

the bread, I kinda take it back...

2008-07-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

I think I was a little overly harsh about the medi bread. I was mad at it for taking so long to dehydrate. I had a piece today with some maccadamia mayo and it was good, it really tasted like real multi grain bread... For that reason alone I hope everyone doesn't swear it off. It was just kinda a pain. I may rewrite the recipe to make it easier, then I will try it again.
Tomorrow I am going to the raw "Berry Bliss" dinner at chaco canyon cafe. I am really looking forward to a fancy raw meal I don't have to make for myself!

quick, make a post!

2008-07-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

Our internet has been being so funky lately. We just use an open wireless network, which has always been pretty fast and available. This last week it just started not working in the evening until like 8am.. today it started working around 9am and then 5 minutes later it stopped again until just now. So now I am going quick to make my post in case it stops again.
Well the nf medi bread FINALLY finished dehydrating, and really there are still a few pieces that could use a little more time and I am keeping them in the fridge so they wont get bad.
Mind you, this is after over 30 hours of dehydration.
So far these are my thoughts..
I had a piece still warm, straight out of the dehydrator, and I put cashew mayo on it, and it was really good. The flavor was reminiscant of multi grain bread and the texture was smooth and bread like. I had another piece with nothing on it and I wasn't too impressed. The recipe called for it to be spread on two paraflexx sheets. I really think it could have been three. It would have taken less time to dehydrate and not have been as expensive per piece. The other thing is for all the ingredients in it you would expect it to be very flavorful, and its actually a bit bland.
It isn't a BAD bread, and the taste and texture being kinda multi grain bread like is cool. If I WERE to make this expensive, pain in the ass bread, again I would add 2 dates and some salt. That might pump it up a bit and enhance the bread like flavor it already kinda has.

We got our SPUD order yesterday and I wanted to show how I usually prepare my greens. I prep them the the night we get them as long as I am not too tired, and store them in a bin the width of my fridge so I can easily grab them out for my (2) daily salad (s) ;)

I just lay some paper towel on the bottom to absorb any moisture and make it easy to clean out the bin.

you know... lot's of stuff...

2008-07-16T17:39:00.000-07:00

The Taquitos turned out pretty good... I used THE jalapeno corn chip recipe and just made up my own filling using a variation on my taco meat mish mash. I have just been dipping in salsa and guac... but rosie, that cheeze sounded tasty.

Here they are before I ate them ;) I did figure out why I felt so off yesterday... ladies you should have know. The CRIMSON TIDE... duh sara, obviously. Hmmm I feel crappy and bloated, I don't even want to eat... HELLO? It has only happened about 210 times in my life so far. Am I out of eggs yet? Seriously!

The onion bread= simple, low in cost, delicious! Like really delicious... It made 19 (small) hand sized squares. I made it from the recipe in the Sunny Raw Kitchen New Recipe EBOOK, which I recommend buying, but you can find the recipe all over the place. I made it as written except I used 2 onions instead of three, processed 1.5 with half an apple until smooth, and sliced the remainder super thin... I also only used about 2/3 the amount of brags called for. I made two open face sammies with it today and it was the BEST.
This is the view from my apartment, just wanted to show the non pacific northwesters what beautiful weather we have been having... I feel so lucky! If you strain your eyes you might be able to see mt. Rainer out in the distance... well you can see it really well in real life anyway.

So I started the nut free Mediterranean bread today... LET ME TELL YOU... It made 9 cups of batter... that's a lot. If you have a small food processor beware. I have a seven cup and it still wasn't big enough. Plus this is like a $1 per slice stack of bread. It better be good! Oh and the other thing... it seems you are supposed to spread it on just two paraflexx sheets. 4.5 cups of batter per sheet. It was probably a good 1/2 to 3/4 an inch thick. I hope it turns out well! Anyone made this bread before? Is that normal?

my weekend is over :(

2008-07-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

My work week starts tomorrow and I am already looking forward to my next days off! I did get a lot accomplished today (and yesterday too!) so at least I feel somewhat prepared. I cleaned a large portion of the house, including a deep clean of the kitchen. I have done about 4 loads of laundry so far... probably an equal amount to go. I made chips/taquitos, onion bread, and I am soaking some buckwheat for a nut free mediteranian bread I want to try.
I had yoga this morning. It was a pretty good class and I felt like my back did some adjusting and settling. It hasn't been giving me as many problems since my last massage and I've been doing yoga twice a week. Hopefully whatever I did to it is repairing itself...
My boyfriend took the computer with him to work today so he could get more ram installed. I am using my phone to post (hopefully it works) so no taquito pictures tonight, but hopefully after work tomorrow.
I didn't eat dinner yet... I have been eating all day, as usual, but I haven't eaten since about 4 and I don't really feel hungry. I am going to see if I can beat my night time snack attack tonight and go to bed without eating. (Well, I kinda lied, I did just have a little taste of the onion bread in the dehydrator, just to make sure it wasn't quite ready... haha) I am feeling kinda bloaty and fullish so I think I am just going to try to drink a few big glasses of water between now and bed and see if I can make it til morning.
Hope you all had a good day...

Ice Cream is my new Calling

2008-07-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

Today I had a pretty successful Shopping and Ice Cream day. If successful shopping means I got a bunch of great stuff then yes, I succeeded. If it means I spent WAY too much money, then I also succeeded. Thanks to Heidi at HiHo Rosie's Place I bought two jars of Bubbies pickles today. YES! they are RAW! I got some hummus (livin spoonfuls) and some raw green olives... I got some ingredient type things too, that was just all the premades.
So for my food prep today I made Three Ice Creams and have some Corn Chips in the dehydrator. I plan on making some bread before the weekend is up for me, but I am just trying to decide on a recipe. Anyone have any good sandwich bread recommendations?
The Ice Cream went well and I think I almost have the non-machette method of opening young coconuts down. I made a base of Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream and just added in other ingredients to change the flavors. Here are my results:

RAW Chocolate Crunch: Dark Chocolate Ice Cream with Cacao Nibs and Coconut Chips
The Chips were more like Shards, because I decided to just spread out a layer of coconut butter on my silpat, freeze it, and break it into pieces, instead of trying to make chips... The house was to hot to get chips to happen. This is a tiny bit bitter which I think is a nice juxtaposition with the creaminess and the sweet coconut shards.

Raspberry Lime: A mix between Ice Cream and Sorbet... Bonus Whole Raspberry Bits
This one is very good. A little creamier than a sorbet, but not quite an ice CREAM. Pleasently tart.

Oh! RAWnge Creamcicle: A creamy orange sherbert with ribbons of vanilla ice cream throughout
Next time I would sweeten my orange ice cream a little more and maybe up the amount of Vanilla I mixed in. It has a nice flavor but could be sweeter AND creamier...

I love ice cream...

Ice Cream Mondae's

2008-07-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

So monday is my saturday, and it is also the day that I do most of my grocery store shopping... all the stuff I didn't get from SPUD. It has also become my ice cream making day. Tomorrow I am planning on a few possibilities:
oRAWnge creamcicle
Coconut Chocolate Swirll
Raspberry Lime
Dark Chocolate with Coconut Chips

I'm getting a little gourmet this week... I am going to try making coconut chips. My plan is to take melted coconut butter and "drop" it onto a silpat covered pan and stick it in the freezer. It should be amazing!

Any other brilliant ice cream suggestions I should try?

Kale Chips

2008-07-13T06:17:00.001-07:00

So I think they were great... only, I ate about half of them before they could even dry! I think this is the closest thing to potato chips I have had since being raw. I used
1 bunch of lattice kale
2-3 T olive oil
some probably not raw spices: a non salt seasoning mix, pepper, a little salt, a little chilli powder, cumin...

De-stem the kale and cut it into chip size pieces, mix up the sauce (oil and spices) in a mixing bowl and throw the kale in and toss it up well. Try to coat every leaf in the sauce. Lay it out on your dehydrator and let it dry at 104 degrees (ish) for 4-5 hours. These chips turned out flakey-crunchy and salty-oil. Good Combos. I think it would be good with nutritional yeast. Be careful though. I ate them all myself in about 10 minutes. An entire head of kale. I did not win the late night battle with the snacks last night :(

Amazing Raw Chilli

2008-07-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

Go here RAW CHILLI and make this chilli. You will not regret it unless you are a miserable human being. No, seriously though, probably the best raw food item I have ever made and at the top of the list with the raw tortilla soup I had at juliano's. I do not have the words to describe this wonder. I want the taste to stay in my mouth forever. Oh! the best part is that I have enough left for two more servings! In other news... I am going to try to make Kale Chips tonight. Hope they turn out good!

The current lesson (cross-posted on the 100 day raw food challange)

2008-07-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Raw food has been teaching me many small lessons, about myself and life, since day one. Now, at 2 months in, I am currently learning about my overeating issue, gratitude, and fulfillment. One large adjustment I believe many of us have to make when converting to a raw food diet, even if only temporarily, is the acceptance that the physical "full" feeling is no longer an acceptable indicator of when to stop and start eating. On a raw food diet it is very hard to achieve the full feeling and even harder to sustain it. I find myself continuing my cooked food habits of snacking when bored and overeating to try to maintain a full feeling.
The lesson I believe I am being given is one of patience, acceptance, and gratitude. The patience and willpower to SLOW DOWN and visually savor my food before eating, take smaller bites and chew every bite to taste my food and begin the digestion process in my mouth; contrary to popular belief you don't digest food when it is lodged in your esophagus because you swallowed it whole and it's stuck. The acceptance that food is fuel, and while I cherish it and obsess about it, and think about it when I am not involved with it, it is supposed to serve a specific purpose- to nourish my body. To accept that I have had enough. To accept that I may not feel stuffed but I have been adequately nourished. The gratitude and thanks for the bounty I have and the gift that living food is.
It is a process for me. I have been trying very hard to be more conscious of my meal time habits. Trying to take smaller bites, chew them well, and not go back for more, or snack just because I don't feel painfully full. It is hard for me. I am a comfort food junkie and I seek emotional fulfillment from my food. I think the lessons I am learning now may be the first steps of internally addressing that issue.
I am not really ready to think about it now, that part seems very overwhelming, so I am going to start with the enjoyment and pleasure of what I have, and take it from there.

beautiful morning

2008-07-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

I am going in an hour late to work today (which isn't entirly unusual for me to do on my late days) I have to stay til after 4 today so I figured I go in at 8 to make it an 8 hour shift as opposed to 9. The dog is "hounding" me for a walk right now. She's goin "mom, why are you just sitting there when we could be out smelling things in the sun?!" I guess she is right. So I just want to say quickly before we go "smell things" that I went to the second yoga class in my early morning series yesterday and it was great. It was much more challenging than my first class and we did back bends and hip opening exersizes which are totally my areas of improvement (my chest and hips are very tight) so it was perfect. I left class feeling like I had springs in my legs :)

Lunch

2008-07-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

Today for lunch (after my customary ice cream sundae) I had a delicious taco salad and tried out a new chip recipe. I must say it is a lot better than the first one I tried, which was good, but too flax(y). This one I got off gone raw and I think the girl from gone raw got it from a cook book (maybe rfrw?) I was out of jalapeno and didn't have hemp seeds, I followed the rest as written. Here it is:

Corn Tortilla Chips!
3 cups fresh corn, from about 3 ears, or use frozen, thawed sweet corn
1½ cups red or orange bell pepper, roughly chopped
½ cup onion, roughly chopped
¾ cup flax seeds, ground
½ cup hemp seeds (optional), ground
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 jalapeno, seeds removed
1 teaspoon chili (mild) powder
2 teaspoons fresh whole cumin seed, ground
2 teaspoons sea salt

Preparation
1. In a food processor, chop the corn, bell pepper, and onion until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and process until just combined.
2. Using an offset spatula, spread the dough thinly onto three 14 inch Teflex lined dehydrator trays. Dehydrate at 115 degrees for 6 – 8 hours, or overnight. Flip the sheets over onto the tray and carefully peel away the liners. Break or cut w/ a pizza cutter into chip shapes. Place back in the dehydrator for 4 – 6 hours, or until crisp. Store in an airtight container for a week or two.

I also tried a new experiment for fresh taco meat... I chopped a carrot super fine and tossed it with cumin, chilli powder, a little nutritional yeast, and a tiny drizzle of olive oil. It turned out pretty good, would have been more meat like had I dehydrated it a bit, but I thought it was fine as is. I think this would be very effective using mushroom instead, also. Next time I would try a bigger batch and use my food processor, perhaps throw in some mushrooms and soaked sundried tomatoes and maybe some lemon juice, season it, and let the whole thing marinate a bit to get all softened and chewy and flavorful. What do you all think? Any ideas to improve this recipe? I am going to a taco party this weekend and I am going to either make taquitos using this filling and the raw chip recipe, or just make all the stuff for taco salad. Perhaps even sour cream? Any suggestions for what I should put on my raw taco/taco salad to make it the envy of all the cooked vegans I will be partying with?
Oh... and remember all that fruit?
I finally have it ALL sealed away in the fridge for smoothie and ice cream use. Very fast and convenient! Like 4 bags full of bananas! yum!

I joined... how about you

2008-07-08T19:42:00.001-07:00

View my page on Raw Fu

And for my next meal... (yes this is my 3rd post today)

2008-07-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

Because all I have done today, besides that easy breazy yoga class, is eat and prepare food, I decided to post about my next meal which I will be eating in one hour, when it gets done warming in the ol' dehydrator.
On my shopping expidition the other day I went to madison market on capitol hill which is known to have the best raw food department in the city. I must say it is true. They have a bunch of different dehydrated crackers, which I didn't buy cause I can make them at home, and they have hummus (livinspoonful, portland oregon), almond butters, raw salsas and guacamole, OLIVES, you get the idea. Good stuff I tell ya. I obviously went JUST for the olives but I also got some delicious hummus while I was there.
So does anyone else have certain items that make or break a meal? What I mean by that is: A hamburger isn't a hamburger unless it has pickles. Or pizza=pinapple... I have a few of these things, some of which I have just had to get over for the sake of my sanity in the raw food world. 1 thing I WILL NOT, at least not yet, part with is my nutritional yeast on any pasta item. Spaghetti= Nutritional Yeast, well and olives.
I know nutritional yeast is not raw, but come on people, the name says it all "NUTRITIONAL". That means it is good for me. Plus it beats taking a b12 supplement. And well, it's delicious. After 10 years of being vegan there are certain comfort foods I have learned to hold close. The yeast is the one I don't want to quit.
At least I got raw olives.
Does anyone else have these few non-raw items they have decided to keep in rotation? Like NY or Namu Shoya, Miso, Balsamic Vinegar? Do you plan to give them up someday or intend to keep em around?
PS I will be learning to make raw pickles some time in the near future... just you wait

raw food binger: ice cream all day long

2008-07-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

on my days off all I want to do is eat. Pretty much every 2 hours I eat something. It's all raw and healthy food I guess but there is something unhealthy about eating because you are bored and obsessed with tasting food. I guess that isn't a battle I am ready to fight right now...

yoga class

2008-07-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

well, this new class I started leaves a little to be desired. It was a 75 min class and we probably spent the entire last 20 minutes in "restorative poses" aka sleeping. I am hoping it will get a little more intensive in the next few sessions. I am going to try to get thursday morning off so I can go to both sessions a week, I don't know if that will happen. I payed for the series so I am going to stick it out at this studio for the session, but I may switch to another studio if I don't find what I am looking for at this class. The instructor did say that she would try to give me a more open option for more "heat" in the future... That may be enough. It is a hatha class, which I have found to be a good workout when i have taken them in the past.
I am just so used to and satisfied with the bikram series that anything else I do doesn't feel like it is as corrective or as much of a workout. I wish there was a bikram studio in my neighborhood.
In more satisfying news I mixed a cup of young coconut juice into three cups of filtered water and brought it to class. It feels so refreshing and healing.

It's so easy eatin raw...

2008-07-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

when you have ice cream sundays for dessert...

I forgot to take a picture until I was half way done eating it. On the left is banana soft serve with sliced strawberries, in the middle you'll see fruit sorbet consisting of strawberries, raspberries, and mango, and to the left is my coconut ice cream I made earlier today, topped with a raw chocolate sauce. I put it all on top of sliced bananas for a true banana split.
A champion juicer pays for itself within a couple weeks of ice cream. I may get an ice cream maker someday, but it is so easy and versatile to use the juicer. The best part is it was all completely raw, well other than the agave, but I didn't use much of that. Next time I could probably substitute dates for the agave I used in the coconut Ice Cream. I was just out.
Tomorrow morning at 6am I am going to see if I can get into this am hatha class near my house. The yoga studio has all these drop in classes but the only class they have that the time is convenient for me is this early morning series that is on tue and thurs. Unfortunately I can't make it thursdays and it is a pay in advance series not a drop in or pay as you go. I am going to explain my dilemma and see if we can work something out... Usually these yoga people are pretty flexible... HAHAHA (not really funny)

ice cream splits

2008-07-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

Did my grocery store shopping today and finally put the first ripened bananas of the case in the freezer. I am having a banana split tonight and it is going to be awesome!!! I bought some young coconuts at whole foods today and blended three with a banana and a little bit of the coconut water. I ended up using a bit of agave as well because it didn't taste quite sweet enough to be ice cream. I put it in an ice cube tray in the freezer and tonight is going to be frozen bananas and strawberries/mangos/raspberries and the coconut ice cream fed through the champion. I may also make some chocolate syrup to drizzle on top. yum!!!
I will probably take some pictures :)

BBQ's on a raw diet: my synopsis

2008-07-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

Being that the 4th of July seems to be the national BBQ holiday I obviously was invited to a vegan BBQ. I make most of my food at home or go to a raw restaurant if I eat out. Yesterday was the first day at a food related social gathering since joining the cult.
I was smart in that I prepared burger patties (PECAN-CARROT BURGERS from GONERAW, DELICIOUS!!!) and made myself my own little burgers to take... However I only brought 2, I probably should have brought 3 and then waited to eat them until everyone else was eating instead of gobbling them all down when I first got there.
I also brought a little fruit..
Maybe I am used to having the luxury of being a vegan with almost exclusively vegan friends, but I am completely accustomed to being able to eat everything at the table. I pretty much couldn't eat anything. I brought some coconut spears, there were some carrots and broccoli, that's about it. The salsa was packaged and had citric acid in it, so even if it was otherwise raw I couldn't eat it, the guacamole had some salsa in it (I ate a little anyway, please don't call the raw police on me!) there was vegan ranch dip, fancy lemonade punch (with sugar), salads with cooked rice and pasta in them, BBQ'd veggies, strawberry shortcake with ice cream... None of that I could eat.
What I missed the most was potato chips, which I only ever ate at bbq's... There are really no raw substitutes I have found. You?
It wasn't a total wash as I did bring enough that I wasn't hungry, but I learned my lesson. Next time I will be prepared because a raw diet isn't one of sacrifice. There are ton's of wonderful things to eat, I just didn't have them on hand.
Next time:
Delicious Beverage
Save the burgers until burger time
Tasty dip and something to dip in it
A fruit salad
A green snack
Sweet dessert

I WILL be ready

produce and more

2008-07-05T14:49:00.001-07:00

This week I wised up and got cases of produce instead of single items on all of the things I can freeze to make smoothies, and tomatoes to dry to make sauce. I am not sure how long "sun" dried tomatoes keep but I am betting on at least a few weeks in the fridge... If they last that long. I got 38lbs of bananas. That is a shit ton of bananas. Unfortunately none are ripe yet :(
I got 12lbs of strawberries and about the same of tomatoes and raspberries. Oh and 10lbs of mango. I found that you can save over 65% if you buy at the case price. Of course I did spend 5 hours the day I got my produce preparing my greens for salads, fruit for freezing, and tomatoes to dry.
I also got a coconut. It was a great one and I have gotten coconut opening down to a science.
1) refridgerate coconut overnight to firm up meat
2) using power drill make two holes in the eyes to drain out the juice.
3) using machette crack open the shell and hopefully your coconut will come right out whole because it is nice and cold from the fridge.

I spent a lot of money on food this week, but all in an effort to make things less expensive and less time consuming. I figure the 5 hours of work I did the other day will save me at least 7 in the next 2 weeks. Plus 1.40$ per mango!

mile marker 119

2008-06-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

So this morning after the lazy dog and I took a nice walk around the lake I stepped on the scale to find I had FINALLY broken out of the 120's. It's kinda a big deal for me. Of course as soon as I have some breakfast I will be back into the 120's but I feel like it's really a big mile marker for me. I only want to loose 5 more lbs and I am down 7 already so I don't have much to go. I know maybe some people out there are going "120! you are already a stick! Call the eating disorder clinic!" but really I AM 4'11" If I make it to 115 I will still be at the high end of average weight for a person my height.
I really don't want to loose any muscle and I hope I haven't so far. It is hard to tell. I know I have lost SOME fat but I hope no muscle. Anyway, that's that. Just a little pat on my own back for sticking to this healthy lifestyle change so far.

Update

2008-06-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

So here's what's up with me. Back pain! I don't know if i have just been stressed or if I slept funny or if it's all the baking shifts i have been doing at work after not having done them in a while, but my back is fucked. Yesterday I made an emergency massage appointment because there was no way I was going to be able to sleep and get up and work a 9+ hour day the today unless something was done about my back pain. So apparently my Rhomboid major (I looked it up) on both sides of my spine have big giant knots in them. Worse on my right. It took pretty much the whole hour for my nice massaging lady to get the right side to FINALLY loosen up a little. She said she couldn't get it all the way out without bruising me so I have to go back mid week and get another treatment. Which is expensive but worth it.

I am about to go lay down for a bit to rest my back but I wanted to update and tell about my produce box and a good raw soup I made.

The most trustworthy raw recipe site that I have found Sunny Raw Kitchen (see links to the right) has a recipe for a zucchini soup, which looked really good so I made it. I must say it was the FIRST raw soup I have made at home that wasn't disgusting. It was pretty good and I would make it again. It definitely convinces me that the next big kitchen purchase should be a vitamix... since my soups are never completely smooth. More like slushy and liquidy...

The recipe is...
Cream of Zucchini Soup
By Jennifer Cornbleet’s Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People
Serves 2

½ cup water
1 zucchini, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon mellow white miso
½ teaspoon crushed garlic (1 clove)
¼ teaspoon sea salt
dash cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ avocado, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh minced dill, or 1 tsp dried

Place all of the ingredients except the olive oil, avocado and dill in a blender. Blend until smooth.

Add the olive oil and avocado and blend until smooth. Add the dill and blend briefly just to mix.

Serve immediately.

On thursdays I get my SPUD Grocery delivery. I get a huge produce order once a week and it is seriously like christmas for me. This is the "fruit" box, but I also got a second one that was heavier items and leafy greens on top. It makes my life easy and delicious.

Satisfying Dinner

2008-06-24T19:27:00.001-07:00

I had an awesome but pretty simple dinner tonight. I guess not THAT simple but relatively so. I made a raw "taco salad" and a RBG smoothie.

For my Taco Salad I set down a bed of mixed greens with romaine, chard, and green leaf lettuce, I topped it with guacamole I made yesterday with avo, red onion, lime juice, sea salt, cilantro, and grape tomato's. I also picked up some fresh salsa today on my shopping trip. So I put a big scoop of that on too. Finally a chance to use the dehydrated corn chips I made from everyday raw for their intended purpose!

My Red Blue Green Smoothie was 1 small sized banana, a handful of blue berries (frozen), a handful of strawberries, and a couple of raspberries (frozen), 2 ice cubes of my young coconut water/meat mix, and 1/2 t of spirulina. I added a tiny bit of water to get it moving, then blended it until smooth.

For being just greens, salsa, and guac, my salad was very tasty and satisfying. The chips were very good in it and a nice filling addition. I drank my smoothie first... At juliano's restaurant the nice and cute server girl told us that they serve desert and smoothies first, soups next, and entrees last. They do it because the sweet pureed stuff is the easiest to digest and they get your stomach and pancreas moving, so you are better able to digest the more fibrous foods/dehydrated foods in your entree. I like this philosophy, more so because I can't wait to eat dessert, but the fact that it makes sense helps.

For my real dessert tonight I am going to have some watermelon I cut up earlier and marinated in lime juice and agave. YUM!

young coconuts

2008-06-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

I had my very first brush with a young coconut today, I think I am in LOVE...

I scraped the meat out and put the juice and the meat in the blender and when it was combined I threw it into an ice cube tray in the freezer to save for smoothies. It is so delicious.

YOUNG COCONUT:
Nutritional Benefits
Young coconuts are considered highly nutritious. One whole coconut has only 140 calories and provides 17% of the RDA for calcium. The total fat content is 3 grams, all saturated. With a zero content of cholesterol, the young coconut has 50 mg sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrate, 2 grams of fiber,15 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

Young coconuts are sold still in the husk. You can recognize a young coconut by its pale, almost ivory color and by its conical shape at the top. Look for these in the refrigerated section or produce section of some health food and Asian markets. If you're surprised at how heavy they are, try pouring the coconut juice into a measuring cup--just make sure it's a large measuring cup.

Young coconuts are valued for their juice, but the coconut meat inside, which is often sweeter than that of the mature coconut, is completely edible and has a softer, more delicate consistency than a mature coconut. The very young coconut meat is almost jelly-like and can be eaten with a spoon.

Store young coconuts in the refrigerator.

More info here: http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch58.html

on retraining myself to eat..

2008-06-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

I DO love food. So it comes as no surprise that I have recently determined that I take BIG bites and don't chew my food. One of the most mentioned tenants of a raw food diet that I have read is that one must CHEW THEIR FOOD. The enzymes in your saliva mix with the food and begin to break it down, easing digestion and converting sugars, before you swallow. Now maybe for some this isn't a big shock. Well, and really it isn't a shock for me either, I just wasn't doing a very good job of it. I tend to bolt my food and eat as much as I possibly can before I get full. Really I think it is more to satisfy my hunger than to get full, but sometimes I eat SO fast that I become full and I eat a huge plate of food and I still FEEL hungry. I don't enjoy my food because its gone before I even tasted it.

My new raw diet has really opened my eyes to some of my food issues. I am sensitive to sugar, even in fruits, if I'm eating too much of it. I knew that before (excema, athletes foot, food cravings) but I never saw such obvious and pin-pointable results. I started incorporating more fruit into my diet to get more calories and quickly began getting my nightly sugar cravings and needing to get up and have something sweet before I could sleep again.

Since starting this diet I have also had less cravings overall and feelings of ravenous huger, while still feeling like I can eat whenever I want and until I am full. I only started having cravings again when I was eating a ton of sweet fruit. I checked out a glycemic index chart on fruit and am trying to keep in mind what the lower sugar fruits are and incorporating more of those into my diet, and keeping the high sugar fruits in the slight minority.

Greens are the key. I need to eat tons of greens and start throwing them into my smoothies.

So back to my big bites. Since I have started focusing on chewing my food I have come to realize that I take such large mouthfuls of food that there is no way I can chew it without swallowing some. Like it is such a big bite I can't really move it around in my mouth without some going down the drain. Americans! ha

So I am working on smaller bites, chewing my food, and eating my greens.

dehydrator

2008-06-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

so, the big news in my life... I got a dehydrator! which is awesome because it gives me the option of gently "cooking" food. I can make breads, and crackers, and soften my vegetables like broccoli which are hard for me to digest. I am trying to take it a little easy with eating the dehydrated foods because I know if I go overboard it wont be healthy and will probably give me a tummy ache, buuut it sure is nice to have a pizza crust. So far I have made corn chips from everyday raw, which are good but I think could be better, I may tweak it a little bit next time... And I made pizza crusts from juliano's RAW: the uncook book. They turned out great. I made a pizza with sundried tomato and carrot juice, used the spring onion cheese recipe from goneraw.com, which rules... and added marinated mushrooms, olives (not really raw ones, eek! I cheated), and parsley on top. Yum! If anyone is interested in any of the recipes I used for my pizza let me know :)

The BAAAAAD List...

2008-06-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

So, as you probably can't help but to realize I am currently what one could consider to be a Raw Foodist. I haven't really laid that out yet on my blog, but since it IS all about what I eat maybe it's time for some details. I have a very close relationship with food... some may call it an obsession... I find it more healthy to think of food as my hobby. You know, I am a baker by profession, but in my free time I play viola, hang out with my dog and my boyfriend, and obsess over food. That makes it sound better right?

I have been vegan for about 10 years and very recently have leaped into the world of raw food. Being vegan has not helped to reduce the time I spend thinking about food, on the contrary. Have you ever notice that if you are at a mixed-ivore party (as in herbivore, omnivore, carnivore) you will see all the vegans hovering in the near vicinity of the food if there is anything they can eat available? Well I have. We like to eat, ok? Being Raw has increased my food preoccupation by at least double.

I have to learn all this new stuff about how to combine foods and how to prepare them... Not to mention having to eat ALL THE TIME to get enough calories. That is really my dream come true. I can eat AS MUCH AS I WANT and I am still slowly shedding extra weight.

It wasn't really about weight though. I mean, I ain't gonna lie, I don't mind if I loose a couple pounds of my donut weight; but I really had better reasons. I was SO addicted to refined sugar, I would sit awake at night in bed and have to get up for something sweet before I could fall asleep. Like most typical Americans, and really a lot of vegans too, I had a massive refined sugar and wheat problem and it was totally messing with my body. I have always had problems with allergies and athletes foot, but in the last two years I also started getting hives and mild eczema on my hands. I know that my allergies are caused by pollens, grasses, dust, mold, and my dog; I was also thinking that reducing the things that were adding to my bodies dis-ease and causing inflamation and mucus production couldn't hurt. My thought was that by ridding myself of the common causes of mucus production like soy and wheat I may help my immune system to do a better job. The sugar, well I have always been sensitive to sugar. I know it is the cause of my athletes foot, probably the eczema, and it makes me feel sluggish and tired to top it all off. I have done some raw fooding in the past and I have always noticed a difference in the way I feel when I increase my percentage of raw food.

So I decided to go for it.

I am now at almost a month of being around 95% (as close as I can figure) raw.

Here's what I have noticed:

Athletes foot gone in 3 days

Eczema gone in 3 days

Allergies and hives, still hanging around but I am gonna give it a little more time and try to sort it out

Energy is up

Sleep required is down

My skin looks great and feels softer

There are a couple of things I have discovered at this point in my rawness that I would like to note so that in the future I can look back at this and say "this is where I was at one month in..."

- Eating the following "cooked foods" (aka the BAAAAAD list)

Raw Cacao?
Nutritional Yeast
Raw Cashews?
Balsamic Vinegar
Very rarely: Fermented Soy products like Namu Shoya and Miso (still trying to determine if soy affects my allergies)

-Using the following guidelines

Trying to stick to a caloric breakdown around 15% protein, 35% fat, 50% carbohydrates, this is where I seem to have the most success, and hit at least 1200 calories. I have lost 5-7lbs and don't want to loose weight too quickly, definitely not muscle.
If I want to try a small bite of a cooked vegan food I do. I am doing raw food because that's what I want to eat, not to deprave myself. Trying a small bite of a good smelling cooked food has helped me to avoid urges to binge
Eating mostly fruit in the morning and at least one BIG green salad during the day.

It will be interesting to see where I am on this journey in 6 months...

Chocolate Protein Shake

2008-06-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

My new favorite source of Chocolate and Protein!

Recipe:

2 Bananas Frozen

2 Medjool Dates

a Splash of Vanilla or a Smidge of Vanilla Bean

3 T Hemp Protein

1 T Raw Cacao powder

Blend and add water as needed to achieve desired texture

Nutrition Facts
Total amounts per meal
Calories 515
Calories From Fat 69
Total Fat 8g
Saturated Fat 3g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 4mg
Total Carbohydrate 105g
Dietary Fiber 16g
Sugars 63g
Protein 14g
Vitamin A 5% Vitamin C 37%
Calcium 11% Iron 41%

Caloric Percentages:

Carbohydrate 77%

Protein 10%

Fat 13%

Not too bad! Since some days I have a hard time getting my calories and my protein this is a good one...

I know there are many debates over raw cacao, like is it REALLY raw? is it toxic? I just think it is delicious...

my first video blog!

2008-06-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

So this is my first video blog, as I say several times and we will call it a practice run. I did figure out how to sync it up so next time will be better. If you feel like watching an unsync'd video of me making raw mac and cheese, here it is! It turned out really well and exemplifies the reason I end up with days where I eat 45% of my calories from fat ;)

Here is the recipe:
1/4 c Pine Nuts (soaked 2 hours)
1/4 c Cashews (soaked 2 hours)
1/8 c Filtered Water (plus or minus)
1 T Lemon Juice
1 T Nutritional Yeast
1/2 T Tahini
3/4 t Sea Salt
1 t Onion

Blend and serve over RAW veggie pasta

Mary's Secret Garden

2008-06-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

Had a delicious meal at Mary's in Ventura tonight. I ordered the Rawviolis which were "jicama sheets filled with itallian herbed almond cheese topped with bell pepper marinara and basil pesto garnished with baby mixed greens and cherry tomatos". The cheese was GREAT and the bell pepper marinara was smooth and rich. Here's a link to the menu if you want to check it out MARY'S SECRET GARDEN For desert I had the Special which was a Raw German Chocolate Cake with Coconut Ice Cream. I attempted to take a picure, see above, but my camera phone wasn't great. It is SO good, especialy the coconut ice cram and chocolate ganache. The cake was great too but considering I am allergic to walnuts and it was packed full of them it was a little pain with my pleasure. I bought a pint of the coconut ice cream I will have to finish by tomorrow night. Alex said he would help ;)

Santa Monica

2008-06-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the BEST day with Stacey (pictured above). She is my long time friend, one of my best friends, and we even have 4 matching tattoos together. We went to Real Food Daily in Santa Monica on Wednesday night. They had just opened up the other side of the restaurant, which was a remodel to include a take out/tapas type section you can grab to go or small items from. Well the wait was about 20 minutes so we went to the take out side to wait. It was their first night and they were very disorganized and we didn't get our food(snacks) until the table in the restaurant was ready and then they wouldn't let us take it to our table. Not even our tea. I'm sure they will work the system out but it was annoying. As far as raw food goes they didn't have a whole lot to offer at this location. I remember the Hollywood location having more options. It's a good thing I ordered before I remembered their NACHOS or I might have caved.

The next day we went to take our friend to the airport and we stopped at the co-op which had an overwhelming amount of packaged raw food, including fresh food from local businesses. Then we did some shopping, and went to Euphoria loves RAWvolution on Main. I got a smoothie, strawberry with young coconut. It was good but I felt it was not 8$ good. Certainly not as good as my smoothie from Juliano's Raw pictured above. We went to the beach after that and then I went and got my hair cut by Stacey's friend Eric. He did a really grest job turning it into a much better version of what it was supposed to be before. Yay! After that we went to Juliano's.

We started with an AMAZING Chocolate Shake for Stacey and a "Iced Coffee" Smoothie for me. Next we moved onto soups. Our Avocado and Warm Totilla Soups (pictured above) were SO great, and even better mixed together!

Then they brought our entres. I was already getting full as the soup and smoothie were rich and delicious and I have been eating mostly fruit and salad on this trip. I was overwhelmed by the size and beauty of our plates.
Stace got the Lasagna with creamy cashew cheese and sundried tomato sauce. It came with a cabbage slaw and some "steamed" veggies.

I got the "Western Bacon Burger" which came with slaw, "steamed" veggies, and Zucchini fries.
I was warned previously that Juliano's wasn't very good because the food was over processed and hard to digest. I found that the soup and smoothie were very digestable and delicious. The fries were a little over done, the burger was good but I can see were they were coming from. However as a treat, especialy if you are new to raw foods or on a vacation, you should definetly go for it because of the novelty alone and the experience.

Everyday Raw...

2008-06-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

So someone on goneraw was talking up this cookbook and I thought, hey that sounds great. The title really did it for me, since I know I can make fancy raw food, but what does one eat day to day??? I ordered it on amazon, it came the next day, I didn't even order 1 day, all good omens so far. So happily I read the book. All you other food nerds who get a cookbook and proceed to read it cover to cover the first day, you are in good company. This is what I thought:

Pretty pictures (sounds funny but it helps)
A few recipes that could be staples
Many recipes that call for young Thai coconut
Many nut heavy recipes
Many recipes I will never make

Buuuut... let's be honest, most of the time I don't use recipes anyway. I just learn HOW to make stuff and through it together on my own. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I think overall $13 whatever that I paid for this book was worth it. If the corn chips rule it will be worth the money just for that.

Today I made a recipe almost entirely from the book, minus parsley, which I didn't have and I think it's gonna be great.

Quinoa Tabbouleh

1 C soaked and sprouted Quinoa

1 C Tomato (diced)

1 C Cucumber (diced)

1/4 C minced Red Onion

1/2 C Flat Leaf Parsley

1/4 cup Olive Oil

3 T Lemon Juice

1 t Salt

Drain Quinoa, transfer to a medium bowl and let marinate in olive oil, lemon juice and salt for 30 min- 1 hour. Add remaining ingredients and mix until well incorporated.

I used way less dressing, I don't need that much Oil! I also just mixed it all together and let it marinate as one. It is marinating right now and I can wait to eat it! Oh and I threw some Avo on top. Guess I am getting that oil anyway ;)

So in the picture I think you can see all the cute little sprouts from my quinoa. Some people say they can't eat sprouted (uncooked) quinoa, this will be my first time eating a large quantity, we will see if it hurts my tummy.

If you cheat to win, you still won...

2008-06-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

So over the past few days I have had some successes and failures in raw food land. I made a DELICIOUS Kale Avocado salad, courtesy of Nicole, my once and future boss. And I made DISGUSTING cauliflower mashed potatoes and mushroom almond gravy (no thanks to you GONERAW!!!). Well I still love gone raw but this should really teach me to make SMALL batches of new recipes instead of just diving in and wasting a WHOLE head of cauliflower and bag of scrumptious little mushrooms. I got a new raw food cookbook called Everyday Raw... I will write a review of it under a whole separate blog. Anyway, I have had a few lightly cooked dinners (come on guys, 4 in 20 days isn't so bad) but today I kinda blew it. I am not mad at myself I am just going to keep going which is great. I ate an ENTIRE BLUEBERRY DONUT at work today (don't worry! vegan of course). I was just going to have a little taste, since today was the first day of the seasonal donut, and it IS my favorite donut, well I started "tasting" and what do you know? I was half way through the donut. At that point I was like "fuck it" and finished it. It is funny because after I ate it I started having coffee cravings and I have not craved coffee once this whole time. I know it has to be because I used to always have coffee and a donut for breakfast in the mornings on the first break, and I am sure my body was saying, "hey a donut! better get ready for that coffee" and stared producing whatever it produces to break down coffee. Which made me crave it. It was my first wheat product and processed sugar in 20 days and I am a little bummed I did that to my body, but it's ok, part of my little raw food experiment is learning about my food addictions and bad little eating patterns and I feel like I can let this mistake go and not falter, which is kinda big for me. I think I may have followed the donut with another and a cup of coffee with soymilk in the past. So good for me.

A little nervous about california eating, but I think it will be alright. If I eat a little crappy food I will just recover and keep on going.

Kale Avocado Salad

1 Bunch of Kale (washed and torn)

1 Avocado (diced)

1 Lg Tomato (chopped)

2 T Olive oil

1 T Lemon Juice

1/2-1 t Sea Salt (depending on taste)

Put it all in a bowl together and smush it all up in your fingers, massage the salt, oil, and lemon juice into the kale. Eat right away or let it marinate a while. Such a good way to eat your kale!

food of valhalla

2008-06-03T17:25:00.001-07:00

Seriously. Blanche thinks so too... She's been trying to lick the jar the entire time I was trying to take this picture so I let her have a staring role.

I just made a new pudding for desert, and while it is setting I just wanted to share how glorious this product Artisana "raw coconut butter" is. Go get some.

So the new pudding recipe, which I think would make a good "whip cream" as well is:

2 Dates

1/2 Banana

2 T Coconut Butter

1 T Raw Cashew Butter

1 t Vanilla

And about 1/4 cup water to smooth it out.

I blended it all up and let it go awhile gradually increasing the speed and I watched it GROW, which guess what? means it was WHIPPING... you know what that means? WHIP FUCKING CREAM. I am going to save a Tablespoon or two to have on my raw oatmeal breakfast tomorrow morning. More on that tomorrow.

A failure?

2008-06-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

I've been eating (almost- nutritional yeast, miso, and vinegar being my exceptions) entirely raw for about 2 weeks now and yesterday I decided to have some popcorn. I feel pretty guilty about it. I am trying not to feel like I failed as I haven't commited to anything or made any kind of resolution or anything concerning my rawness. I just said I would do it as long as I felt like it. I have a hard time not making everything so black or white.

I didn't really WANT to eat it... I just started feeling depressed about all the things I wouldn't be able to eat again if I stayed on raw foods and I decided I didn't want to be 100% and I ate something cooked to finalize it. Then I had acid reflux. And I felt upset that I broke my good streak. I need to just take it day by day and not think about next winter and how I'm going to want hot soup. I got right back on my raw regime after I fucked up... I think I kinda need to do that to remind myself why I am eating this way. Next week when I go on vacation I am not yet sure what I will do. I guess I should plan on not staying raw so that I won't be so disappointed in myself if I end up eating cooked food, and just do my best... I can always go back if I get off track.

Lentil Soup

2008-05-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

Uggh, not a success. That's the problem with making your own recipes. It was OK. Not awful, but super starchy. I think if I use lentils in the future it will be a small amount in dehydrated bread or something. Luckily I think I can just cook the remainder of the soup I made and it will be pretty good and alex will eat it. The taste was pretty similar to the cooked lentil soup I used to make, and the texture too... but the starch was too much to handle, and I just don't know if I can hang with cold soup.

Fresh CHEEZY Tahini Dressing

2008-05-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

This can be used as a dressing or a veggi dip. I made it yesterday and it ruled.

2 T Raw Tahini Butter

1-2 Cloves Garlic

1 T Balsamic vinegar

1/2 t salt

Black Pepper

1/2 lemon's juice

1/2 cup soaked Sunflower Seeds

2 T olive oil

1/2 t paprika

Hunk of Parsley

Blend and add cold water as needed to reach desired consistency. Keep in mind it will thicken when chilled.

Fancy Dinner/Lunch

2008-05-29T15:41:00.001-07:00

I got off work a little early today so I decided to get a little complicated with food.

I made a Raw Lasagna and a Banana Cream Tart. As per usual when I make up my own recipes I tend to have mixed success. With the raw lasagna I made a fresh bruschetta, with tomato, garlic, basil, onion and olive oil. I also made an almond based cheese. I think in the future I will skip almonds as a cheese base since they tend to taste a little sweet, no matter what you do. It turned out alright though. Soaked almonds, soaked sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast, onion, garlic, thyme, and water. I layered nut cheese, bruschetta, basil leaves, and orange bell pepper between thinly sliced pieces of eggplant. My initial idea was to dehydrate the eggplant into "chips" and then spread it with the cheese spread and pile bruschetta on top. Since I do not have a dehydrator I tried to use the oven but it was taking so long I finally gave up. I think I would use zucchini instead of eggplant for "lasagna" next time as the eggplant is SO fiberous it is hard to cut through. Actually next time I think I would prefer more of a savory lasagna to a fresh spicy one. It was pretty good but a sundried tomato sauce and some olives and spinach was really more what I was craving. It was a good fresh lunch though. If I were to use eggplant in this situation again I may try to break it down a little bit first by marinating it in some olive oil or something. The Banana Cream Tart turned out much better. I used cashews and almonds with a little sea salt and about 6 dates to make the crust

I just processed it until it was a consistant texture and began to ball up. The only thing I would do differently is to make sure the nuts were completely dry from soaking before using them for a crust. I need a dehydrator! The cream filling is 2 Bananas, 1/2 cup cashews, some vanilla, and a tsp. of lemon juice. I processed with some water until it was smooth and creamy. Then I put strawberries and kiwi on top. Mostly I am just reading everything I can about preparing raw foods and am trying to learn how to put together recipes and try to get an idea of how combinations turn out so I am better able to make things up on my own. I have had varying levels of success but nothing has turned out "bad" yet. So that's a good thing. I am soaking some red lentils tonight in hopes of creating a dahl type soup tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Eggplant:
The raw fruit can have a somewhat bitter taste, but becomes tender when cooked and develops a rich, complex flavor. Salting and then rinsing the sliced eggplant (known as "degorging") can soften and remove much of the bitterness. Some modern varieties do not need this treatment, as they are less bitter. The eggplant is capable of absorbing large amounts of cooking fats and sauces, allowing for very rich dishes, but the salting process will reduce the amount of oil absorbed. The fruit flesh is smooth; as in the related tomato, the numerous seeds are soft and edible along with the rest of the fruit. The thin skin is also edible, so that the eggplant need not be peeled.