Day 24 and 25

I am so sleepy! It's been an absolutely crazy week filled with studying and final exams...hence the reason I'm behind on blogging again! Today is actually day 26, but I won't be able to blog about today until tomorrow. Ha!

So, firstly, I'd like to present to you...my first case of bananas. A 40 pound case of bananas. For only five bucks.



Nick and I have many, many smoothies in our future. :)

The Day Before Yesterday's Breakfast



The Day Before Yesterday's Lunch: Cherry Banana Ice Cream.



The Day Before Yesterday's Dinner: Sushi again! Our favorite!!



Nick and I went out to eat the day before yesterday, for the first time since starting our raw food adventure. Our friends Helen and Tommy invited us to Boca Fiesta, an awesome little bar/restaurant here in Gainesville. We were a little apprehensive when they invited us, mainly because we didn't know what we could eat there...and we were worried that we'd really miss their mojitos! But we went out, ordered their "Build Your Own Guacamole" and two veggie salads, and then put the guac on the salads. It was great! And we had a really awesome time with Helen and Tommy. So glad we went. :)

Yesterday's Breakfast: Sapote Mango Blueberry Pudding. OMG, yum. So it was our first time trying mamey sapote and although it was perfectly ripe and the flavor was fantastic, it is kind of a dry fruit, so we decided to whip it up into a pudding. It was just delicious.





Yesterday's Dinner: Vegetable Noodle Stew. My avocado was not ripe, so I used four tablespoons of tahini instead. Oh, and I used no salt or pepper...the celery and tomatoes were salty enough. This stew turned out great. We LOVE zucchini noodles!!



Oh, btw...Nick and I bought those crazy toe shoes today and we love them!! :D

Day 14 -- Two Whole Weeks Raw!

Breakfast: Blueberry Maca Flax Smoothie. This morning's breakfast was a blended up delicious drink of 2 ripe bananas, 1 cup of frozen blueberries, 2 tablespoons of freshly ground flax seeds, 1 tablespoon of Skyfield Tropical's Gelatinized Maca Powder, 1 tablespoon of coconut manna/butter, a few handfuls of fresh baby spinach, a spoonful of honey, and a little bit of filtered water for blending. Talk about a power smoothie!! Maca does it for me every time, and I had lots of energy for hours! Next time, I think I will actually use 2 spoonfuls of honey, as maca has a strong (not unpleasant, but strong) flavor that goes really well with honey. This was a great breakfast!



Lunch: We forgot to eat lunch! We had a very busy afternoon looking at nurseries for little trees for Nick to bonsai, and then went to three different local grocery stores to get our first half of the week's shopping done. We discovered that the Asian grocery store has a million times better prices for fresh produce than our normal grocery store (which we love and would not stop going to for the rest of our groceries and some produce). We also discovered that we are simply not classy enough to shop at Fresh Market. Nick does not own a dress suit and I refuse to wear heels. Anyway, between the Asian grocery store and our little Ward's Supermarket, we got some delicious foods!!





I love opening the fridge and seeing such beautiful, colorful foods!! ♥

Dinner: Marinated Mushroom Salad. Another success from "Raw on $10 a Day or Less." We added some organic frozen sweet corn to the marinating veggies and reduced the Agave syrup from two tablespoons to one. It was a really filling, yummy salad that we will definitely make again.



Tomorrow starts our slightly modified version of Low-Fat Raw Vegan or 80-10-10, which is basically, lots and lots of sweet, yummy fruits!! Exciting! And now off to bed...can't believe I'm actually going to be in bed before midnight, for once. :P

Day 13!!

You may be wondering why I post the day's entry at around one in the morning (which is technically the day after). Well, the reason is that Nick works a late shift and usually doesn't get home until around 11:30pm or midnight. Then we have dinner, then we clean up the kitchen, and only then do I have time to blog. I would post the next morning instead of so late at night, but I'm too afraid that I'll forget what I want to say. So until Nick no longer works late, this is how it works for us. :)

Nick's mom Lynn and her friend Whitney came over for brunch today! It was very nice to see them, and we had a lovely late morning/early afternoon meal of Raw Zucchini Spaghetti and Walnut Meatballs. You may remember that we also had this meal last week and it was such a success that we decided to make it again. And lo and behold, it was a success once again! Both Lynn and Whitney raved about how yummy and filling it was, and asked lots of questions about raw foods. Unfortunately, in the hustle and bustle of food preparation and hostessing, I forgot to take photos of the lovely meal! So you'll just have to trust me when I say it was pleasing to both the eye and the palate. ;)

Lunch: Fruit and Cream. Mmmm...something about this meal seriously reminded me of some sinful comfort food. It was soft, sweet, luscious. Ripe banana, ripe honey mango, ripe blueberries from the farmer's market, and topped with fresh cashew milk that we made yesterday. I find it so strange that this girl who used to commonly say, "I just don't like fruit. I prefer veggies." is now CHOWING DOWN on delicious ripe fruits and wanting more and more. I could seriously eat this stuff all day.



Snack: Trail Mix Part 2. I make this trail mix mainly for Nick, who takes a little baggie of it to work every night. This batch has almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, golden raisins, goji berries, chopped dates, chia seeds, and sea salt. This batch was really cool because the chia seeds all stuck to the sticky raisins, making it easier to eat them!



Dinner: Waldorf Salad. This was a delicious and unique salad! I've never had Waldorf Salad before, so I have nothing to compare it to, but this was really tasty. We used a lot of grapes and left the agave nectar out of the dressing. Also, I ran out of walnuts, so those weren't included, and also ran out of celery but used a small, crisp cucumber instead. We would definitely make this salad again!



Nick and I are going to be doing a little side experiment of raw living next week, so stay tuned for the menu and grocery list. I am exhausted tonight and didn't have time to do it, so it will be the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning. Then we're going for a bike ride! And then we'll be doing homework for the rest of the day. Oh joy. :P

P.S. I forgot to mention! My quinoa and green lentils have SPROUTED!!! Still waiting on the sesame seeds. I will take a picture tomorrow when the sprouts are a little bigger and easier to see. Good night!

Day 10 and The Great Durian Adventure

Dudes...today, Nick and I ate durian fruit for the first time.

But first...Breakfast: Mango Banana Dream. We made a similar dish after our raw samosa mishap, only that time, we topped the bananas with a mango puree. This time, I wanted to eat mango chunks, so we chopped all the fruit, put it in a bowl, and topped it with raw cashews and shredded coconut. Divine!



Now, back to the durian. What is durian?--you ask. You may remember this fruit as being the only food Andrew Zimmerman (from the show "Bizarre Foods") would not take a second bite of, after he gagged and spit out the first bite. He bit off more than he could chew! (Har har.)

You may also have heard stories of durian...that mystical tropical fruit that is banned from some airports and not allowed to be eaten in some outdoor (yes, outdoor) cafes (This is a Durian-Free Zone!).

So, I'm here to tell you that a lot of what you hear is major hype. Nick and I went to our local Asian market this morning, picked a nice, ripe-looking durian, paid 8 bucks and change for it, and brought it home. And at lunch time...we cut it open and tried it for ourselves.



The smell of the fruit before it was opened was very much like an over-ripe cantaloupe that has been sitting in the sun for a long time. It didn't smell like sewer, rotten onions, or horribly smelly feet--all descriptions that I've heard used before.



The inside of the durian had a more pungent odor. But again, it was more like over-ripe cantaloupe than anything else. It wasn't repulsive, it was just different and strong.



Above is the durian flesh after it has been removed from the spiky shell. In your hand, it feels like egg custard that has a thicker sort of skin surrounding it. If you peel the skin/membrane off, the inside is like very soft custard/pudding.



The photo above is Nick's first taste of durian. He kind of only licked it here.



As you can see, his first actual bite was a bit more intense than the first lick/taste.



Haha!! So here's me taking my first bite! And here's what I can share about the experience. When I first bit into the flesh, my senses were overloaded with the very pungent, almost egg-like odor of the durian flesh along with a SUPER sweet taste. If I had been silly (like Andrew Zimmerman) and taken a huge bite all at once, it may have been too much for me and could have caused me to immediately spit it out. But because I took such a little bite, I was able to really taste it without judging it based on the combination of smell and flavor. And the flavor truly is hard to describe. Once you get past the smell, the taste is kind of like really sweet mangoes and bananas combined. But, the skin of the flesh...the membranous part...really does have an egg-like odor, kind of sulphur-y. So...I kind of cheated. I peeled the membrane/skin off the durian flesh, and then simply scooped out the pudding-like inside. That way, I got the sweet taste without the egg smell. :)



Panda Bear, however, LOVED the skin of the durian flesh, and because I had so much of it after peeling it off my pieces, I fed a LOT of it to Panda. He kept coming back and begging for more!

Oh, and it has seeds, see?



So...would I eat durian again? I have a friend who once told me that it took him a few times of experimenting with durian before he started to like it, and now he can't get enough of the stuff. (Thanks, Tim, for the great suggestion!) So I've decided to buy it again in a month or so, taste it again, and go from there. I did not hate durian, but it was an intense, unique experience that may take some getting used to. So we'll see what happens in the future!

Lunch: Raw Leftovers. I had some fresh english peas marinated in apple cider vinegar, nutritional yeast, and salt & pepper, along with leftover Beet Love Salad, and some portobello mushrooms marinated in Braggs, sesame oil, and a little bit of vinegar. Great lunch that balanced my taste and smell sensations after eating that durian. ;)



Dinner: Salad with Brazil Nut Cheez. Remember last night when I blogged about making brazil nut cheez? Well, it was finished today, and we topped our salad with it. It turned out delicious and creamy with the texture of goat cheese. We will definitely make it again! I'm looking forward to spreading it on celery sticks as a snack tomorrow.



I'd say today was an AWESOME day filled with yummy, interesting raw foods! Looking forward to another great day tomorrow. :)

Day 6

Since I've already made two other raw blog posts today, I'm going to keep this one simple. Raw food good. Yum.

Breakfast: Pineapple Chunks with Cashew Cream. Delicious. Satisfying. Very filling.



Lunch: Sunflower Sprout Salad. No recipe for this one...I enjoy creating tasty, colorful salads. I simply combined baby spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, corn, red bell peppers, sunflower seeds, sunflower sprouts, nutritional yeast, balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil in a big bowl, mixed it well, and served it up. I love a good salad, and this one was really tasty. Nick loved the dressing!



Dinner: Spicy Gazpacho. Well, the original recipe actually wasn't spicy, but I wanted spice, so I added half a medium jalapeno pepper and some chili powder. I also used about five sundried tomato halves in place of one of the raw tomatoes. Our avocado had gone bad, but we did top the soup with some fresh parsley from our garden. I drizzled a little olive oil on Nick's soup, too. It was zesty and savory. Really yummy. I do prefer my gazpacho not entirely blended, though, so next time I will only blend half the ingredients, and then chop the rest and mix it into the soup.



Dessert: Banana Soft Serve Ice Cream with Raw Chocolate Sauce. Umm...I don't really have the words to describe this. FOLKS, THIS STUFF MADE ICE CREAM. Use a food processor, not a blender, and make yourself some DELICIOUS, CREAMY, DAIRY-FREE, SOY-FREE, PRESERVATIVE-FREE ICE CREAM. I'm still a little in shock about this one. Nick's response was, "Really? I mean...really??" Because, seriously, this is what the ice cream industry does NOT want you to know. This dessert was incredible.



And now, off to bed with a full and happy tummy. :)