Day 9 and Feeling Better Every Day!

I want to start off by mentioning how much fun Nick and I are having with this raw food lifestyle. I have to admit that I was skeptical before we started because I thought it would be a monotonous and boring diet consisting of apples, oranges, bananas, and salads. I'm surprised those thoughts even went through my mind because I know there is a HUGE variety of fresh food out there, but still, stereotypes of raw food diets were somehow ingrained in my brain. As it turns out, there has been nothing monotonous or boring about this way of living and eating at all. Every day, I look forward to creating new meals and tasting new flavors. I am so excited to go into the kitchen and see what's for breakfast or lunch. I love opening the fridge and looking at all those fresh fruits and veggies. And the best part? I love not having to scrub dirty pots and pans!!

Breakfast: Super Green Chard Smoothie. I've wanted to see how chard blends up in a smoothie ever since I was interested in going raw. Chard is such a mild tasting green, slightly bland and a little salty, and it seemed like the perfect smoothie green. And so it was! I blended two bananas, two ripe pears, a handful of mint leaves fresh from our garden, about 7 or 8 large chard leaves, and half a cup of frozen strawberries. It blended smoothly into a lovely green color, and the taste was really, really fresh, crisp, and sweet (but not too sweet). The mint was a wonderful addition and added great flavor! This smoothie recipe is going to become a new staple. I think I'll add some hemp seeds next time, too. Yum. :)



Lunch: Raw Beet Love Salad. This was a really great lunch! Nick and I each had huge bowls of it. I grated the beets and jicama in my food processor, and it splattered all over the walls. Seriously, it looked like a crime scene in my kitchen! But I cleaned the splatters right away so the beet juice didn't stain. Anyway, the only modification I made to the recipe was adding fresh spinach, sprouts, and some finely sliced green onions (scallions). It made a LOT of salad, and we had a ton leftover (which we stored in the fridge and ate later in the evening). Will definitely make this again!



Dinner: Spinach Tomato Soup. Tonight's dinner had a lot of potential, but turned out to be a bit of a disappointment because it was far too onion-y. I may try the recipe again, but next time I will blend two garlic cloves, the onion powder, and no fresh onion in with the tomatoes, spinach, and avocado. Then I will top the soup with a little bit of fresh diced onion, as per the recipe. The blended onion was just too much. My eyes have been watering all night even though all the dinner dishes are washed. We didn't finish the soup, unfortunately, but we did snack on leftover salad from lunch. At least it was a pretty soup! :)



After dinner, Nick and I made cheez! Our lunch tomorrow is Brazil Nut Cheez with Grapes, and tonight we blended the ingredients for the cheez, covered it with cheesecloth, and put it in the fridge to thicken. Tomorrow morning, we will take it out, form it into circles, wrap it in cheesecloth, and press it. By lunch time, we will have delicious cheese! I tasted it out of the blender, and the flavor was indescribable. It was like the most amazing ricotta ever. I can't wait to eat it tomorrow!

We're also still eating those delicious Coconut Mint Brownies that I made yesterday. Those things are SO GOOD. :)

Day 1!!

What a fantastic first day going raw!  I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but today was delicious and awesome.  And for some reason, I was scared that preparation was going to be way more involved...but it most definitely wasn't.  I feel like food preparation takes just as much time when getting prepared to cook food, and then it takes time to actually cook it.  Then, there's dirty dishes from food prep, cooking, and eating.  With raw foods, there's dirty dishes from food prep, and then you either blend and eat, or simply eat!  Way easier, way less dishes, way less messy...way less time spent in the kitchen!  I'm loving it so far!!

So today's breakfast was called Blueberry Fool.  (Here is the recipe)  This dish was a success!  It was Nick's favorite food of the day, and I absolutely loved it, too.  It was extremely rich and creamy, with just enough sweetness.  We decided that when we make this again, we will only blend about a quarter of the nut yogurt with blueberries (instead of half the yogurt), just enough to make a sauce.  I didn't know raw cashews could make such a delectable breakfast!



Lunch was Kick-Ass Kale and Curried Almonds.  There is no recipe for the kale--I got the idea from one of my teachers at midwifery school (Thanks, Kaitlin!).  It's a staple around here, even before we went raw.  Basically, you take one bunch of washed kale, tear it up into pieces, put it in a mixing bowl and add olive oil, the juice of half a large lemon, a dash of sea salt, a dash of garlic powder, and a dash of cayenne pepper to taste.  Mix it really well with your hands, and actually squeeze and squish the kale to really break down the cell wall.  That's it.  It's sour and salty and delicious.

For the almonds, we followed the recipe from the Raw Foods Witch's snack ebook.  Soak some almonds for at least two hours, rinse and drain well, then add sea salt, cumin, curry, and cayenne to taste.  Let them dry, and eat up!



Dinner was Mexi-Fiesta Soup, a recipe from RAW FOOD NATION.  It was hearty and really, really filling.  I think I could have used an extra jalapeno pepper for more kick, but other than that, it was great.  I will say that eating a cold soup is a different experience!  I am a soup snob, absolutely love soups and have been making them for many years, so this soup was...well...different!  The taste was spicy and savory, with just enough saltiness.  It was really yummy!  But, it's probably gonna take me a little while to get used to eating soups that are not piping hot.  Oh, and Nick really liked this soup, too.



I tweaked the dessert brownie recipe.  The original recipe, found here, called for carob powder.  Now, I looked at every health food store in town and could not find raw carob powder.  It was all toasted.  So instead of 1/2 cup raw cacao powder and 1/2 cup carob powder, I used 3/4 cup raw cacao powder and 1/4 cup nutritional yeast.  The entire recipe was satisfying and good, but next time I will add a little bit more agave (or maybe a banana).  Oh, and my goodness, this was very difficult to make in the blender (and we have a pretty awesome blender!)...I suppose this may be incentive to purchase a food processor.  Thick foods that need to be chopped and mixed do not do so well in the blender.  So yeah, we might be buying a food processor this week...we'll see.  Anyway, Nick suggested that next time we could chop the cherries, mix them with a bit of agave, and then spread it between two layers of the brownie mixture.  I like his idea. :)



Overall, it was a great first day!  I was surprised at how full I felt after each meal.  I'm so used to eating really  heavy, gooey, sticky cooked foods that sink into the bottom of your stomach like a heavy brick.  After eating these meals, I felt satisfied, but not so stuffed that I wanted to take a nap.  This makes me happy!  I did get a bit of a headache later in the day, but I'm not sure if that's due to not drinking enough water or withdrawal from sugar (Hi, my name is Missy and I'm a sugar addict.)...so we'll see if it comes back tomorrow.  Looking forward to another great day full of fresh, raw foods!