Day 22 and 23

Nick and I have been busy studying for finals, which are tomorrow, so although we're eating lots of raw yumminess, I haven't really been able to keep up with this blog as much as I'd like to. Hopefully once finals are over, I can document a lot of raw stuff that's been on my mind lately. I want to make some kind of post for those interested in going raw--kind of like an intro post. I am still totally a beginner, but I'm one of the lucky ones who learned after only two weeks of eating 100% raw that a high-fat raw food diet is not healthy...unfortunately, most of the raw information that's freely available on the intrawebz is all about high-fat raw foods (aka "gourmet" raw) because that's what those new to the raw lifestyle tend to gravitate towards (including myself until I did some more research and picked up "The 80-10-10 Diet" by Dr. Douglas Graham).

For those interested who cannot yet pick up a copy of the aforementioned book, an awesome website to check out is Raw Food Health. Great info there.

Anyway, gotta make this short because I need to do some more studying. Wish me luck on my finals! :)

Yesterday's Dinner: Raw Vegan Chili. I kinda combined two recipes for this; here and here. I added frozen corn (defrosted first), cayenne powder, cumin, two dates for sweetness, and blended a few chard leaves into the sauce. This chili turned out GREAT with a nice crunch, but next time, I will make it a bit less spicy...although Nick thought the amount of spice was just right.

Before adding the sauce:



All mixed up with some nutritional yeast sprinkled on top:



Yum. :)

Today's Breakfast: Deliciously fresh papaya, bananas, and local blueberries! Oh this was probably the best papaya I've ever had! We bought it early last week while it was still green and patiently (yeah right!) waited until TODAY to finally eat it. And it was so worth the wait!! So buttery and sweet, juicy and amazing. Truly, a fantastic papaya. The bananas and blueberries complemented it quite nicely.





Today's Dinner: Kickass Salad with Creamy Tomato Celery Dressing. I got the idea for the dressing out of the 80-10-10 book. I put two tomatoes, four large celery sticks, the juice of one lemon, a handful of fresh basil, one clove of garlic, and about four tablespoons of tahini in the blender and blended it all up into a delicious dressing that tasted great and salty, without adding any salt at all! Then I poured it over some romaine lettuce, sunflower sprouts, jicama, tomato, onions, bell pepper, and chopped celery. It was such a heart and filling salad. I'm excited to experiment with fresh, raw dressings that don't include salt or oil. Nick really liked it, too!



And now, back to the books!! Good night!

Day 18

Breakfast: Half a honeydew and a banana (two bananas for Nick). This was delicious but not enough food! However, we ran out of bananas! So there was nothing we could do. Poor hungry bellies. I think I may have eaten a couple Medjool dates to take the edge off, lol.



Later, I found an AWESOME website explaining how to make sure we never run out of ripe bananas again! Here it is: The Art of Fruit Ripening.

Lunch: Whatever Veggies Are in the Fridge Salad. This was a tasty salad!! Romaine lettuce, baby spinach, my own sprouted lentils, jicama, tomato, yellow bell pepper, soaked sunflower seeds, zucchini, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, nutritional yeast, and a little bit of tamari. So good!!



Afternoon Activity: Saying good-bye to my kombucha. I made a couple great batches of kombucha, but haven't drank it in a long time. So my most recent attempt, a kava kava kombucha experiment, kinda just sat on the kitchen table for the past few months. The scoby did WONDERFUL and just grew and grew. But, because I don't anticipate drinking kombucha again, it was time to say good-bye, and so I gave my scoby to the earth in the backyard.

That thing was at least 2.5 inches thick.



Dinner: Whatever Fruit Is Left in the Fridge Salad. Yum! Strawberries, orange slices, kiwi, and grapes.

Day 17 -- Still a day behind!

Yesterday was day 17, but I was too exhausted to blog last night. And I didn't feel good. Wanna know why? Because I didn't listen to my body or my intuition.

So our local grocery store sells these shelled English Peas. And every time I see them, I'm like, "Wow! I bet those are crisp and sweet!" So I buy them. And then when I actually eat them, they are not crisp and sweet. They are hard and bitter. So I drown them in coconut vinegar (which you can get super cheap at your local Asian grocery store, btw), nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. And then, because I have a thing for vinegar, I eat a TON of them.

And so there I was...last night, bored, waiting for Nick to get home, hungry but not wanting to eat another banana because I knew Nick would want them when he got home and I was worried we'd run out before we could get more. So I went to the fridge and looked at the peas. Now, something inside me actually said, "Don't eat those. They are hard to digest. They don't actually taste very good. You're going to get a bellyache." And then what did I do? I rinsed the peas, put them in a mason jar, smothered them in the salt, vinegar, pepper, nutritional yeast, and then started eating them with a spoon right out of the jar. I gobbled down half the jar before I realized what I had done and immediately regretted it. I had heartburn from Hades and my stomach hurt.

No more English Peas for me.

Breakfast: Yesterday's breakfast was almost half of a golden, juicy, sweet pineapple and about two cups of purple grapes. It actually took Nick and I about an hour to get through all that delicious fruit, but I'll tell ya, it was AMAZING. I love pineapple. Ripe pineapple and mango are probably my two favorite fruits... after lychee, of course. We didn't get a photo because I was running a little late for school. I think I'm going to buy another pineapple today. Mmm! :)

Lunch: Strawberry Mango Salad. This was such a beautiful salad! And the jicama added amazing crisp flavor and some heartiness. The pumpkin seeds were a perfect touch. We didn't add the avocado because I wanted to save the only ripe one we had on hand for dinner. We will definitely make this salad again (maybe today because we still have half a jicama left!). Oh, I didn't use any agave in the dressing...Nick and I are finding agave to be too sweet for us lately.



Dinner: Mexi-Fiesta Soup. Sound familiar? That's because it was the first raw dinner we ever made! And it was so tasty that we decided to make it again. Only this time, we forgot the onions (which was fine because it was just as tasty without them) and used a bit more corn.



I am finding myself getting a little impatient with weight loss. I know I am steadily losing weight at a healthy rate (about 1.5 to 2 pounds per week), but I want to hurry and get to my body's healthy weight so I can stop worrying about weight loss and start getting my body to its optimal state of health. But see there? I'm making excuses. Why do I have to wait to lose more weight before I begin building strength in my body? I don't. If I want to build strength, I need to start now. It's so easy to say, "I'll start doing ______ when _______ happens." That is not the way to reach your goals. That is the way to drift further and further from them.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm going to go clean up the house, take a shower, go get the rest of the week's groceries, and then go walk my dog and get some exercise. I think I'll do some yoga and attempt push-ups today. That sounds like a good goal! :)

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 11

Once again, I have lots that I originally wanted to blog about regarding raw foods, but it's almost 3am and I have got to get some sleep tonight.

So! I will make a point to blog about that stuff tomorrow. :)

Breakfast: I had a prenatal appointment to go to with my preceptor midwife this morning, and as usual, I was running late. So breakfast consisted of about 6 or 7 almonds and a banana. But you wanna hear the weird thing? I ate the almonds first, and then started eating the banana (on the way to the appointment), and when I was almost done with the banana, I realized that I was full. Full?? After some nuts and a piece of fruit?! Strange things are happening to my body, and I think I like it. Overeating was a big problem for me in the past, and I'm starting to think that I might just be able to overcome it after all.

Lunch: Jicama Chili Salad with Cheezy Celery. I don't have a recipe for this salad because I just kinda threw it together. But it was TASTY and different. Sweet and spicy. The salad was made up of baby greens, sunflower sprouts, chopped jicama, one chopped orange, a handful of fresh blueberries from the farmer's market, some chopped sweet bell pepper, and an avocado. Dressing was extra virgin olive oil, coconut vinegar, chili powder, and salt & pepper. Very yummy! I also spread that leftover Brazil Nut Cheez from yesterday onto celery sticks as a tasty compliment to the salad. Lunch was SUPER filling, and kept me satisfied til dinner.



Dinner: Raw Pecan Chard Pate Nori Rolls. I modified the pate recipe a little bit by reducing the pecans to one and a half cups and substituting a zucchini for the other half cup. And I used a TON of chard leaves...like 7 big giant ones. So my pate came out GREEN, whereas the photo in the recipe shows a white pate. Anyway, it was DELICIOUS in the little nori rolls, and extremely filling. We have a lot of the pate leftover, which will be served with cucumber slices for breakfast tomorrow. :)



SPROUT TIME!!! Yay! I am so excited to finally be getting my sprouts, well, sprouting! I looked EVERYWHERE for stainless steel wire mesh to make my own sprout jar lids but could only find aluminum. So finally, I bought just the lids (already had tons of canning jars) from SproutPeople.org, a fantastic resource for those interested in growing their own sprouts. The lids arrived today, and so as you can see below, I wasted no time getting my sprout seeds soaking! From left to right is sesame seeds, quinoa, and green lentils. I AM SO EXCITED FOR MY SPROUTS TO GROW!! ♥

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. :)

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!