French Onion Soup

This has to be one of the most amazing recipes I have made so far. I have adjusted it a little so I don't feel to bad about posting it up on the internet but for the original check out Matt Amsden's amazing book RAWvolution. So far everything I have made from his book, we've loved.

Onion Soup

2 cups coconut water
1 cup water
1/2 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup Nama Shoyu

In a food processor or blender combine all of the ingredients and blend blend blend. You can just pour it into a bowl and eat it from there or what I do on cold days is warm it just a little on the stove. Careful not to make it too hot, cause then what's the point of making it raw.

So yummy, you wont know what to do with yourself!

New Year, Vacation, and French Onion Soup

Just a quick post to say hi and get back in the groove of writing.

Went on vacation and although I did pretty good health wise by the time I came home, again, I was ready to reclaim my healthy life style. I really love it. The holidays and vacation taught me that I love raw food in a way that has less to do with having a perfect healthy life style and more to do with a curiosity and a passion and in short feeling amazing.

Tonight I made a "French" Onion Soup that was to die for, plus a Raw Ice Cream Cake that I can not get enough of. I promise pictures and recipes to come.

Till then TTFN!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Dear Blog!

This holiday season got a little crazy as evident by the fact that I haven't written in here in quite a while. I will say that although I got close to 30 days raw, I didn't quite make it due to Christmas festivities. But I learned a very important lesson and that is that I LIKE my healthy lifestyle. I feel much better when I am eating raw and getting up early and going to the gym. I felt like shit after just a few days of a partial SAD diet. Amazing!!!!

At any rate, new year, new start and we are off to the races!

Day 10:Headaches, Cookies, and A Raw Food Dinner Party

Killer headaches! Why do I have killer headaches. Last night. The night before. Tonight! Glarg! is this detox, should I take something, am I not getting enough water. What! What! What! What do you want body, what can I do to make you happy!

whew! glad thats out. No but seriously my head has been hurting a lot lately and I am not sure what's to blame. I wanna say it's just detoxing but my neck is tight as well....hmmm... must do research.

Something else I've noticed is that I get full on less for longer. I eat less food lately. I don't think about food as much either, which is weird because I love food so much.

Oh but I started work on the Cookie Recipe again. We finally finished off the old batch so I can start again. One thing I will give it to the old batch is that those were the best energy bar ever! I would get sound pepped up on cocoa and coming down was no big deal at all. Some mornings I would eat them as a snack when I knew I had a big day ahead. This next batch will be much milder and the batter taste pretty darn good. Recipe soon follow.

I am pretty excited about next week (aside from the Christmas factor) my boyfriend and I are going to a raw food dinner party. Just us and another couple and it should be pretty fun and I will be sure to take pictures of the grub. I will def. be testing my new cookie batch on them. yum!

Day 9: 99.9%, Green Smoothies, and Sashimi

Something tells me that 99.9% is a better description of my raw diet at the moment. I'm sure there are details that I am not catching but you know what, this is not about perfection. This is about self improvement. For the last week my boyfriend and I have been getting up early and hitting the gym and we feel great. We've been reforming our over sleeping ways and investing time into our physical self. It's amazing how everything has gotten better after we made this choice. We'll actually we've made several choice. We've cut back on drinking (as in not drinking), we've been eating raw (rawer in his case), working out everyday, Getting up at 7 am/ 8 am, keeping the house clean, and listening to this book "The Psychology of Success" and between all of that our live are way better. In seven days our lives are noticeably better. 

Green smoothies have a big part of the last seven days. I read an article about Raw Model on the Huffington Post and in it he talks about green smoothies. They are the perfect breakfast and an awesome way to get super gummy greens in at the start of the day.

I've been really craving fish for the last few days so I decided to get some sashimi today for lunch. I've never really like sashimi until really recently and I must say it was quite good. Which brings me to and interesting idea of not labeling ourselves. For me, I feel that not labeling myself a raw food vegan it so much healthier for my sense of metal well being. It's like declaring your on a diet, it's like your doomed from the start. All that focus on what you can't have, what you can have. I feel better when I just consistently make the choice to be excited by raw foods, to eat raw foods, to research raw food. Just a little food for thought.

Day 5: The Worm, Bok Choy, and Checking In

It's been a reflective day. I've heard a rumor that often when you fast and switch to 100% raw food you go through a reflective period. That has been this week for me. An me, I've been reflecting on the past year and a half of my life. This last year has been quite year but I feel like I have just come out on the other side, beat, tired, worn out and ready for change and inspiration. That's where I am right now... the worm has turned and I want my life to change.

Thai Noodles

Tonight was a blah night as far as dinner is concerned. We tried two recipes from "The Raw Food Detox Diet" by Natalia Rose and they were Okay, but not great. Not re-dos in my book. The first was the Thai Noodles which required me to get the meat out of two young coconuts. I really fun task if you ask me. It was the first time I had used the meat for anything and using it as noodle was great. The sauce for the recipe was really lacking in flavor though. We also made a Carrot Ginger Dressing that was kind of blah as well. I don't know how soon I will be trying any of her recipes again honestly, but hey a least I discovered how perfect the bok choy at Whole Foods is.

Also I'd like to report that since September your dear blogger has shrunk. An inch and a half to be exact. And I've gone from a size 10 (US) to a size 6. My skin had a major eruption last night that I was able to calm with some Bentonite mud. Looking at how far I've come and how far I've got to go I am tinkering on plans. I'm thinking that next week my meals are going to get more simple. Green smoothies and simple combinations. Save my gourmet cooking for when cravings pop up, and of which I've had none by the way. I will be interested to see how things are in a week or two with the more consistent gym visits and healthy eating.

Day 3: Restaurant Salad, Raw Spaghetti and Life Long Dreams

Day 3! Brilliant! They recently changed my work schedule and now I stay there an hour later and this has caused several things in my life to change.

1.) I got up at 7:30 AM this morning and went to the gym which was great. It was hard at first, I am not a morning person IN ANY WAY! Seriously I could sleep for twelve hours easy if there were no reason to get up. I'm also a night owl. I love the night hours, they suit me, I get tons done work wise. I always start this blog after the sun has gone down. But this morning I drug myself out of bed, drank a cup of yerba matte and headed out to the gym. I love the gym in the morning. There's less people there, I don't feel rushed, and I walk out feeling like I have the whole day ahead of me. I love that feeling, that whole anything could happen feeling. I did a full hour of cardio and if I could keep that up I know it could be life changing for me.

2.) I forgot my snacks today. boo. But one of the wonderful cooks with red rubber shoes and checkered pants at my work made a lot of adjustments to my salad to help it fit with in my diet.

"Um, what kind of substitution can I make to the Gouda Salad."

"What are you taking off?"

"The gouda."

"Oh, well, we can do a different kind of cheese."

"No cheese."

"Okay, how about fish."

"No fish."

"Okay. What can you eat?"

"What do you mean what can I eat? Loads of stuff, just not cooked stuff."

"Nothing cooked?"

"Yeah, so long as it's not cooked I can have it."

long pause. blank stare.

"Okay, I'm guessing the dressing isn't gonna work either."

I love these kinds of conversations. The moment where people's minds kinds click around what I am telling them is a some what entertaining for me. You'd think out here in California it'd be a little more normal, but really I guess it's still not the norm.  But I guess it's better than being a total freak out in Texas.  The cooks at my restaurant are really wonderful though. They are always willing and already have a plan for our Vegetarian and Vegan guest and they are always open to when I bring food in for them to try.

At any rate things are going well.

Tonight for dinner is Spaghetti. I know it seems like I make a lot of labour intensive stuff but really I don't spend that much time in the kitchen, I tend to bounce in and out of the kitchen between tasks. Really I bounce around the whole house changing my task every so often.  Okay. Spaghetti. Go.

Spaghetti Marinara

Okay this one is a little weird but I had a lot of  Pizza Chip paste left over so I decided to see how it would turn out in Marinara Sauce and it's pretty great. 

Marinara Sauce

1 Large Tomato or 3 Small Tomato chopped

1 1/2 of the Pizza Chip paste

Handful of Fresh Basil Leaves

1/2 a Lemon juiced

1/2 sun dried tomatoes (soaked until soft)

2 tsp Agave Nectar

1/4 a Small Onion

Salt to Taste

The secret to making this sauce is blending order. Put the fresh tomatoes in the food processor first and blend until completely pulverized. Next add the Pizza Chip paste (by paste I mean that it has not been made into chips yet in the dehydrator) and blend again. Next add the sun dried tomatoes and blend and then add the rest of the ingredients and blend. I taste as I go so that I can adjust the flavor as I blend. Sometimes you need a little more sweetness and sometimes you gotta add some more oregano because the pizza chip better wasn't strong enough that batch. But I like the pizza chip batter as a base, the sunflower seeds, flax and sesame seeds really make the sauce hearty and filling (perfect when you are making grub for hungry boys). I also put the sauce in a shallow dish and put it in the dehydrator for a few minutes to get it a little warm when it's cold out side. 

Noodles

1-2 Zucchini

You can remove the  skin of the zucchini if you want to but I always leave it on cause there is so much good stuff in that emerald coat. Using a spiral cutter or a mandolin cut the zucchini on the smallest setting into angle hair paste size strips. Pile on a plate and cover is sauce. 

On the emotional side of the day, I feel unproductive. I haven't made a single to do list this week( I am a to-do lister by nature) and I feel fussy. Like I am not accomplishing anything. I get into my mind that I want to do all these things and then *poof* there went the day. What the hell is that, aside from an evil time fairy. I know the sun going down a 5 PM is really messing with me. I love the winter but this shortened day stuff does not help a busy bee like me. I feel like I have this pent up snake twisted inside my chest where my heart should be when I look at the clock and do the mental count down to bedtime. I wonder if this feeling has more to do with my whole life and feeling like I am not doing enough. "what else could I be doing, am I missing something, is there some crucial step I'm not taking" is the mental ticker tape that reels through my brain every night. Is this normal... most likely. Something tells me that this might just be the back lash of the last year where just surviving was my goal and my dreams kind of had to take a back burner. I wonder how many other people who are out there trying to just survive during this current economic roller coaster and have had to ignore their life long dreams. Life long dream. Damn, I've never really thought about those words before, I mean literally those words. For your whole life, you have had one dream and your still waiting and working for that dream... it's kind of heartbreaking when you think about it. Well better to have a dream because I have a feeling even more people spend their whole lives with out even a dream or a real purpose to life, they may not even realize that they can. So I am lucky then. I survived the last year and I have a purpose, I have a life long dream.