Raw Gifts for Christmas!

i got some raw food gifts this christmas.
two raw cookbooks


knife set with block from grandma



mandolin slicer from my sister



Thanks so much everyone!

good no good?

we had a great day in seattle last saturday. and the evenings meal was at a nice seafood restaurant on the waterfront. i ate too much of the delicious crab dip, calamari, crabcakes, rolls.. it was all very rich ans delicious. but i did notice the next day i had a little headache and i was noticeably clumsy, like discombobulated.

oh food, you were yummy but you did me wrong.

i bought some apples so i can have fresh raw juice.

this is what it's like sometimes in a fancy heatlh food store : http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=121210

completely raw cereal

goatmilk from st.john's creamery:




Local Raw Honey:




completely raw and sprouted breakfast!:

right under my nose

i was looking online for more raw recipes as inspirartion to help me stay on this diet. i wanted a snack and i realized that right on my desk was this bag that my boyfriends mom had sent us. "Chantrelle Jerky."



i know these look scary, but they taste like flavorful salty jerky. dried mushroom like this would usually be pricey, except that she gathers them in the forest for free.
i got to ask her for the recipe to this, the seasonings would also be great on thicker slices of dried zucchini.

here a goat, there a goat...

last saturday, a coworker, boyfriend and I visited a local raw goat milk dairy, St.John's Creamery. http://stjohncreamery.com/index.html it took only ten minutes to get there. and it was at the end of a normal looking neighborhood street. Marcia St.JOhn, the owner was very nice and showed us all around and introduced us to her animals. the goats where very quietly and friendly. she calls them all by name and they come running.



i took a lot of pictures, which you can see at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062124&id=27500177&l=88b955acc3

i shot a little video:





i missed the part where marcia was talking about a clinic in the 20s and 30s that took patients that had TB and such, and put them on an all raw milk diet, and they all improved, even after medicine hadn't done anything for these people. the doctor was then convinced that food is the key to health.

there has been a mutation in Holstein cows, in australia i think she said, in the casein protein has started to cause autism and diabetes in children, both rising helth issues. so when it was found, the changed the genetic stock of their cows. this was 3 years ago, and most of the USA has never heard of this.

info tidbits:
the currently USDA leader thinks that raw milk is a human pathogen. it's a shame that the government is so overprotective of the people's health that it usually ends up hurting them.

I didn't know that goat milk burns alkaline in the body, but cow milk,even raw, becomes an acid. goat milk also doesn't cause phlegm in the human body like cow milk does.

the udders on the goat are separate, closed systems. milk doesn't flow from one side to the other.

you can keep milking a goat doe for a long time after she has a kid, years even. of course the milk will slow down in the winter, but it can come back in the spring ,even without a new kidding.



i asked marcia why there is no raw butter and yogurt. selling them is illegal right now. the yogurt is probably because it's harder to control the bacterial growth when you don't start from a pasturized clean slate. butter on the other hand.. marcia said when you separate out the cream, you are taking out the milk sugars (which bacteria feed on) and you are using the milkfat. so it should be pretty safe since you've removed the part the bacteria feed on.


she gave us free samples of milk. i can taste the similiarities between goat butter that i had in the past. i know tht when people hear "goat milk" they think os something stinky, gooey, or maybe even chunky! but it's very much like cows milk, but with a slightly different taste.

"Taste these eggs"

i edited this clip cause it is two of my interests in one! Seinfeld, and chicken welfare/egg quality.

enjoy!

Excelsior!

I opened my new blender/foodprocessor! they incstructions make it even more intimidating that the new chrome. "do not do this or the razor sharp blades WILL jump out and kill you."



Shiny shredder blade of doom


so i washed it and used the food processor part to make last nights dinner. even more scary is the noise! it's like it's powered by jet engine.

but it had amazing results! i don't know if you can tell from this picture..

but the shreds were, like, still solid. it was sliced so fast it didn't even have time to fall apart. reminds me of warner brothers cartoons. like sylvester chases Tweety through a screen door, stops, and then falls to pieces. you know what i mean?

i also made pesto with pinenuts, basil, salt, peper, and garlic.
And here is an extreme close-up of my dinner! (my new camera makes everything look so good!)



the pesto would have been smoother. but it is so loud i hated to let it run for more than a few seconds. i hope it's loudness doesn't deter me from using it, i'll try to me brave. i can't see any difference between the low and high settings. low is still extremely fast!
i haven't used the blender yet. but it is huge compared to my old one.

the comeback tour...again

well, it happens, it's tough to go cold turkey on a lifestyle change, and practice makes...better.
there are a few things that have happened in the last week that indicate to me that it's time to jump into raw food again.
~travel(convenient food choices on the road) and thanksgiving gorging led to eating barely any raw foods except a fruit here or there.
~i turned 25 and should take better care of myself.
~i gained a few pounds and would rather lose a few
~birthday gifts! i received a 2 in 1 blender and food processor from my parents, which will make some recipes a lot easier now. my sister gave me a booklet about food dehydrating (as well as an awesome book about homesteading and gardening.) and i have a new, fully functioning camera, which means better pictures for this blog.
~ portland raw. now, i had wanted to go to a raw restaurant in portland while i was there. my man and i went on a trip to powells books and i did see the section of raw (un)cook books. i found one that looked great (unpretentious, simple recipes) but i cringed at paying 20 dollars for a book.( i know, i'm too cheap) anyway, i thought, i don't really need a new copy, i'd be just as happy with a used one. also, when we got back to my sisters place we discovered we only been a few blocks from an eatery with raw options. i had already looked at their menu, which is mostly vegan, with a few raw things, and found the one item i wanted( a 9$ tacosalad kind thing). well i felt disappointed that i'd missed the opportunity. but i turned it around and made the decision that i would take the 9 dollars that i would have spent on just one raw meal, and use it to buy the first edition of the cookbook i wanted off of amazon and get the recipes for 300 meals! i feel i can make the food just as good as a restaurant. i'll tell you all about the book when i get it.
~on the way home from the oregon trip, we were listening to ian Fleming's Thunderball, at the beginning of which, M sends james bond to a health spa and explains how raw food makes you feel better. this was written almost 50 years ago, and i'll try and get the text on this blog sometime, even if i have to transcribe it myself from the audiobook.
~Nanowrimo is over now (i made it to 50,000 words today!) and so i now have more time since i'm not writing everyday, and picking food just cuz they are fast and easy.

i've already started soaking my buckwheat and almonds for cereal. :D the other thing i have to get started, sprouts! it's been too long.