thoughts and ideas

hmmm, my raw food weight-shedding has proved shortlived. it seems like whatever i do to adjust my eating and exercise habits, my body adjusts within a week and refuses to drop another ounce. and i figure if i go back to a non raw diet, i'll just gain the weight right back. speaking of the body. i have a raw observation. now that i am eating raw, i no longer wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. i wonder why that would be. i hope i am drinking enough water. maybe it's just my elimination system that has changed. anyway. i like to make juice at work and my favorite combo is this: half a cucumber, a small apple, a little ginger, and however many caroots you want. the cucumber is fresh and the apple is sweet. i like adding cukes much better than bitter celery. my boss told me that they've had yoga teachers bring in mung bean sprouts to blend into smoothies! i'd never thought of that, but it's a good way to get all the sprout nuturient went you get bored of putting them on salads all the time. he also told me that radish sprout go well with raw fish. i'll have to give these ideas a try.

raw porridge review#1

i'm so-so on this banana maca porridge. i has a weird aftertaste. like bitter and soapy :P plus i don't taste much banana/ and i think "maca" refers to macadamia nuts (which are yummy and crispy) and not macca root powder. i think all these porridge mixes contain mesquite powder. i don't know if that is the strange taste. could be the sunflower, which can be bitter. and it's a little slimy. i know it's supposed to be a porrisge, but i'd prefer just a grainy cereal.

i see ground nuts, seasame seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut, macadamia nuts...

i've been adding honey because it's not sweet enough for me. i dont know why i didn't just go for the chocolate one in the first place but it is next on my list.




HAVE A NICE EARTH DAY EVERYONE! LOVE YOUR MOTHER!

smooth

i had a refreshing smoothie the other day. I had frozen a banana (in a few pieces in a cup) i added about a cup of soy milk (not raw, but you could make almond milk), half a fresh papaya, and a 1/3 cup of frozen bluberries. i was surprised at the thickeness of it because i didnt add any ice, but the banana made it creamy. yum!

well played, whole foods.

i just got home and had to jump on the comuter right away. i was just at the grand opening of our town's Whole Foods. now, i've been to whole foods before, and i tend to thinik it's just for picky rich people. but this store is completely brand new and they've enhanced their shopping experience many times over. they have all under one roof, a fishmarket, coofee shop, juices , sushi bar, noodle bowl station, olive bar, salad bar, pizza shop, sandwiches. plus all the expected health and grocery stuff. i havent been in a whole foods since 2008, so maybe they are all doing it this way. but the immenseness of it all, and the artistic signs and wall art and arrangement, filled with about 1000 people oo-ing and ahh-ing. we were all quite impressed. this is the supermodel of stores. i wonder how much they raked in today. they are gonna put all the stores and restaurants around them out of business.
i arrived too late for the free samples, but it's probably just as well. i would have been very tempted to stray from my raw diet.


speaking of which, what i was NOT expecting was the amount of raw items available, and i dont mean the produce.( although they do sell young coconut which is in a lot of raw recipes)

i went in looking for bulk dried garbanzo beans i could sprout. but they have a whole section of the bulk food that are SPROUTED RAW FOOD! like raw grains,seeds cereals, granolas, raw flour! sprouted nuts and seeds with various flavors! it was so crowded it was hard to get a sense of it all, but i will go back to investigate.

even in the great of the bulk, they have exotic things i'm not familiar with : tongues of fire beans, wild red peanuts, freekah....


i'd expected them to have the 25$ jar of raw maranatha almond butter (they had) but they also have raw cashew butter! that you grind for yourself right there.

and to top it all off. Raw cheese. *que heavenly music*

in the crowded stupor i managed to get away with some raw sprouted banana maca porridge mix. they also had vanilla mesquite, chocolate coconut, i don't remember them all but i'll be back. i think all these raw sprouted items are courtesy of the Living Intentions brand. good for them, educating the public and all that. these are right out in the front of the store, and hopefully people will take a second to read about them.

but let's not forget the other incredible thing about whole foods... the price. OUCH!

herb garden

i had a large garden pot so i made a little garden. i'm attempting to grow green onions and cilantro. with a ginger plant in the center of the pot. we'll see how it goes, it might be too hot here for cilantro, but i'm going to try to keep the pot in the shade.

i found this website with a lot of gardening instructions:
http://www.howtogrowstuff.com/how-to-grow-cilantro/

fake bread idea!

i tried using white button mushroom caps in place of bread. bland, puffy, bite-able. it worked pretty good to stuff the cap and eat them raw. much easier than making raw crackers (which i cant do without a dehydrator and food processor.)

goobers!

Bought raw peanuts today while out looking for a raw snack. i often see boiled peanuts for sale in hawaii, so i guess these are sold for the purpose of boiling them at home.




i just tried a few that i'd soaked for 2 hours and they have a crisp, bean flavor. which makes sense since it's all the legume family. can i sprout a peanut plant from a peanut?

in other news, i've been trying really hard at keeping raw for the past week and i've lost 4 pounds! i don't expect that the weight will keep coming off that fast, but i'm just happy to see the scale turning backwards. and i feel a little lighter and trimmer too. and i havent been uncomfortably full.

my man has been making himself pizzas, which is very tempting to me, but i'v avoided taking a little piece. i know if i have a little bread, i'll just eat more and more.

but so good, so far!

PEAS

i got a huge bag of frozen peas on sale for 2 bucks. so tonight i'm having pea soup tonight. i filled a bowl (just a normal size one) with the peas and let them thaw. i chopped a clove of garlic, added a pinch of mustard seed, pinch of cumin, and some soysauce. i think it was about 1.5 cups of peas. just before blending i added a cup or so of hot water so the soup will at least be a little warm.
i actually blended the soup in a tall cup using my stick blender. but this is usually done in a normal blender.
my cook book suggests adding avocado and cilantro, which sounds yummy, but i can't believe he didn't want to include raw garlic.

the soup is alright, very verdant. and sweeter than cooked peas.

some shoppin's

i went to the vegetarian store today for some raw suuplies. i wanted to try again at sprouting but they didn't seem to have the inventory that they used to. i ended up with wheat berries,new natural salad dressings(not raw, but loads healthier than Hidden Valley, mung beans to grow bean sprouts, dates, coriander (to grow cilantro), fenugreek, and mustard seed. they last two i think are supposed to be spices and i dont even know if they will sprout. but we'll see.
they had some raw items like coconut balls, chocolate bars, brownies, tarts... and they are all twice what i am willing to pay.

after my yoga tonight i swung by the farmer's market on the way home. they crowded market i described is still crowded at 7pm, but with less produce to choose from. i forgot that i wanted kale but i got a papaya,bag of salad tomatoes, and a nice zucchini.
they had the raw food booth there and i feel like i should be supporting them, but i also feel really poor right now( in the monetary sense) so i didn't buy any tiny $12 raw snacks. i could have sampled for free, but...anyway.

post-yoga dinner salad

did pretty good at eating raw all day for the first time in a long while.
this monster salad is 3 large romaine leaves , 2 green lettuce leaves, 1/3 of a zucchini, a carrot, some sprouts, half an avocado, some local pickled onions. and topped with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

i also dug out the one raw cookbook i brought to hawaii.hopefully i'll make something out of it.

but, so sweet!

there is added sugar in so many processed foods. i tink at mcdondalds they put sugar in everything, even the french fries.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57407294/is-sugar-toxic/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

this article talks about new findings of sugar's ill effects on our health. particularly how it causes heart trouble and increased cancer risks. I', going to try to not eat any added sugar today. (fruit sugar only) but i thought honey was a more beneficial sugar, the article seems to lump all sugars together.


it's strange how food science facts are often contradictory. you would think after 13,000 plus years of existance that humans would know what to eat by now. truth is we forgot how in the last couple hundred after food companies started dyeing and mixing and bleaching up ingredients to try and make a profit. now the foods that our cavepeople ancestors ate are harder to find. and kids are reminded by the government to eat 5 fruits and veggies a day because they dont know what to eat anymore.

anyway, i'll stop ranting, just something to keep in mind.

score! a new market.

i checked out a brand new farmers market on it's first day. I like it much better than the other one that i've pretty much given up on. that one was out of my way, i had to way an hour for it to start and then get in line behind 30 people to buy a cucumber. and dont even try to walk around there without getting clousterphobia.
but this new market is on the last day of my workweek, starts right when i get off work, is on my way home. it's the perfect way to start my weekend. I was surpised it was actually larger, with more stalls and more space to walk around. it was crowded but comfortable. there was craft booths, not just food. and hot food booths that were actaully affordable. the only downside was that all the produce at the 6 or so farm booths was basically the same stuff. im not sure how much of it is really grown here. i think they get it from a distributor. but oh well.
over all it's an improvement and i will definitely be going back.
i got a papaya, garlic heads, and a huge green lettuce head.

Yogi Bars
i got these because they were on sell for 12$ a case. so a dollar each bar and they are usually like 2.50 or something. they are alright, tastes mostly like banana bread
i think larabars and those other ones i used to get are tastier.

back in the raw

after a month of halloween candy and turkey and nanowrimo induced meals and mcdonalds... i've had a little cold for about two weeks and since doctor chaz told me that sugar lowers your immune ability when you are sick, i've been really vigilant about my diet the last few days. i've been eating raw as much as i can, but the most important part was chaning my lunch. instead of a smoothie every day i am now having about 12 ounces of raw juice. i've already lost 3 pounds in three days. (that may just be from cutting out the smoothies.) but i also feel like i have more energy, even thought i'm still sick. i find it much easy to get up in the morning. today i hit the snooze for 15 minutes instead of an hour. which is good because i am going to go to work early and stop to buy carrots on the way. i'm also hoping all the vitamin A in my carrot juice will help with my skin, which has been shamefullly bad lately (been sporting a beard of bee stings look)

i've mostly been having juice of carrot, celery and ginger. yesterday i included an old orange i had, that turned out to be a beautifully pink blood orange.




yesterday i stopped by the farmers market and got some beet greens and kale. althrough i dont think i'd get much of any juice out of the kale without a masticating juicers so i'd better just eat it or dry it into chips.

my man has already whined that me being on a diet means he has to eat the bad food that he makes for himself :/ the challenge for me will be keeping up the diet on the 2 weeks i spend on vacation. but i think my parents have a juicer, so that should help. maybe i'd even get them interested in juice again.

kelp noodles

these are raw noodles! at first i tried them cold in a salad wrap and i didn't care for the texture. they were rubbery, even crunchy, with a slightly weird taste. but i recently gave them another try in a warm miso soup. this softened them up and covered any taste. they are now much like bean thread "invisible" noodles.

one of my favorite new supermarket discoveries.

These brands of sprouts are so convenient. my experience sprouting at home has been..okay, but it's tough to get the tiny ones like clover and alfalfa to work. I do better with the bug mung beans and lentils.

anyway, these sprouts are grown in hawaii and the bags of clover sprouts are only 1.49. of course this is more than paying for the seeds and sprouting them yourself, but a much better deal than other brands that sell a little plastic box of them for 5.49. I also like the peas in the mixed bean bag. that bag was a dollar more i think, but it lasted me about a week because i would just add the beans as a colorful and crunchy topping to other meals. adding interesting stuff to salads encourages me to go through the work of arranging them.

Zucchini Bread Smoothie

I saw this recipe because i am a fan of Blendtec on facebook. and they posted a link to a blog with this recipe.

http://edibleperspective.com/2011/09/change-is-good-so-are-recipes/

(scroll down past the bunch of pics of this lady's haircut...)

i had most of the other ingredients so i got a zucchini to try. i didn't follow it exactly, but the general idea was there. i added a little dried coconut, used buckwheat instead of oats, and flax seed instead of chia. i think i through in some psyllium to so it was very thick even without any ice. i've made it twice now (i knew i'd better use up the rest of the zucchini right away or i may never do it) the second time i added a little thinly sliced fresh ginger and some cardamon, and a frozen banana because i wanted a little more volume. i really don't taste much zucchini, but that's alright.


i think it is possible to make this totally raw if you make your own nutmilk (or just use water or coconut water) and use a raw honey for the sweetner. so then it's just zucchini, nuts, seeds, and spices. pretty good.

i didn't use any vanilla or protein powder and i went with soymilk for the liquid and agave for the sweetner. It really did resemble the taste of zuchinni bread batter and was a good use of a vegetable in a smoothie. It's one of those drinks that is less fruity and more of a creamy, protein, cookie milkshake taste (yum!) and i'll probably make it again sometime

Ode to a watermelon.

We got a quart of a melon last month that was just tops. for some reason it was the best melon i've had in some time. and that's a little surprising for produce imported to the middle of the Pacific. Anyway, it was very sweet and full of flavor.

Stars!

well i've been a terrible blogger for quite some time, but i hope to remedy that.

When i saw bags of starfruit at the farmers market, i went for it. who can resist that awesome shape that looks so tropical.



i dont think i had ever had them before. I think i expected them to be somewhat tart, like a kiwi.
the real taste was blander than i expected. the thin skin is edible and the flesh has the texture and juiciness of a firm grape, but a taste like.. apples?



a few sliced stars of this was all i cared to eat. so i had an idea for the extra. I dont have a dehydrator anymore but i do have an oven. i put the stars on a baking sheet with tin foil on it. i turned the oven on low for a while, then turned it off, repeating this for a few days. i left it off at night and when nobody was home , of course. so there is low heat and a dry area. not really much air circulation, but at least if it is closed up the ants that patrol this house can't walk away with my fruit.

i do prefer the starfruit dried. it makes it sweeter, but it is still pretty mild and it's now mostly skin. i think there are much better things to dry, but at least i gave it a try.

Banana Brothers

Bananas don't only come in singles. You usually don't see these in a store (if you do it was an accident that they got there) but bananas can grow together as twin or triplets or maybe even more!

Chinatown

we went to Chinatown in Honolulu a few weeks ago, so it's about time i talked about it. the raw highlight was eating a freshly opened coconut! I'd had coconut water in a can before (the sweetened kind sold in Asian grocery stores sometimes) and it was barely natural and too sugary. a lot of people are now into coconut, unsweetened, in cans or aseptic containers. some with flavors or fruit bits included. It it said to be more re-hydrating that water, a good balance of electrolytes, thus making it good during or after exercise. And in WWII coconut water had been used as alternative blood plasma because it is sterile.


the kind you buy off a shelf must be pasteurized and thus not raw, but i do see it included in raw cook books for people that have the availability of coconuts and the muscle to open them.

we'd been walking around in the hot weather and i'd only had that breadfruit for breakfast. my energy was flagging. we went into one shop and saw a cardboard tray on the floor with some coconut husks and a cleaver. we inquired and found that they could open a coconut for us.

we watched as an aging man hacked of the husk of our green coconut.




when he made a hole in the top we were given straws to drink out the liquid inside. the water was barely sweet, but really was refreshing.


after we'd drunk it all, we handed the coconut back to be split completely in two so we could eat the meat out of it. I'd heard that young coconuts, they kind used in raw restaurants for the water and sold in healthfood stores AND is de-husked to the point where it looks like a huge tan pencil tip.... visual please

these have the most water and their meat is supposedly jelly-like in softness. over time, more of te meat hardens, and the there is less water in the coconut. so the ones you can buy at the store that looks like hairy brown bowling balls are older and had hard flesh inside and almost no water. what we had in chinatown was somewhere in between.

the meat was softer and a thinner layer than in a fully mature nut. it was actually scrape-able with a plastic spoon, as opposed to having to pry/cut it out.it was a little rubbery and looked a lot like boiled egg white. a smooth even texture, not like how older coconut has the all the small fibers in the same direction. if that makes any sense. the husk around the inner shell was very wet and fresh.


it wasn't as sweet as the more mature, harder meat. but i still finished the nut.
it sure was a special treat and really hit the spot.



there were other produce to speak of, a few of which i had never seen before, at the many stores in Chinatown. here are some logan a.k.a. dragon eye fruit.




i've seen these at the kailus market too.



then Tamarind and ..something orange.



and i actually did buy one of these becauze i loved the name. i saw it called "egg fruit" and chicken yolk fruit" one cost about 75cents.



mangosteen, which i dont think i've ever had, and that's not a bad price for avocados. better than supermarket price



what? what? and what?



i thought you couldn't get rambutan's fresh outside of their homeland. Philippines maybe?




a beautiful rainboz of fish.





giagundo avocado. i think these aren't Haas. they are more round with a thicker skin, perhaps Sharwill?



The best price for Apple Bananas, well, other than free.





well, next i'll show you the dissection of an egg fruit.

Freshly Baked Breadfruit

during my third third trip to the farmers market i decided that i should try something new each time i go there (or at least once in a while) so this time i went for Breadfruit, which sounds delicious.

Breadfruit originally came from the Philippines and grows in many tropical locales.
the Hawaiian name for it is Ulu. i think it is related to durian and jackfruit and it has that same spiky rugby ball look.

this is the Hawaiian legend about its origins (taken from wikipedia):
According to an etiological Hawaiian myth, the breadfruit originated from the sacrifice of the war god Kū. After deciding to live secretly among mortals as a farmer, Kū married and had children. He and his family lived happily until a famine seized their island. When he could no longer bear to watch his children suffer, Kū told his wife that he could deliver them from starvation, but to do so he would have to leave them. Reluctantly she agreed, and at her word, Kū descended into the ground right where he had stood until only the top of his head was visible. His family waited around the spot he had last been day and night, watering it with their tears until suddenly a small green shoot appeared where Kū had stood. Quickly, the shoot grew into a tall and leafy tree that was laden with heavy breadfruits that Kū's family and neighbors gratefully ate, joyfully saved from starvation

the breadfruit of Tahiti also played a role in the famous Mutiny on the Bounty.

I know of three or four places that breadfruit grows in my town, including on tree on the street where i live.



this is my breadfruit from the farmers market. i think it cost $2.50

the fuit exudes a white stick sap when it is raw.



exetreme close-up!


the whole thing is made of many parts, i believe they're termed bracts, that have fused together.


the inner wooden-like core must be removed.


I tried it raw and the texture was a bit like creamy avocado but with inner fibers. it tastes a little like banana with a grassy aftertaste, but it is very unique.



know i know this is a raw food blog, but breadfruit is usually cooked. in fact i'm not sure if it is safe to eat a lot of it raw. some things, like taro, should be eaten raw. in the case of taro, it has calcium oxalate crystals inside that are like fiberglass that are neutralized when cooked. with the strange sap of breadfruit, i didn't want to chance it and cooked it. it seemed to ripen the day after i got it, from hard to almost squishy. like plantains it is eaten both unripe and starchy and sweet/ripe. in fact is is cooked in similar ways. it can also be made into chips like potatoes.

I followed the easiest recipe that said to microwave it in a bowl with a little water for 3 minutes or so then add butter to melt on the top. it was very yummy! and it really does have a texture like breaddough. it was less sweet after being cooked and the salt from the butter was a nice addition.


i dropped the raw goo from the other half onto a hot frying pan to amke fritters of sorts. i fried it on both sides like i do to plantains. it tasted a lot like sweet potato fries. :)



to up the savoriness we melted a little cheese on top. shh! ;D


overall i'd recommend that people try this, especially if you are a sweet potato fan. it was very surprising!

learn some more!



check out this helpful page. i didn't know there was a Breadfruit Institute:
http://www.ntbg.org/breadfruit/uses/food1.php


a more technical page with breakdowns of the varieties and the specific nutrient contents:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/breadfruit.html#Food%20Uses

A millon uses! almost

Today my boss and i were discussing more sustainable containment options for acai bowls. they've tried other containers than the unfortunate styrofoam bowls, but they either fell apart, or let the acai melt to quickly. at the other location they have reusable bowls for people who want to eat in the shop. but we are going to start a B.Y.O.B. "Bring your own bowl" policy. people are welcome to bring their own bowls (if they are large enough) and we may even start giving a discount for people to do this.

anyway, during this conversation about containers i mentioned the pressed bamboo husk plates. My boss then proceeded to tell me about all they ways they use bamboo in Taiwan. (he moved to Hawaii 15 years ago, but is from Taiwan) they have many different varieties of bamboo there and of course eat bamboo shoots. but i also told me about an neat cooking method using bamboo. the giant type (is it Moso? that['s the biggest bamboo i've heard of.) they isolate a segment of the bamboo, with is still closed on both ends. they carve a lid into the side of the tube ( i imagine this is like opening a jack o' lantern :D ) and they rice and water are put inside and the bamboo is resealed and put on a fire.. the rice cooks inside and it imbued with the scent and flavor of the bamboo! id never heard of this before but it is interesting! i guess after you eat you can just put the bamboo back in the fire and burn it.

before there was fastfood style disposable chopsticks, families had to bring their chopsticks from home and back when they ate out. so inside they would cut some of the copious young bamboo and split it into sticks to eat with. They are clean and bamboo had no poisons or anything so they are safe. surprisingly, he told me they used bamboo in the bedding to keep cool in hot weather. i'm not entirely sure how it works, but the bamboo is used as a mat on top of the bed? so it is a little hard, but cooling. i dont know if it is the leaves of small grass or hard canes. same with pillows, stuffed with some part of the bamboo that stays nice and cool. other wise the canes are also made into light, sturdy chairs.


on the flip side of cultural education, my boss was surprised to hear that my mom would give use raw carrots alongside dinner. " you like carrots? do you eat them cooked or steamed? raw?!"

new taste

an experimental meal. let's call it "spaghetti nihon garlique".

it was simply shredded zucchini (from the farmer's market), tamari marniated garlic and seaweed salad. (both from tamura's deli) i added a little splash of soysauce and rice wine vinegar. the last ingredient may not have been an improvement. it was a little too sweet because the rice wine is "seasoned" which in this case means added sugar. so the zucchini ended up with a sweet/sour tast a little like apples. the garlic was strong and added some interest.

but i don't think i'll try this again.



This however, was a much tastier salad made from market ingredients

Kailua Farmer's Market

finally figured out where and when the farmers market is here. the good news is that it's all year round, but man, the hours they have it are a bit odd. i'm accustomed to markets being 6 hours or so in the middle of a saturday. but the market in my town is 5-7:30 on a thursday. i suppose it's nice for people who get off at 5, and since it's not friday they aren't rushing home to start their weekend... for me personally, i get off work at 3pm, so i just have to kill time until the market starts (but that's barely a problem.)


anyway, i went to the market which is in a covered parking lot downtown in a major shopping area. it was Bustling! there were a ton of people there. in fact i've read that you can even go there ahead of time and get the jump on the choicest items. you can pick out what you want early, but aren't allowed to actually purchase until the bell rings at 5pm. so it looked like about a third of the stalls were fresh produce from farms. another third was hot food, ready to eat (pizza, chicken, mexican food, bakery, abalone, ) the rest was flower stands and specialty items like roasted nuts, salsa, poi, dressings....)

my first time at the market i got a jicama, zucchini, some spinach (which turned out to be a bitter variety of "mountain spinach" )and a baguette for my man. i saw a bunch of items that i had heard of but have never tried, and then a handful that i have never seen or heard of before. and there were plenty of those apple bananas ( all under 1.50 a pound) Lots of leafy greens, bananas, papayas, avocados, summer squash

come, observe, see through my eyes:

a table from the farmer i seem to frequent most often. by the way, the farm tables are often set up in a U shape, and you shop while you wait in line (like i said, it was busy there). you slowly shuffle in the line past all of the produce and then by the time you get to the front , you are ready to pay.




???


this farm has a few select rarer items that are more native to the island.things i need to try : mountain apple, longan, breadfruit






is this a turnip? is it not?





some lovely herbs. everyone sells huge long bunches of green onions for a dollar and they last forever.


that's nice, everything gets a cubby