Gifts and Windfalls

what a lovely day. after making my big trip to Thrive, i still ended up getting to try a new raw food today. i went to work for a short shift in the afternoon. I got to take home a small bag of flavored sprouted sunflower seeds because the bag had a hole in it. The cocoa mole flavor was interesting.


I would have liked it to be a little sweeter, but it is supposed to me Molé, not candy chocolately. the cayenne pepper was very light. i couldn't really taste it, but the aftertaste was warm in the mouth, like i'd eaten salsa or some other spicy item. I appreciate that the bag says it was sprouted (increase sprouting awareness!)it was alright to snack on. $3.29
http://www.kaiafoods.com/about.html
this brand also makes sprouted buckwheat granola. i'm sure it's about 6 dollars for a little bag, so i wont be buying any. i already make it at home and they add just adding agave, cocoa powder, pumpkin seeds and raisins.

in the free bin for employees there was piles of zucchini and broccoli! i took a few, plus a bag of rainbow grapes.
















and when i got home i had gotten a gift! My sister, a bidding graphic designer, read my blog for the first time and she made me a new banner for this blog. i've already replaced the old one with it at the top of the page. Thanks Mel! more art by her here: http://mlrsn.wordpress.com/


the text is much more readable and it's nice and flowy instead of blocky

After work i asked the deli workers if i could look in their cookbook and i made a copy of their chia seed pudding. it's only a few ingredients, but i will have to shrink down the portion size because it's written for 20 cups of pudding! so look for that experiment soon! I'll also be visiting a raw milk farm in a few days, so i'll write about that, too.

Thrive!

I went to my first raw restaurant today! My man and I went to Thrive in North Seattle. Here's their website. http://generationthrive.com/
I was very excited to be there.




i was nice to have someone else make a raw meal for me, instead of having to deal with all the prep work. but of course that comes with a slightly higher price tag. but it was a day of splurging :D

(no ovens or stoves in this kitchen!notice the man opening young coconuts.)



I had the Oh My Sombrero, and my boyfriend had the Mighty Thai.



menu descriptions:

"Lighter fare, heavy on the Mexican flavor! Spicy taco Sunflower Seed Paté, Guacamole, Salsa, and Onion Cashew Cream served with shredded lettuce taco salad style!"


"Our house Thai “Peanut” Sauce massaged with shredded cabbage and carrots, providing a subtle, spicy crunch. Topped with cashews and dates."

i really liked my onion cashew cream, it was very rich and tasty. i definitely want to try making some at home. the pate was more of a half-dried cracker. i'd say the crackers i make are at least that yummy :D



kyle liked his meal, but thought it could use some fresh chilis or onions. the dates were a nice touch in his. i thought the sauce of his definately had a smokey, nutty flavor, maybe there was tahini in it?



Thrive also has a bulk section with raw food staples like nuts and grains.




they have a lot of books and raw chocolate and dehydrated cookies. i didn't buy anything like that there since i can either get it cheaper at my work or make it myself. one thing i want to make for my boyfriend is the kelp noodles with teriyaki sauce dish (called Oh My Samurai)
some other ideas i was reminded of there are kale chips and chia seed pudding.
after a weekend with almost no raw food ( and feeling the intestinal blocking consequences..) i'm using this experience as an opportunity to rededicate myself to my raw food habits.

other raw venues of note in seattle: Chaco Canyon Restaurant, and Vivir Living Foods (i think it is a raw chocolate and nuts factory)

Fungi world

Although you can't eat most mushrooms raw, i like to go hunting for them in the wild. This weekend we went on a short hike on the Olympic Peninsula in search of Chantrelles. my boyfriends went with his mother and her man. they'd gone on a different trail the day before and had good luck. We were on the Maple Valley Trail in Dosewallups National Park near Brinnon, WA.


the harvest







so tiny!



Lobster mushroom, which is really a russula (i think) that is colonized by the fungus on the outside that turns it red.



Most likely Bearshead, and the brown ones look like tiny cinnamon caps





these toadstools were everywhere in the hundreds


Shrimp mushroom



dont know what this is, but it looks deadly!






i call it Princess Peach's Parasol

recipes i want to try

http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/halvah.html

http://therawtarian.com/raw-food-eggnog-recipe/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Tofu/step7/Finished/
http://therawtarian.com/raw-tuna-salad-recipe/
http://aniphyo.com/blog/page/2/?cat=7&featured=all
http://therawtarian.com/raw-food-substitutions/

http://www.feelgoodeats.com/anytime-recipes/homemade-mayonnaise.html
http://therawtarian.com/raw-mayonnaise-recipe/
http://therawtarian.com/best-raw-chocolate-cookies/


http://blacksoap.blogspot.com/2008/02/mayocoba-beans.html
YUM! http://www.lovestreetlivingfoods.com/Coconut-Crystal-Chocolate-Bar-p/chocolate-cocosbar.htm

an update

Well, i had to stop washing my face with the rice bran because i suspect it has clogged the pipe in my bathroom sink. :( but overall my skin has improved a bit.

tonight i had a salad, made mostly of spinach, but it had a few leaves of russian red kale in it that i had grown on my small apartment balcony. i didn't have much growing, but it's a small achievement.

on enzymes

From Kitchen Mysteries: Reveling the Science of Cooking by Hervé This

"Cooking denatures the enzymes,which are proteins , that is, long linear molecules folded back on themselves in a specific way by weak chemical bonds. This folding gives them their functional properties, but heat suppresses their activity by breaking the weak bonds. Thus these molecular balls of yarn are inactivated."

Spaghetti a la Squash

If found ever cooked spaghetti squash you know that you can scrape the inside of the baked squash and it comes off in little strings like pasta. it can be made sweet too, with cinnamon and sugar. i figured it would be similar to make raw, i think i saw it in a raw recipe. but it was more difficult to serve raw. without softening the squash by cooking it, it refused to do the cool spaghetti thing. So i changed to plan B and treated like a zucchini and just took the box grater to it. it did take some arm power and a half a squash was probably enough for two people.( the squash resembles a yellow rubgy ball) i saved a little to eat the next day.

i ate it with a cooked sauce, but i did make the sauce from scratch, which i had never done before.

Start Spreading the News...

The cafe i work out is moving locations, and i got an email from a local reporter that wants to write about the move and wanted input on what makes the cafe unique. The following is my response, which i'm including here since i mention raw food.



Greetings,

I am a young woman who has worked at Zippy's for about 10 months. I'd
be happy to tell you what I think makes Zippy's Java Lounge unique.

I often describe the café to people as a living room with a coffee
shop inside. It truly has a comfortable, homey atmosphere. It's the
kind of surroundings that chain coffee shops try to recreate with
their decor styles.

I've found that Zippy's really is a community meeting place. People
often meet friends and business contacts in the café and groups like
Green Everett hold meetings there. A few people just grab their coffee
and go, but I have seen customers sit in the café for hours on end. We
have a handful of very loyal regulars who come in nearly everyday.

The raw foods offerings on the menu are unique as well. There are a
few rawfood eateries in Seattle and Portland, but I don't know of
another place in Everett that is aware of the raw food movement or has
these types of options available. After learning about the raw
lifestyle from a Raw Food Support Group that meets at Zippy's, I made
changes in my own life and I am feeling the health benefits. I doubt
many people can say that going to Starbucks has made them healthier!

I look forward to reading your article. Thanks for bringing attention
to the movement of the café, I hope it will be successful in its new
location.

decadent breakfast.

i cooked the grain in this one because i'm not sure it if can be eaten raw. i suppose if i sprouted it, i would need to filter the water out through cheese cloth because the grains are so small.


Banana, amaranth (cooked in rice cooker), soymilk and REAL raw honey in the comb!

i did it

ah ha! proof.

i decided not to eat the fish raw since it was wild caught in peru and i didn't want to risk any..parasitic buggies..
but otherwise the meal was all raw vegetables. grated zucchini, carrots, cherry tomatoesand snap peas with olive oil, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper.

it got a little too oily near the bottom of the bowl :P but i liked the fish the whole fillet i got was only 1.26$ at safeway. i just cooked it in a pan with a little grapseed oil. it tasted like fried eggs and chicken, both of which i like :D

i also did a short cardio workout on the wii and got my new bike all fixed up (my mom's old bike that she rarely used) .

mmmmm....

i'm drinking a delicious cup of juice! a ripe nectarine and half of a golden delicious apple.


lately i'm feeling so lazy about my raw food. bad girl! today i'll be sure to use up some zucchinis to make some raw spaghetti. i also have raw mahi mahi, so we'll see how that goes.

feelin good, but looking bad.

i don't what's going on with my face, but my skin is almost the worst i've ever seen it. it probably a combination of the normal hormonal junk and detoxing causing my skin to excrete grossness. i never had terrible acne as a teenager, but i also haven't grown out of the acne that i did have. on the whole, my skin is very senstive. my skin cries if i shave my legs (which i usually don't), and the only allergies i have are skin related. nothing specific, just to poorly made brands of soap. but i have had hives over most of my body for 2 days and it was awful;thank poop i didn't have work or school or anything that summer.

anyway, my face is so bad right now, that when i look in the bathroom mirror at work, i'm embarassed that so many people have seen my face that day. i could cover it up with make up, but i dont really wear foundation make-up, and it would probably worse the situation.
the pimples are mostly around my mouth and on my cheeks and jawline, like i got stung by a beard of bees.







i slack off sometimes on washing my face, but i've really got to be vigilant about this now. i don't want my skin to get red spots and scars that don't go away. i have a lot of different soaps and cleansers for the face, but i think i'll try and keep it as simple as pure as it gets, well besides just water.

i'll be washing my face with clay and rice bran.

the clay is sorta like a spot treatment, or a masque. clay masques are pretty common. but i'm just taking a pinch of the bentonite clay powder and moistening it enough so it will stick to my face and then putting it on trouble areas, then let dry. the clay helps to dry up oils and probably suck up dirt and pore toxins as well.

the rice bran is an old japanese beauty secret. i think the traditional way to use it is to have a small pouch of smooth cotton fabric that is packed full of rice bran. you wet the small bag and squeeze and rub it on your face, and the ricey water and bits of bran wash your face. i dont even bother with the bag. i just make a little pile in my palm and mix in a little water to make a mash. then i spread it over my face as best i can and rub it around before washing it off (you can use a small soft bristle brush or tawashi (fabric face scrub) to help get it all off.) you look like a piece crust and it doesn't matter if it gets in your mouth because it is completely edible. the bran is lightly exfoliating but the oils in the rice leave your skin supple and not dried out. at my health food store the sell a tiny bottle of oil of rice bran, and it says "for facial treatments or food use", something like that. but i'd rather use the whole bran powder. i think it was pretty cheap for a medium bag at an asian grocery. i've mentioned using it in food before as well. same stuff. i keep the bag in the fridge because i wasn't sure if it went rancid like wheat germ, but i have a plastic container with some in it by the sink.

so, we'll see if my face gets better. i hope this isn't a never ending detox because i keep eating non-raw items instead of being 100% raw. :/

bad girl~

been doing fairly bad on my raw diet since last thursday. we had a staff tasting day with a bunch of products to try (wine, beer, cookies, chocolate..) i did get to try some raw cheese and raw chocolate from love street foods. the chocolate was sweetened with a coconut nectar sugar and lucuma powder. lucuma is a up and coming sweetener, made from a peruvian fruit that looks like an orange-fleshed avocado.
and i've also been hearing some bad things about agave; that it is never truly "raw" is made with the root and not the higher quality leaf, the companies are corrupt?


so i ate a lot of non raw that day. and the day before i was cooking for friends in my home and i ate dinner with them. then over the weekend i was at my parents' house. i had fruit that i brought, but i also ate steak, turkey sandwiches, cereal with cow milk, chicken burritos...

ugh, i totally noticed a difference in well, the bathroom. my passings were noticeably harder then in the weeks before. i thought i'd gained like 4 pounds, but it turned out it was all poop. gross!

well, today i had a raw breakfast but i ate some other things at work, we had a lot of free samples out, but i got a lot of dried fruit and grapes as well.

gotta get back on the wagon! i have a small backlog of ideas that i want to blog about, so i should really try to update once a day.

One month!

indeed! August 13th to September 13th. so, how has it been?


Food: i have tried making new things and eaten foods i wouldn't normally. the juice is nice, except it's a bit annoying to clean all the parts every time, and i don't really have the counter space to keep it set out permanently. sometimes i feel too lazy to prepare all the different veggies for a good salad. so i end up eating too much grains, instead of fruit and veg. i also get a little bored with my food or i crave other things, especially breads. i think i should fight this by experimenting with more new recipes to keep myself interested.

i'm concerned about how i will be able to do this in the future. I'm pretty spoiled right now with my nearby cheap produce stand and some free produce from work. but if i'm planning to move away from all that (and the stand closes down for the winter anyway), i'll lose my access to cheap,fresh food. there is always supermarkets, if i can get nothing else. plus, in terms of the seasons, there's less fruit available in winter, unless it's all flown in from south america.

i tried to keep track of the amount of money i spent on food, but it's approximate. some of the food i had before (spices, bags of bulk grains, produce i got for free at work...) and my boyfriend ate a portion of the food, and i didn't include my 14$ juicer or the price of food my boyfriend ate). but all in all, my bill came to ~95$ i don't think that's too bad (and i'm chronically thrifty) it looks like our usual food bill is at around 140 for the two of us, more if we went to costco that month.
anyway, i dont think it's more expensive to eat this way, especially if you can get local, inexpensive food or, even better, grow some of it yourself. Tip: buy in bulk, like scooping it out of bins, when you can. get things that are shelf stable like grains, legumes (sprouting beans and seeds), dried fruits, nuts...) you may have to go shopping weekly for produce, but at least you can have big stores of these.


i haven't been completely raw. i have had some tofu, cooked eggs, a piece of bread or two, cooked oatmeal, soymilk. i think I'm near a balance that i could keep up for sometime. and still have a pretty normal looking diet. (more on this below)

Body:
well! i really have kept up 10 pounds in a month! it's quite unprecedented for me. i
m happy to me able to make a change in my lifestyle and see it reflected as a change in my (stubborn) body. i feel like it's easier to move around and my clothes fit better. i'm wearing pants that had previously been living in the closet only.
the only discouraging part is that all that change was basically in the first two weeks, and now i seem to be stuck. i'm glad i've made progress, but i hope to see more. i'm a little worried that this is all the weight i'm going to lose. my body seems to want to hang onto fat like the apocalypse is coming and it knows i'll have to survive in the desert for a month.
i guess all i can do is try to keep eating as much raw as i can, and i really should exercise more. i don't like getting all sweaty :P

face, ack, my face. i definitely have more acne than before. :/ i guess this is a result of detoxing and all the toxins are coming out through my skin. but when will it go away? when does detoxing stop?

..and, i know this isn't pleasant information, but i have been having, let's call it, soft excretions. well, eating a lot of fruit and no blockage causing meat will do that to you.



Life: I haven't told many people about my raw food diet. maybe i don't want them to think i'm doing some weird extreme thing when i'm really just eating fresh produce. when people offer me a piece of chocolate or a bite of something, i take it. i'm not so rigid that i won't have a bite of the "bad" stuff.

one thing i haven't run into too much, but is a challenge is restaurants. eating with other people. at home i make a dinner for my man and a different dinner for me and we eat together. but out at a restaurant, it's nearly impossible to find an all raw meal.(well, maybe salads, but restaurants load theirs with fat somehow, i guess it's the dressing) there are a small handful of raw restaurants, but i've never been to them. there are 2 in portland, maybe 2 in seattle, and probably a smattering in california. like i said before, they are pricy, but worth it for a special occasion.

so what do i do? we don't have many friends up here, but when i do go out with people i'll just have to try my best. the holidays are coming up and i will surely be tempted.

my boyfriend asks me "how long are you going to do this for?" i don't really know. Good diets are always called "lifestyle changes" because you really need to be eating different than you had previously been. i think he misses getting my cooking every night. his diet has suffered a bit as a result of mine improving. he eats more things that he can prepare himself, partially because he feels bad about making me prepare food that i can't eat. but this means he eats mostly bean and pasta and rice dishes. whereas if i were cooking, he would get more cooked vegetable stirfrys (which i do still make for him, just not as often)


i'm worried that if i go more and more back to non-raw food that i will just gain all my lost weight back. i'd definitely rather stay at 160 than go back to 170.

raw food companies of the northwest

just making a list of semi-local raw food companies. i'm not advertising, but it's good to know where food comes from ....

It's Alive http://www.itsalivefood.com/

living spoonful http://www.gluten-free-crackers.com/ Portland, Oregon

Happy Day Raw Foods http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/613928287/HAPPY+DAY+RAW+FOODS-ASHLAND-OR Ashland, Oregon

http://www.upayanaturals.com/Raw_Vegan_Food_s/27.htm

hmm, here's a link that made the list for me! (at least for portland http://www.therawdiet.com/portlandrawfoodrestaurants.html


seattle:
http://chacocanyoncafe.com/index.php?page=175&CID=55
http://www.seastarrestaurant.com/seattle.php?page=Raw_Bar
http://generationthrive.com/



guides for the whole country? http://www.rawfoodplanet.com/rawcity/Oregon.html

of course, eating out, especially at a raw restaurant often cost more money than i'd like to spend. so i mostly buy my own ingredients and make meals myself.




and i found a raw-interest website with some beautiful food photography:

http://www.highonhealth.org/im-eating-my-way-across-the-us-in-a-raw-way/
http://www.highonhealth.org/pretty-pictures-of-the-raw-food-ive-been-uncooking/
http://www.highonhealth.org/raw-carob-cashew-nut-cookies-recipe/
it looks like a nice site, i'll have to check out more of it. but it also makes me feel like "who would ready my blog when there is pretty, professional ones like this?" oh wait, nobody does read my blog...

well, it's been nearly a month of raw food for me. i'll try to do a retrospective on the 13th. and i never mentioned that i bought some chia seeds, because i keep forgetting i have them and i haven't used them for anything yet.

"Cheesecake"

i was never a superfan of normal cheesecake. i'll eat it if it's available, but i never had cravings for it or anything. anyway, this tastes just as good, or even better

i didn't make this exactly as the recipe indicates but here is the version i got from the cafe i work at. (with my notes in parenthesis)

Crust:
-2 cups raw nuts-almonds,pecans,walnuts,macadamia.. (i soaked my walnuts and then re dehydrated them)

-1/2 dates, soaked in water to soften ( i used this date and walnut loaf called ...)

-coconut ( i didn't really add coconut, well, just a little coconut butter)

-optional, add a layer of sliced bananas in between the crust and filling as another layer of flavor


Cheese:

-3 cups of cashews soaked until they are soft.

-3/4 cup lemon juice and pulp ( i just threw in some peeled, deseeded, frozen lemon that i had been keeping in the freezer. since i did this in a blender it got all cut up and assimilated into the cashews. i didn't measure and this probably wasnt enough juice)

-3/4 cup agave or honey. ( i used agave and eyeballed it. i'm sure i didn't put enough in. and now i drizzle honey on the slice when i eat this because i didn't make it sweet enough)

-3/4 coconut oil, lightly melted. (hint: microwaving raw food is a no no. melt the oil by placing the jar in a bowl of warm water, or setting it on top of a warm dehydrator or other warm place.)

- a scarped vanilla bean or small amount of vanilla extract ( i was running low on vanilla flavor so i put in Rum and Almond flavors! i'm sure any flavor could go in to change the end result: maple? orange? mint?)

- fruit topping ( i put some coconut meat and cocoa powder on top of mine. in my cafe they blend some frozen strawberries and add that on top.)

Directions.

make the crust using a food processor.(or a nut chopper and a lot of brute strength). press the sticky crust into the bottom of a springform cake pan (i suppose you could use a normal pie tin, it just might be hard to get it out of there.)

make the cheese and pour into the pan, on top of the crust. smooth it with your favorite smotthing device (spoon, knife, spatuala...)

add any toppings as desired and then put into a flat, level space in your freezer.

after it is frozen, use a strong knife to cut a slice out. then the hard part is waiting for it to deforst. i usually can wait that long and it is still icy when i eat it. but if if warms up it will be a soft texture like dairy cheescake.

Green Zing

i made a smoothie. which came out more watery because it needed more ice or some banana to thicken it up. but it was half and apple, some cilantro and spinach, a little lime juice and kombucha (which i make myself, and i can teach you, too)

i added a little honey because it was pretty darn tart.

i'm looking through my files for a video tour i made of my garden this summer. i think i'll include more posts about that kind of thing, because gardening it tied very closely with a raw diet. if you can grow your own food, you can eat it as fresh as possible, still on the vine even!

coasting along

well, i think i've hit a plateau of sorts. i gained back two pounds, although i haven't been eating 100% raw. but i was talking to an old woman who said she'd been vegan for 2 years and vegetarian for 25 and she was sure it was healthy. she said she eats two raw salads a day and has lots of energy. that was encouraging. although gaining back 2 pounds makes me feel like i'm doing something wrong. am i not eating anough and my body is holding onto fat or water? or maybe it's just adjusted to the new way of eating.

i've got a tiny little idea forming that maybe i'll get a job with a raw food company. there are a few in portland Oregon and i'm not opposed to living there.

This'll kill what ails ya!

since i'm getting over a cold i tried making a super juice! i juiced one large carrot, an orange, a small knob of ginger, and small handfuls of spinach, cilantro and kale. it tastes mostly like orange and ginger with a little greenness. but definitely good for you.

Raw Hummus

I made hummus with raw chickpeas. i started with about 4 cups of beans and soaked them for a few days. i added oliveoil (about 1/2 cup), salt, a little tahini, cimun, onion flakes...and i forget what else for now.

i had to run the beans through my juicer because it would have taken many small batches in my blender and i'd have had to add a lot of extra water to make it work.

i put the final product in many small plastic containers so i could freeze them and use them one at a time.