Living in the CloudsHmm, I'm tempted to change my blog name to the name of this post, because that's what I've been doing since going raw - it is a feeling beyond description. I hit my 10 week mark yesterday and I can hardly believe no toxic cooked food has passed my lips in that time!
Anyway, this is lunch from... thursday. It is a
Mushroom Pizza from Shazzie's 'Detox Delights.' Is it just me, or does everyone else harbour a secret desire to make every single recipe from a recipe book? It is a dream of mine and I would love to achieve it with this book. There's a few recipes that will require a fair bit of tweaking, and a few of them require seasonal ingredients that I will have to wait for, but I think its possible! The pizza is a combo of yummy things like chopped spinach (recipe called for watercress but thats really hard to get here), parsley, garlic, onion, tomato and maybe more mashed up with avocado and blobbed into a big field mushroom (the pizza base). It was sooo delicious!
To see the recipe for this Tropical Chocolate Ice-Cream Pie, go
hereto my raw recipe blog. It is soooo tasty and I gave it to my dad and he said 'you could give this to anyone and they would have no idea it was raw vegan!" Now, while my goal in creating recipes is simply to produce delicious food that is good for you and utilises what nature provided in its unadulterated form, I realise that most of society is addicted to cooked foods and animal products, so if something raw vegan can be enjoyed by an omnivore, I'm happy!!
Now to address a question posed by
Mary in the comments of my last post regarding nuts. As she said, a lot of raw recipes seem to contain enormously large amounts of nuts. However, most dedicated long term raw foodies eat a very simple diet with mainly fresh fruits and veggies - it is mostly the more 'gourmet' recipes used to seduce cooked food eaters into the world of raw that have lots of nuts in them. That said, it is important to get some fat in your diet, for which avocados and coconuts are perfect. Also, everyone has different bodies and some people can digest nuts better than others - they are always more digestible if soaked first. Check out my raw recipe blog for some tasty nut-free recipes (in addition to some nutty ones!)Finally, I am still eating a quite a few nuts because I am trying to put on the masses of weight I lost in the last 3 years while starving myself, although I'm eating lots of avocado too.
Raw Picnic 3Oh my, I just realised that I went to my third raw picnic over a week ago and I still haven't blogged about it! This has to be very quick, so here is the dish I made:
It is a carrot cake, adapted from
this recipe and it was VERY well received (none came home with me, that's for sure!)
This shows everything that was there - unfortunately a whole lot of people who planned to come all pulled out at the last minute due to other commitments so we only had four in attendance. Rachan and his (non-raw) girlfriend Rommie bought
Kim Chee which is apparently the national dish of Korea. It is fermented chinese cabbage and spring onions, basically, and Rachan made a spicy and a non-spicy version. I ate copious amounts of the non-spicy version, which was delish with the truly raw almond butter Joss bought. Although, it was REALLY salty and I was very thirsty afterwards! :-) Unusual, because I don't normally eat salt. In addition to the almond butter, Joss bought some
Exotica Mix (its kinda like trail mix, just goji berries, cacao nibs and raw cashews) and mini red capsicums stuffed with almond hummus. Oh and some slices of tamarillo. Okay, must go. Have a great night!
Very Lucky Little Raw Foodie
Before I start, this is my 100th post! YAY! I can't believe how long I've been blogging and how many cool people I've 'met' through my and other blogs. The internet truly is a wonderful thing. I've had some of the most awesome (should I say RAWsome?!:-) comments lately about how my blog has inspired people or put a smile on their face and that makes me feel so good, so keep those comments coming! If I can turn one person vegetarian, vegan or raw, or even just get them eating more of those foods, I have changed the world and that makes me feel great. It has also been wonderful to have this 'virtual support' as I make my journey to raw and overcome my eating disorder.
Now, onto what we're all here for... FOOD! Pictured above is
Greensleeves Salad from Shazzie's Detox Delights - as I said yesterday, all I want at the moment is salad, salad and more salad, and this book has so many great options. I left out the onion but I think that was about the only change I made. I stumbled upon a great dressing in one of the Living Nutrition Magazines that my new friend Joss gave me last week (more on that later), it was really simple and just what I wanted. In a food processor, combine avocado, celery, fresh herbs of choice (I used dill and parsley), lemon juice and orange juice. It went perfectly with this salad.
Now, I shall tell you why I'm so lucky. First of all, the picture above shows a Young Coconut, also called Green Coconuts, Thai Coconuts, Thai Green Coconuts, Drinking Coconuts, Kulaway Nuts (not sure where that one comes from)... and probably more! These. Are. Heaven. If you have never tasted one, go and do so now, somehow. I'm very lucky because I've discovered a SUPERMARKET that sells them! Not organic, not as good as fresh ones I'm sure, but still amazing. I splashed out on Saturday and bought TWO. They're not cheap but they're worth it!
Next up I will explain some more of my incredible good fortune (normally I don't say luck, I say good fortune, because I think we really create our opportunities and experiences - not much happens due to luck alone. Anyway...) as I mentioned in a previous post, a new friend I met on the Raw Pleasure forums (see link in sidebar) sent me her old copy of Shazzie's Detox Your World (EXCELLENT book). Unfortunately it might be a while tell I get to really 'meet' her, as she lives about 7 hours away by plane, but I have also made loads of awesome friends who live nearby and who I have actually met in person. One of them is a great lady named Joss, who only lives about 20 mins walking from me. On saturday she contacted me on the forums to say she had a whole tray of black sapotes that she had gotten really cheap, and would I like some. Ummm... YES! If you don't know, black sapotes are a tropical fruit also called 'chocolate pudding fruit,' which I had never tried but was desperate to. So I walked and met her yesterday and we did a fruit exchange and now I have 6 sapotes. Oh wow they're yummy! I've heard lots of ways people eat them, and I have some cool recipe ideas brewing, but so far I've just enjoyed half of a big one in its pure fresh goodness. Sorry the picture above is blurry - it shows an unripe one, while the one below is ready to eat. I took four photos showing the inside of the one I started, and how chocolate-puddingy it looks, but they were all blurry.
Oh and in case you hadn't noticed in a few of my recent photos (including the sapote ones) we have got a new dining table. We actually didn't have one before, and haven't since we moved at the beginning of the year - I'm a hippie and I eat sitting on a great big embroidered cushion on the floor (I also sleep on the floor - I love being close to the earth) and my parents are slobs (kidding!) and eat on their laps. But now we have a table, and it is great for photography.
Last thing of all (this became a very long post!) is my dinner from Saturday night -
Cheeseburger #2, a Juliano recipe. As you will know if you've been following my blog for about the last 25 or so of the 100 posts, I LOVE Juliano. The man is a genius and all his recipes are sublime. What's great is that they stand up to lots of adaptation - for example, I never use olive oil but have not had a problem yet. Now, these were nice. But they weren't brilliantly mind blowingly good. The recipe suggests only dehydrating for 3-4 hours - mine got 5 1/2 and I think they would have been better with more. I'm not sure what it was about them - ocassionally a bite would be really awesome, and then others would just be good. They definately won't be replacing
Cheeseburger #1 in my weekly recipe rotation! Oh and he suggests serving them on pieces of
Real Toast with
Mayo #1 or 2 but I wrapped mine up in a big lettuce leaf with a Cheeze Sauce I invented. I'll post the recipe on my other blog later if I can be bothered, but for now I advise you to hop over there (link in the sidebar) because I FINALLY posted the soup recipe that I blogged about ages ago.
Have an incredible day everyone!
Raw Goodies
Hello, I realised that I took a photo of all my lovely fruit and veggies yesterday and then forgot to upload it for all of you! Aren't they just stunning?
And all I want at the moment is sala, salad and more salad, which there are an abundance of recipes for in Shazzie's Detox Delights... this is
Italian Salad, minus the olives and with cashews instead of pine nuts. It was divine! Sorry this is so short, I have to go cos Dad wants the computer. Have a good night!
 | A Veg*n Meme
What wonderful foods did you bring home from the grocery store? |
| Midweek Munchies: What Freedom is contributing for the week
Is it just me, or has everyone else quit the Midweek Munchies Club? Not that I mind, but I haven't seen another list in ages... Anyway, I had a most stunningly wonderful, fruit-filled day today. I LOVE FRUIT!! Here is a post I put on the raw pleasure forum (see link on sidebar) this afternoon because I had to share my elation:
Oh my, I'm having a wonderful day. It did not start so well, my mum had to go to hospital at 4.30 this morning with a huge fever (they thought maybe she had menningococceal but no, thank goodness kiss) but she is home now and sleeping, hopefully getting better.
Anyway, back to the amazingness - friday is shopping day and I go to the Fremantle markets, just the best place to shop. There are three organic fruit and veg stalls and lots of conventional so I can get the best price. I got organic oranges for $1.50/kg, when I've been paying $3 for about a month and a half! Then organic kiwi fruit (which I just can't get enough of at the moment!) 4 for $2 (I've been getting 3 for $2) next was some pesticide-free red capsicum (green just isn't the same!) followed by ... PEACHES! The very first of the season, tree-ripened up in Carnarvon. I just ate one a little while ago and ... oh my, it was heaven. I actually gasped in delight when I bit into it, it was so sweet juicy and perfect. Why oh why didn't I buy more???
Last of all, I made a new find... pomegranates! They were not organic and were imported from the US, so I wouldn't normally go for them but I've never had one before so I couldn't resist. Can anyone tell me how I know when they're ripe?
So that is my wonderfully fruity day. Oh and I also bought possibly the yummiest dates I've tastes. Sheer bliss.
Hope everyone else is floating as high as I am...
(goodness me, I sound like I'm on drugs or something... fruit is the best drug of all)
Now that you've got a slight idea of what I bought, I'll give you the actual list. A little * means organic and a # means it might have been organic but I'm not sure/can't remember.
*apples (pink lady, fuji, lady william)*
*avocados (fuerte and hass)*
*buckwheat (hulled)*
capsicum (pesticide free)
cashews
#cos lettuce#
dates
*garlic*
#grape tomatoes (like cherry tomatoes but... well... shaped like grapes!)#
*kiwi fruit*
*macadamias*
*medjool dates*
*mushroom (a big field one)*
*oranges*
peaches
*pears*
*peas*
pomegranate
*sesame seeds (hulled)*
sweetcorn (two ears... this is the best corn I've ever tasted!!)
I'll also be buying more tomorrow - lots of veggies to balance out all that fruit! In addition to my wonderful fruit day I've had an INCREDIBLE week because a wonderful new friend I made on the raw pleasure forums (who lives on the other side of the country) sent me an incredible gift. I was moaning about how much I wanted 'Detox Your World' by Shazzie to accompany her other book 'Detox Delights' (the only uncookbook I own) and how I'm currently in a competition to win a signed copy but if I don't win I'm going to buy a copy. My new friend said "don't buy it, I have it and don't want it any more, you can have mine." This thing is worth $45 (australian) new and she GAVE it to me!! It arrived in the post on Wednesday and I am devouring it. Oh I'm so lucky! I'm just so happy at the moment, I can't put words to it. I have been raw for 9 weeks today, by the way.
Have an outstanding day/night!
Links to other Midweek Munchies
(If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it below; or, you can post in the comments) |
Click here for the Midweek Munchies code
Click here for Harmonia's blog
Trackbacks, pings, and comment links are accepted and encouraged!
Technorati Tag: Midweek Munchies
A special thanks to Running2Ks and Rift for all of their help with coding, graphics, and encouragement for this project.
PURPOSE of Midweek Munchies: Put together by a small group of Veg Women, we hope to spread the word about healthy vegetarianism while obtaining idea starters for meals, recipes, learn about new products, and meet other female veg*n bloggers. Visiting and commenting on other participants lists are encouraged but not required. Have fun and Go Veg!
Travelling Back in TimeOkay, since I've been so slack lately, I have LOADS of yummy food to share with you all. First of all is a green dip... I made it up as I went along (with inspiration from here) and I think it contained
chinese cabbage
baby spinach
dulse flakes
avocado
lemon juice
onion
garlic
young coconut water
It was really divine and a great way to cram in lots of greens :-) I ate it with carrot sticks, sweet potato 'chips' and a couple of my delicous flax crackers (go back a couple of posts for the recipe).
This is what I had for lunch on saturday... in Detox Delights (Shazzie's book) there is a section called, simple,
Side Dishes and a comment from Shazzie saying "... or you can combine two or three to make a delicious main meal" so that was just what I did. Here we have
Crunchy, Nibbly and Avomato containing respectively celery, apple and grape tomatoes,corn and sunflower sprouts (the recipe calls for olive oil but... yuck!) and avocado and tomato. Don't you love the names? So cute :-)
STill loving soup, here is Saturday night's dinner -
NRG Soup (another Juliano). I have to say I didn't love it at first but it quickly grew on me and was very tasty.
Next up is just a juice I invented which was really tasty - one large orange, a chunk of pineapple and a rib of celery. Push through a juicer, stir till its lovely and green then enjoy!
Last of all is a bowl of cereal... not all that exciting but I thought I'd share. I'm going to post the recipe on my other blog later, so check it out!
Have a rawsome day everyone! Oh, and for the wonderful
Mary, who is embarking on a raw journey (and anyone else) here are a couple of links to great places for raw people:
Shazzie's Site (has some recipes from her books),
Michelle's Site (LOTS of recipes)
| | A Veg*n Meme
What wonderful foods did you bring home from the grocery store? |
| Midweek Munchies: What Freedom is contributing for the week
Hi there, it's been a while since I contributed my Midweek (aka End-of-Week) Munchies list. Mostly because I've been too busy but also because I've kind of been getting food all over the place - when you eat 8 pieces of fruit a day, it's a bit hard to buy a week's worth all at once! So here is what I bought today, anyway - as I'm eating more fresh fruit and veggies and less nuts and dried fruit, my price tag for munchies is going down, yay!
*almonds*
*apples (pink lady)*
*bananas
capsicum (red)
cashews
corn
cucumber
dried figs
*flax seeds*
grape tomatoes (I think they were organic, but not sure)
*kiwi fruit* (mmm, so good at the moment!)
*mandarins*
*oranges*
*pears*
*pecans*
sunflower sprouts (maybe organic?)
I'll be getting more tomorrow... that list looks short but I'll probably get:
apples
avocado
carrots
celery
garlic
kale
lettuce
onion
tomatoes
Have a wonderful end-of-week everyone!!
And thanks to all the people who commented two posts ago - I had a tota; of 14 comments, my most ever, and I was VERY excited!
Links to other Midweek Munchies
(If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it below; or, you can post in the comments) |
Click here for the Midweek Munchies code
Click here for Harmonia's blog
Trackbacks, pings, and comment links are accepted and encouraged!
Technorati Tag: Midweek Munchies
A special thanks to Running2Ks and Rift for all of their help with coding, graphics, and encouragement for this project.
PURPOSE of Midweek Munchies: Put together by a small group of Veg Women, we hope to spread the word about healthy vegetarianism while obtaining idea starters for meals, recipes, learn about new products, and meet other female veg*n bloggers. Visiting and commenting on other participants lists are encouraged but not required. Have fun and Go Veg!
Bad Little Blogger
I just want to apologise to everyone for not posting in days... I've had two mid-semester exams this week and have two more next week so I'm really busy but I promise to post my Mid-Week Munchies list and some food pics tomorrow. Just to tide you over till then, here is my most recent success from Juliano's book - its
Corny Soup. Before going raw I hated soup but now I am really getting into it and this was great. Typical wonderful Juliano!
Cross, Confused and CrackersI hate this whole Blogger Beta thing! I don't understand what's going on and if anyone can help I'll be hugely appreciative. I tried to sign in to the new blogger beta and wound up creating a new blog... I can't figure out how to just upgrade this one to beta, so that people can comment. AGGGH! So please, if you can assist in anyway I will be very happy. FOr now I'll just post this and see what happens.
Sorry it's been a while since I posted - I haven't had much time and to be honest I was really upset that my last (VERY LONG) post got so few comments, so I wasn't in the mood. Then I found out that everyone who had upgraded couldn't comment, so I felt a bit better. Anyway, I didn't produce much food in my absence unfortunately, but you have to forgive me because I have four midsemester exams in the next two weeks!
SO here is something I did make - not overly photogenic but really, really tasty... it's a big plate full of flax crackers! And this isn't all of them either. They taste great, and even my dad liked them! At my first raw picnic a while back someone had some delicious flax crackers and here is the very approximate recipe he gave me:
Flax seeds soaked for a day (once expanded they 3/4 filled a decent sized mixing bowl)
2 large carrots grated
A few spring onions chopped
Some dulse flakes
Some celtic sea salt to taste
Some italian herbs (i just used the masterfoods ones from the shelf but by all means go the fresh option smiley)
Tiny bit of olive oil
Tamari
I wizz up the carrots, spring onion, dulse in the food processor to get it finely chopped. Then I mixed in the flax and gave it a good wizz together. I try to break up the flax because they are hard to digest so don't be afraid to give it a good wizz. If you have a vitamix don't let it puree everything though smiley. Add the tamari, and a splash of oil to get it into a nice paste. If you want to get a bit more flavour then add some salt to taste. Spread it out on your oiled dehydrator teflex sheets making sure that the edges are slightly thicker than the middle, because when they dehydrate the edges seem to thin out. I usually make mine around 8mm thick so when they dry out they are about the thickness of the ones at the picnic. One they are spread out sprinkle a bit of the herbs on top. Dehydrate for 4 or 5 hours then flip onto the normal trays (no teflex sheets). Dehydrate until crispy. Enjoy with awesome live toppings.I used 1/2 cup flax seeds (that's how much there was before soaking - they swell up A LOT), 1 medim carrot, fresh parsley, basil, mint and dried 'mixed herbs' and skipped the tamari and olive oil. I won't put the mint in there next time... luckily I didn't use much, it really just didn't work for me but was mostly overpowered by other flavours. The crackers are nicest where they're nice and thin and crispy. For lunch on tuesday I ate a whole bunch of them, a few plain, a few with avocado and tomato and a few with zucchini and grated carrot. All were delish!
Now, I think I need to do the thing that's going around... I was hoping someone would tag me but they didn't, so I'm tagging myself! Being only 17, I don't know that I can really think of five foods that you HAVE to eat before death, as I don't think I've experienced enough. But I'll tell you five foods that are really awesome.
1.Raw Pizza. Oh wow this is so good. So good.A zillion times better than regular pizza.
2. Raw sushi. Made with really raw, fish free nori, it tstes like you'fe eating the ocean.
3. Young Coconut.
Kai already did this one but I don't care, it is incredible. Coincidentally, my parents jsut walked in having bought me one, swoon. I can't wait to eat it!
4.Ummmm... I don't know. Really, it's so hard. Fresh organic corn off the cob. That's just great.
5. I can't make up my mind so I'm just going to say... FRUIT! Any kind, as long as it's at its absolute prime. I eat 8 pieces a day!
My Exciting PurchasesHey everyone! I've decided not to do Midweek Munchies this week, for a few reasons, mainly since I've only done one other post since my last one. However, I do have a couple of other purchases that I want to mention. First of all, if you've been reading my blog for any length of time you will know that, especially since going raw (although before that as well) I have had serious problems with my food processor. It jsut never met my needs. When I went back 'home' during the uni holidays my grandma bought me a new food processor as a reward for my good exam results but that one really wasn't much better. Considering that I use my food processor (FP) at least once every day, usually twice and quite often three times, it really is very important to me, and so last saturday I started seriously thinking about getting a new one. What I really wanted was an 'Oskar' made by Sunbeam, and I was looking at them on a few websites and thinking that maybe I would ask GRandma to get me one as a joint birthday/Christmas present (they'e pretty pricey). The following day, the house three down from us had a garage sale (like a yard sale in America) and my mum and I went to have a nosey around. Amongs t the cracked plates, dog-eared yoga books and stained t-shirts, what do you think I found? An Oskar, for
$5!!I truly couldn't believe my good luck. When the man selling it plugged it in for me and I saw the blades whirring round with such speed and force, I was in love! I have used my little Oskar many, many times since than and let me tell you, he is incredible. You have not experienced a FP until you have used this thing, honestly. I am just so very happy to have found the prefect FP, right when I wanted it, and for just $5!
AT the garage sale I also bought a citrus juicer for $5, which is pretty good but nothing really special, and two lovely plates, for 50 cents each, to add to my interesting crockery collection.
Here is a picture of my wonderful Oskar:
Now, onto some food. On Tuesday for lunch I made
Pink Sunshine from Shazzie's 'Detox Delights,' which is listed in the Salad Dressing section but she suggests putting it in nori rolls and that's what I did. It is REALLY delicious. I used a whole lot less pine nuts than the recipe calls for but other than that I pretty much followed it. In this picture it is wrapped up in a nori roll with some fresh corn off the cob mixed with sprouted lentils and some chunks of avocado. Oh, and they're all on one of my new 50cent plates.
Here we have lunch from yesterday, which is a slight variation on Shazzie's
Eat it off me, Beppie salad (she has some weird names for her recipes!) It has lettuce, chinese cabbage, cherry tomatoes, avocado, dehydrated eggplant 'crisps' and a few other yummy things. Sorry the picture is so bad, the rechargeable batteries in the camera died before I had a chance to take any better ones.
This is last night's dinner,
Creamy Quinoa Tabouleh from Juliano's RAW. I have been meaning to make this for AGES and only just got around to it... it was really yummy! I only ever had 'normal' tabouleh once in my life before going raw and I really wanted to try a raw version, and I'm glad it was this one! Highly recommended.
Last of all, I must tell you about the new fruit I experienced yesterday... young coconut. I can't begin to put into words how delicious it is so I command you to go right now and find an Asian supermarket or anywhere else you can that stocks them. GEtting in is hard, and requires a big knife and some violence, but it is so worth it. GO! NOW!
Have a great day everyone!
