The Raw Vegan Princess

I'm not dead yet...



... I think I can go for a walk now...

Sorry, I'm doing another movie bit. Raise your hand if you love Monty Python! *Waves hand wildly in air* That's from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail. Anyway I'm really sorry I haven't posted for a week. Is it just me, or does everyone else read other people's blogs every day, leave comments, and feel so involved that they don't realise they haven't actually posted on their own blog? That's my problem. I'm glad everyone had a nice christmas/holiday period and you all appear to have had scrumptious food. We had a very unconventional christmas this year - it was our first year living on the other side of the country to the rest of our extended family so it was just mum, dad, me and a whole lot of animals, of course :-) I woke up to an amazing stocking stuffer - a durian!! See back a couple of posts for a photo and description of this stunningly delicious fruit. I also got:
- a hemp hat (no, I won't get high from wearing it, lol!) a totally aweseome blender just like this one, the book 'Your Natural Diet: Alive Raw Food' by TC Fry and David Klein (great book), a pedometer to track how many steps I take, another book on natural healing remedies, two gorgeous plates and two lovely bowls to add to my crockery collection, a new pair of pyjamas, a new nutmilk/sprout bag, an anklet, a headband, some vegetable soap... these things came from my parents, two sets of grandparents, and two sets of aunties and uncles - a lot of it was posted from interstate. The very best present though, was one that I chose before hand - sponsorship of this gorgeous little orang-utan thought the Australian Orangutan Foundation. It is only a small contribution but I'm glad I'm doing something to help out.
I also got a little bit of money from my other grandparents and some relatives in England. Yes, in case you're wondering, that is 3 sets of grandparents I have - what happened was, both my parents parents got divorced and remarried, so I ended up with four sets but then my dads dad died and we don't talk to his step mum. SO there you go. Anyway, with some of this money I went nuts at my favourtie shop Alive Organics, which sells a lot of stuff from The Raw Pleasure Shop. I bought black tahini, mesquite meal, and ... cacao butter. Raw chocolate here I come. It's, funny, I was never much of a chocolate person but I'm looking forward to having little bits of raw choccie to nibble on. Actually, I'm looking forward to making it more!
Okay, to continue with our slighlty unconventional christmas - so, I had a durian for breakfast. Then, with my super duper new blender, I whizzed up a delicious green smoothie - ooohhh, it was sooo much smoother than the ones from my food processor! I packed up this and some fruit, then hopped in the car with mum and we headed out to the Salvation Army's Christmas lunch, where we healped out by doing dishes and just talking to the people who had come so they wouldn't have to spend christmas day alone. My dad didn't come because it's just not his kind of thing and he doesn't get a very long break from work over christmas so he wanted a chance to relax. Don't think he's not a nice guy!! As a thankyou for helping, we got some leftover food sent home with us including cold chicken, turkey and pork - dad eats vegetarian most of the time but he still likes a bit of meat (yuck) so we weren'g going to be rude and turn it down when we knew he would eat it. So that was what dad had for dinner, along with salad and the thing he and mum both requested I make - chips based on the Herbed Potato Fries recipe from 'The Everyday Vegan'. Mum's request for the rest of her dinner was a simple pumpkin soup (I just made it up once - no recipe).



For my christmas dinner, I made something that I have wanted to make for AGES but have not been able to because it required a blender - sunflower seed pate. There are about a trillion different recipes for this that have been driving me nuts and the one I used was Sunny Hemp Pate from Detox Delights by Shazzie, but mine is more like Peppy and Sunny Hemp Pate because I used half pumpkin seeds (pepitas) and half sunflower. To serve I started off rolling it up in thin strips of zucchini but that was taking too long so in the end I just spread it on slices :-) Sorry about the picture quality, my dad took this shot not me! Oh and you can see one of my lovely new plates. For 'dessert' I made myself a little bit of Carrot Cake from Juliano's RAW The UNCookBook, although heavily modified. I made this for my birthday a while ago too, it is delicious!



This is our Christmas Table, with my mum and my cute dog Casper in the background. Ignore the mound of meat on Dad's plate.



Here is me, totally obscured by my hemp hat and a gorgeous christmas crown that i have had since I was about 4, hacking into my durian. You shouldn't need a knife to get in but a) my parents aren't quite as good at selecting durian's as me and b)it was still a tad frozen.
Pictured at the top of this post is a simple salad of chinese cabbage, carrot and corn (and a chopped date, don't ask why I put that in? :-) mixed with Tomacado Dressing from my new book 'Your Natural Diet.'



Oh and finally, this is a gorgeous little organic watermelon I bought last week. I put the teaspoon in to give you an idea how big (I mean small!) it is.

Have a wonderfully happy new year and I promise promise promise to post more often!!

posted by Freedom @ 8:01 am