Stuff happening in my life!Okay I know it has been a long time since I last posted and I am now going to try and explain why that is. As you may remember (visit
this post if you want a refresher) I have been studying Vet Medicine and Surgery for the past two years but have been having some serious moral/ethical issues. In addition to that, after 14 straight years of being a full time student I am just a wee bit sick of studying. I was planning to just push through and finish my 5 year course but come time to start back at uni this year, I just couldn't do it. I kinda had a bit of a breakdown on the first day I was meant to go back... just couldn't do it. So I decided not to!
I don't know yet what I'm going to do next year but this year I am working at a wonderful wonderful cat shelter called
The Cat Haven. It is a horribly sad job on many occasions but it is also fun and rewarding. Plus I adore all the people I work with!! We work on a roster, normally 8am to about 5pm though we often stay later. I have almost an hour travelling time each way, so I am out of the house 11 hours a day! At the moment I am working 4 days a week (though never the same days and usually not all in a row) plus I am still doing my personal raw food chef job for about 4 hours a week. And I am still in charge of all the food prep for my parents. So I'm super duper incredibly busy. I have been reading loooots of your blogs on a really regular basis, I just can't get motivated to write on my own for some reason! And even though I'm here now, I don't have that much to show you.
This is an African Horned Cucumber, local grown and organic. Sorry the picture quality is not great, I'm having trouble adjusting to daylights savings still (even though I'm VERY happy to have light mornings, it makes food photography hard). Although it looked totally awesome, it didn't taste that nice unfortunately; the skin was not edible and the inside was kind of filled with this jelly-like green stuff and lots of seeds. It had this odd, slightly sweet taste that I didn't really appreciate. But at one dollar, I think it was worth it just so I could look at it in the fruit bowl for about 5 days!!! :-)
Here is the sushi I made for my Mum tonight, the lighting is poor again and that bugs me cos I would have had a few really good photos. :-( But never mind. She loved it, that's what counts.
Finally, on another non-food note, I have a new family member. You know how even though it would be nice to save every single animal everywhere, there are just some that you get a feeling for... I looked at this boy and I got that feeling, big time. When anyone at work really really likes a cat, we just put a heap of effort into getting it adopted out to a good home. But this gorgeous boy didn't get adopted and then he was going to be euthanased, which I just couldn't bear. I don't know how I did it, but after several days of begging, cajoling, crying, pleading, sucking-up, bribing... whatever!... my wonderful parents finally said I could bring him home. His name is Tuli, meaning Serene in Swahili, which is exactly what he is. It is now 2 weeks since he came home and Ruhsa is still quite hissy but Casper has liked him from the start. They'll get there eventually!
Well, I'd better go as I have to be up early to work tomorrow. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Mum's FoodHere's a meal I made for my Mum last week some time, she really enjoyed it. I used the recipe for
Creamy Herb Dip from Shazzie's 'Detox Delights,' though I changed it up a bit. Mum really liked it and I think it is the most awesome colour!! I love green food :-P
To go with it she had some veggie sticks - carrot, celery, snow peas - and this, which is a buckwheat cracker. I make these using my own recipe, which I have never written down but I will soon (honest!) Mum really likes it and says it has a nice texture, kind of like shortbread, that sort of crumbly texture.
Once again, how awesome are these photos now that I know how to work my camera!?! While I'm talking about my Mum, I'll share a little story. As you know, she went totally raw at the beginning of December last year and has been doing really well, however, she has an intolerance to salicylates, which are a naturally occurring pesticide found in a lot of fruits. In addition, her digestion is not great and she can't have many nuts or seeds. So her diet is fairly limited, and she has trouble feeling really full. Last week, she decided that she was going to try introducing some boiled/steamed veggies into her diet (like potatoes and pumpkins); she was really looking forward to it for a few days and then she ate it Thursday night. Afterwards, she was really disappointed and said it fell far short of her hopes, plus it made her feel pretty unpleasant and the next day she said - "don't eat cooked food, it makes you STINK!" So there you go - she's on raw food for life, I think!
Easter-y Picnic FoodYou know, when I was a cooked food eater, I liked hot cross buns a lot more than eggs at Easter so when I was deciding what to make for today's raw picnic I wanted to go for a raw Hot Cross Bun. I knew of a recipe by
Elaina Love called Cinnamon Rolls and it looked really yummy so I decided to try it.
Since the recipe is already on-line in a number of places I'll publish it here if you want it, with my changes noted:
Elaina's Cinnamon Rolls ( from Alissa Cohen's book)
DOUGH::
2 1/2 C almond meal (left over from almond milk)I used brazil nut pulp, cos it was sitting in the freezer)
2 1/2 Cflax meal (grind 1 1/3 C whole flax seeds
1 C soft dates, firmly packed
1/8 C pure waterI needed a LOT more water - don't know how much though
1/4 tsp celtic sea saltI omitted this altogether
dash cayenne (optional) I didn't use this
1/4 C olive oil or coconut butter I used coconut oil
Blend dates and water in food processor or blender till a paste. I used my coffee grinder blade
Mix everything together in a large bowl and work with your hands till dough is well mixed.
Place dough on teflex sheet and form into 1/4 inch thick square using hands to shape it.
Cover with another teflex sheet and roll with rolling pin till dough is uniform thickness. I don't have an Excalibur dehydrator so I just used baking paper, one piece under and one on top.
Prepare filling.
FILLING:
1/2 C soft pitted dates, firmly packed
1/2 C raisins (sultanas)
1T cinnamon I replaced this with Mesquite powder
1/8 C pure water
extra raisins
1/2 C soaked and dehydrated walnuts, coarsely choppedI left these out
Puree 1st 4 ingredients in food processor till smooth.
Spread this mixture onto the dough.
Sprinkle with extra raisins (sultanas) and walnuts.
Using teflex sheet on the bottom to push, roll the dough tightly.
Wrap the roll in teflex or wax paper and refridgerate till chilled.
Slice into desired thickness and dehydrate at 105 deg till warm. I didn't dehydrateIt looks like a long and difficult recipe but it took me less than 45 minutes to produce a really delicious and fancy looking dish. If (when) I make it again I think I'll actually make two rolls from the one recipe as this was quite hard to roll up and it was also really rich so smaller pieces might be better. But it was really very yummy and I enjoyed it a lot, and everyone at the picnic agreed. My Mum thought it looked delicious - it was her idea to decorate with frangipanis from our garden. The coconut flavour really came through delightfully.
And I have to give an absolutely MASSIVE thankyou to my good friend Kate, who helped me figure out how to take AMAZING pictures on my camera. I have been getting really disheartened by how bad my pictures are so I'm sooooooooooo excited to have these amazing pics to show you. Hopefully there are many more to come! And Kate is going to come over next week and help me design a custom blog template. Kate rocks.
This is some salad that Rachan bought to the picnic, it was really yummy too, especially when mixed with the Indian Spinach Dip Kate and Chris bought (from Alissa Cohen's book, I think).
Have a great day everyone!
Fancy FoodHello! I know I've been away for a while but I've got quite a few yummy food pics to make up for it!
Last night I made capsicum boats - aren't they pretty? I would so serve this if I owned a raw restaurant, or had someone really special coming over for dinner. If you're interested, I actually had quite a few more boats than are in this picture, but with all of them on the plate didn't look as nice, lol! In terms of taste, they were good but only had about 3 hours in the dehydrator and in this case I think at least overnight would be much better, simply to soften up the capsicums a little bit. I like capsicums but they have to be really sweet for me and these weren't quite, so I think that would be good. And I needed to soak the dried tomatoes. But other than that they were good. So good in fact, that I'm going to post the recipe on my recipe blog. Aren't you lucky!!
This is another occasion recently when I felt like getting really creative. The kebabs have cherry tomatoes, pineapple, capsicum and cauliflower on them, they are served on a bed of baby spinach and have a tomato-ey dressing. Very yummy, but also could have done with longer in the dehydrator. Sorry that pic is so blurry!!
This is a picture that I took a looooooooong time ago and I really can't remember what was in this salad but I thought it was pretty (if a little blurry) so there you go!
Now before I post anymore meal pics, I need to tell you about the exciting thing(s) I bought just recently. COCONUTS! I love me some coconut, both young and mature but the ones available here in West Australia have been grown with chemicals, shipped from overseas, irradiated and stored for who knows how long. Buying a coconut from a shopping centre is basically taking a 50/50 chance on whether it will be edible or not - often even if it's edible it's quite tasteless. Plus i really think I could feel the chemicals having an effect on my body. So I pretty much gave up coconuts.
Then I discovered that
Sunrise Coconuts delivers to WA. WAHOOOO! Basically, these are both young and mature coconuts, grown organically in Northern Queensland and harvested by hand, then delivered to your door. And they work out at about the same price as the awful supermarket ones. Yes please!! My friend Kate, of
In the Raw and I went halfsies on a sack of coconuts and then we waited...and waited...and waited... then finally came! (They travelled by road, all the way from one side of Australia to the other, which is why it took so long.)
I personally didn't love the young coconuts that much - they were nowhere near as sweet as the ones shipped over from Thailand and they had almost no meat. They weren't bad, but not great either. But the mature ones! WOWEEE! These are amazingly good coconuts. My beautiful Ruhsa seems to love them too:
Here she is laying on the sack that they cam in, with one of the young ones next to her. She was having fun chewing on the sack itself so I thought maybe that was her fascination but then the cocos were moved into a box (without the sack) and she climbed in with them, so I guess it was them she was after. Isn't she a cutie!?! I know she looks grumpy but I think she was just getting sick of us pointing and laughing at her, lol.
So here are some coconutty creations:
Very loosely based on the Snow Cake in Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. Yummy but honestly, with dates and dried banana, it got a bit sickly at the end.
A salad with simply lettuce, snow pea sprouts, grapes and coconut. Yum. Grapes and coconuts are a very good pairing!
Well congratulations if you made it to the end of this mammoth post. If you celebrate Easter,I hope it's wonderful. If not, enjoy the long weekend like I will (though I'm working, lol!)
FIGS!Hi there! Sorry I haven't been posting much lately, though I do have what I consider to be a good reason... See, I like to post delicious food pictures for you all, to keep you inspired and make sure you know how scrumptious raw food is. But I haven't been making too much scrumptious food recently, because nature's been making it for me, in the form of all the different varieties of incredible summer fruits.
And the one I've been loving the most is figs! Aside from the fact that figs are ridiculously yummy and also good for you, around here, they're FREE!
Here is me, in the fig tree that's in our garden. Well, the actual tree is growing just the other side of our back fence but as you can see, I am within our property (on the roof of the guinea pig enclosure, to be exact) in this shot. But that's not the only place I get free figs. There are 2 other trees within 2 minutes walking of our house, which I frequent regularly. All 3 are different varieties of figs, though I'm yet to figure out exactly what variety. There are really fig trees just about everywhere! And I love it!
I will get some close-up fig pics for you soon, to get everyone drooling. Oh and I do have a brand-new, scrummy recipe planned, so I'll post pics of that too!
Have a great day everyone!
My Etsy ShopHI there, just a quick post to let everyone know that I have created my own Etsy shop to sell my Raw Recipe e-Book and a few other things. You can find it here:
Freedom Productions ShopHope everyone is having a great week - there are big things going on here and I'm busy, but I'll get back with a proper post soon!
My Raw MumThere's something I've been wanting to share with everyone for a while, but I couldn't... but now I can! For just over two months now, my Mum has been walking the wonderful path of a raw vegan! Here is her story, as I recently posted it on the
Raw Pleasure forums:
Well, my Mum is officially a raw fooder ... in fact, she has been for 3 weeks now! As you might know, I was in Adelaide from the 10th to the 23rd of December; when I was in the car on the way home from the airport with my parents, Mum started to try and tell me something. She was kind of beating around the bush so eventually Dad said "she's gone raw!" I couldn't believe my ears! I'm going to share Mum's story with you now (and yes, I've checked with her and she doesn't mind!)
Mum has had digestive problems for over 20 years. She has had in excess of 7 abdominal surgeries, the main ones being: appendix removed, one ovary removed (due to cysts), gall bladder removed, 4 feet of excess bowel removed. When the bowel was removed, the remaining bowel was stitched together and stapled to the wall of her abdomen. That staple is still there.
For many years she (and the Drs) thought Mum had IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). Over the years she gradually ate less and less variety, searching for things she could digest without pain and discomfort. She never tested positive for lactose intolerance but started giving up dairy anyway when I was about 9 or so (10 years ago now). She removed overt dairy (eg glass of milk, slice of cheese) from her diet but still ate bread, biscuits etc with dairy in them. Plus she loves chocolate and would occassionally indulge.
Many foods gave her terrible wind, some of the worst ones being brassica vegetables like broccoli and cabbage. She also couldn't have any high water content foods (eg lettuce) because they made her feel bloated. She couldn't pass the wind and had to lay down and massage her stomach to get it out; she described this like a ball of lead in her abdomen.
Mum has always drunk lots of water and the only hot drinks she enjoyed were herbal teas and the occasional hot chocolate, so no caffeine addictions there.
I clearly remember that by the time I was in about year 8 at school (2001) almost every night of the week Mum would say "what I am going to have for dinner?" Dad and I would chant "chicken, rice and peas," and we'd all laugh, but clearly Mum longed for some variety and flavour. The plate of plain grilled chicken, boiled rice and peas never looked very appealing!
I"m not sure whether it was before or after this that Mum discovered 'adhesions' - only through the glory of the internet did she find out about this condition, where the scar tissue that results from any major surgery does weird things in your body. Apparently certain people have 'adhesion skin,' making them much more susceptible to this condition. In Mum's case, the scar tissue has effectively formed little bands around her intestines so things can't move through them normally.
All the internet literature on adhesions says that the best way to deal with them is to eat a really low fibre diet, as the bulky fibre jams up the intestines where the adhesions exist. So from then on it was white bread, white pasta, white rice... you get the picture. Mum was concerned about the fact that she probably wasn't getting many nutrients from her diet but at least she could digest it.
Mum decided to become vegetarian after reading a lot of my animal rights literature (I was already vegan by this point)... it was September 2006 I think, or maybe it was 2005. Anyway, this didn't have any noticeable effects on her health (when you're only eating plain grilled free range chicken, I can see why) but it did serve to limit her food intake options even more.
Since I went raw last July, I've believed it could 'cure' Mum. I am a passionate believer in raw food... I would put 100% of my trust in it, always. I have read stories of people who have dissolved cysts, tumours and warts... why, then, could Mum not dissolve her adhesions? The hardest thing for me has been that Mum agreed that the raw diet was the best way for humans to live. She sees the truth behind it all. But she always said "my body has been unnaturally altered by doctors so I don't believe this natural diet can help me now."
As this year has progressed, I have seen Mum's condition deteriorate... this was because she had an office job and sitting down all day was affecting her stomach muscles. She quit that job and got another one that involved home assistance to people with disabilities/illnesses ... she was using an upright vaccuum cleaner and a floor washing thing that both hurt her stomach muscles.
A few times I outright suggested raw foods, juice fasts etc... I also dropped subtle hints. Eventually I realised I was going to make Mum angry, push a wedge between us. If Mum wanted to raw, it had to be because she wanted to.
Then I went away for two weeks and whaddya know, I get home and she's raw! Lol.
There was a reason for this though. A couple of months ago she decided to try going gluten free (she has done this before) and so for a few days she ate heaps of gluten free crackers, bread pasta etc... most of which are corn based. She was an absolute mess after that, in agony. So she decided she was allergic to corn and tried to eliminate corn from her diet... you have NO idea how hard that is! It's in EVERYTHING! So she settled to just minimise the amount of corn she was eating.
On the first day I was away, Mum was preparing dinner for Cherimoya (one of my gorgeous ratties) which included scraping fresh corn off the cob. Some corn juice squirted into Mum's eye and she had a terrible allergic reaction to it - the eye swelled up, itched, watered etc etc for over half an hour. From then on she decided that all the corn had to go. And the only way she could find to do this, was to go raw!! (And the rest of the time I was away, Dad was chopping corn for Cherimoya, lol!)
It is still a HUGE learning curve. We have also figured out that Mum has a salicylate allergy and dehydrated foods do NOT agree with her at all. But she is generally enjoying her food and said that she hasn't felt so good in 20 years. I can definitely see that 'raw glow' all around her.
Viva la RAW!!! yahh ohyeah yahh
So anyway, what I'm saying here is - give people time and space. Let them make their own decisions. Be gentle. Just offer what they ask for and maybe a bit more. Don't push too hard. I KNOW it's hard to see people you love suffering.
Here's me and Mum a few weeks ago. Don't we look great? Glowing rawbies!!
Have a fabulous day!
P.S I have been meaning for a while to give a big shout-out to my lovely Nanna, who has been reading my blog for quite some time now. I love you Nanna!!
