40 46 Days of Raw: Day 41

So, first day of raw extension...I was kind of a heifer. Lunch was guacamole with cauliflower and some raw crackers. I also picked up some almond butter (raw) and some Ezekiel sprouted grain tortillas, which I'm debating eating. Instead, I made chia with almond butter and bananas for a snack, then fixed myself a dinner of an arugula salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, walnuts and avocado with strawberry vinaigrette (my single fav thing to eat with arugula).

Strawberry vinaigrette
1/3 C olive oil
2/3 C strawberries (4-8 fresh strawberries, depending on size)
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp crushed dried mint
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp agave nectar
pinch pepper

Blend until the consistency of salad dressing. Keeps in the fridge for up to a week.

Oh yeah, my pickles came out again and I noshed on them! :)

One other purchase I made, that led to a realization: black cherry juice (the cheapest unpasteurized juice they had), is gross. I think I have to come to terms with the fact that I don't like cherry juice. Something in it makes me gag. So there.

40 46 Days of Raw: Day 38-40

Man, the past couple of days have been KILLER.

On Friday, I was able to accomplish a *little,* although my Weds and Thurs shenanigans sure didn't help my energy level. First thing in the morning, my dad called asking me how to use the "juicer" and what recipes I could give him for "juicing." When he says "juicer," he means the vitamix. I keep telling him to just kind of experiment but he wants recipes (from books) so I'm just making stuff up to give him. Sometimes they're mediocre, sometimes better. Day 38 was a decent smoothie, but I wouldn't go out of the way to call it mind-blowing or anything. Good nutritional value, if nothing else!

So here's my Day 38 smoothie:
1/2 C almond milk
1/2 C water
1 banana
1/4 head cabbage
1 vine ripe tomato
1/2 c mixed berries
(you can add 1 tbsp maca powder)

I also polished off my cookies before heading to work. For a work snack, I packed a handful of almonds and a handful of cashews. When I arrived, I found a pleasant surprise: fresh fruit! Where I work, the security guy/backwait, Jim, often brings in candy for the waitstaff. Sometimes it is movie candy like whoppers, mike and ikes, dots, skittles and reeses pieces, sometimes it's fancy fare like chocolate dipped pretzels, truffles, jordan almonds etc. This week, he said he checked the schedule and saw I was working and brought in strawberries, blackberries and green grapes. Another server on shift mentioned that it would be great if we did it every week, so we were having healthy snacks instead of scarfing down 800 empty calories every night. Time will tell!

It was a rough night at the bar. A popular local fellow got married and the bar filled to the brim with people who had already had quite a few drinks. This resulted in two bar fights, several spilled and dropped drinks and a lot of running around and headache. It was sort of exhausting.

When I came home I ate my snack as well as some chia, knowing I'd have a rough day Saturday, and oh, how Saturday delivered.

Day 39:
9:15 am I arrive at the studio to wait on my lessons. I taught from 9:45 until 11, then had a break in which I scooted to buy some sheet music for my 12:30 student, as well as pick up a snack at Trader Joe's of a Cherry Pie Larabar and some pineapple slices. I spied a new "healthy" fast food place called Evos that I may or may not try. Their menu looks kind of meh.

Of course, my 12:30 didn't show up, so I waited around until 1:30 for my next lessons, then finally got out at 3:15, headed back to Durham and quickly assembled some pickles (ready on Monday) and chopped up half a cabbage, a tomato, an avocado, a cucumber and poured vinaigrette over it. Unfortunately, by the time I finished chopping, I had to be at work, so into the tupperware it went.

I scarfed it down in fits through the night, which was also ridiculously busy, then finally got to go home and immediately spooned some chia goodness into a bowl with almond milk and a banana. By 2:15 am I was losing consciousness. That's what 14 hours of work will do though!

Day 40:
Well, when I started this, I thought today was Easter and I'd be enjoying some delicious bagels and rye bread and maybe a veggie burger or some hummus. Oh, so I was wrong.

Taught this morning...but was late. I was totally knackered from last night. I had to drive to Raleigh, so I stopped in at Earth Fare on my way back. Earth fare, my beloved. I picked up some Raw Crackers from the Raw Bakery. They are exactly what I remember raw crackers being like...sort of the analogue of Road's End Mac and Chreese. They have most of the attributes I miss in crackers...crunchiness, saltiness...but then weird things I don't want or need (like a sort of fatty oily flavor, a crumbliness from being made of seeds). I am still grateful for their existence and will eat them with guac as soon as I can get to it. I also put away another one of those Raw Organic bars for some energy while I prepped myself a raw sushi salad...I'm working out a dressing recipe which I'll share as soon as it's good enough *to* share. It was tasty but a little salty and definitely too thick to be a dressing.

40 46 Days of Raw: Day 37

So I retried almond milk now that I got a nut milk bag and I can say with authority: NEVER MAKE ALMOND MILK WITHOUT A MILK BAG. It's ridiculous. Wonderful.

Not wanting to waste almond meal, I pulled together a quick recipe for raw cookies.

Raw Thumbprint Dough Cookies
~1 cup (the leftover from making almond milk) almond meal (still wet is ok!)
1 tsp maca powder
1 tsp raw cacao nibs
1 banana, mashed
1/2 tsp psyllium husk
1/2 c mulberries
8-10 raspberries
agave nectar/maple syrup/honey

Mash almond meal with banana, maca, and psillium. Add cacao nibs and mulberries, mix well, then form into balls. Press into small discs, place a dot of syrup on top to hold a raspberry in place (a little syrup on top too if you like) then enjoy! :)

I also made some chia gel with coconut water instead of regular water to make a sort of chia "jello." For lunch, I polished off the rest of my Go Raw granola with some almond milk and some white Chia. Obviously, I got a few fun things in the mail yesterday, one of which was chia. Chia is a south american seed, a big component in "chia goodness" and has a light, nutty flavor on its own and a tapioca-like consistency. I've been eating the Chia Goodness cereal, but also dropping chia seeds into other food. Aside from being very filling, it also has lots of soluble fiber, water (from the absorption) and beneficial fats. I also got some psyllium husk powder which I'm going to try and get into my body to promote that soluble fiber stuff. Lastly, I ordered some maca powder and cacao nibs.

Me and Mississippi played tennis on what was a beautiful day (intermittent winds, 78 degrees, sunny). Then I came home and planted some raspberry bushes. For dinner, I made raw spaghetti with sauce. I processed some sun dried tomatoes and walnuts into the sauce, but for some reason really wasn't feeling it, so I mixed up an alfalfa sprout, tomato and avocado salad with some balsamic vinaigrette and ate that.

I went to see Free Electric State and Veelee at Tir Na Nog in Raleigh. I have not seen either band since last year, and while both were good, I was straight blown away by Veelee's somewhat anthropological approach to music. From Ginger's drumming paraphernalia (maracas, noisemakers etc) to Matt's almost digeridoo pedaltones, to the wordless vocalizing that permeates so many of their songs. I can't really describe the music except that it is turquoise and entrancing.

Listened to some of our new tracks on the way home, discussed the new Ted Leo and Titus Andronicus. Ate a grapefruit, passed out. A good day.

40 46 Days of Raw: Day 36

So...it was an interesting day. As you all probably know, Wednesday is sort of my personal "hell day," in that I work 11 til about 3 at the Fed, then go directly to my first of seven lessons at the studio, then drive direct from Chapel Hill back to the dirty D for some pubquiz, my respite and joy for the day.

Restaurant job was good (and I made some decent scratch) but failed to pack any food besides a banana and was worried that I was going to have to wait until 8 to sneak into whole foods and grab something or worse, order a salad for dinner...but I had a cancellation and was saved. At whole foods, I picked up some kombucha, fruit salad, kimchi and a Raw Organic Food bar...the fiber one. Apparently, the chocolatey ones are only 80% raw (then why do you call yourself raw, food bar?), and the only one that is seemingly totally raw is this "generic" fiber food bar. It tastes like every power bar I've ever eaten in my entire life and that is to say: edible, but sort of disgusting. Kind of what I imagine soylent green would taste like. After I opened up the kimchi, someone made a comment that it "smelled like cabbage" in the studio, at which I giggled since I'm totally becoming creepy smelly food person as a raw foodie, more so than I ever was as a regular vegan...and as a regular vegan I was creeped out by most smelly foods that did not involve garlic (yes, that includes peanut butter, yes, peanut butter kind of creeps me out).

I ran home, packed some of my homebrew kimchi up for my friend Mississippi Steve and skeedaddled over to pubquiz. He and my buddy Rusty both enjoyed it, so again, kudos, Yummy Vegan Dinners, for posting an idiot proof recipe. While Steve and Rust ate the kimchi, our team totally ate it at pubquiz. We headed over to Whiskey for our friend Jay from Red Collar's birthday. One bar turned into another when we popped back to the fed for a very late dinner and lo and behold, there was John Edwards. Yes, the senator who cheated on his cancer ridden wife with like, everyone PLUS a documentary film maker. He was chatting up two age-inappropriate girls who left in a hurry and about 40 seconds later, he was out the door. Beth commented that it was weird that nobody had bothered him and we all decided that it was likely because nobody who drinks at the fed actually gives a shit about John Edwards. Although I will say that he looked rather thin and pretty dapper. Sort of like one of those aging 80s icons (there's one in particular in my mind but I can't think of him, so I'm just going to give you Don Johnson, who is a fine approximation).

And suddenly we were on our way to Teasers.

For those of you unfamiliar with Durham, Teasers is the "nice" stripclub in Durham. We've also got the slightly less-nice Diamond Girls, then the out and out sketchy Quality Bathhouse and Cabaret Royale. Don't mistake these for the whorehouses (Tomcats and whatever the hell that place is on Rigsbee). For those of you unfamiliar with me, check my goodreads. Sex work (and stripping in particular) is a pet passion of mine as a regretfully not-women's studies major in college. I think my life might've been different if I spent about 60 hours a week in college talking about gender instead of just the 20 I spent working at the Women's Center. Man, I worked at a women's center in college, I *am* a cliche.

It was a pretty hilarious evening, given that Rust was our strip club ambassador, helping us see how to tip correctly, what you can buy with a dollar etc. A lot of funny things were said and done. A few highlights:

Goth-y dancer: Come on man you're gonna get me in trouble.
Jay: How do you know I'm not a high roller?
Rust: The HIGH ROLLER in a denim jacket!
(everyone laughs)
Rust: He likes to play it down.

Jay (re John Edwards): Motherfucking white wine.
(ed note: Jay took serious issue with John Edwards' decision to drink white wine as opposed to beer, liquor or red wine. This was said about 16 times over the course of the night.)

Otty: Jay, we've never shared music, but we shared many nipples tonight.

Justine, the very nice stripper: Never bite a nipple in motion.

Creepy Strip Club Regular waiting outside after the club is closed: Y'all take your demented selves out of here. My dick is hard, now move on.

After all that, I came home, fixed myself some chia goodness with raspberries and attempted to make guac using a storebought salsa called fresh cuts, which was VILE and caused me to waste an avocado, I fell asleep. Thanks for joining the adventures.

Oh and I decided to go to 9pm Holy Saturday. :) So it'll be 46 days of Raw from now on.

40 Days of Raw: Day 34/Day 35

So, not a lot of "news" going on. It's finally officially spring. My bulbs are coming up (see the paperwhite and hyacinth) and so I hit home depot to get myself some new garden stakes, a huge shovel and scoped the veggies for this year. I'm hoping to plant some berry bushes (Anyone have any advice?) as well as tomatoes, cukes, zuccs, and leafies (I've had shit luck with all roughage that aren't herbs) as well as the possibility of an apple or pear tree, and some impatiens.

Eating-wise, it was a pretty bland day. I spent the morning in the recording studio, so had a banana and some kombucha, then hit the grocery store, where I picked up some stuff and ended up punking out and just making broc and guac. Later that evening, I mixed up some chia goodness and tossed some raspberries in with it. I also cut up a mango and it was divine!

Day 35:
Today, I busted out my spiralizer and made some yellow squash pasta. For the haters, I took a picture of the amount of waste. Given the amount of pasta I got (about 3 cups) from one squash, I don't think the waste was excessive. I made a raw tomato sauce of:

2 roma tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1/8 red onion
1 tbsp "italian spices" (basil, oregano, thyme, parsley)
salt to taste'

I realized after the fact that a lot of recipes call for sun dried tomatoes, but I am not a huge fan of them, so I skipped on them. I thought the sauce turned out pretty good (if a little watery and garlicky). Maybe next time I'll try tossing a sun dried tomato in as well.

Sadly, the mac cheese was kind of vile. I don't know what all those people were talking about. I had my roommate try it too and she said that it "tasted like a nut cheese would taste, I guess." It had the consistency of tofutti but none of the yumminess. So it's in the fridge but will probably transfer to the trash by the end of the week.

I've also snacked on an avocado and am fixing a snack of chia and strawberries for work. I also made a really sweet little bevvy (mashed strawberries, coconut water and some filtered water) while I sat in the sunroom with the pups and watched drag race. I can't wait for it to be smoking hot outside! :)

40 Days of Raw: Day 33

Day 33: This afternoon, I made a snack of Go Raw Granola with Almond Milk and a canteloupe and sat down to watch the new phenomenon, Me and My Dick!

I've included the first number (the entire play is available on youtube, just let it play in sequence), and I have to say, it's pretty hilarious.



I also pulled together some radish and cabbage slaw for dinner (nothing to write home about, though) as well as some chia and strawberries. The Mac Cheese doesn't seem to be fermenting at the rate described, but the whey has the right scent at least. I'll keep you posted. Apparently this recipe has won all kinds of awards and things, but right now it tastes exactly the same as it did when I pulled it out. Wait and see, I guess.

40 Days of Raw: Day 32

So, an immensely busy day...

Woke up and went to teach. Several lesson cancellations today gave me 40 minutes to hit Whole Foods and grab a salad and some Vitacoco. After work, I went to Bed Bath to get some Cheesecloth so I could strain out my almond milk and get to work on some Mac Cheese from Really Really Raw Food. It's "maturing" right now.

Last night, Pink Flag played at the Local 506 with Pariah Piranha, 8" Betsy (with whom we'll be releasing a 7") and Athens Boys Choir, who was really funny.

Rob from the Dirty Little Heaters let me onto a little secret; Med Deli in Chapel Hill now has free pickles at their condiment bar, so we got a little snack and ate tons of pickles. So, Triangle-ites, be warned, there are pickles, but when I'm in the hood, there will be none!

I also made a chia snack when I came home, then settled into bed before getting up again this AM.

40 Days of Raw: Day 31

Today I got up, hit the studio, ran home, took a shower and then had to go to work. Of course, today was the day we ran a veggie BLT =/. Packed some Go Raw granola (which is pretty decent as a snack, but I would still suggest Chia over it for breakfast), and a pepper. We served seaweed salad tonight, which was tempting but I'm not sure if it's raw or safe so I skipped it. On arrival at home, me and the pups had dinner. They got kibble, I got a perfectly supple and ripe avocado. Hooray.

Sorry for the lame post, I'm exhausted.

Sleeptime.

40 Days of Raw: Day 29-30

Man, so I realized I screwed up my lent count...apparently 40 days goes to Palm Sunday, not Easter Sunday. Me being an idiot, I've been doing the 47 day count for, well, my whole life. It's either me or my mom for teaching me that it goes through to Easter. Anyway, commenters, your choice. 47 days? Or just 40?

Day 29: A day of discovery.

Ch-ch-ch-chia! Oh man, so I bought this "Chia Goodness" and finally, a sect of vegan food whose product names match their actual contents (Raw Crunch, Chia Goodness...as opposed to Leahey Valley's Vegan and Delicious which should really be questionable and vile). I fixed myself a bowl of this delicious treat with some fresh strawberries, almond milk and agave nectar. I've illustrated several different preparations. I tend to like the 2 TB chia breakfast to 4TB almond milk and 2 TB water, sitting for about 30 minutes to get super gelatinous. It really does taste like cream of wheat!

I also marinated some cabbage and broccoli in balsamic vinaigrette overnight. It made a great salad, but it was a little lousy for snacking in a service job, where I was constantly worried I had broccoli in my teeth :).

Day 30: Boring but delicious
Breakfast of Chia and strawberries
Lunch of an arugula, strawberries, walnuts and vinaigrette. Really pretty and quite tasty too!
Snack of a raw crunch bar.
Dinner of Red pepper and chia with banana, as well as some kombucha.

I have two insanely busy days ahead of me, so it'll probably be another dull combo post, but please readers, weigh in and let me know how to approach this! I've really actually enjoyed being raw now that I've gotten into the swing of things (although I am still fiending for bread!) and am considering doing one 100% raw day per week when I can really focus on the technique and then incorporating at least 1 raw meal per day into my regular diet. Maybe more!

40 Days of Raw: Days 25-28

Day 25:
Headed into Manhattan for a "day o fun" following our tepid show in the bronx. We hunted for basses for Dork at Southside, Ludlow and First Flight. Thing I never knew: guitar shops that are pretty cool for guitars tend to stock only 8-10 basses at a time. Bleh. Sick got pancakes at Clinton St. Baking Company and said they were quite tasty. I talked Dork into getting the Soul Chicken sandwich at Red Bamboo (Since my last trip, it has haunted me in a way no sandwich has haunted me since the Cajun Seitan at Candle Cafe). She thoroughly enjoyed it. I hit up Quintessence and ordered the chips and dip (and oh, holy joy, having the mouth feel of something resembling a complex carb again was wonderful!) as well as the malai kofta, which I wolfed down directly after the guac and salsa. I also stopped off at One Lucky Duck, Pure food and wine's take out joint. I got a raw lasagna as well as a tira misu and a mallomar.

Here's where it gets itchy. On the drive back, I started to feel sick. Pungently sick to my stomach. At home, the girls ordered in NY pizza and I poked at my lasagna. It was totally unappealing since my stomach felt like it had been stabbed. I ended up eating the desserts (bless my sweet tooth) which were totally delicious. I got sick that night and was not right in the stomach until...well, I'm still working on it. I curled up in my mom's bed and drank water and hoped it would be over soon. I can only assume one of two things happened:

1 - I was allergic to a crucial ingredient in the malai kofta. I am slightly allergic to carrots, but not enough to cause that much distress without eating a whole bag of them.

2 - There was too much oil or something I am no longer used to eating in the meal.

I think 2 is more likely, since the thing I found least appealing about the faux lasagna was the overly generous cashew ricotta. I actually ended up eating just the zucchini, tomato and tomato sauce out of the layers and leaving the rest picked at, then moved onto a salad.

Day 26:
Woke up, still sick to the stomach. Watched Sick and Dork eat NY bagels. My mom packed a whole bunch up, which are now sitting in my freezer along with the whole foods veggie burgers for Easter. Yay bagels! I had a couple of pickles and a banana for breakfast, a banana for lunch, a banana for dinner (bananas are supposed to be binding). I drank kombucha as well, hoping to give my flora a fighting chance. The girls stopped off at Pat's for some cheesesteaks. Last time I was in town, I hit up Giana's for what was probably my first and last vegan cheesesteak.

On the way into Philly, we were stuck for about 2 hours in Camden, NJ because the road looked like the pictures I've added. No, that's not a lake, that's Hwy 30. We got to the Terrordome and played with some amazing bands, like Big Attack, The Teenage Whore Moans (it was unfortunately their last show, but they were GREAT!) and Joe Jack Talcum (dead milkmen omfG!). The show was really cool and we were happy to have a good night. We drove about 4 1/2 hours home before things started getting bad, so we pulled over, slept an hour until I peed in my pants a little then got back on the road. Home in Durham by 9:30am.

Day 27:
Still, sadly, not totally right in the stomach, I reached for another banana in the morning and then slept most of the day away. Finally at around 6, I got up the strength to attempt to put some real food in me. I did asparagus, two ways.

Way 1: Creamy asparagus soup, from Goneraw. I actually was not overly impressed by this recipe. Too much lime and just a little...off somehow.

Way 2: Noochy spars
This worked much better for me. I ran the asparagus under hot tap water (about 115*) for about a minute until they turned a little greener, then diced 'em up fine with some radishes. I poured some homemade balsamic vinaigrette over the top then sprinkled with some homemade parma. Can you say good? It was!

After getting a taste of parma again, I also pulled together some grated zucchini "pasta" with some evoo and parma to try and recreate a favorite comfort food (spinach noodles with margarine and parma. so simple, so tasty). It didn't quite hit the same high as my noochy spars, but it was pretty good.

Day 28:
Today, I was a bum and used more produce my mom gave me. Made a banana, flax seed and agave pudding for bfast, then snacked on an apple, some almonds, a yellow pepper and have some cut up broccoli sitting next to me now that might get bumped until the morning. So, until then...thanks for watching, bloggers. Someone asked me tonight what my first food out of the gate will be when I am done with my 100% raw challenge. Any suggestions? Those bagels in my freezer seem like a pretty good call right now...but even more so, I'm craving some Daiya (to be reviewed very soon...not enough testing completed!)

40 Days of Raw: Days 21-24

Haikus for the tour days

Day 21:
on the precipice
no groceries, I rely
on the salad bar
(romaine, cabbage, broccoli, beets, peppers, strawberries, cukes)

Day 22:
pretty much the same
as day 21 foodwise
but with raw crunch bar

Day 23:
Yabba pot is whack
except their salad dressing
which I hope was raw
(for all the pontificating the Yabba Pot website does, or used to do, since it appears to be down now, I was shocked that they didn't have a SINGLE raw item on the menu and had to ask for a salad)

Day 24:
Getting by on juice
my mom stocked the fridge for me
oh, produce delight!
(and my dad bought the awesome veggie burgers from Whole Foods Manhasset which is so sad for me :()

----

By the way, my band, Pink Flag is on tour which means limited time on the internet and also a lot less food. We practiced for our tour with The Shakes and Astronomers at a secret Chapel Hill show, and since, we've been to Wilmington NC and played with Cheap Girls; Arbutus, MD where we played and had a slumber party with the ADORABLE and totally worth checking out Math the Band; and played Bronx NY tonight on a last minute show with Empire, Two O'Clock Courage, The Kezners, Smile Why Not and Soho Violet.

Tomorrow I plan to hit Quintessence and/or Angelica Kitchen and/or Pure Food and wine OR SOMETHING YOU RECOMMEND. I also found out today that I've been cheating a little by drinking Odwalla smoothies, which I realized today are "flash pasteurized"...whoops. However, besides bananas and apples, they're pretty much the best calorie food I can get at rest stops. We're also going bassssss shopping! Yay!

I'll probably wait to update again until I get home from tour on Sunday. Still looking for NYC and Philly recs :)

----

40 Days of Raw: Day 17-20...halfway! Need recs for tour!

Day 17 - Friday...oh man, I made a gross smoothie. I used the acai juice, thinking it would be good in a smoothie. Boy, was I ever wrong. So, I ended up pretty much wasting a
1 banana, 1/2 c strawberries, more spinach, a carrot, celery, a clementine and a pear to make something I essentially had to choke down. I thought it would be more fruit-punch like. Amazon cherries are no fun at all. :( The rest of the day, I had a snack of avocado and mulberries, which are so cute together!

Day 18 - Saturday. My first Mishap with the vitamix.
I forgot to pack breakfast, so ended up having to wait until 3:30 to get food. The good news? I successfully pulled off a runny ice cream. The bad news, when I tried to pour it into a glass, a HUGE chunk of ice cream came out, tipped the glass and painted my floor, baseboard and a little bit of the cabinetry. The grout is now a resonant blue. I also snacked out on a mango. At Broad Street Cafe in Durham, I ordered a house salad. I have a small bone to pick with like, every restaurant in the world: if you describe your salad as fresh green, garden, "mixed veggies" or even "lettuce, tomato, onion and crutons"...WHERE DOES THE CHEESE COME FROM? I don't understand why you'd put cheese on a salad that is supposedly comprised of veggies, with absolutely no mention of it. I don't like sending food back. I work in a restaurant. You need to tell your customers what's true though!

So I washed the vitamix and used it to chop radishes, carrots and celery, then mixed that slaw with my kimchi to ease the spice a little. It worked and was quite tasty. My dog's ball also fell into the kimchi bowl, which was adorably heartbreaking (she's obsessive) because she'd put it in her mouth, drop it and run, then slink back to it, stare for a while, then try again. It was darling, you have to believe me.

Day 19 - Sunday. Yet ANOTHER Kombucha mishap. I'm starting to think these bottles are structurally unsound. So my entire food intake for the day was a Go Raw bar, some cashews and a grapefruit. I really need to make another batch of pickles. I won't lie, it was a bad day for eating.

Day 20 - A good smoothie! Mix of the following:
1/2 c almonds
1/4 c cashews
handful flax seeds
1/2 c blackberries
1/2 c tomatoes
1 red pear
1 grapefruit
1/2 c spinach
1 c water

So I'm sipping on that. I've found that I'm grazing more now that I've gotten into the groove. I'm packing some cashews, almonds and mulberries from The Raw Choice (I used to get pick up food when they had a lifestyle center...it was SO good. If you're out there, TRC, start doing raw cooking classes and demos again!), as well as some radishes for the later in the shift boredom eating.

Sorry about the delay in posting, by the way, but expect some more delays, since my band is going on TOUR! We are hitting up Wilmington, NC; Baltimore, MD; New York, NY; and Philadelphia, PA. Any suggestions you have for places in those cities (I've heard Yabba Pot in MD is good, and will likely be trying Angelica Kitchen's raw selections unless I'm told otherwise), please let me know!

40 Days of Raw: Day 15 and 16 a new toy!

So I got up today and packed some fruit, stepped outside for work and lo and behold, my VITAMIX had arrived. I raced through my lessons, so excited about my vitamix. First thing...I cleaned it. Yep, I'm a nerd.

Then I got to business. First things first, sweet sweet almond milk. They recommend filtering with cloth, which I didn't do. The milk is, admittedly, a little grainy, but a little fiber never hurt anybody. I then attempted to make the ice cream recipe using:
1/2 c blueberries
1/2 c bananas and mango
1/4 c strawberries
1/4 c blackberries
1 c almond milk
1/2 c spinach

Let me say, FAIL. However, I did end up with a big fat smoothie dinner, which I quickly downed. Later that night, I also wrapped some avocado in nori for an evening sushi snack, as well as noshing on the avocado spinach dip (which I can't wait to attempt in my vitamix for an even creamier smoother greatness). For the record, Dork tried that spinach dip and said "This is how raw hummus should taste." And I agree. Fuck raw hummus. There, I said it.

This morning, I attempted another green smoothie this time containing:
1 whole grapefruit
1 whole cucumber
1 c almond milk
1/2 c frozen banana and mango
1 handful flax seeds
1/2 c blueberries
5 strawberries

This smoothie was not really as tasty as yesterday's, probably because I used 2 very large, bitter fruits for this drink. I'm going to drag it along to work with me and hope for the best. I'm also planning to pack a raw crunch bar for the fatigue. I'm really looking forward to trying to make ice cream again, as well as some cashew butter!

So, anybody got any great recipes for a new vitamix owner? Man, when raw is over, I'm gonna make some soup! It's gonna be so RAD.

Days 15 and 16: yay getting calories. I've lost about 7 pounds since the start of this experiment (2 weeks ago). It's not that I don't want to drop some weight, but I am worried that it is more starvation method than healthy stuff. I've started doing at home bodyweight exercise to attempt to preserve my muscles. :)

40 Days of Raw: Day 13 & 14

Guys, I'm not going to lie, day 13 was a doozy. My roommate bought some sourdough bread which tempted me the whole morning. I fixed myself a bowl of ultra spicy kimchi and tried mixing it with the raw hummus I made, which essentially rendered both elements totally unappetizing, so I ended up just swishing it around in my bowl and not eating it. I didn't include a picture because it looks grody. So naturally, when I got to work there was an amazing vegetarian (easily veganized) dish on the specials and I also sold about 15 orders of the hummus plate (which is my staple meal on shift). The scent of hummus and warm pita was kind of overwhelming.

I left work and ran to the Local 506 to catch Pretty and Nice, who stayed over. They were quite enamored with my homemade fermented veggies as well as my darling puppies. Having essentially not eaten all day, I cut up some celery into the kimchi, which helped ease some of the spice. I think next time I'll try cutting radish into it. We stayed up way too late and were planning to try and get up and maybe hit Elmo's diner this morning like we did last time, but work and tour schedule interfered. Alas. Anyway, if you've never heard them, check them out. I believe you can (with some ease) find and download the song Tora Tora Tora, which is pretty rad and the reason I ended up buying their cool, off-kilter pop album.

Day 14: dippy.

Today I set aside about an hour to go to the store, since all I had to eat were pickles, kimchi and that hummus. Of course, I was famished by the time I arrived, wandered the aisles in a stupor and ended up leaving the store with half the ingredients actually required to make pretty much anything worth a damn. Fortunately, I'm crafty. For late lunch I whipped up a Broc and Guac-- avo diluted by peas after I read this scary article on goneraw.com which decries the high fat diets of many raw foodists and blames fatigue and illness on them (I have been tired! I do need energy! This made me feel like I was reading an infomercial.). It was SO delicious.

I hung out with some friends and slowly but surely my blood glucose dropped and dropped to the point that I got a bit of a headache, got giddy and then got a BAD headache. Having not eaten in almost 10 hours, I took my food processor into the basement when I got home and made the creamed spinach dip from goneraw.com while pounding coconut water to try and bring some quick sugar into my blood stream. Can I tell you something? This dip rocks. It ROCKS. It is awesome. When I am no longer raw, I'm gonna buy some rye bread, spread this all over it and refuse to leave the house until it's all gone. Either way, it's still pretty good with cauliflower. :)

Days 13 & 14: Not my best. But stickin to it.

Sidebar-- Giveaway over at a friend blog

Ginger is the New Pink is giving away a FREE RAW CLEANSE. In addition to this neat giveaway, I'm kind of excited to have been turned on to the blog (thank you Sarah!) because it has lots of sweet raw food info!

Update: I'm a tool and this giveaway already ended. Man, I am lame. I really would love to get a free cleanse!

40 Days of Raw: Day 12, when I FINALLY get Kimchi right!

So today I finished off my last bit of Sunja Kimchi, just in time to test the waters of my own recipe...and IT IS GOOD. I mean, it's a little spicier than I would ideally make it but the flavors are right! It tastes tangy and salty and hot and GOOD. I used (according to recipe)--

1 whole head nappa cabbage
1 whole bunch green onions
1 7" piece of daikon radish
6 cloves garlic
1 1/2" thumb ginger
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp liquid aminos
3 tbsp gochgaru
about 1 tsp extra salt

and voila, in 2.5 days, I have a cheaper, homemade alternative to the 4.59 a small bottle stuff. Oh, happy day. Thank you, thank you Yummy Vegan Dinners. And thank you to the PPK boards for recommending this recipe.

I'll also be blagging some cool recipes from Chef Shirle in the near future. She told me about a killer key lime pie recipe that sounds crazy good.

So munching on nuts, trying to kill the rest of this grody acai juice (I'm sorry I ever bought it! Next time sticking to the tried and true friends, like passionfruit juice, grapefruit and so on), and now, my freshly milled kimchi! Doing well!