Following

For some reason, i am following my own blog. I have no idea how to reverse this. Hah.

Blending, Juicing , Simple Salad Making and Having a Routine

At some point when I started becoming dedicated to preparing and eating healthy foods, I reached an adjustment point. It took nearly 2 years.
I basically eat fruits and vegetables all day. If i'm extra hungry, I will eat some homemade whole wheat bread, some lowfat yogurt, or some soup, as well.
But in general i start the day off with tea or hot chocolate (made from raw cacao) , fruit and yogurt, and eat a huge salad for lunch.
One thing that has made it easy for me to adhere to this is I prepare a salad on Sunday night and put it in a tupperware container with no dressing. then I can create variety during the week by changing dressings.
I also buy tons of frozen raspberries and eat them with apples for breakfast.
Having a routine has made it so easy to eat healthy.
When I have time, I juice vegetables and then blend them with other ingredients like avocado, in the blender and pour finely chopped vegetables on top to make soup.
I bought a vegetable chopper that creates tiny diced vegetables - it's great for salad and soup.
I make my dinner menu for the week on Sunday, buy all the non-produce items then, and stop off each day for fresh produce on my way home so it doesn't clog up the fridge, get crowded and confused, and turn yucky. We eat it all that night usually, or the next day as leftovers. My fridge isn't big enough for a week's worth of produce!
these are some of the things that help me keep on eating fresh and healthy foods.

Health, Food and Skepticism

I recently listened to a podcast by Brian Dunning, a noted Skeptic, about raw foods. He pointed out that while raw foods are great, and are healthy for you, that there is much that is touted by raw-food advocates that is based on, well, at best wishful thinking; including the enzyme theory. And other ideas that are just nonsense, such as "cooked food is poison".

I must concur, that I agree with him 100%. Raw food is delicious, healthy, and incredibly creative as a cuisine. But I don't buy into the "enzymes" concept, or the idea that cooked food is "poison". I'm quite different from most people interested in raw foods, because I adhere to a science based, fact based approach to healthy eating, and i don't follow any kind of natural hygiene theories or other non-science based ideas.

Fresh foods are part of a healthy diet, but raw-food purism, and food spiritualism (the 'life force' in enzymes, for example) are not a part of my interest in raw foods.

Anyway, his podcast transcript is here, for anyone who's interested. Brian Dunning is great. He's logical, his arguments are founded in evidence and science-- and he's really funny too.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4030

Winter time is coming to an end!

in winter, I spend a lot of time working on healthy cooked, warm recipes for the winter nights. My goal is always to keep a meal under twelve dollars, and usually I succeed in that unless I am splurging on fancy ingredients on purpose.
Most of my winter recipes include homemade vegetable soups, bean and vegetable burritos, dahl, vege-burgers and vege-meatloafs, grains such as quinoa or kamut, and steamed vegetables, or seitan dishes that emulate my old favorite chicken dishes such as seitan piccata.
But soon, it will be warm enough to get the dehydrator going again and preparing the fresh foods I love most! I've been enjoying frozen raspberries, fresh apples, grapes, and a wonderful salad mix during the day getting ready for warm weather foods.
I got a new blender a couple months ago and am planning on getting a superior dehydrator in a couple weeks, so i can go to town on Matthew Kenney's cookbook, "entertaining in the raw". I plan to have several all-raw dinner parties at the house this spring and fall using this cookbook as a springboard.

Fresh Tomato Juice, Without a Juicer

I'm saving up for a good juicer. In the meantime, I made some tomato juice with my blender and a Nut Milk Bag (also called a Sprouting Bag). You could also use cheesecloth, but the Nut Milk bag is easier to manage. Here is how I did it:

1. 15 Roma tomatoes , or vine-ripened. Some kind of really juicy, flavorful tomato is best.
2. dice them up into 2-3 pieces per tomato, depending on their size. The Roma tomatoes only need to be cut in half, if you use that kind.
3. Put them in the blender.
4. Whirl the blender until all the tomatoes are completely pulverized. There will still be pieces of tomato skin, unless you have a really high-speed blender such as a Vitamix. I have a "Smoothie Junior" (lol) , so there are bits.
5. Arrange the nut milk bag over a container with a wide mouth.
6. Pour the pulverized tomatoes into the bag. Let the juice drip out of the bag into the jar.
7. Help strain the juice by gently squeezing the nut milk bag of all moisture, leaving only pulp in the bag. It will take a few minutes. You kind of end up milking it like an udder as the moisture drains.

The strained juice in the jar is your tomato juice. When I made this, it was a beautiful, electrifying pinkish-scarlet color, and it tasted like pure summer. Delicious. I don't add salt or anything.

You can save the pulp and add it to other recipes.

Choco-Monkey, An Unmilk-Shake

This is so easy to make, and so delicious.

1. Freeze 2 bananas, peeled and broken in pieces, in the freezer overnight.
2. In the morning, put the frozen pieces in the blender.
3. Add a teaspoonful of shelled hemp seeds, a teaspoon of raw powdered cacao, and a teaspoon of agave nectar (actually, I've made it without the agave nectar, and it's just as good either way, so if you want to reduce the caloric load a bit, take out the agave.)
4. Pour in about 2/3 of a cup of filtered, cold water.

Whirl the blender until the mixture is completely smooth. it will take a few minutes. You will have to add some more water to make it pourable, but do it slowly so that you keep it as thick and creamy as possible. Just add until you can pour it.

Now drink it! It's SO delicious you cannot believe it. And good for you, too. Hemp seeds are high in protein and omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. Cacao is rich in antioxidants and trace minerals. Bananas are very high in potassium.

I haven't updated my blog in months!

Shame on me!

I am in the process of putting together my favorite fresh healthy foods. A mix of vegetarian, vegan and raw recipes, something for everyone, I hope.