Raw Food, Real People

A Year Later, A Better Update

2010-08-12T12:36:00.002-05:00

Hi to anyone who may still read or come across this blog!

Just wanted to re-direct you to Frugal Vegan Mom , which I just created, not really as a mom, but as a mom-to-be..... around Feb. 19th, 2011!

K

Hi everyone

2009-09-04T13:40:00.002-05:00

There are 2 pretty big excuses for the lack of posting, and the abandonment of the Green Smoothie Challenge (for now):

1. We just moved into our new house this week, stressful and overwhelming, but we're getting settled...

2. I accepted a position to write a column for Examiner.com, a newer site for info on all kinds of topics divided by city. So I'm the new Minneapolis Vegan Examiner.

I haven't done too much with my site yet, but eventually plan to have a Raw Wednesday weekly series, so if you have any recipes you'd like to share, raw or cooked vegan, or if you want to be added to my links list, please e-mail me!

rawfoodrealpeople@gmail.com
or
eatnaturallyminneapolis@gmail.com

Cheers,

K

Day 8 - Sick of Green Smoothies

2009-08-25T15:47:00.001-05:00

It's not that I don't like them, I really do. But, I already eat a lot of fruit and greens separately and don't think it's such a huge benefit to combine them all in the morning. I'm never very hungry in the morning and just plain whole fruit is more satisfying to me than taking it in liquid form. Also, I'm still wary of Green Smoothie Breath.

This isn't to say I'm giving up though! For me, this challenge was not about drinking a green smoothie every day, but to cut back on my partying and eating late at night, get on a more normal schedule.

But that wasn't really accomplished on day 8....we were out allll night running errands for the upcoming move into our house this weekend. Got home at 10:00, was eating egg sandwiches and with a screwdriver at 11.

(Side note - first I tried mixing vodka with my leftover green smoothie from the morning - I figured it'd be like fruit juice and vodka right? No! It was nasty! So bad that I poured my concoction down the drain even though there was good liquor left in it!)

I'm blaming the egg sandwiches on Nathan and his mom, she sent us home with these delicious little green peppers and tomatoes from her garden, and they were just begging to be put into an omelet, which Nathan made.

Ok ok I'm making excuses. But I feel fine today so whatever.

Here, so there is something useful to read in this post - a yummy raw carrot salad I made the other day. It could be a side on its own, but I put it over some baby spinach.

MOROCCAN RAW CARROT SALAD (From Epicurious.com)

1 pound carrots, coarsely grated (about 4 cups)
1/4 cup vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil
3 to 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
2 to 4 cloves garlic, mashed or minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin or 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
Pinch of salt
About 1/2 teaspoon harissa (Northwest African chili paste), 1 tablespoon minced green chilies, or 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne (optional)

My version was a bit simpler, because grating carrots sucks - just threw everything in the food processor, leaving out the paprika, harissa, and cayenne.

K

Days 6 & 7 - Weekend Recap

2009-08-24T17:12:00.003-05:00

Friday: I did end up being pretty productive, and rewarded myself with cocktails & toast before bed. Since I got plenty of sleep I woke up feeling great on Sat. though. No smoothie Friday, because I was finishing off a bottle of carrot juice from Trader Joe's. That place rocks. Bottle of organic carrot juice for $2.99 goes a long way - I mixed it with orange juice, then diluted with water, very bright orange and delicious!

Sat: Did many chores in preparation for the bachelorette party, plus squeezed in an hour long bike ride along the Mississippi River path - gorgeous. Since my "breakfast" takes place at about 2 p.m. on the weekends, I didn't have room for a smoothie before the girls came for party setup at 4:30, and then drinking and snacking commenced!

Some Pics:

The Bridesmaids

The Cake, complete with Man In Speedo:

Speedo Man tucked securely in my bra, getting his toes sucked.

Saturday night turned into a big pile of ick complete with too much food, cake, liquor, topped off with white castle at the end of the night.

Sun: Felt like a$$. Oh well what's to be expected after a party like this? Finally felt good enough to eat around dinnertime and then it was a banana, salad, and toast. We zoned out and rented I Love You Man from redbox - not highly recommended - the first half was funny enough, but really got old by the end. Has anyone seen this? Is it just me or was the relationship between Paul Rudd and his fiancee completely unrealistic? Bleh...
But, feeling great now, Monday in the cube has gone fast and relatively painless so that's about as good as I can ask for here....

K

Days 4 & 5

2009-08-21T16:41:00.000-05:00

I'll roll these into one post and say I hope both days will be a success, even though today's only half over, but Nathan's going out of town tonight with our home laptop and I usually avoid the computer at home on weekends anyway.

Yesterday I made my smoothie (apple, frozen pineapple, frozen blueberries, collard greens - good combo), ate decently throughout the day, not too much close to bed, and got a decent night's sleep.

While Friday nights are usually party nights, Nath will be heading up north for a bachelor party while I get ready to host the bachelorette's party at our apt. tomorrow night. So tonight: Packing, Cleaning & Productivity. Hopefully. Unless I get lonely and meet my friends out at the bar, which very well could happen….

As of now, my only plans are to get out of this cubicle as quickly as possible.

Happy Weekend!

K

Day 3 - Doing Better & My Food History

2009-08-20T13:44:00.004-05:00

Yesterday went a lot better than the first two days. Had my smoothie, had a healthy light dinner (carrot and collard green soup from the other night, salad, and some PB toast) and drank only chammomile tea before bed. The sleeping part was not so much a success though, because Nathan returned home after 4 a.m. because he was spraying our ceilings at the new house…and it's hard to sleep without him! I'm feeling fine today though…

So, Nichole (Pure and Simple Home), who's also doing the Green Smoothie Challenge, just asked me how I got into the whole raw food thing, and I figured I'd share here for everyone to read.

I grew up eating a very standard american diet. My mom cooked, not usually totally from scratch, we ate a lot of pasta with ground beef and tomato sauce from the jar, baked potatoes, iceberg lettuce salads with ranch dressing, pillsbury rolls from the can, and there were always ice cream and cookies in the house. We were all generally healthy and thin too though.

Around age 17, having never given a thought to my weight, I started realizing my (already skin tight teeny bopper) clothes were becoming too tight for me. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't exercise, ate s'mores pop tarts for breakfast, and little debbie nutty bars for lunch.
I started paying attention to calories and diet foods and how much I ate. I remember nibbling on little bags of special K cereal to keep me full in high school.

College came and I still didn't know much about "real" foods. I ate from the dorm cafeteria and lots of pre-packaged foods in my room, and of course, drank a lot of alcohol. I gained who knows how much, maybe 15 pounds over the next couple years, but lost it my junior year when I studied abroad in Budapest.

There, I remember eating lots of apples, bread, and frozen veggies. I didn't know how to cook and they didn't have much pre-packaged, and also I walked constantly.

By the time I graduated after 5 1/2 years of college, I was back to about 20 lbs. heavier than my comfortable weight. My final semester I lived in a co-op with 17 people where we rotated dinner duty for the weeknights - there was a strict budget and mandatory vegetarian option and I crushed a garlic bulb for the first time in my life.

After college I started learning how to cook more, I'd never had a strong taste for meat but thought it was especially repulsive to handle raw so never bought it. When I met Nathan 3 years ago we started cooking more together and since then I've just gradually become more aware about how crappy processed food is for your body and how horribly animals are usually treated in the meat and dairy industries. Eventually all my extra weight came off, helped by the fact that I joined a gym and started doing some yoga, which I didn't in college.

I'm not strictly vegan but just naturally avoid most animal products. I love fruits, veggies, beans, lentils, nuts, whole grains, etc. I do still eat eggs about once a week, mostly as an after bar alcohol absorbing snack, but try to ease my conscience by buying organic cage free, as unregulated as those claims might be.

A good friend of mine started telling me about raw foods about a year ago, and as I started reading more I was really intrigued - people claimed to have amazing health benefits. Last Feb., feeling very in need of a detox from a rough winter, plus being stuck in a rut and bored, Nathan and I decided to do a 1 month raw experiment. We weren't incredibly strict about it and didn't feel any crazy bursts of energy as others have described, but we also were pretty uneducated as to how to go about it…. Nathan did lose 15 pounds though, which he was pretty happy about!

Since then I've continued reading a lot of raw/vegan blogs and trying new recipes, and also giving a lot of thought to how screwed up our food industry is. It makes me sad to think so many people are stuck back where I was in college, spending money on overpriced "reduced fat" cookies, "light" yogurt (with artificial sweeteners), cereals, breads, and frozen dinners that claim to be nutritious but are loaded with chemicals…. All while passing through the produce section clueless about how to prepare a lot of those amazing veggies. So I keep up this blog in hopes to spread the love of good healthy food, even if it's to only a few people. And because I'm bored at work and it's a great way to log recipes =).

Cheers, K

Day 2 - I suck at this.

2009-08-19T16:45:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I was fine most of the day, recovering from Day 1, made my green smoothie when I got home from work so I wouldn't be starving by the time we went out to eat: Apple, frozen pineapple & mango, kale - good combo!

But, then our guests came for dinner and we broke out the Surly for them to try - you can only buy it in MN and sometimes in surrounding states. I was actually alternating sips of beer and smoothie (which they thought looked disgusting and declined to try!)

We couldn't get into the Red Stag because it was too busy, so ended up nearby on the patio at Brasa instead. They specialize in rotisserie meats from local farms (at least that part is nice), so I ate mostly cabbage salad, collard greens, and yams, plus some white wine sangria. Don't know if it was the cabbage or what, but both Nathan and I had the worst gas after. At home around 10 p.m, I decided a piece of toast and whiskey would be just the thing to settle my stomach. (I really do believe in the curative properties of whiskey). It worked too, but all that plus mooching off some of the pasta and green beans with peanut sauce that Nathan heated up at about 11:30, left me in exactly the state I've been trying to avoid in the morning….bloated and bleary eyed.

But, yay, the (work) day is almost over, I survived a tornado touching down just about a mile away here in downtown, and I have a bowl full of leftover green smoothie waiting for me at home.

Cheers, K

Day 1 - Not a smashing success

2009-08-18T12:00:00.001-05:00

So yesterday was the first day of the Green Smoothie Challenge a.k.a. Kelly tries to get on a more adult like schedule and not feel like a$$ at work every day. Well it's 9:30 in my cubicle and I'm feeling pretty…..bleh. But at least I have a pretty good excuse. Here was my day yesterday:

-Green Smoothie (at least I got something right): 1 orange, about a cup of frozen pineapple & mango from trader joe's, huge handful of kale. This was an experimental combination and I really liked it.

-Big salad for lunch

-Snacks after work: Sprouted bread with all natural PB & honey, Carrot sticks with PB, a couple pieces of organic dark chocolate. (Note - Trader Joe's sells Ezekiel sprouted bread for less than I've seen at other places, plus their own brand and at least one other brand for way cheaper, around $3.50 a loaf)

Then I cleaned out the entire car which hadn't been done in over a year (yikes) filling a whole trash bag, because I had to go pick up a paint sprayer from my parents' and needed to make room. We are so busy for the next 2 weeks before we move into the house, repairing the floors, re-doing the ceilings, stripping wallpaper, painting, and all the additional little tasks that come with buying an old house.

By the time I got the sprayer & brought it to the house it was 10 p.m. before I got back to the apt. so that's the reason I ended up eating so late last night! I made some whole wheat pasta, boiled carrots, and sauteed collard greens with garlic and finally sat down for my ritual watching of Sex & The city reruns at 10:30 with a glass of wine (hey it was open in the fridge from last week and was gonna go bad - and yes I drank the entire remaining half bottle.)

Nathan got back from working on the house around midnight and we finally went to bed after 1. Ugh. Whatever, today's another day. Although I'll definitely end up indulging at least a bit because we're going to the Red Stag Supperclub with my relatives in town from Wales =).

Spiralizer Giveaway!

2009-08-12T10:38:00.001-05:00

Katie over at Chocolate Covered Katie is having a contest to win a spiralizer. You get 6 extra entries if you make one of her recipes and write about it on your own blog! This is so worth it people - veggies go to a totally different level when spiralized - check out a couple of my favorite zucchini noodle recipes here and here.

Green Smoothie Challenge

2009-08-11T13:27:00.003-05:00

….or for me personally, the "I'm turning 27 and sort of want to stop feeling like a wasted college student" challenge.

I think it was fate that I happened to read Sara's Green Smoothie Challenge kickoff post this morning. The challenge starts on August 17, the day after my 27th birthday, and I feel like I could use a change.

Not that I really wish to convert overnight into a responsible adult-like person who wakes up and does yard work before noon on the weekends or anything. I still love partying, closing down the bar, having friends come over until 4 a.m. and crash on our couch, and sleeping until 2 in the afternoon.

But, this summer, it's started to get just a tiny bit old - because we do it pretty much every weekend. And some weeknights too, except not nearly to that extreme. But, there have been more and more days, especially nice weather days, where I've wished I had more energy and had ummm actually ventured outside before 4 in the afternoon.

And the weekdays are awful. Both Nathan and I are exhausted pretty much every day, dragging through the workday, and we always blame it on the fact that we're night owls and never feel like going to bed. I have a nagging suspicion though our constant tiredness could have something to do with the fact that dinner & cocktails usually start about 10 p.m. in our house.

(No not every night mother, I'm not an alcoholic.)

I've always ignored the advice that you shouldn't eat right before you sleep, but I'm so sick and tired of being tired. It leads to crankiness and lack of motivation at work and guilt for not getting more out of life.

So, it was perfect that I read that post this morning, I am so in for the 30 day challenge and hope anyone who reads this will join me, if you feel like you could use a change in your life. Even if it isn't for you, please tell anyone you know who might benefit, because these things really can make a difference. Go read the testimonials on Sara's blog Happy Foody.

Here's the description and guidelines, copied from her post (But visit her blog for more details & green smoothie recipe links):

Last year I launched the Happy Foody 30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge…it was a huge success and helped many people change their eating habits. SO…we’re going to do it AGAIN! It’s the perfect time to kick start a healthier you…summer is coming to a close soon and fall upon us. Seasons are changing…and you can change too! Adding a green smoothie to your day is the BEST thing you can do to get on the path to a healthier you. When you drink a big green smoothie in the morning, it fills your body’s need for those vital nutrients to function throughout the day. You will slowly STOP CRAVING junk food. It’s like magic!

We will begin on August 17 and end on September 17. Here is what you are committing to:

Drink at least 16 oz. of green smoothie per day (a quart would be even better!)

Do some sort of activity every day. This could be an intense workout, or just dancing with your kids around the living room. It could be a 15 minute yoga session or a walk around the block.

Add a green leafy salad to your lunch or supper (with light dressing…stay away from the creamier sauces).

Stop drinking pop.

Cut out all white sugar.

So, I'm not going to be super strict about this, but just use it as a motivation to make some small changes and to start using my Vita-Mix more - my addition to the above list of commitments would be cut down on the late night eating & drinking.

And now after all those resolutions - all I can say is I'm glad this challenge starts next Monday after my birthday because Thurs. thru Sun. is gonna be one big party!

K

Quinoa Salad

2009-08-06T14:55:00.002-05:00

I've made this simple salad three times in the last couple weeks, it's perfect for the tomatoes & cukes in season and great if you want something heartier than a lettuce salad.

Quinoa is sort of a cross between rice and cous cous - I always thought it was a grain until a few minutes ago when I looked up the nutrition links for this post and found out it's actually the seed of a plant related to spinach and swiss chard….interesting.

Anyway I don't know why it's not more popular. It's more nutritious than brown rice (more protein and essential amino acids - check out detailed info here and here), I think it has a better, richer taste, and it's easy to cook. It is a little more expensive, but not prohibitively so. It's available in the bulk section of most larger grocery stores.

QUINOA SALAD

-Cooked Quinoa
-Tomatoes, cut in chunks -Cucumber, peeled & cut in chunks
-Olive oil
-Lemon Juice
-Garlic, Parsley, or Mint (optional)

1. To cook quinoa: Rinse thoroughly, because it has a coating that can leave a bitter taste. Combine 1 part quinoa with 2 parts water, bring water to boil, cover and simmer 10-15 minutes until water is absorbed. I like to just under cook it so it has a creamier texture.

2. Combine all ingredients to your taste, depending on how veggie/garlic/oil/herb loving or averse your crowd is. I like about equal parts quinoa and veggies, equal parts oil and lemon juice, and just a few shakes of garlic powder.

If you want to make this a raw dish, I hear quinoa is quick & easy to sprout, but I've never tried it.

In other news….

Posting has been sparse everything's been so busy - we closed on the house last Friday and have been out almost every night of the week, playing tennis, showing everyone the house, taking days off work, drinking on patios, hosting a couple parties with only folding chairs, snacks, and drinks (no one seemed to notice we don't have furniture or decorations. Who says it takes a lot to throw a party?) and meeting our neighbors.

Happy August everyone….we have 2 good warm months left here in MN, get out and enjoy them!

K

Green Beans with Peanut Sauce

2009-07-28T15:17:00.003-05:00

I knew this recipe was a keeper when Nathan said "Now this is the kind of thing I'd take to work for lunch!".

Green Beans at the farmer's market were $2 for a huge bag - they almost didn’t fit in my pot.

Directions:

1. Trim ends of beans. I just line them up on a cutting board to even length and use a knife.
2. Bring water to a boil, put beans in, boil for about 5 min.
3. Heat some olive oil in a large skillet, drain beans, and sautee them until they start to get golden: 5-7 min. Throw in minced garlic to taste for the last minute or so.

Peanut Sauce:

(This is the simple version we make to put on pretty much anything - apologies for the lack of exact measurements!)

1. Put a couple big spoonfuls of peanut butter in a bowl.
2. Splash in some rice vinegar - maybe 2 Tbs.
3. Splash in some soy sauce, about half the amount of rice vinegar (all these amounts depends on your taste!)
4. Dissolve peanut butter in liquids with spoon, fork, or whisk….
5. Add water until mixture is pour-able.

Cooking the beans this way leaves them firm and juicy, but with the slightly browned edges and peanut sauce it tastes rich enough to…..avoid tasting too "healthy"!

I haven't seen any raw recipes out there for green beans, but can't imagine I'd want to eat a whole lot of these raw. If anyone has favorite recipes for green beans, raw or cooked, please share! I'm planning to get a lot more this Thurs. at the farmer's market….

K

Salad with Simple Thai Dressing

2009-07-23T13:39:00.003-05:00

I wanted to wait to write this post until I got a chance to take a picture of our thriving basil plant in the backyard, but I'm eating this salad in between typing here and it's so freaking good I need to share now.

SALAD

Ingredients:
-Mixed Greens
-Spiralized Zucchini
-Baby Tomatoes
-Chopped carrots (in food processor)
-Fresh Basil, torn into pieces
-Crushed peanuts

Mix everything together

DRESSING

Ingredients
-1 Tbsp olive oil
-1 Tbsp lime juice
-1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
-Squirt of honey
-Salt to taste

Mix everything together in small bowl with fork.

This dressing is fantastic because it's not too heavy, and uses ingredients most people have on hand that don’t go bad. The recipe above is a perfect amount for one large salad and takes about 1 min to throw together. I prepped the salad last night and then made the dressing to pour on top right before I went to work this a.m.

You could sub most of the salad ingredients with whatever veggies you have on hand, but I think the fresh basil & peanuts are key to the Thai flavor. All of this was inspired by a Green Papaya Salad I had at Sawatdee a few months ago.

I just got back from the Farmers' Market and all of the stuff in the salad is in season and cheap! Go try it!

K

It Pays To Complain

2009-07-21T16:26:00.004-05:00

Ok, so I wouldn't call myself a complainer exactly, more like I'm opinionated and if something is wrong with the product/service I'm receiving, I'm gonna let someone know about it.

This isn't specifically food related, but it definitely could be! I order sort of like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. I want it how I want it.
Don't think I'm one of THOSE customers though, I used to work in retail/waitress/barista positions and always treat my servers nicely if they do the same to me.

Anyway, I'm writing this inspired by my recent victory against Express, you know, the store in every mall. To make a long story short, I hate shopping for "necessities" (boring work clothes, black pants, the perfect pair of everyday jeans) and Express cost me a bunch of time running to 2 different malls and ordering something online that never came, leaving me with, well, no new summer work pants and a bunch of time wasted. So, instead of complaining to my friends and in my head, I wrote it out to their customer service e-mail and very nice lady called me and said they're sending me a $50 gift card. Score.

We've also gotten a free night at a hotel and 50% off another hotel stay when we let the mgmt know about really crappy service, uninvited wake up calls, dirty rooms, etc.

It's so worth it to complain, especially when it doesn't hurt any one employee, and it's some big chain giving you the payout, no one is feeling that hit.

Tip: Make sure you do it in writing though, then you have something concrete and can forward it on to another person if necessary.

So, something food related: That "Chinese Spinach" I mentioned in the last post? The stuff that didn't taste good raw? Well, I sauteed it with olive oil, plenty of garlic and soy sauce, and verdict = STILL NASTY. Just to warn you.

Tonight we're off to drink wine by Minnehaha Falls with our book club and discuss "The Song of Hiawatha", an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Wow, that sounded really cultured, but I didn't pick the book and just had to look up the name of the author. Our club consists mostly of drinking and making fun of the book. =)

Cheers,

More Praise for Spiralization and Farmers' Markets

2009-07-17T19:26:00.003-05:00

Went to the Farmers' Market yesterday with my last $3 of cash in hand and got four huge gorgeous zucchini and a bunch of "Chinese Spinach" (what the vendor told me it was called).

He said it tasted like regular spinach. Ummm, no. It's thicker and extremely GREEN tasting, if that makes any sense. Even for a greens lover like myself, it was not good. So I think I'll just end up sauteeing it with olive oil and garlic.

But the zucchinis were perfect. Just one of these spiralized fills a big tupperware (Pictured with some carrots that went through the food processor). I'm looking forward to eating this tonight with the cashew alfredo sauce from Tues night., which I've been eating every day - that recipe goes a long way - and have not gotten sick of it!

I was cashiering at the co-op the other night and someone came through the line with 2 smaller zucchinis that were about $2. The co-op usually is a good value, but farmers' market wins this one - I got more than twice that for $2!

Happy weekend everyone. (Go to your local farmers' market!)

Zucchini Linguine Alfredo

2009-07-15T17:03:00.001-05:00

My new favorite dish. This combines a bunch of yummy seasonal veggies topped with Gena's cashew alfredo sauce from Choosing Raw.

THE VEGGIES:

-Zucchinis, spiralized. (You can use a veggie peeler, but the consistency nearly as noodle-like!)
-Sugar Snap Peas (Ends cut off and sliced in half, but not shelled)
-Tomatoes
-Fresh Basil
-Lettuce or Mixed Greens

All of the above I got at the farmer's market except the basil which we're growing in a pot in the backyard. Fresh Basil is key to this dish it adds so much flavor! The zucchini, peas, and lettuce were about $2 each at the farmer's mkt for big bunches. I got the best, biggest bunch of romaine, probably 2 pounds worth for $2 and lasted me all week.

Amounts of the veggies are totally up to you - the sauce recipe below made enough for at least 4 large zucchinis. I'd use one tomato per zucchini, about 5 big basil leaves per zucchini, and a couple handfuls of greens, but it all depends on your tastes.

THE SAUCE:

-1 ¼ cup cashews, soaked for a few hours (I just put them under water when I left for work in the morning)
-¾ cup water
-1 tsp agave
-1/3 cup lemon juice
-½ tsp sea salt
-1 tsp miso

Mix everything in blender until smooth, slowly adding more water if necessary. The sauce was good but a little bland. It could've used a big clove of garlic or some more spices.

Miso was a new ingredient for me, just bought my first jar at the co-op last night. It's a traditional Japanese seasoning made with fermented rice and/or soybeans and I've seen it as a replacement for soy sauce in a lot of raw recipes. It comes in a jar and you scoop it out sort of like chicken stock. There were several versions and I just picked brown rice miso because it seemed the most neutral - here's the wikipedia article with a full explanation though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miso

I love summer! Take advantage of it and go to the farmer's market!

K

My Real Life

2009-07-10T12:30:00.004-05:00

I have to write something about our night last night because it was so freaking fabulous. This post explains a lot of the "real people" part of this site name. See, most of the time, during the day, I do care about staying healthy and eating good fresh food. But when it comes time to party, I consider drinking diet coke instead of regular with my whiskey and ordering fries instead of a burger at White Castle to be good choices.

I read a bunch of health/fitness/raw food blogs and a lot of those people run marathons, don't drink, and get up to do yoga at 7:30 in the morning. And while I admire that, I don't see myself ever being one of those people. Because when a friend calls at 8:45 on a worknight when I was planning to go to bed early because I was already tired from going out the night before, because he's distraught about his recent breakup and needs to get out, my first reaction is "screw it, we need to get to the liquor store before it closes at 9!" (Stupid MN blue laws).

We recruited one of our neighbors (in our 4-plex, which I will miss so much when we move to the house….) to go out with us and headed over to the Otter at about 10:30. It was a classic Otter night - Midget was there with his brother and great niece who was celebrating her 21st b-day, Ray was sleeping with his head on the bar and a shot of whiskey in front of him despite the loud karaoke, Stoner was in a joyful mood and acted like he'd just reunited with a long lost friend every time he passed by me in the bar, Bob the surly bartender almost smiled while he shared my fries from White Castle across the street, another regular, stereotypical gay boy who's name I forget was singing Madonna and Nathan did some excellent Neil Diamond.

There is so much more to tell, but this place is magical. I felt it from the first time I ever went there, on a very random Tuesday over a winter break my sophomore year of college I think. Cheers to the U Otter Stop Inn and to many more fun nights there.

Have a great weekend everyone,

K

Green Smoothie Breath?

2009-07-08T10:14:00.001-05:00

This has been on my mind for awhile, don't know why it's taken so long for me to post about it…. I haven't been making green smoothies lately, in a large part due to Nathan telling me that they give me awful sour bad breath after just a few sips and he can smell it when I'm just sitting next to him in the car.

I can tell they do leave a sort of sour aftertaste in my mouth, but it didn't seem unpleasant….

So has anyone else had problems with this? I posted the same question on a raw foods forum and only one person said she thought adding bananas was the problem….but….I love bananas and they are so good at balancing the "green" flavors…

K

Simple Semi-Raw Sunday Supper

2009-07-06T16:02:00.002-05:00

Last night I concocted a dish that's definitely a keeper. It's cheap, quick, filling, and vegan - the only problem is if you're new to raw foods you probably don't have a spiralizer, which is key for making zucchini noodles. I'm all about zucchini noodles right now - not a huge fan of plain raw or cooked zucchini, but it's amazing when you spiralize them how great it subs for pasta. Even my carnivorous pasta loving husband devoured this =).

ZUCCHINI SPAGHETTI WITH LENTILS

Ingredients:
-2 zucchini -lentils -baby bella mushrooms
-4 cloves garlic
-red cooking wine
-store bought spaghetti sauce
-nutritional yeast
(ingredient amounts don't matter much, just whatever you feel like)

Instructions:

1. Boil lentils - about 20 minutes until soft.

2. While lentils are boiling, cut up mushrooms and sautee in some olive oil, adding a glug of red wine after a couple minutes and garlic when the liquid is almost absorbed.

3. While both of the above are still cooking, spiralize zucchini. Chop up the "scraps" from the spiralizer into small pieces and throw in with rest of noodles.

4. Mix everything together with a few spoonfuls of sauce and sprinkle with nutritional yeast.

If you've never tried nutritional yeast, here's the wikipedia link. I buy it in bulk at my co-op, a little of this stuff goes a long way and adds a great flavor similar, some say (better, I say) to standard cheap dried parmesan, which I never cared for.

I had more of this over lettuce for lunch today and it was just as good as last night….perfect ending to a long weekend. Ours was spent at the cabin with lots of family, drinking and playing badminton on the set my sister just bought - we are unbelievably sore. We're very amateur players and usually can't even volley 3 times back and forth, but something about that game made my legs, butt, and abs ache so much it's hard to walk today! My sister and Nathan report the same…. It's so fun though, getting a set put up in our yard is top on the to-do list for the new house =).

Cheers,

K

We bought a house!

2009-06-30T16:52:00.006-05:00

It was meant to be. It was listed on Edina Realty last Wed., but with no pictures. I asked our realtor (the absolutely fabulous Nancy Dalton - call her if you're near the twin cities, this woman knows her stuff and tells it like it is!) to check on it and on Thursday the pics were posted.

It was so cute and well kept, way different than a lot of the foreclosures we've been looking at. We were about to set up a showing for Thursday after work at 7, but then last minute we got to see it at 12:30 ONLY because Nathan was working much closer to home than he usually does and I was able to take a looooooooong lunch because the office was quiet. We immediately put in an offer above the asking price because there were already several other offers - they stopped showing the house that afternoon because there were so many offers.

We found out Friday a.m. & I still can't believe it!! A house that needs no work, only a few miles from where we are now, in a beautiful neighborhood with a community vegetable garden and a park with pool, new tennis courts, and picnic area less than two blocks away…..for $114,000. I feel like we're set for life, financially, with a mortgage payment very close to the current $675 we pay in rent.

In food news….well, there is none, really. No new experiments, I'm very content eating the same foods over and over - fruit for breakfast, big salad for lunch, random stuff for dinner (as in, whatever snacks are easy and available, instead of an actual planned meal). I read a lot of other raw food blogs regularly and am always amazed that they have time to make all this different stuff, plus take good pics and put up long posts about it. I'm lucky if I try something new like, once every two weeks.

Cheers,

K

Food Stamps: A Rant

2009-06-25T16:54:00.001-05:00

So I was volunteering at the co-op as a cashier and this kid comes through the line. Probably early 20's, sorta hippie looking, able-bodied. He bought a bottle of Kombucha (a trendy fermented health beverage, $4 for 20 oz.) and a fancy large organic dark chocolate bar ($3.50). He paid with his electronic food support card, money from the government, money from taxpayers like me WHO RARELY BUY TREATS LIKE THIS FOR THEMSELVES BECAUSE I'M RESPONSIBLE WITH MY MONEY!!!!

I was pissed, in disbelief. I cannot figure it out. How does this happen? How do people like this get these kinds of benefits? Either this kid didn't really need the benefits, the gov't was giving him too much $$, or all he ate the entire day was kombucha and chocolate. I'm betting on one of the first two - probably, sickeningly, the first.

There are actually 2 issues making me angry here - first, the stupidity of the government, and second the lack of pride and responsibility of people who abuse these services. The second issue especially hit home when I went to see The Greatest Generation exhibit at the Minnesota History Center the next day.

Ok, that's my rant.

Cheers, K

Hello Again

2009-06-18T13:29:00.004-05:00

(Has anyone ever seen that movie, with Shelley Long? It's probably pretty lame, but I remember loving it as a pre-teen)

Anyhow, it's been a while since I've posted, apologies to anyone who actually regularly checks this blog! We've been up at the cabin and also suddenly obsessed with buying a house, after discovering the most perfect neighborhood and realizing we want in on the $8,000 tax credit.

I'm a total Minneapolis city nerd, I love my city and read community newspapers like a junkie, can tell you where most restaurants are and what they're known for even though I've never eaten there (because we rarely eat out - just not our thing, I prefer stuff I make myself, and it costs way too much considering we like to drink with a good dinner!). Point is, I'm amazed I'd never heard of this neighborhood. It's called Columbia Park and is just north of a golf course on the very northern border of the city, surrounding by somewhat ghetto neighborhoods, but these 5 square blocks are seemingly out of a different era. The people are sooo friendly and everyone knows everyone, a nice mix of old people and families.

I wasn't too excited about buying before because you can't really find affordable stuff in Mpls that's not part of a shady neighborhood - and I was definitely not excited about checking out the suburbs - but Columbia Park has changed our minds. It's been very frustrating because a lot of the potential houses we thought we could get just sold or are pending, but we're still looking.

A home we JUST missed out on that went for less than 100k:

After a long night of searching and disappointments yesterday, we needed comfort food:

MASHED POTATOES with veggies and fresh herbs

1. Boil a large pot of water, peel and cut potatoes. Wash off the potatoes in order to get rid of starch and end up with a more fluffy product. Boil until soft (30 min?). Mix with olive oil, or milk and butter if you eat dairy, and mash.

2. Meanwhile, sautee mushrooms and onions with some olive oil and white wine until golden.

3. Heat up some frozen peas & carrots.

4. Mix everything together with salt & pepper & fresh herbs - we used rosemary and thyme. The fresh herbs make a HUGE difference!!

5. Make a drink, eat, and try to convince yourself that you didn't just miss out on your dream home because you didn't start looking earlier….

Cheers,

Yesterday's Food Summary & Book Recommendation

2009-06-05T22:03:00.006-05:00

New recipes are fun, but I think seeing a list of what a person actually eats in a day is a great help for anyone looking to change their diet. So the following is what I ate yesterday - my stomach does not follow a schedule, except for that I'm never hungry until a few hours after I wake up and tend to eats lots of small things throughout the day.

-Apple
-Big salad with leftover zucchini alfredo from Wednesday's post
-Lots of carrot sticks dipped in leftover alfredo sauce
-Cauliflower salad (Just cauli and raisins in the food processor with garam masala and olive oil)
-Some pistachos and dried apricots

All of that was before I went to the co-op for cashier training (for my volunteer shifts), and when I got home around 9 I had a very specific craving for oatmeal. I used to eat it all the time, but don't think I've had any since we started the raw food experiment back in February. So I made this:

APPLE BANANA OATMEAL
-1/2 apple, chopped
-1/2 large banana, mashed
-1/2 cup oatmeal
-cinnamon or nutmeg to taste
-squirt of honey

Directions: Combine apple and oatmeal in a bowl, cover with water, and microwave for 2 min, 30 seconds. Mix with rest of ingredients.

Nathan was at his poker night and I was sooo excited to sit down with my food and wine and finish Infected by Scott Sigler. I'm usually more of a magazine & newspaper junkie than a book reader, and I forgot how great it feels to be so absolutely intrigued by a book that you can't wait to get back to it. If you like Stephen King type stuff at all, definitely read this. (Thank you Nathan for convincing me to read it!)

With my 2nd glass of wine I finished my oatmeal and had a piece of sprouted bread smeared with avocado and a bit of olive oil. Yummmm. Now that I'm writing about it, it's sort of disturbing how much I was able to enjoy food while reading the end of this book because it contains really some of the most grotesque imagery ever. But then again, I guess I'm not turned off by gore - here's my adorable hubby:

Cheers,

K

(Optionally) Raw Zucchini Alfredo

2009-06-03T22:11:00.004-05:00

I see a lot of recipes on raw sites for "pasta" made with spiralized zucchini. We tried it once early on in our experiment with a tomato sauce and the whole dish turned out to be runny and disappointing.

Tonight I think I got the whole raw pasta thing right. I bought an amazing looking thick organic zucchini from the co-op the other day to use in this recipe. The alfredo sauce is adapted from Choosing Raw.

Alfredo Sauce

-1 cup cashews (optional: soak for a few hours - I think this is supposed to improve how you digest them?)
-3/4 cup water
-1 tsp agave
-1/4 cup lemon juice
-1/2 tsp sea salt
-couple big shakes garlic salt
-couple big pinches of nutritional yeast

Blend everything until smooth, add more water depending on how thick you want it.

For anyone new to raw food prep, here is a description of our spiralizer. I think there are definitely cheaper, higher quality models out there, but ours works fine. If you don't have one you can also just use a peeler to create fine zucchini slices, but it's not quite the same...

I made some whole wheat spaghetti to mix in with the raw zucchini noodles, mostly so Nathan would eat some. (He liked it a lot, even after reluctantly adding the zucchini noodles to the 'real' pasta).

I also threw in some blanched asparagus, but lots of veggies would go well with this - sliced carrots, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, etc. For lunch tomorrow I put the leftovers over a bunch of baby spinach.

In other news, here's something unexpectedly lovely that happened to me yesterday: I was shopping at the co-op and after the cashier rang up all the beautiful produce I'd just spent 20 minutes choosing, I realized I didn't have my credit card. I rode my bike there, so didn't have my purse (with extra cards & cash), only the little card holder attached to my keychain. Before I could even get extremely embarrased, she said "oh don't worry, we can just do an IOU, pay it next time you come in". What??! Where does this happen in America anymore? She gave me my receipt and wrote "IOU" on the top and that was it. I love you, Hampden Park Co-op!

K

Broccoli Salad and More Zombie Action!

2009-05-31T22:02:00.004-05:00

Chain of events leading to the most perfect discovery ever last week:

-I'm casually reading a magazine article about places to go all along Lake Superior.
-I decide we should take a trip to one of these places, on the Canadian side, since Nathan's parents' cabin is only 3 hours away and I've never been to Canada despite living in MN my entire life.
-I google the first city that looks interesting, Thunder Bay.
-On their city's homepage is a feature about Harbourfest, coming up June 20-21. It looks like a nice summer outdoor festival, outdoor concerts, art fair, family fun, and....a ZOMBIE WALK FOLLOWED BY ZOMBIE BALL!

I immediately booked us a room for Fri. & Sat. night within walking distance of the zombie action.

If you know me, you know I love Zombies. I love dressing up, going out in public, groaning "Braaiiiiins", and befriending the fellow undead. We have an annual zombie pub crawl here in Mpls which is great, but this festival is even better:

-It's nowhere near halloween

-It's organized by a local art gallery where everyone meets and can get their makeup done

-Everyone walks from the gallery to an outdoor stage where there's a zombie dance to a rockabilly band

-Afterwards the zombie ball is at a bar complete with "costume contests, zombie sushi chef performance, and zombie go-go dancers".

Read details here and here.

If anyone out there is even thinking about coming, please do, we'd love to meet you!

And....here's a recipe for a really awesome raw broccoli salad:

Broccoli Salad with Creamy Orange Cilantro Dressing

Salad

2 medium size broccoli crowns

1 Clementine (Can substitute tangerine)

2 Tablespoons finely chopped soaked walnuts

2 Tablespoons finely diced sweet or red onion

Dressing

Juice of 1 medium Naval orange

¼ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 ½ teaspoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon tahini

1 tablespoon honey

¼ cup fresh cilantro

½ tsp orange zest

Blend in food processor or blender until smooth. To get a thicker consistency, slowly pour in the olive oil while machine is running.

Real people, real jobs, real....makeup

2009-05-27T18:47:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to post the following exchange from the comments section so everyone could see it - and to find out if there's anyone else in similar situations....

Anonymous said...

K, may I say something? On any day that you don't feel like wearing makeup, don't! Make up was fun during teen years and early adulthood, when feeling grownup was still a thrill. One by one, my friends and freed ourselves of the conditioning we experienced, to care about things like that. It says something about what that conditioning did to self esteem when one feels they needs make up on, in order to face the world comfortably. If you find yourself thinking how nice it is not to "have" to wear it, then maybe it's time.

I said:

Hi Anon, I wish I could do that - I don't wear much makeup and am totally comfortable running errands, etc., without it, but I see it as necessary for the office. Without eye makeup I look tired, and I have uneven, oily skin that looks gross without some powder at least. I'm not going to risk my job to make the statement that it's not fair women are expected to wear makeup (and it's not), but that's just the shitty reality. I would not have gotten hired if I went in there in my "natural state".

That leads to another discussion - part of the reason behind the "real people" name of this blog was that we both have professional office jobs - unlike a lot of raw foodies out there who teach yoga or are artists or life coaches or whatever. Like many people, I would prefer NOT to work in an office, in a cube, for the man, doing meaningless (to me) work, but....I wasn't thinking about that, or aware of how much it would suck, when I went to college and racked up tens of thousands of dollars of student loans. I also wasn't about to not marry my wonderful husband because of his ridiculous $100,000 law school debt with 7% interest.

So, I continue working in an office, and wearing makeup, so that we can get out of debt, buy a house, have a retirement savings, health care coverage, security in general, etc...But, my dream is to someday work only part time, have little kiddos, and not give a thought about how professional my face looks.

Anyone with me?

Weekend Recap & Giveaway

2009-05-26T14:59:00.002-05:00

Over at the Fitness NYC blog, you can enter to win a package from Blueprint Cleanse (haven't read the details of exactly what this is, but I'd be willing to try it if I won!). I just discovered her blog today, linked from my new favorite, level headed, raw blog: Choosing Raw. Her site is comprehensive & professional, I can't believe I haven't found it until now.

This weekend we went up to my family's cabin for the first time this year. It's so relaxing to be there and just not have to do anything. As much as I love living and partying in the city, that requires planning, money, and looking presentable. It's great to just wear pajamas and no makeup all weekend and the biggest decision you have to make is whether to keep drinking by the fire or try to focus on a game of 500 in the cabin. (After wine at dinner and a couple gin & tonics, I should've stayed by the fire Sunday night…..)

Anyway a big focus of the weekend is dinners. Everyone was very excited about lasagna, shrimp, and prime rib for our main meals. I came prepared with lots of salad supplies for myself, but was convinced into trying just a tiny bit of the other food, partly because everyone asked me to a bazillion times and partly because they were acting like it was the best food they'd ever eaten and I was curious, again, would I still like meat? Nope, not this time. It tasted like dead animal in my mouth and I wanted to spit it out, but didn't. I think it'll get easier over time to eat differently than people around me…..and in a perfect world it won't always be so "different".

I also took advantage of all the free time to try out a new dessert recipe: Hazelnut Chocolate Snowballs, from Kristen's Raw. They were pretty easy and tasty, but not as good as the similar Raw Chocolate Cake recipe I've tried before.

Cheers,

K

Moroccan Gazpacho

2009-05-21T15:27:00.002-05:00

This is another of my new favorite recipes - and it's actually "meant" to be raw! Something about the flavors in this were amazing, I couldn't stop eating it.

MOROCCAN GAZPACHO From Kristen's Raw

Ingredients:

1 cup water
4 tomatoes, chopped
1 tomato, diced
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons agave nectar
1 teaspoon Himalayan crystal salt
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3/4 teaspoon cumin
3/4 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup raisins

Instructions:

Blend all of the ingredients, except for the 1 diced tomato, pine nuts, raisins and cilantro, until creamy. Pulse in the cilantro. Stir in the diced tomato, pine nuts and raisins.

My Notes:

-I used maybe 1/2 cup of water instead of 1 cup, just depends on if you like your soup thick or runny.

-I used a pint of cherry tomatoes because that's what was in the fridge, plus one regular tomato, so this might've made the flavor sweeter….either way, highly recommended!

-Didn't bother peeling the cucumber

-Left out raisins and pine nuts - you really don't need them and pine nuts are very expensive.

-To make this even more filling I cut up some more cucumber into bite sized chunks and threw them into the already blended soup.

Ooooo just wait until cucumbers and tomatoes are really in season, this gazpacho will be even more perfect.

Happy summer,

K

P.s. Nathan the former tomato hater also liked this.

African Pineapple Peanut Stew

2009-05-19T14:43:00.004-05:00

Another awesome recipe we read about on Thirty Bucks a Week, who got it from this site. Their descriptions pretty much say it all….this dish is easy, healthy, vegan and we love love loved it! Nathan ate his over brown rice, I ate mine over romaine lettuce.

I think this could be easily adapted to a raw recipe if you use a raw almond butter sauce and let the greens marinate for a while to soften them.

Right now I'm eating a raw lunch adapted from the Lemony Buckwheat with Asparagus & Spinach we made the other night. I just marinated the asparagus overnight in the olive oil/garlic/lemon mixture (plus some water to cover) and put it over mixed greens. Man is my pee gonna smell in about an hour….

Also, here is an interview with Michael Pollan (Author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food) from Democracy Now. He talks about some issues that everyone should be aware of, such as why factory farming is disgusting, why you're doing yourself no favors by eating processed foods, and how the food industry uses marketing to try to trick you.

Cheers,

K

How I tricked my husband into liking Raw Kale

2009-05-17T22:36:00.002-05:00

I finally got around to making some raw coleslaw. It was going to be a basic cabbage, carrots and dressing affair, but there was one lone large kale leaf in the crisper so I got experimental and threw it in. Success. Nathan and I loved this recipe and he didn't seem to mind the green specks in his beloved coleslaw (you really can't taste the kale).

Cole Slaw with Kale

-1 head cabbage
-2 large kale leaves (or more!)
-2 carrots

-1/4 cup olive oil
-3 T apple cider vinegar
-2 T honey
-1 large garlic clove (minced)
-1/4 t sea sale
-1/4 cup water

Directions: Put first three ingredients into food processor. Whisk the rest of the ingredients together for dressing. Combine.

Very easy and cheap...try it instead of the usual gunky mayonnaise version!

K

Lemony Buckwheat with Asparagus & Spinach

2009-05-15T14:31:00.001-05:00

I spotted this recipe while looking on the Vegetarian Times website for the asparagus marinade I mentioned (but couldn't find) yesterday. It was the perfect solution to the asparagus & huge bunch of spinach waiting to be used in our fridge. And it was: Perfect. I LOVED this. Nathan even thought it was good and he doesn't usually like "slimy green stuff" in his food.

Here is the link to the recipe.

You'll see the original name is Lemony Bulgur, but I didn't have bulgur and guessed buckwheat would be an OK substitute. Even though I've never cooked either Bulgur or Buckwheat. We had the buckwheat leftover from the raw foods experiment when we sprouted & dehydrated it in crackers. I was about to say it's my new favorite grain, but I just read here on the Whole Foods site that it is actually a fruit seed related to rhubarb

Anyway, it's great. Sort of tastes like brown rice except bigger and squishier, with a consistency like thick porridge. I thought it had a much more satisfying texture than brown rice. And it's easy to make and super cheap.

We left out the walnuts, basil, & mint too, due to cost. I think the combo garlic & lemon zest are what really make this dish amazing….I'm craving it right now and regret letting Nathan take the leftovers to work.

Asparagus is in season, go make this! It's healthy, cheap, and easy - only took me about half an hour.

K

Mother's Day Raw Strawberry Pie

2009-05-13T15:31:00.003-05:00

On Sunday we had our typical double holiday celebration, going to Nathan's parents' house first for brunch, then mine for dinner. We made a bunch of food (which was not included in our food budget….I counted it as "presents"). Nathan made a stuffed chicken dish for his family.

And for mine we made a big salad, marinated asparagus (featured in this month's issue of Vegetarian Times - delicious! Go subscribe!) And, my near masterpiece….

RAW STRAWBERRY PIE

The Joy of Vegan BakingBy Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

It is best when served within an hour or two of preparing it, sinceit is at its most fresh then, but it holds up just fine in thefridge.

Chilling Time: 1 hour

Servings: 8-12

Crust Ingredients:
2 cups raw almonds or pecans
3/4 cup pitted dates, preferably Medjool

Filling Ingredients:
5 cups sliced ripe strawberries
5 pitted dates, soaked 10 minutes in warm water and drained
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions:

1) Place the nuts in a food processor and grind until they’re a coarsemeal.

2) Add the 3/4 cup of dates (for the crust) and process untilthoroughly combined.

3) Press the mixture into a non-stick or verylightly oiled pie plate or spring form pan.

4) Arrange 4 cups of the sliced strawberries on top of the crust and setaside.

5) In a food processor or blender, combine the remaining 1 cup ofstrawberries with the 5 soaked dates and lemon juice.

6) Puree untilsmooth.

7) Pour the sauce mixture over strawberries.

8) Refrigerate the pie for 1 hour before serving. This will help the pieset and will be perfect for slicing.

The pie turned out really yummy, if you like strawberries! Amazing how easy it is to make a crust with just nuts and dates thrown into the food processor. Where I went wrong is, well, I made the sauce to pour over the top of the pie, decided it didn't look like enough, so made another batch and used it all. I think this made it turn out a little too sweet (because of all the extra dates) and runny. It leaked out of the my spring form pan and made a big mess, I'd definitely recommend just using a pie pan to be safe.

I also sprinkled the top with some Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips. They were good but a little chunky for the pie. I think dark chocolate shavings would work a lot better.

It took less than an hour to make, and I am slow, and cost about $14. The ingredient list is short and simple, but strawberries, nuts, and Medjool dates are all expensive. Side note, if you've never had a Medjool date, the big kind with the pit in the middle, they are SO much better than regular pitted dates. They are so rich, moist, and sweet it's unbelievable. Lots of people take out the pit and stick a couple almonds or a brazil nut in the center for a really satisfying snack.

Happy eating,
K

Monthly Spending Update

2009-05-13T09:44:00.002-05:00

It's not so easy for me to go from not really having a food budget to trying to track expenses by the week. I find myself constantly thinking about what's in the fridge and how I can make it last the week (without making Nathan miserable). I'm hoping this will get easier with practice, because we are set to save a significant amount of money, which as discussed earlier, will be used to send us on a guilt free vacation to escape from the MN winter.

I say guilt free because I feel like any extra money should go towards paying our massive student loans or saving for a house, so if we weren't cutting $$ somewhere, I wouldn't have total peace of mind spending $2,500 or so on a nice vacation.

Speaking of….any suggestions of great, warm, not too expensive places to go? Right now I'm set on Nicaragua, but I'm open….

I can't believe I'm talking about this when it's just about to be summer here.

Onto the Spending Recap: We have about $143 (out of our $225 monthly budget) for the remaining 2 weeks of May. Sounds like a lot, but we just ran out of olive oil and also will be going to the cabin next weekend, which means lots of cooking & booze!

Cheers,

Kelly

This Week In Food

2009-05-07T11:08:00.003-05:00

….has not been too exciting. We haven't cooked anything at all, just been eating lots of salads, bean burritos, and PB&J. This is partly due to me bringing home leftovers from a free office lunch on Monday, then having to go out to lunch Tues. and Wed. with a co-worker who was in town from another office.

Tuesday we went to Runyon's, a bar near our office, NOT my choice. Note I said bar. I can see Runyon's as being a fine place to drink whiskey and eat some fries, but not to have a meal in the middle of the day if you don't want to feel like greasy bloated a$$ afterwards. Their limited menu was mostly burgers and they are "known" for their wings, which my co-workers ordered and were an unnatural shade of bright greasy orange. I had a veggie burger and salad, with lettuce that had brown edges on nearly every piece. Ick.

Wednesday it was a smaller group and I convinced them to go to Zen Box, which was just voted "Best Skyway Lunch" by the citypages. The sushi & meat bento box lunches didn't look too fresh, but I had a really yummy salad with lettuce, edamame, carrots, and buckwheat noodles for under $5. I would definitely try to recreate this one at home.

And today….it's the first day of the all-day Thursday farmer's market on Nicollet Mall! Only an hour until I escape this cube and walk over there. I'm thinking asparagus and ramps. Ramps? Yeah I'd never heard of them either, until last week. Tina writes at 30 A Week that the flavor is "halfway between scallions and garlic". They were also featured recently here on Mark Bittman's blog. Here is a photo from his post:

Happy Eating,

Road Trip Recap

2009-05-04T20:01:00.006-05:00

I could write a short novel about our 3 extremely fun days in Kansas City, but will try to break it down into just the highlights:

-Arriving Thurs. night and happening to end up at a bar with karaoke where Nathan sang the best Neil Diamond EVER. Wish I had a recording to post here. But instead, here's a picture of the portrait a random guy "portrait artist Ben Seibel" spent a half hour drawing of me at the bar:

(Note: The sketch looks way better than this pic shows, I look cross eyed here, Nathan can't find it right now to take another photo though, so....)

-Driving around the cute neighborhoods on Fri. and finding an outdoor art fair, right when it was warm enough for no coats, on a day when "they" predicted storms all day.

-Going to a completely separate art crawl on Fri. eve., 50 galleries in a walkable 10 block radius, free dance performances, bands playing in the streets, general merriment.

-Walking through the city Sat. and marvelling at how like the twin cities it is, except nicer. We DID make it to Succotash, thanks for the suggestion Gnome, such a great quirky place in the middle of a half indoors/half outdoors farmer's market type setup. I had an excellent fresh juice concoction called "kiss me" with apples, beets, ginger, and….I forget…

-Realizing while browsing through their weekly entertainment guide that Lidia from the PBS cooking show "Lidia's Italy" has a restaurant right near our hotel….we had to go, chancing that it might be some cheezy corporate monstrosity. Not AT ALL! It was gorgeous and had brochures about how they partner with a local CSA for their produce, they even serve as a CSA pick-up site for regular members. This was no hippie joint either, extremely elegant with amazing food and incredible service.

-Sat. night - time for the Cake concert! We half listened to the show while making new friends with a group of rowdy 40 somethings who later piled us into the back of their…Hummer?…to take us to their favorite bar, a sort of old time Italian mafia place with karaoke? I don't know, I was pretty far gone by that point.

-Most notably, I didn't say a word about the Hummer. I didn't even give Nathan a LOOK. I didn't even oh so politely and drunkenly pull any member of the group discreetly aside and ask just what goes through one's head when deciding to buy a Hummer? These seemed like really cool people. Maybe somehow in Kansas City owning a hummer doesn't = being a huge asshole. Just another reason it is a great city….

If you live within driving distance, KC is definitely worth a visit! Just don't stay at the Westin Crown Center, it sucks.

Cheers,

Road Trip!

2009-04-30T09:15:00.003-05:00

We'll be gone for a long weekend in Kansas City, MO, home of….? Famous for….? Ok, I don't know much about the city and neither of us have ever been there, but all I need for a good vacation is a decent hotel with a nice warm pool area and hopefully the discovery of a good local dive bar.

There's even a Whole Foods across the street from our hotel so I won't have to hunt for something decent to eat.

Until Monday,

Super Easy Yummy Stew

2009-04-27T22:32:00.007-05:00

I found this recipe in Mark Bittman's column The Minimalist, it is incredible hearty comfort food. I used a little less water and a little more rice, plus threw in the last of a bag of lentils, and went with the garlic & cumin option at the end. Result: Thick, thick, nothing soup-like about it, yummy filling stew. I felt full after a few bites. Tomorrow I'll use it as a topping on salad greens for a lighter dish...

Here is the link to the full article.

I was so happy to come across this because carrots and spinach were about the only produce in the fridge I was afraid of going bad...we're going to Kansas City on Thurs. for a long weekend (to see Cake ! Please don't let it rain!) so it'll be an out of the ordinary food spending week. I am in the process though of looking for decent places to find food in KC if anyone has suggestions. Because I'm remembering our road trip a year ago to the badlands in South Dakota, while a fun trip, it was really hard to find fresh food and we ate at a couple horrendous places along the way.

-Kelly

Costco?

2009-04-26T21:18:00.004-05:00

Today I went on my first trip to Costco, with my sister who has a membership. I don't know what to think about the place. I was overwhelmed by the large-ness of everything, and trying to calculate what items were actually a good deal in their oversized portions. I bought a few things that totaled to a significant portion of our $52 weekly limit, but these things will last much longer than a week:

-Large jar of all natural almond butter: $6.39

-5 lb. bag of frozen corn: $4.99

-2 loaves of multi-grain bread: $4.59

-Huge jar of all natural salsa: $4.99

I would never get a membership, because we don't eat a lot of the bulk frozen meats and pre-packaged dinners they sell, much less have room for them in our freezer, and the produce is sold in quantities too large for us to eat before it would go bad. I can see how it might be a good deal for large families....but....there is something that feels wrong to me about a place like that.

Maybe it's just because I associate Costco with Sam's club, which I'm pretty sure is owned by Wal-Mart, which I wouldn't want to give my money to. I haven't done any research on the company so I can't say anything for sure. All I know is I felt lost in there and longed for my little co-op with handmade signs where no one checks your receipt at the door.

Does anyone have any info or opinions on whether this place is good or bad?

On the upside, I bought a tomato plant! It was $12 and I have no idea if this was a good deal because I'm clueless when it comes to plants and growing things, even though I wish I had a huge garden, but it was worth it for me because now I don't have to go searching for one. We're keeping it inside tonight because it's supposed to get below 40 degrees. Here it is, Peeko de Guy-O (named by Nathan with 2 glasses of organic Riesling in him!)

-Kelly

Weekly Spending Recap

2009-04-25T17:11:00.003-05:00

Our total this week was $49.32 - not far under our cap of $52. This scares me because we already had some food to start with, we ate out one night, and also picked up some special snacks for Nathan's b-day on Sun. not included in the total. (We were going to see a movie, but when the auto-pay total came to $20 we just couldn't do it, so we rented from RedBox and bought gourmet "cowboy caviar" salsa, flax chips, and popcorn from Lunds. Warning: do not rent the movie Bottleshock, it's awful.)

I would just post pics of the receipts, but my co-op just lists things as "produce" so it wouldn't be very informative. Here's a rundown of what I can remember:

-3 lb. bag organic apples
-Kale
-Tomatoes
-Bulk mixed salad greens
-Brussel Sprouts
-Broccoli
-Onion
-Garlic
-Spinach
-2 lb. organic carrots
-Bananas
-Potatoes
-Zucchini
-Oranges
-Bulk Cannellini Beans
-Bulk Coriander
-Jar of Salsa
-Package of Flour Tortillas
-Orange Juice
-Lime Juice
-Diet Tonic Water
-Bottle of Smirnoff Vodka

Some stuff we already had: Whole wheat flour, black beans, coconut, brown rice, peanut butter, walnuts, cashews, sunflower seeds, dates, raisins, eggs and cheese.

Happy eating,

K

A plug for people and places we like

2009-04-24T14:49:00.005-05:00

Yesterday it was so SO gorgeous here we decided to eat dinner on the patio of The Front's new restaurant. If you live in the area, check it out, it's a great place. The food is central american influenced and not very vegetarian friendly, but still good. Nathan loved his burger and my plate of rice/beans/fried plantain/cabbage salad was really good too. They have a beautiful patio, great music variety, and a couple small tv screens showing scenery of beaches, islands, and sunsets - nothing goth or fetish themed about it!

For those of you who don't live in the area - The Front is a dance club attached to Ground Zero, a sort of bondage nightclub. Actually this weekend is their annual Rubber Ball, an awesome costume/dance party/fashion show where everyone can show off their best vinyl outfits ;-).

Unfortunately it falls on the same night as our friend Ted's band's show, which we're really excited to see for the first time at the Uptown Bar. They're called Wizards Are Real, they're opening for Little Man, only $5, if you come check it out be sure to find us and say hi!

Happy Weekend,

-Kelly

New Discovery: Young Coconuts

2009-04-24T09:04:00.002-05:00

Yum. Yum. Yum. Right now I'm drinking a smoothie made with the meat of the first young coconut I've ever cracked. Well, technically Nathan cracked it, because my first few whacks with our huge axe knife thing weren't strong enough.

I'd never heard of "young" coconuts before we started our raw foods experiment, but they aren't what the average person would picture. The outside looks completely different and there is no milk inside, just water and "meat".

I was amazed at the amount of water inside of the thing - about a pint glass full. The coconut water is incredibly flavorful, so much so that I'd cut it with some regular water or lots of ice, and it tasted more like hazelnut than coconut. It'd probably make an excellent drink mixer!

Then there's the meat, which is bright white thick gelatinous stuff you scrape from the inside. It can be eaten alone, used in desserts, smoothies, or dehydrated into coconut flakes. Here's the recipe for the smoothie I'm loving right now, the coconut meat adds so much depth to the flavor and makes it creamy.

Coconut Orange Banana Smoothie:
-1 banana
-1 orange
-1/2 meat of one young coconut
-4 ice cubes

Blend until smooth.

At about $1.50 per coconut that gives you 2 servings of meat and 2 servings of water, these are a pretty good deal. Go to your local asian market and see if you can find them! Here is a link about how to crack and eat coconuts.

-Kelly

Cannellini Kale Soup and Chapatis

2009-04-22T16:31:00.006-05:00

These are two new recipes we tried, borrowed from 30 Bucks A Week, to start off our first frugal week. They both got high approval ratings from myself & Nathan, but I especially loved making the chapatis. I'd never even heard of them before, they're pretty much like pita bread. Easy, SO cheap, and fun to make too. I felt like a real baker covering the dough and then rolling it out (with a drinking glass - I never bake!). Here is the link for the Cannellini Kale Soup.

Also, I discovered two awesome websites today:

Melomeals: $3.33 a day: Melody is a professional chef who cooks cheap healthy vegan stuff for herself & two teenage boys.

Crazy Sexy Life: An extensive holistic living website stemming from the documentary and book Crazy Sexy Cancer, which I definitely want to check out….

-Kelly

$30 A Week: Crunching Numbers

2009-04-21T10:17:00.003-05:00

I always thought I was frugal buying food, just like with the rest of our spending. We rarely buy meat, expensive frozen meals, or pre-packaged stuff (cereal, cookies, etc.).

Admittedly, we are not incredibly frugal buying liquor. Seems like there's always something to celebrate, people coming over, or a new concoction to try. We buy mid-range brands, but never really put a cap on how MUCH we buy - hey, it's not gonna go bad, right?

I keep a close record of our monthly spending, to see where it all goes, and today I calculated that we average $425 a month ($98 a week) on food & liquor. The total over at 30 Bucks a Week doesn't include liquor, but I'm still not sure how they do it. We've spent $30 already this week on groceries and had a bunch of stuff already in the fridge and I can see we're not gonna make it. Of course there would be enough to survive on, but I'm not willing to reduce the amount of produce I want to eat for the sake of saving $$.

So here's my modification and justification: If we can save $200 a month, that'll be fantastic. $200/mo. = $2400/ yr. = price of the fabulous cruise we took in January. Essentially it gives us a guilt free big vacation every year, which I'd already decided is non-negotiable, because I will go crazy without some warmth to look forward to in the brutal MN winter.

Final calculation: Roughly $52/week, or $225/month is what we'll name as our food & liquor spending caps. The savings will go in a fund to put us here:

Cheers,

- Kelly

Some Food Updates & A New Experiment

2009-04-18T14:23:00.004-05:00

I found my new favorite blog the other day: 30 Bucks A Week. Tina and Phil live in NYC and spend only $30/wk on groceries. Like us, they aren't fanatics about their experiment, they still eat out occasionally and drink alcohol, which aren't included in their weekly total. They're vegetarian and the food they eat looks really yummy - just check out their recent Mac & Cheese recipe, which Nathan is begging me to make him.

So we're going to try the $30/wk experiment, for at least a month. We currently spend about $275/mo. on groceries so it would be a significant savings for us.

Onto the food updates....

We successfully replicated the Green Papaya Salad I had at Sawatdee the other week! Modifications to the posted recipe: Left out the chili, spring onions, and fish sauce. Added shredded carrots.

The ingredients were really cheap at Shaung Hur, a large Asian grocery store near us. 2 green papays were about $1.50 and was enough for at least 4 large servings. Nathan made a simple peanut sauce to pour over his instead of the dressing in the recipe:

Simple Peanut Sauce

-Peanut Butter (couple big spoonfuls)

-Soy sauce (splash)

-Rice Wine Vinegar (splash)

-Water (splash)

Whisk everything together until smooth. Sorry for the lack of specific ingredient amounts, he just threw it together and tasted as he went. There are many more complex peanut sauce recipes out there, but this can be made in just a minute from kitchen staples.

The other night it looked like the fridge was bare, but starting to think with the $30/wk. mentality, I made do with what was in there:

Orzo Pasta Mish Mash

Ingredients:

-Orzo or whatever pasta you have around

-1/2 container of baby bella mushrooms

-1/2 onion

- 2 small tomatoes

-olive oil

-2 large cloves garlic

-lots of fresh basil (leftover from our papaya salad)

Preparation:

While pasta is cooking, saute onions and mushrooms with olive oil in a pan until really cooked (15 minutes?). I splashed some white cooking wine in after awhile too. During the last couple minutes, add in tomatoes and minced garlic until just cooked.

Mix with pasta and chopped basil. I'd recommend making a lot of the veggies because they cook down quite a bit, and I like to have about an equal ratio of veggies and pasta in my dish.

Very filling, Nathan loved it!

-Kelly

Ryan Montbleau Band

2009-04-15T22:38:00.006-05:00

This is not food related whatsoever, but I have to post about it. We saw an effing fantastic show last night at the Cedar. I'd never heard of Ryan Montbleau Band, even though they've been touring like crazy for years. I can't believe I've never heard of them and wouldn't be surprised if they shoot into superstardom very soon.

My praise does not come lightly! I have a general dislike of live shows, especially if I don't know the band, because most of the time they come on, don't talk much, aren't very entertaining, you can't even make out the words to the songs, and it's too loud to talk to the person next to you. I only went to this show because Mark invited us and Nathan really wanted to go. (Thank you Mark, I will trust your taste in music for forever now!).

I won't even attempt to describe the music, but just check them out, go to their show, tickets are cheap, in the $10 range. Check out a great video of their music here.

Here's to compare to other great shows I've seen:

-I liked this way better than when we saw Rufus Wainwright last fall. That was a great show, but he was solo and it was in a much larger venue so that detracts from my experience.

-The only other time I can remember being absolutely, unexpectedly blown away by a band was when we caught Coach Said Not To at the 400 bar like two years ago. Unfortunately they haven't played or updated their website for a long time….

-It was probably as good as Cake, who I've only seen once a couple years ago at an outdoor festival. But I have all their CD's, it's more of a fun sing along experience, and their lead singer is more belligerent. (We're road tripping to Kansas City to see them on May 2nd again, can't wait!)

-You cannot compare to Pat McCurdy, but I can't write about live music without mentioning him. There is no performance that will ever come close to how much fun I used to have at Pat shows, and I stick to that even after seeing 50+ of his shows. He plays every Monday in Chicago, every Tuesday in Madison (where I went to college), and occasionally here in the twin cities. Check out his schedule, he plays almost every day of the year, no one should miss the opportunity to become absolutely crazy addicted to Pat… like I am ;-).

-Kelly

Day 13 - Raw Southern Food

2009-04-13T17:22:00.007-05:00

I feel silly continuing to count the days of this raw foods "experiment" because this time around with Anna has not been nearly as strict as the 30 trial Nathan and I did. I've pretty much been eating whatever I want, which is naturally about 70% raw. So, enough with the countdown, I suppose this will just continue to be a general "sort of raw" food blog.

This weekend our friends had a southern themed joint b-day party at their house, complete with a feast of southern food. I wanted to bring something southern + raw so tried two new recipes: Sweet Potato Casserole and Marinated Collard Greens.

SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups pecans or walnuts, soaked overnight, then drained (let dry a bit on a paper towel)
- 4 cups peeled and chopped sweet potatoes
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup dates, soaked for about 20 minutes
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup honey

Directions:

1) Put potatoes, 1/2 cup nuts, dates, cinnamon and vanilla in processor and puree till smooth.

2) Pour into a casserole dish.

3) In another bowl, mix the remaining 1 cup nuts with salt and honey, and sprinkle over the potato mixture.

When I was peeling the raw potatoes, they smelled….not good….and I was thinking how will this possibly taste good, I love roasted sweet potatoes, maybe I should just roast them and not be this crazy raw foods chick. Surprisingly, the dish turned out really good. My neighbors loved it and Nathan even gave it a "not bad".

MARINATED COLLARD GREENS

Marinade Ingredients:
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¼ cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 teaspoon sea salt, divided
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 bunch collard greens, washed
- 1/8 cup olive oil

Directions:

1) In a large bowl, combine apple cider vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, 1 teaspoon sea salt and pepper. Set aside.

2) Take several collard leaves and roll into a cylinder the shape of a fat cigar.

3) Using a knife, cut the through the collard cylinder, making strips. Repeatsteps two and three until you have cut all the collard leaves.

4) Place strips in a large bowl. Pour olive oil on collard strips and sprinkle the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt. Massage the oil and salt into the strips until all are well coated.

5) Transfer the collard strips to the bowl with the apple cider vinegar marinade. Let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, but overnight is best.

This dish turned out great, but only after a couple modifications. The marinade was way too strong for my taste, very vinegar-y. So I added a bunch of plain mixed salad greens and chopped tomato to mellow things out. Loved it!! "They" always say dark leafy greens are the healthiest food for you, and one a lot of people have trouble getting into their routine. My friend Ela (who, granted, is from Albania and shares my appreciation for fresh, whole foods - including meat and dairy) said it was her favorite dish at the party. Thanks E!

Here she is singing karoke:

Cheers,

Kelly

Kelly - Day 8 - Kombucha Cocktails

2009-04-08T21:13:00.010-05:00

I keep seeing Kombucha mentioned on raw foods sites, and have also been noticing it more in grocery stores. Kombucha is a fermented tea beverage that supposedly has tons of health benefits because of all its living enzymes, etc., read details at GT's Kombucha site, the only brand I've tried.

We bought it the first time on a Valentine's Day splurge at Fresh & Natural Foods right before the official start to our raw experiment. The taste is pretty unexpected at first, it's incredibly strong, fizzy, tart, I can't describe it exactly. Not something I'd chug down. But, when we were mixing our Prairie Organic vodka (another splurge) and tonic, I poured in a bit of the grape flavored Kombucha as an experiment and, yum! It added just enough interesting flavor to take away from the tonic water flavor that I sometimes get sick of.

So last night after going straight from my regular job to volunteering 3 hours at the co-op, I bought some to have a drink when I got home. Oh, I am so healthy!

KOMBUCHA COCKTAIL

Mix:

-1 part vodka (any kind)

-1 part tonic water or club soda

-1 part Kombucha (whichever flavor would meld with your vodka)

Pour over ice.

I was hungry too when I got home and really wanted some sprouted bread smeared with avocado and olive oil, but we had no avocados. I wasn't in the mood for peanut butter (which is rare, but I'd had some earlier), so I threw together the following in the Vita-mix and ended up with a pretty decent spread or dip, whatever you want to use it for:

KELLY'S RANDOM INGREDIENT SPREAD

-1/3 cup cashews

-1/3 leftover zucchini

-5 stalks asparagus

-little bit of water

-spoonful of tahini-splash of lemon juice

-garlic powder, cumin, salt & pepper

Sorry for the lack of specific measurements, I don't expect anyone to actually make this, but it just goes to show that in 5 minutes you can have something decent when you thought there was nothing in the fridge.

-Kelly

Kelly - Day 7 - Papaya Salad and Social Situations

2009-04-07T15:06:00.014-05:00

I work for a large company, but in a small distinct department of 14 people. They are, in general, nice, normal, professional people with standard eating habits. At work is the one place I keep my mouth shut, or at least quieter than usual, about my food opinions, but over the past year I know they've noticed that I'm "different".

Maybe it's that I'm often eating something with green leaves out of a tupperware, or some strange substance called hummus, or something they've never heard of something called lentils. Or, maybe it's that I don't get excited about chinese food or taco thursdays in the cafeteria.

They're the type of people who wouldn't be rude about it, but ask me sort of suspiciously if I don't eat meat, and then just sort of laugh in confusion if I were to reply that I don't. (Which I never have, because I do sometimes eat meat, just not whatever bulbous gristly greasy stuff is in the sesame chicken dish).

In short, I have not "announced" my raw food activities to my co-workers. In every raw food (or vegan) book or site I've looked at there is a section dealing with social situations, and I think it sucks that if anything this should be a roadblock to healthier eating. I've noticed that people actually seem offended that you don't care to eat the same foods as they do, even though you aren't trying to convince them of anything and what you're eating doesn't affect the situation at all. I'm sure there's been books written on the sociology of it all, but the end result for me is a slight amount of discomfort over food centric office activities.

Happily, today turned out really well. We went out to Sawatdee for an office lunch and I tried something I've never had before - Papaya Salad. I thought papaya was an melon colored fruit sort of like a mango or something, but apparently the salads are made from green papaya which isn't incredibly sweet and can be bought pre-shredded at Asian foods markets. The salad was definitely something I'd want to try at home, so I looked up some recipes and found one that looks pretty close to what I had at the restaurant. Here's the description and recipe from About.com: Thai Food. *Photo from the link, below.

GREEN PAPAYA SALAD

This green papaya salad, known as som tam, is popular in most areas of Thailand, and when you taste it, you'll know why. The slightly tart flavor of the green papaya combines well with the spice of red chili pepper and the saltiness of shrimp paste and fish sauce, plus the sweetness of honey. Green papaya salad is a beautifully unique and flavor-filled dish that will make a great impression. It's also easy to make, low-calorie, and very nutritious. So try this Som tam recipe for dinner tonight!

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 0 minutes

Ingredients:
-1 green papaya (tip: buy your papaya at a Chinese grocer, and make sure it is labed "green papaya" )
-1/2 cup honey-roasted peanuts (or plain roasted), or glazed cashews (see recipe link below)
-1-2 cups bean sprouts
-1 to 2 tomatoes, cut into long thin strips
-1 red chili, minced (seeds removed if you prefer a milder salad)
-3 spring onions, sliced into long matchstick-like pieces
-1/2 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped if leaves are large handful of fresh coriander

DRESSING FOR GREEN PAPAYA SALAD

Ingredients:
-1/2 tsp. shrimp paste (if vegetarian, substitute 1 Tbsp. vegetarian fish sauce, or soy sauce)
-2 Tbsp. good-tasting oil, such as olive
-1 Tbsp. fish sauce (if vegetarian, use vegetarian fish sauce - available at Vietnamese food stores)
-2 Tbsp. lime juice
-1 tsp. honey

Preparation:

1) prepare the dressing by mixing together all dressing ingredients together in a cup. Make sure shrimp paste dissolves fully. Set aside.

2) Peel the green papaya, then slice it in half and remove all the white seeds.

3)Using the largest grater you have, grate the papaya (or you can use a potato peeler to create thin, ribbon-like strips).

4)Place in a large bowl.

5) Add the sliced tomato, spring onion, chili, bean sprouts, and most of the basil.

6) Add the dressing, tossing to combine.

7) Add the peanuts or cashews* (you can either leave them whole, or roughly chop them).

8) Toss again, and do a taste test. If you've used sweet glazed nuts, the salad should be sweet enough (if not, add a little more honey). If not salty enough, add a little more fish sauce.

To serve, scoop salad into individual bowls or onto a serving platter. Sprinkle with remaining basil leaves plus fresh coriander. Serve immediately and ENJOY!

* To make your own glazed cashews (excellent with this salad!), see the: Easy Sweet & Spicy Glazed Cashews Recipe.

Make Ahead Tip: If you wish to make this salad ahead of time, combine all ingredients except the nuts and the dressing. You can then leave it covered in the refrigerator several hours, or overnight. Add the dressing and peanuts at the last minute, then toss and serve.

-Kelly

Anna - Day 6

2009-04-06T21:18:00.006-05:00

I remember a children’s story from when I was a kid that featured a family of goats that lived in a junkyard. The son was causing his parents untold suffering and worry due to the fact that all he ate was healthy food. After much conflict, the solution presents itself as sneaking in appropriate goat food (i.e. tin cans and shoelaces) with the fruits and vegetables. Pretty soon the kid was eating a uniform diet of garbage; happy ending!

Only a few weeks ago I was carrying around a list of my fruit and vegetable intake for each day, and if I was really good I might get that number up to 4. Since trying raw foods, by 2:00pm I’m sitting at 6 or 7. Not bad!

Still, going 100% raw is not something I aspire to. I’m much more a fan of raw/vegan until 6:00pm. Yesterday my menu went something like this:

Breakfast Smoothie:
- Banana
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Swiss Chard – upon reflection, DO NOT use this in a smoothie. This is one vegetable that needs sautéing. In its raw form it takes over the entire smoothie, tastes like dirt, and will only blend into large flapping chunks (ewww)
- Strawberry-flavored Whey Protein Powder

Lunch:
- Carrots and hummus
- Apple slices and banana “bread” with raw cashew butter
- That chocolate-date mishmash (now with coconut!)

……………..After 6:00pm……………..

Dinner (Party at a rowing teammate’s house):
- Baguette slices with olive tapenade and feta
- Fruit salad (no dressing)
- Polenta with sautéed kale, mushrooms, garlic and bacon on top
- 2 glasses of red wine

-Anna

Day 4 - Kelly

2009-04-04T16:46:00.008-05:00

The last couple days have been uneventful, food-wise, with the exception of a recipe I almost completely made up on my own - Carrot Coconut Ginger Soup. I don't consider myself to be much of a cook and never create recipes, but last week I sampled some cooked soup of the same name at the co-op and wanted to see if I could make a raw version. Surprisingly it turned out great, Nathan liked the taste too, although he said he'd rather dip bread in it than eat it alone. This recipe is fast, easy, cheap, and if you don't care about raw, just heat it up in the microwave, it's faster than making a traditional soup on the stove.

CARROT COCONUT GINGER SOUP

Ingredients:

-7 carrots, cut into big chunks so the blender can handle them

-1 cup coconut milk

-1/3 cup water

-Fresh ginger, to taste. I didn't use much, two little 1/2" pieces broken off the main ginger root.

-1 large clove garlic

-1 tsp salt

-1 tsp paprika

-Drizzle of olive oil

Instructions:

Blend everything until smooth.

I haven't actually eaten any except for tasting it when I made it, I gave a bunch to Anna but haven't gotten her opinion yet. I think it'd be good with other chopped veggies mixed in for chunkiness, or over salad greens. The co-op version had cooked peppers in it.

So last night we went out with our friend Andy Dommer, who happens to be an avid juicer and maker of the most awesome halloween costume ever. Here he is as a box of Franzia wine. The wine spout actually works, you can kneel down and drink out of it, the guy is brilliant.

We went to Jimmy's, a classic neighborhood dive in NE Mpls that doesn't have a website. I think it's hard to classify as a dive if you do have a website....anyway great place. Mixed, slightly gritty crowd, frozen pizzas, cheap drinks, pull tabs, good times.

Then we went over to Dommer's place and he made us his favorite juice using a masticating Omega juicer: Celery, beets, carrots, apple, and spinach, if I remember correctly. I was skeptical, but it really was delicious. Now how's that for after-bar food? Just kidding. Fresh juice is great, but it doesn't take the place of scrambled eggs and toast, which is what Nathan made me when we got home. =)

Happy weekend everyone!

-Kelly

Day 2 - Anna

2009-04-02T12:20:00.008-05:00

I made the prettiest smoothie this morning; bananas, purple kale, strawberries and spinach topped with protein powder and blended with filtered water. I like the smoothie idea; getting 4 servings of fruits and vegetables before 9am is fantastic. I'm definitely going to make a habit of this. The best part is everyone at work thinks it looks disgusting, so I don't have to share.

There are some foods that I am eating that are not technically raw, like the hummus tahini from Holy Land. But it has only six ingredients (chick peas, tahini, fresh garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and sea salt) and is so delicious that I end up eating more raw vegetables when using it as dip. That's my rationalization, anyway. Yesterday Kelly and I had a miscommunication about dinner, so, distraught and all alone (sniff!) I resorted to whole wheat spaghetti and organic marinara sauce from Lunds. At least when I stray, I stray vegan.

Kelly also made me the most incredible concoction of dates, walnuts, and raw cacao. Honestly, now that I have this the raw diet goes up several points in my estimation. I forced my friend Adam to try it (we are both chocolate snobs) and he was pleasantly surprised at how sweet and chocolate-y it tastes.

-Anna

Pushing Kale and Day 1 Recap - Kelly

2009-04-02T12:13:00.012-05:00

Not much to report, yesterday I ate everything we made on Tuesday night (listed in yesterday's post). It's not a challenge to "eat raw" at all when I have so much good food to look forward to.

Also, my smoothie yesterday morning was amazing. I'd been underwhelmed with them for a few days, something was missing in the taste and they weren't as thick as usual. I think the trick is using kale instead of spinach.

Here's my PERFECT SMOOTHIE RECIPE:

-1 small apple (buy organic, conventional apples have lots of pesticies) A 3 lb. bag of organic gala apples is $2.99 at my co-op.
-1 banana
-About 5 frozen mango chunks (from Trader Joe's)
-About a dozen frozen blueberries
-Big handful of curly kale.

Notice I specified curly kale - they finally had this in stock at the co-op instead of lacinato (Dinosaur) kale.

A quick rundown of COMMON KALE TYPES for everyone who's not yet an enthusiast:

Curly Kale: Lighter green than Dinosaur kale, has curly leaves.

Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale: Darker green, has flat leaves, slightly sweeter than curly kale. I swear eating a lot of this in a day (I had it in a smoothie and in a Massaged Kale salad) gave me green poo.

Purple Kale: Same as curly, but with some purple in the leaves. It is so pretty! I bought some for the first time at the co-op yesterday, don’t know if it tastes different but the World's Healthiest Foods site says it's a bit more mellow.

Kale is one of the healthiest foods out there, but is hard to eat raw. For anyone who hasn't tried it, go make a green smoothie! When was the last time you can say you ate 3 servings of fruit and a bunch of kale in one sitting?

Last night I also ate some of the food I was making Anna to get her through day 2: Raw Chocolate Cake and Eggless Egg Salad, two of my favorites, but we'll have to see what her verdict was.

-Kelly

Round 2 - Day 1

2009-04-01T12:35:00.008-05:00

No joke people, Anna and I are starting up the experiment again for at least 14 days, hopefully longer if it's agreeing with her! We'll both try to post our menus & experiences daily.

Last night I had a food prep extravaganza to get us started. We made:
- Sushi with Almond Ginger Pate
- Cauliflower Rice (This time with more soaked dates and Garam Masala - very good!)
- Zucchini Hummus Lite
- Cinnamon Raisin Flax Crackers (New Recipe - see below)

CINNAMON RAISIN FLAX CRACKERS (from Brigitte Mars at brigittemars.com)

Ingredients:
2 C flax seeds
4 C water
1 1/2 C raisins + 1/2 C raisins
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 bananas, peeled
1 tsp. sea salt

Preparation:

1) Soak the seeds in the water for about 2 hours, and do not strain.

2) Combine all ingredients in a food processor until smooth, stirring in additional 1/2 C raisins by hand.

3) Spread the mixture onto three solid dehydrator sheets.

4) Dehydrate for 4 hours @ 110 degrees.

5) Remove the dehydrator sheets and flip the crackers. At this time you may also score the crackers with a soft table knife.

6) Continue dehydrating until they are crisp - about 6 hours. When dry, the crackers will keep for several weeks in an air-tight container. Makes about 2 dozen crackers.

My Notes: I upped the cinnamon to 2 tsp. and also added a tsp. of vanilla because there was so much batter the seasoning didn't seem enough. We dehydrated about 9 hours total and they were still soft, but not gooey, when I took them out this morning. I only tried a few bites when they were still warm and they tasted really good, I liked the raisins a lot.

ZUCCHINI HUMMUS LITE

Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups zucchini, chopped (peel only if you are afraid of green hummus!)
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 T lemon juice
- 2 T ground sesame seeds (tahini)
- 3/4 tsp. sea salt
- 2 garlic cloves
-1 tsp. paprika
-1 tsp. ground cumin
- Cayenne to taste

Instructions: Blend everything in food processor or blender.

-Kelly

Anna's First Post: A New Two-Week Experiment!

2009-03-30T15:29:00.012-05:00

Raw Food Experiment: Round Two

So our neighbor Anna has officially agreed to try the raw food experiment for at least two weeks and blog about it on this site. We'll start the countdown over from day one, I'll be doing it along with her, this time we'll try to be more diligent about sticking to it and posting menus, etc.

In keeping with our Halloween theme, Alaskan MILF Anna with Dominatrix Cowgirl Kelly. Surprisingly, the two had a lot in common:

The following is Anna's take on the raw foods thing:

Why on Earth would you try something that makes vegans look like gluttons? Crazy raw foodists! I eat meat. I love dairy. I adore bread! I fully intend on having a crash and burn meter for this. No chocolate? I suppose the first week will have a lot of posts with praying for death as the gist.

Well, ok, Kelly and Nathan are only as crazy as the next couple, and they make yummy sushi. I might be able to handle this if they agree to make me dinner. And have you seen Nathan? He lost 16 pounds in a month. That’s what snagged my attention. You can get a girl to do anything as long as you tell her she’ll drop some weight doing it.

Plus, there’s this whole “feel more in the present” push that I’m trying to do. Sure, things are ok, but I treat my body pretty much like I treat my car; as long as there’s fuel in it, I don’t really worry about how it’s running until something goes wrong. I want to feel good in this body, and the bottom line is right now I don’t.

So the real question here is, why not?

-Anna

(Note: She obviously never got to try any of our Raw Chocolate Balls, or she wouldn't be so freaked about "giving up" chocolate. I will convert you Anna!)

We are famous!

2009-03-30T11:04:00.004-05:00

Well, in our small time blogger world we are. Today I visited one of my old favorite food blogs, Cheap Healthy Good, it's been awhile since I read it because I've been preoccupied with looking for raw food info….and I was so delighted to see us listed in their Favorites of the Week! I'm so lucky I caught that post!

In other news….Nathan has been kind of obsessed with black beans since we officially ended the 30 day experiment. He wants to eat lots of protein to build up his muscles again, because they got "small" on only raw foods. (Not). I think he also just really likes burritos. =)

Anyway on Saturday night he made a fabulous black bean soup, not raw, but vegan, and a good example of how regular food can be incorporated into an almost-raw diet. He ate the soup on its own, but I put some raw spinach, celery, and zucchini in a bowl and just covered it with a few spoonfuls of the soup. So, all the yumminess of hot food, but most of the raw benefits too.

BLACK BEAN SOUP (modified from source)

Ingredients:
- 1 pound can of black beans
- 8 cups of water
- One cup of diced carrots
- One cup of diced yellow onion
- One cup of diced celery
- One tablespoon garlic cloves
- Some olive oil for cooking the vegetables
- 3/4 TBSP cumin powder
- 1 TSP oregano
- 1 TSP ground black pepper
- 1 TSP thyme

Nathan's modified instructions:

1) Heat up some olive oil in the bottom of a big pot and gradually cook the carrots, onion and celery until the onion carmelizes. I like to cook right in the pot I'll make the soup in because the "fond" that accumulates in the pot is very flavorful and adds to the soup. If too much dark matter builds up, add a little water and loosen it with a spoon.

2) Near the end of cooking the vegetables, add a little more olive oil, get it hot, and then cook the diced garlic until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

3) Add the black beans right from the can, the water, and all the herbs. Slowly simmer with the lid just barely open for about an hour, stirring occasionally. I notice now that I forgot to add the recommended 1/6 cup of sherry, which might have been a nice addition.

4) After an hour, take off the cover and let the soup cook down gradually to your desired consistency. Sea salt to taste.

-Kelly

Transitional Diet / The Otter

2009-03-28T17:01:00.011-05:00

Here's what my diet looks like post-raw-food-experiment:

I work for a judge, and he scheduled a very early start to the final day of a jury trial yesterday morning. I went from bed to car in ten minutes, and remember very little of what happened in between. I know this much: I was wearing pants.

During the diet, this would have devastated me, but I allowed myself to grab some orange juice for breakfast rather than a smoothie.

For lunch and dinner, I made burritos out of whole wheat tortillas, organic black beans, chopped up raw brocolli and chopped up raw tomatoes. I seasoned the black beans with cumin, but a good friend recommended I try all-spice next time. For the dinner burritos, I found a good all-natural salsa to increase the heat and flavor.

While I was worrying about caloric intake, Kelly was faithfully responding to a blog comment:

THE OTTER

It's important to describe this classic Otter night, mostly because we dizzily handed out several links to our blog, in hopes that we'd attract a few stalkers.

Potential stalkers:

When we entered, we immediately took pictures with a very charming man who may have been Elvis in hiding. This was not abnormal, and I note that nobody every looks for Elvis in Minnesota. Interesting.

It was my sister's birthday, and I somehow neglected to take her picture. Well Happy Birthday to you!

We bumped into a surprising number of friends, caroused with random has-been enemies, danced trancelike to karaoke, and took occasional sensory breaks in the outer stairwell. Here's a picture of one of those breaks, with Otter-regulars Stoner and Midget:

I belted out a crowd-stunning rendition of Neil Diamond's Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. It may not have been pleasing to the ear, but I'm comforted by the fact that at least 20% of the listeners now know that they have two good hands. One for reaching out to the man up there, and one for reaching to their brother who is in trouble. Public service announcement over.

Kelly with another performer:

Finally, Kelly met a great guy from Hutchinson, MN, who bought us a couple drinks and introduced us to his wife and friends. Interestingly, I was named after an ancestor of historical note from Hutch, a man named Nathan Lamson. Nathan killed Little Crow, the leader of the Sioux Rebellion. I wasn't there, so I can't comment on the whole "he said, he said" situation over shots fired, but I've been to the historic site a couple times. I admit, I looked over my shoulder for possible retributive gunfire from the spiritual plane.

Kelly, borrowing the poor guy's glasses. At the moment, I'm sure he has no idea who I am or what I'm doing:

-Nathan

Day 33 - Yay Weekend!

2009-03-27T16:02:00.010-05:00

My weekend started early last night with our book club meeting at Café Barbette. Two glasses of great wine, some pommes frites, and deep intellectual discussion about The Fall by Albert Camus. Ha, not. We did eat and drink and select that book (rather, Nathan selected the book), but I think only 3 of our 7 members really read it. This is the kind of book that people write papers on the symbolism, etc. etc….also the kind of book that made me glad I was an engineering major so I never had to write those bullsh*t papers. Sorry if I offend any comparative literature majors out there.

We got home by 9 and I proceeded to stay up too late having girl talk, another drink, and late night eats of (whole wheat) pasta and (all natural) spaghetti sauce with my neighbor Anna who might give the 30 day raw experiment a try. I told her I'd do it again with her and Anna, that wasn't just the liquor talking, I'm still in!

So I wasn't very hungry today and just had a banana and tea for breakfast and a salad for lunch. It's a quarter to 4 here and I can't wait to get home and nap before we go celebrate Nathan's sister's b-day at the best bar ever, otherwise known as the U Otter Stop Inn. Happy Birthday Katie!!

Days gone by at the Otter:

And happy weekend everyone, hopefully I'll get around to making some new raw stuff this weekend so I can actually post something informative besides book recommendations on this blog…..next we are reading my pick, one of my favorites since I first read it in 8th grade, Ender's Game. Read it!

Cheers,

Kelly

Day 32 - Recipe Updates and a Thank You

2009-03-26T16:41:00.002-05:00

I want to publicly say thank you to my wonderful husband Nathan for doing this raw foods experiment with me. When I suggested it, I did so casually, expecting a scoffing "no way". This is not his type of thing. But he knew I was having a hard winter and wanted to support me and help cheer me up, so he went along and not even reluctantly, he threw himself into it and was very dedicated to the experiment.

The seriousness of his post yesterday really surprised me, I never thought any real change would come of this, I was just curious about all the reported health benefits and wanted to get back to my pre-winter weight (and didn't want tempting food in the house if he wasn't doing it with me!)

So it just goes to show 30 days can make a lasting difference, even for the skeptical, please share this with anyone you know who could benefit, and support those who are trying to make a positive change in their lives.

********

Recipe Updates:

I made another batch of the Banana Bread using a little more banana and dates, and dehydrating at 110 degrees for about 7 hours. It turned out better, less spicy and softer, but I'd try for even softer & still more banana flavor next time. Also I used 2 frozen and 1 large unfrozen banana.

I also made another batch of Zucchini Hummus, this is turning into one of my favorites. This time I used about 2 1/2 cups of zucchini, 2 T of tahini, and 2 T of olive oil to lighten it up. I even left the skin on one zucchini. Result: Still good. Less rich and with a slight green color from the skin, but good. It's been keeping me really full as a dip for celery and carrot sticks. I'll have to post a revised "light" recipe in the recipes section soon.

-Kelly

After the Diet - Nathan

2009-03-25T11:38:00.009-05:00

Thirty days is a long time, really. Long enough to develop some habits, anyway. Today, I'm doing something similar to what I think I'll be doing for a while:

Breakfast: I had an orange and banana smoothie.

Lunch: I picked up some organic black beans and made burritos with tomatoes, onions, and some suprisingly good sprouted wheat tortillas that Kelly picked up at the co-op.

A deputy observed me cutting up my tomatoes and said, "That looks like way too much work." But it feels natural now to actually sit down and put in the work of making a healthy lunch . And yeah, the beans aren't raw, but they're good for me, and I've got this inclination now that I shouldn't ruin a good thing.

Dinner: Who knows. I'll probably just make some more burrittos.

Reflecting on Everything:

As I said above, I've got a sense now that my body's a good place to be, and it feels unnatural to dump garbage into it. Right now, a plate of gooey brownies looks to me like a director of low-budget pornography looks to a puritanical virgin. I know, because I walked by some today (brownies, not characters out of an adult time-travel fantasy film).

Overall, I see the raw food diet as a good transition, but not a lifestyle I want to embrace 100%. I'll continue to have the raw breakfast, and stick as much as I can to elements of a raw lunch. Dinner's probably always going to involve fire, but I'll be burning mushrooms and broccoli instead of cheese-filled sausages and pizzas. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat the nachos and pizzas when I'm out with friends now and then. I'd hate to be rude, obviously.

I haven't performed a final weigh-in, but I've lost in the ballpark of sixteen pounds. I feel lighter on my feet, better about myself aesthetically, and I've got a hunch that it's probably good that I've purged myself of a lot of the synthetic junk I was spraying on my organs for years.

My grandfather lived to be 96 years old, and he ate a lot of bacon. But he was around when food was simpler, less processed, and when whole foods were not just a healthy thing to eat, but an economical thing to eat - back when you grew things and weren't swallowed up in the modern rush of commuting and living. I've taken comfort in his love for bacon and longevity probably too much, telling Kelly that diet doesn't really matter, and that life is a roll of diet-neutral dice in the long run.

I'll concede this to her now: We live in a different world, and I like the idea of separating myself from some of the modern chemicals we've been unfortunate to discover and apply. I have such little confidence that modern, mass food production is made with my body's best interests in mind that I'd rather depend on it as little as possible.

We will continue to experiment with raw food, but I look forward to the next stage, as I integrate healthy and organic cooked foods into raw recipes in order to create meals that are better tailored to my needs and tastes. I've remained wary of not getting enough protein intake over the last month, so I'll feel more comfortable participating in strenuous workouts now that I can supplement my diet with other protein sources.

That's all for now. The next curiosity is whether a transitional diet can maintain the health benefits I've enjoyed, in the long run. I'll let you know.

-Nathan

Day 30 - Banana Bread

2009-03-24T16:36:00.003-05:00

I made this on Thursday night for us to take on the trip, but I must've dehydrated it too long because it was more like banana crackers. Not a complete failure though, because Nathan actually liked them, even though they had too much cinnamon and not enough banana flavor. I'm giving it another try tonight….

BANANA BREAD

Ingredients:
-1 cup sprouted and dehydrated (until crispy: 3-5 hours) buckwheat groats
-3 ripe bananas, frozen overnight
-3 dates, pitted (if dates are dried, soak for 1 hour)
-1 tsp vanilla
-2 tbsp flax meal
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 tsp nutmeg
-1/2 tsp cloves

Directions:

1) Let bananas defrost completely in bowl, takes about 1 hour. (Apparently freezing them and then thawing makes it taste different?)

2) Grind buckwheat in a coffee grinder or blender until it becomes a flour consistency

3) Mix buckwheat flour and rest of dry ingredients in a bowl.

4) Puree bananas, dates, and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Pour into dry ingredients and mix well.

5) Dehydrate at 110 degrees for 8 hours.

My Notes:

-The original recipe on a message board called for spelt or kamut berries, but someone said buckwheat worked better. I am suspicious that maybe I wasn't supposed to dehydrate the buckwheat before mixing it with everything else and that's why it turned out so dry….I'll have to experiment with this . . .

-I used a few more dates, because mine are dried and very small.

This recipe has great potential, it's cheap and easy to make, buckwheat is quick to sprout too.

Also, odd coincidence - on the way back from Duluth I was reading one of their free community newspapers and there was an ad from the Duluth Grill prominently announcing that they serve Banana Buckwheat Bread, "Raw & Gluten Free". Now, I've never heard of raw banana bread before like two weeks ago, and someplace called the "Duluth Grill" would be the last place I expected….ok I actually just googled this place and turns out it is an Embers restaurant. Strange. But good, I guess!

-Kelly

Day 30 - Last Day?

2009-03-24T16:26:00.012-05:00

I can't believe it's been 30 days. We haven't eaten 100% raw every day (or probably even the majority of days), but we sure ate a lot more raw than we did before the experiment. For me, it's been great. There was rarely a time when I felt too hungry or deprived….probably because when I wanted fries and whiskey I just….didn't deprive myself. But we've learned a lot of great recipes, picked up some good habits, and had fun blogging for the first time.

This is not the last day for me. I plan keep eating similar to what I have been the last month, trying new recipes, and writing on the blog, so I hope you all keep reading.

With that, here's the weekend recap:

North Shore & Duluth

-Stopped in Duluth on Fri. eve on the way to the cabin at Hell's Kitchen, known for their excellent breakfast food. They had fantastic happy hour, $3 any tap from 8-10 p.m. So we did a comparison of our two favorites, Bell's Two Hearted Ale and Surly Furious. Surly is much darker, sharper, bitter, while Bell's is lighter and fruiter. But both hoppy and delicious! Food was great (Veggie Fritta, chips & salsa), but it felt like we were sitting in a Hot Topic store.

-Scary drives in a pitch black country road snowstorm and the next day on 20 miles of unplowed, unpaved country road with deer hopping around everywhere (we saw at least 50, and they ran in front of our car several times) reminded me why I am a city gal.

-Best small town dive discovery ever: Silver Bay Bowl! 6 lanes, manual scoring, and a 12 year old as the sole employee serving us beer. $3.50 per person for bowling & shoes.

-Sunday night at the Edge Waterpark in Duluth: Hotel itself and waterpark were sort of cr*p, but 6 friends, plenty of liquor, and a hot tub in the hotel room = a great party.

The foggy drive home:

Cheers!

Kelly

Day 26 - Raw Road Trip!

2009-03-20T15:11:00.004-05:00

Tonight after work we're driving 4+ hours up to Nathan's parents' (very lovely clean modern) cabin in Silver Bay, on the north shore of Lake Superior. Normally I'm not at all a winter cabin type person, but we're in need of a cheap spring break, it's not supposed to be too cold, and our good friends Marc & Robyn are coming.

Saturday we're going to Sawbill Canoe Outfitters, which our friend Adam's dad owns, where we might snowshoe or might just hang out in the lodge. And on the way back - bar hopping in random small towns we've never been to! I ♥ small town dive bars.

Finally, the whole reason for going up north in the first place, we're staying at the Edgewater Waterpark & Resort in Duluth on Sunday night. I get a discount through my company, but excluding Fri. & Sat. nights, so we figured we'd do the cabin thing first. Taking full advantage of the discount, we got the most posh suite in the place - whirlpool, minibar, balcony view of Lake Superior. Maybe they'll even have a sauna….I like anywhere I can be warm in the winter in a bathing suit.

So this will be our first time trying to do the raw thing out of town. In preparation, last night I did grocery shopping & food prepping, so here's our list of foods for the road:

-Banana Bread (not quite a success, recipe to come)
-Zucchini Hummus
-Carrot Sticks
-Salsa
-Nuts & Dried fruit
-Apples & Bananas
-Sprouted Bread
-Avocado

It's not much, but there's a grocery store by the cabin so we can get supplies for salads, etc., and there's a nice looking whole foods co-op in Duluth. We'll probably miss the blender the most because we've gotten very used to the smoothies….actually maybe there's one at the cabin or I guess we could bring ours, we haven't discussed.

Anyway, happy weekend, we'll be back Tuesday!

-Kelly

Intermezzo - The Johnsons

2009-03-19T22:57:00.013-05:00

Nathan: OK, this is an odd interruption, but a comment by Lisa yesterday reminded us that the best way to get to know us is probably through our Halloween photos. Every Christmas, we turn those photos into Christmas cards. I have terrorized my poor mother each year with these photos. Her tolerance is saintlike. Sorry, mom.

Our first photo came courtesy of our visionary friend Adam. We posed as Marla and Cornelius from the movie Fight Club. In 2006, we turned it into our first Christmas card:

That year, Halloween fell on a weekend. To avoid monotony, we changed things up on day two. "Dominatrix Housewife and Submissive Corporate Drone Attorney Husband":

For Halloween 2007, we went zombie. We were married a week earlier, so Kelly made good use of her crinoline:

Scenes from our 2007 Christmas photo shoot. We wanted to get a cheesy studio portrait, but the studios were full. We hung up a sheet in the living room. Viola. Cropped for the Christmas card, no one could tell the difference:

In 2008, Kelly and I participated in an annual Zombie Pub Crawl. Hundreds of people stumbled around moaning "brains" for an evening in the Seven Corners area of Minneapolis. We knew this would make a perfect Christmas card. The caption read: "May your holiday memories live forever.":

Finally, we returned to our assless roots for another dominatrixy theme this year. Notice the pre-raw-food spare horse (cowboy version of a spare tire) on the front of Nathan. Scary:

-Nathan and Kelly

Day 25 - Cauliflower Rice

2009-03-19T12:46:00.005-05:00

This recipe is a great way for anyone to get more veggies in, without having to eat them plain in a salad or with a fatty dip. I ate mine over some Massaged Kale, Nathan used some as sandwich filling between sprouted bread.

CAULIFLOWER RICE

Ingredients:
-About 3/4 of a large Cauliflower bunch
-1 small mango
-Handful of dates
-1 T curry powder

Instructions:

Process everything in a food processor until you get a rice-like consistency.

My notes:

-1 T curry powder was a lot for me, even though we use a not too spicy "sweet" curry powder blend. So maybe use a little less than 1 T, depending on how much flavor you like. Garam Masala might also work well in this recipe.

-If you add some raisins, slivered almonds, shredded carrots, maybe splash of olive oil... this could be a great filling side dish or light meal on its own.

Last night, we also finally experimented with Jicama, which neither of us had tried before. We used it to make Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes, recipe & pics to come!

-Kelly

Day 23 - Happy St. Patty's!

2009-03-17T10:22:00.005-05:00

And an extra reason to celebrate today - it's warm enough to walk to the bar. We'll be at Keegan's tonight if anyone wants to go!

My menu from yesterday:

Workday
-Smoothie: Banana, apple, blueberries, spinach
-Carrots and Zucchini Hummus
-Big Salad: Spinach, radish, sprouts, tomato

Snacks after work
-Leftover raw chocolate balls
-Ginger Almond Pate on Buckwheat Bread
-Prunes
-Salsa

Around 7, I went for a long walk around the neighborhood, ending at Surdyk's to buy our Jameson for today. It is SO NICE to be able to walk places again. It's like I've won my life back from the cold weather. So we were planning to try a new drink for St. Patty's, and of course since I bought the Jameson last night….we had to sample it:

BIG GINGER

Ingredients:
-Jameson
-Ginger Ale
-Splash of lemon and lime juices

And with my drink I had some more Buckwheat Bread & Zucchini Hummus, plus a piece of sprouted bread with peanut butter. Yum.

As long as I'm on the topic, a couple other great Irish beverages:

-Johnny Jump Up: Hard cider with a shot of whiskey.

-Finnegan's Irish Amber: Drink for a good cause! Profits go to charity, and it tastes good too. Sorry, only available in MN.

Cheers,

Kelly

Day 23 - McNathan

2009-03-17T09:15:00.016-05:00

As you can imagine, raw foodists take St. Patty's Day very seriously. Why? There is green literally everywhere. Basically, the rule as I understand it is this: If it's green, you can eat it. Of course, this rule isn't usually applied to things like Leprechauns.

This evening, I'll be testing my theory that beer becomes raw when you dye it green. I'll also follow up on a hunch that Jameson is a naturally-occurring vegetable product.

In honor of the holiday, I'm eating a delightful salad today:

NATHAN'S SHAMROCK SALAD

Ingredients:

- Four handfulls of freshly picked clover, preferably from a field, whilst the wind is blowing softly at your back.

Important note:

Take care to discard any of the four-leaf variety. Interestingly, the Irish used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish. Four leaf clovers are likely to confuse people. If a spiritual crisis sounds appetizing, carry on. But four-leafed abominations have no place in my salad.

Instructions:

- Put the clover in a bowl or pot (preferably a gold one)

- Go to the Over the Rainbow bar in St. Paul

- If you intersect with a parade route on the way, participate

- When you arrive at the bar, expect to be mistaken for a wealthy and potentially eligible leprechaun. It's likely that someone will try to catch you. Just go with it.

But seriously:

I'm not eating clover. I've even tried researching whether clover is edible, but e-quarterback answers to posts like "My girlfriend told me you could eat the little white 'flowers' that grow in a clover patch" aren't inspiring my confidence. Consider this informed response: "Well, you ate two and you're still alive. I guess it's safe. Moron."

I'm not even wearing green today (making it very likely that I'll be pinched soon).

Last night, Kelly made this very intriguing curry dish using, in part, dates and cauliflower. I'll be eating that for lunch. Breakfast was an orange and banana smoothie.

Energy:

I will say this: A noticible benefit of this diet is my mornings alertness. I play lots of poker, and I was up doing it till 2 a.m. last night because I'd napped earlier and couldn't sleep. Even on a handful of sleeping hours, I'm surprised at how good I feel, sans caffeine. I've been caffeine-free for a few weeks now and I'm stunned at how much MORE alert I feel now.

-Nathan

Day 22 - Happy Spring & New Recipes!

2009-03-16T10:22:00.009-05:00

I think spring does not officially begin until Friday, but in Minnesota, the first day you can walk to the bus in the morning without a winter coat definitely counts! It felt like a miracle to not be cold this morning, to not be cowering under my hood, to not race in misery from the bus to the warmth of my office building. Yay for 41 degrees.

This weekend I also tweaked two recipes that turned out fabulous. First, a variation on the Raw Chocolate Cake:

Raw Chocolate Balls with Strawberry Sauce

Chocolate Balls Ingredients:
-1+1/2 cups raw walnuts, unsoaked
- Dash salt
-18 pitted medjool dates, unsoaked
- scant 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa or carob powder
-1/2 t vanilla extract
- 2 T water
-1 T agave

Strawberry Ingredients:
-2 cups strawberries
-1/2 cup agave
-1/4 cup maple syrup
-2 tablespoons lemon juice
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/4 teaspoons nutmeg

Instructions:
1) Blend walnuts and salt in a food processor until finely ground.
2) Add dates, cocoa powder and vanilla, and process until the mixture begins to stick together.
3) Add the water and process briefly.
4) Blend all strawberry sauce ingredients together.
5) Roll chocolate mixture into small balls and arrange on plate.
6) Drizzle with strawberry sauce and garnish with mint leaves.

My Notes:
-The number of dates vary on which type you use. I used awful small tasteless dry dates from Fleet Farm. The other day at the co-op I had some large, delicious gooey dates, so probably would've needed less of those.
-Really go easy on the cocoa powder. You can always add more.
-Agave is a natural vegan sweetener from a cactus plant that doesn't cause your blood sugar to spike like sugar. You can get it at Trader Joe's for about $3 a bottle if I remember correctly.
-I somehow forgot maple syrup for the strawberry sauce, but it tasted great anyway.
-The Strawberry Sauce recipe is from The Raw Chef.

We brought these to my sister's birthday dinner on Saturday and everyone who tried them loved them. The name of the dessert is also increasingly hilarious with each glass of wine consumed. My very non-raw family also sampled the sushi rolls with ginger almond pate and buckwheat bread with zucchini hummus, all which went over really well, and my family isn't the type to just be nice!

The zucchini hummus was the second new recipe of the weekend. I had seen variations of this recipe around a lot on raw food boards, but was reluctant to try it, being a huge fan of chickpea hummus. It tastes surprisingly similar to regular hummus though, and really easy to make.

Zucchini Hummus

Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups peeled zucchini, chopped (make sure to peel!)
- 4 Tbs. olive oil
- 1 1/2 T lemon juice
- 1/2 cup ground sesame seeds (tahini)
- 3/4 tsp. sea salt
- 2 garlic cloves
-1 tsp. paprika
-1 tsp. ground cumin
- Cayenne to taste

Instructions:

Blend everything in food processor or blender. Next time I will probably ease up on the olive oil and tahini, because tahini is very high in fat and calories and the hummus has more than enough tahini flavor.

Hope everyone had a great weekend,

-Kelly

Day 20 - Nathan

2009-03-14T14:31:00.013-05:00

Noteworthy beverages:

This morning, I threw an orange, a banana, and a glacier-load of ice into the Vita-Mix, and ended up with a slushi. How can it be so right, when it feels so wrong?

There is absolutely no way my German heritage will allow my defiant body to cut off its supplyline of good beer. I'm not throwing it down every day by the gallon load, but I'm having it here and there. As a compromise, I've been experimenting with organic beers, and this one stands out as a good, hoppy brew:

Radish Sprouts:

Today, I harvested our jar full of radish sprouts, and I plan on throwing them into some sushi this afternoon. Kelly's grandma is a radish enthusiast, so I'm hoping she's impressed. They taste identical to full-blown radishes.

Here's what they looked like in the jar:

After pulling them out, I went through the process of de-hulling them, getting rid of the brown outer coats that have fallen away. A good instructional is available here.

This is the final product:

The final sushi product. Spicy!:

Please tell your children to leave the blog now:

At the risk of being a weightloss exhibitionist, I want to archive the fact that I've lost some weight since my diet change. The pictures below were taken on the cruise we took about a week before starting the raw diet. The last photo was taken today.

Bulbous Common North American Sea Monster:

A shot of Cozumellian tequila getting in my belly:

15 pounds lighter. I apologize that what has been seen cannot be unseen:

-Nathan

Day 20

2009-03-14T13:20:00.007-05:00

First, apologies for the lack of posting and daily menus! We've been straying a bit from the raw and haven't been trying any new recipes.

Lots of days I subsist mostly on the morning smoothie (Green Smoothie Challenge, if you haven't tried it yet!), big salad (spinach, tomato, sprouts, whatever's in the fridge, nuts, olive oil...) and snacks at night. We still have a lot of the Buckwheat Bread left over and Nathan's been making a lot of "sushi" rolls with Almond Ginger Pate, which I just realized we've never posted the recipe for, even though it's one of our favorites. We use it in place of rice in the rolls and for a spread on veggies and crackers.

Almond Ginger Pate

Ingredients:

-1 T ginger
-1 clove garlic
-1/2 t sea salt
-1 cup dry raw almonds
-juice of 1 lemon (or T bottled lemon juice)
-1/4 cup water

Blend everything until smooth. 1/4 cup of water wasn't enough, so keep adding in 1/4 cup increments until you like the consistency.

Anyway, on Thursday night we went to Skinner's in St. Paul for bingo night. We've only been here a few times (because it's alllll the way over in St. Paul), but what a fantastic bar. You feel like you've been transported to a small town bar up north, but with good food, good beer, and clean bathrooms. The most incredible thing is the prices. Our tab was just under $50 for:

-9 beers (newcastle, summit, schell's)
-3 vodka tonics
-fries, side salad, and nachos big enough to feed 4.

The bingo was free with a final round of coverall winning $400 (unfortunately not anyone in our group)!

Friday we took the day off just for the helluvit and I planned to make The Raw Chef's Vanilla Chocolate Torte with Ginger & Strawberry Cream for my sister's b-day dinner tonight, but Whole Foods didn't have any cocoa butter. Even though I called ahead and asked. When we got there they had no idea what we were talking about and directed us to the body care section.

My would-have-been cake:

So, instead I bought some sprouted bread and natural chunky peanut butter, came home and made a screwdriver, and watched Religulous. Not because I thought the documentary would be particularly informative, but it was available on Red Box and I was in the mood for Bill Maher's sarcasm. Can't write a review because I was half reading my new issue of National Geographic Traveler and fell asleep before it was over. Good times.

-Kelly

Day 18 - Nathan

2009-03-12T13:27:00.004-05:00

I'll keep this one short, because I'm working from home today. When I'm alone at home, I basically sit around listening to the music that annoys Kelly, while cleaning like an automaton. Time passes without consequence. I'm like a couchbound cowboy, lulled by Sacajawean siren songs, and dulled down by cannabis smoke signals. That imagery makes no sense at all, but it sounds dreamy, and that's how these lazy days always are.

Today, I've made an apple and orange smoothie and 16 raw sushi rolls. I've enjoyed a good book, Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey. I've watched the cilantro grow. I've also checked in on our radish sprouts. I plan on eventually using them to put some spice in my sushi.

The day, in pictures:

-Nathan

Day 17 - Old Country Buffet and Raw Bread

2009-03-11T21:14:00.006-05:00

The Old Country Buffet is probably the last place you'd expect us to be eating, but I took the afternoon off work today to do just that with my grandma. They have a weekday soup & salad lunch special for $4.99 so it was perfect. I had a big salad from the well-stocked bar and good cantaloupe too. Thanks for lunch Nana!

In other news, we have real, functional, raw bread! And lots of it. We used Russell James' recipe from The Raw Chef:

BUCKWHEAT BREAD

Makes 18 slices

Ingredients:

-1/2c olive oil
-1 ½c sun dried tomatoes
-3c sprouted buckwheat (1 ½c dry & unsprouted)
-1 ½c flax meal
-3 ½c peeled zucchini, roughly chopped
-2c apple, cored and roughly chopped
-3T lemon juice
-2 avocados
-1 large onion
-½c minced parsley

Instructions:

1) Process the olive oil, sun dried toms, sprouted buckwheat, courgette, apple, lemon juice, avocados, onion and herbs until thoroughly mixed.

2) Transfer to a large bowl and mix with in the flax meal by hand. The reason you do this separately (not in the processor) is that you are likely to have too much mixture for the size of the processor at this point, and when you add the flax meal it will become quite heavy and sticky and overwork your machine.

3) When mixed, process the whole batter in the machine again, but in small batches to achieve a light fluffy texture.

4) Divide the mixture in half and place on Paraflexx sheets on dehydrator trays. Use a spatula to spread the mixture evenly to all 4 sides and corners of the Paraflexx sheet. If mixture is too sticky you can wet the spatula to make things easier. With a knife score the whole thing into 9 squares.

5) Dehydrate for 2 hours at 115 degrees and then remove the Paraflexx sheets by placing another dehydrator tray and mesh on top and invert so that your original sheet of bread is upside down. That will allow you to peel the Paralexx sheet off and continue to dehydrate the underside of the bread.

- Dehydrate for approx 8 hours more at 110 degrees, or until bread feels light in your hand. If the pieces don’t fully come apart where you scored, use a knife to cut them.

My notes:

-Buckwheat is very easy to sprout! Instructions here.

-The batter doesn't get "light and fluffy" after adding the flax meal. But our bread looks exactly like the picture from the raw chef, so I don't think we did anything wrong.

-I used two small apples and only half a large onion, I did not want onion taste left in my mouth after eating this stuff!

-It took us about 1 1/2 hours to prepare, but it was our first time and made two big tupperware containers full, so it was worth it.

The bread is thin, dense, and chewy with a slightly sweet taste. Definitely hearty enough for a sandwich and you can even scoop up salsa with it. We both like it and it's very satisfying for me, but Nathan says it's no replacement for cooked fluffy bread. I have to admit he is right, I couldn't see eating my egg and cheese sandwiches on this stuff after a night at the bar. But, a nice addition to our raw recipes.

Cheers,

Kelly

Day 16 - Nathan, halfway there

2009-03-10T14:40:00.012-05:00

The first week or so of this transition was rough. Even though I admittedly haven't been 100% raw, I've been very close. During that first week, I had headaches, I couldn't focus, and I was crabby all the time. I was convinced that my body probably just wasn't made for this diet. I have a rabbit metabolism, and I was 6'3", 215 pounds-ish a little over two weeks ago.

We went to the gym yesterday and I weighed myself for the first time since changing my diet. A neighbor had mentioned that I looked thinner and younger, and I was starting to buy the narcissistic hype, but I figured I'd look down and see that I'd lost a few pounds. I was wrong. I weigh 199.5 pounds now. That's something close to FIFTEEN pounds lost in the last few weeks.

Keep in mind, I haven't been going to the gym regularly because I've worried my energy level would be down, but I did my normal routine and I hadn't lost any of my strength. I felt great on the way home. It's odd, because Kelly and I aren't sure where I lost all the weight from. Maybe from my fat head, but more likely from my stomach. My stomach was out of control, sort of starting to hang sideways when I reclined in bed. It doesn't appear to be acting as a fleshy pendulum anymore.

I've been a little paranoid that I'd shrink and not look like a moderately big, strong guy anymore. I'm sure this fear traces back to my "chicken legs" high school experience, pre-hormone-shift and pre-firefighting. I don't want to become that tall, thin guy, crammed into a tight sweater, passively reading play manuscripts at a coffee house. But I seem to be the same guy still, just trimmed of some body fat.

I suppose I can probably jump higher now. Maybe I can jump TOO high. Maybe it's not even safe to jump anymore. What an interesting problem to hypothetically have.

Alright, I'm in the zone, and I'm super pumped that Kelly got me to do this diet. I feel like that kid who's convinced he can run faster on the day that he first puts on his new tennis shoes.

Recent food: Today, I'm eating this eggless egg salad on some bread we made in the dehydrator last night. We'll post the recipe when we determine whether it's something we want to recommend. After the gym last night, I whipped together some of that raw sushi, and it was fantastic. I'm going to start prepping the almond pate so I can just bring the ingredients to work and make them there.

-Nathan

Day 15 - Kelly

2009-03-09T12:08:00.007-05:00

I read an interesting article in the City Pages this weekend about Traditional Foods, a buying club in South Minneapolis selling mostly natural, local products. This quote from the owner is great: "Americans spend 8 percent of our income on food and 22 percent on doctors. In Italy it's the other way around. You either pay the farmer and the butcher or you pay the doctor."

Sure, buying natural foods costs more than eating ramen, but it is really not that much more expensive. What's really unfortunate is that people think they're being healthy eating wheat bread, fat free yogurt, granola bars, spaghetti sauce etc., when the reality is that most of these products are highly processed and contain high fructose corn syrup and other artificial flavors and preservatives.

Here is an article from Mayo Clinic with basics about high fructose corn syrup. Notice they say moderation is important. But, it is not moderate when that sh*t is sneaking into every meal of your day. Here is another more opinionated article: 8 'Health' Foods That Contain High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Please read your food labels!

Moving on to something more raw related - one of my favorite inexpensive foods is kale. It costs $1.75 per organic bunch at my co-op, which will last for at least three big salads. I used to only eat it cooked because it is sort of tough raw, but problem solved after reading this post from the awesome I ♥ Kale blog. So, part of my lunch today is some "massaged kale".

My planned menu for the workday today:

-Black Coconut Mango Tea (from Trader Joe's)
-Smoothie: Banana, frozen mango (from Trader Joe's), frozen blueberries, handful of kale
-Massaged kale with olive oil and salt
-Celery sticks with Eggless Egg Salad (we made another batch last night).

And tonight, we're going to try making a new bread with sprouted buckwheat…..

-Kelly

Day 14 - Covert Raw Food Party

2009-03-08T19:04:00.017-05:00

Our friends Ted, Amy and Ben are members of local band The Inwood Radio. A while ago, they invited us to join their book club. Since then, I've done what I can to work toward the destruction of the book club by picking what may be the worst book club selection in book club history. Albert Camus is a legend, but his book "The Fall" has propelled our book club into the sort of slow-motion freefall that can only happen on planets with much less gravity. So, my selection has effectively caused our club to defy the laws of Earthen physics.

They held a CD release party at The Kitty Cat Club in Dinkytown last night. The band went on around midnight, so we invited some friends over around nine.

We've always made a habit of putting out food, and one of my standbys has been homemade vegetarian sushi. Kelly found a recipe for raw sushi that involves substituting a ginger-almond pate for the rice. We also put out some veggies and raw hummus.

Everything was devoured, proving that raw food can work as pre and post bar food. Even without grease. Who knew? We wrapped things up by making some raw strawberry ice cream.

Here's a link to a video that describes making almond sushi. It wasn't the source of our recipe, but it provides a good introduction to the process.

On a completely unrelated note, I offer you this as a public service: I just returned home from a matinee showing of The Watchmen. When we exited the theater, the sun, at its oppresively low trajectory, turned the entire exiting audience into what appeared to be a blinded herd of drunken cows. My first words were, “If only our retinas had been burned out BEFORE we saw that movie.”

Here are some pictures from last night:

The food we set out

Our sushi

Nathan forming a short-lived relationship with his sushi

Kelly destroying Nathan at some heads-up Texas Holdem'

Kelly showing off her... plate of sushi

Pre-bar food

Communal strawberry ice cream

-Nathan

Day 13 - Alright, great. But now what?

2009-03-07T12:21:00.010-06:00

I mean, it’s great and all, but now what?

Somebody paid the piper and the cookie’s finally crumbled. So? What now? Yes, we’re all here because we’re not all there. No matter where we went? Guess what? There we were. That’s nice. But what now?

The cat was away? What did the mice do? They played. Fantastic. But, by all means, tell me what we're supposed to do now. Somebody died and made somebody else the boss? Really? Well slap my a$$ and call Sally. And when that fat lady sings into your receiver, ask her, “Now what?”

The cow peed on a flat rock, we sought the wind in a field, there were no athiests in foxholes, we couldn’t live because we couldn’t love, only boring people got bored, today will be tomorrow’s past, and he wasn’t a fool who gave what he couldn’t keep to gain what he couldn’t lose . I get all that. But could someone just answer me, before we’ve climbed so high on the ladder that the view is prohibitively expensive, what now?

I'll tell you what now:

CHOCOLATE PUDDING (modified from Raw Food Right Now)

Ingredients:
2 avocados
½ cup raw carob powder (or raw cocoa or raw chocolate powder)
1 cup dates
Filtered water to desired consistency

Instructions:
1. Put it all in the blender
2. Using our Vita-Mix, we pushed the ingredients down with the tamper while running it just fast enough to keep things moving.
3. Add water a half-cup at at a time until you're able to run the variable setting on 10 without using the tamper. You should be able to watch the pudding become smooth.

So, I'm basically eating chocolate avacados right now. It's as good as any pudding I've had, and I'm in disbelief that this stuff is good for me. I know it's good for me because Kelly says so. In moderation, she notes.

You'll also be happy to know that our cilantro is growing:

-Nathan

Day 12 - Best Recipe Yet?

2009-03-06T15:12:00.013-06:00

Last night I made "Eggless Egg Salad" and it was so good we ate it all before getting around to taking a picture. This is not just the best of our raw recipes, but probably one of the yummiest things I've made in my life.

Here is the recipe as printed on Raw Freedom Community, but ours varied quite a bit, as explained below:

EGGLESS EGG SALAD

Ingredients:
½ cup pure water (start with less add more)
Juice from one lemon or lime
1/4 tsp garlic powder (regular garlic is too harsh for me; powder works much better if you don't want to burp or sweat that stuff all week)
1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
1 ½ cups raw cashews
1 Tbsp organic yellow mustard or spicy mustard for a kick
1 - 1 1/2 Tbsp dill (dry or if fresh more)
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Turmeric, as needed for color (approx. 1 teaspoon)
1 bunch celery diced into small bits (7-8 stalks) (pulse in the food processor for a desired crunchiness)
1 red pepper (pulse in food processor)

Instructions:

1. Place the water, lemon juice, garlic, sea salt and cashews in the high speed blender, and blend until very smooth.

2. With a spatula, take the mixture from the blender and place in a medium sized mixing bowl.

3. Stir in the mustard, apple cider vinegar, and turmeric until it reaches the color and flavor you desire.

4. Add the celery and red bell pepper.

5. Serve with spinach and shredded carrots in a sandwich.

Shelf Life: Keeps up to 5 days in the fridge if sealed in a tight container.

My alterations:

I didn't use dill, mustard, apple cider vinegar, tumeric, or red peppers. Some people had commented on the message board that the vinegar and tumeric ruined the recipe, and I didn't have the other 3 ingredients.

I mixed the cashew mixture with finely chopped celery and baby bella mushrooms. The mushrooms gave a great egg-like consistency and didn't seem to add any mushroom taste.

After mixing with the veggies, I added more garlic powder and black pepper to taste.

I literally licked the blender to get every bit of cashew sauce I could. Blended cashews + garlic powder = yum yum YUM!!

-Kelly

Day 10 - Kelly

2009-03-04T21:19:00.003-06:00

Well, it's nearing the end of day 10 and I'm feeling too full for I think the first time on raw foods. I ate a bunch of onion bread and hummus and it's not a great feeling. Especially because the onion bread tastes really yummy while eating it, but then the taste stays in your mouth forever. No more of that for me.

One of the most noticeable results of this experiment for me is a more balanced appetite. It used to be when I got hungry, I was all of a sudden starving and felt like I had to eat immediately. Since eating raw I never feel like that, and have avoided the uncomfortable too full feeling also. It's really nice.

Menu for today:

-Black mango tea
-Pear
-Carrots, celery, and broccoli with hummus
-Salad (spinach, broccoli, zucchini, sprouted lentils, olive oil, salt & pepper) The sprouted lentils are a little strange to eat by the spoonful alone, but they're great in a salad, they blend right in. (See below post for lentil sprouting instructions!)
-Snacked on: dates, prunes, cantaloupe, pineapple, flax crackers
-Ate too much of: onion bread and hummus
-Getting the onion taste out of my mouth/settling my stomach with: Organic Rain vodka and diet tonic water

Cheers,
Kelly

Day 10: Necessity is the Mother of Starvation

2009-03-04T08:22:00.006-06:00

It's true: necessity is the mother of starvation. The more you NEED, the less you HAVE, and if you don't have enough, you'll starve. That's iron-clad logic right there.

That seemed to be my early experience here, but I'm no longer starving, I'm settled into a diet that's keeping me generally content, and I think I'll survive this thirty days.

Basically, I'm starting each morning with a smoothie, snacking on something early (carrots and raw hummus today), having a veggie burger or something substantial for lunch, and randomly making something for dinner, depending on how I feel.

A few days ago, when I nearly had a raw food psychiatric meltdown, I ranted to Kelly at 1:00 a.m about how absurdly extreme this diet is. I was getting flashbacks of my time in seminary, back when I used to be abnormally gung-ho about moral superiority, straining to high-five the stratospheric hand of God. I get that feeling whenever I'm being obsessive about something, and it creeps me out. It gives me the willies, as Joseph Heller would say.

Also, this supposedly natural, breath-of-fresh-air diet was causing me to do a lot of weird things: consider the fact that I now harness the power of two galloping horses in my blender, and I've got a plastic box that dehydrates food at low temperatures, allowing me to make fake hamburgers.

Alright, these ranty feelings passed after my morning smoothie the next day, and I realized I'm pretty happy with the bad weight I'm dropping, and I feel pretty good now. I don't know that the lightning gods are coursing through my unprocessed veins or anything, but I'm eating less crap than I used to and I'm settling into a routine that's not killing me.

In the future, I'll continue to post new food experiments. For now, thank you for allowing me to recline on this leather e-couch. Our hour is up. I'll pay your secretary.

-Nathan

Day 9 - Veggie Burgers

2009-03-03T10:43:00.009-06:00

As you'll see in Kelly's post, we saw a Red Stag in the woods last night and wandered a little off the raw food highway. In my defense, I ordered collard greens, something I never would have done ten days ago.

But, back to this raw thing. Kelly found two great recipes that have saved me over the last few days. I've continued to be not-quite-lucid and yes-quite-irritable, but these substantial foods have brought some much needed moments of after dinner contentedness.

ONION BREAD (modified from a post by Pansy on RFT)

Ingredients:
- One and 1/2 large sweet onions, peeled
- 1/2 cup ground sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup ground golden flax seeds
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 oz. Nama Shoyu

Procedure:
1) I used the Vita-Mix on the 10 variable setting to grind the sunflower and golden flax separately. It helps to put enough in that the blade is completely covered and the tamper can be used to constantly press down the seeds. If you grind too long, the product will heat up and begin to be less fluffy, so take care.

2) Chop the onions in your blender or food processor. You want small peices rather than puree.

3) Mix it all together in a bowl until the dry ingredients turn to a consistent paste.

4) Use a spatula to smooth it out onto some parchment paper, and put it in the dehydrator. I simply overlapped some parchment paper on the plastic dehydrator sheet and made sure it was secure so it wouldn't flap around. My mixture was about 1/4 inch thick, but a thinner spread will result in dryer bread, which I would probably prefer.

5) Dehydrate on 105 degrees in an Excalibur Dehydrator for 24 hours. At some point in the middle of this process, flip the bread over and remove the parchment paper. You may want to adjust temperature setting and time duration to get the result you prefer. This "bread" seems to remain a bit gooey if you don't dehydrate the snot out of it.

SUNBURGER (modified from source)

Ingredients:
- 2 celery stalks
- 1/2 cup yellow onion
- 1 medium red bell pepper
- 1 TSP sea salt
- 2 TSP dried oregano
- 1 cup ground sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup ground flax seeds
- 1/4 cup sesame seeds (we substituted this for hemp seeds)
- 1/2 cup filtered water

Procedure:
1) Generally chop everything up, put it in a bowl and add the water last. Stir it well and transfer everything into your blender.

2) Using the tamper to constantly press down the mixture, I ran our Vita-Mix at a relatively high variable setting, long enough to get everything blended, but not so long that it became a puree. It's a matter of personal taste, so do what you want.

3) Like you are making cookies, create patties on a parchment-paper-lined dehydrator sheet. Vary the size to personal taste, but remember that they will shrink in the dehydrator. I've ultimately learned to prefer making about six with this amount of mixture.

4) Dehydrate at 105 degrees overnight, flip in the morning and remove the parchment paper, then continue dehydrating until you are ready to eat that afternoon. Note that the original recipe suggested only four hours of dehydrating time. Again, consistency is just a matter of preference.

-Nathan

[more photos to follow]

Day 9 - Getting back on the wagon?

2009-03-03T10:40:00.003-06:00

I'm not quite sure how that saying goes, but if off the wagon = not following the guidelines of this experiment, then last night we were off the wagon.

Our office happy hour at Restaurant Max started at 4 p.m., and after my second vodka diet coke, I was not refusing when the plate of fries came my way. It honestly was more wanting something to soak up the alcohol than lack of willpower.

By 7 I was in full on party mode, so Nathan agreed to take me to the Red Stag (I'm sure I didn't have to twist his arm, they serve Surly there). We had free drink tokens (thanks Ted!), but I could only take a few sips of my extremely strong vodka something or other martini. Our appetizers were cooked but still pretty healthy - collard greens and root vegetables. But, this was not filling enough for me and I insisted we stop at Lunds to get the ingredients for probably my favorite drunk food - grilled egg and cheese sandwiches. So, day 8 ends with me drunkenly eating my sandwich on Ezekiel sprouted bread while watching reruns of Sex and the City.

No regrets though, it was really fun and I'm looking forward to continuing the experiment with one important lesson learned: Drinking while raw hits harder than usual!

-Kelly

Day 8 -Sprouting

2009-03-02T08:52:00.017-06:00

SPROUTING

We've finally successfully sprouted. We looked at a number of websites to get down the basic concepts. The most helpful, by far, was Sproutpeople.com. I decided to MacGyver my own jars, but they seem to have good products if you're less venturesome. More importantly, they have a mother lode of sprouting information, describing tiny alterations in procedures depending on what you're growing.

Below, I'll describe how to make a sprouting jar, and how to sprout lentils.

MAKING A SPROUTING JAR

The key to sprouting seems to be simply soaking the beans, rinsing and draining them daily, and storing them out of direct sunlight. The point of the jar is to hold in small beans while allowing for good drainage.

1) I went to the Ace Hardware website and ordered a 6-pack of wide mouth mason jars. In retrospect, these are a little big. I got them at Ace, because they deliver them free of charge to a local store. They came within a few days.

2) I bought a 36" x 84" roll of Phifer Brite Aluminum Screening at Home Depot. It's way too much material, but it was only in the $6.00 range.

3) Remove the lid and grab the round metal plate that would normally seal the jar.

4) Take the aluminum screening and trace a circle around the round metal plate. Do this two times, so you have two circles. I eventually decided to use two because it makes the sprouting jar much more sturdy.

5) Cut out the circles.

6) Set both circles into the jar cap. If you've cut them the right size, they should just set in easily, and should entirely cover the open area.

7) Screw the lid back on your sprouting jar. Game over.

SPROUTING LENTILS

Bear in mind that the point of sprouting a lot of these beans is just to get the thing "living" so you can enjoy the nutritional benefits that follow. Leafy green sprouts like alfalfa produce long, jar-filling sprouts. The goal with lentils, on the other hand, is to get a short sprout so you can add them to salads and other recipes.

1) Soak a half cup of lentils in a cup and a half of cool, 65 degreeish water. Soak overnight, for 8-12 hours.

2) Put the soaked beans into your sprouting jar and screw the mesh top on. Fill it with cool water and drain it a number of times so the lentils are rinsed well.

3) Shake out the remaining water vigorously so the lentils are drained very well. Do this every time you rinse and drain.

4) Store the jar angled, but just about upright, in a bowl. Put it in a place that doesn't get direct, screaming sunlight. Somewhere away from windows is fine. Don't worry about hiding the jar in darkness.

5) Rinse and drain a couple times a day. I did it every morning and evening.

6) After two days of rising and draining, our lentils were sprouted and ready to go. Keep rinsing and draining until you are happy with the length of the sprouts.

7) Wait 8 hours after your last rinsing and draining before putting the lentils in the refrigerator.

Day 6 - Nathan

2009-02-28T17:58:00.013-06:00

Last Night

It was legendary, mostly because I was stunned at how kind an old friend of mine and his girlfriend were to us. I met Jesse a few years ago when we were neighbors. I was at the end of my firefighting involvement, just before law school started, and he was relatively new on the St. Paul Fire Department, a coveted full-time job.

They live in a beautiful condo overlooking Lake Minnetonka, and made a point of insisting that we joined them for dinner. I was sort of embarassed to limit their dinner choices, but they didn't miss a step. When I called Jesse a couple hours before leaving, I could hear the BEEP BEEP BEEP of the checkout at the grocery store. They put together some delicious sangria full of fruit, and four massive plates of pineapple, snap peas, apples, avocado, red pepper, grapes and oranges.

The point: The art of hosting is not dead.

Jesse had to leave for work at 6:30 a.m. this morning, but stayed up past 2:00 a.m. with us, cycling through rapid rounds of our favorite card game, 500.

Lunch Yesterday

This is a sympathy post. I work for a local district court judge. He's my Batman, and I'm his Robin. Minutes after getting out of a nasty divorce proceeding in the morning, he insisted that I join him for a family law education session at a nearby restaurant. My mind was still spinning from the thunder my judge slapped on an embittered, deadbeat dad who had been making a habit of using his seven year old child as a messenger with his wife, effectively throwing the kid into their pathetic, lingering mess (a big no-no).

The session fee included a lunch. On the drive over, and in between our debate about Tiger Woods' return to golf, our discussion was punctured by a sharp internal debate over what I'd do about lunch.

At noon, I was given a small salad and a mouth-watering combo of turkey, cheese, avocado and bacon, nuzzled between two almost sensuous pieces of multi-grain bread. My nose salivated. And to illustrate what a raw food drone I've become, I pushed off my croutons and ate only the raw ingredients of my salad. The sandwich, cut diagonally, looked like a sneering mouth, a pursed set of lips, fully aware it was safe in the face of a would-be carnivor. It was an image of a laughing hyena, trotting in circles around a toothless old lion.

I'm being dramatic, but I don't think I can understate the tension that existed while my sandwich lust drowned out the four seasoned female attorneys who lectured about the old ass-slapping, skirt-wearing days that they've come a long way from (baby).

Food Today

My menu today is mostly still a mystery, but I began the day with an odd smoothie, some of the chocolate cake Kelly made, and some grapes:

FUZZY NAVEL SMOOTHIE

Ingredients
- One Orange
- 1/2 cup pecans
- 1/4 cup pitted dates
- 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup filtered water
- 6 ice cubes or so

I think this would have been better with more orange. I feel like I'm drinking a cup of drizzly cookie dough, but I'm comforted by the fact that it should keep my appetite in control. Kelly thinks it's great.

Day 5 - Friday

2009-02-28T16:48:00.010-06:00

Breakfast: Smoothie - apple, banana, raspberries, spinach, cantaloupe. Yikes. I guess I don't like raspberries, they were frozen and so tart I added the cantaloupe to water it down. Edible, but not recommended.

Lunch: Carrots & Hummus, big salad (spinach, broccoli, tomato, caesar dressing).

Nathan and I were both tempted with free catered sandwiches at our respective workplaces yesterday...I will let him describe his anguish in another post. We had a catered caesar salad also, which I admit to eating some croutons off of.

I was craving something sweet and rich so, when I got home, I immediately made Raw Chocolate Cake:

RAW CHOCOLATE CAKE (source forgotten)

Ingredients:
-1+1/2 cups raw walnuts, unsoaked
-Dash salt
-12 pitted medjool dates, unsoaked
-1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa or carob powder
-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
-2 teaspoons water
-1/2 cup fresh raspberries for garnish (optional)

Instructions:

1) Blend walnuts and salt in a food processor until finely ground.
2) Add dates, cocoa powder and vanilla, and process until the mixture begins to stick together.
3) Add the water and process briefly.
4) Transfer to a serving plate and form into a 5-inch round cake.
5) Chill for 2 hours.
6) Decorate the cake and plate with fresh raspberries before serving, if desired.

Covered with plastic wrap, the cake will keep for three days in the refrigerator or two weeks in the freezer. Yields one 5-inch cake.

It hit the spot, but tasted a little too much like cocoa powder. I would've added a couple more dates maybe or a bit of agave nectar, or just less cocoa powder. This dessert definitely has potential though, and would look nice if you put it in ramekins with a garnish. When we took the above pic I wanted to keep picking at it, Nathan loved it too and had some for breakfast this morning =).

Last night we also made Asparagus Cream Soup:

ASPARAGUS CREAM SOUP (source forgotten)

Ingredients:
-8 asparagus spears
-1/4 cup raw cashews
-juice of half a lemon
-salt & pepper to taste
-water

Instructions:

1) Cut off tips of asparagus and chop them into tiny bits
2) Put the bits of asparagus tips into a bowl and squeeze/pour the lemon juice over them.
3) Cut remaining spears in pieces and put in blender with cashews.
Cover with warm water & blend until smooth (if you blend long enough in the Vita-Mix, it gets warmer)
4) Pour into a bowl and stir in the lemon juice/asparagus tips.

This is the second time we made this. Nathan gulped down a double batch last night. It's a bit creamy for me, I'd pour just a little over zucchini and other chopped veggies to lighten it up.

After dinner last night, we went over to Jesse & Erin's condo. Jesse is an old friend of Nathan's who I've never met, and it was a fantastic time. I can't remember a time when I've had better hosts (I'll save my rant about how rude our generation usually is for another post....). They knew about our experiment and, when we got there, 3 huge platters of fruits and veggies were waiting, along with the best sangria I've ever had. (Sangria wasn't entirely raw, but who cares. I also had a couple brandy cokes).

We played 500 and went to bed at 3 a.m. I'm writing this still in my pj's at 5:30 p.m. while our Day 6 experiment is in the dehydrator....

-Kelly

Day 4 - Kelly

2009-02-27T10:47:00.007-06:00

A snapshot of Minnesota

*see photo information below

As Nathan mentioned, we got a ton of snow here yesterday - officially, 6" in Minneapolis, and 7.5" just a few miles south of us at the airport. I am amazed that our population here is as large as it is. How did people ever justify settling and staying here when there was, say, no electricity?!

A few things I saw yesterday:

-A guy shoveling snow. In shorts.
-Someone riding their bike down an unplowed busy city street.
-A guy cross country skiing on a city sidewalk.

Unrelated to the weather, right after I passed the guy in shorts, another guy standing alone at a bus stop said, slowly, "Excuse me miss, I hate to ask you…." My mouth was already open to say no to a request for change and continue walking, "But, do you have a tampon for my girlfriend?" Ha, I did, and after I gave it to him he said, "Thanks, I owe you one." Don't think I really need him to return that favor.

So, menu for yesterday:

-Smoothie: Pear, parsley, celery, lime juice, banana. I actually can't remember if I threw banana in or not, but either way, I don't recommend this combo. I used it because I saw a recipe for it and had parsley that was about to go bad, but the celery taste was just too strong.

-Big Salad: Spinach, tomato, sprouts, caesar dressing recipe from yesterday. The dressing was really really delicious. As noted in the recipe below, it comes out very thick, I watered mine down before putting it on the salad.

-Many snacks around dinner: Cantaloupe, flax crackers, guacamole, dried prunes, banana.

-Around bedtime: Half of a controversial Ezekiel english muffin with more caesar dressing & a big glass of wine.

-Kelly

*The picture was just taken by a good friend who blogs at markkthompson.blogspot.com. If you like imaginative images and a unique perspective of living, check it out.

Day 4 - Nathan (SALAD DRESSING)

2009-02-26T16:45:00.010-06:00

So, I've sort of settled into my groove, and at the deep center of that groove is a comfortable bed of lettuce and a heavy downpour of dressing. After eating complete garbage for years, I'm picking up on the fact that some of these healthy habits might be worth sticking with over the long haul.

The *smoothies are a definite keeper, because I'm inexplicably able to function without caffeine in the morning now, and I get this odd rush of energy that lasts till 11ish. The salads are also probably a keeper, because I'm liking these homemade dressings, and I appreciate that they actually make it enjoyable to eat raw vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower.

I'm completely headache-free now. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Here's a quick rundown of what I ate today:

Breakfast: A smoothie with an entire gigantic orange, a banana, water and ice.

Snacking: Carrots and raw hummus. I ate the last of it. I'm tempted to turn some classical music on in my fridge to get the new batch of adagio beans sprouting with more accelerando.

Lunch: A salad with this unbelievable Caesarish avocado dressing.

Dinner: Kelly's bringing me back some good tomatoes from the co-op tonight, so I'll throw something together along those lines. The last tomatoes I bought from the grocery store were an almost pale orange. Lesson learned: stick to the co-op. I'm thinking about making some zucchini "pasta" with our spiralizer to dump the new tomatoes on.

And check this out: I bought a huge pot** to plant rolling fields of cilantro in. I'm a little worried we don't get enough sun in here to grow them, though. We're in Minnesota, so putting the pot outside isn't an option for a few months. We just got pummeled with 8 inches of icy, side-blowing snow today. I'll also note that Kelly hates the obnoxious razzamatazz (an actual color) hue of the gigantic pot. It's the thought that counts.

SALADS: For me, salads are great because I can toss in all the things I like (raw nuts, veggies) and cover them with something flavorful. Here are two pretty thick dressings that were winners this week.

CAESAR DRESSING (modified from source)

Ingredients:
2 medium avocadoes
1/2 cup cashews
1 cup water (original called for a half cup)
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 and 1/2 TBS apple cider vinegar
1/2 TSP sea salt
1/2 TSP black pepper
2 medium cloves of garlic
1 large date
(We would have added 2 TBS of nutritional yeast, but didn't have any. The rumor is that this stuff brings with it hints of parmesan cheese)

Procedure:
Just blend it all together until smooth.

TOMATO DRESSING (source forgotten)

Ingredients:
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 TBS apple cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic
1 TSP sea salt
1 TSP pepper
1 TSP paprika

Procedure:
Blend everything but the oil. When you're ready for the oil, keep the blender running at a slow speed and pour it in gradually. These dressings turn out crazy-thick.

-Nathan

Day 3 - Morning After

2009-02-26T16:43:00.002-06:00

Yesterday wasn't too exciting in our raw food world. Wasn't very hungry in the a.m. because of our late night on Tues, here was the day's menu:

Breakfast (around noon): Smoothie - banana, apple, blueberries, spinach

Lunch (around 3-4. Yes, I'm a nibbler and can make a salad last for an hour): Spinach, sprouts, tomato, walnuts, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt.

Long nap and lazy tv watching after work (how can Lost be so addicting even when you have NO idea what's going on?), then snacked on: lots of cantaloupe, flax crackers, and leftover smoothie.

-Kelly

Day 2 - The Morning After

2009-02-25T10:33:00.005-06:00

Feeling surprisingly ok today after my long and somewhat deviant day yesterday.

At work 8:30 - 4:30:

-Smoothie: Banana, apple, cantaloupe, spinach. The cantaloupe was not as amazing as I'd hoped - it looked great when I cut it up the night before, but the taste was a little off for some reason, so disappointing because I was reallllly looking forward to eating it.

-Big Salad: Spinach, tomato, broccoli, sprouts, avocado, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper.

That kept me full the whole day, then I had about 45 minutes at home before going to volunteer at Hampden Park Co-op from 6-9. I do it twice a month for a total of 6 hours/mo. and get 20% off all our groceries, very sweet deal especially considering how fun it was last night and they always have snacks for volunteers.

-Snacks (at home and co-op): Flax crackers and tomatoes with hummus, dried unsweetened/unsulphured mango slices.

Right before my shift was up, Nathan called and convinced me to come to The Bulldog NE for what was going to be 3 guys meeting for a drink, but ended up being a party of 10+ people. It was really fun though in that unexpected random Tuesday night out way, and I had 3 vodka tonics (weak, I swear!) and about 5 fennel seasoned french fries. (For what looks like your standard obnoxious sports bar, this place has excellent food!) Got home and had another english muffin/avocado sandwich like last night and went to bed just after midnight.

I had a long conversation with another volunteer at the co-op about what we'd really like to do for jobs and what Nathan wrote yesterday popped into my head: "I'm going to look into establishing a McDonald's style raw food chain when this is over". Anyone want to be business partners?

Also wanted to link to two great posts from Allison's blog, Raw Odyssey. Here is some great info on keeping your raw food costs down. And here is the post that made me love her blog, a very sane explanation of the raw foods lifestyle.

-Kelly

Day 2 - Nathan

2009-02-24T12:51:00.010-06:00

Here's a summary of my planned meals today:

Breakfast smoothie: Half a humongous orange, one banana, one apple and ice/water

Snacking: *Hummus and those crackers Kelly talked about below

Lunch: **A salad with a homemade tomato dressing and a couple of those sprouted muffins Kelly talked about below, that are clearly cheating.

Dinner: No idea. Still flying by the seat of my pants.

I work at a courthouse, and I just had a Sheriff's Deputy sample the crackers and hummus. I think he was pleasantly surprised. He then waved a bowl of buffalo chicken wings under my nose. We're scheduled for a duel at dawn in the parking lot tomorrow.

In my ongoing quest for sprouting equipment, I ordered six canning jars from Ace Hardware Online last night. I got them for around eleven bucks, and they deliver them free of charge to a local store. After I pick them up, I'll get some mesh material at Home Depot. I'll explain this all exhaustively once we get it working.

I'm legitimately feeling better and better now. I think these oppressive headaches are the result of caffeine withdrawl as much as my change in meals. I'm a beast to deal with after a long drive home with a pseudo-migraine, but Kelly understands it's part of the package deal. I'm also used to running for fast food, so I've never had to plan homemade meals EVERY SINGLE DAY. I'm going to look into establishing a McDonald's style raw food chain when this is over.

-Nathan

Day 1 - The Morning After

2009-02-24T12:38:00.006-06:00

The absolute brain dead feeling I'm experiencing right now is not a result of the raw food - rather, it's my typical state on any given workday, one that I hope to change with this experiment, but probably won’t happen if things keep going the way they did last night.

It was a raw version of our standard nights - having a couple drinks, staying up too late, eating right before bed. But with the added frustration of trying to make sure Nathan had enough good stuff to eat today and feeling discouraged because of our moodiness and his headaches. But, I'm optimistic it will get better.

At least our flax crackers were a success! This recipe made enough crackers to fill 3 big tupperware containers, didn't take long to prep, and was cheap:

(From the Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw)

FLAX CRACKERS

Ingredients:
2 cups flax seeds
½ cup sun-dried tomatoes, soaked in 1 C lukewarm water until soft
1¼ cup sunflower seeds, soaked (at least 30 minutes) and drained
1 tablespoon Shoyu, or to taste
1 teaspoon lemon juice, fresh squeezed
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
½ teaspoon black pepper, ground to taste
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup parsley, chopped

Preparation:
1) Put flax seeds in a large bowl with 2 1/2 cups of filtered water and soak seeds for at least 30 minutes.
2) Mix all other ingredients (including sun-dried tomato soak water) in food processor and process until smooth.
3) Mix blended ingredients with flax seeds in a bowl.
4) Spread evenly on 2 Teflex dehydrator sheets and dehydrate at 115°F for 6 hours.
5) Flip and transfer to a mesh screen for 6 additional hours.

Kelly's Day 1 Menu:

-Smoothie (banana, apple, blueberries, kale)
-Big Salad (spinach, sprouts, broccoli, cucumber, walnuts, olive oil & balsamic vinegar, salt)

Those first two kept me full through the workday. When I got home from the time I went to bed, running to the co-op for groceries and gym for a light workout in between, I just snacked on:

-Flax Crackers
-Hummus w/celery and carrots
-Dried prunes
-Leftover smoothie

Near bedtime, we had a couple glasses of organic red wine and I had the following which I'm pretty sure was not raw especially after just reading their website:

-Half an Ezekiel sprouted english muffin with just a thin spread of avocado, drop of olive oil, salt and pepper.

It was so delicious though, much more satisfying than butter, highly recommended! The english muffins were something I just splurged on at the co-op because I wanted to make the transition easier for Nathan (even though of course I ended up eating the first one). But, suspecting they don't fit with the rules of this experiment, we won't be buying them again.

-Kelly

Day 1 - Nathan

2009-02-23T11:15:00.026-06:00

I'm feeling better, and just slightly "off" today. I'm eating more now, and we've discovered a couple great recipes that I'll talk about below. Here's a summary of my planned meals today:

Breakfast smoothie: Half a humongous orange, one banana and ice/water

Snacking: Two bananas and one apple dehydrated into chips

Lunch: Salsa (tomato, onion, sea salt, cilantro), guacamole (avacado, tomato, onion, sea salt) and sprouts on sprouted tortillas that we got at the store.

Dinner: Unplanned, but Kelly is deyhdrading some sort of grainy goo to make crackers by this evening, so I'll be slathering them with raw hummus.

We'll be hitting the gym after work for the first time since I've altered my diet, so I'm curious to discover whether I'll end up pinned underneath a barbell at any time, too weak to cry for help. I'll also be hunting for those elusive sprouting jars tonight.

Concerning those recipes, my big desire right now is to find that handful of "go-to" foods that I can successfully make on a regular basis. I'm talking raw food versions of peanut butter sandwiches and frozen pizza. Last night, we made kale chips and raw hummus, and I was so stunned by how well the hummus turned out, I've got to share it.

RAW HUMMUS (modified from source: allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups garbanzo beans
3 tablespoons tahini
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
2 lemons, juiced
2 cloves garlic
1 cup filtered water
Some paprika
Some cumin

We modified the recipe proportions pretty significantly because we weren't happy with the consistency. We also worried that raw garlic can be oppressive, so cut back from the recommended 4 cloves. Cumin was also our addition.

Procedure:
1. Soak a bunch of garbanzo beans in water for 24 hours.
2. Drain them and let them sit for three to four days. Make sure to rinse them a couple times a day. We just kept them in a strainer above a bowl, sitting in the refrigerator. They'll start sprouting. Proceed when the sprouts are 1/2 inch long.
3. Boil a large pot of water. Remove the boiling water from heat and let it stand for a minute. Drop in the beans and let them sit in the water for a minute, then remove them, drain them and toss 2 and 1/2 cups of them into the blender.
4. Blend everything together. Using our Vita-Mix, we ran at 10 on the variable setting and used the tamper to push the ingredients down until it was smooth.
5. Top with a dash of paprika, purely to convince your subconscious that you've created something worth decorating.

KALE CHIPS

Procedure:

1. Remove the dark green kale leaves from the stems and then tear them into smaller pieces

2. Wash and spin the pieces dry

3. Lay them on a dehydrating rack. Sandwich them between two breathable dehydrating sheets.

4. Dehydrate at 115 degrees for a couple hours. Our recipe (Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw) told us to wait 90 minutes, but they were still very chewy at that point. It may have mattered that our machine was also full of apples and bananas. I have no idea.

5. Season with olive oil and sea salt.

-Nathan

T-Minus Two Days

2009-02-21T21:13:00.015-06:00

We've decided to officially start on Monday. In the meantime, we've been easing into our diet, experimenting with products* and recipes, and emptying our fridge of things we don't want tempting us during the next thirty days. I've been focusing a lot on guacamole, salsa, smoothies and dehydrated bananas. At the moment, we're enjoying the things we'll miss the most. As I sit here slogging down an ice-cold Surly Furious**, Kelly is bartering for a bottle of tonic water at the corner convenience store.

*One of those products

**Perhaps what I will miss the most. Goodnight, sweet prince.

All that aside, I've realistically been about 80-90% raw for the last few days. On a couple of those days, my only cadaverous, non-living food has been some whole wheat Saltines to go with the tomato salsa I made in the super blender.

I've noticed a couple things: 1) My appetite has gone down and I feel pretty good after my morning smoothie; and 2) Later in the day, I feel like I used to feel every time my parents brought me to a rodeo at the Met Center when I was a kid. People and objects appear as distant mirages, and I can't focus enough to really read and comprehend anything (as a child, the problem was more about just not knowing what the alphabet was yet). I'm lightheaded and disoriented.

I have no idea why I'm feeling off, but my guess is that I'm either: 1) Just taking in fewer calories than I'm using now, so my body has abandoned the higher brain functions in favor of basic tasks like keeping my heart beating; 2) Just missing a key nutrient that I was getting before; or 3) Going through some weird detoxification transition as conspiratorial chemicals are flushed away by fruits and vegetables and I metamorphosize into an uberhuman cherub who will begin aging in reverse.

I think I'm probably just not eating enough, and to counteract that, we're going to continue to experiment with more substantial recipes. We're also on a hunt for containers so we can begin sprouting***. More later.

***A sprouting container

-Nathan

Equipment

2009-02-18T18:31:00.014-06:00

Our final piece of major equipment came in the mail today, so I'll give a rundown of the things we've purchased:

1. Vita-Mix 5200 blender

This machine was our first must-have, because the idea of chunks of food floating in my smoothies makes me gag. According to the Vita-Mix website, the machine runs at 240 miles-per-hour at top speed. A co-worker asked if it will crush ice. I'm certain it will crush my soul if I look inside while it's running. The machine will turn nuts into butter and will make ice cream out of a little almond milk and a bag of frozen strawberries. We took advantage of the option to purchase a refurbished machine, which came sparkling, with a seven year warranty.

Vita-Mix website (videos, products and more)

2. Benriner Turning Slicer

Used to turn vegetables into thin strips of "pasta", I was a little disappointed at the quality of the equipment in light of its price ($70-ish). It seems to work very well, though. We've already made strips of carrots and covered them in an almond dressing that Kelly made in the blender.

3. Excalibur Food Dehydrator

As I write, I'm nodding off to the white lullaby noise of this 9-tray skyscraper of food dehumidification. After research, we learned that Excalibur is the dehydrating standard for raw foodists because it allows low-temperature settings that prevent food from cooking. Kelly's excited to make sprouted breads - a combination of blended sprouts and other ingredients - so we'll have something to work as a bread substitute.

Our kitchen:

Kelly enjoying a (disgustingly) pre-Vita-Mix smoothie:

Spikey and Emma, our moral support:

Our first batch of ice cream:

-Nathan

Transitioning - Part 1

2009-02-17T21:35:00.008-06:00

Since we decided to do this experiment (about a week ago), we've been trying to eat more and more raw while emptying the fridge of all our existing non-raw food and waiting for our equipment to arrive. We got the Vita-Mix yesterday, spiralizer today, and still waiting on the dehydrator.

The one book we've bought is The Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw, which is great for beginners. Basic info, easy to read, lots of recipes.

I've also read lots of websites, but am reluctant to link to most because they can be quite extreme and preachy. But, here is a pretty neutral one if you want to learn a little more about the raw foods diet: About.com Raw Food Diet

The new recipe we've been making the most are green smoothies. I had never had one before but now I'm hooked. I bring them to work in the morning in my coffee mug and eat with a spoon throughout the morning (I like them thick) and it's very filling. There are endless variations, but basically:

-Put any combination of fruits in the blender, I like: 2 small apples, one banana, some frozen blueberries or peaches.

-Blend fruit with water

-Add as many greens (spinach, kale, argula) as you can handle (usually a couple big handfuls) and blend until smooth

Check out The Green Smoothie Challenge to get started, it's simple and you get daily e-mails with info and recipes.

I haven't had any bad side effects from replacing my morning coffee with the smoothies. And I do love coffee! I still drink hot tea whenever I feel like it, and will continue to through this experiment because I want to and don't feel that it's hard on my system. And now, off to make my smoothie for tomorrow a.m.

-K

Our First Comment!

2009-02-16T23:09:00.007-06:00

Well, second actually, someone posted yesterday saying only "likely lickorish". wtf? But here is our first real comment, I'm putting it into a post so everyone can easily see the reply:

"I am excited! Are you gonna post menus too?" Theresa (Trader Joes)

Side note, Theresa and I met tonight when we bonded over our ear jewelry and then she helped us pick out organic wines at Trader Joes. No, we are not giving up drinking! We're just gonna try to cut back and stick to organic, sulfite free wines.

But to answer the question, yes once we get started we'll post daily updates and menus.

Why Raw Foods?

2009-02-16T22:44:00.005-06:00

I have to credit my good friend Shira for introducing me to the raw foods lifestyle. I also have to be honest and say I thought it was completely crazy. But it piqued my curiosity so I started reading about it online and the philosophy made sense to me - basically, cooking kills a lot of the nutrients in food, so it's healthier to eat them raw. Some of the benefits widely reported are:

-weight loss (neither of us are overweight but losing a few couldn't hurt either)
-clear skin (something I've been after my whole life)
-increased energy and mental awareness (I'm chronically foggy at work, but who knows, that could be the result of sitting in a cube all day)

The decision to do this experiment came after a rough winter and a weeklong cruise eating and drinking way more than we're used to. I felt in need of a detox so proposed this to Nathan and was absolutely surprised and delighted that he agreed to go along. Also since it's the middle of winter and we're bored and figured it'd give us something interesting to do together.

We're planning to start the 30 days "for real" once the dehydrator we ordered gets delivered, Nathan will post in depth about the gadgets commonly used in raw food prep. In the meantime, we're transitioning by trying out some easy raw food recipes, coming up next....

Background

2009-02-15T20:23:00.018-06:00

When Nathan wrote in the tagline that I've "always had a thing for fruits and vegetables", he means since around the time he met me, about 2 1/2 years ago. I grew up never thinking about what I ate, which was pretty much a standard American diet. In college I didn't know how to cook and don't even remember what I ate, but it had to be mostly pre-packaged. I remember being amazed when I studied abroad in Budapest and my Israeli roommates effortlessly made spaghetti sauce from scratch - they were amazed that I would ever buy it in a jar. Up until recently I had only a vague idea what kale was.

There's no point when I drastically changed my diet, it happened over time after reading numerous articles about the benefits of eating whole, unprocessed foods, and realizing that I don't want unpronounceable crap made in a lab going into my body.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no food elitist. I don't like strict rules. I love egg and cheese sandwiches. I believe a strong whiskey manhattan is a cure for pretty much anything. More than a few people have heard me rave about White Castle's chicken sandwiches (especially after a long night at the Otter). We're real people with normal desk jobs who are just ready for a change and hopefully a fun and beneficial month long experiment.

p.s. these pics of us were taken May 2007 at an incredibly yummy cafe in Germany.

Before meeting Kelly, I was a 30-something law student who considered Burger King comfort food. I've always been fairly active: I worked as a firefighter for a number of years, and I lift weights periodically. Now, I'm a 34 y/o desk-jockied attorney who is sucking in his stomach in photos for the first time.

I love beer (Surly Furious) and I'm always willing to prove it. I prefer motorcycling to bicycling. I eat whatever is available. It's a mere coincidence that Kelly happens to stock our fridge with things that don't come with warning labels.

I get that all of this is a problem for a guy who is going through that next great bodily tranformation that occurs 20 years after puberty. If I let things head where they are trending, I'm not sure I'll be able to stop the gelatinous inertia. Let's just say I'm in the sort of neurotic physiological mindset that leaves me more open than usual to major lifestyle changes.

This raw food diet was her idea, but I like what I'm reading, and I'm optimistic. She wants me to live longer, and I want to leave as attractive a corpse as possible. So, here we go. Gentlemen, start your blenders.