RAW diet re-do

I am having a re-commitment ceremony with myself. I am re-committing to trying a raw diet. It's summer, Vermont has phenomenal fresh food resources and if I start slow and plan some of my meals in advance I feel like this will not be an exciting challenge as opposed to a stressful one.

This morning I was awake early so of course I started to cruise around the internet in search of local raw foodies. I found a bunch of really nice resources and I even found a meet-up group that gets together here in Burlington. As you know from previous posts I have two raw cookbooks and more kitchen appliances than are really necessary. I feel prepared to that end but am I really prepared? This is a huge lifestyle change, it's more than just giving up meat, cheese and other foods I have had an intense relationship with all my life. It's giving up the social aspect of dining out and not over thinking the menu, it's me becoming one of "those people" who have special dietary needs.

I am not making this choice because I am ill and need to make a change in order to save my own life, I am making this choice because I honestly believe that I will completely enjoy it. I want to be healthy and not feel tired, I want to look 30 when I am 60. I want to head off any potential illnesses before they can even present them selves to my body. I WANT TO BE HEALTHY DAMNIT!

I found a really nice grocery list online which I think will help guide me in getting the core foods I need in order to get started. I recognize almost all of them and am looking forward to the new items that I will be eating.

http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/vegan-shopping-list.html

The above link is a nice resource, it is where I found the grocery list.

http://www.rawfoodrecipes.com/

As you can guess a simple search will pull up a million raw diet web sites. Be sure to do proper research.

Below is a local link, she has classes that might be fun to check out too:

http://www.vt-fiddle.com/

Sunday's Smoothie

Today I started simple with a smoothie of my own creation.

1 C baby spinach
1/2 C plain greek yogurt (I prefer chobani)
1/2 C water (this smoothie very thick, i felt water was the best choice for me)
1/4 C blueberries
1 Bosc pear
1 Lemon

 I had extra so I put it into jelly jars so that i have smoothies for the next 2 mornings (no fuss, just smoothie).

Also did you know that lemons and limes promote balanced alkaline levels in the body? I learned that today ;)

Yours in good health
~CM

"Put 'em up!"

by: Sherri Brooks Vinton

Yeah....I said it, what are you gonna do about it??? J/K, I am referring to the canning term for when you put your canned food "up" into the pantry. Yes! I am learning the wonderful world of canning, it's amazing, fun and completely interesting too. I traded a soap making lesson for a canning lesson last summer with a woman who has been growing her veggies and canning them for many, many years. It was super fun and a skill that I have long wanted to possess.

So I have not graduated to very complicated canning, I am still floating about in the land of fruit jams but I have made some very tasty ones I must say. So far I have accomplished both cherry and blueberry jams and my most recent conquest was something called "monkey butter" which has bananas, pineapple and coconut in it.

By: Ball (the jar people)

If you have never canned but would like to learn, buy the Ball Blue book, it seems to be THE guide to have. I am not going to write about how to can, I am just a beginner myself and don't know all the answers but I have found great resources, some of them being real live people and not just the internet. The books are great, try to find a class or something so you can really see first hand how to sanitize everything properly and really learn the proper way to handle this. The book will possibly scare the be-jesus out of you which is why I recommend pairing it with a class.

Right now I am following recipes exactly as they are written to ensure that they are balanced and will seal properly. Thankfully there are a million great recipes out there so it's not too difficult!

One ingredient I decided to invest in was low or no sugar needed pectin. There are nice recipes inside the label which I found easy to follow and use. In fact my cherry and my blueberry recipes both came from this bottle.

This year I hope to dive into canning tomato sauces and salsas, I will report back with my experiences and thoughts on the process. As an aside, if you don't actually want to go through the whole preserving process you can always follow any of the recipes then refrigerate your item and eat it in a reasonable amount of time. I have done that too (because sometimes I just can't wait to try my creation!) Another fun thing to do is pickling I have pickled both green beans and carrots and really enjoyed them, they are bright and a great compliment to many dishes, or on their own.

The biggest problem i have at this moment is space, i just have no space for all my little experiments which is terrible! haha. I dream of having a big sexy bright and sunny kitchen and a pantry that will make others just drool!

Dreaming of a new kitchen....
~CM

Vinegar

As I have recently learned this is a very valuable household stable both for eating and using in other applications. I have long known that vinegar can neutralize powerful bases such as sodium hydroxide (aka Lye). And I have enjoyed it in various forms in recipes too. But it is apparently an amazing household cleaner (who knew?) I was cruising around on "Pintrest" and was looking for different vinegar infusion ideas (for my salad) and came across someone who was infusing orange peels into regular white vinegar and using it to clean the house. Lovely, it's a great idea, I have often worried about using commercial cleansers in the kitchen where we prepare our food but did not know what my alternatives were. It seems that I have found some.

First, I kind of created my own vinegar infusion for my salad tonight and am very pleased with it, i based it on a dressing i bought at the store which i really liked but thought it was ridiculously overpriced (seriously it was vinegar, oil, cherries and rosemary.....and it costs over $10). Here is how I made my infusion.

black cherry vinegar

Cherry and rosemary infused vinaigrette:

1/2 lb dark cherries, de-stemed, pitted and cut in half
1/4 c red wine vinegar
1tbsp dried rosemary

Put all in pot and let it simmer slow and low. The flavors will start to pop after about 1 hour. Remove form heat and puree with hand blender or in food processor. Put back on stove for about 30 minutes then pour into pretty bottle and refrigerate, I suspect that this will keep for a couple of months but it will probably be gobbled up before then. Eat and enjoy!


As for using vinegar as a home cleaning product, there are many different ways to mix it up. Do you want your windows to shine? Spray them down with vinegar and wipe them with black and white mews paper. Room odor got you down? Just set a bowl of vinegar in the room overnight. Did your kid "decorate" something of yours (like grandma's antique breakfront) with stickers? moisten with vinegar, let sit and gently peel away, repeat the process as necessary if the glue if being stubborn. SEE?!? Vinegar IS magical!!! And that's just what I found from a very brief google. If I asked my Gram she would probably have an extensive list of it's uses. 

Here's a great link to the wonderful world of distilled white vinegar, I just learned how to keep my egg shells from cracking while boiling them!
http://www.vinegartips.com/Scripts/pageViewSec.asp?id=5

Here's some information on balsamic vinegar.
http://whatscookingamerica.net/balsamic.htm

This site is also great, it has information on all kinds of vinegars.
http://www.foodsubs.com/Vinegars.html

I intend to get to know this ingredient better, it seems to be so versatile I would just be cheating myself if I did not. 

Until next time....
~CM

Gosh I have been BUSY!

Where has the time gone? Yes I have been busy and up to a ton as far as recipes and such go. I just reviewed my last post (from WAY back in September) and while I did not end up going raw for a month as I planned I did get that food dehydrator and those books. I think I will revisit the idea and try to integrate some new dishes into my life.

Aside from that I have been studying many, many new things and working them into my lifestyle which has been great. I took an online course in both essential oils and herbs, both I found fascinating and would love to learn more. I have my little eye on a couple of other classes in the same theme and am just saving my pennies so that I can sign up for them.

One of the great outcome of my herbs study is that I have learned to make some delicious and health beneficial herbal teas. There are many other methods of ingesting herbs for health benefits but I have not ventured into them yet. My herb shelf is so pretty, it's full of beautiful bright mason jars with some awesome dried flowers, roots and leaves in all different shades and textures. It brings me a sense of peace and a connection to the earth whenever I look at it.

I have learned a bit more about essential oils and their awesome powers. An essential oil is basically the heart of a plant, the plants essence. Many EO's have wonderful healing properties as well as being naturally anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal and beyond. I have started to phase out my commercial cleaning products based on what I have learned, it seems like a much healthier choice and besides they have a much better scent!

Many of the soaps I make have essential oils in them I am now working to integrate EO's into other areas of my life.


And then, there's "Pintrest." Have you been there? Good lord that site is amazing and will completely suck any free time I thought I had right up! Click here to follow my awesome pins. I have found some amazing recipes and great gardening and home decor ideas too!

So this in addition to my full time job and making my soaps has kept me fairly busy, oh- and I will be taking a photography class starting next month, I am totally stoked about that! I even have a film SLR camera for it. I now right, FILM!?!

Stay tuned, I have about a million recipes and other such things to share with y'all.

'Til then
~CM

Let's go RAW for a month!!!

The other day a gourmet RAW foods cookbook caught my eye and so I started perusing the recipes. The dishes sounded fabulous and I was interested in knowing more. I have been doing a little online research about this whole raw foods phenomenon and am very interested in giving this type of diet a try for the next 30 days. A couple of years ago I went vegan for 30 days, it was a fun journey and I learned a lot about new foods and a new style of eating. While it is a lifestyle that is not suited to me, I was happy with the experiment and had some fun new recipes added to my repertoire. This time I am looking forward to a new food adventure and hope at the end to have developed some new and healthy eating habits. I have ordered a food dehydrator and two raw food cookbooks which should be delivered sometime in the next week or so but in the meantime I can get started without those items as there are a bunch of nice web sites with information and recipes which are easy enough to follow. I have read that it is helpful to be able to track calorie intake as well as nutritional information so that I can ensure that I am eating a balanced meal and getting enough calories each day so I have found some web sites which will allow me to input the ingredients and get the nutritional information, this is kind of neat to me.

Here are some simple rules I want to follow for the next 30 days, this may grow longer as I learn more:
I read on a blog about a Doctor who suggested an 80/10/10 ratio of intake, that would be 80% carbs (mostly fruit but minimum of 5% from green leafy veggies), 10% protein and 10% fat. I will be moderate with vegetable oils (olive, coconut, etc.) light on the salt but liberal with herbs and spices, light on sweeteners. I also plan to weigh my foods so that I can calculate the nutritional information as close as possible. I will keep a log here, hopefully a daily log, so that I can track this diet and see my strengths and weaknesses as well as pinpoint any potential mistakes that I make on this journey.

Tonight I started simple and made a quick and easy snack:
Peanut butter goo balls:
1 C crunchy peanut butter
1 C creamy peanut butter
1 C protein powder ( i have a vanilla flavored one that I used)
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 C oatmeal (not quick oats)
unsweetened shredded coconut to coat balls

Mix everything except the coconut together and roll out into about 1" balls. It will make about 30. Roll in the shredded coconut and refrigerate so that they firm up. Go here for the nutritional information.

So I am off to a good start with my little snack and looking forward to my new cookbooks too!

Here are some other useful links that I found and will be referring to throughout this experiment:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/12/30-days-raw/
http://www.rawmazing.com/rawmazing-recipes/
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1805341
http://www.calorieking.com/foods/search.php?keywords=apple&showresults=yes