Parsley Salad

This dinner was just a bunch of leftovers! It was a base of Parsley salad. This was made with chopped Italian Parsley and some vinegar & olive oil. Then I plopped some of the Cashew Dip on it. The Cashew Dip is soaked (for 1hr) cashews & some olive oil blended very well in the Cuisinart. I added some fresh pepper to the dip. I topped it with some Kalamata Olives and cayenne and paprika. Around the edge you see some mushrooms....cant remember the type, but they might be monkey paws.
This was very filling and so incredibly HEALTHY.
Parsley is so full of goodness and greenness (did I just make up a word?). It is a little powerhouse that just gets shunted aside as a "garnish".
I used to make this other (back in my cheese days) Italian Parsley Salad that had lots of fresh grated Parmesan cheese, lemon juice and olive oil. It was so simple and so addictive.
It is snowing again today and windy, windy, windy. There was some leftover Chai in the fridge so I heated it up. The flavors got better as they sat for 2 days. Seems it will last for awhile. I made it the traditional way with loose Chai Tea & milk and it is way better than any of those mixes you can buy. The mixes have far too much sugar for my taste buds.

Blue Breakfast

Back to Snow

After a few days of warmth we are now back to snow.

For me this means no more walks, until it stops snowing. That means more TEA. I am going shopping today for more cream for my tea. I really try to get organic cream when I find it. The only dairy I have with any regularity is the cream in my tea.

I don't eat much cheese anymore. If I go to a party and they have a cheese dish or a cheese tray I will have some. Ice Cream is also something I just don't really want anymore either. My love of ice cream goes way back. My Grandfather (the Spanish one) use to eat a quart a day of ice cream. Whenever we went to go visit him you could always count on having some ice cream as his freezer was full of many different types.

My cholesterol is very low and always has been even in my Dairy Queen days. There was a point when I used to have a hot fudge Sunday once or twice a week. Oh and I really loved a concoction called a Tin Roof. A Tin Roof is like a hot fudge only they put salted peanuts in it. The sweet and salty is a craving of mine!

Those ice cream days are over for me. My taste buds have changed and I just don't really want to eat a bunch of sugar stuff anymore.

Now I really like salty treats. A handful of salty nuts is just fine by me. I want to get a dehydrator so I can sprout and then dehydrate my own. There are lots of places online you can buy these kinds of nuts but seem expensive. I just love the taste of the sprouted dehydrated sunflower seeds.

Baby Carrots

Here is the video I made of my thoughts on the baby carrots. They come packed in these individual bags. They are already cleaned and ready to eat. Very portable and quick food. The thing I am worried about is the packaging. It seems like it is more plastic waste to spew upon the world.

So then I must justify my need for portable carrots against the waste. I could buy some larger bags of baby carrots and put them in Ziploc baggies that I could reuse. But I also like them prepacked so if I want to make a quick salad I just have to rip open a small bag and have what I need.

Then I wonder if it really is more plastic than one big bag of baby carrots. I reuse most of my plastic bags until they stink, so maybe I have some good plastic bag karma on my side. Meaning maybe I can pollute a little more than the average customer.

The whole plastic bag situation is very confusing for me. For most of my adult life I have shopped in health food stores and they have always advocated the three R's. Recycle Reduce Reuse. Here is a little link to that thought:http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/recycle.htm

We usually buy in bulk. That means you bring your bag if you remember! Whatever happened to just using paper bags for everything? Is that Ecologically unsound also?

Me & my Dad in the kitchen

This is a picture I found of me & my Dad in the kitchen. My Dad would never go raw or even consider it! He is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. In general I think eats healthy. He used to have us eat Roman Meal Bread when we were kids because he said it was better for us. None of the other kids ate the brown bread like we did.

My Dad can really pack away the food, I guess that is called a healthy appetite. He likes different types of food but just don't take him to a Sushi place or he will be very unhappy. Just the sight of the raw fish will cause him to get up and leave. I think he might like the Hot Sake if he ever tried it. I just Love Love Love Hot Sake.

He can cook some good dishes and when I was younger he used to make this German dish of ribs, mixed with potatoes and sauerkraut. It was all cooked up together in a pot on the stove and the smell was wonderful.

He does not approve of me eating vegetarian. He thinks you need meat to stay alive. I disagree.

Spicy Cabbage

Speecy Spicy Cabbage

This was my dinner last night. It was just the right amount of food. I think we all just stuff ourselves with much more food than we actually need. Indulge on the Holidays but for everyday we can live & survive on so much less food than we think. If you eat more uncooked food.....Raw Food....you will be less hungry because your blood sugar levels stay much more stable.

I made extra of this Cabbage Stuff so I have a lunch already for today. The cabbage gets better as it marinates over night and it also develops some of the beneficial microbes that you get in Sauerkraut. You don't need mayonnaise on this for it to taste great but I love Mayo so sometimes I add some. Mayo is a health food. Yes indeedy it is, if made properly. What is Mayonnaise? It is oil, lemon juice & eggs. Make your own if you have a Cuisinart as it is simple to do.

I topped it off with the Raw Hummus & Avocado. I also like it a bit spicy so I added some cayenne to the cabbage and then sprinkled some on top of the finished dish. Just lovely.

Now away from Cabbage:::::

Today is Martin Luther King Day. God Bless MLK! He had so much wisdom. His thoughts on nonviolence are very strong and very true. Here is a quote of his::: Hate is too great a burden to bear. I choose Love. I Still Choose Love.:::::

MLK is someone I look up to and honor for all he did. I think he knew he would be killed so he lived his life as outspoken as he could. He spoke truth to power.

a bit of my life

My Dog

My Dog duke is the best dog in the whole wide world. I was going to write about miso soup this morning but saw this picture of my dog and decided to write about him instead.
He is about 12 years old now and still is very much a puppy. He is Chihuahua by breed and German Shepard in his own mind. He is very feisty and ready to take on any dog anytime. That is not a good thing. As he has gotten older he has gotten a bit mellower. He listens to me much more than he used to.
Duke must have his walks. If Duke does not get a walk everyday he is just not quite as happy as he should be. He can get a little neurotic and needy if he does not get his walks. He is so playful and when I take him to the park he likes to do some full speed open running when we first get there, after that he can get down to the business of sniffing.
He also has a very sensitive stomach and cant eat anything but a certain type of dog food. He does love his treats and meat is his favorite. He also likes tea with cream, but not as much as my other tiny dog Mama. She is the real Dairy Queen. More about Mamma another time
I think Duke will live a long time, at least I hope so. Chihuahua's do have a long life cycle and he is healthy.
He is a very soulful dog who knows everything that is going on around him. I just love him very much.

Me in the morning

OK it is really cold in my house, so I wear this in the morning until I warm up. Cute right?
When I first started eating raw about 25 years ago I followed a book called: Fit for Life. I was a fanatic at that time and really followed the books tenets to a T. The hardest part was the breakfast. They called for only fruit until noon each day. Eating cold fruit every morning was hard. In the winter it was doubly hard. I used to make this concoction in my Cuisinart that was a mess of fruit blended up and then eaten with a spoon. A crazy friend who live with us for a while and who had to adhere to the same food policy called it "fruit poop"! Oh man, it did make you poop too!
I would never try to eat cold fruit in the morning in winter anymore. I just don't think it sets right with me. I used to get these crushing gut aches from it. But it was supposed to be healthy right? I read years later the wife of the guy who wrote the book divorced him and wrote her own book about healthy eating and she does not recommend the cold fruit in the AM. I think she just sick of the guy as he was really a Zealot! So many rules to live by.
I had my sprouted bread thingy this morning and zapped it for 10 second to take of the chill. I think I might have some Miso Soup tomorrow as well. I need to get some green onions, as the taste of Miso Soup just cries out for green onions. Well If I am going to get the green onions I might as well go whole hog and get the shitaki mushrooms.

Constant Comment

This morning breakfast was the same as yesterday. Sprouted bread with sprouted Hummus. Only this time I spread some Mellow Miso on the bread first and then nuked the whole thing for 10 seconds just to take the cold edge off of it. I was 18 degrees this morning so a little chill bling reducer is nice!

Now on to the tea. Constant Comment is a Tea from my childhood. Whenever I felt sick my Mother would make me a strong cup of Constant Comment with honey & lemon. At that time the tea was loose and came in a metal tin. I cant find it like that in the stores anymore. It only seems to come in tea bags now. It is still a very flavorful & unique tea. I have it with cream & honey now. The taste is so soothing with all the citrus rind in it. It is just a good cup of tea. We all know how healthy tea is for us. So drink up!

There is just something about a good cup of tea that can make even the bleakest moments become bearable.

Both of my children are tea drinkers. They grew up with all the herbal teas, mint, chamomile and herb blends. When they were tiny and felt crabby I would say, lets have some tea. It usually worked to fix their spirits up. Also tea & toast is a winning combo. Sourdough bread with lots of butter and some hot tea is the best thing in the world anytime of the day or night.

I don't have so much toast anymore as I am doing my raw thing, but I still share some with my kids now & then.

We mustn't be too rigid.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

Howdy & Hello. I had some lovely sprouted bread with homemade sprouted Hummus for breakfast. I always have Tea with breakfast. Usually black Tea with cream & stevia or raw (if I can find it) honey.

It is such a simple breakfast. I get the bread at Wholefoods. I made the sprouted hummus. It is very easy to make.

Sprouted Humus Recipe

Sprout some Garbanzo Beans and then put them in your Cuisinart with some raw tahini add some olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Whiz it around until creamy and you are done!

I follow the amounts used to make cooked hummus. So any standard recipe you have for that will work fine. I don't add garlic to mine as I like to have it for breakfast and I am not too fond of garlic in the AM.

here is a basic recipe you can use, just use the sprouted Garbanzo & raw tahini instead.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1618,132176-254196,00.html