Vegan MoFo! Post #11: CSA Slaw!

Last night, I went to a vegan potluck in Redondo Beach. I decided to make something using (shocker, I know) whatever I had in my kitchen. Thus, I created "CSA Slaw," named such because it consists mainly of items we received in our CSA box.

Radicchio! photocred.

If you'd like to make this, there's no need to follow my recipe exactly, as I basically threw in whatever I felt like. The crucial ingredients are: Radicchio, carrots, apples, Veganaise, vinegar, and sugar. Anything else can be skipped or substituted.

C S A  S l a w

The Crunchy Ingredients:

1 head of Radicchio, shredded
5 carrots, diced
2 Granny Smith apples, diced
1 Gala apple, diced
2 or 3 pears (any variety), diced
2 Fuyu persimmons, diced
5 small radishes, diced 
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup sliced raw almonds

The Dressing Ingredients:

1  2/3 cups Veganaise
2/3 cup unrefined sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
sea salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste

Combine the crunchy ingredients into a large serving bowl. Combine the Veganaise, sugar, and vinegar in a smaller bowl and whisk until smooth. Pour dressing over the crunchy ingredients and stir until well-combined. Add salt and pepper, to taste. NOTE: You may need to add more crunchy ingredients, depending on the crunchy-to-dressing ratio.

This was pretty well-received at the potluck last night. I hope you enjoy it, too!

Vegan MoFo! Day 8: The Barebones Vegan (Part II)

This post is part of a series I'm writing this month. My hope is to establish a set of basic, essential, and affordable practices for vegans on a budget. You can read the first post here.

T h e  B a r e b o n e s  V e g a n  P a n t r y

Below is a partial list of the cheapest pantry items I've found (based on US prices). They're also very versatile and generally healthy. If you're a vegan trying to survive on a tight budget, these are your non-refrigerated staples.

1. Nutritional Yeast - Usually bulk bin places are cheaper, but it depends. It's probably cheapest to find a food co-op near you. They generally have cheap bulk bins (and other cheap food, too).
2. Dried Beans, Split Peas, Lentils - Compare these to the price of the canned variety. Sometimes canned is cheaper, depending on what's on sale and where you shop. These items are great because they're so nutritious (protein, fiber, + vitamins) and they're filling. Eat them with rice, put them on a salad, or toss in the blender to make a bean dip.
3. Oils - Not totally necessary if you're really watching your fats, however.
   
4. Vinegars
   
5. Pasta
6. Rice - A great grain to have on hand because a small amount can be so filling. I've heard that "broken rice" is the cheapest.
7. Flour
   
8. Canned tomatoes and tomato paste
9. Spices/seasonings 
10. Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) for soups, stews, casseroles, etc. - This is a much cheaper alternative to fake meat.
11. Nuts
    

Bulk bins @ a food co-op. photocred.

T h e  B a r e b o n e s  V e g a n  F r i d g e 

Here are all the vegan refrigerator items you really need, as far as I'm concerned.

1. Veggies and fruits - A vegan must. You may have to shop around to see what's cheapest. Cost will also depend, in part, on if you want organic, local, or not. Concerned about pesticides? Get to know the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15, the lists of worst and best produce to buy organic as determined by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Still concerned? Well, according to doctors like Joel Furhrman, M.D., no matter what shape produce your produce is in, you're still going to get less pesticides than you would from consuming meat, given that eating animals means eating a very concentrated, lifetime's supply of the pesticides that those animals have consumed. Cheapest fruit I've found? Bananas, hands down. And they give you a lot of options: you can freeze 'em for smoothies, eat them on-the-go, have them with peanut butter, fry them, use them as egg substitutes in baking, etc. 
2. Tofu - Cheaper and more versatile than fake meat, so you're getting a lot for your money, in my opinion. 
3. Peanut butter - Get the all natural kind, not the sugary, commercial kind. That stuff's nasty. Trader Joe's sells decently-priced all natural peanut butter. I always refrigerate mine because my 10th grade science teacher told us your peanut butter can harbor botulism bacteria if you don't.
4. Bread - This one varies widely according to what kind you buy. Be sure to check the ingredients list - sometimes bread manufacturers sneak unnecessary dairy ingredients into their bread. Lately, I've been on a whole wheat pita kick, because I like how I can use for sandwiches, personal pizza crusts, or for dipping in hummus.
5. Soy or nut milk of your choice - You can also make this, though it takes some time and dedication. It is cheaper to DIY, though, plus you get a lot of other edible products out of the process.

Soy beans. photocred.

T h e  B a r e b o n e s  V e g a n  F r e e z e r

In my opinion, it's generally best to skip most frozen foods, as they're usually expensive. Use your freezer mainly for freezing leftovers plus fruits, veggies, and herbs that you plan on using later. Sometimes, there are cheap deals on pre-packaged frozen fruits and veggies, depending on where you shop.

Oh! There is one exception: many varieties of berries tend to be cheaper if you buy 'em frozen! I, personally, will only buy my organic strawberries when they're in season because they're so damn expensive. All other times, I buy them frozen. Thanks, Queer Vegan Runner, for reminding me of this important exception!


T h e  B a r e b o n e s  V e g a n ' s  O t h e r  S e c r e t  F o o d  S o u r c e s:

1. Picking fruits growing off public trees - For so many reasons, I think THIS IS AWESOME! Basically, public trees are public property, right? So, this means the fruits of those trees are the public's, too. Free fruit for everyone, YEAH! Lots of cities worldwide are catching on to this and creating "fruit maps" of their area. For example, at this website, you can download a map of the Fallen Fruit of Silver Lake - a great source if you happen to live in/near Los Angeles! Thanks to awesome folks Matias Viegener, David Burns and Austin Young for starting this project! Don't live in Los Angeles? Here you can find fallen fruit maps for other places, including Copenhagen, Denver, Madrid, Malmo, Mira Flores, and more. 
2. Grow your own garden  - Don't have a back yard? Not to worry. Community gardens are shared spaces of land that you can essentially rent. In Los Angeles, they can be as cheap as $3/month, and I'm guessing that other places are similar if not less. If you live in LA, you can search for a community garden in your area here. If you live in the US, you can search here. Another option? Start an herb garden on your window sill. Herbs, especially, are expensive if you get 'em store-bought! Freeze anything you don't immediately use so you always have herbs on hand. 
3. Join a CSA group - Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is when a group of people in the same area all pitch in money to the same farm, and in turn, the farm distributes "shares" of the season's crops to each person. It's a cheaper way to get organic produce than if you bought it in the store, because it essentially cuts out the "middle man." Prices, therefore, are based on more accurate costs of growing the crops. I just found this directory of CSAs in the United States, if you'd like to search for one near you. 

CSA delivery box. photocredit.

Vegan MoFo! Day 5: Experimentation with the Mystery Fruits of My Neighborhood

I missed my Friday MoFo post last week, so instead, I bring you...a Sunday MoFo post!

Two plump persimmons from the CSA and three key limes from a friend of our roommate.

They say there are two types of kitchen talents: cooking and baking. I am definitely way more blessed with the former talent than with the latter. I'm very much of the mentality that goes more like "A dash of this, a sprinkle of that, let me taste it, and oh, just a touch more salt and it'll be perfect" than anything so scientific and exact as baking.

But, thanks to our most recent CSA delivery + an invitation to a vegan wine & dessert party, I was motivated to take a stab at inventing my first ever cookie recipe. And what fruit or vegetable, you ask, could've possibly inspired me to do such a thing? Well, inside this week's CSA box, I discovered these reddish-orange, tomato-looking things that I couldn't identify. Turns out they were Fuyu persimmon fruits. I don't think I'd ever encountered a persimmon before, let alone eaten one, so I did some research and found out that there are two common varieties: the Fuyu and the Hachiya. There are also a bunch of other kinds, which you can read about here if you're curious. 

Even Nico was curious about these strange fruits.

According to my internet research and personal experimentation, I can tell you that the Fuyu is solid in composition (when ripe), subtly sweet, and can be eaten like an apple or used in recipes for dishes such as chutney, salads, and sorbets. It's shaped like a tomato. The Hachiya, apparently, tends to be astringent, but I think it becomes really sweet once it's ripe, and to be ripe, it must be extremely mushy/soft. This kind of persimmon has a more oblong, pepper-type shape. Based on my research, it seemed as though it was the Hachiya that had earned the superlative Most Likely To Be Baked, but I was adamant about baking with my Fuyus and nothing was going to stop me. We'd received some beautiful red barlett and comice pears in our CSA, as well, so I figured I could just make up for any missing sweetness with a CSA comice and a fig from our fig tree.


So, after much deliberation, internet research, and cookbook cross-referencing, this is what I came up with:

S p i c e d   P e r s i m m o n   &   P e a r   C o o k i e s

Wet Ingredients:

2 Fuyu persimmons, peeled and diced
1 comice pear, peeled and diced
1 fig's worth of fig filling
2/3 cup Earth Balance (vegan butter), softened at room temperature 
1 teaspoon almond extract
OPTIONAL: if you want moister cookies, also add 1/3 cup of soy milk

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups cane sugar (regular or brown; I used mostly regular and a little bit of brown because I ran out of regular. I think whatever will do.)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
2/3 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Mix the dry ingredients, EXCEPT for the almonds, in a separate bowl. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and stir until well mixed. Fold in the nuts gradually.

Scoop small spoonfuls of batter onto a cookie tray. Be sure to leave ample room in between cookies, as these WILL expand. Bake for 10-12 minutes. They will likely not seem fully "done," but trust me, they are - vegan cookies tend to solidify well after the baking process, so you can safely stop baking them before they reach the point where they look browned. Allow to cool. For extra cooking cred, garnish with a cinnamon stick or two.

The result is a cookie that's at least somewhat nutritious, just the right amount of sweet, and nice and chewy. It's also a very autumnal treat, given its gingery spice and in-season ingredients.

Let's get a visual representation of that recipe, shall we?

Dicing the persimmons

What the inside of a Fuyu persimmon looks like up close

The peeling of the comice pear

Spiced Pear & Persimmon cookie batter! pre-almond-adding

The finished product

A glimpse at the innards of the cookie when it's broken in half

And Now, A Sneak Preview...

That's right. I didn't mention this before because I thought it'd be a bit overwhelming, but Nico and I discovered a mystery fruit #2, pictured below, during our walk today. It had been hanging precariously off a skinny tree branch in a residential part Silver Lake, alongside other fruits of its kind. Curiously, not all of the other fruits were this size; there were a few that were this ginormous citri-bulb size, but the rest resembled standard-sized lemons. I mean, is this just an overgrown lemon? Or is it the adult version of something else we've never encountered? Maybe it's a pomelo, if they even grow here in southern California?

At any rate, stay tuned for my next Vegan MoFo experiment, in which I will get to the bottom of this fruit and turn it into something delicious!  

Nico generously lent me her tennis ball so you could see the shocking size comparison.

Vegan MoFo! Day 1

Happy World Vegan Day, everyone! What better day to say...I have an exciting announcement! I've signed up for Vegan MoFo, which means I'll be posting a food-related blog entry every weekday for the entire month of November. That's 22 entries! I'm pretty stoked, as this year, November promises many interesting food opportunities for me.

What are those opportunities, you ask? Well, first off, today my house got a brand new vegan roommate! We are already plotting to host our first vegan potluck this month. Date TBA.

Next on the list, I was the very lucky recipient of quarrygirl's Healthy Taste of LA 2010 drawing! This means I'll be heading to Redondo Beach on Nov 7th to watch renowned vegan chefs perform cooking demos and taste their samples. There will also be speakers on nutrition and veganism. I believe tickets can still be purchased, so if you're interested, here's some more info!

On Nov 14th, I'll be participating in the first annual Bitchcraft Trading Post. There, I'll be selling my cruelty-free jewelry and other products. While this isn't exactly "food-related" per se, art is one of the ways in which I like to disseminate knowledge about veganism.

Then there's Thanksgiving on the 26th. I'll be helping my mom with the cooking, and creating an entire vegan menu.

My birthday is Nov 27th. Hopefully the S.O. and I will be road tripping up to northern CA, where there will be lots and lots of vegan restaurants I've been dying to check out.

I've also got a few cooking projects brewing. Below, you will see my beautiful "pumpkin pie" pumpkin, which I hope to use for some vegan pumpkin pie. I'll also roast the pumpkin seeds, which went over smashingly at my Halloween party last night. (My recipe is at the very bottom. It's super easy and delicious, so you should try it!)

Next to a standard-size coffee mug, so you can get an idea of its size.

We're due for another CSA delivery soon, too, just in time for starting Vegan MoFo off fresh and local! I can't wait to see what's inside the box this time. I really, really hope we get more purple bell peppers. Those taste similar to the more typical bell peppers, but more "peppery" and they're also crunchier. The smell made me nostalgic for my late Grandfather's vegetable garden. He was always growing green bell peppers and marveling at their beautiful, shining skins and robust aromas.

Colors matter a lot to me. Purple is one of my favorite. So, naturally, I nearly jumped outta my shoes when we received this here purple pepper.

Speaking of peppers, I'm currently concocting my first, ever homemade curry paste! I'm following Isa Chandra's recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance, but with a few of my own tweaks. A word to the wise: if ever you choose to embark on such an endeavor, DO NOT touch your eyes or face after you touch the peppers, EVEN if you have washed your hands. Don't be like me and think that washing your hands will suffice. It won't. That capsaicin takes time to fully come off your skin. I touched my forehead tonight after chopping my jalapenos and Thai green chiles, and it was as though I'd applied Icy Hot to my forehead for the next hour. ;) Hey, come to think of it, perhaps I'll start using hot peppers instead of Icy Hot... (Kids, do not try this at home.)

R o a s t e d  P u m p k i n  S e e d s

Ingredients:

1 medium or large pumpkin

dried basil

garlic powder

ground thyme

ground cayenne pepper

dried rosemary

salt

Preheat oven to 350. Save the seeds after you remove them from the pumpkin. Rinse in a colander to get the pumpkin bits off. Spread them out on a cookie/baking sheet. Then sprinkle all of the spices onto your seeds. I always just wing it and go by what seems tasty, but if you're one for measurements, then I'd say to use about 1/2 tsp of each spice. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, checking occasionally. The finished seeds will be a golden color and slightly browned on the edges. Oh, and your kitchen will smell absolutely to-die-for fabulous.

Happy Dia de los Muertos!

The S.O. and I succeeded at making our jack-o-lantern creepy-looking, no?

Fall Harvest, Peanut Butter, & Fashionable Thoughts

I can't say it enough: I love being a member of a CSA.

The weather in LA was surprisingly chilly and rainy last week. It was reminiscent of the east-coast autumns of my childhood. The perfect antidote to the cold? Soup, of course, and thanks to my CSA, I was able to make it organic, local, and fresh:

Fall Harvest Soup

-CSA yellow squash
-CSA fingerling potatoes
-CSA kale
-CSA Swiss chard
-CSA leeks
-dried lentils
-yellow onion
-organic, fresh garlic (about 3 cloves)
-sea salt
-tricolor, freshly ground pepper
-thyme
-rosemary
-crushed red pepper & cayenne because I'm a spicy-food FREAK and can't seem to exclude this from any meal I make, no matter what.
-olive oil

farm fresh kale and Swiss chard

This soup can be made in 5 main steps. Ideally, steps 2 and 3 will be completed simultaneously in order to enhance the ease and efficiency of making your soup. Here we go:

1. Wash and chop all vegetables.

2. Boil water (with a dash of salt) and add chopped potatoes to it.

3. Rinse the lentils and then add them to a pot of boiling water. Cover the pot and allow to cook on medium or low until they are softened. I recommend following the package instructions.

4. Saute the chopped onion, leeks, and garlic. You can then add the carrots. Once all of these ingredients are softened but not totally translucent, add the chopped yellow squash and then finally the chard and the kale. The chard and the kale take the least time to soften and don't need much room to cook (much unlike the garlic, which doesn't cook well if it's added late in the saute-ing process), which is why I added them last.

the saute process

5. Once everything is softened enough, add everything (including the spices) to the pot that contains the potatoes. You may need to add more water if the water's looking low. Bring it to a boil and then allow it to simmer for as long as you wish. The longer it simmers, the more integrated and complex the flavors become. Also, a note about spices: I don't really measure these, but rather, add a little at a time and go with my palate. Just keep adding and tasting until you're satisfied. That's my philosophy. 

the pot of soup, early on in the cooking process

Some cool things about this soup:
-like I mention above, I used local, organic CSA produce, which means it was environmentally-friendly (local crops=less transportation required=less pollution) and healthy (organic=pesticide-free)
-kale and swiss chard both contain calcium. Oh, and the calcium is more absorbable than the calcium in cows' milk, just sayin'. 
-it keeps well in the refrigerator for a while, and tastes great (sometimes even better) once it's reheated (I reheat by putting it in a pot and cooking it on the stove, as we don't have a microwave at my house, but I'm sure microwaving would yield decent results, too) 

Now, don't think you need to have the exact ingredients that I used. You can make your own version of Fall Harvest Soup and it'll be wonderful! I'm mostly posting my own recipe just to encourage people to cook with whatever they have around, though I will say that the soup I made was quite tasty. But really, you can use anything: Don't have chard or kale? Try chopped spinach. Don't have fingerling potatoes? Use any old potatoes! Lentils can be substituted with white beans, pinto beans, really any legume. Maybe throw in some celery, which I would've done if I had some on hand.

Something I would highly recommend, however, is using leeks and carrots. If you don't have leeks, regular onions will do, but the subtler, softer flavor of leeks tends to cultivate greater harmony with the other ingredients as compared to the harsher flavor of regular onions. I didn't have enough leeks so I compromised and used equal parts leeks and onions. Carrots are pretty integral and I can't think of a good substitute. In French cooking, there is this concept called The Holy Trinity, which means celery, bell pepper, and onion, and is named such because it's considered the mandatory cornerstone of every French meal. My own personal Holy Trinity consists of celery, onions, and carrots, which I consider to be the foundation for any soup or stew. 

Another recipe that I want to share is something I also made the day I made the Fall Harvest Soup, and this is my Peanut Butter Banana smoothie. The autumn chill made me hungry for something a little heartier than my usual, mostly-fruit smoothies, and so I decided to go with some ingredients of the nutty and spicy variety:

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

-1.5 bananas (or however many you prefer), chopped and frozen
-2 TB peanut butter (I use Trader Joe's "Creamy Salted" kind), or however much you like
-2 TB Trader Joe's Vanilla Hemp Protein Powder
-1 cup (or however much you like) of Vanilla almond milk (I alternate between Pacific Natural Foods and Blue Diamond brands)

All you have to do is put the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth, creamy, and absolutely freaking delicious.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

My finished product, which lasted approximately 45 seconds.

I've also been preparing for fall in other ways, namely, stocking up on clothing other than my Los Angeles Summer Uniform (i.e., tank top and jeans shorts, due to the hot weather). As a supporter of all things environmentally-friendly, of course I had to stop by Crossroads. Yes, yes, it is the "Gucci" of thrift stores, but whatever. It's still recycling, it's still affordable, and therefore, I still like it. I found a pretty decent jacket/coat there, which I plan to alter slightly, once I muster up the cash to join a local sewing 101 class. 

The better to hypnotize you with.

I'm a bit incensed about the continued promotion of animal products in the fashion world. It's bad enough that Gaga had to wear that god-awful meat dress (which is a whole other blog post in and of itself, although my "short" opinion is: her decision was grossly ill-informed but had an unintended positive impact on people who wouldn't have otherwise re-considered their animal-informed fashion choices). A woman I admire oh-so-much, intelligent and adorable Ellen DeGeneres, handles this best (it isn't until about 4 minutes in that she does this). Anyway, my points are, what the hell are we thinking, seeing it as cool to wear the flesh and fur of other living beings!? and, you can find plenty of recycled, and therefore not directly perpetuating of animal-informed clothing pieces (as in my 1/3-wool coat example, above) and non-animal pieces (as in my duct tape wallet example, below). 

By the way, I completely understand the argument that by wearing animal parts (as I said, the jacket I just bought is 1/3 wool, which typically comes from sheep "fur"), it sends the message that wearing animal parts is acceptable. And I know that some vegans and animal rights folks oppose even the recycled (i.e., thrift-store or already-been-worn-and-therefore-not-contributing-to-new-production) animal pieces, because of this. I am in no way advocating the use of animal products in our clothing choices by my purchasing a used 1/3 wool jacket. However, I do realize that by supporting the recycling of clothing, even those consisting of animal parts, I may or may not be perpetuating the trend of wearing animal parts. On this issue, I am very torn, but for the time being, I think it is worthwhile to support the recycling of all used materials, even if those materials originate from animals. I do not, however, support the manufacturing of new materials that are derived from animal parts. 

Right, so... In other autumnal preparatory news, as I just alluded to, my boyfriend and I decided to make duct tape wallets yesterday. It's pretty simple to do, and the special colors that we used are easy to find at your local crafts store (I tend to go to Michael's for most of my supplies). His is pretty awesome-looking, so I'll post a photo of it soon, but for now, here is my own work-in-progress: 

That's a note-to-self on my hand. My philosophy: What gets written on the hand gets done.

That's all for now. I should wind down for the night. I plan on shopping for my fall's supply of delicious, vegan skincare and cosmetics tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I'ma continue diving into False Priest (do with this what you will, music connoisseurus rex's). This particular video makes me lose my mind a little, it's so good. God.

peace and carrots,
CYoFC

“We try to have these “holy fuck” moments where you’re really having your mind blown, especially if you’re listening to it on headphones.” - Pitchfork. Photocredit.

P.S. I kind of really want those turquoise boots. So long as they're vegan-friendly. 

P.P.S. Yeah, I know, what the hell are they doing, wearing feathers in this photo!? And I know for fact, as I've searched far and wide for synthetic feathers, that 99.9% of feathers you see are the real deal, bona fide bird feathers. Do I still love Of Montreal, even though they're wearing that? Yes. But I also love my parents, and they eat animals. A person cannot be vegan in every breath she takes, as much as she might like it to be that way. Again, this is in no way meant to advocate or support the wearing or eating of animals. This is not to say it's okay with me that they're wearing feathers just because they're Of Montreal. This is simply to say, I like the band but I recognize the disconnect between my beliefs and theirs, as per this photo, and, I'm being honest.

days 3 & 4 raw: Eat Your (Raw Vegan) Desserts

I didn't have time to post yesterday, so this post will be two-in-one.

Yesterday, "Day 3" of this raw food experiment:

For starters, I woke up feeling pretty normal - no cold-like symptoms, although I did sneeze more than usual throughout the day. For breakfast, I ate plain fruit and later made a banana-blueberry-mango smoothie with maca powder and agave nectar. This time I increased the amount of fruit per the amount of maca, and the result was flavor success. My boyfriend enjoyed it, as well (but, then, he enjoys most foods).

Good Mood Foods' "Veggie Casserole"

Later, I tried another one of Good Mood Food brand's delectable, pre-made raw meals: the veggie casserole, which was nearly as amazing at the veggie-nut nuggets (damn, those nuggets are just impossible to top). If you're curious, the casserole contained the following: cashews, brazil nuts, zuchinni, almonds, sundried tomatoes, onions, flax seeds, garlic, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, raisins, extra virgin cold pressed olive oil, parsley, lemons, sea salt, Braggs Liquid Aminos, chili pepper, basil, mustard seeds, and apple cidar vinegar. Again, very delicious - surprisingly so! As I said in day 2's post, I didn't think it was possible for raw food to be so satisfying and tasty, but now I stand corrected.

Then, sometime after dinner, I had a really strong craving for kale. I wanted kale, lots and lots of it. I've actually had kale cravings before, believe it or not, but this was different somehow. It was stronger, more specific. (I think that my normal kale cravings are often just cravings for the tahini-vegenaise dressing I use in my favorite kale salad recipe.) So, I had a few bowls of fresh kale topped with some carrot shavings and flax seed oil. No vinegar this time, because I didn't want to cover that kale taste too much.

My body said kale, I said okay.

I'm interpreting this kale craving to mean that I must need more greens while eating raw. Way back when, I tried out the dietary advice from Joel Fuhrman's Eat To Live, which called for - at minimum - an entire pound of raw veggies, daily, most of which were supposed to be greens. Yeah, I know that sounds like a lot, but I felt really good while doing it.

Raw foodism has a lot of similarities to the Eat To Live philosophy, I've noticed, although I don't know of any source that says, outright, that one ought to eat this quantity of greens while being raw. Whether or not it works for everyone, I've decided that it does for me, and so tomorrow (which will be my 5th and final day), I'm going to aim for greatly increasing the amount of greens. My refrigerator is already stocked with a massive amount of green spinach and the remainder of the kale.

Finally, since I keep bringing up maca, here's a photo of the brand I'm using: 

Maca was reportedly used by Incan warriors to provide stamina and prevent fatigue.

Okay! Onto today, "Day 4" of raw:

There's a lot to say about today. First off, I had to get up earlier than usual today, so my sleeping is a bit off. I woke up feeling normal (other than not having slept enough). Still had more sneezy/nose-type symptoms than usual, although I'm not sure if this is because of detoxing or me having allergies. Most notably, today I felt pretty nauseous all day AND I finally started having "cooked-food cravings." (I really can't believe it took 4 days for me to miss cooked food!) I'm also craving soda, which is really odd for me, and I even considered stopping by a local vegan restaurant just to buy a homemade gingerale. To be fair, it's normal for me to feel nauseous and crave certain foods around "this particular time," but my current symptoms are far more intense than usual.

Speaking of intense, I tend to have a pretty good sense of smell (or perhaps I simply pay a lot of attention to scents) but today my olfactory bulb is burning ever so brightly! This could very well be why I feel so nauseous and why I'm craving cooked foods, as cooked foods are typically more bland (yes, really - I didn't believe it at first, but now I can get why raw food veterans call cooked food tasteless!). Perhaps my sense of smell is so intense because, lo and behold, my sinuses may be detoxing. Ah, it all comes full circle after all. Though, the soda thing remains a mystery to me.

Onto what I ate today... For starters, I ate (no, devoured) one of my tried-and-true favorites: Earth Cafe's "find your thrill on blueberry hill" raw vegan cheesecake. You might not love the long name, but the cake is to-die-for, whether you're vegan or not, raw or not. What I especially like about this cheesecake (aside from it being amazingly healthy and vegan) is that it's not overly sweet. Instead, it's lightly sweet with a nice, tangy zing to it. And it has a wonderfully creamy, smooth texture. I swear I don't get any money for saying this!

Remember those chick peas I was soaking? Well, they've been waiting for me to eat them, so today I tossed them in a salad and had my first experience crunching on raw chick peas. Not bad. I think I could grow to prefer them over the cooked variety.

Today I snacked on a lot of fruit (that CSA watermelon was amazing). Then I decided to try something I have been curious about for a long time: Rawk-n-Roll Cuisine's kale chips in the Kaletaliano (pizza-flavored) variety. (I know. Vegan and raw food companies just won't stop with the puns...) My first bite was questionable, but after that, I was sold. They really do taste like pizza. Kind of reminiscent of the pizza-flavored Goldfish crackers, though way more pungent. 

For dinner, friends and I took a trip to Mooi, a gourmet, organic, raw food restaurant in Echo Park. This was a special treat, as I'd been drooling over their photos for weeks. And let me say, an appetizer, an entree, and two desserts later, and I learned that it is possible to get that "full stomach" feeling on raw foods. I warn you, though, it's not something I'd recommend aiming for!  

But more importantly, let me tell you about Mooi. The decor is fabulously Alice-in-Wonderland-esque, complete with eclectic furniture and accents; our table had exaggeratedly-high-backed, pink chairs and the menus are glued inside Dr. Seuss books. Adorable. For starters, we had the jalepeno peppers with smoked paprika nut cheese and eggplant bacon. They were every bit as delicious as they sound, and I don't know how they got the eggplant to taste like bacon, but they managed. Quarrygirl has a much better photo of them on her blog.

the jalapenos

For their entrees, my friends both ordered the enchiladas in tomatillo sauce with walnut refried beans and vegetables, while I ordered the lemon caper tomato pasta with garlic bread. I vastly preferred my friends' meal to mine and will totally consider ordering what they got next time I go to Mooi. My pasta was kelp noodles, which I was determined to try and like tonight, but...alas. It's such a shame, because I was really hoping to like them! I should say, however, that the sauce, vegetables, and seasoning on my pasta were all delightful. I loved the delicately sliced and folded zucchini. In fact, I've decided that I much prefer eating moistened/soaked zucchini over cooked zucchini. Also, the "garlic bread" was good - it tasted like baked bread, somehow, yet denser. The butter on top strangely tasted a lot like butter, too.

Lemon caper tomato pasta w/garlic bread

Choosing which desserts to get was a serious matter. Finally, my friends settled on the chunky monkey ice cream and blueberry cheesecake. I got the blueberry cheesecake ice cream and snickers pie. ALL of these were delicious, but the ice creams were especially impressive. Chunky monkey has cacao, banana, and peanutbutter in a sort of vanilla-ish base. The peanutbutter was actually, I think, sunflower butter, but the taste of peanutbutter dominated this flavor (which I appreciated). The blueberry cheesecake ice cream was a dream. It tasted like...well, blueberry cheesecake, but without all the cholesterol, lactose, acid, et cetera. Not surprisingly, we devoured our ice cream before I even remembered to take my camera out. Mooi, you get a "10" when it comes to raw, vegan ice creams.

Mooi's snickers pie

As for the cakes, my friends' blueberry cheesecake was good, but it paled in comparison to Earth Cafe's. My snickers pie was really flavorful, but much too rich and sweet for me. I'm not one for rich, sweet, decadent desserts (I never liked chocolate fudge type cakes and I usually prefer hummus to cake anyway). Definitely overloaded on dessert today. Felt a bit sick after dinner but feeling mostly better now.

Mooi's blueberry cheesecake

That's about all I have to say for now. Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I finish out my 5-day raw food experiment! Thanks for reading!

day 2 raw: CSAs, Superfoods, & Prepackaged Thrills

Doing well. Here's my recap of the day:

After a fitful sleep, I woke up this morning with a sore throat and some congestion. I felt better within a few hours. Some say there is a "detox" period in which symptoms like this can occur before you begin to feel the positive effects of a raw lifestyle. However, I'm more inclined to believe that my congestion was simply due to the Los Angeles air quality, as I tend to wake up feeling like this not infrequently.

Also of note, I don't feel deprived. Before starting this experiment, I was worried that I'd go about my day feeling weak and go to bed feeling hungry. To my surprise and relief, this isn't at all what it's felt like for me so far. I've been getting hungry more frequently but, in fact, my hunger has been less intense than before this experiment. And I definitely feel like I'm getting enough calories. As usual, I'm not counting anything - calories, grams of protein, milligrams of this or that - I simply eat a variety of foods, and eat according to how my body feels. (It is my personal belief that for most people, that is the healthiest way to eat!)

Another highlight of today: Much to my excitement, our CSA box arrived! I couldn't wait to tear it open and discover what was inside. It reminded me a bit of when I was in grade school, and the much-anticipated book club books would arrive (what was that book club called? Scholastic Books or something?). This week, we received a melon, heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, grapes, cucumber, basil, squash, and cauliflower. I think I saw a recipe for some kind of raw cauliflower spread, which I intend to make soon.

 

As for what I ate today... I didn't have much time for breakfast, nor was I particularly hungry (which is normal for me), so breakfast was a banana. Then I had my first *totally* raw meal: cashew cheese with veggie slices and salad. Later, I made a fruit smoothie, and then had veggie-nut nuggets for dinner (more on those further below). Still snacking on fresh fruit and raw granola when I get little bursts of hunger in between meals. It's still working.




Speaking of the cashew cheese, I've decided I'm going to call it "cashew spread," because it really doesn't resemble the same consistency and texture that vegan cheeses do. It's much more like a spread, in my opinion. I added a chopped jalapeno pepper (which proved to be a tad too much spice), minced garlic, sea salt, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and onion powder (a little bit of onion powder goes a long way - too long, in my case today!). Dipping English cucumber and red bell pepper slices in it worked well. Not bad. Not thrilling, but not bad. I think there's potential for me to be thrilled by cashew spread, but it's going to take some ingredient experimentation on my part.


I've been interested in incorporating some of the raw "superfoods" into my smoothie experiments, so yesterday I bought Maca powder at my local natural foods store. Maca powder is of Incan origin, and is purported to provide energy and stamina. Of note, Maca powder doesn't taste great to me. Next time, I'll be sure to add more berries to blend the taste.



For dinner, I was in a rush, so I stopped to get some pre-packaged raw food at one of the local natural food restaurants (ah, the beauty of living in LA!). I winced a bit at the price, but ultimately opted for some Good Mood Foods brand breaded spicy nuggets with sweet and sour dipping sauce. And let me tell you, THOSE were absolutely, completely THRILLINGLY delicious. I was amazed. Also, they pack a LOT of stuff into 4 little nuggets. As usual, I was worried at first that this wouldn't be enough food for a "meal," but I did feel full afterward. Again, it wasn't that filled-stomach kind of full that I'm used to, but more of a..."hmm, oddly, I think I could probably stop eating now and be fine...yep, weird! I *am* full" kind.

Those were some good nuggets.