hello everyone! I will write a much more detailed blog tomorrow or over the weekend with pictures, but I had to write a quick one now to share a recipe!! I just made a REALLY tasty raw marinara sauce and I don't want to forget it!

For the sauce:
2 and 1/4 medium vine ripe tomatoes
2-4 sundried tomato halves, soaked
1 date
as much fresh basil as you like!
about 1/4 of a medium sweet red pepper

blend it all to desired consistency!

then I spiralized two zucchinis and finely chopped another 1/4 of a medium sweet red pepper and tossed that in with the zucchini noodles and then poured the sauce over it all after it had time to settle in its flavors after a few hours :)

MM!!!

Disney World was AWESOME!!! more to come....

The reasons that I have come to a fruitarian lifestyle go beyond just health. It also has a lot to do with moral values, and the fact that I believe in a natural way of living. To me, the health aspect of it really just tends to be the result of natural living. If you live naturally, you will probably be a lot healthier, and I think that's pretty much common sense.

Unfortunately, it seems that my ideals are much misunderstood in our modern and oh-so chemically "enhanced" society. I'm just plain "weird" or "eccentric", even, for many of the values I hold dear.

This came to me because of a discussion on a message board regarding animal testing. And, as I was typing out my very passionate reply (obviously being against it) I realized that no one there would probably agree with where I come from in regards to not toying with nature to the point that we do. I feel that I am constantly repeating myself, when I try to point out that we as a human race have caused so much destruction to our world and to OURSELVES by persistently defying natural laws. It seems that we try to BE the law, instead, and I just think this is a really scary thing!

Many rawists understand that much of what modern science performs animal testing for, can be treated or even prevented through a natural lifestyle. I have heard so many success stories of diabetics and other chronically ill patients who have turned their lives around just by avoiding all the crap! Which is a large reason as to why I think that animal testing is downright cruel and unnecessary. A lot of the health issues we face in our world today are a result of our own lifestyles or our relatives lifestyles, etc. Obviously, this doesn't go for all things, but it seems that people keep running to and relying on pharmaceuticals to have a quick fix while they continue to lead toxic lives, and I just can't stomach it.

I understand that it isn't EASY to live a healthy life in the world today. Of course, it's much easier to be ignorant to the choices we make and how those choices affect our vitality. It was easy (but definitely not cheap) for me to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day at one point in my life. It was easy for me to chug soda after soda, scarf down pizza, and sit on my butt all day.

It was easy alright, until I found myself at the doctor constantly sick with chronic sinusitis, swollen extremities, pains of various sorts, constant digestive issues, etc. And of course, doctor after doctor would recommend a pill or something, but never would they tell me to change my lifestyle. I figured this out on my own.

At any rate, people tend to make excuse after excuse for keeping their filthy, self-destructive habits...but then when it catches up with them, they are devastated and want to save themselves at the very last minute.

Of course, I could fall ill myself, despite my taking care of myself. But you know what? At least then I will have known that I did everything I could, and it just be what nature had intended for me.

My point is, why do animals have to sacrifice their lives at our expense and especially for our own self-destructive mistakes?

On another note, I gotta say, it always makes me laugh, the attitudes of a lot of people that surround me whom have some icky habits of their own. A friend of mine and myself went frisbee golfing the other day and got on the topic of health, and I always give her hell about her smoking, because well, I'm her friend, and I care about her life. [and on a side note: Some might think it's better to hold your tongue and keep your opinion to yourself... but I think if you care about someone and you see them hurting themselves, it's your duty as a loved one to voice your concern for them...if you don't, afterall, what kind of friend are you? ] She made the classic comments like: "well, everything gives you cancer anyway!"

Oh boy. And IF she happened to get cancer, I highly doubt her attitude would be the same, and she'd probably regret every cigarette she ever smoked. Right?

"everything gives you cancer anyway!" = a statement that people make in efforts to make an excuse for their bad habit, so that they can lie to themselves a little to pretend that they don't really care. it's just justifying the behavior, and it isn't at all a logical school of thought.

She then says to me, another thing that a lot of other people often bring up when they are trying to justify their unhealthy habits, "Well I know of someone who got lung cancer who never smoked a cigarette in their life".

So? The rare occasion that a person gets lung cancer having never smoked in their life, validates literally BEGGING for lung cancer by chain smoking? This just makes no sense what-so-ever to me. It's such a black and white way of thinking, and it's again, just another way of the person trying to justify their habit.

I also pointed out to her that many other factors play into these diseases than just the obvious things like smoking. The hundreds of other products you consume, for one thing, also have an affect on your health, aside from sleep patterns, exercise, sunlight, a positive outlook on life, etc.

Said person who gets lung cancer without having ever smoked, may have also worked at a factory where the air is filled with toxins... or lived near a manufacturing company, etc.

And these are things that I do, and will always continue to also pay attention to in my life. I would never in a million years work in a facility where just breathing the very air might kill me. I will never choose to LIVE somewhere that isn't very sustainable for human life. These are all part of the choices we make everyday, and what we decide on can have a big impact on our fate.

I grow more and more frustrated everyday as I hear all my loved ones make up excuse after excuse for their self-destructive tendencies.... and then looking at ME like I'm the crazy one!

*sigh*

Like I said before, I understand that making healthy choices isn't always easy. It took me a few tries to finally quit smoking... and even longer to quit caffeine. I still miss a lot of things that I used to eat as a kid, and I probably always kind of will. But I definitely don't miss the impact that they had on my health, and the even bigger impact that they probably would have had if I would have continued it.

I know I'm not perfect, and no one is, but what I can't understand is not even being interested in TRYING to overcome your bad habits and take care of yourself. If you slip up sometimes and have a burger, or a coffee, I don't think you're a horrible person... but I cannot understand this overall COMPLETE lack of ambition to even CARE about what you are doing to your body. Yes?

Anyway!

Sorry for the lengthy rant, but it was something that I had to get out of my system, and I felt that this was the best place for that. I know that anyone who reads my blog who is interested in raw foods, will probably at least somewhat see where I'm coming from. And I hope that I'm right about that :)

In other news: it's Friday! and in just two days I'll be on my way to the Sunshine State! Thank god, because it's only 43 degrees out here today. When I scheduled the trip, I wondered if going in May would have much purpose, thinking that it would already be so nice out here by then... so I'm glad that I still get to feel like I'm getting away from the crappy weather!

I am still nervous about what food will be like out there, so I brought some non-perishable raw food bars and raw cashews just in case. I'm hoping they won't be necessary since my stomach isn't very fond of nuts, but it's better than eating some of the cheap, processed foods that I know they have there.

Woo hoo!

In terms of raw food, I'm concocting a "dressing" tonight for some zucchini noodles made of tomato, half an avocado, lemon juice, and spinach. I hope it turns out... I don't really know how it will all go together, but it seemed like it would be yummy. Hopefully it is!

Well, I won't be back until May 15th, so no blog updates for awhile. Hope everyone has a happy and healthy week!

xoxox

Hello everyone! Just 4 days until I am in Disney World... I can't wait! But I am so nervous about forgetting something, and I gotta be honest that I'm also a bit nervous of flying. I'm not afraid of a crash...rather it's almost a claustrophobia issue--being trapped in a vessel up in the air--

At any slight instance that I feel trapped, physically or emotionally, I lose it a little. It's the same reason I'm not sure I'd ever go on a cruise...

Anyway, I've been looking around online to make sure there's going to be food for me to eat. And luckily I've run across a few places like this...

"Harambe Fruit Market" in Animal Kingdom. I can't wait to eat all the fruit!

At any rate, I had been wanting tomatoes like crazy lately, and they were on sale for 99 cents a pound at my local grocery store, so I decided to whip up a little something inspired by this.


What I changed: I didn't use a pepper or celery, and instead of basil I used cilantro. I also used a half of a cup of fresh corn. I only used one tomato, and a half of a zucchini. It was good! I will be having more without the corn tonight :)And maybe I will try the celery though I still don't know where I stand with celery...

I actually think the corn upset my tummy a little. Since I went fruitarian I haven't had much of any problems with gas (which is downright crazy because I have always been really gassy, haha) but I got a lot after eating this, and I know it wasn't any of the other ingredients.

Anyway, speaking of all this food. I am going to have myself some oranges :)

Day one of banana frenzy!

I had already been following 80/10/10 guidelines for a week or so, but I decided it would be in my best interest to go on a mono-diet of bananas for a few days, maybe a week, to kick some of the nasty nagging little cravings that are left lingering in the dark corners of my mind :P
So far so good. I'm on day 3 of no coffee, and feeling pretty damn good, although I will admit I had struggled with headaches most of yesterday. I listened to my body, and went to bed early, got rested up and I feel much better today!

I had a nice long lunch today too... shh, don't tell the boss! I work for my father's building restoration company as the secretary. It's complete opposite of what the rest of my being is about, really, but it's the only job available to me right now in this economy.

At any rate, he takes day trips to Madison, WI to our state capitol because our company is doing some repairs on the state capitol building right now. With that said, when he's out of the office I like to treat myself to an extended lunch time (because, I literally have nothing to do 90% of the time anyway).Instead of heading to the gym during my lunch hour today, I decided I'd take a run on the bike trail (which is near my house) outdoors. The weather wasn't very nice when I left...pretty windy and chilly. But when I was almost home from my run it started perkin' up! So I took the opportunity to eat my lunch o' bananas outside with my pooch.



Yep, that's my old geezer, Molly :) She's 14 and despite a little arthritis she's in tip top condition for an old lady :)

Anyway, the long lunch...the run, the sun, the dog, and the bananas were *just* what I needed to lift my spirits.

If the weather stays nice (hopefully will get even nicer) I plan on going disc golfing with the boyfriend. The crazy fellow ordered 93 dollars worth of discs off the internet and they are supposed to arrive today.

I know... it's crazy. Brian and I tend to be on the same page with most things in life, but not when it comes to things like this... i.e. spending money freely on lots of fun, unnecessary things. I, especially, don't really like to buy much of anything if A) it isn't absolutely necessary B) it's brand new. I usually try to find my items used as second hand shops and such, but then again, my interests also differ slightly from Brian's.

I do like disc golfing, but half of my discs were found or given to me, and I've only purchased about 5 in my life. Besides that though, his interests lie much into video games, movies, and music...and while I also enjoy music and movies, I tend to not spend much, if any, money on it.

I do however... like to spend money on vacations and travel when I have the rare chance to...

Did I mention I'm going to Disney World in just 10 days?? (I wonder how finding fruit will be?)


I'm really stoked. Spending this kind of money was a HUGE step for me, because I do lean towards frugality. But, it was time that I go somewhere and do something fun for a change... I haven't been out of state aside from quick trips to Chicago (only a couple hours away) since I was 12! That's 11, almost 12 years. That's just not right.

'Course, I thought about going somewhere that would seem more life enriching such as Jamaica...but, the fact of the matter is, I wanted a vacation that had it all, and a Disney Vacation has it all. There's so much variety, and the weather is gorgeous in Florida. I wanted to be reminded of my childhood again, in these stressful times.

I try to keep my stress to a minimum, and I hold onto my inner child with all my might, but sometimes, not often...but sometimes...the world does me in. Between worrying about my employment (our company is probably going out of business), and worrying about the world in general.. Sometimes I literally carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, unintentionally.

Never the less... I know just what I need to get myself back on track each and everytime I start to crumble under stress. And it's a good feeling to know that you've always got a hold on yourself!

Well, that's about all for now... 'til next time :)

so here I am again. baaaaack and ready to do this raw thing right. going all the way baby, for the 811 lifestyle...of course, with time. I understand it won't happen overnight :)

at any rate, I will attempt to try to keep up to date with my blogs and post my progress, etc. sometimes I'm just ADD... :)

xox

Grr @ technology.
I had totally posted a blog on Wednesday evening, to find today, that it had never posted. Aww!

Try this again!

First and foremost... I have to update that unfortunately I was unable to continue at a 100% raw diet. There are many personal reasons that I don't quite feel like discussing at the moment, but rest assured that I still intend on trying to do it again someday, when I am in a better place in my life. At the moment, however, I am working at still keeping raw food a big part of my diet since I still fully believe in the liftestyle... I simply just am not capable of doing it the correct way at this point.

With that said, you'll be seeing lots of cooked vegan foods in my blog from now on! So onto the goodies!

Now onto other things :)

Still in the spirit of raw, I picked up some raw coconut kefir yogurt "sour cream" at Slow Pokes Local Foods in Grafton, WI. It was SO good. BETTER than real sour cream... I dollopped it on my utmost favorite raw dish which is a simple zucchini pasta adorned with salsa, avocado, corn, mushrooms, carrots... I may have thrown some nutritional yeast in there too...



Now, you'll have to excuse me... As much as I LOVE to cook (and un-cook) and as much as I can make things taste pretty awesome if I do say so myself... I don't know a THING about plating, or photography (and my camera is a crappy Samsung... sucks!) so these photos aren't even 1/10th as beautiful as many of the photos you see on vegan bloggers' entries...

At any rate, also in the spirit of raw, I made some delicious "Tahini Cheez Sauce" that I came across on Heathy's blog.

Make sure that if you're even slightly interested in raw foods, to give that recipe a go! It's simply delcious!

It reminded me lots of red pepper hummus, but "cheezier". I loved it, and ate it on everything for a few days. It was especially good on raw jalapeno-walnut burgers... Mmm! and the avocado fries that I made with them, were also delicious dipped in this wonderful sauce!!

(Un)cooking has taught me so much about actual cooking. When you don't have the stove or oven to help you out, or convenient flours, etc. you learn a lot about proper spice blending and such. There's no denying that a Raw Lifestyle is definitely a restrictive one, at least, in comparison to what's available to us in our modern world. So, when you go from having almost infinite options of ingredients to work with down to just a select few whole foods, your food preparation skills are really put to the test.

It seems that when I went back to eating cooked foods, my cooking skills had drastically improved even though I hadn't really cooked a meal in 4 months or so. I find myself understanding recipes a lot more, and how I can modify them to better suit my tastes... like I said, spice blending is so important when you're RAW, and I feel like I have a much better understanding of each spice's place in the world of food now because of it.

At any rate...

Upon making the decision to stray a bit from raw, I had really went to town on eating some old cooked favorites like vegan pancakes, garbanzo hummus, etc.

Then, I made this wonderful dish I stumbled upon on VegWeb.com. "Sweet and Sour Seitan". I had been craving Chinese food for the longest time, and I had only had Seitan one or two times in the past and LOVED it, so I wanted to try working with it.

Oh it was so good!

Now, I made my own sweet and sour sauce from a recipe I found on VegWeb as well, but I didn't care too much for it. It was beyond salty for one thing... and it wasn't much like sweet and sour sauce at all. None the less, it paired up just fine with the dish I made... but I doubt I'll be using it again, or if I do, I'm going to be making some severe modifications to it. For one thing, I will cut down the amount of soy sauce DRASTICALLY, use maple syrup for half of the sugar portion of the recipe and probably add some corn starch to thicken it... there are other things that could be tweaked too...

I was thinking of leaving the recipe under the photo, anyway, but I honestly don't recommend it, so I decided against it. Sorry. If you are interested in it, however, just feel free to ask me for it.

Onto the seitan!



NOM NOM. I served it with brown rice and little vegetable spring roll snacks that I found at Outpost Natural foods. They were so cute!

Sweet and Sour Seitan

1-2 packages of seitan (or your favorite recipe)

3/4 cup flour
2 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup water

Peanut Oil

1 green pepper cut in chunks
1 red pepper cut in chunks
1 onion cut in chunks
1 can pineapple chunks
jar of sweet and sour sauce(or your own recipe)

Directions:

Mix together flour, water, cornstarch, salt and baking soda in medium bowl.

Stir seitan into batter until well coated.

Fry coated seitan in 2 inches of hot oil for 3 minutes or until golden brown.

Drain Seitan, keep it hot.

Combine green pepper and onion and sauté for 5 min. Add pineapple and sweet and sour sauce, let simmer for 15 minutes. Pour over seitan and serve with rice.

Serves: 4-6

Preparation time: 30 minutes

This was SO good. YOU HAVE TO TRY IT.

My boyfriend and his friend ate it up and raved about it. Yum!

What else has been cookin'?

Oh, I made the boy some of my Sloppy Tweedle's. The recipe was adapted from my mom's Sloppy Joe recipe from when I was a kid, and I veganized it :)

So here, I hope you all try this and enjoy it as much as I have since I was a tot!

1 bag vegan Boca crumbles
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar or sweetener of choice (I actually use stevia or agave)
1/4 cup ketchup
about 12 ounces tomato sauce
1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce (I use Annie's Naturals)
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
Dash of cayenne or Frank's Red Hot (sometimes we do both)
1 chopped jalapeno
8 vegan hamburger buns

Directions:

This recipe originally calls for 1 - 8 ounce can of tomato sauce, but I find that it never seems like enough so I use a bit more than half, about 3/4 of a 15 ounce can instead. However, you can measure this to your liking.

1) Cook the onion, green pepper, and "beef" crumbles in a large skillet until the veggies are tender and the crumbles are thoroughly cooked through. I cooked mine in a bit of oil, but you could probably cook it in a bit of water instead.

2) Add all the rest of the ingredients to the skillet. Mix together very well. Cover and let simmer for 10 to 20 minutes.

3) Serve on hamburger buns and enjoy!

Makes: 6 to 8 sandwiches, Preparation time: 5 minutes, Cooking time: 20 to 30 minutes

On the agenda for the weekend?

Sweet potato biscuits, more hummus, and vegan "pigs in a blanket"...

Next week: Raw Indian Samosas and Baha Tofu Tacos with Cilantro Cole Slaw!

One more thing! A special THANKS!! and BIG HUG! To Hungry Vegan for granting me a free bag of Sweet and Sara's Vegan Marshmallows! Go check out the blog!!!

d'oh.
gotta update more.
gotta get batteries for my camera to take pictures for all of you :)

those are the top priorities on my to-do list, as of right now.

I just picked up some coconut milk kefir custard from the local foods store I visit.

[Slow Pokes Local Food, Grafton, WI]

It's totally delicious! It tastes just like sour cream. Scratch that. EVEN BETTER than sour cream.

The woman who owns the place is simply amazing. She makes all these wonderful raw items (as well as gluten-free bakery and other healthy cooked items). I've tried her different varieties of cashew spreads (red pepper, basil, and plain), raw slaw (it's got just about every veggie imaginable in it!), raw granolas, etc. They've all been ridiculously good!

I recently also picked up some Indian Spiced Kraut from her shop, which is made locally in Wisconsin. (Will post picture asap!)

Sometimes I wonder how people stay thin on a raw diet... all I ever want to do is try all the tasty foods! :P

At any rate, I've been experimenting with juicing, as well as raw soups. Much success thus far! I've tried Heathy's Cucumber Cilantro soup and what the hell_ does_a vegan eat anyway's tomato and corn chowder in the past week, and both were exquisite.

I experimented making some more dehydrated potato chips... made some BBQ style sweet potato chips and some oniony regular potato chips... both were delicious and barely made it all the way through dehydrating! They were so good I couldn't stop eating them.

Anyway. My dad and I were supposed to head out to the cafe I spoke of in a previous entry... Cafe Manna... until I realized on their website that they had changed their menu around and left very litte raw options available, now. A bit disappointed.

I received an e-mail today from a local farm about participating in a workshare program. If I put in a certain amount of hours of work per week on the farm, I get free produce! I'm really excited about this, and I'm hoping it will teach me a lot about the growing process of produce, etc. since I eventually would love to grow much of my own food someday. The woman said we could meet after next Tuesday, so I hope all goes well :)

Well, I will be sure to update more later with pictures!!