More Raw

Photo courtesy Ecuadorian Organics

Day 2 of rawsomeness! It's a lot easier than I thought. By the way my eggplant 'crackers' came out FANTASTIC! I'm going to buy a whole heap and make them for parties instead of the real thing, I'm sure everyone is going to love them too! Maybe I'll do a garlic version...
garlic + eggplant = delicious.

Brekky 8am - Kefir, banana and blueberry smoothie, teechino tea

Snack 11:30am - Vine ripened tomatoes with a little sea salt, teechino tea (smug look, all my co-workers were noshing on lemon meringue pie at the time!)

Lunch 1pm- Celery sticks filled with a mixture of cashew butter, tahini and macadamia oil, cappucino over a work meeting (d'oh!)

Snack 4pm - Apple, dandelion tea

Dinner 7pm (at a friends) - 4 Nori rolls (as per yesterday, I bought from home), mini cupcake (d'oh! It looked so cute and was screaming "EAT ME EAT ME I'M CUUUUUTE") But, I DID say NO to the champagne! : )

Snack 10pm - nibbled on a few cacao nibs (see pic above), 3 macadamia nuts and 3 cherry tomatoes (I love going... pop!)

LOVE the cacao nibs! Nutty yumminess. I must be careful with those and not have too many, jussssst a couple when I feel a craving coming on. I'm surprised I've been feeling so good actually, I've got my period (thank you moon) and I've not had anything major yet... no ups, downs or cravings really at all. Luckily! I can't believe I was confronted with cake TWICE today. Almost escaped unscathed. Next time Gadget, next time....

The raw food adventure begins!

Photo courtesy Green Chefs

Today was my first raw food day. I didn't realise raw foods could be so delicious!

Here's my menu:

Breakfast 8am - Kefir (made with raw milk), frozen banana and blueberry smoothie with cinnamon, nutmeg and a teaspoon of raw honey... purple heaven... (drools)

Snack 11:30am - Pink lady apple and a handful of soaked walnuts (crispy nuts recipe from Nourishing Traditions)

Lunch 1:30pm - Dandelion tea, 3 macadamia nuts, 2 carrots, 2 prunes

Snack 4:00pm - Sundowner apple and a hazelnut teechino (look ma, no caffeine!)

Dinner 7:00pm - Vegan nori rolls filled with avocado, carrot, cucumber, sprouts, capsicum, fresh mint and thai sauce (1 tsp each of raw peanut butter, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, raw honey, chilli) They were so good I had 4! Very filling too (looked kinda like the pic above, but not as neat hehe). Then I had 4 squares of Rawganic's orange dark chocolate. Bit of a different texture to chocolate I'm used to, but very nice.

Well. How easy was that? I'm surprised at how filling it all was too! No walking today, it was raining cats and sausage dogs. Tomorrow I'm planning something along the same lines, but a salad for lunch instead of just carrots! I WANTED a salad, but ran out of time after doing the shopping at lunch. I got some yummy date spread, and raw cacao nibs to try... taste a bit like munching on a coffee bean, nutty and very chocolatey... I like!

There is a whole WORLD of raw food sites out there to help me. Yay! I bookmarked this one to review when I get time... it has demo vids to watch. What a good idea. I'm going to ask around to see if anyone I know has a vita mix or a dehydrator.... could come in handy for later... I saw a 'pizza' recipe that looked good I'd like to test out, but I don't really want to fork out for a dehydrator straight away. In lieu of my OWN one, I'm making some eggplant 'crisps' to have with dips in the oven right now... it's barely warm about 30ºC, I wonder how long they'll take?

The wonderful world of Kefir!

As a Kefir initiate, I'm so EXCITED to share with you this wonderful probiotic drink! I was lucky enough to be shown how to make it at my cheese workshop. Dinking Kefir (pronounced kee-fear) is like drinking a living zoo of microorganisms to help foster a healthy gut environment. Even more diversity than you would find in fresh yoghurt (although you need yoghurt too)! When your gut is healthy, YOU are. You can assimilate and utilise nutrients and energy from food better with no nasty bowel problems like gas or diahorrea.
For the low down on all that is Kefir check out Dom's site.

Elisabeth gave us our very own kefir 'grains' (not a grain but a culture that looks like grains, see picture above) to grow some of our own at home. It only takes 24hrs! I made some yesterday and drank my Kefir smoothie for breakfast today, put on another batch this morning ready for tomorrow's brekky. It's very easy, even easier than yoghurt because there is no heating of the milk at all.

So what does it taste like? Very similar to natural yoghurt with a sharper sourish aftertaste. Sometimes Kefir can have a slight alcohol content of about 0.5%, but not enough to stop you driving! You can drink it straight, very refreshing, or have it in a smoothie rather than milk. As it is a fermented food, the milk is much easier to digest, the bacteria in effect 'pre-digesting' the milk sugars. People with lactose intolerance might find kefir a tasty alternative to milk. You can use kefir as a started for sourdough bread, to make kefired cream and kefired butter. I've also read it can be used as a culture for making cheeses.

As for where to get good kefir grains.... I don't actually know! I was fortunate enough to be given some at the workshop, but as far as I know it has been handed down for thousands of years and originated somewhere in the middle east. Kefir grains multiply so the excess is usually shared around to members of the community. You can buy dehydrated grains, but I'm not sure what kind of quality they are. Previously, I had only read about kefir and had been unable to source it, let alone taste some!

So today I ate the fruits of my labour... well, not much labour really. I still made it though!

Kefir Blueberry Power Smoothie

1 1/2 cups cultured kefir
1 cup of blueberries
1 small ripe ladyfinger bannana
1 scoop cold filtered unsweetened whey protein (20g)
Tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Serve over ice.

It was HEAVENLY. I thought foods that are good for you are meant to taste bad too!