Andrea: Happy Poisson d’Avril!

Did you know that April Fool’s day originated in France? And that the French celebrate it by putting paper shaped like fish on each other’s backs? Seven years of French education and even a Minor in it and that’s about all I remember.

I was farting around with the blog all night (changes are a comin’!) so I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday’s eats last night. And since I’ve pretty much eaten the same things today, I’m pulling double duty!

The day started off with a smoothie – a variation of the cherry chocolate bomb shake, although I’ve always loved blending cherries over berries – no seeds to deal with!

• spinach
• ‘nana
• cherries
• 2 tbsp hemp seeds
• rice milk

I forgot to add the raw cacao powder, but I think I preferred this without – it was so creamy and delish, and the flavor of the cherries really stood out. Cacao has a strong flavor and it can make a smoothie grainy sometimes.

Once I got into work, I dug into the last of my rawnola – I can’t wait to make a new batch this weekend. I already have some ideas what I’m going to use this time.

And of course there was coffee. I’ve been sleeping like ass this week, so a little bit of caffeine has gone a long way in the morning.

I got snacky before lunch, so I tried out the cashew black pepper cheese I made the night before with some juice pulp crackers.

The crackers were really good – love putting onion in them. I’m going to have to track down some dehydrated onion cracker/bread recipes I’ve seen floating around in blog-world. And the cheese? I followed the recipe exactly, but it was way too salty. I’m thinking about throwing it out unless somebody has an idea on how to salvage it?

While I was prepping my salad, a thought popped in my mind. How do you cut a bell pepper? A lot of times I see people slice off the top part and cut around the seeds like this:

That just seems wasteful and time consuming. Am I missing something?

I always cut mine like this – slice in half:

  

Tear out the seeds:

Pull out the white parts. This way seems easier to me. Obviously, if you were going to stuff a pepper, you’d do it the other way….

Anyways, just curious! The pepper ended up on my salad:

Shell in the salad instead of salad in the shell this time 🙂

When I got home, I was glad to see that Chris honored the note I left him:

The husband has a knack for eating the leftovers I was planning on using. Since he gets home from work way before me, I finally wised up and left a note!

All I wanted was a carb-filled bowl of fried rice. In my younger days, (i.e. my early 20s!) I used to eat fried rice all the time. I seem to eat it only a few times a year now.

While the rice was frying up, I munched on some leftover stir-fry tofu.

I don’t like a lot of crap in my fried rice – just some egg and I’m a happy girl!

  

1 fried + 1 scrambled = perfection! Unless you’re a vegan or horrified by eggs. Then it might equal something else!

Okay, I’m about to jump this ship and head on over to see little Thor. And his parents. But really Thor 🙂 Chris and I are bringing over take-out and I’m thinking Ethiopian might be in order. I’ll report back tomorrow. Friday’s almost here – can you smell it?!

   

Andrea: Nature’s Path Granola Bars

So, a few weeks ago, the peeps at Nature’s Path sent me samples of their new granola bar line to try out. Seeing as how I’m trying to get away from pre-packaged food, I debated on whether or not to accept the samples. But, I figured, what the hell, maybe they will come in hand on days I’m running behind.

Boy, am I glad I had them on hand last week! Sissy was a busy girl and these bars saved me from gnawing my arm off on more than one occasion!

Across the board, I’m pretty impressed with all Nature’s Path products – their ingredient lists aren’t scary and the nutritionals aren’t bad either.

While I have no complaints on how any of these tasted, I would definitely classify these as light snacks – something to stave off your hunger for an hour or so before you can eat some real food.

The Sunny Hemp was by far my favorite – not sugary like the other “flavored” varieties.

The next three would make good emergency snacks for kids. (?)

The pumpkin was probably my 2nd favorite.

Why couldn’t they have made these two with almonds instead?

There’s also a chocolate/coconut variety which I forgot to take a picture of. It was just so-so.

So, would I recommend these? Sure, if granola bars are your thing – they’re a hell of a lot better than Kudos! Would I buy them? Sure, but they aren’t going to be a staple in my pantry, and I would only buy the Sunny Hemp variety. These would be great for camping or hiking and I will definitely keep them in mind for that purpose.

I really do appreciate Nature’s Path giving me the opportunity to try these out. I may not be the biggest fan of your granola bars, but I certainly am of your cereal!

Andrea: It’s alive!

My food baby that is 🙂

Actually, as full as I am, it’s not as big as it could be with non-raw food…

Does this ring any bells?

I was the model of a health all day – as long as you don’t count my lunch. Yeah, I can lie and say I ate the leftover stir-fry I brought. Or I can just not talk about it. My lips are sealed. 🙂

Breakfast – strawberries & rawnola with rice milk. I’m almost out of rawnola, so another big batch is in order. Debating on whether or not to try a new recipe or do the same one as last time – I mean why mess with perfection?

And of course there was juice….

…which I used the pulp of to make more crackers (sans the pear pulp though).

I still have plenty of the last ones I made, but I’m just experimenting with flavors and combos.

When I was in doing some running around for work, I happened to find myself near my favorite place….

…so of course I had to pick up a little afternoon delight:

DKB Sprookie! Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. Nom, nom. Nom. The sign said they’re now made with sprouted spelt, but I couldn’t tell the difference. Thank God these aren’t cheaper (they’re a buck a piece) or I would clean them out of their stock every time!

Once I got home, since my dinner had already “uncooked” all day, I prepped a few things to have on hand this week.

First up, eggplant bacon. I had first heard about eggplant bacon on Gina’s blog, so when I saw the recipe in Everyday Raw, I knew I had to try it!

These are probably thicker than they should be, but I had to slice them by hand. Oh well! They are currently in the dehydrator and I can not wait to try them!

I also made some cashew cheese for tomorrow (Ani Phyo recipe) and some live sour cream to go with my dinner.

Dinner was my first foray into making a raw entree – Live Tacos were on the menu tonight. But to be fair, I had already eaten and learned how to make this dish at the raw food class I took in January and the recipes I used for dinner tonight came from that class.

I hadn’t had or seen eaten the live tortillas though (we used collard leaves as wraps), so that was new.

I didn’t get the texture quite right on the tortillas to use them – they were half dry/half pliable. The chips were easier because you just let them dry all the way. Since, the tortillas wouldn’t really work for handheld tacos, I made a taco salad!

• spring mix
• live spicy “beans”
• 1/2 avocado
• sunflower seeds
• sour kream (which I added cilantro to)

To answer your question, yes, this did taste as good as it looked!

The spicy “beans” are mostly made up of sunflower seeds and sun dried tomatoes. The sour cream is cashew based with some lemon juice and apple cider vinegar to give it some tartness.

It was so good, I had to go for seconds. Duh.

My full belly and I are going to watch some LOST now. Good night!

Andrea: I love to uncook!

So, in a year, who knows where I’ll be with raw foods. Right now I’m the experimenting stage, and I gotta tell you – I’m kinda diggin’ it.

I have a very laissez-faire attitude towards cooking which is why I can’t bake – it’s too precise for me. With raw foods, I can just mix everything together and either dehydrate/chill/eat!

I know the appeal of raw foods is supposed to be it’s health benefits, but I’m getting hooked on how easy it is – it’s almost Andrea-proof 🙂

The hardest part is the planning – once I get a rhythm going and my timing down (from all the soaking & dehydrating), it will get easier. I did good tonight and I have tomorrow’s dinner currently uncooking:

It’s my first raw dinner and I’m super excited to see/eat the final result!

I had a mostly raw day of eats – not intentional, just how it turned out.

Juice:

Finally – a use for broccoli stalks!

Lunch:

I used my dehydrated juice pulp crackers as croutons. They were really good!

But my Cheezy Kale Chips were even better.

I was really hesitant to try a cheezy variety because I am not a fan of nooch. But, these were fantastic. I used the twins’ recipe over at Pure 2 Raw. Yes, I realize that I use a lot of their recipes, but they know their shit! I haven’t been disappointed yet, and I doubt I ever will. Girls, if you ever need a recipe tester, you know where to find me!

I was freezing all day today, so when I got home, all I wanted was some warm, carby goodness.

Chris was making some rice for his dinner, so I just used some of that and topped it with some broccoli, red pepper, mushrooms, and tofu sauteed in sesame oil & tamari and topped with a healthy dose of Sriracha. It totally did the trick. Stir-fry, I love you 🙂

Okay, off to bed!

Andrea: I’m such a blog loser!

Wow, did I really only post once last week? I was busier at work than I thought! My boss comes home tomorrow so hopefully life will return to normal soon!.

Not much to report on the food front, but I did have a fantastic meal on Saturday at one of Portland’s most popular Lebanese restaurants – Ya Hala.

Chris and I split a vegetarian Mezza plate with hummus, baba ghanouj, tabbouleh, falafel, stuffed grape leaves, and fried cauliflower (Aranabeet).

And I also ordered some vegan Fatayer.

We totally stuffed our faces. Chris usually doesn’t like Middle Eastern food, but even he was impressed by Ya Hala. It’s really close to our house so I’m sure we’ll be back!

After dinner, and despite our bursting tummies, we walked down the street to Bipartisan Cafe for some pie.

Chris is in love with their Chocolate Silk pie as evidenced by the thumbs up! (Somebody get that boy a manicure!) He graciously let me take a couple of bites – not like I could have handled more!

I worked a lot this weekend, so I didn’t get to spend as much time in the kitchen as I would have liked. I did pick up Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney at the library this weekend and there are some awesome looking recipes in there that I want to try soon.

I did try my hand at raw crackers using leftover juice pulp. I kind of just winged it, so no recipe, but here’s what was in it:

• carrot pulp (3 carrots)
• apple pulp (1)
• cucumber pulp (1/2)
• flax meal
• nooch
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• the stalks from 1 bunch of kale broken down in the food processor

I dehydrated these overnight and I was quite pleased with the result – more on that later!

I also made some raw cookies to have for the week using this recipe I found online.

They look so pretty, no?

I had high hopes for these, but I underestimated myself in the spirulina department. I’ve eaten spirulina in things several times before, but I’ve never actually used it myself at home. It’s definitely an acquired taste and I guess the amount in this recipe was way too much for me to handle. I don’t want to give up on them yet, but I’m afraid they may go uneaten – which would be way sad since they are a protein powerhouse! We shall see….

Andrea: You’re an a$$hole.

That’s right, You.

I know I’ve said it before, but I absolutely love running – once I stop. During a run, no matter how hard or easy it is, I hate every minute of it. With every step I ask myself, “What asshole got me into this mess?” I always thought that asshole was me and my masochistic nature, but this morning I realized one other thing – the asshole is YOU! You bloggers with your goals and determination making me think, “Well, if they can do it, so can I!” And you readers with your support and words of encouragement who make me believe I can do it.

Because of you, I had one of my best runs ever this morning. Of course, I didn’t realize it until after I was done and I spontaneously karate-kicked/fist pumped the air in the gym parking lot. I feel like I turned a corner this morning and if all goes well, I know I can make the time goal I set for myself at my 10k next month. So anyways, thanks a lot, assholes. 🙂

You know what’s even more awesome than an awesome run? A beautiful day in Portland with sunshine and warm temps. And even more awesome than that? Finding pants at Banana Republic that are marked down to $26 AND make your ass look phenomenal. And even more awesome than that? Thinking the nerd at the Apple store is going to tell you your 3+ year old laptop is kaput and you’ll have to buy a new one only to find out the issue is fixable! And even more awesome than that? Finding out that your particular issue is covered by Apple and can be fixed for free!!!! And even more awesome than that? Flirting with the nerd at the Apple store and convincing him that since he already has the manager’s override to fix the first issue, that maybe he can just go ahead and replace the broken plastic keyboard as well. I tried to convince him that he could just give me a new computer, but I was unsuccessful. Maybe if I had on those new pants…..

So, yeah. I’m having kind of an awesome day.

Oh right, this is a food blog – let me tell you about the awesome dinner I had last night!

Chris and I had a double date with our cousins Jack & Megan. For you newbies, that’s Erin’s brother & Sister in Law. They live on the other side of town, but were kind enough to kick it over to our ‘hood to check out our new pad. We had dinner at The Observatory, which is becoming quite the popular place in Portland.

I started off with The Capricorn – vodka, strawberry puree, black peppercorn syrup with a salt and pink peppercorn rim

I couldn’t taste the alcohol at all, which would have been dangerous if I was in a more than one drink mood. This was so good and I must learn how to recreate this at home. And for those of you who cared enough to remember, by now you’ve realized I didn’t stick to Lent this year. I’m pretty sure Jesus would classify that as “Not awesome.” 🙂 (For the record, I only do Lent for personal reasons, not religious ones. Regardless, I’ve failed miserably!)

For dinner, I had a burger!

But no worries – it was vegan 🙂

This is a quinoa-mushroom veggie burger. It was pretty tasty, but I’m pretty sure what made it awesome was that it was fried and crispy 🙂 This is definitely a case where vegan does not necessarily equal healthy!

I ate all my fries, BTW. Would you expect anything less from me?!

Andrea: Andrea vs. Harold

Harold is the name of my house. My friends Emilly & Andy named their house “Maude” and when we moved in down the street, our house was christened, “Harold.” Harold was vacant for four years before we moved in and wasn’t well taken care of before that.

So, armed with a shovel and a steam cleaner, I did battle with the yard and with years of grease and grime. I won this round, but it’s still an ongoing war!

Between all the yard work, house work, and work work I did this weekend, needless to say, the last thing I wanted to do this weekend was cook, blog, or even open my computer – hence my MIA-ness.

I successfully avoided all cooking, but then I realized that I had signed up to take Rose & Jon dinner on Sunday. I quickly raced over to Whole Foods and then whipped up a no-fail dinner: vegetarian shepherds pie.

No calorie was spared here! I sauteed the veggies in real butter, put yogurt in the mashed potatoes, and then topped everything with a healthy dose of Dubliner cheese. I figured the new Mom & Dad could use some comfort food.

I also knew Rose could use some chocolate. Since Rose was the first person to introduce me to raw foods years ago, I made a raw chocolate tart for dessert. I did some Googling and then stumbled across this recipe for Chocolate Cream Cake from the twins over at Pure2Raw. This is the 2nd recipe of theirs that I’ve tried and again, I was not disappointed!

The crust.

   

The filing.

The end result!

Four of us polished off half of the tart and I suspect the other half will be eaten by Rose by the end of the day 🙂

After such a laborious weekend, it was nice to spend some QT with this little guy…

Seriously. I’m in love. He doesn’t make me want to go out and get knocked up, but he’s certainly trying!

Andrea: Speedy Gonzales!

Boss left for vacation today. That means I worked supah late last night and am slammed today! Hopefully things will calm down over the next couple of days. Just thought I’d quickly share yesterday’s eats and the 10k training plan I’m using.

Juice! That’s kale in the plastic bag.

Breakfast! Eaten standing up in front of the copier.

Lunch!

This…

…turned into this…

I topped my salad with carrots, Dubliner cheese, and four raw falafels that I toasted in the toaster oven and crumbled over my salad, making them 100% un-raw. Somewhere, Gabriel Cousens is choking on his massage kale salad.   

Lunch Dessert!

At least these cacao walnut macaroons were still raw 🙂

Dinner!

An “everything but the kitchen sink” or “clean out the fridge” fritatta.

• kale
• mushrooms
• onions
• leeks
• yukon gold potato
• Dubliner cheese
• 6 eggs

Chris dished up my plate and served it to me, hence no pics when it came out of the oven when it was still pretty 🙂

Dessert!

Raw carrot cake with coconut butter “icing.” I scarfed this down in 30 seconds. Not even lying.

Ok, moving on to my 10k training. I could probably run the 10k I signed up for with minimal training, but I like having a plan – it keeps me focused. I like plans that have variety – I usually do the Hal Higdon plans, but I only have 5 weeks until the 10k, so I did some digging online until I found THIS ONE. I’m more of a jogger than a runner, so I’m hoping this plan will help me break the 1 hour mark!

Back to work 😦

Andrea: Green with envy

My dinner was amazeballs.  You’re going to be so jealous!  But you’ll have to get through a bunch of other food first 🙂

So, today was Day 1 of 10k training – or Day 1 of giving a shit.  So, don’t be surprised if you see more daily eats type posts.  Being accountable on the blog helps me stay on track, so just deal with it, mmkay?  I’ll try to keep the boring to a minimum 🙂

Despite the time change (and despite the fact that my oh-so-sexy mouth guard induced massive drooling, waking me up more than once during the night), I was able to pretty easily get up to go to the gym.  I was reunited with my traditional pre-morning workout snack.

AB on DKB

Three easy miles later, I was back home making health in a glass – a.k.a. JUICE!

All of this got blended with a huge handful of spinach in the Vitamix.  It made a ton, so Basil was lucky enough to enjoy some fresh juice as well.

I drank my juice in the car on the way to work, but once I got to the office, I ate the last part of my breakfast:

G.yogurt, rawnola, & flax

Man, this batch of Greek yogurt was TART!  It was good, but not for the faint of heart – I definitely would not give this to a yogurt newbie!

I had to laugh when I was unpacking my lunch sack – look at all the crap I brought for the day!  I felt like Elise!  The only thing I didn’t end up eating was the apple.

Lunch was easy-peasy – just a salad with some fixins:

Spring mix topped with 1/2 avocado, goat cheese, and microwaved egg.

I absolutely HATE spring-mix lettuce.  But, the husband loves it and it’s so cheap when you get a big tub from Costco, so I’m learning to deal with it.  Right now I have to drown it in dressing in order to choke it down.

I made some dressing this morning to take with me and to have on hand for the week.  Don’t freak out – it’s mostly champagne vinegar, not olive oil 🙂

And of course lunch wouldn’t be complete without lunch dessert 😉

Leftover raw carrot cake from last night w/coconut butter “frosting” and a couple of raw walnut cacao macaroons.

**side note:  As I was writing this post, my husband asked me to help him make a smoothie in the Vitamix as he’s actually never used it himself.  He made a grapefruit, pear, and tomato smoothie.  Ew.  He swears it wasn’t that bad and guzzled the whole thing.  I wasn’t brave enough to try it!**

Moving on….I worked late tonight and didn’t get home until 8:30.  I knew what I wanted to have for dinner, so I didn’t let the late start get me down.

Behold – Raw Falafels!

Can we get some color on this plate?

Not only that, I made home made pita bread!

It’s the same 5-minute dough I prepped over the weekend.  You just cut off a bit and roll it out thin so that it puffs in the oven.  One pita only takes 5 minutes to bake, so they are perfect for quick meals.  Plus they taste good, so, you know, they have that going for them!

I stuffed my pitas with my falafel & fixins and dipped in the yogurt/cucumber sauce I made in the Vita:

• greek yogurt
• 1/2 english cucumber
• dill
• S&P
• 1/8 tsp xantham gum
• 1/8 tsp guar gum

That raw falafel is the bomb – you would never know it’s made out of almonds and not chickpeas.  Or that it’s 100% raw for that matter.

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with some goodies I picked up today:

The cookbooks I picked up from the library – I’m so excited about the Ani Phyo ones.  Once you can get past the gratuitous amount of pictures of herself in the book (Seriously, we get it.  You’re not ugly.  I don’t need a bajillion pictures of you drinking water and not wearing a bra), there’s some really good recipes just waiting to be uncooked in my kitchen.

The bread book was a gift from Rose.  How sweet is she – a new mom, and she’s buying gifts for her friends.  Rose went online to buy a copy of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day for herself,and since she knew my copy was just on loan from the library, she bought me the 2nd book of the series that just came out.  I’m even more excited about this one since it’s centered around whole grains.  I mean, I love me some white bread, but I can’t do it every day, youknowwhatImean?

Andrea: The calm before the storm

Goodbye sleeping in.

Goodbye eating whatever I feel like.

Tomorrow starts six weeks of 10k training. The only part of my body looking forward to going back to regular exercise is my muffin top.   

Despite the re-introduction of exercise to my already busy schedule, one thing will remain the same – weekends in the kitchen.

Here’s what I’ve been cooking. And un-cooking!

No knead bread:

This lump of dough is hanging out in my fridge ready to be consumer over the next week or two. I’m thinking tomorrow I’ll make pita bread for these….

Raw falafel balls! I first saw raw falafel on Greens for Good and I knew I had to make them. I used the same recipe Ryan did, but since I wasn’t overly precise with my measurements, I think I used too much cilantro – hence the light green color. That’s okay because I love cilantro and they smell amazing. But, unlike Ryan, I didn’t heed her suggestion and added all the water, something I wish I hadn’t done. BUT, I was still able to form little balls/patties and I even saved some of the mixture to use as pesto later this week! They’re just about ready to come out of the dehydrator and I can’t wait to try one!

I also jumped on the HEAB bandwagon…

…and made my own coconut butter! This was so easy and I’m so glad Heather tried this as I was just about to plunk down $15 for some store-bought coconut butter this week! This cheap, homemade coconut butter came in handy when I tried making…

Raw macaroons! These are still in the dehydrator as well, but as you can see, I’ve already sampled a couple. They are so freaking good. I actually don’t care for coconut all that much, so I knew I wanted to make a flavored or chocolate variety. I came across this recipe and since I had all of the ingredients, I went to town. These are going to be great as my sweet snacks for the week.

Yesterday, I was craving chocolate in a major way, so I finally attempted Averie’s Raw Peanut Butter Cups.

I made my own chocolate with 3 tbsp cacao and enough agave and coconut oil until I got the consistency I wanted. Also, I subbed maca for nooch in one of the cups and it made all the difference in the world. The one with nooch was kind of flavorless, but the one with maca blew me away. I had trouble assembling them, so they weren’t very pretty and not photo-worthy. I’m definitely going to make these again, so if/when I make a decent looking one, I’ll post a pic. For now, just visit Averie’s blog – hers look like the real deal.

And as if I hadn’t made enough desserts, I made the Pure2Raw twins’ Raw Carrot Cake recipe. I always have so much carrot pulp leftover from juicing throughout the week, so it was a great excuse to try them out!

As luck would have it, I picked up these cute little ramekins earlier this week:

They were the perfect size for the recipe:

These are also in the dehydrator, so I’ll let you know how they turn out!

Of course, I didn’t just eat dessert this weekend. I had a bunch of other goodies as well….

A green monster w/frozen raspberries & hemp seeds:

I think hemp seeds are so beautiful! Basil just seems annoyed by them.

A beautiful croissant veggie sandwich from Bipartisan Cafe in my ‘hood:

Friday night Chris and I stayed in and had dinner and a movie.

We tried out Bertoilli’s Four Cheese Rosa sauce that I got as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program. This was way better than the Arrabiata sauce they sent as well. It wasn’t too heavy which was nice, but it is what it is – cheesy, cream sauce. Great every now and then, but not something I’m gonna buy on a regular basis.

I also made this week’s stash of greek yogurt and a batch of goat cheese – which I’m sure will make appearances this week. In fact, I think I’m going to have some goat cheese and bread for dinner!

Back to the kitchen I go – I can’t believe it’s past 7 and still light out. Love!