Alfalfa Juicing and digital radio!

This is an entry about alfalfa and how great it is in juice. I have got alfalfa growing down now whereas I used to get quite a few failed attempts! I think my mum keeping an eye on it whilst I am at work helps! She has a nack with making things grow. I am also managing to time the next batch to be ready for when the previous one runs out. All these habits and routines take time to really start to work smoothly but they always do if you persevere!!


I usually use at least half a tray in my juice, sometimes a whole tray.











I love juicing in the morning and when I am singing and dancing around to my dad's digital radio it is even more fun :)

Raw Vegan 'Tuna' and Sweetcorn Salad

This is the same as the Sunshine Salad but without the red pepper. The sunflower seeds in it reminded me of tuna and of course the sweetcorn reminds me of, well, sweetcorn!

Salad:

4 tbsp peas
8 tbsp sweetcorn
8 tbsp sprouted sunflower seeds
3-4 handfuls of shredded round lettuce.

For the dressing, hand blend together:
1/4 avocado
1/2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 medium tomato
pinch of himalayan crystal salt

Mix well together. Serves 1.

You could also leave out the lettuce and have this as a sandwich filling on buckwheat bread. Now that would be awesome.

Raw desert idea

I am currently formulating ideas for a raw banofee pie and was going to try it tonight but didn't have a lot of time. So I came up with this really easy desert instead with some of the ingredients I plan to use. Try chopping up a banana and mixing it with a few tablespoons of raw sprouted buckwheat and a tablespoon of Carley's Rainbow Nut butter. Mash together a bit with a fork, add a bit of agave syrup if you have a really sweet tooth. Topping with a few cacao nibs is also good.

Wales on Thursday!!

Chris has asked me to do a green juice demo at the retreat this weekend! I am a bit nervous but I can do it. Can't believe I am going tomorrow!!

Yesterday was my last day in full time work at the supermarket and when I left I felt a bit emotional, not because I was sad to leave but because of the uncertainty of what will happen after my 2 week holiday when I come back part time whilst I am doing my teaching course. It just hasn't all sunk in ... I am not feeling excited about going back to uni at the moment. It is like an emotional blockage. I want to move to Brighton and find work work in raw food and invite opportunities to me, but can't bring myself to do it as I can't seem to make a decision not to do teaching. One of my best friend last night said I am lacking direction and I think he is right in part - I do have some direction but am lacking in focus. I feel like I need to focus on teaching or raw food, and if I choose teaching, raw food will lose my attention. I know I will continue to eat this way - it is so normal for me now it's not even a question - I am just worried I won't experiment or blog so much. I think I need to make a decision to do teaching and make time for raw experiments. A good friend has said he will help me keep focussed. And I have started to get the feeling things will become clearer on the retreat...

Anyway, I am going to Brighton again today (funnily enough) to meet a friend and while I am there I think I should get some more raw chocolate ... !! Everything truly did feel right in the world when I ate it!!

Sunshine Salad

I made this last night. I got the idea of peas and sweetcorn from some salads I had in Brighton (the sweetcorn from Manna of Brighton)I am into my salads at the moment with thick creamy dressings ... hhhm


Salad:
Round lettuce shredded
Handful sweetcorn
Handful peas
Half a red pepper cut into small pieces
Sunflower seeds

Dressing: blend with a hand blender:
1/2 avocado
1 tbsp tahini
1/2 tomato
2 tbsp lemon juice
very small pinch of salt

Mix enough dressing with the salad to cover well. A serving spoon is enough for one bowl of salad. I had some left over which will make a great dip if I mix some onion in. If you're not a fan of tahini (it can be a bit clawing on your throat) use less and use more avocado.

Experiments

Well, I spent an hour (or two!) working on some new recipes. I made the base ingredients in separate bowls and experimented mixing them together.



The green stuff is:

100g spinach
1/2 avocado
1 tbsp almond butter
1-2 tbsp lemon juice

Put all in the food processor and pulse slowly. It was so so creamy and delicious and lovely on it's own as a side. I think mixed with cauliflower and buckwheat and it will make a super filling salad or accompaniment. A lot of things I've been making recently seem to work better as accompaniments than eating loads of it for a main meal.

I tried the same thing again with 150g spinach and adding garlic, but then you could taste the bitter edge on the spinach which I didn't want and the garlic just made it too different... but it could be a good base for the Sag Paneer if I add onion too... So anyway lots of ideas which I won't bore you with til I have the final recipes. (Recording them more for my own benefit than anyone elses!)

Plus I had some photography fun




Plus I am going to Wales on Thursday for the raw retreat! I am getting really excited now. I really need some new ideas as well because I feel like I'm a bit stuck with all the same ingredients at the moment ...

Also I didn't go running tonight ... the excuse was I felt exhausted still from a night out on Saturday, and the head ache, and the wanting to have time to experiment in the kitchen and not get to bed late... excuses excuses...

Am still beaming at the thought of my Brighton+raw cacao day on Saturday. By the way, the Sag Paneer is still a work in progress ... I tried it again with ground cashews but think they would work better whole. The Russian Salad is also a work in progress which I am going to do a little bit of work on tonight! But first I have to go running ... I haven't been for about a week for one reason and another and I still can't be bothered tonight! I have a headache but hopefully the run will help that. I had a couple of glasses of wine on Friday night and enjoyed them but I think the detoxing is only just happening now, as I only really started drinking lots of water on Sunday. Anyway enough procrastinating I am going running.

Brighton!

I had such a great day in Brighton yesterday! Decided to go shopping there for some general Brighton feel-good factor, then found out Kate Magic was doing a talk on Cacao so signed up for that. My friend also came to event and we went to Manna after - my first trip there and it was great. The food was wonderful. I had some 'Be the Change' chocolate on the way home and felt so happy.

So I got well dosed up on cacao yesterday and felt the effects well into today - I just lay in the sun all afternoon and listened to some of my favourite music and felt completely happy about everything and it felt really good. I also had an urge to get some felt tips out and write some of my favourite things in fancy colourful writing which was very therapeutic! Like being back at school doing my art homework.



Had a huge green juice this morning with perhaps a bit too much kale and it was really really dark green!!

I made one of my fairly new salads tonight - all the salad dressing is half an avocado, one tsp of almond butter and 2 tbsp lemon juice, blended up with the hand blender. Use round lettuce and use the leaves when they are washed and drained but not bone dry and mix the dressing in well. It is a really creamy dressing and very filling. I also made some more homous - I really can't get enough of homous and carrot sticks at the moment!!!



I really want to move to Brighton and get into the raw food movement!!!!!!

I had to do the last two as separate posts because they are both so amazing in their own right!! I had the carrots and homous for a starter and the pudding for desert tonight - the main course was a long tasting session of some ingredients I was messing around with - I ended up with something that was getting pretty close to a raw Sag Paneer!! Will experiment more tomorrow and post the recipe!!

Carrots and homous

For me, it is the raw simplicities that are to die for. This is one of them. Whole, fat carrots dipped in Kate Magic's homous from Eat Smart Eat Raw. I could eat it all day...

Heaven in a little pink bowl

Something different for a change

Don't get me wrong I was quite happy eating much the same every day, but it was in the back of my mind to try some new things and then suddenly I had a whole dinner with loads of things I haven't had for ages, plus one new thing - Pak Choi! (Pak Choi Salad recipe is a separate post under Recipes) I have never tried Umeboshi paste before (I will check the spelling tomorrow!) although I have had a jar in the cupboard for ages. It is amazing. Very strong tasting and you only need a little bit. So very pleased with this. I thought mushrooms could be incorporated well in to Chinese theme but I am not feeling overly inclined to eat these at the moment... found out from some produce department info from work (a benefit of working in a supermarket) that they need horse manure to grow... is that vegan, out of interest? I'm not ethically against the use of horse manure, but still don't fancy it...

Anyway, I was very pleased with this salad for a completely new invention! And my sister liked it too : )

So I had that for supper, and I also had loads of homous with carrot sticks (which tastes sooo so good) followed by some sneaky teaspoons of almond butter and buckwheat.

I am eating quite a lot of 'heavy' stuff at the moment (if you click on the 'Brian and Anna Maria Clement' link you will know what I mean) but I am feeling really good on it and I don't think it is suppressing my emotions or anything like that - right now things seem clear and I know what I want and how I feel about certain things, like boredom, frustration, impatience, anticipation, excitement, etc. I feel like I've put on weight and running is still going steadily. So I think I will stick with this diet for the time being. I still love my very filling breakfast and like to finish the day with something similarly filling, but knowing what to have for lunch is difficult - as I am usually not hungry I have a salad but I don't always feel that great afterwards, almost like it would be better not to eat at all. I did say I wouldn't eat when not hungry!! Maybe I will try not having lunch and see what happens...

Check out the tomatoes! They are just a bit bigger than cherry tomatoes but looking good

Pak Choi Salad

I bought some Pak Choi with a vague idea for a Chinese inspired salad using ginger, and this is what I came up with:

Serves 2:

4 little Pak Choi (chopped to medium sized pieces)
handful of green beans (medium chopped)
lots of corriander

Optional
sprinkle of mung bean sprouts
round lettuce (the kind with soft leaves, not crispy like Romaine)

Dressing
1/2 tsp Umeboshe (?!) paste
1cm cubed Ginger (use the garlic press)
1/4 clove Garlic (use the garlic press)
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp lemon juice

whisk together using a mini beater and mix well with the salad veg.

This morning's juice

Here is what was in this morning's juice. (Didn't use all the ginger or all the alfalfa pictured!) Actually I ended up leaving the courgette out as I had loads. It was super tasty today but kind of subtle too which was surprising.

One of my tomatoes has started to go red which is exciting! Might start to see a return on my investment soon then!!! I also have a pepper plant now which I can't remember if I've mentioned? Will put a photo on next time.

My order of tahini, nut butters, dulse, nori sprinkle, coconut chips, sunflower seeds arrived this morning!!! I love it when I get stuff delivered. It made me think would've been cool to video unpacking it - maybe I'll look into how to put videos on here. Probably videos of me making food might be more interesting though! I started sprouting some chick peas the other day so now I can make homous with the tahini, haven't had that for ages. Yum. And I can't wait for bananas with rainforest nut butter...... heaven. And my mum gave me another reflexology treatment this morning too, I am such a lucky girl.

I started making a raw scrap book yesterday. It was fun cutting and sticking but I wanted to be in the sun at the same time, but it was a bit windy!! So a little tricky.

Beside raw food, (I do do some other stuff lol) I went to Bognor Rox music festival at the weekend - saw a band called Hakuna Pesa (I think?) who, strangely, I have randomly seen before at an open mic night in Chichester - didn't know who they were then. Not sure how to describe them, probably ska/sca? but with a reggae kind of think going on as well. Really really good.

Also still working on the Russian salad. Tried it without the almond butter but it definitely needs it with.

Last but not least, Life-Force Foods retreat in Wales is coming up very soon, so I am really looking forward to that now. (Can't believe I only have 1 week and half a day left of full-time employment!!) Then I am going to Vienna to visit my best friend from uni!!!!!!!!!!!!! So so so excited. So I will be blogging my raw tales from Austria of course : )

Ups and downs

A whole week and only 2 posts? Not sure what happened there. Anyway, I should be in bed but just had to get some things down - I had a great couple of days of no sugar (plus an early night) and I really noticed a difference - don't know it if it is a coincidence but today running felt great and when I got home after 20 minutes I set off again to go once more round the block! I had dahl for supper and everything was great, but then about 10.30pm I felt starving!! So I was really disappointed. Determined not to have cooked porridge, I settled for raw stodge of buckwheat and raw brazil nut butter, followed by a cup of peppermint tea to try and make my stomach feel content. It has kind of worked. Just hope I can sleep now, as I think late night eating (which tends to be bananas and/or raisins) doesn't help!! This is something I really want to work on as I feel that really will be a new corner turned for me with raw, if I give up sugar binges in the evenings. Plus the raisins I have aren't even raw. I swing between a week of not doing it followed by a week of doing it it frequently. I am trying not to let this niggle overtake the positives, and I really don't want to obsess about it, I just thought today that the difference is so worth resiting the cravings for!! I will write more about the positives soon - I have an update on the 'Russian' salad recipe after experimenting by adding beetroot...