My Little Hummingbird

Catatonic

2008-06-08T18:47:00Z

This week, I had more indulging on cooked food. Not good. I feel so catatonic, tired, lethargic. Going raw makes me realize what a compulsive eater I am and how I look to food for comfort. The cooked food just didn't taste the same and it didn't even give me the comfort I sought. The bad news is I went and had more the next day. Why? Who knows? It's not like I had one intentionally celebratory meal, I had several crappy processed microwaved meals. Blech! It reminds me of when I went of wheat and every time I allowed myself to have a little cookie, I would remember later, "oh, yeah...I really am wheat/gluten intolerant." It'll take about a week to get back to feeling good again. Summer is around the corner and this year I won't be teaching summer school! Hopefully good habits are coming soon.

Fire...Sky...Pow Wow

2008-05-27T05:14:29Z

Memorial Day weekend was a wonderful chance to catch up on lots of housework. Seattle was very warm. It was a weekend for enjoying lazy hammocks and Sangria and yummy green smoothies, of course. Later, as I was washing dishes, I heard a big boom only to discover Robert dancing wildly with large flames of fire shooting from the fire pit he manicly threw together last week and Rachel laughing hysterically. Nice smokey music on the phonograph, finally painting our back room a rich chocolate brown, and enjoying times with our friends Tim and Xea and their sweet toddlers from Portland made for a packed weekend. Summer is coming...

Dylan Thomas Sunday

2008-04-20T23:43:46Z

My husband was very inspired this morning and started reading Dylan Thomas to me. The sad part was, I wasn't awake yet and wasn't capable of thinking deeply about anything. At first, I thought, "Wow. Dylan Thomas is an amazing writer. I'd forgotten." But as my husband continued to read, I got more irritated. I wanted to enjoy the reading, but I still wasn't awake yet and hadn't had a chance to collect my own thoughts and we were going to be late for church. Egads! My brain was overloading. After my husband finished reading, he could tell I was totally annoyed. I don't remember what I said, but it shut him down. Then I wanted to bolt. My husband held his own. Then I wanted to throw something. Why couldn't he have just waited until later? He held his own. Then I felt bad. He felt bad. We both felt bad. After my shower, I offered to make him a SAD breakfast (Standard American Diet) of eggs with cheese & tabasco, toast, and dark dark rich black coffee...his favorite! We shared this non-raw meal together in our new almost finished bedroom and we read Dylan Thomas aloud all morning. Then snow flurries blew outside and we watched from our window. It was a beautiful morning.

Cream of Spinach Soup

2008-04-20T23:30:00Z

The image is a little blurry, but this soup was so good and super easy. The hardest part was openining the coconut which I will need to practice or devise a faster method. I served it with Matt Amsden's Famous Onion Bread from his book, RAWvolution.

Cream of Spinach Soup

1 bunch of spinach
1 small clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup of hemp seed, plus some for garnish
Water from one coconut (or coconut water from a tetrapak)
About 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup filtered water

Put all ingredients except water in an excellent blender, add a little bit of the water and blend on high power until all spinach is liquified. Add a little more water if necessary. Taste for salt and creaminess. Next time, I want to add some of the coconut meat and see how creamy it gets. I decided to save it and turn the coconut meat into noodles for another dish. Serves 1-2 people.

April Snow!

2008-04-19T03:19:31Z

I had a great, much needed massage this evening after which I walked out into tiny balls of hail! Even though I'm quite ready for spring and summer, the light hail was fun and felt very refreshing after a massage. I wish I could have one more often...

It's mid-April in lovely Seattle and it's hailing. In the course of a mile drive, the weather turned from hail, to rain, and then to snow. Pictured above are my neighbor's daffodils and my garden gnome Arthur. Oh dear! Spring time snow! It's supposed to really snow tomorrow. Good thing my produce order came in!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!!!

2008-04-14T01:19:55Z

I ordered my chia seeds! I've learned it's actually a superfood and super good for you. I've been so excited to use them as I do flax seed, but became quite dismayed when I learned that the trace mineral boron enhances estrogen production in the body! And chia seed definitely has boron in it. This would not help my endometriosis. So, I think I will have to use it in moderation as opposed to a staple. I was so excited to experiment with all kinds of raw vegan muffins and what not! Moderation it is.

I love my dehydrator!!

2008-04-13T21:33:50Z

Three years ago when I went gluten-free, I endeavored to bake breads that had the same texture, moistness, and heft as regular breads. In that journey I discovered many gluten-free delights, but none came close to the regular sandwich bread. Amazingly, now that I'm raw vegan, I've found the best gluten-free bread yet! Best of all it's not only gluten-free, but living bread! All the great enzymes and vitamins are still packed in there ready to do their work of nourishing my body!! Yippee!! James Russell's Mediterranean Almond Bread is the best ever!

Now I have yummy sandwiches to eat for lunch this week at work! Even the batter felt like a regular bread batter and smelled all yeasty!

I also happen to have some eggplant from my weekly organic delivery so I went ahead and made "raw bacon." It was scrumptious and I couldn't be more pleased. Avocado, "bacon", and lettuce sandwiches rock!

marinating the eggplant
dehydrating the eggplant "bacon"
raw "bacon" on my sandwich!

Hello blog.....Back on the Wagon

2008-04-11T03:11:34Z

It's spring break and I'm getting much needed rest. The best part of spring break is that I get to get back on top of living a raw food lifestyle. For many health reasons, my goal is to be 99% raw vegan, at least for 6 months to a year. Since January, I had actually been about 90% and then March hit with major work burnout (I teach elementary school), remodeling burnout (finishing a basement in our home), and recovering from lots of extended family drama, and I started giving in to several cooked non-vegan gluten filled delivery meals (pizza, chinese, indian!!)and my digestion and energy has totally paid a price.

This week is heaven as I try to work through grief issues(oxymoron, I know), get lots of rest, have no obligations, and just be. So, I ordered my excalibur dehydrator! It arrived yesterday. I'm so pleased. I already tried Matt Amsden's Famous Onion Bread. I didn't have any nama shoyu though (I think it has gluten) so I substituted Bragg's Liquid Aminos. I came out too salty, but still edible. Next time I'll add less liquid aminos or some other flavory liquid. I was so happy though. I had this onion bread with avocado smothered all over the top and cherry tomatoes! Yum! Yum! Yum! My grapefruit today was so thirst quenching! I decided to add it with pineapple, strawberries and banana and blend it all up!

Transitioning is hard. I find if I allow myself one SAD (standard american diet) meal then I just start snowballing. So I'm hoping my dehydrator will help me to make meals that will help me through this time. I really do miss the way I used to cook and eat. My body just can't tolerate that way of eating anymore.

Zippy "Tuna" Rolls

2008-01-30T03:48:54Z

I forgot to post one of my first raw meals, Zippy "Tuna" Rolls from Angela Elliot's
Zippy "Tuna" Rolls w. Broccoli Salad
Robert Eating Raw & Sabrina the CatAlive in 5 raw food cookbook. It's made primarily out of sunflower seeds, but I remember I added parsnip because I had it in the fridge. When we went raw this January, I came home and increased my order from Pioneer Organics to the large bin. I also increased the frequency to every week. Before it had been every other week. I think this Thursday we'll finally have a rhythm going so I won't have to rush out to get more fruit. We'll see. The tuna rolls, by the way, wouldn't qualify as an 80-10-10 meal because the seeds would be too high in fat, but they were tasty just the same.

Improvements I've Noticed

2008-01-30T03:12:23Z

Okay, so I definitely could do a better job keeping up with my blog. I guess I'm not used to exposing so much, although I'm excited to share my experience. Weird.

About the 2nd week, I seemed to have some strange detox symptoms from going raw. While I have struggled with hives before, I got out of the shower one day and got really itchy all over my body. It was a really strange sensation. It didn't hurt, but it was a fire-like flashy itch that seemed to turn off and on everywhere. It lasted about 20 minutes. I had also stopped taking Zyrtec and initially, I was itchy at night when I would normally get some hives, but after about 3 nights, the itchiness went away. I'm not taking Zyrtec and I'm not itchy.

I'm still taking my flonase, spririva, and this QC thing, but honestly I haven't been consistent. My cough starting coming back a little and then when I had a glass of wine, but other than that it definitely is getting better. I don't think I'm quite ready to get off those steroids quite yet. I think I need to hang on a little longer. Maybe when the weather starts to warm up again would be a good time.

I'm also pleased that I didn't really break out premenstrually this cycle. Yippee! I've also gotten a few compliments on my skin! Go figure! I still have some rosacea struggle, so there's definitely a ways to go, but it's enough to keep me motivated to stay raw.

Elimination has been good. It could be better, but I don't think I can share those details on a blog yet.

I noticed a lot of raw food bloggers like to share what they're eating. It's really interesting for me to see how everyone is doing. So, here's my food log, all day I've had mono-meals of bananas and then pineapple. Tonight, I experimented with julienned eggplant (which I first salted, rinsed, and wrung dry). These were my noodles. I then tossed together a raw marinara loosely based on Ani Phyo's recipe. It was yummy! I already had a raw pesto and just blended it with some tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, and a date. The color wasn't all that great, so I added a chopped tomato on top for color.
Now, I just need to see if hubby likes it.