Dabbling in the Raw

Now I’m definitely no raw foodie, nor do I have plans to become a raw foodie anytime in the near future (or even more distant future for that matter). But with the recent raw food blow up it was inevitable that I had to get a glimpse into what all the fuss has been about.

Relying primarily on raw food guru Gena’s great website Choosing Raw because of her simple, informative and delicious posts and recipes, I’ve been whipping up a few raw dishes in my own kitchen recently.

Raw Recipes I’ve tried so far:

“Pizza Cheese”
I’ve been eating this constantly with crackers and carrots (or simply with a spoon). I had full intentions of using it as a wrap-filler but it’s so darn good on its own that I have yet to get around to doing that. A repeat recipe for sure.

Perfect Gazpacho
What a way to introduce myself to gazpacho. Freshest soup I’ve ever tasted. My food processor didn’t thicken it up to its fullest extent but I have a bit leftover that I may throw into the Bullet to really make it creamy.

 

Zucchini Pasta with Sweet Pepper Marinara
WHY did I wait so long to shred zucchini and carrots into a pasta-like dish? Ingenious! But even more ingenious… The Marinara. Oh. My. Delicious. I almost ate the other half just by itself, but I’m trying to save it for when I pick up some cashews so I can make some Rawsta a la Rawdka a la Diana.

My dabbles in raw have been minimal so far but my taste buds have been overjoyed by each one and I have full intentions of continuing to experiment with more raw recipes based on sheer taste alone. The health factors of these foods are just a nice little benefit.

Shockingly, the Soft Serve has not made its way into my kitchen (nor therefore my stomach) just yet. I know, what the heck am I waiting for?! It’ll come, it’ll come.

 

Aside from raw foods, my normal eats have been taking place as well. The past couple days have been sadly unproductive and unexciting so eating, exercising and getting acquainted with the joys of Scrubs have coincidingly been the joys and banes of my existence.

Wednesday

I ate feta-topped omelets (and my weight in grapes).

Introduced myself to zucchini marinara.

Killed my nostrils by snacking on wasabi peas.

Got some free Barlean’s Omega Swirl Flax Oil samples in the mail.

Painted my toenails.

Had a salad topped with leftover shrimpies (the biggest shrimp I’ve ever eaten!) from a ‘cashew shrimp with vegetables’ dish I ate at a thai restaurant another night this week when I went out for dinner with my mudda.

And to think there was once a day when I refused to even touch a shrimp. I’m glad I changed my mind.

Thursday

Twas an Oat Bran kind of morning. I haven’t had one of those in a while.
This one included water, almond milk, flax, cinnamon and blueberries in the pot; and obviously banana, blueberries and almond butter in the bowl.

Some Scrubs, singing and sweating filled the morning.
Some salad with tofu, baba ganoush and popchips filled the stomach.

Some roasted red pepper hummus and cottage cheese filled the sweet potato.

Some apples, strawberry banana yogurt and Kashi Honey Puffed (+ some hardcore Sudoku and some hot chocolate) filled my lonely evening.

Then my mom insisted on taking me for an evening walk, which always makes me feel a bit better. After that I read on the porch with the bugs and finally just went to bed.

Now it’s Friday and although still unproductive and feeling inexplicably tired, weekends always throw a bit of rejuvenation my way so hopefully this’ll be a pretty good one.
I’m off to have a snack, do some running and then go for a hair trim this aft.
Rejuvenating weekends all around!

Summer Schlop and Some Culinary Fun

Whoops. I’m looking at a backlog of photos here…yet again. I’m so predictable.

Let’s do a bit of a rewind way back to some of

Friday’s delicacies

The Highlight of the day!

Yeah uh, kidding! Although this was good, definitely not the highlight of the day. It’s too much of a mess for that. What the heck is even in here… Cabbage slaw, red pepper, red onion, tempeh, leftover rice, honey mustard? It’s madness.

THIS is an improvement though – THE freshest, plumpest dried fruit I’ve ever eaten. Thank you Costco.

And courtesy of my grocery store’s health food section – Crofter’s Superfruit Spread! First time seeing it and it was on sale. Score! I haven’t cracked the Crofter’s just yet but it’s sitting in my pantry waiting patiently for the fridge to clear out a bit.

For dinner Friday night my mom suggested we make some gazpacho. I’ve never made, nor even tried gazpacho before but it seemed like a good summery meal to make,  and I knew immediately where to turn to look for a good blended vegetable recipe – Choosing Raw of course!

I wasn’t let down as I quickly found Gena’s Perfect Gazpacho recipe.
Now mine doesn’t quite look like Gena’s (I guess my food processor isn’t up to blending par) but the taste was so light and fresh. I’m no raw foodie so I definitely dipped some fresh bread into the soup – this sure makes a good bread dipper!

Speaking of dipping, post dinner including a little bit of a dip into this:

And chugging of this (I needed some liquid energy before my late night of dancing that lay ahead):

 

Saturday

I woke up much too early considering my late night. My internal alarm clock is not my friend, I’ll tell you that.

Obviously late night paired with early morning = cereal. Nothing else will do.

This is what made it into the bowl but I’m pretty sure the amount of Peanut Butter Puffins I actually ate (over the course of the day at least) would probably fill this entire bowl… twice.
+ Weetabix + Blueberries + Banana + Yogurt.

I must like my food to look like schlop because lunch was equally schloppy. Schloppy in the bowl but clean for the fridge! This bowl helped finish up some rice and quinoa leftovers, cottage cheese, hummus + a bunch of veggies and honey mustard. Yums.

I spent a good chunk of the day sorting through a whole whack of magazine page cutouts I’ve been hoarding in my room for ages. I’m an obsessive mag page ripper. I have to go through every magazine that sets foot in this house and rip out anything I might find a use for before allowing the mag to make it to the recycling bin. This equals a lot of miscellaneous articles and pretty pictures kicking around in a giant bin in my closet. Every once in a blue moon I’ll sort through a bunch and purge a bunch. Saturday was that blue moon.

During this sort and purge process I came across a recipe for Honey-Roasted Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies. It was ripped out of the LCBO’s Food & Drink magazine Summer issue 2003. I immediately pictured the giant jar of almond butter from Costco sitting in my pantry and dropped everything to get started on the baking session.

It called for 10 minutes baking time and I only did 8 but they still burnt on the bottom. Crap! Overall they were pretty tasty but not award-winning. Guess this page is one for the purge pile.  

Still feeling culinarily experimental, I later on whipped out a package of wonton wrappers that have been chillin (literally) in the bottom of my freezer for… I dunno, a year? I’ve been dying to make some kind of dumpling recipe but just kept forgetting to do so. No more!

I scored the net for fillers and how-tos and then got to work. I used this recipe as my main guide.

I cooked up spinach, carrots and onion in chicken broth and spices, stuffed these little finicky wonton wrapper buggers and then pan fried them using cooking spray and more chicken broth – no greasy oil fry required and they turned out quite delicious!

Be aware if you ever decide to do homemade dumplings though – this isn’t exactly a quick meal. Much more painstaking than I thought it would be. Then again, my patience levels are practically zilch so I’m sure it wouldn’t be quite as frustrating for most people…haha.

I paired them with a cabbage slaw/cuc/feta salad and dipped them into an (unpictured) mixture of soy sauce, rice vinegar, ground ginger, honey and hoisin.

 

Monday – Wednesday

Much less exciting on the eating front, I spent the beginning days of this week eating things like oats, vegetables and leftovers.

Check it:

Overnight oats topped with Dark Chocolate Dreams drowned in almond milk.

“Crack wrap” and veggies with salsa and honey mustard.

Plain yogurt, cinnamon, peanut butter cookie pieces

Spinach topped with crumbled tempeh and honey mustard, leftover polenta bake (depths of the freezer) topped with rubber cheese, dumpling (x like 4)

More dumplings, cabbage slaw, plain tofu

Spinach/salsa/garden veg cream cheese –stuffed omelet, frozen vegetable mix, one swedish meatball.

THE best packaged cookies ever – Ikea’s Double Chocolate Crisps. Ever tried them? Good straight out of the package but amazing straight out of the freezer.

 

Doesn’t that just scream “Eat me!” ?

 

Breakfast yesterday was especially note-worthy because it was a CCV Recipe!
In honour of the Spiralizer Giveaway, I had to take advantage and finally get my butt in gear to make the oh-so-delicious Snickerdoodle Oatmeal!

And with that, the Blueberries and Cream Snickerdoodle oatmeal breakfast was born. I went with Katie’s suggestion of kamut flakes, cooked following the CCV recipe and ingredients, lightly hand blendered, then “stuffed” with a vanilla yogurt and blueberry center!

Miss CCV sure knows how to start off her mornings on the right foot!

 

And speaking of feet, I should get mine moving. I feel a bit like a bump on a log right about now!
Happy Wednesday!

Stolen Spring Break

Wait, what? It’s the weekend already? Where did my spring break go? Seriously, I cannot believe this week is already over, that is NOT right. Someone stole some of the days in there, I know it.

And I didn’t crack open a textbook all week… oops. AND I meant to get down to schooly business quite a bit today. Yet it’s almost 4 in the PM and I still haven’t cracked open a textbook. Double OOPS. Tomorrow? Ehe

Let’s see what’s been going down in my household the past coupla days:

Thursday:

Bake time! I was feeling all experimental so I decided to wing a baking experiment. Yeah umm I’m not a pro baker. I can follow baking recipes and churn out some great sweets once in a while no problemo but taking ingredients and measurements into my own hands and throwing things randomly into a bowl? I don’t quite have that down pat yet…

I came up with Maple Nut Butter Bars.

Sounds good right? Check em out.

They included oats, soy nut butter, and maple syrup among other things. I’d would post the recipe except that they came out just a tad crumbly and dry… so much so that my mams took a bite and promptly spit it into the garbage. Thank you mom, I’m glad you support my baking skills.

The rest are in the freezer. I like em okay! I think they’ll at least be decent topped with some pb or mixed into yogurt…

…which is exactly what I did with all of the crumbly crumbs that came off when I cut them all up.

After these were done I baked a bunch of squash(Warning: Incessant and confusing squash-themed rambling ahead). Buttercup and Kabocha to be exact. With my constant chatter about how awesome buttercup squash is, a few people have inquired as to if it was the same thing as kabocha. I’m no squash expert so I had no idea. I had tried kabocha once in the past and it was not the same as the buttercup I always got. BUT this time around I bought a buttercup and a kabocha and baked them both at the same time. Umm… okay so the kabocha was actually the buttercup I was used to, and the buttercup was the less delicious buttercup version I’ve been ending up with recently… I know that makes no sense at all but in conclusion, I think I’ve been squash deceived aka I don’t think the grocers know how to properly label squash, so I’m not sure if it’s actually kabocha that I’ve been loving all along. Either way, I’m fairly sure I have a good handle now on exactly what the one that I completely adore looks like, so from now on I’m ignoring labels and going for appearance (the buttercup and kabocha look quite alike so it can be tricky…). I still actually like all squash regardless so I’ll keep buying them all… but when I have my mind set on eating the one that I really love and then what I bake ends up not being what I thought it was, it’s a pretty disappointing moment!

But I’ve had enough of squash talk. Well except that I ate a whole bunch of it straight out of the oven and ended up being completely stuffed so I didn’t have a real lunch, and no pictures.

After that I ran on the treadmill. This was very difficult with a belly full of squash. My advice? Don’t gorge on squash before running.

Dinner was chicken, mac n cheese and more squash. I know I always have the ugliest dinners. I need to start beautifying them a bit.

Then some strawberries with SF chocolate pudding. Mmm.

Then in the early evening my friend asked me last minute to join her and a couple of her friends out dancing for her friend’s birthday. Heck yes! I love last minute clubbing plans. And how convenient that I just bought a couple new going out shirts earlier in the day for the heck of it.

We ended up going to a club that I have never been to before (it’s fairly new). It was SO much fun! I ran into a bunch of people I knew there that I hadn’t seen in a while. I also ended up having several drinks bought for me by insistent randos who were nearly fighting to get their drink to me first and then getting invited up to the vip area for some free bottle service. Works for me! Plus I ended up knowing some of the people who were already in the vip area so I had a grand ol time chillin with them. Best night I’ve had in a while and it was totally last minute and unplanned. I love it.

My post-drinking chow-down sesh once I got home? Can you guess? It was squash. I’m almost embarrassed by that.

Friday

Thursday night completely wore me out, I was such a zombie yesterday. Probably because I went to bed around 3:30 and got up at 8:05. Stupid internal clock. I was in and out of bed all day just from pure exhaustion but I don’t think I actually managed to really sleep anymore. I was basically just lying there half asleep an hour here, an hour there. Bizarre I tell you.

My first time dragging myself out of bed I had some yogurt, banana, strawberries and Guardian cereal.

Later on I had a random salad that included spinach, carrots, mushrooms, onions, red pepper, squash, avocado and leftover salmon.

Then I just went into snack mode and munched on a bunch of things I can’t remember. It didn’t do much though because after lying in bed for another short while my tummy was still grumbling.

I had some Optimum Power cereal with almond milk.

I guess this worked because after a quick grocery trip with my mom I wanted to make dinner but I just wasn’t feeling it. I made some cream of cauliflower soup and raw veggies dipped in salsa. I ate the veggies but ended up tossing the soup after a few bites.

I had plans to go out again with a couple friends last night. I wasn’t really looking that forward to it since I was still so tired but I finally mustered up enough energy for a 30 minute butt kicking Tae Bo Cardio Cirtcuit workout. Yay. This helped.

I met up with my friends and we went out for Bubble Tea. I love this stuff and I hadn’t had it in a while. I got strawberry-peach with passionfruit jellies. Sickeningly sweet and I loved every sip. Ever tried bubble tea before? What do you think of it? I remember the first time I ever tried it I thought it was disgusting. The tapioca pearls were a throw-off. Now I love it in all it’s pearly goodness. I didn’t get any tapioca in mine last night but still.

Then we went to a sports bar place with a dance floor downstairs. Honestly I never really have fun at this place. The dance floor is small, your feet get stepped on all the time, the music kind of sucks and the people are all a little young… I was driving too, so tolerating that completely sober just wasn’t working out so well for me, or my friends for that matter. We left pretty early but I was just fine with that because I had a great night the night before and bed was much more appealing last night.

Saturday

So it’s now practically dinner time on Saturday and I’m getting more saddened every minute that passes by, as I realize that I recommence school in just over a day. Oh joy.

Breakfast: Egg white omelet with salsa, spinach, and feta, grapes, and an orange. I also had an unpictured kiwi and several cups of coffee but that’s kind of a given.

For lunch I made a freaking sweet Tofu Sandwich. Sharon always makes them look so good, I just couldn’t resist any longer. I used medium tofu and pan-fried it in buffalo and bbq sauce, then sandwiched it in a slice of whole grain toast with dijon mustard and spinach. I am sandwiching my tofu from now on.

Fresh fruit!

Iced Coffee!

And… school work time? Sigh tear sob.

Happy rest of the weekend!

Cold Drinks, Hot Foods

In the midst of my studying (two midterms tomorrow, it’s crack down time!), here’s another quick recap of the past several days of foods:

 

Friday

I was feeling for a smoothie? Haven’t felt for one of those in a while during these cold winter months, but for some reason it was just calling to me. I used half of an orange creamsicle flavoured protein powder pack that I’ve had lying around for ages, and combined it with some unsweetened almond milk, yogurt, frozen banana, ice and spinach.

Nothing like a chilly drink on a chilly day? Hm…

Lunch was a wrap stuffed with hummus and some chickpea cutlet bits that I threw together the other night. Plus leftover baked tempeh and squash dipped in honey mustard.

Dinner was scrambled egg whites with green pepper, spinach, salsa and a swiss cheese slice, on an english muffin (it’s truly hidden under there somewhere!)

 

Followed by the greatest iced coffee I’ve had in ages. The cold wintery months don’t allow me to drink it often (because I’m always too darn cold!) but I was somehow feeling nice and toasty that night. And somehow this one turned out completely perfect. No idea what I did differently but I was literally smiling through drinking the entire thing. My mom thought I was a little nuts.

 

Then I went and did some shopping with a friend. Driving to get her was especially lovely because it was the first time in what felt like a gazillion years that I was driving somewhere for novelty rather driving either to class, back home, or to work. I haven’t hardly done any nice leisurely things since this term started.

We did some clothes browsing but amazingly enough I came home empty-handed for once! Okay, that’s kind of a lie. Empty-handed in terms of clothing. Food? Now that’s a different story. We also love to grocery shop/food browse.

 

New Mediterranean flavoured cottage cheese, Unsweetened Almond Breeze (On sale!), Liberte Svelte Moka Yogurt, 5-Grain Hot Cereal, Peanut Butter Puffins (! – I haven’t been able to find these in a while and I practically jumped up and down when I saw them), Clif and Luna Bars (On sale!) as well as a Bumblebee Bar and a Pure Protein Bar!! that we found at a little health food store. I’ve never been able to find the Pure Protein bars before so this was a huge dealio for me. These are huge ones though, so I think I’m going to have to eat it in two parts. They only had one flavour, I think it’s S’mores.

So that was the highlight of my day/night. And pretty much of my past couple weeks. You know it’s midterm time when…

Saturday

Hey Breakfast. Weetabix, Puffins, yogurt, almond milk, apple chunks, banana.

Snack at work: First try of the Cocoa Coconut Larabar. Good, but not stellar. I probably wouldn’t make the cut onto my All-star Larabar Team.

Lunch was a salad, an unphotogenic apple and a container of the Mediterranean Cottage Cheese.

This was good! I was afraid it would have an olive-y flavour (note the pictured olive on the container… I’m not a fan of them) but there was none to be found. It tasted like cottage cheese with seasonings in it. I like the convenience of these but I’m still a loyal plain cottage cheese gal. And if I really wanted it to taste like this, I could probably easily (and cheaply!) recreate it with whatever seasonings are in my cupboard.

Dinnero was a big pile of orange cauliflower (so much more fun than the white stuff) topped with leftover butternut squash and kale soup and sour cream. Along with a small side of meatloaf and …ehem.. boxed mashed potatoes? I know, pathetic right, but there is something about their flavour that is slightly addicting in a weird sort of way.

Saturday night I agreed to put the school work aside and go out with a friend. I haven’t gone out with this particular friend in a while (or any friends really, I haven’t been for a night out in a month! Longest time since before the summer. So sad) so I figured I would join even though I was pretty tired. But no, bad decision. Total waste of time. I remembered why I don’t go out with this friend anymore. It’s one of those people that’s all gung-ho to go out and then suddenly changes her mind within 5 minutes of being out. We were hardly in the bar for 20 minutes and I ended up getting dragged around and chauffeuring people back and forth between multiple locations for the next hour or so after leaving the bar. Some people are just so darn indecisive.

Sunday

Sunday I spent the day butt glued to the kitchen table, studying. Woohoo.

Breakfast: Moka Yogurt, Wheatberries, Pom Seeds, 1/3 banana

Lunch: Big egg white omelet filled with spinach, green pepper, salsa, chili sauce. Side of baby carrots and a mini pita with hummus and salsa on top.

 

Followed by a micro-ed apple topped with vanilla yogurt, some oats and PB Puffins.

I didn’t know what the heck I wanted for dinner but I was craving carbs and cheese. Mother suggested grilled cheese. Mother knows best!

I had a grilled cheese filled with: cheddar and swiss, turkey, dijon mustard, and buffalo sauce, dunked in salsa. Hoorah.

With a side of leftover orange cauliflower topped with chili sauce.

 

Monday

I wasn’t starving when it came time to eat before class, so I went with a simple fruit plate and the bottom of a bag of Peanut Butter Granola with almond milk and a little yogurt.

But after getting ready for class I discovered that I was much hungrier all of a sudden, so I quick chowed down on some cottage cheese and a small handful of mixed nuts.

I had a couple morning class, snacked on an apple during an hour break, then went to my info processing lab where I almost completely screwed up my lab mark when I got completely flustered and couldn’t remember how to use the vlookup function on Excel (is that really necessary? ugh). Then I went home.

I was in need of some veggie consumption so GIANT veg bowl salad it was.

I also had some coffee and butternut squash puree mixed with yogurt and wheat berries.

Then I spent the rest of my afternoon studying. Happy happy joy joy.

I ate a great sweet potato dinner. Haven’t done that in a while for some reason. This was topped with wilted spinach and a mixture of fat free sour cream, salsa and nutritional yeast. Mm mm goooood.

I enjoyed every bite of this. Well. ALMOST every bite. I was very excited about the last bite since it looked extra tasty but when I shoved it into my mouth I discovered it was a rotten part. Ick. It came right back out onto my plate. At least the rest was good…

I had to “rinse” my mouth out from the rotten ick, so what better way to do that than with some more butternut squash and yogurt mixed with PB PUFFINS, extra stylin with the trippy screensaver background.

After that I managed to shove in a half hour treadmill run and some abs and squats before spending several more hours nose to the books.

Now I need to go back to that yet again. I’ll post today’s eats later. Aka probably tomorrow sometime in the afternoon after I’m DONE two of my midterms. And still studying for the last one on Thursday… it’s so close I can taste it…