First Taste of Cooked Food in 6 Months

Last night I went out to dinner with my parents. It was a very nice, upscale restaurant on the water. It was pricey, but I felt I deserved it. Not so much the food, but the atmosphere. I ordered mushroom ravioli with fresh arugula, and mushrooms in a broth. And yes, I ordered dessert. creme brulee.

When I was a cooked foodie, creme brulee, plus tirimisu was my favorite dessert. I know that these foods are full of bad things, but once in a while is not going to hurt, (cough) much. Yes I didn't feel great after, but lately I haven't been feeling great in general.

The whole experience was wonderful. As a child I cherished the moments of our family dinning out. Even if we ordered pizza in, I loved it. Being raw I have really missed this. The feeling of togetherness, having someone wait on you, trying something new and tasty, and you don't have to do the cooking or clean up! I don't live by a raw restaurant by the way.

Tonight, my dinner consisted of a carrot, apple, spinach, collard green juice and a BAKED sweet potato. Its getting cold out and I was craving one. I repeat, this will not hurt me. Well, actually, if I think about it, some cooked foods, nuts and seeds not sprouted make your body acidic. I don't know about a sweet potato though. Does all this sudden cooked food mean my raw diet is over? No, absolutely not, infact, I am thinking about going on a juice fast, I just have to research that a little more. I haven't confessed this to anyone yet, but I consume popcorn once a week. I pop it my self and add olive oil to it. I KNOW it isn't good, but I'm having a hard time giving that super delicious treat, up. Boy, did I struggle when it was time to give up peanuts, this will be the same kind of battle. Confessions are over, thanks for reading. I appreciate all of you, reading my blog and all, leaving a comment once in a while. Thank you

Chocolate Cake, Buckwheat Treats and More

These are the Buckwheat Treats from Living Raw Food. I made more today, but a cinnamon version. Very good.

This was before I froze and cut it.

The chocolate cake from Sarma's book Living Raw Food is to die for! My favorite part is the mousse! The mousse contained cashews, young coconut, coconut oil, water, honey, vanilla, cocoa and salt, I couldn't believe how good it was! By the way, I made half of the recipe so this would serve six to eight people.

The cake part had walnuts, almond pulp, cocoa, honey, water, vanilla. I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I didn't use maple syrup and aded less cocoa.

Flu prevention article

http://hubpages.com/hub/Avoid-Flu?done

Healthy Chocolate Cake

I turned out not to be sick, thank goodness! I have a lot of homework to do and I work tomorrow, my 8th day. I work in the morning and then go back for a 2 hour meeting in the late evening.

When I got home from work today I started on the Milk Chocolate Cake from Sarma's book. I will give a post on that as soon as possible and the buckwheat treats I made.

Talk to you later

Sick

I think I might be coming down with something (could be detox, I haven't been sick in almost a year and that was the norovirus from work). I have had a sore throat for a few days (I often get a sore throat), but now I feel off, headache, stuffy. I work 7 days this week and tomorrow is the 7th day, I hope I make it.

For a week now I've been taking a online English class, I'm having a hard time. Especially because I don't have my books yet! They were all out, so I had to wait. I have e-mailed the teacher twice with no response. They might come tomorrow, it they all my money ($700) goes down the drain.
I'm also taking a weight lifting class. The orientation was today, which I had to miss because of work. By the way, work has been nothing close to a pleasurable experience this week!

My car broke down on the way to work this morning once again. It is like the engine quits and starts back up. The check engine light has not shut off yet either.

I bought concord grapes this week. I have never bought whole concord grapes before, they are very tasty. The only problem is that they have seeds and I will not buy them again because of this. I juiced the majority of them.

Food wise today I made more cranberry cookies and another batch of cranberry cookies without of the cranberry. Instead they have blueberry and blackberry.

Whole Food Snacks

The carrot cookies are on the left, candy in the middle, and the cranberry cookies on the right.
The cranberry cookies are very good! I need to really modify the carrot cookie recipe, adding bananas didn't really help anything. They aren't bad though. The candy tastes best when coated in coconut. The resulting flavor reminds me of a Cadbury egg.


Here are the cranberry cookies before dehydrating.

Recipe
1c chopped carrots
1 apple
3/4c ground flax
1/2c fresh or frozen cranberries ( I let frozen berries thaw in the fridge before using)
1c nuts or seeds (I used half walnuts, half almonds)
1/2T coconut oil
1/2t apple cider vinegar or 1T lemon juice
1/4c honey
1c raisins
salt to taste
Chop apples and carrots until fine in food processor. Add nuts and pulse that until combined. Add the remaining ingredients except raisins. Pulse until completely combined. You can leave small chucks of cranberries. Mix in the raisins by hand. I then used a cookie scoop to put the mixture on the teflex sheets, it worked really well. Dehydrate for 12 hours, flip the scones over 3/4 way through the 12 hours. The end result with be moist in the center with a chewy/crunchy exterior.

Homemade Candy

My homemade candy consisted of almond butter, cocoa, salt, vanilla, and honey. Just mix everything to taste, I will give the measurements later with pictures. Roll the mixture into balls or press into a pan and freeze. Eat right out of the freezer, delicious.

I also made cranberry scones, carrot cookies (I added 3 bananas to the mix for a different taste and texture), and a blackberry, cocoa butter, pudding. I was dipping the brownies from yesterday into the blackberry pudding sauce/pudding, oh my, that's good. Those brownies are addicting!

I will be making that almond, chocolate, candy often. As soon as my tub of coconut oil comes in the mail I will add a little of that to add to the melt in your mouth deliciousness.

Brownies and Cheese Sauce

Cleaning
Whew! I just cleaned out my dehydrator. It took me an hour to scrub EVERYTHING. IT WAS BAD! I had been putting it off for a while.

College
I had an appointment to sign up for my college classes today. I will be slowly working toward my AA degree.

This semester I will be taking an online English 101 and weightlifting class for a total of 6 credits. Wish me luck with the English.

Feeling Good

I think I have made a great discovery! I have been plagued with feeling sick since I was 10 with headaches, post nasal drip, gas, and bloating. These feelings took control of my life and prevented me from doing what I really wanted to do. I was constantly trying to find out what the culprit was. HELLO, that is the main reason I went on this diet!

I have been eating raw for 5 months now and I'm still not feeling 100%. I do think that stress has something to do with it.

Anyway, back to the discovery, I believe it is FRUIT. This week I didn't eat nearly as much fruit as I did during Summer, and I felt GOOD. It has been a LONG time since I felt this good. For the past 2 months everyday when I would go to work I would experience cramps from the gas and bloating. Last night I had a small plum and my abdomen gurgled all night long and this morning.

We have thought in the past that maybe it was Candida, I'm not so sure. (Let me get this out of the way. I have been through many, many, food sensitivity tests and diets over the years and last year I spent $1,000 trying to find a cure with a naturopath). I LOVE fruit, I could live off it, so it will be difficult to limit it. I can eat some dried fruit and honey and feel fine though. What does everyone else think?

I also have had RSD, RND or nowadays it is called CRPS (Complex, Regional, Pain,Syndrome), since I was 12. To find out more go to http://www.rsds.org/2/what_is_rsd_crps/index.html
I believe that my gut issues, and headaches are similar to RSD. I don't know how to describe this condition for you to understand, but for example if I were to stub my toe I could experience pain that is stronger than when I actually stubbed it for weeks, even though there is no injury. The communication between the brain and nerves is mixed up.


Food

Brownies and Cheese Sauce
This morning I threw together a cheese sauce. Here is the recipe.
1c cashews soaked
1/2 of a small red bell pepper
2T nutritional yeast
1T tahini (I didn't have any)
salt to taste
1/2t apple cider vinegar or 1-2T lemon juice
seasonings if you would like, I didn't add any
1/2t onion powder
1/4t garlic powder
1/4c water
Blend in Vita mix until smooth.

This sauce is so good I could drink it. It tastes good on zucchini pasta, crackers, as a dip for veggies, or on dehydrated broccoli.
The brownie recipe I used came from this website http://www.goneraw.com/recipe/hemp-brownies

I followed the recipe exactly and I'm very pleased with it.

Everytime I would see people saying about a raw brownie "they taste like real brownies!" I always think YEAH RIGHT! But I can honestly say that these really do.

I don't know how that works, since they don't have anything close to white flour, butter and sugar, but they do taste really good. I tried putting them in the freezer (don't try that, it doesn't taste very good). I like them best when they are warmed in the dehydrator!

So I have a question for all of you, How do you clean your dehydrator? How often? How do you clean the Teflex sheets?
I look forward to your answers!