Day 66

Wake up, lazy butt!

I have come to find that preparation is the key to eating raw (and I'm sure in some sense, this is applicable to healthy eating in general). If I come home at night and intend to make dinner, my options are limited. If we're lucky, there's leftovers. If not, well, it's salad with a vinaigrette. Not bad, but not really satisfying.

If I've planned ahead since the morning, though, I have nuts and seeds soaking and my options are much more varied. If I thought about it the day before, I can have something dehydrating and waiting for us. That's the best. It's like having a slow cooker (but raw!).

My friends tease me about my Mary Poppins-like purse that I carry, and admit that it gets ridiculous (three calculators... I may be an engineer, but even I don't know why there are three calculators in my bag), but there's always a snack stuck in there. There's nothing more disheartening than being stuck in traffic, hungry, and surrounded by inedible food. Being a vegan did prepare me for the phenomenon of scarcity in abundance, but at least we could still keep our eyes peeled for the Taco Bell on the horizon. A grocery store is our best option now, but it's never a sure bet. So keeping a snack on hand is really the only way to go.

Madeline and I have both found that throughout the day, we almost exclusively eat fruits and vegetables. I also drink lot of green smoothies, although she's not really a fan. Sometimes I'll include granola in my lunch tin, but today, for instance, I brought an extra quart of green smoothie in an insulated bag (which, I might add, fits inside my giant bag). It's going to be a long day at school for me. When we get home, we like to sit down to something hearty and flavorful.

Yesterday, I made flax crackers from The Renegade Health Show (my only variation was to throw in a little garlic powder... everything is better with garlic) and they finished dehydrating this morning. Since our dehydrator was a refurbished model, we didn't get a timer, which would have been helpful, but I remedied the situation with a $10 light timer. It worked like a charm. I flipped the crackers last night before I went to bed, set the timer for six more hours and in the morning when I woke up, the dehydrator was off and the crackers were done. I'm pleased.

By the way, if you're making the cracker recipe and you're like me, you haven't watched the video (something about cooking shows, I just don't have the patience). I was kind of confused what to do with the flax seeds after soaking them. It tells you to include the tomato soak water, but not a word about the flax water. Was I supposed to drain them? Regardless, I trudged ahead blindly, assuming that I'd eventually figure it out, and lo and behold. After soak for a half an hour, there's no soak water left. Instead you have plumper, slimier flax seeds. So that solved that.

I'm pretty sure they're going to be great. I haven't gotten a full taste yet, but I nicked a sample this morning when checking to see if they were crisp (from the corner that was missing, I strongly suspect that Madeline did as well). We'll eat them smeared with egg-less salad (scroll down) from Awesome Foods (we don't buy many packaged foods these days, but it's just phenomenal) and a huge salad on the side.

-Eloise