Day 47: dulse is not bacon

What do you mean, we're out of kale?

The picture really has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but it's a funny one of Madeline and me from last week. We were in my school's library and if I recall, I was making some now forgotten emphatic point, and she was playing with Photobooth. We so rarely agree on photos of ourselves (one of us usually thinks it's the best picture ever! and the other wishes to immediately delete it from the memory card), so it had to be shared.

Last week, on a whim, I purchased dulse seaweed. I'm not sure, it seemed like a good idea at the time and it's really healthy for you. I wasn't sure what to make with it, though, and it sat in the cabinet, making everything smell like the ocean. Last night, Mad read the package which said that it could be used in place of bacon (!!!) and suggested making BLD (get it? like BLTs with dulse...heh) lettuce wraps for lunch today. So I obliged, even though I was not convinced and a small taste test did not assuage my concerns.

Verdict? Dulse tastes nothing like bacon. It was more like salty and slightly fishy lettuce and tomato. I couldn't finish, but luckily I had made myself a salad, as well, with the golden elixir dressing from The Raw Food Detox Diet. I like the dressing a lot, although I make it in half-batches because the first time I made it, it went rancid in the fridge in less than a week.

Lesson learned: dulse is not bacon and now I have to find another recipe for the rest of the package. Luckily, not all of my un-cooking is such an epic fail.

One of the things that Mad has really been struggling with since going raw is a lack of Indian food. Her parents are from India, and while I was raised on microwavable dinners, she had freshly made Indian food every night. It's fairly easy to eat Indian as a vegan, and after a few lessons from her mom, I was able to make some pretty decent daals. It hasn't been easy for her to maintain connections to her culture. Being gay and in a relationship with a white girl are huge obstacle. Not eating brown food is another huge blow.

So I went looking from some raw Indian meals. There's really not much out there, but I was fortunate to come across this blog of two Indian brothers, one of whom is raw and the other is high raw. Last night for dinner, I made their malai kofta recipe, which was quick, delicious, and most importantly, authentic tasting. My only deviation from the recipe was to substitute the coconut oil with 1/2 tb of olive oil and 1/2 tb raw shredded coconut, since I had none in the house. We're overdue for a trip to the local Indian grocery store. I'm inspired to rawify other curry recipes in the near future.

In sad news this week, we are out of kale. With all the green smoothies I've been drinking, I was consuming 6-10 cups of spinach and kale each day. Then Mad read something regarding spinach and the effect on the thyroid, which led me to research the small amounts of toxins in different greens. Of concern for both were oxalates. I'm not overly concerned because I am healthy and I don't have any conditions that would be aggravated by their ingestion, but it did underscore the importance of rotating greens for their different nutritional highlights. So I skipped my beloved kale and the big bag of spinach we usually buy in favor of romaine, turnip greens, collard greens and chard this week. Unfortunately, all except the romaine still contain oxalates, so next week I'll be looking for more variety. Should have done my research first, I suppose. It's not bad, but I had my smoothie recipe perfected and now I'm all thrown off. Chard, in particular, was difficult for me to make palatable. It's really, really salty. A lot of citrus was called for.

Other quick highlights: we have Egg (less) salad from Awesome Foods in the fridge for dinner tonight. I think we're really lucky to have this great raw food company local to us. We're able to buy the whole range of their products at our rockin health food store, but they deliver on Wednesday and if I wait until Saturday when I work in the city to stop in, their stock is already depleted. So we made a special trip to the store last night just to snag some egg (less) salad, which we've heard rave reviews about. After the dulse debacle, I'm super excited for dinner tonight!

-Eloise

Day 41

Observe... the hippie in her natural environment

You know those weeks that you have so much to get done, you just know that you're either going to die or completely fall apart in the middle, but somehow you make it through to the other side and you feel like you can do anything? Yeah, it was one of those weeks for me. I had midterms, and in addition to exams, I had a 30 page lab report, a 5 page paper and a 20 minute solo PowerPoint presentation (with an automatic failure for the use of notes). Somehow I got through it with everything on time and complete and my sanity relatively intact (as I have every midterm and finals week for the past four years. Just don't try telling me that in the midst of everything... ask Madeline how she knows).

So I finished early today, and it's spring break for me with no course work to attend to. I'll be working more hours, but at least work does not give me homework, and we're going to try to take some time to take at least a day trip. Madeline was at work studying for a certification exam today, which has been delayed since she was sick so long, so I went to the produce market to pick up some veggies and suited up to go on a hike. What you can't see in the picture is my exciting outfit. It was crisp and cool, rather than cold, today, so I broke out my shorts and wore them with wool knee socks and my hiking boots. It was the perfect amount of clothes for the weather, other than the fact that I have some lovely thigh chafing going on now (do thighs develop calluses? Cause I swear this only happens the first couple times I wear shorts in the beginning of the season). Also, I ran into my neighbor on the stairs, and she told me that I looked like a Swiss hiker. I'm going to take that as a compliment. My hike was really great. There were very few people on the trails and I completed the route that usually takes me an hour and a half in an hour flat.

When I got home, I made myself another green smoothie. I have been ravenous for green smoothies lately. I've been drinking about 40 ounces per day- a giant one for breakfast and another in the evening. I'm pretty consistent with my formula: blenderful of greens, 1 banana, 1/2 cup fruit and 2 cups water. I've learned a few things, though, that make life easier. If you add the juice of a lemon, it takes away the bitter taste of greens. This is a magic trick when it comes to kale. I don't even taste it! Obviously it's not necessary for greens like spinach, though. Also, frozen fruit is a huge money saver and you can stock up your freezer so you'll always have enough fruit without worrying if it's going to go bad. My freezer currently contains blueberries, cherries, strawberries and pineapple chunks.

While drinking my smoothie, I got busy in the kitchen. I made raw parmesan, based on this recipe. Here's my variations:

Raw Parmesan

• 3/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
  
• 3 tablespoons raw sesame seeds
• 3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
  
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Process sunflower seeds and sesame seeds into a fine meal, then add yeast, salt and garlic powder and process until well combined.

It was so good, I wanted to eat it with a spoon. But I didn't because it's for tonight's dinner: zucchini "pasta" with puttanesca sauce from RFMEF1o2P. The sauce is made and I'm just waiting for Mad to come home to process the zucchini. I don't have a spiralizer, but I find that if I run the squash through the food processor with the shredding disk, it comes out a good size. I have walnuts soaking to make a pate tonight for topping salads to take to work this weekend, and I even washed all the dishes, so the kitchen is spotless. It's been a good day.

-Eloise