I should preface this all with saying I'm not raw vegan, vegan, or even a vegetarian. I love steak. There's no way around that. It is fact. I crave meat like a squirrel craves nuts. However, the more time I spend in this life, the more I find that a little bit of everything is what we need excluding fast food, prepackage garbage, and the like. You have to do what works well for your body, and what works well for your body may not be the exact same as the person standing next to you, across the street, or in your own house. I don't think there is a one-size fits all diet. I've heard of many a raw vegan who couldn't sustain themselves past 5 years without bringing back animal product in some form or constantly investing time and energy to check levels of different vitamins and nutrients. The best source for B12, you ask? Organic, grass-fed cow meat. An organic, free-range raw egg yolk is good too. I don't want anyone thinking I'm something I'm not. I see value in eating lots of 'raw' things (including animal product to some extent), but I also see the value in eating cooked items as well.
That being said.... I should be honest and say I've never been a huge fan of root vegetables or squash growing up. I didn't even like sweet potatoes covered with butter and marshmellows and who knows what else at Thanksgiving. I've started conquering my squash aversion, but I struggle to eat 'baked' sweet potato, even now. For whatever reason, the texture just throws me off. I had a friend over for dinner last night who happens to be a Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian. Not only that but she is also a willing guinea pig as I try my hand at raw vegan entrees, desserts, soups and dressings. I decided to make a salad and a baked sweet potato side being that it is becoming quite cool here in the Midwest. I should probably also point out I'm not a fan of salads, but I can go over my greens aversion in another post. Do you see why it would be hard for me to be a raw vegan?
Anyway, the sweet potato side..... It didn't require me to take the skin off of the potato. Clearly, I'm lazy. I mean, I make a lot of my own food and baby food, use cloth diapers, etc, so I'm not a complete bum. However, the fact that I didn't have to take time to take the skin off of the sweet potatoes elated me beyond belief. It's quite sad now looking back at my excitement over something so miniscule. You slice the potato into rounds (one of the easiest ways to cut up a potato, in my opinion) and mix it together with coconut oil, cinnamon, sea salt, black pepper and a dash of coconut sugar (low GI). You bake it in the oven for 30 minutes or so and it's magnificent!
Now, maybe it was the skin adding something to the texture I'd been missing before, as I've never eaten the skin of a sweet potato. Maybe it was eating the potatoes with a Kale salad which involved quite a bit of lemon juice (sour and sweet combo). I don't know.... All I know is I'm going back to the grocery store to get some more sweet potatoes tonight and make more Baked SP Chips. Even little Wren was begging off of me even though she had carrots/zucchini and peas of her own to eat. I gladly shared with my little bird-babe, as I think it's great that she wants to eat healthy things at 8 months old when most kids are eating packaged junk their parents use out of a lack of understanding and a desire for convenience.
I'm also going to make some chili and toss in some sweet potatoes. I saw a picture of vegan chili with sweet potato in the starring role. I might take a bite without meat just to see how it lends itself, but I'm DEFINITELY adding some grassfed beef to the chili.... Maybe just less meat than I normally would add before my adventures into vegan and raw vegan cuisine. My chili has slowly transitioned from a bean, meat, cheese paste when I first got married to a thinner 'sauce' with more and more veggies. I may even add a little celery. We'll see. I'm not committing to anything except my new-found love for sweet potatoes.
10.18.2010
Nature's Candy
Honeycomb...... I've seen it sitting in honey section at my local health food store. I always wondered how it was supposed to be used. I've had bee pollen (not much of a fan) and I have JUST started appreciating local, raw honey. I've always 'known' honey. You know, that vat of golden sludge your dad pours on his biscuits (*shudder*). I always hated the taste. Within the last year, I started purchasing raw honey from a farmer in a neighboring town. I had the opportunity the other night at a friends house to try honeycomb. She graciously cut out a wedge of the comb and passed it to me on a utensil. I looked at the golden, messy blob and pondered what to do. "Eat the whole thing.", she said. I tried to gracefully grab the dripping clump of gold from the knife, but as you'll learn, grace is not my strong suit. With only a minimal amount of honey falling to the ground, I placed the mixture in my mouth. With beeswax between my teeth I hesitantly began chewing, expecting a bee carcass, even some surviving bee to explode out of one of the sections and angrily sting my uvula. As fear subsided and no 'crunch' was found, I started to relax into the intoxicatingly chewy, sweetness of this treat.
Since having my first baby 8 months ago (I can't believe she's growing so fast), I've had to clean up my diet like I should have YEARS ago. I saw how my diet directly affected the quality of her life on a day to day and even hour to hour basis, I started whittling away at my diet, immediately carving out milk, which ends up taking out a bunch of other stuff as well, like ice cream, desserts (butter is used in most desserts or a fake butter alternative), breads, cheese (do you even REALIZE that cheese is in SO MANY meals). Now, eating healthy is great. I can't imagine being able to survive on so little sleep if I wasn't eating nutritious foods, but I've missed some things (textures) that are not easily replicated with say....an apple. This honeycomb gave me a chewy sensation that I can't even replicate with a good combination of walnuts and dates (I love a good chewy, raw vegan brownie). It was literally like eating candy. I craved this sensation so strongly that I tracked down a local producer of honeycomb and waited at their door for 10 minutes hoping they would arrive and feed my 'need' for some HC. The honey I'm talking about, to be clear, is NOTHING like the nasty stuff sitting at every table at Bob Evans Restuarants. I can't stand the taste of pastaurized honey. However, the taste of raw honey, especially in a honeycomb, is beyond compare. I can't believe I've missed out on this for 27 years! The next evening I broke down and made a trip to the local health food store, as I need ingredients for my raw veg brownies anyway. $10 for a pound of honeycomb. Did I miss something? I thought things that didn't have to be processed (ie less work involved) were supposed to be cheaper. It is true that you get what you pay for, and if it weren't for my fear of bees I'd raise my own hive in the backyard and eat honeycomb all the time.
I am so ecstatic about this new treat, I took it to work and basically forced half a dozen people to try it, even people who, like me, don't normally enjoy honey. I didn't get one complaint. Some even really enjoyed it.
So, if you're looking for a new treat, or maybe an old treat that you haven't had since childhood, find a local supplier or stop by your local health food store and buy some honeycomb (or comb honey). If you can't find some place local, there is always the online market, just know that the more local the honey source the better your body can utilize the honey to help your body with any seasonal allergies you might have.
Since having my first baby 8 months ago (I can't believe she's growing so fast), I've had to clean up my diet like I should have YEARS ago. I saw how my diet directly affected the quality of her life on a day to day and even hour to hour basis, I started whittling away at my diet, immediately carving out milk, which ends up taking out a bunch of other stuff as well, like ice cream, desserts (butter is used in most desserts or a fake butter alternative), breads, cheese (do you even REALIZE that cheese is in SO MANY meals). Now, eating healthy is great. I can't imagine being able to survive on so little sleep if I wasn't eating nutritious foods, but I've missed some things (textures) that are not easily replicated with say....an apple. This honeycomb gave me a chewy sensation that I can't even replicate with a good combination of walnuts and dates (I love a good chewy, raw vegan brownie). It was literally like eating candy. I craved this sensation so strongly that I tracked down a local producer of honeycomb and waited at their door for 10 minutes hoping they would arrive and feed my 'need' for some HC. The honey I'm talking about, to be clear, is NOTHING like the nasty stuff sitting at every table at Bob Evans Restuarants. I can't stand the taste of pastaurized honey. However, the taste of raw honey, especially in a honeycomb, is beyond compare. I can't believe I've missed out on this for 27 years! The next evening I broke down and made a trip to the local health food store, as I need ingredients for my raw veg brownies anyway. $10 for a pound of honeycomb. Did I miss something? I thought things that didn't have to be processed (ie less work involved) were supposed to be cheaper. It is true that you get what you pay for, and if it weren't for my fear of bees I'd raise my own hive in the backyard and eat honeycomb all the time.
I am so ecstatic about this new treat, I took it to work and basically forced half a dozen people to try it, even people who, like me, don't normally enjoy honey. I didn't get one complaint. Some even really enjoyed it.
So, if you're looking for a new treat, or maybe an old treat that you haven't had since childhood, find a local supplier or stop by your local health food store and buy some honeycomb (or comb honey). If you can't find some place local, there is always the online market, just know that the more local the honey source the better your body can utilize the honey to help your body with any seasonal allergies you might have.
10.12.2010
Broadened Horizons
Well, here we go again. Another shot. Varied topics. Same blog name. After some inspiration, I decided that limiting my topics to workouts and eating just weren't cutting it, and it was crystal clear. Not only was no one reading, but I was bored with posting. It's not a good sign when the blogger isn't interested in blogging. So I decided my life, in general was far more interesting, to me, than any one thing in particular I'm doing.
I'm a passionate person, and that passion often has me scattered amongst many goals and ambitions bring several things up to an acceptable level instead of focusing on item and bringing it to a superb level. I'm a starter; I'm rarely a finisher. My husband, however, is a finisher (and sometimes a starter), and this difference can be noted in our cleaning styles. My husband goes through, room by room, finishing each one before moving onto the next. I, on the otherhand, will start on one project in one room, run across something that goes in another room, go into the other room to take care of that one object, find another project, sort and clean until I find an object that goes in another room, and the process repeats, leaving a tornado trail through various rooms in the house.
In my many adventures, I dabble in things ranging from raw vegan desserts, to cloth diapering, line drying (in the summer), learning to sew, playing a variety of instruments (guitar, piano, drums....but none of them extremely well), and the list goes on....seemingly endless, as I can always find something new to try. Hopefully, that will make my blogging more interesting than it has been ("oh look, she worked out....again").
I'm a passionate person, and that passion often has me scattered amongst many goals and ambitions bring several things up to an acceptable level instead of focusing on item and bringing it to a superb level. I'm a starter; I'm rarely a finisher. My husband, however, is a finisher (and sometimes a starter), and this difference can be noted in our cleaning styles. My husband goes through, room by room, finishing each one before moving onto the next. I, on the otherhand, will start on one project in one room, run across something that goes in another room, go into the other room to take care of that one object, find another project, sort and clean until I find an object that goes in another room, and the process repeats, leaving a tornado trail through various rooms in the house.
In my many adventures, I dabble in things ranging from raw vegan desserts, to cloth diapering, line drying (in the summer), learning to sew, playing a variety of instruments (guitar, piano, drums....but none of them extremely well), and the list goes on....seemingly endless, as I can always find something new to try. Hopefully, that will make my blogging more interesting than it has been ("oh look, she worked out....again").
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