hurrah for days off! (a salad.)

ok, i have salads every day. but something about slowly preparing one for lunch today made me want to post. and, well, jodie mentioning my blog last night and i admitted i have kinda abandoned this guy lately because of my annoyances with photo allowances. i'm using photobucket now and going to roll with some posts while i have the inspiration!
so, today's salad!

cut up and thrown in:
-several leaves of romaine
-an avocado
-a yellow carrot
-a small handful of pea shoots
-a stem of fennel
-a couple radishes

blended as dressing:
-splash of hemp seeds
-spoon of tahini
-a bit too much filtered water (1/4 cup? would definitely start slow next time)
-a splash of apple cider vinegar
-juice of one lemon
-half a big clove of garlic
-leaves off one stem of sage
-a few chunks of dulse (shells washed off ^_^)

delicious! 
i'm a garlic and sage fiend lately. (on top of my avocado and radish OCD). loving it!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 18

breakfast... raw bagel (it wasn't in pieces!), *roasted* seaweed, chili salted sprouted almonds, olive oil and apple cider vinegar, salad and apples!

 lunch... perilla and green leaf lettuce leaves, ice berg lettuce, raw 'italian' crackers, sundried tomatoes, dulse, oil and vinegar...

 dinner... banana (later mashed up with the cacao nibs! YES!), and same salad as above...

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 17

breakfast... broccoli? potatoes and carrots? oh my! warmed food but a welcome change. i didn't even have cereal this morning! ooh and the 'asian pears' - oh yes!!!

this salad had some sundried tomatoes and dulse and oil and vinegar and it was kind of depressing. but then i found out the squash soup was vegan. and it was delicious! YESSSSSSS!

dinner... nori potatoey covered noodles of some sort, steamed greens and salad. worked for me. but i ate way too much and felt sick afterwards.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 16

before breakfast, i couldn't help myself but eat ALL of the treats mipa gave me yesterday. ok, darren had ONE but still. these were like a less sweet, softer chewy lara bar: persimmon taste instead of date and almonds and 2 other kinds of nuts. how did i forget already? i'm so grateful for these. i have to detox from sugar right now. yesterday was insane. and i want to feel normal again! thank you so much, mipa for these little orbs of delight!

the last of my almond milk today :( but what a way to go! i soaked the chia cereal in it, sliced up 2 bananas and sprinkled cacao nibs on top. this is HEAVEN. totally doing this when i get home too. well, if i can get away from my blender in the morning. i can't WAIT to make smoothies again!

there were cherry tomatoes this morning so i added them with some sundried tomatoes to the *roasted* seaweed atop of the iceberg lettuce salad.

 lunch... not raw but wow... options! baked squash? just had some at loving hut last night. i LOVE it so much!!! and then a spicy leaf and onion thing that was vegan. yippee! and perhaps the end of my brown rice?

 dinner was sad... even for the meat-eaters. i put some dulse and sun-dried toms and apple cider vinegar on top of the salad. and then ate a (non-raw!) clif bar. and then tried some freeze dried rambutan (very strange and doesn't taste natural at all except the smell is the same) and some chickpea miso soup.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 11

breakfast... i had saved a banana from yesterday and couldn't resist mashing it up with cacao nibs like last night's lovely treat! there were oranges and well, salad! and today i thought i should open up the organic almond milk i brought and the goji hemp buckwheaties that i had bought back home at buddha-full. i found it a little bland until i got to the exciting golden berries but really, it was a nice comfort food in the morning. i was hungry by noon though which was a bummer and had to grab a larabar. i wish larabars were raw and organic but i love how simple the ingredients of them are! so really i should be making them myself!

 lunch - an orange i saved, some steamed greens of some sort with garlic salt and then i poured some dulse crumbs and spanish almond croutons from back home at organic lives. i am already regretting i only brought one bag of them with me this trip. i just have a few crumbs left for a iceberg lettuce salad in the very near future.

 dinner... it was a sad night tonight for me as everyone was buzzing about this squash dish that had cheese mixed all through it. i was happy there was cold (yet previously steamed) broccoli and i almost finished off my croutons (alongside dulse again) on the salad. i am so graetful for my bag of spirulina superchips which i managed to eat all of while typing on this here computer. i was so excited to see them at drive organics before i left as i have always ordered the bars from vegan essentials for these korea trips when i have time to wait for them to cross the border. well, a bag costs $10 in vancouver but online, it's $5.49 u.s. bleh. oh well, it was worth it! of course i didn't know i'd end up in seattle the day before i left for korea where i could get 2 bars for $4 at whole foods! ANYWAYS.. this is not a price comparison blog, i swear.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 7

breakfast... *roasted* seaweed again atop some salad... persimmon (YES!!!) with chia cereal. YAH!

 i scored an orange yesterday that i saved for lunch. salad with rawmesan on top with dulse and flax crackers i made back home on the side! (crackers were simply soaked flax seed and ground flax, ginger and red onion). my chef friend was concerned that i didn't take any of the white rice. i brought some brown rice but i'm not sure how to go about that. i can't make that in a cup in my room but i also can't see myself asking someone to make it for me. so really not sure why i brought it!!!

 there were potatoes tonight at dinner and i couldn't resist. then they came out with french fries. i had maybe 3 though because the last time i remember eating fried food before summer, i was sick all night! oh, also have to say that these oranges were AMAZING.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 6

so... this morning... greens i could eat, nuts i could eat (not raw but STILL) and roasted nori... i don't know how others are so hungry by lunch time! 4.5 hours until lunch? no problem! and fruit galore! back home, i'd call these asian pears. but if i'm in asia, what are they called?

 cucumber in some oniony garlic vinegar, banana! and hemp seeds on the ol' faithful salad for lunch!

 it's pizza night after dinner so that generally ironically means no options for me for dinner in the cafeteria. but at least there was salad. dulse and hemp did me well. and then some oranges were brought out. YES!

 and yeah, my excitement while everyone eats pizza (if i can wait until then) is these cookies. yippee!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 4

breakfast.... i added some *gasp* roasted seaweed strips to my salad and ate the bean sprouts from the cafeteria. it was nice to switch things up though. fragments of raw bagels with walnut butter is so awesome! so glad i brought that! but i have to say - the salad is nice today with the addition of peppers and different leaves and shoots!

 raw bagel with walnut butter continued... and salad... this time i added some half decent sweet pickled seaweed and radish (? i forget?) shred...

 added dulse and sundried tomato to the salad tonight at dinner... not so exciting. think i'll be having some chickpea miso soup with kombu quite soon!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 2

breakfast... some sort of bitter citrus, "rawgles" with walnut butter, and salad with rawmesan and olive oil. love this ramesan! nutritional yeast, sunflower seed chunks, walnuts and sea salt. 

 lunch! added chili salted almonds and sun-dried tomatoes (from organic lives) and the rawmesan to the salad and had some of the not-so-raw rice noodles with toasted sesame seeds and veggies and some sweet pineapple!

 dinner... more of the same salad stuff but i added some dulse as well.

korean middle school cafeteria day 14

i felt obligated to take roasted seaweed at breakfast as NO teachers came down and the head chef said he brought them out as per request of my nutritionist friend who used to work at the school. gah. the grapes were an amazing reason to be there though.













then i got an orange! YAY! and a mango drink for my roommate ^_^













for lunch, i used the last of my sprouted pumpkin seeds (salt&vinegar) and sunflower seeds and added sundried toms.













dinner was the same minus the pumpkin seeds and sundried toms and dulse instead. i had to dip into my emergency snack stash after this.

korean middle school cafeteria day 13

hmm is this any surprise? salad and a chia cereal concoction! almost done the chocolate one now... i love that i brought the coconut now that i have a place for it. it will especially help the plain cereal i have coming up...













i have always had to hide tomatoes with other food to be able to eat them raw without gagging. i feel i have crossed some threshold. i can now eat a cherry tomato without disguise and without immediate veg chaser. hurrah! i think? added dulse and hemp hearts to dress up this salad.













i was super hungry for dinner so i added the last of my sesame gaufrettes and some hemp hearts, tamari and sundried tomatoes with nutritional yeast of course. i only eat this much nut yeast in korea! i wonder if that means something. oh and today i upped my e3 AFA supplement dose to 2. and i feel it made a difference. i feel way better than yesterday. totally needed the boost. but maybe it was the kids i teach. i love my class!

korean middle school cafeteria day 10

i added goji berries to my cereal this morning. excitement! ah, and a lot of coconut apparently.













my sesame gaufrettes from back home got all soft in the package :( so i couldn't do sandwiches like i was hoping. but it was nice to have a different taste in my mouth. onions!













i added everything i could think of to try make the salad more interesting for dinner. it helped. dulse, sun-dried toms, sunflower seeds, hemp hearts, olive oil and apple cider vinegar and nutritional yeast!