lunch outside!

why people hide from the sun and soak chemicals into their body to 'protect' themselves from the sun and then have to take vitamin D supplements is beyond me!

is it not that more refreshing if you step outside your place of work for your break? i LOVE taking my lunch outside when i can! fresh air and vitamin D!!!

today, i tried ani phyo's carrot angel hair with sun-dried tomatoes in cheddar cheeze sauce (p233 of ani's raw food essentials). i got tired of spiralizing carrots after 3 so i did one zucchini which quickly topped up my need for noodles. for the topping, i processed some cashews and pumpkin seeds with garlic and salt. i added nutritional yeast and some red pepper to ani's recipe for the cheddar cheeze sauce on p105. and then served the noodles with the topping (including chopped sun-dried toms) atop arugula. YES!!!

and add this to eating outside? best lunch.

though wait until you see what i made yesterday!

wow, this coleslaw is next level.

argh. so i just wrote an entry here about my 'on the fly' coleslaw inspired (heavily inspired as i don't seem to want to often try something with no reference) by this and i managed to delete it and then when i clicked 'undo', the ever-handy auto-save of this blogger had already saved the blank. lovely.

anyways, this was a hit. though paul would've added raisins. i didn't want to open the bag he was taking on his trip though ^_^

what i did for dressing:
1.5-2 garlic cloves
couple nubs of ginger
2+ tablespoons sesame oil (out of olive! and didn't have tahini like in recipe so... perfect compromise!)
2+ tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1-2 tablespoons ground flax
1-2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons braggs
pinch or 2 cayenne

then after pouring that over half a head of sliced cabbage and 4 grated carrots, i took a small handful of brazil nuts and broke them up in the processor to soak up more dressing and to add even more heartiness.

i guess i'm a sucker for sesame and ginger. i think this salad is a win!

full + grate-ful (for) buddha-full...

12 hour days of work are no fun, especially when you get to the seabus to get home and have to wait half an hour until the next one.
then you rush back to your favourite place for food and they are closed!
but then one of the lovely owners is outside and invites you in...
then you have food to bring home for your favourite person and you to enjoy!
and the night is saved!

 thank you, buddha-full! always a delight!

oh and today, look what i took home from one of my 6 year old students! little rocks in the vase with these beautiful flowers from her garden! managed to not spill anything on the bus despite an hour of balancing with an over-capacity bus of canucks fans.

sadly, we did not win the stanley cup this year.

but is it bad that i don't care?

it's weird but i think i have finally figured out why i don't "get" hockey or watching sports in general. i think it's that i don't feel i get ANYTHING out of watching it. most or everything i do inspires me in some way and i feel i'm learning or want to create or do something after.... i've watched one hockey game and it didn't motivate me to do anything. 

so... no hockey for me.

but! raw food for me! on friday it looks like i'm going to lead a kindergarten class in creating a raw food dish. i'm thinking zucchini noodles with marinara sauce as i'm sure they will love the spirooli :)

photos of the process to come :)

oops, here's soup. it's been awhile.

i haven't written anything in forever. i swear i have been making lots of new things with success! hmm... well, to start is a soup today! i'm so happy it didn't taste awful! (for once)

what it is: brazil nuts, filtered water, a sliver of red onion, a couple sprigs of parsley, a stalk of celery, a carrot, a leaf of romaine and a spoon of sprouted chickpea miso. i was paranoid that i put too much onion in (i remember in attempts before that a little onion or garlic goes a long way when doing the raw soup) so i added more watery greens than i was originally thinking. i added the brazil nuts for creaminess when i worried it'd be too watery or "hot juice"-like. anyways, success! i ate it all with ease and even enjoyment. ha.
i feel like i should dump some photos on this ol' thing for an update so here goes...
last week i went for a picnic on the patch of grass in front of the storage place, across the street from organic lives. my friend had the tapas platter and i had one of my 'usuals', the tostada salad. of course, in my excitement to be eating AND eating outside, i slid the salad onto my lap first. but no matter.

so i bought tocotrienols the other day from, yep, organic lives, and i'm excited to up my vitamin e (so far, i've been using it in smoothies including a fantastic brazil nut milk, frozen pear and banana with ginger one). my skin has been freaking out lately and it's been driving me crazy!!! hoping more vitamin e is going to help... i was pretty proud of my "raw glow" as of last year. i guess detoxing can take quite awhile though. and i recognize i need to sleep more than a few hours a night. anyways... on the weekend, i managed an afternoon off to go on my friend's boat for a cruise around vancouver. it was BLISS!!! the water, the wind, the sun, the friends, the classic rock on the radio... the next day, my skin was noticeably more clear! i can't believe that one day can do that!!! so anyways, i have just a couple weeks until summer vacation and i'm going to be trying to sleep more and relax more before then but i'm hopeful that i will feel a lot healthier very soon!

okay, what else has been inspiring me lately? raw dessert! my friend alexia made this cheesecake a couple weekends ago for our friend anna's birthday:

 isn't it gorgeous? it tastes as great (or better?) than it looks!!!

i'm pretty sure it's the white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake (page 95) of sweet gratitude, the desserts book of cafe gratitude - an organic vegan place in san francisco i've somehow never been to despite visiting sf at least 3 times? anyways, alexia swears by this book and i requested it from the library right away. i now have it in my hands and am excitedly getting ready for my first attempt at something - the alexia-recommended "lemon-poppy seed cake" (page 54). i'm thinking if the sun comes out next weekend as well, it'd be super amazing to bring this out with some friends on grass somewhere or maybe if i'm especially lucky, on the water again!

hmm, so what other excitement? i've started making cracker/bread type things again! i was inspired by organic lives's sesame gaufrette but thought i'd try something to make a wrap. i blended up soaked medjools, sesame seeds and red onion, orange and a date or 2 and spread out on the teflex. ooh yes! so great! i don't have an exact recipe but each time i've done it, it's been great! though i do recommend one orange rather than 2. me and paul are imagining raw perogies in the near future! YES!!!

and what else? i finally attempted to make coconut jerky! i have been nervous about wasting my frozen organic coconut meat (not the cheapest stuff ever) on such attempts but i have since learned, you can't really screw up a good thing. coconut is just so fantastic... i guess if you have all yummy things together, you can't go wrong! regardless, i felt safer with a recipe to at least loosely follow and this is the one i found: 

Meat of 1 Young Thai Coconut - sliced in strips

Marinade:
1 T Agave
1 t Nama Shoyu
1/4 t each of Cardamom, Cumin, Cinnamon, Black Pepper and Salt

Marinate the Coconut strips in the marinade for 4 hours and then dehydrate.
I liked it best after in for 3-4 hours before I went to bed, but then I flipped and left it in until morning - and they were a bit too tough, still very delicious and great exercise for the jaws! 

ok it's funny to me now as i guess i didn't follow this all that closely but i was definitely heavily inspired. i don't use agave so i'm not sure what i used, if anything, in it's place.. i'm sure i used tamari instead of nama shoyu (not raw or soy-free but them's the breaks!) and i used the caradamon, cumin and cinnamon and some salt and maybe pepper. the texture is so awesome when you dehydrate the meat. i'm excited to experiment with this further!

hmmm... what else? well i am always super inspired and excited to eat at buddha-full in north vancouver. 

a few weeks ago, there was some sun and my friend and i ate outside. i finally tried their raw lasagna!

 super delicious, as to be expected, though i thought it was a little small for the price. but i am more than willing to pay for such things. i'd much rather have access to this kind of take-out than anything else!!!

bought a cheesecake for the bus ride home :) is it bad that i can no longer remember what kind it was?

ah, and as usual, had to get some of agathe's raw burgers for easy dinner later at home! 

here's some pics from the last time we made raw burgers at home!

it appears that agathe is no longer producing raw food items under the name "nature provides". looking at buddha-full's site, her company now appears to be called "tao organics". 

it looks like i will get to go to buddha-full on wednesday (hurrah!) so i'm excited to try one of their new menu items!

okay... 2 more updates... since i last posted, paul has been inspired to make his own raw dinner! i was so excited! it's always so much fun to eat something someone else has prepared!

i wish i could remember what he put together but i think it involved kelp and zucchini noodles, avocado, nutritional yeast (undoubtedly), tomato... and awesomeness. :) 

and last but not least, my 2nd year volunteering with growing chefs is almost done yet again. here's an inspiring photo from probably a month back already! look at this classroom garden! happy sigh!

happy growing and eating and loving!

toronto! to raw in tow?

last weekend my friend alison shields had her grad art show in toronto and i feel so lucky i was able to come out for the opening. i'm so excited for her finding her 'thing' if that makes sense? at first i wasn't really in the mood for travelling, strangely enough, but it didn't take long after getting off the plane to be excited to eat at live again and well, to see some great people again!
over the just under 3 days i was there, i went to live 3 times! hehe. so i'll start with that. definitely my favourite raw place. they have cooked things too but it's all vegan. and i love getting recommendations to go there from people who eat meat! it's always amazing! i have not ordered ANYTHING there that has been a letdown and that's pretty impressive!
i'm currently debating buying live's recipe ebooks... i can only imagine some amazing meals in the future if i had such inspiration... hmm....
on friday, i went for a late lunch/early dinner and couldn't decide so i went for the raw combo which included some pizza, falafel, spring rolls and beet ravioli! there was also a salad! this was probably the first time i did not finish everything on my plate and someone else's at a raw restaurant :) i can't even name my favourite dish on the plate! all incredible. ooh and i had a blueberry kombucha which reminds me that i started making my own kombucha just before i went and it was ready when i got home! my first batch ever! eek!

anyways, the next night, i came for dessert and we picked the black forest cake, almond butter cup and the raspberry strudel? (i can't remember what it was called) but again! nothing was a miss! wow. i don't know how this place does it!

and then, on my last day, i came for brunch and had the raw huevos! SOOOO incredible!!! i don't know what the thick cracker-like thing was that everything was piled on but it was super hard to cut into but seemed like too big of a mess to pick up... but no matter, it was delicious!!!

 that last day started with a rushed brunch (i had to get to lunch at live right afterwards!) at starving artist. i had a fruit bowl (amazing berries and such! i hate canteloupe/honeydew plus one grape fruit bowls!) and 2 mini vegan, gluten-free waffles with fruit!

oh and i musn't forget the awesome place i went to on the saturday: mylk uncookies in cabbagetown. their thing is "something for everyone". i had raw treats (of course) - the lucuma one was my favourite- but the cookies looked amazing - like pillows of chewiness! wish i had taken a photo! they have gluten-free and vegan things and of course, gluten-free, vegan, raw things! i had a couple tea lattes with house-made almond milk! they didn't have raw uncheesecakes that day but i hope to someday be back and try them!

oh and wouldn't you know but the owners are originally from vancouver and used to shop regularly at the kitchen shop i worked at for a number of years! i love how small the world is sometimes! :)

i didn't get to rawlicious which i went to last time i was in toronto and i still haven't tried cruda cafe but i'll just have to next time!

anyways... i had a wonderful weekend in toronto... got to meet up with a lot of amazing people and eat amazing things and i managed to bring a few things back from panacea too, including kale chips from live and a raw chocolate easter bunny lollipop from live on chocolate! YES!

hooray vancouver!

ok so maybe not so much "raw" news as vegan news on a rainy monday in vancouver... easter day-off monday... but yah...

so first, i was super excited to finally check out the completely vegan shoe store that just opened up on fraser between 19th and 20th, nice shoes! i had an ethical deal coupon (um, could i get any luckier?) for a pair of colourful grass (notice the 'u' in colourful? oh yeah, canadian! vancouver island even!) flats in vandana rose. any chance the name is inspired by vandana shiva, who i just recently saw in the inspiring good food, bad food or first heard of when i picked up manifestos on the future of food and seed? or am i just a food nerd?

 and well, how could i resist a pair of hopeful-for-summer-soon flats that bear my name!? and the brand name novacas means "no cow" in spanish and portuguese! love it! and these sandals are so comfy and i love that they snap open and shut and they are slouchy. and they are BUILT BY KINDNESS. how glorious is that?

oh and to bring this back to the raw... nice shoes is also carrying hurraw! lip balm which is "all natural, organic, vegan, raw, good" (hehe) lip balm! i got grapefruit and i LOVE how smooth this stuff is. like coconut oil but absorbs in more of a strong glide if that makes sense. when i have dry lips, i feel coconut oil is too thin to convince me it's working? i don't know. i haven't bought anything skin-related in so long but that was a super fun purchase. plus i love that the container is like a flattened version of the typically cylinder wind-up.

oh and talking with joanne at the store, she showed me this video of a 109 year old man who has been eating raw forever and he is just incredible! look at his skin! he's going to open a restaurant? his life has just begun! i love how he says "you've heard people say you are what you eat? well, you are!"

on my way home, i stopped in at gorilla food for a goji almond crunch cookie and i couldn't believe it! they now have a debit machine! apparently they've had it for 2 weeks? but i swear it wasn't there on friday or wednesday when i was last there :) hehe. but no matter! i'm just so excited that i don't have to wait until i have some cash on me to stop in! YAY!!!  i have to mention though, that when i was there on wednesday with 2 friends who didn't have cash, i had $40 for dinner for all of us and it was a success! we shared desserts, a smoothie and 3 menu items! who says raw, vegan, organic food is expensive?

bananarama!

tell me this doesn't look like the perfect thing to come home to after work... coconut water and the new chocolate banana pie from organic lives!

my new favourite dessert!!! (besides the brazil nut/almond heart cookie, of course!)

i was in the mood for macaroni and cheese and this didn't really do it for me but it was fun to use kelp noodles again and experiment with making a sauce with brazil nuts. i added some pistachios and lemon and nutritional yeast and regrettably a bit too much chili powder. i added some parsley (and cilantro) and steamed some spinach (for iron's sake! i just learned the other day that spinach's iron content is way more absorbable when steamed) and chopped red pepper and mushrooms.