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Showing posts from June, 2010

Home Sweet Home

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I'm alive! I don't know how you clever bloggers manage to keep posting while you travel and/or are really busy. I just can't keep up with everything and had to take a blogging break. Though I still have no wi-fi, I just wanted to quickly say that we have all safely (and miraculously) made it across the border safe and sound. I don't know how we managed to fit plants + people + pets + stuff in one car and make it here all in one piece. We didn't even run into too many problems with border control (luckily, our plants came from Canada originally so they were allowed to come home). The funny thing was our license plate was from no other state than... ... so we got a lot of funny looks trying to cross into Canada. Maybe the plate was causing me to drive more recklessly? Don't mess with Texas! Anyway, we got to our new home okay. I was super psyched to see how many plants there already are in the front and backyards. On top of that, we came at the perfect time of th

Dehydrator Winner!

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Hope you all had a great weekend! But more importantly thanks to this super random number generator : TO ANDREA FROM Eating with Good Intentions for winning my first ever giveaway: Andrea, given that I'm leaving the country in a couple days, could you please send me your address (to eatdancelive@gmail.com) asap so I can send off this raw food baby to you? (I've sent you an email about it!) Best of luck on your raw food journey! I hope this dehydrator helps you as much as it helped me keep at it :) Let the raw dehydrator goodness begin! Thanks to all of you who also participated and since I realize I really like spreading the raw love, look out for more raw food goodie giveaways in the future! Have a wonderful Monday!

I fear scarcity

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Two more days to enter in my dehydrator giveaway , and thanks to all of those who already have! So despite the fact that we are officially leaving the country in less than a week, we kind of went nuts during our last trips to our two favourite local grocery stores: Roots Market and MOM's (you will both be very very missed). I think there is something very primal in a human being when it fears that it won't be able to get food... like stockpiling. We were like two weary travelers in an oasis after a long trip in the desert, grabbing at everything and anything that said "raw" on the label and putting in our grocery cart. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but we both felt this definite sense of urgency, like we didn't know when we'd be able to find these products or food ever again. The silly thing is, I've been to all the natural grocers in Ottawa and I love them all, yet I don't know if they have all the raw goodies that I'm used to buying here or if

Breakfast makes all the differences

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Again, keep up the entries to my dehydrator giveaway , only 3 more days left (Sunday night at 11:59 all bets are off!) Everyone has their eating ups and downs, but on a raw diet it seems that most the time the options are up, higher, or highest. Today was our big packing day which included lots of furniture, 53 boxes, and our kitty and plants still in tow... sounds tiring right? Well after the power breakfast we had, I've gotta say I've never felt better! To prepare for our big day, I listened to an intuition I had yesterday to make something with chia. I always listen to these types of "cravings" because I believe it's often your body telling you that you might be missing a key nutrient found in the food you are craving (obviously this only works on a raw diet, I doubt a craving for Doritos is really anything to get worked up about). So I made Meredith 's Blueberry Chia Pudding and added mesquite and maca powder to the mix. I know it seems a simple thing to

Why I'm in love and other goodies

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First off, keep up the entries for my dehydrator giveaway ! Secondly, Andrew made this pretty drawing for me with the top of an heirloom tomato I used in our lunch today. I cut the top off of it to avoid eating the stem, and found that our tomato actually had a little face under its top. This is why I'm in love: Adorable, right? Thirdly, with that little tomato, I made an amazing super cauliflower couscous inspired by the one in Matt Amsden's Rawvolution : Finally, for dinner, I also had my second chocolate cherry bomb ever :) I just had to try the infamous recipe that was all over the raw food blog world! I gotta say, I actually like it better without the chocolate part (I know...), so I made one without the cacao for me and one with for Andrew. They were both delicious! Thanks for an awesome recipe Kristen ! Great day, great food! Just what I need to fuel the last 48 hours of my life before our moving truck comes! Also, our kitty thinks he's a box car race car driver: Zo

Dehydrator Giveaway

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As promised, come one, come all, for my first giveaway! The winner will be selected one week from now, at 10am on Monday, June 21, 2010 . At this point and for shipping reasons, only US and Canadian readers can put in their bids this time. For your pleasure, I'm offering what every raw foodists needs: YOUR VERY OWN DEHYDRATOR! Sure a raw foodist can eat fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds, but a dehydrator is just so much fun! Owning one has completely satisfied the needs of my inner baker, and has made both Andrew's and my tummy very very happy since I got into raw foods. After one absolutely flawless year of service, I'm giving away my 4 tray Nesco Dehydrator because I'm "upgrading" to a 9 tray Excalibur once we move up to Canada. My lovely dehydrator comes with 3 fruit roll sheets , and 2 Clean-a-Screen trays . The Nesco has served my every dehydrating need: raw cookies, raw burgers, tartlet crusts, calzones, pizzas, crackers, breads, kale chips, panca

The one who gets my diet

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Long story short, two things have been keeping me away from blogging and will continue to do for the next two weeks. 1) The last week of insanity before our move: I'll be dancing around boxes, totes, and stray things until Thursday night! 2) And of course, my quadri-annual (wait... does that mean every 4 years, 4 times a year, or nothing at all?) patriotism embodied by: Though my World Cup fanatism has died down since France's sweet victory in 1998 when I was 12, I've been taking serious time out of my day to dedicate to recapturing my youth... haha. Before I get into my brief workout recap, I just have to say that I love that my little two-year-old cousin (my cousin's kid), Eno, is the person who understands Andrew and my dietary choices better than anyone else in my family. Thanks to some seriously awesome parenting from both my cousins, he really understands the concept of eating raw. He'll make sure to know our likes and dislikes before we have dinner, he'll

Pasta Two Ways

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I think I've found love again, not since spirulina have I had such a love affair: kelp noodles. The only opportunity I've had to have them were during a number of visits to Java Green . What is there not to love? They're seaweed and they're like pasta! Two of my greatest loves. Problem is I've never been able to find them on my own in any grocery store anywhere... However, just yesterday, they were wonderfully gifted to me . I absolutely love their texture and they made my night! To celebrate what will be the first of many dinner dates with kelp noodles, I turned them into a super tasty raw jobche. Jobche (or japchae or chapchae) is a traditional Korean dish made from cellophane noodles (no, not actual cellophane, they're made out of some bean or yam starch) stir fried with sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, and veggies typically including carrots, onions, spinach, and mushrooms. Understandably, Jobche actually means "mixed vegetables". So were mine... but

Don't Forget to Eat

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Eating consistently is one of the most important things you can do for your body and mind. Everyone has always said not to skip meals and the like, so... I'll say it again! I've tried a lot when it comes to tweaking my metabolism to see what works best to feel great and stay healthy. Though I'm sure I still have much to learn, I think I now know what's most important for me. While these aren't totally original, here are just a few pointers I should have listened to more today: 1) Don't skip breakfast: Like many teenage girls, I have to admit that I did skip breakfast for far too long. Adding breakfast back into my life was perhaps the single most noticeable dietary change I made before going raw. Eating breakfast keeps you awake, active, alert, and ready for what the day holds. It fuels you. You can't run an engine on empty or nearly empty without damaging it, can you? And what do all nutritionist and fitness instructors say anyway? It's been proven tim

Fasting on a Raw Diet

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First off, the big heads-up on my blog is for you to look out for my first essential raw food equipment giveaway coming up next Monday!!! It's going to be a good one :) Day 1 of the Green Smoothie Queen's 10 day Challenge was a fast until dinner. The beautiful thing about being on a raw diet is that fasts really aren't a big deal anymore. Yes, I don't do them often, but when I choose to, I don't really get hungry and it's perfectly painless. I've seen people go through 1 day of fasting and act like it's the most torturous thing they ever have to do, they feel hungry, they get headaches, they can't be very physically active, etc. On a raw diet, I got up this morning, walked around the shops of Georgetown for a couple hours, went for a double weights workout to make up for this weekend, and walked 2 mile home. The result? I feel great! I'm not trying to drum myself up here, but the lifestyle choice I have made. It's really quite fantastic. Ac

Sunday Workout Recap

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Week 2 of Gina 's Summer Shape Up with minor schedule adjustments. Again, gotta say, my back is dying for it but I can't get motivated to do yoga. Why is it that even if we know that something is good for us we still don't do it? My goal is to push myself to actually do more of that for Week 3 which is what I'm assuming will be in store :) Before I get into the workouts though, I do have to say that I may or may not have had one of the worst (or best?) detoxes ever recently. I was suppose to take those Gaia Herb tinctures that I mentioned 2 weeks ago for 14 days and that time has pretty much come to an end. Two nights ago, I woke up with this crazy stomach pain and won't go into the icky details but... wow. Ever since I've felt amazing though. I guess 1 week of chakra feast juicing and 1 week of green smoothies has really had an effect! Tomorrow, I'm starting the Green Smoothie Queen's 10 Day Green Smoothie Challenge , and I'm psyched! Monday Day

Self-Appreciation

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It was another green, green day today but that won't be the focus of my post. For all you curious raw foodies though, today was all about 2/3 green juicing again. I think this may become something of a permanent habit of mine because I'm really loving it. Breakfast was papaya, frozen pineapple, and spinach. Lunch was me voraciously eating 3/4 of the batch of tabbouleh I made yesterday (think me = lion in the savanna and parsley = poor defenseless wildebeest), assorted veggies and some watermelon. Dinner was another green smoothie of 1 pear, 1/2 frozen banana, beet greens and frisee lettuce, and water. I ate dinner during my weekly use of Pangea 's awesome Face Mask , and I was very entertained by the fact that my face mask was the same colour as my green smoothie. Classic. ( phot o source ) Anyway, on to the actual topic of my day: Self-Appreciation. We spend way too much time beating ourselves up for things we both do and don't do and it really has to stop! While we ca

Busy busy bee

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So after a day of more relaxed eating yesterday, green smoothies were back in store for today! Taking just one day off has made me realize how much more alive and amazing I feel the more green smoothies (or plain fruit smoothies) I drink in a day rather than other stuff. I started my day with a mixed berry-beet green smoothie. Lunch and snack made up the bulk of my solid food intake for the day. I created what I believe to be an amazing hemp seed tabbouleh (or tabouli to Americans) recipe. Tabbouleh has always been one of my favourite dishes, but I've always been pretty staunch about the parsley-mint ratio as well as how lemony it is. Too much lemon can just make it too sour, too much parsley just makes it well... parsley-ish (how does describe the particular flavours of parsley?). However, just the right amount of everything makes for a perfectly refreshing dish for a hot summer day. It's no wonder they eat this in the desert. Since tabbouleh is pretty much raw already, all I

A Day of Yummies

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I've established today that I could never be a raw foodist who mono-diets. By that I mean, I couldn't eat just bananas or just apples or just kale for a whole month, a week, or even for a couple days. I've been making green smoothies for 2/3 of my meals since Monday, and the desire to chew or just to eat something non-green has become somewhat overwhelming. Everything has been absolutely fantastic tasting, but I guess it's still just not cutting it. I finally food splurged this morning by not putting greens in my breakfast smoothie, and just had a "plain" papaya-frozen pineapple-superfood smoothie instead. It was legendary. Lunch was back to the greens. It was a beautiful 1/2 orange, 1/2 apple, 1 handful of lettuce, 1 big handful of parsley, 3 ice cubes, and one small piece of ginger smoothie. While I thought it would be vile, it was actually really good! I couldn't drink it fast enough (but for digestive reasons, remember to chew your smoothies!) I'm