Raw Week - Day 2

Another day of raw food! I have to be honest - I woke up this morning not very excited about the day ahead. It wasn't that any of the food I ate yesterday was bad - it just wasn't amazing or very exciting. Food is such an important part of my life (obviously) that thinking about the yummy meals I'm going to be eating really helps get me through the day. And when I'm not excited about my food, the day looks less appealing. But, I'm trying to be open minded and try new things here! This exercise is not just about how the food tastes. If I made all my food choices just based on how things tasted I'd probably live off of macaroni and cheese and ice cream. But if I did, I would feel very gross all the time. And very fat. So, I kicked myself in the ass this morning and packed up a big healthy raw breakfast and lunch. And both were quite good!

For breakfast, I got to have my oats!

Don't these look like my usual oats? This is made with oat groats, which is the whole unprocessed oat kernel. Last night I soaked 2 cups of these in water. This morning, I blended them in the food processor with a couple dates, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and a little water to thin it. It really tastes like oatmeal! At work I scooped some into a mug and mixed in my usual banana, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. It really was good! And super filling. I also sampled one of Liz's raw donut holes from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen.

These were also really yummy! A little on the sweet side, but a good treat. I was really going to try to not have any tea this morning - and I held out until noon. I was feeling kind of groggy and out of it all morning, and I kept hoping I would just snap out of it. But when I was still feeling sleepy by noon, I realized I just had to have a little caffeine fix. So I made a cup of tea with warm - not hot - water and drank it without milk. I felt much better afterwards. I will not try to suck it up tomorrow morning.

Liz and I both did lots of raw "cooking" this weekend, and for lunch we had a big buffet of all the food we made.

All of this is from Ani's cookbook. We made ourselves some wraps using romaine leaves, collards, endive, and radicchio.

I had chopped up some red peppers, carrots, and golden beets that we used to fill these, along with Ani's garden pate, taco meat, broccoli mash, and some avocado dip that is Liz's own recipe (and one of the best things on the table!).

I had 4 of these wraps! They were really tasty. I seriously would have no problem eating lunches like this every day.

After lunch I had another donut hole - this one had dried cranberries in it.

I brought some raw nuts, dried apricots, and goji berries to snack on, and had a few of these to get me through the afternoon.

I came home tonight and put my food processor back to work. Its really going to get a workout this week! I started by making a batch of raw almond butter, so I'd have that for snacks. Then I tried to experiment a bit and made some raw brownies - Brawnies! I didn't really measure anything, and I would definitely make some adjustments if I made them again. Its not even really worth posting the recipe, unfortunately. I mixed in the processor almonds, dates, vanilla extract, chia seeds, raw cacao powder, cocoa nibs, and dried cherries. I think I should have used more nuts and more cacao powder. They're a little too sticky and not too chocolatey.

Looks like I skipped straight to dessert, doesn't it. Well, I did make dinner before sampling these brownies. Derek advised me not to post a picture of it, but I just couldn't do that. I have to own up to serving this for dinner.

Yeah, I know. I wish I could say it tasted better than it looked. Well, it didn't taste bad. But it wasn't exactly, um, good. This was another Ani recipe. Marinated portobello mushrooms, topped with broccoli mash and mushroom gravy. Sounds good, doesn't it? It had potential, but it just did not work. The texture wasn't appealing, the taste was eh. And you can see that the presentation left something to be desired. Derek decided tonight that he would not be joining me for dinner the rest of the week. I don't blame him.

So, here's where I stand after Day 2. I'm feeling really good about raw breakfast and lunch. Raw dinner has not worked out so well. And how do I feel? I have yet to feel the burst of positive energy I was told accompanies eating raw food. I'm sure the total body changes take time. But I felt kind of tired and meh all day long. That very well could of been the due to the fact that it was a Tuesday after a long weekend and raining. I'm not passing any judgement yet. But I'm also not sold yet. Trying to stay positive over here! Its tough when my fiance is sitting next to me devouring a slice of warm rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream. I'll just go back to my brawnie...