Benefits of Raw & Eating a Plant Based Diet

I saw the trailer for this movie earlier in the week and I thought it was worth sharing. It is for the movie "Forks Over Knives" which seeks to explain why a plant based vegan diet is the best way to prevent disease and further, how consuming animal protein is a leading cause of most of the illnesses plaguing our western civilazations. It's a short two minute trailer:

In case you're looking for some validation of the benefits of a raw diet, I also stumbled upon this article which was a footnote in a blog post I read earlier this week. I thought article was really useful and helped validate for me why I embarked on this raw journey more than 43 days ago.

The article is a quick read:

http://www.iowasource.com/food/lenkastudy_0806.html

I was busy in the kitchen today making zucchini pasta (with gray squash), fudge balls and cheesy onions. I've got an early morning tomorrow so I'll post more about that tomorrow, including my review of my spiral slicer vs. a julienne peeler.

So Excited!!!

I am so excited because last night I booked a stay at the Raw Vegan B&B run by the lovely Eva of Uncooking101.com in Martha's Vineyard!

I'm going May 31st-June 3rd. I've never been to Martha's Vineyard before. I am so excited. Here's some info about it:

http://uncooking101.com/site/raw-vegan-bed-and-breakfast/extended-fun/

Notice the days I am going includes the raw chef certification. I am so psyched! I'm not planning to quit my day job to become a raw chef, but this certification will be great to have so I can have the skills to keep my own diet interesting and also help others do the same.

Martha's Vineyard is a little bit of a hike from the NYC area (5 hours-ish + the ferry over to the island), but I think flying would take just as long, and lots of sitting and waiting. I dislike long car rides, but I'll just get out and stop frequently and make sure I have an awesome playlist ready on my iPod!!

I can't wait. Today is day 43 of me being raw. (so hard to believe!). At the moment, staying raw is pretty much a no-brainer for me. I definitely know it is making me feel a lot better, so I have no desire to mess with what's working.

Next Monday (in just a little over a week!!) my company is having a group cleanse. It's optional, but I signed up. I did it a couple years ago. This year is for 5 days and the first two days are a citrus cleanse, then you buy juices from a company that prepares juice cleanses. Normally we get from Blue Print Cleanse, but this years I found an AWESOME deal on GiltCity.com for 40% off of their competitor, Cooler Cleanse. I'm going to do Cooler Cleanse this year because the cleanses are very comparable and the price difference is huge - I just paid $104 plus shipping for my 3 day cleanse. Blueprint Cleanse is $195 + shipping.

I'm both scared and excited about next week's juice cleanse. But I'm super excited about the raw B&B!!!

Speaking of raw "cooking" - I've been keeping it simple this week but today I plan to make some Zuccini wraps, zucchini pasta and some fudge balls. I've got a dog walk tomorrow to raise money for cancer research so I thought the fudge balls would be fun to share with my team mates. (we'll be super careful though as dogs & chocolate do not mix!).

Yummy Desserts - Fudge Balls & Oatmeal Cookies

I took off work today to give myself a three day holiday.  When I finished with the various errands that inevitably fill a "day off" I came home and the mail man rang my door bell to deliver me with a box of delicious raw oat flakes and oat flour from Sunrise Flour Mill.

So I couldn't wait to make some oatmeal cookies.  I found the recipe on Rawmazing.com.   I urge you to click the link and try it out.   They are still in the dehydrator, but I have to confess to eating one raw ... I mean "wet" ... they're still going to be raw even when they get out of the dehydratror!  They're really delicious, but next time I'd probably add a little more agave (or use sweeter apples) and also add some shaved almonds for added crunch.

Here's what they look like right now ...

The recipe made about two dozen cookies.  I can't wait until they are done and I can taste a finished cookie.   Other than macaroons, these are the first cookies I've made.

This week has been all about deserts.  Yesterday was one of my coworkers last day at our office.  She's moving on to another job.  Everyone loves her and she'll be very missed so we had a little party for her in the office to send her off in style.   I stumbled upon this recipe for fudge balls and decided to give them a try and bring them to her party.  They are super simple and literally take just about 5 minutes and three simple ingredients - cashews, dates & cacao. 

Since the recipe is on my computer I usually jot down the recipe to take to the kitchen.  Well, this time I should have read a little more closely.  Instead of grinding the cashews to a fine powder before adding the dates I put everything in the vitamix at once.   I ended up with these crunch fudge balls:

Even if they didn't follow the recipe, they turned out amazing.  Everyone loved them - no one could believe they were raw.  They didn't take long to disappear. 

I'm looking forward to making this recipe again.  There are so many things you could do with this recipe ... adding coconut for example ... how delicious would that be!

This weekend, I've decided to give Kelp noodles another try.  I have them soaking right now and later tonight or tomorrow morning I'm planning to make a simple pad thai type sauce for them.   Looking forward to trying pad thai with kelp noodles.

Enter to win a FREE Raw Getaway - Amazing Opportunity

I am so excited today because one of my favorite websites, Uncooking101.com is giving away an absolutely FREE vacation for a full week at a B&B in Martha's Vineyard.

And it's not just any vacation - it's a RAW vacation the week of May 1-8, 2011.  The vacation includes raw meals and several classes - even a class on building your own business around raw foods.

If you are into raw food or even have an interest and want to find out more this is an amazing opportunity.  Click here to find out more and how to enter to win:

http://uncooking101.com/site/raw-food-retreats/raw-vegan-bed-and-breakfast-win-a-week-stay-in-marthas-vineyard-may-1-8/

Please hurry if you are interested - this opportunity was announced earlier this afternoon and it's only valid for 24 hours.

I've entered - I'd absolutely love to win, meet the wonderful women behind http://www.uncooking101/, learn some new recipes and find out more about how to build a business around raw food to share what I've learned and help others become and stay healthy with raw food.

Good luck!

BLTA's and Raw Chocolate Ice Cream

Yesterday I made raw "bacon," lettuce and tomato sandwiches.  They were delicious.  I used avocado instead of the mayo.  I'm sure you could make them with a raw mayonaisse as well, but the avocado was simple and tasted great.   

I made the eggplant bacon on Saturday.  I used a combination of Ani Phyo's and Alissa Cohen's recipes.  I basically used Alissa's technique of using a vegetable peeler to get the thin bacon strips, and Ani's marinade.

This is what they looked like at the start of the dehydrating time:

And here's what the bacon looks like finished:

The bacon is not really all the amazing on it's own . I thought it was just extremely salty.  That said, on the sandwich with the lettuce, tomato and avocado, the bacon doesn't taste as salty and has a very texture very similar ot bacon.  It was delicious.

The wraps are zucchini wraps - I googled and found them online at this site:
http://www.choosingraw.com/desk-lunch-zucchini-wraps/

The wraps were really simple to make!!  Mine look a little different than those posted on the website because I peeled the zucchini.  They were actually pretty dry right out of the dehyrator.  There seemed to be no middle ground, they either were sticky/wet or crispy.  But today I had them for lunch and they were a lot more flexible and were actually usable as a "wrap."   So my advice on these is to try to make them a day ahead if you can - the wraps may work out better.

I shared them with my coworker who is also raw.  She gave them my best review yet.  She emailed me after lunch and said:  "The sandwich was delicious!!!!  You are an amazing raw cook...seriously everything you have made has been much better than anything i have ordered from the so called Raw Food Chefs!!!"

Okay, I am bragging and blushing all at the same time.  Because really, all I am doing is finding recipes online and making them.  I think raw food preparation is really pretty easy once you have the equipment - it's just not something we were trained to do growing up so it's a bit of a foreign concept to put foods together and combine flavors in their raw state.

I was thinking about it when I was starting out on raw.  I remember how when I was in seventh grade and took a home-economics class, the things they teach you how to cook are not healthy at all.  I can't remember what all we cooked - except cookies!  But I do know none of it was really all that healthy.   Imagine if schools taught kids how to make healthy raw food ... now that would be amazing!

Changing topics a bit, last night I also decided to try this One Minute chocolate ice cream that was posted on Raw Food Talk.  It is made of just frozen bananas and cacao.  It was very simple to make in the Vita-Mix and has the consistency of soft-serve ice cream:

My review ... delicious!!

If you want to give it a try, you can find the recipe here:

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=64727

Day 30!!! Thoughts

Today is day 30!  It's hard to believe. It went really fast. 

So what are my observations?

1. I've not really lost any weight - but that is probably my fault for getting my dehydrator so early on - the dehydrator makes it much easier for fats from nuts to sneak into my diet.  
2. I feel like I've lost weight regardless what the scale says - my pants are definitely a lot looser
3. I haven't gained any weight!
4. I feel better. I have so much more energy.  I cannot believe it's just around 2:00 on Sunday and I've already accomplished so much.   I have a lot more I want to accomplish and I don't feel like just sitting around ... I want to get up and get it done. 
5. I'm less achy.  Before I went on raw I could not believe I could be so ache-y already at 43 ... it was a reality check for me because I'm NOT old.  If I felt like that at this age, how will I feel when I'm 50 or 60 or 70 ...  That said, I'm less achy, but do still have some aches and looking forward to those disappearing in the future.
6. Being 100% raw was a lot easier than I expected it would be

It's sort of odd, initially, I thought I'd do this 30 days and then go ahead and allow myself some indulgences after the 30 days ... maybe just do 90% raw. 

I think I will still allow myself the chance to eat out and have some foods that are not raw, but I'm going to stay Vegan/Gluten-free and try to eat as much raw as I can.  I think that makes a huge difference too.  So going forward, 95% raw, but that 5% will be a rare occassion where I'm eating out or an emergency when I don't have any raw food with me.

So all in all, I think this experiment was a great success!

Kelp Mac 'n Cheese

I opened the Kelp Noodles today.

I opened the bag, rinsed them, and let them soak for 30 minutes in water, sea salt and the juice of one lemon.

I took a taste of one of the noodles before adding any sauce to them.  They were interesting.  The look a lot like plastic, but when you taste them they have no taste at all.  When you bite into them, they are crunchy.  Sort of like if you could make a noodle out of jicama how I'd expect it to crunch.

I decided to use some of my cashew cheese sauce to make Kelp Mac 'n Cheese.  The noodles really don't have any taste to them, and very few calories as well.  They are pretty filling.  In fact, I could not finish my whole dish:

The jury is still out on them.

The were "okay" ... I guess in a pinch if I really wanted to have noodles and didn't want to bother making them from zucchini, then I might buy them again, but I think I prefer the zucchini noodles.

That said, my bag was a 1kg bag ... so I'll put the left overs in the fridge (I had a lot of leftovers!), and I'll give them another try this weekend.  Maybe I'll try them in a pad thai sauce - I hear they are really good for pad thai.

Ice Cream (not the raw kind ...)

My coworker sent me an article with this video this morning - there's a little ad in the beginning but the video is short.  In case you don't have time to watch it, I'll give you the bottom line ... did you know that cheaper ice cream has an ingredient in it with a name you won't recognize and that ingredient actually comes from Beaver Anal Glands?

I think the moral of the story is that if you are going to eat ice cream make sure it's a high quality brand and read the ingredients.  If there's anything in it you don't recognize, then you might want to pass or consider making your own.   I've been buying a lot of appliances lately ... otherwise I'd be thinking of an ice cream machine to make raw cashew ice cream.  I've been seeing some amazing recipes lately and I'd love to try it.

I had cashew ice cream last summer at Pure Food and Wine in New York City.  OMG ... that was without a doubt the most amazing ice cream I have ever tasted and you would have never known it was vegan!!

On a related note, I really have to set my DVR to tape Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  I don't watch much TV on ABC, but I have no idea how I missed this last season.  Hopefully it really will make a difference - it is sad to hear that today's kids are expected to live 10 years less than their parents because of the obesity epidemic.  

The video below is about 20 minutes but it is really fascinating.  It is Jamie Oliver speaking to accept his TED Prize.   His talk has some really fascinating information about our society's relationship to food - how much sugar the average school kid gets from cafeteria food in elementary school, kid's inability to recognize common vegetables ... and a whole lot more.  If you have some time to watch it, I think you'll find it insightful (although probably not as shocking as the whole ice cream thing ...)

Cooked food

Well, one of my favorite coworkers is moving on to a new company so today we went out to lunch with her to her favorite vegetarian restaurant and I had a cooked lunch.  It is a Chinese restaurant called Veggie Heaven - they make traditional Chinese dishes but without meat.  They use mushrooms and other veggies to mimic the texture and flavor of their "meats" in the dishes.

It was actually one of my favorite places for a long time:
http://www.veggieheavennj.com/

I have to confess that this restaurant did have a carrot/beet/apple/kale/celery juice I could have had, but I told myself before that I'd have a cooked meal so I did.   I got eggplant with garlic sauce with brown rice.  (I nibbled at the rice but didn't eat it all).  It also had a little baby bok choy which was very nice.

Well, here's the interesting thing ... it tasted good but not amazing and that is really my favorite chinese dish.

I ate almost all the eggplant in my lunch sized portion and I felt so heavy and sluggish after lunch!   It occurred to me that I never feel that way after eating a raw meal.  NEVER.  Even if I eat a largish raw meal, I feel satisfied, and I know when I don't need to eat anymore, but I never feel full and sluggish like I did this afternoon.

I'm just going to have a simple light RAW dinner tonight and then plan to make an early night of it - my poor dog was crying out in pain at 3:30 am so I didn't sleep well and need to catch up on my sleep. 

It's interesting though - the cooked lunch after 24 days raw really reinforced for me how much better I feel eating raw. I even have a little headache this afternoon - not entirely sure if that is the lack of sleep or the cooked food, but I noticed it after the food.

Juicing and Veggie Burgers

I had some juice and a veggie burger for dinner tonight.

The juice was carrot, beet, apple, parsley and kale.   The juice itself was really good, but one thing I learned is the Omega VRT 330 HD doesn't do a great job with all kinds of pulp.  I thought it was okay with carrot/apple juice yesterday, but my juice today had so much fiber, I couldn't finish it.  I had to strain it through a nut milk bag.  That worked like a charm though!! It seemed to be the green fibers (probably the Kale?) that got back into the juice, so I guess I will just have to know that in the future when I juice greens I'm going to have to strain the juice.   This nutmilk bag worked some magic today ...

After I strained it the juice was just delicious!!!  Who'd have thought?  I sort of have this childhood dislike of beets.  You know how as a child you have a dislike of certain vegetables for absolutely no reason whatsover?   I actually don't know if I really ever had a beet before today - just never wanted to, but I know they are supposed to be really good for you ... 

Boy is it red though - just one little beet and lots and lots of greens and carrots and this still looks like red wine!

And it was seriously tasty.  I have this left-overs in the fridge to have tomorrow. Since I got a masticating juicer the juice will be good for 24 hours.

I tossed today's pulp ... I'm not sure all the stringy pulp from the greens would be very tasty in any recipes.  But I did make veggie burgers last night using this recipe posted by rawnhealthy on RawFoodTalk.com:

Veggie Burgers

• 4 cups veg pulp (celery, tomato, beet, carrot)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp each of curry, cumin and coriander powder
• 1/2 cup ground golden flax seed
• 1/4 cup diced mushrooms
• diced onion and cilantro to taste

Dehydrate until the outside of the burgers are firm.  I think I set my dehydrator to about 6 hours and they turned out great. 

The pulp I used for the burgers actually had a little apple in it (one apple to 3 pounds of carrots), but I decided to give it a try anyway.  I have to say, my expectations were pretty much nil, but I decided to keep an open mind.  I had this veggie cheese burger salad for lunch today - with the carrot burger and the "cheese" from the Cheesy Kale recipe (that stuff works for anything ... !).    This was just delicious!

Can you see the carrot burger under that cashew cheese?   :-)

Tomorrow I have a planned "cheat" for my 30 days raw.  Tomorrow will actually be day 25, but I'm taking my co-worker Vicky out to lunch at her favorite veggie restaurant.  It's sort of a going-away do.  It's not her last day yet, but it'll be a really fun lunch with a great group of people.  I'll probably keep it simple though - definitely stay vegan - so I don't vary too much from the raw diet.   I'm really proud of my progress so far, so this one planned exception isn't going to throw me off track.

Chocolate Mousse Martini with Strawberries

My sister saw Sheryl Crow on the news yesterday where she was talking about this raw vegan recipe from her new cookbook …”If it Makes you Healthy”.

Scroll down this page for the recipe:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/09/earlyshow/saturday/main20052397.shtml

*note the vanilla and almond extacts I used were not technically raw, but they were delish!

I had this for dinner ... well, I might make something else, but right now, eating just half of this martini glass I am STUFFED.  It was sooo rich and delicious.

I also tried out my new juicer this morning - I made carrot apple juice and it was amazing. I am a big fan of the Omega VRT 330HD.  I love that it takes very little counter space and was super easy to clean.  I might make some more juice tonight to drink in place of any additional dinner and put the remainder in the fridge for tomorrow

My only complaint really is that carrots make SOOO much pulp.  I was shocked.  I have a little of it to the dogs with their breakfast.  I am thinking of dehydrating some to add with their food to help them feel more full.  They love apples and carrots.   With the rest of the pulp, I plan to make some veggie burgers. I'm going to start on those soon and put them in the dehydrator for a few hours.    I figure I can put my cashew cheese on top.  Maybe make a bun with romaine lettuce leaves and put a tomato slice in there too ... YUM!!

I bought a LOT of produce between yesterday morning and today, so I'm going to have to make some juice in the evenings after work this week - don't want it to go bad.  :-)

Taco Salad and Kale Chips

I still haven't figured out what to do with those Kelp noodles ... I guess I will bring them to work and have a salad with them maybe ... and perhaps make a creme sauce with them, but I really was hoping to stay away from nuts for a while - nuts are in so many raw dishes!

Last night I made some Kale chips.  Just simple ones with olive olive oil, garlic powder, salt and cayenne.  They turned out great!!  I might have to walk to the local produce market tomorrow and make some more - I'm thinking these may not last all that long:

For dinner tonight I mad a taco salad.  Nothing too fancy - just used some of the corn chips I made from the tortilla recipe, some of the cheese, guacamole and salsa.   It was delicious!!   My favorite part was dipping the corn chips in the cashew cheese - so good!!!

And - my juicer came this morning!!!  I went to the market to get produce this morning. I got three pounds of carrots, some celery, beets, apples, some ginger.  I forgot to get greens but I have to start somewhere right?   Tomorrow I am thinking I might just start with carrot juice -maybe add some apple as well.  I got beets - I think I *should* want to juice them.    I can't even tell you I don't like beets - they are one of those veggies that I never really gave a proper chance.  I had carrot beet apple juice once before - about 10 years ago - and I remember it tasting like dirt. I've always blamed that on the beet.  But I want to give them another try.  I think maybe I'll just add half a beet to get used to them.

Well, you'll be hearing about my juicing adventures soon ... !

The verdict on Sweet Potato chips

I came home from work and my sweet potato chips were done.  I did a taste test.  I decided the chips without oil are fabulous.  I just sprinkled a little salt on them and they taste great.  The ones with oil taste okay, but they are not better than the oil-free version, and I'm getting plenty of fats from nuts and avocados at the moment, so I'm happy to keep my chips healthy and oil free.

Here's a picture of the non-oiled version.  I used "yams" this time and they tasted much better than the white "sweet potatoes" that I used last time.  I will definitely make these again!

I was up late last night because my adrenaline was so high after a little scare with my dogs when they tipped over the treat jar and not only ate half a bag of treats but also bit into the "Do not Eat" oxygen absorber that was packed in with their treats.  I ended up calling animal poison control.  Long story, but they are fine, however I don't want to stay up so late tonight to soak the cashews for the cheesy onions, so I'll do those tomorrow.  The onions are sliced, so I don't want to wait too long to make them, but I think they'll keep just fine until tomorrow.

Tonight I made a marinara sauce for dinner to top some zucchini noodles that I already had prepared.  That was delicious, but I'm very interested in trying Kelp noodles.

I've seen reviews of Kelp noodles on Amazon where the reviewer said that the price charged online was outrageous given the Korean grocery store in NYC (H-Mart) has them for about $3.  Well, there is an H-Mart across from my office, so I headed over there to look for Kelp noodles.  Navigating any section other than the produce section is a bit tricky for me since I don't read Korean!  But I was able to find a bag of Kelp noodles and two bags of "Sea Tangle" noodles.  (the type of seaweed, not the brand).   I wasn't sure if sea tangle is the same as kelp - I suspect it might be.  But since I was not sure I decided to get the 1 kg bag of Kelp Noodles.

Now I need a nice recipe idea!!  I really like the pesto and marinara on zucchini noodles, so not sure if I want to change that up.  But I'm thinking maybe a pad-thai sauce might be nice for Kelp noodles.  But I'm really open to suggestions. I'm going to want some variety if I'm going to eat a whole 1 kg bag on my own.  I hope I even like these!  but if not, it was really just over $3, so no big loss either way.  I hope I like them though!  I will let you know.

Please feel free to post sauce ideas for me in the comments!

Still amazed at the power of raw foods

Today at work, my colleague mentioned that Christie Brinkley looks amazing for 57.  They wondered what she ate to look so fabulous.  I said, I'll bet she's raw, or at least vegetarian.   I did a little Googling, and sure enough, she is vegetarian:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Supermodel-Legends_1/2

So interesting that I was having that conversation today at lunch time and when I came home and logged into facebook, I saw this video posted by Uncooking101.com.  I don't really remember Sunny Griffin's name, but her face certainly is familar to me.  According to the video, Sunny was the "original" super model and guess what?  She's 70!!!

This is actually the second of a two part video but this one goes into a lot of detail about how Sunny's vegan/raw diet has helped her continue to look and feel so young at 70.   If you have a few minutes, I encourage you to take a minute to watch it.  It's inspiring.  I am bookmarking this video and if I ever have any doubts that I'm on the right path staying raw, I'm going to watch this video. 

I haven't needed to prepare a lot of food the last couple of days - just my green smoothies that I have for breakfast.  I've been having raw tacos for lunch and cucumber salad with Kale & Avocado salad for dinner.  I get the Kale and Avocado salad from whole foods - it's delicious!

All that said, I'm having tacos for lunch again tomorrow but will need to think of something for dinner - it might just be another green smoothie.  But tonight I took out the mandoline and sliced some onions and sweet potatoes.  The mandoline is sort of a pain to clean, so I cut them both although I'm only dehydrating the sweet potatoes tonight.  I think the sweet potatoes will fill up the dehydrator anyway.   Tomorrow, I'll make the cheese sauce to make cheesy onions. I cut up three medium size Vidalia onions because the large ones don't fit in the mandoline.  My sister and coworker really like these so I'll share some of my goodies with them once they are done 

The sweet potatoes are a little tricky.  I've cut them and have them soaking right now to remove the starch, but I'm confused about whether I should coat them in oil or not.  Alissa Cohen's book "Raw Food for Everyone" does not mention oil (although it mentions vanilla beans which I do not have).    I like the idea of leaving out the oil if I can because I'd rather cut out the extra fat.  But I want to make sure they turn out nice and crispy and almost all the other videos and recipes I've seen include coating the chips in olive oil.  so, I think I will do most of them with salt and pepper and no oil as Alissa has in her recipe (minus the vanilla beans), and then I'll try to put a little oil on some of them and dehydrate them as well so I can decided how I like them best.

I'll let you know how they turn out!

Cucumber Salad

Woooo Hooo!!! I am more than half way there.

A couple things I've noticed the last couple of weeks - first, I know it's only been two weeks, but the last two weekends I have had so much energy.  I am amazed at how much that I am getting done on the weekends.  The weekends feel a lot more satisfying than they did before.

Today, I made two batches of raw tacos (shells, cheese & "meat") a batch of zucchini hummus, and have some nuts in the dehydrator that I'm going to candy later tonight.  I decided to use Ani Phyo's recipe which has agave, sea salt, cayenne, cardamom, nutmeg.  The recipe is for pecans, but I wanted to try a mixture of nuts so I am doing pecans, almonds, brazil nuts and cashews.   I am not sure what cardamom tastes like.  I hope I like it.  I also am not sure if I have nutmeg.  Hmmm ... these'll be interesting.  I do have pumpkin pie spice ...

Oh, and today I also made a Cucumber salad.  Raw Food Talk has a "party" to showcase a particular vegetable every Sunday.  Today, I made the cucumber salad recipe from the Rawvolution recipe book.  It's a pretty simple recipe but tasty - sliced cucumbers, dill, red onion in a blended dressing of apple cider vinegar, olive oil, lemon, salt and garlic.   It was a nice spring day today and this dish hit the spot at lunchtime.  Very tasty!!

I'm really looking forward to my juicer coming.  I ordered it from DiscountJuicers.com - since they are in California and I'm in the NYC metro area, I'm guessing it will probably take a week to come.  I'm hoping it comes before next weekend ... I'd love to test it out and do a bit of juicing next weekend.

Day 15 ... Zucchini Pasta and Juicer Update

I have a little update on my juicer.  I was reading the reviews on DiscountJuicers.com and it looked like there were a lot of people that had problems with the Omega VRT 330.  The problem they were having is the problem the 330 HD is designed to fix - it has a harder filter basket so it doesn't break.

Since the Bed Bath and Beyond Juicer didn't have the "HD" in the name, I was a little nervous.  I hope I didn't waste my money, but I decided to cancel my Bed Bath and Beyond order and get the Omega VRT 330HD from Discount Juicers.  It cost a bit more, but I didn't want to have to worry about it breaking.  It's got a 10 year warranty, but it'd still be annoying if it broke and I have to wait 2 weeks to get the replacement part (as one of the reviews said).   So anyway, my juicer is ordered and hopefully I'll have it by next weekend. I'd love to do some juicing next weekend!!

Today was a pretty take it easy day - I just had Zucchini Pasta with Pesto Sauce for dinner.  I invited my sister over to have some.  It was really delicious and so nice and fresh:

We had raw coconut macaroons for desert.

Tomorrow I plan to spend a lot more time in the kitchen.  I plan to make a double batch of the corn tortillas and have the tacos again.  Plus, tomorrow is the the "Cucumber Party" on http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/, so I plan to make a cucumber & dill salad (from the Rawvolution recipe book).  And if time permits, I might make some sweet potato (yam) chips in the evening.