Get Glowing

Tonight was date night. With myself. I really needed an evening of doing nothing after work. I asked. I received. That was easy!

I am in a state of bliss after an impromptu spa night.

Ingredients for low-budget-high-quality naked time:

* Epsom Salts ~ for the bath
* Turkish bath scrubby (thanks, Emek!)
* Honey ~ for the face - after 30 minutes things were oh-so-smooth.
* "The Glow" juice ~ a recipe from Sarma's new book (see 9/4 post) - citrus fruits, cucumbers, and carrots, oh my!

A-MAZ-ING!

Mission Accomplished

Despite daily temptations I successfully avoided putting cheese in my mouth for 7 days. Hoorah!

I celebrated with....you guessed it. Nirali was in town with her man-friend and I wanted to take them to my favorite pub-food spot. Everything there has cheese. I got a scrumptious sandwich with a little boursin on top. It wasn't too much. It was just the right amount!

The thing is that, during my friends' visit, I also had coffee...with cream. This drinking of addictive stimulant followed a 48 hour headache and many many advil. The small coffee did the trick in an instant! And there was no crashing!

My point: I plan to practice everything in moderation. I will continue to ease up on my incessant homage to fromage. I will continue to drink my Dandy-blend coffee substitute. But I will not beat myself up when I have the occasional cheese slice or cup o joe. Having seen the effects of forgoing them both (less brain fog, less fatigue, no stuffy nose), I feel that I can successfully pick up where I left off and practice some intermittent abstinence.

I subscribe to a wellness list serv and read a post of a woman going cold turkey on meat, coffee, etc...I could relate to her interest in getting healthier ASAP. But I knew from experience that going from one extreme to another overnight wouldn't work. And staying at the extremes is just pure punishment!

When my previous attempts to completely rule out cheese failed time and time again, I set the goal for one week. I did the same with coffee. The cheese strike lasted 7 days and I was coffee free for 27!! Next challenge: exercise. On second thought, I'll put that off for one more week :) This week: Fiber intake. Yum! I've been juicing a lot and reaping the benefits but I need to give my grains and whole fruits/veggies some love and attention. Brown rice, anyone?

Ciao

The Tastiest Smoothie in the World!

No, I didn't mash up these cute baby key lime pies! But the quest did start with a hankering for them. As I'm avoiding eggs and milk and cream, I was sh** out of luck for a quick fix. Then, the Universe answered my prayers!

I was flipping through some raw "cook" books at Border's last night and randomly came across a key lime smoothie recipe. I had tried a raw and alkalizing recipe for key lime before and it was not working out. I experimented with the ingredients and all I got was chewy avocado cucumbery mess. Blech. The latest recipe is not completely alkalizing but it is raw. And it is mighty tasty!


If you like key lime pie you must check out the smoothie recipe in Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis. Sarma is also partner and executive chef of Pure Food and Wine restaurant in Manhattan. I plan to check it out this month!

Eye on the Pies

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm obsessed with the ABC show Pushing Daisies. I actually discovered the forensic fairy tale very late (pun intended) in the game and after it had been cancelled. Thank god for DVD and iTunes!

Of course, if you too were a fan, then you know all about the craze over cup pies ~ those small individual servings of heaven.

I decided to make them vegan and started with this pie crust recipe. After some trial runs with canned fruit, I made some concoctions of my own. It turns out there isn't much variety in the canned food section, even at Whole Foods. And fresh is better anyway, right? Um, yeah!

I started with canned cherry and pumpkin fillings and then moved on to fresh whole peaches. In homage to PD, I made Chuck's pear pies with gruyere.

The picture doesn't do them justice!
Next on the list: strawberry pie and mixed berry. Yum!

Pie Filling

* 2 1/2 cups of luscious (and organic) fruits
* 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar
* 2 tbsp. cornstarch
* 1/4 cup cold water

In a saucepan combine the fruit and sugar; stir for about 10 minutes. Mix the cornstarch and water; add to the saucepan and stir until the filling thickens. Voila!

I like to make openface pies for the visual effect. They are so colorful! I use a mug to make the pie crust circles and simply fold them into the cupcake/muffin tins. From that point you just add the filling and cook on 325 for about 15 minutes.

When making the pear with gruyere, I put grated cheese in before the filling or sometimes just add it on top.

Cup pies are so simple to make and have been a huge hit at parties!

Say Cheese!

This picture was taken at the end of Day 2 of my "no cheese week" challenge. No worries. I held my ground. I'm into day 3 and the score is Jen: 3 Cheese: a big honking ZERO. Note to those forgoing food triggers: start slowly and with reasonable goals. They're easier to meet.

Now with that said, I almost did buy swiss-pressed decaf coffee. I'm eliminating all coffee for now. My friend Susan snagged the last of a scrumptious smelling blend called Sleepy Hollow. With Halloween right around the corner I went to see if there was a bag with my name on it. Susan, without missing a beat, said, "Don't even think about it." She is now my coffee sponsor too. :)

I actually went to the market to sample cashew cheeze:

It was super yummy! I also made Kristen Suzanne's Army Green Juice recipe. Delicious and energizing vegan dinner!

Check out Awesome Foods' website for their cheeze and other fabulous products!

Seeking Immunity

So much for new year's resolutions, well, at least the one that involved blogging regularly! As you can see it's been 7 months since my last entry. That sounded oddly reminiscient of a catholic confession. Here's my confession: I've missed writing and my holistic health junkie-ing. It didn't help that a science dude I had dated missed the quirkiness that was my soon-to-be post on water quality issues. I thought a chemist would appreciate musings on H2 the Izz-O. Water is, afterall, pretty cool. I interpretted his response as a sign of disinterest. I took a writing hiatus. It was a stupid excuse.

I should also mention that I have been and continue to be in a little bit of a health and dietary funk. After several additional tests and follow-ups I haven't pinpointed the cause of my skin condition, which is slowly improving but not there yet. That's sexy, huh? Let's talk about skin. On second thought, let's not.

Over the next few months I'll be experimenting with a 50/50 raw and cooked food plan to build immunity. I'm also going to ease into my commitment to laying off the dairy, which is both my love and my enemy. I've started making more green juices and am 21 days into my no-coffee-right-now challenge!

Reacting to black coffee was the worst, considering that I was just starting to like black coffee. I used to be a little-coffee-with-my-cream girl and had weened myself off yummy but uber bad non-dairy creamer....and then the real cream too. Seeing that I have been reacting to virtually everything I eat, it's time to work on my immune system. Bye bye caffeine, hello hot water with lemon! And hello, exercise! I haven't seen you in ages? How have you been?

I coaxed myself into morning walks with the goal of strengthening my immune system. Plus the air was crisp and I am in love with this time of year. In addition to the "not now" to coffee, "yes" to working out, and more green juices I'm starting September with no cheese for a week. Setting a longer goal has not proven successful. Actually, attempts failed on every day 1. Today is my new day one. Temptation du jour: Feta cheese that came with my brown rice nut salad. My dear friend Susan offered to be my cheese sponsor. We played out the scenario:

Jen: "Susan, I really need some gruyere. It's been three days!"
Susan: "Put down the fucking cheese."
Jen: "Ok. Thanks, Susan."

This might pan out :)

More on all this later. It's still day 1.

Eating Like an Ape

I was uber excited to find episodes of The Truth About Food on the Internet. I first saw the show, which aired in the US on the Discovery Health channel with Mehmet Oz. Unfortunately re-runs were sparse and the DH website was stingy with clips. Had I known then that the BBC produced the original series, I would have found the video and posted it a long time ago!

The series includes 40 different investigations/experiments on food and it's relation to health, sex, beauty, weight, you name it! My favorite episode Can Eating Like an Ape Save Your Health? demonstrates what a raw food diet can do to improve quality of life and reduce risk of some major illnesses in just 12 DAYS!

Does it mean that you should to go completely raw? Not necessarily. But it's empowering to know how much we can personally effect our overall health with real food. And the experiment, at the very least, will inspire people to eat their veggies. If the participants could eat 11lbs of raw food, surely the rest of us can eat our recommended daily servings of fruits and veggies!

And if you're tired of the same old produce or think you've tried it all, mix it up with this abundant food list.