Beans Beans the Magical Fruit! (A Tribute to Beans and a Salad to Remember)

I had one of those afternoons where nothing sounded good to eat, and it seemed as though there was 'nothing' in the fridge or pantry anyway. I wandered into the kitchen and started putting items in a bowl and came up with a Black Bean Salad that I would like to remember. It went a little something like this:

1 can of black beans rinsed
1 clove garlic thinly sliced
1 cup frozen corn defrosted
1/4 orange bell pepper diced
1/2 carrot diced
1/2 cucumber diced
2 cups red cabbage chopped
1 cup diced button mushrooms
1 cup chopped spinach
1/2 cup almond pepper jack cheese diced

Toss all ingredients together with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, a dash of corriander, a dash of cumin, and 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar. I added what was left of my latest tomato tahini dressing, and the leftover juices from the tub of pickled mushrooms from Whole Foods that I can't seem to get enough of these days. Viola! It's a taste sensation.

The Sounds of Summer

OMD - Forever Live & Die by Far_q

Good-Ass Gazpacho

There's nothing quite as refreshing nor quite as satisfying on a 93 degree summer day than a bowl of chilled gazpacho. I just made a batch of what I think may be my best yet. 

Here's what's in it:

Good-Ass Gazpacho (Vegan, mostly raw, gluten free)

• 1 ear fresh corn, corn cut from the cob
• 4 button mushrooms 
• 1 hothouse cucumber 
• 1 large red bell pepper
• 4 plum tomatoes 
• 1 red onion 
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 avocados
• 1/2 cup non-dairy cream cheese (I used Tofutti brand)
• 32 ounces tomato juice 
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (option if you like heat with your chilled soup)
• 1 hand full cilantro chopped

• Chop all veggies in to bite-sized pieces and combine in a large bowl (all except the avocado, unless yours happen to be on the more firm side of ripe) Mix veggies together with salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil, red pepper and cilantro. Add the tomato juice. Add cubed avocado and drop teaspoon-full scoops of cream cheese substitute into the mix. Stir gently and let chill for at least one hour. The longer gazpacho sits, the better it will taste. 

Enjoy!

BOOCH!

On a recent trip to Austin I was lucky enough to stop in at the raw restaurant "Beets Cafe" on 5th street where I was treated to a lovely kale salad, an "ELT" (smoked/dehydrated eggplant, lettuce and tomato) which I plan to recreate myself in the near future, and a raw brownie.

With all this deliciousness, the pièce de résistance for me was the locally-brewed Kombucha Buddha's Brew. I must have drank four of these in the two days I was in Austin. This was the first Kombucha I had tried and really enjoyed outside of GT's. The original flavor was sweet and tart and fizzy and everything that GT's original wants to be.

Tasting something so good gave me enough hope to push my desire to brew my own Kombucha into action. As soon as I got home, I began researching and found that it is actually quite easy to make your own 'boocha at home. All you  need is sugar, tea, and a mother Kombucha mushroom. Now to get your own mother, you have to either know someone who has one or order one online for a good chunk of change (average is about $40.) So I searched around some more and found some more info.



Like I always say, if you can't trust two hipster dudes, who can you trust? So I decided to give it a try. I put all the ingredients together in a gallon jar, and waited. The SCOBY (Symbiotic Collection of Bacteria and Yeast) seemed to be floating and moving around, but nothing much happened for the first few days. I'm sure this is typical, and I would have kept my experiment going, only my good friend heard I was making my own booch and offered to give me her mother. Oh mamma! I came home to find this on my porch one night:

This mother had a ton of strands and a grown baby booch mushroom already grown out of it, so I decided to start from scratch. I now have two batches going: one from the mother and 1 from the baby. Here they are at day 2:

The mother is on the left, the baby on the right. After two days, I already started to see the white 'looks-like-mold-but-it's-not' spots forming around the baby. If you actually do see mold, you have to throw the SCOBY out, but if it is bubbly, brown or doing any other strange thing, it is fine so long as there is no furry mold accumulating.

I plan to let my babies ferment for another week before I bottle 'em up and start a new batch. Now I just need to decide what flavors to add! If you're interested in brewing your own booch, I recommend the following web sites:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8rocz_how-to-make-your-own-kombucha-part_school

http://www.foodrenegade.com/how-to-brew-kombucha-double-fermentation-method/

Double Dribble

I did two Bikram classes today. That's right. Two. I'm beat and I feel like I'm dribbling on my sweater.

My First Successful Recipe Experiment WOOT! Spicy Cilantro Ranch Dressing

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I have been enjoying a change in lifestyle that includes eliminating animal-based foods and adding more raw foods. Choosingraw.com has become one of my daily staples for recipe inspiration, and so far 99% of Gena's recipes have been outstanding and only needed a little tweaking to suit my tastes for heat mostly. My current staples are the Quinoa Protein Bowl (sans squash if not available and topped with loads of Sriracha), the Banana Breakfast Sushi (substituting peanut butter and honey for almond butter and agave), the Blueberry Pancakes (adding a tsp of Nutmeg.)

I've come to the realization that eating a raw diet, not unlike any other diet, is all about sauces, only with a raw diet rather than a sauce pan, you are whooshing ingredients together in a blender including sauces, smoothies, and most of all dressings. Last night I decided to branch out and try to re-invent one of my old favorites and it turned out great!. Here's what you'll need to make it:

Spicy Cilantro Avocado Ranch Dressing

• 1 Cup cashews (soaked at least one hour)
• Juice of 3 limes and 1 lemon
• 1/2 Cup cold water
• 1/4 Cup Nutritional Yeast
• 1 bunch Cilantro - stems removed
• 1 Jalapeño
• 1 Avocado
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth and drench leafy greens with this stuff! I tossed mine with julienned carrots, cucumber slices, romaine, swiss chard and sprouts served alongside swiss chard stuffed with curried cauliflower rice (the jury's still out on that recipe, but the raw marinara sauce on top was divine.) Slurp!

Spring Cleaning

Spring has sprung, or at least it did for a few days last week. Here we are April 8 and it is snowy and shitty outside. You will notice I've changed to the ready-made grassy spring theme to try and will the sun to to come out. C'mon spring! What gives?!

My cats like to crawl on my head all night and all morning these days, so today rather than mumbling and batting them away, I decided to get out of bed and start writing. Not physically out of bed of course, this is more of an awake in bed type deal. Aah, sure do love the feeling of being wide awake at 6am with lots of blankets and no where to go but the internet.

Since my last thrilling post on how to make chicken stock, I have undergone some spring cleaning life changes. Towards the end of Feb, I decided to try out the Master Cleanse again. If you recall, my first attempt at the Master Cleanse was my original reason for starting this bloggy blog two years ago so it seems appropriate that I should give a full report seeing as how I actually finished ten days without solid food. Woo!

This time around I was in a much better place mentally. I have completed several 3-day juice cleanses over the last nine years or so, and felt like it was time to take it to the next level. First off I have to say how amazed I was at how easy it was this time compared to my last attempt. The first three days were like a breeze due to the relative lack of work it takes to make the lemonade compared to the three day juice fast which mostly consists of juicing, cleaning the juicer, juicing, cleaning the juicer, juicing, and so on for a good 12  hours.

My body is already accustomed to a three-day liquid diet, which made days four and five were a bit harder for me. Once I hit day six however, I was feeling amazing. I had more energy than I knew what to do with. I would jump out of bed each morning and I wouldn't stop until the end of the day. I was more focused than normal, more present, and more aware of the world.

I am a believer in the cleanse, and I strongly feel that everyone should try it at least once in their lives to realize the benefits and true power and energy that we all have within us.

Along with the Master Cleanse, I have recently discovered several things that I love and will continue to have in my life.
1. Saunas are the new (old) steam room. I have always been a fan of heat. Sun bathing, sitting in hot cars without rolling the windows down, sitting on heater vents with my shirt pulled over my knees, hot showers that go for way too long, and of course steam rooms. I worship all of these like the gods they are. During my time on the Master Cleanse, I discovered that I have access to a dry sauna  free of charge at school so I headed over to give it a try and I was smitten. It feels so fucking good to relax, soak up the heat and sweat your brains out the way you do when you sit in a sauna for an hour. You come out feeling refreshed, your skin is soft, and your head is clear. I can't recommend it enough, which leads me to my next favorite thing..
2. Bikram is my new yoga. By the time I eased out of the cleanse, I felt so energized and unstoppable I decided I was ready to try out Bikram which I have been interested in trying but putting off for a few years. For those of you who haven't tried it, there are three things I would like to note about Bikram:
- Bikram is stinky. When you walk into the studio, you are hit by a thick pungent wave of sweaty sock smell. I am not sure whether you ever get used to this smell.
- Bikram is sweaty. The rooms are heated to 105 degrees with 45% humidity so you are sweating before you even begin moving your body, and you will sweat buckets while in class.
- Bikram is the source. Through the sweating and powering through the difficulty of Bikram I have found the source to some kind of higher power. I purchased a year membership after practicing for only one week, because I can tell I am going to need this in my life on the regular.

3. Cutting out animal-based foods from my diet. I have been trying to introduce as many raw fruits and vegetables as possible into my diet, and have all but eliminated animal-based foods. It has been so much fun discovering new recipes that are delicious and 100% healthy. Who knew?  If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend choosingraw (thank you Ruby for the link!) for some delicious recipes, thoughts and ideas on plant-based nutrition. The vegan ceasar salad dressing and millet yam veggie burgers can't be beat!

I'm pretty sure that's all I have for now. I have a list of lessons learned from the Master Cleanse and some photos of my first yarn-bombing project, but I will save that for next time my lovelies. <3

Until then, I will be worshiping the Gods of heat.