Day 22

It has been 22 days and I decided it was time to weigh myself. Drum roll please :::: I am officially down 3 lbs! YEE HAW!

To celebrate, I experimented with my most impressive rawcreation to date: raw pizza. My friends Blair & Natalie came over for girls' movie night to try out the goods and gave it the non-raw-vegan-food-eater stamp of approval!

Pizza was my absolute favorite food prior to becoming vegan (and after becoming vegan with cheese-free style pizza), and I tragically thought it would never be a part of my life once becoming raw. Wrong. So wrong....

This little diddly was based on Ani's Raw Food Essentials Garlic Margherita Pizza (page 219). I got a little fancy and dressed it up with some extras (raw olives, marinated mushrooms, rawsage).

Most of the pizza crusts in Ani's books require dehydration, but this one did not (Instant Pizza Crust, page 109)... Next time I am going to try the dehydrated version as this one was a bit thick. Overall, this was a great creation and a pretty one too!

Cheers!

Day Fifteen

Yay for 15 days on the raw diet!

I took a slight break from rawsomeness this weekend while on a whitewater rafting trip on the Main Salmon. Thankfully, Mountain River Outfitters rocked my cazbah and made vegan meals for me... I was super thankful for them catering to my high maintenance diet!

Today I am back in the game and since I am super stocked full of kale, herbs, lettuce, and spinach from my dad's organic garden, I took a break from Ani's Uncookbooks and freestyled tonight's menu. Here's what I made:

• I started with chopping a whole bunch of dinosaur kale
• Added shredded carrot
• Chopped onion
• Chopped chives
• Food processed fresh basil and sage (from Dad's garden... Love you Dad!)
• Sesame seeds
• Sesame oil (not raw, but adds great flavor)
• Rice Vinegar
• Mirin (sweet rice seasoning)
• Avocado
  

I munched on all this between two pieces of raw celery-flax-sunflower bread from one of Ani's books along with some ketchup (not raw) and dijon mustard. I paired it with a glass of carrot, apple, celery, beet, ginger, kale, and lemon juice and my tummy did a happy dance tonight!

Cha cha cha!

Day Eleven

Day Eleven marks the celebration of the "Grilled Cheese and Tomato Sandwich." One might think that being raw would not include such wonderous things as a grilled cheese sandwich. Ani Phyo says think again, my friends.

During my weekend adventures, I snagged a copy of Ani's latest and greatest uncookbook... Ani's Raw Food Essentials. Flip to page 189, and you will discover "Grilled Cheese and Tomato."

This fabuous meal is actually composed of two of Ani's recipes to make one superfabulous dish.

You start with Zucchini Bread (I cheated and made her sunflower bread on page 24)... Made from celery, flax seeds, and sunflower seeds - all food processsed and then dehydrated to make bread.

Then you make "Cheeze Sauce..." from page 103. This was so yummy I brought it to the office for show and taste. It received excellent reviews from my favorite open minded office peeps. It's made from blended cashews, garlic, sea salt, and lemon juice.

Combine the two dishes above with a sliced tomato and voila:

This dish is super quick and so scrumptious, I took a bite before I remembered to take a pic of my creation! The best part is the cheeze sauce, which is thick, tasty, and seriously tastes like melted cheese. Seriously.

Bon Apetit!

Day One

Today was officially Day One of Tara's Rawvolution! I felt great and my tummy thanked me!

Today's Rawsome menu consisted of:

Breakfast: Flax/Milk Thistle Seed/Kale/Amond Milk/Banana/Blueberry/Cocoa Powder Milkshake (my favorite breakfast choice & something I enjoy almost daily)

Lunch: (the most amazing salad ever) Kale/Spinach/Escarole/Cilantro/Beet/Mint/Shredded Carrot/Raisin/Avocado/Walnut/Ani's Orange Miso Dressing (from pg. 101 & left over from yesterday)

Plus Ani's Asparagus (pg 152 minus the Cheezy Sauce)

And for dessert, Ani's Chocolate Raisin Bark (pg 75 in Ani's Raw Food Desserts)... This one was also a smashing hit with the peeps at the office (I had to share so I wouldn't eat it all). My favorite remark "MMMMM.... So smooth!).

SNACK: Nectarine (in season right now and soooo yummy!)

DINNER: **special note** I was so full from all the yummy food today, that I really wasn't that hungry dinner (this was a first for me). This could also be in part because I got distracted from dinner by some rather large sales at Target and Old Navy on my way home.... (shhh)

HOWEVER, I did feel the need to tag down another recipe from Ani's uncookbook, since it is Day One and I need to kick this Rawvolution off right, I took one for the team (it was rough, let me tell you) and created Ani's Creamy Curry Dressing (page 96). This is a Curry dressing with ginger (yum), apple, lemon juice, curry powder, garlic, sea salt, & extra virgin olive oil all blended together and topped on greens for an extra yummy dinner salad. I didn't stick with Ani's recommendations for adding the dressing on top of rainbow chard, cabbage, dill, rosemary & cilantro... Instead I used what I had in my fridge: kale, spinach, escarole and cilantro. I also added some cashews and raisins. This was a super happy salad.

It's a good thing that I like salads, because so far, all I've had time for at my meals are just that... Definitely looking forward to creating some of Ani's other recipes that mimic cooked fare.

DESSERT & my favorite part of my day: Chocolate Raisin Bark again (shocker, I know)

Here's to a happy tummy and a smaller ass!