I’ve been meaning to try to make an avocado soup for awhile now.  Tonight was the night! It’s super easy and super delicious.

In the bowl of a high speed blender combine: 2 ripe avocados, 2 1/2 cups filtered water, 2 T organic unpasteurized brown miso, one 6 inch stem of rosemary leaves (about 1 t…its from my garden!), 2 T raw olive oil, the juice of 1 lime, 1/3 t cumin, 1/3 t cayenne pepper and 1/4 t chipotle chili seasoning.  Puree until all the ingredients are mixed and its a smooth, thick consistency.  Once plated, I topped the soup with freshly diced tomatoes and some fresh cilantro (right out of my garden!).

I served the soup along side a salad: spinach, cucs, carrot, grape tomoatoes, green pepper and red onion.

At first I found it quite hard to break my eating 100% raw habit but then I was forced into a situation where it was very difficult for me to eat only raw. Now I find that it’s hard to get back into it.  At my best, I was eating 2 pieces of fruit, a salad and some nuts every day and running 2 miles.  I felt amazing.  Then I started slowly eating more and more cooked foods and most days I can’t find the energy to get into the gym.  When I do, I run a mile, speed walk at an incline for 10 minutes and then do some time on the elliptical.  Every day my brain beats me up for not being as good as I was and the only thing I can do is get back into the swing of things.  This morning I ate an apple and I imagine I’ll have a salad for dinner.  The only way you can change what you’re doing is to actually do it.  You have to make up your mind, choose to be better and then do it.

This meal was when I was getting back into raw a couple weeks ago.  After I went to the gym, I prepared a salad and a smoothie.  The smoothie consists of 3 small ripe bananas, a handful of raw walnuts, little bit of water and some ice.  The salad is a typical Rustin dish: spinach, carrots, grape tomatoes, avocado and green pepper.

Kids, the moral of this story is, if you’re unhappy with yourself or with something that you aren’t or are doing, then all you need to do is change it. Don’t give yourself the option to quit or to stop doing it. Just do it.

I love taking normally non vegan/non raw foods and turning them into more of what they aren’t. Here’s a new take on tacos.

Take organic whole wheat tortillas and fill them with spinach, shredded carrot, sliced red and green pepper, hemp seeds, red pepper flakes, oregano, freshly ground black pepper, cucumbers and avocado slices. This was hands down the best almost raw-co of my life. Although I would have traded in the tortilla for a romaine leaf if I had it.

You can make things a little fancier and make some home made salsa for the top or make a nut cream sour cream substitute. You can make a raw sour cream by blending 1 cup raw sunflower seeds, 1 cup water, 4 T lemon juice, 1 garlic clove pressed (or you can use 1/2 t garlic powder), 3/4 t onion powder and 3/4 t salt in a food processor or blender.

Loren ate the taco with some yellow mustard and some veggie parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. It was very Loren approved.

SuperFoods are fun! They’re delicious and do so much good for your body. A SuperFood is one that is better for your body than all (or most) others in it’s category.  Blueberries are considered to be a SuperFood (or SuperFruit) because they are higher in antioxidants, fibers and vitamins than other fruits.

Loren made an amazing PBnJ for lunch today. Preservative free wheat bread (toasted) with Smart Balance crunchy peanut butter, Polaner blueberry jelly, fresh blackberries and hemp seeds. Most amazing sandwich ever!

Be careful when buying peanut butter and jelly at the grocery store.  Most of the popular peanut butters (Jiffy, Kroger brand, Publix brand, etc) all contain high fructose corn syrup as well as partially hydrogenated oils….these things are TERRIBLE for you! Lots of jelly contain HFCS as well. Always, always, always read the ingredients on the back of the food you’re buying.  If you don’t know how to pronounce a word or have no idea what it is, then it’s probably really bad for you.  Smart Balance peanut butter has some very simple ingredients: peanuts, natural oil blend (flax seed and palm fruit oils), salt, molasses.  Jif has these ingredients listed: peanuts, sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, fully hydrogenated vegetable oil, molasses, salt, mono and diglycerides. Ummm….what was that last word? Partially hydrogenated AND fully hydrogenated?! Color me surprised! Oh wait…no, don’t.  You can find good peanut butter for you even if you don’t have Smart Balance by you–Publix organic brand peanut butter has none of those bad things listed as ingredients and what it does have listed is similar to Smart Balance (if not the same).  Always be careful when buying food, y’all…and ALWAYS read the ingredients!!!

Could you be, the most beautiful salad in the world? Its plain to see, you’re the reason why I make salads.

I recently purchased some organic shelled hemp seeds and I’m officially addicted.  I’m putting them on everything from salads to mixing them in with granola, nuts and dried fruit for snack time. Hemp seeds are very good and very good for you. They contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life.  No other single plant source has the EAA in such an easily digestible form, nor has the EFA in as perfect a ratio to meet human nutritional needs. So eat them up, yum!

This salad starts with a spinach base and is topped with chopped raw asparagus, chopped red and green peppers, shredded carrots, chopped red onion, grape and raw sun dried tomatoes, avocado, red pepper flakes and hemp seeds. De-freaking-licious!

Tempeh could very well be my favorite thing on the planet.  Too bad there isnt a ‘raw’ form of it….maybe I could make one. Hmmm….

Anywho, tempeh is good on anything–sandwich, salad, by itself, scrambled with eggs.  The other night I cooked some (chopped into cubes) tempeh in a skillet with some organic low sodium vegetable broth and soy sauce and then put it on top of some spinach, carrots, chopped raw asparagus, avocado and tomatoes.  I topped my salad with some veggie shreds cheese and served it along side  corn on the cobb that had been sprayed with some olive oil and then rolled around in sea salt and freshly cracked pepper.  Even if you aren’t a raw foodie, you don’t have to cook corn. Its delicious uncooked–it tastes the same.  Don’t believe me? Take a bite right after shucking it (and washing it of course!) or cut it right off the cob and add it to a salad.  It’s delicious!

Recently I bought a Tofurkey roast + gravy box.  You can usually find them either in the freezer section next to the veggie meats or sometimes in the “dairy” area next to the other Tofurkey deli slices and Veggie Shreds cheese (it depends on what store you go to).  There are directions on the box of what temperature to cook the roast at in the oven and for how long and how to prepare the veggies for the side.  I’ll warn you, it takes a long time to cook; cooking time is about 1 and a half hours.  The box says to cut up 2 large brown potatoes, 1 medium onion and 2 carrot sticks and to place them around the Tofurkey roast.  I cut 5 small red potoatoes in half, 1/2 a white onion (although I wish I put more in now), 6 mini carrots halved (thin ways) and added asparagus towards the end of the cooking time.  You are to cover said ingredients with a marinate consisting of olive oil, herbs and soy sauce.  The recipe doesn’t make very much and they want you to 1/2 it and pour some on before cooking and the rest on once you uncover it and cook it for the last 15 minutes.  I used the whole darn amount of marinade, covered it with foil and cooked it for the first cook time.  When I uncovered it, I added the asparagus and then covered it with a 1/2 recipe of marinade so in total, I used 1.5 recipes of marinade.

The roast is stuffed with brown rice stuffing and is served along side a mushroom “gravy” that you cut out of a bag and heat on the stove top.  The gravy only takes 10 minutes or so.

This meal is really, really good and I can’t wait to eat it come Thanksgiving time!

Hmmm…Word Press deleted my gardening post! Oh noz! Let’s see if I can make a new one….yup! I think I can!

The weather is starting to warm up and you know what that means! GARDEN TIME! This was our first time planting a garden and so we’re just seeing how it goes.  It’s totally a learning process and we’re excited to become master gardeners at some point and time.

We planted jalapenos, cayenne peppers, tomatoes x 2, eggplants, cucumbers, strawberries, basil, cilantro, Italian parsley, stevia, rosemary and some butternut squash (I don’t expect them to grow though–they’re being a little difficult).  Yes I planted my herbs on the ground.  I put them there because this is the only spot on our property that gets direct sunlight all day long (besides a little part of my drive way). We are having a problem with little bugs eating Basil (that’s her name…Basil the basil plant) but we’re working on that.  The picture to the right is the garden when we first planted it. The picture below is it now, a week or so later.

9 days outta 10 I’m in the mood for pasta! This sauce recipe is super easy and tastes amazing!

To start this dish, heat some olive oil in a pan on medium.  To the heated pan, add 1 diced white onion, 2 cloves of diced garlic and 1/2 green pepper (also diced).  Stir frequently so you don’t burn the garlic! Season with some sea salt and fresh ground pepper.  Once the veggies cooked down a bit (till the onions are translucent) pour in 1 can of organic crushed tomatoes and 1 can of organic tomato sauce.  Turn the heat down to  low, add 1/2 cup of red wine (we used a cabernet sovereign),  2 T italian seasoning, fresh basil, red pepper flakes, 1 T oregano and cover.  Don’t forget about it though! Stir occasionally while preparing the rest of the meal.

Now for the veggie sausage! My veggie Italian Sausage is from Trader Joe’s.  It’s the BEST veggie Italian Sausage I’ve ever had! I cut the links into small pieces and cooked them in a medium size skillet with some olive oil.  They need to cook for about 5 minutes (read the instructions).  Once they were done cooking, I added them into the sauce and then turned it off (still keeping it covered).

The noodles we used were homemade so they only took about 4 minutes in a boiling pot.  We only use whole wheat noodles and I suggest everyone else do the same! They’re so much better for your body!

To plate, I put down a bed of spinach, some noodles, the sauce and then some freshly grated parmesan reggiano cheese along side a piece of fresh baked tomato and onion foccacia! DELICIOUS!!

Hey friends! My friends at Skribit have come up with a suggestions button that I posted on my page. Use this to suggest anything I can do to make the site more user friendly.

All of the feedback I’ve gotten so far has given me lots of good ideas and soon you’ll see them implemented on the site.