Monday, August 17, 2009

Recipes & My Weekend

Good Afternoon!

So this weekend I tried a drink called Synergy and it had vitamin B12 in it...I have to tell you, I didn't know what I was missing! The energy boost was amazing and my mood was dramatically better. The drink itself came as kind of a shock but not bad. So of course I had to go out and buy myself some B vitamins. Of course I forgot them at home this morning so I'm dragging. But they're actually vegan (it's so hard to find vegan vitamins) and they have all sorts of vitamins in the B family. Thank you Trader Joe's. Though I just wanted B12, the ones at PCC were all sold out and I didn't feel like waiting.

On Sunday, I had the inexplicable urge to take a photo of my green smoothie. It was delicious! It had a banana, a ton of spinach, some water, some frozen strawberries and half a pear. Yum! I had about 1 and a half of these cups full.

Sunday was also my recipe experimentation day so I came up with a sunflower seed pate recipe...not exactly original I know, but hey, you've got to start somewhere right?! So here it goes:

Asian Inspired Sunflower Seed Pate:

Ingredients:
1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked for 12 hours or so
1/2 cup water (or to your preference)
1 tbsp. Nama Shoyu
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. White Miso
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. agave

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender. Add water until the mixture reaches desired consistency.

I added some salt after adding too much agave so be careful with that squirt bottle!

It took a little bit of tweaking ultimately I got it to about where I wanted it. Still needs improvement in my opinion but who knows...maybe the flavors fused more overnight.

I was also surprisingly good this weekend. I didn't over-indulge and I don't feel painfully heavy and bloated like I did after last weekend. Hopefully the scale rewards me for my good behaviour ;) I do generally feel a lot better and a lot more optimistic (the B12 may have something to do with it) and my motivation to continue on with this lifestyle is renewed after an awful few days last week. I was so close to giving up but I'm so glad I didn't. P.S. My grocery bill for this week was HUGE! Note to self: don't buy raw Sesame Oil and Nama Shoyu (or Tahini for that matter) on a regular basis!

I also made a banana soft-serve but I added mixed frozen berries this time. It was so good but a little icy (probably because of the high water content in the berries)...I'll still eat it again.

I'm so excited to almost be done with my Nursing Assistant training course...I was getting very tired of giving up all of my Saturdays!

Okay, enough procrastinating: here are the rest of the recipes as promised.

Raw Peanut Noodles by Gena:
This one is AMAZING because it doesn't have any peanuts in it but tastes so authentic!

Ingredients:
1 inch ginger
1 cup olive oil
2 tsp. sesame oil
Juice of 1 lime
4 tbsp. mellow white miso
6 dates, pitted or 1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tbsp. nama shoyu
1/3 cup water

Directions:
Blend all ingredients on high until creamy and emulsified.

Some notes: I added an extra date because it didn't taste sweet enough to me. I would also use less miso next time as it came out a little too salty. I added more water to thin it out a bit. This sauce is DELICIOUS! It tastes so rich and creamy, you won't believe it's raw! Gena uses this with vegetable noodles but mine (of course) goes with kelp noodles. She also calls for toasted sesame oil but if you're trying to be 100% raw, stick with the raw oil. I also used lemon in place of lime.

Miso-Dill Dressing by Carmella:

Ingredients:
1 tbsp. brown rice miso (tamari or Braggs works, too)
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. dried dill weed
1 tbsp. tahini
1 garlic clove minced

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl or blender.

Some notes: This dressing is very tart...but tasty. I added some water to the recipe along with an extra tablespoon of olive oil. I also used garlic powder in place of a garlic clove (I was being lazy). I used white miso instead of brown. Personally, I like my dressings a bit sweeter so I added about 2 teaspoons of agave nectar. And same as the peanut noodles, I would use less miso next time.

Enjoy! And next time, I'll put up the pictures of me and my friend from last weekend.

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