Blueberry Banana Muffins

INGREDIENTS

3 Super-ripe bananas
1/4 cup Vegetable oil
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Baking soda
2 1/2 cups Flour (I used almond)
3/4 cup Fresh or unthawed frozen blueberries
1/2 cup Brown sugar
4 Tbsp. Vegan buttery spread

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, mash the bananas with the oil and sugar and mix well. In a small bowl, sift together the salt, baking soda, and 2 cups of the flour. Add the dry mixture to the banana mixture and stir by hand until the two are thoroughly combined. Fold in the blueberries.

Pour the batter into a muffin pan. In a small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup of flour, the brown sugar, and the Vegan buttery spread. Stir until the mixture forms coarse crumbs then sprinkle the crumbs onto the muffins. Bake the muffins for 25 minutes.

There is no crumb topping in my photo because I accidentally added too much butter - Oops! Really, the topping is optional because the muffins were still delicious without.

Crazy Sexy Green Juice

My first day of juice feasting/fasting was intended for yesterday, but being Easter Sunday, I decided to postpone it until today to avoid comments I knew some people would have about it. So, rather than stress about it yesterday amid family activities, I'm doing it today when we have nothing planned but hanging around the house with the Littles.

And thank goodness I don't have to rely on my tiny blender to juice a day's worth of juice! We found a great deal on an Omega J8003 Masticating Juicer and it's awesome. It does an amazing job crushing every last drop of juice from greens and hard produce like carrots, beets, and kale stems. The only shortcoming I've noticed in the few days I've been using it is with really watery fruits like cucumbers. It backs up and the pulp is rather soggy, so I have been running the pulp through a second time then following it with carrots, which do a great job pushing straggling juicy pulp through. Also, I found that cutting half circle chunks of cucumber and feeding them through one at a time, while a bit more tedious, cuts down on the amount of juice slopping around inside the juicer compared to feeding long, skinny slices through. Because it is a slow masticating juicer, I can juice at night for the next day and not have to worry about nutrient degradation while it waits to be drunk in the fridge. So I can juice a lot at once and have juice for the next day or two, which is nice for busier lifestyles. Love that. And clean up is a breeze. Love that even more. I haven't looked into the upgrades made for the J8004, J8005, and J8006, but I am super pleased with my J8003 after using an old centrifugal and then a weak little blender! We get much more juice from less produce, too.

Apparently, it can also be used to make nut milk and butter, as a food processor or homogenizer (I'm assuming by taking out the strainer piece), and pasta noodles by using the different nozzles. When I get around to experimenting with things other than fruit and vegetable juice, I'll post about my results. If you are a daily juicer (or in this case, juice once every few days but drink the juice every day) I highly recommend investing in this style of juicer even if you go with a different brand or a vertical model. It's worth it.

Crazy Sexy Diet

Yesterday I started the cleanse in Kris Carr's book, Crazy Sexy Diet with a couple friends. In a nutshell, the dietary outline is an alkalizing high-raw vegan menu with an emphasis on green juice. Since my Stone-aged juicer went to small appliance heaven in a smelly cloud of smoke, I've been using my Magic Bullet blender and cheapy paint straining bags for juicing. Having to juice 8-10oz at a time in a weak little blender is less than ideal, but it gets the job done for now. Along with the edible guidelines, each day includes a mantra or positive affirmation, physical activity suggestions, and other tips. I can dig it.

The book was a good read, overall, especially for people who want to lead a more healthy lifestyle but aren't sure how to start or the why behind making certain dietary changes. She wrote the book as though she's talking directly to you and the you seems to be a certain kind of female. Kind of like Skinny Bitch, I cannot see a man or more conservative-minded woman reading this and enjoying it. But she (and Rory Freedman) know their marketing niche and cater to it well! I've already recommended this book to a few girlfriends and will be loaning my copy out once I finish the 21 Day Adventure Cleanse.

Spicy Vegan Veggie Dip

Ingredients

    5 cups of garbanzo beans
    5 tablespoons of fresh lemon or lime juice
    1/2 cup raw walnuts
    1 clove of garlic, minced
    2 teaspoons minced onion
    2-3 jalapeno peppers with seeds
    2 tablespoons black pepper
    salt to taste.

Throw everything in a food processor and blend well. Add extra virgin olive oil to give a creamier consistency. If you want this to be a raw dish, use peeled zucchini or sprouted garbanzo beans in place of cooked or canned beans. But increase the walnuts to a full cup if you use just zucchini. If you aren't concerned with being raw and are fine with a high-raw vegan dip, using garbanzo beans gives a thick texture that my husband prefers. This is a great spicy dip for dipping veggies in but it also makes a great sandwich or pita spread. My son also likes to dip his gluten-free pretzels in it!

Choco-Coco Bites

Mmmm... Chocolate. One of my favorite treats. This recipe has so much potential for experimentation and variations. Or, just as is. My favorite way to enjoy my Choco-Coco Bites is taking little nibbles as I sip on some hot tea after dinner in the evening. They are a bit like Mounds, but more delicious and with less guilt. Yum.

Ingredients

4T Raw Cacao or Carob
2T Cold-pressed Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
2T Local Unfiltered Raw Honey
1T Organic Coconut Flakes (optional)

Mix the first three ingredients together double-boiler style stirring until thin. Pour evenly into a standard ice cube tray or other candy mold; any container would work, really, even a cookie sheet if you want to cut the chocolate into squares after it's solid - you may want to "grease" the mold with a bit of coconut oil to make them easier to remove. Sprinkle coconut flakes on top. Pop in the freezer until solid. Easy peasy. Just try not to eat them all in one sitting.

Yields: 16 little bite-sized delicious pieces.

Lunchtime Lettuce Wraps

My lunches the last couple days are usually one of two things: salads or wraps. Both nearly the same ingredients, just eaten differently. The wraps I've made the last couple times are pretty similar in ingredients - I'll change it up as soon as I get bored with this, I'm sure. But right now I'm digging: avocado, cucumber, tomato, sprouts and mustard piled nicely on a romaine lettuce leaf. The lettuce makes a nice little boat for the toppings. Nothing too fancy, just easy, filling, and delicious.

Cool Green Juice

When I first started the transition to a high-raw diet, I was eager to add the Green Lemonade recipe from Natalia Rose. And when I drank it, I wanted to puke. The thing is, there are a ton of people who love that recipe. But I should have used my common sense and realized that if I do not like regular lemonade (or any sour food or drinks) then I would not be able to stomach this Green Lemonade. Duh. So I changed it up a little and found a recipe much more palatable for the non-lemonade drinkers out there.

Cool Green Juice

1 Bunch of celery
1 Cucumber with skin
1 Bunch dinosaur kale
2 Fuji apples with skin
1 Meyer lemon

Makes about a half quart.

It is much milder in taste and easy to stomach first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. My centrifugal juicer doesn't do so well with the leafy greens, so if you have a masticating juicer, a half bunch of kale would probably yield the same amount of juice. I also strained out the pulp this time, which makes for a more palatable juice. Cheers!

Boycotting Smoothies

Uh oh. My blender has one foot in the grave and as a result is leaving the greens in small little leaves instead of pulverizing them into a smooth texture like before. That is fine with me, but after picking one or two little bits of leaf from his tongue, Lucas now adamantly REFUSES to touch any smoothies! Until I can get my hands on a new blender that can handle my high demands, I will have to try and coerce him back into trusting my smoothies by making his favorite of just strawberries and bananas. Maybe I can try adding a splash of pulp-free Green Lemonade in there (but not enough to change the color, haha) to get those green enzymes into his little body. Otherwise, he may become a Fruititarian!

Green Smoothies

One of the easiest changes to be made with this detox is the daily addition of a green smoothie. Lucas loves them, but I only made them on occasion and rarely drank them myself so to ration out and make our produce last longer. But considering the fact that these delicious green smoothies are essentially the ONLY avenue for getting the nutrients and enzymes available in these dense greens, they will become a daily morning treat for all of us. A green smoothie is mixing certain greens in with a fruit smoothie.

While I personally love a heaping plate of dandelion greens, baby spinach, and lettuce topped with an assortment of veggies and proteins, most people do not find leafy greens appealing. But they are so necessary to maintaining good health. Lucas used to love sharing my salads but in recent years turns up his nose at the sight - however, he will slurp down a green smoothie containing a serving of kale and spinach without a second thought. Even better is the fact that by blending the greens, you get MORE of their essential elements than just gnawing on a salad.

The vitamins and minerals are delivered in an easily absorbed liquid form as the blending process fractures the cell walls to release the nutrients. Consuming blended greens on a regular basis helps to restore biochemical hydration and proper internal pH balance (homeostasis) from the most basic cellular level. And it doesn't have to taste like crap, either. BONUS. As time goes on, I'll be experimenting with different greens and fruit combinations, but a mix of kale, spinach, strawberries, and oranges or bananas seems to be a hit around here. In addition to the produce, I have been adding in ground flaxseed for the Omega-3 fatty acids and protein (I'll write more about flax later on) and if the bitterness of the greens, particularly dark kale, is able to be tasted over the sweet fruit, I will add a couple dates. I'm not a fan of stevia or other sweeteners.

Vibram FiveFingers Sprints

Finally! After lusting after Vibrams for a year or more, I finally took the plunge and bought a pair! The sneakers I was wearing to the gym were ridiculous and painful to even walk in, but I didn't expect much from shoes bought for five dollars at Kmart some ten years ago. But, they were all I had in the form of running shoes - I would have felt rather silly clomping along on an elliptical in my Converse.

Do the Vibrams look peculiar? Yes. But are they wonderfully comfortable and delightful to wear? YES. I wore them without socks the first day and the only odd thing I noticed was that every so often I would feel a sensation a bit like my toes were numb, but without the unpleasant tingling. They weren't numb, as I would learn with a quick wiggle. My thought is that it might just be my toes not touching each other and missing that sensation. A bit like how you don't feel a ring on your finger after a while of wearing it unless it moves. Something you probably need to experience to understand.

After that first time, I wore a pair of toe socks along with them and while I enjoy the added warmth, it makes for too snug a fit, particularly in the outer three digits and becomes uncomfortable after a bit of walking or using any kind of cardio machine. So, while I adore my pretty rainbow toe socks, I prefer comfort and will likely be going sockless from now on. Even if there is two feet of snow on the ground.