englandsword

I have a huge bag of oranges that I've been trying to eat up, but it's not going too quickly! I've been drinking lots of green smoothies. I made one a couple nights ago with almost an entire bunch of chard, some fennel, strawberries, banana, mango, and pear. I love eating something like that because it tastes good and you can't help but be proud of yourself, too. I also cut up this avocado to put on salads. I love how many different varieties of avocado are available in California, it's so cool. I ate the falafel that I got from the woman who sold me the spiralizer. They were sooo good and I've written her to ask for the recipe. Look, they're yellow! There was some taste in them that I really wished I could pinpoint... alas, I am not good at that. And for good measure, here is my new spiral slicer. I used it to cut up some cucumbers for my salad yesterday, but they came out like circles and not like noodles. Not sure why, maybe it's the produce...

I had a good, salad-filled weekend. I read a post on Healthy Happy Life where the author, Kathy, said she lives a salad-a-day lifestyle. I really like that. Not only do I like salad, but I like the idea of living a lifestyle where I eat salad every day. That reminds me of a passage I read in Raw Food for Real People that talked about how the author learned to quit smoking. Instead of asking if he wanted to have a cigarette, which he could rationalize as being "just one," he asked himself if he wanted to be someone who smokes. And he did not. This mindset can be applied to anything -- maybe I want to eat brownies at midnight, but do I want to be someone who eats brownies at midnight? No, I do not. I want to be the kind of person who exercises every day and eats salad. I made myself kind of a "vanilla milkshake" this weekend out of almond milk, a little bit of date paste, vanilla powder, and maca. It was good and I liked how frothy it looked after a little ...

I woke up at 9:45 today (late, I know) and checked my e-mail first thing. I'm glad I did that because I had an e-mail informing me of a last-minute audition at 10:45! I threw on some clothes and makeup and busted out the door and I made it! Plus, I did pretty well. It was fun. For lunch today I had the samosas I made yesterday. I mentioned that I messed up the samosa wrapper but it ended up working out better than I thought. It just wasn't very pretty, so I only took a picture of the insides. I can't remember exactly where I got my recipe, but I think it was What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anway (at veganmenu.blogspot.com). Samosas 4 ears of corn 1 tbs. olive oil 1/2" fresh turmeric root 1 tbs. lime juice 1 tsp. cumin seeds 2 tbs. fresh cilantro 1 small jalapeno sea salt and pepper to taste 1 tbs. ground flax seed Puree all of the ingredients in the Vita-Mix and let sit for 15 minutes. Pour onto a teflex dehydrator sheet as close to the edges as possible. Dehydr...

I made some cool stuff today. I tried oat groats for the first time, which I soaked overnight and then blended up with some goji berries. I actually made a ton of stuff. I finished making the pad thai I started last night, as well as a paella/tabouli with sprouted quinoa, fennel stuffing, mushroom curry, and an attempt at samosas. The samosas didn't really happen because I messed up the wrappers so I'm just dehydrating them extra to be chips and the filling will still be good. The pad thai, which I based off a Russell James recipe, was pretty freakin' awesome. I will definitely make that again. Tonight I went to a German meetup, which was nice. I don't get to speak in German very often! Tomorrow... I don't know. No plans.

I bought so much freakin' food at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market today. I actually made a list: Salad mix, chard, a cauliflower, a 5 pound bag of oranges (for 3 dollars, mind you - and these are gooood oranges), a fennel bulb, 3 baby artichokes, sugar snap peas, broccolini, apples, mint and basil, cherimoyas, an avocado, strawberries, asparagus, and walnuts. As if that wasn't enough, I went to Whole Foods afterwards, where I bought jungle peanuts, hemp seeds, grape tomatoes, flax seeds, cacao nibs, frozen berries and corn, kelp noodles, zucchini, umeboshi plum paste, dry lentils, tamarind pods, a yellow pepper, oat groats, spelt berries, and coconut water. SO much food. I was pretty excited to see the raw jungle peanuts, which were a new addition to our bulk section. I just heard of these for the first time this week -- apparently they are the only kind of peanut that is safe and tasty to eat raw (aflatoxin free). They are red, but I tried a couple and they taste jus...

I had a great day today because I had a kick-ass audition. But this blog is supposed to be about my non-acting life. :) Raw food-wise, I had a green smoothie for lunch and nori rolls for dinner. I just rolled up some leftover marinated bok choy and mushrooms and chomp chomp. For a snack I had some carrot puree, adapted from the recipe here: http://lilearthmuffin.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/simply-fantastic-2/. Here's a picture (topped with some hemp seeds and cacao nibs. OK, I totally get why people are obsessed with those. It's because they're awesome: In giveaway news, Kristen over at Kristen's Raw is giving away "protein grenades": http://kristensraw.blogspot.com/2010/03/kristens-raw-21st-awesome-giveaway-free.html. So check it out! I recommend checking out her site anyway because she has lots of great info and a generally great info about her high-raw, all-vegan diet. My favorite blogs are definitely the all-vegan ones. I don't understand non-veg...

I had a good weekend! I got some miscellaneous things done and of course I made more food. I had my job interview yesterday, and although the pay is tempting unfortunately I realized I would have to turn it down just because I need more flexibility because my acting career has to come first. I also watched the 1978 movie Ice Castles last night, and I did really enjoy it (like my mom knew I would). Today I went to the Unitarian Universalist church I've been going to recently -- I'm not really a church-goer but I am a friend-meeter so there ya go. I also had coffee with a girl from my acting class, which was really fun. Yay for social time. I finally got a chance to use my sprouted buckwheat groats and they are great! I read some conflicting reports about how long you should let them sprout -- some said only a day, and some said three days. I went for three days because I like maximum nutrition and I want to get the most bang for my buck. Here's my awesome sprouts i...

I have been really busy this week! Yesterday I had my workout class, orientation at The Actors' Network, and tutoring, so I was gone all day. I brought my veggie burger with me, on a piece of onion bread. They turned out really well and I definitely plan on making more. In fact, I could probably eat those veggie burgers daily. There's my burgers and my onion bread. Yes, the burgers are tiny. So I guess I made Sliders or whatever they're called! There's my whole burger sandwich with onion bread, lettuce, burger, BBQ sauce, and mustard. I added sprouts after the picture was taken. Today I had a quiche. At least that's what the recipe was called -- it asked for something like a cup of cashew cheese and lots of chopped vegetables, to be dehydrated in a tart pan. I cut up a bunch of veggies -- broccoli, bok choy, mushrooms, yellow pepper, zucchini, and tomato -- and used a tiny amount of watery cashew cheese to get it to all stick together. I topped it with som...

So I got my first results from the dehydrator today and they are good! My sweet potato chips came out yumm: There is an errant falafel in there. Those were good, too. It's true that sprouted chickpeas are an acquired taste, but I think I can acquire it. So we'll see. My craisins came out great!!! I seriously only put about a teaspoon of agave over an entire bag of cranberries and they came out perfect -- just sweet enough so that you can enjoy them. Here's a picture of them on the dehydrator sheet (there are cherries in there, too). Oh, and here is a picture of my dehydrator in my kitchen. It does take up a lot of space -- sorry to my roommate -- but it is awesome. And sorry the picture is sideways. It would not let me change it! Tonight before bed I made onion bread and veggie burgers. I based the veggie burger recipe off of the Zoom Burgers (Zucchini-Mushroom) from the Raw Food Diet Revolution. For the onion bread I mushed up 1.5 yellow onions with some Braggs,...

My dehydrator showed up today! It didn't get here until 7 but I did a few hours of prep before it got here so I could be ready to start using it! I sprouted some chickpeas -- my first sprouting experience ever! And it worked! Here are some pictures: That shows some of the sprouts coming through the bag. I thought it looked gross in a cool way. :) A peek into the bag. And my sprouts! I heard that the sprouts need to grow for 2-3 days and this was just two days but it seemed good enough to me. So, I immediately set to work destroying my beautiful sprouts and making some other good stuff -- hummus and falafel. For the hummus, I just used my food processor and mushed up the chickpeas with tahini, zucchini (to lower the calories a bit), cumin, coriander, parsley, cilantro, red pepper, and sun-dried tomatoes. It turned into a lovely sun-dried tomato hummus. Yum! I also made falafel, which I based loosely off of Gena's recipe on Choosing Raw: http://www.choosingraw.com/carrot-...

Welcome to my first blog post! I blogged every day during my travels in Europe and study abroad in Beijing but I haven't done any blogging since. I moved to LA in January and I want to start a blog about life in LA and my goal to be as healthy and happy as possible! I also have an acting website, erikaheidewald.com, where I post career updates. Today I spent most of my day outside up on my rooftop porch, reading and enjoying the 80-degree weather. I also went to my new tutoring job, yay! I've been getting really into the raw food diet lately, and I've been pretty much 100% raw for a week now and I'm feeling great. I just bought a dehydrator after months of wanting one and it's coming tomorrow! I'm really excited so I'm trying to plan out what I am going to make this week! That's my rooftop garden. I'm growing tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, arugula, mint, parsley, and cilantro. My strawberry plants are starting to grow flowers! I have been d...