Easy Gazpacho Recipe

Gazpacho is a Spanish cold soup traditionally made with stale bread. My raw version was inspired by a Seafood Gazpacho recipe from www.worldshealthiestfoods.org



Ingredients: Tomatoes, tomatillos, cilantro, Italian pepper, bell pepper, cucumber, lemon juice, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder and celtic salt (in the amounts shown in the picture above)

Chop up the bell pepper, 1/2 the cucumber and about 1/2 of the tomatoes. Put aside a little bit of cilantro and few slices of the Italian pepper for garnish and blend the rest in a food processor.


Wah-Lah, super easy, refreshing & delicious raw gazpacho...enjoy!

8 Daily Essentials

L u n c h F r o m H e a v e n . . .

...Not that I would recommend eating a chocolate bar for lunch every day but it can't be SO bad to indulge now and again, can it?

The past few days have been happy ones. I think I'm done with stress, I'm giving it up. Ok, so I might not ever be able to COMPLETELY give it up but though I might have some days that are more taxing than others, I don't want to loose sight of the joy in my life. I want to relinquish the things, people and activities that cause me more unhappiness than happiness. I want to simplify and purify my life. I want to ENJOY what I'm doing and not feel rushed and overwhelmed. If I'm busy I want to be busy doing things are care about and find worthwhile. I'm excited for my next cleanse (September 21st) and even more excited that BOTH of my roommates have decided to join me! They really are awesome.

Today I had a one hour break between classes so I decided to walk to the co-op where I bought some coconut water and the most AMMMAAAZZZZZZZiiiiNGGG raw chocolate bar. Sweet mother of god I think I just found my new weakness. ohhheemmmgeee, it was so decedant and satisfying. Then I loitered in our local bookstore for the rest of the hour where I bought a housewarming card for my momma to congratulate her on her new place in New Mexico. I also sat there and read some of Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Cancer. Man oh man, I can't even say enough great things about that woman...what a story. Her book is beautiful and full of so much positive energy and tips that ANYONE...let me correct that, EVERYONE should read and incorporate into their lives. When I'm not so broke I think I might buy it.

After my daily commitments were over I hung out with my roommate on campus and we walked home together. Then I had some green tea with agave and a big salad with some new fancy greens, avocado and dressing I made last night. The dressing was tahini, garlic, sesame oil and juiced ginger. Damn, that stuff will k n o c k your socks off.

After this simple but lovely day here are 8 things that I've decided I want to make habit of:

Eight Things For Every Day

1. Leafy Greens
I don't want to set unrealistic goals about my greens intake but I definitely want to get some leafy greens in every day!

2. HTP-5

Ever since I heard about HTP-5 being able to help with binges I've been curious to see how effective it actually is. I'll never really find out unless I'm consistent though so I need to make a point of it.

3. Green Tea

I go back and forth on the caffeine debate but all in all I think the natural and minimal amount in green tea is a great way to kick start my energy and keep me feeling full. Plus, it's SO refreshing!

4. Water

They say most raw foodies don't really NEED to drink water since we get so much in the fruits and veggies we eat. Regardless, I like the way that water keeps me feeling satiated, especially if I want to stop eating late at night. Drinking water is a good alternative.

5. Walking

Walking is a great stress reliever and is just all around good for your body. I try to walk as much as possible. It's recommended that adults walk 10,000 steps a day (about 5 miles). Since there's a pedometer in my phone I keep an eye on it and achieve this minimum pretty much every day. I walk back and forth to school (about a mile) at least once a day Monday-Friday so that definitely helps. I want to start making it a goal to walk 10 miles a day though by adding an evening walk on as many nights as possible.

6. Music

Just seems like a given, really no explanation necessary. Music makes me happy :)

7. Sleep

I'm still waiting for the raw energy to enable me to survive and thrive on 2 hours of sleep a night. Right now that's not the reality and I need to allow myself the 6-8 hours that my body is asking for.

8. Laughter

Is the best medicine, take daily.

"Monkey, monkey, underpants..."

"I guess what I be saying is there aint no better reason, to rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons..."

Beautiful song, beautiful video and as the icing on the cake...Jason's a raw foodie. I've liked his music since his first CD came out and just found out about his dabbles in raw foodism. Not that this makes me like his music any more or less but I do think it's pretty bad ass.



You should definitely check out his blog if you haven't do so. Click-ity click on his ammmazzziiinnng looking "chocomole" picture to do so. I'm SO making that BTW.

Next on the list of random thoughts in my head is...."ow". Apparently it takes longer than I thought for an immune system to build up and stop getting sick after going raw. I think I have a sinus infection. I feel all congested and plugged up and slept ALLLLLL day until 5:00 when I got up and got ready to go to work, where I currently sit.

Being sick puts me in such a biiitchy mood and eff, I hate it. I seriously DO NOT like fighting with people. It just seems like such a waste of time and energy and I honestly have a hard time being mad for more than 2 minutes, I kid you not. Even during those two minutes I KNOW it's a waste of time and energy cuz I'm just gonna get over it. If someone honestly betrays me to the point where I think I'm better off without in my life than that's another story but I just don't get the point in sweating the small stuff if you really love somebody. Anways, that's my little tirade about how much I hate being angry, haha. Ironic much? I think I got in my first "fight"(?) with my roommate last night and I must say I didn't quite care for it. We were both in a mood but whatev, she's still one of my favorite people in the world so I could really give a shit about one insignificant incident.

Moving on...found a new blog linked off Bueller's kitchen

COCO Y MANGO

A blog about raw in SPANISH???...i'm in love <3

yummieee.

grated crook neck squash with diced tomatoes, a little bit of olive oil, celtic salt, paprika and chili powder.

Try it :)

UPDATE

It's been a while since I updated so here's what's up...


I'm in the middle of my second week of school. I have a lot of my plate (no pun intended) this semester. I'm only taking 12 units which is the lightest load I've had since I've been here (this will be my third year of college) but I'm also working 30 hours a week (between 5 jobs), volunteering 5 hours (boys and girls club and the local co-op) and trying to get back into doing voice coaching since singing has been something I've always loved but never really devoted sufficient attention to. I went home for labor day weekend and manged to eat 100% raw although not very organic. Still, it was definitely cool to know I could do it and "come out" as raw to my friends and family. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Backtracking a little bit, last Thursday as part of my volunteer working membership with the co-op I helped work a really cool lecture called "The Health Robbers" which discussed the dangers of highly processed foods (DUH) and talked about what foods were best for you. The lecturer was Marsha Vernoga; a raw foodist which was pretty cool considering I've actually met very few others in person. Her lecture was very interesting but talking with her about her raw food journey was probably the best part of the evening. She was very sick and healed herself with raw foods. In sad news, the organic raw restaurant in my town had to close down. I guess it's just not the market for that sort of thing here. I feel bad for not supporting it more although I know I couldn't have single-handedly saved it. I did find out about Empire Coffee; a fair-trade organic coffee shop that's in an restored antique cable car by the greyhound station so I'll definitley be checking that out shortly.

That's all for now! :)

So that was a nice 2 days...

I had a big green salad and two green smoothies on Friday but then after work I was pretty hungry still (a very unsatisfying smoothie that day) so I ate a ton of fruit. I probably had ten pieces (granted some were really small but still). Saturday I hit the nuts and fruit pretty hard and then again on Sunday, even worse.

I know it seems a little rash to say "hit the fruit and nuts" like it's hitting the bottle or something. Nuts and fruits are good for you though, right? Then why did I make myself so sick that I couldn't even go to work on Monday? I don't know if the terrible stomach pains were a DIRECT result of the binge over the two days preceding but I can't imagaine that the two were unrelated.

I don’t know how to measure my progress anymore. Am I 90% raw? Yes. Am I still a binge eater? Yes. Old habits die hard and I DO still have binges, although not as often. It’s harder for me to define a binge now than it use to be but binging on healthy food is still BINGING. It’s easy now that there aren’t any processed carbohydrates in the house but when my roommates move back who knows how it will be.

When I binge I feel full to the point of practically making myself still but somehow I’m still not satiated. In a discussion thread on GI2MR, we were discussing the fact that low levels of serotonin can cause binges. I had no idea. I’ve heard people say that a binge is caused by your body’s cravings for proper nutrition and that’s how raw can help to correct it. I ordered some 5 HTP to balance the serotonin and hopefully that will be a big help, we'll just have to see I guess.

I identify the following things as triggers for binges:

-Eating a large breakfast and then not eating for a long period of time.

- Improper hydration

- Stress

- Having certain things in my house…dates, dried fruit, nuts, seeds and sometimes shredded coconut.

- Not exercising in the morning

For now I'm going to stop buying the things above. I’ll be getting some spirulina and wheat germ for my protein intake and avos and oils for my fats. I know I’ve written that before in here but apparently I’m not such a quick study, haha. I’m also gonna keep my Kleen Kanteen filled all the time and drink a full one every day (40 oz). I’m also going to make it a point to work out every morning and then take some time to sit down and think about the day, do some stretches, breathing, meditating and thinking about my goals and priorities for the day. I also want to try to stop eating late at night. I hope I can obtain all of these resolutions. They seem easy enough but still might be too much for me to handle right now, ugh. I always make up challenges for myself like this one and always set myself up to fail by making things too restrictive. I can’t stay with a workout plan for more than 3 days, I swear. I need to just be more accepting of the fact that my goals are guidelines and it's okay if I don't do them all 100% all of the time. It's not all or nothing, just something to strive for and if I fall a little short, I'll still be helping myself and not giving myself an excuse to binge. Ok, that's it for now.

We’ll see how it plays out once school starts.

Green Goal Day Two

Today's green smoothie was


6 cups of green tea
3 cups of parsley
1 cup of celery
1 cup of mango chunks
2 cups of banana slices
I had this for breakfast and dinner & it made me one happy camper, yum.

For lunch I had some pesto with squash pasta, tomatoes and pine nuts. The fresh herbs accounted for 25%+ greens part of my meal. It was deee-lish. Everyone in the break room was commenting on the amazing smell.

I guess I should mention a little something about the insanity that is my life as of late. Well, for the two weeks before school starts (one almost down and another to go) I'm working two jobs. I go to job #1 from 8 am- 4:30 pm Mon-Fri and then on the 5 or so days a week that I work job #2, I go straight from job #1 and work at 5:00...craziness. Then I get home, prep all of the food for the next day, check GI2MR, facebook, myspace, e-mail ect and crash out. I have been sleeping way less than the 8 hours a night that I soaked up almost every other night this summer. I always hear raw foodies saying that they only sleep 4 hours a night or something like that which sounds AMAZINNNG but I've never been able to pull it off. I'm not exactly sure how to go about it. I've gotten in a habit since starting college of pretty much always setting an alarm even if there's nothing especially pressing about getting up. So now I wonder if I should drop the alarm and see when my body wakes up naturally and that's how many hours of sleep I am suppose to be getting? How do you know what your body needs exactly? Sometimes you're tired and know your body needs rest but you can't fall sleep for one reason or another. I've been getting 6 hours for the past few nights (4 one night) and haven't had any major energy crashes or anything. My thoughts have been very clear (which they generally are NOT when I'm sleep deprived). I could attribute this to the ammount of greens I've had in the past few days and/or the fact that I've been working out at least a little each morning, I think that really helps my energy levels. I do get lulls in my energy during certain times of the day. When I get off work I always have all kinds of energy though so I'm thinking maybe it's not the lack of sleep but rather the lack of excitement in my life right now. haha. It's okay though, only a week left then my awesome roomies move back, school starts and I have a life again. Whooo-hooo!