Couscous and Red Quinoa Garden Salad

Quinoa and couscous make delicious bases for salads of all sorts. When it's garden season, I throw whatever is ready for harvest into chilled quinoa and couscous and mix it all together. I dress it lightly with balsamic and olive oil or the delicious vegan French dressing referenced here in this blog. So delightful!

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked quinoa, chilled
1 cup cooked couscous, chilled
**or 1/2 cup each quinoa and couscous depending on side of salad**

Fruit:
strawberries, mango, peaches

Fresh, raw veggies:
kale
red onion
salad greens
tomatoes
yellow, orange or red sweet bell pepper
cilantro
basil, ripped

Trimmings:
blanched almonds, or
Marcona almonds
raw sunflower seeds
raw pepitas
feta cheese, or
goat cheese

optional: black beans

Enjoy!

Raw Banana Brownie Ice Cream

2 - 4 frozen bananas, in pieces
4 - 6 raw brownie bites
1/4 cup water to start
optional: cayenne

Simply Delicious Vegan French Dressing

2 cups chopped tomatoes
1 cup raw cashews or raw sunflowers (or mixture of both)
2/3 cup lemon (or less)
1/4 cup tamari soy, namu shoyu, braggs
1 cup olive oil
2 - 4 tbsp agave
2 tbs basil
3 coves garlic
1 teaspoon oregano
Water

Raw/Vegan Brownie Bites

1 cup cashews
1 cup medjool dates (pitted)
6 tbs cocoa or 3 tbs cacao
1 tbs pure vanilla extract

Five Nutritarian Meals That Taste Good

Nutritarian Meals

1. Vegetable wrap -- Whole grain tortilla with homemade bean paste or hummus, avocado, tomato, dark greens, onion, mushroom, feta/bleu cheese
(substitute wrap with sprouted grain bread or sprouted pita)

2.  Vegetable barley/lentil soup -- homemade vegetable stock, garlic, onion, mushroom, spinach, beans, lentils/barley, black rice

3. oatmeal -- steel cut oats, almond/coconut milk, chia/flax (or both), cinnamon, vanilla, raw honey, raw nuts, fruit of choice, coconut oil

4. hummus -- homemade hummus, vegetables such as cucumber, celery and carrots with which to eat, or whole grain/sprouted grain pita, toasted bread sticks (sprouted)

5. fruit smoothie -- organic frozen fruit, high quality Greek yogurt, raw honey, coconut oil

Health: It's So Important

I did better today.

One coffee, one coke, one glass of wine, a large bowl of soup. Some water.

I hate to admit that the above constitutes "better", but it does.

At present my constitution is weak. I keep hurting myself, trying to become stronger. As if the universe doth conspire. Yet it doesn't. It's honestly just me. What I've done to myself.

Granted, I went through all that medical drama. It's not insignificant. Laying inert for so long, a body can forget its better days. But I've wanted those better days, and badly. Not the perfect form --- no. Just health. Wellness.

Last summer I was doing a lot of spiritual work. The more work I did, the more refined my diet became. Not in a dysfunctional way. In a ... spiritual way.

I began to become intolerant of wine. Hard liquor. Red meat. Coffee. It started in June (and I believe it's all documented here in this blog) and by August I was vegan. Not just vegan, but my food was approximately 90% raw. My skin glowed. I had boundless energy. The feeling of failure vanished; I'd accomplished my own rescue.

Used to be I could do something for a week and then pretend I'd done it a lifetime. I could eat salads, drink smoothies, supplement. One week? Done. After that? As long as I wanted. Precedents are important to me.

Yet here, now, I cannot even fathom a week. Myopia. It's the bottom of the well in which I'm currently residing. Stress has dumped me here, and people, and conditions. Mortal coil conditions.

Even as I wrote that I knew it was a cop out.

I have dumped me here. Me. Me.

I cannot ask anybody else to throw the proverbial rope down to me, either. I've got to dig fingernails into cold stone grooves and hoist my own self out of this dark. I know can do it. God, I know I can.

This comes off dramatic, I realize that. But it's that critical. You have no idea, not really. I've been trying to tell you for some time ---- it's very important.

Lifestyle Issues

I haven't posted any new recipes because truth be told I've been on a cleanse of sorts. I do drink smoothies, however, chock full of all manner of glorious things, and I have taken pictures as well as noted which blends make me feel particularly well, and why. Awhile back I also candied some tomatoes and made some fun and delicious flavored oils; photos and recipes of all these things to come at some point in the near future.

Mainly though I am eating a lot of raw foods. Spinach, nuts, seeds, cherries, bananas, etc. I use a little bit of olive oil to dress my veggies, and the rest of the time I use raw virgin coconut oil for medicinal reasons. I get more than enough healthy fats using that. I mix the coconut oil with orange juice (about a tablespoon to half a glass) and drink three times a day. The oil helps with thyroid function (I have Hashimoto's) and I am amazed over the great things it's doing for my skin, and also my energy levels. I will post more expansively on this soon.

Basically I eat the same thing nearly every day. This doesn't make good fodder for a food blog of course, but I will perhaps begin to include my observations on living 90% raw, as well as how this lifestyle is affecting my general well-being. I believe in nutritional intervention. I believe in holistic care. I believe in being the staunchest advocate for my own health care, and one way I do this is by trying to ingest things I know will truly feed my body. It's been a reverent exercise. The body truly is a temple, and the more we treat it as such, the better we begin to feel in so many areas of our life.

So, if nobody minds some deviation from the tried and true course (that being rad recipes that taste awesome), you'll be hearing from me more often on a variety of nutrtional topics currently of interest to me.

Peace.