NY Resolutions

And it's only the 30th! Well I got Raw Food Life Force Energy: Enter a Totally New Stratosphere of Weight Loss, Beauty, and Health by Natalia Rose for xmas and starting next Monday I'll be following the 21 day programme she outlines in it. Why? Well I really need to lose weight; and although I'm not unwell I'm looking to feel good all the time, despite working a rotating shift pattern, which mucks up my digestion and I'm sure exacerbates my migraines. What I like about this is that looks realistic for me. She recommends Green and Black's chocolate and goats cheese for goodness sake. It looks like a plan I can do and stick to, and 21 days is enough time for me know whether it is likely to work for me. And I'll tell you all about it.
I've really enjoyed reading about Erin Pavlina's 30 raw trial, and in her posts on it, the fact that she can do it because it's only for 30 days often comes up. Well what I'm doing is only for 21 days so surely even I should be able to do (right?). (I also enjoyed reading about Steve Pavlina's Juice feast but don't quite feel up to that yet!).

What else? To try a new recipe every week. To go running with my young man every time we both have a day off, to do half an hour of cardiovascular exercise every I'm off and on my own, and to do half an hour of yoga on the days I work normal (8 hour) shifts; I'm giving myself the days I have 12 1/2 hour shifts off (ho ho ho). To do my Msc dissertation. To professionally practice Reiki.

Wish me luck, I think I might need it.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

OOooooo

He he, I just saw that the google ad that popped up was for www.shazzie.com I Love Shazzie and think you all go there even when google doesn't tell you to!

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Big Sticky Choca-Choca Brownies

Billionaire Brownies or Big Sticky Choca-Choca Brownies

This recipe is in 3 parts, because there are three key stages to making it. Make sure you’ve read it through and know what you need first. *Heath warning* This recipe contains over half a pound of butter and nearly a pound of sugar, never mind the nearly a pound of chocolate! This is not healthy eating recipe so don’t eat them all *Health Warning*

Make sure you have read the recipe and are ready
Pre heat the oven to gas mark 3
Line a tin (8 X 8 or 8 X 12) with baking paper and get ready …

Brownie Layer

7 Oz Unsalted Butter
2 Oz Cocoa Powder
11 Oz Caster Sugar
2 Large, Organic, Free Range Eggs, Beaten
8 Oz Plain Flour
3 1/2 Oz Chocolate (buttons chunks or a smashed up bar)

(Oh I suppose the eggs don’t have to be organic but please get free range, if you use eggs from caged hens not only must you live with yourself but Chickeno the Chicken god will peck you)

Melt the butter (in a small / medium size saucepan)
Stir in the cocoa powder and sugar and mix until smooth (well as smooth as you can get it)
Remove from heat
Stir in the eggs until completely combined
Stir in the plain flour until completely combined, this will take some mixing
Stir in the chocolate pieces
Pour into the prepared tin, shake to level and pop in the oven (at gas mark 3) for around half an hour until firm on top

Take out and leave to cool in its tin ideally for at least half an hour

Caramel Layer

4 Oz Unsalted Butter
3 Oz Caster Sugar
2 Tbs Golden syrup
1 x 379g tin of Condensed Milk
100g Chocolate (buttons chunks or a smashed up bar) or Nuts (optional)

Make sure you are ready! Once you start making caramel you can’t stop, or pause, and be careful because it burns. Also make sure you have condensed milk, not evaporated milk, they are not the same thing (although they do both come in tins). Hazels or pecans toasted make good yummy additions to this layer.

Melt the butter (in yer saucepan)
Reduce the heat and add the condensed milk, sugar and syrup, this mix will be a pale creamy colour, viz:
Stir and do not stop stirring for about half an hour until it goes a dark caramel colour, if you stop it will catch and burn.
Remove from the heat and stir in your optional goodies
Pour on top of the brownie layer and leave to cool

Chocolate layer

7 Oz Chocolate

Bash up your chocolate if it is in a bar and melt over boiling water or in short blasts in a microwave
Pour on top of your caramel layer, leave to cool
Pop in the fridge and leave for a couple of hours to firm up before you cut it up

Balls!

Balls of the washing kind that is. I've recently got a magno-ball, which has the same sort of effect as calgon tablets (i.e. stopping your washing machine becoming utterly clogged with limescale, if, like me, you happen to live in a hard water area). It seems to work but I guess I'll only really know when in fails to break in a few years. If you can notice something not breaking down. I've also got some eco-balls which are like flying saucers you put in the washing machine instead of detergents. They seem to be working quite well, and allegedly last for up to 1000 washes. They also eliminate the need for rinse cycles and fabric softener. Dryer balls I have had almost as long as my tumbler. They bang about and make a noise and in the process bash your clothes, softening them, making them dry faster, and reducing tangles. I have read that tennis balls will work as well, but I haven't used them personally. On drying, if you like those scented sheets you chuck in the tumbler, rags (5x5 bits cotton preferably, old t-shirts or jeans are good) with 5 drops of your chosen essential oil and kept in a Tupperware box work well to give your laundry a nice scent if you chuck in the dryer like those commercial sheets you can buy. One of things with using the washing balls is you laundry smells of nothing, literally nothing which can be a bit odd, although possibly better than the weird synthetic scents like purple diamond and cake flower that purveyors of detergent seem to think we want to make all our clothes smell like. The rags can then be laundered after use and re-scented.

As i type I've been watching Nigella. Looking at her rocky road and the sheer amount of salt that went on that beef I wonder if she's trying to ensure coronary artery disease for all the Christmas.


Here are some links to get you balls off amazon Dryer Balls by Ecozone, Eco balls, Water Softening Magnoball. But they are reasonably widely available in shops and from places like Wiggly Wigglers online (which is where I got my balls (oo er!)).

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Wake up and smell the veggie burgers

Here, here, and here, everywhere people are finally talking about the massive negative environmental impact of eating meat. Finally.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Cleaning out my closet

Hmm, I have some pics of my breadmaking efforts but have now managed to temporarily mislocate the cable thingy for the camera so that will have to wait for another time ... Have been having buckets of fun with it still though, particularly making seeded breads. I'm currently psyching myself up to attack a cake recipe in the breadmaker.

The worms are still alive, if not quite thriving in the cold wet weather. They eat human hair right? I gave Mr FatGirl a trim while tipsy at the weekend so that should keep the little ones fed for a little while anyway.

I've spent today spring cleaning my kitchen (yes, I realise its mid-winter but I can't rely on having the time or motivation come spring). Oldest date? October 2003, on a jar of cumin seeds. I actually turned out to have 3 jars of cumin seeds (one of which was in date!). This is why i decided to do this, when making some of the aforementioned seeded bread it came to my attention that I had 3 packs of pumpkin seeds, I'd been buying them thinking I had none and I had loads, just right at the back of the cupboard. I've been ruthless chucking out anything out of date even if its something like dried beans that I think shouldn't really have sell by dates anyway. The best thing is having been able to rearrange everything so I can actually see what I've go instead of blindly groping in the cupboards. Joy.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Well, It is jolly cold here. The last few winters have been so mild, not used to this frost stuff! So stay in and cook something nice and stodgy that still makes you feel a bit more Mediterranean like this. Mind you I do love goats cheese. And red onions. And Rosemary. I have to say I do totally love the good food website it's such a great resource; if you are ever stuck for what to have for dinner, this is the site you want.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Bread of life

Well maybe not of life. I've inherited a bread maker. it came with a lack of instructions, so I was bit scared but it seems fairly straightforward and Mr Fatgirl was easily able to make lovely loaf while your author was sleeping off her night shifts, thanks to the book Breadmachine Easy by Sara Lewis. I've got one of those mixes you get in the supermarché in there now, will let you know how it goes.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Killing worms

Back to the can-o-worms. Well I thought they were all dead. After some advice i think they were not but I bought some more who seem to be eating the moisture mat on the top rather than the food but there you go. I have gleaned from what I have read that they take to settle in and become efficient. Tonight and last night have been below 0 (C that is, I'm in UK) so I'm thinking that is slowing them down. I've debated bringing them in the garage but i think i might crash into them every time I park (not a big garage, a Peugeot 106 fits in tightly) so I'm not too sure. I made some food I wanted to put on here but temporarily mislaid my camera and felt the pics would really help explain what I'm on about. I've located my cam so just need make it all again.

I'm debating going in for bokashi. Why? Well I'm dead keen on home composting, all my growing occurs om my allotment maybe 3/4 of a mile away. At this time of year I don't even get there once a week really. One of the main reasons people tend to bokashi is to get rid of dead animals (meat) and so on. I don't eat dead animals so most of my cooked food could venture to the wormery. But they are too slow (at the moment anyway), and don't like onions and citrus (I do!). I think if I went in for bokashi-ing I could bokashi food worms wouldn't like, I could take it down the allotment when its pickled, in it's lidded container (not my stinky, open top compost collector I use now), then either add it to my existing heap or use for trench composting. Hmmm anyone bokaski?

I'm also debating either starting a new blog or expanding this one. Why? Well I'm hooked on several medblogs, I'm a nurse and I want to talk about that. Also I'm starting a business as a complimentary therapist and want to talk about that. Is this the appropriate space for either of those. or should this just be a kitchen garden place (with the emphasis on kitchen)? *sigh*

Ahhh, I'm also desperate to buy a dehydrator. I know many raw people are a little down on them, but I think if I had more denser 'raw' stuff I could munch on I'd probably eat more raw foods. I mean check out this amazing recipe from Shazzie. I mean raw crispy pancakes! Yeah I can go for that.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

In Praise of Chard

I'm not, nor have I ever been, the biggest fan of Swiss Chard. However I am getting more and more impressed with it. I sowed some in June and again in August purely because we had been given some seeds. It's still growing. It seems to be less popular with the slugs than the other leafy greens on my plot (which have been devoured). You can put the young leaves in salad (although I wouldn't, eurhg!), but it is amazing in soups and stir frys. And (as I think is self evident in my success in its cultivation) is fairly idiot proof. Just be careful who you give your excess to. I have friend who gave away some ruby chard, which then got put into a crumble. Honest.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

More on worms

Okay, so my wormery is now up and running (no thanks to the royal mail, who despite the note on the parcel telling them where to leave it, took my worms back to their delivery office). I think they are doing alright, I definitely saw one wriggling through my rotting pepper yesterday. I am worried about the weather though, it's very wet. The contents of the wormery don't seem over moist though. Hmm...

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

What not to wear?

Ok so I've just listened to wiggly podcast 0158. In it, Heather talks to fellow nuffield scholar Louise Manning about water, water footprint (er, like a carbon footprint but y'know, for water) and so on. In it Louise points out that it takes 11,000 liters of water to make a pair of jeans. Heather muses over whether in the future we will go to wearing more locally produced wool for example. I'm not really sure what to think about wool. I do wear it (but wool next to ones skin is notoriously itchy) but should I? I am a vegetarian and have been for maaaaany years. But I only stopped wearing leather maybe 2 or 3 years ago. I still have leather items I've not chucked out, but I don't buy it. Bizarrely I now have a leather sofa - it was going for free, but free-ness aside I wouldn't have one. I actually fought off many very cheap offers from people for leather sofas but when it comes to free, I relented.

At this point you are probably wondering what the hell I am on about animals have to die for leather, but not for wool right? Well look any vegan literature and you'll see its not that simple, www.savethesheep.com is a place to start. Shearing Is not necessarily the nice 'haircut for sheep' that we tend to think of it being. Also this shorn wool is in contrast to the pulled wool, that is pulled form sheep in the slaughterhouse. It's virtually impossible when clothes shopping to discern the origin of the wool in these terms.

So cotton is too water hungry, and too far away, wool is local but potentially to cruel. So what is the answer? Hemp is often touted as a great alternative to cotton, and it has tons and tons of uses but I don't know if it can be grown locally (it might be - I just don't know), or the sort of environmental impact it has (i know is supposed to be low impact, but again, I just don't know!)

What are the answers? I have no clue!

While on podcasts though, Just wanted to say how great the Mitch Benn podcast is (in content anyway, the quality tends to be um, scratchy).

Curious about raw? Check out Karen Knowlers top eBook - How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Quesadillias

Following on from the last post's Mexican theme I thought I'd follow up with some gloriously inauthentic quesadillas. I love these. When I first made quesdillias they were cheese filled wheat tortillas - deep fried. Then I realised I'd like to live beyond 50 so I worked on my own version. I love them, I hope you do too.
They are easy and fun and er, best served with guacamole, salsa, and all that lovely stuff.
The recipe says corn tortillas but that's just 'cause they're my favourite, any old tortillas will do.

• Corn tortillas (usually come in packs of 8 or 12)
• Small tin of sweetcorn (or stripped from 2 fresh cobs), drained and rinsed
• 1/2 to 1 bell pepper, finely chopped
• 125g of mushrooms, sliced
• 50g cheddar (or other hard cheese, not too mature), grated
• 1 ball mozzarella, chopped
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 2 chillis, finely chopped (adjust to taste!)
• 3 tbs rapeseed or other cooking oil

Heat 1 tbs of the oil in a pan and gently fry off the onions, when translucent add the mushrooms and bell peppers, the mushrooms should reduce in volume by about half then toss in the drained corn. When some of the corn begins to look toasted, pop into a mixing bowl to cool a little.

Chuck the other ingredients except the tortillas and oil into the mixing bowl, and mix it well.

Pop 1 to 2 dsp of the mix into the middle is of a tortilla, then fold it into half or a quarter (or stuff it between two tortillas, all depends on how much filling to how many tortillas, really). You are supposed to at this point, be able to seal the tortilla using a dab of cold water. All I can say is make sure you have some cocktail sticks to hold them together.

Once you've made all the tortillas you can brush them with oil (optional) and pop them in the middle of a pre-heated oven at gas mark 6 (200 degrees C I think) for 10 minutes.

Eat, and try not to burn yourself on the hot filling!

Guacamole

Mmm, Guac. I decided to put this up here after discovering that several of my boyfriends colleagues genuinely thought that guacamole is made using mayonnaise. Mayonnaise. The mind boggles. Sorry for the crap photo but this glorious green dip, in all the many recipes I have seen, does not include mayo. Nope never. Ever. So here is my version of guacamole, which i utterly love:

• 2 medium ripe Avocados
• 2 limes juiced
• 1 chili, finely chopped

Pop the avocado flesh, lime juice and chili in a blender. Blend. That's it! So simple. Most versions include chopped tomato but i never have tom's in my fridge so I don't put them in generally. You can vary the amount of chili to your satisfaction, sometimes if I just want something cooling to go with a hot, spicy dish i just leave it out entirely. My other tip is I find this easier to make with a stick blender rather than a jug blender, but that may just be my equipment.

Happy dipping!

Also how the hell do you get into a (old) brown coconut? I resorted to throwing mine from a first floor window onto concrete. Twice. worked but there has to be a better way, doesn't there? (I did have mucho fun, though)

Worms!

So my can-o-worms arrived today. Am very excited but haven't really got a clue about wormeries so this may be trial and error (think of my poor wormies!) It seems great because worms can compost stuff you can't compost otherwise, and do it quick(ish)ly (i hope). I have two 'dalek' composters at the allotment but this is the first composting thing I've got home. (hopefully this will reduce those stinky car journeys taking stuff down for the heap. Anyone know about vermiculture? (Is that the word? I'm not too sure.)

I also got a catalogue with it and as I've been thinking about seed potatoes anyway the salad blue really caught my eye. I confess I am a total sucker for novelty and comedy veg (whats the point of growing stuff it it doesn't amuse you?). But not just for the fun of having blue mash (you know it would be cool) eating a wider variety of colours means you get a wider variety of phytonutrients (so we're told). In Kate Magic's amazing superfood book Raw Magic she talks about not getting enough purple foods in out diet. She's right, I'm not sure I eat many purple foods do you? But how many naturally blue foods do you eat? Blueberries maybe? Anything else? As one the UK's raw food gurus Kate probably wouldn't approve of my blue potatoes though. You can eat them raw mind. You probably wouldn't do do it twice though.

FatVeg

Okay. So I'm here to talk about my life of growing vegetables, cooking vegatables and eating vegatables. Hopefully it will turn out more exciting than it sounds right now ;)