Strawberry Spinach
Berries
Wild Rose Hip, Yummy!
Bodega Bay at Sunset
My Newest Work of Art!
Pie Contest Entries Merry Mango and Red Velvet
The Winners Tied for 1st Place!
Two Pies at the Petaluma Raw Potluck:
My Nectarine Cobbler and a Mango Tart
My New Coconut Grater!
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Summer Bliss!
Hey sweethearts hope
you have been enjoying your summer as much as I have! I've been
going to the beach and yesterday I actually swam in the ocean
for about an hour and in Northern Cali that's no small feat! I
loved it though, every time the waves would crash on the shore
the mist made a rainbow!
I've also been taking walks in nature and in the trail behind my
house I discovered wild rose hips growing and I feasted on about
10 of them. I'm so lucky to have gotten my vitamin C straight
off the vine. For those of you that have never had a fresh rose
hip, they taste like a tart fruit gummy.
Here is
some more information on rose hips
As it turns out not
only they are a good source of vitamin C but also of Iron! I
love how nature provides us with all they need.
I've been watching the
Olympics at night and at the same time completed my newest work
of art that looks like coral or seaweed; it's very oceany
feeling which goes with the ocean theme of our bed
room.
I've been having so
much fun!
I also have been
continuing to do summer raw food events. The pie contest was fun
and a few people from the
http://www.giveittomeraw.com forum who live in S.F. came.
Nice to see new faces and energy. Two people tied for 1st place
with a Merry Mango Pie and Red Velvet Pie. Both pies were nut,
oil, and agave nectar free. The mango pie had a coconut crust
and mango/dried mango filling and the red velvet pie was made
with avocado, dates, beets, carrots, cacao, with a buckwheat
crust. You can see the pictures of the pies and the winners to
the right.
Then I had my dessert
class where I used my brand new coconut grater! I had bought
some raw coconut flakes from Whole Foods and was really
disappointed. So I bought this coconut grater and then
dehydrated the flakes. The coconut flakes where the sweetest and
freshest coconut flakes I've ever experienced. I mixed them with
dates to make my coconut crème pie, and it was delicious.
Green Smoothie Revolution
I had so many raw
desserts left over from my class that I ate them for breakfast
for awhile and I started to gain some weight, but I hosted
Victoria Boutenko to come speak and I've been so inspired!
Before she came, I was making a green smoothie every morning,
but after she came I have been eating almost exclusively green
smoothies. Fruits and greens in the morning and afternoon and at
dinner I'll make a green soup with non sweet fruit and greens.
I've also eliminated crystal salt from my diet and have only
been using dulse seaweed to satisfy my salt tooth. I didn't use
salt for many years when I first went raw, but unfortunately
somewhere along the way I got addicted to it and I personally I
know I feel better when I use seaweed instead of salt. In the
past when I'd use salt I'd get headaches, feel dehydrated, crave
sweets, and because salt is so stimulating to the appetite, I
would overeat. I can't say I'll never use it again but I
definitely will try to minimize it.
About 60 people came to
the Victoria Boutenko event, which is the biggest event I've
ever hosted. I mean I usually get 20 people to come to my
potlucks and I'm really happy about it! People traveled from
near and far to see her and I'm so glad I could make it happen.
Maximum capacity for the venue was 66 so we just barely made it
under!
Victoria has literally
started a green smoothie revolution. She talked about how long
term raw foodists start to not feel as good in the long term,
but that green smoothies are the answer for feeling great long
term. She also thinks that the aphids on our organic greens
blended up can be a good source of B-12! I also learned that I
definitely need to rotate my greens a bit more. She recommends a
minimum of 7 rotated greens. She mentioned that if you eat too
much kale (or any green from the brassica family) it can affect
your thyroid. I realized that I've been depending on kale a
little too much because it is one of my favorite greens of
course.
She also commented that spinach has gotten a bad rap and that
coffee has so much more oxalic acid than spinach. And that
spinach is good because it has calcium in to which counteracts
the negative effects of oxalic acid.
Luckily, where I live
there are so many greens to choose from. I discovered this farm
about 5 minutes from my house called
green
string farm where they grow their greens with rock dust and
compost! They have a beautiful selection of greens: beautiful
red leaf lettuce, chard, basil,
purslane, and parsley. Purslane is especially healthy
because purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic
acid in particular) than any other leafy vegetable plant. I've
also been experimenting with
Nopal Cactus. When properly despined it makes a great
addition to a green smoothie.
So many people were
motivated by the Victoria Boutenko talk that they wanted me to
start a green smoothie challenge for our local potluck group. I
decided to make this challenge available to everyone thanks to
the internet! If you want to learn
more about the green smoothie challenge click here.
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Victoria Boutenko and I
Greens Grown with Compost and Rock Dust at
Green String Farm in Petaluma
Gearing up for
The Green Smoothie Challenge
Purslane; My New Favorite Green!
Tomato, tomatillo,
cilantro, green onion, red bell pepper, cucumber green soup
with avo and dulse on top |
Victoria is so warm, gracious, and giving of her time and
information, not to mention extremely professional. I know that
green smoothies have made me feel amazing. These last few days
that I have been on an exclusively green smoothie diet I wake up
easily with energy, I feel so alive, and a skin tab that I was
born with inbetween my eyes is steadily shrinking. Victoria was
saying how during her retreat how peoples moles were falling off
left and right! I am so grateful for Victoria and all the
wonderful raw food visionary speakers out there. It is so
important to support those that give their time and energy to
spreading this information!
Dream Slides
Besides listening to Victoria speak I also was so lucky to go
an
Abraham Hicks Seminar. It was truly inspiring. I had been
wanting to go for a long while and I finally made my dream come
true!
During the lunch portion of the seminar I met a nice fellow
who told me about a vision board that he made. I knew what a
vision board was from watching the movie The Secret and I
had just recently made one with a friend of mine. We spent all
day cutting out pictures from magazines of things we wanted and
then glued them a poster board. This was the second vision board
that I made. The first one I swear helped me manifest my honey,
and if you've read any of my journals you know how wonderfully
that worked out!
But the gentlemen at the seminar said that he didn't have
time to make a traditional board and that he actually made a
"vision board" as a slide show that he watches at least once a
day. I thought the idea was brilliant! So I found a free slide
show program on the internet and put in pictures of things that
I wanted and then I wrote an affirmation on each picture. I have
some experience in design so I was able to write the
affirmations on my pictures, but you could just as easily add
them as captions depending on what slide show program you use.
Then I added some music and put the slide show on my website and
I watch it everyday at least twice a day! It puts me in the best
mood and so far I've been manifesting things like crazy!
Although I love meditation, I've never been disciplined enough
to do it everyday. This little slide slow is my answer because
it puts me in a positive frame of mind and it is so easy to
watch at least once a day!
I'm showing you my slide show even though it is deeply
personal in hopes that you will be inspired to make your own
dream slides!
http://www.rawglow.com/video.htm
New Raw Food Documentary
Speaking of videos thanks to Angela Stokes I found out
that their is a new raw food documentary coming out that needs
your support. Check out the sneak preview:
http://www.mayibefrankmovie.com/
I also came across these informational and at times funny wild
edible videos by Sergei Boutenko:
http://www.harmonyhikes.com/wild.htm
I leave you with another poem and a
recipe!- hugs C
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Sweet
Darkness
When your
eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your
vision has gone no part of the world can find
you.
Time to go
into the dark where the night has eyes to
recognize its own.
There you
can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark
will be your womb tonight.
The night
will give you a horizon further than you can
see.
You must
learn one thing, The world was made to be free
in.
Give up
all the other worlds except the one to which you
belong.
Sometimes
it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of
your aloneness to learn
anything
or anyone that does not bring you alive
is too
small for you.
-David Whyte
from The House of Belonging |
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Strawberry Lemonade
A Refreshing Summer Treat
1 cup strawberries
Juice from 2 lemons
32 ounces water
1 vanilla bean
10 pinches white stevia powder or to taste
Muddle strawberries, lemon juice, with a vitamix
plunger. Strain through a strainer or
sprout bag and mix with 32 ounces of water, stevia,
and a whole vanilla bean into
a pitcher.
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