"I'm never gonna let you go. I'm wanna hold you in my arms forever..."
I made my first green smoothie this morning in the Vitamix 5200 that the AMAZING community over at Raw Fu sent me. I am going to use this as my before picture for this challenge.
I have named him Andre, since he is a gentle giant, and since my green smoothies will now OBEY. He is my new boyfriend. Move over, Basil, because Andre is riding shotgun! I'm not going anywhere without Andre. Long live, Andre!
First of all, let me just tell you that my hands are still shaking. I might be on a gratitude high until at least 2050! Now, let's get right to business.
Raw Fu members have probably seen the behind the scenes THREAD that has been bumping its way to the top of Raw Fu over the past few weeks. When the thread was first opened, I e-mailed Jane, just like the thread told me to do (good Bunny!), and got a polite response letting me know that I'd be getting more details about the behind the scenes action as we got closer to the start of the challenge.
I would see it bump to the top of the forum, and got more and more excited to find out the details. I kept trying to imagine what you guys were being so sneaky about. I thought you must be putting together a cookbook or were gathering up old raw food books to create a little Raw Fu Library. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS REALLY GOING ON!
Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Penni Shelton, and it had a link to this video on YouTube. (Try to keep your hands off of the screen. She is so gorgeous!)
And then, I cried for the rest of the day. I knew I wanted to make a special thank you video, but thought I'd probably need to call Steven Spielberg and get Brad Pitt to co-star if I wanted it to come close to being big enough or important enough to convey how I really feel about this amazing and completely humbling gift! I was still crying when I went to bed.
I got up this morning, and tried to pull it together enough to respond.
There is really no way that I can thank you enough. But every single person in this community is getting a giant hug the next time I see them. And maybe a little pinch on the tushie.
You have turned my life around. I am eternally grateful. And feel like the most blessed person on the planet today. I hope I can help facilitate making you feel the same way for the next 100 days. I'll try my best. And oh my gosh, I am going to make so many raw food cooking demos you guys are going to get sick of me!
Please let me know what I can do for YOU during this upcoming challenge. It is my pleasure to be here, and to blissfully serve.
And I'll be in CHAT tonight if you want to stop by and let me thank you personally!
Today I talk about why I don't think I was losing weight during the last 20 days of my last raw food challenge. Calories are important! Don't skimp on the calories!
I got up early Saturday morning, and cut herbs from the garden, and then started rooting around in the kitchen to see what I could make using the gorgeous basil, parsley, and thyme that I cut. I decided to attempt a raw lasagna, even though I only had one tomato in the house!
I made a tomato sauce, a walnut basil pesto, and a sesame seed cheese in the morning, and then let them sit all day in the fridge to soak in all of the flavor of the fresh herbs. When dinner time rolled around, I stacked up zucchini strips, spinach, and red pepper, alternating the sauces until I had a formidable pile of raw lasagna.
It turned out to be very tasty. Neither Basil or I could finish our dinner, so we let Skye and Gizmo have a taste. They both ate it up with gusto, and didn't leave a veggie in the bowl.
This morning I juiced a small bag of carrots, one orange, and an apple for Basil. Poor thing. He's got the flu. I had a bunch of pulp that looked too good to throw into the compost heap, so I got creative and made these little carrot cake bites.
Ingredients in The Bites: carrot pulp from juicing raw honey raisins dried cranberries walnuts slivered almonds cinnamon nutmeg salt
Ingredients in The Frosting: coconut water coconut oil honey JICAMA!! (Now this was really creative) cinnamon walnuts
I mixed the ingredients for The Bites, and then rolled into balls and put in the dehydrator for around 6 hours. Then made The Frosting (with JICAMA!) and put The Frosting into a pastry bag in the fridge for about an hour. Then I frosted the little carrot cake bites, and garnished with a dried cranberry.
They didn't taste exactly like carrot cake, but were super yummy. Basil even ate a few when he got home from work, and complimented them without being prompted! :)
