First Day of Raw Food

Breakfast

This morning I wasn't planning on waking up till at least 8 but when I heard Kelsey down in the kitchen at 7:15, the thought of real food got me right out of bed! Kelsey had my back like the awesome bff that she is and has made all the pictures in this post possible by lending me her camera! Kels had already begun to set up and measure so we got right to work on our first raw breakfast! We decided to make Good Morning Muesli from Ani Phyo's cookbook: Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. This included:

• 2 apples, chopped
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 cup flaxseeds
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• splash vanilla almond mylk
• (It called for sesame seeds but we didn't have any so we added more flaxseeds to our version)

I was on the task of making her Vanilla Mylk. I scrapped out all the vanilla beans and let me tell you, they like to stick to fingers!

Kelsey was busy at work chopping up two apples into bite-sized pieces.
Kelsey already had the cranberries, flaxseeds, and pumpkin seeds measured out. She knows me too well!

We soaked two cups of almonds overnight to make them soft for making almond mylk.
Kelsey expertly chopped those apples!
I got the almond mylk all ready to go in the blender. This included:

• 1/2 cup soaked almonds
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped out
• pinch sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. raw organic agave (it called for pitted dates but we didn't have any yet).

Blending action shot! I let it blend for quite a while so it would be as smooth as possible.
Voila!
It is supposed to keep for four days so we put it in this nifty, air tight container. Good for shaking too!
Next, our first ever attempt to make our own almond butter! We started with just a handful of raw, dry almonds.
After a minute or two it becomes a very fine meal but definitely not butter. This process took much longer than I expected it to. At least ten collective minutes of processing! I stopped every now and then to stir and scrape.
Finally it started to look familiar! This is our final product. We decided that next time we shall try the soaked almonds because they are significantly softer and will probably work better.
Breakfast is served!
We each added a splash of almond mylk and dug in.
Even though it's blurry, this is my first bite of solid food in five days!!! I really felt like this took a lot of chewing haha.
Our devious plans began to unfold after breakfast. I got ready and we headed downtown for the Farmer's Market! Accompanying us was Kelsey's BF Jak.
A mini pineapple!

We bought red leaf lettuce, and dino kale. To make an appearance soon!
This woman was really funny. When we told her we got a picture of her she said "100 dollars!" haha!
Action shots by Jak!

These berries looked like the fourtha july!
Action shot by Claire! Jak hand selected and smelled each container of berries like quite a professional.

Acorn and Kaboucha Squash! We weren't expecting to find these so we snatched up two of the red Kabouchas.
All of the flowers looked so beautiful!

Walnuts: check.
Tahmaytuhs!!
We almost gave up on the red cabbage and then we finally found these!
Excited about those dates!
I can't remember the name of the dates (and I just tried to search the web for the classification but failed!). We chose small, soft dates that are supposed to be good for smoothies and have good flavor and sweetness.
Jak shared his strawberries with us on the way home. This one was gigantic!

He also gave us each on of his dried white nectarines. Yuum!
Goof!
Later that afternoon Kels and I went to Best Buy and I bought my new camera!!! I am so excited about this and the new pictures will be appearing soon!
Lunch

We got back in just enough time to whip up lunch before I had to leave for opera rehearsal. Kels got started on the salad dressing while I made us a smoothie which included

• 1 cup carrot juice
• 1 heaping handful of spinach
• 1 small frozen banana
• 1 Tbsp. almond butter
• 1 dried date

chop chop chop
Orange and green don't make the most beautiful color but I have to agree with Kelsey, there's something about an ugly looking smoothie that makes it feel super healthy and intense!
For lunch we made "Confetti Salad in Orange-Cucumber Dressing". Kelsey prepared the dressing which was made up of:

• 1 small cucumber, diced
• 1 small orange, diced
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup cashews
• 1 Tbsp. grated ginger
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. sea salt

The salad itself was red leaf lettuce, dino kale, and red cabbage.
Tada! I had my smoothie in a jar in case I had to run to opera.
Savannah's 21st birthday dinner is coming up next and that is definitely reason to be excited!! Especially when all the pictures were taken on a brand new, snazzy camera :)