Greetings from the Oven!

No - we're still eating raw these days.  The oven is the atmosphere I live in these days.  Yikes!  Southern California is setting heat wave records all over the place.  Since it is usually so cool and temperate here a lot of people do not have air conditioning in their homes so the lengthy heat wave we have had is certainly taking its toll.

This morning the little dog and I had obedience class outdoors so that was rather hard in 100 degree weather.  I tried to not venture out much after we managed to complete the class.  One thing I did notice was that I had a bit of a dehydration type headache by the time I got home.  Most of these diet books that I've been reading tout the wonderful electrolyte benefits of coconut water. Nirvana Coconut Water  I've bought several different types of coconut water and some I've really hated but fortunately the one I tried today was really wonderful.  There is a subtle sweetness to this drink so it was quite enjoyable.  The real reason I'm including this in today's narrative is because soon thereafter my headache went away.  I was totally surprised that I didn't have to take any medicine.  I think I will have to stock up on this type of coconut water.  A drink is better than a drug, hmmm?

The Raw Revolution diet plans are much less prescriptive than the ones we've followed thus far.  The variety that each recipe offers helps clean out the fridge of accumulated veggies from prior meals. And there's no running off to the grocery store nearly everyday for the one or two things you have to have for a recipe.

For breakfast there's a fruit smoothie called Banana Blueberry Smoothie This fruit filled smoothie has bananas and blueberries as well as an orange, some kale and flax seed.  Very yummy.  I'm giving it a B.

Later in the morning we have veggie juice.  So excited to get the juicer out again.  Just amazing the difference in the amount of produce one uses for a juice vs. a smoothie.  Cherie's menus feature this Green Giant Juice pretty much every day.  This juice has kale, romaine, cucumber, an apple, lemon and some celery.  The apple, lemon and cucumber in this juice gives it a light, refreshing flavor.  This nice green juice deserves at least a B+ in my book.

For lunch we got to repurpose yesterday's Broccoli Tahini Pate'.  Although it's nice to try out as many recipes as possible I also like that she shows how to use something that we've already made in a few different ways.  So today we use the pate as the basis for some veggie rolls with some onions and avocados thrown in.  We're doing this two different ways.  First, we smear the pate' on a collard leaf, add a few onions and avocado and roll it up.  Then repeat with a sheet of Nori sea weed.  Slice the rolls like a sushi roll and enjoy.  I thought this was a great use of the pate'.  I actually liked it better in the roll than I did as a dip with veggies last night.

It was actually kind of hard to make myself eat dinner given the heat!  How rare is that!  So, late tonight it's about time to make some dinner which consists of Garden Blend Soup.  This soup consists of some kale, cucumber, basil, miso, lemon juice and orange juice, some jalapeno chili, avocado and some green onions. I really loved this soup.  The citrus juices give this some tang.  This soup is worth an A - I'd like to have it again.

The plan was to have the soup with a large salad - but I just couldn't eat that much.  However I thought I'd give her dessert idea a try.   So tonight we have Figgie Nut'ins.  These sweet little nuggets are made from soaked figs and walnuts with almonds all processed together and then rolled into little balls to be either chilled or eaten right away.  Personally - I ate them up right away.  These are very nice, sweet but not too sweet and I'll definitely make these again.  They get an A from me.  Wish the picture looked more appetizing.

Here's the spreadsheet:

Recipes
Name	Category	Diet	Day	Page number		Rating
Broccoli-Tahini Pate	Dip	Raw Rev	one	144		C
Green Giant Juice	Juice	Raw Rev	two	119		B+
Banana Blueberry Smoothie	Smoothie	Raw Rev	two	102		B
Garden Blend Soup	Soup	Raw Rev	two	188		A
Figgie Nut'ins	Dessert	Raw Rev	two	212		A