A Post Chock Full of Veggies

Hi blog buds!  What’s new?  I hope that you are having a wonderful week so far!  As usual when a week goes by between posts I have more to share with you than you probably have time to read!  I’ll try to keep it from being TOO long and then come back and post again sooner this time!

I have been spending a decent amount of time in the kitchen recently (pictures to follow later in the post). Today when I was testing a new recipe adaptation for a vegetarian Adzuki Bean Shepherd’s Pie (with spicy mashed yams on top… mmmm!) I was realizing that if I were ever to have a cooking show it would most likely be featured on Comedy Central as opposed to the Food Network.  And not so much because of my silly sense of humor but because of the string of crazy things that seem to happen when I step into my own kitchen.

Like when I was trying to pour from a new container of vegetable stock and it decided to “glug” WAAAAY past the measuring cup and splash all over my arm and shirt.

Or when I was stirring a mixture of adzuki beans and vegetables sauteeing on the stovetop and my spatula took on a life of its own, made some sort of slingshot maneuver and flung bean mixture EVERYWHERE.  (Seriously – I’m going to have to move my stove out from the wall to clean this one up.)

I feel fortunate that when I used both my blender and my food processor today, the lids were firmly in place.  It could have been disastrous – it has just been one of those days!

The good news?  The shepherd’s pie was delicious!  (I’m not really sure what to call it – it’s obviously not shepherd’s pie if there’s no lamb in it.  “Farmer’s Pie” maybe?)

It’s not very pretty in the casserole dish pictured below.  When I make this for the intended client, it will be in single serving baking dishes and I’ll fancy up the yam topper (maybe with a pastry bag) but when I’m just checking to see how it tastes and how it will freeze/thaw/reheat, I’m not worried about the looks yet. 

However, some of the other things I’ve made lately are much easier on the eyes:

Raw “Fruit Truffles”
with dates, carob, orange zest/juice, dried cranberries and rolled in raw sesame seeds

Orange Chia Seed MiniCakes with Dark Chocolate Coconut Ganache
and White Chocolate abstracts (all vegan except for the white chocolate)
(I was sharing with the neighbors, so I put their initials on them)

I also made some quick-bread muffins with the pulp leftover from my juicer…

… but then I forgot to take a picture when they were done!

(I’m putting together an alternative ingredient dessert class that will be hosted in the near future by a wonderful gal I know!  Just so you don’t think all I’m eating these days is sweets!  )

I also tried Gena’s raw juice pulp crackers in the dehydrator and I tossed some green olives, garlic, capers and artichoke hearts into the food processor to make a quick ‘tapenade’:

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I’ve gotten back into the swing of eating again like I used to:  aiming for a minimum of a pound of raw veggies a day via green smoothie and large salad, plus some cooked veggies.  And on top of that I’m also adding in some fresh green juice as well – it feels GREAT to be getting back to that.  I have so much food testing to do now as a part of my job that I’d really gotten away from getting in all my raw veggies.  Granted, most of the test food I make has TONS of veggies in it (even just today’s recipe alone had onion, mushrooms, carrot, zucchini, celery and yam) – but RAW veggies are very important for us as well for the enzymes and vitamins that can be diminished or destroyed by cooking.

I weighed my smoothie veggies for fun:

13.6 oz of GREEN just in my smoothie!  Wahoo!

Rascal… every morning he just EYEBALLS my smoothies.

Juice with fun things like broccoli stalks, parsley, cucumber, celery, kale and a green apple:

Kale salad (massaged in hemp oil) and topped with a very-veggie-egg salad (green onions, celery, kale stalks, carrots, beans and sprouts):

Chard Boats filled with navy beans, sprouts, carrots, leftover Pesto Tilapia mixed with a little Vegenaise:

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Speaking of healthy eating (and JUICING specifically), MSP and I watched a wonderful documentary this past weekend called “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead“.  (I wanted to embed the trailer here but it’s not playing nice with me today so click HERE for the link to watch it on YouTube.)

Long story short:  the man in the film got up to 309 lbs and also suffered from an autoimmune disease.  He went on a physician-monitored green juice fast … for SIXTY DAYS!!  (Incidentally that doc was Dr. Joel Fuhrman – whose books I love and who first turned me on to the idea of getting at least 1 lb of raw veggies per day).  Can you imagine ONLY drinking juice for 60 days straight?  WOW!  that makes EATING green veggies seem so much easier by comparison, don’t you think?  He then went on to help another man who was 428 lbs (and suffering from the same autoimmune disorder) on his juice fast journey.  There is more to the film – you can “rent” it at Amazon.com and stream it right to your computer.   Check it out!

“Forks Over Knives” (meaning ‘choose nutrition first instead of later having to resort to meds/surgery’), another nutrition documentary, opens in Denver this weekend and I can’t wait to see that one too!

Have you seen either of these movies?  Have you ever done an extended juice fast?

Have a great day friends!  I’ll be back again (sooner this time, I promise) so I can tell you about the start of YARDIO season and also about WATER KEFIR that a friend clued me in on!

– Shari B. =)