I eat plants

Easy Garlic and Dill Picklesinspired by Grace Parisi in Food and...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:03:00 -0400

Easy Garlic and Dill Pickles
inspired by Grace Parisi in Food and Wine

Recipe fills a one quart jar of pickles

What You Need
1 quart mason jar with lid
12 ounces of kirby cucumbers (about 6 small cucumbers)
3 cloves garlic
8 sprigs fresh dill
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
2/3 cup white vinegar
1 cup water

What To Do

1 Wash the mason jar and lid in hot soapy water, rinse, and let air dry.

2 Quarter the cucumbers into four slices each, lengthwise. Cut the garlic cloves in half.

3 In an extra mason jar or covered container, combine 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt and 2/3 cup white vinegar. Tightly close the lid and shake vigorously until the sugar and salt dissolve. Add 1 cup water to the mixture.

4 In the clean mason jar, tightly pack the sliced cucumbers, sliced garlic, and 8 sprigs of fresh dill.

5 Pour the brine mixture over the cucumbers. Tap the jar on the counter to release any air bubbles and top off the jar with extra water if any cucumbers are exposed.

6 Place the lid on the jar and screw on the ring until it is tight. Leave the jar in the fridge for 24 hours before tasting. The pickles last up to one month refrigerated

Taking raw food to the next level I’ve owned a lot of raw...

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:07:00 -0400

Taking raw food to the next level

I’ve owned a lot of raw recipe books before, and the most frustrating thing is that they usually all start out at the beginner level. What I’m enjoying so much about Mimi Kirk’s book Live Raw is that it’s focused on taking your raw food preparation to the next level, so that you can stay on this lifestyle long-term.

There are so many recipes from this book I want to try! One thing that’s holding me back is that I don’t have a dehydrator. I’ve always wanted one, and I know it would make a difference with my ability to stay raw, but there are a few problems.

It’s expensive. I know the dehydrator I would get and it’s around $500. Not cheep.
It takes up a lot of counter space. I don’t live alone, I live with a family who eats a standard american diet. So counter space is limited and I’ve already brought a juicer and a vita-mix into the kitchen.

So while I’m hoping I can get a dehydrator soon, for now I’ll just have to keep looking at these recipes and wishing.

Do you have a dehydrator? Does it help you with staying raw?

This first week back to raw I did a lot of eating out. I...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:54:31 -0400

Raw falafel salad at Pure Food and Wine

Green Smoothie at Pure Food and Wine

Peaches and Dream smoothie at Liquiteria

Raw lasagne at Pure Food and Wine

Raw pasta primavera at Gingersnap

Berry smoothie at Liquiteria

Cucumber dill salad (made by me)

Raw "Chipotle" bowl (made by me)

This first week back to raw I did a lot of eating out. I didn’t want to feel like I was giving up anything by going back to eating raw, and since I haven’t gotten back into the swing of making my own lunch every day to bring to work I just had to hit of some of my favorite raw spots, and try some new places.

I’m lucky that I work in the East Village of Manhattan, which is very close to a number of raw vegan spots. I had a few lunches at Pure Food and Wine (raw food mecca) and I occasionally got a smoothie in the morning at Liquiteria (great juice bar). I also tried a new place Gingersnap Organic (which I really enjoyed).

However you can’t always eat this way, so over the weekend I did my best to get back into the habit of making raw food. I made a lot of green juice and a few raw cacao smoothies, also a simple cucumber dill salad. And I experimented making cauliflower rice for the first time and used it in a yummy salad with mexican flavors.

Slowly but surely, I’m getting back into the swing of things.

An update

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 21:13:00 -0400

I wanted to thank each and everyone one of you for the support I’ve received over the past week from my family, friends, and even strangers. This first week back on raw has been mostly enjoyable. The first few days I was experiencing some detox symtoms but that’s mostly over now and the clarity is starting to be more present.

However, now that I’ve decided on a high raw diet for the long term, I’m finding very conflicting information about what the best way to eat raw is. It seems to break down to basically 2 schools of thought:

Raw foods with a focus on greens with healthy fats. This means a lot of green juice and salads, but also a lot of avocado, nuts, and seeds to make sure you are consuming enough calories in your day. This school of thought also tends to eat fruits in moderation because of the high glycemic index.
80/10/10 or the Low Fat Raw Vegan diet. This school of thought focuses on eating 80% of your daily calories from fruits (yes tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and all other seed containing “vegetables” are considered fruits in this case), 10% of your calories from protein, and the last 10% from nuts, seed, and other fats (avocados, olives, etc). This diet also tries to eliminate salt and added oils.

Since these two views on the raw foods diet are in such opposition to one another, it’s sure to make a person confused. In the past when I’ve got raw before I would usually eat similar to #1. Trying to drink and eat lots of greens (chlorophyll reduces inflammation), but that would usually leave me hungry so avocados or nuts would help me get enough calories so I was full.

I haven’t yet decided which way I’m going this round, but I’d love to hear from you all if you’ve had experiences with either. Which diet is better for reducing inflammation?

An open letter to my family and friends.

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 12:26:00 -0400

Many of you have seen me eat different variations of a vegetarian diet for years now. You’ve seen my weight go up and down, my moods go up and down, and I’m sure it’s difficult for you to understand or remember what I can and can’t eat and I really do apologize for that.

One thing I don’t usually talk about is why I started eating this way, yes I had a goal to lose weight, but underneath all that I was in pain. Some of you know that 5 years ago I was diagnosed with costochondritis.

Costochondritis (kos-toe-KHON-dri-tis) is an inflammation of the cartilage that connects a rib to the breastbone (sternum) — a junction known as the costosternal joint. Pain caused by costochondritis may mimic that of a heart attack or other heart conditions.

Most cases of costochondritis have no apparent cause. In these cases, treatment focuses on easing your pain while you wait for costochondritis to improve on its own.

While my doctors wanted to give me pain medications, I resisted and waited for my condition to improve. The pain only spread to my upper back and upper arms. After 5 years it’s clear to me that I have chronic costochondritis that is very painful and is made worse by stress and a diet that causes inflammation.

The only time that I haven’t been in physical pain in the past 5 years is when I am eating raw foods. Sure I have good days and bad days, but the pain is always there, a constant state of pressure. Only when I’ve been eating a raw foods diet has my pain level gone away completely. Even recently when I did go on prescription pain medication it still wasn’t the same kind of relief as eating raw.

With the pain comes depression and stress, which causes me to eat poorly, which causes me to gain weight, which causes me to be more depressed, which causes me to eat more, which causes more pain, which causes stress….you can see how this cycle will continue.

But for some reason stopped eating raw, because I was convinced that it was not sustainable long term (even though I had done a lot of research to tell me otherwise). People would tell me that what I was doing was unhealthy, or not natural, that I wasn’t getting enough protein, or calories. So to please everyone I started to move towards a more mainstream healthy vegetarian lifestyle, trying to eat more protein and including fish and dairy back into my diet. But nothing changed, and the past few months I’ve been in more pain than I can remember in a long time. Very similar to the kind of pain when I was first diagnosed. But I hide it better, I manage the pain by suppressing the feeling of pain. But this just led to a deeper depression that I couldn’t really find the cause of until now.

So to end this long story, I am going back to eating a raw foods diet, sure sometimes I will make exceptions, and I’m not perfect, but what I need most from all of you is your support, emotionally and spiritually. This isn’t easy for me and while I do enjoy eating this way, it can be especially hard in social situations and when you are with people you love and you just want to eat “normal” food. So I hope you all understand my reasons for doing this, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I am also going to be re-educating myself about this lifestyle, and making sure I have the knowledge to be sure that what I am doing is the best for my body.

I might not eat this way forever, but for right now I need to do what I know works to get rid of the pain.

Love,

Sarah

Juice fasting

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:18:16 -0500

So, inspired by my friend Rachel, who has now been on a juice fast for over 2 weeks, I have started a fast.

This is day 4. I tried to start on monday, but I ended up eating something for dinner, so while it wasn’t a total failure, I still don’t consider it day 1.

The first 3 days were really hard, detoxing takes a lot of energy so there can be times when you feel really tired and worn out. Don’t worry, it’s just you body adjusting and detoxing. Once you get over that initial 3-day hump it isn’t that bad. This morning has been great, and I don’t feel hungry at all.

I’m not sure how long I will stay on the fast. I am hoping to keep on it until the end of this month, which would be a total of 22 days (maybe longer depending on how I feel). But I do know that I will need to break the fast at least a few times during that period for social reasons, but I’ve decided that I’m not going to stress about that. I don’t think that it will damage the effects too much as long as I’m careful about what I eat and don’t overdo it. As long as I go right back on juice I think I will be fine.

So far I’ve lost 3 lbs.

What I ate: January 24th, 2012

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:53:00 -0500

My friend Rachel and I are committing to getting back to eating healthy. For her that means starting her first juice/raw cleanse. For me that means getting back to eating mostly raw and juicing more.

This is partially an exercise for me, but I thought you guys would like to enjoy what I’ve been eating.

Today

A cup of peppermint tea
1/2 of a kind bar while I shopped for groceries
Green salad with carrot ginger miso dressing (the dressing wasn’t perfect but it was an excuse to use the vita-mix, when I perfect the recipe I will share it.)
Miso broth with carrots and green onions (since I had already bought miso for the dressing, I just made some quick soup from the recipe on the jar)
A cup of peppermint tea
8 oz green juice
I was craving something savory, but since I’ve been feeling sick I didn’t feel like cooking more, so I loaded up the vita-mix to make a savory tomato juice. I added cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, garlic, and purple kale to the vita-mix, then strained it through a nut milk bag to get the juice.
more miso broth (it’s my go to soup when I’m sick)

So I bought a Vita-mix

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:53:57 -0500

When I started eating healthier, and especially when I started exploring more raw foods, I kept hearing about this blender called a vita-mix. I wasn’t sure if I needed one, but it kept showing up in raw food recipes and books.

The other night it was featured on QVC so I decided to bite the bullet and purchase it. I bought the Vita-mix Creations GC. I’m not very familiar with the different Vita-mix models, but I think that any vita-mix would do the job just fine.

It arrived yesterday so I haven’t had much chance to play with it. If you know of any Vita-mix recipes I should try, let me know :)

Today I was trying to make it to dinner on just juice, but I was...

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:19:43 -0500

Today I was trying to make it to dinner on just juice, but I was very hungry. I had green juice and some herbal tea in the morning and then at 2:30 I had this for a late lunch. I made some quinoa and tossed it with some tomato pesto. The nutty flavor in the quinoa really works wells with the pesto. It was delicious!

Also, after my juice heavy weekend, I am down 2 lbs.

A very juicy weekend

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:54:21 -0500

On the subject of a juice fast, I’ve decided that I want to do one but I don’t think I’ll be able to start one until January. So I’m continuing with the 21-day cleanse from Crazy, Sexy, Diet and just trying to incorporate as much juice as possible into my day.

Yesterday I had only green juice and herbal tea until about 7:30 pm at which point I made myself a bowl of raw zucchini noodles with pistachio pesto. I had a small bowl of raw granola with blueberries and almond milk for dessert.

Today I am again attempting to juice until dinner and then have something raw for dinner. So far, so good. I’ll continue to update you all with what I’m eating and how I feel each day, as well as how my weight loss is going.

Thanks for all your supportive messages :)

Time to Cleanse

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:29:03 -0500

Last year I did a raw food cleanse in December and many people thought I was crazy for trying to cleanse during one of the biggest party months of the year. But actually, it was very good for me because I was able to really control what I ate and when, without really being tempted to eat something I know I shouldn’t.

Originally, I was going to stick to the 21-day Adventure Cleanse from Kris Carr’s book Crazy Sexy Diet. I’ve done this cleanse before and it isn’t too difficult for me since it sticks very closely to my ideal diet already. I’m on day 4 of that cleanse but I am feeling the need for a deeper cleanse.

Recently I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, which is a documentary about an obese man who goes on a 60-day juice fast. The whole thing is very inspiring, and it got me thinking about juice fasting. I would probably want to start with a 5-10 day fast, since I don’t think I could go much longer.

I’ve been struggling to lose weight for a while now, and back in March I got down to 150, only 10 lbs away from my goal weight. But after that I started to fall back into bad habits, and before you know it 8 months have gone by and I’m back up to 175. I started this weight loss journey in February of 2009 at 190 lbs. So I’ve still maintained some weight loss, but I really feel like I need to hit the reset button on my eating habits and just start clean.

What do you think? Have you ever done a juice fast? If so, any advice for someone considering starting one?

Thanksgiving 2011

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:31:14 -0500

Hey guys, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends and great food! I wanted to share with you what I enjoyed as my holiday meal since I know the holidays can be scary for new vegans/vegetarians. If you would like the recipes for anything below just drop a message in my ask box.

Clockwise starting at the top:

Roasted heirloom baby carrots
Gluten free vegan stuffing
Mashed sweet potatoes
Roasted cauliflower
Roasted brussels sprouts
Mashed potatoes
Gluten free vegan wild mushroom gravy

Gluten Free Vegan Stuffing

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:25:00 -0500

So a lot of people have been asking for my recipe for gluten free stuffing. My recipe is vegan, but if you aren’t vegan you can easily adapt this recipe.

This is a loose recipe so you can adjust it to your tastes. You will need:

1 loaf Udi’s White Sandwich Bread
3 stalks of celery
1 white onion
2 tablespoons Earth Balance Buttery Sticks
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1 tablespoon fresh sage

Start with 1 loaf Udi’s White Sandwich Bread. (if frozen allow a few days to thaw on the counter) Place the slices of bread on a baking sheet in the oven at 250 degrees to dry out the bread. After about 10 minutes, turn the slices of bread to dry the other side. You want the bread to be dried out but you aren’t looking for browning here.

Then take the bread out of the oven and allow it to cool completely. After it has cooled cut the slices of dried bread into cubes (depending on how you like your stuffing will determine how small or big you make the cubes). Once all the bread is cut return the bread cubes to the baking dish and back into the oven to dry further. (about 10 minutes)

While the bread is in the over chop 2 or 3 stalks of celery and 1/2 - 1 whole onion. In a skillet put a few tablespoons of Earth Balance Buttery Sticks in the pan over medium heat. When the Earth Balance has melted add in your chopped celery and stir in the pan until it begins to soften. Once the celery is soft, add in the onions and continue cooking until the onions are translucent. Then add 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage, and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme to the pan and stir just until you can smell the herbs. Once the herbs become fragrant, take the pan off the heat and set aside.

In a bowl add the dried bread cubes and pour the veggie mixture over it. Stir to combine. Then add about a 1/2 cup vegetable broth to the bowl. Stir the broth in with the bread and veggies until the bread becomes moist. (if your stuffing is looking a little dry, add more broth)

Transfer this mixture to a baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Put the stuffing in a 325 degree oven for about 30 minutes. If you like a crispy stuffing you can uncover it and cook for an additional 20 minutes or until the stuffing is browned on top.

I will update with photos of mine when I’m done.

Make Pure Food and Wine’s Pad Thai at home!

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:50:06 -0400

Once I had the pad thai at Pure Food and Wine I was hooked! It’s so good! What I loved was that it was made with kelp noodles that aren’t cooked, but still give you that satisfaction of eating noodles. In addition to being satisfying, these noodles are fat-free, gluten-free, and very low in carbohydrates and calories. So go ahead and make yourself a big bowl of this!

This recipe is from the Pure Food and Wine blog. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I wanted to share this with you guys anyway. I will update you once I’ve made it.

For the PAD THAI SAUCE:

½ cup soaked and strained tamarind pulp (see below for notes on tamarind pulp)**

1 cup heated water

1 medium tomato

½-1 thai chili (depending on spice desired)

1 medium clove garlic

1 small shallot

1/4 cup shoyu

1 tablespoons lime juice

1/4 cup sesame oil

1 tablespoon agave

Cut off a 2”x2” block and dissolve tamarind in 1 cup of hot water (not quite boiling) removing any seeds and with a fork, working it into a paste. Let it soak for 15 minutes.

Next, combine tomatoes, chilis, garlic, shallots, ½ cup shoyu, 1 tablespoon of lime juice, sesame oil and agave in Vitamix or high speed blender and blend well. Next add the tamarind pulp and blend until very smooth.

For the VEGETABLES:

1 head of baby bok choy, roughly chopped

1 medium carrot, diced or julienned

1 medium zucchini diced or julienned

1 medium orange or red bell pepper, julienned

1 large sliced king oyster mushroom (or handful sliced shittake or other mushrooms)

1 cup snow peas, thinly sliced on a diagonal

3 green onions, white and about 3″ of green, sliced

Mix all chopped veggies in a large bowl

For the vegetable marinade:

Add ¼ cup shoyu, 1 tbsp lime, drizzle of olive oil, 2 tbsp of Pad Thai Sauce

Mix veggies and marinade until liquid is evenly dispersed. Let sit in refrigerator for an hour or more.

For the NOODLES:

Opentwo 12 oz. packages of Sea Tangle Kelp Noodles and chop into 3-4” pieces

Add the noodles to the veggie mixture, pouring about half of the Pad Thai sauce into the bowl and mix well with tongs until sauce is evenly distributed

For the GARNISH:

½ cup chopped cashews

drizzle of sesame oil

sprinkle of sea salt

Handful of cilantro

Mix cashews with salt and sesame oil, sprinkle over finished Pad Thai. Drizzle with lime juice and sprinkle with cilantro leaves.

**Tamarind pulp can be found as cellophane-wrapped, sun-dried bricks in Asian, Latin and Indian markets. Tamarind pulp is the sticky interior of pods that grow on a variety of evergreen tree originally native to Africa. Tamarind, which is very intense in flavor, lends sweet-and-sour notes to dishes. Because the pulp usually contains seeds (even when it says “seedless”) you should always go through the paste to remove any seeds, or, strain it.

Lunch today: An add on salad from One Lucky Duck. It had mixed...

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:25:40 -0400

Lunch today: An add on salad from One Lucky Duck. It had mixed greens, cucumbers and tomatoes with cilantro lime dressing. Plus I ordered a side of their delicious cilantro and corn guacamole to pile on top.

Getting Back to Green

Mon, 02 May 2011 13:07:52 -0400

Hello everyone.

I know this blog has been on hiatus for the last 5 weeks or so, and that’s because I’ve been having a hard time of it in my raw food journey lately.

When I fall off the wagon I fall hard, and after getting back from Austin, I fell right back into my old gluten habits. At first I didn’t notice that much of a difference. I thought I could handle eating all my favorite carbs again, but clearly I was wrong.

Your body reacts to gluten like a drug. And after a while it was all I was craving. I will spare you the details of these last few weeks as my diet became something I am not proud of.

My body has become weak and I am starting to get sick. I know it’s time to kick this habit and get back to green!

In a way this feels like I’m starting all over. I’ve gained a few pounds back but losing them won’t be the difficult part. What will be difficult is getting back into the habit of eating healthy, clean, mostly raw, vegan food.

Habits can be hard to recreate. When I wake up in the morning I’m no longer used to getting out the juicer and making my morning juice (something I’ve really been missing). My laziness takes over, and I opt for convenience over health.

My tips for getting over this are preparation and planning!

Make a big batch of juice over the weekend, or the night before. It will last in a sealed glass jar in the fridge for at least 48 hours. This makes it easier when you are looking for something to grab in the morning when you are half asleep on your way to work.

Bring your lunch! Since I’ve started working in an office, I’ve fallen victim to ordering in. Sure it’s still vegan but I’m not getting the nutrients that I really need, plus the portion sizes are out of control. This week I’ll be packing a lunch (which will save money as well as my waistline).

Plan all your meals in advance. By the time I get home after work, I’m usually starving. If I don’t already know what I’m having for dinner, I am going to opt for the fastest thing. So it helps if I’ve prepped things before hand to make it easier. Pre-chop veggies for a salad, pre-make dressings, cook on the weekends so that you have week night leftovers.

This will set you up for success.

Of course it’s not easy, it’s not foolproof, and there is no guarantee I won’t fall off the wagon again. But I hope you will support me as I try to get back on track.

Tacos Tacos Tacos

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:03:48 -0400

Hey everyone! I know I haven’t been posting in a while but things were getting crazy with work and then I spent the week in Austin, TX for SXSW Interactive.

Since I consider this my food blog I hope you will all understand when I occasionally post about food that’s not raw. I wanted to clear the air because I realized that some people thing I eat 100% raw and it’s not even close. On a good day I try to be 80% raw but even that is hard to accomplish.

I don’t beat myself up about food. I eat what I want. I do eat a vegan diet so that doesn’t change, but especially when I’m traveling I like to try new foods and most of the time they aren’t raw. So I hope you all still enjoy this post.

I am going through taco withdrawals guys! So much amazing mexican food in Austin! But my favorite tacos come from a taco truck called Chi’lantro. They are korean bbq tacos!

My mouth is watering just thinking about them!

I get the tofu tacos, they are spicy and delicious! The tofu has great flavor and all the toppings are delicious!

The guys who run this truck are so cool. They even take credit/debit card payments on an iPhone!

I really enjoyed all the amazing food I ate in Austin, but now it’s time to get back to eating super clean. I hope you enjoyed this post, let me know if you would like to continue to hear about the cooked vegan food I eat, or if you prefer I stick to the raw stuff.

How was the end of the cleanse ? I'm doing it now for 11 days and I find not drinking the biggest challenge of all. And I really dont like the all day juice cleanse which I just promptly stopped today by eating a salad. I agree I initially lost like four pounds but feel pretty steady now , but I feel amazing !

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:47:42 -0500

Honestly I kind of stopped counting days. :)

Being gluten free wasn’t hard for me after a while, and I think I’m going to try and stick with it as a part of my regular diet.

As far as the one day juice cleanse, I only did it once. The other days it just wasn’t fitting into my schedule.

I’ve had a few glasses of wine along the way, but never more than one.

I feel good and I think I’m going to try and stick with it.

One of the most amazing meals I've ever had!

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:10:11 -0500

So as promised, here is a recap of my wonderful birthday dinner last night! We went to Pure Food and Wine (a raw food restaurant here in NYC). There were four of us and we all ordered the tasting menu (it has to be ordered by the whole table). The cool thing about the tasting menu at Pure is the fact that everyone gets a different dish for each course! So instead of trying 5 courses, you actually get to try a lot more!

I was only able to take photos of some of the dishes, but I will try my best to remember everything we tried.

To start everyone got an amuse of kumquat, mushroom and onion with a BBQ sauce. It was good, the sauce was amazing, I had to refrain from licking my plate!

Then came the first course. We all decided to taste everything and pass it around. The picture above was what I had in front of me and it was so delicious! I can’t remember exactly what it was since it doesn’t seem to be on their usual menu.

This was the Salad Of Winter Greens With Medjiool Dates, Pignoli And Saffron Meyer Lemon with curry vinaigrette, shaved onion, argan oil, chestnut honey (from the menu).This salad was a little too sweet for me, it might have been the combination of the dates and the honey. It wasn’t my favorite.

The other two first courses we had were the Hazelnut Crostinis With Crimini Mushrooms And Caper Bearnaise with caraway sauerkraut, in a local apple cider reduction (from the menu). This was good, but I didn’t like it as much as I liked the first thing I had.

Lastly there was a pressed salad with avocado. I forget what else was in it, but I do remember that it has asian flavors and there was a delicious sauce on the plate.

Our second course was a soup course, so everyone got the same thing. It was a butternut squash soup. There were some very delicious flavors in it, but I can’t really remember the exact description.

For our third course I found myself in front of a lovely taco with spicy sun-dried tomato filling, corn cilantro guacamole, tomato-lime salsa, and cashew sour cream. I’ve had this before at One Lucky Duck and it was delicious as always.

There were some maki rolls which were very good.

We had the Pizzette in The Style Of Southern Italy With Almond And Rosemary Crust with spinach pesto and arugula (from the menu). This was not my favorite, it didn’t have as much flavor as everything else we ate, and it was difficult to eat because the crust fell apart.

Lastly we had the Pad Thai With Kelp Noodles And Baby Bok Choy with snow peas, king oyster mushrooms, tamarind sauce, sesame salted cashews, and cilantro oil (from the menu). This was really good! This felt more like regular vegan food to me than raw food. Needless to say, it was with me last and I finished it all!

This was my fourth course. It’s a balsamic marinated portbello. There were carrots and other veggies underneath. It was tasty.

This is the Spanakopita with Spinach, Almond Feta, Cucumber Yogurt, local cauliflower and grapes (from the menu). This wins, hands down! I absolutely loved this! Creamy spinach, light flakey crust…so yummy!

We also had the Sweet Corn And Cashew Tamales With Chili Spiced Portabella with salsa verde, cashew coconut sour cream, avocado, and raw cacao mole (from the menu). This was really good. Everyone enjoyed it because it was really hearty.

The final 4th course was the Porcini Ravioli With Truffle Cream Sauce, Baby White Asparagus with pickled ramp, parsley salad, porcini oil (from the menu). This was just ok for me. It was a very strong mushroom flavor.

Before dessert we had a simple palate cleanser of coconut ice cream with cilantro syrup. You couldn’t really taste the cilantro, all you tasted was coconut, but it was refreshing.

Then came the desserts! In front of me was a mexican chocolate cake with a pear sorbet and pear crisp. It was tasty. (I don’t have the biggest sweet tooth, so all these desserts was a little overwhelming for me.)

I’m not 100% sure, but I think this was the Mexican Cinnamon Mousse guajillo chili pepper chocolate cake, pear relish and sorbet (from the menu). The boys really liked this one, it was too sweet for me.

We also tried the Trio Of Dark Chocolate Coated Indian Spiced Ice Cream Treats - chocolate cardamom coconut ice cream cone, pistachio gelato ice cream sandwich, and chai tea creamsicle (from the menu). These were good, the chocolate was REALLY dark. It made it difficult to taste the fillings because all you tasted was chocolate.

The last dessert was a passion fruit mousse, with a chocolate sorbet and tropical fruit. I like this one because the fruit really balanced out all the chocolate.

My favorites from the meal have to be the Spanakopita, the Pad Thai With Kelp Noodles, and whatever it was I ate for my first course! Everything was delicious and now I feel like I have a much better handle on the menu at Pure Food and Wine, and I will be able to recommend dishes to all of you when you are in NYC!

Overall the meal was an amazing experience and a wonderful treat! (I would do it again anytime anyone wants to!)

A big thank you to my 3 amazing (meat eating) friends who came with me to enjoy this meal, you guys really made it one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.

Your tumblr is really inspiring! I've been vegan for two years now and have been interested in raw food cuisine but the (self imposed) pressure to be perfect kept me from trying a raw food diet. Thanks for making a (mostly) raw food diet seem more attainable.

Also, what is your opinion of nutritional yeast? I was really looking forward to using it but I've discovered I have an allergic reaction to it, despite have absolutely no other food allergies. Some vegan forums I read shed a negative light on the actual raw-ness of the product as well. (http://www.giveittomeraw.com/forum/topics/nutritional-yeast-good-or-bad?commentId=1407416%3AComment%3A602439)

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:47:26 -0500

Thank you. I’m really glad you like the blog. I’m not the biggest fan of nutritional yeast. It’s certainly not a part of my everyday diet. I consider it more of a treat. :)

It is clearly not raw, but there are lots of “raw” foods that might contain it.

My advice it listen to your body. You know what is best for you. And if you’ve had a bad reaction to it, I would obviously not eat it.

Let me know if you have any other questions.