a different soup every day

Today I made a sort of "soup base" that I can season differently on each day to make a different topping.  I thought that would be a fun thing to do this week.  I cooked up 1/2 lb of lentils (black beluga from timelessfood.com), a chopped onion, minced garlic, 1 Tbsp coconut aminos, a large peeled carrot--not chopped or cut--and strained liquid from 2 pints of tomatoes.  I put these in the instant pot pressure cooker and cooked for 8 minutes.  Then I took out the carrot and blended it with the tomatoes and 1 date, and added that back into the "soup"  (more like lentils and sauce).  So that is now my lentils and sauce base.  I dished this out into 7 1-cup bowls to eat this week and season however I want:  chili, Indian, curry, Italian, etc.

For my main meal around 1 pm, I seasoned one dish of the lentils with chili powder, cumin powder, smoked paprika and cilantro, and poured that over a baked potato.  It was delicious!

Other food today was
Breakfast:  cooked broccoli and cauliflower, raw carrots

Dinner:  I was going to make my usual salad.  Then I made some salsa for my partner to have during the Superbowl.  This was a pint of tomatoes with juice drained, a small chopped carrot, a portion of a red bell pepper, very little onion and garlic, a couple of slices of an orange and lime, all blended in a blender, with some cilantro added afterwards.  I didn't have any fresh cilantro so made use of some dried.

It tasted good so I decided to just dip my romaine lettuce leaves in that for my salad.  That was good.

I also ate the rest of the orange, it was a small cara-cara navel and tasted good.

I also finished off the broccoli and cauliflower and ate more raw carrots.  Dessert was some frozen banana slices and cherries.  This tastes like ice cream to me.  It was so good I had to have another bowl of frozen bananas and pomegranate seeds.

Simple meals I ate last week

Breakfasts:  Early last week I cooked up a big batch of kale, onions, garlic tomatoes, mushrooms, and vinegar, and dished it out into 6 bowls and then had one for breakfast every day.  One note to remember in the future, I think I prefer this with just greens and onions.  and that's easier.  I also ate 1-2 lbs of raw carrots in the morning and early afternoon.  I know, that's a lot.  My co-op carries fabulous carrots from a local farm and they are at their peak in sweetness right now--they must cure over winter.

Lunches:  either a baked potato made into oven fries and homemade ketchup; or a baked Japanese sweet potato; and raw carrots or a cooked veggie, e.g., broccoli.  This post describes how to make potato fries and reminds me of a good way to eat them that I forgot about.  Baked Japanese sweet potatoes are like candy!  I just eat them plain like a burrito and savor each bite.

Dinners:  large salad with lettuce, red bell pepper and ground seeds; dressing from 1/4 cup blueberry or cherry juice and 1 Tbsp fruity vinegar.  Early in the week I also had a bowl of chickpeas and sliced banana and cinnamon. Later in the week, I put beans on my salad sometimes with fruit like apple or pear. The juice I use for the salads is Lakewood organic which is cold pressed and probably has a little more of the fiber than the normal juice made from concentrate.  But it also costs twice as much.  Oh well, I only eat 1/4 cup a day at most so I can afford it.  The ground seeds soak up some of the juice and thickens it up and it stays on the lettuce instead of all going to the bottom of the bowl.  The beans were cooked up in the instant pot pressure cooker, 1/2 lb, with 1 Tbsp coconut aminos.  They were split into four servings.  My added sodium was under 100 mg per day.

how to eat

This pretty much sums it up!
http://www.straightupfood.com/blog/my-meals/

Quick meal ideas from Connie

Connie is an entrant in the 6-week challenge and sent me this email:

I don't like the creamy dressings so this fits the bill for me.I boil some red beets and save the juice.   Mix the juice with favorite vinegar and about a quarter cup of pure fruit juice.  I used apple-grape.   I have used pomegranate.   Pour that over the beets.  I add sliced onions, a few whole cloves, a verysmall clove of garlic tooI then add a bit of water to cover.  Pickled beets from my youth.  I love the juice so much that I use it for my salads.The other quicky is I put a package of frozen organic - no salt - veggies with a container of no salt organic veggie broth.  I added what spices I had on hand and other left over frig veggies. In about fifteen min we had a great dinner.  Sure beats not eating right when you are in a hurry.  Fast hot soup on a cold evening.  

This sounds interesting to me.   I will give it a try.  

food lately

I've had lots of visitors lately and was busy at work so didn't have much time to post about food.  One of my visitors liked my food and asked me to post the recipes.  I didn't use any recipes,  or write down what I did, but I did snap a few photos.  So hopefully I can re-create them from the photos.  It was more of a method than a recipe which I can describe here.

The meals lately usually consist of beans, greens, salads, and corn on the cob, pretty much all locally grown.  and fruit for dessert (not so much local).    The beans are prepared on the weekend and frozen into daily containers.  Right now I have two batches in the freezer.  One is made with "runner cannellini" beans from rancho gordo.  This is what they looked like after soaking--gigantic!

 I cooked them up with mushrooms and onions.  They are creamy and yummy.   The other batch of beans I made with yellow-eyed beans (I don't see them listed right now on the rancho gordo site), and carrot juice, onions, mushrooms, and a little unhulled barley and black rice--really good!  I describe how to cook this up here.

That's the beans.  Then for the most of the veggies, I've been using kale, collards and herbs from the garden (basil, rosemary, chives, dill, cilantro--no rhyme or reason to this besides it grows well), and local produce from the co-op or garden which lately has been summer squash and zucchini and eggplant.  If I use the white beans, I add tomatoes from the garden.  I cook up the veggies in the pressure cooker while the corn on the cob is prepped and boiled.    After the veggies are done, add the beans and 1-2 Tbsp of seed mixture.

Here are some beans & greens:

Here's another batch served up with our usual corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes:

Salads consist of lettuce, maybe some cabbage because the local cabbage is real sweet right now, fresh garden tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, summer squash, bell pepper, occasionally broccoli from the garden, maybe peas or edamame, and dressing made from a little fresh squeezed orange juice (optional), vinegar (d'angou pear, riesling raisin or a good balsamic) and seed mixture.  Here's today's salad (with cabbage and spinach, forgot to buy lettuce):

We often add some Penzey's no-salt seasonings to the veggies, salads, corn and tomatoes.   Our favorite is mural of flavors, but we also have been trying out sunny paris.

Sometimes instead of greens and beans, we'll have fresh green beans from the garden and salad and corn.  I'll combine the green beans with potatoes and herbs for housemate and guests.

Here's something I made up one night when I was concerned that my guest might be tired of greens and beans.  This was a vegetable curry:

I didn't have much in the fridge so the vegetables were summer squash and cabbage, onion, mushroom and frozen peas.  It looks like there's a potato in there too.  I don't usually make potatoes for myself but I probably thought the guest would like it.   Eggplant would have been good too.  Now I know from experience that curry without salt and sugar tastes bitter and bland.  Since I don't use salt, I needed a sweetener.  I had banana and frozen mangos which I thawed.  I cooked up the squash, cabbage, onion, mushroom, and potato in the pressure cooker with about, 1 tsp of curry powder and 1/2 tsp of garam masala.   Then added the peas to cook in the hot veggies as they cooled.  I blended up the water that the veggies cooked in with 1/2 banana and some seed mixture (1-2 Tbsp).   Then pulsed it with about 1/2 cup mango.  Added that back to the veggies.   As usual, we had this with corn on the cob.  This recipe was a big hit, which is funny because I just made it up spur of the moment.

I think that describes everything except my latest yummy breakfast which I'll describe in my next post.  I also like to eat raw veggies:  carrots, kohlrabi, and sugar snap peas.  Today I added some lime and cilantro but I don't think it's worth the bother. They are great all by themselves.

For fruit, I usually buy what's in season and on special (discounted that is).  Lately it's been delicious organic cherries, both from Washington state and our own Door County.  Blueberries have been on special too.  And grapes occasionally.  Earlier we had a fabulous strawberry and raspberry season.  They are both still good, just no longer on special.    Local watermelons and muskmelons are in season now.  Fresh figs are available (from California).    We are getting peaches from Door County which are wonderful.  I'm sure I'm missing something. There's so much to choose from right now.  It's a great time of year.  I think the cherries are my favorite though---they are really good right now.

Green and Gold Dessert

If I called it peas and corn and vinegar, you wouldn't want it.  But just try it once with exactly these ingredients:

1/2 cup Sno Pac Organic sweet corn (the sweetest frozen corn I know of)
1/2 cup sno pac organic peas
1/2 tsp D'angou pear vinegar

Combine the corn and peas in a bowl.  If frozen, microwave 30 seconds to thaw.  I like to eat mine partially frozen but you might like yours warm so microwave however long you want.  Stir in the vinegar and mix it up.   Now eat some.  Doesn't it taste good?  Isn't it surprising how good it tastes?

Quick Banana Bread

A while ago I posted a recipe for Instant Banana Bread.  Here's a slightly more complicated version.  It's verging on too complicated for me but I have a really low tolerance for complicated recipes.  This still qualifies as simple and in the "lazy chef" category.  You can make as little or much as you want, which is what I like about it because I would be too tempted by a full loaf of banana bread.

Ingredients:
some manna bread, multigrain is good.
some sliced ripe banana
some dates pitted
shot of vanilla (1/4-1/2 tsp depending on taste and how much bread you are making)
sprinkle of cinnamon (1/8-1/4 tsp)

Here's everything in a bowl:

Grind it up in a food processor.  Smash into a pan.  I didn't make much so my bread is going to be sideways--it's only about 1/3" thick in this pan:

Bake in the oven.  Here's where I wasn't sure what to do.  I did about 300 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.  I wasn't trying to cook it, just heat it and dry it out a bit so it would be more bread like.  I cut this into 3 pieces that looked like slices of banana bread!  It was pretty good.  Let me know if you try this and like it or have suggestions for improving it.

Super Easy Date Nut Balls

I posted a while back a recipe for Date Nut Balls.  But these are a little too complicated for me and dirty too many dishes.  I've become the "Lazy Chef."  I find that easy recipes can taste as good as complicated ones.   I came up with a real easy way to make these.  It requires coconut date rolls, which are smashed dates rolled in coconut shavings.  The key is, someone has already smashed up the dates for you.

Ingredients:
some nuts and/or seeds (I used raw cashews)
coconut date rolls
optional:  a little vanilla and/or some cocoa powder

Grind up the nuts in a blender or coffee grinder--can be as fine or chunky as you want.  mash into the coconut date rolls and roll into balls.  It only takes a few minutes and it's easy to clean the blender/grinder.  How easy is that?!   It's super good.  You can make as little or much as you want.  Here a photo I snapped after eating too many of them:

Instant banana bread

I didn't snap a picture.  This was just fun to do and tasted good.

Ingredients:

1 piece of manna bread

a few slices of a ripe banana

That's the minimum amount of ingredients.  If you want it more rich-tasting, you can add one or all of these things:

small amount of chopped date or date syrup

small amount of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chopped walnuts, pecans, or some other nut/seed

Mash everything together.  Reshape into a piece of bread.  Enjoy.  You might have to eat it with a spoon.  I just thought of something--you could toast it in the oven for a few minutes.  It tastes like banana bread to me!  

Corn, walnuts, and coconut

This is a nice little dessert for me. It might sound odd, but it's good. The trick is to get high quality sweet corn; otherwise, it's not dessert.

Ingredients:

High quality sweet corn, fresh or frozen

chopped walnuts

spoonful of unsweetened coconut shavings

Combine in a bowl, heat in the microwave until warm. This follows a similar theme as my sweet pea snack and berry dessert.

this week's food

This week got hectic so meals took a backseat. Fortunately or unfortunately I had a fair amount of bananas, soy milk, and walnuts, so I continued my ice cream obsession. When I ran out of berries (Monday morning), I had the still wonderful banana walnut ice cream (Monday night and Tuesday). I went overboard on both days. oops. In a way, it made Wednesday easier because I wasn't hungry and I had a huge deadline. I can work from home if I want, so I got up at 7 am, walked 10 feet to my home office, and sat in my chair grading job applications until 9:45 pm. I got up every once in a while to make herbal tea, or decaff green tea, or grab a carrot or lettuce or cabbage from the fridge. Talk about a sedentary day, body wise, though it was a marathon brain-wise. But I didn't need much food. It paid off, because I made the deadline and we had a productive 2 hour telecon this morning and accomplished what we had planned. Then I thought, time for a well-deserved break! So I threw together some food, and went swimming followed by ice skating with my good friends, whose ages range from 4 to 61! Both were wonderful!

So here are the meals I had today: Before the telecon, a serving of veggie bean soup (from the freezer, thawed overnight). Then to get me through the rest of the day, I made a quick salad from everything left in the refrigerator: lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, baby bok choi, apple. no salad dressing, just thought of it as finger food--didn't even bring a fork. And I made a big bag of sliced carrots and celery. Here's a picture of the goodies and the almost empty fridge that resulted:

I eat a lot of raw carrots because we get really good local carrots at my co-op for several months of the year. They taste kind of like candy. Carrots are probably the most calorie-dense raw vegetable that's enjoyable to eat (potatoes might be calorie dense, but they aren't enjoyable to eat). This is a good thing because you can't survive on raw veggies for long if you don't get enough calories. I would have added nuts but I wasn't that hungry after the beans. I nibbled on this before and after swimming. Then this evening I went grocery shopping for my weekend trip and stopped at a fast-food joint with house-mate. I dumped my blackberries and frozen mango on the rest of my salad at ate that while house-mate enjoyed her hamburger and fries. My fast food meal was also quite good.

Some readers commented that they are interested to see what I do for simple meals. Well, this is about as simple as you can get. I feel pretty lame posting about it, but this sort of quick and easy stuff works for me.

"cheesecake" rollups?

This is so simple and yummy, it's mindboggling. If you try it, let me know if I'm crazy to think this is good. I've been enjoying delicious frozen sweet corn lately in beans, and delicious pignolias (Mediterranian pine nuts) in my salads. The pignolias are creamy and to me have a cheeselike quality. I thought, what if you combined the corn and pignolias--then you get sweet and cheesy creamy, or cheesecake. Then what do you put it on? Well, I don't really want a sweet crust because you might overwhelm the taste of the corn-nut. So I just wrapped it in a warmed corn tortilla. This is a sprouted version that only includes corn and salt. Now the salt is a problem. I only had 1 tortilla last night and I can feel the effects of it today. I'll have to search for another brand.

Ingredients

1/3-1/2 cup frozen sweet corn thawed.

1 Tbsp pignolias.

1 corn tortilla

Now it's kinda hard to blend this small amount so if you can double or triple the recipe, you can blend the frozen sweet corn in a food processor, or blender. But I managed to do it in a food processor. Also, the kind of sweet corn I buy is really sweet. It is so sweet I think it must not be good for you! So if yours isn't so sweet, you might want to add a smidge of date syrup to it.

Thanksgiving pudding

If I named this according to the ingredients, it probably wouldn't be as appealing (mashed carrots and bananas anyone?). But this is super easy and for me, as yummy as pumpkin pie. This was inspired by a couple of other recipe ideas: A reader of this blog pointed out that she likes using steamed carrots rather than canned pumpkin in her Thanksgiving desserts. Well, we get really good local (sweet) carrots here so I thought that is a great idea! And a recipe on the Fuhrman forums uses banana instead of dates as a sweetener so I thought I'd try that.

Ingredients:

2 large carrots, steamed until tender

1 very ripe banana

1/2 oz chopped walnuts

pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon to taste (about 1/4 tsp?).

Mash the carrots, banana and spice with a fork. Stir in the walnuts. Eat heated or cooled. If you want it sweeter, add some date syrup (or dates soaked in water and mashed). This will probably be a weekend treat for a while.

this week's meals; curried salad recipe

Boy I have been busy since I got back from vacation. I changed my schedule around again so I can get more work done. It's working and so I haven't had much time to post. Now I work more in the morning and moved my exercise to the afternoon. So that affects my meal plans. I'm eating lighter brekky and lunches, and heavier dinner---more like the way most people eat. typical meals are:

Brekky: blended salad

lunch: cooked veggies (any kinds including tomatoes); or raw veggies and dip. I've been into my peanut-banana dip this week. today I had asparagus, cabbage, and tomatoes; and various seasonings (italian type). I need to add pine nuts to my grocery list. Ground pine nuts is good in this kind of dish. Tomorrow it will probably be raw veggies and peanut-banana dip for the second time. Friday I'm thinking collards with sweet potato sauce or sweet potato/peanut sauce (on the collards). I guess I'm into peanuts (limited amounts of course) this week.

dinner: big salad with beans or edamame, seeds (usually ground), and fruit, and a little flavored vinegar. basically kitchen sink salad. Tonight's was really good which is why I'm posting. It turned into a curry dish. I took my usual beans, which already have great flavor from the carrot juice and veggies blended in (this week was eggplant and onions); added 1 tsp curry powder, 2 Tbsp ground seeds (take your pick--today was sunflower and sesame), a chopped banana, and chopped grapes! This was really good. Curry is good with sweet fruit. I had this over a chopped head of lettuce. yummy!

These are all fast meals to prepare because I made the blended salads on the weekend and froze them; made the beans on the weekend and froze them into individual servings; and use the pressure cooker at lunch time to cook the veggies.

vacation eating

I'm on a road-trip (by car) vacation in Florida, something I shouldn't be revealing to the burglars at home...oh well. I'm doing my usual eating of salads consisting of the best-looking produce in the local grocery stores, beans, and nuts & seeds, actually seeds right now, and flavored vinegar. The beans and seeds are critical because everything else is raw and I'd be too hungry without the calories and fat from the beans and seeds. My last grocery stop was at a great store in Clearwater, FL, where I got local organic kale and lettuce of many different kinds, zucchini, celery, oranges, and cabbage. Then I also got organic (not local) brocolli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, and berries. The berries only last a day, so the orange and apples carry me through the next few days before my next grocery stop. Before I left home, I ground up about 1.5 lbs of mixed seeds (hemp, sunflower, flax, and chia); and I sprinkle a few spoonfuls on each salad. I make 2 giant salads every morning, usually for lunch and dinner. I also brought some raisins and flavored vinegars and my supplements. Brekky is snacking while preparing lunch and dinner; or berries and beans on those lucky days; or other fruit and beans. Today it was cabbage salad. I divide one can of beans between the three meals. Today's salad has kale at the bottom, marinating in orange juice and orange vinegar, topped with broccoli, black soy beans, romaine and red lettuce, seeds, zucchini, cucumber, and sweet potato. Normally I'd have fruit in there but I'm saving my remaining apples for tomorrow's brekky and lunch. Tomorrow we'll hit the Whole Food store in Naples and get a fresh berry fix--probably for dinner, and stock up on fresh produce again. Here's a salad from a few days ago:

One day I was out of lettuce so I made a bean dip from mashed pinto beans, my ground seed mixture, some cumin, and some of this passion-carrot juice I got for travel companion. She doesn't like it so much so we won't be getting it again, but it was good in the dip. Then I just had raw veggies and dip for lunch and dinner. It was super yummy. Note on raw sweet potatoes: the organic garnet are the best! I hope I can find some at Whole Foods tomorrow.

Okay, the rain has stopped. Time to resume my vacation!

weekend cooking

I love doing food prep on Saturday. This is the day I take my car to my exercise class (instead of biking), then stop at the grocery store and buy tons of food. Today I spent $200. $200! Well, for two people for one week for delicious organic produce, it's not so bad. Actually that's not the whole bill. During the week I buy a bag of spinach and a few boxes of berries every day. Today I made 8 smoothies (4 batches of 2) for housemate, and 7 green sludge smoothies for myself. I froze them all. Then I made a pot of beans and froze them into five 2-cup containers for Mon-Fri. Today's beans were fabulous. I cooked a leek and a couple of parsnips separately, then blended them and added to the beans. This added creaminess and a nice flavor. And as usual, I cooked the beans with lots of fresh veggie juice. Yum. I bought the parsnips because they are one of the few local veggies we have left in Wisconsin this time of year. They are good. The first time I tried them I didn't like them but now I do.

Now I'm set for the week. My brekky will be green sludge and a small box of berries. Lunch will be beans, veggies, & seeds. What's nice about this is the veggies can vary every day: steamed, lightly steamed or raw broccoli, cauliflower & carrots; raw bok choy (this is good raw!); kale or collards; brussels sprouts; etc. This takes about 15 minutes to prepare including prep and using a pressure cooker. And dinner will be my favorite spinach salad right now. This salad takes 2 minutes to prepare. So I'll have easy meals with lots of greens for a busy week. That seems to be my groove right now.

Oh, the only problem today is I ate too much. There was some leftover from each smoothie and the beans were just too tasty. Next time I will have to try to eat less of everything else because I love eating the leftover smoothies while I make them.

Simple eating

This week, I am doing easy and quick meals, and it all tastes great.

For brekky, before exercising, I've been enjoying green sludge. Then afterwards, just some fruit, usually a small box of strawberries and a small box of blueberries. Note: I eat dinner early, and I have a hard time going all the way until 11 am to eat brekky, so that's why I have part of it before exercising. Then I don't have to eat as big of a dinner either.

Yesterday for lunch I made this quick and easy meal:

a bunch of kale, ripped into pieces by hand, 1/2 onion coarsely chopped, 1 can tomatoes. I cooked this in the pressure cooker for 3 minutes; then added a can of no-salt garbanzo beans. For housemate, I cooked a potato at the same time (on one side of the pressure cooker). I took more kale for my dish, and put the potatoes in hers. Mine is on the left, hers on the right:

Also, easy cabbage salad.

Today I had kale-fennel soup that I had frozen (the recipe makes a huge batch so I froze into serving-size containers). I had that over chopped baby bok choy--yum! And I finished off the cabbage salad.

Dinner this week has been: my favorite spinach salad.

I finished off lunch and dinner with a big carrot. I love carrots, especially the ones we get here in Wisconsin for most of the year.

Eating while traveling

I’m traveling for 3 weeks this month (house-mate is home so no burglar opportunities). My first trip worked out well--assuming I make it home tonight. There was an organic grocery store 0.6 miles from the hotel, and I requested and got a refrigerator for my room. In addition to the fresh produce from the store, I brought several cans of beans and Fuhrman soups. So I was set!

My typical breakfast was a big salad topped with lots of berries (fresh or frozen ) ,½ can beans, and 1 Tbsp ground seeds. Super yummy.

Lunch was a big salad topped with chopped apple, banana, the rest of the can of beans, ½ bag frozen cherries, and 1 Tbsp ground seeds. The cherries made it fabulous.

Dinner was a big salad topped with a can of soup, chopped small tomato, bell pepper, some lime juice (forgot my flavored vinegars so bought some limes) and 1 Tbsp ground seeds. This was good but was my least favorite meal.

This turned out to be too much food. I didn’t really get hungry between meals. Next week I will probably can the canned soups, though I’ll bring a couple for backup. I think I’ll have berries and sweet peas on my dinner salad instead of the soup. I love berries and sweet peas.

Since this was a business meeting I socialized a lot with my colleagues at the bar and restaurants. I’m getting a reputation for being a weed/grass/salad eater. I brought my meals to the restaurants or just said I’d meet people later at the bar. I ran into a little trouble at one restaurant. As usual, I bribed the server by telling him: I am allergic, brought my own food, and will tip him as if I’d purchased an entree. That has never failed to work. But the maitre de saw me eating out of my plastic bowl and he got upset. I asked him if he wanted me to leave and he said, “Can you just put your food on a plate?” So I said yes and he left me alone. The next time I was more discreet and it worked fine. So lesson learned there—use a restaurant plate instead of my plastic bowl.

You might ask, why don’t you just try to eat the restaurant food? I’ve tried this in the past and either I end up compromising on the healthy choices or eating a very low calorie salad, leaving me hungry. Since I’m traveling three weeks this month, compromising is not an option for me. Compromising for 3 weeks is just eating unhealthy. So I just do this, people think I’m a little weird, but in fact, it really is no big deal once people get used to it. And if it does bother some people, I don’t really care.

My roommate at the meeting also tries to eat healthy so she also likes to go grocery shopping and fix her own breakfast and lunch in the hotel room. She has an interesting view. She says society is waging war on us (both the food industry and the “health care” and pharmaceutical industries which make a lot of money "treating" symptoms of disease but not curing them) and leaving us with no healthy eating options. So we are fighting back by eating healthy.

I’m still adjusting to not drinking at these meetings. I only stopped this last year, and my friends are used to my getting drunk with them. So it’s an adjustment for both of us. It’s not quite as interesting to hang out with friends to the bar as it was when I drank with them. There seem to be three stages of being a bystander to this. The first is when they just start drinking. I think this is most pleasurable, as I recall. It’s time to relax and be with your friends, it feels good going down, and good when it hits your brain. This is the part where I’m a little jealous because I’m just sitting there feeling normal while they are feeling extra good. In the second stage, they are getting a little dumb and the conversation gets a little boring, reverting to the usual topics. In the third stage, they are getting drunk and letting loose so the conversation starts getting interesting again. When I drank, I used to prefer the first stage. Now I prefer the third, admittedly at their expense. Maybe I should just show up later when they are drunk. It’s nice knowing I won’t have a hangover in the morning.

date butter

When you want a quick sweet spread.

Ingredients:

1 spoon date sugar

1 spoon ground raw cashews or other nut (e.g., almonds,

1 spoon water or as needed for desired consistency

heat in microwave for 20 seconds, stir. eat or spread on something. Obviously, you can make a bigger batch.

I sometimes buy "essene buds" from my co-op. These are sprouted wheat berries, ground almonds and raisins. Heat one of these in the microwave, and spread with the date butter and it's a nice little treat. It might cure a craving for a muffin or cupcake.

simple blueberry cashew dessert

This is a nice cold-weather treat.

Ingredients:

1 cup frozen blueberries

1 Tbsp ground raw cashews (grind in coffee grinder, or grind a batch in blender and store in freezer)

Combine in a bowl, heat in the microwave until warm (1-2 minutes). Try it, you'll be surprised how something so simple can be so good. And if you want it more sweet, you can add some date sugar. If you want it even more simple, just heat up the blueberries without cashews. still good.