Breakfast was carrot muffin again. These are tasty, not sick of them yet. For lunch it was the infamous egg salad sandwich with, yes again, sweet potato chips. I just can’t eat it anymore. It’s not bad, just so tired of it. Dinner was a struggle. I didn’t have time to shop so scrounged through the fridge. Found some leftover salad veggies and whole wheat pasta. So I cooked up the noodles and sauteed zucchini, onions, garlic, tomatoes and the rest of the chard. It was good on the pasta, something I would normally eat, just wasn’t covered in cheese. See pics below.

-Peace and Vegan RAWr

For breakfast I had a carrot muffin I bought from Karyn’s. Good. For lunch I had half an egg salad (coconut) sandwich with sweet potato chips. Sound familiar? It’s because I buy what’s decent and relatively inexpensive. That doesn’t leave too many options! For dinner I went to Treat in Humbolt Park with some friends. They had a vegan sandwich option, except it was eggplant which I’m not that fond of when not fried and smothered in cheese. So I got the daal, which said it was made with vegetable butter. I probably should have asked if it was actually vegan, but I didn’t want to because if it wasn’t I would have had to get the eggplant sandwich. It was good though with lentil stew, rice and a potato, carrot, sweet potato mix. I highly recommend Treat, except it’s going to be on check please this weekend so go there asap! See pics below.

6 days to go!
-Peace and Vegan RAWr

Breakfasts:

Carrot Raisin Muffin

I ate these “muffins” from Karyn’s, delicious actually when thought about as a RAWr foodist.  Nice spice, good carrot taste and raisiny.  I liked these.  Still, not like a real muffin or a real carrot cupcake w/ creamcheese frosting, but still pretty good.  I also ate breakfast at the bed and breakfast, which when we told them I was a vegan (as we thought they may have heard of that as opposed to RAWr), they hadn’t!  They were so confused as to what I could eat if I couldn’t have eggs or butter.  So they made me oatmeal.  It wasn’t bad, just plain and boring compared to what everyone else got to eat.  Oh well.  It was as good as oatmeal goes.

Lunches:

Leftover brown rice and winter vegetables - Cold yucky!

Treehugger Sandwich from Founders (I guess it is the hippie diet)

So on the road to Grand Rapids I just grabbed leftovers from my vegan chard dinners.  Leftovers cold mixed together does not equal delicious.  Oh well, it’s all gone.  I get to try another vegan experiment this week.  Hopefully it will require less chopping!  At founders Mike and I split some guacamole and a treehugger sandwich.  Now again, nothing rawr there, but vegan yes.  A bunch of veggies and yes, even sprouts! were on this sandwich with hummus.  Not bad.  The guac was good too, lots of cumin.  And I’ll share a pic of one of the most delicious beers Mike ordered, the Hole Mole.  A chocolate-espresso stout with habanero.  It was fiery and yummy!  I took a very small sip I promise!  I also had the rest of my egg salad sandwich from Karyn’s one day for lunch too.  I did the best I could while out of town, but completely rawr was  very difficult, actually impossible.

Founders' Hole Mole Stout - HOT!!!

Dinners:

Guacamole and Veggie Chili from Trader Joe's

Hopcat's Hippie Wrap and Crackfries! <insert hippie diet joke here>

So at home on Thurs night it was pouring.  And I couldn’t eat another friggin chard bundle.  So I went to Trader Joe’s and got guacamole (I added the fresh tomatoes) and veggie chili from the can.  I’m sure there were preservatives, but at least it was vegan.  It was warm and comforting, but I learned I don’t like tofu in my chili.  Yuck, just leave it all beans.  In Grand Rapids, we went to Hopcat brewery and I had the hippie wrap for dinner.  Why are all the veggie foods in MI given hippie names like this or treehugger?!  WTF!  Anyway, it came with what they call crackfries because they’re extra seasoned and crunchy.  Very delicious!  Their homemade red hummus was delish too.  And at all the breweries, they each had some kind of beer cheese and I avoided it all.  It made me sad, but I was proud of my willpower.  I had lasagna tonight again, so didn’t take a pic.  It’s ok.  Anyway, if your going to be in GR, MI, check out Hopcat.

Dessert:

Carob-Oat Cake - A True Carobfest

This dessert from tonight was very caroby I think.  Not my fave.  It was okay in texture, except the frosting was extremely gritty, almost like it was very fine sand.  The flavor just wasn’t my fave with all the carob.  Edible, and I ate it, just not that great.  Wouldn’t buy again.

Sunday Brunch at Karyn’s:

Went to Karyn’s for the brunch buffet today.  It’s $30!!! Not cheap, but at least all you can eat.  Good to try, they had some new things I got to taste.  They had bites of lots of things, from the sandwiches to the dips to entrees to dessert.  Some of it I’ve already had, like the egg salad and square of joy sandwiches, and the lasagna and the bean burro.  But I got to try the raviolis (wrapped in like jicima or something with creamy filling and a RAWr olive tomato sauce – YUMMY!), sweet potato casserole (ok), latkes (ok and weird), pizza (pretty good – obviously fake nut cheese) and vegetable soup (okay).  It was good to get some variety today.  They had coconut squares, kiwi “jelly” (much) and “baked apples” (slices of apple in sweetened, spiced liquid), which were all good.  Oh and best part was we all got mango smoothies included – YUM!  I forgot to take pictures though, so I apologize.  It was fun to go with friends though and have people join in the rawr experience.  We checked out the store too and I stocked up on a few things for the week.

So if anyone wants to try Karyn’s with me for dinner, it’s my last week so let me know.  I’m up for it – still want to try her nachos!

-Peace and Vegan RAWr

Breakfast:

Cranberry "Cookie"

Does this look like a cookie to you?  If cookies are mushed together cashews mixed with pureed dates, honey and dried cranberries than maybe you could call it a cookie.  I’m not sure what i’d call this, but definitely not cookie.  It wasn’t bad, very rich from all the cashews, just kind of odd.  I’d rather have the ingredients in their orignal form separately or in some sort of trail mix vs. mushed up together like this.  Oh well.

Lunch:

I had more chard bundle with winter veggies for lunch.  Look to yesterday for a pic.  Chard-licious. I had a honeycrisp apple too, yum.  For a late afternoon snack, I ate some “marinara” flavor sprouted almonds and pistachios.  They were okay.

Dinner:

"Egg Salad Sandwich" (Florescent Yellow Coconut Sandwich)

I also had some sweet potato chips with this “sandwich”.  Coconut in place of egg salad with carrots and sprouts on “white’ bread.  This sandwich isn’t too bad, I had it once before so bought a whole one at Karyn’s to split between today and tomorrow.  It’s sprout-tastic as far as RAWr food goes.  Since I had a “cookie” for breakfast, am skipping dessert.  11 days to go!!

-Peace and Vegan RAWr

Breakfast/Lunch:

RAWsagna and greens

I had a honeycrisp apple for breakfast, was in a rush today and didn’t have time for a good breakfast.  Oh well.  It was raw though!  For lunch I had lasagna or RAWsagna from karyn’s.  I had it once before, it’s pretty good.  Before I thought the fake nut-ricotta cheese was what tasted a little funny, but I realized it’s the tomato sauce.  It’s made from “sun-dried” a.k.a. dehydrated tomatoes and it has a very sharp, acidic flavor.  Overall the dish isn’t bad, layers of sauce, spinach, zucchini “noodles, and cheese.  The greens on the side were pretty standard. Even though this meal has similar flavors to pizza, it does not replace the gooey, cheesy, buttery, crusty – ness of stuffed pizza from Art.  But I trek on, less than 2 weeks left.  Maybe pizza will be my celebratory dish after finishing this cleanse.

Dinner:

Chard Bundle w/ Root Veggies and Brown Rice Pilaf

I had the same thing today for dinner as yesterday, but gave you a half eaten picture for variety this time   It was fine on day 2, tasted pretty much the same.  I’m already sick of this though, very one note flavor as they’d say on Top Chef.  Good, just going to be sick of it eating it for the next couple days.  I added some habanero hot sauce to it, made it tastier.  This dish does make me feel very healthy, so full of veggies.  The rice too, nice and nutty flavor.  Full of vitamins, minerals, fiber and even some protein.  Again though, this does not sub for pizza.

Dessert:

Coconut Banana "Cake"

I bought this from Karyn’s last Friday.  You could tell it had been sitting for a few days, but still pretty tasty.  VERY coconutty, but good flavor.  Kind of soggy.  Banana frosting is starting to seem really good though, I guess it helps if you really like bananas like me, but it’s good.  A tasty, healthy alternative to frosting.  When I have a dessert made with real sugar again after this diet is over, I have a feeling it will taste crazy sweet as all these deserts are made with honey or agave or fruit instead to get sweetness.  We’ll see, it will be an interesting experiment.

-Peace and Vegan RAWr

Square of Joy Sandwich

Blueberry "Cracker"

Dinner:

So then as my first foray into cooking vegan (well, vegan on purpose), I wanted to make a large quantity of food to last me a few days and something full of interesting veggies that resembled a real entree.  I turned to a vegetarian cookbook that I own called “Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone” that’s full of yummy sounding veggie recipes.  I found a recipe that sounded really good, Chard leaves wrapped around root vegetables with garlic and tarragon, like little pouches, with a veggie stock sauce.  The recipe calls for butter, but I subbed olive oil.  So I go to Whole Paycheck, I mean Whole Foods, and try to find as much organic vegetables as the recipe called for.  I pick up an onion, 3 carrots, 6 parsnips, a turnip, 2 sweet potatoes, 2 regular potatoes, 8 chard leaves, tarragon, garlic, etc.  La di da.  I also decided to make a brown rice pilaf w/ mushrooms and onions on the side for protein and carbs.  Easy peasy, right?

I get home, and start the rice thinking by the time I get the chard wraps done, the rice will be done too.  Yea right.  I started chopping veggies at 7:45.  I finished after 9.  Little did I realize the recipe called for finely dicing all of these root vegetables.  OMG I had a MOUNTAIN of little veggie cubes, only after I threw a temper tantrum and regretted choosing this recipe.  Of course by then the rice was wayyyyy done.  Then, I had to cook the veggies for 25 minutes, boil the chard leaves, stuff the chard leaves and then simmer them over the remaining veggies and veggie stock for 10 more minutes.  Dinner was done literally at 10pm.  Ugh!  Cooking vegan is a lot more involved than just throwing a piece of chicken or something on the grill.  It turned out pretty good, the veggies all kind of melded together after cooking for so long. but pretty tasty.  I have 6 wraps w/ veggies on the side and a bunch of rice left, so you’ll be seeing a lot of pics of that this week.  Let’s hope for better digestion…

-Peace and Vegan RAWr

-Peace and vegan RAWr

So I broke down.  I just wanted to feel better.  I ate fries and ordered the entree.  I ate it all too.  It was awesome.  And you know what?  My stomach felt a lot better.  While it was still vegetarian, I’m guessing there was some butter in the stew.  So I don’t think it was vegan.  But, I tried to uphold to some kind of standard, but oh well.  It was worth it.  I felt so much better, they said the color returned to my face even.  I was able to power through the night and stay out until almost 2am.  I just don’t think I’m cut out  for RAWr.
So I’ve decided to make some modifications to my challenge.  I will do RAWr for breakfast and lunch and vegan for dinner.  I think I need some simpler food to digest.  Maybe I tried to do this cold turkey and needed a slower transition.  I don’t know.  All I know is that this diet does not agree with my system.  So I broke down.  Am I a quitter?  Maybe.  But I feel so much better.  I mean I still don’t feel 100% and I’m eating RAWr food still because I’m not completely quitting, so my tummy still doesn’t feel back to normal.  But I think eating a little bit of digestable food helps.  I’ll still be avoiding caffeine and alcohol for the rest of the month and depriving myself of cheese, dairy and of course meat, but hopefully this will actually do what I intended to get out of this diet challenge – to feel really good.  Oh well.

-Peace and half RAWr

Breakfast:

Granola w/ Hemp Milk

Breakfasts I think are the same every week, which is fine because the granola is pretty good.  Very crunchy, but tasty.  A repeat so I won’t go into much more about it.

Lunch:

Green Bean Salad, French Onion "Soup", Sweet Flax Cracker, Brazil Nuts

The green bean salad was fine, but it was very heavily doused in I think balsamic vinegar.  If you like that sort of thing, you would have been fine with it, but I”m not big on strong vinegar flavors, so I only ate half.  The “soup” was like baby food.  Seriously.  Gloppy, weird and thick.  Oh, and cold.  It was like pureed onions with a bunch of nuts to make it creamy-like.  It wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it could have been, it was very filling, but very strongly onion-ed.  I’m sure my breath was terrible for the rest of the day.  The sweet flax cracker was a repeat, good with raisins and nuts.  I was so full and my tummy hurt that I never even ate the brazil nuts snack in the afternoon.

Dinner:

Walnut Mushroom Loaf with White "Bread" and Strawberry "Jam"

Walnut mushroom loaf doesn’t sound too bad, except that it was more like a bunch of vegetables blended, especially onion and peppers, that it didn’t even taste like mushroom.  The topping I think was probably a “sun-dried” tomato layer.  It had potential but a funny crunchy texture of all raw veggies.  I did dip it in the strawberry “jam”, not sure what the hell that was doing on the plate.  Weird right?  Maybe it was supposed to be like cranberry sauce, but not really sure.  Weird.  I dipped the “bread” into it too.  This meal was fairly filling, but disappointing and hurt my tummy.

Dessert:

Apple "pie"

This wasn’t really so much like pie, but still it was tasty.  Mushed up apple chunks, raisins, coconut with cinnamon over a nut “crust” and banana frosting on top.  I ate it up.  I would eat this again, but just know it doesn’t really taste like or have the same texture as pie.

Well, I’ll see what to do next week.  I still have all raw food for the weekend, but I can’t continue to function if my stomach hurts to the point that I can’t leave the house.  Sigh.

-Peace and RAWr

Breakfast:

Oatmeal w/ Apples and Raisins

This was a repeat from last week.  I think I called it mushmeal last week.  Again though it was a little funny texture but overall pretty good.  Kind of loose and soupy oatmeal but tasty and filling.  Definitely edible.

Lunch:

Broccoli Slop Soup, Pico de Gallo, Veg Flax Cracker, Apple Chips

The broccoli soup smelled like a mixture of fresh cut grass and like someone sprayed broccoli scented air freshener into the air.  Very garlicky, not terrible but not good.  The pico wasn’t bad, just weird to eat w/ a flax cracker.  I mixed some in the soup, but it didn’t make it much better.  Maybe if I had some actual chips it would have been better.  The cracker was a repeat, tastes better covered in something else.  The apple chips were good, also dried shredded carrots were in there too, and they was spicy.  Lots of spicy food this week, so at least that’s an improvement. I could only eat half the pico before I ran out of cracker so that sucked. This lunch was totally unsatisfying and I was starving by like 4pm.  Meh.

Dinner:

Pesto "Torte", Tomato sauce/salsa, Wheatberry crackers

This looks really weird.  More odd green shit.  If this looks to you like they mushed up a bunch of green veggies and herbs and smooshed them onto a nut “crust”, then you’re right.  It was pretty good, just not filling enough.  The tomato sauce was either more like a salsa that I think i was supposed to eat with the crackers, but I put it on top of the torte which was good.  I tried to choke down the wheatberry crackers, but I just don’t like their spice so I tossed a couple of them.  I’m still hunnnnngry though

Dessert:

Carob Pecan "Cake"

This was a repeat too, but a good one so I didn’t mind.  I was hoping all the nuts would help to fill me up, but I”m still pretty hungry.  Give me food!  I’m HUNGRY!  ARGH!

-Peace and RAWr