Labor Day Weekend
With the passing of Labor Day 2010 it is the unofficial end of another summer, much to the dismay of teachers everywhere. What a beautiful weekend it was though. I continued to practice my raw food experiment with some adjustments, hey I can make adjustments it’s my experiment. I’ve decided that during the week I will eat High Raw and on the weekends I will open it up to eat some more cooked foods while still focusing on whole foods. Some of the cooked foods I’ve decided to eat are things like quinoa, beans, brown rice, and fermented foods like tempeh. There are some foods that I have decided to strictly avoid for this month, like bread, sugar, and processed vegan food (like hot dogs).
I hope you are interested the kinds of things I ate over the weekend, cause I am gonna tell you. Friday night I decided to cook some quinoa and mix it with some raw cut up veggies which included some massaged kale. Kale is one of my favorite foods, I love the flavor and how good it is for you, but it is not always palatable raw. But, it can be made a little tastier by massaging it. Cut up your kale into bite size pieces, drizzle a teaspoon of olive or flax oil on it and grind some coarse sea salt onto it. Then using your hands massage the kale, I know it sounds weird, just do it for a couple of minutes and soon you will have slightly wilted kale, almost like you have steamed it, but none of the nutrients are gone. We also had a huge salad on Friday night while the quinoa was cooking.
On Saturday we had smoothies for breakfast and were out most of the day working to complete our list of summer tasks. By the end of the day we were both kind of tired and extremely hungry so I decided that it was ok to go to our local Chipotle. I was able to get a burrito bowl which essentially means a bowl of rice, beans, fresh salsas, lettuce and guacamole. The only thing that disappointed me about this meal was the white rice. This is when I came up with my set of new rules. We actually went back to Chipotle last night and I just got extra beans instead of rice.
Sunday was a raw fruit breakfast of a bannana and an apple, but dinner was the highlight. It is a treat to go out to eat and get raw food, one of the few places in the Boston area that serves raw food is The Other Side Cafe. For an appetizer we got Spicy Lettuce Wraps which is a raw pate made of nuts and seeds wrapped in some romaine, they are so good. For my entree I got something from the appetizer section they call Nature Boy which is essentially a raw mock chicken salad, the pate from the lettuce wraps, and another mixture of nuts and seeds surrounded by a generous portion of sliced beets and carrots to dip. It was so good and although I was stuffed I did not feel bloated.
I know some people would say, “that was your dinner, it seems so boring,” but I assure you it was far from it. For dessert they have this raw chocolate mouse with fresh fruit. It is made out of raw cacao and avocado, it too is amazing.
When labor day came around we decided to have a cookout, it is labor day after all. Before hand I had decided i would fore-go some of the raw food and grill some cauliflower and tempeh. I was still planning to stick with the whole foods and not the veggie dogs we got for some of the other people coming by. Well I relearned something I have known for a while but have been trying to ignore. It is not good for me to drink when I am trying hard to avoid certain foods, my inhibitions lower and I say to myself “It’s OK, just have one hot dog.” So, that is exactly what I did. I had a couple of beers and then I ate a hot dog and it’s bun, with ketchup, mustard and relish, it was so good. At first I felt extremely guilty but, I made the choice and I can just pick right back up where I left off and continue on my way.
I will leave it at that, I hope you had a great labor day weekend, mine ended up being pretty relaxing which is exactly what I was hoping for.
