It's Hard, But Worth It!

I made a simple dish from Raw Food Real World, Green Olive Tapenade. I tried to get the green olives at the Farmer's Market but when I went to pay for two 80z or 10oz. jars the guys said it would be $20. I said, "excuse me" and had to put the jars back. I ended up with some from S&S Produce that were still local - sweet.


I reduced the recipe by 1/3 since my plan is just to use it in an upcoming Raw Pizza Recipe and for a little snacking. I whipped it all up in my Ninja. I have had a Ninja laying around for a while. Honestly, I have been trying to sell it on Craig's List but now I am keeping it. It is the greatest. One large food processor/blender and 3 small food processors. All with lids - perfect. I made the Olive Tapenade and stored it right in the container.

A Break from Raw to Strategize

I have not put out a blog post in nearly a week because, honestly, I have been kind of down on RAW. Here is why. It's Hard!

My first week of full on Raw, I didn't have a dehydrator yet, so I spent most of the time eating smoothies, salads, whole veggies with yummy dips and handfuls of nuts. I was pretty hungry but for the most part it was easy.

Then, during the second week I got my dehydrator, and I tried to do it ALL way too fast. All of the sudden I was soaking and dehydrating like crazy. I was making 4-page long recipes with 25 ingredients that took 3 days to prep. Basically, I just got overwhelmed. Overwhelmed led to eating out and bam - I am off Raw and not blogging. It happened just like I thought it might. This is what I was worried about. Trying to be perfect generally leads to falling off the wagon for me.

But Raw, what you should know is you can't kick me that easily. I have decided that what I need is a nice balance between week 1 and week 2. Lots of whole fruits and veggies with a nice dose of "fancy" foods to keep it interesting. My plan to make that happen is to try to rotate the days on which I have meals that have a major dehydrating component. I think this will work.

Also, for the first time in a few weeks, I was able to get to the Saturday morning Farmer's Market. The market is always so full of yummy stuff and just stokes me with energy to eat healthy. On Saturday I got:

• 2 big bunches of Kale
• A bunch of collard greens
• Italian Parsley
• Arugula
• Carrots
  
• A giant bag of persimmons (plus some dried)
• Dried peaches
• Dehydrated peppers
  
• Lemons
• Apples
• Mandarins
  
• 1 Gallon of Olive Oil (finally from my pre-order in October)

I love that we have a year-round Farmer's Market to keep us stocked up on fresh, local, organic and delicious foods.

I finally got to fill the Oil Mister I got for Christmas with my awesome Organic Olive Oil from Chaffin Family Orchards. The mist allows me to spray without aerosol. Now I can have spray olive oil using whatever oil I want to fill it with.

Learning Curve:

I am getting better at evaluating which meals are going to be overwhelming to preparing - pushing dinner to 9:00pm. I try to avoid those for now until I get better at whipping up dishes. How do you plan your menus?