Go Green BABY!

http://bit.ly/cCXrbG Keepin’ …

Christine — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:07:19 +0000

http://bit.ly/cCXrbG Keepin’ the raw blogs blogin’! This link from superrawlife! Related posts:@bradgosse http://www.gogreenb… Related posts:

@bradgosse http://www.gogreenb…

Juice Me Green Baby!

Christine — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:44:03 +0000

Green Juice

I’ve been having a green juice every day for several days now. My favourite concoction is as follows:

Juice Me Green Baby!

1 bunch fresh spinach
1/2 bunch of celery
1/2 bunch of cilantro or parsley
1/2 peeled lemon
1 inch chunk of peeled ginger (or 1/4 tsp powder)

Run all ingredients through a juicer in the order listed. (If using ginger powder, mix it in at the end.) Substitute any leafy green for the spinach, any herb for the cilantro, cucumber for the celery. Make it your own; just make it green, baby.

If you’re new to green juices, the lemon is essential; use as much as you need. Try this for one week, and you will crave it forever. I think this applies to most things in life, but especially foods. Sometimes you have to train yourself to eat healthier. Sometimes not. Green juices are tough for some people to swallow, but they are SO worth the effort. Try it. One week. I dare ya.

@bradgosse Devil’s Martini (Th…

Christine — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:00:21 +0000

@bradgosse Devil’s Martini (There’s a Stagette there tonight – ask for ‘Laura’) Related posts:@bradgosse Oil of Oregano! Ser… @bradgosse About 5 drops on th… @bradgosse Zazen. That’s me in… Related posts:

RE: @109927727 Looking forward…

Christine — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:06:33 +0000

RE: @109927727 Looking forward to finding out who else has tried this on the window sill, in the garden or on the farm… http://disq.us/dj1lm

RE: @109927727 The Microgreen …

A Juicing Garden

Christine — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:50:17 +0000

Herb gardens, salad gardens, cutting gardens, butterfly gardens, knot gardens, rock gardens, water gardens, rose gardens, wildlife gardens, potagers.

What about a juicing garden?

I’ve reorganized and replotted my garden four times already. The latest version includes a juicing garden, designed to ease my transition to an 80% raw foods diet. Some of the best juicing choices are beets, carrots, cucumbers, celery, cilantro, parsley, mint, spinach, cabbage, dandelion and watercress, but naturally, you can juice almost anything. I’ve even found a recipe that juices brussels sprouts. I’m gonna try it.

Sounds a lot like a normal vegetable garden. The difference will be in the proportion of these veggies to one another, and in grouping them according to my favourite juice recipes. My first garden plan was heavy on the tomatoes and light on cucumbers. But if I’m going to be juicing whole cucumbers at a time, the tomatoes are going to have to give up some real estate. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to substitute one vining crop for another.

I’m still debating whether or not I should try celery. It takes a long, long time and isn’t the hardiest of vegetables. But it is the foundation of many juicing recipes because of the high water content. But then, so are cucumbers, and their flavour isn’t quite as distinctive as celery (once juiced).

Another minor consideration in the plotting of vegetables, is how the colours will, ultimately, combine with one another. As anyone who has experimated with juicing knows, it is easy to get overly enthused and juice everything in the fridge at once; but Salad-in-a-Glass! can often end up looking like compost tea. It may even taste fabulous, but the kids are going to fertilize the plants with it. Presentation is important.

Now, if I can rehabilitate the orchard, the vineyard, and the strawberry patch this year, then I will truly have all I need for the ultimate juicing garden. Wish me luck with that.

Love’em and Juice’em

Christine — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:19:17 +0000

This week I dusted off my ‘new juicer’ and tried some of my old favourites.

This is my second juicer. I purchased it about 3 years ago because my first one, which worked fine, sounded like a chainsaw every time I started it up, so I couldn’t use it while the babes were sleeping. The new one was the same type (different brand), but uber-powerful and unbelievably quiet. It also came with two really good recipe books: one for juicing and one for ‘pulping’. I loved it from the first flick of the switch. Unfortunately, Number Two had recently arrived so my routine fell out of whack. The juicer got shelved.

Well, today, while trying to find my old ‘juicing fingers’, I made the traditional carrot-apple-ginger combo (with a handful of parsley), and my 16-month old chugged half the glass. Her brothers were divided – one thought it was nasty, the other said it was fine – but it made me realize how stupid I was to not introduce vegetable juices to my boys when they were still at a programmable age.

I conditioned them into loving so much nutritious food, hating so much bad food, and questioning any food that anyone-but-their-mother put in front of them. . .but I completely forgot – so it seems – to give them fresh pure vegetable juices. They’ll eat the solids, but they resist the liquids.

Time to reprogram.

@bradgosse http://www.gogreenb…

Christine — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:46:48 +0000

@bradgosse http://www.gogreenbaby.ca Related posts:@bradgosse Oil of Oregano! Ser… @bradgosse Devil’s Martini (Th… @bradgosse About 5 drops on th… Related posts:

RE: @109927727 The Microgreen …

Christine — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:25:54 +0000

RE: @109927727 The Microgreen seeds are MINE! I’m going to grow them on the stove since we won’t need it for our raw … http://disq.us/cbdog

RE: @109927727 Looking forward…

Microgreens

Christine — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:37:46 +0000

Microgreens

I’ve spent the last several days going through my old seeds and deciding what to use and what to toss. I generally have no trouble germinating seeds that are three or four years old. I don’t even store them under particularly ’seed-friendly’ conditions, and yet many of them still produce.

Now, that’s fine, of course, if I’m starting transplants. I can plan for a certain quantity, and if they don’t all sprout, I can adjust my garden plan accordingly; there’s plenty of time to do so before they are set in the ground. But when it comes to sowing directly in the garden, there’s nothing more vexing, or more inefficient, than allocating precious garden space, providing TLC, and being rewarded with patchy germination.

So, here’s the general plan:

First, I’m scaling back on tomatoes. I’m not buying new seeds. I’m going to use up everything I’ve got and grow enough for fresh consumption, for drying, and perhaps for freezing (which I’ve never done before), but I’m going to avoid canning, if at all possible. I enjoy the process, but I have to sacrifice a lot of family time to accommodate it, which I am no longer willing to do. (And besides, my diet is evolving away from cooked and even home-processed foods.)

Second, I’ve discovered, all on my own (pat pat), that the best way to use up old seeds – instead of tossing them – is to scatter them all in a flat and grow them as microgreens. Then I don’t have to worry about their germination rates and I can go ahead and order the twenty (or so) new varieties I’ve had my eye on (tee hee).

The old seeds are a mix of red and green cabbage, beets, chard, mizuna and radishes. The new seeds will be cornsalad, chinese cabbage, tatsoi, mibuna, sylvetta, red and green kale, new varieties of beet, cabbage and radish, and always loads and loads of wacky lettuces and spinach. Almost half of my latest garden plan is dedicated to greens (thanks to the tomato reduction). That’s a lot of square footage in a 30 x 40′ garden.

Whatever seeds are leftover at the end of the season, will be next winter’s microgreens.

Finally, I’m late starting my onions and leeks. I always start them mid-February, watch them gleefully for the first couple of months, and then slowly shift my attention to other more important crops, like tomatoes and peppers. By the time the broccoli, cabbage, marigolds, melons, tomatoes, peppers and various herbs are all vying for precious sunlight, the onions and leeks should be going in the ground, but instead, are often left to dry out on a shelf somewhere; they rarely ever make it to the garden.

So this year will be different. I’m planting them, as before, and caring for them diligently, as before, but when the competition starts to get out of control, I’m going to cut them and use them as microgreens too. This should carry me through to spring when the first of the chives start to appear.

Will I still plant onion sets? Possibly. But they do require a decent amount of space. Why bother when chives thrive throughout? Hmmm.

If our site were music? LISTEN!

Christine — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:17:30 +0000

If our site were music? LISTEN:

Electronica

We need a New Age version of this!

– RT from www.finnohara.com

Just added a Twitter plugin to…

February 13th – Liberation Day

Christine — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:02:53 +0000

Today, Christine was liberated from her own mind. Imagine the freedom! Happy Birthday, Lisa! Related posts:Zunuksuk Related posts:

Zunuksuk

Baby Steps to Raw

Christine — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:59:42 +0000

I’m taking a hiatus from raw recipe searching. Too many of them are too elaborate or they contain ingredients that are too expensive or too hard to find.

So I’m making a list: What do I not need to give up? What am I doing right so far?

Here is the answer:

raw fruits of all kinds
raw veggies of all kinds
raw salads of all kinds
juices of all kinds
smoothies
shakes
raw nuts and seeds
raw nut and seed butters
raw honey, agave and maple syrup
raw cocoa
raw coconut oil and olive oil
raw cider vinegar
sprouts
herbs and spices
salt and pepper
WATER

It’s quite a list, really. (And I’m sure some items are debatable to raw veterans out there, but it’s all about ‘baby steps’. Baby steps to the blender, baby steps to the juicer, baby steps to the dehydrator. . .)

I intend to take the above foods and build on them, instead of what I have been doing, which is trying to create a new diet from scratch. It has been fun, trying new flavour combinations and unusual textures, but by far the most useful thing I’ve learned is to simply view foods in new ways, and therefore use foods in new ways (and I’m not talking dirty here).

The most exhausting thing about the transition to raw is the disruption to the normal routine. I can’t sprout, dehydrate, or even juice every meal. I’ve tried it, and it cannot be done. I spend most of my day in the kitchen as it is. I suppose that once we’re 100% raw (years away), I can remove my oven/range and replace it with a murphy bed, but really, isn’t part of the idea to make life easier?

@bradgosse Zazen. That’s me in…

Christine — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:30:17 +0000

@bradgosse Zazen. That’s me in the background on a retreat a few years ago: http://bit.ly/bwS9Re Related posts:@bradgosse Oil of Oregano! Ser… @bradgosse Devil’s Martini (Th… @bradgosse About 5 drops on th… Related posts:

@bradgosse About 5 drops on th…

Christine — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:14:38 +0000

@bradgosse About 5 drops on the tongue a few times a day (nice and harsh for your throat when undiluted) – or mix with juice. Related posts:@bradgosse Oil of Oregano! Ser… @bradgosse Devil’s Martini (Th… @bradgosse Zazen. That’s me in… Related posts:

@bradgosse Oil of Oregano! Ser…

Christine — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:08:27 +0000

@bradgosse Oil of Oregano! Seriously! Related posts:@bradgosse Devil’s Martini (Th… @bradgosse About 5 drops on th… @bradgosse Zazen. That’s me in… Related posts: