Raw Food Insanity

After my five day juice cleanse, I decided to stick to eating mostly raw for the next 5 or so days. I did this for a few reasons.  1. It's a good way to come off of a juice cleanse because it is easier on your digestive system 2. I'm trying to cut back on wheat products so this was a great way to find alternatives 3. I didn't have ANY processed sugar for 10 or so days which was a great thing to rid my system of. Not that I will never again bake with (vegan) sugar but I will definitely mix it up more. Raw desserts are so delicious. 4. I am not someone who can stick to eating the same few foods. I like a LOT of variety. Eating raw forced me to try new recipes...and I loved them!! I will remake many of them.

Let's take a look at some of what I ate!

I made these awesome orange coconut "Larabars" that What I Eat posted. I've made similar bars before but never this flavour. LOVE it! It's so delicious. I included some pics of the process. I like to use (sprayed) foil to shape my date bars as well as store them.

I made green guacamole which is green pulp from the juicer (broccoli, leafy greens etc try to stick to green veggies), lemon and guacamole. It's really really tasty! The hummus isn't homemade although if I hadn't already bought it I would have made a raw hummus like this. The store bought hummus said the chickpeas were lightly steamed, everything else was raw, so that's not bad.  I had it with raw salsa crackers by Kathy's Krackers and baby carrots. Yum! I'm a sucker for dips so I was happy to find a healthy version.

Breakfast one morning was this chia oatmeal with pumpkin!

I made these dolmas but instead of grape leaves I used collards to wrap them! They were super tasty. You had leftovers of the mixture I used to stuff them so I ate that on its own. I LOVE the cauliflower rice and will for sure make that more often!  The little treat is a raw almond pulp cookie. I don't have a dehydrator so I did the toaster oven method.

A not so pretty picture of zucchini alfredo. This is all raw so it's definitely more salad-like than pasta but I loved it! The flavours were wonderful. I used this recipe.

Leftover quinoa (made with water) that I added some homemade almond milk, berries, hemp seeds and walnuts to. Mmmm.

Leftovers one night when I got home late and was soo hungry. Zucchini alfredo, dolmas and hummus. Yeah, I ate a lot of the hummus this week.

These raw brownies and some homemade almond milk. OMG these brownies are so good. If you love dark chocolate, you'll love these. Super rich tasting.

This was an interesting meal that I really liked. It's raw "cereal". I used this recipe. It's just almonds, apples/pear, dates, carrots and broccoli pulsed in a food processor, served with milk. SO healthy and very very filling.

I wasn't sure I liked red cabbage but after making this super simple recipe from Raw Clarity, my mind was made up. I love this salad! I actually made it again another night. It's just red cabbage, raisins, grapefruit and some EVOO and sea salt if you want. The raisins and grapefruit balance each other out so wonderfully.  I made this homemade pesto and had it on top of a portabello mushroom with tomato and avocado. Yum!

Fruit and walnuts for breakfast one morning. 

Last night I made these yummy lettuce wraps and a mojito! Not all raw. I added some vegan chicken nugget pieces to the lettuce wraps. Very delicious. And yes, I was feeling this one drink...I'd only had nuts/produce for the past 10 days! haha

I needed to use up some pumpkin before it went bad so last night I made this raw vegan pie. Ughhhhhhh. So good. haha The texture is different but the flavours (minus the crust) are quite similar to traditional pumpkin pie. We ate it all but one slice last night which I put into my husband's lunch today...   haha Oops! Raw desserts are still generally high in calories, natural sugar etc so it IS still a dessert and should be treated as so. That said, I don't feel guilty for eating so much hehe

So what do you think? Raw food isn't so boring, right? I'm so glad I did this. It's easier to incorporate more of these meals into my daily menu now. I'm having a big salad for lunch today and then tacos (going to turn some soft shells into hard ones hopefully) with this as filling for dinner. So it's not 100% raw but it's pretty natural and healthy.

Oh and I got the Insanity workouts yesterday! I'm waiting until after my 10K on June 3rd to start it but I'm excited. I have P90X but I don't love all the workouts. I liked the plyometrics one the best. Insanity is all plyometrics which I love so I think I'll enjoy it more. I want to gain muscle tone and my gym membership ends at the end of this month, so it should work out well. :)   And no, I'm not doing the "diet".