So Last Night For Dinner...

i was really bad. i had a big bowl of spaghetti bolognaise with parmesan cheese. And some chocolate afterwards in front of Wife Swap USA. This is where i completely fall apart. From about 4.30 until dinner i am ravenously hungry and will eat whatever is in the fridge. Seriously, anything. But up until this point i am as virtuous as a raw-food angel. For example, yesterday i ate for breakfast a raw food muesli that i make with oats and dried fruit and nuts. I eat it with a little fortified soy milk, for the calcium, but i use one that contains no GM soy beans or cane sugar. As a general rule, by the way, the whiter and more "milky" looking the soy milk is, the less natural it is. For morning tea at work i had 8 brazil nuts and a nectarine. For lunch i had the Bob Marley salad i put in yesterday's entry. Then at about 5 o'clock a wild look came into my eyes and I leapt into the fridge, teeth bared. I don't remember what i ate, but i know that most of it wasn't raw and it made me feel bloated and full, yet still hungry. I need to change something here, clearly. But what? Firstly i think i will start eating dinner early, around 6.30, instead of 8. I may have to eat dinner seperately from my family. Which may cause issues, because mum reckons dinner is family time. And she's totally right! But if family time is making me eat enough spag bol for 2 people, then i need to change something, right? Please, by the way, feel free to make any suggestions. I need them!

Two Salad Recipes

...both inspired by a salad bar in the city that i've been to a couple of times. I've adapted them to include more raw food and less cooked. Bob Marley Salad: toss together your preferred amounts of iceberg lettuce, cucumber slices, alfalfa sprouts, other crunchier sprouts, snow peas or freshly shelled peas and diced avocado. Make a dressing by shaking together in a jar some tahini, lemon juice and olive oil. Add a soft-boiled freerange egg or some tofu slices for a protein rich salad. Jane Fonda Salad: toss together your preferred amounts of baby spinach leaves, diced tomato, sliced mushrooms, sliced capsicum and a mixture of pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Dress with a combination of whisked olive oil, lemon juice, and a dash of dijon mustard. Add optional ingredients such as a little cubed fetta to add richness and protein.

Raw Food Site of the Day

I need daily inspiration to keep on track at the moment. Hitting the net and looking for people with similar stories and exciting new recipes keeps me inspired! http://www.loveraw.com

Breaking News: Lolly Conquers Diet Again

Dinner: fettucine with creamy prawn, chilli and basil sauce, 1/2 bottle white wine. After fireworks snack: Oreo double-choc icecream, 1 bottle champagne. Breakfast: 2 pieces bacon, 1 sausage, 2 slices toast, 2 cups coffee and 1 diet coke. Well, i think we can unequivocably establish that Lolly is the queen of breaking diets. Thanks babe. On a more virtuous note, the (raw) lunch that i took to work was great, and kept me going for hours. I think it's the fibre and the protein in it. To serve 1: toss together 5 sliced button mushrooms, a little sliced red capsicum, half a cucumber shaved with a vegetable peeler so it forms thick ribbons, a few snow pea sprouts and mung bean sprouts, and a bit of thinly sliced cabbage if you like it. Drizzle some salt-reduced tamari over it. Then add about 10 sliced pieces of marinated tofu. I ate mine with shiny red chopsticks that I got for Christmas. It was very exciting. Back on the diet tomorrow - it's 42 degrees (celcius) today, so i'm extremely glad that i thought to make some smoothie icypoles yesterday... we had lots of fresh berries left over from Christmas that were getting a bit old so i blended them up with a big banana, 1/2 a cup of fruit juice, a mango and a few tablespoons of low-fat plain yoghurt. Then i poured the mixture into plastic cups and covered them with clingwrap tightly, sticking skewers through the wrap... this holds the sticks upright so they look more professional and also stops sticky berry stuff leacking all over the freezer. It made about 5-6. I am so looking forwards to getting home from work tomorrow and collapsing on the tiles in the back room with the fan on and a home made icy pole. And then i'll drip it all over myself and jump in a cold bath. Heaven on earth.

Intelligence

Oh clever me. Very well done. Choosing the first day of my raw food diet to begin on New Year's Eve. A night that i personally have always dedicated to drinking enormous quantities of champage and then coming home at four in the morning to eat whatever is in the fridge that isn't dog food. Well... I guess all i can do is restrict myself to one bottle of champage and try and eat raw food for dinner so i'm not hungry later. The biggest obstacle to anyone on a diet (and i mean biggest in a metaphorical sense) is having my friend Lolly as a best mate. She assumes the role of the Greek Momma and could make a vegetarian eat osso bucco... or a vegan eat fetta, as she has done in the past with me. I'm going to be staying at her place tonight, so i think the first day of this diet might be a little less than perfect. But i'll stick to it from breakfast to dinner... what happens after the midnight fireworks, i am not responsible for. Anyway, how much fun is life if you have to restrict yourself too much on special occasions? The joy that comes from going back to Lolly's house, finishing off the champage and scarfing a block of chocolate while we watch late night telemovies is not a pleasure i wish to be denied. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Morning After the Night Before

After a 2 litre jug of gin mint juleps, a bottle of champage and a six-pack of beer, somehow the conversation turned to the state of modern religion and the church as a means of social control. Then this somehow disintegrated into a full-blown domestic between one of the couples present... The food, however, was an enormous success. The marinated fish kebabs were divine, immensly simple, and very quick to cook outside on the barbeque. To serve 6 with salad and/or rice: 800g thick, meaty fish steaks such as tuna or swordfish, marinated in the juice of 1 lemon, 1 orange, 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, and a teaspoon each of cumin and paprika. Marinate for 1 hour, thread onto skewers and then grill or barbeque. The chickpea cake was more like a heavy, slightly sweet bread than a cake, although it made for some fun getting people to guess the 'secret ingredient'. But by the time it came out we were all a bit too pissed to feel like eating. Maybe next time i'll do a liquid dessert... something with Bailey's in it. However, I don't think i'll be drinking Bailey's for a while, given that my plan is, as of tomorrow, to begin an earnest, two week attempt at the raw food diet. Leslie Kenton's inspiring book Raw Power has all the information i need to begin, and I think it would do me good. If I was to document the number of cigarettes i smoke a day, the number of cups of coffee i drink a day, and the amount of alcohol i consume on the weekends (and occasionally midweek) i think even i would be horrified. A painful shopping experience occurred yesterday to spur me onwards towards my goal of weight loss - where everything you try on makes you look like an obese rhino with a cellulite problem. I usually end up buying shoes on shopping trips like this, at the end, desperately seeking retail therapy. They're usually really ugly shoes too.

Dinner Parties

I love dinner parties. I love how everyone feels bound to complement me on my cooking, even if I only made a bean soup. I love decorating my backyard so that there are candles burning in lanterns and the table is set with my best glasses, filled with cocktails and with a sparkling salt rim. Unfortunately my dog Herman tends to ruin the ambience, as anyone who's had the fortune to meet him will know. He's a little barrel-chested dog we got from the RSPCA, and who has a complex about the fact that he isn't human. His favourtite food is pasta, and if you feed him spaghetti bolognaise he will leave the meat and eat the pasta. I'm having a dinner party tomorrow night, for about six people, possibly more. No pasta will be served, much to Herman's dismay. I'm making lemon and chilli marinated olives, baby carrot, snow pea and fetta salad and paprika and orange marinated fish kebabs. And for dessert, a chickpea and apricot cake served with yoghurt and pistachios. I was talking about the menu to my aunt on Christmas Day... she tried to valiently to sound like the cake was a nice idea, it was quite touching. My nan sounded enthusiastic, but then she went to sleep on my bed, wearing a party hat, so I'm taking that with a pinch of salt. I'm hoping that the (pureed) chickpeas will lend the cake a dense, nutty texture, rather than making it taste like... well, chickpeas. If it is a success, I will post the recipe.