In lieu of Meghan’s Green Smoothie Cleanse (going 100% smoothie for three days just didn’t feel right for me this time) I decided to try raw, vegan for three days, along with going to bed early and rising early. [Full disclosure: tomorrow's dinner won't be raw.] I didn’t think that raw would be much of a challenge but I’m surprised at how much I do cook.

Breakfast and lunch are easy because many days I eat raw until dinner anyway and not because I’m trying to eat that way. I drink a smoothie for breakfast (if you look at my Twitter feed to the right you’ll see my “smoothie of the day”) and often a salad for lunch. Salads are the easiest meal to make: Throw a bunch of ingredients into a bowl or container. Toss or shake. Drizzle with vinaigrette, seasoning or dressing of choice, in my case often olive or walnut oil with a squeeze of lemon. (My mom takes nothing but lemon on her salad.)

Even when I don’t bring my own salad I have two salad places within walking distance of work: A Freshii – with whom I have issues but I eat there anyway – and “Sushi and salad”, a place with a salad bar and, you guessed it (I hope), sushi.

Raw vegan chocolate banana pudding topped with a banana slice, a date & pink Himalayan sea salt

Last night’s dinner presented a minor challenge: My friend Tema of Post-Challahism (she promises her first blog post will go up soon) picked up my CSA items on Tuesday and we haven’t been able to coordinate transfer. Because I was waiting on it I hadn’t gone shopping. What to do? See what vegetables I do have and pull out my spiral slicer! After attempting eggplant (FAIL) and cucumber (semi-fail) I sliced a sweet potato and topped the potato and cucumber “noodles” with garlic scape pesto that I’d made earlier in the week. Then there was dessert: Raw chocolate banana pudding. I don’t usually eat dessert but I craved something. It was so rich that I could only eat a couple of spoonfuls (okay, so I licked the remains out of the blender first – well, not directly).

Today’s breakfast was a minor challenge. I was completely out of greens this morning, and I’m trying to go raw this weekend. Trader Joe’s Super Green Drink subbed in a pinch. Though powder, it’s full of great ingredients, all organic. It was added to 1 peach, 1/2 banana, walnuts, cacao nibs and maple syrup. Lunch? I didn’t really have a lunch. I had a couple bites of a Lara bar when I got hungry while waiting to go into an appointment.  When I arrived home a couple hours later I ate some watermelon that I bought at The Healthy Butcher this afternoon.* Tasty and hydrating and tastes like summer.

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Dinner was a little easier to plan: After buying to kinds of kale this morning at the farmer’s market, the decision was made to make kale salad, and soon.  What I made was variation of this recipe.  See kale’s health benefits.

Kale salad

• 1/4 cup wakame (I had no arame. I don’t know if wakame has a similar nutritional profile as arame but they’re both sea vegetables.
• A bunch of curly and dinosaur kale. Not an official measure “bunch”, and not the equivalent to the amount that was contained in the twist tie, but a quantity that filled a large colander.
• Sweet potato and cucumber (see notes above)
• 2 carrots, spiral sliced
• 1/2 avocado
• Hemp seeds sprinkled over top

Dressing (below is basically the recipe I used but adjusted the measurements. See the original recipe for specifics):

• 2/3 cup olive oil (I used 1/3 cup)
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar (I probably used close to that much because I always forget that it pours fast)
• 1 T soy sauce (I didn’t measure)
• 1 T grainy mustard (I didn’t measure this either)
• 2 cloves garlic (used 1 clove)
• 1/4 cup cilantro  (I used a few bits that I had left, barely a tablespoon)
• 1/4 cup green onions
• salt/black pepper to taste (I only used salt)
• toasted sesame seeds (I didn’t measure)

I also added

• 1 garlic scape
• A small bit (a couple of teaspoons?) of sesame oil
• a small handful of goji berries

Directions

See the original recipe.

I followed pretty closely. For the dressing I added the mustard last and blended at the blender’s lowest setting. It seemed like a waste of grainy mustard to pulverize it. As for steaming the kale, I gave it a very light steaming. Yes, that’s not raw, and yes I contemplated that, but I have trouble chewing raw kale.  Adding dressing to the wakame actually had a nice effect, and I tossed the salad with my hands as I sometimes do to incorporate the dressing more thoroughly. I like prepping food with my hands. It adds to the sensory experience of cooking. As I tweeted, my kale salad kicked other salads’ butts.

I only made enough for one serving but the ingredients for the next time are pretty much prepped. Kale is washed and torn and wakame soaked. I’m thinking Monday lunch.

*By the way, at the Healthy Butcher, I bought nothing that required butchering. The store is so much more than meat and fish.

Eat well, be well.