Peanut Power!

As many of you know I have recently gotten really into juicing.  Honestly I dont know how I lived before my juicer.

Ingredients:

• 2 granny smith apples
• 1 banana 
• 1 tablespoon of fresh peanut butter

Send your apples through you juicer.  Pour into a blender.  Peel and break up banana.  Spoon in peanut butter.  Blend well.  If you want to, garnish with thin slice of apple.  

Erika's Morning Wake Up Juice

A spectacular way to clean out your system and have a super duper nutritious breakfast in the morning!  If you are not partial to green drinks I would drink this through a straw so that you don't smell all of the veggies. The apple will make this surprisingly sweet.

1 green apple
1 inch slice of ginger pealed
3 romaine leaf
3 Kale leaf
2 stalks of celery
1 cucumber

Send all of these items through your juicer together.  I always send the leafy greens through with other more water dense items to get the maxim juice out of them.

Stir well and enjoy!

Half Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir

I have been thinking about product reviews for a long time as an addition to this blog. However I have always found them so subjective. I don't like fake meats for instance. But if someone reviews a fake meat and tells me its great I might trust their opinion and try it. Still since I don't like fake meat its still not going to be very good to me. And the truth is that I dont want to scare people off of good food products that could be their gateway into a whole lot of new and exciting foods.

When I was writing the post "Starting a Veggie Lifestyle" I came to the conclusion that I have a lot of books. Not just cook books either, but educational books of organic foods, juicing, human rights treatment in the factory farm industry and anthropological studies of eating habits. I tend to migrate to health focused weight loss books too. I also happen to watch too many documentaries about health and food.

While I might not be comfortable reviewing products I do like reviewing films and books. So that it one of the things that I am going to start doing on this blog.

First and foremost I have to say that this is not a vegan book like many of the ones that I like. Half Assed is the story of a morbidly obese girl who finds herself in a bad place health wise. She has to undergo a surgery that while routine for many healthy weighing people could be extremely dangerous for a women of her size.

Instead of going through the pain and risk of a weight loss surgery she takes a new mantra: health or death. She learns how to eat healthy, eases her was into exersizing and eventually looses 186 pounds.

Now I know what you are thinking but it is not that kind of book.  The author, who is also a distinguished blogger, is not the positive, crazy and slightly insane character we are used to reading these kinds of stories from.  No, she is 110 % real.  She uses this book like an outlet for her thoughts including everything from how did we get this way? to why do obese people get treated so differently? 


She is sarcastic, witty and thoughtful.

With a staggering number of people gaining girth in our country I would highly recommend this book.  Her talks about will power and holding others up as models of weight losing perfection are especially interesting.

Vanilla Chia Pudding

Here is a great recipe for a yummy, not so fatty, o sugar desert that will knock the socks off of anyone who tries it.

-3 1/2 cups of non dairy milk
-1 Table spoon of vanilla extract
-1/2 vanilla bean
-1 Tablespoon of cinnamon
- 1/6 cup of agave nectar
-1/2 cup of Chia seeds.

Blend all of the ingredients (Except the Chia seeds) together in a high speed blender and pulse.

Place Chia seeds in the bottom of a large bowl. Pour mixture over the chia seeds and whisk. Keep whisking from time to time over an hour and half half to make sure that the Tapioca does not clump.

Strawberry Pistachio Snackers

Yummy yummy snacks! I have been starting to increase my work out routine again. Trying on wedding dresses makes you realize what needs toning. After a run or yoga I get so hungry! These little buggers are great as a nice raw snack after a work out!

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 cups coconut flakes
-1/2 cup pistachios (ground into flour)
-1/2 cup fresh strawberries, chopped
-3-4 medjool dates,lightly chopped (about 1/4 cup or so)
-3 tbsp coconut oil

Grind pistachios by using food processor.

A dd in the dates and strawberries. Pulse till combined.

After the batter starts coming together add in coconut flakes and oil. And pulse a few times till just combined. Or hand stir this although you will need to either make date paste, or use a liquid sweetener.

Vegan Cesar Salad

So this is from Crazy Sexy diet. What a great book. I am doing the 21 day detox right now so there will probably be a lot of recipes I will be sharing from it.

Dressing:
- 1 cup of Veganaise
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of Dijon Mustard
- 2 Cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of water
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of nutritional yeast

Toss with fresh romaine leaves and carrots. If you would like croutons I toasted some gluten free bread and cut them into squares. Enjoy!