Repairing the Cooked Husband

This year we have returned from our annual skiing holiday with more then we asked for - a cast wrapped around my dear Cooked Husband's arm. As any snowboarder out there will know, it is very easy to catch an edge and topple towards the snow on the board and, as the weather was not so great for us, with lots of white light and snow, this was easier then ever. And so one day I have skied down the slope to my husband to find him cradling one of his hand in the other, saying that he has fallen on it and was not sure if he caused any damage. Long story short, he ended up with a cast over his four fructures!

As soon as we got home I have ordered a couple of trays of wheetgrass and some essential supplements. I did not want to overload his system with new things, so I have settled on vitamin D to be taken in the morning and silica to be taken before bed. My original plan was to make him a shot of wheetgrass twice a day, morning and evening, but as it happened I had hard time making him to agree to have this once a day, and so we started the day with a small glass of super powered green juice. Most of the time this was pure wheetgrass, but some days I got more adventures and mixed a bit of parsley, nettles or sunflower greens in. I have also asked him not to say bad things about the juice as I think it is important that we feel positive about things we are doing, I believe that their power will be then strengthened by our mind.

Well; the first week after the trip my poor husband went to see a specialist here in London and was told that it is possible that he might have a surgery and might end up with a screw in his wrist! This was not something we wanted to hear, as you can imagine. And so my prescribed therapy was accepted more gladly, together with a few hand massages to improve the circulation in the area.

I am not sure if any of this helped but I am very happy to report that the second visit to the specialist brought good news of the bone growing together very happily indeed and now, at the time of writing, there are only 5 days left before the cast will be taken off.

One interesting point for me is that usually people with cast find that their skin itches a lot underneath. Now I have never had a cast, and I would like to keep it that way, so I do not have a personal experience, but still I thought it was great that the Cooked Husband never got this problem until yesterday, more then 5 weeks in. This seems pretty good, though I am sure he would have been happier if it did not happen at all, of course!

I have come to realise that, ever since I came off my attempted juice feast, I have been blogging about food. Well, I might not have been telling you very often, but I have been also drinking at least a pint (about half a litre) or more of super charged vibrant green juice pretty much every day. Most of the time I will have it for breakfast, but sometimes it will become my afternoon snack, or, if I am feeling very very motivated and disciplined, I will make it my dinner.

That, by the way, would be my ultimate ideal, as far as my eating habits go. I know very well how unhealthy it is to eat in the evening, but at the moment I am not quite able to keep my diet that way. Evenings are for me, as they will be for most other people, the hardest time when it comes to craving and overeating. It will become especially difficult if I have too many things on my mind, if I had a tough day or if I feel unhappy or uneasy about something... It is the ultimate way to shut up my mind - stuff it with food. It is better if the food is raw, of course, but better still if it was just a huge glass of energy and healing power giving green juice. We all strive for perfection, I guess, and so I do my best not to beat myself up, and just make sure that I have my great green potion first thing in the morning the next day.

I have found, by the way, that it is the best way to put yourself back on your eating well path. It alcalises the system, makes you feel better and more energetic almost instantly, and the huge dose of minerals and vitamins you are getting will ease any further cravings.

I wanted to share with you an amazing green concoction I had for breakfast today. Every Tuesday, after Denise and myself have done our yoga session, we make ourselves a breakfast. This used to be a green smoothie but has become a green juice ever since my fabulous Oscar machine arrived a little while ago. We both get organic vegetable box delivery, and this, accidentally, happens on Tuesday as well. That means that when we meet on Tuesday morning we put together whatever leftovers we found kicking around our fridges... Yes, I know, that does not sound too good... But you have to remember that everything that goes into the juice has to be green, pottentially with some fruit, and so we always end up with an interesting combination. So far we have always enjoyed our juices, never were we forced to pour them away.

But this week - oh this week, it was something else! Somehow we both had lots of herbs, and so the juice was all about green herbs. We used pineapple for sweetness and ginger for a kick, and then we were transported into a magical land of great beauty, energy and harmony and taste buddy pleasure while we were sipping this amazing recipe:

1 bunch of parsley, mostly stalks, as I used the leaves already

1 bunch of mint

2 bunches of corriander, with their fine white roots attached

1/2 pineapple

1 very small fennell

1 brocolli stalk

2 cm of ginger

1/2 head of celery

juice of lime added at the end, juiced by hand, so not too bitter

If you have a juicer that will wotk on green leaves, you simply have to try this. I cannot describe it well enough. It was a little bit sweet, a little bit tingly, a little bit sour, and very very green! This, my dearest readers, was the Queen of all the green juices I have ever drunk! May I be fortunate to recreate it again soon.

Aloe vera

My green juice of the day included

1/4 head of butter lettuce

few chard leaves

2 celery sticks

bunch of parsley

small piece of gallanghal root

3 inch piece aloe vera, as you can see on the picture, skin included

1/4 large sweet lemon

juice of 8 small blood oranges

This was sooooo citrussy and yummy, I had over a liter of it for dinner. This is my new plan, to have a huge green juice for dinner instead of solid food, as I tend to overeat and then give in to a sweet tooth, and I generally don't feel very energetic next morning. So my 'normal' vita food will be eaten at lunch, snacks, elevenses, but any time after 6 pm let's say, I am going to do my best to have only juice and fruit teas. Let's see how that goes, as that is the time I make dinner for Cooked Husband, and often feel seduced by the smells of his meals, so I will have to develop a strong will...

Meditative Juice

Tuesday brought to my home as usual my great friend Denise, the Green Queen. As it is my day of work these days, I appreciate her arrival in the morning even more; there is no better reason to jump out of bed early then meeting up with your girlfriend and doing something you enjoy. This is especially vital if you have over-combined and overeaten your food the previous evening and you feel like had two bottles of red... Do you know this feeling? It happens as our bodies get used to the cleansing, simpler diet; as soon as we regress back to badly combined cooked or even sometimes raw but heavy food, our body lets us know that (s)he does not like this. I am very happy to observe though that there are things my body has learned to expect and it does ask for them. One of them is my daily morning glass of water with MSM and lemon juice. It's a great way to rehydrate the body after the many hours spent sleeping, and I also see it as some kind of internal shower. It refreshes and sort of wakes me up; I feel immediately ready for some San saluting. This morning I immediately followed up with a small glass of super green juice, which works wonders for me. I cannot get enough of the stuff. It has strong alkalising effect on our bodies, and so is great for as most of us are over acidic from eating too much processed or sugary foods and drinks. This morning, as I suffered from my morning-after-the-night-before-over-indulgence I felt better with every little sip I took. I salute the juicer! If you are feeling inspired by my enthusiasm, go for it. The only warning I give is in case you are on any kind of medication - then I recommend consulting a medical practitioner, preferably one who knows and appreciates the healing effects of proper (raw, vegan,green) nutrition. However, if you are (relatively) healthy and want to feel MUCH better, fresh green juices are waiting! If this is your first time with fresh juices, start with more fruity ones and slowly add your greens, that way you will get used to the green taste better and will end up enjoying them more.

Denise and I left out yoga this morning and spent an hour with Nadabrahma meditation instead. This meditation is based on ancient Tibetan techniques and was brought to us by Indian mystic called Osho. It is a very calming one, and after half an hour of humming and then some quiet sitting in inner reflection we were almost too sedated to talk. So we went to spend some more quiet time with the juicer and made us an amazing breakfast juice. Green,of course, what else?!

1/4 cucumber
1/3 butter lettuce
1/2 celery
leaves from 10 radishes
handful of parsley
handful of lambs quarters
3 pears
2 passion fruit, because it is Denise's favourite fruit, and because it smells heavenly

At the end the taste was surprisingly sweet. I bought some pretty green pears, but as they sat in our fruit bowl, they ripened and became lovely and sweet, and the passion fruit added a tropical touch.

I was not so good later in the afternoon when I met with another of my friends and ordered a cappuccino. Unfortunately, or should I make it fortunately, they didn't make it very well, the milk was a bit off and it tasted so bad I left most of it behind. I had to ask myself again and again when will I learn? When will I stop ordering stuff I only want because that's what everyone else is having? I don't enjoy it, it makes me feel bad and I end up being annoyed with myself... I know it is a question many transitioning raw foodist asked themselves before me and at the same time I am not the last one to go through with it, but I so wish I could be 'perfect'! I am going to do my best and follow my own advice - what happened has happened and with every next decision I will be a step closer to my own version of perfection... be it a vegan, 100% raw vegan or something in between.I have met a few individuals, who were able to stop eating everything they realised was bad for them overnight, but it is not an easy way, and it most definitely is not for everybody.

Dinner for me was another green juice and a Thai inspired salad from shredded red cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, mung bean sprouts, tamari marinated mushrooms, sunflower seeds and sun dried tomatoes marinated on herby olive oil with a very spicy dressing based on tahini and lime juice. Yum!

DRINK ME!!!

So this is how my first green juice looked like and it tasted something like ZZZZZZZZZZZRRRRRRRRRBURGUMBUNGRZBRUNG! There was not one piece of fruit in it if you don't count lime juice a I could taste and feel its vibrations long after I had the last sip. All I could feel was greenness, cleanliness, spring and regeneration and renewal plus multitude of feelings and thoughts.... but also I kept glancing at my fruit bowl and at the end I went to make juice from a few apples to soften the last of this green goodness. But, although this is a mere wine glass, it is Cooked Husband's wine glass and it is a pint sized one no less. So I got a lot of minerals and vitamins and other goodness and it felt as if every sip made me younger by a week. It does not show - not yet... Can't wait though.

So - Bottoms up! Your health!

Big little helper

I just wanted to show you how magically this machine works when it comes to greens. I am not having as much success with fruits, but for leafy greens it is magic. Well, you can see for yourself - the jug is about 1 and a half pint, and there was just about a small handfull of almost dry fibrous solid stuff. I run the fibre through second time as not to waste a single drop, and I thought that to get this much juice was simply AMAZING!

This was the first juice I have made, and in it was

1/2 green soft lettuce
1 cucmber
1 courgette
1 inch galangal root
juice of 1 lemon

It was very zingy and wonderful. Later that day I made a juice from

5 large chard leaves
1 cucumber
2 apples
1 lime
1 small head of celery

Poor brave Cooked Husband! He agreed to have a taste, but he is just simply not ready for all the goodness found in green juices yet. They are super-power stuf, not for the faint hearted. Not that he is faint hearted, but I mean - you have to taste a straight green juice to understand. He was very happy and impressed with the fresh pineapple juice I made him the next day for breakfast, so I will have to start him softly and sneak in a green leaf here and there, to build his taste buds up to the challenge.

Watch this space!

Oscar!

So he is here. He has arrived! And as I promissed he is absolutely amazing, super shiny and fabulous, and he is all mine! My new super juicer called Oscar!

I have to confes that he arrived already yesterday, but it was Cooked Husband's birthday and so it was not a day for me to open presents but for him. I will write a post about yesterday as well, but for now I wanted to let you know about our new family mamber. I unpacked him this morning, washed and polished him, and then I got him work. And is he clever!?

My first ever home made super green juice was made out of

1 cucumber

1 courgette

1/2 a huge lettuce head

1 lime

2 cm piece of galanghal root

It had a lot of umphf, so I added a juice from 2 apples to the last third to soften the taste. But still! WOW! Rather strong and zingy and GREEN!

I will blog about what I like and maybe not like about this juicer once I have had it for a while. After the first day I have to say I am very impressed with the yield for leafy and crunchy veggies, absolutelly amazing, but not so sure about those apples, as I got more like a thin puree then a pure juice. But that might be because those apples were a but dry... I know that serious juicy people sometimes have more then one type of juicer as they are better for different kinds of veggies and fruits, but me, for now, I am happy and juicy and celebratory.

Viva le Oscar! Viva la New Moon! Viva le Juicy life!

Bright Brighton

This was such an unusual and adventures (and coooold) day. Thursday is my day of work and it is most often spent doing yoga, poking around the internet and maybe doing a liiiiitle bit of work or studying from home. Today was completely different and it's soooo late and i have to go to bed because I am so very tired and cold.... so I will tell you what I ate and what I did and what I will be blogging about soon.

Breakfast:

1 banana

3 apples

large handful of kale

water

My first time blending kale, and it was wonderful. Loved the taste of the smoothie, and my body was singing.

At the train station it suddenly hit me how MANY coffee and muffin stands there are. No wonder we all eat it all the time! Determined as I am at the moment to eat only raw, my mind was reeling from all the cake pleasure-land! I did, however, and surprisingly, found one store that sold FRESH smoothies! I really did not see it coming, and it just shows that I should have more faith!

Train station snack:

strawberries

fresh orange juice

smoothie

I packed a green smoothie with me for the trip, but now I was SOOOOO full and happy from the pink concoction above, I thought I would not need it. However, I carried it with me through the day and its time came later on...

Lunch:

hot apple juice with cinnamon

and

apple

celery

and ginger

juice

in a juice bar in a bright hippie area in Brighton :-)

We spent the day wondering around the town, visited the Earth Ship and then 'hiked' accross the town for Angela Stokes' talk in Manna cafe - the first 100% raw cafe in Europe, apparently. WOW, that must be my most-linked-sentence to date... And they are all very worthy links, too! Anyway, I will find time to blog about all of them in the next few days; for now, here is the rest of my food of the day:

Afternoon snack:

home made and all day carried smoothie

3 peaches

large handful of baby spinach leaves

Dinner:

GREEN JUICE!

I mean GREEN, no fruits in it!

celery

cucumber

spinach

kale

lemon

ginger

This was my FIRST EVER seriously GREEN juice and it was AMAZING! You can see I am still buzzing from it with all these capital letters, but I had to let you know. I loved it. It was tingling and slightly bitter and juicy and it made you take just small sips at a time, which is the perfect way to eat or drink anything, and it just filled me with peace and pleasure. GREEEEAAAT, now I just need my juicer to arrive so I can start making my own! Absolutely cannot wait, but wait I must... The universe knows what it is doing, maybe I am not ready for daily green juices yet and need to stay with the green smoothies to slow the detox. All right then, shall go with the flow....

How are you all? Have you tried a straight green juice yet?