California Dreaming Day 1 & 2
Day 1 was spent wandering around Long Beach – where we are staying, in a haze of jet lag, after a 16 hour flight from Dubai which Manus HARDLY slept a wink, just trying to familiarise ourselves with our new home for the next 10 days and to pick up our rental car – we fell asleep by 4pm!
Day 2 headed off to Costa Mesa to South Coast Plaza – after being recommended it as a shopping destination by my flight attendant buddies who call Long Beach their second home. Costa Mesa by car is about a 45 min drive away, in Orange County. If you do happen to make it there as a tourist, make sure you ask for a Tourist Passport that gives you access to discounts and deals across different stores in the centre. It’s a massive centre which has a garden bridge that joins the home part of the mall to the main part of medium to upmarket stores.
Here I fell in love with a store called Williams-Sonoma – kitchenware and some foods (like gourmet cupcake mixes and do-it-yourself kombucha kits) and was pleased to discover they conduct daily free workshops. I happen to arrive on just the right day. They were demonstrating how to culture kombucha! This month they are also doing juicing and reboot workshops based on Joe Cross (Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead’s) 60 day juice fast.
We took a lunch time break to head up the road 5 minutes to 118 degrees for lunch (not to be confused with 105’ degrees which is now Matthew Kenney Academy in OKC and where I did my culinary training).
I had a Daily 5 smoothie, which was seasonal fruit, with almond milk and coconut and greens (I think) and shared with the big man.
But i had serious food envy off Pat’s coconut lemonade – coconut water and lemon juice. YUMMY.
Cheese and Cracker Platter (as per the website)
3 of our house made cheeses- pistachio pesto, chipotle cheese and tahini cheese and everybody’s favorites our sprouted grain bread and crispy flax crackers.
Really tasty especially the tahini cheese – both our faves – but in my opinion, more dips than cheeses.
Then Pat ordered the Buddha bowl with seaweed as an addition
Curried Vegetables featuring Cauliflower, Grapes, Chopped Chard, Shitake and Enoki Mushrooms with Sprouted Grains on Sweet Miso Noodles
and I ordered the Topaz Pizza
Decadent Pistachio Pesto with Tomatoes and Herbed Italian Squash on Our Sprouted Grain Crust. Served warm with Sun-Dried Tomato Topping, Chopped Olives, Marinara & Basil Cheese.
Honestly, largest serving sizes ever! We could have ordered one meal to share, probably because we had also shared the cheese platter too, but serious sizes.
And then, I didn’t even realise until after we left, but we met Jenny Ross, the owner, as she came out to chat to other guests, and was asking us about Manus as he was a little naughty walking around the restaurant, chatting to other lunchers and she had a little newborn in her arms! Gorgeous.
The highlight of the trip to 118 degrees was discovering on leaving that Jenny was in fact the raw chef that wrote a raw recipe book with none other than Doreen Virtue, one of my mother’s favourite authors and gurus, who we happened to meet about 7 years ago when she toured Australia – Doreen even gave my mum a random reading in a talk she did in front of about 1000 people. Cool hey? So of course I had to buy the book!
Dinner was a vegan friendly local Korean BBQ restaurant I found online at Veg Out (Happy Cow’s vegetarian restaurant app for iPhones) and was happy to enjoy their Japchae (rice noodles with tofu and seasonal vegetables)
and some vegetable dumplings
alongside the traditional Korean pickled vegetable accompaniments (love them!), whilst husband was happy that he was able to still enjoy his Korean BBQ ribs. Win!
Share on Facebook
About to Start Solids?
Yesterday I posted this picture on my facebook page of Manus enjoying one of his many juices and smoothies. At 13 months he really loves drinkng anything he sees us enjoying and usually not out of a sippy cup but out of a big person’s cup, hence the mess. But I don’t really mind and I will get to that shortly.
One reader asked the following and it’s a question I get frequently, and although I am not a baby specialist or a nutritionist (yet) I am happy to share my findings with any interested mama’s out there.
Any advice for a mumma about to start solids?? Ive got my little one on banana and avocado… Any good books? I want to keep her raw for at least until 12m, we’re a high raw but not full raw family and have juices and smoothies several times throughout the day, my elder 2 were brought up on cooked foods but in the last year we have gradually gone to 50%+ my bubs is only 6m so I’m not sure of the natural progression between foods when it comes to raw?? When should she be able to digest greens?!
First of all, I want to say that I was advised to start M on solids at 4 months of age by his paediatrician. As I was supplementing my breastfeeds (more on my breastfeeding issues here ) with formula feeds, I think I was more open to instruction from the doctor rather than going by my own instinct, which was telling me to wait until M starting showing signs of wanting solids like reaching for my food.
So at 4 months of age, I blended up some spinach, water and banana into a thin smoothie consistency and tried to feed it to M. At first he was curious, didn’t think much of it, and as per normal for first time feeds, it went mainly out rather than in. I really had no desire to attempt any rice or usual baby cereals.
M didn’t particularly like the banana, so we then moved onto mashed sweet potato (mixed with formula – would have been breastmilk had I still been breastfeeding) which he loved for 2 weeks straight then wouldn’t have a bar of it. Plus (sorry) his poo’s started to get hard and he got a little constipated, so we mixed a little steamed pears in with the potato and started experimenting with other vegetables, using the delicious recipes in Raising Happy Healthy Babies as a basis.
After about 2 months of trial and error with raw and steamed vegetables and playing games to get M to eat up (it was a constant fight and would end up just giving him his bottle instead) I finally came across Baby Led Weaning (you can read more about it here) and bought the book immeidately. M was around 8 or 9 months by now and still only mainly getting his food from his formula – which if course I now know, is where the majority of it should be coming from for their first 12 months. Either breastfmilk or formula.
Baby led weaning was first introduced to me by my friend Natalie, whilst I was still pregnant, but it was out of context for me at the time so it went forgotten until I really needed it.
Baby led weaning runs on the idea, as the name suggests, that you follow babies lead. You wait for them to show interest in your food, before trying to force and play games with them and get down mashed or pureed food that teaches them to swallow before they chew – a little bit backwards.
BLW also allows the baby to be in control of their food, sure they may gag now and then as they get used to moving the food around in their mouths, but as long as they are controlling the food to their mouth then it is not dangerous. Gagging is unsettling yes, but normal and doesn’t happen nearly as much as you think it might, if you follow the rules and I certainly recommend reading the book and not just the website.
You don’t need to puree or mash any foods and you can serve them a little of what you are having, so it takes the work out of having to prepare separate meals and freezing them ahead of time for your babe.
Also, they don’t need to have teeth, it is all about exploration and play time, they are getting their full nutritional needs met by their breastmilk/formula, so this is all about playing and learning.
It is a great way to develop their independence and motor skills, and at 11 months of age, I had a little boy who was spoon feeding himself, albeit a little messy, but that is par for the course.
Another great book that is on it’s way to my mail box that I have been dying to get my little grubby hands on is Evie’s Kitchen by Shazzie Love which is a raw foods recipe book for children. I need some ideas as little people can have different desires to us, but at this stage, M LOVES the food we are eating – last night our dinner closely resembled pureed baby food and he didn’t want anything to do with it!
One major regret I have is NOT doing baby led weaning as soon as we started solids, so we were a little late to the game, however we definitely follow it along now and have had great success with it.
Here are some foods that we have given to M and he has enjoyed:
Cooked
- steamed and mashed sweet potato and pumpkin
- steamed and mashed parsnip and pear
- steamed broccoli trees & carrots
- gluten free pasta with vegetable tomato sauce
- vegetable stirfry with brown rice (usually add the tamari/salt after cooking so we can keep it as salt free for M as possible and it’s amazing how those little hands can pick up grains of rice
- hummus for steamed vegetable dipping
- arabic bread
- red apple sticks with raw cashew or almond butter smeared on
- green smoothies with and without spirulina
- freshly made fruit and vegetable juices
- nut cheese on romaine/cos lettuce leaves
- cherry tomatoes
- green beans
- whole bananas – he sometimes loves these and other times doesn’t
- does not like avocado one little bit
- almond milk – we are going to trial switching his formula to fresh almond milk blended with coconut oil soon
- thick almond milk smoothies – eats them with a spoon like a pudding
- chia puddings
- cucumber sticks – loves these especially when teething.
- loves chia and flax crackers especially the onion ones
Recipe | Cooked Vegan Lentil & Harvest Pie
Even though I am ‘Girl on Raw’, yes I do eat cooked foods! But I do aim for a predominantly raw food diet, usually I only eat cooked food at dinner where I share a cooked vegan meal with my husband and son, or if Pat is eating meat, I will make a component of it veggie for me and Manus.
Tonight I made a version of the Gardener’s Pie I tried when I was on the Quick Cleanse 15 day detox, which I thoroughly recommend. I haven’t done one for years, but it is a great starter for people wanting to learn about healthier eating and needing a clean out of old toxins, without going crazy on the fasting. Anyway dinner. I made my own version of the pie in the program and served it with salad. Manus usually loves my cooking but for some reason tonight, he wasn’t really fussed on this, even though Pat went back for seconds. We think it is because it resembled baby food (pureed pumpkin) which our little 13 month old is way too mature for of course
So this pie is a great Vegan version of the good old Shepherd’s Pie. Give it a try and tell me what you think!
Lentil & Harvest Pie
adapted from here
- 1 cup dry lentils soaked between 12 – 24 hours (changing water every 12 hours) I used green lentils but have also used red
- 1 teaspoon garlic power
- 1 large onion chopped
- 1 garlic clove , crushed
- 2 stalk celery , finely sliced
- 2 carrots grated
- 3 small or 1 large zucchini, chopped
- 1 head of broccoli cut into small florets
- 2 tablespoon organic & sodium free vegetable seasoning (I use Kallo brand)
- 1 tablespoon tamari or wheat free soy sauce
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/4 cup of tomato paste
- 1 butternut pumpkin/squash boiled and mashed for topping
1. Place soaked and rinsed lentils & garlic powder in a large pot and cover with water and boil until soft
2. Peel and cuba pumpkin/squash and boil until soft. This will make your mash when done.
3. Preheat the oven to 425F/220C 3. Whilst your lentils and pumpkin/squash are cooking, sautee garlic and onion in a large pot, with 2 tablespoons of water for 5 minutes or until clear.
4. Add the remaining vegetables and cook for 5 more minutes, ensuring you stir frequently to prevent sticking to the pot.
5. Add the drained and cooked lentils and remaining ingredients. Cook through until mix becomes thick.
6. Place mixture in a lasgana dish and top with mashed pumpkin/squash. Garnish with sliced of tomato and cracked pepper.
7. Cook for 15mins and serve.
You can play around with other ingredients like adding mushrooms to give it a meatier taste if you like.
Share on Facebook
Healthy Bloggers & Business Owners Meet Up
Well I’m back home in Saudi and blogging! And I’ve got plenty to update you on.
First up, on the 1st April I met up with 6 other health focused ladies at an informal Healthy Bloggers/Biz Owners networking meet up outside of Brisbane, in Redcliffe. After I left our little gathering which had us all chatting for almost 4 hours (!) I realized that I didn’t even get a photo of us together!
It was originally planned to get people whom I’ve ‘met’ online away from their computers and meeting face to face, because when I get back home to Australia (which I do 1-2 times per year) as much as I think I have so much time for family and friend catch ups, I really don’t so it makes it hard to set aside time to meet up with my new online friends too. Last time I was in Australia, I managed to set aside the time to do a quick raw food class at Kind Living Cafe, which was fun, but I didn’t have any surplus time to do any classes this time around.
It was a great turn out with some people already working in the healthy biz realm, or others like Ale, who are readers and happened to be in town coincidentally.
The attendees:
Lisa – an active member of the Raw Food community came along and shared her knowledge on anything raw food related on the Sunshine Coast plus brought along her friend Kim
Holly – a naturopath based out of West End who offers naturopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic, massage, counselling, intuitive healing and hypnotherapy. www.brisbanenaturalhealth.com.au
Ale – from Chile a reader of both my blogs and the Wellness Warrior, just happened to be travelling through on her way to Byron Bay and Western Australia. It was lovely to add some international flavour to our meet up.
Teniele – a raw foodie about to start blogging.
Linda – 20 years plus of experience in horticulture, organics and sustainability, she teaches organic gardening courses at Mt Cootha Botanic Gardens, does garden consultations and helps with sustainability planning. http://www.facebook.com/ecobotanica
It was a great opportunity for like minded people to chat casually about social media in Australia (yes it’s a little behind but will get there soon!), different personalities that influence us, share ideas and new contacts plus chat generally about our chosen fields.
One of the other topics I only touched on, but am interested to embark on if possible, is the potential for a Raw Food Summit early 2013 in Brisbane, where we get some big and little names on Raw Food and related topics to gather together for a whole day of sharing and learning as I feel there is definitely a growing interest in the topic.
I’ll be posting more on this idea later in the year, but if you think you’d like to be involved, send me an email to events@girlonraw.com
Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about a raw food class we attended whilst at home.
Share on Facebook
