MEMMM (I should really move this to Tuesday)

Last night, I made a yummy red curry. It's not an expensive dish, really, but I had to go with the local, organic chicken, so it emptied my wallet. But it was worth it, really, as it'll feed me for a few days. Ms. Emily was feeling a little under the weather last night, but she showed up for the tasting, anyway.

To make the curry you'll need the following:

• 1 chopped organic red pepper
• 1 chopped organic carrot
• 1 cubed sweet potato
• about 8 organic shitake mushrooms
• 1 can organic coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons red curry paste
• 4 or 5 cloves organic garlic, minced
• one bunch organic basil
• 2" long piece of organic ginger, grated
• 2 chicken breasts (or substitute tofu)
• canola oil

Cook the garlic in some canola oil until slightly browned. Add chicken or tofu. Add ginger and fish sauce. Cook for a while and add a can of coconut milk and some water (1/8 the amount of coconut milk). Bring to a near-boil and add curry paste, carrots and sweet potato. Simmer for about a half-hour and add mushrooms and peppers. Simmer for another 10 minutes and add basil. Serve over a bed of rice.


I add hot sauce, as well. Something hot w/o a lot of flavor works best.

After eating, it's nice to relax with a study session. Unfortunately, in my apartment, studying is hard to do as many tiny creatures demand my attention.

MEMMM (again, posted on Tuesday)

J's Tasty Tahini Dressing

Sometimes we get the urge to eat healthy at the SDS household. It usually happens after long bouts of pizza-eating when we realize that our digestive systems are on strike because of our diets. We recently tried to do a raw diet, which we are no longer doing (because it's horribly torturous and, I believe, pointless). Anyway, some good came out of the raw diet: we learned how to make really tasty salads. Okay, J learned how to make really tasty salads while I lounged about the house. Anyway, J made salad dressing last night and it was freakin' delicious. I don't know the exact amounts, but he mixed the following:

1 clove organic garlic
one nub of organic ginger, peeled
organic olive oil
organic lemon juice
organic brown rice vinegar
organic tahini
organic vine tomato

We poured the dressing over a salad containing the following:

organic mesculin mix
organic carrots
organic red pepper
organic cucumber
organic avocado
organic red quinoa

We also bought a mango to put in the salad, but it wasn't ripe enough. I thought the salad was delicious but Emily, who turns her nose up at anything with vegetables in it, wasn't so impressed. While she gives the meal a 3 out of 10, I give it a 9.

Eating raw...and starving

My New Year's resolution is to be more accountable...return more phone calls, isolate less. But, on top of that, I'm joining J in a quest to eat only raw foods for the first two weeks of 2008.

Why?

Well, J has his reasons and they're good ones. I'm doing the raw diet for two reasons: to see if I have an allergy to wheat or soy and to see if I can actually live without fatty-fat-fat food for two weeks. Let me say this now, to avoid the possible onslaught of concerned comments: I don't think I'm fat and I don't want to lose weight. That being said, I do think that I could stand to have better eating habits. Instead of stuffing food down my throat in a panic in order to satisfy an immense craving for fullness, I'd like to eat slowly and actually taste my food. I'd also like to be okay with eating a meal that doesn't include cheese, sugar or chocolate.

Anyway, the raw food lifestyle is evil. I've gone from eating two or three meals a day to eating every three seconds. And that's not the only thing I'm doing more often...

I'm also always hungry.

Here's what I'm craving: peanut butter, cheese, warm bread and chocolate.

Here's what I can eat: raw veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, raw honey and unpasteurized dairy products.

Not even close. Not one damn iota.

J has all but begged me to just eat what I want. He's pretty tired of my complaining. Unfortunately, I find it ever so fun to ask "Can we eat _____?" (fill in the blank with something warm and unhealthy) repeatedly until I collapse in a fit of exhaustion.

At this point, I'd probably be willing to eat anything that was warm...recently killed animal, poop or plastic that's been baking in the sun.

But really, I think there's a benefit to this...and it'll be over soon. It hasn't been all bad...in fact, I felt so relaxed and healthy today that I was able to enjoy a great lunch with J and our friend, Danielle, in the "Area of Refuge" of the new student center. Seriously...it was called the "Area of Refuge."