A new commitment…

Santa was kind enough to bring me some funky bathroom scales for Christmas which show me that I have apparently lost another 8lbs since becoming 95% raw, not bad at all.

So I have decided to do make some changes for 2010.

To start will I will commit to being 100% raw. The biggest impact of that will be no more Large Double Doubles from Tim Hortons on the way to service calls. To be honest I have found that the caffiene is actually starting to affect me like never before. Previously I could have a coffee at 10pm and be asleep at 10:30pm. Now if I have a coffee after 7pm I am up until 2am unable to sleep. Perhaps all the stuff that my body has cleared out is giving caffeine better access to my system. Which means the good stuff is getting into my system too, and that’s good.

I will also have a New Years Day weigh in and post my Weight, % Body Fat and Body Water over at theuncookeddiet.com.

I will weigh in every Friday and post the results so that anyone can see them. This public accountability should help me with any commitment issues I might have.

I will also blog about how hard/easy it is, the kind of foods I get to eat and any physical or emotional detox issues I might have.

The reason behind all this transparency is that I want to give anyone interested in becoming a raw foodist an honest blow by blow account of just what’s involved and just how successful and simple it can be.

So there, I’ve said it, now I have to do it, right?

Eureka, by jove I think I’ve found it!

When I first switched to my raw diet it was a great excuse to go out and buy a lot of stuff. Stuff that I’ve never needed before and stuff that I probably still didn’t need but was shiny and could be slipped in under the radar in the guise of “kitchen stuff”.

One such under-the-radar purchase was my ice cream maker. I love ice-cream, I mean who doesn’t right? I also added the conviction that my son could use it to make himself ice cream. My son, by the way, is the same son who was told at the age of 4 by me that if the ice cream van was playing his music, it meant he had run out of ice cream.

Now before you go getting your panties in a bunch it didn’t mean he went without ice cream, it just meant he went into the house and got a freeze pop off his mother and only had proper ice cream as a treat.

Anyways back to the purpose of this post.

I bought my ice cream maker, unpacked it, set it up, tried to use it, cleaned it up, read the instructions, put the bit in the freezer that needs to be frozen for the thing to work, and tried again.

My first effort at raw ice cream was, shall we say less than stellar. It resulted in a block of what can only be described as pick ice forming in the machine that had to left to thaw in order to remove the contents of the bowl, from the bowl.

But last night, I made, the most delicious Pecan Chocolate Raw Ice Cream ever.

I planned to follow a this recipe from the very talented (and very cute) Karen Knowler, who is my new raw food hero, but realised as soon as I passed the point of no return that I didn’t have all the ingredients. Necessity being the mother of invention and improvisation its second cousin twice removed, here is what I came up with.

2 Cup Pecan Nuts
4 Cups Water
4 Medjool Dates
6 Tbsp Dark Agave Nectar
4 Tbsp Hot Chocolate Powder

Blended everything then poured it into the ice cream maker and 35 minutes later I had the best, guilt free, ice cream ever.

Now I know the recipe is not technically a raw one on account of the Hot Chocolate Powder but damn the ice cream is good.

Next time I make it I will have the proper ingredients and follow Karen’s recipe to the letter. I will also endeavour never to reach the point of no return again.

The point of no return – in the kitchen

I keep promising myself that I will learn from my mistakes. But sometimes I don’t. So the best thing I can do is share them with you and hope that at least someone else can learn from them.

One such mistake is reaching the “point of no return” when un-cooking or trying out new recipes in the kitchen.

Typically the point of no return comes when I get half way through putting the ingredients into the blender only to find out I’m missing some key fruits or I dont have enough of something. Invariably I either end up rushing out several times to get the necessary things, thats right I have been known to make the same mistake more than once in the same recipe, or trying to make do and ending up with a whole bunch of waste.

I even went out and bought those little glass bowls you see on cooking shows on TV so I can pre organise my ingredients and have everything ready before I start.

But then I forget to use them.

But not anymore.

This post is my pledge, before all who stumble across it, to make these mistakes no more.

From this day forward I will get all my ingredients ready before going anywhere near the blender or the food processor. If I measure things out and find I am lacking I will continue measuring and noting any more shortages before going to the store to get the things I need. What’s more, I will walk to store in order to help me get the message.

So thats my affirmation, I wont make the same mistakes again. If I’m short on ingredients, because I’ve only measured them into bowls I can choose to abandon the whole thing and put everything back, complete measuring then walk to the store and get the missing bits or search my Evernote recipe notebook for recipes that contain ingredients I do have.

Sounds simple enough doesn’t it?

Raw Enthusiasm

Its fairly safe to say that food bores me. Or at least it used to.

Whenever I was out with someone and it was time to eat I would always make them choose. Not because I was lazy but because I genuinely didn’t care.

I would eat almost anything and I know not everyone feels the same. So to me it made sense to let them choose.

It wasn’t until I started getting passionate about the food I ate that I realised how little I cared in the past. Unfortunately another side effect of this apathy was that I ate a lot of crap.

However, since I discovered raw food all that seems to have changed.

Instead of sitting on the couch all evening and watching movies or playing games with my son on his PS3 I am in the kitchen. I’m trying out new recipe’s that I’ve found online or even trying a few of my own.

Because of my lack of interest in food my kitchen was always a mess. It hardly ever got used so it never seemed like a big deal.

Now though my kitchen is starting to look more like a kitchen. I’ve even ordered stainless steel tops to convert my wire racks to food prep areas.

In the past whenever I made any effort to mend my ways I would get bored. The novelty would wear off after a few days of what seemed like lots of effort to create a healthier version of the same old food.

And perhaps that’s it. Perhaps the reason for my new found passion is that everything is new. The ingredients are new, the methods are new and the tastes are new. Every new meal is an adventure. And the tastes!!!!!

So lets raise a glass to my new passion, only this time it won’t be a beer or a glass of wine, it will most likely be a green smoothie or a glass of Almond Milk.