Raw Week 2009: Day 1

raw week has begun. last night, i packed my lunch and snacks for today (something i rarely do that far in advance; i usually throw something together or grab a frozen vegetarian breakfast and lunch on my way out the door in the morning). for today, i prepared a salad for lunch (spinach, diced grape tomatoes and carrots, sliced cucumbers, and homemade balsamic vinegarette dressing: 1/4 c. balsamic vinegar, 1/2 c. olive oil, optional basil and sea salt). i tasted the dressing, and it was pretty yum for my first stab at homemade dressing. i guess it's supposed to be, considering it only has 4 ingredients, which are whisked, not blended. but i digress. for snacks, i packed some green grapes, one celery stalk (sliced in half lengthwise, then cut into thirds), and a 6-pack of sun-dried raisins i split between my purse and my food drawer (yeah, i said it) at work in case of a snack attack.



my produce section (check out g. garvin in the
back, who will be getting NO LOVE this week):
















so, this morning, all i had to prepare was my green smoothie. i had planned on using some super-ripe bananas i had in order to use them before they went bad. i was too late. and the bananas i just bought from the farmers' market aren't ripe enough yet, so i had to freestyle. i made the apple-kale combination (1 apple, 1 1/2 kale leaves, juice from 1/4 of a lemon, 1 c. water). the original recipe yields about 3-4 servings, so again, i was improvising. all in all, it turned out pretty tasty. granted, i'm chewing some of it, so i'll surely focus more energy on the BLEND aspect for tomorrow's smoothie. but it tastes good, and i feel healthy and satisfied. i'll check in throughout the day, and the girls (and boy; a brothergartener has joined raw week) may check in with their own updates. feel free to join us! you know you want to...



11:59am: check out beverly's produce shot. she even picked up a food dehydrator:

2:25pm: i had a 1pm dentist appointment, so to avoid showing up with raisins in my teeth, i didn't have a snack. talk about starving! i was SO hungry when i got back to work. i sprinkled some raisins on my beautiful salad, and it was deeeeeeeeeelish. and it just hit me...i don't know what's for dinner.

8:03pm: i'm exhausted. my day was so hectic that i have no way of knowing whether i'm drained because of raw week or because of all the running around i had to do.

perhaps this ordeal would be better illustrated on twitter, as by the time i got home to blog, i had been through a million different emotions surrounding this process. i experienced about an hour of CRAZY TIME in which i nodded off during a work-related meeting, almost had an internal melt-down about what i was going to prepare for dinner, and simultaneously imagined devouring a frozen cheese pizza. this is gonna be an interesting week.