Raw food brownie recipe

Several people have asked for the raw food brownie recipe, so here goes:

Brownies (24 small)

4 1/2 cups fine cashew flour or pecan flour (put the nuts into a mixer to make flour)
3 cups cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup of maple syrup
1/2 cup agave
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 vanilla extract

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients. Mix well. Put the mixture in a 9 x 13-inch pan lined with parchment paper or plastic wrap. Put the mixture in the pan and spread evenly. Put in dehydrator overnight. Take out the brownies, cut them into two-bite sizes, and turn them upside down. Place them in the dehydrator again for 4-6 hrs.

Enjoy!

Raw food cures for colds and flus

The raw food brownies I made last week were delicious. I did not even have time to take a photo of them before they were gobbled up by my family. I will definitely make these brownies again.

This weekend was a bit slow in our family. I volunteer at I's school in a program called "Read Naturally" where I sit and read with the children. Last week I had two kids with really bad snivels and so on Friday guess who was totally knocked out on the sofa the whole day. Enter raw food smoothies.

Yes, I decided to go completely raw and just vitamin boost my system. Hence green smoothie in the morning, citrus smoothie in the afternoon, and then another smoothie in the evening. I think it did the trick. At least, I would like to believe it did. Saturday and Sunday I was just a bit low and had a sore throat, and today I am good to go.

In the citrus smoothie I put one orange, one tangerine, one clementine, one kiwi, water, and a handful of frozen pineapple chunks. My 2 cents if you are experiencing a bad cold right now.

And, of course I stay away from sugar and dairy too.

Stay healthy out there!

Keeping it up is hard

I have already laid Vail and Colorado behind me and got straight back to working on my business. Some information about Vail is coming in a later blog post once I have transferred my photos to my computer.

With kids back in school, husband at work, and me in front of the computer a lot these days, it is hard to keep up the raw food explorations. I am at the point where I know the basics of raw food, can make a number of dishes, and enjoy trying different things out. However, with less time now that I am a business owner, I wish I just had a larger repertoire of recipes in my head.

That being said, I managed to get the dehydrator going this morning with corn tortillas, buckwheat for porridge, flour, and granola, and, last but not least, brownies. All raw food goodies. It is the first time that I make these brownies so I cannot wait to find out how they taste like. And yes, I have to wait a long time; they will be ready sometime tomorrow drying away as they are in the dehydrator. But then again, all the things I prepared for the dehydrator only took a few moments so it is well worth the wait.

I know that the corn tortilla does not look so tasty but they are, and when you add some salad, olives, tomatoes, and hummus it is better than ordinary wheat bread.

Vail, Colorado here we come

After a very intense month, I am happy to say good bye to Seattle for a few days. The kids have their mid-term break starting tomorrow and what could be better than going on a little trip when there are a few free days to fill with fun.

Last year we explored Snowmass and Aspen in Colorado. I would say Snowmass is the place to go if you have younger kids. Aspen has steeper slopes and the sun disappears quickly since the slopes are facing north. Aspen has a lot of good restaurants and shops though and is close to Snowmass.

This year, we decided to explore Vail. As usual, I will bring books and training gear. No skiing for me. Fortunately, little I took some ice skating lessons, so we will check out the ice as well. For those of you who do not know Seattle that well, I can tell you that it can be really hard to find ice to ice skate on outdoors here during winter hence the ice skating lessons.

San Sebastian

I sit here and realize that I did not blog about our vacation in Puerto Vallarta. And now, Christmas and Mexico feels very far away.

Puerto Vallarta was excellent to have as a base from which to go on excursions.

We rented a car while in PV and one day we drove up into the Sierra Madre mountains to visit San Sebastian, a small town that was founded in 1605. Very picturesque and hardly any tourists.

Centered around a square, this former mining town have a few restaurants, hotels, and a church.

We had a stroll around the town and had a very good lunch.

The town church.

Little I in search for ice cream

And she found it.

Later in the afternoon, we rented a couple of ATVs and drove further up in the mountains.

This was a wonderful day trip, but if we come back we have decided to stay the night so we have some time to explore this area.

ER - long time, no see

When little I was younger, she reluctantly frequented ER. Little I played with window blinds and hurt her lip badly. Plastic surgery hello. Then she played with a saucepan and fell. Stitches on chin hello. And she got a bad bug of some sort so she had to go in for fluid refill. And so on and so on. And yes, the bead in her nose. I am pretty sure she is not the only child who has had that experience.

She has also dislocated her elbow twice, and this is what I thought happened yesterday. So off to ER again.

We were lucky as there was no queue to register and no people in the waiting room. I do not think that I have ever experienced that. It turned out her arm was fine, at least according to the X-ray, but something must have happened during her gymnastics class earlier in the evening.

Well, it was a short in-and-out visit and this is the first time I see a happy girl at ER.

And I have to tell myself to be happy as long as our whole family is well and healthy.