Raw corn tortilla with salad

The corn tortilla I made in the dehydrator the other day turned out to be perfect with some hummus spread, different kinds of lettuce and a few slices of avocado. Some sea salt and pepper on top and lunch is ready.

If you want to start making raw food, I would suggest the following books:

• Ani's Raw Food Esstentials: Recipes and Techniques for Mastering the Art of Live Food by Ani Phyo
• Raw for Everyone by Alissa Cohen

The following book on raw food is good if you want more information about nutrients in food:

• The Raw Food Revolution Diet by Vesanto Melina

And if you want a book in Swedish, I can recommend the following book:

• Raw Food på svenska by Erica Palmcrantz

I have not chosen these books because they are the best raw food books, but because they have many easy recipes to get you going.

Happy socks

A few weeks ago, I was meeting a friend to explore a new furniture store in Seattle. My friend was a bit late so I popped into Sole food which is my favorite shoe store here in the US. To my surprise I found the Swedish sock brand Happy Socks there. Being a Swede and living in another country, I am always a bit proud to find that our little country with only 9 million people can still compete internationally with everything from IT and traditional industries to music and fashion.

I bought a couple of happy socks for little I for Christmas and she likes them very much. Happy Socks are available for children and adults.

A raw morning

With rain dripping outside my kitchen window and the grayness of the day hanging heavy over me, I thought I badly needed some high energy food to cheer me up. Time to whip up some raw food mixes.

In a jiffy I had made zucchini bread, corn bread, and Brazilian nut and banana pancakes and put into the dehydrator. No photos I am afraid. These mixes tend to look rather drab (can food look drab? well I have just decided it can.) so let's see if I can take a photo once all the food is ready instead.

Raw food is so easy to make. All the above only took a few minutes to prepare and all I needed was a mixer, a spoon, a knife, and a cup. I don't understand why not more people are trying this way to make food. Healthy and delicious and easy to make.

Maybe I should have you over for an introduction to raw. Anyone interested? 

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a relaxing holiday. We celebrated an early Christmas without snow here in Seattle, and then we took off to the Mexican sun for a week. More about this trip in a later post.

2013. New year, new things to do and discover, isn't that wonderful?! There are no new year resolutions in our family as far as I know, but this year I would like to explore raw food a bit more, have time to read many more books than last year, and find some beautiful places to visit in the Northwest.

Hoping you all will have a tremendously good year!

Picture from April and May.

Garden d'Lights in Bellevue Botanical Gardens

To many people Garden d'Lights has become a tradition. More and more people are visiting this light extravaganza at the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue each year. A lot of volunteers and more than 10,000 hours have been put into decorating this garden with lights for the holidays. And it is well worth a visit.

Have a stroll in the garden and then have some hot cocoa before you head back to your car. Garden d'Lights is open until the end of the year and cost $5.00 per person.

For more pictures, check out the Garden d'Lights' gallery.

Big balls

I had an errand at the upscale shopping mall Bravern in Bellevue last week. It was my first visit there and I discovered the biggest balls I have ever seen. Yes, they are baubles, but in Swedish we call them balls.

Too big to fit any Christmas tree. Actually, the fireplace was pretty big too.

No happy socks today

I was going to blog about the Swedish brand Happy Socks today, but today is not a happy day here in the US. I guess there are horrible things happening every day in the world, but we humans usually become more affected and emotional when bad things happen close to home.

So today I just want to say that I will be thinking of all the families affected by the elementary school shooting in Newtown this morning. It is just so sad.

Have a good weekend and think about all the things and friends that you have and be thankful for that.