Time for a blog post, aye?

Yup, have been rather busy during these holidays, trying to outline the track for my career. All the hard work paid off . After a round of job applications, interviews, psychometric and aptitude testing, meet and greets and an exciting assessment centre day in Auckland, I had two offers on the table: Becoming and Auditor for KPMG or a Consultant for Deloitte. The choice was pretty easy, I signed the contract with Deloitte .

So from next year February onwards I will be working on my career in consulting, I am super excited and delighted .

Now that that’s sorted, I can focus on my studies, work and my other interests.

I have a few brilliant links I want to share with you guys.

This here is an interesting article about feminism and cows…

I also read about casein and addiction to milk

What about higher taxes on meat?

And then there’s a website with 100% organic skin care products (lots of them are vegan) from Germany…

On that note, gotta get back to work

Exciting Changes!!!

So, I haven’t posted in almost a month. That’s bad, but with uni starting again and all sorts of stuff going on, I simply didn’t get around to it.

Chatting to a fellow vegan yesterday, reminded me that I do have a mission here: showing everyone how delicious and healthful (raw) vegan food can be.

So what happened in March?

Well on March 8 I made the decision to overhaul my diet. At the time I ate a standard raw vegan diet, i.e. high fat (avocado, oils, nuts, seeds). I was struggling with emotional eating, eating out of boredom, etc. and I just wasn’t feeling right. Well, guess what, there is a solution.

I found Freelee’s website and hooked up to 30BaD. Since that day, I have been 100% low-fat raw vegan (except 1 glass of orange juice at a function). It has been an awesome time and I have been able to release 3.3kg (6lbs). Just 2.7kg to go .

It’s been a blast, I have never felt better in my life. Raw vegan was great but now I am eating a diet that consists of 80% carbs (mostly fruit, some veges, lots of leafy greens), 10% protein and 10% fat (both abundant in fruits, veges and leafy greens).

I have not had overt fats (avocado, nuts, seeds) for all that time and feel great about it. I feel light, cheerful, energetic and I am just positive all the time .

I also read a lot about the 80-10-10 “diet” on D. Graham’s website and have bought his book which I am reading at the moment to gain more of an understanding why life has become such an awesome ride for me .

Because I am eating 2200 calories each day (tracking it nicely with Cron-O-Meter), I am never hungry, underfed and all my cravings have gone away completely. It is very important to eat enough calories because if you’re lacking fruity carbs, you will find yourself wanting cooked foods/salty/fatty foods again. Not good.

Salt dehydrates us, fat makes us sluggish. For me, 80-10-10 is the way to go. And I know it works for heaps of others, too.

I have started training more seriously for the 10km race on 1 May. My first 10km training run was 56:26. My second one was 55:20. My third one has yet to come, but today I did a 9.6km in 54:00, quite happy with that .

I have heaps of energy, so I started walking to work and home, which I find a lot less stressful than biking. With biking I always felt rushed, with walking, it’s just walking. This way I get 2 hours of hill-walking every time I go into town (3-4x a week). I also try to fit in 4 runs a week. This way I am still tired by the end of the day, making sure I get 8 hours of sleep (more on days off).

My skin feels clear and smooth and yeah, I just feel great .

In terms of what I’m eating on a typical weekday, here’s a list:

Breakfast (~8.30am): 4-5 oranges

2nd Breakfast (~11.30am): Green smoothie – 4 bananas, 150g-200g of spinach

Lunch (~2.30pm): Green smoothie – 4 bananas, 150g spinach

Dinner (~6pm): 3 apples or oranges; large green salad with 3 zucchinis, 4 tomatoes, a bunch of parsley or coriander, freshly squeezed lemon juice and 1 capsicum

A typical day off/weekend day would be:

Breakfast: 1.5l watermelon juice, fresh

2nd Breakfast: 4-Banana smoothie

Lunch: Green Smoothie – 4 bananas, 200g spinach

Dinner: Large green salad with zucchini, tomato, capsicum, celery

And I am thriving!

Once I it goal weight (Hopefully in 2 weeks) I will post a before and after .

So that’s it for now, back to reading “The 80-10-10 Diet”

Making Raw Sushi and Raw Pasta Marinara

For all those craving a bit of a sushi feeling along the way of your raw food journey, here is the solution: Raw sushi…

No, there’s no uncooked rice involved . You could make a raw “rice” by processing cauliflower or parsnip in your food processor (season with a little bit of almond butter, nama shoyu, pepper, lemon juice), but if your pressed for time or your tummy doesn’t feel so great about raw cauliflower/parsnip, then try the following…

You need:

Nori Sheets (raw or toasted, depending on your preference):

Spread a strip of white nori paste (somewhat sweet and super-tasty) on the nori sheet

Add your favourite ingredients

Roll up, slice and serve…

If you’re more the pasta type, here my latest creation: Pasta Marinara with Avocado-Basil “pesto”

For the pasta, spiralise (or julienne) 1 medium zucchini.

For the sauce:

Soak 8 sundried tomatoes in warm water (for about 15 min.), drain, rinse and put into a blender jug. Add 5 chopped, medium sized tomatoes, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 clove of garlic, freshly ground pepper and a pinch of Himalayan Sea salt. Blend and pour over the pasta.

For the pesto:

Blend 1 1/2 small (or 1 large) avocadoes with juice of 1/2 lemon, splash of tamari, handful of fresh basil leaves and 1/2 clove of garlic.

Place dollops of the pesto on top of the tomato sauce. Garnish with fresh basil and cherry tomatoes.

Enjoy

Being absent

Hello my readers,

apologies for not writing any entries this past week. Paul’s dad passed away and we haven’t been home since Monday. I will blog again soon, once everything has settled down.

Thanks for understanding

Love

Eva

Salad Sushi Rolls

Just a short picture entry. This was part of my dinner tonight and will definitely feature on the menu again in the future. Yummy salad nori rolls

So it’s just a sheet of nori, topped with a strip of white miso paste, capsicum, avocado and fresh coriander. YUM!!!

Wheat Grass

1 week ago, I started growing my own wheat grass. Because I can.

Here the progress so far…

Raw Chocolate Heaven

OMG I just made and tasted my first ever raw chocolate. It was heaven on earth, like seriously ridiculously delicious.

For all you out there: I beg you, please make this and treat yourself (it sets within an hour hehehehe).

Put 7 Tblsp deodorized (odor-less) coconut oil into a bowl and place the bowl in a hot water bath, stir until melted. Add 3/4 cup of cocoa and 5 Tblsp maple syrup (can use agave, too. Not sure about honey, I think it has to much of a distinct own flavour). Whisk together until smooth.

Pour the mix into silicon ice cube trays and chill in the fridge for at least one hour. Done!
I added prunes to 3 of the molds so I will see how they turn out. You could add endless other ingredients:
- a blob of sweet nutbutter, e.g. hazelnut butter, almond butter, etc.
- raisins and hazelnuts
- chopped macadamia
- apricots, figs, mango pieces (all dried)

Or just plain chocolate…

after 1 hour, the chocolate is set, but not yet hard enough to snap like standard block chocolate. I don’t know whether it will become like that after being in the fridge overnight, but this fudgy delicious texture is so perfect already.
Give it a go and go to chocolate heaven.

Will see you there…

Raw chocolate covered love
Eva

The weekend

Aren’t weekends great? Especially those where you don’t have any plans, appointments or other commitments… Fantastic.

So I headed to a new farmers market in town and was so pleasantly surprised. I really loved it. It was small, personal, the vendors were nice, approachable and really made an effort to get to know their customers. There was one mainstream vege grower, an organic stall with funky oldern day stuff that our grandma’s generation would have eaten, like a lot of greens and green vegetables that I hadn’t seen before. So that was great. Then there was a stall selling greens and sprouts. Nice vendor as well. One place was selling nuts, some sold homemade preserves, there was a gluten-free stall, a pizza place, a coffee shop, meat and fish stalls, a pastry stall, a flower stall and a lady selling sorbets. Vegan sorbets, yum!

Now I have a new plan . I want to have a stall on this market selling my homebaked goodies. Everything is pretty much doable, the only problem is that I don’t have a car and without one, I cannot get there, but buying a car only for this purpose would be silly, as I would end up paying more for the car each week than I could earn in revenue. Yes, I will buy a car eventually later this year but at this point, there is no spare money. But I have a few ideas up my sleeve for solving this last issue .

I have already made a plan of the things I want to make and sell. I have also read a rather useful article on this blog that gave me plenty of useful information about starting a market stall.

Now I have to get on to the costing of the products. This is a bit tedious, but it has to be done.

For tomorrow we have some gardening ahead of us. We cleared out the weed in front of our house this afternoon, so tomorrow the new plants will move in. I have to do some paperwork and get the house tidy. It looks a bit messy with bits and pieces lying around everywhere. What do you reckon is the best approach? Get a box, put all the stuff that doesn’t belong in the lounge into the box then go from there? I think that’s a smart move because it will be instantly tidy and then I can work down the contents of the box .

Weather forecast for tomorrow is good, too. Maybe I can fit in a run, too. Or a walk into town. I actually do seem to need quite a few things. Ah, we’ll see.

Looking forward to more couply gardening with Paul

Being back at work

So, I went back to work today after being on holidays since Christmas . It was great to see everyone again and a lot of people commented on my TV appearance last week.

I didn’t sleep well last night though after late-night cocoa consumption, so after lunch time I got really tired. I pulled through thanks to a big bottle of freshly squeezed vege juice, another big bottle filled with green smoothie and a big bowl of fresh cherries .

Biking into work went well, biking home, well, that was a lot tougher. Into work there’s only 1 up-hill, but 3 down-hills, back home it was the reverse. I stumbled into the house slightly sore from the incline up our street. Then I allowed Tracy Anderson to torture me for a bit, but I gave up after the first few leg workouts. Next time after my bike ride I’ll go straight to the upper body workout. Tomorrow I will go for a run with Paul after work. I hope my legs won’t give up .

So for dinner tonight I had nori-wrapped carrot balls with apricot-tahini-miso dressing

It was satisfying but the nori filling needs some work .

I’ll leave you with this picture. More next time…

The vegan is back :-)

After getting a bit of air time on TV, I thought I better start blogging again .

Yes, a lot has happened in the last few months which kind of prevented me getting enough time to keep up this page. Since about August/September there have been many changes in my life:

1. I have finally found my calling and decided to start a little (huge) adventure by opening my own health food/vegetarian/vegan cafe here in Wellington after finishing university. This is a giant step and I am absolutely scared but at the same time, it is my dream to share my love for food and my passion for healthy living with as many people as I can possibly reach and to create a place for a community of like-minded people in this city. I have not set a definite date yet as everything is still in my head but the planning will start on paper shortly as I am riding on a real wave of motivation at the moment. So watch out for plans, dreams, news and ideas .

2. I applied for Masterchef New Zealand (amateur reality TV cooking show) and got accepted.

My audition recipe can be found here (it is worth trying ).

3. My brother came to NZ for a working holiday in November on the day of my first exam just before I headed to Auckland for the Masterchef auditions. I had to sit my exams 2 days earlier to be able to go to the auditions. Still got alright marks ).

4. In December, we bought our first house together. It is the perfect house and I couldn’t be happier. It is new (4 years), warm, dry, safe, sunny and has a huge property. Problem: the section is steep and covered in native bush. We are clearing a bit so I can have a vege garden as much as possible. Until then it’s herbs on the window sill and I am about to start growing wheat grass. On the weekend, Paul and I will plant lavender, rosemary and thyme in the front yard .

5. After Christmas I flew to Sydney to meet my parents and aunty. We spent New Year’s there with fantastic fire works and lots of sunshine. Oh and a lot of ripe mangoes . Then we flew back to New Zealand to explore the south island for 3.5 weeks followed by a week up north in Russel. It was a fantastic long holiday with lots of green smoothies for mum and myself, a lot of ripe cherries, peaches, apricots and plums and plenty of sunshine.

Check out the pictures here.

So today I finally arrived in Wellington again, ready to really move into my house (Since 17 December I spent about 2 weeks here in total). I am going back to work tomorrow, wondering what people will say about my latest “vegan weirdness” on TV . But hey, my colleagues, well, I love them dearly. They happily try all my food, all my cakes and will be perfect food critics for future cafe food.

On 1 March (3 weeks – uaaaa) I will start uni again for the last trimester ever . Well, until I decide I want to become a somewhat important Dr. of some sort . No thanks, let’s get into the real world and make a difference, reach out to people, help, support, cheer them on, connect, become friends and make this world a better place.

I have a lot of ideas in my head, a lot of passion and a lot of hope that change will come. And while all these ideas are taking shape and are becoming reality, I will keep cooking and uncooking in my new kitchen with all my fancy gadgets that I love so dearly, with all the great produce that I am addicted to and I hope that one day someone will say, Eva made a difference in my life.

So before I get to sentimental, here’s to a great tomorrow and all those days after that.

Yours truly,

the raw vegan