T20 BP Day 1

 Day one of Dr. Furman's Transformation 20

Breakfast

Banana Walnut Breakfast

1serving

1 banana
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup walnut pieces
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk

Slice banana into a cereal bowl. Stir in flax seeds, blueberries, walnut pieces, and non-dairy milk.

Thoughts:

This was good! The frozen blueberries made the almond milk turn a beautiful color of purple. It was tasty and filling.

5/5

Dinner

Creamy zucchini and corn soup

3 servings

1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic,
2 lb zucchini (about five medium), chopped
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
4 cups no salt added vegetable broth
1/4 cup raw cashews
2 tablespoons unhulled hemp seeds
4 cups spinach
2 cups frozen corn kernels
1/4 tsp. Black pepper or to taste

Add onion, garlic, zucchini, basil, time, oregano and vegetable broth to a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 25 minutes or until zucchini is tender.

Pour into a high powered blender (in batches, if necessary), add the cashews and hemp seeds and blend until smooth and creamy.

Return soup to the pot, add corn and spinach, bring to a simmer and cook until spinach is wilted. Add water if needed to adjust consistency. Season with black pepper.

Thoughts:

I made this wrong. First, I sauteed the onion and garlic with about a Tbsp of avocado oil. I used fresh basil. I misread the recipe, and blended about half of the zucchini mixture with the cashews... Oh, and I used homemade chicken stock I had on hand. Also forgot the hemp seeds!

It was alright. Not the worst Dr fuhrman soup I've had. My alterations probably improved it a bit :)

3.75/5

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Mom's Visit Day 7 - Corn Butter, Hemp Milk, Kara's Raw Class, Naturally Leavened Bread, and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

This was a big day for mom and me (as far as food is concerned). We started off the morning making corn butter (scroll down in link to find the recipe). Okay, pretzel rolls and corn butter may not be a typical breakfast, but it was actually pretty good. You could definitely taste the corn meal, but the texture was a lot like a spreadable tub of butter.

Next, we tried our hand at making hemp milk. I know what you're thinking, hemp? really? When you first try it, the hemp taste is very apparent. The more we drank it the more we liked it. It was very creamy and slightly nutty. I don't think I'd make this just to pour myself a glass, but I think it would be great in things. We'll both make this again.

When mom and I were at Goodearth, I picked up the free health magazines by the door. In their Delicious Living magazine, there's an article titled "Bring Back Hemp". When we saw it, we'd been debating on whether or not to make hemp milk. It seemed like a crazy coincidence! Here's the text from the article:

Despite its patriotic beginnings as an American farm staple (even Washington and Jefferson grew it), industrial hemp labors under a federal ban that equates it with its cousin, marijuana—making hemp the only plant that’s illegal to grow but legal to import, process, and use in the United States. June 4–10 marks the third annual Hemp History Week, a campaign to restore the plant’s historic reputation. Learn more about hemp’s impressive qualities, including these, at votehemp.com.

Nutritional star
Gluten-free, low-carb hemp is nutritionally dense, packed with fiber, protein, ten essential amino acids, and an ideal 1:3 balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. It tastes great, too: nutty and mild. What can hemp not do? Get you high: It contains little to no THC, marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient.

Versatile
Smart body care companies incorporate hemp oil as an outstanding moisturizer. With a smaller carbon footprint than cotton, hemp turns heads as an eco-chic fabric. Alt-energy pioneers tout it as a biofuel. And when it comes to food and beverage—cereals, nondairy milk, raw seeds, bars, powders, cooking oil, and more—the sky’s the limit.

Eco champion
Needing no pesticides, herbicides, or GMO interference, hemp grows like, yes, a weed. Farmers love it because, in addition to being a low-cost, sustainable crop with myriad applications, hemp enriches the soil in which it grows and requires about half the water that other crops do.

Try: Dr. Bronner's Hemp Peppermint Castille Soap; Food Should Taste good Hemp Chips; Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts; Nature's Path Organic Instant Hot Oatmeal Hemp Plus; Navitas Naturals Blueberry Hemp Superfood Power Snack; Nutiva Organic Hemp Oil; Vega Shake & Go Bodacious Berry.  

We had a raw food class lined up with Kara (my friend Kendra's sister-in-law) in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun! Kara was an excellent teacher and nice enough to give us any of her recipes that we asked for.

Here's what we learned to make at the class:

Veggie Springrolls with a Thai Nut Dipping Sauce,

Coconut Cream Pie using the meat and water from fresh young coconuts, Pumpkin Pie without any pumpkin,

and finally, Zesty Kale Chips. They're covered in a raw cheesy non-dairy dip that Kara showed us how to make. I guess her kids like to eat the Cheesy Dip with fresh veggies too. Sounds yummy! The kale chips that Kara had going in her oven (on the dehydrator setting) weren't quite crispy yet, so we took home the batch that we'd made during the class and put it in our oven, with the door propped open a bit, on the lowest setting. They turned out very good. The only problem I had, was that we'd put too much cheesy sauce on the kale, so I couldn't eat very many kale chips at one time... just a little too zesty.

Our next class was in the evening at Dr. Matt McClean's Chiropractic office in Provo. It was all about natural leavening. Here's his website about naturally leavened bread. He and his wife, Amy, both taught the class. It was really interesting, but we learned so much over the course of two hours so I think I'll just talk about it in a separate post.

Right after our Natural Leavening class was over we drove down to the Water Gardens movie theater in Spanish Fork to catch the 9:15pm showing of Salmon Fishing In the Yemen. It was a good movie. Ewen McGregor and Emily Blunt did a wonderful job making the characters and emotions seem real. It was a great story (based on true events, I guess) and had some great cinematography. There was something that bothered me about it, though. I don't like love stories where one (or both) of the characters is already married... no matter how bad their marriage may be.

Kara's Raw Recipes:

Raw Pumpkin Cheesecake

Filling

4 c. cashews

2 c. agave

2 c. carrot juice

about ½ c. pumpkin pie spice (start with this and adjust to taste)

Blend to a smooth batter

Crust

1 c. pecans

1 c. almonds

1 T. agave

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Process to mall chunk flour

Add 1 T. (or more) coconut oil until crust comes together in the right consistency to press into a pie tin or springform pan

Press crust. Pour filling on top. Place in freezer until firm. Do not leave out or it will turn runny again.

Raw Coconut Cream Pie

Crust

¾ c. hazelnuts, ½ c. pecans, 1 c. almonds

½ c. fine coconut

½ tsp. salt

large spoonful coconut oil

½ c. soaked date pieces

Process nuts until chunk  flour, add other ingredients, press into 2 pie pans.

Filling

¼ c. coconut yogurt

1 c. coconut water

2 T. coconut oil

1 c. agave

¾ c. soaked cashews

meat from 2 young coconuts (2cups)

½ tsp. vanilla

Blend.  Put in crusts. Put flaked coconut on top.  Freeze until set up.

Raw Corn Casserole

any vegetable except greens, some ideas…

corn

broccoli

cauliflower

bell pepper (2 different)

green onions 

radishes

Sauce 

1 avocado

1 c. almonds

lemon juice

Spike (or other season mix)

salt and pepper

water to desired consistency

Raw Pea Casserole

any veggie except greens, some ideas…

 peas

cauliflower (small pieces pulsed in Cuisinart)

celery

green onion

red bell pepper

mushrooms?

avocado?

Sauce

1-2 c. cashews

lemon juice

salt

water

(raw sour cream)

(seasonings, if desired)

Spring Rolls

Asian rice paper wraps , soaked in warm water until pliable

spring garden mix

micro greens or sunflower greens

sprouts (any variety)

avocado

zucchini strips 

basil leaves

green onion

red bell pepper

Wrap veggies in rice paper and serve with Thai Nut Sauce

Thai Nut Sauce

1 c. cashews, soaked for ½-1 hour

½ c. olive oil

½ c. tamari or Baggs Liquid Aminos

½ c. + 1 T. agave (to taste)

4 cloves garlic

1 T. lemon juice

Blend until smooth

Raw Cheesy Sauce

1 c. raw cashews

1-2 bell peppers

4 garlic cloves

1 c. nutritional yeast

6 T. lemon juice

Seasoning to taste  (smoke, taco seasoning, seasoning salt, etc.)

Salt

For dip – combine and blend in vita mix. For sauce – add water to desired consistency.

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Mom's Visit Day 6 (part 2) - Chia Pudding and a Green Smoothie

Chia Pudding - 0 Minutes, 5 Minutes, 10 Minutes, 20 Minutes, 30 Minutes and final with fresh fruit on top

After posting our lunch and dinner, I realized that I didn't tell you about the chia pudding we made! After breakfast this morning. we decided to start soaking chia seeds for Chia Pudding. We added 2 cups of vanilla rice milk to 2/3 cup chia seeds and stirred every five minutes for 30 minutes. I know the constant stirring might not have been necessary, but it made us feel like we were doing something and reminded us to take pictures at each stage. You can tell that the Chia pudding gelled up pretty fast. We were surprised that the Chia seeds remained crunchy. In fact, we left some in the fridge for the rest of the day and tried it again - still crunchy. We liked the pudding. I might try some different varieties in the future and I think Mom will too.

Peach, Strawberry, Blueberry and Spinach Smoothie

Tasted better than it looks, promise

In case you were wondering, for breakfast this morning we had a green smoothie. I didn't keep track of amounts, but it had frozen peaches, fresh strawberries, blueberries, a frozen banana, fresh baby spinach, and some rice milk in it. Doesn't look very appetizing, but it tasted good.

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Mom's Visit Day 5 - Portobello Wellingtons, Cafe Rio, The Artist and Raw Peppermint Patties

 Portobello Wellington with Shiitake Duxelle, Vanilla Glazed Baby Carrots and Roasted Red Potatoes

Mom saw a recipe circulating around the blogosphere that looked intriguing... Portobello Wellingtons, why not? We decided to make it for dinner. When we went to the grocery store we couldn't find the non-alcoholic wine and we debated on using cooking wine or mixing some grape juice with red wine vinegar (which I already had at home). We decided to go with the grape-juice-red-wine-vinegar option. We realized when we got home that we didn't have any grape juice, so we crushed and strained some red grapes. Um, the reduction didn't turn out so well. It was overly sweet and too thin. This made the bottom of the Wellington turn soggy fast.

The glazed carrots were a-maze-ing. Seriously, so good. The roasted potatoes were also delicious. The wellingtons... hmmm, I don't know if it was the fact that I didn't cook off enough liquid in the duxelle, or that I added too much to each wellington, but there was something off about it. Maybe the whole problem was that glaze, not sure. Don't know if I'd go to the trouble of making these again but Mom said that she probably would. The wellingtons weren't bad and they weren't that difficult, it was just too time consuming for something that we didn't love. Perhaps I'll give them one more chance and make everything properly.

Cafe Rio Black Bean and Rice Salad 

Okay, I just skipped over lunch. The mushroom wellington was just so exciting! Mom and I went to Cafe Rio for lunch and had their veggie salad. I love Cafe Rio and so does Mom. It wasn't vegan, but it was tasty. The salad came with a fresh hand made stone ground whole wheat tortilla, green chile rice, black beans, romaine, pico, guacamole, tortilla strips, cilantro, cotija cheese, creamy tomatillo house dressing and a fresh lime wedge.

After eating our Cafe Rio Salads, we went over to Cinemark 8 (the dollar theater in the same parking lot) and watched The Artist. It was a great film, we recommend it. Well, Andrew probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as we did (there was almost no talking).

Raw Peppermint Patties

After dinner we made raw peppermint patties. The coconut we used was too large and too moist. I think that when we make these again we'll use some different coconut. The recipe said to measure the cream filling into nine patties. This made them a little too thick. I'd probably try 12 patties next time. We dipped some of the patties in the chocolate once, some twice, and some three times. The ones that were dipped only once were the best. This could be due to the chocolate we used. We didn't make her raw chocolate recipe, we cheated and mixed our dark chocolate chips with some coconut oil (to smooth and thin it out). We all agreed that this recipe is a keeper! Andrew kept talking about how we need to make these often.

Mom and I went to a digestive health seminar tonight at the Orem Good Earth store. Kiki Roesch, MPC (a natural health and supplement educator from Nutraceutical) was the speaker. When we got home, I realized that I'd thrown the flyer away, so I can't give you the actual name of the seminar, but it was in the form of a question... It was very interesting, but I'm tired and will probably post about it later. 

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Mom's Visit Day 3 - Baked Vegan Penne & Almost Raw Peanut Butter Cups

Baked Vegan Penne Pasta (based off of this recipe that Mom made 4 weeks ago) 

For a late lunch/early dinner, we decided to make some pasta. The only change we made was using panko bread crumbs in the topping. We all loved it. I was actually surprised at how much Andrew enjoyed this. He said that the cashew ricotta really tasted like cheese in the pasta. He liked it so much that he ate almost twice as much of it as Mom and I did.

The Cashew Ricotta
Can be used for other things like this, this, this, this, this, and this
We'll have to try them all!

Made a simplified version of these Raw Peanut Butter Cups

After dinner we wanted something sweet, and the raw peanut butter cup recipe that we'd seen online was calling to us. We didn't have everything on hand to make them correctly, so we decided to improvise: A jar of peanut butter (only ingredient listed is peanuts, so it can't be that bad), and a bag of chocolate chips (hey, they're dark chocolate - 63% cacao, stop judging us). We used mini cupcake liners and the size was perfect! The melted chocolate wasn't quite runny enough and the peanut butter was too runny. A lot of the peanut butter cups looked layered. If we'd used almond butter, or made some less runny peanut butter, then we probably would have liked them better.

Mom and I sat out on the patio and looked out at our view of the mountains as we waited for
the Peanut Butter Cups to set up in the fridge

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