Donna’s Pilgrimage – on the road to beautiful

It seems that as humans we are always in a rush to acquire “more”. For many people that is more everyday stuff. But spiritual seekers take craving in a different direction. We’re like spiritual Oliver Twists. We too are asking, “Please, sir, may I have more?”
Don’t seek more in a broader sense. Strive for it in a narrower sense. Instead of trying to pick up all the stones you see and lugging them around with you, pick up one and keep polishing it until it shines with clarity and reflects perfectly.
Exclusive pursuit…pick one practice and perfect it! …Connie (Dirty Footprint blog)
This really spoke to me. Me, with a desk full of books telling me what to do and how to do it. Me, wanting to do so many things but not taking the time to do any one thing well. Me, lugging those rocks around with me instead of spending my time choosing one and polishing it till it shines.
I’m on a quest to simplify and live a slower, fuller, more connected life.

Hope you got to read dh’s post about how raw eating has lowered his cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose level along with his blood pressure. Pretty amazing…
Also pretty amazing, we made our own manna bread last week. I haven’t heard comments from the other eaters/receivers of the bread, but we thought it was delicious, even better than the store bought. I will definitely be making more of that. It does take some time,(but not attentive time….it does most of it’s work by itself) to sprout the grain, then pulverize it in the cuisinart, then bake it, but it’s worth it. Loaded with raw almond or cashew butter, or walnut pate, it’s filling and tasty!
My other new discovery is green drinks. I’m addicted! They are so refreshing and invigorating, I just know they are making good things happen inside and out. Each morning I’ve been loading my vita-mix with the green for the day, (so far I’ve used romaine, spinach and parsley.), added 2 cups of water, some fruit (pears and a banana one day, citrus and a banana with the spinach) and blended away. When I see it is liquid, I pour it into a jar with 2 more cups of water, and drink through out the day. Really yummy, and so easy!

Yes, even though it is very cold outside, I am warm bc I finally made myself a pair of fleece pajama pants. They are the warmest, comfiest, coziest things I have ever made. I have made fleece pants for my sons, husband, and father, but never liked the bulkiness…aka I didn’t want to look fat in pants.
But I hate being cold, so, I took a pair of my fave sweat capris and folded them to use as a pattern. I added 10 1/2 inches to the length, used some green fleece from my stash and viola! I am warm and cozy!
Maybe I’m on a creative roll finally???? I decided to change up my downstairs bathroom by painting all the oak wood black. What a difference,,,mirror, vanity, toilet paper holder all now semi gloss black. I like it! It was a quick fix that made a big difference. Now to get rid of that wall paper….

What fun we had AGAIN!
Mrs. Farrells’ #2 ruckus took us to Haymarket, Va. where we caught up at Starbuck’s, visited La Grange Vineyard for a wine tasting and so much more, then a portabella asparagus sandwich at Guiseppe’s before heading home. I have the most fun, creative, thoughtful, and adventuresome daughters-in-law and adopted dil in the world, and I have some very cute pictures to prove it!!!
This is absolutely the greatest New Years’ resolution I have ever made.
Can’t wait to see what adventure March brings!

It’s been a week since I blogged, and I thought I was on a roll…blogging almost daily. We are still raw, although we have been relying on some old favorites, and haven’t tried anything new in awhile. It seems if we have a fruit salad, a green salad, some corn salad, and some trail mix, we are good to go. We have started eating just 2 meals a day. That seems to be all there is time for, and it’s good to feel hungry before a meal, and to drink water instead of eating. I sometimes get those urges confused.
Yesterday we took my father to get hearing aids. It was like a new world opened to him when he put them on and set the volume. He was surprised by the sounds around him. He could hear ppl talking down the hall, the microwave beeping, and the soda machine working. Last night he could actually hear the tv program he was watching without turning the volume up to 25. Almost immediately he changed the volume of his own voice. He no longer had to talk loudly to hear himself.
I read this Thai proverb last week, and can’t stop thinking about it….
Life is short. Move very slowly.
I think that will be my new motto.

My fingers and hands hurt…yes, it’s been that long since I’ve played my beautiful piano. I was practicing everyday, but then life took and turn, and I haven’t played in months. Hopefully this was the first of many daily piano encounters.
Also came across some raw recipes I had downloaded years ago when I first “went raw”. These are really interesting bc they say…if you’re hungry for ______ ,try this. Everything from tabouli to sushi to pizza. We tried the tabouli for lunch, and it was really good. Instead of bulghur, they used raw almonds chopped really fine. Here’s the recipe…
one bunch of cilantro (I chopped a bunch of mesclun)
one bunch parsley (I used a big handful of dried)
1 bunch green onions
2 tomatoes
1 avocado
1/2 c. raw almonds
1 T. olive oil
1T. honey
juice of a lemon
1 t. salt
Chop the greens, onions, avocados, and tomatoes and put in a bowl. Blend almonds to a fine flour.
Add to the bowl. Mix the oil, lemon juice, honey and salt for the dressing and pour over everything and stir in. Change it up by adding a different vegetable or herb…corn, broccoli, basil, or Italian or Mexican seasonings.

We finished our walnut pate tonight. We covered it with raw tomato sauce as Alicia suggested. That is so very good! I’m putting both those dishes on our Bed and Breakfast/restaurant menu when we open our B&B or restaurant.

We have a winner! I made a granola type cereal by soaking, sprouting, then dehydrating buckwheat. After taking it out of the dryer, I mixed it with some almonds and dried cranberries that I chopped in the blender till they were about the size of the buckwheat. Mixed then all together, and poured on the milk..soymilk today, but almond milk would be a good raw alternative.
Now for that APPLE PIE recipe…
Crust:
2 cups soaked almonds
1 cup walnuts
10-15 dates
2T orange juice
Put all ingredients in the food processor and process till well blended and thick.
Press into a pie pan to form the crust.
Set aside in the freezer.

Filling:
3 cups shredded apples
1 cup soaked raisins
1 1/2 cups soaked cashews
1/4 t nutmeg
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 cup of the raisin soak water
2 T maple syrup or honey

Shred apples and set aside in a bowl. Mix in the raisins and 1/2 cup of the raisin soak water.
In the blender, make a sauce out of the other ingredients.
Pour the sauce in the bowl and mix with the apples and raisins.
Fill the pie with the mixture.
Decorate with slices of fruit.

I’m finding all kinds of raw recipes as I go through drawers and bookcases. I might have to put them together in some sort of file to share as I try them. Let me think about how to do that…

But not impossible. Well not always impossible. I think we were able to stay raw for breakfasts and lunches, until we went out to to eat out with friends. Then came the point in our weekend in Pa. that we had to make some adjustments…like…if we can’t eat raw, we’ll eat vegan, and at one point…if we can’t eat vegan, we’ll eat vegetarian. It didn’t take us long to re-enter, though. We were back raw as soon as we hit our own kitchen.
Tonight we’re finally having that raw chili. Using up the sprouted lentils, wild rice, and sunflower seeds. I’m getting pretty good at winging a red sauce. As long as I have tomatoes, dried tomatoes, and a bit of dried fruit, I’m good to go. Tonight I added some raw salsa and some chili powder with the other ingredients, and out came a spicy chili sauce. It will be over the sprouts tonight, and probably get a second run over some noodle-ized sweet potatoes. I found almost any veggie tastes good spiralized.
Now to look for that raw apple pie recipe that Alicia remembers. I have been craving something deserty myself, so I’ll post it as soon as I find it.
With Spring right around the corner, it’s time to think about expanding my veggie garden. Hearing about Lynne’s pledge to eat local, really got me thinking. I read B. Kingsolver’s book about their family’s year of local eating, and enjoyed it. Eating raw should make that easier, I think…especially if I had some kind of green house….Hmmmmmmm.

We had a surprise snow overnight, and woke to everything covered in an inch of pure dazzle. The sun made short work of it, but it was beautiful none the less, especially with those little birdy footprints at the strangest places. What were they doing while I slept? and why?
Our raw journey continues. Finally we seem to be settled in some kind of routine. It no longer seems impossible to get a good meal on the table without starting right after breakfast. Of course, there are things in my frig that must be used soon…like those lentils I sprouted, and the rice I soaked days ago before I discovered how easy it is to make a yummy walnut pate, or a raw soup. Thankfully my ddils are also eating raw, and have spurred me to new heights by their creations. Sarah sends me pictures along with her recipes, and Alicia lets me know what she’s tried and likes. That’s such a big help!
I’ve learned to heat raw soup in the blender by letting it blend for awhile, and by using hot water in the first place. Why did I never think of that before? Raw and warm on these cold nights makes it extra special and comforting.
I would like to make some deserts soon. I seem to crave sweets after dinner lately. Dates or clementines sometimes take care of it, but I remember that raw apple pie we made so long ago…it could be my whole dinner. Desert for dinner…we used to do that with decadent brownies in the summer, so I think I can do it again.

We had lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s yesterday, so we easily ate raw, although we came home starving. Don’t know what was up with that. And what I was starving for was that piece of uneaten homemade mushroom pizza laying on my counter. Yes, I succumbed…actually took a few bites before it hit the compost, but those bites were yummy!
The plan was to try a new raw spaghetti recipe for dinner tonight along with some walnut pate meatballs that got rave reviews from Alicia. But, Mike and Sarah are watching the Super Bowl with friends, and it’s just the two of us, and I’m lazy, so it may not happen.
Right now, it’s so warm and beautiful outside, that’s where I want to be…
Later…

So…today I met some friends for lunch. Their favorite restaurant is the China Dragon…trouble for me. They all hit the buffet for their tasty Chinese treats while I scoured the menu for a salad of any kind. No luck. I ordered the vegetable stir fry which came with your choice of soup (none were vegetarian) and rice (none were vegan). I passed on the soup and ordered the vegetable fried rice. They felt bad for me, and gave me a veggie egg roll which had egg in it (so did the fired rice)…who knew? I picked at my food, and finally just gave it back to the waitress, saying I was finished. It was awful. I need some kind of plan bc tomorrow we are going to face that same situation again when we take grandpa out for his birthday lunch. I thought every one had a salad, but NOT…
Anyhow, I was famished by dinner time. Luckily we had some leftover soup and cabbage salad. But I’m craving chocolate or junk food or cooked food. Guess that theory that cooked food is addicting has some truth to it. I can beat this if I get a big glass of water and go to bed soon….sounds like a plan.

I’ve been wanting to make this raw un-chicken noodle soup since we began our raw thing this time. It uses raw potatoes as noodles, and as I remember was really yummy and satisfying. This particular recipe uses dried coconut blended with water for the broth. It took me awhile to remember the coconut when I was shopping at Roots or Mom’s (My Organic Market), but I finally remembered it, found it, and bought it last week.
Our soup today was yummy. I substituted sprouts for the celery, added some of our marinated mushrooms, and used my fun cutter to make the potato noodles. The blending warmed it just a bit, so it was very comforting as well as filling. It makes enough for 2 meals, so tomorrow’s dinner may be a corn chowder using the leftover broth now patiently cooling and waiting in a pint jar in the frig. That was lunch.
Dinner was our old favorite, cabbage corn salad, green salad and fruit salad…all leftover from previous meals. The soaking wild rice will be ready tomorrow, and I also have sprouted lentils and sunflower seeds waiting. i think there will be a chili coming soon. Maybe during the Super Bowl. Nothing says football party like chili!
Meanwhile Sat. is grandpa’s birthday, so we will be taking him out to lunch to celebrate…either his favorite Italian cafe (their salads are sad) or IHOP ( is there anything raw there?). This will be a real raw adventure. See if we can pull it off without being too weird…
On a side note, today is the first day I have done 20minutes on the nordic trac. I’ve been slowly working my way to this point so I can do this 3-5, maybe 7 times a week. It’s one of my favorite ways to exercise…just turn on the ipod and nordic trac away. My stronger body is in the making, and that makes me very happy.

After an amazing Sunday with special peeps in Alexandria where the crepes rocked, but raw was not a priority, I’m back to uncooking and cooking in my own gorgeous kitchen in my own lovely house. We haven’t been having breakfasts, but have opted for tea (found an herbal chai that is yummy) and fruit while we read and write. We usually gather at the table for lunch, then eat supper by the fire. We’re still eating on our cauliflower salad and our marinated eggplant and our green salad. I added a fruit salad to the menagerie tonight that will also be our breakfast or lunch tomorrow with manna bread slathered with cashew butter (and maybe a clausen bread and butter slice and sprouts….sounds awful, but very tasty).
The new Mother Earth news has an article about urban homesteading that really caught my eye, and has me daydreaming of bigger and better gardens. Time to order the seed catalogues and make some choices so I can get a head start when the time is right…next month for seed starting, and March for peas and who knows what else. I really liked the idea of verticle gardening…more trellises and vines and and pretty fences.
Tomorrow I plan on making more raw trail mix. Should really do it right now, since I ate the last bit this afternoon. Luckily I have the biggest stainless steel bowl in the world, so I can make gallons, some to give away, and most to freeze for later snacking.
I’m putting the finishing touches on a shelf John made last summer, but never painted. My dad painted it black, now I’m embellishing…my favorite part. Hopefully we will be hanging it tomorrow along with a 2-man saw my father cleaned up for us, and a special slate picture frame I brought home from my fun time in Alexandria.

Yesterday we ate out for lunch and just about finished the veggie salad for dinner…again over chiffanaud (sp?) of mesclun and topped with chunky avocado. So today I plan to experiment with some different salads…broccoli and cauliflower, fruit, and green. If I have those stashed in the frig, we’re good for awhile. I want to get some dried coconut to try a new soup recipe that uses raw potatoes as noodles, so later we may head to Roots for some exotic ingredients to make our food even more delicious. Those Frontier Spices rock!
I also have some more zucchini in the frig just waiting to be turned into noodles. Raw spaghetti has become one of our staples. Mike is the most amazing sauce maker. He always knows just what to add to make things even more delicious. And I no longer feel guilty asking his “more than” help.
I also cut up some portabella mushrooms to marinate in olive oil, braggs aminos and garlic. Some I chunked for salads and some I sliced for open face sandwiches, but found myself just chowing down on the chunks when I needed a midnight snack. So good, and definitely worth the garlic breath.

No new raw revelations today. We started our morning with “pudding”- blended 2 handfuls of cashew, 1 mango, 2 bananas, and 1/2 bag of frozen cherries. Yummy, but cold, so it was accompianed with a chai tea. I have been trying to cut back on the caffeine by starting my day with a green drink, and herbal detox tea, but the chai tastes so goooooooood, and warms me to the bone…always a good thing.
We went out for lunch, again. I took Sarah’s advice to always order “to go” at Panera bc the portions are larger, and she is right. Thanks, Sarah! My Greek salad and apple filled me up for more than 5 minutes. After lunch my friend Rosemary and I headed to our funnest adventure spots…the Mission store. We both found Valentine treasures, and had a ball!
I’m making my dad’s fave breakfast cake tonight, so the house is smelling so good and warm and comforting and sweet. Bread, esp. hot from the oven, and all its mutations is what I miss most when I eat raw.

Today was an easy day. I took a friend to lunch at Great Sage. So…breakfast was a clementine and banana, then a yummy southwestern salad at G.S. and more of our veggie salad from last night on greens with grapes for dinner. John did dig into that humus for lunch. He swears there was no fuzz. He loaded it on some seed manna bread and topped it with a clausen pickle…he said it was heaven…glad I was eating out.

We’ve been raw for 22 days at last count. A kind of new year’s resolution which followed the cancer diagnosis. We’ve had some disasters…zucchini humus is disgusting. And even though John said he would eat it, it’s still untouched in the frig and is now growing fuzz.
So, I was hoping to share successes and keep a record right here of what we eat, how we prepare, and what we’re doing today to keep us from starving or calling Papa John….
Right now I’m soaking lentils in a big jar that will sprout in 2 days. Tomorrow morning I will add another jar of soaking sunflower seeds, and some more wild rice to soak.
My new strategy is to make lots of one thing then use it in different ways, thereby staving off boredom and time crunches…as in “have to eat immediately or faint”.
At first this raw thing was just overwhelming. My dad is a meat and potatoes man, and since I feed him too, I was really stressed by thinking about, planning, then executing 2 different kinds of meals 2 or 3 times a day. What really helped was making and freezing gobs of meat and potato meals that can be defrosted and served quickly, and that are some of dad’s faves.
Now I’m free for a few weeks to give my energies to raw and tasty.
So, tonight I made a huge bowl of veggie salad with soaked wild rice, (I try to keep some of this soaking every other day or so bc it’s so versatile), and cut up tomatoes, some thawed corn and edamame (technically blanched before frozen, but some of my raw books don’t seem to mind), zucchini, raw salsa, sundried tomatoes, sweet red pepper, mushrooms, and green beans that had been marinating for the afternoon in my new fave dressing…olive oil, braggs raw apple cider vinegar, bragg’s soy sauce, with a touch of mustard to bind keep it from separating. I topped it with some chopped avocado, black pepper, some more dressing, and we chowed down. There’s plenty left to put on top of greens tomorrow for a green salad or to spice up with a raw spaghetti sauce or chili sauce for yet another meal.
Our late breakfasts have been fruit salad and manna bread with raw almond or cashew butter or apples and/or pears and our raw trail mix blended together.
We keep a huge bowl of fruit in the kitchen for snacking throughout the day along with our raw trail mix, and lots of John’s favorite, dates.
That’s our journey so far. Share your recipes and ideas with us, pls. Let us know what works, and what doesn’t…besides that zucchini humus, we’ve also not had much luck with those almond/carrot pates. That said, we did stuff some portabellas (taking out the gills and stems- good advice from chef Sarah) with a cashew pate that we spiced with cayenne, that everyone liked. Everyone being Mike and Sarah. We’ve been eating raw with them when they come over for dinner on Sunday nights. So far there haven’t been any complaints, but we do have lots of wine, too. That covers a multitude of mistakes.
We are still talking about pulling out the champion, but haven’t done it yet, even though we have 10lbs. of organic carrots waiting in the frig.
The journey continues….

Once again this weekend I was surprised by grief. It shouldn’t be anything new any more, but it is. We have been traveling to Nazareth to my parents’ home every weekend except one since mom died. It’s hard to go to that house, but I find I can trick myself. When I see the laundry folded by mom still in its spot near the dryer, I can fool myself into thinking she’ll be back to put it away. When I see her notes on her notepad by the phone, I can trick myself. When I go through her closet, or her spice rack, or her recipe file, I can trick myself. BUT, this morning we went to the cemetery to water the mum that decorates her grave marker, and there carved in stone right below the date of her birth, was the date of her death, and reality hit, and bites.

one more weekend in nazareth…this was our best time with mark. he has been seeing a new set of drs. and is so much calmer and ‘with it’ that talking things over was the easiest it has ever been. dad’s house will be appraised next sat., and that will help us set a price for the sale. we talked to the neighbors, and to a cousin we thought might be interested in buying. time will tell.
we brought dad’s winter clothes with us to md. once we unpack, he will be officially moved in. we also brought pics to hang on the wall. maybe next time we will bring his dresser so he will feel more like he’s home.
emotions run high and wild. i want him here, but it scares me to death. (that perfection thing hangs heavy.)

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life. Anne Lamott.