Life is Good

Today was a fun culinary event for me. The other day I had an inspiration for a recipe come into my head, and today I was able to create it. I don't do that all that often. I usually re-work other recipes that I try, and I'm pretty good at that, but this one, I actually came up with in my head.

I had been having some fruit with my other yogurt on it, and it was tasty and everything, but the consistency wasn't as good as real yogurt is. So I was trying to think of how to make it better. Then I was impressed to put irish moss in it which is the substance from which the food industry extracts carageenan (commonly used in ice cream - read the label). We've used irish moss in other applications with great results, but I hadn't used any in a while. I made some irish moss paste last week - I can't remember why. Oh yeah, Alicia had put it on to soak and left it there. We had to do something with it, so I made it up into paste.

Anyway, I decided to put some in my yogurt recipe, and I also added part of a vanilla bean. It was perfect, in fact, better than perfect! I loved it. I tried it out on the family tonight, and I think everyone enjoyed it. Here's the recipe, I think:

3 cups fermented raw cashews
1 cup irish moss paste
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup honey (or to taste)
1/2 a vanilla bean

All of this is mixed in the blender. We had some nice blueberries left from the market, and I topped them with this mixture, and then sprinkled them with buckwheaties for some crunch. It is truly too good for words. It is one of those foods it would be very easy to overeat. I had some on a really ripe banana tonight, and it was perfect because the tanginess counteracted the oversweetness of the banana. Anyway, I think we'll take it to market Saturday for one of our samples.

I didn't get breakfast this morning because I got caught up in the recipe, and the next thing I knew was I had to leave for work. I was also making some Queso Dulce (that's our new name for raisin cheese). So no breakfast today even though Roger had food in the car on the way to the school visit. I guess I didn't feel like eating. I had 3 mangos before going to bed last night, so maybe I really wasn't in need of any calories anyway. No exercise this morning either, so it worked out all right.

For lunch I had marinated veggies over zucchini noodles with an alfredo type sauce along with a salad and avo soup. Then I made another avocado soup for dinner with one avocado, 2 stalks of celery, 1 huge cucumber, and 1 whole bunch of cilantro. We put some miso in there too. It was pretty tasty and not overwhelmed by the cilantro as you might think. It felt so vivacious and alive. (I feel silly saying that food feels like that, but I don't know how else to describe it. It is really amazing.)

After Alicia and I went to the gym, I cut up 2 pineapples for all of us. They were so sweet and delicious, it felt almost decadent. I think they put yogurt on their's, but I ate mine just the way it was with a few sprinkles of blueberries. Life is good. I feel bad that it takes food to make me feel like that. Driving home from the YMCA, we saw one the prettiest sunsets I have seen in a long time. Yes, life is good for more reasons than just wonderful food...