Vegan Coconut Bars

Chocolate and coconut vegan heaven.

Sometimes you just need a treat. A recipe with coconut and chocolate. After all, you've been so good. You've been munching fresh veggies and brown rice. You've been slurping healing soup with cabbage and drinking green tea. You've been diligent checking labels for gluten, casein, and soy. So it's time for something sweet. Something moist and chewy and perfect with a cup of tea.

Egg-free baking is tricky. And at high altitude, even trickier. Truth be told, I've tossed a dozen egg-free experiments into the trash this summer. But these little vegan gems?

These were keepers.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Crock Pot Curry with Coconut Milk

A delicious slow cooked curry simmered in the Crock Pot

Certain individuals at Casa Allrich use their Crock Pot year round. Yes, even in the summer. It keeps the kitchen cool and uses no more energy than a humble light bulb. So when you crave a creamy spicy curry stirred with coconut milk and don't feel like sweating over a hot stove when the Kokopelli thermometer hanging under the portal reads 98 degrees F in the shade, consider the old school slow cooker. 

Read more + get the recipe >>

Updates

Lets start with the bad thing first: My rabbit died today, now I have no pets. Dog, Chicken, 2 Rabbits and a budgie all gone... :(

Second bad thing: WHERE IS THE SUMMER GONE!?!?!?! Rain, floods, Rain, Rain, floods, Rain ,Rain, rain, rain! everyday...

The sad part out of the way, now back to the CR stuff:

Weight
Something has changed over the last few months and my weight continues to creep up, I woke up this morning with a weight of 110 lbs. Although this may be something to do with the weight lifting I've started, I don't know! Even before I made any significant changes my weight just started going up... and as I've said before, I'm serious about Calorie Restriction and I weigh all my food. Either my metabolism has changed, some sort of infection was doing freaky things to me, or someone is spiking my food (gulp). So what do I do from here, I'm eating the same number of calories but I'm gaining, maybe it's time to slowly reduce my calorie level?

Sinus issues resolved
I'm not sure if I mentioned this on my blog but my sinus issues that I had for a while have completely resolved, and how did that happen? Again some freaky stuff, I developed a 'cold' infection and it just totally blocked up everything, my ears, sinuses... yet since that infection the discolored PND and other sinus related issues are totally 100% gone. The only things I can say is a) something was removed due to the excess mucous carrying it out b) More sinus inflammation (from cold), more immune cells attracted to the area to fight both infections. It has been over 1 month now and everything still looking good, no sign of it coming back at all. Although I continue to use Neti Pot.


Calorie Restriction and Eating Disorders
It's quite absurd when people claim that all CRONies have eating disorders, when in actual fact it's probably the majority of the Western population that has the problem with food. If anything Calorie Restriction has opened up so much for me, it has got me to eat foods that I would have never eaten. I've also started to experiment with food now too, I enjoy cooking, and I have learned life skills.

Only if people knew just how much I enjoy eating my food, not because I'm 'starving', I'm never actually starving at all. But because I've gotten away from sugar and processed foods that actually taste like utter crap. The last time I had chips was almost 3 years ago! I'm now more open to try new foods, something that I would rarely do before. There is absolutely no way that my attitude towards eating as it is today will lead into some kind of harmful eating disorder. I've never loved food more than any time in my life. The variety I eat is far more than previously too.

For me, as a person who wants to live forever, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to develop anything like AN. It would be the complete opposite of what I'm doing CR for and would not help me to achieve my goals. I don't worry about it, and all my family are now convinced that what I'm doing is good. I sit down with them every day to eat my meal. Only my meal is like a huge mountain of food so I'm usually the last one to finish.

The losing weight aspect of CR was a negative for me, no way do I like to look as skinny as I do, 120 lbs for me was lean but on my small frame and at 5ft 7, but looked quite normal even though I still had a low BMI. Weeks before I started CR was to do serious weight lifting. A few years back I tried for 2 months and guess what? I gained a whopping 2 lbs of muscle! Not a lot for 2 months weight lifting. I was taking whey protein and it still was extremely difficult. So maybe trying for that physique would have never actually worked anyway. I just can't seem to gain significant amount of muscle, period.

Why do CR
Others have their own reasons for doing CR. I know myself, and I know I'm not capable of self harm. I am so open about my practice of CR to family, friends, and my doctors. My doctors even support me... They even tell me that according to all the tests I get done, I'm a very healthy person and my risk certain diseases is very small. For me it hasn't been much of a journey it terms of improving health markers though. My blood pressure when I started CR was close to 100/60, Fasting glucose was low, cholesterol was already low, Inflammation was low too. So I was already in good shape to start off with. I've never been overweight or had any serious health issues either.


Quality of Life and CR
People go on about how CR will lessen the quality of life, but aren't they forgetting the fact that ILL HEALTH is what causes poor quality of life for the majority of people! How can you have 'a life' when you have so many serious chronic diseases? Health is something you take for granted until its getting worse. Some people spend a decade or more with bad quality health. And whats sad is that most of it is self inflicted. People need to respect their body more. Sadly it would probably take a very long time before attitudes start to change.


Family eating habits
I've tried to tell both my mother and father about what they're doing to their health but they continue to not listen. They are both now going through at least 1 tub of ice cream a day! My mother will be in hospital soon if she don't change because for breakfast she has tea and biscuits, for lunch it' ice cream and dinner its usually ice cream again, and then later in the night guess what!? more ice cream. This has now been going on for 2-3 months... her hair is falling out, will she listen to me? Nope! She sees the same doctor as me so I'm going to mention that he needs to test her for nutritional deficiencies because she has been living on junk food now for a few years, only rarely has a proper meal.

My father listens to me a bit, he does eat nuts, fruit, soups and stuff. Hes quite healthy although I think is getting into a bad habit of eating junk food everyday. At 50+ he should be improving his diet drastically because its when aging really starts to accelerate.

My sister and brother. My sister is binge drinking almost every other day, certainly overweight now and just completely ignores my advice. My brother listen to me, but he really can't afford the food, otherwise he'd probably eat some of it. He likes to talk about CR and longevity, technology and stuff.

Other stuff
My brother J is doing better for himself now though as hes in a good Rock band who are signed and going on tour in the U.S, and around Europe shortly. They also got a number one on the download chart here in the UK and top 5 in the channel 4 charts. I on the other hand am writing new materials and actively looking to join a band. Work has been unreliable again with no work... So i'm going to start looking for another job on Monday.

Better go now, this is long enough!

I know I will never have an eating disorder, and thats the most important thing.

To long life :D

Roasted Vegetable Salsa

Super easy salsa kicks off any party.

Why buy jarred salsa when making your own is so easy? This is a mild and flavorful salsa recipe perfect for those who find fiery fare a tad too harsh.

Easy Roasted Vegetable Salsa Recipe

This chunky salsa is delicious on grilled fish- or grilled anything, for that matter. And did I mention it's gluten/soy/citrus/milk/egg/nut/sugar free? And if you love more heat, Dear Reader, simply add it in. Or try my spicier Roasted Tomato Salsa. Keep your taste buds happy.

Ingredients:

1 pint (2 cups) of baby plum/grape tomatoes, quartered
3/4 cup corn kernels

1 red pepper, cored, seeded, chopped

1 red or sweet onion, peeled, diced

5-6 garlic cloves, chopped

Extra virgin olive oil, as needed

Sea salt, to taste

1 14-oz can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes with Green Chiles

1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, to taste

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

A squeeze of organic raw agave syrup, to taste

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.

Combine the tomatoes, corn, pepper, onion, garlic, olive oil, and sea salt in a roasting pan and toss to coat. Spread in a single layer.

Roast the veggies in the top third of the oven until the veggies get tender- about 12 minutes.

Spoon into a bowl and set aside to cool.

Add the canned tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, cumin, agave and cilantro. Stir to combine. Taste test and adjust the seasoning to your liking.

Cover and chill for at least an hour to allow the flavors to co-mingle. Co-mingling is good.

Serving Ideas:

Serve as a dip with tortilla chips.

Serve as a condiment with grilled fish, chicken, rice and veggies, enchiladas, tacos, you name it.

Serve as a fresh uncooked sauce for pasta or polenta.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

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In a world far far away...

I've been installing all my games over the last few days, one game in particular I was looking forward to seeing with my new computer, and that is a game called "oblivion". Unfortunately I haven't got access to my old game files on the other hard drive until I can get a drive bay thing so that I can take all the files off the hard drive. But the game oblivion is so addictive, I could live in that world! It's simply beautiful world, the environment is absolutely huge and you could literally spend hundreds of hours on it as there are so many things to do. I was just walking around inside the game for half hour or so, shot some arrows at a few animals and just looked at the scenery. I have a video recording software called Fraps, so I'll probably make a small video or something sometime. Here are a few screen shots from the game. The new graphics card has shader 3.0 too and this enables something called (HDR) which makes lighting a bit more realistic.



When you're playing a game like oblivion , hours seem like minutes. I started oblivion up around 2am, it's now 3:52am as I type this, and it only seems like I had been playing it for half hour! I know I have to limit gaming time and not get too addicted =/ E3 just happened the other day and there are some impressive games coming out, which I'm sure will distract me a lot over the next year! I can obviously see how attractive virtual reality will be in the near future, especially with new technologies that will enable full virtual reality. Thats where I feel most people will spend their spare time, and possibly even have jobs in VR environments.

Games are getting more realistic all the time, if anyone has seen some of the new stuff coming out like Crysis, it's just mind blowing. It looks so life like its incredible!

Here is a good video showing the game Oblivion. it's a bit blurry of course because of the compression, but open it in full screen to see properly by going to the link HERE or just watch below (although it much better in bigger screen by going to that link and clicking full screen on the bottom right corner of the video player interface)

Vegan Blueberry Cobbler Recipe

Blueberry cobbler- a taste of summer.

Fresh blueberries = summer. And lucky for me these indigo-hued gems are not only gluten-free and chock full of antioxidants (every celiac goddess needs fistfuls of antioxidants, you know) but they're pretty much everything-free. So that shoots them right to the top of a certain allergy-prone goddess' Yum List. I've been plopping them into smoothies, scattering them in bowls of buckwheat flakes and simply munching on them straight from the colander. Ah. Blueberry heaven.

Insert hazy slo-mo flashback

Once upon a time- in the innocent and carefree days of living merely gluten-free- I used to make a delectable (and ultra-easy!) Summer Blueberry Crisp. And Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins to die for. Click on those recipes for some serious berry indulgence. Go ahead. I won't mind. I'll wait. I won't be jealous. Well. Maybe just a wee bit jealous, now that I am gluten and casein-free. Not to mention temporarily egg, soy, lemon, nut, legume, blah blah blah free.

Smash cut to: my tiny blue-tiled cocina

Read more + get the recipe >>

All set up!

So my power supply arrives today, installed it but never got to switch on computer until around 10pm tonight. It worked, a few little problems so had to change over jumpers with hdd and cd roms (master, slave etc...). I never bothered trying the 350watt or 550 watt. The Q tech 550 was a really cheap psu and poor quality, so I never wanted to try that. I ended up using one 80GB ATA hard drive to install XP on, and will get all the data using external case drive thing for the two other hard drives (which contains lots of videos, photos, music and so on). There wasn't really another way of actually booting up the system as the hardware was completely new. The first boot up I did monitor the hardware monitor in BIOS, to check CPU temperature, fans and stuff. Always do that first. The asus bored has some neat overclocking tools too, which i'll check out after I get all my software loaded.

Gregg, I was going to go with the quad core, but I was basically forced to upgrade, plus i'm not loaded lol. I was actually trying to wait it out to get the quad core, or even more! The 80 core processor should be arriving within the next 3 years according to intel, but probably delays will happen, so say 5+ years.

I am also a crazy multi tasker, sure the 2 core processor will help a bit, but I know what you're saying about quad core. I think that I may have been a little too hastey in choosing which CPU I went with this time. My first computer was an INTEL 166MMX, then a P3, and after than I went over to AMD and have stuck with them. I guess I fear change again a little. I always tend to go with ATI now too... not had an Nvidia card in a LONG time. I hope to sell this graphics card at the end of the year for a ATI HD2900XT 1024mb Graphics card and upgrade RAM to 4GB, as its real cheap at the moment.

Next on my list though is getting a new monitor as the one I have is REAL blurry. So might get the Samsung 22" or dell 24" monitor in the next couple months. Not played any games or anything yet, but doing general stuff, loading times etc... seem to be much faster now. Extremely quiet PC as well, good choice of fans.


This is the first time I've actually really bought myself anyway for a long time, usually my money all goes on food and supplements. One thing I told myself I have to do in the next week is CAP my shopping budget. So if I run out of something, tough... Its the only way, beacuse shopping is sometimes reaching like 40 pounds a week just for me! Thats around $80.

I'm also thinking about giving up my Multi and taking specific supplements or possibly lower the dose of Essential mix so that it lasts around 3 months or something.

anyway gotta go install, configure and stuff :)

Almost forgot!

What do you think of Vista. You reckon I should wait a bit until they sort out updates, fixes, compatibility issues.... ?

Computer nearly done!

I've been saving and buying the new computer parts such as mainboard, processor, processor heatsink/fan, ram, gpu, and now finally a power supply unit. Unfortunately I spent a bit of money on delivery as I bought a few things on special offer intially... then later on got the money for a graphics card (yesterday) and then found out that the power requirements is FAR greater than my old systems. I had three power supply units but not enough, only 2 350's and a very cheap 550 watt psu. So i've just gone and ordered another power supply which cost 92 pounds. Hopefully I can sell my other power supply units to friends for 10 pound or so. At least i'll get something back from the 3 deliveries, each costing 8 pound!


Note; if you're wondering why I don't use the pound sign, its cos I haven't changed it on this computer so keyboard settings are u.s right now.


Anyway here are the specs of the new PC!

Antec TruePower Trio 650W PSU - With 3x 12v Rails
ASUS M2R32-MVP Radeon Xpress 3200 CrossFire
AM2: Athlon 64 X2 5000+
2 GB (2x1gb) Ultra low latency GEIL RAM
Power Colour ATI X1950XT 512mb GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics card
Creative Audigy 2 6.1 surround sound
160gb hdd
2x 250gb s/ata hdd
Pioneer dvd writer

One thing I hate even though I've been building cumputers for over 12 years is the first power up of the pc. Somehow I've gotta try and save all the files on the hdd's . I'm not sure if the system is going to boot because of the completely new hardware config... I've got like 4 years of stuff on there which I just hope that I can get access to!

My father just ordered a new power pack for our Dell Inspiron 9100 Laptop too. That broke a week after my old pc lol. Before I actually used to upgrade my computer about every 12-18 months, now its more like every 4-5 years! Sure I buy little upgrades, but replacing a whole system often is something that I can't keep doing as i'm not rich... yet. This setup should at least get me to around 2010-2011, and i'll hopefully just have to upgrade graphics card possibly add another 2gb ram at some point.

I've really had to catch up on computer hardware lately... because i've not really been reading up on the updates as much as I used to, or never got much involved in the whole thing. Obviousl I had to do my research before I put together this PC, and I was suprised just how far technology has gone since my last upgrade.

Blueberry July

The view from our casita last night was a painting in progress- rapidly changing washes of color from east to west. The softest pink pushing into indigo. Cerulean dropping into sea green when you least expected it.

The day had been hot and dry and discouraging- I had realized abruptly, driving home in late afternoon glare to the beat of an REM song (I've got my spine, I've got my Orange Crush) that I had used a chicken bouillon paste in the previous night's green chile. I reached for it automatically. Without thinking. Just as I had the cup of herbal tea with lemon the night before that.

I felt like an idiot. 

Armed with new information that will ease my ills I poison myself, in spite of my best efforts, in spite of my notes and lists and label reading, and spending twenty minutes stalking the cereal aisle at Whole Foods to search every package of oatmeal for evidence of gluten-free certification (the odd and unexpected good news is I tested totally negative for an oat allergy). I screwed up. Again.

And it frustrates the hell out of me.

Gluten and soy free for years, you'd think I'd know the drill. But as it turns out, I don't. I woke up last Tuesday and discovered the rules had changed. My list of verboten ingredients is too long to memorize. Lemon and mustard wreak serious havoc, we know. But now orange and grapefruit are starting to misbehave. I wasn't tested for lime, but now I'm leery. The whole sweet 'n sour citrus family doesn't seem very hospitable these days.

I am becoming kumquat-phobic.

Pecans are tempting. But with reactions to peanuts, almonds and walnuts, how smart would it be to start noshing on a walnut cousin? And then there’s eggs. They are in everything. Did you know egg whites are used to clarify many domestic and Australian and South American wines? I didn't. I blamed my sinus congestion and headache on the weather, not the wine I drank three times last week. In order to find wine that is absolutely egg-free you must find a vegan winery. Who knew?

Oh, and then there was the toasty-sweet goodness of that jar of sunflower butter I bought last week to replace my childhood comfort food, now off limits. Scanning the Food Allergy Testing results, there it was. I am mildly allergic to sunflower seeds. And almost every gluten-free corn chip is cooked in sunflower oil these days. 

Okay. Just breathe. I knew this wouldn't be easy. Or fair. I never believed life was fair but. Geesh. Give a gluten-free goddess a break. A girl does not live by bunny food alone. There are needs. There are food dreams. There are favorite recipes - the whole shebang now in exile.

I'm trying to be upbeat. Really I am.

But in all honesty? This is tough, Babycakes. Even tougher than going gluten-free. I said to Steve last night, I'm losing the will to live. Cue violins. 

Don't worry. He made me laugh with a Big Lebowski quote. I'll be fine. Really. I just need to channel The Dude. Go with the flow. Chill. And to paraphrase Walter...

F*ck it, Dude. Let's eat blueberries.