Green Beauty Soup

Well, I've fallen madly in love with photography again and as part of my plan to take my skills to the next level, I have committed myself to Project 365. Yep, a photo a day for a whole year. So far I am 26 days in and have already learned so much, especially that I have more to learn than I ever imagined! I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Today's photo was the above, Green Beauty Soup, and I felt that it was worth writing about here. I can't seem to get enough of it, so simple to make, so satisfying, and so full of those leafy greens that make my world go round. Getting a pound of leafy greens (or more) per day into your body is one of our top priorities, we want you to THRIVE!! This is why David is always talking about the "Four Means to Get Your Greens," because getting in that many greens can seem daunting until you realize that you can:

1. JUICE your greens. We all know about green juice.

2. Eat your greens in a beautiful, colorful SALAD. We all know about salad.

3. Blend your greens into a green SMOOTHIE. We all know about green smoothies.

4. Blend your greens into a green SOUP. We all know about green soups.

(If you don't yet know all about these things, Google around and find some recipes to play with. There are so many people blogging about raw food and raw recipes now, and you will be in good company. Learn how to make versions of these things that knock off your socks so that you will be inspired to make more and prosper! You can also check out my favorite raw food books here.)

Yep, simple as that. If you do at least three out of those four, JUICE, SALAD, SMOOTHIE, or SOUP, you'll be getting in close to a pound and probably more of leafy green goodness.

The Four Means to Get Your Greens can be added to any diet, any time, for a wonderful boost to health and vitality. So, if you just finished a cheese burger from Burger King, try starting with a green smoothie every day, and work your way up to having a green smoothie, green juice, cheese burger, and then a green soup :).....I'll be honest, I don't usually do three, but almost every day I have at least two of the four and get in close to a pound of greens because I make my morning smoothies so heavy on the greens, and my soup, salad, or juice so loaded with leafies.

Here is today's version of Green Beauty Soup:

Start with guacamole. Mash two ripe avocados with the juice of one lemon, a generous dash of Celtic Sea Salt, a generous dash of dill, and 4-8 cloves of crushed garlic.

Then, blend in your high-speed blender the following: 1/2 pound spinach. 1/2 pound mixed baby greens. 1 handful of cashews. 1 TBS hemp oil. 1 small head of broccoli. 1-2 cups water. Blend on high until nice and creamy.

Next, pour your blended greens over your bright green guacamole and mix the two together. Add more salt and dill if needed. Garnish with big red pepper pieces to crunch on the side, and sprinkle with hemp hearts and cashews.

Serves two lucky darlings.

I made this as a good-bye lunch for my mom who headed off on the 3 o'clock ferry today, on her way down to California to be with her husband who is working there for the winter. I wasn't crazy about the broccoli, but it was still delicious. Sophia enjoyed sucking on a piece of red pepper while we enjoyed the soup.

YUM!!

In other news, the January Juice Feast sold out (!), and is currently flowing along beautifully with an amazing group of folks. The next group Juice Feast lead by David Rainoshek will be during the Third Annual Global Juice Feast...more information to come on that soon!

Love and leafy greens, Katrina.

Raw Food World TV Show

We had a fun chat with the hosts of the Raw Food World TV Show the other day, Mat Monarch and Angela Stokes-Monarch....here it is!

Part One: Attuned Awareness after birth, episode #348 Today we had the pleasure in interviewing David Rainoshek. David discusses how they juicefeasted before conception and how more attuned awareness is experienced after birthing a new child.



Part Two: More on Juicefeasting w/David Rainoshek, Episode #349 Today we've got the second part of this Q & A discussion with the Rainoshek's. We go deeper into discussing Juice Feasting... Enjoy...

Membership!

Well, in beautiful HARMONY, we have had SEVEN lovely people leave their favorite juice recipes on our doorstep, and in return, we have SEVEN 30 Day Memberships to send their way! If you were one of those seven people who left a favorite juice, please send me an email at: katrinarainoshek@gmail.com that includes your first and last name and email address and I will set you up with a membership!

Here are the seven favorite juices, yum yum!

1. Cucumber/ Celery/ Cilantro/ Burdock Root/ Parsley/ Dandelion Greens/ Ginger/Lemon or Lime/ Red Bell Pepper/ Apple or Pear
*add cayenne after all ingredients are juiced. ~NaturallyMariam

WOW, what an amazing, full juice! Full of powerful medicine, this one will really take you places!

2. My favorite juice is what I call my "soup juice". Satisfies dinner cravings while juice feasting every time: Carrot/ cilantro/ parsley/ celery/ green onions/ spinach
Tastes like a soup broth of carrots, celery and onions..
My 16 month old, Mara, loooves my juices, too!! ~Jamie

So glad to hear that lucky little Mara is getting beautiful green juice! I loved "soup juices" too while Juice Feasting, and made a similar one to this but with tomato and basil added too! So good!

3. My favorite juice is really quite simple but oh so satisfying:1 head of greens/ celery/ apples/ carrots/ lemon ~Michelle

This is one of my favorite combos too, clear, clean, light, hydrating, and nutritious! I also like adding cucumber to mine too.

4. carrot/ apple/ celery/ ginger/ lemon ~Melomel

I've been adding ginger to all my juices for the winter too, a great way to stay warm from the inside out.

5. celery/ cucumber/ lacinato kale/ lime/ fennel ~Christine

I love the freshness of fennel and lime!

6. My favorite juice is made of celery/ cucumber/ kale/ apple/ lemon. Sometimes I add some ginger. ~ Lisa

Pure goodness. My sister has a juice just like this at Cafe Bliss called Pure Green. I always get a quart of it when I am there!

7. An old, simple, favorite is one we call Sunshine Rising: 10 Carrots/ 4 Apples/ 1-2" Ginger ~Rees

That sounds delish! We need some Sunshine Rising in these winter days of North! I love it that these ingredients can be found locally at this time of year here, we've been drinking lots of carrot/apple/ginger juice in this house!

Thank you all for your beautiful juice masterpieces! I look forward to having you on www.JuiceFeasting.com and hearing more about your juicy adventures....

Sophia and I making an evening juice: baby bok choy/ cucumber/ celery/ apple/ lemon, and ginger.

With blessings and love, Katrina

Happy Juicey New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR DEAR FRIENDS!!

Greetings from a wet, rainy, and winter-y west-coast island where post-Christmas finds us cozy, happy, well-fed, well-loved, and peaceful.

Our days were light on the gifts, but rich in time with family, good food, walks through the trees, and laughter.

We pulled a Christmas time favorite off the shelves after I experienced some last minute guilt and panic on December 24th about not having done any Christmas shopping! Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas is much loved by my family, and this year allowed me to fully reconnect with what is most important after I got swept away by a moment of Christmas flap.

In addition to an invitation to re-think your Christmas traditions, Hundred Dollar Holiday contains a succinct history of how it is that we came to celebrate Christmas the way we do (with a fat man in red coming down the chimney, the feasting, the tree, the gifts, etc.) The history of Christmas may surprise you, and if you already feel that it is over-commercialized, your feelings will be validated when you learn that Christmas was in part "the thin edge of the wedge by which many Americans became enmeshed in the more self-indulgent aspects of consumer spending...a crucial means of legitimizing the penetration of consumerist behavior into American society."

What we really want and need in Christmas is quite simple:

Peace, stillness, and quiet. Time with LOVED ones. An invitation to be outdoors. Community. Relationship with the Divine. Non-consumer activities with children (and adults). An outlet for human creativity in LOVE!!

If this sounds about right to you, do check out this little gem of a book, you'll love it!

As I write, we are drawing to the close of 2009. It has been a quiet evening for me. David is away in California at an event, and Sophia, myself, my mom, and my Oma celebrated the end of 2009 with four generations of women. Delight was on all of our faces as we loved and appreciated the generations before and after us! Needless to say, I was the only one left awake at midnight!

I am so excited and up-lifted about the year to come, may it be a beautiful continuation for all of us! It is coming in on a flood of JUICE in our world, as it seems that everyone is inviting in the new with a clearing of the old, cleansing with that nectar of the gods, fresh fruit and vegetable juice! Here are just a few of the juicy happenings to bring in the New Year....

~Matt Monarch and Angela Stokes-Monarch are currently Juice Feasting at the Tree of Life on all GREEN JUICES!! What a fantastic place to get juicy (Patagonia, AZ is where David and I Juice Feasted in 2008!)

David and I are going to be joining Matt and Angela via Skype on January 7th for an installment of the Raw Food World TV Show all about Juice Feasting, and answering your Juice Feasting questions! If you have a question you would like to send Angela to be asked on the 7th, please email her by January 6th at angela@rawreform.com. We always have fun with these two so do be sure to tune in and send in your questions!

~Shazzie is inspiring as many people as she can to join her on a 10 Day Juice Cleanse We were very excited to see that she Juice Feasted beautifully for 28.5 Days this past summer. "Juice feasting gives you great clarity and single-mindedness. I asked and I received, very quickly indeed." ~Shazzie

~ Sproutman (Steve Meyerowitz) is leading a 7-10 day Juice Feast for the New Year. As Steve says, "You clean your car; you clean your yard; you clean your house. Now it’s time to clean your inner house! Give your liver a break and your immune system a boost."

~And of course, David Rainoshek is leading a January Juice Feast, beginning on January 15th! There is still time to sign up for this and I can promise it will be an amazing way to bring in 2010, so be sure to check out the details and see if it calls to you!

Testimonial from one of our Autumn Juice Feasters:

Dear David
Thank you for one of the best experiences I have had to date in juicing (and I have done a great deal!) One of the reasons I decided to invest in your 1 month coached cleanse was because I wasn't sure if I could actually do 30 whole days!!. I found the daily check in calls with you held me accountable and enthusiastic and as a side benefit to weight and toxicity loss I was able to look deeper into my emotional attachments to food with the tools you discussed during the weekly group call ins. It was an truly enjoyable and effortless experience thanks to your expertise and lightheartedness.
Wishing you all the best to you and your new cleansers!

September Death
Founder/Head Chef
www.redcarpetcleanses.com

Oh so juicy! I'm sure that I haven't included NEARLY everyone who plans on getting juicy this season, so if are and would like to be included in this blog post with a link to your blog/website, let me know and I will up-date!

AND!! If a 30 Day Juice Feast sounds a little more involved than you are ready for just yet, don't forget to check out the 2010 Winter Liver/Gallbladder Flush LIVE with David Rainoshek, Elaina Love, and Chris Whitcoe. This interactive cleanse will start on January 10 and run through till January 17!

AND!! Last but not least, in THANKS and GRATITUDE to our on-line community for sharing in such a beautiful year in 2009, we would love to offer 7 memberships to www.JuiceFeasting.com! If you feel it is your time to get juicy and would love a little help along the way, please let me know by posting a comment and sharing your favorite juice recipe. If you have never made a juice in your life, just let me know what your favorite drink is (even if it is beer!) I will be randomly choosing 7 people for 30 Day Memberships, and announcing the winners on January 12!

I look forward to sharing many beautiful adventures, growth, splendor, and much love with each and every one of you in the coming year, be it in person or via blog-land!

Many blessings and oh so much JUICE for a healthy, happy, and inspirational YEAR IN 2010!

xoxoxoxox

Katrina (with David sending his love from California, and Sophia sending hers from dream land, sleeping on her Mommy's tummy in the Ergo!)

Happy Holy Days!!

Investigating her great-aunt and great-uncle's tree!

Hello Dear Friends!

We are happily back at home and keeping cozy with good company and warm almond/hemp/date/cacao milk (recipe below)!!

I wanted to tell you about a wonderful holiday gift that is ready for you to open today!!

David and I were recently invited to be part of yet another wonderful project by the lovely Ms. Stokes-Monarch, a FREE e-book, a gift of love for the holidays. "Profoundly Raw" is a compilation e-book, bringing together 12 different authors for you to cuddle up with next to the fire. Look at the amazing group of people that Angela has gathered together for our enjoyment!!

Alissa Cohen on Protein, Calcium and Fats

David and Katrina Rainoshek on “Deep Food”

Angela Stokes-Monarch on Emotional Eating

David Wolfe on The Sun

Jinjee Talifero on The Yoga of Nursing

Gabriel Cousens on Vitamin B12

Kate Magic on Raw Magic

Kevin Gianni on Overcoming Potential Stumbling Blocks

Shazzie on How to Start a Child on Raw Food

Matt Monarch on Sensitivity and Stabilizing Out

Tonya Zavasta on A Perfect Bowel Movement

Paul Nison on The Daylight Diet

To download your free copy of this beautiful gift, please go to Angela's site HERE! Thank you Angela for creating such a wonderful gift, we love you!

We decorated a tree today with Sophia watching from her tummy on the floor happily kicking away, until her Daddy strapped her into the Ergo (our favorite baby carrier) so that she could help him crown the tree with a beautiful star. Such special moments, our baby's first Christmas!
I made some amazing warm cacao milk to sip upon while tree decorating, and it was SO good!

Here is the recipe!

1 cup soaked almonds
1 cup soaked hemp seeds
5 cups water

Blend on high and strain through a nut milk bag. Add the following:

1 Tbs carob
2 HEAPING Tbs cacao
5 medjool dates
1 tsp coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla bean powder
1 pinch sea salt
1 dropper full reshi mushroom extract for good immunity and good measure!

Blend on high! Pour into a pot and warm on the stove until warm, but not too hot! (You should still be able to comfortably put your finger into the cacao milk.) Pour into mugs and dust with nutmeg and cinnamon. Enjoy with loved ones!

I've also been loving apple/cucumber/lemon/ginger juice for the season. Apples are abundant in this corner of the world at this time, and many of the varieties are just about gone over to the other side of ripe and so they are cheep and plentiful! Our fridge is full of beautiful juicy orbs, ready to be juiced!

That's all for now! So much love and many blessings to you and your family this season. May your days be healthy and your eyes bright, and your heart full of beauty!

With peaceful steps, Katrina, David, and Sophia!

Juicers and Blenders and Snow!

Hello!

David, Sophia and I are still enjoying Texas, although it hasn't been sunny for all but about an hour! It even snowed, and Sophia has had her first snow here in Houston.

In other news, our dear friends Angela and Matt were recently in a bad car accident, and to aid themselves in speedy recovery, they both undertook a one week Juice Feast. This is from Angela Stokes-Monarch:

'Tis the season to get juicy, fa la la la la, la la la laaaaaaaa...let's jump in with:

Easy Juice Feasting with the Hurom Juicer

As many of you know, Mr. Monarch and I had a pretty intense car crash two weeks ago, in Pennsylvania. Immediately afterwards, we began a week-long Juice Feast to help expedite our healing process, which definitely seemed to help us enormously in terms of fast regeneration. At the same time as this week-long juicing session, we were travelling back from the east coast to the west coast to be back in time for my next immigration interview. Time was pressed, driving 8-12 hours a day with no real breaks, across the whole country. SO, we were EXTREMELY grateful during this juicy journey to have our new Hurom Juicer with us to handle the juicing duties. Neither of us had ever Juice Feasted with a Hurom before and it was a GREAT experience to try this out for ourselves. We had heard reports of people being able to make a GALLON of green juice in 15 minutes with this amazing new machine and now we got to try it out for ourselves ;)
If you're not familiar yet with the wondrous little Hurom, it is tagged as a 'slow juicer' and even has a picture of a snail on the packaging and YET, the name is kind of ironic, as it is the FASTEST slow-moving juicer we've ever used...Mr. M and I actually recently did a comparison video between the Green Star and the Hurom and the contrast was HUGE - see here below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_blKzX5NFdU

Juice Feasting with the Hurom was indeed FAST - we would wake up in hotel rooms, juice up a few gallons of juice each morning, store it into glass jars, pack them with ice blocks into a bag and get on the road again for the next 8-12 hours. The juicer is quiet, fast, efficient, easy to clean and the juice stays good even through to the next DAY (as we found out one day when we couldn't quite handle all the carrot/fennel/romaine juice we'd produced that day ;) If I was to do another lengthy Juice Feast again, I would definitely want to have a Hurom at my side - we LOVE it :)
We have Hurom juicers for sale HERE (we also have a 220v model that works in the UK now :)

enjoy :))))

SO much love to Angela and Matt both, we are so grateful that they are both OK and still continuing to shine their light!

We are currently using David's first little Samson juicer, the one that he used for his first ever Juice Feast in 2003. It lives here in Houston at his parent's house, and it has been making us some beautiful juices. It is quick to juice and super easy to clean as well!

We also brought our Vitamix with us, and I can tell you, you don't want to be stuck in Texas with out a Vitamix. You don't want to be stuck anywhere without a Vitamix for that matter! Still my absolute number one favorite appliance.

Sophia helping mama make the morning Green Smoothie.

Sophia has been dabbling in Green Smoothies for a few weeks now, and this morning we shared our spinach, strawberry, orange, and banana smoothie with her. She LOVES them and goes "mmmmmmMMMMMmmmmm" while she sucks away on finger-fulls of goodness.

That is all for today! May your days be merry and bright!

With much Love and Blessings,

Katrina, David, and Sophia

Raw Mom Summit is BACK!!

Hello!

Wow! It is December already! The Autumn Juice Feast is complete, the Autumn Liver-Gallblader Flush has rolled out the stones, and we are now getting ready for some beautiful time with loved ones over the holidays. As I write this we are in Houston with the Rainoshek family, enjoying some beautiful sunshine and our first Texas visit with our beautiful five month old daughter!

I wanted to let you know that as a special holiday gift, RAW MOM SUMMIT IS BACK!

During the 8th month of my pregnancy with Sophia, I was honored to be included in the first ever Raw Mom Summit, created by Shannon Leone and Tera Warner. It was a fabulous experience, and the interviews collected are a priceless resource for anyone with children in their lives.

I am really excited that these interviews are being re-released because they were originally aired during the first few weeks of Sophia's life and getting on a computer was the last thing on my mind at that time so I missed the whole summit! I won't make that mistake again! I've signed up and actually purchased the unlimited access to the summit so that I can fit it in to the organic flow of a time schedule that having a new baby entails.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO GO TO THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE TO SIGN UP FOR THIS FREE EVENT!

From the official Raw Mom Summit website:

On December 9 The Raw Mom Summit will roll out the red carpet and invite health-seeking parents around the world to empower themselves and their families at the time of year when we need it the most.

Dear Healthy Holiday Seekers,

Mistletoe and gingerbread call to mind warm memories of the season. It's a time for family dinners and opportunities to reconnect with loved ones. When we put aside the commercial agendas, this is a time for reaching out in love and reflecting on a year of growth as we prepare for the coming of a new year.

We want to give you the best chance to inform and empower yourself before 2010 comes. Given that this season, more than any other, is focused on family and relationships and a celebration of birth, we've decided to make the Raw Mom Summit available once again.

Starting Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

What if you could gather together some of the most inspirational health leaders in the world and get them together in the same place for 9 days to discuss the subjects of nutrition, pregnancy, childbirth, parenting and other family health care issues?

What if you could get YOUR concerns addressed about how to succeed on a healthy diet or how to feed your children the best food? What if you could finally get answers to your questions about:

• What to do about Fertility, Ovulation and Conscious Conception?


• How to prepare for a Healthy Pregnancy, Labor and Childbirth?


• What is Attachment Parenting?


• Which natural remedies to use when your children are sick?


• How to feed a meat-eating partner if you are vegetarian or vegan?


• What should you feed yourself when you're overwhelmed with cravings?


• How to get kids excited and involved in their own food-prep?


• What to do when our kids rebel against our healthy diet?


• What is going on with the Bees and why is it so important?


• How to shrink our Carbon Footprint?


• What is Sustainability and Permaculture?


• What Super Foods are BEST for kids?


• Exactly what IS the healthiest diet?


• What are the best ways to Raise Children Naturally?


• What are the lesser-known common pit-falls of a Raw Food Diet?


• Which foods help or hinder our Hormones?


• What are the issues around Veganism, B-12 and Protein?


• What do Raw children eat?


• How to get picky eaters to crave their veggies?


• Which foods help kids transition and stick to a healthier diet?


• What are the other Top Lifestyle Factors besides diet for longevity?

What if you could get the answers to all these questions and a WHOLE LOT MORE while washing dishes in your pajamas and bouncing a babe on your hip at the same time?

Sound too good to be true?

Well, not if we're talking about an exciting new event that has been put together by two self-employed mothers with the spunk and determination to get these questions answered by some of the most outstanding experts in the world!

Introducing...

THE RAW MOM SUMMIT

The Evolution of Motherhood Has Arrived

"Children are the Teachers. Mothers are the Seekers." Shannon 'Shakaya Breeze' Leone

For more information, and to sign up, go to www.RawMomSummit.com!

There you have it! I will most certainly one day be in my pajamas with Sophia on my hip doing dishes and listening in on the Summit.

Little Notes:

For those of you who are interested in birth stories, I've written up The Home Birth Of Sophia Katarina: A Beautiful Force of Nature. I LOVED reading birthing stories while I was pregnant, and writing up my own was a joy.

And, for those of you who are interested in how I ate during my pregnancy, I have written about it HERE.

Keep your ears open for more information on the upcoming January Juice Feast.

Enjoy your juice!

With many happy holiday blessings,

Katrina, David, and Sophia!