Friday, April 9, 2010 at 10:54 AM
Hello friends,
Do not have a lot of time so this is going to be a quick post! Sorry.
Yesterday was our first day in Nice, France. We left Paris early in the morning and flew here to southern France. Breakfast for me was a green smoothie before heading out the door. Sorry I did not have time to take a picture.
First off Nice is beautiful!
A little windy! And hello Mediterranean Sea!

Truly amazing place! Love it here
They even had a little farmers market. Their flowers here are so amazing. And they have tons of fresh herbs!
Gary and I walked around every where. I just love the ‘old’ town – that is what they call it here. The streets are full of cafes, stores, bakeries, and more.

Had tons of soap shops
Stores where they offer fresh spices! Love that!
We walked around some more and went on top of a hill that overlooked all of Nice!
So beautiful. Hard to believe I am actually here.
The Harbor side
We headed back down to find something for a snack before dinner. ** We had lunch upon arriving but forgot camera in hotel so did not get any pictures. I got a simple salad and a glass of wine! It was perfect.
And came across this little piece of heaven.
A juice and smoothie cafe. Gary is ordering my a carrot ginger and apple juice
YAY!
It was so cute and the workers were so NICE!
It was delicious! Gary had some sips as well. He liked it too!
This totally hit the spot for me especially since I have been lacking on the water part

Here is me soooo happy
I will have to share with you all tomorrow our fabulous dinner and more great eats from southern France. I have to go. Tomorrow is another traveling day for us so we are heading to another city. I will check back in tomorrow.
Till next time,
Lori
The Twins
L&M
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Miscellaneous
Tags: green smoothie, salad
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 11:05 AM
Hey luvs
Thank you to everyone’s nice tweets yesterday. If you follow me on Twitter, you saw that I was having a bad day. I will not go into much detail because I do not want to dwell on the past…today is a new day…better day ; )
Well it sure looks like Lori had been lucky with her eats over there in Paris. I just got off Skype with her, and said she has had even better meals…now I wish I was in France.
Her meals sure put mine to shame

Beet cucumber apple romaine juice…I just love the froth on top.
A new green smoothie filled with mint, cilantro, apples, coconut, and lime. It was delicious, the only thing missing was me sitting on the beach!!
Since it has been so hot, I really have been craving more liquid based meals …surprised, right ; )
I got my newest obsession from my friend Anthony
Juice of 2 grapefruits blended with some green powder (I used chorella) but really you can use what ever green powder you like.
A simple yet refreshing drink. Perfect for hot sunny days!
I have been snacking a lot these past few days. Mostly due to having no time to make a meal, although last night I was craving something more…something to really chew!
I lightly pan roasted some broccolini in coconut oil with some turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, and a little rosemary and then served it on top of some red kraut and fresh basil.
Very satisfying! I love roasted broccolini ; )
Do notice you prefer different foods when it is hot outside? Do you juice more? Craving anything different in the spring?
I notice I am craving fresh fruit more, especially grapefruit and berries!
And I would like to say hi to some new readers that visited us from MizFit! We look forward in getting to know you more.
Please check out our guest post over at MizFitOnline.
Thanks MizFit, we love ya!
Lori should be checking in tomorrow with some more great eats from France.
Till next time,
Michelle
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: ingredients
Tags: fruit, green smoothie, juice
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 11:02 AM
Hello again friends,
Well Gary and I have been busy over here walking around everyone here in Paris and enjoying all the beautiful sites. Yesterday flew by and we only have one more day here in Paris
We been walking around and talking about how we both can not believe we are here!
My breakfast each morning has been a not so great green smoothie. I have been blending up grapefruit and my fresh herbs that I got from the local farmers market here yesterday.

My little Tri-Best blender has been working fine, it just took me sometime to get the hang of using. But I think it will work out great for the rest of the trip.
I have been snacking on various of raw crackers and raw flat breads
Great for traveling I must say. Gary likes snacking on them too!
Lunch was not so great – therefore I did not take a picture. But it was ok because dinner was delicious!!!!!!
We went to the Louvre and had a great time

Both of us being silly! 
Than it was time to leave the Louvre and go walk around more

We stopped by a famous restaurant and known for their hot chocolate!
Angelina is the name and oh boy did it have delicious hot chocolate and so cute inside. Though we had to wait about 25 minutes – there was a line!!!
Gary waiting in line! So nice of him

Look at all the yummy desserts – though I can not have any
But maybe that is a good thing!!!

And the French Macaroons
Not the typical macaroon you see us eating
Though they look delicious! Loved all the different flavors they offered.
Time to get some hot chocolate and tea!
Gary can hardly wait!

I am ready for my green tea

Here it is the famous hot chocolate!!!!

They bring it out in a side mini pitcher
So cute!

So thick and creamy. Gary loved it!!!! Now that is what I call hot chocolate!
I got some green tea
Seriously the best green tea I ever drank!
After a delicious afternoon snack we walked around some more before dinner. We ended going back to the Louvre to walk around some more.

Here is my being silly again

Ok now onto dinner!
Thanks to a reader we went to Le Grenier De Notre Dame – a vegetarian restaurant. It was FABULOUS!
Gary and I had a wonderful time there and the food was great!!!!
So cute and quaint!
We sat upstairs

Got some glasses of wine. Not everything on the menu was vegan though they did offer vegan options. And not everything was gluten free because they did use soy sauce and seitan (wheat). Therefore I went with a salad
Gary’s dinner! I can not remember what he got but he loved it!
I got an endive salad with walnuts, hazelnuts, oranges, peppers, olives and fresh herbs. It was DELICIOUS!!!!!
This meal was much better than lunch.
Walked around some more
Came back and drank some more wine and snacked on some broken lemon cookies

And watched New Moon!
Not a bad way to end the night!
Till next time,
Lori
The Twins
L&M
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Miscellaneous
Tags: avocado, green smoothie, salad, wine
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 01:23 PM
Happy Thursday everyone!
We wanted to go over a few things going along with our coconut kefir video. Michelle forgot to mention a few things. Many of you might see kefir starter packs in your local stores or online. The difference between the kefir starter packs and the grains is that the packs only last a few times while the grains could possible last a lifetime. That way you really only have to buy the grains once because they will continue to populate and make more. Though if you are just curious and starting out with making kefir the starter packs are a great way to go.
Going along with the grains there are two types water and milk. Both are great! We use both. And now for the ‘milk’ grains you do not necessary have to use dairy to make them as you saw in our video coconut milk seems to be working out just fine. Yes you all may be thinking that the ‘milk’ grains are not vegan, which is true. But we do not make our kefir using ‘real’ milk just coconut or hemp milks and we are loving it because it is very similar to real kefir and it has the sour and creaminess that we love. So to us it is ok even if it started out with real ‘milk’ grains. Though you may experiment with whatever type of grain and liquid you feel most comfortable with doing. We plan to show more on making water kefir later this week.
Anymore questions please just let us know. We are here to help and would love to see more of you trying out making your own kefir!!!!
Ok enough of kefir now onto our eats for over the past few days.
Going along with Gena’s theme of saying “I LOVE TO EAT!” And you all know Michelle and I love to do that. Though we have struggled with eating disorders too. Our journey was a little bit different (our food issues all were based around our stomach issues- we would not eat because we did not want to feel like crap) though eventually over time we finally learned to love food again and embrace ourselves and the food we eat. We also struggled with our body images that we know many of you deal with as well though we will save that big topic another day!
Therefore in honor of National Eating Disorder week we wanted to show you all that eating healthy can be fun, delicious, and comforting! And of course great for your body and mind!
A great lunch filled with coconut oil, pure2raw sunflower cheez flatbread and sauerkraut!

Heavenly! Everyone needs to make this and taste a bit if heaven
Snack was some cilantro mixed in with some fermented veggies and pumpkin seeds (grounded into flour) of course

And avocado for dinner/dessert – yes please!

Avocado key lime pudding mixed in some sunflower lecithin
Hits the spot of us both every time. We are huge fans of key lime!!!!
And of course to start our day today …. green smoothie
This delicious smoothie was filled with dino kale, grapefruit, coconut oil, sunflower lecithin, stevia and lots of fresh ginger
Lately all I have been craving is sauerkraut and grapefruit! Not sure why but I guess those are not bad things to crave
Ok well I challenge of all you to say you love FOOD and yourself!!! And talk about food and why you eat food. Remember food is not your enemy as long as you are eating what is right for your body and it makes you feel good. It took Michelle and I a very long time to realize this and now we are happier than ever! Though not every day we are perfect or 100% happy with everything, though we are grateful with the food choices we make and know that we are on the journey to a better health!
Now go out there and make some delicious food and tell us all about it.
Till next time,
Lori
The Twins
L&M
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Hot Topics, Miscellaneous
Tags: green smoothie, sauerkraut, sunflower lecithin
Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 04:08 PM
Hey friends,
Glad to see everyone liking Michelle’s Coconut Avocado Rice Stack dish! Yummy making me crave it again
Definitely snowed here but not as bad as I know other places got hit with this snow storm
But hey us Florida raised girls are not good with the ice or snow! And we mainly got more ice than snow!


My backdoor area

Snow/sleet is still coming down slowly. Not as bad as I was expecting which is a good thing. I know many of our northern readers think this is a piece of cake
the only thing about snow is when it melts and turns to ice!!!! That is the part I hate!
To keep us warm this morning we whipped a warmed apple pie green smoothie

Pure2Raw Recipe: Warm Apple Pie Green Smoothie
3-4 stalks kale (we used dino kale)
1 –1 1/2 cups water (depending on your level of thickness you prefer)
1 tbsp coconut oil
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom
1 inch fresh ginger
2-3 apples, chopped
1 packet stevia (add more if you need to)
2 tsp lemon juice
How to make it warmed?
One you blend it for a long time or do what we did.
Place some coconut oil in a skillet and place chopped apples in skillet over low heat. And let the apples get a little warm than transfer to blender and blend till creamy!
It is a nice treat on a cold day though you are still able to get your green smoothie in
We put ours in a bowl coffee cup (kinda like a bowl) in honor of this sweet lady. We have seen her put her smoothies in a bowl and thought what a cute idea. Though we did not have any of the fun toppings she usually puts on top
But that is ok, it was still a fantastic smoothie to start our day!
Workout:
55 minute of this new Yoga DVD

(source)
Yep Jennifer Aniston’s yoga instructor’s new dvd. We were so excited to finally get this in the mail that we bought a few days ago
We have seen it around in the blog world. And have heard great reviews of it!
Twins Review: 2 thumbs up!!!
We love it. Love the quality of the dvd, the music, the instructor (which is huge for us), and of course loved the yoga poses
Mandy is a doll. So cute and honest in the video. She really makes you feel like you can do anything and so positive about life. I can see why Jennifer Aniston really fell in love with Mandy’s yoga practice style. So different and unique and intense. You will feel your butt, thighs, and abs burn
It is definitely a different pace yoga dvd compared to others we have tried. We really like how she incorporates strength training moves along with yoga.
Post-workout meal: Mint lime avocado pudding

Looks a little plain?!?!! Pudding needs something to jazz it up

There that is better
Yacon syrup always does the trick!
Got a little hungry few hours later so grabbed some fermented foods

Raw sauerkraut with carrots

Raw fermented veggies

Perfect!
Got something delicious for dinner and dessert tonight
Let’s just say lots of chocolate involved!!! Can I have dessert before dinner!?!?!
Check out some great giveaways going on:
Lauren’s glass straws
Kristen Chia seeds
Averie iherbs
Till next time,
The Twins
L&M
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Un-baked
Tags: green smoothie
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 03:57 PM
Hello friends,
Glad to see that everyone is enjoying our raw lasagna recipe
It is a lot of fun to make and easy to once you got all your layers ready to go! It makes us so happy to hear that many of you would like to try raw lasagna!!!
And we are happy to hear we have inspired some of you to make fermented veggies like our friend Elena.
Re-cap of our eats from Monday!
Our day started with our morning workout!
Followed by a delicious green smoothie of green kale and apples 
Due to having a colonic we did not really have lunch.
But after our colonic we were starving so we made kefir mint kale shake

And we hand a new snack, we dehydrated our leftover butternut squash strips leftover from our raw lasagna
They were a little weird at first, but we kept eating them and ended up really liking them. We can see this as a new snack in the near future
Just coated them with olive oil and spices then dehydrated them overnight. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
Later on we were still hungry so we had ourselves our leftover beet cheese spread from the raw lasagna with 2 slices of our raw onion flatbread
YUMMY!!! Great way to use leftover spreads…perfect companions ; )
Then for our raw dessert we created something fun.
Pure2raw Cookies-n-Cream Mush

What is it?
A blend of coconut flakes, coconut oil, and crumbled in our Pure2Raw Brownie Bites. PERFECTION!!

I know these lovely ladies, Averie and Katie, love some raw brownie bites.

Great way to end a Monday!!
Now for some of our newest readers welcome! Many of you have requested about the raw nut free coconut yogurt that you have been seeing a lot lately, well we have shown how we make that a few times on our blog!
Here are the links:
First time Michelle made raw yogurt at 105 degrees and fell in love with it!
Second time we tried to re-create the yogurt but with out using nuts (remember we like to use the least amount of nuts if possible)
Third time we just keep on trying to make a different version of the yogurt.
As you can tell we love our homemade coconut based raw yogurt!
Though you have to be willing to open a lot of coconuts!!! But promise it is well worth it!
Although another time we made nut free raw seed pulp yogurt we were inspired first my Gena’s sesame milk, and we used the pulp to make yogurt.
Okay time to get back in the kitchen. We have been making some new recipes ; )
Till next time,
Lori
The Twins
L&M
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Un-baked, ingredients
Tags: green smoothie, nut free
Friday, January 8, 2010 at 08:06 PM
Good Morning friends,
Well as many people are running in the half marathon this morning like Sabrina, Katy, and Melissa to name just a few. We wanted to wish them all the best of luck in the race
We have been getting questions of why we are eating the foods we are eating before our race and we plan to share that with you all over these next few days.
We started our day yesterday with a few chocolate truffles and treated ourselves to some coffee.
Than we went to the hotel’s gym to do a easy 30 minute workout. We did a mix of walk, sprint, and easy jog. Then we did a little stretching. Felt great!

Back in the room we enjoyed a romaine grapefruit smoothie with some maca, coconut oil, sunflower lecthin, and msm powder. Delicious!!!! It got thick from the coconut oil so it turned out to be more like a pudding!

Again eating out of a jar just for Heather

Seriously one of the best ways to start the day!! Although it turned out to be our lunch.
Next we packed up all our bags again and moved into another hotel! Traveling with us can be crazy sometimes!
As we drove over to the other hotel we snacked on some raw crackers that we made before leaving NC.


This is our home for the next two days. This is the new tower at the Contemporary Resort.


By the time we unloaded all the bags again we got a little hungry. So Michelle whipped up some coconut yogurt with some spirulina, yacon syrup, and chia seeds.

Plus we sipped on some kombucha.

Then it was time to start making all the goodies for this weekend. All of our pre-workout, during workout, and after workout goodies.
Had to buy some more bananas though – the older sis wanted some of our treats!
She wanted energy too and didn’t want to be left out ! Love her!

These little bananas cost us $5.50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Better be some good bananas!
Dinner – Round One
One jar of sauerkraut with hemp seeds

Round Two
One jar of fermented veggies (daikon, leeks, beets, carrots) topped with dulse flakes and tahini once again!!!!! Heather we are in love!!!!

Dessert was a few more chocolate truffles! YUM! Can’t get enough of these babies. Good thing we made a double batch.
Our older sister gave us a surprise!

Thanks sis YOU ARE THE BEST!!! It was a package full of marathon goodies to help get us get through the race.

Some water, epsom salt, hand warmers, hand bands, chapstick, nose strips, and kleenax plus a few more things!
Well time to go cheer everyone on and than Food Bloggers Lunch with a bunch of great girls. We are very excited to meet everyone!
We will check back in later,
The Twins
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Hot Topics
Tags: green smoothie, sunflower lecithin, tahini
Friday, January 8, 2010 at 03:30 PM
Hey luvs
Sorry that our music playlist came out so small. We are not sure what happened when we imported it ; /
As we mentioned earlier that we were having technology issues. But we are back in action. Glad to see everyone enjoying our first video!!!
Here is our day yesterday!!!!
Today we started our morning with one of our typical green smoothies, similar to yesterday.
Glass of water kefir was a mid-morning snack.
Lunch was a glorious salad with fermented veggies, raw sauerkraut, and a slice of raw onion flatbread. Perfect!!! This kept us full all afternoon : )


Snack was un-pictured chocolate macaroons and glass of our homemade Kombucha. We had to show the sis a scoby!!
Then we debated if we wanted to go for a quick run or hit up the expo. We decided the expo to hopefully beat the crowd.
At Disney Marathon Expo at the Wide World of Sports.

Older sis Jen and Lori

Where is Michelle??? Sorry for the dark picture

Oh there I am!

Getting excited for the race…we think ; )
The expo was crazy as it is every year. Although this year was our first year going on Thursday (our past races Friday is normally the day we arrived), which was nice because it was a little less crowded.
We did browse all the booths but nothing really sparked our interest. It is the same thing every year. Well the expo took longer than we expected, so no workout today : (
We got our goody bag, race bib, race t-shirt, and these most essential post race celebration tools

By the time we got back, we were starving and quickly gobbled down some yummy eats.
The first part was inspired by the wonderful Heather.
Our first meal out of a jar full of fermented carrots and daikon plus a couple spoonfuls of tahini.
Yummy and creamy
We sprinkled in dulse and nutritional yeast!

Seriously this was the best meal….something we plan to recreate again. Heather I think we love tahini just as much as you do : )
Hopefully we made you proud Heather.
Second part of our meal was our homemade raw yogurt which we stirred in chia seeds and drizzled with yacon syrup!! YUM! Look like ice cream.

And of course we have been staying hydrated with our lots of water and some coconut water : ) Gotta love Zico!!
Then we quickly rushed and packed the cars and headed to our hotel. Well hotel number one for this night. This part is a little confusing, our sister got us a room closer for the marathon, the resort we try to stay at every time therefore we leave here tomorrow to check in there tomorrow. The joys of being in our family…we tend to make things a bit more complicated.
My older sister and her husband our Disney Vacation club members and had a room for the weekend at Saratoga Springs at the same time of the marathon.

Anyone want to go for a swim??
This was our first time here and we were blown away of how nice it is that we are sad to have to check out tomorrow. : (

Nice pic….Lori in the background, haha.
Cute little kitchen…oh yes we filled the fridge

Green Smoothie? Or Raw sauerkraut anyone? Or maybe raw yogurt? Are you surprised?? haha
Having a fridge is a must now for us raw vegans : )
Lori was kind and made us all some tea.
Finally relaxing while watching the big game.
Off to go relax hopefully!
Till next time,
The Twins
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Uncategorized
Tags: green smoothie, tahini
Friday, January 1, 2010 at 08:35 AM
Hope everyone had a great News Years Eve!!
Here is our first meal of 2010

Pear Green Smoothie
Pure2Raw Recipe: Pear Green Smoothie
Serves 1 – 3 cups of pure goodness
- 1 cup water
- 1 frozen banana
- 1 pear
- 3-4 stalks of kale
- 2 tbsp flax meal
- pinch sea salt
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
Blend and enjoy!
Our mom emailed us this morning and said she made this smoothie too and loved it!! : )
Have you had your green smoothie today??
We quickly wanted to share some things we are going to work on in the new year:
- Take one night off from all work
- Make a mess, clean it up immediately
- Try a yoga studio
- Get better control over our email -inbox
- Find a better balance between work and personal time
- Be more positive
There are more but these are the ones that came to my mind right now ; ) Still waking up I guess.
Do you have any goals for the new year?
Have a great New Years Day!!
Till next time,
The Twins
L&M
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Uncategorized
Tags: green smoothie, yoga
Saturday, December 26, 2009 at 08:22 AM
Hey everyone
Hope everyone had a great Christmas or the holiday you may celebrate.
I must say I did miss having my twin sis around but my family tends to keep busy with random projects, so I have not had much time to get any work done that I brought home, sorry sis, we will have to it when I get home.
Lori had a great time in the mountains, although she complained a lot that she was cold. Well I must say the weather here has been perfect. The sun has been out most of the time and when you can wear sandals all day I have no complaints!
I did get to meet up with some of girls for a quick catch up the other day. It is always so nice to see old friends, because these girls mean the world to me : ) I am so grateful for having such great friends!! We all live all over the country so we do not get to see each other much anymore, so any chance we get is always a special time.
Well I was up late with the older sis,Jen, wrapping gifts….we were playing Santa this year : ) We also did some prep work for Christmas day meals.
Things Jen and I made:
Can you guess what I enjoyed? Both my older sisters tried the raw macaroons loved them : )
Christmas morning I rose early to get these in the oven
This is a family tradition….homemade cinnamon buns ; ) These are not gluten free nor vegan so Jen and I did not enjoy any. I was thinking about making raw cinnamon buns but honestly was just lazy!
I did make myself and my other sister, Carrie, some hot cocoa for us non-coffee drinkers
Perfect!

Sorry for the poor picture(s)
My mom made two different quiches for all the non-vegans in the family.

The whole spread
I will admit I am a great baker…
Cinnamon buns came out perfect!
Almost made me want to have some…

My grandpa said it was much than store bought ; )

But I greatly enjoyed one of these

Green Smoothie
One glass for Jen and one glass for me…it was a perfect blend of collard greens, bananas, lemon, and a stevia! Oh and I think I might of added a little cinnamon too ; ) My tummy thanked me for this!!
We had a lots of fun opening gifts and then it was time to get back in the kitchen. I made some veggie dishes for us girls…butternut squash zucchini hash with a acorn squash tahini sauce, a mix of roasted veggies, and a large avocado salad with nutritional yeast and dulse! Everyone else enjoyed the typical holiday food, while my sisters and I enjoyed our greens.
My plate…x2
Delicious…I even think I ate a little too much…crazy…who says you cannot fill up on just greens and veggies ; )
I did enjoy some Organic Vino and 2 raw candy cane macaroons. It was a great ending to end the day.
Now I am not sure what my plans are for today…some how have to figure how to pack my suitcase with all my presents.
Till next time,
Michelle
Posted by: Pure2
Posted in: Uncategorized
Tags: gluten free, green smoothie