Bunny-sitting Makes Me Crave Salad and Raw Foods

Some of you may remember Chase’s pet rabbit, Smokey. Chase got him about a year ago when he just a baby bunny.



Smokey stayed with me this weekend while Chase’s air conditioner was being repaired and while he tended to a hectic work and summer school schedule. This is Smokey today.

It was hard to get a good shot of him. He liked to jump back and forth over my legs, lick my ankles, then jump some more. Chase says that means he loves me. He’s a beautiful rabbit. He’s very quiet and very sweet and will stare right into your eyes. He also helped me do six loads of Chase’s laundry!

Coincidently, my internet went out yesterday morning. I checked all the cords to make sure Smokey hadn’t unplugged anything. They seemed fine. I asked Chase to buy me a new modem today, which he did, and then he came over for dinner and began to install the modem. I told him I was sorry that I had initially blamed Smokey for the problem. Chase looked at me, stopped what he was doing, and went into the room where Smokey had stayed. After carefully inspecting the phone cord, he found a spot with little rabbit teeth! I took back my apology, got a new phone cord, put the old modem back in, and here I am. Anyway, Chase’s air conditioner is fixed and Smokey is now back home with Chase.

While Smokey was here, I made lots of trips to the fridge for lettuce to feed to him. He’s like me and especially loves the purple variety of oak leaf lettuce. I think he inspired me to make two very yummy salads.

First, Spinach, Artichoke, and Chickpea Salad from Vegan Express.

This salad also had roasted yellow peppers, olives, and cherry tomatoes, and I used mixed greens instead of just spinach as suggested for a variation – delicious!

Second, Ani’s Raw Spinach Salad with Marinated Onions and Mustard Seed Dressing. Again, I used mixed greens and spinach, and this salad was also delicious. I love the mustard seed dressing.

I did try another recipe from Ani’s Raw which was a complete, into-the-garbage can failure. I mostly blame myself. The Lemon Coconut Bars sounded so wonderful, but there is only one step of instructions included, and the recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon of sea salt. I don’t put a whole tablespoon of salt into anything. So, thinking I don’t know anything about raw food prep, but not really wanting to use so much of my sea salt, I only put in a half tablespoon. It smelled heavenly, but oh, man, it was inedibly salty. I should have known better. I wasted a whole cup of expensive raw almonds and I was not happy.

Still wanting a raw treat, I remembered Ruby Red Vegan’s homemade larabars. These are a smashing success!

I also tried my own version of raw treats. I baked them in the sun, then refrigerated them. They turned out really nice and I will post my recipe later this week.

Chase dropped the Take n’ Bake Breakfast Pizza Pie I made for him. So I made him another one and baked it myself.

He took it home with him when he picked up Smokey and said he would eat it that night and let me know how it was. Thankfully, he loved it. He said it tasted like mac n’ cheez on a biscuit and he ate the whole thing!


I’ll be back later in the week with a post about tonight’s dinner and perhaps a couple of recipes. I missed checking all your blogs yesterday! I just hung out with Smokey and watched a little tv and stayed cool in between loads of laundry.