Raw Foods Recipes Part 2: Lunch and Dinner

These are some of the recipes I've really been enjoying for lunches and dinners:

California Rolls

2 sheets nori

2 c alfalfa or clover sprouts

1/4 cucumber, peeled, seeded & cut lengthwise into thin strips

1/2 avocado, thinly sliced

1/4 c peeled & shredded carrot or carrot ribbons

1/4 red pepper, cut lengthwise into thin strips

tamari for dipping (optional)

I've also liked my mom's nori rolls which had:

Rice

Avocado

Purple onion

Asparagus (slightly cooked) 

Cucumber. 

 The rice is optional.  It helps them stick together and is filling and makes it cheaper, but of course is cooked so not suitable if you're trying for 100% raw.

A really simple nori roll recipe is just avocado and sprouts.  I think I used buckwheat, lentil, and quinoa sprouts, but you could do any kind.

Today I had this delicious Kale Slaw with Curried Almond Dressing, except I left a few things out of the dressing, like the curry, so it ended up like this:

Kale Slaw with Almond Dressing

1 apple cored and julienned, tossed in 1 tsp lemon juice

2 ½- 3 cups julienned kale, stems discarded

1 ½ cups grated carrot

1 cup very thinly sliced or julienned fennel (optional)

¼ cup cranberries or raisins

Creamy Almond Dressing

½ cup raw almonds

2 ½ tbsps apple cider vinegar

2 tbsps maple syrup, agave or honey

2/3 cup water

¼ tsp minced garlic

¼ tsp ginger

½ tsp mustard

½ tsp sea salt

Blend until smooth.  Pour over salad.

Garnish with 2-4 tbsps chopped or sliced almonds

This Lasagna is great as well:

Lasagna

2 c spinach

1/2 c marinara

1/2 zucchini

1/2 avocado, mashed

Finely chop spinach. Thinly slice zucchini lengthwise (best if you use a mandoline.)

Layer sauce, zucchini, sauce, avocado, spinach. Repeat. Eat.

Marinara

In a food processor, blend:

1/2 c tomato

1/2 c sun dried tomatoes, soaked

1/2 red bell pepper

1 T fresh basil

1 T EVOO

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 t garlic

1/4+ t salt

dash cayenne

This "taco salad" recipe is a combination of two recipes.  Part of it is from Ani Phyo's Baja Fresh Taco Boats and the other part is from Happy Foody's Walnut Meat Taco Salad. 

Walnut or Almond “Meat” Taco Salad

Walnut or Almond “Meat”
 
1/2 cup almonds (you can also substitute pecans or any other nut)
1/2 cup walnuts  (can use all almonds)
1 T ground cumin
1 T ground coriander
1/3 cup olive oil
2/3 t sea salt
1 t nama shoyu or soy sauce

Process almond and walnuts and put aside in a bowl. Add other ingredients and mix well with a spoon. Keeps for 4-5 days in the fridge.

Salsa

4 tomatoes, chopped
2 scallions
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup parsley
1/2 cup cilantro
1 T cider vinegar
1 T olive oil
1 T lime juice
1 t cumin
1 t sea salt
Jalapeno to taste

Pulse blend in food processor to blend (I like to leave large chunks of tomato in and add separately). Let sit for an hour in fridge so the flavors can blend.

Guacamole
 
2 avocados
1 tomato
1/4 cup onion or green onions
1/4 cup cilantro
Sea salt to taste
Pinch of Cayenne

Food process until desired consistency.

Cashew Sour Cream
 

1 1/2 cups soaked cashews (soak 8 hours and rinse)
1/2 t salt
2 T lemon juice
Approx. 3/4 cup fresh water

Blend in blender until smooth. Add more lemon juice or salt to taste. I like to put this in a squirt bottle and squirt it on top of the taco or other wraps. It looks pretty

    OR Cilantro Cashew Cheeze

    1 1/2 teaspoon garlic

    1/2 teaspoon sea salt

    1 cup cashews

    2 Tablespoons lemon juice, fresh, from about 1 lemon

    1/4 cup packed cilantro leaves

    1/4 cup water, as needed

     To make cheeze, process garlic and salt into small pieces. Add cashews, juice, cilantro, and only enough water to process into a thick cream texture.

Raw Foods Recipes Part 1: Smoothies

Beginning in August, I started eating a primarily raw foods diet again.  I've done this before and always feel great when I do, but then I slowly get back into old habits and before I know it, I'm only eating fruit for snacks and veges on the side with dinner.  I didn't make any commitments, I just did it and was thrilled to continue after August was over.  It was MUCH easier this time to start.  I was familiar with the whole idea and the basic recipes already.  My husband is away fighting fires, so I didn't have to worry about eating different meals than him or what he might like.  I've gotten in the habit of making meal plans and shopping sales, so it was just a matter of switching it to raw meals.  I've been feeling really good and wondering why on earth I ever stopped eating this way!

Here are some of the recipes I've been enjoying.

For breakfast, I've mostly been drinking smoothies.

If you scroll down on this post from We Like It Raw, you'll find recipes for a Berry BlissTastic Smoothie and a Giddy and Green Smoothie.  Both are delicious!  I modified them a little- I use dates instead of figs in both and no sesame seeds on the Berry BlissTastic Smoothie.   

This recipe from The Rawtarian for an Orange Smoothie inspired me to make something similar: 

2 bananas
2 oranges
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon coconut oil

Blend.  Enjoy!  It tastes just like those orange creamsicle icecreams.

Another good one is the Spinach Mango Smoothie:

2 bananas

1 mango

handful of spinach

enough water to give it the consistency you desire

Blend!

This Sweet Kiwi Green Smoothie and this Zesty Raw Vegan Grape Parsley Lemonade Smoothie from Healthy Blender Recipes are delicious as well!

Last but not least are these chocolate milkshake type smoothies that will make all thoughts of chalky vending machine chocolate run from your mind screaming.  This Chocolate Mint Smoothie from Girl Gone Green is heaven in a glass and inspired me to start growing my own mint!  

This evening I invented my own chocolate smoothie that I had for dinner:

Chocolate Blueberry Smoothie

2 bananas

½ cup blueberries

2 tablespoons cocoa

½ cups cashews

1 ½ cups water

I'll post lunch and dinner recipes soon!

Easy, Cheap and Fairly Healthy

I don't really like to cook. Baking is ok now and then, mostly because I want somewhat healthy baked sweets, not because I actually enjoy the act of baking. But cooking is usually too much effort for too little results. I do not make meals, I make dishes that serve as meals. Pasta, for example, is a one-dish meal. My family is lucky if I make a salad with it. I will never do a whole spread with meat, pasta, salad, bread, dessert unless company is over which is maybe once a year.

All of that being said, I have been hitting some homeruns in the cooking department lately. Homerun meaning at least 3 out of 4 of the solid food eating members of my household like it and it requires minimal work and preferably creates leftovers. My husband has been out of town for work, which means I have to actually attempt cooking (he usually does it), because my kids are not happy living off of oatmeal, fruit, granola bars, salad and cookies like I am (no really, they turn down cookies).

I discovered supercook.com, where you can input the ingredients you have in your kitchen and it will spew out recipes that use those ingredients.

This is colcannon, which is an Irish version of mashed potatoes (come to think of it, they probably invented mashed potatoes in the first place). Anyway, in my quest to make as many things as possible vegan, I think next time I will use coconut oil instead of butter.


The girls have been asking for pancakes every single morning since I started using this recipe. They are vegan, whole wheat and fluffy, which sounds like an oxymoron, but it's true! It's the massive amount of baking powder that's the secret.



Egg salad with rice to make it stretch. (We were at my mom's for dinner and she said she was going to use rice to make the chicken grow. E looked out the window at grandma's garden and said "You grow chicken?!" Grandma explained that no, chicken is an animal, we are just using the rice to make it stretch.... No. Wait. We aren't really stretching chicken either. And we wonder why it's hard for people to learn English when they move here!) Anyway, the girls and I liked it in a flour tortilla with ranch and lettuce. (Yes, I'm a total hypocrite talking about trying to eat vegan and then chowing down on eggs and ranch dressing).

Latkes are potato pancakes and we had them for the first time at a Hanukkah party. Serving them with applesauce is key, they just aren't the same alone or with ketchup.

My oven broke, so I was looking for microwave cake recipes and found a few that I combined into my own. They turned out more like granola bars, but they are sweet enough for dessert.

Mix in a bowl:

1/2 cup oil
1 1/3 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar (next time I'll try honey and see how they turn out)
2 eggs (I skipped them one time I made this and just added a little water and they still turned out good)
1 t vanilla
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg

Then add:

1 cup chocolate chips

Optional:

1/2 cup cranberries (this makes them really tangy and yummy

Microwave for 6 minutes or until firm. If you do it longer, they are more like crunchy granola bars. If you do it for less time they are a bit chewier.


One of my favorite dishes is pasta with alfredo sauce and I've missed it since I stopped eating dairy. I finally learned how to make a good, vegan white sauce and it's so easy. Just make roux with olive oil instead of butter and rice milk instead of cow's milk. Since I never know what seasonings to use, I made it with vegetable broth instead of rice milk. At that point it was no longer anything like alfredo, but with some chopped spinach and sundried tomatoes on top of egg noodles, it was delicious.

Feeling Inspired

So much local, organic, seasonal, living food. I'm feeling inspired to get serious about going vegan and maybe even go raw. My friend Annalise blogs about her raw foods diet, and she has been talking a lot lately about how much energy she has. It sounds so nice! My friend Ceanne has also been blogging about some yummy sounding raw recipes.

For a long time, I've tried to stick to eating the foods God made vs. foods concocted in a lab by people in white coats. I do better some days than others, but overall, I don't eat a lot of processed foods. When I do, I try to have things like organic chips, homemade cookies, and sprouted bread.

My biggest struggles are dairy and sugar. I used to have gallbladder attacks, but I haven't since I cut back on eating dairy. I no longer drink milk and rarely eat cheese. I eat less butter and yogurt than I used to, though those don't seem to bother me as much anyway. But sometimes I crave dairy, and binge on it. I bring myself almost to the point of a gallbladder attack before I back off again. I do the same thing with sugar. I don't have any for a while, and don't crave it and feel good. Then I have a little bit as a treat with Damien or on impulse, and before I know it, I'm bingeing on it every day again. That has gotten a little better since we stopped restricting foods with E. Now, I don't feel like I have to hide what I'm eating from her, and I'm allowing myself more freedom from guilt trips. That has helped me to not binge so often and to recover quicker when I do.

So, I've been trying to figure out why I binge on things that I know will make me feel bad, even to the point of the excruciating pain of a gallbladder attack. I realized recently, that I'm a food addict. I eat when I'm depressed. Of course, I could choose to binge on fruit when I'm depressed, but I think there is this self destructive part of me that actually wants to make myself suffer. So, I feel bad, then eat bad food, then feel worse, then eat worse food. It's this horrible cycle.

No one would guess this from looking at me. I'm 5'9" and 140 pounds. I have a flat stomach and wear smaller pants than I did in highschool. My butt is a little flabby, but other than that I'm pretty happy with my body. I think a combination of luck, genetics, a fast metabolism, staying active, and burning about 2000 calories a day just by nursing two kids, keeps me from gaining weight.

I know that I have gallstones that I need to get out of my system. I'm sure I'll feel better once I do that. Then I need to eat in a way that doesn't create more. For me, that means staying away from dairy. I seem to be able to eat meat fine (though I want to stick with local, organic, farm raised if I eat any at all). I feel better overall when I eat more raw. A few months ago, D and I did 2 weeks 100% vegan and 80% raw, and I felt great.

With summer here, and all that wonderful, seasonal, organic, local produce sitting in my fridge, right now is the perfect time to start.

Summer Goodness

I went to the farmers' market yesterday and got a ton of veges. I posted on facebook that it cost under $20, but when I thought back, I think I actually spent less than $10! Spinach, squash, zucchini, lettuce, beans, onions. And apricots too.

We went berry picking today- raspberries, marionberries and a few blackberries. About 10 pounds for $15. They are so good, juicy, sweet, mmmmmm! I'm going to make a marionberry pie with some of them, but we will probably eat most of them raw.

Then I went to work in our garden co-op this evening, and came home with peas and beans.

30 Days Raw

D and I are going to try to do 30 days eating 80% raw foods, and 100% vegan. We are 4 days into it and it's hard, but I'm feeling good. We've been eating lots of fruit smoothies, green smoothies, salads, and wraps. My mom gave us a platter that has a bunch of different sections. We've been filling that up with fruit, veges, nuts and seeds to snack on throughout the day. The only cooked food we've had at home is fallafel and beans. We cheated a little with Baja Fresh the other day, but it was vegan and our only cooked thing for the day. We also had pizza today on accident. How does one have pizza by accident? We took E to Papa's Pizza because they have an indoor playground, and we couldn't resist the smell. So, we got a salad bar and pizza buffet. I managed to stick to 80% raw- I filled up on salad before I let myself have one peice of pizza. D didn't do so well, but he did eat about 50% salad. And he didn't get any soda!

Even if we don't manage the whole 80% for the whole 30 days, just eating vegan and no processed foods is a huge change for D. I'm really proud of him!