Before I get to my adventures in raw food I wanted to share fun news! One of my blog posts is now syndicated on BlogHer.com! Check out January Diet? Nope, I bought new clothes, now part of this fabulous initiative:
I am honored to be a part of the Own Your Beauty campaign!
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The (higher) raw vegan adventure
No, I am not “going raw,” but, as I mentioned in my 2011 “firsts and repeats” post, I do hope to incorporate more raw foods into my vegan diet. Check out the benefits of a raw diet from Kristen’s Raw.
Sunday morning I started with a fresh juice:
- 3 carrots
- 2 stalks of celery
- 3 leaves of kale (pulled off the stem)
- 1 tomato
- 1 apple
I stirred in the juice of half a lemon, a dash of Himalayan pink salt and a dash of cayenne pepper. This was savory and hit the spot.
Mid-morning I started to experiment with nuts and fruits to make a protein-filled breakfast before going to the gym.
JL’s Raw Fruity, Nutty Breakfast
Serves 2
INGREDIENTS
- 1/2 c cashews, soaked in water for one hour
- 1/2 c frozen blueberries, set aside in a bowl to thaw for one hour
- 1 ripe banana
- 2 T hemp seed
- Dash of cinnamon
METHOD
Drain the cashews and place in a food processor with an S blade. Add blueberries, banana and hemp seed and pulse to desired consistency. Transfer to a bowl, add a dash of cinnamon and serve.
This may become one of my favorite breakfast dishes! It was so easy and it was packed with hearty flavor!
For lunch I enjoyed a small cabbage-celery-onion salad with a walnut-almond dressing
and a piping hot bowl
of my husband’s soba noodle soup.
JL’s Nutty Salad Dressing
Makes 1/2 cup
INGREDIENTS
- 1/2 c sliced almonds
- 1/4 c chopped walnuts
- 2 T coconut water vinegar
- 1 T olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, diced
- 1/4 t Herbamere
- 1/4 c water
METHOD
Place all ingredients except the water in the blender. Blend, adding water slowly to achieve desired consistency. Serve over raw veggies
and add pepper to taste.
This dressing will be a new staple for me. Even the omni husband, whose typical response to my request to “taste this!” is to scrunch up his nose and ask “what’s in it?”, gave it a major thumbs up!
Speaking of the husband, in his own words,
db’s Soba Noodle Soup
Serves 4 – 6
Get your pot and throw in some water and veggie stock (about 1/3 water to 2/3 stock). I didn’t really measure, so apologies all around. I guess I went about half way up the side of a medium sized pot!
Get that boiling…..and while you’re waiting for the liquid to boil:
Chop / dice / whatever you feel like a 1/2 a red pepper and 1/2 a yellow pepper, dice a 1/3 of an onion and mince a clove or two of garlic
Throw all of that in a skillet. Saute for a while – squirt a bit of Sriracha sauce in there. If you don’t have that, toss in some red pepper flakes.
When the liquid comes to a boil, throw in a couple bundles of Soba noodles. The ones we bought came as a “Four-Pack”. No better way to explain it – but use what you think you need! Again, I don’t do a lot of measuring here, as I’m not baking there’s no need.
After 4-5 minutes or so, throw in the veggies from the skillet. Then, while that’s all coming together, chop up some cabbage and throw that in the pot for the last couple of minutes.
That’s it. Serve as you please. This gets better with age – a few days later and it tastes better.
Finally, I decided to try a new bread in the Excalibur dehydrator.
JL’s Savory Seed Bread
Makes 20-ish small pieces
INGREDIENTS
- 2/3 c flax seed (I mixed brown and golden)
- 2/3 c sunflower seeds
- 1/3 c chia seeds
- 1/3 c sesame seeds
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 c water
- 1 T Bragg Liquid Aminos
- 1 + 1/2 t vegan worchestershire sauce
- 2 pinches of cayenne pepper
- 1 t sweet basil (dry)
METHOD
Pulse the seeds and slowly add water, garlic, Bragg Liquid Aminos and the vegan worchestershire sauce. Pulse until desired consistency (not too dry, not too liquid, I like to see the seeds.) Add cayenne pepper and sweet basil and give it one last pulse.
Spread on two Excalibur trays covered with ParaFlexx sheets. Dehydrate on 140 for one hour, score into bread slices, reduce to 105 degrees for another eight hours. Flip and remove ParaFlexx sheet and dehydrate for nine more hours. Snap into bread slices. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator (I prefer glass containers.)
This sandwich is filled with a mash of carrot pulp (from my morning juice, thanks to Gena of Choosing Raw for the great idea!), avocado, lemon juice and my Nutty Salad Dressing.
You will notice that the bread slices are small. This is dense with seeds and a little goes along way. The sandwich above was absolutely perfect and quite filling.
By the way, does the bread recipe sound familiar? I modified my own Savory Seed Cracker recipe, scored larger pieces and dehydrated longer on lower heat.
I am having fun experimenting with raw foods, but it is new to me so, please, share some of your favorite raw recipes!
