100% Raw Tuesday!

So, the whole "75% Raw" thing has kind of stopped, sadly. We seem caught in a cycle of, "Okay, today is the LAST cheat today.. Tomorrow, NO MORE CHEATING EVER." ...I think we've said that 5 of the last 7 days. BUT! Tuesday we agreed to eat RAW all day - and did it! It was...challenging to keep up in the kitchen, with the dishes and such. Overall, it wasn't bad though. Here was the menu:

Breakfast: Bananas
Lunch: Salad with strawberries, walnuts, and fresh balsamic dressing - and RAW oatmeal raisin cookies
Dinner: Asian Slaw with Peanut Dressing wrapped in Cabbage leaves, and RAW almond "reeses" cups.

Of that day...none of the recipes were really tasty enough to make again or to post online. However, as promised, I will post the recipe for RAW ranch dressing that I made a few days ago. Tastes exactly the same, though the texture is a bit different.

RAW Ranch Dressing:
Preparation time: 5 Minutes
Number of Servings: 24 (or 3 cups)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups cashew(soak them for a creamier dressing (1-2 hrs is fine, then drain)
3/4 - 1 cup filtered water for blending
3 tablespoons lemon juice (translates into approx 1/2 lemon)
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons agave (or 3 soaked dates)
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon garlic pwd
3 teaspoons onion pwd
1 teaspoon dill
1 tablespoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon basil

And to add after it's done:
1/4 cup finely minced parsley
another 1/2 t dill, minced

Directions
Blend all ingredients till creamy and smooth except the last 2, then once blended, stir in the last 2 ingredients.

Thickens in fridge.

Thin to desired consistency if using as a dressing- or toss into wet lettuce leaves as is.


OH OH OH! If you have made it this far in the post, you get a bonus!


Chocolate Frosting! 
Okay, I'll stop with the caps and underlining, but I think this recipe is one of the best tasting and best textured recipe of any RAW desserts I've found so far. I can't believe I almost forgot it. I made it originally to swirl into a cheezecake, but instead just used it to make RAW reeses. Personally, I would have just eaten the whole container right away if hubby hadn't insisted on me actually making something with it. :-) It's not low calorie, but it is amazing!

Makes about one cup of frosting

Ingredients

·         1/2 cup of coconut butter

·         1/2 cup of coconut oil

·         1/4 cup of agave nectar

·         2 heaping tablespoons of cacao powder (I used cheap cocoa powder. Not quite raw, but ya go with what ya got.)

·         1 tablespoon of water (I liked the consistency without the water.)

·         Dash of sea salt

Directions

·         Put all ingredients in Vita-Mix or food processor and blend down until smooth. (I used a fork...less clean up!)

·         It should be very liquidity at this point, unless you leave out the water. 

·         Transfer to a container and chill in the fridge over night, if desired, or use immediately. 

·         The coconut will separate and rise to the top if refrigerated. 

·         Let sit out to defrost for an hour, or set the container in warm water to soften more quickly. 

·         It should still be somewhat solid. Mix it up.

·         It should be an icing like consistency.

·         (Spread nut butter into ice cube tray half way, then top with this frosting, for nut butter cups!)

Here's the "RAW Reeses" I made using this frosting and almond butter! Cute, huh? 

Falling off the Party Wagon

It's been a few days since I've had time or desire to write. I must have hit the diet mental-block that happens to me after about two weeks on any diet. We ran out of budgeted money for food last week, and since then we've been trying to make the food we have left stretch. It was not a good idea. As the fridge got more empty and we got more hungry, the idea of going to buy more healthy food with money designated for bills seemed irresponsible for some reason... Last night, hungry and tired, I went to the grocery store. Another not good idea. I told myself that I would go get the newspaper and see what fresh produce type stuff was on sale or had coupons and then I would find something healthy and quick to eat.

I ended up with deep fried cheese curds. And jalapeño poppers. And cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting.

Ron was pleased, until he realized that I felt  miserable for giving in and buying things we shouldn't have, and then we both felt miserable after eating the stuff. The cheese curds were old so we ended up throwing half of them out. (So much for saving money...) The poppers were okay...but even Ron suggested we give the ones we didn't  use to my brothers. The only redeeming factor were the cinnamon rolls, but when I stepped on the scale this morning and realized that I'd regained a pound of the three I'd lost, they didn't taste so good anymore.

Why is it SO hard to break the habit of having quick, easy food? It's really not much cheaper or faster, it doesn't really taste THAT good, and it makes me feel fat and icky. Rationally, I shouldn't even WANT any ice cream right now. But I do. Sigh.

Anyway, I ran into Angela this morning at the chiropractor and blurted my sins to her after she was kind enough to say that I looked like I lost weight. (Don't know how THAT could be true...lol). Angela is someone who seems to have the whole raw foods thing down - I mean, she is the LEADER of the raw foods potluck group. But when I told her about our binge, she just nodded and said, "ya...I do that sometimes still, too."

Huh. Well, I guess if it still happens to her, I shouldn't beat myself up too much over it. So I came home determined not to feel guilty about last night and made myself some green juice. I feel a bit better, and I can tell that a raw breakfast and the juice has helped me release the water weight from last night.

Still hungry. Still broke. Gonna hafta go buy groceries with some kinda money anyway - guess I'll go buy raw.

Finally, a tasty main dish.

At the RAW class the other night, Celeste showed us how to use rice papers and Nori (neither raw, but still good) to make different kinds of wraps. I LOVED the spring roll wrap, but I couldn't find the rice paper anywhere in town. Then I remembered that I had nori in the cupboard! Who has nori in the cupboard? Someone like me, who randomly decides she's going to make some weird dish but never does - in this case, sushi. So, wah-lah, I have wraps, I have veggies, I have sauce fixings...and YUM! I call them Asian Coleslaw Taquitos because the filling is mostly cabbage and they're shaped like taquitos. :-) I'll post the recipe a different day because it's pretty long. Don't worry, it's quick to make!

Also, Ron and I are huge ice cream addicts, so we had to try some sort of frozen dessert. Surprisingly, our first attempt without a recipe turned out pretty good! Here's the picture and the recipe - it's fast and easy to make! We even let baby Caleb try some, and we tried to take pictures since it was his first ever ice cream...but he was so fast at crawling up on my lap to get more that all of the pictures turned out blurry! lol Guess he's an ice cream kid, too. :-)

Raw Strawberry Ice Cream
Machine: Food Processor
Ingredients:
3-5 cups of frozen strawberries (no sugar added, organic is better, other frozen fruit works)
Agave (or raw honey, depending on the flavor you like better)
Water
Vanilla (optional)

Directions:
Dump in the strawberries. Drizzle with about 3 tablespoons of agave and a couple table spoons of water. Run the food processor, stopping every 15 seconds or so to scrape the sides and taste test. Add agave and/or vanilla as desired. Process until berries are fully integrated, and then scoop and enjoy! :-)

Green Juice!

Wow, that a week in the RAW adventure. It feels like we've been eating this way forever, but this is only the sixth day of "seriously" following 75% RAW. I gave in and weighed myself early (supposed to be Monday) and I've already lost 2 pounds! Without going to the gym!

Highlights from this week that are not recipes: My friend Jaci's mom, Pam, let me tour her hydroponic greenhouse. Man was that an amazing time! A whole GREEN greenhouse in the middle of snowy Wisconsin. And, as we walked through, she filled up two full grocery bags of greens and veggies for me. Thanks so much, Pat! Her greens became the staple for the next day's salad and today's green juice adventure.

And on top of that, Pam paid my way to the RAW foods class in town last night! Being unemployed and broke, we're just doing RAW from my research and what's on sale, so getting to attend class last night was a treat. The teacher, Celeste, was celebrating one year of eating RAW. We got to make her tasty mostly-raw Spring Rolls that were TO DIE FOR. The best non-dessert RAW item I have ever eaten. When I get the ingredients to make it, I will definitely be posting the recipe for that one! Celeste also gave a short lesson on acid vs. alkaline foods. According to her, a person's diet should consist of 80% alkaline foods, and 20% acid foods.Do you know your body's pH balance? Did you even know it was important? Here's the basic idea - when you eat foods, your body uses energy to burn them. Everything that's burned leaves behind ash, right? Food is the same - the ash it leaves behind is either acid (not good), or alkaline (good!) Some examples of acid-burning foods: meat, dairy, flour, rice! And alkaline? You guessed it, most veggies and fruits. An acid pH balance in the body is part of what opens our body to diseases like cancer and diabetes.
I'll be researching more about this as our RAW adventure continues! Until then, here's some recipe experiment updates:

Dessert first, of course! I made a RAW Raspberry Cheezecake. I think it was a hit, considering Ron ate half of it for breakfast the next morning! :-) I'll put the recipe at the bottom of this post, so as not to take up space here.

A few days ago, I made the miserable mistake of making a salad with a HUGE piece of ginger. A recipe should NOT call for "a small piece of ginger"...WHAT IS SMALL?? I didn't know...obviously. ANYway, we have a rule in the house right now: "No throwing away experiments...no matter how bad." So, we choked it down the first day, and each day tried to add or change something about it to make it edible. FINALLY, thanks to Pat's greenhouse, the end of the miserable ginger salad made a wonderful topping to my NEW salad. This one has some red leaf lettuce, colllard greens, miserable ginger salad, candied walnuts, and balsalmic vinegar dressing. Oh so tasty! And about 5 cups worth of green leafy veggies in one day. I think that's good. :-)


And finally, GREEN JUICE! I don't have a juicer, so this experiment started out as a smoothie. It was no where near smooth, and tasted a lot like my green soup - like grass. BUT with the addition of some RAW honey and some raisins, it got nice and sweet. Then, when I strained it through a regular mesh strainer, it got down right tasty! At least...to me. You can tell by Ron's picture that he isn't quite convinced.
The magic thing is - I felt groggy and miserable before drinking this juice. I had eaten some sort of left over apple/coconut mash experiment fail for breakfast (sounds tasty, I know...), but still felt starving and out of it. Then I drank some juice! I actually feel a ton better! Maybe it's time to invest in a juicer...

I realized now that some people are actually reading my blog. Leave comments if you have any questions!

As promised, the Raspberry Cheeze-cake recipe.
Just Like Cheesecake
- by Emily Lee Angell

Makes: 24 slivers
Special Equipment: Food Processor, Spring form pan

Pecan Crust:

2 1/4 c Pecans

1/4 tsp celtic sea salt

1 c Dates, tightly packed

2 tbls Filtered Water


For the cheese:
3 cups chopped cashews, soaked for at least 1 hour
3/4 cup lemon juice (or lime juice)
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon celtic sea salt (optional)

For raspberry sauce:
1 bag frozen raspberries
agave nectar to taste

DIRECTIONS
To make the crust, process the nuts and dates in the food processor. Sprinkle dried coconut onto the bottom of an 8 or 9 inch springform pan. Press crust onto the coconut. This will prevent it from sticking.

To make the cheese, blend the cashews, lemon, honey, gently warmed coconut oil (do not use microwave), vanilla, sea salt (if using), and 1/2 cup water. Blend until smooth and adjust to taste.

Pour the mixture onto the crust. Remove air bubbles by tapping the pan on a table.

Place in the freezer until firm. Remove the whole cake from the pan while frozen and place on a serving platter. Defrost in the refrigerator. (I didn’t defrost it all the way)

To make the raspberry sauce, process raspberries and agave in a food processor until your preferred consistency is achieved. The longer you process, the runnier it gets. (Do not use a blender for this or the raspberry seeds will become like sand.)


Enjoy! 

UGH. Hungry and broke.

So, yesterday and today, Ron and I got hit with minor detox symptoms - fatigue, headache. That, combined with an awful recipe failure (who knew a "small piece of ginger" wasn't the size of my entire thumb?), made us pretty cranky about the whole RAW foods thing. We pushed through, regardless, and sit here wishing it was April. :-)

If the budget lasts that long. I have to figure out a way to eat all this without spending a hundred dollars a week... Suggestions from anybody who is already RAW? How do you do it on a budget?

Fortunately, dinner came around and we ate our cooked food. Made us feel better enough to keep it up a while longer...even if we look forward to dinner every night. :-) For dessert, I did find a tasty RAW brownie recipe though - very fudgy and chocolaty! In case you're curious, here it is:

Raw Chocolate Brownie Bites

1/2 cup raw pecans or almonds
1/2 cup raw walnuts
1/2 cup chopped and/or pitted dates
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt**1 teaspoon coconut oil (not necessary, but adds moisture)**1-2 (I used 4) teaspoons agave nectar (again not necessary, but adds additional moisture and sweetness)
Optional Ingredients:
1 teaspoon vanilla1 tablespoon unsweetened coconut flakes, finely chopped
Directions:
Soak dates in a small bowl of warm water for 5 minutes. Rinse and pat dry. Set aside. In your food processor or *blender (see note below) grind pecans or almonds and walnuts until very fine. Add dates and grind into a paste. Pour into a bowl and add cocoa powder, sea salt, and any additional ingredients you desire. Stir ingredients together thoroughly. You should have a thick, shiny, chocolate dough.

For Bars: Spread dough into a small rectangular container. Flatten with spatula. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours. Cut into 8 bars.

For Mini Brownie Bites: Add roughly 1 tablespoon of dough into a candy mold or mini cupcake tin. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours. Makes around 16 mini brownie bites.


Props to this recipe from: http://gingerlemongirl.blogspot.com/2008/04/chocolate-brownie-bites-gluten-free.html

Feeling skinny, even if I'm not. :-)

After my last post, my family and I had to take a two-day road trip. Let me tell you - 12 hours in the car over two days with an almost 7 month old baby is not fun. It required much coffee and fast food - neither of the raw vegan kind. :-) Regardless, today we were back on it with two successful recipes! Eating raw all day left me feeling slightly hungry, but energetic and "skinny feeling." (You know, when you feel like you must have lost weight because you can move freely...but then you step on the scale and nothing happened. I'll take it, for now!) We had cooked food for dinner (chicken parm), but both of us felt heavy and tired afterwards. I imagine over time we'll prefer just to finish the day raw. We'll see. Regardless, here's the pics and recipes from today:


Breakfast: Apple Cinnamon Rawmeal (You know, like oatmeal...but not...) I followed this recipe, but also added ends and pieces of some strawberries, part of an over-ripe pear, some lime juice...etc. Experiment with what you have! (I called it "rawmeal" because the texture ends up kind of like eating oatmeal. It doesn't contain grain.)

Ingredients

 2 apples

·         Handful of soaked raisins

·         1 tablespoon of raw honey (I used agave nectar instead)

·         1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

·         Dash of vanilla (I didn't use because the flavor is SO strong)

·         Dash of sea salt

Approximate serving size

·         1-2 people

Machine use

·         Food processor or Vita-Mix

Directions

·         Cut apples and place in food processor or Vita-Mix.

·         Add in all ingredients except raisins.

·         If using a food processor, pulse until apples are broken down, but still chunky.

·  If using Vita-Mix, put on low setting and use tamper to break down. Don’t put on too high because it will become soupy.

·         Transfer into bowl. Add raisins and mix.

   And now for the best RAW recipe I've made yet - Strawberry Banana Pie! It only took MAYBE 20 minutes to put together, along with some freezer time. So much faster than "real" pie, and very delicious! 

   

    Crust: 
2 cups walnuts
1 cup organic red seedless raisins
pinch of sea salt

Filling: 
4 cups strawberries, sliced (I do the slicing in the food processor. So much faster.)
2 tbs agave nectar
2 bananas, sliced

    Topping: 

     Handful of walnuts

     Agave nectar

     Sea salt

What to do: 
Place the nuts in a food processor and grind until they’re a coarse meal. Add the raisins until well processed. Add the salt. Press the mixture in a glass pie plate. Freeze crust for atleast 30 minutes.

Slice up the bananas. Take crust out of the freezer (after atleast 30 minutes) and place the sliced bananas on top of crust. Place back in freezer. Slice 4 cups of strawberries and mix with agave nectar to taste. Stir well. Remove the pie from the freezer and pour the strawberry/agave mixture on top of the bananas, spreading out to cover all bananas. Garnish with other fruits, or this nut topping: 

     Take a handful of walnuts and place them in a ziplock. Crunch them down to small bits. Open the ziplock and pour in agave nectar...maybe a tablespoon. Mix the nuts around to coat. Add a little salt. Taste the topping and add more nectar and/or salt to taste. You want it a bit saltier than sweet, like the topping on a fruit cobbler would be. 

     Freeze or refrigerate to desired consistency. Enjoy, guilt-free! 

Day 1: A fail and a success!

So today was RAW shopping day. Baby and I braved temps below 30 degrees to seek out ingredients I'd never heard of. Some apparently were not meant to be found in this small Wisconsin town. Of note - lucuma powder and nama shoyu. Good thing I don't know what either of those are or I would be sad that I couldn't find them. In case you're curious what a RAW foods shopping list looks like, here's part of mine:

Agave nectar

Sea Salt

Cider vinegar

Coconut oil?

frozen raspberries
raw honey

Chia seeds

Lucuma powder

Flax seeds (crushed?)

Ginger


That is about a third of what was on the list. It was EXPENSIVE. I think I will lose weight eating this way simply because I won't be EATING for the last week of the month - I'll have run out of money! 


I made two RAWcipes today. (I still feel ridiculous adding RAW to words. I wonder how long that will last. I'm going to continue typing RAW in caps just because it feels obnoxious in a "hoity toity I don't eat what YOU eat" kind of way. And I find it funny.) 
The first recipe, Green Soup, was generally a fail. My husband said, "Hm, it tastes better than it looks. It reminds me of something....wait...it tastes like grass. Nevermind, it tastes exactly as bad as it looks." Sigh. I enjoyed the first few bites, and then started gagging every time I tried to take an additional bite. Sadly, we can't afford to throw it away, so I guess I'll get used to it... Here's a picture. It's really a very nice green color. Kind of like grass clippings that build up on your lawn mower blade...






The second RAWcipe turned out much better to me; hubby still wasn't impressed, but it's only because he doesn't like coconut. 
I made Coconut Date Balls, which are pretty tasty to munch on when you've got a hankering for something sweet. Also good instead of something like potato chips when you just want the joy of eating. They even look kind of cute! 

Here's the recipe, in case you're interested: 
Raw Vegan Zucchini Coconut Balls

* 1 cup raw almonds
* 1 cup soft pitted dates
* 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
* 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
* 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
* pinch of sea salt
* 1/2 cup finely shredded zucchini
* 1 cup shredded unsweetened flaked coconut

What to do:
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or waxed paper.
Place the almonds in a food processor and process into fine crumbs. 
Add dates, a few at a time, processing well after each addition. 
Add vanilla extract, nutmeg, cinnamon and sea salt. 
At first the mixture will just look like bread crumbs, 
then it will come together in a ball. If it doesn't come together, 
add a few extra dates.

Remove the cookie dough from the food processor and 
mix in the shredded zucchini and a half a cup of the 
flaked coconut with your hands until well combined. 
Form the dough into 1-inch balls. Place the remaining half 
cup of coconut on a plate and roll each ball in the coconut 
to coat. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet 
and freeze several hours until the balls are firm. 
Remove them from the freezer and serve thawed.
Note: Store these cookies in the freezer or refrigerator. 
They taste best when served cold, but not frozen.

It Begins

While I was pregnant, almost everybody I knew told me that breastfeeding would just MELT the pounds away after baby was born. I suppose I relied on that a little too heavily during those months because I gained SEVENTY pounds!

And breastfeeding has not helped remove a single one of those. I lost 20 right after giving birth, and the ten I've lost since then have been through hard work and a fair amount of running. I'm tired of working that hard.

A week or so ago, I went to a RAW foods potluck. (Still not sure why that's all caps, but all the RAWblogs I see have it for their RAWcipes, so I guess it's required.) I enjoyed the food, though most of the "main dishes" were more like "variations on a salad." Salad is good. In moderation. As I began eating these salad variations, I figured I'd eat my veggies, bide my time, and go home to really eat. But then...

I ate a RAW dessert! And it was tasty! Tasty in a "I want seconds!" kind of way! And after eating it, I didn't feel UGH or groggy or anything! And so I decided to look into it a little more.

I came home, did some reading, and carefully broached the subject with my husband. To my surprise (and his current dismay) he agreed that it might be a worthwhile experiment. After some planning and discussion, we decided that for the month of March, we would do the following:

1. Eat raw vegan foods only for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and desserts.
2. Allow ourselves to cook "healthy" dinners, including animal proteins.

I can't go completely raw vegan because I'm nursing and everything I read talked about how detoxing while nursing isn't good for baby. So I'll go slow. But I'm really looking forward to the end of counting calories.

The purpose for this blog is mostly for accountability for me. However, I would love comments or support if you'd like to offer them. If my experiment goes well and I decide to continue uncooking this way, I'll start adding RAW resources, recipes, etc. If you currently eat RAW full or part time, I'd love to hear from you, too!