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!