Jicama and Orange Salad with Mint

Sometimes it's fun to shake things up a bit and try something new. I recently made this salad and it was very refreshing with a nice crunch from the jicama. I found the recipe in The New American Plate Cookbook. Everyone enjoyed it. I made a large bowl and the leftovers kept well, although it was all eaten by the next day.

Jicama and Orange Salad with Mint

1 medium jicama (about 3/4 lb), peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch matchsticks

2 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely grated or julienned

2 small seedless navel oranges, peeled and sliced

1/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice, or to taste

salt

8 fresh mint leaves, thinly slivered

In a medium bowl, combine the jicama, carrots, and oranges. In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, orange juice, honey, and lime juice and add salt to taste. Whisk the dressing and pour it over the jicama mixture. Toss to coat. Refrigerate the salad for 2 to 3 hours. Top with the mint leaves before serving.

Nuts are nutritious!

I read an article in the U.C. Berkeley Wellness Letter last night about how great nuts are for you and that adding them to your diet (in moderation) doesn't seem to cause weight gain. So we've decided to add them back into our dinner entrees. Of course, not every raw meal needs nuts, but they are one of the staples of the raw diet.

Today I am soaking raw sunflower seeds and almonds to make Not Tuna Pate. I may add more celery or carrots to my mix to lighten it up a bit.

Here are a few nutty facts:

• Nuts seem to be good for your heart. Studies show that they have a favorable effect on blood cholesterol. Eating 2-3 oz of nuts most days of the week--in particular almonds, pecans, peanuts and walnuts--may significantly lower total and LDL cholesterol.
• For people who don't eat meat or want to consume less, nuts are one of the best plant sources of protein.
• Almonds are richest in vitamin E and calcium.
• Brazil nuts are the best dietary source of selenium. Just one medium nut a day provides all you need and 2 or 3 a day provides about 200 micrograms, the amount found to lower the risk of prostate cancer in some studies.
• Cashews are the richest in copper and zinc.
• Peanuts, although technically a legume, contain resveratrol, are the richest in arginine, and have the most protein.
• Walnuts are richest in alpha-linolenic acid, a heart healthy omega-3 fatty acid.

My advice? Eat a variety of nuts throughout your week!

Raw Creativity Blunted by Dr. Fuhrman

I was humming along the raw path and then the Dr. Fuhrman tree fell right over my path! My husband has embraced the Eat to Live doctrine and asked me to cut out all additional oils, avocados and nuts from my dinners. He gets some walnuts with breakfast and he really is trying to keep the fat down. Well, these restrictions have just sucked the life out of my cooking creativity. Most of the raw recipes use some oil or nuts or avocados. My husband even banished the flax seed crackers because they are probably higher in fat than he would like.

After a few weeks like this, we made a bit of a compromise, but to be honest, I feel like I've hit the wall. John still has a large green smoothie for breakfast and a huge salad for lunch, which means that he is eating a lot of raw food. But a lot of the raw dinner recipes that I have highlighted here use olive oil or nuts and seeds or avocados. Take those away, and there are only a few left. Anyway, I'm at a raw standstill right now as far as dinner goes.

Just another raw dinner...

Zucchini pasta with sauce, kale salad and fruit salad all seemed yummy together! Some raw foodists would never combine the fruit with the veggies, but I'm not at that level yet, and may never choose to go there.


Still, it's funny how your idea of what makes a good dinner can change!

Pizza Kinda!

Who doesn't love pizza? Well, my Raw Food Gourmet book has a raw version that just might work. I tried it and I was happy enough that I will try it again to improve upon it.

First you have to soak and germinate buckwheat. Then you put the buckwheat (about 2 1/2 cups) into the food processor with some olive oil and seasonings and make a batter which you form into pizza rounds on top of dehydrator mats. I let them dehydrate for at least 8 hours, but although they were tasty, they were much too crumbly.

My next attempt will involve flax seed. If you add it to very hot water, it will make a gelatinous mass that substitutes for egg whites in vegan recipes. Why not in raw pizza rounds?

These "pizza-kinda's" were topped with pesto sauce (made with peas), tomato sauce, mushrooms and marinated (and probably not raw, but I had them in my frig) artichoke hearts. Guacamole would taste yummy on these as well.

Eat to Live for Weight Loss

My husband has lost 14 lbs so far and he's gone down a waist size. I know that this doesn't sound like a huge amount for 7 weeks, but I'm very happy because he has always had difficulty losing weight--that's one thing we have in common! :-) We are also getting better at preparing food with less fat and our exercise is starting to increase. So I believe that with this mostly raw diet, less dietary fat and more exercise, his weight loss may even become more rapid in the weeks ahead. Still if he lost 2 lbs every week, that would still easily get him down to his goal weight by the end of the year.

I know it may sound counter-intuitive for a cancer patient to be trying to lose weight, but in fact his oncologist recommended it. Being obese or overweight is a detriment to your immune system and increases your risk for cancer.

My new favorite book is Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It is packed with great information and written as if a friend is giving you good advice. Dr. Fuhrman has come up with a useful formula: H= N/C or Health = Nutrition divided by Calories. In order to increase your health, you need to get the most nutrition with the least amount of calories. That means that the bulk of your food should be nutritionally dense and only a small proportion should be calorically dense. Fruits and vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables will give you a high amount of nutrition for a lower amount of calories.

Now, if you are trying to lose weight, you cannot gorge on avocados, olives and nuts--you have to eat those sparingly. John gets 1 oz of walnuts per day and a tablespoon or two of ground flax seed to make sure he gets his essential fatty acids. But he's cut out most other fat (well, we did splurge a little for Easter...I made some coconut "vice cream" that was way too rich!).

If you are looking to be healthy and/or lose weight, read Eat to Live. Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah fame endorses his book with these words, "A medical breakthrough. If you give this diet your complete commitment, there is no question in my mind that it will work for you." He also writes the forward for the book.

Easter Dinner

Spinach Mousse, Red Cabbage and Corn Slaw, Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Steamed Asparagus were all on our Easter dinner menu yesterday. The slaw had an interesting but good dressing made out of lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, liquid aminos and ground cinnamon. The spinach mousse was a success and I will be making it again, but next time I think I will experiment by adding some basil and garlic so it will be reminiscent of pesto--something my husband loves! Here is the recipe for the spinach mousse which is like an alternative to quiche. Next time I might try making this more like a pizza so that the mousse part is spread out like a sauce. It looked beautiful in the pie plate, but as pies often do, fell apart when we served it.

Spinach Mousse

Crust

2 cups almonds and/or pecans (3 cups for a thicker crust)

1 T. liquid aminos (or soy or tamari sauce)

2 - 4 T. water

1 T psyllium, or more (I used ground flax seeds)

The recipe asks you to soak and then dry the nuts. You can do that, but I didn't this time. I processed the nuts in my food processor and then added the other ingredients until it came together into a dough ball.

Press evenly into a pie plate. This took a few minutes, but keep at it. Then put it in a dehydrator for 60 minutes or in a low oven for 30 minutes.

Mousse

2 T. pine nuts, soaked for 20 minutes

1 lb spinach, torn in pieces (I used the baby spinach so no tearing needed!)

1/4 cup raw tahini

3 T. lemon juice

3 cups sliced mushrooms, including trimmed stems (leave 2 or 3 to decorate the top)

3/4 tsp. sea salt

5 T. water

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

1-2 T. psyllium (Confession: I do not have psyllium and so I added nutritional yeast flakes and some ground flax seed. I really do need to try the psyllium!)

Process pine nuts, spinach, tahini, lemon juice, mushrooms, salt, and water in the food processor. While the processor is still running, gradually sprinkle in the nutmeg, then the psyllium. Pour into the pie crust. Decorate and chill for at least 30 minutes before eating.

My Garden

Today is sunny! How wonderful! My lawn is soggy, but my daughter dutifully got out the lawn mower and did the first mowing of the season. I planted some bulbs and did some pine needle raking and just enjoyed being out of doors.

I also grabbed my seed packets and started planning my vegetable garden. My soil is still just under 55 degrees, so I will probably wait another week or so to start planting. I will be planting kale, beets, broccoli, carrots, pole beans, summer squash and borage to attract pollinators for the squash. My next step is to turn the soil, add some organic fertilizer and/or compost, and section my raised off into 16 "square foot" sections. I'll also need to trim some tree branches that are starting to shade my beds.

The tomatoes and the peppers I plan to grow in my sunroom where it can get very hot!

When my college student (that's her picture above from a few years back when we helped at the Jubilee Farm) returns at the end of April, she will be happy to see our garden planted. She enjoys gardening and is better at it than I am.

Although I will also be getting food from my CSA, I am growing crops that compliment what I get there. It will be exciting to eat healthy fresh food from our itty bitty garden this year!

A garden requires consistent care and consistency is something that I am really working on. Someday, if I become a good gardener, I will know I have developed this trait. :-)

Encouragement

Change is difficult, although often exciting. When the excitement wears off before the difficulty does, that's when you need encouragement! For me encouragement has come in many different forms. That still small voice that lets you know you are doing the right thing. A chance conversation that leads to a testimonial of the healing power of food. Or a call from a friend of a friend that has heard your story and wants to help. That's what happened this week.

The neighbor of a friend of mine called--her name is Faith--to tell me her story. She is a nurse but when she became sick with an autoimmune disorder, she went to Sanoviv--an institute of health in Mexico--where she ate a healing diet and went through a thorough health assessment.

Faith told me about the diet and the schedule she was on there. Here it is:
Early morning: Drink a warm glass of pure water with the juice of 1/2 lemon and cayenne pepper.
Breakfast: Fruit, various kinds, as much as you want
Mid-morning snack: Green drink
Lunch: Salad with lots of different veggies and sprouts
Mid-Afternoon: Wheatgrass juice--2 oz.
Dinner (5pm): Sprouts, salad bar, one cooked item , dessert (but no fruit)

She said that everyone looked forward to 5pm because dinners were so delicious! Their diet was considered 80% raw. When I asked her how to judge what 80% was (did they count calories, or weight?), she said that they were taught to just eyeball their plate. One-quarter can be cooked, but the rest should be raw. I figure that if you eat raw for breakfast and lunch, then you could probably eat even a third of your dinner cooked and you'd be just fine.

On one of the days out of the week at Sanoviv everyone did a green drink "fast" as a cleansing measure.

Faith felt so much better after her stay there and since then she has done much better. She told me that she notices that she feels much better when she increases the amount of raw food that she eats. I think that happens with everything that is good for us. We all know that we feel better when we exercise regularly, but we still sometimes get out of the habit.

I was very grateful for her phone call! She told me that she just wanted to encourage me--that it does work. She told me of another woman she had met who eats a raw diet and cured her cancer from doing so. This woman goes to her medical doctor every 6 months for a check up and he says she is a miracle. I know that all of these stories are "anecdotal" but I sure keep hearing a lot of them!

When I get tired of chopping vegetables and trying new recipes and I just want to go out for a pizza, I try to remember all of these stories. I also reflect on how much better I feel when I am eating a mostly raw diet. I can really feel the difference!

New Ideas

Yesterday I was able to spend a few hours reading through raw food recipe books, like The Raw Gourmet by Naomi Shannon--a chef at the famed Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida. It was recommened in Kris Carr's book Crazy S*xy Cancer and that is why I picked it up at Borders last time I was there. (Now that's a risky trip for the budget--so many books that are calling out to me: "Take me home!") The photography in The Raw Gourmet is beautiful, but one criticism is that they seemed to have left out the sauces in the photos! All of the piles of various types of salads etc. look beautiful but they don't look like they have any sauce on them, even when the description and recipe of the dish includes a sauce. By the photos, you would think that her food is just artfully arranged piles of salads and veggies.

But as I read the recipes, I started to appreciate the book more. I've decided that I need to make more sauces which will add a vast amount of interest to the raw food. Gremolata, Szechuan Zip, Indonesian Yum-Yum Dressing, Gado-Gado, Vegan Aioli and Sunflower Notmayo! all sound like they will add great appeal to the food I make.

A few of the entrees that I want to try are the Chili Rellenos with Mole Sauce and Mock Sour Cream; Sun Garden Burgers, and Spinach Mousse (which I might make for Easter). It's just that making a new recipe takes extra energy and when you're busy, tired or sick the old stand-bys are what you fall back on.

Speaking of old stand-bys, last night I made Guacamole-stuffed Mushrooms and Black Bean and Brown Rice Salad. (Basically you take brown rice, add a can of drained black beans to it and then start improvising! Last night I added diced red bell pepper, corn, salsa, mild green chilis, and taco seasoning. My husband loved it!)

In a Bit of a Rut

I haven't blogged for a few days because I haven't made anything new! In fact, I realized that I'm in a bit of a rut. Last night I made pasta zucchini with pesto sauce, steamed carrots, and kale salad with cherry tomatoes and pine nuts. It was all good, but nothing new!

What is new is my frig died! Luckily we have an extra freezer, so the frozen stuff went there. The produce went out in the garage where it is still very cool and I have a Coleman cooler plugged in on my countertop. My new frig won't be here until next week--turns out that "bisque" (the off white color) is not very popular, but it's what I want so we'll wait.

Today my husband is having some minor surgery and I'm taking my raw food books to look through at the hospital to get some new inspiration!

Quick & Easy Carrot Salad

When I compose my meals, I try to make sure we have plenty of color. A carrot salad is a fresh and colorful way of completing a meal. Here's what I did:

1. Peel and grate as many carrots as you need for your meal

2. Add some golden raisins, fresh pear slices, and chopped walnuts.

3. Mix together some rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar and honey--maybe using a 2 or 3 to 1 ratio, depending on how sweet you want the dressing. So 1/2 cup of vinegar and 1/4 cup of honey might be good depending on the size of your salad. You might also add a tablespoon of olive oil, a pinch of salt and a nice grating of frozen fresh ginger root. Mix all of this up in a small bowl and pour over the salad ingredients.

4. Let marinate for a good 10 minutes before serving. If you like curry, you can add some curry powder for an Indian twist.

I served this along side of Brussel sprouts that had a Poupon mustard dressing and it was a nice flavor combination.

Very yummy!

Relatives Get to Try Raw Food!

Over the weekend, my brother-in-law and nephew came to stay with us because my nephew competed in a TaeKwonDo tournament held in Tacoma, about an hour south of us. (He won first place in his division, by the way!!!)

Althougth I fixed them hash browns and scrambled eggs with toast for breakfast, they did get to taste some raw recipes such as a Green Smoothie, Chocolate Vice Cream, Fudge-Date Balls, and Pineapple-Coconut Donut Holes. Yum! For dinner, I served stuffed mushrooms filled with Not Salmon Pate mixed with Salsa. The salsa was a nice touch--added a lot of taste and lightened up the pate considerably. I even noticed that Adam, my 19 year old nephew, went for seconds on the stuffed mushrooms!

Anyway, it was great to see them and it was nice that they were such open-minded guests, willing to try anything! Of course, we'll see if they ever come back! LOL!

New Sandwich Creation

This afternoon I made "Not Salmon Pate"--it's a variation of Jennifer Cornbleet's "Not Tuna Pate" (see Feb. 12th's entry entitled "Mock Tuna Salad"). Basically, you add carrots and dill and it looks a lot like salmon! Pictured here is my sandwich which we had for dinner tonight. I took two thick flax seed crackers and spread each of them with hummus. Then I spread on a scoop of the not salmon pate and layered sliced tomatoes, avocado and alfalfa sprouts, ending with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

While the flat bread doesn't contain the sandwich contents as well as regular bread, it still tastes yummy! And it was an easy dinner to throw together! (I cheated and paired our sandwiches with regular cooked tomato soup, but pretty soon I'm going to start experimenting with raw soups!)

My Husband Loves Pesto Pasta!!!

When I asked my husband which of the raw entrees was his favorite, he surprised me by saying it was the pesto pasta made with zucchini noodles. I hadn't made those in a while, so last night my husband enjoyed two big platefuls! That's the great thing about eating zucchini pasta--you can chow down as much as you want!

Here's my "best of recollection" recipe for the pesto sauce:

Vegan, Mostly Raw, Pesto

2 cups defrosted peas

1/2 cup walnuts or pine nuts

2 T. extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves fresh garlic, minced

1/2 to 1 cup chopped fresh basil

1/3 cup nutritional yeast flakes (subs for Parmesan)

2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

salt to taste, start with 1/2 tsp.

Process the nuts in your food processor with the S-blade. Then add all of the rest of the ingredients and process until smooth, adding more salt as necessary. Mix into zucchini noodles right before serving, as the noodles will soften and make the sauce a little watery. If you want, you can add more nutritional yeast flakes to make your pesto thicker so that the extra moisture from the zucchini will compensate. Once you mix the two, it really does look like real pesto pasta!

Tip: I set out the zucchini early in the afternoon so they'd be at room temp by dinnertime. I gently heated the pesto sauce so that when mixed with the pasta, the dish was slightly warm.

Another Raw Healing Success Story

Yesterday I took my daughter to a local optician to order some new glasses. Lisa runs this local business with her husband and we've been getting our glasses there for years. Lisa is cheerful and helpful and always remembers our names! Amazing!

Lisa looks very healthy and we got into a conversation, somehow, about raw food. She told me that several years ago she'd started feeling very ill and was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritus. She started doing some research on alternative therapies and when she asked her doctor if diet, exercise or accupuncture could be helpful, he told her that none of those things would do a thing to help her. (When we asked our oncologist if nutrition had ever affected the outcome of one of his patients, he shook his head and said no. I have later come to realize that if you never prescribe a specific diet and you never ask the patient about their diet, you might not ever get information about their diet. Also, even if a person told his doctor about a diet they were trying, it would be very easy for the doctor to dismiss the results as "anecdotal.")

To Lisa's credit, she decided to forestall taking the drugs (many of which are chemotherapy drugs!) and try a raw food diet. She went 100% raw for six months. Lisa also took up hot yoga--a type of yoga that is supposed to be cleansing because you sweat a lot and increase blood flow to certain areas of the body.

After six months, she felt great! She is no longer 100% raw, but she is well and she knows to avoid alcohol, sugar and coffee to keep herself symptom free.

As I discussed Lisa's success story with my family, we marvelled that so few doctors prescribe a change in diet first before prescribing harmful drugs. My 15 year old daughter made an astute observation--she commented that doctors might feel pretty useless if people could cure themselves using food instead of depending on them for prescription drugs. I don't know if this is true for most doctors, but the true healers will help their patients get well and "do no harm."

My Mongolian Grill Hangover

Talk about the morning after! Last night I joined two galpals for a fun, conversation-filled dinner at the Mongolian Grill. I chose it because I knew I could get a totally vegan dinner there. I asked them to use water instead of oil on the grill and it all looked lovely...

But this morning I awoke feeling like a train had hit me. I'm a morning person, so getting up at 5:30 is no problem because my body naturally awakes at about 5:00 am. But this morning I felt hammered!

Every book I've ever read about raw food eating always carries the warning that you will become more sensitive to cooked and processed foods, but until now I hadn't experienced it for myself. I figured as long as I wasn't 100% raw, I could have my little forays with no consequences.

As I look back, it must have been the sauces they put on, in addition to the sheer bulk of cooked food. I asked for a little bit of teryaki and a little bit of plum sauce. I will be more careful in the future!

Flax Seed Crackers...Finally!

When I asked my husband if this diet was as hard as he had originally anticipated, he surprised me by saying, "Yes." It turns out that the hard part is trying to eat the huge "trough" of salad every afternoon and not having any bread.

So today, we sent leftovers from dinner last night (baked potato, steamed brocolli and raw carrot salad and fruit) in his lunch box and I made my first batch of "live flax seed crackers." It was quite a process! I used a recipe that I got from our library--it's a little homemade booklet by Igor Boutenko entitled "Igor's Live Flat Bread" which you can order from their website http://www.rawfamily.com/.

It took me about 1 1/2 hours to get it all mixed up and onto the dehydrator trays. The ingredients are carrots, celery, onions, garlic, raisins, salt, coriander seed, caraway seed, ground flax seed, water and salt. My Excalibur dehydrator is humming away as I type. Unfortunately I didn't get started early enough, so I'll be up late turning these crackers over. But, it will be nice for my husband to have something "breadlike" to chew on!

Pineapple Blueberry Delight

For this dessert, I made a cashew nut cream by mixing about a cup of raw cashews and maybe 3/4 cup of orange juice in my VitaMix until a very smooth cream, like a thick whipped cream, formed. Then I chopped up some fresh pineapple and put it into dessert glasses. I added some frozen blueberries and topped that with some of the orange nut cream. Then I added a bit of coconut and some more pineapple and blueberries. I topped the whole thing with some more nut cream and coconut and a drizzle of raw honey. Quick, easy, delicious! A very satisfying dessert!

A Favorite Dinner

Mushrooms stuffed with gaucamole and topped with fresh salsa, spiced yam fries and a green salad with black beans...how could anyone feel deprived after eating such a yummy dinner? OK, I've lost touch with the SAD (standard American diet), but I think my dinners have gotten so pretty since we've been doing more raw food. And the food is so filling! I switched over from the Portobello mushrooms to the giant white ones sold in Costco because the latter are a lot cheaper! Anyway, this diet is anything but boring!

However, I am considering what I'll do for Easter to make it special. I'd love any comments or ideas!

Peanut Sauce Cole Slaw

This little invention was a bit hit at our house! I was making various dishes to use as samples at a "super nutrition cooking class" that I coordinated. After preparing food all day long, I looked around and realized that I hadn't made anything for my own family's dinner. I had some extra peanut sauce and some extra Napa and red cabbage. Then I went hunting! I found some green onions, golden raisins, cashews and carrots. I shredded the cabbages and carrot and added the sliced green onions, raisins and cashews, then mixed in the peanut sauce. Everyone loved it! As an afterthought, some mandarin orange slices would also be delicious. Serve this salad with with spring rolls or vegetarian sushi and you've got a filling meal!

Peanut Sauce Cole Slaw

1/2 head Napa cabbage, chopped
1/2 head red cabbage, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and shredded
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup raw cashews
1 cup peanut sauce

Peanut Sauce (you should play with this)

1 cup organic peanut butter
1 1/2 T. soy or tamari sauce
2 T. honey or maple syrup to taste (I used honey)
a few shakes of garlic salt
a shake of cayenne
1 T. fresh grated ginger
1/2 cup water to thin it to desired consistency

The Cost of Raw

When I first looked into the raw diet, I came away feeling that it was an elitist way to eat and impractical for most people. I still feel that way to a degree, but I can see the benefits of incorporating more raw food into our diet. I am definitely feeling more energetic and younger. :-)

Yesterday I was going all day long preparing for a "Super Nutrition Cooking Class" (which actually showcased several raw recipes) but I never got tired. I was on my feet quite a bit and normally by 4pm I am so tired I have to sit down and rest in front of my TV! But not yesterday. Sometimes you don't realize that things have changed until you have a day like I did yesterday and then you realize that you are feeling much better.

I have not been eating 100% raw or even 80%. Probably more like 60%. Still, I've probably eaten more raw food in the last 3 or 4 weeks, as a percentage of my total calories, than ever before in my life.

OK, I've talked about the benefits of eating more raw food, but what about the costs? Has my grocery bill gone up? Yep! It has. All of this fresh food is expensive, especially when you try to get as much organic as you can. I am guesstimating that my food bill has gone up about 20% this past month. Of course, we have been buying out of season veggies for variety. I can see that when we get a garden going and start picking up our shares from our CSA farm, our costs will go down significantly.

Is it worth it? I'm not sure you can put a price tag on improved health and vitality, but I believe it's worth the extra cost. I've had to cut back in other areas of my budget, but so far we've been able to manage the extra grocery costs.

From the beginning my goal has been to help my husband improve his health so that he can attain a remission of his cancer and not have to endure more chemotherapy. This is a goal that is not under my control so I guess it is not a good goal in that sense. Maybe I need to call it a "hope" and let the goal be to maximize our nutrition to be best of my ability. I suppose my fall back position is that if he does require more chemo, his body will be all the stronger going into it for having eaten this way.

Marinated Vegetables and Pesto Pasta

Apparently marinating vegetables is a way to soften them without cooking, so I decided to give it a try since all of that chewing can get a bit tiresome! I tried the recipe from Raw Food Made Easy and I only wish I had made it a bit earlier to get some extra marinating time in. However, it was delicious and everyone took seconds.

This recipe is for one serving only, so please multiply according to your family size. Make sure you have enough of the marinade--I think we were a little lacking.

I served this with Zucchini Pasta and Pesto Sauce and a side of sliced tomatoes drizzled with EVOO and balsamic vinegar. Very yummy!

Marinated Vegetables

1 cup small broccoli florets

6 cremini mushrooms, quartered

1/2 cup thinly sliced carrot

3 T. Lemon Herb Dressing (or any vinaigrette will do)

Place all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Toss well with your hands, working the dressing into the vegetables. Marinate for 4 to 12 hours in the refrigerator before serving. Will keep for 3 days stored in a sealed container in the frig. Bring to room temp before serving.

Lemon Herb Dressing (yield: 3/4 cup)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 T. minced fresh herbs (parsley, basil, dill,mint, tarragon, or oregano)

1/2 tsp. crushed garlic

1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard (optional)

dash black pepper

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Place the lemon juice, herbs, garlic, salt, mustard and pepper in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Add the olive oil and whisk again until well blended. Will keep for 5 days in frig.

Variations: replace lemon juice with lime juice and add cilantro, dash of cayenne and ground cumin

Spring Rolls and Peanut Sauce

This is another simple idea for a surprisingly filling meal from Raw Food Made Easy. I bought some Napa cabbage and washed and dried several leaves, cutting off the thickest part of the stem.

Then I prepared a number of filling ingredients including cucumber (use a veg peeler to make thin strips), carrot (I used my garnisher to make a pile of thin carrot strings), green onions, cilantro and sprouts (the recipe calls for mung bean sprouts but I had alfalfa sprouts). I also added avocado slices.

I placed some of each of the filling onto the base of the cabbage leaf (I "pre-rolled" the leaves to soften the thick part of the middle) and then added a spoonful of Mock Peanut Sauce. I rolled them up and placed them seam down on a plate.

I served these rolls with brown rice and miso soup. Here's the recipe for Mock Peanut Sauce, although I'll admit that I added a few spoonful's of peanut butter to mine at the end! Everyone loved it!

Mock Peanut Sauce (yields 1 cup, 4 servings)

1/2 cup raw almond butter

1/4 cup water

1 T. fresh lemon juice

2 tsp. pure maple syrup or agave nectar

2 tsp. tamari

1/2 tsp crushed garlic

1/4 tsp grated fresh ginger

dash cayenne pepper

dash salt

Place all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator--will keep for 5 days, but I doubt it will last that long.

Apple Crumble Cake

I'm too lazy to type in the entire recipe, which has THREE parts, but you can find it in Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy. This recipe includes a "crust" which forms the base and the outside of the cake and an apple "filling" which of course goes in the middle. The "orange cream" goes on top. I'll just say that it was a BIG HIT at our home and very rich! Lots of nuts, dates, apples, a bit of honey and cinnamon and the orange cream was made with orange juice and cashews.

Spontaneous Combinations!

This morning I cooked up some rice and after we came home from church, I started combining things in the kitchen. I mixed the rice with a few dashes of seasoning and a tablespoon of EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil), then added some lentil sprouts, defrosted peas and a chopped tomato. Delicious!

I also made a carrot salad with loads of shredded carrots, a few handfuls of raisins, some raw pumpkin seeds and a dressing made with raw apple cider vinegar and raw honey (1:1) and a dash of cayenne pepper. Yummy!

We also had some lightly steamed broccoli.

A colorful, healthful feast that took just minutes to pull together. Now I just need to figure out what kind of raw dessert to make...:-)

Costa Rican Cabbage

This recipe is called Latin American Cabbage in Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy, but she says that it is an "authentic Costa Rican dish" which tastes delicious with guacamole. It was a really nice variation on the cole slaw theme and so tasty I had the leftovers for breakfast this morning!

I served this with guacamole-stuffed Portobello mushrooms and baked sweet potato fries.

Latin American Cabbage

Makes 2 cups, 1 serving

1 cup shredded cabbage

1/2 ripe tomato, seeded and diced

1/4 cucumber peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced (I used an English cuc and didn't peel it)

1/2 celery stalk, diced or thinly sliced

1/4 cup red bell pepper, diced

2 T. minced fresh cilantro (I used basil--my husband doesn't like cilantro)

1 T fresh lime juice

2 tsp. minced onion

1 1/2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Mix all ingredients in bowl and let marinate for 10 minutes at room temperature before serving. Will keep for two days store in sealed container in frig.

Note: I used a mandoline to thinly slice the cucumber and the celery.

The Power of the Scales!

Years ago when I was on the Weight Watcher's diet, I bought myself a nice electronic scale. Now I am using it everyday!

Our goal is to feed my husband 1 pound of leafy greens and 2 pounds of non-starchy veggies each day. Sometimes in the morning, as I am cutting up and peeling vegetables, weighing them and tossing them in the Rubbermaid "salad trough" that my husband takes to work, I feel like a zookeeper preparing food for the primates. :-)

But here's the point--unless we were using the scales, he would never be eating this much salad. The goal really helps to drive up his consumption of healthy greens and vegetables. Thankfully, he has gotten used to it and is able to eat more than he did during the first few days of our mostly raw experiment. I had to originally scale back to a lunch of 8 oz of salad greens and only 1 lb of veggies. Now he chews his way through 12 oz of greens (he gets the other 4 oz in his breakfast smoothie) and a full 2 lbs of veggies! When he brings home the empty tub, I do a little cheer for him! :-)

If you are trying to get more greens and veggies into your diet, I would challenge you to make a daily goal of how many ounces/pounds you want to consume and then start to use a set of scales. Eating fresh raw food is not what most of us are used to and having a goal is very helpful in changing both our preferences and our habits.

We Cheated for Valentine's Day!

Carol Alt, noted raw foodist and supermodel (and author of Eating in the Raw), says that often people will not change their diets because they just couldn't live without one particular food. She advises people to allow themselves one "cheat." I think mine would be Thai food!

Last night we went to dinner at a local, inexpensive Thai restaurant. We ordered salad rolls with peanut dipping sauce for an appetizer and Thai fried rice and some kind of mung bean noodles for the entrees. It was all very delicious, but we only ate HALF of what we would normally chow down, and left with two containers of leftovers for our daughter to enjoy.

We definitely felt "heavier" after this cooked and fairly rich meal, even though we had only eaten half of our entrees. In some ways, that was really important for me to discover. I think as you eat a more raw diet, you become increasingly sensitive to your body's signals.

Raw Food Gadgets and Tools

If you want to prepare raw recipes, the right tools can make the whole adventure a lot easier and more fun!

Cutting Boards
I've been using 3 small cutting boards with one dedicated to onions and garlic. But Jennifer Cornbleet recommended getting one large cutting board and dedicating the side with the grooves around the edges to fruit (to catch the juices) and using the other side for all sorts of veggies, including garlic and onion. I found one at Wal-Mart yesterday and I can't believe how much easier it was to prepare dinner last night!

Just a note on cutting boards. I go with wood! A study reported in the UC Berkeley Wellness letter addressed the plastic versus wood cutting board debate. Both types were used to cut meat on and then washed with hot soapy water and left to dry overnight. In the morning, the plastic one still had bacteria from the meat, but the wood one did not. They hypothesized that maybe the cellulose in the wood had antibacterial properties. Besides, don't plastic surfaces dull knives a lot faster?

Knives/Peeler
After you get a nice large cutting board, the next most important tool is a set of really good knives. I have several Wusthof brand knives--a chef's knife, a small serrated knife, and a paring knife. I also own a Chinese cleaver which comes in handy with winter squashes. HI YAH CHOP!

A good vegetable peeler also comes in handy. I recommend the OXO brand.

Food Processor
One of the main appliances you'll use is a food processor. I am currently using an old Cuisinart that I picked up at a garage sale for $5.00. I will probably upgrade sometime, but for now it works. I priced a few at Wal-Mart yesterday and you can get these for between $35 to $50. I use mine for grinding nuts, making marinara sauce, guacamole, cole slaw and a lot more! If you don't own one, this would be the first appliance I would buy.

Blender
A blender would come second. I happen to have a Vita-Mix, which is expensive, but does a wonderful job. I use mine at least daily for smoothies. However, any blender that is fairly powerful will do the trick.

Spiralizer
Another gadget I'd get is a spiralizer for making "pasta" from vegetables. We had zucchini pasta again last night and again I was surprised at how much I liked it! The thought of zucchini pasta is such a strange concept that I still haven't gotten my mind around it! :-) You can get one that comes with it's own container--this link has a good photo, although I've never ordered from them-- http://www.rawgourmet.com/saladacco.html . Or you can buy the Japanese garnishing gadget --the Benriner Cook Help--like I did (it's green--a photo of it is in my Feb. 6, 2008 post). The chefs that I've watched on DVD's use the first one and seem to get good results, although when I went searching I saw some poor reviews. Still, I have a friend who has one and doesn't have any complaints.

When you consider the health benefits of incorporating more living foods into your diet and the amount of time you spend preparing it, using the right tools can help make the job a lot easier.

Not Tuna Sushi Rolls

These sushi rolls were fun and easy to make. I could see kids really enjoying making these as long as the parent in charge wasn't too picky about how they turned out!

Finding raw nori is very difficult (the only source I found was a business in Hawaii) so I used the toasted ones and they certainly have a lovely smell. I wanted to wait until I bought one of the those bamboo stick mats that the sushi chefs use to roll up their sushi, but Alissa Cohen didn't use one so it gave me courage to try it myself.

Here's my "recipe":

Lay down a Nori sheet and leaving about 1/2" of a margin, spread some light Miso across one end of the paper. Then spoon a few tablespoons of not tuna pate over the Miso. Pile on some sprouts and some grated carrot or whatever else you want (you can get very imaginitive!) and carefully and as tightly as you can roll up the Nori paper. Dip your fingers in water and wet the 1/2" end of the paper and then finish rolling. I let it sit seam down for a few minutes to let the seam bond. Then I cut it into four pieces with a serrated knife.

You can dip these in Braggs Liquid Aminos or Tamari or Soy sauce.

We served these with purple cole slaw made with shredded cabbage and carrots, raisins, honey, apple cider vinegar and some salt and pepper to taste. In addition, I baked some sweet potato "fries" using a small amount of olive oil and a few shakes of the Ranch dressing powder. Yum!

What the Dietician Said

Yesterday we visited a dietician named Kelly Morrow, a practicioner and teacher at Bastyr--a well-known naturopathic college. We drove our mini-van into the Wallingford district of North Seattle and as we parked in the underground parking lot, a young woman driving some sort of SUV was pulling out. Her bumper sticker read, "MINI-VANS ARE TANGIBLE EVIDENCE OF EVIL." I did a double take! Had we entered some sort of zone where mini-vans and all they represented were despised? I looked around and we had the only mini-van there! I know this has nothing to do with nutrition, but it was so bizarre, I just had to share. I guess I've been sheltered in the burbs so long where mini-vans are ubiquitous that I never realized the animosity bubbling just under the surface for this very practical family car. :-) Seattlites...what can I say? They've gotta have a bumper sticker decrying something or another!

So enough about that, here's what we learned that might be of general interest. First of all, Kelly complimented us on our diet and said it looked very healthy, but that she'd like to do an analysis if we'd send her a 3 to 5 day food journal.

As we talked about doing a raw diet, she said that she always liked to base her dietary views on the wisdom of the ages, so to speak. What had ancient cultures eaten? She commented that no human culture had ever eaten a purely raw vegan diet. Apes eat a raw vegan diet, but they spend 6 to 8 hours eating everyday. Eating "Daniel's Diet" definitely takes more time to eat! I sent my husband off this morning with a trough of salad which he can feed from all day long! Today's salad included romaine and mixed baby greens, mini carrots, sugar snap pea pods, yellow and orange bell peppers, avocado slices, fresh asparagus spears, alfalfa sprouts and cooked black beans.

She also encouraged us to consider eating some vegetable and bean soups on cold days which she felt could also be part of a healing diet. She also encouraged John replace some of the fruit with more nuts, legumes and grains like quinoa and millet.

I eat a lot of fruit and I think all of that sugar is probably not the best for me since I am probably a little insulin resistant. So I will also be taking Kelly's advice.

One of the books she recommended is Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert. I'll add that to my list!

At times I feel torn...I've read of people curing themselves of chronic diseases and cancer via a 100% raw diet and I've also heard of people doing the same with a vegan diet which included some cooked foods. I think Kelly's concern was that we enjoy our food as well. I agreed with her that it would be easier to "go raw" in So. Cal. but that up here during a cold, rainy winter a raw diet was a bit counter intuitive. So many of these recipes I think would be very appropriate for a hot summer evening (not that we get that many of those in the Puget Sound!). I've started to make sure that the food gets set out so it comes to room temperture before we eat--this really helps.

Mock Tuna Salad

Last night I tried the raw foodist's answer to the ever popular staple of tuna salad. I used Jennifer Cornbleet's recipe but then added alfalfa sprouts, as shown in Alissa Cohen's DVD. Stuffed in a large tomato, it was a delicious part of our dinner last night. We also served more kale salad, using organic Dinosaur kale this time, which I bought at Whole Paycheck Foods. I rarely go there, but where else are you going to find Dinosaur kale?

Not Tuna Pate
(makes 2 servings)
1/2 cup soaked raw sunflower seeds
1/4 cup soaked raw almonds
2 T. water
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 T. minced celery
1 T. minced onion
1 T. minced fresh parsley

Jennifer advises to process the nuts (which can be soaked together, btw), water, salt and lemon juice first and then add the other ingredients, but I just threw them all into the food processor and let 'er rip!

I also added a few sprinkles of ranch dressing mix powder as a bit of a cheat!

If you store this in a sealed container in the frig, it will keep for 5 days. You can use this for various recipes.

What's for Dinner???

Yesterday our home teacher's* wife invited us over for dinner after church. She had been meaning to have us over, she said, but knowing our dietary choices she could just never think of anything to fix. But when she found that she had a bunch of salad leftover from an event on Saturday, she knew we would enjoy that for dinner.

So we had a lovely salad bar for dinner and it was great. I brought some lentil sprouts and was able to give a two minute lesson on sprouting. I also brought a plate of avocado slices to share.

I always appreciate when our friends are supportive of what we are trying to do with our crazy raw food diet. :-) And it was a very nice break from the kitchen for me!

But if we're going to survive on raw food for an extended period of healing, we have to eat more than salads for dinner. Over the weekend, as I sat waiting for my daughter's choir group to compete, I started writing down some ideas for raw dinner menus using Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy. Here are some of them:

Italian Dinner
Not Meatballs
Fresh Marinara Sauce
Zucchini Pasta
Mediterranean Kale Salad OR Marinated Vegetables

Asian Dinner
California Rolls made with raw nori paper OR Spring Rolls made with napa cabbage
Mock Peanut Sauce
Zucchini Noodles
Asian Cole Slaw

Middle Eastern Dinner
Tabouli-filled Tomatoes
Indian Greens
Hummus and Flax crackers
Carrots with Moroccan Spices

Healthy American Dinner
Garden Vegetable Soup
Tomato Stacks made with Not Tuna Pate
Swiss Chard with Pine Nuts and Raisins

I have been struck with the realization that food is culturally learned. If we had grown up in some kind of place, maybe right outside the Garden of Eden ;-), where raw food was the norm, we would not think it was strange at all. As my husband says, "It's all just food." I'm really happy that he is so willing to give this a try.

*For those who are not Mormon or a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "home teachers" are pairs of men assigned to visit families in our "ward" or congregation each month. Most LDS men serve as home teachers and most families have a set of home teachers assigned to them. They help the family in time of need and bring an inspirational message to share each month. Over the years, our home teachers have helped with child care, meals, graduations, illnesses, yard work and lots of etc! Home teachers are all about practicing Christlike service.

Alissa Cohen's Living on Live Food

I just finished watching Alissa Cohen's DVD "Living on Live Food" which I really enjoyed, although it was a bit long (2 DVD, 3 1/2 hours). I tried one of her recipes today and LOVED it! I don't know what she calls it in her recipe book, but you take portobello mushrooms and remove the stems. Then you fill the caps with guacamole and add a few toppings such as tamari sauce or Braggs Aminos, capers, salsa etc. It was delicious and filling! I also served a green salad with sliced sunchokes--a new veggie that I saw at Trader Joe's this morning. Then I took Belgian Endive leaves, filled them with hummus and topped each with some alfalfa sprouts. For dessert I made "Fudge Balls" (recipe following). The entire meal was very yummy and filling, but I didn't feel tired afterwards.

Kristen’s Instant Fudge Balls

1 cup nuts (almonds, pecans, pine nuts), finely ground in food processor.

Add 8 Medjool dates, pitted. Process.

Add ¼ cup cocoa powder, ¼ cup honey and process until it makes a sticky dough. By teaspoonfuls, roll into balls and roll in ground nuts or flaked coconut.

Can You Gain Weight on a Raw Food Diet?

Raw food authors promote the idea that you can "eat what you want, when you want" as long as it's raw, and all of your unwanted pounds will melt away. At first glance, most of us would agree. Eating fresh fruit, salads and a few nuts and seeds seems like a nutritious way trim down! Then why has my husband been steadily gaining since Monday? Of course, this could be due to all sorts of things, but certainly the number on the scale is not going in the intended direction. (Most chemo patients get really sick and lose lots of weight during treatment, but although my husband initially lost about 15 lbs., one of his medications actually caused him gain it back and then add another 15 lbs. His doctor was not overjoyed and encouraged him to work on taking it off now that he's done with chemo.)

So we have to reevaluate. Up to this point, our "plan" has been a combination of three authors: James Simmons who wrote Original Fast Foods; Dr. Lorraine Day, M.D., the doctor who cured herself of breast cancer using a vegan diet and lots of carrot juice with some barley green powder thrown in; and Kris Carr who did a documentary on her fight with cancer and was able to stabilize it with a daily shot of wheatgrass juice, a mostly raw food diet and some other interesting practices.

Everyday has seemed like a race to get the wheatgrass juiced, the one pound of greens and two pounds of solid veggies ingested and the six glasses of carrot juice swallowed. My husband has done a great job keeping up with all of this drinking and eating and munching of very healthy food. But I am starting to wonder if it is just too much!

So I went to the USDA's nutrition site where you can get nutrition stats on almost any food. This is a very helpful tool.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=7783

I found out that 6 cups of carrot juice have 566 calories and 55 grams of sugar!

Besides the carrot juice, I usually make him a large green smoothie with orange juice, banana and blueberries or cherries and fresh spinach. That probably has another 300 calories at least and plenty more sugar. During the morning, he may also snack on two or three other pieces of fresh fruit. So, I think he may be topping out on the sugar. People who are overweight often develop insulin resistance which adds to the problem of losing weight and added sugar in the diet only makes this worse.

So, our next tactic is to switch from carrot juice to "green drinks" which will include leafy greens, celery, cucumber, zucchini, parsley and maybe some lemon and ginger. Jennifer Cornbleet shows how to make this green drink in her DVD. I am even thinking of investing in a better juicer for this purpose--a GreenStar Juicer. I am also cutting out the OJ in the green smoothie.

Anyway, we are trying to take this all in stride. My husband laughed (dare I say giggled?) in surprise when he got on the scale this morning. This past week he's ramped up his exercise and been consuming mass quantities of salad and he didn't expect to gain weight! At least that should calm anyone's fears that you might dwindle down to nothing on a raw diet! :-)

A Colorful Dinner Plate

Although my husband and I eat all raw foods for breakfast and lunch, "Daniel's Diet" does allow some cooked foods. As I get more proficient at preparing raw foods, I expect to reduce the amount of cooked foods we eat. But tonight was cold and blustery and so our dinner included Sweet Potato "Fries", Quinoa with Peas and Sage, and Mediterranean Kale Salad (see the Feb. 5th post for the recipe). Although I am not a professional food photographer, I think the combination makes for a very colorful plate!

We tried Zucchini Angel Hair Pasta!

When I first heard raw foodists gush over zucchini "pasta" (zucchini sliced into long thin strips resembling pasta), I have to admit it left me cold. Yuk! But after watching Jennifer Cornbleet's DVD, I just knew I had to give it a try.
Jennifer shows two ways to make zucchini pasta--one using a vegetable peeler and the other using a "spiral slicer"--a gizmo that you can buy online. I tried the vegetable peeler method and didn't feel that I was getting a very good result. So I grabbed the Benriner "Cook's Help"--a Japanese tool for making all sorts of garnishes, pulled it out of its box and without even reading the directions, got started. I took a long straight zucchini, peeled it and cut it into halves. Then I inserted the zucchini onto the small skewer and started turning the handle, giving it even pressure. Underneath I found a mound of what looked like angel hair pasta! I processed 3 medium-large zucchinis and had a nice bowlful.
I had already made Jennifer's raw tomato sauce which she swears tastes just like cooked. I added a little sweetener, honey, and warmed it up slightly in a pan on my stove top. Then I mixed it in with the "pasta" just before we all sat down to eat. As I mixed the sauce into the noodles, the noodles softened a bit. But here is the surprising thing...EVERYONE LIKED IT!
In the future, I think I will tweak her sauce recipe a bit, but one thing I have to admit...the whole operation took me about 20 minutes to make, sauce AND pasta. I can see myself making this at least once or maybe twice a week. I'm also excited to make other types of sauces, such as a mock "Thai Peanut Sauce" made with almond butter.

Raw Marinara Sauce
Yield 1 cup (I doubled it for 4 people)
1 ripe tomato, seeded and chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, soaked or oil-packed
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 T. minced fresh basil or 1 tsp. dried (I vastly prefer fresh)
1 tsp. dried oregano (I think I will cut down on this one next time and make sure I crush it between my palms before adding it)
1/2 tsp. crushed garlic (1 small clove)
salt and pepper to taste
dash cayenne

Place all ingredients in a food processor fitted with the S blade and process until smooth. (Actually I processed the veggies and then added the oil in last.) Stop occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Stored in a sealed container in the frig, this sauce will keep for three days.

How to Eat One Pound of Greens per Day

We are attempting to adopt the maximum healing/cleansing version of the "Daniel's Diet" described in James and Colleen Simmon's book Original Fast Foods. The plan calls for consuming 1 lb of leafy greens, either raw or blended, per day. That's a lot of greens!
On Friday, I measured 1 lb of salad greens out and when my husband came home for lunch, there was this huge bowl of salad that would normally feed about 12 people! He made a small dent in it and then took it back to work with him to munch on like a rabbit. Even then, he only ate about half of it.
Obviously, we needed a different plan.
So now, every morning I measure out 4 oz of greens (using my scale at first until I can eyeball it), and blend those into a breakfast smoothie. Then I give him 8 oz of greens in his lunch salad (which he still can't eat at one setting, but gets through almost all of it during the course of an afternoon at work). Then the plan is to juice the other 4 oz at night with some carrot juice. That makes up one whole pound of baby spinach, mixed spring greens and romain lettuce. What a feat! Pretty soon I'll be adding kale and chard to the mix.

Another part of the plan is to eat a combination of 2 lbs of solid green veggies and non-green, non-starchy veggies. I measure these out as well, but put only 1 lb in his salad and hope to get the other lb in at dinner. In the last few days I've used tomatoes, avocado, sugar snap peas, baby carrots, cucumbers, radishes and red, orange or yellow bell peppers. I also add sprouted lentils and cooked legumes, like kidney beans. He adds a drizzle of Udo's Choice oil blend with a shake of Ranch Dressing Season Mix (a bit of a cheat, but sure helps the salad go down!). And then it's munch, munch, munch! David Wolfe (raw food guru) says that chewing promotes seratonin production in the brain, which is definitely a plus during a Seattle winter!

Raw Food Made Easy Experiment

I received my Raw Food Made Easy DVD yesterday and sat down to watch Jennifer Cornbleet teach me how to prepare tasty raw food dishes. I absolutely loved the DVD! If you go to www.learnrawfood.com you can preview her DVD and her book as well.
I got very courageous and tried her Mediterranean Kale salad, only I substituted red chard which I already had. It was delicious and I had leftovers for lunch today. I think I could eat this salad several times a week no problem. There are two tricks to making kale and other "tough" greens into a delightful salad greens. First, you need to take off the stems and roll the leaves up lengthwise as tightly as you can, like a cigar (although I have no experience at rolling cigars!). Then you chop the kale or chard into thin strips called chiffonade by the French.
Second, after you have a bowlful of greens, you add the lemon juice, olive oil and salt and with your hands, massage the dressing into the greens. They will go from stiff to tender in just a minute or so. Add in the other salad components and you're ready to serve. This is a yummy way to eat more super nutritious green leafies!

2 small bunches kale, stems removed
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup raw pine nuts
1/4 cup black olives, sliced (I omitted these)
Dash of black pepper (I also tossed in some Greek Seasoning)

Store in seal container in the frig and it will keep for 3 days.

Variation: Omit the red bell pepper and olives. Add 1/4 cup golden raisins instead.

Green Smoothies...Yum!

It is my humble opinion that starting your day with a green smoothie would help anyone feel better and greatly improve their health. (Here's a photo of my 80 year old mother enjoying her first smoothie!) Most Americans are starved for green leafy veggies in their diet and yet these are the very ultimate in nutritional powerhouses. Calorie for calorie, you cannot find a more nutritious food than kale, spinach, and other greens. So adding them to your breakfast will only start to fill up the nutritional deficiencies that plague most of us.

Just to add a little factoid, American mothers are so low in Vitamin K, one of the many vitamins abundantly found in greens, that babies born in the US are given a shot of vitamin K following birth. And why? Because babies born with low vitamin K levels have a much higher incidence of brain hemorrhage soon after childbirth (Disease-Proof Your Child, Joel Fuhrman, M.D.).

Green smoothies could also help to prevent other childhood diseases. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer and low consumption of vegetables and fruits right before and during pregnancy has been implicated in its causation (Fuhrman, p.4).
Is it any wonder that the Lord advises us in the Word of Wisdom (Doctrine and Covenants Section 89) to eat "all wholesome herbs" which were "ordained for the constitution, nature and use of man" as well as "every fruit in the season thereof"?

Kristen's Green Smoothie Recipe
1 cup of fresh orange juice*
1 to 4 oz of baby spinach greens or other greens
1/2 large banana, frozen
1 cup other fresh or frozen fruit--your choice**

Add the juice to your blender and then add the greens. Blend until you get all of the greens liquified. Add the other fruit and blend until smooth. Some people like to add protein powder or tofu. You can add these, but you may need to add some more water or juice.

*You can use water and frozen OJ concentrate too, but fresh is best!
** Strawberries and/or cherries will taste delicious but the resulting color will be funny. Adding blueberries will mask the green for the most part and is a good choice for a beginner who finds the bright green color a little too strange. :-) I also like to use peaches, pineapple, and mango. Citrus (as in the juice) helps to cover the taste of the spinach.

Feb. 3, 2008: So far, so good!

Our first day on Friday went well, and so did Saturday. Basically, we eat raw for the first two meals and eat some cooked food with our dinner. So far, baked potatoes have been easy!

I also made a dish with some frozen peas and chopped fresh tomatoes thrown into warm rice. I also added a drizzle of olive oil and fresh basil. That was a nice dinner dish.

This afternoon, I sliced tomatoes and avocado and laid them out on a platter. On top I sprinkled olive oil and pear vinegar with some fresh pepper--that was delicious!

For dessert I am making a fresh coconut-banana-cherry "ice cream" that I think will be yummy. I will probably make a base of blenderized cashew nuts and filtered water and then blend all of the ingredients in the VitaMix before freezing it in my countertop Simac Gelataio (ice cream maker).

I've also discovered several videos on raw food on the Youtube site, so I have started to watch those. Today I have been watching one done at Google in New York with Matt Amsden and David Wolfe and it has been very interesting. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP1cbreDw7U

Happy Eating!
Kristen

Day 1: Our Living Foods Adventure Begins!

I think I'm ready! Yesterday I came home from Costco and PCC (a natural foods market) loaded with baby spinach, mixed salad greens, romaine lettuce, avocados, carrots (for juicing), cucumbers, tomatoes and tons of fruit, including apples, oranges, bananas, and nectarines.



In the last few weeks, I have read and tried new "raw" recipes and penned a basic daily plan. Breakfast will include green smoothies made with greens and fruit and some flax seed. I'm also planning to include a special oil blend called Udo's 3-6-9 Blend of omega fatty acids. In addition, we'll enjoy some nutty germinated buckwheat drizzled with raw honey.



Lunch will be a lovely salad based on sprouted legumes and leafy greens. I plan to include avocado on most days, when they're in season as well as an assortment of other raw veggies.



Dinner will feature a baked potato of some sort or a grain dish made with rice, millet or quinoa. Sides will include lightly steamed broccoli or carrots and some other sort of "living salad".



Fruit will provide desserts and snacks.



This initial phase of our "diet intervention" is more limited, but eventually we will add in a greater variety of foods. Right now we are focused on maximum healing for my husband John who is living with cancer.