On Monday I decided no more salads without dressing! Usually the juice of a lime or lemon is fine but I don’t always want the acidity of those two fruits. Today I picked up my “RAWvolution” book by Matt Amsden.

For lunch I made a salad with spinach, red onion, carrots, cucumber, flax seeds and raw sunflower seeds. What kind of dressing would go well with these ingredients? Garlic Cream Dressing of course! The best thing about this garlic dressing is that you’re also adding ginger which is a great addition.

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup Nama Shoyu (organic raw soy sauce)
8 cloves of garlic (peeled)
1 1/4 cup raw olive oil
One 3 inch piece of ginger (peeled)

Combine all except the olive oil into the base of the blender. While it’s running, slowly add the olive oil until the dressing thickens (you may not use all of it).

I didn’t have a piece of ginger handy so I used ground ginger and it worked just as well. I probably added a tablespoon of the ground ginger.

The people that question my new raw food lifestyle all ask the same things.

•Why raw?

•So you just eat a bunch of salads?

•Doesn’t everything being cold bother you?

Why raw? Why not? Raw foodists believe that the act of cooking food robs it of most, if not all, of their nutrients. How many times have you cooked a can of vegetable soup and found the veggies to be mush? That happened because the plant that makes the soup cooks it through, packages it and then you cook it again before eating. These vegetables are giving you nothing that your body needs. Instead, you’re putting sodium, preservatives and other unnatural, lab made chemicals (put there to give the soup it’s “freshness”) into your body. Every ounce of raw food that you consume gives your body purpose. The organic fruit, vegetables and raw nuts and seeds are high in minerals, vitamins, fiber, antioxidants, nutrients, potassium, omega 3s, protein, etc and they’re all in their natural form. Nothing has been processed, no added hormones, it’s all natural and easily broken down by your body. Your skin clears up, you lose weight, it’s easier to get up in the morning, the list goes on…

Salads? Yes, some. The amount of things you can make following a raw diet is vast. With the use of a dehydrator you can make chips, bread, cookies, crackers, falafel, pizza crust, “cheese” sticks… You can puree (in a blender or food processor) many soups, dips, sauces, smoothies, drinks, salad dressings, pie fillings, condiments, “mashed potatoes”… Today I made a creamy garlic dressing for my salad and it was awesome! So yes to salad but that’s just the beginning. You use raw nuts to make pie crusts, aide in sauce, soup and dip recipes and they’re great to snack on! With the use of a sprouting jar you can sprout small beans and lentils. Bigger beans like black beans and kidney beans have toxins in them that need to be cooked out in order to consume. You can eat them uncooked if you’d like but it would end with you vomiting.

I have found the solution to eating cold food all the time is to spice it up! I put cayenne pepper in a lot of dinner meals (i.e. raw chili, raw soup, even the “spaghetti”!).

Tonight we did take 2 of the raw vegan sushi. Instead of using the toasted (green) nori sheets we opted for the *untoasted (black) nori sheets. We stuffed them with combinations of avocado, green pepper, red pepper, cucumber, shredded carrots, basil, tomato and raw almond butter. For our dessert roll we used a banana, some shredded unsweetened coconut and some raw honey.

The raw honey is very strong so be sure to use it sparingly. I actually found the honey and the raw almond butter at Kroger if you can believe it!

*The untoasted nori sheets have a very fishy taste the them.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it a thousand times – R. Thomas is AMAZING! They have the most wonderful vegetarian, vegan and raw items on their menu (and some meat dishes for you meat eaters). It’s open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Tables are inside a tent with heaters for the winter and fans/ac for the summer. On your walk from the parking lot to the front door you’re greeted by tens of birds saying hello, goodbye or sometimes nothing at all.

Loren and I frequent R. Thomas a lot and have for years. No matter what level we take our foodie lifestyle, R. Thomas always has something for us.

This evening we split Raw Dinners #1 and 2 and the Raw Apple Pie for dessert. Too bad I didn’t think to take a photo of the meals…they were incredible. We scarfed them down right away! Next time I’ll remember!

Most days I come home to make lunch because my partner works from home. This way I have more time in the morning without having to pack my lunch and it gives me a mid day shot of relaxation when I get to cook. The French Fry Salad was something that popped in my head when I opened the fridge one afternoon.

I chopped some romaine lettuce and spinach for the base. Then I added shredded carrots, raw broccoli, chopped up leftover Rustin’s Spicy Fries (cold), avocado and some banana peppers. For the dressing I squeezed some fresh lime and lemon juice over the top.

Delicious!

I was feeling a little sleepy when I got home from work today and needed a kick start before going to the gym. So naturally I picked up an apple…then it hit me. Juice it! I juiced 1 red delicous apple, 1 Florida naval orange and 1 pink grapefruit. It was enough for the two of us to have about 9 ounces or so.

The juice separated in the order that I ran them through. It looked awesome!

I love my juicer!

Woo hoo! Eating as a raw foodist is fun! I do miss warm foods but I still have my hot organic decaf green tea that I drink in the mornings so it’s all good.

Today I made raw chili! I took the recipe from Matt Amsden’s book, ‘RAWvolution‘.

I followed it almost exactly. I added more tomato, 1/2 green pepper, a jalepeno (seeded) and cayenne pepper. I did not use sprouted lentils however. I’m still getting my sprouting technique down. I need to invest in a sprouting cap and jar.

It’s an easy recipe, you just throw all the ingredients in a food processor or a high speed blender and hit go!

Once plated I added some chopped green onions and more cayenne.

Delicous!

Raw Chili

2 cups blended tomato (4 medium tomatoes)
1/2 cucumber (peeled)
2 stalks celery
1/2 red and green bell peppers (seeded)
Some mint and basil leaves
1/2 cup whole leaf dulse
3 garlic cloves (peeled)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup raw olive oil
1/4 cup Nama Shoyu (organic raw soy sauce)
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Cut the veggies into pieces to assit your blender or food processor in it’s chopping glory.

It’s our 2nd day eating raw! I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday and read up on some raw foodism books; one by Carol Alt and the other by Matt Amsden. I bought Matt’s book which is called, “RAWvolution“. I learned from each that there are some essentials that I definitely need to be a successful raw foodist.  Luckily, my awesome brother got me a gift certificate to Williams Sonoma for Christmas so I’m going to make a trip there soon to look for a dehydrator, a couple of vegetable slicers and a new blender. I can get by with the blender I have now but I’d like to get a new one eventually.  Last Christmas, my brother got me a gift card to Cooks Warehouse and I got myself a bad ass juicer (another raw kitchen staple) so that’s one less thing I need to spend money on.

Anywho, this morning I made us a fruit salad with apples, honeydew and blueberries. To it I added some flax seeds and sliced almonds. I juiced some carrots for us to drink.

The routine I’m trying to get us into is fruit for breakfast, salad or veggies with some dip for lunch and for dinner I’ll make something from my new raw cookbook or from an online recipe.

On the weekends I’m going to plan to make a more in depth breakfast but I need to prepare for it. We’ll be making a trip to Whole Foods today so I can buy some more raw staples and the dinner ingredients I need for the next three nights.

We’ve been trying to go through all of our food at home to set up for our switch to eating raw. When I go grocery shopping I’m just buying fresh fruits and veggies, nuts and flax seeds/hemp seeds to stock up for raw recipes.

This evenings dinner took care of our leftover canned corn, tempeh, quinoa, frozen peas and shredded carrots (I added them because it sounded good…I’ve got plenty of carrots left for juicing and eating).

I cooked a little over half a cup of quinoa in a little over 1 cup of water on a high boil for 5 minutes, covered it and took it off the heat completely. Let this sit for 15 minutes. Usually you want 1 cup of water for every 1/2 cup of quinoa.

While the quinoa sits, cook the shredded carrots in a little extra virgin olive oil on medium heat for about 2 minutes and then add the chopped up tempeh (cut 1 package tempeh into 5 slices long ways and then 1/2 inch squares from there). Next add 1/4 cup low sodium organic veggie broth and a tablespoon of Ponzu. After this cooks for about 5 minutes add the frozen peas, corn and a little more broth.

To season the mixture I used red pepper flakes and some dried basil.

Turn the heat down to medium low, add some sliced almonds and let the flavors soak together until your quinoa is done.

Plate with the quinoa first and then the veggie tempeh mixture on top. Finish it with a little more red pepper, basil and sliced almonds.

Loren and I have been discussing being raw vegan foodists lately. This evening, we took to our inspiration and prepared some raw vegan sushi for dinner.

We used no rice just some nori paper. It’s hard to explain through text how to roll sushi so I suggest googling it and watching one of the many YouTube videos.

We had avocado rolls, cucumber carrot avocado rolls, hummus zucchini rolls, hummus carrot cucumber rolls, spinach avocado zucchini curry powder rolls, and hummus red onion green pepper chile powder rolls.

Eating raw means nothing can be heated or cooked higher than 110 degrees. To make raw hummus simply buy organic chick peas (uncooked) and soak them in some pure water overnight.  I found this recipe off a website while searching for raw food:

• 1 cup pre-soaked and sprouted garbanzo beans.
• the juice of 2 lemons, freshly squeezed
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 tsp of sea salt
• 1 carrot, chopped
• about 5 squirts of liquid aminos

Put all of the above ingredients into a food processor and pulse until it reaches hummus consistency.