[This was cross posted at my other food blog Nika's Culinaria]

I had an opportunity to dive into the book, written by by Mark Reinfeld, Bo Rinaldi, and Jennifer Murray, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating Raw.

I had not previously read one of these Idiot’s Guides but I found that they use uncomplicated first person language that feels quite direct and the layout is actually a great one because there are useful summaries as you move through the content which leads to great knowledge pick-up and retention. There are little call out boxes with nice tips relevant to the recipe or topic on that page.

There is a VERY useful chart showing you times and temperatures for dehydrating a range of foods. As recommended by many raw food chefs, this book suggests starting the dehydrating run at 145 F and then turning it down to 105 F some 2 hours later. This might seem contrary to what you have heard, which is likely that you should NEVER raise the temperature on living foods above 115 F. What is happening in those first 2 hours at 145 F is that the rate of evaporation is higher because there is the most water at the beginning of the cycle. This evaporation COOLS the food so the food is not actually at 145 F, just the air blowing over it. This 2 step process is recommended to ensure that the food you have put so much work into does not begin to mold before it dries sufficiently.

There is so much fundamentally useful information in the first several parts that its hard to cover. I think there really is very little if anything they have failed to cover for the beginner and the experienced.

The chapters are well organized and include:

Chapters

• Part 1: Raw Foods Illuminated
• Raw Benefits
• Myth Busters
• Going Green with Raw Cuisine
• Ancient Foods, Superfoods, and the Future of Food
• The Perfect Pantry
• Tools of the Trade
• Part 2: Raw Techniques
• Preparation Basics
• Soaking and Sprouting
• Advanced Techiques
• Part 3: Recipes on the light side
• Appetizers and Spreads
• Salads and Dressings
• Sublime Sauces and Toppings
• Sumptuous Soups
• Nut Milks and Cheeses
• Bountiful Beverages
• Part 4: Hearty Fare
• Unbeatable Breakfasts
• Filling Wraps and Sandwiches
• Pizzas, Crackers, and Breads
• Delicious Main Dishes
• Puddings, Pies, and Parfaits
• Cakes, Cookies, and Energy Bars
• Part 5: Raw Transitions
• A Day in the Life
• Fasts and Cleanses
• Four Week Raw Success Program
• Glossary
• Further Resources

As usual in these reviews, I choose a recipe and test it as well as photograph it.

I chose the following mushroom recipe and I can tell you, I was quite happy I did. This is an explosively flavorful dish with a lovely contrast between the intense meaty mushroom and the fresh tartly marinated asparagus. It was a huge thumbs up from everyone in my family from the 2.5 yo to the old adults.

I also found the marinade so beguiling that I used it on other vegetables, loved it all.

Portobello Mushroom Steaks with Balsamic Asparagus (Page 226)

Ingredients

• 4 portobello mushroom caps
• 2 cups filtered water
• 1/4 cup plus 3 teaspoons nama shoyu (raw soy sauce)
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
• pinch salt
• pinch freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon stone ground mustard
• 1 bunch asparagus (or enough for 4 servings
• 1/2 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1/2 medium yellow or orange bell pepper, seeded and diced
• undisclosed amount of maple syrup (try 1/4 cup) – book left this out of the ingredients!

Directions

Must caps in quarters and place in a baking pan with gills facing down. Add the water and 1/4 cup nama shoyu and put into 145 F dehydrator for 30 minutes. Remove from dehydrator and pour off the marinade (save 1/2 cup).

In a separate bowl mix basil, garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 teaspoons nama shoyu, salt, black pepper. Push mushrooms into this marinade, coat evenly.

In a bowl, mix 2 tablespoons olive oil, balsamic vinegar, stone ground mustard, maple syrup, 1 teaspoon nama shoyu.

Clean and trim asparagus, put into pan, add this balsamic marinade.

Put asparagus in pan into 145 F dehydrator for 1 hour, stir every 15 minutes.

After this hour, add remaining 1/2 cup balsamic marinade to bottom of mushroom pan and put it into the 145 F dehydrator with the asparagus for 45 to 60 minutes.

Remove from dehydrator and serve warm, if desired (its not bad at all cool). Recipe suggests sprinkling with the bell peppers but I didn’t for my photos.

Again, this recipe was amazing and I would recommend it completely, lots of amazing flavor.

Product Details

• Title: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating Raw
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Alpha; 1 edition (July 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1592577717
• ISBN-13: 978-1592577712
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches

I have had an opportunity to review a new book in the raw food cookbook series “The Complete Book of Raw Food” called
Raw Food Quick & Easy: Over 100 Healthy Recipes Including Smoothies, Seasonal Salads, Dressings, Pates, Soups, Hearty Creations, Snacks, and Desserts (The Complete Book of Raw Food Series) by Mary Rydman.

Mary Rydman, a former commuter airline pilot, has been a raw foodist for some 20 years and shares her favorite and simple recipes in this cookbook.

The recipes are indeed quick and easy while they add a delicious sparkle to your raw food cuisine repertoire. The book is 100% text so do not expect to see photographs of her various recipes. This is fine as the recipes are not complicated and thus need no further elaboration.

Contents:

• Author’s story
• Soaking, Sprouting and Storing
• About Dehydrating
• The Raw Kitchen
• Is it really raw?
• Simple ways to boost your nutrition intake
• Eating according to our biological design
• Food and emotions
• The Recipes
• The 5 element smoothie and other breakfast foods
• Beverages
• Dressings
• Sauces and Gravies
• Salads
• Dehydrated Crackers
• Soups
• Raw Dairy
• Pates
• Sides and Hearty Creations
• Snacks and Finger Foods
• Desserts
• Ice Cream
• Sources

For my review I chose to make one of the recipes on page 59 in the “Sauces and Gravies” chapter.

Spicy Seed Sauce

Advance prep: 6 hours to soak seeds

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds, soaked
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, soaked
• 1 tablespoon onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• pinch cayenne pepper
• water to blend to desired consistency

Directions

Blend all ingredients well in a blender or food processor. Serves 4.

Changes I made:
I forgot to use onion! It tastes fine without it. I used fresh basil and marjoram. I also added some fresh oregano. I added some grated ginger and lemon juice as well. The juice helps inhibit some of the oxidation. I added some goji berries as well!

My review of the recipe
I used this dressing on avocado chunks and it was simply delicious! It comes out sort of creamy. I added in some whole seeds and goji berries to add a bit more interest.

I found that it made quite a lot some I froze about half of it in an ice cube tray.

Once frozen I will pop these out and put into a freezer baggie!

I would recommend this book to both a raw foodist as well as anyone who would like to build some variation into their use of fresh vibrant vegetables. I would suggest that in the next edition, the author craft an index so as to ease rapid navigation.

Product Information:

• Title: Raw Food Quick & Easy: Over 100 Healthy Recipes Including Smoothies, Seasonal Salads, Dressings, Pates, Soups, Hearty Creations, Snacks, and Desserts (The Complete Book of Raw Food Series)
• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Hatherleigh Press (August 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578263069
• ISBN-13: 978-1578263066
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces

Being a foodie and a gardener, eating raw food is both a challenge and a delight. While I can easily eat an entire meal out in the garden, nibbling on raw green beans, chard, zucchini, herbs, all fresh from the plant, there are times when my mouth screams out for the umami (savory) that cooked meats seem to have cornered the market on.

This is when consulting a cookbook on recipes for raw food that have some umami kick really pays off.

I have only begun to explore the great many recipes in The Complete Book of Raw Food, Second Edition: Healthy, Delicious Vegetarian Cuisine Made with Living Foods * Includes More Than 400 Recipes from the World’s Top Raw Food Chefs, edited by Julie Rodwell and written with the input of a great many cooks, chefs, and people just like me and you who have developed so many delicious recipes.

This book is a fantastic resource for both the novice and the experienced “un-cook” and raw foodist. It touches on the critical importance of quality ingredients, covers the more esoteric ingredients that raw food cuisine has inherited from decades of vegan cuisine.

It covers the various tools and methods one may or may not need to turn out some of the recipes, juicer machines and various ways of usng your juicer.

It has a great section on sprouting as well as what they call “greening” – the growing of greens in a substrate, plants like wheat grass.

It also covered the basics of dehydrating and the various machines to choose from.

The recipes fall into these categories:

• Salads & Dressings
• Soups
• Snacks & Sides
• Smoothies, Shakes & Juices
• Bread, Crackers & Chips
• Raw Milk & Cheese Substitutes
• Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner Entrees
• Spreads, Sauces & Dips
• Cookies & Other Sweets
• Pies & Cakes
• Ice Cream & Puddings

The Japanese figured out a very long time ago where to turn for vegetarian umami- mushrooms are exploding with it.

I turned to a delightful recipe for marinated portobello mushroom on page 130. It is quite simple, I know, but there is something about this marinade that made the mushroom palatable even chilled. I had to modify the stuffing because we have lethal nut allergies in our home.

As you may have picked up from my about page, we practice raw food from a non-vegan perspective. We have our own dairy goats and we drink their milk raw and I make various raw cheeses. I used raw chevre for the stuffing in this recipe. Technically its all raw and 100% nut free! Just not vegan.

Portobello Mushroom – Marinated and Stuffed

Ingredients

• 24 portobello mushrooms, washed and stemmed

• For the Marinade:
• 1 pint olive oil
• 1 small onion
• 2 – 4 garlic cloves
• 1 – 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped dill
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon mustard seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoon celtic sea salt

• For the Stuffing:
• seed spread or nut cheese
• sliced tomatoes
• lettuce
• sprouts
• onion

Directions
Wash and stem the mushrooms, put them topside down in a dish (or baggie like I did), poke holes in caps.

Blend or just mix marinade ingredients then pour over the mushrooms. Allow to marinate several hours (I use the fridge – best to inhibit nasties).

Serve as desired. I stuffed/topped it with raw chevre (goat cheese) and dill, sprinkling of salt.

You can warm it up a bit in a dehydrator if you want it to be a bit less chilly.

My entire family LOVED this and they are not accustomed to eating these sorts of foods. I kid you not when I say that my 2.5 year old toddler begged for more, smacking his lips!

Give this book a try, definitely worth the price of $19.80 or so.

Product Details

• Title: The Complete Book of Raw Food, Second Edition: Healthy, Delicious Vegetarian Cuisine Made with Living Foods * Includes More Than 400 Recipes from the World’s Top Raw Food Chefs
• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Hatherleigh Press; 2 Rev Exp edition (August 5, 2008)
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds

I recently had the opportunity to test out the Champion Juicer on some of our garden greens and other veggies. It has a 1/3 horsepower 240 volt 50 Hertz motor and has several parts that help you make juice, nut and seed butters, ice cream and there is even a grain grinding attachment! The Champion was invented and went into production back in 1955 and has been made by the same family since then!

Champion Juicer Specifications

• Stainless Steel motor shaft
• 1/3 horsepower motor
• All parts are 100% FDA nylon and stainless steel
• Weight: 12 kg
• Height: 25cm
• Length: 43cm
• Depth: 17cm

Juicing is a HUGE topic. I will try to boil down the juicing rationale to a couple of words: Extraction of all goodness from fruits and veggies, easy making of organic and homegrown ingredients (both juice and pulp) for recipes.

Believe it or not, many of us, having been raised on soft processed food diets, do not have the correct habits of chewing food long enough to properly start the digestion process. Further, some of the foods that have fantastic nutrients like the greens we grow in our gardens (and not even the “organic” ones in the stores grown on depleted Big Organic Ag farms) pass right through us without releasing their cell contents because our teeth and our gastrointestinal enzymes can not break the cell walls.

There are important considerations while juicing – minimizing oxidation (exposure to oxygen which degrades certain nutrients) and minimizing heat (heat kills Vitamin C and other nutrients).

Juicers like the Champion Juicer fracture the plant cell walls, releasing the cell contents into the juice. Those juices are the essence of the plant and should be used immediately to further insure against oxidation.

Short of working at -20 C in a Nitrogen enriched environment (to exclude oxygen), you can choose a juicer that minimizes both of these factors.

Things to keep in mind.

I have very much enjoyed getting to know this machine. For some people, who have had this juicer for decades, its all old hat. Other people may have multiple juicers and also find it all old hat. There are also a lot of people like me who have never tried out a juicer and can find it all sort of intimidating.

I have non-motorized hand-push citrus juicers and they are ok. My hands are dry to begin with and when I get citrus juice and the oil from the peel as I push down on it on my hands it stings terribly.

We had also bought this large bulky “juicer” for fruits and veggies. This one was made by Waring Pro and is the centrifugal type with a spinning basket.

It had limited use because the basket never extracted enough juice. The pulp was always VERY juicy but somewhat hard to get at in the catchment container. Once again, I was having to dig into acidic orange pulp or into soppy carrot pulp, etc, to try to then crush out, by hand, more of the juice. Lots of good juice was left on the table.

This is no small thing because the extent to which the juicer extracts liquids from the ground fruit or veggie is one of the major discriminators between juicers.

The Champion Juicer is called a centrifugal juicer by some but I think that is a misnomer. By no means is it analogous to the Waring Pro centrifugal juicer and there are MANY juicers out there just like the Waring Pro.

The Champion Juicer has a rotating screw that grinds and then forces pulp against a screen. Juice is separated from the pulp which is then ejected out the end. Centrifugal forces are not the main mechanism of action here.

I have found the Champion to be VERY effective at extracting juice from carrots, leafy greens, apples, oranges, and other fruits and veggies quite effectively the first time through the screw.

It Is VERY easy to feed the dry pulp back into the chamber as many times as you wish, to wrest the final microliters of possible juice out! You just hold your hand under the pulp spout, catch the pulp and then put it back into the feeder spout!

I am very happy to recommend this juicer with all thumbs up. Its a fantastic machine that absolutely gets the job done. Its also much easier to clean than the Waring Pro and similar juicers!

Let me know if you have any questions and also if you have any special ways you like to use your Champion Juicer!

Below are a series of photos I took while using the machine to make a spinach and carrot juice for some pasta I was making. I will include some details about how to assemble and then how to use the machine.

These preceeding steps take a while to explain but hardly any time at all to actually do!

You are now ready to juice!

To clean you just take it apart and flush all parts with warm water. You might want to get a vegetable cleaning brush to LIGHTLY brush the screw blades to remove any stubborn bits.

I have the fortune of reviewing two of Matthew Kenney’s books, Everyday Raw and Entertaining in the Raw

Today’s review is of Everyday Raw, recipes that you can build your home raw cuisine from while Entertaining in the Raw is filled with more elaborate recipes that you might wish to save for special occasions or at least allot some time for building a deeper raw food pantry (will be reviewing that book in another post).

Kenney has a writing style that projects a vibrant abundance and passion for food in general and for the clarity of raw food specifically. In his voice and his recipes, you pick up on his deep experience with raw food recipe development and production in both the home and restaurant settings.

I am looking forward to exploring many of these recipes and sharing them with my family, we are all at varying levels of transition or experimentation. My only restriction with this cookbook is the use of nuts. We have severe nut allergies so we have a zero tolerance of any sort of nut product. I certainly can not fault Kenney and other chefs who create delicious foods with nuts, nuts have a great many virtues. I just have to find a way to engineer my way around them in these recipes.

For today’s review I chose to make Eggplant Bacon, from a wide range of interesting recipes. I pulled out a few recipes from each chapter below to show the diversity of these delicious offerings.

I loved the way the eggplant bacon recipe turned out, interesting flavor and texture. Eggplant bacon is healthy and interesting garnish to add to your raw pantry!

Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney

Contents:

everyday handbook

• tools
• key products
• skills

blended & squeezed

• mango raspberry
• raspberry-agave lemonade
• the muscle

snacks

• citrus maple granola
• chocolate-ginger macaroons
• super goji-cacao-maca bars

unbaked

• herb crackers
• golden tortilla chips

starters

• eggplant bacon
• cucumber-white grape gazapcho
• savory crepes

spreads, dips & sauces

• red chile-pineapple dipping sauce
• mango guacamole

salads

• creamy sesame dressing
• blood orange-crispy fennel salad

larger dishes

• portobello fajitas
• baked macaroni and cheese

desserts

• agave caramel
• frozen goji berry souffle

ice cream

• almond gelato
• mint cacao chip

As I mentioned, I tried out the Eggplant Bacon recipe, featured below.

Eggplant Bacon (page 58)

Ingredients:

• 1 large eggplant, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• 1/2 dried chipotle chile, soaked at least 2 hours
• 1/2 cup soaking water from the chipotle peppers
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons nama shoyu
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• pinch black pepper
• pinch cayenne

Directions:

To make the thin sheets of eggplant I used a horizontal peeler.

It worked like a dream!

Once you have sliced your eggplant, sprinkle it with the sea salt and allow to sit for 1-2 hours.

In the mean time, blend the other ingredients in the liquid container of your Vita-Mix.

Layer your eggplant sheets between paper or cloth tea towels and press out excess moisture.

Submerge the squeezed eggplant in the marinade. I put them in a baggie and purged as much air as possible (as I would with any marinade). Marinate 30-45 minutes.

Carefully lay out the eggplant sheets onto your dehydrator trays and dehydrate until crispy (24 – 48 hours).

Yields 15 – 20 bacon pieces.

Here are some shots of how I used this eggplant bacon with zucchini and some raw sprouted hummus that I will blog about another time.

Product Details

• Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith (March 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423602072
• ISBN-13: 978-1423602071
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds

I am the mend from a horrific head cold that I caught from one of my little ones. This was one of those that takes down the parent worse than the kid. It also coincided with my early spring tree allergies. I am definitely feeling better but my mind and body really wanted to reject this cold. I found myself whiny over feeling so completely rotten.

I assess and re-assess my diet and do not see any major reasons for why my health should be so down and out, I mean, come on, there are smokers and people who eat conventional food who have fine health compared to mine.

I am convinced that my issues arise from heavy metals from my fillings. As you may know, pregnancy can negatively impact calcium in the female body and in particular can cause bone density loss and teeth defects. My health was relatively vital and steady state until right after I gave birth to my first child, 13 years ago.

All of a sudden I was devitalized (cant think of a better term for this spectrum of issues) – bone grinding fatigue, fog, weight gain, malaise, post partum depression, etc. I simply figured this was what you get when you have a kid at 30 and that I would just have to put up with it, suck it up.

A year or so later I complained to my doc and he did some blood work and I came back positive for various autoimmune markers. I had some vague symptoms (joint pain, enormous fatigue) but he didn’t want to call it anything specific yet (that would have a bad effect on my health insurance). This was ok with me. I didnt want to be sucked into the system and start taking steroids on a prophylactic basis.

A year or so after that I had a massive attack of several absesses in my molars, they happened constantly actually. They would come in a cyclical fashion though I am not sure if it was linked to my periods tho that would make sense as that is a cycle.

I went to a dentist who refused to touch my absesses until I had some antibiotics onboard (don’t blame him, they were huge boils at this point) and he was shocked and puzzled by what he saw on my x-rays – abnormally large amounts of bone loss in my jaw. Of course he assumed I must have been a heavy coke drinker but I assured him that I only drank diet sodas (I know, bad but no sugar for teeth issues, I stopped after this incident, just in case it was the carbonic acid). I took the antibiotics, the infection went away, for a while, and I didn’t go back to that dentist (he had a rotten attitude).

I continued with those evil infections, cycling through them constantly. I have never had great dental coverage and no money for extras so I just lived with the pain.

I had another bad attack of the teeth, another dentist, he found profound bone loss, refused to do anything unless I had antibiotics. He put me on this enormous bolus of penicillin. Several weeks later I spent an agonizing week with hives from an allergic reaction and now have to stay away from this antibiotic.

I wanted to keep my job (had a horrific boss who made me feel insecure every single day) so I didnt take time out from work to go see the dentist again, had already lost so much time.

I had my second child and continued with the same fatigue and positive autoimmune biomarkers. I complained to my doc again and he sent me to a rheumatologist. This doc got me on two drugs (I refused steroids) – provigil in the day (anti-narcoleptic, stimulates the “awake” centers of the brain and powerful for ADD treatment) and seroquel at night (SUPPOSED to make me sleep better, gave me hallucinations!). I gave it a try but I hate taking drugs, especially mood altering ones so that didnt work for me.

[OMG, I know this is long but I promise, its almost to an end, of sorts]

At various points along this timeline I have had deep cleaning of the pockets, always to no avail.

I decided to have a 3rd and last child. I went to tell my rheumatologist who flipped out and literally told me I would be stupid to have another child – that it would kill me. As a scientist, my relationship with doctors is not one of idolatry, needless to say, I walked out of there and have never been back.

I went on to see a YOUNGER academic rheumatologist who had absolutely no problem with my having a baby. The pregnancy went swimmingly (like the two previous ones) except for one thing which I didnt think too deeply on at the time.

Toward the end of the pregnancy, I was eating something (wasnt hard, maybe a sandwich) and, pop, my tooth broke, the filling and tooth fragments fell out of my mouth. There was no pain at all.

I went to ANOTHER dentist who took a look at my teeth and my x-rays and then pulled three teeth. These teeth had floated loose in their pockets and hollowed out so much over the years (all that pain) that they simply pulled out.

I have not had any infections since that day. I do still have fillings and I fear that they too are eroding away, out gassing like these others must have.

I do not have the money to get the remainder of the teeth pulled (the ones with fillings) nor would I then have the money to have dentures or what have you made. I know it sounds terrible but its all true! When one has to prioritize the mortgage and food, these things are honestly not at the top of the list.

It remains though that I am convinced that my poor health is a result of carrying a significant heavy metal burden and I think it likely that my son (the third child) is dealing with autism because of my heavy metal burden. He is on an aggressive omega 3 therapy and is responding tremendously to applied behavioural therapy.

I on the other had am at a place where I want to find a food based approach to my heavy metals. This brings this VERY long winded and uncharacteristically personal account to a close and to the recipe I am sharing today.

Heavy metals can partition or become a part of your fat as well as other parts of your body’s cells. The process of encouraging the leaching out or removal of these toxins is called chelation. In chemistry, chelation is a term that implies that one active molecule grabs onto some other molecule or atom. The cheation can be a temporary binding or a permanent one.

While I can not attest to every point of veracity, this link on “9 steps to Detox” looks like a relatively good overview of a plan for chelation therapy.

I put together this recipe based on a variety of sites I found. It is meant to be delicious and to be taken two teaspoons a day for 2-3 weeks.

Cilantro Chelation Detox Pesto

Ingredients:

• two large bunches of fresh cilantro
• 2 medium garlic cloves
• 1/2 lime, juiced
• 1/4 c raw sunflower seeds
• 1/4 c raw pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 to 1/2 c olive oil

Directions:
I used a Vita-Mix because it is so fantastic at breaking green things into small pieces! You can also use a food processor.

Put all ingredients into the large blender jug except the olive oil in the blender and turn on to medium high. Add 1/4 c olive oil and continue to blend. If the mixture is not coming together as a paste, add more olive oil.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Eat two teaspoons a day. Be creative! It is delicious and will go with many things and is great by itself.

If you have experience with chelation therapy or teeth issues like I have, share your story.

I will circle back here in a few weeks of this treatment. As with all food based remedies, I am not realy expecting a one-day-to-the-next sort of change. I expect any effect to be gradual, gentle.

I am going to see if I can get some heavy metals testing done and see what they say.

When I first delved into the raw diet I really noticed and appreciated the immediate effect that green smoothies have on the functions of the gastrointestinal tract. Wow, it really helps the intestines when you eat plant matter that speeds itself through versus protein heavy foods (dairy and meats) that tend to dessicate the intestines and can lead to unnecessary constipation, especially if you do not drink enough water!

After a few days though, I noticed another result of eating a raw diet in the middle of our snowy really cold New England winter – raw foods are not thermogenic like cereals and meats are. I quickly found myself unable to maintain body temperature (and I have lots of padding, let me assure you). No amount of sweaters and huddling under several blankets and high heat output from the wood boiler would warm me up!

This quickly lead me to pretty much fear a day starting out with a delicious green smoothie because it meant I would be rendered frozen the rest of the day! I do not use ice in any of my smoothies, ever. I am fine with the cool temps I get from the fruits and greens, do not need it to be a frozen drink. So, its not an icy smoothie that was causing this problem.

With regret, I introduced cereals back into my diet and after one sitting, I was able to maintain body temperature and emerge from the blankets. As you might imagine, this posed a problem for me because I am not moving my family to Costa Rica just so I can eat a raw food diet! Nor does this mean that a thermogenic diet that keeps me warm in the brutal cold of New England is necessarily good for my body, it just means I have a challenge that will take some time to approach.

What it means for now, I think, is that my diet will need to be more seasonal. With the coming warmer days (they are not here yet, it still dips into the low 30s here at night), raw foods will become a larger part of my diet and then I hope, in the summer, become the dominant part of it.

We are starting to plant the brassicas out in our raised beds. You can learn all about our homestead at my Humble Garden blog. The photos below show you the raised beds we built two years ago. I intend to feed myself raw veggies from my garden even more, beyond the usual mesclun lettuces, with kales, etc.

I think the main take home message with anything about life and diet is to listen to your body (I know cliche but actually true) and then give yourself a break, dont get rigid in your thinking but rather see it as a continuum of responses to a complex world.

Today I share some experimenting I have been doing on raw food ingredients to shake my raw food experience up a bit.

There is an interesting plurality between my homecooked food (including the daily raw foods I make for myself) and the food I shoot. I find it therapeutic to conceptualize and then make foods that I then style for photography. Its a visual process and its about eating with the eyes. Raw food itself CAN lend itself to fantastic photography because it easily conveys the vitality we like to see in food photography. On the other hand, I have been making smoothies that are not that visually appealing and eating apples and bananas, nothing clever about their appearance. When I cook for the family and serve it up, while its not just all tossed into a pile, it doesn’t hold up well for photography.

All this said, these thoughts were part of my process as I brought together today’s recipe. I wanted to make sweet potato ravioli but my mandolin would NOT cut a whole round. When I cut the potato with my food processor I got rounds but VERY thick ones. I wanted to make a rich ravioli stuffing that was different in color from the sweet potato, same with the sauce. If I had more basil on hand, the green of the stuffing would have been more intense. The tomatoes were hot house and thus did not give a nice bright color.

I did the best I could with the technology I had! As I ate the dish, I enjoyed the broccoli and the sweet potato although it might be better if you can get the slices much thinner!

Nika’s Sweet Potato Crunch

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized sweet potato
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 slices fresh ginger
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 2-3 basil leaves or some basil sprouts
• 1/3 c sunflower seeds, raw
• 1/3 c pumpkin seeds, raw
• 1/3 c organic unsweetened coconut flakes, medium size
• 3/4 c broccoli florets, raw
• 2 medium organic carrots
• 3 tablespoons coconut water
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Slices: Peel sweet potato, slice as thin as possible (mandolin, food processor, knife, the force, what ever works for you).

Stuffing: In a Vita-Mix dry blender, pulverize coconut fakes, sunflower and pumpkin seeds to a flour. Add flour to liquid blender and add 1 clove garlic, coconut water, ginger, broccoli, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp olive oil, and blend. You will need to used the plunger stick and you may need to stop a few times to redistribute unblended parts. You also may need to add some more coconut water to bring the mixture together into a dough.

Sauce: Peel two medium organic carrots, cut in half. Turn on Vita-mix and then take off top clear part (leave main top on) and drop carrots down onto the moving blade. This minces the carrot finely. Turn off the Vita-Mix. Add tomatoes, lemon juice, 1 clove garlic, 1 tsp salt, basil leaves (I used basil sprouts) and blend until completely blended.

Assemble as desired. I sprinkled on some chunky salt and red and black pepper to garnish, along with basil and salad green sprouts.

Because the tomato is NOT cooked, it will release clear tomato juice if allowed to sit. A cooked tomato sauce will not do this. The sauce tastes fantastic as it explodes with umami, even in it’s raw state. The broccoli filling is creamy from the seed flour and rather filling. The sweet potato, as I mentioned, would do well to be sliced more thinly but the flavor is lovely and it has a strong crunch. This is a textural thing that is up to you! Experiment and see for yourself.

At my other food blog, Nika’s Culinaria, I have reviewed quite a few fantastic cookbooks over the years. I adore picking up a new book, reading it and then cooking a few recipes from it and showcase the results I got (Modern Indian Cooking by Hari Nayak and Vikas Khanna, My Whole Grain Manifesto – take back your inner grain!).

As I am new to the world of raw cuisine, I have no raw cookbooks and have been very slowly building some of the basic knowledge and methods people have developed for presenting raw foods in such a way that interest and excitement is maintained.

Thus, I have been extremely fortunate to be able to get my hands on a 5200 super Vita-Mix for this review and for a tasty exploration into a new culinary world.

I had been using a regular off the Wal-Mart shelf sort of blender for years but only VERY sporadically. Until a month or so ago, it had sat on my shelf, very dusty and lonely. I cleaned it up and started to make smoothies and other mixtures for raw living foods such as flax crackers.

It wasn’t but a few uses before that poor blender (more like counter bling than an actual appliance) began to puff out clouds of smoke (am NOT exaggerating). I have killed food processors in the past (was pureeing turkey for some turkey wellingtons – long story) so I was resigned to failure as I saw the white puffs and smelled the acrid stench of burning electronics.

The one green smoothie I made in that blender came out with large kale bits that were quite intact when my body was done with them (ahem, a few hours later). The old blender could not get the kale and other greens sliced up enough for it to be used by my body.

As is suggested by many raw food proponents, there is abundant nutrition locked up inside of the leafy greens such as kale. As we are not ruminants, with the 3 or 4 stomachs and the bacterial flora needed to break down cellulose (plant cell walls) those nutrients are hard to digest and access.

Its not our “fault” as humans, its just that our primate evolution didnt include the ruminant digestive system.

We have evolved and adapted to eat those animals who do have the multiple rumens but the meat is only a subset of the nutrition that comes from eating plants.

Its like the sunshine has been captured by plants (grasses) and then filtered through the ruminant’s digestive system into their meats. Our adaptation has not included the ability to extract our entire needs from meats (like true carnivores such as cats) but rather, our biochemistry requires additional inputs from plant sources to make a complete toolbox for our growth and function.

Leafy greens are great for us but its like the nutrients are locked away, behind the plant walls. A Wal-Mart blender can not break the plant walls sufficiently so a lot of that kale goodness in my green smoothie was flushed away.

The Vita-Mix, with it’s robust turbine, was able to liberate abundant amounts of goodness from those greens, making my green smoothies truly whole foods. Its hard for me to express how important that is.

Green Smoothie Goodness

If you are not familiar with the sort of hack that a green smoothie is, listen in. You take hard to chew green chlorophyl tasting challenging greens like kale, which many people usually cook the dickens out of, and blend to liquifaction with a variety of fruits. The smoothie you get doesn’t taste “green” at all and is filled with all the fiber of whole foods (no juicing here).

I once tried juiced wheat grass and got an instant migraine and had an explosive flash to the smell of a newly mowed lawn. That is a flavor that does no smoothie any good. With this green smoothie method, that flavor is essentially eliminated.

The smoothie I share today has an additional bit of goodness, freshly grown salad sprouts, some of which were quite spicy!

I grew these two SproutPeople sprout mixes: Italian (red clover, cress, garlic) and French Garden (red clover, arugula, cress, radish, fenugreek, ad dill) .

As a result, this smoothie was spicy without adding any dried spices!

I also used pink grapefruit which added a very dominant flavor to the smoothie, you might prefer to try this with sweet oranges. Am thinking, if you don’t mind or even crave tart, that blood oranges would be resplendent in this smoothie! Am going to try that when they come in.

Nika’s Spicy Leafy Fruity Green Smoothie Explosion

Ingredients:

• 4-5 medium sized leaves of curly ORGANIC kale
• 1 cup freshly sprouted organic French Garden Garden Sprouts, drained well
• 1 cup freshly sprouted organic Italian sprouts, well drained
• 3/4 cup washed and drained blueberries
• 1 pink grapefruit, peeled
• 1 ripe banana, peeled
• 1 small apple, cored but not peeled
• 1/4 of a cantalope, skinned and cubed
• 5 large strawberries
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup organic coconut juice, as needed

Directions:

Put kale and sprouts in the blender, including a 1/4 cup of coconut juice.

Blend this a bit until the kale has been partially broken down.

Add the rest of the fruit and also add coconut juice IF liquid seems to be needed.

Blend again! Keep it blending until leaves are no longer seen but not any longer than that.

Serve the smoothie and then rinse the blender jar, add warm soapy water and blend to clean, EASY PEASY.

Enjoy! Those dark bits are blueberry skins that are REALLY persistent but full of goodness. If your smoothie sits a bit, blue will spread out from those blue bits, further infusing the smoothie with blue yum.

I grew up eating homemade whole wheat breads and healthy foods (1970s) but not sprouts.

I recently jumped into the world of sprouts by ordering the SproutHead SuperBundle kit from SproutPeople in San Francisco.

Let me say that I LOVE this company. They were able to help me with a special request (remove all nuts from the order) and the quality of their seeds and sprouters are simply super fantastic. I am so happy to support them. I am not associated with them in any way, just a happy customer!

This SproutHead SuperBundle kit, which you can order here, includes the following (as described on their site):

A Sprout Lover’s dream come true, our SproutHead Kit includes 10 pounds of seed, 5 Sprouting Devices,
Sproutpeople’s 1st Cook Book(let) and of course, our Growing Brochure – with all the information anyone needs to sprout any seed anywhere.

The Seeds in this Kit are all supplied to us by farmers who are Certified Organic!

Contents:

The Sprouters
Three Easy Sprout Sprouters
One Hemp Bag Sprouter
One SproutMaster 8×10 inch Sprouter

The Seeds
One Pound each of:

Amber Waves of Grain
Just about Every Grain Under the Sun, Combined into a Sweet and Nutritious Treat:
Wheat, Spelt, Kamut, Triticale, Rye, Oats, Barley, Quinoa, Millet, Sesame, Amaranth

Beanie’s Awesome Mix
A Lovely Pastel Blend of Beans:
Green, Marrowfat + Yellow Peas, Green + Red Lentils, Beige + Brown Garbanzos, Adzuki Beans

French Garden
Our Most Popular Clover Based Blend:
Clover, Arugula, Cress, Radish, Fenugreek, and Dill

Hot2
Spicy Brassicas mixed to perfection.
Daikon Radish and Oriental Mustard.

Italian Blend
Our 2nd Most Popular Clover Blend:
Clover, Cress and Garlic

Madison Market Mix
We sell this fresh at the Dane County Farmer’s Market – it is Astounding!
Almonds, Peanuts, Pumpkins and Sunflower

Mung Beans
The Most Consumed Sprout on Earth. A staple of Asian Cookery and a Very Fun Sprout to Grow

Peasant Mix
Simple yet elegant, this is Gil’s favorite Bean Mix:
Red, Crimson, Green, Black and French Blue Lentils

Russian Mix
Our Original and still Favorite Clover Blend:
Clover, Fenugreek, Mustard, Onion and Dill

San Francisco Mix
Our Most Popular Bean Mix is Beautifully Dark and Contains a Wide Range of Tastes:
Mungs, Adzukis, Peanuts, Black, Brown + Beige Garbanzos, Green, Crimson, French Blue + Black Lentils, Green, Marrowfat, Speckled + Bill Jump Peas

The Sproutpeople’s First Recipe Book (version 1.5, updated in 2005) and our Grow your Own Sprouts Brochure

So, when I got the box, I ripped it open and immediately started soaking some mung beans!

After an overnight soak, I rinsed them and then put them into the miniprouter.

Since I am already growing all sorts of plants for my garden, I had my seed sprouting mat up and going. I loaded up the minisprouter, wrapped it in foil to keep the sun out and then let it sit on the seed mat.

The soaked mung beans sprouted little tiny rootlets on the second day.

By the third day, the mungs are sprouted and looking luscious!

I used some of this first batch of mung sprouts for a delightful salad! I added equal parts balsamic vinegar and cold pressed olive oil to a quart canning jar with a lid and added some salt, shoyu, some greek herb mix and shook to emulsify it a bit. I dumped in a load of sprouts and then shook some more to coat the sprouts. I added some of this to mixed greens to make the salad you see below!

Let me know what your favorite sprouting recipes are!

I have been making smoothies with sprouts, will share some of those recipes in a later post.