Raw Food: 2 Weeks In

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Ashley

I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks already! Well, almost 16 days actually. My apologies for not posting more. It’s been a combination of house-sitting, Mother’s Day weekend, and the fact that posting pictures of green salads and smoothies gets a little boring after a while (which would explain why I have so few food pictures from the past week). But, since I’ve hit a milestone (and officially lasted longer than anyone thought I would), I figured it was time for a little update.

Just another delicious green salad for lunch :)

Unfortunately I don’t have too much news. I’ve been relying on a fairly repetitive diet, but that doesn’t mean boring! The Cauliflower Tabouli has been a huge hit. I’m making it for the third time tomorrow, and it was even requested for Mother’s Day dinner. Mangoes, bananas, avocados, almonds, frozen berries, spinach, and all forms of greens have become my new favorite foods. Not to mention fresh herbs! I can’t say enough about having a supply of parsley, dill, cilantro, and basil at all times. YUM!
I’ve done a little bit of experimenting, but nothing too extravagant because I STILL do not have a dehydrator. I heard rumors that Canadian Tire sold cheap ones (the internet even confirmed these rumors), but the kind folks at CT didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. The hunt is still on, because I just can’t bring myself to shell out the $300 for the Excalibur.

Speaking of raw food appliances I dream of at night, Katie (from Chocolate Covered Katie), is doing a give-away for a Vita-Mix this week. A $500 blender that will pretty much do anything short of scrub my toilets? Yes please, choose me! But seriously, I would LOVE something like that. I don’t want to make my trusty Magic Bullet feel bad, but he just isn’t cutting it these days. I decided to switch out spinach for kale in my smoothie yesterday morning. It was a bad move (delicious), but my little blender almost didn’t make it through alive. I had to go in on a rescue mission (twice) to get the gummed up kale out of the blades….

In other interesting news, I tried sprouting for the first time. I thought it was going great. My buckwheat was getting all sprouty, but it didn’t seem like enough to me. I expected more, so I decided to rinse and leave them for another day. And then another. Soon enough I had some nice little buckwheat greens going on. I thought, why not leave them for a few more days and then I’ll have something like micro-greens? Sounds great right? Except that apparently buckwheat greens are toxic. Oops. Also, I guess I made another mistake, because my buckwheat was not “groats” because they were not hulled. How does one hull buckwheat anyway?

Left: What buckwheat sprouts are supposed to look like. Right: What my buckwheat looks like. Oh well, learning opportunity I suppose…

Anyway, despite the sprout set-backs and lack of fancy raw kitchen equipment, I’ve really been enjoying this experience. I wouldn’t call it a diet, more of a way of life, but it certainly is functioning as a “diet” for me right now. I’m down 7lbs already, and I feel fantastic (now that I’m fully over that crummy detox part). The rules are simple, just don’t eat anything that has been heated. Other than that, there’s really nothing to think about. I can eat as much as I want, and since I’m eating so much fruit all the time, I pretty much feel like I’m eating dessert for my meals half the time. I know there is a worry of eating too much fat if you are eating nuts and avocado all the time, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for me. I like variety, so I usually just stick to one avocado a day, and maybe a handful (a big handful) of almonds.

Sneak Peak: Sun Dried Tomato Pesto

I’m really starting to think that once this trial is over I will not be going back to eating the way I was. I will definitely incorporate cooked food back into my life, there are far too many things I love to eat, but in small doses. It’s just so easy to have a smoothie for breakfast and a salad for lunch every day. Why bother messing with a good thing?

Next on my list of things to try is soaking rice. I would love a nice wild rice salad. I’ve got a bunch of recipes still to post like granola bars, ceviche, kelp noodles with sun dried tomato pesto, caesar salad, and mango avocado salsa.

Stay tuned, and happy (un)cooking!

Raw Cauliflower Tabouli

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Ashley

I must admit, as big a salad lover as I am, even I am getting bored with lettuce. I wanted to branch out a bit, but the problem with getting creative in salad-land is that it usually involves the addition of meat, cheese, or grains. These options are technically available to me, but in limited capacities (especially since I still haven’t got my hands on one of these puppies). Time to think outside the box, waaay outside the box. Enter the miracle vegetable: Cauliflower.

Cauliflower is wonderful because it’s so versatile. If you are cooking, it is one of the easiest veggies to slip into your food. Steam, puree, mix in. No one will know. It’s delicious raw, steamed, baked, mashed (healthy stand-in for mashed potatoes? I think so!) Can you tell I like cauliflower?

I recently discovered that it’s also a pretty fantastic substitute for bulgur wheat in tabouli. So fantastic in fact, that I will probably stick with this version in the future.

Ingredients

1 bunch parsley
1/2 head cauliflower
1/4 red onion
3 tomatoes
juice from one lemon
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Chop the cauliflower into florets. Process in the food processor until it resembles couscous.

2. Chop tomatoes, onion, and parsley. Mix with cauliflower.
3. Whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.
4. Mix dressing in with the salad.

Raw. Vegan. Gluten Free. Perfect summer salad.

Raw Food: Day 6

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Ashley

I love Sundays. No work, and lots of time to putter around in the kitchen, which is great, because I’ve realized I need all the “kitchen time” I can get with this raw diet. There are tons of options food wise, but the big down-side is that you often need to make each individual component of the dish separately. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, but with raw eating you usually need hours (or even days) of soaking, sprouting, or dehydrating time before things are ready. This can be a major obstacle if you haven’t planned ahead. Even something simple like almond milk requires at least 2 hours of soaking time beforehand!

To market, to market to buy some raw hummus :)

As happy as I am with the diet so far, I can sense a little boredom creeping up on me already. Smoothies and salads are great, but variety is the spice of life, and if I want some variety I need to plan ahead. I’ve had my eye on a sunfish recipe, which is basically a sunflower paste that’s meant to mimic tuna salad. I looove tuna, so I wanted to make it (like NOW), but first I needed to make garlic aioli. BUT, before I could make the aioli, I needed to make almond milk.

Life lesson? There are certain raw food basics I should learn to keep on hand if I want the luxury of giving in to cravings while eating raw.

So, with the intention of stepping a little outside my comfort zone this upcoming week, I spent the afternoon in the kitchen in front of a food processor. I made almond milk, almond butter, and granola bars. I’ll be honest, I was impatient, so I didn’t soak the oats: guilty as charged.They were raw though. I also soaked and rinsed some buckwheat grouts and left them overnight to sprout. Go me, right?

I also hosted my first raw dinner party. We served tabouli, and mango-avocado salad, with raw hummus from Four Sisters (we had non-raw hummus on hand for our guests as well, but they said the raw was way better!) Fletch baked some bread for everyone else to round it out, and I had some dehydrated crackers (also from Four Sisters). A perfect, raw Sunday :)

Healthy Mac & Cheese

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Ashley

Everyone loves macaroni and cheese, so you really can’t go wrong. Unless you want to eat a balanced diet, that is. Vegetables are not to be found in the boxed variety, that’s for sure. Well, this recipe has got you covered. With cauliflower, broccoli, onions and garlic, this mac & cheese is a full meal packed with nutrition, and guaranteed to please even the pickiest of eaters. It’s versatile, so you can switch is up according to what you and your family prefer. Best of all, you can make it in advance, and reheat before dinner.

Ingredients

2 cups macaroni (*whole wheat, whole grain, or white)
1 onion (diced)
1 clove garlic (minced)
1 cup milk (*skim, 1%, or 2%)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup cheddar cheese (grated, *skim or whole)
1 cup cauliflower florets
1 cup broccoli florets
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp cayenne pepper
salt & pepper to taste
½ cup bread crumbs
2 tbsp *olive oil or butter

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cook cauliflower and broccoli in boiling water for about 2 minutes. Remove vegetables and cook pasta until al dente.
3. In a saucepan on medium heat melt butter and add flour. Cook for 2 minutes.
4. Add milk, whisking constantly, until you have a nice white sauce.
5. Add half the cheese and continue stirring with the whisk until cheese is incorporated.
6. In a small frying pan, cook onion and garlic until the onion is slightly translucent. Add to the cheese mixture.
7. Mix in turmeric, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper.
8. Add broccoli, cauliflower, and pasta and mix well.
9. Toss breadcrumbs with melted butter or olive oil.
10. Put the pasta mixture in an oven-safe casserole dish, sprinkle with the rest of the cheese, and cover with breadcrumbs
11. Bake 20-25 minutes

Switch it Up Ideas

- Add more veggies. Spinach, carrots, peas, corn, whatever you say goes.
- Kids won’t eat veggies? Puree the cauliflower and mix it in with the sauce, they’ll never know! Also works with carrots, it’ll just look cheesier!
- Add pre-cooked chicken, turkey, ham, or tofu, cut into bite-sized pieces.

Nutritional Information (calculated with *options)

Makes 8 Servings
Per serving:
Calories: 246.2 Fat: 11.9g Saturated fat: 5.4g Unsaturated fat: 5.3g Carbohydrates: 26.3g Sugar: 3.2g Fiber: 3.8g Protein: 9.5g Cholesterol: 23.2mg

Raw Nut Butter

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Ashley

I made nut butter yesterday. I could honestly eat it with a spoon. I won’t, because I really shouldn’t…OK, maybe one spoonful won’t kill me…

There really is nothing too this. Blend, keep blending. Blend some more. Scrape the sides, and then keep blending. Repeat process until you have almond/cashew/peanut/sunflower/whatever butter. I decided to get a little crazy (mostly because I was running low on almonds) and did a little mixture of cashew, almond and peanut. It is delish!

Ingredients: Raw Nuts
Tools: Food Processor, Spatula
Trait: Patience
Result: Nut Butter

*If you have soaked your nuts (which I did) you will probably have to add a little oil.