Creamy Napa Salad

It's getting easier and easier to eat more raw food as my body craves this way of eating and resists cooking. I was going to cook up some Napa cabbage last night to take to Cam for dinner but I couldn't do it. So I made this salad instead. We wrapped it up in some non-raw tortillas that we had on hand, but I would have just as well loved to eat them on raw tortillas had we not eaten them already ;)

Creamy Napa Salad

10 leaves Napa cabbage

3 Roma tomatoes

1 tsp dill

1 Tbsp sesame seeds

1 Tbsp sesame oil

Dressing:

1 cup cashews

1 cup water

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp onion powder

salt to taste

Thinly slice Napa cabbage leaves and massage in a large bowl to slightly bruise. Add chopped Roma tomatoes, dill, sesame seeds and oil. Toss. Blend all ingredients in dressing until smooth and creamy. Pour desired amount over cabbage and store the rest for later use (keeps 3-5 days). Toss all together, add additional salt if needed and enjoy!

Fit for Life Part II

So it's been a while since I've begun trying to implement some of the things I learned by reading Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. I implemented two very important aspects in my life and here I am a couple of weeks later maintaining those couple of changes. I haven't had coffee since I gave it up two weeks back. The first few days sucked but after that it's been mostly smooth sailing. After finding a new raw replacement for coffee I don't think I'll ever need to look back :)

I'm finding it very difficult, however, to eat only fresh fruit all morning. I end up eating a LOT of fruit. And I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but organic fruit is expensive! Sure, we have some strawberries growing and a mulberry tree producing fruit in the yard but to be honest, Adi comes first and I'm not going to fight her for these goodies! So that means buying a ton of fruit at the Co-op rather frequently. The only thing that seems to fill me up and keep me satisfied for a period of time is a smoothie. I can't really do that yet... another couple of days I'll be off work for 13 glorious weeks and you better believe it will be time for smoothies galore. The benefit of smoothies is that I can use frozen fruit that I picked last summer (mostly blueberries). I'm on the hunt for a berry picking farm in the area. Preferably an organic one or at least one that doesn't use sprays. I'll post details if I find any.

As for food combining. Wow, that's going to have to come later and on an as needed basis. I have to say that I'm feeling really strongly that eating a diet rich in raw and living foods is far higher a priority than correctly combining those raw foods. If I find that I'm having trouble digesting then I may revisit food combining. For now, I'm sticking with raw fruit until lunch, a mostly raw lunch and partly cooked dinner.

Raw Mochachino?

So I saw this great recipe idea on Raw Freedom Community forum: the best ever raw coffee. It was made of several ingredients that I don't have (yet) so I had to at least try to come up with one of my own. The result was a light and tasty raw mocha:

Raw Mochachino

3 cups water

1 Tbsp raw maca powder

3 Tbsp raw cacao powder

3 Tbsp raw honey or agave (more or less to taste)

4 Tbsp raw hemp seeds

2 cups ice

Blend all ingredients except ice until smooth. Strain out any hemp chunks if desired (I didn't cuz I like a little something to chew). Add ice to make slushy.

I think in the future I would use only 2 cups water instead of three to make it a bit thicker and creamier. Any raw nut or seed could be used to replace the hemp seeds to change the flavor or consistency. I'll play around with the recipe and post one that is closer to "perfect" on goneraw.com later.

Imperfections aside, this drink was amazingly satisfying. I had it in the afternoon when I needed a bit of an energy boost. Wow, did this deliver. I'm usually miserably tired when putting Adi to bed but last night I not only felt wide awake but I remained in a good mood as well. Hmmmm. I like that :)

I can't resist posting the recipe for the original:

Ingredients:

Cacao powder,Fo-Ti (Ho Shou Wu), Maca, Lucuma, Yacon, Agave, Vanilla bean, Nutmeg, Cashews, Ice, Water

Try to contain your exitement Grab your blender and add:a scoop of cacao powder, add a few capsules of Fo-Ti (minus the capsules!) a scoop of maca, a tbsp of lucuma, a squirt of yacon, a squirt of agave, 1/4 inch vanilla bean, dash of nutmeg, handful of cashews, cup of ice, cup or so of water.

Chocolate sauce for lining the glass and topping the drink: cacao and a capsule of ho shou wu & a dash of sea salt mixed with agave.
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Raw Ice Cream & Magic Shell

Yes indeed. Raw ice cream for me! This IS an actual photo of the ice cream I made. Here's my recipe:

1 cup raw cashews (soaked 15 minutes)
15 dates (soaked 15 minutes)
1 vanilla bean
2 cups water
pinch sea salt

I blended all of this up in my Blendtec blender until everything was completely smooth (especially the vanilla bean since I used the whole thing). Next I poured the mixture into my handy dandy ice cream makin' machine and voila! Creamy sweet wonderful raw ice cream that the whole family loves ;D

Chocolate Magic Shell Topping

Equal parts (I used 1/4 cup each):

• cacao powder
• agave nectar
• coconut oil

Remember Magic Shell chocolate syrup that would harden shortly after pouring it over your icecream? Well, thanks to the coconut oil this stuff does the same thing! So fun. I think I'd like to thin it out, though. Maybe add and equal part of water just to make it easier to pour. Either way, it tastes AMAZING.

Don't Despise Small Beginnings

I have totally not started the Fit for Life plan at all. As a matter of fact, I've come to dread it and resist it. I'm not sure what's going on exactly - the air around town has been pretty thick with emotions responding to the 500-year flood we've experienced the last couple of weeks here in Iowa City and I think I'm pretty sensitive to that. So making a change right now feels hard. But it also feels completely necessary. And if I can't do it on my own, I have no choice but to call on God to be my strength.

I'm utterly miserable this morning without my morning cup of joe but here I am. Only one hour and 45 minutes away from the end of my morning fruit fast. I keep finding myself reminded of some encouraging words I recently heard at a women's conference, "don't despise small beginnings!" So I carefully chose a small beginning today:

Remove: Coffee
Add: Fresh fruit until noon

It seems to make sense to start here. To begin by removing a negative thing and replace it with a good thing. (I say coffee is a negative thing because I fully recognize my addiction to it and dependency on it - clearly not good. I could argue the nutritional side separately but won't here and now...) So when I remove the bad thing I'm not just sitting here with a big empty hole in my being. I'm filling the void with what the authors of Fit for Life describe as the single most important element of the lifestyle. The body is in "elimination" mode until noon. Help the body eliminate by feeding it fruit.

This is my small beginning, and you know what? Right at this moment, even now, I feel a little better than I did two paragraphs ago. Fascinating. I decided to lean on God and now I feel completely supported. I like knowing that He's in this with me :)

Raw Strawberry Pie

We've had plenty of fresh strawberries from our little patch and Adi suggested the other day that we make some strawberry pies! I thought that was a fabulous idea, and even better, why not make it raw!! So I already had some date/nut balls on hand - all ingredients are raw:

Date/Nut Balls

1 cup soaked hazelnuts (or whatever kind you like - soaked overnight and rinsed)
7 dates
1 tsp agave nectar
pinch salt
dried coconut flakes

Process dates and nuts in food processor, add agave and pinch of salt. Shape 'dough' into balls and roll in coconut flakes.

Adi likes Strawberry Shortcake so I used her cupcake liners placed in a cupcake tin and pressed one nut/date ball in the bottom of each one to create a crust.

Next:

Divide sliced strawberries among the cupcake liners and add agar agar syrup ---

Agar Agar Syrup

• 1/4 cup hot water (not boiling)
• 1 tsp agar agar powder (agar agar is like gelatin but made from seaweed and is not 100% raw but a great vegan substitute for recipes needing a bit of form)
• 2 Tbsp agave nectar

Chill in the refrigerator until set and enjoy! We did :)

Note: this recipe does not follow proper food combining rules.

I'm landing at a place right now that leads me to believe that food combining is far more important when eating cooked foods. I choose to believe that raw foods are digested in a completely different way... I may be in denial. Regardless, this recipe rocks and Adi couldn't get enough of it and I don't feel in the least bit bad for letting her eat not one but two pies for breakfast!!

Fit For Life

So I'm re-reading a book called Fit For Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond which I read about 13 years ago. It was originally recommended to me by a room mate while I was living in Miami Beach, FL. I think at the time some of it made sense but I just wasn't willing to make the life-style changes needed to eat the way modeled in the book.

It feels really interesting to read this book now, after I've done so much research on raw foods and so much of that has really resonated with me. Now to throw food combining on top of that makes things feel a bit restrictive. Though there's certainly a toss-up here. Fit For Life allows eating cooked foods, just in the proper combinations.

And that's a hang up for me - this book claims I can detox while including cooked foods in my diet, which, if true sounds wonderful! I think I want to give it a shot. The book includes a 30 day menu plan to teach readers how to successfully combine food and eat the right stuff at the right time. I guess I've got 30 days to give it a try. Why not? I don't think I could make it 30 days 100% raw at this point so why not shoot for 70% and see if Harv and Mar are full of hooey or if they really do know their stuff! Here's a really condensed run down of what this will look like:

• Eat only fresh, raw fruits (and up to 14 oz fresh juice) every day until noon
• From noon to approx 8:00 p.m. eat correctly combined meals
• Exercise a minimum of 20 minutes daily (this will be the hard part for me!)

What does correctly combined mean? Essentially, there are two types of food: high-water content foods and concentrated foods. Fruits and veggies are high-water and everything else is concentrated. The claim is that the human stomach is not designed to eat more than one concentrated food at a time. Therefore, protein can not be combined with another type of protein, or carbohydrates (whole grain bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc.) Concentrated foods can be combined with veggies only as fruits should always be consumed alone and never following a meal. Here's a chart:

How long to wait after eating other food before you can again eat fruit

Food Time to Wait

Salad or raw veggies 2 hours

Properly combined meal, no flesh 3 hours

Prperly combined meal, with flesh 4 hours

Any improperly combined meal 8 hours

Energy Ladder

a.m.

Fresh fruit & fruit juices

Fresh vegetable juice & salads

Steamed vegetables, raw nuts & seeds

Grains, breads, potatoes, legumes

Meat, chicken, fish, dairy (if any;)

p.m.

Now that's a lot of info. If you want to give this a try I highly recommend getting this book and realding the details for yourself. There are additional concepts that I haven't even touched on here that are really important. I think the read is worth it even if you have no intention of trying it out. So I suppose I will keep all posted.