Fun and Mental Changes

Here's a little something special that I whipped up this week for my in-laws. I am on the master cleanse right now, so you can appreciate the ENORMOUS discipline and focus to get these made because they looked (and smelled) so freakin good!!! I got the recipe inspiration from my absolute favorite raw food recipe book: Raw Food Real World. If you start these in the morning, they can be done start to finish in about 12 hours (total dehydration time). My advice is to prepare the corn tortilla batter and the "bean/meat" batter one right after the other in the food processor and then dehydrate both at the same time. That shrinks the actual preparation time so that your time in the kitchen is only about 45 minutes. To start: Defrost 3 cups of frozen organic corn (you can also cut the kernels off of 3 ears of corn), soak 1 1/2 Cups of sunflower seeds in natural spring water for 2 hours and soak 1 Cup of sundried tomatoes in natural spring water for about one hour. Then take a br...

This is an excerpt (pg. 233) from Raw Food, Real World by Matthew Kenny and Sarma Melngailis. It is an amazing recipe book, but beyond that, it is filled with incredible "health" tips. Cutting Out Coffee It might be hard to picture beginning a morning or ending an evening meal without coffee. As a beverage, it really isn't that old: coffee was only first embraced in the thirteenth century by somnolent Arab monks who couldn't keep their minds on their prayers. From there, it was introduced to Europeans in the seventeenth century. Despite its common acceptance in our lives, coffee--and the caffeine it contains--might just be one of the biggest threats to our continued good health, both physical and mental.Stephen Cherniske, in his seminal book Caffeine Blues, calls caffeine a "biological poison used by plants as a pesticide," noting that "caffeine gives leaves and seeds a bitter taste, which discourages their consumption by insects and animals. If predato...

Yesterday I made Coconut Ice Cream from one of my favorite raw recipe books called Raw Food Real World . The recipe itself called for an ice cream maker as well as a Vitamix, but I just used my Vitamix and it turned out AMAZING!!! It tasted great with strawberries too! I did alter the recipe from the book just a little because of the ingredients I had on hand and it still turned out fantastic! I used 1 cup of raw, organic coconut meat that I had frozen in a food saver bag a couple of months ago. I also used (from frozen) 1 1/2 cups of raw, organic coconut water, 1/4 cup agave nectar, 2 stevia packets, 1 teaspoon of organic vanilla extract and 3 tablespoons of coconut butter blended in the Vitamix on high for about 1 1/2 minutes until it was very well blended. I placed the Vitamix pitcher with the mixture into the freezer for about 3 hours and then blended again on low using the tamper until the mixture was smooth and placed back into the freezer for another two hours. It turned out PE...

This meal is beyond delicious, healthy, and what was for dinner last night. This is my Rosemary Chicken with Quinoa and Asparagus. I brush the asparagus with EVOO and dust with sea salt and pepper. I fix the quinoa per the package instructions and then added 1 Tbsp. beef base, onion, cilantro (from my garden!) and diced bell pepper. The chicken is fixed per the recipe from Eating For Life which just happens to be my all time favorite cookbook. The recipe in the book called for cous-cous, but I HATE cous-cous. However, I LOVE quinoa (which has the consistency of cous-cous, but with much more protein), so I always make that instead with this chicken recipe. I found out that I love quinoa cooked AND raw. It actually makes a terrific salad once it's been sprouted. Wonderful stuff. I'll have to fix that and post the instructions next week (from my Raw Food Real World recipe book). Stay tuned for that! In the meantime, I recommend clicking on the link for the cookbook and checking ...

Pumpkin seeds!!! I have a wonderful recipe (from Raw Food, Real World) for Candied Pumpkin Seeds, and I am all over it! Using my dehydrator, I will be mixing maple syrup powder, ginger and pumpkin seeds that have been soaked for 4+ hours. They will dehydrate at 115 degrees for 12 to 24 hours. I just found out that this little recipe creates a "super snack"! The perfect ratio of protein to carbs and can be added to just about anything. But the real reason for my sudden excitement is all the health benefits from eating this amazing snack. Click here for an article called 10 Health Benefits Of Pumpkin Seeds... and it's HUGE (especially for men)!!! Here's to your health! I just gotta find raw, organic pumpkin seeds!!!

This masterpiece is my Mock Pumpkin Pie. A recipe that I found in Raw Food, Real World by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis. This book is my new favorite! Every recipe I have done from this book turns out beautiful. Well, this one had it's moments. Just a little tip for those of you trying your hand at raw recipes... the pies turn out soupy, as did this one. Since soupy pie is not pie at all, I popped it into the dehydrator for 10 hours at 95 degrees. It came out perfect! And you would never know that there isn't a lick on pumpkin in it. The batter is basically cashews and carrot juice mixed with all the pumpkin spices. The crust is made of almonds. It tastes BETTER than pumkin pie. The carrot flavor is very very subtle. You cannot tell that there's carrot in it exactly, only that this pumpkin pie has a mysterious "kick" that makes it WAY better than the real thing. It's weird, but soooo yummy!

I am dehydrating this week! I am so excited. I get to work with a few more raw recipes. The recipe book that I am reading right now is cited in an article from Successfully Raw eZine . The entire article is really fantastic. If you want to check it out, it is archived July of 2006. If you can't get your hands on that, the writer of the excerpt below, also wrote an e-book ( How To Get Started With Raw Foods ). For anyone asking, "What is this raw thing you're doin anyway?" I hope this clears it up. "Raw food by contrast is replete with everything that enabled it to sprout and grow in the first place - life force, enzymes, water, oxygen, hormones, vitamins and minerals and so much more besides. Untouched, untainted, raw food is quite literally honest food - what you see is what you get. No hidden ingredients, nothing messed around with, just pure delicious fresh live food that we are designed to eat - living food for living bodies. And the good news for you is this...