Monthly Archives: November 2009

Day 2 – Tostada goodness

November 30, 2009
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I know I extol the virtues of menu planning.  I know I spent a goodly portion of my weekend thinking about a menu for the week and making some things ahead of time.  I know my theme this week is “American comfort food.” You know what they say about the best laid plans.  Stuff happens.  Tonight the stuff was tostadas!!!  (living in the Southwest, it may be fair to say that Mexican grub IS American comfort food).

My wife’n'kid were having bean’n'cheese burritos.  The smell when I came in the house after work was inspiring!  So I got creative.  I made a batch of Cherie Soria’s Fresh Corn Tortillas back in July.  Since I had a dozen, I froze a bunch of them.  Five months later they’re still good.  I warmed them up in the dehydrator while I got busy making the Stuffing Fantasy I was supposed to make on Saturday (I do want my Thanksgiving eats this week at some point).   I also had some portobello mushrooms and some cherry tomatoes so I warmed massaged those in a little olive oil and salt and put those into the dehydrator to soften up. Finally, I threw some of the salsa the wife’n'kid were having into the dehydrator too.  It’s chilly!  I like my raw food warmed up!

Forty-five minutes later, after I’d finished the stuffing, I had a beautiful set of ingredients with which to make tostadas.

Fresh corn tortilla with portobello mushroom cherry tomato ragout

Fresh corn tortilla with portobello mushroom cherry tomato ragout

Fresh Corn Tortillas

  • 4 cups chopped yellow bell peppers
  • 3 cups fresh corn kernels
  • 1 cup peeled chopped zucchini
  • 1.5 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
  • 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • .5 teaspoon salt
  • 1 ripe avocado, coarsely cut into chunks
  • 3 tablespoons psyllium powder or ground flax seeds

1. Combine the bell peppers, corn, zucchini, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and salt in a blender and process until smooth.  Add the avocado and process until well combined.  With the blender running, add psyllium powder and process for a few seconds longer until well blended.

2. Using 1/2 cup of the mixture for each tortilla, use a small metal spatula of flat rubber spatula to quickly form 4 flat disks on a dehydrator tray lined with a nonstick sheet.  Each disk should be about 7 inches in diameter, with a little space between each one.  Work quickly or the mixture will thicken and become difficult to spread.  Continue to work in this fashion until all of the mixture is used.

3. Dehydrate at 105 F for 4 hours, or until the tortillas can be easily remoed from the nonstick sheets.

4. Turn the tortillas over onto mesh dehydrator trays.  Place an additional mesh screen on top of each tray; this will make the tortillas flatter and easier to store. Dehydrate for 3-4 hours longer until the tortillas are dry but still flexible.

5. Stored in an airtight container, will keep for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator or up to 2 months in the freezer.

Portabello mushroom and cherry tomato ragout

  • Portobello mushrooms, chopped
  • Cherry tomatoes, chopped
  • Olive oil, to taste
  • Sea salt, to taste

Mix mushrooms and tomatoes with olive oil and salt, using your hands to massage oil into the vegetables.  Put veggies in the dehydrator until they become soft and reduce in size a bit.

Tostadas

  • 2 fresh corn tortillas
  • portobello mushroom and cherry tomato ragout
  • shredded carrots
  • pico de gallo salsa
  • mixed greens

Spread salsa on the tortillas.  Layer the greens, mushroom ragout, salsa, and shredded carrots on top.  Serve with love!

I ate like royalty today, day 2 of my 30 day raw food challenge.  I had

Breakfast

  • 1 shot of E3 Live
  • Tropical fruit salad (no coconut today): pineapple, mandarin orange, and banana

Lunch

  • marinated collard greens mixed with
  • leftover monster salad from yesterday
  • apple

Snack

  • banana

Dinner

Sometimes it’s really really really easy to be raw.   It’s all in the pre-prep baby.  I had several things available to me today which made my life easy’n'tasty.  I had tortillas, tortilla chips, store-bought salsa, store-bought gelato, and chocolate sauce.   I also had leftover collards from this weekend’s prep session.   I only spent 30 minutes doing food prep today.   It took me longer to do the dishes after the family ate!

I didn’t exercise, unfortunately.  All that eating and dish doing has left me a bit done in.  Only half-hour until bedtime.  I’m going to read a novel in bed cuddling with my doggies.

30 day challenge – Day 1

November 30, 2009
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Made it through the first day of the challenge, no problems.  Today Yesterday I ate:

  • Coffee with almond milk
  • Tropical fruit salad (pineapple, banana, mandarin oranges with sprinkle of shredded coconut)
  • Yogi chai with almond milk and raw honey (ok, not strictly vegan…but raw!)
  • Pumpkin bread with almond butter
  • Spicy sweet potato chips
  • Monster green salad (mixed greens, broccoli sprouts, broccoli slaw, shredded carrots, red cabbage, spiced seeds, raw parmesan, and low-fat balsamic vinaigrette dresssing)

And  I made (active hands-on time in parentheses)

  • Yogi tea (a.k.a Chai) (5 minutes)
  • Peeled the skins off 1 lb of soaked almonds (30 minutes)

No exercise – a friend was visiting from out of town.  The chai is super yummy.  An excellent coffee substitute.  Full of medicinal ingredients.   Keeps about a week in the fridge if you mix it with “milk.”   Keeps two weeks without the milk.   I like to keep some on hand

Yogi Tea

Ingredients:
  • 2 quarts water
  • 15 whole cloves
  • 20 black peppercorns
  • 3 sticks of cinnamon
  • 20 whole cardmon pods (split the pods first)
  • 8 fresh ginger slices (1/4″ thick, no need to peel)
  • 1/2 teaspoon regular or decaf black tea leaves (approximately 1 tea bag)
  • Dairy or soy milk and honey or maple syrup to taste
Preparation:

Bring two quarts of water to a boil. Add cloves and boil one minute. Add cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon, and ginger. Cover and boil for 30 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer for two to three hours. Remove from heat, add black tea, and let cool. Strain and store in the refrigerator. Reheat when you want a cup and add milk and honey to taste.

Week 1 menu & prep schedule – post-Thanksgiving leftovers

November 28, 2009
By
Arranged Vegetables Creating a Face

Arranged Vegetables Creating a Face

I’m going to go with “holiday leftovers” for week 1 of this raw challenge.  It’s what I’ll have on hand. I guess the theme is “American traditional comfort food.”  I wasn’t going to go raw for Thanksgiving, but I realized I needed to do prep for week 1 anyway.  Might as well take advantage of all the holiday recipes abounding on the raw food blogosphere. And yeah, they’re not leftovers per se, since I didn’t actually make this stuff for Thanksgiving.  But they would have been!

I’ve already got a few staples on hand :

  • raw parmesan
  • flax crackers
  • tortilla chips
  • gRAWnola
  • chocolate macaroons
  • chai spices

Plus I made some cranberry relish the day before Thanksgiving.   There is still a fair amount of prep work to be done. The trick is to think a bit about when I’d like to eat what while considering how best to space out the work.

Here’s the menu with a rough prep schedule.  One can assume I’ll be eating other things besides these menu items. Those would be staples and/or simple salads which don’t require a recipe.  One can also assume that I prep stuff the night before I eat it if the recipe requires more than 10 minutes of preparation.   I do perishable staples a couple of times per week.  That means things like nut milk and washing and cutting up fruit and vegetables.

I probably spent about an 90 minutes doing the thinking today.  That means looking at recipes, writing shopping lists, and thinking about scheduling.   I’ll report at the end of the week how much hands-on time I actually spent preparing stuff.  My ultimate goal is to spend less than 4 (non-consecutive) hours per week making food and less than 2 hours per week shopping for it.  Raw can not become routine if it takes too much time .

Breakfasts

  • Green juice (Monday)
  • Orange and cranberry smoothie (Tuesday)
  • Pumpkin bread with nut butter (Saturday)
  • gRAWnola with nut milk  (already done, almond milk made twice each week)

Lunches

  • Marinated collards with spicy yam chips (greens Sunday, chips Saturday)
  • Waldorf salad (Monday)
  • Green smoothies (Wednesday & Friday)
  • Green bean almondine and flax crackers (Wednesday)

Dinners (all served with a big ass greens & sprouts salad)

Snacks

  • Veggies and dip (wash and cut veg twice a week)
  • Kale chips (Sunday)
  • Macaroons (already done!)
  • Fruit (cut up night before if juicing or making smoothies)
  • Almond milk chai (Saturday, more almond milk on Wednesday)

It seems like a lot.  Too much really.  I need to simplify more.  I think I get carried away with wanting to try out recipes.

Menu planning

November 28, 2009
By

I’m beginning to think about what I’m going to eat on the December challenge.  I like to plan menus in advance because (a) raw food can take a lot of pre-preparation that needs thinking ahead (b) I’m anally organized and (c) I do better at sticking to a plan when there is a plan in place.

menuThe biggest thing I’ve learned about menu planning is to incorporate left-overs into the planning.  It eliminates waste.  I don’t want to be throwing away expensive organic produce thank-you-very-much.  It also adds variety.  Huh? How do you get variety when you’re eating leftovers?  By using them differently.  Given that I’m the only person in my family eating this way I do end up with a lot of leftovers.  I need to switch it up so I’m not bored senseless.

The easiest way for me to deal with left-overs is to do theme cuisine.  Regional/ethnic themes work best since they have the same flavor profiles.  Italian food, for example, makes use of garlic, oregano, basil.  A marinade from one meal can transform into a dressing for another.

A sample week of dinners might go something like this:

  1. Cesar Salad, zucchini angel hair pasta and marinara
  2. Antipasto with bruschetta
  3. Lasagna
  4. Minestrone, greens with vinaigrette
  5. Pesto-stuffed portobello mushrooms
  6. Pizza
  7. Fettuccine raw-fredo

And one could alternate some desserts like: gelato, biscotti, pine nut cookies.

The marinara sauce does quadruple duty in the pasta, bruschetta, lasagna, and pizza.  There is rawmasan in the cesar salad, bruschetta, pesto, and fettuccine. The antipasto becomes a layer in the lasagna, or it can be chopped finer and thrown into a minestrone.

You get the general idea.  Now, making 7 different meals is way more work than I can realistically handle.  I’m ok with repeating things so I try to do only 2-3 meals per week.   For an Italian week, I’d make a Cesar dressing, a vinaigrette, a marinara sauce, a pesto and hope like hell that I already had rawmasan and seed crusts on hand from a monthly prep session.

Guess I just started planned one of my weeks.

Making veggie sushi

November 23, 2009
By

Sushi is another one of those foods which makes the transition from SAD to living foods easier.  It’s raw to begin with! I love making it because not only is it something my family will eat,  but they join in the fun of making them. There are endless variations.  Switch up the pate or spread.  Change the veggies you use. Have a different dipping sauce.   It’s all up to your imagination.

sushi2Veggie sushi

raw nori sheets
pickled ginger
wasabi paste
pate of your choice (I like to use mock salmon)
julienned  and/or shredded veggies

Today I used seeded cucumber, shredded carrots, crumbled cauliflower (looks like rice!), scallions, and alfalfa sprouts.

Lay out your ingredients where you’ve got room to work.

sushi3Place the nori on a sushi rolling mat. Spread a couple of tablespoons of pate along one edge.  Sprinkle veggies cross-wise over the pate.

Make sure the edge with the ingredients on it is closest to you.

Moisten the edge furthest from you with a finger you’ve dipped in water.  This will help the roll stick together after you’ve made it.

Pick up the sushi roll at edge closest to you and roll the sushi away from you.

Cup your hands over the top to keep the roll tight.  When it’s completely rolled up, moisten your finger again and run it along the edge to secure the stick.

sushi4Let the rolls sit for a few minutes to allow the nori sheet to adhere to the veggies.

Use a serrated knife and slice the roll into sushi pieces.

Lay the pieces out on a plate with tamari, pickled ginger, and wasabi paste or whatever condiments and dipping sauce you enjoy.

Serve with love.

Next 30 day challenge

November 22, 2009
By

It’s time for me to challenge myself again.  I’ve been rocking the SAD vegetarian diet since the beginning of October and I’m feeling the effects.  Ergo, I have committed to doing another 30 day 100% raw challenge beginning Sunday November 29, 2009.   I’m starting after Thanksgiving. rawfoodchallenge That’s a big food-focused holiday especially for my family.  I will succeed in staying vegetarian, no problem.  It’s not a time to be hard-core on the raw though.  Christmas isn’t as food-focused for us. We celebrate quietly, with a small amount of gifts, and a moderately special meal.  I like the idea of creating a raw holiday menu.  I’ve not done a holiday fully raw yet.  No better time to start than now.  I also give myself permission to make that Christmas celebration cooked vegan, should I change my mind. One meal does not undo the other 29 days of eating 100%.

A challenge means setting up some goals.  Obviously, the main goal will be to stay 100% raw vegan.  I had 17 days at 100% during my September challenge.   I will consider myself successful in meeting the 100% goal when I increase the number of days at 100%.  I’ve signed up for Natasha’s 10 day juice feasting program.  I do not intend to be 100% juice feasting during those days.  The purpose behind it is to inspire me to have at least 1 green juice per day.   Getting the greens in increases my raw mojo.  And, I like to investigate various people’s coaching programs.   I’ve poked around juicefeasting.com for example.  We’ll see how Natasha’s fasting regime compares.

My other goals are the similar to my last challenge.

  1. Stay 100% raw vegan
  2. Get 30 minutes of cardio 5 times per week
  3. Continue doing 3 mile walks 2 times per week with my buddy (this can count towards the 5 cardio sessions)
  4. Honestly journal my daily food intake.
  5. Spend time each day reflecting on what is good in my life (practicing gratitude)

I’ve informed my spouse that I’m doing another challenge and asked for support.  She has agreed to provide it.  I will periodically remind her of my personal commitment  prior to Day 1.   The time for mental preparation has begun.  Next week shall be the time for physical preparation.  That means adding more living foods (greens!) to my diet and easing off of caffeine and dairy.   It also means preparing some raw staples for the month.  I need an adequate supply of crackers, raw breads, gRAWnola,  and deserts/snacks.     Time to try a new recipe or two.  The count-down has begun.

My favorite raw recipe book

November 19, 2009
By

Hands down, my absolute favorite raw recipe book is Living Cuisine by Renee Loux Underkoffler (I believe she’s now going by Renee Loux).  Many raw recipe books have sections on why one should be raw, what type of kitchen equipment one should have, what ingredients to have on hand, and what culinary techniques to use that are unique to eating living foods (read: sprouting and dehydrating).

Living CuisineThis book explains those things succinctly and with illustrations.

The recipes themselves are to die for.  I have yet to make anything from this book that I haven’t adored. My family has liked every recipe I’ve used from this book.  It has a nice mix of impress-your-friends tres gourmet and every day recipes.

For somebody really new to raw, I would recommend a book with simpler recipes that require less equipment.

But if I could only have one raw recipe book this would be it.  I’m about to buy my second copy.  My first has been loved to death.

Pizza

November 4, 2009
By

Tonight I ate pizza.  OMG, it was sooo tasty.  My wife and daughter looked almost jealous as they chowed down on their cooked  beef’n'cheese ravioli.  This is really quick to prepare if you have some of the ingredients on hand.  This is one of those must-prep-ahead recipes. It’s also another recipe that has endless variations.  It’s a good way to use up any veggies you may have before they spoil.

Pizzapizza

pizza flax crackers
nut cheese
marinara sauce
diced red pepper
diced red onion
sliced black olives
minced basil
pine nut parmesan

When I make a batch of crackers I set aside one or two dehydrator trays to make larger crusts instead of bite-sized nibblers.  Spread nut cheese and marinara on a large flax cracker.  Put veggies toppings on top. Serve with love.

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