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)
- Stuffing fantasy with cranberry relish (stuffing Sunday, cranberries already done)
- Mushroom soup (Tuesday)
- Roasted portobello mushroom with mashed ‘taters (taters Thursday, mushrooms Friday)
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.
