The Child Nutrition Act includes legislation for the National School Lunch Program, which provides federal assistance for school lunches. This act is being reauthorized in 2009, and theUSDA would like your input on what needs to change. Submit your recommendations for improving vegetarian options by fax at 703-305-2879, or online. They are accepting comments until October 15, 2008.
Well you don’t have to twist my arm to get me to give my two cents to the USDA on what needs to change for the school lunch program! I am really hoping that many people will take action and give their comments to the USDA to help all of our children receive better nutrition and more whole, unprocessed foods in every school across America.
If we can get foods with high fructose corn syrup and other additives and preservatives removed from the menu as well as adding more vegetarian food options and non-dairy fortified drink options, our children could only benefit. They would be eating more fiber, vitamins, minerals have stable blood sugar for many hours of the day and will be eating more plant based foods and less processed foods which can only help them. It will also assist in lowering the childhood obesity rate that is skyrocketing here in our country and cutting down on consuming so much pasteurized dairy will reduce congestion issues (sinus, ear infections, sore throats) and constipation, too.
Last year, the PCRM published a “School Lunch Report Card” based on their criteria for healthy, whole foods and non-dairy options in some of the larger school district cafeterias. There is a lot of good information on this report, they did a really thorough job and it’s worth it to check it out.
Another great website on this school lunch issue to check out is also researched by the PCRM and is called Healthy School Lunches.org.
We went to an organic “pick your own” berry farm this past weekend with my friend Amy’s family (Crunchy Domestic Goddess) in hopes of picking lots of luscious strawberries and raspberries. Boy were we sorely disappointed! The strawberries were slim pickins but we did get about 4 quarts worth (around 5#) and the raspberries were still 2 weeks or so behind schedule. Thankfully all was not lost and we wound up with a buttload (30#) of juicy peaches instead!
I remember going peach picking when I was growing up and really enjoyed it and it was really fun for my son and his friend Ava to get to pick an abundance of ripe peaches from the trees. They were so cute to watch and of course, we all ate peaches and strawberries as we picked them. Yum. Ava’s little bro, Julian was covered with berries and peaches. Needless to say, the toddler had a great time eating his way through the farm, too!
When we got home, I selected the most ripe fruit to work with that day and made some fruit leather, dried slices for use in granola, cereal and desserts and we also froze a bunch of slices for smoothies and raw ice cream. For my measly 4 quarts of strawberries, I made fruit leather and dried the rest for winter recipe use. Man did my house smell amazing with all of that dehydrating going on!
I am planning on making a bunch of raw peach cobblers and pies and freezing them for future desserts. I bought the low sugar pectin for my husband to make jam but he only wanted to make himself strawberry or raspberry jam and doesn’t like peach jam. He also doesn’t like canned peaches. Figures. So, we will be preserving the rest (that we don’t inhale fresh over the next couple of days) using the methods that work best for me and the raw vegan diet.
This organic farm also grows many things that they sell in their storefront so we also bought a huge watermelon, freshly roasted green chilies, purple green beans, roja garlic, candy onions and a melon (that was marked as a cantaloupe) that was called “Israeli Perfume” and when we cut it open it had green flesh and tasted very similar to a honeydew. I saved the seeds from it because it was so tasty I want to grow it in my garden next summer! They sell many other items but were already sold out of much of it by the time we made it into the store.
It was a fun yet hot day in the sun and Leif definitely was tired by the end. He finally got to experience real fruit picking at a farm. We like to expose him to lots of different activities in nature and especially have him learn about where his food comes from. I know he enjoyed it and would love to do it again, as would we!
I have been hearing about how great zucchini hummus is from different raw vegan websites as well as seeing a few recipes for it in my raw cookbooks. I am quite a Middle Eastern food snob having lived in Israel at one time as well has having dated Israeli men and have dined at many of their recommended Middle Eastern restaurants both in NY and in Israel or ate their homemade food. I still have Israeli friends in NY that I visit when I go there and we inevitably go to one of the Middle Eastern restaurants where only Hebrew is spoken and they have some of the best food I’ve ever eaten there. I think besides Italian food, Middle Eastern food is my favorite and I’m very picky about it.
Since I’ve been scoffing at the idea of eating a hummus made without chickpeas, I’ve never bothered to try this recipe. I kept thinking, “How can it be good without beans?” Well, it is! It’s awesome, actually and I’m so glad I tried the recipe because I was not eating any beans (until recently) and I’ve really missed this dish!
This past weekend, I made 3 different versions I found for zucchini hummus. One was even a sundried tomato version of hummus (using zucchini) from Ani Phyo which was good but my favorite one is from Alissa Cohen. I’ve adapted the recipe just a little from Alissa Cohen’s book “Living On Live Food” and it really tastes and has the body of a chickpea hummus but is just a touch lighter, not as dense feeling and is easier to digest if anyone has a problem with digesting beans.
Boy am I stoked!! I’ve frozen 5 containers of this so far to eat throughout the year cause I have so much squash and zucchini coming out of my garden. I find that most patés freeze well.
Zucchini Hummus
by Alissa Cohen
5 cups zucchini or squash, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup tahini (I added an extra 1/4 cup more which really helped)
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cumin (I added this to mine, Alissa didn’t have it in hers.)
Place all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth.
It’s such an easy recipe and it tastes so unbelievably good! Now when you have a glut of squash or zucchini coming out of your garden, you have another great way to use it up!
I’ve been trying out different recipes for my son to eat that are both healthy and tasty for him. He thinks he’s getting a treat and I’m happy that he’s getting more produce.
Since he’s so picky, I’ve kept it pretty simple. Simple seems to work best and then I try to add on if he will allow it.
His favorite treat of all in the summer is a popsicle. We have some popsicle molds that we use and last year, he would only eat it if I put fruit juice or lemonade in it for him but this year, I’ve been buying so much more fresh fruit and he seems more interested in what I’m doing with it that I’ve made popsicles out of just whole fruit and a little raw agave nectar which has a very sweet taste and is low glycemic, i.e. does not raise your blood sugar like regular sugar does.
So here are a few simple but tasty treats for the kiddos:
Strawberry popsicle:
1/3# fresh, organic strawberries, washed
1T raw agave nectar
1/4 cup water
Puree in a high speed blender til smooth. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze.
You may need a bit more agave depending on how sweet the berries are. The first time I made this for him, he wanted it more sweet, of course so I just brushed on a little agave on the outside which made him a happy camper and he ate the whole thing. He asks for popsicles everyday and eats at least one a day especially after he comes home from camp.
His new favorite popsicle flavor is watermelon. We got a huge organic watermelon from the health food store the other day and it was so sweet. I could eat watermelon all the time, I love it! Whatever fruit we are eating he will ask me to make it into a popsicle now. It’s really funny to me.
Watermelon popsicle:
2 cups organic watermelon
1T raw agave nectar
Blend til smooth. Pour into molds and freeze.
If it’s not sweet enough, just brush a little agave onto the outside and that does the trick.
I have tried blending flavors and also adding in diluted supplements but that never goes over well and I end up having to eat it so I just stick to the basics. It’s cheap, nutritious, the whole fruit is eaten not just juice and it’s a fun food for the kiddos.
We have also been making lots of raw lemonade. Super easy and tasty.
Lemonade:
1T freshly juiced lemon juice (this is best, otherwise get unfiltered organic lemon juice)
1T raw agave nectar
Water to fill glass
Ice
1/4 tsp. Sea Salt (or Himalayan crystal salt is better). Add this if it’s really hot out for more electrolytes and water retention
Mix really well and drink. Tastes great like regular lemonade but you are using a low glycemic sweetener so your child won’t bounce off the walls and it’s also an electrolyte balancer to prevent dehydration. It’s really like a healthy Gatorade. Lemons also replenish electrolytes. This too, can be frozen as a popsicle.
We have been making sun teas, too. My favorite flavor for the summertime is Mint. Just put a bunch of washed fresh mint leaves in a gallon sun tea container, fill with filtered water and let sit in the sun all day. Refrigerate in the evening and the next day you have really cold mint tea which really cools you off when you drink that on a hot day. You can sweeten it, too but we all like it plain. Even my picky son loves cold mint tea. If you combine that with eating some cold watermelon, you will really cool down pretty quick.
Some cultures drink hot mint tea for cooling down in the heat but I still prefer the cold version best. Mint is a diaphoretic herb so drinking it hot opens the capillaries and helps you sweat which cools you down. It is also very good for the digestion.
The other snack my son Leif is loving is actually going into the garden and picking his own cucumber or greens, etc and we bring it inside and I wash and cut it up and he’s so happy to eat the food he’s watched grow. He will eat large amounts, too. He’s ecstatic that his little yellow pear tomatoes that he planted the seeds in a container himself in May and watered (a lot!) all summer are now bearing fruit and so are the cherry tomatoes growing right next to them. He goes and looks everyday and sees if they are yellow enough and when they are he picks it and pops it into his mouth. He does the same with the red ones, too. I think it’s the cutest thing ever, of course! He’s really into living foods and likes having them around him, just like his parents. The garden is one fascinating place to him.
Well we have been busy around here this week! Michael and I have been doing all sorts of preserving of our garden and finding really good deals on organic produce at the store and farmer’s market. We are looking at this season as more of one of experimentation because we are trying not to water bath can or pressure can (what we normally do each year) but to do more low tech preservation methods that keep the enzymes alive and nutrients intact since this is very important to me now.
So here’s the recap of what we’ve been doing every evening and last weekend: First, Dehydrating – both solar dehydrating outside and also with my new-this-year-and-I-love-it-so-much dehydrator. I purchased an Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator with teflex sheets back in January when I went raw and I couldn’t be happier with it. What an amazing investment this was – it has a temperature control on it and it’s square shaped so it feels like an oven so I can even put a lasagna pan in there to dehydrate a raw, living lasagna recipe. The 9 trays don’t have to be rotated since a fan blows on each individual tray from the back, there’s no dripping onto the trays below and I’ve dried both sweet and savory at the same time on different trays and there have been no crossover of flavors or any problems. The electricity usage when it’s on is low, too. It uses the same amount of power an ordinary light bulb uses when you dry at the lower temps.
I’ve been dehydrating herbs especially culinary ones like rosemary, mint, parsley, basil, dill, etc in it at a low temp and then crush and store it in little glass bottles for seasoning especially for this winter. I will continue to do this as the harvest progresses because it’s so damn easy and quick and I get a superior product to what I can get at the store – it’s still technically raw and organically grown, afterall – not to mention cost savings! I usually hang dry my herbs but wanted to try it out on the spiffy machine this time.
We also bought several pounds of local, organic apricots from a coop recently and ate a bunch right away but we wanted to preserve some, too so instead of just dehydrating them, Michael wanted to try to dip them in something to preserve the color, too. He mixed up some raw, local honey with some lemon juice that I had juiced that day (we go through lots of lemon juice here, I’m always juicing lemons!) and dipped the apricot halves into that mixture then dehydrated them at a low temp for a couple of days and they came out awesome! So tasty and with a bright color.
We’ve been drying berries, too. Organic strawberries are on sale in my town for $2.19/pound which is ridiculously cheap for here so I’ve been stocking up for the winter – we of course ate all the berries we grew in our garden already! I make smoothies with frozen organic berries a lot in winter but we also wanted to try dehydrating them and using them in recipes more that way. Oh man, so delicious! I will have to go back and get more because dehydrated strawberries are unbelievable. We plan on trying out dehydrating more produce, too over the next 2 or so months.
We’ve also been Freezing produce – ok, not low tech but we do have an energy star freezer and I like my frozen, organic fruits in the winter so this is a large and important step for us to do during the height of cheap produce season. I’ve been freezing mangos, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc. I will freeze some organic corn when it becomes less expensive and other veggies, too. We wash and vacuum seal pretty much everything we store in the freezer. We’ve experimented with juicing some fruits and greens and freezing them right away, too. It’s not as good as fresh juice but may be pretty good still – we’ll see in a few months.
We purchased 10 pounds of local, organic snap peas and 10 pounds of local, organic green beans and we 3 literally ate several pounds of each fresh already this week and have tried out different methods of preserving the rest. We have dehydrated a small amount, froze some (we soaked in hot water but did not blanch and will see if they will be ok in the winter. If not, we will blanch then). We also have lactofermented some of the beans.
Lactofermenting is how you make real sauerkraut and pickles and any other kind of pickled produce or Kimchi but without heat or vinegar. All you add is sea salt, good water and the vegetable then let nature do it’s thing. Once fermented, you then add in other seasonings if you like. We have glass bowls all over with plates fitted on top and a weight on that with either beans or assorted greens from the garden lactofermenting right now. The beans are at the fizzy and fermenting stage and we just transfered them into glass jars. They need a bit more time to sour.
This is a super cheap and easy method to do and very healthy for you. The good bacteria is in there, you are eating probiotics which help your digestion and immune system stay healthy and strong. Vitamins, minerals, fiber and live enzymes all are in there and it’s very tasty and a living food, too. Some Kimchi contains a natural antibiotic to e-coli so that would be good to consume with meat if you eat that. Sauerkraut is one of my favorites and once the cabbage harvest comes in, I will be lactofermenting like crazy! We have some beets to process and we are going to try out lactofermenting some of them, too. This could possibly become a new addiction for us!
There are lots of resources on the web and in books for more info but a really good blog to read for lots of detailed info on all things food preservation is Casaubon’s Book. Sharon is really very talented in explaining all that you would ever need to know on this subject whether you are a suburban gardener or have a small scale farm. She also talks about Peak Oil and all that entails, too.
We also have recently purchased bulk dry goods from the coop for our food storage. I always like to have dry goods on hand for some reason – it gives me a sense of security, I guess plus it’s the most economical way to buy it, really. This year, we purchased several items that can be either sprouted to eat in recipes for my way of eating or cooked for my husband and son to eat. At Leif’s camp, they have been preparing both quinoa and millet for snack time so he has gotten used to eating those two grains which he has been refusing to eat here at home. Now he will let me make them for him so we will buy more quinoa this fall and have already bought millet, buckwheat groats (my favorite for raw recipes), black oil sunflower seeds for sprouting & eating the greens, assorted beans, popcorn, some brown rice and some whole wheat & rye flours – we store both flour and brown rice in the freezer.
Quinoa is technically a seed and can be eaten sprouted or cooked. Buckwheat groats, too and millet can be sprouted or cooked as well. All are considered non-allergenic, too. All healthy, versatile foods and organic, mostly locally grown and pretty cheap! We vacuum sealed everything in smaller 1-2 pound packages and store all of it in bins in our root cellar closet. We do always rotate through what we store over time and many of these dry foods when properly taken care of can be stored for years without going bad.
We feel that with the rising cost of gas and food (and availability), it’s better for us to put in the effort and stock up now with replenishing our dried food stores. The glut of fresh produce takes effort to preserve but when winter rolls around, I am always happy to eat something preserved from our garden or the market at the peak of flavor and obtained at the cheapest possible price. And no, I don’t have to do it, I can live like most of America and not put up any food, ever. It just feels like the right thing to do since I live in a colder climate, there are weird climate changes happening affecting the food supply everywhere you look and gas is only going to keep increasing so less driving to the store for us. I think this is a knowledge that needs to be taught and passed down because everyone’s health and finances could improve by doing this every year. These type of vegan foods are healthy for most people to eat at least several times a week and they save you money and time if you do it right.
Michael and I have been doing this for as long as we’ve been married (except the lactofermenting – we failed at that sev’l years ago and haven’t bothered to try again til now). It only takes some focused effort in the summer and fall, you can even do little bits each night like what we have been doing all week that will supply us for months in the winter.
Next, we are on to conquering the cucumbers coming in!
I’m sure you’ve read by now all about how the bees are “mysteriously” disappearing and not returning to their hives. It’s called Colony Collapse Disorder. Well, there seems to be a real answer instead of all of this false speculation to lead us off the trail of the true culprit – pesticides.
A group of German beekeepers noticed that two-thirds of their bees died following an application of this pesticide called clothianidin. In Germany, they find this to be an emergency situation and have suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn. Fifty to sixty percent of the bees have died and some beekeepers have lost all of their hives.
The tests performed on the dead bees showed that ninety nine percent of the bees had a build up of clothianidin in their body which is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. The US Environmental Protection Agency also considers this pesticide to be highly toxic to honeybees.
Bayer, one of the world’s leading pesticide manufacturers (as well as pharmaceutical manufacturers) makes this pesticide and imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France. Imidacloprid has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. Recently, the company’s application for clothianidin was rejected by France. Clothianidin and imidacloprid are both members of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. They are well known as insect neurotoxins, especially with regard to bees.
In the U.S., beekeepers in North Dakota are taking Bayer to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995 when rapeseed in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed at that time and the term “colony collapse disorder” began.
Representatives for Bayer say that their pesticides are safe for bees if applied correctly. This involves using a glue that keeps the pesticides stuck to the seeds on which they’re used.
Agricultural corporations are known to evade anything that costs them money. All the glue, the personnel to apply it correctly and the equipment used requires extra money. Obviously, they are not applying these popular neurotoxins correctly because now we have an epidemic of dead bees on our hands.
Colony Collapse Disorder is a name given to mislead the public from finding out the real, simple truth that toxic pesticides are to blame. If we knew this fact right off the bat instead of being directed to look for a bacteria or parasite or environmental stress on the bees that could possibly be causing the die-offs we would have been cutting into the enormous profits that these manufacturers gain. Bees are necessary for our food supply and therefore, human survival and are being allowed to be killed off just for pure greed and profit. It’s sick, really.
This is just another reason to go organic – whether you grow an organic garden, buy only organic foods from the supermarket or buy direct from organic farmers through a CSA or a farmer’s market. Pesticides are just toxic to all of life period. In the end, they affect us all and are not safe, no matter what the greedy chemical companies say.
I hope you will take a look at this PSA for Californians regarding an important upcoming vote although it’s something we all need to know about. Hopefully one day it will become an American law, not just a California law – The Prevention Of Farm Animal Cruelty Act.
As Doris Day (actress and huge animal lover) says, “Know Compassion, Know Peace.” We are what we eat.
As I have mentioned in other posts, we like to eat some of the wild greens (weeds) growing in our garden. Lamb’s Quarters is also known as wild spinach and very tasty and nutritious. We eat it in salad, sandwiches and it goes really well in pesto. We also eat young Dandelion leaves in our salad as well as Purslane leaves. Those have a lemony taste. There are other wild volunteers we don’t eat but they too have lots of nutrients and you can make medicinal teas out of them for different ailments. If they are growing in our rich, organic soil and are good for our bodies, why not eat them?
We were really excited to see garlic scapes last week at our farmer’s market. Scapes are the tops that grow from hard neck garlic. We love these and they are only available for a short time in June around here. They are like a delicacy. Since the scapes were available, we have been making batches of raw pesto using the scapes and putting it on raw spaghetti noodles or spreading it on some flax crackers and topping it with tomato.
I make so many different sauces for raw spaghetti, it’s so easy and quick for me when I don’t have much time. You can use zucchini, summer squash, jerusalem artichokes, etc. as the noodles. To make the spaghetti, you can use a knife to cut it down into thin strands but that is very time consuming and tedious! I have 2 different tools I purchased this past year to make different kinds of noodles. The first one is called a “saladacco” spiralizer and it makes angel-hair pasta and also there is another setting on it for making very thin circle cuts like for ravioli cases or potato chips. The other tool is called a “mandoline” and is another type of veggie slicer that has 3 different, changeable stainless steel blades for different sized noodles as well as the big slice opening (no blade inserts) to make big slices like for lasagna noodles. I like both and found the mandoline at my local Asian market and it’s pretty inexpensive – around $20. They are quite handy tools for the raw kitchen.
This has been one of my favorite raw recipes because you can make it in under 10 minutes for everything and I love pesto on so many things and you cannot even tell there is no cheese in here. Here is my version of of raw spaghetti with basil-wild spinach pesto:
Spaghetti:
Make noodles out of 2 zucchini (feeds 3-4 people)
Basil-Wild Spinach Pesto:
2 cups basil, packed
2 cups wild spinach, packed
6 garlic scapes (or 2 big cloves), diced
2 large handfuls raw walnuts (already soaked and dehydrated – about 2/3 cup)
large handful pine nuts (about 1/3-1/2 cup)
1/2 -1 tsp. Celtic sea salt or Himalayan crystal salt
1/4 cup e.v. olive oil
1T lemon juice
diced tomatoes
Process basil and wild spinach first then add everything else and process all ingredients until smooth. Mix pesto with the noodles and sprinkle with diced tomatoes on top. Enjoy!
(You can use your food processor or a high speed blender to make pesto).
I have not posted in a while on what’s going on out my back door. My garden is rocking – we have so many greens that we are trying to keep up with! I have been making all different kinds of salad dressings and eating salad (or juicing them) to keep up with my garden. The strawberries were prolific and we made many raw strawberry desserts like ice cream, pies, smoothies, etc. The other fruit is not really happening in my yard yet but is plentiful at the store and some now is at the farmer’s market so I’ve been having fun with that, too. I’ve been going through phases of wanting to eat the produce more than drink it and vice versa.
All of our tomato plants have little tomatoes on them and my son Leif is overjoyed that his very own yellow pear tomato plants have little tomatoes on them. He checks on them everyday to see if they are bigger and turning yellow yet. I can’t wait to see him eat one!
All of our corn is in a new bed we made and doing really well “knee high by the 4th of July” and my zucchini and cantelopes and cucumbers, beets, broccoli, peppers, tomatillos, beans, peas, assorted herbs, basil, kale, chard, garlic, onions, cabbages, green onions, chives, etc, etc are all doing well and we have been eating lots of herbs, greens, kale, chard, green onions and even many of the wild green volunteers (aka “weeds”) in our garden.
Some of the wild greens are so very good for your body that I actually cultivate them wherever they show up and harvest them like any other plant. Wild spinach (Lamb’s Quarters) has to be our all time favorite and Leif eats that straight out of the garden. He loves it. Even if I see it in our flower beds, I leave it and harvest it when it gets a bit bigger. I put the leaves in salad, juice them and the other day I made a raw basil-wild spinach pesto to go on top of raw spaghetti (usually made out of zucchini).
Michael has built a “spanish trellis” this year for our tomatoes and cucumbers. It’s working well, they are climbing up. I think next year we will do this for more climbing vine type plants like the melons and zukes, too. It saves space so you can grow more.
Next to our corn, we added another new bed and filled it with giant sunflowers. Thanks to the squirrels burying sunflower seeds we gave them from last year’s crop, we had many volunteers in our garden as well as the starts we grew inside the house so we filled the new bed and just recently thinned them out.
Out our front door, we have rototilled out more front lawn in the shape of a big circle around our tree, added soil, amendments, drip irrigation and broadcast a whole bunch of flower seeds we had and thought they may not sprout due to the age of the packets. We really didn’t think much would sprout because the packets were sev’l years old but it looks like everything sprouted because we have a crazy plant situation going on in that bed. I think it’s going to be wildflower mania once they get tall enough and start blooming. I’m excited – this is our third flower bed out front and the other two are doing great – all the roses and my new daylilies are all blooming and the hollyhocks are trying to take over every thing and are gigantic. They just started blooming, too. I bought some hanging baskets for my front porch area of my house like I do every year and they are already huge this year, too.
Our next garden project we have lined up is actually building our cold frame which is now turning into a small greenhouse. We have been holding onto materials for over 5 years (since before living in this house) and we’ve received more materials this summer from freecycle for this, too. So this year will also be my first year trying to do a fall garden. We are going to start planting seeds now for fall plants. Michael also said he would work on our lame root cellar closet – add some shelves to get the most room out of it as possible for better food storage. We used to keep the food stores in a corner of the garage but since we have taken over our basement apartment rental last year, we moved it all into a storage closet that has a wall of concrete on one side.
All in all, we have lots going on and more interesting ways to learn to be more self-sufficient. I’ll be updating when we harvest and on my forays into fall gardening.
I thought I’d give a little living foods recap of what’s been going on here lately. First off, I truly love eating this way! It’s been 6 mos (75% raw in Jan. then 90-100% raw since then). I feel better, look better, have more energy and sleep better, too. My vision and hearing are great and my sense of smell is more acute as well. I’m also in a good mood most of the time, too.
I’ve noticed so many things shifting in my body including my tastebuds. Foods I used to not like no matter how many times I’ve tried eating them over the years I suddenly crave. Like olives. I used to pick them off my veggie pizza or out of my greek salads and my husband thought I was nuts – he loves olives. I like olive oil in dressings, to cook with or as a marinade but could not stand eating them or the taste of a whole olive. A few weeks ago, I kept getting this feeling that I wanted to eat olives. You could imagine my surprise over this weird and new craving. There is a store near me (a few, actually) that sell all different kinds of gourmet olives so I went and sampled and was so into it! I bought a whole pound of regular Kalamata and another of oil cured black olives, too. I told my husband – who is astounded by the way – that he has to get his own and not eat mine. It’s almost how I felt when I was pregnant and craving meat – I had to have it and I didn’t want to share it. Now that I know I like them, I am going to buy some "sun cured" olives that raw food online stores carry to try those out.
What is interesting about listening to your body is that when it’s healing as mine is doing, it will tell you what you need for your next step in the healing process. For example, I love mangos. Last year when I was eating an organic,clean omnivore diet, I couldn’t get enough but would limit myself to one a day if I bought some (too much sugar for me I thought then). I have a hormone disorder and insulin resistance and don’t ever want to overdo any types of sugar or else I feel like crap and only want to go to sleep. When I went raw this year, I let myself eat mangos whenever I wanted. Some days that would be 3 throughout the day some days nothing. I felt ok, too. I did some research and there is something in mangos that helps to heal the pancreas and assists the body in getting rid of insulin resistance (and diabetes, too). I don’t ever crave mangos anymore, not for a few months now. I have not been tested but I’m sure my insulin resistance is gone. I still eat mangos or put them in my smoothies if they are on sale and I pick some up. I don’t think about them anymore like the way I did.
I looked up some info on olives and they are high in minerals (but I’ve got that covered with all the greens I eat) and they also help to dissolve mucus in the body. That’s interesting to me – my hormone disorder causes small cysts to form in my reproductive area and cysts are formed out of mucus. Also dairy is very mucus forming and having been off that for 6 months now (and I only ate that in very small amounts anyway), I’m sure I’m still clearing that out, too.
I tell ya, the body is one amazing machine and you never really know the depths of it’s intelligence until you feed it what it truly wants – real living foods. It’s so simple but we’ve adulterated our food and our tastebuds for so long, generations, really that getting back to the basics of pure, simple foods is a very eye-opening experience for me especially with healing my body naturally with the plant world. Sure herbs work but only to a certain extent for some health issues (and I really know this from my own experience and from other people’s experiences working with them as an Herbalist). The changing of one’s diet is the real cornerstone for true, complete healing. Everything else is secondary, IMO.
Besides that, I’ve been (un)cooking up a storm! I love to cook so I knew I was going to commit to doing this and bought a couple additional pieces of kitchen equipment that I didn’t have back in January to make this process go smoothly and I’m so glad I did. It was money well spent because I use all of my equipment if not everyday then every week.
I also got myself 2 new cookbooks recently – each one written by a raw chef that owns a successful restaurant in their cities. Oh my God is all I can say over these recipes. They are gorgeous. I’ve been having so much fun whipping new creations up from the books and because it’s hot out I’ve been craving mostly salad type of recipes – even just fresh, green salads straight from my garden with different, amazing dressings I’ve been making (I made a fresh ginger-miso dressing yesterday, so delish). And incredible desserts, can’t forget the desserts! Yum!
Raw, living foods are not only delicious and good for you – even the rich desserts – they are pretty to look at. I want to buy all new plates to show off the food more because many dishes are so pretty and vibrant looking. I think I’m addicted – I want to be a raw chef now!
These recipe books I just bought are a bit more advanced and do require at least some of the equipment used every day. If you want to start out on adding more living foods dishes to your diet, I really recommend getting a good food processor and if possible, a high speed blender. Makes a world of difference and I use them everyday. A great temperature controlled dehydrator is key for so many other recipes including crackers, pizza crusts, warming food up out of the fridge, making cookies, granola, etc. I find it invaluable but if you are just starting out, you can focus on the quick, no dehydrating recipes first. Even sprouting seeds or grains is pretty easy and fun to add to things. A juicer that can juice not only veggies and fruits but also wheatgrass and have the homogenizing plate to make nut butters and ice creams, etc is also used a lot in my house.
We used to go out to dinner more but since I’ve gone raw, I’d rather make gourmet living food at home and go out and do other things (like see live music!). My local city does have a couple of restaurants that feature raw food entrees on their menu but I figure the money we saved by not going out to eat has more than paid for the equipment I bought back in January and use all the time.
I’d love to hear from anyone with any questions or even topics of interest you’d like me to write about regarding raw, living foods. I certainly love to talk about it and love cooking this way so feel free to ask away!
Well you don’t have to twist my arm to get me to give my two cents to the USDA on what needs to change for the school lunch program! I am really hoping that many people will take action and give their comments to the USDA to help all of our children receive better nutrition and more whole, unprocessed foods in every school across America.
We went to an organic “pick your own” berry farm this past weekend with my friend Amy’s family (
When we got home, I selected the most ripe fruit to work with that day and made some fruit leather, dried slices for use in granola, cereal and desserts and we also froze a bunch of slices for smoothies and raw ice cream. For my measly 4 quarts of strawberries, I made fruit leather and dried the rest for winter recipe use. Man did my house smell amazing with all of that dehydrating going on!
I am planning on making a bunch of raw peach cobblers and pies and freezing them for future desserts. I bought the low sugar pectin for my husband to make jam but he only wanted to make himself strawberry or raspberry jam and doesn’t like peach jam. He also doesn’t like canned peaches. Figures. So, we will be preserving the rest (that we don’t inhale fresh over the next couple of days) using the methods that work best for me and the raw vegan diet.
This organic farm also grows many things that they sell in their storefront so we also bought a huge watermelon, freshly roasted green chilies, purple green beans, roja garlic, candy onions and a melon (that was marked as a cantaloupe) that was called “Israeli Perfume” and when we cut it open it had green flesh and tasted very similar to a honeydew. I saved the seeds from it because it was so tasty I want to grow it in my garden next summer! They sell many other items but were already sold out of much of it by the time we made it into the store.
Zucchini Hummus
So here are a few simple but tasty treats for the kiddos:
The other snack my son Leif is loving is actually going into the garden and picking his own cucumber or greens, etc and we bring it inside and I wash and cut it up and he’s so happy to eat the food he’s watched grow. He will eat large amounts, too. He’s ecstatic that his little yellow pear tomatoes that he planted the seeds in a container himself in May and watered (a lot!) all summer are now bearing fruit and so are the cherry tomatoes growing right next to them. He goes and looks everyday and sees if they are yellow enough and when they are he picks it and pops it into his mouth. He does the same with the red ones, too. I think it’s the cutest thing ever, of course! He’s really into living foods and likes having them around him, just like his parents. The garden is one fascinating place to him.
I’ve been dehydrating herbs especially culinary ones like rosemary, mint, parsley, basil, dill, etc in it at a low temp and then crush and store it in little glass bottles for seasoning especially for this winter. I will continue to do this as the harvest progresses because it’s so damn easy and quick and I get a superior product to what I can get at the store – it’s still technically raw and organically grown, afterall – not to mention cost savings! I usually hang dry my herbs but wanted to try it out on the spiffy machine this time.
We’ve also been Freezing produce – ok, not low tech but we do have an energy star freezer and I like my frozen, organic fruits in the winter so this is a large and important step for us to do during the height of cheap produce season. I’ve been freezing mangos, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc. I will freeze some organic corn when it becomes less expensive and other veggies, too. We wash and vacuum seal pretty much everything we store in the freezer. We’ve experimented with juicing some fruits and greens and freezing them right away, too. It’s not as good as fresh juice but may be pretty good still – we’ll see in a few months.
Lactofermenting is how you make real sauerkraut and pickles and any other kind of pickled produce or Kimchi but without heat or vinegar. All you add is sea salt, good water and the vegetable then let nature do it’s thing. Once fermented, you then add in other seasonings if you like. We have glass bowls all over with plates fitted on top and a weight on that with either beans or assorted greens from the garden lactofermenting right now. The beans are at the fizzy and fermenting stage and we just transfered them into glass jars. They need a bit more time to sour.
We also have recently purchased bulk dry goods from the coop for our food storage. I always like to have dry goods on hand for some reason – it gives me a sense of security, I guess plus it’s the most economical way to buy it, really. This year, we purchased several items that can be either sprouted to eat in recipes for my way of eating or cooked for my husband and son to eat. At Leif’s camp, they have been preparing both quinoa and millet for snack time so he has gotten used to eating those two grains which he has been refusing to eat here at home. Now he will let me make them for him so we will buy more quinoa this fall and have already bought millet, buckwheat groats (my favorite for raw recipes), black oil sunflower seeds for sprouting & eating the greens, assorted beans, popcorn, some brown rice and some whole wheat & rye flours – we store both flour and brown rice in the freezer.
As I have mentioned in other posts, we like to eat some of the wild greens (weeds) growing in our garden. Lamb’s Quarters is also known as wild spinach and very tasty and nutritious. We eat it in salad, sandwiches and it goes really well in pesto. We also eat young Dandelion leaves in our salad as well as Purslane leaves. Those have a lemony taste. There are other wild volunteers we don’t eat but they too have lots of nutrients and you can make medicinal teas out of them for different ailments. If they are growing in our rich, organic soil and are good for our bodies, why not eat them?
from hard neck garlic. We love these and they are only available for a short time in June around here. They are like a delicacy. Since the scapes were available, we have been making batches of raw pesto using the scapes and putting it on raw spaghetti noodles or spreading it on some flax crackers and topping it with tomato.
I have not posted in a while on what’s going on out my back door. My garden is rocking – we have so many greens that we are trying to keep up with! I have been making all different kinds of salad dressings and eating salad (or juicing them) to keep up with my garden. The strawberries were prolific and we made many raw strawberry desserts like ice cream, pies, smoothies, etc. The other fruit is not really happening in my yard yet but is plentiful at the store and some now is at the farmer’s market so I’ve been having fun with that, too. I’ve been going through phases of wanting to eat the produce more than drink it and vice versa.
Michael has built a “spanish trellis” this year for our tomatoes and cucumbers. It’s working well, they are climbing up. I think next year we will do this for more climbing vine type plants like the melons and zukes, too. It saves space so you can grow more.
