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!
Over the years, from having my own herbal products company and being a Certified Herbalist that loves to create, I have made so many different facial cleansing products and healing, detoxifying masks. As one of my side effects of a hormone disorder, I tend to break out if I’m stressed, eat anything wrong – or doing a deep cleanse. Eating a raw vegan diet is initially like doing a deep cleanse which is great but not so great for my skin. I have to up my exercise and water intake to keep my skin looking better since the skin is the biggest pathway of elimination that we have.
Several months ago, I read a post on Allie’s Answers about using good ole’ baking soda to wash your face with everyday. I thought, well, I’ve never actually tried that one and I have like 2 enormous boxes of the stuff from Costco because I love baking soda and the plethora of things you can do with it.
I can honestly say, it’s been a few months now of daily use and I love washing my face with baking soda! The first week or so I felt a bit dry after doing it so I moisturized right after and it felt great – so smooth and clear. I think it helped my breakouts from my deep cleansing of stored toxins coming out. It just buffs my face nicely like a daily gentle exfoliant. I especially like to do this before bed at night and then apply a gentle, non-clogging moisturizer. I wake up with such soft skin. I’ve also noticed that after I exfoliate with the baking soda, my skin doesn’t feel dry or tight at all anymore like it did in the beginning.
I read up a bit on how others use it on their skin and you can soak psoriasis plaques in a baking soda bath or apply a paste of baking soda and water directly onto the plaques and it helps them to fall off. Good for excema, too. Some people may feel a tingle at first using baking soda on their skin but it is not harmful and that tingle goes away quickly, too. It was also recommended to drink some baking soda in a glass of water to help alkalinize the body and reduce the symptoms of the skin disorder. Eating a raw vegan diet is alkalinizing to the body, too – just sayin’.
Here is a link to the Arm and Hammer site with a list of how you can use baking soda on your body. It’s really an amazing safe and gentle product that costs you just pennies per any job that you use it for. It’s not just for cooking, scrubbing your tub or using it as an antacid.
I’d love to hear from anyone that uses baking soda on their skin and your results and opinions about it. Or, if you are going to give it a try, please let me know what you think of it after you try it!
This is a very good audio interview with Brenda Cobb, the founder of the Living Foods Institute in Atlanta, GA. She was diagnosed with both cervical and breast cancer and was given 6 months to live. She decided against doing the surgery, chemo and radiation and instead underwent both a diet change to a raw, living foods diet and lots of detoxification treatments of the toxins in her body as well as emotional healing and is thriving today, 9 years later. She helps thousands of people from all over the world change their lives at her institute and some doctors even refer their patients to her before they proceed with medical intervention.
Whether you are gravely ill or not, this is a very clear, informative interview she gives about her journey to health and also ways people can help themselves get healthier and live longer, better lives. It’s definitely worth a listen.
This is a new documentary film brought to you by Producer-Directors James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch.
Here is the synopsis:
With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what’s wrong with our malnourished bodies, it’s no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide “Sickness Industry” and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for curing disease naturally.
Great trailer – check it out above. On their website, you can order the movie or download it for just $4.95. I recommend anyone suffering from any kind of illness, even cancer, should spend the 5 bucks and really learn some important info from the many experts interviewed that can potentially change their world in 80 minutes.
“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food” -Hippocrates
We went to a wedding for an old friend this past holiday weekend which was in Omaha, NE. We live in CO so we had to basically drive through the entire flat section of CO as well as the entire state of NE.
Now I know I live a semi-sheltered existence in my county of many aware people who keep up on things, are concerned for the environment, what they eat, getting out and exercising and even spiritual enlightenment for some. I guess I’m just not comfortable witnessing the devastation of the earth by large, corporate mono-crop farmers (most likely all using evil Monsanto seed and products). It was tough for me to drive through all of that and see hardly any trees, just mono crops and then feedlots of cattle who were crammed inside the fences and we saw very few areas in the state of free grazing cattle. I kept thinking, we slaughtered the Native Americans to do this? I just felt so bad for the earth and the animals. There was so much sad energy emanating all over the place there. My husband felt the same.
We finally get to Omaha and it’s more of the same except with small clusters of new housing communities and strip malls and office bldgs. It felt to me like everyone was walking around asleep, completely unaware and just towing the line and believing all the b.s. fed to them. I did hear that there was a Whole Foods somewhere in the city so that gave me some hope for some conscious people but then I heard there are a bunch of transplants living there for big corporate jobs like our friend moved there for.
The wedding itself was on this very nice horse property and there was a pond with ducks, geese and bullfrogs, big trees to climb and of course, lots of horses. All the little kids there had a blast just from engaging with nature. Leif loved the bullfrogs in the pond.
There was a woman there with 2 kids. She was our friend’s next door neighbor. Her son was the same age as our son and they kept running off and were constantly standing at the edge of the pond. She was with her 1 year old daughter by the pond and told us she’d watch Leif while we went in the lodge bldg. for food. A few minutes later, her daughter falls into the pond so she scoops her up and leaves the 2 boys who were all the way on the other side of the pond alone, says nothing to them or us. Michael and I were watching them all anyway because she seemed odd, like she was heavily medicated or something (but I later found out that she was not, many people there acted like this). I take off my heels and run all the way around the pond so as not to have my very clutzy child fall in the water and drown before I get there.
Needless to say, I was a little annoyed that this mother would just walk away and when she saw me running, she was like “oh, my daughter fell in the pond, I have to dry her off!” Man, I just felt like shaking her to wake up and pay attention and wound up taking turns with Michael watching both boys all afternoon until she left.
I was surprised about the food at the wedding. We thought it would be something amazing because this friend is very gourmet – loves to cook and loves coming back to CO and meeting up with groups of people at different ethnic restaurants because he says the food sucks in NE – all steakhouses! Clearly, it was his wife’s choosing of the caterers.
There was not one thing there that I could eat – not even a carrot stick or lettuce leaf or piece of fruit it was all barbeque! I wound up eating a little of the coleslaw because I was starving and the only veggies were coleslaw or egg potato salad. Mr. Picky was not happy with any of the food choices and ate the pretzels that were out on the table and that was it until I went and got some of his snacks in the car.
Personally, I think from all the massive chemicals used on crops, all the crap in the meat from the factory farming practices (and their large consumption of meat) and the polluted water, air, etc it’s no wonder people acted the way they did. I felt like an alien in that state. Just watching that woman feed her (wet) one year old, the kid had food stains all over her (and I mean bad) and she was wearing a white dress. I wanted to give her a napkin to put on the little girl but I didn’t. I tried to talk to her but it was like she wasn’t there, even when talking about her kids – always a safe topic with strangers. Thank God for the wedding people that flew in from the coasts and the fellow Coloradans.
Many of these people were from my husband’s old job many years ago and they all remembered us as the couple who lived in the yurt. Some of them asked me so many questions about living off the grid in a yurt in the mountains. It was fun to reminisce since we sold it 5 years ago now (for work reasons). One guy that worked with my husband that I never met before told me that we so inspired him and he had pictures up all over of yurts and solar power and did lots of research on it and wanted to live in one and then he had to move for a job to OR and his girlfriend (now wife) was not into living an alternative lifestyle. He really was into talking all about it which was so fun for me because we really loved living like that for 3 years plus all the years we spent beforehand planning it all. One day again we will buy land and build an alternative home and compound. (I will post all about living the off the grid life in a yurt soon).
I mean no disrespect to anyone from NE that may read this. I was only pointing out the vast differences in consciousness and lifestyle that we noticed. I really got a good look at “You are what you eat” firsthand once again and it just reaffirmed to me personally how happy I am living on live, organic foods and how lucky I am to be aware of that fact and have that choice.
Leif kept asking in the car ride home, “Are we in Colorado yet?”. And we would tell him “No, still in Nebraska” and he’d say, “I want to be in Colorado”. Even the 4 year old felt it. All 3 of us were just so happy to return home to our slice of reality which is just oh so nice we are not leaving the state all summer!
Oprah is doing a 3 week cleanse by eating a vegan diet (prepared by a chef, of course). Recently, she had a woman on her show named Kathy Freston who wrote the book, Quantum Wellnesswhich is about conscious eating – eating a (cooked) vegan diet and having a daily spiritutal practice. The plan is to eliminate caffeine, sugar, alcohol, gluten and animal products from your diet for up to 21 days to jump start your “inner makeover”.
Oprah said since reading A New Earth and doing the classes online with Eckhart Tolle, reading Kathy’s thoughts on “conscious eating” struck a nerve with her. She says, “How can you say you’re trying to spiritually evolve, without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?” You can read Oprah’s blog posts about it.
While I think this is truly phenomenal because she is a woman who inspires millions and will wake people up to the reality of unconsciously eating factory farmed animals, a mostly cooked vegan diet for someone who is overweight or has certain health problems is not always the best. I looked over her menus and saw just a few raw vegan dishes and, in my opinion from having my own health issues, raw vegan is the optimal way to healing your body AND being spiritually conscious with what you are eating. It doesn’t have to be 100% raw, but at least 60% or more. And Oprah has a thyroid condition and should not be eating soy products at all. Soy is not really that good for the body and there is much documentation out there about this (google it if you don’t believe me) and there are several dishes with tofu, tempeh or soy milk that she is eating.
I hope if she decides to stay on a vegan path that her buddy Dr. Oz (a cardiologist), who eats lots of raw foods and has his own personal raw vegan chef, will inspire her to take her conscious eating to the next level. (Dr. Oz interviewed Joel Odhner, his chef on his XM radio show last year). Go Oprah!
Mark Bittman, a NY Times food and cooking columnist and best selling cookbook author spoke at TED last year about the link between our food and global warming, environmental degradation, and human health problems. His talk is really well done and is worth watching.
Lately I’ve been a bit obsessed with making this delicious treat for myself. My husband loves it, too and it is super fast to make. My son, well, he’s a purist and wants only vanilla but when i get him to take one bite he admits that it’s good.
I thought I would share the recipe since we are coming into strawberry season now. I use a high-speed blender (Vita-Mix) but I think a food processor would work just as well- it just may take a bit longer. The consistency it makes is like soft serve ice cream and it tastes like either a creamy sorbet or a frozen yogurt to me. I usually top it with a raw chocolate sauce I make. OMG, it’s so amazingly gooood!
I’ve tried this recipe with raw honey before and I think it just works and tastes better with the raw agave. Both are available at your local health food store. I’ve frozen the left overs in a container and once it thaws out a bit, the same soft serve consistency is still there. I will never grow tired of this recipe and you can substitute any berry but you do need the bananas to make the creamy base.
Raw Strawberry Ice “Cream”
1 pint of strawberries * 2 bananas * 1 tsp. lemon juice * 1-2 Tbsp. raw agave nectar
Wash and de-stem strawberries and peel bananas and cut into chunks. Freeze strawberries and bananas in a bag in freezer for a few hours. When frozen, put all in the blender with lemon juice and agave and blend. You will have to stop and scrape down sides or use the “pusher stick” to get it all blended but total blending should be no more than a few of minutes to get a soft serve like consistency.
Yield: 3 cups.
Chocolate Sauce
Raw Cacao Powder * Raw Agave Nectar
In a bowl, add some cacao powder (I don’t measure) probably around a quarter cup full and then drizzle some raw agave (aprox. 1 or 2 Tbsp.) and mix until you get a smooth, chocolate consistency. Yummm. Drizzle over the soft serve. You can also use this simple sauce to dip fruit pieces or nuts in and freeze or eat as is. It can also be gently warmed (can do the double-boiler method but don’t let temp get over 118 deg.) to be more like a hot fudge.
I’m not sure if Whole Foods or someplace like that has the raw cacao powder, there’s a good chance they might now. I order mine in bulk internet orders so I don’t know but it is vastly, supremely better than any cooked chocolate out there (even dark or bittersweet – still cooked and stripped of the vital nutrients).
Raw Cacao is also considered a “superfood” and the highest in any food for magnesium, antioxidants and vitamin C. It’s also loaded with other great minerals and nutrients that are good for you. Plus it tastes so damn good! Check out this post I wrote all about raw chocolate for Valentine’s Day for more cacao info.
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.
