Wrap Me Up

I had these funny little spinach wraps a couple of weeks ago when we had Thai food and they were so silly. The spinach was literally the baby spinach leaves you buy in a bag at the store. The ingredients were minced so small I didn't realize that what I thought were green bell peppers were actually jalapenos. It was a disaster to say the least but it left me craving lettuce wraps.

I had a few things left over from making Flat Bread Pizza and a stray bag of kelp noodles in the fridge, so I decided to through together a make-shift lettuce wrap buffet. I invited my friend Val over and we went to town.

I whipped up the yummy peanutish sauce that is used in the Kelp Noodle Salad recipe from Delightfully Raw. It was perfect.

I used my mandolin for the first real time to julienne carrots and cucumber for the filling. The julienne process was pretty successful except for I had to pull the pieces apart for most of them, which I thought was not so cool. I put them in a Tupperware container and shook them really hard to break them up. That's my trick now.
I sliced up a mango for sweetness (be sure to save a little for my morning smoothie) and set it all out with the kelp noodles and some giant leaves of chard from the farmer's market. I forgot lettuce wraps usually have peanuts too so at the last minute I chopped up a few almonds for crunch.



It looked great and it was so easy to make with ingredients I already had, which is one thing I have yet to do with a raw dish other than throwing together a salad.


Robert cooked up a little chicken for his but it still didn't really work for him. He doesn't love food you have to assemble yourself. The review from my friend Val was positive though.

Rate This Dish:

I give this dish a 4. It was yummy but the kelp noodles were very crunchy. Plus, I didn't have a sweet sauce like most lettuce wraps have, so I will work on that. It was so quick and easy to assemble.

Learning Curve:

I was excited to use my mandolin, but it was tricky. It was pretty a expensive when I bought it a while back, so I feel like it should perform well. Do you have issues with your mandolin? Any tips?

Persimmon Parfait Disaster

I was so excited to make a persimmon parfait ever since I saw it on my friend Kt's blog, Cabin Blendings. The recipe is from Sunny Raw. I have been seeing persimmons at the market, and I know they are on their way out, so I snatched up a huge bag and decided I would make Persimmon Shortcake from Delightfully Raw as well as the Persimmon Parfait.

I wanted to make the Persimmon Shortcake because I had already made the Whipped Cream from Delightfully Raw earlier in the day (working on my prepping). The Whipped cream didn't come out so well. It was really runny. I don't think I was supposed to soak the almonds. When a recipe calls for nuts I always assume they are to be soaked. Is this true?


On to the shortcake, well maybe not. I still suck at reading recipes all the way through, so I didn't realize the layers needed to set up in between. I decided to change gears and make the Persimmon Parfait instead.

I figured the parfait would be easy. Pppfffff, I was WRONG. It said the flesh of 4 persimmons plus a few other items. The persimmons were really soft and ripe but the girl at the farmer's market assured me they were great. I quickly skinned the persimmons, pulled off the tops and tossed them in the Vita. I didn't have mangoes, so I skipped that and tossed in a few raspberries (weird, I know, not sure why I did that). The Vita easy mixed it all up.

I grabbed a couple of decorative stemless wine glasses to make pretty parfaits. I started layering the whipped cream, which has actually set up really well in the refrigerator. When I went to add the persimmon part I realized it had congealed. It had only been 30 seconds. How did that happen?

I finished layering it up, but I was sceptical. My suspicions were confirmed when I took my first bite. It was gross. The persimmons part was so weird and it sucked the moisture right out of my mouth. Such a disappointment especially since I had used all of the whipped cream I made.


My boyfriend agreed that it wasn't great, but he still ate nearly his whole serving, which I realize now was gigantic.

Rate this Dish:

I have to give this recipe a 0. I am certain I messed up the recipe, but I don't know how. Was I supposed to take the centers out of the persimmons? Was it the missing mangoes or maybe the addition of the raspberries? I still plan on making the Persimmon shortcake. I hope it's better.

I think I Olivejuice ;-)

I made Flat Bread Pizza from Raw Food Real World and it was delicious. I have been wanting to make this for a few days. I made the crust last weekend because it's essentially made from the Walnut Hemp Cracker recipe. I cut one of the tray from the dehydrator into larger flat bread pieces.

Once I had the crust made, the rest was a cinch. I made the Olive Tapenade in the morning while I waited for my Cinnamon Date French Toast to warm up. I even remember to soak the cashews in the morning so they were ready to whip up for dinner. It took me about 15 minutes to make whip, chop and assemble. Although, I am still trying to get better with the mandolin. I have had it for a long time, but I have not really used it. It wasn't cheap but it seems to suck. Maybe I will read the directions......maybe.



It turned out beautifully once it was all put together. My boyfriend said it was tasty but that it could absolutely, under no circumstances be called pizza.

Rate this Dish:

I give this dish a 4. This dish was pretty easy to make since I made it in stages. Prepping the flat bread crust when I make crackers was a good way to break it up. The rest of the dish is very easy to make. There are a lot of ingredients and most of them are spendy, which is the only reason it doesn't get a 5. I seem to rate meals based on taste, ease of preparation and cost. How do you rate your meals?

It's Hard, But Worth It!

I made a simple dish from Raw Food Real World, Green Olive Tapenade. I tried to get the green olives at the Farmer's Market but when I went to pay for two 80z or 10oz. jars the guys said it would be $20. I said, "excuse me" and had to put the jars back. I ended up with some from S&S Produce that were still local - sweet.


I reduced the recipe by 1/3 since my plan is just to use it in an upcoming Raw Pizza Recipe and for a little snacking. I whipped it all up in my Ninja. I have had a Ninja laying around for a while. Honestly, I have been trying to sell it on Craig's List but now I am keeping it. It is the greatest. One large food processor/blender and 3 small food processors. All with lids - perfect. I made the Olive Tapenade and stored it right in the container.

A Break from Raw to Strategize

I have not put out a blog post in nearly a week because, honestly, I have been kind of down on RAW. Here is why. It's Hard!

My first week of full on Raw, I didn't have a dehydrator yet, so I spent most of the time eating smoothies, salads, whole veggies with yummy dips and handfuls of nuts. I was pretty hungry but for the most part it was easy.

Then, during the second week I got my dehydrator, and I tried to do it ALL way too fast. All of the sudden I was soaking and dehydrating like crazy. I was making 4-page long recipes with 25 ingredients that took 3 days to prep. Basically, I just got overwhelmed. Overwhelmed led to eating out and bam - I am off Raw and not blogging. It happened just like I thought it might. This is what I was worried about. Trying to be perfect generally leads to falling off the wagon for me.

But Raw, what you should know is you can't kick me that easily. I have decided that what I need is a nice balance between week 1 and week 2. Lots of whole fruits and veggies with a nice dose of "fancy" foods to keep it interesting. My plan to make that happen is to try to rotate the days on which I have meals that have a major dehydrating component. I think this will work.

Also, for the first time in a few weeks, I was able to get to the Saturday morning Farmer's Market. The market is always so full of yummy stuff and just stokes me with energy to eat healthy. On Saturday I got:

• 2 big bunches of Kale
• A bunch of collard greens
• Italian Parsley
• Arugula
• Carrots
  
• A giant bag of persimmons (plus some dried)
• Dried peaches
• Dehydrated peppers
  
• Lemons
• Apples
• Mandarins
  
• 1 Gallon of Olive Oil (finally from my pre-order in October)

I love that we have a year-round Farmer's Market to keep us stocked up on fresh, local, organic and delicious foods.

I finally got to fill the Oil Mister I got for Christmas with my awesome Organic Olive Oil from Chaffin Family Orchards. The mist allows me to spray without aerosol. Now I can have spray olive oil using whatever oil I want to fill it with.

Learning Curve:

I am getting better at evaluating which meals are going to be overwhelming to preparing - pushing dinner to 9:00pm. I try to avoid those for now until I get better at whipping up dishes. How do you plan your menus?

la la la la la FIESTA!!

It's Taco Tuesday. It feels like I have been making these tacos since last Tuesday, ha! But seriously. The recipe is from Raw Food Real World. The recipe is like 4 pages long. It's so many pages, that I literally missed the last page, so we went without the Salsa and Sour Cream. Frankly, I am not sure it all would have fit in the shell.

The shells were super easy and they smelled so great while they were in the dehydrator. The tricky part was spreading them evenly so the edges were not crisp while the inside was still soggy. What is this special spatula I keep reading about? I used a large cup as my outline, so the shells are pretty small. I wrapped them around the plunger from my Vita-Mix to try to shape them. I thought it was brilliant idea but they just went right back to flat when I took them off. Oh well, nice try.

Easy to whip up

Out of the dehydrator and trying to shape them

Double Dipping: I saved the saved the scraps from the taco shells in the sun-dried tomato bags. Re-use at it's best. I see these guys with some guacamole in my future.

The Spicy Bean Mix, FYI has no actual beans, was also super easy to whip up. I was afraid I had dehydrated it too long (because I stayed extra long at trivia night instead of diligently watching my dehydrator) but when I mixed it with the tomato sauce it was perfect.
The guacamole was great and easy to make. Just after finished the guacamole was when I realized I had missed a whole page of the recipe. What is up with multi-page recipes? Sheesh! They were great even without the salsa (so many tomatoes already) and the sour cream.

I didn't even have to shape them. They are beautiful.

Rate This Dish:

My boyfriend put this dish squarely in the great category. I give it a 4. It is super yummy and filling. It did take a lot of ingredients and many steps to make, which is the only reason it doesn't get a five. When you are looking for a hearty dish - this is the one for you.

Learning Curve:

I feel like it literally took me 10 hours to make this dish. I need to get a bit better about balancing my dehydrating time. At one point this weekend I had 6 bowls soaking, 4 shelves drying and a partridge in my pear tree. I decided to start to use the alarm feature on my phone to track when each thing was done soaking or done in the dehydrator. This helped a lot. You think you can remember, but you can't. Well, I couldn't

A Sweet Delight

As I flipped through the ingredients section in the beginning of Raw Food Real World, I noticed that there is a raw bread. What? Bread? There is bread? How did this elude me? Well, technically it is mostly raw but whatever - I am in. I quickly flipped to the first recipe I could find with this "Manna" bread - Cinnamon Date French Toast. Alright, let's do it.

At first I couldn't find the bread at S&S Produce where I normally shop, but I stumbled upon in in the refrigerator section a the Co-op, Chico Natural Foods. Just so we are clear, this isn't really bread. It is more like a dense fruit, nut mash - but admittedly it is yummy. I bought the Cinnamon Date Manna bread to make the french toast the next day.

I got up early in the AM before my BF was up to make the french toast as a nice Saturday Brunch. However, I had apparently not read the recipe all the way through, shocking I know, so I didn't realize that the bread had to soak for an hour and then dehydrate for 4 to 6 hours. Uggg, no french toast for us. I shelved it and decided I would come back to it that night and have it for Sunday Brunch. Then, when I went to make it later that day, I opened the bread only to find it was starting to mold even though I had just gotten it - welcome to raw food. Somebody did not want me to make that recipe. I powered on though and got it all worked out.

I whisked together liquid to soak the bread and then set it to soaking. The recipe says get 12 slices out of the bread, but I say more like 9 or 10 because the thin slices can fall apart a little during the soaking. After soaking, I set the bread on a tray in the dehydrator and starting enjoying the yummy french toast smell.





We didn't want french toast for dinner, so I decided to save it for later. I should have just eaten warm because I think it would have been best that way. Be careful not to over dehydrate this sweet, sweet dish. I image it would be so yummy right out of the dehydrator as a brunch. Just add champagne.

Rate this dish:

I give this french toast a 3. It is yummy buy very sweet. Plus, I would like to enjoy it for brunch but because of the time to prepare it, it seems unlikely that I will ever enjoy it for brunch right out of the dehydrator. Also, the maple syrup that goes into this baby is pretty expensive. I see this being a treat every once in a while.

I had some milk leftover from soaking the bread, so I soaked some almonds and then dehydrated them. These should be a nice sweet treat for the week.

Learning Curve:

I started this raw food journey without a dehydrator. I just got an Excalibur 2400 with four trays from Amazon and today was my first big day of dehydrating. I need to learn how to schedule the dehydrator time a little better so there is room for what I am making. How do you optimize the space in your dehydrator?

Use what you got

It is just a week into Raw for me (3 weeks experimenting), and I am definitely noticing an increased cost at the grocery store. In the beginning I bought a number of special items like agave nectar, raw tahini, raw almond butter, coconut oil, gmo-free lecithin and some other odds and ends. I realized these were items that would last beyond the weekly shopping trip, so I tried not to count them in the increased cost at the grocery store.

My first week I decided I would shop for just 3 days of meals and then see how I did and reevaluate what I could really make and how it all went instead of trying to stock up on a week's worth of perishable food. When I got to the check out line my total was over $100. I was shocked. What I ultimately realized is that the food lasted me most of the week because I only ate about 75% raw and ended up eating out for a few of the other meals. I agree with what my friend has said in one of her comments on her raw food blog, Cabin Blendings. She said, "I spend a lot of money on food, especially produce. But I love food, and I decided that my happiness and health are worth the expense." and I agree with her.

Oh Yeah, I Remember You

One thing I have tried to do it choose recipes that only call for special ingredients that I already have. For example, I am choosing a new dessert to make today, and I am only going to choose one that calls for agave nectar because I already have a jar. Also, I have noticed that I have a few kitchen items that I hadn't previously used as much that are surfacing in my everyday raw food life.

Citrus Press

I have a hand-press citrus juicer that my mom gave me a while back that I rarely used. Now, nearly every recipe calls for either lime or lemon juice.

Lettuce Keeper

A few months ago I finally got this lettuce keeper from Bed Bath and Beyond because my leafy greens kept going bad before I could get to them. I am finding this lettuce keeper to be very helpful since I have increased the amount of leafy greens I eat in smoothies and salads

ChicoBag Produce Bags

I have been using the reusable produce bags from ChicoBag for a little less than a year. It's great because I don't get plastic produce bags at the store, but I still have a way to keep them fresh and crisp in the fridge. These have become especially helpful as my consumption of vegetables has increased. My only complaint is that they don't keep certain veggies crisp quite as long as plastic bags, which is not a huge issue since I am shopping twice a week. I started of with the "starter kit", of course, but I ended up actually using the Produce Bag Repete the most, so I bought a set of three of them.