100 Day Raw Challenge Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day. August 1st marks day one of my 100 day raw food challenge being put on by Bunny Berry and RawFu. The nice thing about this challenge is that I get to make up my own rules, set my own goals. My main goal is to eat a high raw diet for the duration of the challenge. By high raw, I mean 90% or more. I plan to use ingredients such as agave nectar and nutritional yeast that are consider "dead foods" but I feel add enough enjoyment to the raw recipes containing them to be worth it.

A while back I fasted from cooked food and completed 21 days on raw food only. I was less than graceful, but made it all 21 days. It was so HARD to do! As I recall, it was in late fall right around Thanksgiving. That was the hardest meal I've ever eaten. Seeing all the hot cooked food around me made my cold raw substitutes less than desirable but I did it. Oh yes, I made it through the torture that it was. But I was fasting. That's the difference. I chose to give up something I had grown completely dependent on and was forced to find new ways to cope. My emotions ran rampant and from a faith perspective God worked wonders in me over those 21 days.

This time around I'm choosing a challenge for health. Don't get me wrong, I feel like God is leading me in this direction and will bless this journey as much as, if not more than, my 21 days. But it feels like I'm more prepared this time and I'm going in with a different perspective. I have to, 100 days is a long time! And now thanks to Bunny and RawFu I have a community of people who are going to be doing it with me.

So I may post weekly updates on this blog or I may not. I'll most likely keep the nitty gritty of my experience on the forum blog and save this one for the fun recipes that sustain me.

Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it ;)

ChocoMelt Cookies

I've been making lots of coconut milk and almond milk to feed my addiction to Superfood Coffee so what do I do with all the leftover pulp? Not one to waste, I came up with this recipe:

ChocoMelt Cookies

Dough
3/4 cup almond pulp - dehydrated and ground into flour
3/4 cup coconut pulp - dehydrated and ground into flour
1 cup oat groats - ground into flour
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/3 cup coconut oil
1 vanilla bean - seeds scraped

I actually dehydrate the leftover pulp right away after each batch of milk. It doesn't take long at all and this way I have a stash waiting for creations like this one. To make dough: grind almond & coconut pulp and oat groats into flour using a blender or coffee grinder. Add agave, vanilla seeds and oil in a food processor (or mix by hand). As a last minute addition I pulled some raw chocolate I had in the freezer...

Chocolate Chunks
1/2 cup cacao powder
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup agave nectar

I made the chocolate several days ago and decided it would be fun to throw some in. I didn't use all of it, just add however much you like. To make: mix all ingredients, pour into a container of choice greased with coconut oil and freeze until firm. If using a food processor for the dough you can just throw large chunks of chocolate in and they will get chopped up by pulsing or you can break into pieces before adding to dough if hand mixing.

Next, I used preformed biscuit cutters a friend gave us a while back. On a paraflex sheet scoop some dough in, press down, lift up cutter and repeat. Dehydrate at 105 for about 5 hours, or just eat as they are. That's how my 3 year old liked them!

Kale Chips

I found a recipe for Kale Chips on goneraw.com and I did enjoy the first batch but really wanted to try a couple of variations. I'm sure the variety of seasonings is endless. Here's what I did this time:

Ingredients
1 head fresh purple kale, wash and remove center stem/vien
1 head fresh green kale, wash and remove center stem/vien
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Teriyaki Style
1 tsp raw honey
1 tsp Nama Shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp dried ginger

Simply Fresh
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt

Preparation
Cut the pieces of kale into palm-sized segments. Place them all in large container and fill with water. Toss 1/2 tsp. sea salt into water. Massage the kale with your hands for about a minute. Allow to sit in salted water for about 30 minutes. Drain well. Divide into two batches. Toss each batch with different seasoning sauce. Lay the leaves on mesh dehydrator screens. Dehydrate at 115 degrees for about 5-8 hours.

Adi absolutely LOVES the Teriyaki Style chips. She gobbled down an adult size handful and wanted more but it was bedtime. She strongly prefers the green kale. She held up the green chips to the window and mimicking me said, "look at that beautiful color!" I have to agree with her, the green kale chips taste a bit better and are thinner making them more krispy. Purple kale is good too, just a slightly different texture. The simply fresh version is nice, but I really enjoy a bit of sweetness. Maybe I'll try it with a touch of honey next time. Honey and lemon are always a nice pair.

Raw Coffee

I'm getting better at this raw coffee thing. Here's my latest recipe:

Superfood Raw Coffee - Serves 2
2 cups Coconut Milk (recipe below - or use your favorite nut milk)
1 1/2 Tbsp Cacao Powder
1 1/2 Tbsp Lucuma Powder
1 Tbsp Maca
1 Tbsp Mesquite Powder
2 Tbsp Agave Nectar
1 3/4 cups Ice

Blend milk, powders and agave in high speed blender until smooth. Add ice and blend until slushy. Pour in mug or glass lined with chocolate syrup. Drizzle a bit of syrup on top.

Chocolate Syrup
2 Tbsp Agave Nectar
2 tsp Cacao Powder

Mix and use to line the mug and drizzle on top of coffee.

Coconut Milk
1/2 cup coconut meat
4 cups water (use coconut water if you have it, if not, use filtered water)

Blend ingredients in high speed blender until completely smooth. Strain out pulp using nut milk bag or reusable coffee filter. Dehydrate leftover pulp and grind into "flour" for use in other recipes :)

No Recipe Needed

Mulberries are so so gooood. No recipe needed. We just devour them :) These were foraged from a nearby public bike path.

As you can see, Adi is delighted and can't keep her fingers out of them.Yay fresh, free, yummy raw treat!

Creamy Napa Salad

It's getting easier and easier to eat more raw food as my body craves this way of eating and resists cooking. I was going to cook up some Napa cabbage last night to take to Cam for dinner but I couldn't do it. So I made this salad instead. We wrapped it up in some non-raw tortillas that we had on hand, but I would have just as well loved to eat them on raw tortillas had we not eaten them already ;)

Creamy Napa Salad

10 leaves Napa cabbage

3 Roma tomatoes

1 tsp dill

1 Tbsp sesame seeds

1 Tbsp sesame oil

Dressing:

1 cup cashews

1 cup water

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp onion powder

salt to taste

Thinly slice Napa cabbage leaves and massage in a large bowl to slightly bruise. Add chopped Roma tomatoes, dill, sesame seeds and oil. Toss. Blend all ingredients in dressing until smooth and creamy. Pour desired amount over cabbage and store the rest for later use (keeps 3-5 days). Toss all together, add additional salt if needed and enjoy!

Fit for Life Part II

So it's been a while since I've begun trying to implement some of the things I learned by reading Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. I implemented two very important aspects in my life and here I am a couple of weeks later maintaining those couple of changes. I haven't had coffee since I gave it up two weeks back. The first few days sucked but after that it's been mostly smooth sailing. After finding a new raw replacement for coffee I don't think I'll ever need to look back :)

I'm finding it very difficult, however, to eat only fresh fruit all morning. I end up eating a LOT of fruit. And I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but organic fruit is expensive! Sure, we have some strawberries growing and a mulberry tree producing fruit in the yard but to be honest, Adi comes first and I'm not going to fight her for these goodies! So that means buying a ton of fruit at the Co-op rather frequently. The only thing that seems to fill me up and keep me satisfied for a period of time is a smoothie. I can't really do that yet... another couple of days I'll be off work for 13 glorious weeks and you better believe it will be time for smoothies galore. The benefit of smoothies is that I can use frozen fruit that I picked last summer (mostly blueberries). I'm on the hunt for a berry picking farm in the area. Preferably an organic one or at least one that doesn't use sprays. I'll post details if I find any.

As for food combining. Wow, that's going to have to come later and on an as needed basis. I have to say that I'm feeling really strongly that eating a diet rich in raw and living foods is far higher a priority than correctly combining those raw foods. If I find that I'm having trouble digesting then I may revisit food combining. For now, I'm sticking with raw fruit until lunch, a mostly raw lunch and partly cooked dinner.

Raw Mochachino?

So I saw this great recipe idea on Raw Freedom Community forum: the best ever raw coffee. It was made of several ingredients that I don't have (yet) so I had to at least try to come up with one of my own. The result was a light and tasty raw mocha:

Raw Mochachino

3 cups water

1 Tbsp raw maca powder

3 Tbsp raw cacao powder

3 Tbsp raw honey or agave (more or less to taste)

4 Tbsp raw hemp seeds

2 cups ice

Blend all ingredients except ice until smooth. Strain out any hemp chunks if desired (I didn't cuz I like a little something to chew). Add ice to make slushy.

I think in the future I would use only 2 cups water instead of three to make it a bit thicker and creamier. Any raw nut or seed could be used to replace the hemp seeds to change the flavor or consistency. I'll play around with the recipe and post one that is closer to "perfect" on goneraw.com later.

Imperfections aside, this drink was amazingly satisfying. I had it in the afternoon when I needed a bit of an energy boost. Wow, did this deliver. I'm usually miserably tired when putting Adi to bed but last night I not only felt wide awake but I remained in a good mood as well. Hmmmm. I like that :)

I can't resist posting the recipe for the original:

Ingredients:

Cacao powder,Fo-Ti (Ho Shou Wu), Maca, Lucuma, Yacon, Agave, Vanilla bean, Nutmeg, Cashews, Ice, Water

Try to contain your exitement Grab your blender and add:a scoop of cacao powder, add a few capsules of Fo-Ti (minus the capsules!) a scoop of maca, a tbsp of lucuma, a squirt of yacon, a squirt of agave, 1/4 inch vanilla bean, dash of nutmeg, handful of cashews, cup of ice, cup or so of water.

Chocolate sauce for lining the glass and topping the drink: cacao and a capsule of ho shou wu & a dash of sea salt mixed with agave.
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