Scheduling for easy rawness

I went to a little presentation in DC given by Khepra. I took a lot of notes, but the most interesting and most useful thing i took home, besides a reminder that the wonderful food of Olives is not to be forgotten, is this:

The cycles of our body could dictate what we choose to eat. Elimination, building, fasting. repeat.

The elimination phase begins around 4am until we get really hungry around noon. During this time its good to eat detoxifying foods, high in water content. Citrus, apples, strawberries, watermelons.

For building, we want something more filling with proteins and fats and minerals. Nuts, seeds, olives, avocado, and greens. In the winter time we need more greens than in summer time, so half of my meal consists of a salad. The filler tends to be two large buckwheat cracker breads topped with something delicious like a mixture of olives, tomatos, nuts, seeds, avocado, or whatever goes into the food processor.

After 8pm its a good idea to stop eating. I used to snack a lot on popcorn and sweets at nighttime, so now that i've become aware of my habit, i can change it. If i really want to stuff my face with something, i reach for an apple. Apple's have a appetite suppressant quality about it. Or perhaps its just purely satisfying with a good crunch and often a great flavor.



So in the mornings, if i'm feeling hungry i drink this above drink: Two or three apples, a banana, an orange, some water, and some spirulina or chlorella. It fills me up so much. The only problem is that i end up having to pee often because i drink it so quickly. Recently i'm trying to stretch it until lunch, but i have this subconscious program that i need to finish whats infront of me. I'm working on that :)

Aaaanyway, i just wanted to share the above schedule as something nice to think about. Thinking of 'building' my body from noon to eight pm definitely changes my eating schedule, though, in that i don't eat breakfast lunch and dinner. I drink some breakfast, and then i have early lunch and late lunch. Well, ideally. The social aspect of dinner turns this around a bit. Anywho, fun journey with food.

Mmm Mmm, Mole!

My dad grew up in mexico, and on a visit a few years ago he brought home a packet of mole. Its still sitting in the pantry, because although the ingredients are in spanish, its got stuff called 'modificado' and 'artificiales' and sugar is the second ingredient. I recently got Cafe Gratitude's recipe book. It took me a year of wanting it to finally order it. Its sort of intimidating, but i had not succeeded in making crackers and breads in the dehydrator and i wanted engelhart's help!

Oh~ That mole is delicious! First i made buckwheat crackers. It used a cup of my veggie pulp, but it was mostly made of buckwheat. Its not good on its own, so i made the mole the next day.

1 avocado,
3 tablespoons chocolate
3 or 4 dates, pitted of course.
3 tablespoons lime
some dashes of spicy sauce, according to your preference
some dollops of tomato paste and some sundried tomatoes to account for their 'two dozen soaked halves of sundried tomatos'
a tablespoon cumin
salt...

i think that was it! Put it in a food processor and blend it up. But it ontop of your dehydrated buckwheat crackers :P or wrap it in your enchilada along with an avocado, some beans, corn, and cilantro.

And here's Engelhart's substitute for sourcream:

1.5 cups soaked cashews (8 hours)
add lemon to taste, i like it with half a lemon.

Thats it! its aight. I'll post a picture when i have all the ingredients to make my mole cracker complete. I'm sprouting some seeds right now to make sprouts, and growing some cilantro, and so when thats ready i'll top my buckwheat cracker with mole, sour 'cream', cherry tomato halves, sprouts, and fresh grown cilantro! (i'm excellent at delayed gratification :)

We really miss basil so i planted some seeds and they became long and spindly and stopped growing. I Learned that the sunlight in the winter is about 1/10th the strength of summer, so i got a 100w fluorescent bulb and now i'm growing basil, cilantro and parsley.

Oh!! I want to share with you an excellent marinated kale recipe:
3 or 4 cups chopped/shredded kale
1 cup shredded carrot
1 cup cucumber or zuchini sliced thin
1/3 cup sesame seeds
1 or 1/2 cup soaked hijiki (they don't expand lol they're just small)
1 cup soaked or sauteed shiitake mushrooms. If you soak them, soak them for a long time in 1/4 cup each of lemon and soy sauce or braggs liquid amino's to make it delicious. If you sautee it just use the soy sauce with water.

1/2 cup olive oil
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/3 cup orange juice
3 tbsp sushi vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp salt like it makes a difference

toss it all together and enjoy~

PS there seems to be a difference in quality of kale. Some kale is really hard and some kale is really soft. Find a good source of kale, or grow your own. Don't have space? Have you heard of windowfarming?

Compote and kompost

This is so simple and duh-worthy I wonder why I only accidentally discovered it through googling prunes. Compote is a mixture of fruit simmered in water and light sweetener. I had been wondering how to get my baby to eat more variety of fruit after discovering that bananas have a constipating effect. Additionally, he only takes a few bites out of my apples every day and this is a great way to soften it up. The pectin in apples will also serve as a thickening agent!

Kompost is a christmastime drink in Russian cultures, and is made by soaking and boiling fruits and then letting it cool. Babies are given apple juice which causes cavities and spoils their palate, so this is a good treat or alternative to water. In this case, boiling the fruit won't lose nutritional value because it's in the water... Right?

spaghetti squash is very interesting

preheat the oven to 350, cut the squash in half, place it in the oven for 30 or 40 minutes, face down with a bit of water in it to prevent it from drying out.

I threw in some carrots to soften them up for my 1 year old, too.

In a food processor, broccoli tops with some but not all of the hard bits, one zuchini, a bunch of sundried tomatoes... and then it it was too fresh... so I added some dehydrated 'falafel' balls i had made a long time ago that were wanting to be used... It brought the dish into an earthier element which was needed with all the water and sunlight that was going on in the food processor. The Beet-Balls also added good texture.

Aanyway, i wanted to make some cheezy alfredo sauce, so i took out the pre-made alfredo sauce out of the pantry and looked at the ingredients, and the thing you see in the back left is the cheezy alfredo sauce that i made...

If you can get over your fear of salmonella poisoning, you can make this. Personally, i've been eating raw eggs every day with fermented soybeans, so it was easy for me.

1 raw egg (i used two but it was too much egg)
a yolk's amount of Chia seeds (as thickening)
parmesan cheese (yea, not raw, but fuck you, neither is the squash)
nutritional yeast (nutty cheesy flava)
and some salt and pepper

I really, really liked it, but i was very hungry. I could tell my mother missed the fermented soybeans, so i made a separate dish (back right) with squash, fermented soybeans, and my 'alfredo sauce'

I ended up putting the alfredo sauce ontop of my pasta sauce and enjoying that for a few bites too.

Okay... so, this has been my second squash experience, and i have a few more months of squash season to get through. Please help me with any ideas you love.

Varieties of seaweed

There is a whole variety of seaweed out there in the vast ocean. Are you aware?

This dish has coliflor, Red pepper, sesame seeds and kombu mixed in a mixture of soy sauce and sweet sushi vinegar.

"Of the eight major groups, three are used for food. Red seaweed, or Rhodphyta, includes dulse, purple nori, ogo, agar and Irish moss. Brown seaweed, or Phaeophyta, includes kelp, kombu, wakame, arame, hijiki and rock weed. Sea lettuce belongs to the Chlorophyta, or green seaweed group." from a NY times article on seaweed

Seaweed can be expensive to buy if you see them in health food stores. If you live near an asian population, you can find a large variety of dried seaweeds in asian supermarkets. There you will also find incredibly cheap fruits and vegetables, though you may not know what a lot of them are. That can be a fun adventure

"Arame, Eisenia bicyclis, is rich in iron and calcium. It is usually tossed into stir-fried dishes or soups, but can be served marinated in soy sauce and vinegar or fried with tofu."

"Dulse, or Rhodymenia palmata, which sometimes goes by the poetic name ''Neptune's girdle,'' once was eaten as a snack like potato chips in Western Europe and New England. Dulse is found in the North Atlantic and the waters of the Pacific Northwest. Fast-cooking and purplish-red, it is delicious fried in butter, added to soups and salads and combined with grains like oatmeal and barley. Rehydrated, it can be used as a leafy green, or mixed with cream cheese to make a savory spread for bagels. Or coat it in batter and fry it." Most of that sounds like something I will not be doing with Dulse. I like my dulse raw.

"Hijiki, Hizikia fusiforme, is excellent for dieters because it is very filling, and adds a crunchy texture and nutty, meaty flavor to almost any stir-fry dish, soup, stew or salad. Brown when fresh, hijiki turns black and stringy when dried. It is especially good cooked with onions and tofu."

"Kelp, a Laminaria, is available powdered, for use as a salt substitute, and is also sliced for soups, stews, vegetable and noodle dishes. Tasty when toasted until crisp and fragrant or fried in a little oil, it is also delicious crumbled onto popcorn, nuts, seeds, soups and salads. Kombu, also a Laminaria, is packaged dried in flat sheets or strands and is best known as a flavoring - along with shaved bonito flakes - in dashi, the Japanese soup stock." You can also find delicious kelp noodles online or at rainbow grocery and they make an excellent substitute for wheat noodles.

Apples and honey

Alright,
Real Simple, Real quick.

I just wanted to share this treat with you. I was surprised at a restaurant with this when we sat down, ready, waiting for us. It was so delicious, and usually One of my selves says to my Other self "What, like an apple isn't sweet enough, they have to drizzle honey on top?" But its so delicious.

Try it!

Getting to be [more] Raw

Step One, Intend on incorporating more raw foods into your life.
(Why? Because its great, and its not really that extreme of a thing to do.)

Step Two, Be easy on yourself. Health is more than what you eat. Its every day choices, replacing old crappy habits with better habits and allowing yourself to fluctuate between the two, so you really know Why you're doing this in the first place: It feels better.