Breakfast frittata!

Gary and I have been working a lot lately.  For those of you who haven’t been in the store of late, we’ve rearranged almost everything there and we did it basically on our own in two days (two very long days might I add!).  So this morning, feeling like we needed a little relaxation and comfort, I decided to make a simple veggie frittata.  We happened to have a zucchini, half a red pepper and a shallot in the house that all needed to be used quickly.  I referred to Deborah Madison’s “Local Flavors” cookbook for inspiration.  Now, although my veggies were not local (organic yes) I checked out her recipe for a zucchini and marjoram frittata.  My favorite idea from the recipe was to grate the zucchini instead of dice it.  Would have never thought of it but man was it a fabulous idea!  So here’s what I did:

Grated 1 zucchini, mixed it with 1/2 tps of salt and placed in collander (in the sink) for about 15 minutes.  Rinsed it quickly and squeezed it to dry.

Finely diced a shallot and sauted the shallot and zucchini at medium/medium high heat  in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil for about 5-6 minutes.  I thought that for future reference this would be a great substitute for hash browns for people who are sensitive to a lot of carbohydrates.

After about 5-6 minutes, I removed the zucchini/shallot mix from the skillet and placed in a bowl.  Wiped out the skillet.  Then in another large bowl I beat 5 nice farm fresh Milo’s eggs (Wisconsin, pastured raised).  To the eggs, I added the zucchini, finely diced red pepper and some Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese (from Uplands Dairy in Wisc).  This cheese is similar to a gruyere in nature but much better than any gruyere I can remember.  I only used about 1/3 cup grated. 

After the skillet was wiped out, I brought the heat back up and added more olive oil to coat the bottom and rolled the pan around so it coated 1 inch up the sides.  I poured in the egg mixture and lowered to heat to medium low.  Covered skillet with a sheet pan for about 9 minutes.  Then I popped the frittata under the broiler for about 2 minutes to finish off the top of it.

Then pulled the skillet out of the oven and flipped the frittata out so that the nice golden brown side was face up.  Clearly it looked and smelled so good that we couldn’t take a picture of it before we ate so here’s what’s left.  This was super easy and really delicious.  AND economical!  We’ll have the rest for a late lunch today (can serve at room temp the way you would a quiche) and put a nice Windy City Harvest salad next to it. 

Day 23 (AKA: Don’t read Julia Child’s “My Life in France” while on a raw, vegan diet)

You might ask yourself what kind of masochistic person would choose to read a book that extols all things rich, buttery, meaty, winey and flaky when she herself is eating nothing but raw foods?  Me.  I’m the masochist.  I guess I really didn’t think too much about it when one of our lovely customers at the store let me borrow “My Life in France”.  I forgot how when Gary and I saw Julie and Julia, we non-smoking vegetarians left the theater craving a steak, red wine and a cigarette.  Julia has that effect on you I suppose.

So, I really should have thought about it before I jumped into this lovely book while still on our raw diet.  Despite my occasional drooling while reading her book, the raw diet overall is great (really, I mean it!).  We’ve invested in a couple of cool new kitchen gadgets-namely the Excalibur Dehydrator (the 2500 series) and just yesterday we got our used Vitamix (“Vitaprep”) which Gary has enthusiastically starting making smoothies faster than we can even drink them.  We’re both feeling really good and in fact, Gary said his sinuses are clear for the first time in his life.  Wow!  Shows how much food we normally eat that can congest the body (and we eat pretty healthily normally).  All these wonderful and exciting things aside, I still shouldn’t go to bed with visions of buttery sole meunierre and croissant in my head.  It just messes with me.

Being on day 23 of the RDA, we’ve definitely experimented with a number of raw recipes and I’d like to share a few favorites with you:

Green smoothies-this is Gary’s answer to how to ingest at least some sort of dark leafy green that on their own, doesn’t do it for him.  Since you blend them with fruit, the bitterness of the greens are masked.  The Vitamix is pretty magical for making really smooth and creamy blended things (see pic of the greeness we drank for breakfast today).  There are some easy and yummy recipes for green smoothies at: http://www.gorawhavefun.com/.  You’ll also find some interesting short articles about all things raw and good for you.

Raw “spaghetti”-Gary didn’t like this one as much as I did but we’ve had several guests over for raw dinners and this dish has gotten rave (or “rawve”) reviews.  I like to make the pesto recipe following and mix it with the tomato sauce.  http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/rawspaghetti.html

Living Pesto-who doesn’t love a little rich and basil-y pesto?  In my opinion, this is just as good as pesto with cheese and in fact, we even sell a raw aged parmesan at the store that we could add in if we were so inclined.  http://vegweb.com/index.php?action=printpage;topic=13119.0

Sunburgers-You do need a dehydrator for these little hearty guys but they are super good.  I’d been craving something hearty and chewy and these definitely helped: http://www.veggiewave.com/sunburgers

Spiced apple tart-Oh damn is this ever good.  My mom was visiting in town and she had it for dessert and for breakfast the next morning.  And my mom is NOT a raw foodist at all.  The website calls it a pie which I find a bit misleading so I like to call it a tart.  Seems to be more accurately descriptive:  http://kellysfacesmells.blogspot.com/search?q=spiced+apple+pie

Organic energy bars-Kim from our store gave me this easy and quick recipe:  1 1/2 cup dates (pit those bad boys before blending), 1 cup nuts (I used walnuts and macadamias), 1/3 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (you can dehydrate your own or buy non-raw stuff at the store) and 1 tbls vanilla extract.  Food process everything, spread onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet and chill for at least 1 hour.  They are really good and Gary and I ate a lot of these yesterday.  I mean a lot.

We’ve still continued to have a lot of salads-usually one a day.  The base we use mostly is this incredible organic sprouted salad mix from Growing Power in Wisconsin.  It’s by far the best salad mix I’ve ever had-baby kale, chard, lettuces, arugula, mustards, spinach as well as pea shoots, sunflower sprouts and radish sprouts.  You must try it!  We then top it with lots of other veggies-most of which are not local but they are organic.

We did “cheat” slightly on our RDA by having a beer on Sunday night to toast our two year anniversary of Green Grocer Chicago being open.  This was a big milestone for our little business so we felt it appropriate to have a little cheers!

Oh dehydrator-you are cool!

On day 10 of the RFA (raw food adventure), we received our Excalibur 2500 dehydrator (bought used on Amazon). Yahoo! Fun kitchen playthings. The minute I got home from the store, I whipped out our mandolin and started slicin’ and dicin”. It’s really fun getting all of the food ready, putting it in the dehydrator, turning it on and hearing the warm air whirring around and then…you wait. And wait. And wait. Actually, I’m still waiting for some soaked almonds that I put in last night and am completely convinced are going to crisp up even more. We’ll see about that.

So far, we’ve dehydrated: potatoes (eh), sweet potatoes (needed more time maybe?), bananas (real good), almonds (you already know the story here) and right now I’ve got “corn chips” made from pureed frozen corn and spices as well as sunflower patties going. They say patience is a virtue and your patience is definitely tested when it comes to dehydrating something for 12-24 hours. It also tests your time management skills (and addition while we’re at it). I’m going to plan on making dehydrated foods about every other day, partly because of the whole planning thing and partly because the fresh stuff is more nutritious.

Found a great recipe for a “Stir no-Fry” online (http://goneraw.com/recipe/wok-way-stir-no-fry-dinner-tonight-rawkin-recipe). Even Gary said he’d eat this one after the days of raw are done! I recommend using thinly sliced portabellas and making extras because the day after veggies that have been sitting in the marinade are fantastic. Day after we laid down some phat greens, put a little sprouted quinoa on top and finished it off with the veggies in the marinade and some avocado. Aw yeah veggies!

Day 8 and still kickin!

We’re on day 8 of the raw food diet.  I’d say overall so far, so good.  Now that I’ve figured out the whole sprouting vs. soaking thing, I’ve managed to sprout buckwheat groats, wheatberries, chickpeas and almonds.  Woohoo! I’m really enjoying the different food preparation techniques.  My food processor is definitely getting more use than it has in the last year.  Lots of blending in the world of raw food.  So, here are some of the meals we’ve made so far and our opinions:  Sprouted buckwheat with dates, bananas and frozen local blueberries for breakfast (Me: Liked it. Gary: So-so), Mexican lettuce wraps using avocado and sundried tomatoes(Me: really liked it. G: Okay),sprouted hummus with carrots and raw flax crackers (Me: really liked it and ate a TON of it. G: Decent), and tonight we had asian cabbage wraps with a ginger garlic dressing as you can see in the photo (Me: huge fan. G: Fantastic-finally!).  Gary accuses me of being overly positive when reflecting upon food that I know is good for me.  I would say that perhaps I eat this healthy live food with rose colored glasses (or rose colored forks as it were).  But I’ve truly liked most of the items we’ve made and have found myself feeling much more satiated naturally than when I’ve eaten cooked food.   I don’t feel the need to keep eating beyond the point of satisfaction like I normally do.  Gary says it’s because the food isn’t that great so you don’t want to keep eating.  Grrrrrr.

The Cooked Stops Here (for 30 days anyway!)

Today began our first day of eating all raw.  12 hours in and it’s not bad at all!  Now, I love to cook for myself and my husband Gary but besides salads and fruit, we don’t really experiment with other raw foods.  All that’s changing now baby!

Monday I started soaking some almonds, chickpeas, buckwheat groats and wheatberries (all of them raw, not roasted).  I was hoping to take my soaking to sprouting (which essentially makes the enzymes and nutrients in the food more accessible) but what I realized this morning was that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  Worse than that was that I thought I knew what I was doing (Gary will say that this is sometimes my characteristic over-confidence).  Unbeknown-st to me, you soak the nuts first (as in, under water that you change a couple of times a day) and then when the sprouting portion begins, you drain them completely and just rinse them a few times a day until little “tails” start sprouting.  It was the draining that escaped me.  I was drowning my nuts.  Ugh.

Well, I went onto the Information Superhighway today (some of you know this as the “internet”) and discovered why my chickpeas didn’t have tails.  I’m trying to salvage them-we’ll see how that goes.

Breakfast today was a cold porridge, of sorts.  Sounds very Oliver Twist-esqe, I know.  It was a combination of soaked buckwheat groats, a banana, a couple of soaked dates, cinnamon and a diced apple.  I put everything but the apple in the food processor and proceeded to take it a little too far on the blending.  Next time I’ll puree the dates and banana and add the groats at the end to keep some of the chunkiness.  The flavor was good but the texture was similar to “baby’s first rice cereal”.

Gary made it through his first morning without coffee.  Big event, folks.  He’s actually told me that it’s the thing that gets him out of bed in the mornings.  Not the smile of his sweet wife; not the opportunity to do something cool for our little business.  No, it’s a cup or two of Intellegentsia Yirgacheffe with cream and sugar.   You can imagine his horror when I told him that coffee wasn’t raw.  He did well today though.  I made him a few cups of peppermint tea with honey (I know-it’s not raw but come on, let’s give  a little here).

Due to a meeting that ran all afternoon we skipped lunch and came home ravenous around 5pm.  I whipped up a REALLY good dish that a raw website called “Crunchy Tacos” but I called Mexican Lettuce Wraps.  It was a combination of onions, tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, avocados, cilantro, garlic and spices.  Whipped it all up in the food processor and spooned it onto romaine hearts.  One word for these: awesome.