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!
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.
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.
