Soaking and Sprouting: Patience is a Virtue
It’s hard to imagine that raw seeds, nuts, grains and beans warrant anything so involved as soaking and sprouting. They’re raw, after all! Isn’t that enough to make them wonderful? Unfortunately for us, however, they’re so highly evolved that they’ve got their own protective outerwear built in. They’re covered in enzyme inhibitors that prevent them from germinating prematurely and help keep all the essential nutrients they need to grow, all locked up and safe till the right moment. Essentially it’s like the plant equivalent of wearing a chastity belt. Those chemicals don’t help us at all, though. Instead they prevent us from being able to absorb minerals and proteins from…
Eggplant Carpaccio Caprese
When asked what food was most missed in the transition to a raw diet, a large number of people volunteered eggplant as their answer. Truthfully, I could get this; you don’t look at eggplant and even imagine anything raw. Sure, it’s a fruit … but you can’t – under any circumstances – just pick it off the vine and shove it in your mouth. Even in most cooked versions of it, there’s a process: you’re supposed to slice it and salt it and put it in a colander to get some of the moisture out of it before you even get to the cooking part. And that usually involves frying.…
Pineapple Pepper Raw Chia Jam
Chia makes it so easy to make jam, it’s ridiculous! No cooking, not a bunch of pots to clean gooey messes off of – barely any labor expressed on your part in any way, shape or form. And for barely lifting a finger, you get one hell of a delicious jam! Now, we used ground chia seeds to make this because they really seem to thicken better but the grey color of the seeds does mute the vibrancy of the fruit a bit. OK. More than a bit. It bothered us at first. Melissa was trying to figure out how to make it more yellow naturally. Turmeric seemed like the…
Melon Ball Summer Stew
Don’t be intimidated by the nifty little melon ball-er. Using one is easy and fun and it’s somehow so rewarding to see those little melon balls falling into a bowl to form vibrant mounds! Even if there not perfectly round, they’re still perfect; each one a burst of fresh sweetness! This is the kind of food that actually makes you want to play with it – even if you’ve got your mother in the back of your mind telling you not to! Now, mind you, you don’t have to make melon balls for this to be good. Cutting the melons into large dice would work just as well. It probably…
Almond Ginger Chia Pudding
Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia! Whenever I prepare food or smoothies with these tiny seeds, I can’t help but remember all those commercials for Chia Pets. And -let’s not forget – the famous Chia Head (scary and ridiculous)! I, myself, succumbed to the lure of the miraculous Chia Pet when I received one of the kits for my birthday. That was a long time ago. As I recall it was a hedgehog that actually looked pretty damn cute when it began to sprout green chia quills! But, never, at that time, did I ever anticipate a day that I would actually be eating those little seeds. And – even more miraculous – that I…
Guacamole and Avocado ‘Toast’
You can’t go anywhere now-a-days without running into avocado toast and, I’ve gotta’ admit, there’s something to it. Avocado is only just one of the worlds best fats – not to mention all the other nutritional benefits packed into these little green gems. And even if we still want to keep our fat intake on the down low, anyone would be doing themselves a favor to choose avocado toast over bacon and eggs any day of the week. For me, this fashionable feast gets dialed up a notch. The toast gets tossed, of course, in favor of some raw multiple O bread. And even though you could, technically, just smash…
Dijon Mustard in the Deceptively Raw
Here on the farm we all love fiddling with a manner of vegetarian and vegan recipes, trying to make them into something raw. And not gross. Sometimes it’s really challenging because a lot of these recipes will call for condiments – like dijon mustard, for example – and these things are just not readily available to us oddballs. All these condiments started out being raw, no doubt, but not anymore. Now everything and it’s grandmother is processed. And we’re trying to veer away from that. Things have changed. Mustard has been around for a long time. Originally people used to chew the seeds during meals- ostensibly to disguise the taste…
Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho
It may sound crazy to say this but there’s nothing like soups in summer! Yes: it’s true! Only I’m not talking about those steaming cool-weather concoctions that warm you up for a nice curl in front of a roaring fire. Granted, those have their place, for sure. But these summer soups are cool, refreshing, hydrating and addictive. Not to mention, super simple to throw together! Summertime really becomes a snap when you’ve got this kind of stuff on the menu. I basically look at every stray bit of produce in my fridge as an opportunity to create culinary bliss at this time of year. Surely, more of these satisfying soups…
Fried Rice in the Raw
What’s fried rice when it’s not rice? And when the fried rice isn’t fried? There’s no telling really, is there? But this happens to be a very tasty and remarkably similar tasting version of the fried rice we all know and love with all the flavor of Asia completely intact. Only minus the frying. And also minus the MSG. This is a recipe that can change the mindset of almost anyone with a cauliflower phobia – and there’s plenty of those out there. In fact, you’ll barely know it’s there at all! And the nice thing is that you can eat this cold or at room temperature… or you could…
Raw Till 4: Taking The High Road to More Raw
In the beginning, for a few short weeks, I dabbled with a Raw Till 4 kind of scenario. But, the dope that I was, Raw Till 4 just wasn’t good enough for me. I should have stayed there, where it was relatively easy and comfortable. But I had this idea to go whole hog: all day, all raw. It was like a shock to my system. I was hungry. Like some ravenous predator on the Discovery channel. I was bordering on dangerous. Honestly, I could have eaten my own arm. For sure, I did it all wrong. For people who are genuinely ill with diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. drastic measures…
