Bliss Balls

Here is a popular dessert that is easy to make with a food processor (blender will not do it, sorry Annie). It is based on a recipe from the book  "Fresh, The Ultimate Live-Food Cookbook" By Sergei and Valya Boutenko, a brother and sister who were able to reverse their diabetes by going to a raw food diet. I highly recommend this cookbook for its easy and delicious raw food ideas.

1 cup of Macadamia nuts

1 cup Cashews

8 Menonjol Dates (Pitted)

4 cacao beans

2 tbs Agave Nectar

Grind the cacao beans in a spice grinder or in a mortar and pestle till not quite a powder. Cut the dates into as small a pieces as you have time for, as the bigger the piece the longer the mixing takes. Put everything in a food processor and mix on high for about 40 sec. You should then be able to form them into balls of any size you want. I prefer golf ball size. If it is not holding together into balls then put back into food processor, add more dates and mix again. 

 Bliss Balls are designed to take the place of Power bars or Cliff Bars or any energy bars so although the ingredients for this are expensive, they are cheaper and healthier than any store bought energy bar.

Macadamia nuts are very expensive so in weeks I have no money, I use cheaper nuts like almonds, Brazil nuts, walnuts or hazelnuts. Cheaper dates such as baking dates work but you will notice they are not as tasty as Menonjol dates. If you cannot afford Cacao beans then cacao powder or chocolate powder works fine. I use 100% organic fair trade cacao beans as these are OK for a diabetic. This dessert does not raise my glucose even if I eat 8 in a row!! More agave nectar makes it sweeter. If you are not diabetic you can add some sugar. I add things like dried fruit, honey,  nutritional yeast, hemp hearts, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, tequila, etc. Experiment. Enjoy. Comment. Salud!

Mushroom and Mashed Rosemary Cauliflower

Mushroom and Mashed Rosemary Cauliflower

I am sorry it is such a long time between posts. Graduate school keeps me busy; I see why only the young attempt it. Rest assured my raw experimenting goes on at every meal. One day I will remember to take a picture of one of the meals and post it. Here is another fast and easy crowd pleaser.

Ingredients:
Portobello Mushrooms (As many as you like)
1 head cauliflower
1/3 cup Pine nuts (or cashews)
Fresh Rosemary (1/4 cup or more if you like)
Olive oil
Braggs (Tamari sauce or Nama Shoyu)
2 tbs Agave Nectar
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the Portobello mushrooms into bite size pieces. Put in a bowl with enough Braggs and olive oil (each chef will have a different feel for the mixture here) and 2 tbs of Agave Nectar to thoroughly coat the mushrooms. Let it marinade (covered so you can occasionally shake it all) for 12-24 hours in refrigerator. Next day cut up cauliflower into smaller pieces and blend in blender or food processor with pine nuts, salt and pepper and fresh Rosemary (dried will work). This can take a few minutes of blending. Blend until it is the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add however much olive oil you like and blend again briefly. Olive oil is easily bruised with to much blending so always add at last moment or stir it in with a spoon. Be kind to your olive oil and it will love you back!

Put mashed rosemary cauliflower in a bowl and pour the mushrooms on top (If there is marinade left you can add some or all of it to the mashed cauliflower depending on your taste). Serve and enjoy! As always your comments and suggestions are welcome. Salud.

Creamy Noodles

Here is another quick one:

Sauce:
1 cup hazel nuts
1 cup cashews
2 tbs Nutritional Yeast
2 tbs Braggs or any soy sauce
1/2 squeezed lemon
2 cloves garlic
tbs dried oregano
Black peppercorn to taste

Noodles
Zuuchini, or sprouts or parsnip or beets etc.

Mix all sauce ingredients in blender or food processor. Actually any nuts work (almond, macadamian, pine nuts etc) but half cashews make it creamy. Poor over any cut up vegetables. Better if you have a Spiral Slicer (spiralizer) to make the vegetables into noodles. You can mix vegetables. Sprouts are used as is. This is good to make the night before and put in the refrigerator for lunch. I cannot emphasize the importance of using fresh local vegetables as the noodles. This really improves the taste. Salud

Ethiopian Tomato and Almond Wat Stew

Ethiopian Tomato and Almond Wat Stew

• 1 cup of sprouted lentils
• 1 cup of sun-dried tomatoes
• ½ cup Pine nuts
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tbs salt
• 1 tbs Berber Spice
• 2 cups water
• ½ cup cubed zucchini
• ¼ cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• ¼ cup almonds
• 3 tbs lemon juice

This recipe comes from one of my favorite recipe books: ”The Everything Raw Food Recipe Book” by Mike Snyder, Nancy Faass and Lorena Novak Bull, 2010, Adams Media Press. This is a variation on a traditional Ethiopian Wat stew that usually contained meat and whatever vegetables were in season. You too can use whatever vegetables are at hand. I had no celery last night so instead I used parsnip, any vegetables will do. If you do not have time to make sprouted lentils (3 days) then canned or cooked work fine (or even lentils soaked for 10 hours).

Soak the sundried tomatoes and almonds in water for 1 to 10 hours. The longer the better but even just 30 minutes is ok. To make the sauce, in a blender or food processor mix the sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts (really should be only pine nuts for this sauce), olive oil, salt, water and Berber Spice. Berber Spice is a spice mix from Ethiopia. In Victoria I buy it at “For Good Measure” next to “Peppers Market” on Cadboro Bay Road. In the rest of the world you will have to ask around, but it is worth seeking out. It is not expensive and has a very unique taste. In a bowl, mix the vegetables, almonds, and sprouted lentils together and pour the sauce on top.

This will give you an unbelievable dish. I dare say it will be one of the most delicious things you have ever made. The above dish recreated an Ethiopian Wat but the sauce can actually be poured over any vegetable. It will work really well with vegetables that are starting to get old. Feel free to add more salt and Berber Spice to up the taste. Also play with the amount of water, you can go from creamy to soupy. This is so good it becomes a transcendental experience. I had to sit down for awhile after my first taste of the sauce. Salud!

Thai Salad, Transcendent

I have decided not to list what I drink with each meal as I often get cheap, obscure beverages which are probably not for sale in your area. But with this Thai Salad last night I had a very nice red wine from Portugal ($9.99 CN). Here is an easy to make stunner salad:

Thai Salad:

Base:
2 medium cucumbers
2 cups of any greens (lettuce, Kale, arugula etc.)
1 yellow bell pepper
mint leaves
basil leaves
Sauce:
one third cup sesame oil
one third cup olive oil
lime or lemon juice(one half squeezed)
3 tbs agave nectar (or any sweetener)
2 tbs red chili flakes (or ground up dried chilies)
4 Heaping tbs cashew butter (or cup of 8 hour soaked cashews ground up)
water (enough to make it thickness you like)
Garnish:
Cashew pieces and chopped red bell pepper.

Mix all sauce items together in blender or food processor to make sauce. I like it rather thin so lots of water for me. The amount of hot chili is up to you, you can go from mild to forest fire. Chop cucumbers and yellow (can be also red or orange or green) bell pepper into cubes or strips, whichever you prefer. Tare mint and basil leaves in half. These two are the key items, the more you put in, the more unique this dish tastes. Pour sauce over vegetables. Garnish with the cashews and peppers. This makes enough for a side dish for two. To make it the main course just increase all ingredient amounts. This one will surprise everyone. Real Thai salads usually use bib or iceberg lettuce but in the summer so much local greens are available that we can have fun.If it is done quietly, with fresh food and with love you will taste each of the ingredients. Salud!

Nut cheeses

First I want to amend my previous blog. I think yams work better than sweet potatoes. My food processor cuts the yams into a creamy texture but the sweet potatoes stay on the crunchy side. I say try both and see what you like.

I am not 100% raw vegan yet. I still eat some cheese, especially Vancouver Island cheeses which are excellent. But I find nut cheeses are a nice and healthy alternative. I have yet to experiment with making real nut cheeses which involve cheese cloth and a number of days with weights on top of the nuts. Below are 3 recipes taken from raw food web pages. As usual, experiment to get the taste you like best.

Cashew Cheese:
4 cups of raw cashews
4 heaping tablespoon fulls of nutritional yeast
3 tablespoon fulls of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of Olive Oil
(1 cup pine nuts if you can afford it)

Blend all together in a food processor. You do not have to soak the cashews. If you do soak them, it makes it creamier. Experiment with the yeast. I like even more yeast then 4 tbs. This cheese can be eaten immediately or left out on table for 12 hours then refrigerated for a stronger flavor.

Sunflower Cheese:
3 cups of sunflower seeds
1 cup pine nuts
3 heaping tablespoon fulls of nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons of mustard powder
water

Blend all together in a food processor. Add just enough water to make it creamy (usually just a few spoon fulls). This tastes like sunflower butter but adding more mustard powder and yeast gives it a unique flavor. You can soak the sunflower seeds for 4 hours for a creamier texture.

Nacho Cheese:
4 small tomatoes
3 avocados
1 red chili pepper
3 small sweet red peppers
1 half red bell pepper
2 or more tablespoons of taco seasoning
black pepper to taste

Blend all in food processor. i usually am missing one of the peppers so go with what I got that day. If you do not like hot then omit the Chili pepper. More taco seasoning gives it a stronger nacho taste.

Mashed Sweet potato

I had heard about raw food diets and knew people like Woody Harrelson had been paracticing it for years. I had always assumed it was just lettice with raw carrots and broccoli on top. This is the reaction I get most often from friends: "I could not live on an apple for breakfast, carrots for lunch and lettice for dinner". So I am as surprised as anyone how it is easy to live on a raw food diet and never have the same meal twice. This recipe comes from many different web pages.

Mashed Sweet Potato:
1 peeled Sweet Potato (Cut into cubes)
3 gloves of garlic
some fresh cilantro or parsley or thyme or rosemary
salt and pepper to taste(if you like)

Blend items in a food processor until creamy.

Thats it. Some web pages say it is not good to eat sweet potatos raw but it is only bad if you ate them every day. Supposedly raw makes their nutrients harder to digest, but blending should free most nutrients. You can add walnuts, cinnamon etc to make a casserole. Suggestions are always welcomed and encouraged. Salud

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; there is where they should be. Now put foundations under them." Henry David Thoreau

First post, I have some explaining to do

Hello you:

I have had numerous friends (actually 2) ask me to start a blog listing my discoveries while attempting a raw food vegan diet. I am a 50 year old ornithologist. I am currently at the University of Victoria, Canada pursuing a PHD in Biology. I grew up in St. Louis Missouri, USA. My mother was/is a good cook who always made sure we had lots of fresh vegetables at every meal. So consequently there is nothing accept watermelon I do not like. I became a vegetarian at 24 for many reasons. I considered myself very healthy and since my bird work involved hiking over mountains with a heavy backpack I assumed I was in good shape. I had given up my truck 8 years ago so I walk everywhere now. So I was quite surprised in December when I was diagnosed as diabetic. My mother is diabetic and her parents were to, so it runs in the family. But I had given up sugar, white rice, white bread, etc. years ago. So I got a blood glucose monitor (free here in Canada) and started studying myself. I found wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, potatoes and other items I loved to be bad for me. Especially items such as a vegi wrap at the campus restaurant. While I was at Bolen Books looking for a book on vegan diabetic recipes I found many books on raw food diets and how this diet helped diabetics. So I tried it. I have been on a 95% raw food vegan diet (Cheese sometimes still) for 5 months now and as long as i stay on it I am no longer diabetic. I lost 30 pounds and feel more energetic too. So my blog will list simple recipes that I have discovered in books, on the net and in my mind that I like. They will be appropriate for poor college students like me. Also hopefully they will contribute less to global warming then my old diet. There will furthermore be the occasional discourse on Beethoven, Keats and Carl Sagan.

Salud!

Zucchini Ratatouille
1 medium zucchini
1 and a half cups sun dried tomatoes (soaked one hour, use leftover water below)
one third cup of good olive oil
one fourth cup of apple cider vinegar
1 cup of water (adjust to desired sauce thickness)
1 tbs fresh rosemary
2 tbs fresh thyme
1 clove crushed garlic
one half cup of cilantro
salt and crushed peppercorns to taste

Slice zucchini into very thin rounds or sticks. Best if you use a spiralizer. Slicing paper thin brings out the flavor of the zucchini.
Mix everything but the zucchini, in a food processor to desired thickness. Spoon this over the zucchini.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of using fresh, locally grown, in season vegetables, fruits and spices. This recipe has lots of room to play (Peppers, celery, parsely, onion etc, there is much room here for creating something new). I omit the salt when it is just for me and add fresh hot peppers. This dish keeps great for 2 days in the refrigerator. My first attempt at this came from the website goneraw.com. Its a really fun website with many great raw food ideas.

Let me know if you come across improvements or lateral dishes while experimenting with this. (PS: do not tell my advisor I took an hour out of my lab day to write this. I am supposed to be aging tree cores).

Until next time I leave you with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "There can be no excess to love, to knowledge, to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense."

Cheers. Steven M. McGehee