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angie207
Raw Master
My food choices! I have been eating high-raw for almost 3 years, and I feel I have gotten so good at making gourmet foods and have learned so well how to use all the “weird” ingredients, that I spend a lot of time and money unnecessarily. I want/need ideas for using basic stuff again – mostly fruit & veggies & chocolate (heehee, but really, I use it as medicine, so that one has to stay) Thanks in advance for all the wonderful help I know you all will provide :)
Comments
it’s hard to know what to recommend without knowing what you already do. what things do you want to start eliminating?
here are some subs though:
nuts—> sesame or sunflower seeds
nama shoyu—> sea salt, and/or some mushroom soak liquid (with seaweed water if i have it)
nut butter, seeds butters—> if you are adding them to a paste or spread anyway, better to just use a few nuts/seeds and whir them up with the rest of the sauce. works especially well with sesame seeds
agave—> dates (if you can find date paste, even better—cheaper) blended with water and a little salt
I’m about as basic as it gets. I just grab fruit, and eat it. My most complicated is usually going to pick dandelions(roots,leaves and flowers),violet flowers,strawberry leaves, raspberry leaves,clover, sorrel and mixing it with a store bought greens. :P I may add yarrow leaves now and then for a more herby taste. Today was my most complicated yet. I Made stuffed chilli peppers (had no jalepenos, but LOADS of last year’s chilli peppers frozen), and Burgers from my pulp(juice feasting). Two types of burgers. My dehydrater is blowing around pizza scent even though there was no basil, oregano or tomatoes. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know. It’s funny how creative I feel now that I’m juicing. BUT I haven’t been tempted to eat it really. Even though it looked GOOD. I did have to take tastes (like half a penny) to make sure the flavour was right. But anyway, how simple do you want to go? that is the main question. now brb have to flip the burgers:)
Oh, yeah, sorry! I make a lot of nutty stuff – desserts, nutloaf, nut-based sauces, etc. I also use a lot of oil (coconut & olive), raw olives, raw sauerkraut, maca… I want to use more of my budget buying fresh produce and less buying the expensive things that don’t seem to go as far nutrition-wise. I’m planning a garden this summer with tomatoes, peas, corn, cucumbers, watermelon, zucchini, and pumpkins, so ideas for using those things would be great, too (okay, I know how to eat watermelon) :) I love green salads and nori wraps with sprouts and avocados, and now that I’m out of school for the summer, I’m sprouting again. I also make pizza crusts with flax, so I feel like I don’t need as much nuts/oils as I have been using. I have a lot of sunflower seeds, so I’d like to use them, but I only make one thing with sunflower seeds so far.
Juicing sounds good. :)
have_mersey – How did you make your burgers? I am feeling I want to get a lot more simple, but still have something substantial sometimes (like pizza or a burger). Funny you said the thing about just eating fruit; I was talking to my son about writing simple recipes, and he said we should write a recipe to pick an apple and eat it. I guess that’s telling me something. :) Last summer I had peas for breakfast almost every day. It will be a couple of months before I can do that cuz they’re not planted yet, but I’m looking forward to it.
ah ok. i have no experience with most of these ingredients. like have_mercey i am pretty basic.
but if you start juicing, using veggie pulp (even with some fruit mixed in) instead of nuts and seeds, you will get a great result!
if you like the fermented taste of sauerkraut, i recommend marinading some cabbage or pickling cukes (even normal cukes) in raw apple cider vinegar (that is such a cheap and versatile ingredient)... or you could even make your own sawerkraut.
instead of using a lot of oils, use a mix of oil, sunflower seeds, water and the cores from your zucchinis after making noodles.
also, a great dressing that is oil free is one part tomato to one part celery (seriously, it’s really good!) in the blender.
it surprised me one day that i really enjoyed eating plain romaine leaves, that spinach was really creamy and rich tasting, and that celery was actually very sweet. (all organic of course…) your new garden may be your biggest inspiration.
Your Garden sounds tasty already. :) I’m going to plant a few of my starts tonight. Some are too small or kind of sick:( But they will be alright, it just got cloudy a few days.
I used the pulp (Kale,carrot,a bit of cuccumber, 1 inch ginger,clove garlic,and maybe something else I cannot remember, probably a green), and then added some REALLY overgrown spring/green onions, and then separated the pulp into two bowls. In one I did my usual “mexican” with ,cumin,coriander,onions,lime, soy sauce and extra garlic. the other, I cannot say what was in it for sure, as it was a homemade seasoning mix for vegan sausage I made for my carnivore friend who complained alot when I’d cook :P(perhaps that is the pizza smell??). I know it had some rosemary,sage,parsley,cayenne, but It may have had something else too. How lovely. This is why I haven’t put up many recipes. I throw too many things together. It is time for me to UN-simplify a bit. hmm. It looks and smells like they are turning out okay, I’ll have to ask my roommates for the official seal of picky-approved. I did nibble the tiniest little bit off one of the chillis to see how it was coming along, and I should have added pepper or paprika to the flax coating, it was plain. But the sesame-cheese filling was okay I think (really hard to tell on that little bit).
Sesame is cheap, and makes really good cheese. I don’t eat it much simply because I usually grab and eat things. But last time I made some and mixed it with some massaged kale. It was similar to a spinach dip. I really really love kale in everything, but admittedly the spinach would have a smoother texture. If you wanted to be really inexpensive, YOUNG dandelions would work as well. They would need Massaged a bit as well to get them soft. mm I love food.
Also: button Mushrooms for the nutloaf. High in antioxidants,vitamins and minerals, lower in fat and depending on the nut, higher in fiber. Marinated mushrooms might work especially well. Depending on the sauces, again mushrooms or sesame or sunflower seeds. Walnuts are cheaper, but still nuts.
I intend to make a chilli, and some curry, raw, soon. I’m just not sure when. perhaps experimenting tonight. I’ll make dinner. It’s better if I do anyway, because they mess up the house when we “fend for ourselves”. um, my point of bringing up the chilli and curry is that you could easily take your soon to be garden corn,soon to be zucchini, some diced eggplant, cut carrots (like circular sliced) and seasoned pureed tomatoes. The curry could easily just be small juliennes and dices of vegetables with curry powder in vegetable “broth”. Though that’d be a bit like soup. I SOMETIMES wish I could be a bit more complicated food wise. It would help to convert people too.
Forgive my jabbering.
Angie- The butternut squash with garlic and olive oil on this site is excellent and simple. I can do all of the fancy weird stuff, but I feel better when I eat more simply. Some weeks I just want to eat super clean, on those weeks I make a couple of fancy salad dressings and then make up bags of all of my favorite chopped vegetables. Then I have my own salad bar. I just drag all of the bags out of the fridge and build away. I also keep a few toppings like dried fruits, soaked dried sunflower seeds, etc. With a variety of ingredients I am able to make each salad have a different personality so I don’t get tired of them. I usually feel great at the end of the week, and have alot of extra time because I’ve prepped all of my meals in advance.
I usually eat very simple, breakfast: fruit or fruit + soaked or sprouted wheat or kamut. For lunch and dinner I take big salads, I use a lot of sprouts, when I use them instead of lettuce they are the main ingredient. I always add olive oil, and not everytime but very very often 1 avocado. Nuts and seeds are a”side” in my usual menu. (I make some desserts but just some weekends).
Not too much but hope it helps.
Thank you for putting this question up. It has given me ideas for meals, that friends and family like and with a small bit of experimenting could be tweaked! yay! I love inspiration. I could kiss you.
You’re welcome! I’m getting good ideas here, and I want to know how you make cheese from sesame seeds!? I have a lot of them :)
I suppose it depends on what type of flavour you are going for. I grind the sesame seeds in a coffee grinder and then add either lemon or lime juice, or Apple Cider Vinegar, and water. This last time (One of my roommates really liked the peppers and wants to take some in his lunch tommorrow) I Took 3 Tbs. sesame seeds, two tsp. cider vinegar and a tablespoon? or so, of water. Then added 1/8-1/4 tsp. minced garlic. I let that sit for a little while, then stuffed the chillis full. I made 8 or 9 because I really don’t know how much he can handle (or thinks he can). The main thing is to make it twice as acidy as you would think fit, and let it sit for a short time. Then you manipulate the flavour with whatever you like, Paprika,Pepper,Green Onions, etc. Sesame seeds vary from where they were grown and when they were harvested. My last container of them was very sweet and made great milk. This batch has a bit more bite/bitter and makes good cheese. I play with things alot. I’ve made it taste like mozarella before, or cream cheese, provolone, it just depended on vinegar and spice really. I bet adding in cultures would help, I just haven’t tried it with sesame yet. :) Oh how I love sesame seeds.
and from my cheese experiences, if you think you have messed up…let it sit until tommorrow. Sometimes they don’t taste very well at first but were really good after a sit. When all else fails blend it with something flavourful. In the spice or meal area. I was disappointed in a cheese at one point, but added garlic, and it was great. Something about the bitter or acid or whatever was wrong with it blended well with the garlic.
I noticed I’m really yappy while cleansing. Chemicals? Or is it that I just feel that much better and have to express it?
I’m more chatty when I feel good. I just bought some celery and it sounds good to try a sesame seed cheese with it. :)
We keep it real simple here for now. Basically as the mood hits. In the midst of a cleanse as well so no fats for this week, which is fine by me. Breakfast is a green smoothie. Usually apples or pears and greens with 1 mango or a small bag of thawed frozen mangos to smooth out the texture. I find apples and pears just make a grainy smoothy and I don’t like that, the mango fixes it. I fear for lunch I am a bore, it is almost always the exact same thing, except Saturday I did something different for once. I take 1/2 a large papaya, peel it and chop it, 1 head of lettuce, clean it and chop it, and to that I add either a bunch of chopped tomatoes, or chopped strawberries, or blackberries. I dress it with either fresh squeezed lime juice or a dressing made of equal parts mango/tomato and some acid (lime, lemon, vinegar) and some water. It really satisfies me and makes me happy. Snacks during the day are banana and celery or greens smoothies. Dates with cucumbers or celery. Dinner starts off with usually a pineapple blended into a smoothie and then a fruit or veg. type gazpacho or blended salad followed by a salad with nuts or avocado or a tahini type dressing.
i thought of something else. for inspiration on simple and delicious recipes (they are almost so simple, it’s more like food matching) i recommend a cookbook called “verdura” by viana laplace. it’s SENSATIONAL! it’s not raw or vegan, but most of the recipes are both. there’s an entire section on raw pasta sauces, so if you sub “zucchini noodles” for pasta, you have some great meal ideas… it’s all about making the most of nature’s bounty, not a lot of frills or appliances.