Sunday, October 21, 2012

Raw Curried Okra Salad


If you saw my post from over a week ago you know I have an entire bin full of okra in my refrigerator, probably more than 5 pounds worth.  And at the rate we are harvesting it from our garden, we will need to consume at least 1 pound a day so that our refrigerator does not start to overflow...or worse, so that the older pieces don't start going bad.

One friend suggested I blanch and freeze a bunch of it.  But, based on my past history of freezing things from the garden and using them in recipes later, I decided not do too much of it this way.  I use a lot of frozen fruit, frozen spinach, and frozen sweet potato chunks.  But other frozen veggies typically get overlooked once they arrive on the "frozen vegetables" section of my freezer.

While searching for raw okra recipes I came across this one at Raw Girl in a Toxic World.

Her recipe had 1/3 cup of olive oil and well, you know how I'm a bit of a freak about using too much oil...especially when you don't really need it for food to taste good most of the time.  I also had some leftover sweet yellow onions that I had marinated in coconut aminos, so those got thrown in too.  So here is my modified version of the recipe.

Ingredients
1 pound of Okra sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
1 ear of Corn soaked in hot water and removed from the ear/stalk
1/3 cup Vidalia Sweet Onion sliced thin and soaked in Coconut Amino Acids
1/2 tsp Coriander
1/2 tbsp Curry Powder
1 1/2 tsp Organic Low Sodium Tamari
Juice from 1/2 a lime

Put everything into a big bowl and then massage the spices and tamari into the veggies.  If it's not salty enough for your taste, try adding more lime juice before adding sea salt.  If you think it needs oil, go ahead and drizzle a little EVOO over the top, but I personally didn't miss it!

Let me know what you think in the comments below :)

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Almost Raw Taco Salad


I am on a mission to find 30 super easy and delicious raw dishes that don't require a food dehydrator.  This is one of them!  This Almost Raw Taco Salad recipe comes from the Oh She Glows blog.  It's so incredibly simple, visually impressive, and yummy!  And it's a great recipe for men who think raw food is boring and not filling. 

I called this recipe "Almost Raw" because I used the Guiltless Gourmet Organic Baked Corn Chips in place of high fat flax seed crackers made in a dehydrator.  The salad has plenty of fat with the avocado, walnut taco meat and cashew cream "cheese".  I didn't see the point in making the meal 100% raw if it meant eating 60% or more of my calories in fat! 

I'm not opposed to eating fat, but as stated many times before on my blog, I do believe fat should be limited to 20% or less of calories...regardless of whether you are eating high raw or not.  Some raw foodists think that as long as you eat whole fats it doesn't matter how much you consume on a daily basis.  I very much disagree and I think it's one of the reasons people give up on eating raw long term. Fat is fat, even if you are consuming healthy fats, too much of it can lead to health issues.

Stepping down off my soapbox now.  Please give this recipe a try!  I promise you will not be disappointed :)
 

Monday, October 8, 2012

Matcha Green Tea Chia Porridge


On those mornings you are needing a healthy dose of caffeine, this is a good option!  Meet my Matcha Green Tea Chia Porridge.  It's even more simple to make than my regular Chia Porridge recipe.  It's simply 1 cup of Unsweetened Almond Breeze, 1 tsp Matcha Powder, and sweeten to taste with raw agave or maple syrup.  Stir all three in a bowl for 2-3 minutes and let sit for 10 minutes.  You can additionally top with fruit and coconut flakes.

Now if you are looking to get fancy with it, you can go to Aarti Parti's website and try her Green Tea Chia Pudding.  Or go to Good Graces for a Coconut Matcha Pudding made with Coconut Milk!

Have fun with it and enjoy!

Garden Goodness: Overstocked with Okra!


We are harvesting large bowls full of okra every day from our garden, and even though we made okra twice over the weekend we STILL have so much of it! 

Since we are doing a lot with raw food I have been looking up recipes for raw okra, which I think I may prefer over cooked okra since cooking it makes it a bit slimy.

Do any of my followers have tried and true okra recipes that are raw or cooked and low in oil?  Please post in the comments below!

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Rawsta! (or raw vegan "pasta")





We had raw pasta for dinner twice this week!  The first photo is of a Low Fat Raw Vegan Pad Thai by raw foodist Megan Elizabeth.  The recipe is within the video, so if you don't have time to watch it all, you can fast forward to the end and there is a slide with the full recipe.

I also purchased some of Megan Elizabeth's Low Fat Vegan recipe eBooks.  I'll be blogging about some of those recipes in the coming week!  I've just found that my body does so much better when I restrict nuts and fats, so I'm happy to have found her videos and website!



The second photo pictured above is a modified recipe from Choosing Raw.  I wanted to reduce the nuts so I used 1/2 cup of raw Zucchini in place of 1/2 cup of the nuts.  I am going to work with this one more because it ended up being a bit watery, probably because of the zuchini.  So I suggest if you make my modification that you add only a 1/4 cup of water and then check the consistency.

If you are wondering how I Spiralized my zuchini, I used a Spirooli!  They are cheaply made in China so I don't how long they last, but so far it's getting the job done.  You can find Spiroolis on Amazon.