Leaves and Things

Thursday we picked up our CSA farm share and included this week was a head of raddicchio lettuce. Now when it is this big it is strongly flavored with a bitter bite. I am not sure exactly what we will do with it, but as I prepped it for the fridge I couldn't resist snapping a couple of photos. It is amazing with the light-colored veins streaking the green and red leaves.

For those of you who drink green smoothies, here is a tip for winter:

- when you find that you have extra greens (i.e. collard, beet, lettuce...), wash in cold water & lay on towel to dry

- pat off excess water

- place several leaves into a zipable plastic bag

- press out air & seal bag

- toss into freezer 

- pull out and use in your wintertime green smoothies

It won't matter if the greens don't hold their original form when you are going to whiz 'em in the high-speed blender! If you can stock up for winter with some self-frozen greens you will save time and money for cold-weather green smoothies.

Dirty Dozen, Cleanest 12

Buying organic produce is very important to me and my family. And it should be to you and yours too. We don't need any sort of toxic residue, film, coating, or gunk covering the produce we eat. Simple. Eat the fruit & veggies plain & simple!

Click the above "photo" to view the short lists in pdf format. And for more details [i.e. did you know that peaches carry 100% load of pesticides? Bad news if you eat conventional peaches folks!], click the link below. 

PESTICIDES IN PRODUCE

I know that 100% organic isn't always easy or even possible for all of us, so I want you to know which foods you definitely want to buy in organic and which one you can get away with buying the conventional variety--only occasionally.

Here is a simple way to think about buying conventional produce...ask yourself this question. Would you take a spoon with you to the stinky, gagging, overwhelming, chemical control area of your local garden store? A spoon? 

Yes, would you take a spoon and ask the sales clerk to pop the top on the assorted poisonous pesticides and/or herbicides? Just so you could get a good taste of what will coat your produce if you use those chemicals on your own garden or purchase conventional produce in your marketplace. Would you go to a taste-testing party at your garden store's chemical section?

Uh, no, not likely. Think about that the next time you are strolling through or looking over fruits & veggies at your farmer's market, grocery store, produce stand, or your very own garden. 

Would I like a spoonful of poison to make the produce go down?!

Cones & Chard

An ice cream cone for breakfast? You bet! I blended some frozen bananas and blueberries with a dash of chocolate hemp milk. Viola! Healthy fruit ice cream for breakfast. Of course the cones are organic and don't contain any nasty stuff.

Prettier, healthier and more edible than a bouquet of posies!

Yesterday was the farm share pick-up excursion. As always, I came home with a cooler packed full of produce. En route from errands across the river back to my place in the country, we stopped off at a friend's house. She gave us potatoes from her beautiful garden. And then she loaded us up with kale, gigantic rainbow chard, parsley, basil, cucumbers and love. All in all, we had our large cooler crammed full and three paper bags full of edibles.

Needless to say, I had a huge dilemna last night at about 8:30pm...no room in the fridge! None at all. I had been washing, sorting, and prepping produce since 6pm. After a quick call to a neighbor, my son and I took a full bag of goods up the road. 

I though the rainbow chard and basil were too lovely to stash in the fridge anyway, so I treated them like flowers and put them into vases. Well, in the case of the chard I used an old water filter pitcher as a vase! Look how lovely it looks today. Until someone else comes by to share produce with, my extras will grace the table.

When God blesses you with abundance, delight in it and then share it with others!

Health tip:

What you have in your fridge, 

you will soon have in your stomach!

 

Take the time and effort to fill your fridge, cupboards, and eventually your own self with nutrient-packed foods. You are what you eat. Choose to feed a living body with living foods today!

'Tater Fries

Look what we got when we picked up our farm share at our local CSA, Willow Grove Gardens Farm, last week! Yes, purple and red potatoes. Really.

Since we don't eat junk around here, grease-laden french fries are definitely NOT part of our dietary world. Before I became a rawfood vegan, I discovered this simple way to make homemade fries. And I still make these for my fellas. 

SIMPLE HOW-TO:

Take out your indoor grill (ours is a mock-off of the well-known boxer man's grill), plug it in, slice some spuds into fry-form, place them on the grill in a single layer, close the top and check in about 5 minutes for fork-tenderness. If you like, add a smidge of olive oil and sea salt. Or some powdered garlic. Or eat plain. Yum!

I had to share the beauty of the intense colors of the purple 'taters. Being a former Idahoan, I appreciate all spectacular specimens of spuds!

Healing Cancer from Inside Out--dvd

Recently I wrote about a cancer dvd--please click here for that posting. 

Above is a snip-it of that video. 

Watch it. Okay, now, please go order that dvd and watch it in its entirety! I just did this weekend and was blown away. It is a must-see video!

It is a 2-hour long show. I am quite sure that you will be upset by the information presented in the first hour--the Business behind cancer, the history of the AMA (American Medical Association), the progress (or lack thereof) in the cancer field since the 1930's, the drugs used to fight this disease, and much more. 

But hang tight, the second hour is also enlightening, as well as encouraging, inspirational, uplifting and most of all, full of hope for a real cure! Folks, you must get your hands on this dvd. I am going to order a slew of them and pass them out. I am going to share the information and the hope.

Education is the answer. 

As much as I want to save people their diseased state(s), I simply cannot do it. 

As much as I want for friends and family to listen and apply what I know to their diet and lifestyle, I cannot "want" them into good health. 

If you or someone you know is sick and tired of being sick and tired AND you really, really want a way out of that muck & mire of ill-health, then DO SOMETHING about it! 

My passion is health education. 

My mission is to get you the information so you can make an well-educated decision for your health. For your life. 

I started this blog so you would have an place to visit for simple, yet health-changing facts, guidance, recipes, encouragement, food photos, stories, and information.

I can and do want it for you, but you must want it for you too!

May God bless you and encourage you on your quest

 for health and healing.

 May He grant you the wisdom to make the changes 

He wants you to make. 

FYI: at the end of that video clip it says to visit the RAVE diet website for more information. Theirs is a plant-based, whole food diet. I have also linked the Hallelujah site in the right side panel. I prefer the H. Diet site for it's Christian influence, ease of use, well-rounded content, and free information. In addition the H. diet is primarily a raw food diet and it is my belief that we need to eat living foods for a living body!

Tomatoes, Zucchini & Stuff

Summertime garden bounties in August 

generally overflow with tomatoes and zucchini. 

My local CSA (farm share) has been 

loading me up with the red and green produce. 

Here are some meals I have made 

so far this week...

A neighbor was recovering after a stay in the hospital so I made a nutrient-dense vegan vegetable soup. 

~ First, I made some brown rice in the rice cooker. 

~ Second, I added veggies to some water and cooked it until soft and then added a spoon of organic pizza sauce. 

~ Third, I put rice into the bottom of a jar, added the soup mixture, and then put a couple broccoli raab sprigs with edible flowers on the top. 

~ Viola. Lunch or dinner in a jar.

For lunch yesterday I made a lovely raw/living foods summertime salad.

~ I chopped some large tomatoes into large chunks. 

~ And then did the same with a 10-inch long zuchinni. 

~ I rough-chopped some cooking celery (not to sure about the derivation of the name, but I eat it all raw...leaves and stem) leaves. 

~ I mixed this all together with a squirt of lemon juice and a sprinkle of hemp seeds for added protein. 

[please make sure your hemp seeds are grown in Canada, not China...the wondrously nutritious hemp seed is not allowed as a food crop in the USA, so it is imported...just be sure of your source]

And today for lunch I made some raw food "spaghetti" out of the familiar produce. 

~ Peel the zucchini and then use the peeler to shave off  your "noodles." 

[Of course you can get fancy with a spiralizer gizmo that makes angel hair "noodles," but for simplicity, I just keep up with the peeler.] 

~ Then I rough-chopped some tomatoes and onions. 

~ Add those to the food processor with some Italian herbs and pulse it to the thickness you desire. 

~ Scrape that out onto your living foods noodles and there you have it, living foods "spaghetti!"

Make good use of your organic summertime garden bounty

--nourish yourself, your family and your neighbors! 

Why Raw/Living Foods?

Okay, back to my Q&A section about eating the way I do...

Why do I eat raw/living foods?

In My Story I tell about how I felt horrible after eating out and overindulging in food one night and that I had recently seen a not-so-lovely photo of myself. Upon waking the next morning I went raw. Simple. 

I had had enough of not feeling like I knew I could. Like I knew I should. That's it. As I have heard it said, "I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired." Simple.

I am an all or nothing kind of girl. My personality doesn't do the "let's do a little good here and there while keeping the bad tucked in my back pocket." It either needs to be done or whining about it needs to end. Simple.

By the second day of switching to a living foods lifestyle, I had so much energy. I could not believe it! Of course I had a little gas too while my body adapted to the all raw veggie consumption--but that passed within a few days! Ha!  ;-)  Okay, that was the worst thing...some tootin' around. Simple honesty, folks.

Why living foods? I live in a living body. Eating foods with the living enzymes still intact give me more energy, less illness, more vitality, less moodiness, more time awake, less time slugging around, more days feeling good, less days feeling bad. More goodness, less badness. Simple.

If you are still eating the Standard American Diet (the SAD diet) and you are suffering the consequences of poor health (disease of some sort, feeling tired & wore out, low energy...), you can do something about it. Make a decision to live the life you want. The life you deserve. The life God wants you to live. Simple.

Would you prefer to slug around &/or stay in a diseased state while you hold onto the foods you won't give up and/or don't want to give up? Or do you want to say THIS IS NOT ENOUGH! THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME! I WANT MORE!

If you make the simple choice to improve your food intake, then you have made the simple choice to improve your health and vitality. And vice versa. Simple!

Why did I go raw? Simple.

So

I

May

Pursue

Life

Energetically

Stay tuned for more Q&A... How do I get started? How do I learn more?

Not Your Mamma's Coffee

This morning I noticed a mist in the air, nothing new for western Oregon. But really, for this time of year I would prefer a warm, clear sunrise sorta morning. 

I skedaddled outside to bring in the sleeping bags and blankets from the tent where my husband and son have been spending the last few nights. I got that "Autumn" feeling as I did the sleeping gear shuffle. 

Hey, it's not cold-morning-hot-coffee season already, is it?

Yeah, any morning can be cause for a steaming coffee concoction brew. As a self-titled "health nut" I want to offer you some information on a palette-pleasing coffee substitute. Now, come back here. This is not that nasty ground up stuff in a glass jar, this is really a great coffee. I have served it to coffee connoisseurs who think it is a wonderful substitute. And if you are a tea totaller, go on and give this drink a try.

Teecino Caffeine-free Herbal Coffee

Teecino brand has many health benefits. 

Just click the link to read it for yourself... 

you will find that it is alkaline 

(best pH level for our body!), 

full of soluble fiber 

(supports the good flora of your guts & helps with mineral absorption), 

and is potassium-rich 

(from the amazingly nutrient-dense ramon nuts). 

Maya Nut nutrition facts

From a mild brew to a moderate brew and in flavors ranging from plain to mint to chai to mocha, you will be sure to find your coffee companion. So, in favor (& flavor) of a healthier alternative to caffeinated coffee with no discernible health benefits, give this a whirl, or should I say a 

"drip" or "press" or "brew"?!

Check out your local health food store or make an order on-line at the Teecino site or go to the Hallelujah Acres link to the left and order it there.

My 4-year old son drinks it too. His favorite coffee concoction is a spoon of mint and a spoon of mocha in the french press. YUM! Start your day with a simple and healthy hot drink that will get your engines fired up -- 

naturally and healthfully!

Anniversary Dinner

Last night my husband and I celebrated our 14-year anniversary. We had some dear friends over for dinner so I made something more fancy than my usual simple summertime fare. I made veggie vegan pizza. 

Base-thick whole wheat crust (with some fresh herbs outta the garden--thyme & rosemary)

Sauce-canned pizza sauce was next (I prefer Muir Glen's Organic Pizza Sauce)

Toppings-layers of thinly sliced veggies (potatoes, onions, zucchini, bok choy, cauliflower, and tomato -- whatever you desire) *look close, the tomato slices look like hearts...ahhhh

"Cheese"- handful of raw pine nuts, splash of cold-pressed olive oil, splash of water blended to a lumpy paste in the food processor

First, I made the crust with a pre-made organic, whole wheat, yeast-free mix (MaryJane's Farm Budget Mix) and added in my fresh herbs. I poked holes in the crust with a fork and baked it in a stone pan for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Second, I spread the sauce and added the veggies. 

Third, I dolloped the "cheese" around the top and added some tomato slices and more fresh rosemary.

Fourth, I baked it for 15 more minutes at 350 degrees.

Fifth, they ate it!

raw food versions: 

Depending on your raw food quota...if 100% raw, use raw flax bread as the base, add all the goodies to the top & just eat it all raw! 

If partially raw, use the whole wheat crust and cook it through, then add all the toppings and eat without baking the second time.

*Thanks to Elena for snapping the photos while I finished with the dinner prep!

I served this with a nice big green salad loaded with the summertime bounty. And of course honey mustard dressing. [look at the bottom of the link for the recipe] We drank sun-made iced tea (apple cinnamon tea bags & toffee tea bag and some mint sprigs made for a minty caramel-apple flavor). For dessert, we had thick, rich chocolate tofu-based pudding and slightly frozen strawberries. 

It was a lovely evening and a nice meal!  And even though I don't partake of the cooked fare, it was a pleasure to make and watch my family and friends eat the pizza and pudding.This SIMPLE RAW FOOD MAMMA can get sorta fancy every now and then  ;-) 

Blueberry Bliss

Blueberry bliss. It is hard to imagine anything coming close to the scrumptiousness of fresh strawberries--but dare I say that blueberries are truly a blissful blessing too!

Organic blueberries cost twice as much this year as they did the same last summer. Twice as much! This summer I have found that they cost about $6/pound for the frozen blue delights, but if you can find a local organic farm, they ought to run about $1 and some change for U-pick and about $2 for already-picked. Wow, what an amazing savings, especially when frozen berries are a stable of green smoothies!

1-get yourself some fresh blueberries

2-gently fill freezer bags about half full

  ~ don't bother washing or rinsing at this point

3-fold top half of bag over and gently press air out

4-zip bag & store in freezer

5-remove berries as-needed

~ if you desire, this is the time for rinsing berries (if you had done it during the initial bagging process, you would have caused the berries to stick together when frozen)

I made whole wheat waffles for the boys Saturday. It is our weekend breakfast ritual to have wholesome pancakes or waffles and fresh fruit. Instead of some gnarly-no-good-for-you-packed-with-sugar jam, I make a new jar of it each week. 

This weekend they spread the jam onto the waffles and then strategically placed a blueberry at each deep waffle hole. Yum!

I drank a green smoothie (see recipe below) for my daily breakfast fuel. Of course I always make extra for my husband and son too!

RECIPES...

Fresh Berry Jam

- 2 cups berries (I mixed strawberries and blueberries this time)

- 1/2 cup water

- 1 TSP pumpkin pie spice

[cook until mushy and smash the big hunks & chunks]

- 2 TBSP honey or brown rice syrup or pure maple syrup

- 2 TBSP tapioca pearl powder for thickener*

[cover, cook on low for a few minutes, add more water as needed]

raw food version: 

Omit the tapioca pearl powder, add all ingredients to food processor and zip away until smooth; pour over sweet living foods bread or dip banana slices in it or just eat it with spoon!

tip: Use immediately for breakfast "syrup" and store remainder in a jar in the fridge for use on sandwiches and what-not for that week

* buy tapioca pearls in bulk and run a small handful through your coffee grinder to make a powder (use this for a thickener instead of that oh-so-gross gelatin powder made of ground cow hooves! eeww)

Beet Berry Bliss Green Smoothie

- 1 whole beet (greens to root)

- handful of some other greens

- 1 cup of water

[blend 1st 2 ingredients to smooth]

- 1 handful frozen strawberries

- 1 handful frozen blueberries

[blend until smooth, lovely and oh, sooooo good!]