Nuts for Coconut

Yesterday 4 health-filled coconuts came to our home. This morning, I took one of them and poked it's eye right out with the pointy end of a knife sharpener. I inserted a straw and let the kiddo drink. After he had his fill, I drained it's water. That most nutritious & delicious source of electrolytes was for me. What to do with a coconut missing an eye? Pop it into a plastic bag, tie it off and smash it to pieces by slamming it onto the sidewalk. Repeatedly.

Now, that does not sound like a very nice thing to do to a poor lil coconut, does it?! 

Oh there are more civilized and stylish ways to get to the "meat" of the coconut, but hey, this is Simple Raw Food Mamma and I am a farm girl...

After the rather un-fanciful treatment of one hairy little coconut, we had rawsome green smoothies for breakfast today!

- 1 1/2 cups water (preferably coconut water, if you didn't drink it all yet)

- cram blender up past the 3 cup mark with greens (garden-fresh spinach & collard)

- blend

- add about 1 cup of blueberries

- and 1/2 peeled orange

- and a chunk or two of coconut

- blend again

Viola! Yummers!

Recently...

We have made raw strawberry pie.

We have made a whole wheat crust filled with gooey, spiced plums.

We have made a farm fresh, very colorful & flavor-filled veggie salad.

Oh, the fun and the yum we had in our kitchen! Stay tuned for posts and recipes and pics on the above...

Watermelon Fun

Every last sweet, luscious red bit 

of that juicy watermelon 

got tantalizingly tasted 

as the hearts, stars, 

and yes, even the red left on the rind, 

got gobbled.

Need I say more 

about the Simple Raw Food 

joys of wondrous watermelon?!

Watermelon Fun Recipe:

- 1 or more watermelon(s)

- cut into thick or thin slices

- use cookie cutter or pancake batter form to make shapes

- serve with napkins and/or a hose!

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!

Frozen Fruit Delight

Summertime.

Kids.

Ice cream. 

Ice cream cones, ice cream sandwiches, bowls of ice cream, ice cream running down arms, and ice cream smeared all over faces. 

Eating healthy and being healthy doesn't mean you forgo those scrumptious summertime traditions or that you have to gag down some gnarly knock-off. 

SIMPLE RAW FOOD MAMMA to the rescue! Just peel and slice a banana (or a whole bunch of 'em) and arrange them single-layer on a cookie sheet or in a freezer bag. Place in freezer. Wait. Wait. (until the fruit is frozen) Now take them out and zip 'em in your food processor or high-speed blender. You will likely need to add some hemp milk (or almond, soy, rice -milk). 

Viola! A frozen fruit delight! For variety and flavor add in some frozen strawberries, raspberries, blueberries... Yummy in the tummy.

Last night I mixed banana and strawberry together. We had some health food store-variety cones leftover from last week, 

so I plopped the frozen fruit inside. 

A SIMPLE & HEALTHY & INEXPENSIVE 

alternative to dairy ice cream.

By the way, if you have a Green Star juicer you can put on the "blank" juicing attachment and shove your frozen fruit through the juicer. You get a thicker consistency with this method. (photo courtesy of Elena @ Eat Healthy Be Happy)

So far this summer I have made all the ice cream classics with this frozen fruit delight... in a cone, in a sandwich (between two raw food "cookies"), in a bowl, and smeared all over the face (see above).

Go ahead, give it a try!

Kids love it.

Husbands love it too!

We Love Cookies

I know that some of you are still trying to figure out what all of this "raw food" hoopla is. And I am aware that I ramble along like an old truck bumping along a dirt road, bouncing from here to there with information and ideas. Just hang on, cause as my son likes to say, "Oh boy, here we go again!"

Cookies. Raw food. What? Yes, you can have healthy cookies. Like I said before, toss the whites (flour, sugar, butter), now make some good-for-you cookies! But how do we do that without the ingredients formerly known to mankind as the only cookie ingredients? Ahaa, make a raw food version!

This recipe idea came from the wonderfully simple food preparation book entitled "Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People" by Jennifer Cornbleet. This is the book to buy if you are looking for one with easy recipes. And like the title says, it is sized down to small portions. And the ingredients are common, unlike some raw food preparation books that leave you with a shopping list to fill in Portland or your regional metropolis.

Anyway, back to the cookies. I liken these to a raisin cookie at Grannie's house. Of course I didn't have the right flavored extract, but I am sure that my recipe modifications (maple substitution and additions) helped make the cookies so tasty!

1/2 cup raw almond, UNsoaked

1/4 cup raw walnuts, UNsoaked

dash salt

1/2 cup pitted dates, UNsoaked

1/4 teaspoon maple extract

1/4 cup raisins

1/2 tablespoon PURE maple syrup

1/4 cup ground almonds

Place nuts and salt in the food processor outfitted with the "S" blade. Process until coarsely chopped. Add the dates, maple extract and maple syrup. Zip, zip the processor until it sticks together. When you can pinch some of the mixture and it stays together, stop processing. Now add the raisins and give it another whirl to mix. 

Dump into a bowl.

Take about 1/2 cup almonds and put them into the processor. Now let it run until you have a finely ground almond meal. Place into its own bowl.

Take about 1 TBSP of cookie mixture and roll into a ball. Flatten into a cookie shape. 

Dredge it in the almond meal, covering both sides. 

Place in airtight container and store in fridge or freezer. 

Eat a couple now... And when you need a cookie, pop one of these babies into your mouth. Yumm! I reckon that warming them up a tad in the food dehydrator (not more than 105 degrees) would be quite lovely too.

* oh yeah, please buy organic, pure extracts for your culinary needs

* and the pure maple syrup is NOT the kind that comes in a little bottle with a griddle on the label or in the jar shaped like an old lady! pure maple syrup folks!

* I put "UN soaked" by the nuts because many recipes require the nuts be soaked prior to use

We had so much fun making these. Of course this is a small recipe so after you make one batch and see how yummy for your tummy they are, you will want to make a double batch next time!