Nachos and Juicing Before Trip

I knew I would have to use up all of the items in my refrigerator and also wouldn’t be juicing for a few days, so I made some awesome combos today:

Orange-kale-carrot

Pear-kale

Apple-collard-carrot-ginger

How’s that for getting your calcium!?  Just drink it from nature’s best sources. 

I was in the mood for a few high-fat items today, but I do plan on enjoying many fruits on vacation.

Shown here:  Nachos with flax crackers (two varieties, both sprouted, live, and raw), taco-seasoned walnut crumbles, avocado-tomato dip, and a spicy cashew-sunflower seed cheese (with the walnut crumbles, avocado dip, and cheese showcased in center).  That will hold me over.  And it’s beautiful! ***

 

Although I like food like this here and there now that I’m high-raw, I much prefer, during the week and most weekends as well, simple foods, mono meals, which would be eating one type of food (sometimes in high quantity) at one time.  This seems to be easier on the stomach for digestion and more amenable to that superior energy flow I enjoy. 

Fiesta Salad

Mixed greens with cilantro, kale, jicama, mango, carrots, corn, avocado, clover sprouts, a green pea-adzuki-lentil sprout blend, and a spicy Liquid Gold nutritional yeast dressing (with hemp).

Tomato & Fennel Lasagna (Raw)

Raw Food Real World

This dish is a slightly modified version of the zebra tomato and zucchini lasagna recipe from Raw Food Real World.  I LOVED this dish!  The flavors were amazing, and it had very reduced fat.

The first layer is a fennel, thyme, and oregano mixture.  I left out the extra-virgin olive oil.  Next is a pine nut ricotta, followed by a basil puree (again, no fat added), and a fat-free sun-dried tomato sauce.  I think I could eat this every day.

It’s served with a kale-dulse salad with avocado dressing and cucumber.

My Favorite Salad

Kale with avocado, bok choy, dulse, carrots, and a nutritional yeast dressing adapted from Becoming Vegan.

Dessert!

Nutritional Yeast Dressing

3 T. virgin coconut oil

3 T. flax oil

1 T. hempseed butter

1 T. extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 c. water

1/3 c. lemon juice

1-2 T. balsamic vinegar

1/4 c. Bragg’s or nama shoyu

1/2 c. nutritional yeast

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

1 tsp. ground cumin

Lemongrass & Greens Soup w/ Raw Garnishes

I got some lemongrass stalks and Thai basil from my friend Sara, so I thought I’d try to put them to good use and also eat plenty of raw in the process.

I made a broth with pureed coconut shreds, broccoli stalks, and kale, coconut water and homemade vegetable broth, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, a green chile, salt, and a small amount of the basil.  Then I cooked the broccoli florets in the broth but still found something was missing…..roasted peanuts!  They really changed the flavor of the soup for the better.  The garnish is carrots, bok choy, kale, avocado, and Thai basil. 

 It was really tasty but I think in the future I may just keep things more simple and start eating more raw broccoli.  I had previously thought I didn’t like it raw, but I had a few bites of a stalk and liked it.  Of course a sauce with the lemongrass would be excellent even raw!

Another Kale Admonishment

Even if you don’t like cooked kale, you may find that you like the green vegetable juiced!  I have had three of these so far today:

5-6 kale stalks with leaves

3/4 lb. carrots

1/2 to 1 orange

Place in the juicer in that order.  The orange will add some sweetness; mix it up and find a combination you like.  I also had blueberry-pineapple today.

Kale Salad & Cucumber Boats (raw)

Kale salad has red and green bell pepper, carrots, and a creamy raw cashew-cilantro-orange dressing with garlic.

The cucumber boats are stuffed with an avocado, onion, garlic, tomato, lime, cilantro, and celery mixture.

Both are excellent!  The cashew dressing with some sweetness from the fresh orange juice pairs well with the kale.

More Greens

Not including the peanuts, mung bean sprouts, cilantro, and green onions, this salad, for a medium-size bowl, has 22 grams of protein, 1,067% RDA of Vitamin A, 76% of the RDA of calcium, 401% of the RDA for Vitamin C, and 59% of the RDA for iron.  The dressing I used was simply lime juice, sambal oelek (the chili paste I’m bonkers over), and soy sauce (I always use gluten-free soy sauce).

The tofu is marinated with cilantro.

Operation: Eat Kale

 

An easy way to incorporate kale into the diet is to serve it with noodles and peanut sauce.  The peanut sauce adds enough saltiness, flavor, and creaminess to provide a great base for the noodles and the greens.  I prefer to steam the kale for about 4-5 min. or just boil it with the rice noodles. 

Sweet Potatoes v. Kale

I don’t mean to pit two vegetables against one another, and certainly, they could go well together, but I wanted to address something that was new information to me a few months ago, when I purchased the book Calciyum! 

While I knew that plant-based foods were a superior source of calcium, I had no idea that sweet potatoes were within that category!  I contemplated making today a sweet potato-apricot dish with curried hempseeds from Hempnut Cookbook, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Why, you might ask.  I love the things just plain baked, with all of their sweet, moist flesh inside, waiting to be pierced with my seemingly peaceful fork.

Sweet potato nutritional info:  http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20h1.html

Kale nutritional info:  http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20di.html