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Freebie: Profoundly Raw Recipe eBook!

lilla — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:27:22 +0000

Angela Stokes-Monarch has put together a fabulous FREE raw recipe book called Profoundly Raw. This free ebook contains a collection of over 35 fabulous raw recipes contributed by 12 well-known raw food chefs like Ani Phyo, Elaina Love and Frank Giglio. I downloaded it ASAP and I gotta say the recipes look AWESOME – like Chocolate Donuts by Bryan Au, Asparagus Quiche by Brigitte Mars and German Chocolate Cake by Elaina Love – all for F-R-E-E!

"Bryan Au's Raw Donuts"

You can get your copy here at: Profoundly Raw Recipe EBook. And if you need to stock up on some ingredients for the new recipes, don’t forget to use the Raw Food World 7% off coupon code: HONEYMOON – I think it’s good through April 30, 2010.

Check out the new goodies in the store too! They are always adding yummy innovative things. I just spotted the new line of Avatar raw chocolate truffles based on the four elements: earth, wind, fire and water. I love how they blend medicinals with chocolate – like the reishi, turmeric and blue green algae.

"Earth, Wind, Fire, Air Truffles"

Avatar Earth

A Body Strengthener with Wild Jungle peanuts & medicinal mushroom extracts of Reishi and Cordyceps.

Avatar Fire

Warming to the soul with clove, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon and camu camu powder.

Avatar Wind

The sweet smell of summer with fresh vanilla beans.

Avatar Water

Dip into the cooling waters with peppermint extract and blue green algae.

I’ve been trying to avoid agave lately, BUT I might have to make an exception for these babies!

Book Review: Food Rules

lilla — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:31:29 +0000

Another winner of a book from Michael Pollan! Here are some of the gems inside Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual -

Eat only foods that will eventually rot.
Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce.
Always leave the table a little hungry.
Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.

I also recommend Ominvore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Good reads!

I’m a Recovering Nutritionismist

lilla — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:05:14 +0000

I’m reading this great book In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. He talks about how far we’ve drifted from REAL food and come to think of everything in terms of macronutrients -
“I eat protein with every meal 5xs per day.”
“What are the net carbs?”
“I have to watch my saturated fat.”

Where’s the food?! He discusses our prevailing obsession with “nutritionism” instead of eating instinctively, traditionally and with pleasure. But I guess it’s hard to eat this way as more traditions are lost and replaced by what the government and food industry tell us.

And food is more than just food – it’s a way of sharing, love and source of enjoyment. It should be natural – not scientific or obsessive. In one study, they did a word association test and when Americans were shown a picture of chocolate cake, the word GUILT was tops. The same test given in France? CELEBRATION! And I don’t have to tell you which nation suffers from an obesity epidemic.

So confession time…I’ve definitely been guilty of being a nutritionism-ist! LOL. Quantifying it. Experimenting with it. Reducing it to numbers. But now I’m moving towards more traditional foods and expanding my methods of preparation. Sticking to lots of raw, cultured, organic, grassfed, nourishing foods and making things homemade including raw butters, kefirs, stocks and yogurts. This making things from scratch is time-consuming I tell ya, but I love it! I’m learning alot and I swear it tastes so much better. A great resource chockful of information is Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.

Here is a clip of Michael Pollan. Check it out. The book is definitely worth I read, it’s not too serious or heady. And in the words of the author “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Breaking News: Russell James Raw Food eBook Bundle!

lilla — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:35:06 +0000

I love Russell James! I think he is one of the best raw food chefs. I have all his ebooks and he just came out with two more: ‘Chocolate Recipes‘ and ‘No Dehydrator Needed Recipes.’

He is soooo reliable – his recipes never fail and always come out great! One of many of my fave is the “Rolled Courgette Ribbons with Sweet Beet Paté” that I made here. He’s having a special bundle for the next three days for the 2 books, 3 videos and bonus recipes. Check it out here: The Raw Chef’s Recipe Series – 2 eBooks.

I’m flipping through the Choccie book right now and can’t decide what to make first – the Chocolate Fudge Pot with Blueberries, Chocolate Bread or Cacao Crepes. Decisions, decisions… What a delicious dilemma. ;D

Becoming More Cultured

lilla — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:53:01 +0000

I’ve really been getting into cultured food lately, especially since listening to Donna Gates’ interview on RenegadeHealth.com. Mainly I’ve been making kefir, yogurt and sauerkraut. I started out making raw goat milk kefir after I found an organic farmer that sells fresh goat’s milk raw. Unpasteurized, unhomogenized, live enzymes intact – WOW – what a find so close to home and I don’t have to sneak across state borders in search of (pssst…whisper) ‘real’ milk.

Kefir is super easy to make – just warm the milk to 90F, allow to cool to 75F, sprinkle in some kefir starter and let it sit in a warm place for 24 hours. Oh my gosh, it tastes sooo good and tangy! I like to eat it plain or blend in a little chai spice and stevia – tastes like melted ice cream. The live cultures eat the milk sugars, making it digestable even for most lactose-intolerant peeps. And it’s great for the gut because it’s teeming with good live bacteria. I’ve also made kefir with coconut water which is good too, but I prefer the raw goat milk.

Then I tried making yogurt with raw goat milk. I didn’t want to heat the milk to 180F which kills the enzymes, so I experimented with making yogurt by heating only to 145F, but it came out runny. Still tasted good, but missing that nice thick, creamy consistency.

Next I tried coconut meat yogurt. I blended the meat of about three cocos with kefir starter and kept at 75F for 24 hours. Mmmm…not too crazy about this one, but it may have been a texture issue. I used a regular blender instead of a Vitamix and it came out a bit lumpy. Next time, I’ll try blending this one with the hi-speed demon.

My latest foray has been in making my own sauerkraut. This is soooo simple, a lot of chopping, but worth it! My fave way to make it so far is to shred 2 cabbage heads and blend 1/2 a head with a bit of water, sea salt and 3 garlic cloves and mix it in with the rest of the shredded cabbage, sprinkling it with soaked wakame through out. Then I packed it into a large food-safe bucket, compacting it down hard and covered it with a few large cabbage leaves. I placed a plate on top with a water-filled jar pressing it all down and then draped the whole shebang with a clean kitchen towel. A week later, I had a nice yummy sauerkraut! It’s a chilly here in Oz (which slows down the fermentation process) so the first batch was a bit young, but still very delicious! Every few days, I scoop some out and see how the flavor evolves and changes. I love this experiment and it’s soooo healing for the gut.

My Homemade Sauerkraut

I’m now reading Donna Gates’ book Body Ecology (BE) and it makes a lot of sense! It takes a nice balanced approach to diet, mostly 80%+ high raw vegetarian, low sugar with some cooked food mixed in. It makes sense to me because the high-raw low-sugar model, has loads of nuts and seeds. But with Body Ecology, instead of nuts, you are advised to eat lots of cultured foods, raw foods, gently cooked veggies, quinoa, millet and buckwheat. The book is kind of a balance between 20% macrobiotic and 80% raw food diet depending on climate, blood type and the individual.

Haven’t really gotten into cooked veggies, quinoa or buckwheat yet, but I might be exploring this a bit more, since I feel like my digestion is not super optimal. I think high raw is the way to go IF your digestion is strong. But if your digestion is compromised, the BE way helps to heal the gut and build the digestive fire necessary for raw food eating. Lots of alternative heath practioners i.e. Ayurvedics, Homeopathic, Chinese TM, etc. have told me I have a weak spleen(?) and should be incorporatng cooked warming foods, but I was too stubbornly set in my “raw food is the best way” fanaticism (which coincidentaly I DO still believe – lol.) BUT I think there is one caveat – 100% raw is amazing only if you have strong, healthy, uncompromised digestion. Well, maybe two caveats – if you’re really ill, I think green juice fasting can be miraculous. So I’m still on the high raw road, but taking a slight deviation on the ever-learning, ever-turning, scenic path.