Grapefruit/Cilantro/Pineapple/Cucumber Smoothie from Sarma Mengalis

Here is a “hearsay” smoothie — someone on one of the raw food forums (sorry, I don’t remember which one) said that that Sarma Mengalis had posted this smoothie on her site OneLuckyDuck (but, in my impatient searching, I could not find it, and I realized I had forgotten where I had seen the reference)

GRAPEFRUIT/CILANTRO/PINEAPPLE/CUCUMBER  SMOOTHIE

-about a half a bunch of cilantro
-half a cucumber
-some pineapple
-a red grapefruit
-pinch of sea salt
-agave nector to taste
-vanilla extract
-a squeeze of lime

Sounds delicious. I have most of the ingredients – will march off to get the rest tomorrow, and let you know…………

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BREAKFAST: BANANA PANCAKES

EASY BANANA PANCAKES
adapted from a recipe from http://www.thebestofrawfood.com

1 banana
2 T dried unsweetened coconut
cinnamon

• Place banana in a bowl, and, using a fork, mash banana until smooth
• Add the coconut and cinnamon to taste, and mix well.
• Place spoonfuls of the banana/coconut mix on a Teflex covered dehydrator tray, and flatten them to make small 1/4 inch thick pancakes.
• Dehydrate for 1 hour at 125 degrees, then turn and dehydrate for 1 more hour at 115 degrees, or until the pancakes are dry on the outside.

BREAKFAST THIS MORNING

BREAKFAST T HIS MORNING

I got up early, so I had time to make a fancy breakfast that I had been thinking about for a couple of days. (WARNING: fancy breakfast for me is “I use two or three ingredients and some kitchen appliance”!)

Today, I made apples with cashew cream

Ingredients:
1 C cashews
1/4 C agave syrup
1/2 C water
2 apples chopped

Blend first 3 ingredients in the VitaMix.  Remove to a glass jar with a tight seal, for storage.
Without cleaning after removing the cashew cream, add the apples, and blend to chunky.
Remove to a bowl, and add more cashew cream as desired.

DO YOU LIKE PINA COLADA?

I now know how much coconut meat (on average) is in a young coconut.  I made two pina coladas — one this morning, and one this evening, and the coconut is now history.  Since I put 1 C of coconut in each pina colada, my elementary math skills lead me to the conclusion that there is 1/2 C meat in the average young coconut.

PINA COLADA

1 C young coconut meat
1-1/2 C pineapple
dash stevia (optional)
2 C water

Process all ingredients until smooth in a VitaMix (or other high speed blender)

The original recipe I looked at called for only 1 C pineapple, 2 C orange juice, and no stevia,  but I had no oranges, so, instead, first, I substituted 2 C water and another 1/2 C pineapple.  The first time I made it (early in the morning), I thought it wasn’t sweet enough, so I added a dash of stevia powder.  This evening, when I made up the mix, I tasted it before adding the stevia, and decided that it was sweet enough without it.   I think 2 C of orange juice would be way too sweet, but substituting 1/2 C orange juice for 1/2 water would probably be good.

FALSE ALARM!!! you’ve seen it on other raw food news sources!

I held my breath when I heard the story that the FDA was going to force “pasteurization” of organic vegetables. Of course, I was frightened, because of the forced pasteurization of California almonds, which has raised the price of raw almonds through the roof, but I still held off…. I held my breath…. good thing…

Today, I received an email from Dave Klein, the publisher of Living Nutrition Magazine:
“I was wrong about the pasteurization of greens; the FDA
is not, in fact, proposing to pasteurize greens at all! What happened was someone on the rawfoods board posted a thread that read like there was a proposal to pasteurize greens, telling us to protest on the FDA comment line, with a link to the original article. I didn’t read the article.

In fact, the FDA is proposing regulating growers’ practices, which is probably a good thing.

They’re proposing making growers test their produce at certain intervals for contamination. Also they are looking to make certain regulations about soil conditions, which some groups feel will negatively impact organic growers. I would tend to disagree, as I think a lot of ‘organic’ growers today are faking it and need to be regulated. The real organic growers probably have little to hide.”

I have sat out of this scary notification loop because I wanted to see what would really come around. I understand the panic based on California almonds (what were they thinking of… do they really think that pasteurizing almonds will increase almond consumption, as the world continues to go organic and raw????? They just make us go to outside (foreign) sources, which do not have such ignorant laws (unfortunately, almond prices for raw foodists have just gone through the ceiling, as (sensible) foreign sources have realized that they have a limitless market) The main problem for us here (in the US) is that we must trust foreign sources, which are not necessarily under the same regulations as our local regulations.

Perhaps, our “formerly” raw almond growers/producers in California will be able to organize (oh, but it is California!!! they couldn’t organize when the threat was imminent! )

Meanwhile, it looks like we are safe… stay awake… stay aware!!!

PECAN PIE BARS

Tonight I am making pecan pie bars. (My room-mate is leaving for San Diego — wonder how it smells/what she will see???— she is a big fear eater — she sat down and ate two sandwiches before heading home on 9/11– so she needs some food that will pass security and hold her until she gets to California from New York, since the airlines don’t serve meals anymore) 

I really miss pecan pie, so I decided to see if I could make a pecan pie flavored bar this time. (the dough tasted pretty close, and I am counting on the dehydrated bars being pretty pecan pie-ish)

PECAN PIE BARS

3/4 C pecans, soaked 8 hours
3/4 C almonds, soaked 8 hours
1 C pitted dates, soaked 4 hours

•    Drain the pecans and almonds, and save the soak water to add to soups or smoothies.
•    Drain the dates, and reserve the soak water .
•    In a food processor, combine all ingredients and process smooth (or to taste).  From time to time, push mix down the sides of the food processor with a spatula.  (Add a little date soak water, if necessary, to keep the processor running – I did not need to).
•    Take about a 1-inch ball of the dough, roll it into a log, and flatten it into a bar shape on a teflex/paraflex dehydrator sheet on a dehydrator tray. (Dampen fingers in date soak water to keep dough from sticking and make forming bars easier).
•    Repeat with the rest of the dough.
•    Dehydrate at 140 degrees for 1 hour.
•    Remove tray from dehydrator.  Place a dehydrator screen over the bars, and place another dehydrator tray over the screen.  Flip the tray assembly and remove the top tray.  Carefully peel off the teflex sheet, and return the bars to the dehydrator.
•    Lower the temperature to 100 degrees and continue to dehydrate until the bars are firm (approximately 6-8 hours in an Excalibur)

Makes 1 sheet of @ 20 bars (your mileage may vary)

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE CRUMBLE

 STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE CRUMBLE
adapted from a recipe found at http://rediscoverrawfood.blogspot.com/

1 pt. strawberries, sliced
5-6 dates, pitted
1/2 C pecans
1/8 c flaxseed, ground
3 t coconut oil,(optional)
2 T raw agave syrup (optional)
salt (optional)
cinnamon (optional)

•    In a blender, combine strawberries, 2 T coconut oil (optional), agave, a pinch of salt (if used), and a dash of cinnamon (optional), and blend thoroughly.
•    In a food processor, for topping mix, combine dates, pecans, flaxseed, 1 T coconut oil (optional), and cinnamon to taste, and process to a crumbly texture.
•    Spoon topping mix over strawberry mix.

PRETTY SMART RAW FRUIT & NUT BARS

I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow, and I have to change planes, which will make it a kind of long flight, so I had to think of something to take along to eat.  The last time I made something (crackers and “cheez”), security confiscated my cheez and then gave me a very very thorough search.  I don’t want to go through that, so…. I thought…. BARS!!!!

I’ve never been terribly interested in bars… I think I may have eaten a total of 4 Lara Bars in my life, so I had no clue where to start, except that I remembered that the Lara Bars were basically dates and nuts.

I don’t want to spend scads on a pile of Lara Bars, so I thought about what to do, and then I found a recipe in Brigitte Mars’ book, Rawsome.  I changed it a little bit, because I did not have all the same ingredients.  These bars came out really good…. I’d rather them not be so sticky, but they are still quite good… my room-mate says they taste like a Lara Bar.

MY TRAVEL BARS
1 C walnuts, soaked overnight, then rinsed
1/4 C dried apricots, soaked 4 hours to overnight
10 dates, soaked 20 minutes, then pitted
2 apples, cored and chopped

•    Combine everything in a food processor and grind fine, scraping down sides from time to time.
•    On a teflex dehydrator sheet, form mixture into bars about the size of a granola bar (or a Lara Bar), and about  1/2 inch thick.  Alternatively, you could make cookie shapes.
•    Dehydrate at 125 degrees for 4-6 hours, then turn onto a mesh dehydrator screen, peel off the teflex sheet, and continue to dehydrate for @ 6 more hours (a total of about 12 hours).

When I get back, I want to work on some flavors.

9/13/07 PREDICTED SHARE: what they say I will get

This is what the farm says will be in the box:

Lettuce – they really want me to get into lettuce… I feed it to the room-mate
Parsley – for the dehydrator
Red Tomatoes— tomatoes!!! more tomatoes!!!!! into the dehydrator
WhiteJapanese Salad Turnips – I like turnips…How are Japanese different?
Cherry Tomatoes…. my night-time snack
Red or Yellow Bell Peppers – yumm! Peppers! I can make crackers!
Red Long Peppers – they say they might be hot! (Hope! Hope!)
Green Beans – more practice cutting green beans to where I like them
Romano Beans – these were good with tomatoes last time
Gala Apples – okay, apple sauce or dried apples, or both
Raspberries – in my breakfast shake! Yum!!!!

Hmm…. we’ll see what actually comes in the box.

This is my week to volunteer. I just hope they don’t want me to distribute the meat share. I hope I can pick what I want to do.

APPLE CRISP REDUX – my adjustments

When I made this with the original recipe, I ran into a couple of hitches.

First, the cashew/maple syrup mix is too thick, and will heat up in the Vitamix. 

Second, the original recipe is far too sweet for me. It  must have been conceived by someone who has a sweet-tooth the size of Utah, if not Texas.  I practically never add any sweetener to anything. Whoa!  I think I could add one raisin to the cashews and that would be enough, really.

My solution was to reduce the amount of maple syrup and add water.  It did just dandy, and I was able to eat it.  (My chocoholic/non-raw room-mate slurped it right up.)

I think I can dehydrate any leftover mixed apple crisp to make a neat candy or munchie or something.

I am going to dehydrate the leftover cashew creme, which I expect will turn out like a praline or something similar.

Meanwhile, I am going to have this stuff for breakfast in the morning.

RAW APPLE CRISP

6 apples, chopped
1 C walnuts
1-1/2 C raw cashews
1/2 C maple syrup (or raw agave syrup)
1/4 – 1/2 t sea salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
2 – 4 T water

Process cashews, maple syrup, and sea salt in a Vitamix. Add water as needed to achieve a creamy, smooth, but not too runny, texture.  Set aside.
Place apples and walnuts in a mixing bowl.
Add a few scoops of cashew creme to the bowl.
Sprinkle on nutmeg and cinnamon.
Mix well, and adjust to taste.

NOTE:
You can expect to have more of the cashew creme than you need: Use it to make more apple crisp, or use it for a fruit dip. a mixing bowl. Scoop on a couple spoonfuls of cream, sprinkle on some cinnamon and nutmeg, maybe a 1/2 tsp of each. Mix well and adjust seasoning.