REVISITING OLD RAW RECIPE BOOKS

I’ve just dug out my copy of Mattye Lee Thompson’s Frugal Raw (Raw on the Cheap at it’s Finest!), and, yes, I made a good purchase.  (the only complaint I have about this book is that there is no index, so I have to remember where I found this and such, or else annotate each page)

This is an older book, from 2008, but it is apparently so popular that hard copies are going for $40 or so.  Fortunately, there is now a Kindle edition, so, if you want to see a really good collection of raw vegan recipes, you can get it on your phone.

The only drawback I see in this book is that she has recipes that require a dehydrator, and dehydrators are notoriously expensive.

Still and all, the author has a lot of good takes on how to integrate a raw food lifestyle into a family setting (where some may not want to go raw), as well as a number of really good recipes.

(I do want to mention that I am telling you all this out of the goodness of my heart.  I am not affiliated with amazon or any other seller, which is why you don’t find any click-throughs.  If you find something you like in my post, please do your own search on Amazon)

Advertisement

NEW BOOK BY JIM CAREY

POST #999
Next on my to-read list:
Idealism Meets Greed – How the raw food movement ruined my life
By Dr. Jim Carey, Ph.D.

In 2010, Jim Carey, a quiet mover in the raw vegan world, was sued, along with Creative Health Institute, by the Ann Wigmore Foundation (AWF), for using the deceased Dr. Ann Wigmore’s name, which AWF claims to have exclusive permission to use, and for which they claim to have a registered trademark.

Unfortunately, Jim lost in the suit (and, as far as I can see, AWF didn’t win – How many of you have ever heard of them?).  It seems that AWF took their winnings, which included Jim’s very popular raw foods lifestyle program, and ran everything into the ground in New Mexico.

As part of the legal settlement, Jim was banned, by a no-compete clause, from publishing or speaking on raw food topics for 3 years. As a result, he had to turn down dozens of job offers, as well as requests for help from friends.

Ahh! At last, the three-year gag order has expired! Jim has now written an expose on the raw food world and its gurus, as only someone in his position can do. He has worked with the people raw foodists come into contact with often (on websites, in emails, or in trainings), and, with his unique insight, having been turned on by an organization which he helped develop, and then left, in order to pursue his own way of bringing the raw food lifestyle to a broader awareness, he has a lot to say.

As I had the opportunity to exchange ideas often with Jim during his raw food education career (I was privileged to take his distance training, which, with copious printed material and a stack of DVDs, was probably the most thorough distance – or even “in person” – education on raw food lifestyle that has ever been issued), I am looking forward to seeing what he has to say in his expose (when I chatted with him back in the day, we’d occasionally talk about this or that “raw guru”.. mostly, he’d just listen to my take, but occasionally he’d let drop that he didn’t think my attitude was off-base).

I’ve missed that camaraderie over the past 3 years, but I didn’t know what his legal arrangement had stipulated he could or could not say even to close buddies, so, when I have had the chance, I’ve just chatted with him about his new endeavors (The man does not stop! Can’t do this? Go excel at something else!).

Will Jim come back to us? I can only hope.., but, at least, he has decided to reveal his experience in and take on the world of raw food gurus, to be released on March 1, 2014. I will be first in line to grab his book. It should be a moment to remember.

For more information about this new book, go to Jim’s website:
http://jimcarey.us/index.php/health/138-idealism-meets-greed.html

CARMELLA’S SUNNY RAW KITCHEN RETURNS!

I’m happy to see that Carmella, of the Sunny Raw Kitchen blog, has come back to us, with a dynamic new website, Carmella’s Sunny Raw Kitchen.  She has some free recipes there, and she is also offering special prices on her books.

GORILLA FOOD: great new recipe book – my new favorite!

POST #904
Was POST #901
I was very interested to receive this copy of Gorilla Food, by Aaron Ash, of the Vancouver restaurant by the same name.  Oh, this book is nice! Enticing new flavor ideas, fresh innovative recipes, pretty pictures – oh my! Get this book here

This is a recipe book – you asked for raw recipes and here they are. After a two page introduction, which tells the curious how the Gorilla Foods restaurant in Vancouver, BC, Canada came into being, and shows a picture pictures of a 1960s-throwback-looking space, it launches into a clarification of terms and descriptions of the appliances and tools needed to work the magic, as well as a shopping list, i.e., all of the ingredients which will be eventually called for in the recipes.

After that come the recipes. Now, if you like more or less “instant food” (not much more than a food processor involved), and don’t like to plan a day or two in advance, many of these recipes will not work for you as they are written (many require dehydration, or include dehydrated recipes detailed on other pages), but, often, the “raw” parts, i.e., the parts before you dehydrate, are good enough on their own – for example, although the Morning Curry Crepes call for the dehydrated Ginger Tomato Crepe,  recipe would be just as good sitting in a bowl for you to spoon up.  So it goes… I see this book as requiring a bit of creativity if you are to get the most from it – just about every page has something exciting, mouthwatering, or really curious.

That said, there are some truly innovative (as in: I haven’t seen this before) recipes for vegetable mixes, sauces, cheezes, condiments, crackers/breads/wraps/chips, and desserts. If you take the often unique vegetable mix ideas, and start adding different sauces, you get altogether different and exciting experiences. If you are willing to do the dehydrated breads/crackers/chips/wraps (which you can do in advance and freeze – you knew that, right?), you expand your options exponentially

When you get to the desserts in Gorilla Food, you will start to drool. Many of the desserts just involve combining the ingredients, and voila! Of course, the really fancy-looking ones in the pictures  the use of a dehydrator, but, often, the ingredients will taste good without the dehydrator, and just will be more like goo, or something you have to eat with a spoon.

There! I’ve just taken apart Gorilla Food and digested it into a recipe book for people who only have a knife, or, at best, a food processor. You can make almost all of these things (save the breads, the chips, the crackers) in a beginner raw food kitchen.

If you are a beginner, if you are an old hand, Gorilla Food will be worth your while.  So, do check out Gorilla Food. It is so very fanciful, and just this side of very basic raw food (which you don’t see much in recipe books anymore), with a kick!

You can get this book here

SANDOR KATZ’S NEW BOOK: The Art of Fermentation

POST #860
Okay, I’ve gone and proved it now. I am a culture junkie (maybe not as much as some people, but culturing foods is high on my list of fun things to do).

Today, I received Sandor Katz’s The Art of Fermentation.  This is not a book for someone who just wants some fermenting recipes (for that, check out my list of raw fermenting/culturing books in My Raw Library . )  The Art of Fermentation is like an encyclopedia of the ways to ferment foods.  I inhaled it in one sitting (Okay, I read things I know I am interested in and looked at all of the pictures — I will go back and read bits of it as I feel the call.)  I should mention that this is not an all-raw book on fermentation, nor is it vegetarian — Katz explores all areas of culturing/fermenting/aging foodstuffs of all sorts.

What a fun book to have!
.

CRAZY SEXY KITCHEN: Kris Carr’s great new recipe book

Post #852
I received Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Kitchen today. (I have followed Kris Carr pretty much since she started an Internet presence talking about nutrition as a way to overcome cancer, which is one of my interests as a nutrition consultant).

I was pleasantly surprised that this book contains so many interesting raw recipes that I haven’t seen anywhere else (lately, that is my new bellwether: how many times have I seen this idea with one ingredient change, or, is this something new or incredibly innovative?). Even among the cooked recipes, there is often a suggestion as to how to make them raw.

Although the book is co-written by Chad Sarno, a chef in his own wright, a number of other chefs have contributed recipes to it.

Notably, quite a few of the raw recipes look like things I can envision myself putting together in the near future (oh, if you don’t know me, that is pretty much the highest accolade I know how to give to a collection of raw recipes – I am really old school, and, also, a really lazy eater, so, if something looks enticing, and it looks like something that I would be willing to spend time eating, and I think I might actually be willing to put in the time to make it, that wins the blue ribbon). There are also a number of interesting and delicious-looking vegan but non-raw recipes, which would make this a very good book for those who might be transitioning to either a vegan or a raw vegan diet.

Aside from the recipes, one of the things I really liked about this book was the initial sections about food preparation equipment, starting from knife descriptions (this is always my favorite, as my first “food processor” was my beautiful knife, which I still have) and going through just about everything, including dehydrators; and methods for cutting (this is like a mini chef-prep course by itself).

By me, this is one of the best new vegan/raw vegan books out there. Despite my initial reservations, I’m glad I made the leap of faith and got it

FREDERIC PATENAUDE BOOKS: GOOD DEALS HERE and no endless ads

POST #851
Frederic Patenaude books are on amazon.com!

You no longer need to scroll through miles of “but wait! there’s more! Did you know? Do you want to…?”

If you already know what you want, you can go to amazon.com and pick up those books at reasonable prices.

FERMENTED FOODS: My favorite book: Wild Fermentation

POST #799
Since I’m on a roll with this fermentation thing, I might as well tell you about my favorite book: Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Katz.

This is one of the first books on fermentation that I got, and it is still the book I go back to time after time.  It seems that, every time I read through it, I find something new, no matter how often I go through it.

There is background information, info on ways of fermenting, and, also, interesting recipes that I probably will never try, as well as ones I have tried and loved.

For a beginner, or a fermenter who just wants a refresher, or else a refreshing read, this book is fabulous.

RAW VEGAN FERMENTED VEGETABLE RECIPES: Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fermenting Foods

POST #796
I’ve just added another book on fermenting raw vegetables, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fermenting Foods, by Wardeh Harmon, to my collection.

As is most often the case with books on fermentation or culturing of foods, this book is not only for raw vegans.  The sections on Vegetables and Fruit, however, are about raw food culturing,  and the majority of the recipes in Non-Alcoholic Beverages, as well as many in the  Condiments  chapter, are also raw.

The first chapters, on the whys and hows,  of fermentation, and the tools to use are very educational.   Although the book recommends using whey (a dairy product) for its lactobacillus content, it also offers a raw vegan option (water kefir), and gives detailed instruction as to how to use the water kefir.  (I will probably just stick with throwing my New Chapter probiotics powder into the mix — it has always worked for me — the only ferment batch I’ve ever lost was the sauerkraut I forgot to put the probiotics in).

The recipes are clear and detailed enough that a neophyte could manage a successful ferment right off the bat.  

I will put this one on my go-to shelf, for sure, especially when I am thinking of trying something new.

7/26/12 CSA SHARE: What we got

POST #767

Basil or Chives – 1 bun…………..Chives
Zucchini – 2 pcs
Cucumbers – 3 pcs
Green Cabbage – 1 hd…………… Savoy Cabbage – 2 sm. hds
Walla Walla Onions – 4 small
Asian Eggplant – 1 sm pc…………traded for 3 cucumbers
Bell Pepper – 1 pc
Green Long Peppers – 3 pcs
Red Potatoes – 1 qt…………………traded for onions

FRUIT SHARE:
Peaches – 1 bag
UFO Peaches – 1 bag

The eggplant was smaller than any of the cucumbers, so I traded it for more cucumbers (I figured it would be too much work on such a small eggplant to make it be a raw food dish)

I finally tired, last year, of trying out raw recipes for potatoes.  I used to give my potatoes to my next-door neighbor, Mrs. Murphy,  but she passed away last month, so I have no use for potatoes now.  I felt lucky to find onions to trade for.

I’ve never tried to make sauerkraut with Savoy cabbage, so I looked it up in Sandor Katz’s  Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods , my go-to book for info on raw fermentation, and found that I can use Savoy cabbage just as I would use green cabbage (I’m guessing the flavor might be different, but I’m going to put jalapeno peppers in it, so it will probably be okay).  I’m out of sauerkraut right now, because my jar fell out of the refrigerator and broke all over the floor (big mess!).  While I was reading Wild Fermentation, I noticed a recipe for fermenting turnips, and another for fermenting beets, so… there go my backed up root vegetables.  I have some time tomorrow afternoon, so I guess I’ll make some sauerkraut, and some fermented turnips and beets.

Stay tuned