DINNER TONIGHT: FULL MENU FOOD COMBINING

Lately, I have been reviewing my Natural Hygiene/Food-Combining information, and I am working at keeping the food-combining rules when I make my meals.  It is actually not that difficult – I just must make simple recipes (and make sure that all the ingredients in the recipes work together well), and then make sure that all the ingredients in all the recipes for the food I am going to put on the plate work together.)  It gets easier if we consider that I am working from the CSA box, and keeping to what is that box mostly (I do add in nuts, seeds, tomatoes, onions, and sprouts!)

TONIGHT’S REPAST:

KOHRABI RAVIOLI WITH “JALAPENO CASHEW CHEEZ” & SHIITAKE FILLING

This is a very simple recipe.

INGREDIENTS
2 C Shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1/4 C nama shoyu
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil

1 C cashews, soaked for 2 hrs., drained, and rinsed
1/2- 1 jalapeno pepper, sliced (for milder flavor, discard seeds)
1/2 t sea salt, or to taste (I used about 1/4 less)
1/8 – 1/4 C water (as needed to make a fine paste)

1 med. kolrabi, peeled, sliced paper thin with a mandoline

• Place sliced shiitake mushrooms in a bowl with nama shoyu and olive oil.  Toss to thoroughly coat mushrooms.  Marinate for 20 minutes.
• In a food processor, combine the cashews, jalapeno, sea salt, and water as needed and process to a smooth thick paste, to make the jalapeno cheez.
• Squeeze the oil/nama shoyu mixture from the shiitake mushrooms as well as possible.
• Chop the mushrooms fine.
• On one paper-thing slice of kohrabi, place a small dab of the jalapeno cheez on one half.
• Lay a thin line of mushroom pieces at the top of the cheez.
• Fold the kohlrabi slice over the mushrooms and cheez and press down to “seal” with the cheez.
• Continue until you have made all the raviolis you want.

If you have more mushrooms left over, you can sprinkle them over the raviolis as a garnish, or add them to a salad.

MASSAGED MARINATED GREENS
I used the greens from the kohlrabi, as well as some chard and spinach that I had left over.

3 C dark leafy greens (kale, collards, cabbage, spinach, etc.)
1/4 C scallions (or onion), chopped fine
1/4 C garlic scapes, finely grated in food processor
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T chili powder, or to taste
5 – 10 kalamata olives, chopped fine

• Strip the greens leaves from the thick center stems.
• Lay 4 – 5 leaf pieces one on top of another, roll them up horizontally into cigar shapes, then slice each roll horizontally, to ribbons.  Place in a large mixing bowl.
• Add all other ingredients to bowl, and mash, or massage, until bulk is reduced by at least 1/3.
• Allow to marinate for 1/2  – 1 hr.

SALAD
Few leaves Boston lettuce, chopped
1/4 C scallions, finely chopped
1/2 campari tomato, finely chopped, with juice
1 T kohlrabi, finely julienned
1 t extra virgin olive oil, or more, to taste
1 t apple cider vinegar, or more, to taste

• Place lettuce on plate
• Sprinkle on scallions
• Spinkle on julienned kohlrabi
• Distribute chopped tomato and juice over all.
• Drizzle olive oil over the salad.
• Drizzle apple cider vinegar over the salad.

The concentrated protein in this meal (aside from any protein available from the vegetables) is from the cashews.
The fat in the recipe is from the cashews and the extra virgin olive oil.
The green vegetable carbohydrates are all low glycemic.
The tomatoes are your only wild card, but they do not disturb the food combining rules.

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BEWARE OF HOLIDAYS

Duh! You knew that! Holidays are the times when we want to fall back into old eating patterns and chow down on the stuff we know, the holiday food that means it is holiday time! So… we come up with raw versions… and we never stop to think about what we are doing! (to make a raw version of most holiday foods, in all likelihood, we are going to want to add sweeteners (agave syrup, dates, etc.), and we are probably going to be heavy into the nuts (how can you make shortbread if you don’t use nuts?) I don’t know about you, but what I miss most are the desserts... and what goes into the raw versions??? nuts, dried fruit, sweetener…..

So…. if we succumb to making raw substitutes, we are highly likely to find ourselves putting on weight.

The fact of the matter is that with many of the “transition” type recipes,we will not escape holiday weight gain simply because we are eating raw food. which offer us “the taste of the past”, are likely to help us maintain an unhealthy weight, or else gain weight unexpectedly. Yes, the ugly truth is that you can gain weight on a raw food diet.

Ideally, we will continue to be vigilant, and eat only properly combined recipes and meals.

If we are normal humans, we may find ourselves enjoying our “traditional-style” raw versions of the holiday foods we know and love, and , then, we will be faced with the need to cleanse and diet in the New Year, just as we would if we were not raw.

Be aware. Be ready.

DO WHAT YOU WILL: It is your experience, after all

I’ve been chatting with a marvelous man over the past few days… (oh! you sigh! she’s in love! Well, if a close alignment of minds counts, it is so… as it is, we are both electronic entities to each other, and that is likely the way it will stay… doncha just love our world?)

Never mind!!! I have been chatting with this electronic soulmate over the past few days and there has been such a meeting of the minds that I just must tell you, without revealing the object of my devotion.

We both share an interest in Ann Wigmore’s work and focus. Oh! That does make my heart sing!

The best thing is that he agrees with me that gurus are to be taken at face value (I think he has come up through the ! Surprise!!!! You are your own mystic!!!! school, as I seem to have done.)

Here I am talking about raw food gurus…. We may run into several raw food gurus in the course of our search for raw food information. I consider myself blessed that there simply were no raw food gurus when I started being raw by accident. Heck! There was one “cookbook”.

I survived. I did well, and I kept happy. Even more important, I have managed to stay on a raw track for several decades. One of the ways I have done this is that there has been no one to tell me what to do or give me rules. In the late 70s, I picked up on Ann Wigmore’s teachings and began doing what seemed sensible to me along those lines.

The next book I found, years later, in 1999, was Rose Lee Calabro’s Living in the Raw, which made me aware of all the benefits of owning a Champion juicer and a dehydrator. That book got me started making new kinds of meals (yippee!)

Over the years, as new books have appeared, I have read some of the gurus’ works, and I have adopted ideas that seemed to make sense to me. My simple guideline has always been does it make sense? I would hope that this is the guideline everyone uses because it makes everything so easy, and it makes it much easier to keep on keeping on.

Things that don’t make sense to me are programs that tell me that I must follow their ideas exclusively, and to the letter. I have found substantial health benefits without following any one program to the letter.

I pick and choose among ideas that come to me. I think natural hygiene is a pretty good idea, and I have a chart on my refrigerator to remind me. I think 100% raw vegan is a good idea, but I know that humans are human, and I think that any raw is better than no raw…. Everyone has to start somewhere, and, unless a person is suffering a life-threatening challenge, such as cancer or MS, which, I think, will respond best and most effectively to a totally raw regime, I think that people should do what they can as they can. I also think that if you insist on 100% compliance, many people will lie to you (and I believe that many of the so-called gurus are probably not 100% raw/100% the regime they espouse 100% of the time. I did believe in Gypsy Boots, but I would not be devastated to learn that he, too, deviated from the straight and narrow. I know that T.C. Fry did, but I do not believe that detracts from the ideas which he espoused.)

In my nutrition counseling practice, I work with all sorts of people. Many of them are on a SAD diet. I work with them to change their diet to a healthier one, but I do not insist that they go raw, or vegetarian, or even organic…. I simply work out a plan that they will be most easily able to follow if they want to achieve the results they say they are after. If they ask me how I have achieved the results I have, I tell them, but I help them find ways that they can use. Some of them eventually come to me for more raw food information, and some of them succeed on an improved SAD diet. I think that all of this helps me be a more powerful counselor for people who are looking for help with a transition to a raw food lifestyle… I have more information, more tactics, more leeway to offer. I know what works for me, I know what has worked for my successful clients, I know what has worked for some of my friends, and I know what doesn’t necessarily produce results, although it looks good. Viva diversity!!!!

I have quit groups which proclaim a one-regime focus. That may have been a loss for me in the area of social contacts, but I think it is better that I not sit quietly and bite my tongue and inwardly sneer at their insistence and their claims, when I know that, for me, those things do not work and/or might be dangerous.

My focus is, as always, on long term positive results. I have maintained this weight relatively easily for more than 5 years. Yes, I am vigilant, but what makes the vigilance easy is that I am raw vegan and I eat a substantial amount of protein each day and restrict my carbohydrate intake (do not gasp too loudly!!!! Your shock comes from your SAD background, not from the reality of fruit, vegetables, and nuts.) That just means that I mostly eat low glycemic fruit and vegetables. Go look at the low glycemic list of fruit and vegetables and re-assure yourself that I have plenty of variety and plenty to eat.)

DINNER TONIGHT

DINNER TONIGHT

Sorry no specific recipes. I just looked at what I had from the CSA tonight, and what I had left over from last week, with some almonds and dehydrated tomato slices (thanks to the 40 lbs of tomatoes last month!) I had on hand.

I chose:
red kale
several turnip leaves
an onion
a red bell pepper
two Roma tomatoes
1 med. small turnip
1 beet
arugula leaves
1 red lettuce leaf
1/4 clove garlic
@ 1 tomato worth of dried tomato slices, soaked
some almonds
Thai curry paste
sea salt
apple cider vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

I made massaged greens salad with the kale and turnip leaves (see recipe in recipes section), 1/4 onion, all sliced very thin, 1/4 bell pepper minced, a squirt of Thai green curry paste, a sprinkle of sea salt, and a dash of olive oil (extra virgin, of course).

I made a pate with @ 1-1/2 C almonds, 2 Roma tomatoes, the dried tomato slices, 3/4 red bell pepper, 1/2 onion, 1/4 clove garlic, all ground fine in the food processor.

I made a beet/turnip/onion salad with the turnip, the beet, 1/4 onion, and @1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar. I processed everything fine in the food processor, to the consistency of apple sauce.

Because my room-mate is a foodie, and cares about presentation, I placed the greens neatly on the plate, put three arugula leaves on the plate and flattened two balls of the pate on top of them, and then put 1/2 of the red lettuce leaf on the plate and arranged an interesting drizzle of the beet/turnip/onion salad in the shape of the leaf. She ended up wrapping the pate in the arugula leaves, and the beet/turnip/onion salad in the lettuce. (I ended up copying her wraps, and I wrapped the greens with the pate)

You know… I did not stop to think about food combining tonight. I absolutely did not think about 80/10/10 (because I never do). I know I need some fat and protein, so there were the almonds and the oil (I did consciously think about that). This was a totally “intuitive” meal.

I feel okay, and I am really happy that I had a delicious meal. I do not feel any ill effects, and I am going to save the leftovers and eat them tomorrow at work. I really do not even feel that I need to be giving excuses, although I am, simply so you will not go saying “Oh, but you should have….” Let’s put it this way. I ate a good healthy meal. My body is happy, and I am not having any rash break-outs (that is how my body reacts to wrong eating). I am full, and I am looking forward to tomorrow, not to the next thing to eat.