CSA POTLUCK TOMORROW, and I still don’t know what dish I will take

There is a CSA Potluck Dinner tomorrow, coupled with a silent auction. I have donated a malachite and silver necklace and a package of 20 corn crackers with a container of cashew cheez.

Now I need to think about what I will make for my contribution to the potluck. I am really really thinking of bringing a plate worth of the corn crackers and a pot of the cheez, to generate interest in buying the auction item.

Maybe I should make something else as well.

I have several sweet potatoes lying around, and some oranges, some dates, and some raw unsweetened dried coconut. That is the beginning of two possible recipes (I don’t think I want to make my two usual stand-by’s – raw marinated massaged collards, or raw beets/turnips in vinegar– although I do have some beets, some radishes, and some turnips in the refrigerator)

I’m thinking of one of two sweet potato recipes. I like them both because people are surprised when they realize that what they are eating is raw. I don’t know if I would make the whole pie, but I would offer the filling — with all those dates, it is very sweet. I am also thinking about a “stuffing” recipe made with sunflower seeds.

AMAZING SWEET POTATOES
2 – 3 sweet potatoes (or yams)
1 C coconut, dried
2 apples
1/4 C ginger root
4 lemons juiced
2 oranges, juiced
1 C walnuts, chopped fine

• Chop sweet potatoes, apples, and ginger, and run through Champion juicer with ….blank plate. (Alternatively, grate sweet potatoes, apples, and ginger).
• Remove mixtureto a large bowl. Add shredded dried coconut, lemon and orange …juices, and chopped walnuts.
• Mix thoroughly

JUDY’S “JUST LIKE PUMPKIN” PIE
this is most amazing

2 C almonds, soaked
1 C walnuts or pecans, soaked
1 C unsweetened shredded coconut
20 dates, soaked overnight
2 C cashews, soaked overnight, and drained
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced.
3 t pumpkin pie spice
drizzle agave nectar

CRUST
• Combine almonds, walnuts (or pecans, and coconut in food processor or Vitamix, …..and process until ground fine and dough-like
• Pat the dough into two pie plates

FILLING
• Drain dates; reserve soak water.
• In food processor, puree dates, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie spice
• Remove mixture from food processor and set aside in a bowl.
• Set mixture aside in a bowl.
• Process cashews, agave nectar, vanilla, and date soak water as needed, until …..smooth and creamy.
• Combine cashew mixture and sweet potato mix puree
• Spread filling in pie shells
• Dehydrate for 6 hours, then refrigerate.

SUNFLOWER SEED DRESSING
1 C sunflower seeds, soaked and drained
1 T flax seeds
1-1/2 C celery
1-1/2 C onion
1-1/4 C red bell pepper
1 T sage to taste (or use Bell’s Poultry Seasoning)
Salt and pepper to taste
Garlic to taste (optional)
1/2 C kalamata olives, chopped fine

• In a food processor, grind soaked sunflower seeds fine.
• Grind flax seeds fine in a coffee grinder.
• Remove ground seeds to a bowl.
• Place all remaining ingredients, save olives, in the food processor, and mince.
• Add olives and combine all ingredients thoroughly.
• Place in a pie tin, or rectangular tin of suitable size and dehydrate for six hours, or until dressing has reached your desired consistency.

No matter what, I need to go to the supermarket.

If I make ‘Amazing Sweet Potatoes” I need lemons.

If I make the sunflower seed dressing, I need the olives.

Oh!! If I make the pie filling, I don’t need anything, and it tastes really good…

What will I choose??? I need to decide in the next half hour. Oops! I’ve just gone for the easy one. Excuse me, I need to go soak the nuts.

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MY CSA JOB: now I am going to coordinate the winter share distribution – cool!

In keeping with my ongoing efforts to channel my energy in ways my CSA can use (I started by showing up early, uninvited, and offering to help unload the truck, until finally they let me do it), I have taken on the job of coordinating the CSA winter distribution. I am taking this seriously. It is a management position according to my resume (snicker).

What it means is that I have to be there to open, organize, (?supervise? and probably answer people’s questions), and clean up and close down at each scheduled distribution (they are about every three weeks).

Because I am me, I want to do the best-ever job. I am practicing my smile (don’t laugh – it is hard for my face to smile, so I have to think about it, and look in the mirror to see if that is a smile, and I have to make sure I understand the feeling of a smile so that I can do a recognizable smile reliably– car accident a long time ago. I have to focus on it.)  Liz is going to come and tell me what I have to do each time, and then she is going to go away, and I will be on my own.

Of course, the bad part is that, the very first distribution is a day when I have an engagement which has been on the books, bought and paid for, for the past four months – just cannot cancel it — one strike against my perfect record. Fortunately, they have found someone who will be there when I leave and stay through closing for that first day.

So, now, I must do a very good job, because I want another job. I want to coordinate the recipe section of the CSA blog.  I really want that job. I want to motivate people to contribute their recipes. I want to contribute my recipes. I want to make a cookbook for the CSA that will be so good that ultimately it will published nationally. Yeah. Why dream small when I can dream big?  Then if only medium happens, I can still be proud.  Like I said, I want this job big-time. I know I will do it well. (Okay, so I was slow on my blog this summer — I do have good blog experience.) I know how to read a recipe and see if all the parts are there. I know how to clean up a file and standardize recipes, etc.I also have a good bit of self-publishing experience, and I can design a book.

So, first things first. I will prove myself in this first job, and I will become loved and respected as a good worker, and we can move on from there, I hope. (please please please?)

10/13/08 CSA SHARE: What they say we will get

First, I want to tell you about my “affliction”. This IS, btw, CSA-related! My keyboard has decided that it cannot do anything with the top row (numbers and the symbols connected with them). With my keyboard, I cannot do the most simple things like buy too much on-line. I was looking at having to research, and find a keyboard that works with my primitive Windows 98 (okay, I am holding out as long as I can without upgrading — I just don’t want to be sucked into that upgrade every six months business that the rest of the world seems to be into — I can even wait another six months to see if the genius we have voted in will be worth his salt– uhh… can someone please teach his wife how to dress?????? And can someone please tell her about the Brazilian Keratin perm, so she does not have to look like she just fried her hair??)

Anyway, I was complaining about not being able to write numbers to the guy who sells the beer at the CSA, and he told me about this wonderful thing that is apparently available on newer versions of Windows — you can get a virtual keyboard to mouse on. Of course, it is not available on Windows 98SE, but, once I had learned of it, I googled the idea, and came up with this great program that I am now using called CLICK-N-TYPE — the best thing is that it is FREE!! (okay, it is a little bit of a pain to remember to jump to my click-n-type pop-up every time I want something from that top row, but, hey! I do not have to find the time to find the new keyboard — I just got this one 6 months ago — no, I did not save the receipt.)

nuff said… if you find yourself in a similar bind, now you have a solution.

Here is what they say we will get

GREEN CRISP LETTUCE……………….1 hd
RUTABAGA……………………………………1 pc
CARROTS……………………………………….1 bun
RED RADISHES/BABY TURNIPS….1 bun
FINGERLING POTATOES……………..1 qt
BEETS……………………………………………..1 bun
BROCCOLI……………………………………..1 hd
MIXED KALE………………………………….1 bun
MIXED APPLES………………………………1 bag

MANHATTAN ORGANIC MARKETS & RAW FOOD STORES

These are some markets that I like. There may be others that I might like, but that I do not know of. If I find them, I will list them.
I am not listing Whole Foods because I do not necessarily like them. Here in New York City, they have forced a lot of independent natural food markets that I used to like out of business. I also do not trust their honesty about organic food. If you want a Whole Foods, there are a number of them listed in the phone book.

INTEGRAL YOGA FOODS
I love this market – they refuse to sell anything they cannot guarantee is organic (so you won’t get young Thai coconuts there!). They have all sorts of nuts, seeds, and beans, and they often carry Ms. Lillian’s raw food creations.
229 West 13th Street (btw 7th and 8th Aves.)
New York, NY 10011
212-243-2642
8:00am – 9:30pm, weekdays
9:00am – 8:30pm, weekends
#1/2/3 or A/C/E trains to 14th St, or L line to 8th Ave.

WESTERLY NATURAL MARKET
all organic, and they have a deli with raw food creations for takeout.
913 8th Ave. @ 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
212-586-5262
7 AM – 12 AM weekdays
9 AM – 12 AM weekends
E train to 50th St. Station

FAIRWAY MARKET
cheap vegetables and everything downstairs, and a secret (hard to find) upstairs organic market with just about everything you can think of – my test was Lara Bars – they have them for $1.25 (as of March 08). Their upstairs organic market is as big as any other organic market in town.
2127 Broadway
New York, NY 10023
212-595-1888
6AM-1AM Daily
SECOND FLOOR ORGANICS 8AM-10PM DAILY
#1, 2, or 3 trains to 72nd St. Exit north end of station, walk 2 blocks north.

HIGH VIBE
raw focus store with raw prepared goodies to buy. Interesting place to visit.
138 East 3rd St (btw Ave A and 1st Ave)
New York, NY. 10009
212 777 6645
1 888 554 6645
11 am – 7 pm, weekdays
12 pm – 6 pm, weekends
F/V train, Second Ave. Station, 1st Ave. exit
walk north to 3rd St, east on south side of 3rd St.

ORGANIC AVENUE
101 Stanton St, (btw Orchard and Ludlow Sts., one block S of Houston)
New York, NY
(212) 334-4593
10 am to 10 pm daily
F train to 2nd Ave Walk one block south of Houston Street.
# 6 train to Bleecker St. Walk one block south to Houston, 5 blocks east to Allen, then one block south to Stanton Street.
J or Z train to Essex Street. Walk two blocks north on Essex, then 2 blocks west on Stanton.

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!!!

A SMOOTHIE? Is this me????

I am probably the last holdout from smoothies. I wanted my VitaMix so I could make them, and $450 later, that same night, I learned that I did not care for smoothies. I like juice. I love my banana yellow Champion juicer to pieces. I don’t mind getting it out, dragging it to the table, chopping the vegetables or fruit into little bits, or even washing up afterwards.

I go to all these raw food meets, and people proudly bring their smoothies, and I just want a spoon.

So what happened tonight? I have no clue. I just found myself tossing the last 5 apples and 1/4 of the little cabbage in the VitaMix with some water, and then….. it was a smoothie!!!! I swear I don’t know how it happened. I drank it. My room-mate drank it, too. She said it tasted like dessert.

Okay, I will admit….it happened yesterday, too. I threw about 3/4 of a head? bunch? of red-leaf lettuce in the VitaMix with two tomatoes, an apple, a beet, 1/2 a red pepper, and some water. I drank it all, too.

Very curious, indeed. Could it be stress?

HOW TO CLEAN LEEKS

Leeks are rather dirty, because of the way they are grown (in dirt, of course), so they need to be cleaned well.
Before you can slice or chop leeks, you should chop off the root and about 1/4 in. of the white part.. Any coarse or ragged outer leaves should also be removed.  The darkest part of the leaves, which is not as tender, should be trimmed off (you can save this and make seasonings with it).  Leave about 2 inches of the green part of the leek.
Slice the leeks lengthwise through, then rinse them carefully under cold running water.  Be sure to clean the leaves carefully.