Week Two - Online Raw Certifications

Raw Chef Segment: Simple-Gourmet Raw Food

Introduction

This week is dedicated to the art of becoming a Raw Chef. The Ekaya Institute of Living Food Education Raw Chef Certification is unique in that we focus on Simple-Gourmet Raw Food rather than Transition-Gourmet Raw Food.

By simple-gourmet we mean a diet that is simple in the aspects of being easy to make, following excellent food-combining, and that is what some call *a high-raw diet* because it follows the highest and strictest rules of eating and promotes a level of health that is very high. By simple, we mean a diet that does not use raw foods that have been devitalized through warming, fermenting, excessive combining, or dehydrating. We combine only a few foods at a time as this promotes the best digestion possible. We combine foods that not only are not bad food combining but are actually ideal food combining, foods that work well together and complement each-other to promote the best nutrient absorption possible.

The simple-gourmet raw-vegan diet is nutrient dense, using fresh, raw, living, organic, and locally-grown food whenever possible.

By simple-gourmet we also mean meals that are a gourmet delight, in that they taste better than cooked food, they satisfy cooked food cravings, they are beautiful to look at, they nourish the spirit as well as the body, they are soul-satisfying, they are prepared with love and care, and they leave you feeling the way a gourmet meal should, - on top of the world!



SECTION 1. - Being a Raw Chef & Establishing a raw food delivery service

You may wish to become a raw chef to be able to prepare better meals for yourself, your family, your community, for raw potlucks, to open a raw food restaurant, to put on or hire yourself out to raw events and retreats, or to start a raw delivery service, amongst other possibilities.

This course is suitable to accommodate any of the above goals. And we are happy to help you to get started in any one of these services. But primarily our vision is to help establish a network of Raw Chefs who Deliver!

We hope that you will be a part of this network, and that you will have a successful raw delivery service through clients that we help you to generate and that we refer to you.

We receive several inquiries each day from people seeking raw food support and services in their areas. Many of these are people who work and don't have time to prepare raw foods. Our research shows that this demographic would eat raw meals if there were Raw Food Delivery Services available for them.

We would like to be able to send these inquiries to you when they come from your area.

We would also like to help you to build a client base by advertising to and/or speaking to the business community in your town or city either business by business or to a group of businesses about raw foods. We will provide pre-written speaker notes and guidelines in the post-graduate section of this course. We will offer help in booking these speaking engagements. We will also provide resources for becoming comfortable with public speaking, if you feel you need support in this.

As a Raw Chef who Delivers, you will first establish some goals for how much you want to work and how much you want to earn. We then tailor a menu and a price list for you to use in conjunction with business cards and other marketing materials when advertising your services or speaking in public. You then create a schedule and mark down clients on this when they call. The structure of your service is entirely up to you but we make these suggestions just to help get you started. Perhaps they will spark other ideas!

It would be most effective if you had several clients in one business district or even one office building. These could be obtained through a lecture or series of lectures given at that particular office or business, and/or through flyers delivered to them. You could have a lunch menu with three to five options on it, and then only have to prepare five different dishes for the lunch menu to fit a variety of tastes. Or you could have a list of all the recipes you will prepare over a month's time, which gives the clients less choice, but makes your job easier, as you would only prepare one recipe a day. People are so grateful to receive raw meals that both of the above are viable ways to go.

You could simply do business lunches, or you could have a full-time service doing three meals a day. In the latter scenario scheduling is critical. You would need to shop the day before and to schedule time for preparing the meals, delivering the meals, shopping for the next day, scheduling, billing, and clean-up. And perhaps for more marketing, advertising and lectures. And if you are also doing work as a Raw Personal Trainer, Raw Lifestyle Trainer, and Raw Nutritionist then you will need to schedule and do these appointments too. They may be separate clients or the same clients who use your Raw Food Delivery services.

Don't worry. You are raw! You have lots of energy!!! And helping people will give you even more energy, watching them become more and more healthy before your eyes, seeing the weight drop off them, and hearing about the wonderful changes that will go on in their lives! And all the fun you will be having will put your energy over the top!!!

You will be a part of helping and healing your community, a part of positive change in your community, a teacher and leader, a health activist, and a business person in a very leading edge field, the raw vegan diet. I believe that if you have signed up for this course that you are hearing the call of you soul beckoning you to this work. I believe that many special people are being called to this work. I believe that it is your right livelihood, or one of your right livelihoods. I believe that is very important work for our world and our times. And I believe that you will be guided and blessed in doing this service of love, that many doors will open to you, you will make many wonderful connections, and that synchronicity, the perfect timing of events and meetings that seem to have been orchestrated by angels, will be part of your exciting life and career, as they may well already be.

In Buddhism, having a right livelihood, a way of making a living that agrees with your innermost beliefs and gifts, is an important part of a spiritually healthy life.


How this certification works together with the other three

As a Raw Food Chef, you will also be using your knowledge of Raw Nutrition. You may also decide to work as a Raw Lifestyle Coach and Raw Personal Trainer. In both of these, your Raw Food Chef Certification will be useful. As a Raw Lifestyle Coach you will teach people about what to expect as they go raw, help them deal with particular issues, and also teach your clients about preparing raw food. As a Raw Personal Trainer you will ideally have clients who want the physical fitness training combined with learning raw food preparation. One wealthy client who requires a personal trainer for their daily exercise as well as all their meals prepared can be an ideal client, and if you have one client like this, it may be all you need. We will have a special advertising campaign promoting our Raw Vegan Network to this demographic, and we hope to have many clients of this genre, some of whom may prefer a live-in Personal Trainer/Raw Chef, and some of whom may require someone who is able to go on tour with them.


The philosophy behind simple-gourmet raw food

The simple-gourmet philosophy is:

1. to combine foods that complement each-other for maximum nutrient absorption
2. to prepare foods with love, awareness and intention
3. to be creative
4. to try new things
5. to use only two to five ingredients in a meal
6. to eat one meal at a time
7. to eat little for maximum utilization of nutrients
8. to avoid bad food combinations
9. to eat food combinations that bring out the subtle flavors in the foods
10. to eat food that is organic for maximum nutrients and minimum toxins
11. to eat food that is fresh for maximum nutrient density and quality
12. to eat food that is locally grown for maximum freshness and to maintain our body's relationship to our environment
13. to eat wild foods whenever possible for its super-nutrient density and quality
14. to eat consciously: slowly, savoring beautifully and carefully prepared food, with your attention focused in the mouth, thinking about what the food is doing for you, and with gratitude.



Tips for buying food

We spend a lot of time buying food. Hopefully this Network, Taking The World Raw, will change all that! But for now, if you are just eating raw yourself, you may spend several hours a week on the road, depending on how close you are to good health food stores, farms, and farmers markets. When eating raw food if you are on your own you will probably want to shop at least twice a week, to have fresh food available. If you are far from any towns, of course there are ways around this, especially if you are willing to do some sprouting and/or growing your own kitchen garden or garden. Some people prefer to shop every day, to get their produce as fresh as possible. If you are a raw chef with several clients, plan on shopping daily. We shop at several different health food stores, specialty stores like the Asian Market, farms, and farmers markets, sometimes visiting four different locations in a day and sometimes even driving two hours each way to connect with farm produce directly. Here are some of the places to do your raw food shopping.

Farmer's Markets
This is the ideal place for connecting with fresh organic produce and the farmers that grow it! Find out through your health food store, library, phone book, yellow pages, a local farmer, or the Internet where and when the farmer's markets in your area take place! A farmer's market is like an old fashioned street market, which you can still find permanently set up in Europe, but here in the USA farmer's markets are weekly affairs where farmers set up their stalls once a week for three or four hours in the nearest town in a large parking lot and sell their freshly harvested produce directly to consumers. In Santa Barbara we are lucky to have a farmer's market within an hour's drive in a different location every day of the week. Until recently the farmer's market was an opportunity to get really great deals too, but unfortunately the farmers around here have marked up their prices to about the same as the local health food stores. However, you can negotiate! (especially near the end of the market). Sometimes you can even get free leftovers or *seconds* (produce that will be too ripe to sell the next day, for instance). It is great if the stall says "Certified Organic". However, many farmers can't afford to get certified but do have organic produce. So ask if they are organic, and they will tell you. You can judge for yourself if they are truthful. Organic produce looks, smells, and tastes better to me, and it has a glow to it. The farmers often glow too.

Health Food Stores
Many health food stores just sell supplements. No fun. But some do also offer produce, which is pretty much all you are interested in, besides the bulk section for nuts, seeds, grains, and occasional dried fruit. There are some stellar health food stores out there, as well as some really good chain stores in California in this category including Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Mothers, and Lassens. These chains are just starting to sprout up, so they are often just one or two states wide at this point. Prices tend to be high. But its worth it to support these outfits and the organic farmers they in turn support. When enough people get into organics and raw food, prices will become more competitive. Get involved in your health food store. Put on events and lectures there. Post flyers there. Have conversations with the staff, management, and customers. Make shopping a social event. Help to make it a fun community place for like-minded people to gather.

Asian Markets
Look up Asian Markets in your phone book and yellow pages. They are a great source for tropical exotic fruits like durian, tamarind, guavas, lychees, mangostines and young coconuts for instance. If they don't have these, you can ask them to order them for you.

Supermarkets
Get friendly with your local supermarket produce person, as well as the owner/manager. You can influence them to try starting an organic section if they don't yet have one. You can also have them special-order organic produce for you, such as crates of organic oranges. It may end up being cheaper than other options!

Farms
What could be better than connecting with the farms and farmers where food is grown! Well, being a farmer could be better I guess! But if you are not a farmer, you need to get to know some! You can find them online, in the yellow pages, phone book, or driving through the countryside!

Farm Stores
Some farms have little stands and even stores out in the countryside or in nearby small towns. Look up "farm stores". These are sometimes run by one farm, or sometimes several farms together.

Buying Clubs
There are catalogs you can get that health-food stores use. One is Mountain People's Warehouse. One is called Tucson Cooperative Warehouse (tcwfoodcoop.com). There are many others. Usually you can find out through these companies about *buying groups* in your area. These are a few families that get together and place a big order once a month. You can save a lot of money on expensive bulk items like nuts, honey, Celtic sea salt, and oils. And you can sometimes get produce too.

Food Co-ops
These are special health-food stores where you can become a member and can get better prices than at health food stores.

CSA Programs
Community Supported Agriculture is becoming more and more popular. A farm or group of farms puts together boxes of fresh produce every week and you get your box delivered or pick it up for a very reasonable price. You don't know what you are getting, so its a bit like Christmas, and also an inspiration to create new recipes, which are healthfully ideal because they are organic, fresh, locally grown and in-season!

Online Ordering
There are lots of online sources of great food, like diamondorganics.com, livingtreecommunity.com, therawworld.com, truefoodsmarket.com, ebfarm.com, rawfood.com and organicexpress.com, amongst many others.


Tips for inventing new recipes

Being creative is of key importance, and is of course lots of fun! After learning the above recipes and getting good at them, it will be time to invent some of your own. Just take the plunge. Have fun with it! Experiment!

- Use whatever is the freshest, most choice (peaking, ripe), organic produce available.
- Try to use raw foods to mock/imitate your favorite cooked food recipes
- Try foods you haven't used before
- Experiment with equipment: food processor, blender, and juicer. A coffee grinder can also do interesting things to nuts and seeds, like making a fine flour out of them.
- Experiment with using all the food left in your house before a shop. This has been a way I have happened upon some of my best recipes.
- Go inward and meditate upon what your body wants to eat. Feel the flavors, the texture, the scents, and the energy, and you will create in your mind new kinds of feasts! This works especially well when you are very hungry or fasting.
- Take recipes of others (from rawfoods.com for instance, which has 1000's of raw recipes) and adapt them to your own taste. Give them a twist of your own style.


The Kitchen Garden

You will save money on food and get extra freshness into your food by having a kitchen garden. Start small with a bag of alfalfa seeds and a sprouter (available at any health food store or online) and get sprouts going in your kitchen! Soak sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and almonds in glasses of water. You can start to use them after just a couple of hours. Now they are a living food! They are much easier to digest and will give you enormous energy! After the first day, pour them into a strainer and let them sit there. Rinse them twice a day to keep moist. If you want to get more intense with it, you can literally turn your kitchen into a garden! There is a great book on kitchen gardening at sproutman.com


Spiritual aspects of food preparation

In "The Celestine Prophecy" James Redfield wrote in novel form about a farm where the farmers would sit and "give energy" to their crops as they grew in the fields. In the story the food was tested and had higher nutritional content than other foods. Although a novel, I believe this could very well be true. Numerous experiments with plants, talking to plants, and playing music for plants, has shown that plant life reacts to our energy. I believe that "cooking with love" works similarly. A great chef puts love energy into the food she prepares and people taste the difference. Anything that is done with consciousness and awareness brings a new level of quality and magic to the project. Ancient magic teaches that one can weave ones intention into the things one manufactures. This was done with great swords of old in different cultures, as well as special garments, musical instruments, and dwellings. As the Native Americans light dry sage they speak their intention into the flame and smoke.

So it is with making food. You can give your food energy as you prepare it by thinking about its beauty, enjoying the process of making it, making your kitchen into a sacred space of beauty with altar-like objects, lighting a candle. Before starting to prepare food, take a moment to center yourself, take a deep breath, feel happy for the gift of this work, and feel deep peace as this is a peaceful occupation. If you have time and desire, a fuller meditation might be a good ritual to have before preparing food. While preparing the food you might think about and visualize the place of beauty where it grew, the journey it took to get into your hands now, the nourishment it has in it from the sun, air, rain, and soil, and the joy that it will be transformed back into energy with as you or you client feast upon it! From earth's energy to matter and back to energy, this time in the form of human energy. Through this plant, sunlight is transmuted to joy, air is transmuted to thoughts, rain is transmuted to emotions, and soil is transmuted to action! It is one of the miracles of life!

You can even put your intention into the food to make it more healing. If you are making food with the intention that it will heal a particular person of a particular thing, focus your attention on the nutrients and properties in the food that will do this healing, and say a prayer if you are a pray-er. Many medical doctors say a prayer before operating. They have found that this does help.



Recipes for all occasions

We hope to establish a corps of raw chefs who create their own recipes ultimately. So in this section we will talk about getting creative. However, we start with some basics of raw food preparation. We include a list of common junk food and cooked food cravings and the recipes we use to overcome or replace them. The recipes in this chart are all listed below in the recipes section. The recipes section which follows has Transitional raw recipes that are a best when someone is just transitioning to raw foods, followed by high-raw recipes that are more simple-gourmet. These recipes represent all the recipes we eat. We also eat simple whole foods, a single raw fruit, vegetable, or nuts in place of meals. Sometimes we eat lots of recipes, and sometimes we don't make recipes. However we have found that these recipes used regularly provide a good balanced diet that keeps us totally free from any deficiencies.

JUNK FOOD CRAVINGS - RAW REPLACEMENT FOODS CHART:

All the cravings listed below are followed by their raw replacement. These can all be found in the next section on recipes.

Milk - nutmilk

Milkshake - nutmilk smoothie

Ice Cream - nutmilk smoothie with almond butter, chilled (semi-raw)

Meat, Sushi - Nut Sushi

Meat, Meat Loaf - Nut Loaf

Pizza - Nut Pizza

Candy - Nut Candy

Chocoloate - Raw Carob Treat

Candy Bar - Almond Butter Candy

Pastry, Breakfast Cereal, Pies - Oatmeal Treat

Sushi - Veggie Sushi Rolls

Dessert - Sensuous Fruit Salad

Apple Pie - Raw Apple Pie

Salad Dressings - Raw Salad Dressings

Cheese - Tahini Cheese

Ice Cream, Milk Shakes, Candy - Fruit Smoothies

Puree, Pudding, Jello - Watermelon Juice

Chip Dip - Sprouted Humus

Liverwurst, meat, beans & rice - Seed Paté

Protein Shake - Tahini Milk

Milk - Cantaloupe Milk

Ratatouille, Italian sauce dishes - Raw Ratatouille, Raw Tomato Sauce

Thai Food - Raw Thai Lemon Coconut Soup

Burritos - Sunflower Herb Paté

Drugs and Alcohol - Green Juice



RAW RECIPES

The recipes below are taken from our Garden Diet eBook. Some new ones have also been added.

Note: We are currently putting together a website that will have full color photographs and precise measurements for each of these recipes, and many more! We will send you the website address in your post-graduate support materials.

Basics

Raw Food Preparation is a creative process. The recipes listed here give a basis and are not necessarily to be followed to the letter. Sometimes just by changing or substituting one vegetable for another you can come up with a totally different recipe. Very seldom do I ever prepare any of my recipes the same way twice.

Spices: I use numerous herbal seasonings to add accents to any of the recipes, including rosemary, thyme, basil, tarragon, oregano, summer savory, cayenne, paprika, cumin, curry, turmeric, sage, vanilla bean, etc. If you can get these herbs fresh, or grow them in your kitchen or garden, all the better. Otherwise organic dried versions are acceptable.

Replacements: Some basic cooking replacements I use are flax oil in place of butter, nut-meal (ground nuts) in place of meat, and marinated vegetables in place of cooked vegetables. I also use finely ground almonds (nut-meal) in place of flour for pie crusts and other types of crusts.

Nut-meal: blend nuts in food processor or blender until it turns to powder. Add Celtic Sea Salt and Olive Oil. This can be a pizza crust or pie crust. For pizza crust blend in Celtic Sea Salt and herbal spices. For pie crust add dates, cinnamon, nutmeg, and/or cloves. Using almond meal as a base for crusts you can create a whole variety of different dishes.

Sweetening: To sweeten foods we use honey. You can replace this with medjool dates or raw agave (cactus) nectar. Some people believe honey is not vegan because bees make it. However we distinguish between insects and other animals and therefore don't see honey as animal product. We have done extensive research on honey and are convinced it is extremely healthful, as long as it is used in moderation.

Salt: Celtic Sea Salt is used because this type of salt is water-soluble, it dissolves in water. Therefore it can break down, dissolve, in your system, unlike normal table salt, which is to be avoided at all costs! As with honey, Celtic Sea Salt is very healthful, as long as it is used in moderation. Otherwise it can be damaging.

Garnishing (Making the dish pretty!):
Please also experiment with and add your own garnishing to the recipes below. Some garnishing ideas:
- place fruit and/or vegetable slices around the edges of the plate in a circle
- create an artistic flourish or arrangement of garnishing using colors and shapes
- use a bed of red or green leaf lettuce
- cut garnishing into pretty or interesting shapes
- for fruit dishes: banana slices, kiwi slices, strawberries, strawberry slices, dried coconut sprinkles, and almonds make the prettiest garnishing
- for vegetable dishes: red onion rings, lettuce, carrot slices, thin curly carrot strips, different colored bell peppers, cucumber slices, different colored cabbage cut in this curly strips, jicama wedges, and asparagus tops make nice garnishing.


Raw-Gourmet Transition Recipes

The recipes in this section, Transition Recipes, are great for people who are just starting to explore the raw vegan diet, and need to have the comforts of foods that taste like cooked foods, and that give them a similar feeling of fullness. These recipes help convince people that raw food is not about deprivation, and that great tasting food is a big part of the raw way of life! It is a huge step up from the SAD (Standard American Diet) Diet. When you start a raw diet and include these recipes, the transition will be easy and gentle, and you will slowly naturally phase them out in favor of the high-raw recipes further below, and whole foods (such as just eating an apple or cucumber for a meal). You will also find that you don't need to eat as much to feel nourished, the longer you are raw.

Tabouli:
Pour a cup and a half of boiling water over a cup of cracked wheat or bulghur wheat. Let sit for 40 minutes, covered. Chop finely: two bunches of parsley, one bunch of cilantro, one bunch of green onions (scallions), 4 tomatoes, and 3 medium sized cloves of garlic. Add to the wheat along with the juice of three medium sized lemons, a quarter of a cup of olive oil, and a teaspoon of Celtic Sea Salt. Top with avocado slices. If you want a creamy sauce, add an avocado sauce made by mashing one avocado with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a teaspoon of honey.

Manna Bread: (replacement to Bread)
Manna bread or Essene bread are brands of unleavened bread. They are basically just heated for a very short time at a very low heat so they are still full of life, as you can tell by how rich and filling they are compared to normal bread. There are all kinds of manna bread, made from different combinations of nuts, seeds, sprouted grains, and fruit. A real delicacy with none of the dangers inherent in bread such as wheat, flour, eggs, butter and sugar, which all clog the body.

Manna Bread sandwiches: (replacement to Sandwiches, subs, burgers, etc..)
Slice up avocado and tomato on Manna Bread (available at health food stores) with honey for a simple and easy lunch. Add a little Celtic Sea Salt if desired. When we were transitioning we would sometimes live on this for a couple of days if we were too busy to find and prepare food. Raw Tahini or Raw Almond Butter and honey on "Carrot and Raisin" Manna Bread tastes just like carrot cake!

Oatmeal Treat: (replacement to breakfast cereals, pastries, pies, cakes, candy and cookies)
-1 cup raw organic steel cut oats
-1/4 cup fresh squeezed O.J.
-2 tablespoons raisins
-2 dates chopped
-1/2 banana sliced
-1 teaspoon honey
-2 tablespoons Shredded Coconut
-dash of Celtic sea salt

Mix and feast on this healthy breakfast or treat that tastes like candy!

Raw Thai Lemon Coconut Soup: (replacement to Thai Food, soup)
Juice a large squash or two. Add the milk of one young coconut. Squeeze three or four lemons. Chop 5 mushrooms, slice 2 carrots. Mix and heat on low (optional) until warm.

Nut Milk: (replacement to milk-shake, milk, and ice-cream cravings)
Liquefy in blender
-1 cup nuts or sunflower seeds (soaked for a couple of hours)
-Blender full of water
-1 banana (optional)
-2 tablespoons honey
-2 dates
(optional - add a dash of olive oil and dash of Celtic Sea Salt for extra taste and nutrition)
Optimum Health option: Sprouted food has far more vitality, enzymes and life energy, for it is alive and growing. Sprouting the nuts you use will give you a super-food that will increase your energy and vitality too. To germinate/sprout nuts: Soak nuts in water for a couple of hours to as long as overnight. You'll find some nuts sprout faster than others. The longer you leave them in water, the stronger their life force becomes. You may want to change the water periodically if you leave them in longer than a day. Use spring water or bottled water if available.

Nut Sushi: (replacement to sushi, meat, salty foods)
This recipe is oily and salty and gives a feeling of having eaten meat. It provides enough protein for two adults for a day. Very rich and filling.
-One Cup of Nuts (Any combination of one or more of these: Brazil Nuts, Almonds, Pecans, Pine Nuts, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Walnuts, Hazelnuts. Avoid cashews as these are processed and packaged in a way that involves heating and harmful chemicals)
-Raw Nori Seaweed (North American harvests please, as some oriental companies catch fish in the nori nets and grind them in with the Nori. You can instead also use lettuce leaves, nasturtium leaves, or kale leaves)
-1/4 cup Cilantro
-1 Avocado
-1 Tomato
-2 cloves Garlic
Grind nuts in food processor with S-Blade. You may also want to use a handful of either pine nuts or sunflower seeds whole. Mix in one avocado, a 1/4 cup cilantro, a tomato, 2 chopped garlic cloves, and wrap in Raw Nori Seaweed, which has been torn from the large sheets into 1/8ths. Stick a toothpick through the middle to hold in place, or wrap one at a time and eat. Celtic Sea Salt can be added in moderation if desired.

Nut Loaf: (replacement to meat, meat loaf)
This is so tasty, meatloaf will pale in comparison! Filling too.

-Two cups Nuts (Any combination of one or more or all of these: Brazil Nuts, Almonds, Pecans, Pine Nuts, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Walnuts, Hazelnuts)
-1 Red pepper
-1 Tomato
-2 cloves Garlic
-1/2 Onion
-5 Mushrooms
-2 tablespoons Whole Pine Nuts

Grind vegetables and nuts in Food Processor with S-Blade. Spread Tahini Sauce ontop (2 tablespoons Raw Tahini, juice of 1/2 a lemon juice, 1 teaspoon honey, and 2 cloves garlic)

Nut Pizza: (Pizza replacement)
Grind up soaked almonds (soak for 24 hours) in Food Processor with S-Blade. Blend in olive oil, herbs and spices. Then spread out on a plate much the same way that you would a real pizza crust. Make a cheese sauce (see Tahini Cheese recipe in the salad dressings section below). Top with favorite vegetables (Chopped Onions, Garlic, Raw Olives, pine nuts etc...)

Tahini Milk: (A quick easy protein shake, replacement to milk)
Mix a spoon of tahini with water, dates, honey, a banana, and a dash of sea salt and Flax Oil (two tabe spoons).

Raw Ratatouille: (ratatouille replacement, Italian food replacement)
Chop up 1 Avocado, 2 tomatoes, 1/4 cup of cilantro, 2 cloves garlic, and 1 squash. Dressing: 1 tablespoon tahini, 1 teaspoon honey, Celtic Sea Salt to taste. Mix.

Raw Tomato Sauce:
Blend up two cups tomatoes, 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, teaspoon honey, 1/8th cup olive oil, and 1/4 teaspoon Celtic Sea Salt. A tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar is optional. Season with oregano, basil, and rosemary.

Sunflower Herb Paté: (Liverwurst, turkey, tofu, bread replacement)
-two cups soaked sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds (soaked for 2 hours to overnight)
-half cup fresh basil leaves
-any other fresh or dried herbs (sage, savory, thyme, rosemary, tarragon...)
-clove of garlic (optional)
-teaspoon grated ginger (optional)
-Nama Shoyu (Raw Soy Sauce) (optional)
-1 tablespoon of tahini
-juice of a lemon
-pinch of Celtic Sea Salt
-pinch of cayenne
-1 tablespoon of vinegar
-flax oil and or olive oil (two tablespoons)

Grind down in Food Processor with S-blade. Wrap in lettuce leaves, seaweed or grape leaves with nasturtium flowers, or use as a dip for veggies. (Very nice with red pepper slices!)


Veggie Sushi Rolls (replacement to sushi, burritos):
-Nori seaweed
-1 Avocado
-2 Tomato
-1/4 cup Wakame seaweed
-1 clove Garlic
-2 green onions
-5 Brazil Nuts (chopped course)
-dash of Celtic Sea Salt
-2 tablespoons olive oil

Chop everything up small, mix with a mashed avocado and wrap in nori or lettuce such as Romaine or Red Leaf.


Salad Dressings (replacements to dressings, sauces, creams, dips, and cheeses):

vinegar/honey olive oil dressing
just mix the three in a cup for a delicious light dressing.

vinegar/honey/avocado dressing
mash in an avocado for a thicker dip or dressing. Stir into salad well.

tahini dressing
-raw organic sesame tahini (buy in a jar in a health food store).
-Juice four lemons or limes and mix in bowl with whole jar of tahini (Or about two and half cups of tahini, if you are buying your tahini in bulk).
-Chop up a couple cloves of garlic and mix in.
-Add Celtic Sea Salt to taste.
-Stuff mixture back into jar and what is left over into a bowl.
-Mix two tablespoons with a tablespoon of water and you have your salad dressing.
-Adjust water amount to desired thickness of dressing.

tahini dip
-same as dressing above but less water.

tahini "cheese"
Same as dressing but no water. Spread it on celery with a sprinkle of cayenne (optional).

vinegar/honey/tahini dressing
mix these three ingredients and you get something between a Caesar and a Thousand Island dressing.

Our Favorite Salad (Ends most cravings!):
Eat a salad a day for all the vitamins and iron (in the greens), calcium (in the greens and tahini), and protein (in the greens and sunflower seeds) you need. People who eat a cup of greens a day have significantly less chance of getting heart disease, eye failure with age, and a host of other afflictions. Green food actually heals you. The darker the green the more nutritious. Spinach is the very highest in iron and folic acid (essential for spinal development in the unborn fetus)

-fresh organic salad mix (or any lettuce except iceberg which has little nutritional value)
-alfalfa sprouts
-avocado
-tomato
-wakami seaweed
-sunflower seeds
-brewers yeast
-tahini dressing
-red onion -my Brazilian friend taught me to soak red onion in juice from a lemon for a half hour, which makes it very yummy.

Sprouted Humus:
2 cups Garbanzo Beans - soaked overnight
1/4 cup Olive Oil
3 cloves Garlic
1/2 teaspoon Celtic Sea salt
Blend in a KTek Blender or food processor with S-blade. Then add and blend in 1/2 cup of raw tahini

Wild Rice:
Soak wild black rice for two to three days rinsing twice a day. After the rice is soft enough to chew then use some of the salad dressings above for a wonderful rice dish. This dish totally satisfies rice cravings. You can also just slice avocado over a plate of soaked wild rice with olive oil and chopped green onions.

Marinade:
juice of 2 lemons
1/8th cup of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
1/8th cup of apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup mountain spring water
2 slices of red onion
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or pressed

You can marinate mushrooms, cucumbers, broccoli, celery, or almost anything by chopping or slicing it up and soaking it in this marinade for a few hours to overnight. Cucumber and Dill is a delicious one!

Raw Carob Treat: (chocolate replacement)
-2 tablespoons raw almond butter (available at many supermarkets)
-1 teaspoon flax oil
-2 teaspoons raw shredded coconut
-1 teaspoon raw carob powder
-sweeten with 1 teaspoon honey or 2 dates

Mix together to taste and enjoy!

Nut Candy: (Candy replacement):
Just as satisfying as a candy bar...Grind nuts. Add honey. Or just add honey and a sprinkle of Celtic Sea Salt to a cup of whole nuts. Chew well!

Almond Butter Candy: (Candy Bar, Chocolate replacement):
2 teaspoons Raw almond butter, 1/4 cup raw dried shredded coconut, a teaspoon of flax oil, a handful of raisins or 2 dates, a teaspoon of honey and a pinch of Celtic Sea Salt mixed together to taste and formed into little balls or bars.

Coconut Cream Pie:
Crust: Blend nuts in cuisinart or blender until they turn to powder. Add a pinch of Celtic Sea Salt and 1/8th cup of Olive Oil. Filling: Blend 4 bananas, meat of two young coconuts, 5 dates, 1/8th cup flax oil, cold packed honey to taste, cinnamon, nutmeg, and optionally add an avocado for a rich custard-like filling.

Apple Pie:
Same crust as Coconut Cream Pie above (basic pie crust). Filling: Blend 4 apples not peeled but cored, dates, flax oil, and Celtic Sea Salt


100% Simple-Gourmet Whole Raw Food Recipes (Also known as high-raw or Fruitarian)

The recipes below are more simple and eliminate honey, salt, nutbutters, and non-soaked nuts/seeds. Any of the above recipes can also be converted to high-raw by leaving out the honey or replacing with dates, replacing salt with a dash of celery juice or thin slices of celery, and by soaking the nuts/seeds for a few hours to make them "live". Some people do not do well with much oil, while others find it essential. For some, a high-raw diet will not include oil. It can be replaced with lemon juice or water in some recipes.

Simple Olive Oil dressing
Olive oil and lemon, with grated ginger (optional)

Simple Avocado dressings
Mashed avocado with a dash of celery juice
Mashed avocado with lemon juice
Mashed avocado with orange juice

Avo-Tomato Treat: (Replaces salty & fatty food cravings):
Chop up an avocado and a tomato in a bowl, with a little chopped cilantro and optional dressing of juice of a lemon wedge

Salsa:
Mix in blender:
one bunch cilantro
four tomatoes
5 green onions
pinch of Cayenne powder
3 tablespoons Olive Oil
1/2 teaspoon Celtic Sea Salt
Slice up jicama in thin slices to dip like potato chips!

Burrito:
Salsa and Avocado in Nori! This is a cool treat when you are traveling. Its nice and filling and tasty yet simple. You make salsa (see recipe above). Mash up an avocado and mix in salsa. Wrap in Nori or lettuce leaves. Think burrito! Yum.

Raw Soup (Basics of Soups):
Soup is once again a thing of a delicate blend of vegetable juices.
Basic Stock: Juice a meyers lemon, a clove of garlic, a cup of olive oil, and season to taste.
Cream Soup Stock: To make a cream soup blend in 1/8th of a cup of tahini with the basic stock.

Sprout Salad:
Mix a variety of sprouts in a big bowl, such as alfalfa, radish, broccoli, and sunflower sprouts. You can also add some finely (tiny pieces) chopped broccoli. Use the tahini dressing from above. Mix well.

Cucumber/Dill Salad:
Sliced cucumber and finely chopped dill in an olive oil and lemon juice dressing

Lemon Cream Pie:
Its funny how sometimes when you have very few ingredients around, you can come up with something awesome completely by accident. Once all I had in the house was flax oil, dried shredded coconut, lemon, honey, and a banana. So I mixed these things together for lack of anything else, and you know what - it turned out so yummy - just like a lemon tart! I used a tablespoon of honey, three tablespoons of dried shredded coconut, a quarter of a lemon juiced, a tablespoon of flax seed oil, one banana mashed, and one banana cut up in slices. Mixed it all together and ate with a spoon. We fought over it! If you are not into honey, replace with a few Medjool dates.

Sensuous Fruit Salad (Better than candy):
-1 avocado
-2 bananas
-1 mango
Chop, mix, and enjoy this texture blend from paradise!

Durian and Orange Juice Smoothie:
Use if you can't take the smell/taste of Durian alone. Our kids won't eat durian but we can blend it up with orange juice and they will guzzle it! Durian is an exotic fruit from Thailand, like a giant pinecone, with a sulphuric odor, - people love or hate it - or if willing to try it several times it does grow on you! You need to get a good ripe one or its not worth it! The meat should be creamy, not tough. To open a Durian: A Durian has pods, and in the whole Durian you can see indents between the pods. In the middle of each pod there is a seam to be seen between the spikes of the Durian's shell. With your thumbnails, open the seam carefully and scoop out the yellow custard! This fruit is available at Asian Markets. It has the ability to create a feeling of being extremely relaxed and happy if enough is eaten on an empty stomach. (Could this be the origin of the song, Mellow Yellow?).

Smoothies: (Better than ice-cream and milk-shakes):
Blend up any fruit or combination of fruit in your blender alone or with orange juice.

Watermelon Juice: (Purée, pudding, jello replacement):
Blend watermelon in your blender. A creamy smoothie!

Cantaloupe Milk: (perfect for milk cravings):
Just take half a cantaloupe, slice it up into chunks, put it in a blender, with 4-6 ice cubes and enough water to cover the cantaloupe. Then bend it on HIGH for about a minute. When it's whipped up, it has a sweet, creamy consistency, which is perfect for anybody who craves drinking milk.

Juices:
Get Dr. Walker's Fresh Fruit And Vegetable Juice Book. It is our bible!
(Available at http://www.thegardendiet.com/books). Get a good vegetable juicer.
Dr. Walker's book prescribes combinations of vegetables juices to treat almost any ailment. I've used it with great success. Dr. Walker, who lived to be 107 years old and healthy and active in mind and body, talks about enzymes and their importance.


Carrot Juice/ Carrot-Apple Juice:
Juice up carrots or carrots and apples .....yum! Juice up any combination of vegetables: celery, beet, and cucumber - for instance. Add lemon/lime, ginger, garlic, apples and/or tomatoes for taste!


Green Juice - The Blood Of The Planet (Replacement for coffee, drugs and alcohol) (think V-8! or Garden in a Glass!):
This juice will get you buzzed! I think of it as the blood of the planet, because its like juicing the Earth, its green-ness. It is also the highest form of energy you can intake. The sun gives its light to plants who make chlorophyll. This makes air. Plants live on sunlight. So if we eat plants we are eating sunlight once removed. That's like eating energy straight from the source. Its hard to eat tons and tons of greens, but you can juice and take in quite a bit. It is by far the most intoxicating liquid you'll even encounter. When you take vitamins, you're not really sure of the effect they are having on you. But green juice is undeniable. I feel an electrical charge going through my every cell for about 24 hours! It makes a pregnant mothers' baby kick inside just after you drink it. Green Juice increases your cellular health, rejuvenating every atom in your body, cleans out toxins, heals most illnesses, and makes you not want to put anything toxic into your body because you feel so vital and clean. It puts you in touch with your body so you can actually feel. Makes you more aware and appreciative of the sensuous world, brings you alive, increases your mental alertness and improves all bodily functions. I have heard of people from many many sources who have healed cancer, diabetes, arthritis and many other illnesses by doing green juice fasts. Try it. You might get hooked! Use any of the following ingredients:

-dark leafy greens (lettuce, chard, kale, spinach, parsley, cilantro)
-cucumber
-celery
-beets (just a little at first, as the acid may be difficult for some stomachs)
-carrots (if it is too hard to get green juice down without this sweetener, blend it into juice. We use pure carrot juice as a chaser sometimes)
-onion and/or garlic for flavor
-ginger for flavor
-lemon/lime for flavor


More Raw Recipes Online:
http://www.therawvegannetwork.com
http://www.rawganique.com/recipes.htm
http://www.rawfoods.com/recipes

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