Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 12

Raw Diet Day 12:

I was able to put in another five hours of heavy yard work and got the backyard ship shape. Tomorrow I will be planting flowers and starting vegetables.
For breakfast I had a cocoa banana shake.

For lunch I had a pina colada shake. Then had another one at snack time after I had finished the yard work.

For dinner I had 1/2 of a cup of cashews, 1/2 cup of grape tomatoes, 1 cup of watermelon chunks, and 1 cup of large olives.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 11

Raw Diet Day 11:

I spent the day, a full five hours, doing yard work and got a tremendous amount of work accomplished.

For breakfast I had a banana shake.

For lunch I had a cocoa, cashew butter and banana shake and two of the tamales from yesterday.

For dinner I had a banana, a large avocado with sea salt and 4 tangerines.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 10, Evening Update

Raw Diet Day 10:

For lunch I wanted another banana shake. Since I was out of almond milk I made a quick milk of 2 Tablespoons Cashew Butter to 2 cups of water. I then added 1 banana, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 1 Tablespoon raw honey and 1 Tablespoon lecithin. It made 4 cups.

For the tamales I processed 5 cups defrosted corn kernels with 1/2 cup pinenuts, 1 1/2 cups cashews, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne, 1 teaspoon sea salt and 1 handful of cilantro. I mixed that with the dehydrated mushrooms I had started earlier in the day and the oil from the mushroom dehydrating tray and one more cup of defrosted corn kernels. I filled each corn husk with up to 1/2 of a cup of the tamale mixture, folded the bottom of the corn husk and folded over the sides and then tied it with a doubled 1/4 inch by 4 inch strip of  corn husk and set it to dehydrate at 105 for two hours. I had to put an empty tray above the tamales because some were a little fatter than fit properly in the tray. It made 8 tamales.

Next time I think I will make it into patties or something like that so that I don't have to go to the trouble of wrapping them in the corn husks. It was a nice presentation but in the end it didn't make it any better and did make it harder to eat because it doesn't form a solid dough like tamales normally do. The flavor was outstanding though, so I will make this again, and fairly often.

About 5 hours into dehydrating the spicy crackers I turned them over and scored the still damp side into rectangles of about 1 inch by 1 1/4 inch. I tasted one piece that seemed close to thoroughly dried and while it tasted good it seemed like it needed more salt so I lightly sprinkled salt over all of them before returning them to dehydrate for another two hours. I then broke them apart into crackers and placed them on the trays that are perforated and let them dehydrate another two hours. Spicy and delicious, crisp all the way through.

At the same time that I scored the crackers I set the corn husks into a casserole pan, filled it half way up with hot tap water and set a light weight on them to keep them submerged. I also tasted the mushrooms to see how they were coming along--yummy is how.

For the mole sauce I used the Raw Food/ Real World recipe on page 198. I made several modifications in order to use ingredients I had on hand. (my daughter thinks it needs more chocolate, if you thinks so also you could add extra tablespoons of cocoa)

I soaked 3 dried chiles, one of which was ancho, the other two were chiles from my garden last year that I had dried, although I don't know what kind they are, 3/4 cup raw sunflower seeds, 3/4 cup raisins and 1/2 teaspoon cumin in enough water to cover for two hours. I then processed all of it, including the water until it was a fine slurry. To that I added 4 Tablespoons cocoa powder, 1/8 cup pecan butter and 1/8 cup cashew butter, 2 Tablespoons hemp seed oil and 1 teaspoon sea salt. I had to process it on high for about five minutes. I don't know how your food processor will fare but mine splattered the mole sauce out the sides until I covered the lid with a towel and held that in place. This mole sauce was another winner from the Raw Food/ Real World cookbook, creamy and delicious!

I served the tamales with jicama, red bell pepper and celery sticks.

So far every recipe I have made from Raw Food/Real World has turned out excellently. The dishes are very, very tasty and well balanced even with the modifications. I will continue to use this book for awhile.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 10

Raw Diet Day 10:

Late last night I was craving some milk so I made almond milk. I blended 1 cup raw almonds with 4 cups water until all of the almond was in tiny little bits. I added 2 Tablespoons raw honey and a scant teaspoon vanilla extract. I then strained it three times. It was quite tasty and curbed my craving. It made 4 cups and I drank 2. It also left me with several cups of almond meal that I dehydrated for a few hours at 105. The resulting meal measured 2 cups. I used those two cups of meal to make Spicy Flax and Herb Crackers from Raw Food/Real World, on pg. 300. Because I didn't have the same ingredients on hand I used:

2 cups almond meal
1 Tablespoon Muir Glen Organic Tomato Paste
1 Red Bell Pepper
1/2 Yellow Bell Pepper
1/2 Orange Bell Pepper
1/2 Serrano Chili
2 cups Brown Flaxseed, ground
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup lime juice
1 Tablespoon Cumin powder
1 scant teaspoon ground Red Pepper
1 Tablespoon Sea Salt (plus half a teaspoon upon tasting)
1 handful of fresh Basil

I mixed the almond meal, flax, dried herbs and salt in a large mixing bowl. I processed the rest of the ingredients in the food processor until broken down into tiny bits. I then mixed them together. I lightly oiled a fruit roll sheet with Eden Olive Oil and spread the mixture to about 1/4 inch thick on two sheets. They are dehydrating at 105. After 6 hours I will flip them out onto a board, break or cut them into cracker sized pieces and then dry them another 6 hours or so. The most challenging part of the recipe was evenly spreading the dough onto the sheet because it took awhile to get it done. Probably if I used teflex sheets in a square shaped dehydrator it would be easier. I'll let you know how they come out.

I also made the mushroom filling for the tamales we'll be having tonight. This recipe is also found in the Raw Food/Real World book, page 197. The filling was super simple, but again I didn't have the same ingredients. I used the following:

2 cups White Mushrooms, stems removed, cut into small sticks
1/2 cup Hempseed Oil
1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
2 1/2 Tablespoons dried whole Oregano
1 teaspoon Sea Salt

Mixed it all together and am dehydrating it for 12 hours. The initial taste was great so I imagine after it is all done it will be excellent.

I am not particularly hungry today but for breakfast I had a Banana Milk Shake.
Using the almond milk for last night I blended 2 cups almond milk and1 banana until frothy. Very yummy!

I will post again tonight to let you know how the tamales and chips turn out.

Frugal Feeds | First Stab at Taco's

The taco's were quite tasty despite the lousy tortilla's. Here's what I did:

Taco Filling

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

2 Tablespoons Tomato Paste (not raw)

1 Tablespoon Golden Miso

2 teaspoons Ground Cumin

2 teaspoons Crushed Dried Chipolte

2 teaspoons Ground Coriander

1 teaspoon Red Pepper

2 Tablespoons Hemp Oil

2 Tablespoons Bragg's Aminos

Mixed all together until evenly incorporated. Dehydrated at 105 for 4 hours.

Taco's were filled with the nut mixture, 1/4 sliced avocado, thinly sliced sweet onion, thinly sliced sweet red bell pepper, squeeze of lime, shredded lettuce and cilantro leaves. Serves 4, two taco's each.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 9

Raw Diet Day 9:


For breakfast I wasn't very hungry so just had an orange.

For lunch I was pretty hungry so had a smoothie made up of a cup of blueberries, a cup of pineapple, 1/2 of a bosc pear and a half inch of ginger. Along with that I was craving Indonesia-style noodles so I mixed together 2 Tablespoons raw pecan butter, about a 1/4 teaspoon fresh green chili, juice from 1/16th of a lime, 1/4 cup shredded coconut and Braggs Amino Acids, to taste, maybe 1/2 a teaspoon? I rinsed kelp noodles under hot water, drained them and then tossed with the pecan sauce. Pretty good. Met my craving for the Indo-sauce even without peanuts. I really enjoyed the kelp noodles. They had the right mouth feel and they had a crispness to them that was refreshing. I will use those again. At my local store it was just over $2 for the 2.5 ounce serving, so alot higher than regular ramen noodles but they were filling, healthy, raw and thoroughly enjoyable and they didn't leave a heavy feeling in my stomach afterward.

Tonight we are going to have tacos. I have seen many recipes that call for raw corn and ground flaxseed in a 10 part corn, 1 part flax ratio for making raw corn tortillas. I used one of those recipes, pureed the corn with the flax and placed it on teflex trays at 105 for 6 hours and then flipped them for another two hours. Lousy! They are probably going to work for tonights dinner but the taste and texture are poor at best and they stick terribly to your teeth! Think of lumpy fruit roll ups--extra dried out-- and you'd have an idea of the texture. Fruit roll ups would make better tortillas than these. Anyway, I'll be trying a different recipe next time. So far I haven't had much luck with other people's recipes. When I wing it the food generally turns out pretty good, but when I use recipes from the many books I have checked out on this diet they are either very complicated with hard to find exotic ingredients or they just don't work very well, with just a few exceptions.

I do like the book I got today though, Raw Food real world by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngallis. It seems to have the best recipes I have seen yet. Unfortunately for tonights tacos I didn't get this until today so I can't use their tortilla recipe this time around. I will be using their taco filling recipe except that I will use walnuts instead of sunflower seeds. And I am going to try their Tart Sour Cream made up of macadamia nuts and cashews (pg. 303), so we'll see how it all turns out. If I find their recipes to my liking I see that they have a few more cookbooks that came after this one that I can try too.

I still haven't figured out what is up with my camera so I will probably not be taking pictures today. I may try using my cell phone in the interim. The picture quality won't be great but it won't be blurry.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 8

Raw Diet Day 8:

Although not very hungry this morning I had 2 Banana Nut Bread Inspired Cups and a glass of water for breakfast. They turned out to taste very much like traditional Banana Nut Bread with some texture difference, particularly in the center. The outsides tasted exactly like the traditional version. I think that if I had flattened out the scoops to make them into disks they would be a match for traditional Banana Nut Bread, so I will try doing that next time. As they are the centers are a bit doughy.

For lunch I blended together tomatoes, celery, spinach, garlic, sea salt and fresh ground pepper and then warmed it to 100 degrees. It tasted similar to V-8 juice so I added an avocado for creaminess. Pretty yummy!

For dinner we will be having the nut loaf with ketchup and a side salad.

Today makes the beginning of the second week on the raw diet. So far it feels really good and I have lost two pounds.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 7

Raw Diet Day 7:

For dinner last night I wasn't much hungry and I wanted something salty so I soaked some seaweed for an hour, drained it and tossed it with some Bragg's Amino Acids, making about a cup of simple seaweed salad. The seaweed I used was supposed to be kombu, which I often use, but I don't think it could have been. The brand I normally buy was sold out at the store so I picked it up in the bulk bin at the Co-op. I think they had mislabeled it though. I have had kombu salad dozens of times and it has never been slimy at all, but this was revoltingly slimy. I ended up re-rinsing it 4 times just so that it was edible, but it wasn't tasty at all. I'll stick to the brand name sea weed from here on out.

Aside from that I also had two of the throw together cookies two hours apart so that I could see how they were progressing in their dehydrating. They ended up tasting tangy like tart green apples so with the cinnamon and coconut they are reminiscent of baked apples yet slightly chewy like macaroons. Not bad. I think next time I will try figs or dates though. It is good, just not great.

Today marks the first day of my spouse joining me on the raw diet. He is committed to two weeks of the trial. His first day he wants to do a water fast.
For breakfast I had 5 throw together cookies, 1 small banana and 1/2 cup of banana chips with a glass of water.

For lunch I had 1/2 cup of raw almonds and 5 throw together cookies.

I made Banana Bread Inspired Breakfast Cups since I know my spouse likes banana bread. They take awhile to dehydrate so we'll have them for breakfast tomorrow.

(again...sorry about the image quality, still can't figure out what is wrong w/ the camera)

Banana Bread Inspired Breakfast Cups


3 ripe Bananas
1/4 c. Water
1/2 c. Raw Cashew Butter
1/4 c. Raw Honey
1/2 teaspoon ground Cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons ground Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Allspice
1 cup Coconut Flour
1 cup Pecans, chopped
Coconut Oil

Process the bananas, cashew butter, honey and spices until a smooth batter is formed. Mix in the coconut flour. Fold in the pecans. Lightly grease 10 cups of a muffin pan with the coconut oil. Using a 1/3 cup scoop (disher) place one scoop of banana batter in each cup. Dehydrate overnight. Serves 10.


I also made a Meatloaf Inspired Nut Loaf:

1/2 of a Bell Pepper
1 large stalk Celery
1/2 of a Sweet Onion
 1 clove Garlic
About 1 Tablespoon Rosemary
6 Basil leaves
1/2 cup Parsley
About 2 cups White Mushrooms
1/4 cup Bragg's Amino Acids
Scant 1 teaspoon Sea Salt
Several grindings of Black Pepper

1 heaping cup Raw Walnuts, soaked for 2 hours
1 heaping cup Raw Almonds, soaked for 2 hours
1 heaping cup Raw Sunflower Seeds, soaked for 2 hours

Puree vegetables, herbs and spices. Set aside. Process the nuts starting with the walnuts, until coarsely chopped, then add the almonds and process until coarsely chopped, then add the sunflower seeds and process until the nut mixture has become a coarse paste. Add to the pureed vegetables and mix until fully incorporated. It will be a thick mix but not stiff. I put mine into a parchment paper lined pyrex casserole, with the parchment draping up the sides, and spread the mixture out to the sides. Dehydrate at 100 degrees for 16 hours. Every 4 hours or so place a new piece of parchment paper on top and carefully flip the nutloaf over and place back in the casserole dish. Remove the old parchment paper by peeling off carefully. Top with Raw Barbeque Sauce or Ketchup. Serves 8.

I tasted the banana bread mixture and nut loaf mixture frequently and probably had 1/3 cup of the banana bread mixture and about 1/3 cup of the nut loaf mixture. I'll be having a light salad for dinner tonight and a serving of the Raw Cacao Mousse.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 6

Raw Diet Day 6:

For breakfast I had 1/2 of a pineapple, two small bananas and four macadamia nuts.

For lunch I had one of my favorite salads, I think of it as a Mexico Inspired Salad. I eat variations of it often. Basically it is 3-4 cups of mixed lettuces with bell peppers, tomatoes and avocado. Today it also had jicama. I usually squeeze some citrus on it and today it was 1/2 of a lime. Top it all off with some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. I enjoy it very much.

By the way, please excuse the blurriness of my photos so far. I need to get my camera checked out. Even on a tripod and all settings at automatic the pictures are coming out blurry. I don't think it is too terrible yet and will get it fixed as soon as I can.

I knocked together a "cookie" mixture as an experiment. I'm going to call it Throw Together Cookies. It is made of dried dessicated coconut, cashews and dried currants in equal amounts (about 1/2 cup each) 3 Tablespoons raw honey, 1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon and a half teaspoon of vanilla extract. I soaked the coconut, cashews and currants in just a little bit more water than needed to cover, for 4 hours. Then I processed it until fairly smooth, starting off in pulse mode until the currants started to break down and then on high for a minute or so. Using a Tablespoon scoop (disher) I scooped up 20 little cookies onto parchment paper and set it out in the sun to harden and dry. Since this is just an experiment I have no idea if this is going to be any good, but I'll let you know as soon as they are done, sometime tomorrow. The un-dried, un-hardened dough was mighty tasty--I ate about a tablespoon of that.

Also made a cacao pudding. It didn't turn out as smooth as I'd have liked, more dense like a mousse. Could whip it to add more air but it was good the way it was so I didn't want to fuss with it anymore. So, I'll call it Cacao Mousse.

 ( if I set the camera to auto exposure it is crisp but dark on manual exposure it is bright but blurry. Hmph!)

Meat from one Young Coconut
2 Tablespoons Raw Cashew Butter
1/4 cup Pureed Raw Cacao
2 Tablespoons Raw Honey
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/4 cup Fresh Coconut Milk from the Young Coconut

Place all in a food processor and pulse until broken up. Then process on high speed for two minutes, scraping down the sides from time-to-time until well mixed and pretty smooth. You could process it longer but pause for a few minutes to let the motor cool. Chill for 30 minutes and serve. Makes about 4 servings of 3 Tablespoons each. Very rich, you won't want more than 3 Tablespoons.

For snack I had 1 Tablespoon of the cookie dough while I was making it and later had 3 Tablespoons of the Cacao Mousse.

For dinner I'll have to report tomorrow since I have something to go to tonight and won't be back until late.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 5

Raw Diet Day 5:

Late last night, around 9:30, I started craving something sweet so I had a 1/2 cup of dried persimmons, 2 dried figs and 1 glass of Good Earth caffeine free Sweet and Spicy refrigerator tea. It satisfied my sweet tooth and didn't crave anything sweet for the rest of the night.

For breakfast I wasn't hungry again but ate a banana anyway.
For lunch I was pretty hungry and wanting something a little more substantial than I'd wanted so far. I decided to have some nuts and to use leftovers from last night. I grated 1/4 of a sweet potato, 1/4 of jicama, 1 rose apple and julienned five large basil leaves, 10 mint leaves and 10 cilantro leaves and tossed it with a cup of mung bean sprouts and the remaining dipping sauce from last nights dinner.  It made about 6 cups of Thai Slaw, of which I had one cup. It was very tasty! With that I also had two cinnamon Un-Cookies, (they don't have that flavor listed on their website tho) that I picked up at the Co-Op. They are made of raw cashew, coconut meat, agave syrup, maple sugar, vanilla extract and cinnamon. A little later I had 1/2 cup of raw cashews, 3 raw almonds and 1/4 cup of banana chips and a glass of water.

I had this for dinner as well minus the banana chips and almonds.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 4

Raw Diet Day 4:

My appetite has returned and although I haven't eaten tons of food I haven't felt unusually hungry. After eating I didn't feel hungry for about five hours each time.

For breakfast I made some juice. It was really tasty but a tad too sweet. Next time I think I would use a green apple in place of one of the pears or add 3 or 4 leafy vegetable greens like kale or collards to cut the sweetness down.

Juiced 4 Medium Carrots with tops
2 Large Bosc Pears
1 inch Ginger

Made about 20 ounces.

For lunch I was pretty busy and not very hungry so I had a very light lunch.

About 1 cup of green grapes
1 avocado with sea salt
2 cups refrigerator tea steeped with stevia

For dinner I wanted to use up some mint and cilantro I had in the fridge and also use the butter lettuce from yesterday. Spring rolls came to mind so I julienned some jicama, cucumber and peeled sweet potato. I laid them on top of whole butter lettuce leaves, laid on some julienned mint leaves, julienned basil and whole cilantro leaves next. I topped those with snow peas and mung bean sprouts. I rolled them more like a taco than a spring roll and put about a tablespoon of dipping sauce on each. They were excellent but a little too drippy, so have a plate underneath and a napkin close by. :D

For the dipping sauce I whisked together a scant 1/4 cup Braggs Amino Acids, a Tablespoon of ginger, minced, half of a serrano chili pepper, minced, one medium clove of garlic, minced, juice of one lime and about two Tablespoon of raw honey. Using butter leaf lettuce it takes about four rolls to make a meal. Using a larger leaf type three rolls would probably do it. With collard greens it might just be two.                                                                                                                                           

I found that the butter lettuce tore fairly easily when I bit into the crunchy vegetables so for the next one I made I tried purple kale. It held together very well but wasn't as delicious as the butter lettuce. Next time I think I will use either collard greens or romaine.

Spring rolls are very flexible with ingredients. You want some crunchy vegetables that are julienned and some juicy vegetables. The amount you fill it with is really dependent on the wrapper you are using. Butter lettuce leaves are much smaller than collard greens so the amounts would vary.

Wrappers could be butter lettuce, chard, chinese cabbage, collard greens, red lettuce or romaine. I think if you used the smaller butter lettuce leaves it would work better.

Traditionally Vietnamese spring rolls include mint, basil and cilantro but you could use just one of those or use entirely different herbs. I think a small amount of lemon balm julienned would be nice, as would nasturtium leaves. You could use celery leaves, chives, dill, fenugreek greens, garlic chives, parsley, peppermint, a small amount of summer savory or winter mint.

For the sauce you want something salty, something sweet, something sour and something spicy plus a little garlic and ginger. If you need more liquid you could juice a cucumber and add the cucumber juice to the sauce. If you do, omit the cucumber from the ingredients in the spring roll.

Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 3

Raw Diet Day 3:

Today I weighed in at 154, a two pound loss. Not at all surprising since I haven't eaten much in the last few days. The morning started with nearly absent appetite but as the day went on I did eventually start feeling hungry.

For breakfast I had one banana.

For lunch I had two cups mixed lettuces with about 1/4 cup each of raw corn and green peas, and a bit of raw sauerkraut. A little bit afterward I had a glass of refrigerator yerba mate tea steeped with dried stevia leaves.

Around 4:00 I actually started getting hungry for the first time in many days. I had a mousse of raw cacao, coconut milk, coconut butter and soaked ground dates whipped until smooth--about a cups worth all told. That was yummy to be sure!

For dinner I had gado-gado again with a few different vegetables than yesterday. Tonight's gado-gado was composed of carrots, celery, red bell pepper, snow peas, purple cabbage, mung bean sprouts, cucumber, jicama, broccoli and cherry tomatoes on a bed of butter lettuce. It was enough for two large servings. The sauce from yesterday had lost some flavor so added fresh chili peppers, pureed. About a 1/2 teaspoon of that. It could of used more flavor still but it was good enough.

By this evening I do not feel any lingering of the head cold and my earache is non-existent although I do have constant ringing in my ear. That isn't a new thing for me, just hasn't been there for awhile. My left hand still doesn't hurt much and I still have energy even after a busy day. I am ready to do nothing for awhile so plan on watching a movie tonight. Everything else is pretty much the same.

Overall I would call today a very good day.

Frugal Feeds | Fresh Gado Gado

Tonight for dinner I was wanting some nuts with my salad and thought about making a dressing using some raw nut butter. When I lived in Indonesia I often turned to gado-gado as comfort food so decided to make a raw version of it out of the ingredients I had on hand. Gado-gado salad dressing is slightly thick and much more dressing is served on the salad than you would normally put on your dinner salad. Think of it a bit like a medium-thick gravy. This version doesn't resemble traditional gado-gado as much as it could, but I wasn't looking to duplicate that flavor so much as be inspired by it. If I wanted to capture a similar flavor of the traditional version I would use raw peanut butter instead of pecan, lime instead of lemon, coconut milk instead of water, 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or more to taste) and 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar. But the following version is what I made tonight and I found it to be very good.

Fresh Gado-Gado Dressing

1/4 large Cucumber, cubed
3 Tablespoons Sweet Onion
1/4 Lemon, skin and flesh
1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/4 cup Raw Pecan Butter, unsalted
1/2 cup Water
2 pinches Sea Salt

Fresh Gado-Gado Salad

Cabbage, in bite sized chunks
1/2 Avocado, diced
Red, Yellow and Orange Bell Pepper slices
Sugar Snap Peas
Cucumber, sliced
Spinach
Mung Bean Sprouts

Place all of the dressing ingredients into a blender. Pulse until it is well chopped up and then turn up to the high setting and let it run for a minute or so. Taste and see if it needs a little more salt. Turn off and set aside.

Prepare the vegetables. Arrange on a plate in individual piles, like so, and top with the mung bean sprouts. Serve the dressing on the side. Serves two.

I think you could make this with any unsweetened nut butter and find it to be very tasty.