Raw Day Ten and Eleven

Yesterday I was being all impatient, wanting my new dehydrator, and I got an email that it is on it's way!  It's coming from the US, but I think it will be here sometime this coming week!  Whoo hoo!  You have no idea how I'm looking forward to it!  I've even planned a few meals for this week that require a dehydrator.  Why not, right?  That way I can jump right in.  I knew that some of the ingredients I'd be using would be better and cheaper to get from the health food store I frequent, so I wanted to plan to make that trip (I usually go on Saturdays, when I go to the market). 

Today I had a hankering for a grated salad.  Yes, it's a weird craving, at least for me--but I thought I'd go with the flow, since I'm trying to get into the habit of eating more veggies.  It's difficult for me, so if I have a craving, I'm going to go for it.

I whipped out  my food processor, and made the following:

For the salad:

Daikon radish
Carrot
Cucumber
Celery
Apple
Walnuts
Flaked coconut

For the dressing:

Cold pressed olive oil
Lemon juice
Honey
Sea salt

It was super good!  So good in fact, that I ate it all.  It was a LOT, like this huge mound of tasty loveliness, and I ate every last morsel.  I even picked the bitty pieces off of the plate!  This is HUGE for me!

I'm finding that I have a bit of a psychological block when it comes to eating raw.  At the moment, all the foods I've eaten which have been raw, are produce and nuts.  So in my mind, eating raw is all just produce and nuts, and in the forms I've made.  Which isn't true--have you looked around the 'net for raw recipes?  Wholly craparoni, it's a whole new world!  Which is why, really, that I wanted the dehydrator--I want to make all the other stuff, like "burgers" and pies and cakes and crackers and cookies and and and!!

Fortunately I'm not at all timid with trying new foods or new techniques.  I figure that though I'll never go 100% raw, partly because of where I live, I can certainly incorporate a lot more raw goodness in my life.  I've known for a long time that we should all eat about 50% raw for optimal health, but how to do it when all I could think of is salad and carrot sticks?  What horror to have to eat that every single day!  And what RAW JOY to find out that so many things can be made with produce, which aren't salads and sticks!   

I hope that when I start dehydrating it will help me with the mental block.  It will be easier to increase my raw foods hopefully, once there is more variety, and everything doesn't taste raw in the traditional sense.  Different textures, tastes, and experiences!  Can't wait!