Raw Day Nine

I'm so excited I could SPEW!!

I bought an Excalibur Food Dehydrator today!! 

I've been hmmmmming and haaawing for a few weeks now, not sure if I'd use it enough to make it worth spending the money.  I mean, I'm pretty new to this level of raw foods (aka more than just salad and carrot sticks), so did I really know if it was for me?  But then I realized that the amount of time and effort I've put into trying to use my super-old not very good dehydrator, and how enthusiastic I am about incorporating more raw foods into my diet after this month is done, and how many GREAT recipes are out there for raw dishes you wouldn't even think of...  And I decided to do it.

There are so many things which aren't really great for us, or in fact may even be bad, that can be made raw and so much more healthily.  For instance, crackers, pies, cakes, cookies, pizza, tortillas...  It's kind of crazy actually!

I also realized today that my making my own raw almond milk, instead of buying it, is actually SAVING ME MONEY!  The price for one tetra pack, just short of a litre, is now $3.29.  Plus the waste of the tetra pack itself.  The price of about a cup of almonds?  About $2.  Enough said!

I can't wait for my Excalibur to get here!  It's going to be a really long however many days it takes to get here!!

Raw Day Eight

Lawdy I'm glad I'm not cooking today!  It's a scorcher!  It's almost 6pm, and 30C-40C (that's 104F) with the humidex.  Turn on the oven?  Um, let me think...

I had a smoothie today with the fresh raw almond milk I made last night.   I still can't get over how different it tastes from the normal stuff I buy at the store.  It's 10x tastier, and it saves the waste from the tetra pack.  I'm definitely a convert!

Currently I have kale chips in the dehydrator (kale, cleaned and ripped into smallish pieces, spritz of olive oil, some sea salt and nutritional yeast sprinkled on top--they can also be made in the oven, on a cookie sheet, on the lowest possible setting for around an hour), and the newst recipe in Amacuba's test kitchen--Raw Tortillas!  From The Complete Book of Raw Food:

Makes 16 tortillas

2 large carrots, chopped
2 zucchini, chopped
2 avocados, pitted
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp each onion and garlic powder
Dash cayenne (I used Mexican chili powder--no cayenne)
2 cups flax meal

Blend the carrots and zucchini with one cup water until smooth.

Add the avocado, sea salt, lemon juice, onion powder, garlic powder, and cayenne and blend until smooth.  Pour into a mixing bowl  Add the flax meal, and mix by hand.

Divide the batter into 4 sections, and spread each section on a 16x 16 inch Excalibur dehydrator tray lined with a Teflex sheet. (I don't have one of those dehydrators, so I just spread it out on the trays I have).  Score each tray into 4 tortillas, and dehydrate at 105F for 1-2 hours. 

Flip the tortillas and remove the Teflex sheets.  Continue to dehydrate until the tortillas are still moist but seem dry enough to store.  Store in a Ziploc bag at room temp for about a week, or in the fridge for months.

On this first day of the second week of "Mostly Raw for June", I can tell that I'm already more knowledgable about what to make (thanks to what is quickly becoming my favourite book!), and more comfortable with the idea of eating raw.  I've always had trouble with getting in my fruits and veggies--in fact, many days used to go by between any produce passing my lips.  I'm really trying to change that, and I think this month will help a lot with it.  When much of what I eat raw is produce, it's easy to get it in!

I'm really enjoying this so far.  A few months ago I would never have even considered doing this, and here I am all enthusiastic!  I'm also enjoying the fact that there are a LOT less dishes!