Raw Food Recipes
Raw food recipes are great to have after doing the Master
Cleanse. These helped me a lot in going raw. They're my favorites.
Marlene Glickman
You can find many, many more raw food recipes
and discussions on our Raw
Food Lifestyle bulletin board.
Peter
Green Smoothies
For those with a Vita-Mix, put in the ingredients below and blend for 15 to 20 seconds.
Ingredients:
- 2 handfuls of spinach, mixed greens, kale or turnip greens
(Yes I know, you don't want to eat any of those. Me, too, but in a green smoothie with all the other stuff, you won't even taste them.)
- 1 banana
- 2 ripe mangoes without the skin or pit (or 2 peaches, a cup of blueberries, strawberries, pitted cherries, or an additional banana)
- 2 cups of refrigerated spring or distilled water
Fruit Smoothie
For those concerned about their protein in the morning or
wonder what to have instead of eggs to start their day, this
smoothie makes a wonderful start.
Ingredients: Soaked flax seeds, Banana,
Fresh or frozen fruit and water (dates and grated orange rind
optional)
- Place 1-2 heaping tablespoons of soaked Flax Seeds* in
your blender.
- Add 1-2 cups of water.
- Turn on high speed until the seeds turn thick and "goopy."
Add more water if needed.
- Add one peeled banana.
- Add frozen or fresh fruit. If you didn't add frozen fruit
and want it chilled, add ice cubes.
- If you want it sweeter, add 4 - 6 soaked dates without
the pits.
- If you want a nice orange tang, add a bit of grated orange
rind.
- Mix and match any fruits you like:
Strawberries and bananas;
Peaches, strawberries and bananas; or
Peaches, pineapples, bananas and coconut.
- Add raw (unroasted) carob powder to any smoothie.
* I keep a container of flax seeds soaking in the refrigerator
just like other people keep milk or eggs on hand. I also keep
a small dish of soaking dates in water to use as a sweetener.
Veggie Dip
This dip can be made thinner to use as a creamy salad dressing
or thickened with veggies for a pate to spread on carrots
or crackers or to roll up in lettuce leaves or nori seaweed
sheets. Take a pint container to work with you along with
your favorite veggies and/or lettuce or kale leaves.
Ingredients:
- Water (start with ¼ cup and add more to make it
easy to blend the nuts until smooth)
- Cold-pressed olive oil (start with 2-3 Tablespoons and
add more to desired creaminess)
- Sweet: raw cashews 7 ounces (or soaked and drained almonds,
pecans, etc.)
- Sour: lemon or lime juice
- Spicy: fresh-grated garlic (the longer the garlic is in
the mixture the stronger it gets), fresh-grated ginger root,
chilies, cayenne pepper, or some sliced jalapeno pepper
- Bitter: fresh cilantro (or your fresh or dried herb of
choice), or poultry seasoning
- Salty: Celtic Sea Salt, dulce (a dried, salty seaweed)
and soy sauce, tamari or shoyu (These are just three grades
of the same thing.)
Mixing:
- Blend the nuts until finely ground in the food processor
or blender.
- Add a bit of water slowly until a thick "goop"
forms.
- Add a few cloves of fresh garlic and slices of ginger
root.
- Add some olive oil, Nama Shoyu (aged soy sauce), Celtic
Sea Salt and blend.
- Taste. If too sweet, add some lemon or lime juice. If
too thick for the blender to handle, add more water.
- Then make adjustments for sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and
bitter using the above ingredients or substitutes. (I found
that the chilies, garlic, salt, soy sauce, lemon juice and
ginger were key for balancing the sweetness of the cashews
or nuts.)
- For extra spicy, add 1 whole chopped jalapeno pepper or
other chili pepper.
- Blend and at the end, add dried or fresh basil
or cilantro or your favorite herb. (If you blend too much
at the end, the green herbs will turn it an unappetizing
greenish beige.)
- Serve with raw veggies (carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower,
radishes, green beans, sliced sweet potatoes, tomatoes,
jicama—a Mexican root that is firm like a water chestnut—bell
peppers, cabbage, etc.) or with dehydrated flax crackers.
This can also be used as rich, creamy salad dressing. Just
add more water and salt, if needed. This dip gets thicker
when it sits in the refrigerator. You can always add more
water and stir before serving.
Optional ingredients (add to the blended mix or just
chop into the dip):
Grated horseradish, chopped spinach, chopped bell peppers
(any color), mashed avocado, chopped tomatoes, sliced or diced
green onions, or red onions.
Ideas:
Try emphasizing one herb for a dominant flavor (dill, basil,
tarragon, etc.).
You can add carrots if you're using a food processor and
make it into a paste and use it as a spread on crackers, rolled
up in nori seaweed sheets (used for sushi rolls) or on lettuce
leaves as a "green burrito."
Raw Ice Cream
If you have a sweet tooth or love ice cream especially late
at night or have kids that love ice cream, this is a fast
and easy recipe. My grandson loves to make it whether for
breakfast, lunch or dinner or for a quick snack.
Ingredients: Nuts, bananas, frozen fruit
- Place a handful of raw (not roasted) cashews or soaked,
then drained, raw almonds in the food processor.
- Blend until smooth. (You can leave the mixture slightly
grainy for more texture in the ice cream.)
- Add a bit of water (1-4 tablespoons) to make it into
a thick cream.
- Add chopped frozen fruit. (See below for ideas.)
- Add a banana, frozen or not, to make it thick, smooth
and sweet.
- Taste and adjust sweetness, frozenness and creaminess
by adding more of the above ingredients, dates, etc.
- Serve right away. If you want the ice cream firmer you
can place it in a container in the freezer until it is as
thick as you like. If there is any left over, store it in
the freezer in a covered container. Allow time to thaw when
you want to eat it again.
Mikey's Milkshake (Unbelievably good!!)
Makes 6 services
Soak 2 cups of fresh pecans (about 1/2 pound) for about
5 minutes, rinse them, soak them another 5 minutes and rinse
them again.
Then put into a Vita-Mix (or powerful blender):
- 8 pitted dates
- A level teaspoon of Celtic Sea Salt (or to taste)
- 2 - 3 teaspoons of honey (or to taste)
- 1 and 1/2 vanilla beans (optional)
- 5 - 12 macadamia nuts (make it creamier!!)
- Refrigerated cold water to total 60 oz.
Turn on low until the nuts are ground up. Then whip it on
high for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes.
What do I usually eat on my raw food diet?
Q. Peter, I am on day 14 on my cleanse
and plan to go 40 days. I have lost some weight and hope to
lose more before my 40 days are up. On the website, you say
you ate 100% raw and lost quite a bit of weight. 40 pounds
in 6 months or something like that. I was wondering if you
could give me an idea of what you ate on an average day when
you did that. I am planning on doing 100% raw at home and
then eat SAD occasionally, e.g. dinner with a friend. I think
that you can probably eat unlimited fruits and veggies as
they are so low in calories. I am planning on using nuts and
seeds as my protein. That is where I am concerned. I tend
to go a little overboard with those because I love them so
much. Did you limit those and how much did you do per meal?
Any ideas and a sample menu would really be appreciated!
A. First, I should say that my wife has
been a professional chef and went raw 6 months before me so
she made a number of delicious things for us to eat. Her cashew
dip (Veggie Dip recipe above) routinely gets raves. Breakfast
is usually a green smoothie (See Victoria Boutenko's Green
for Life book for recipes and its amazing
results). I liked to make salads with varied greens, kalamata
olives, pepperoncini, sunflower seeds, raisins, crushed tomato
(I like the flavor of a tomato crushed by hand better than
sliced.), olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt, carrots and celery.
I do the olive oil, sea salt and lemon juice to taste. It's
important to alternate various kinds of greens as eating exclusively
one kind, such as spinach or romaine, can create mineral imbalances
or even kidney stones.
The thing you need to know about preparing raw food as opposed
to cooked food is that cooked food or prepared foods always
taste the same. Pasta always tastes like pasta. Not true of
fresh tomatoes or pepperoncini. Sometimes more flavor, sometimes
less. So measuring is out. Tasting is in.
Always try to ensure you have all five flavors in dishes:
sweet, sour, salty, spicy and bitter (usually herbs). They
don't have to be intense, but just a little of each really
enlivens the taste.
The next thing to know is that when you transition to raw
vegan from cooked food, you generally want complex prepared
dishes, like the veggie dip or maybe the veggie dip done so
that it has a thicker consistency and with tomatoes or avocados
and rolled up in nori seaweed (like that used for sushi).
Put some Nama Shoyu (organic aged soy sauce) on it!!
After a month or two, I just wanted an apple with soaked almonds
that had been re-soaked in Nama Shoyu to make them salty;
or raisins and soaked almonds with some kalamata olives and
pepperoncini; or a glass of fresh carrot-apple juice. Or apple-fennel
juice—unbelievable!
Evening or 4 pm snacks were sometimes figs or dates with soaked
almonds. Every once in a while, sliced apples with raw almond
butter and sea salt. Wow! (Don't depend on almonds as a daily
food as they are very high in calcium and can throw off your
mineral balance.)
About using nuts and seeds for protein: greens such as spinach
have a great deal of protein by weight as well as being great
sources of calcium and magnesium. You should try to include
dark greens each day. Your protein requirements are much less
when you are getting vegetable protein. Also, the best nuts
are almonds and they should be soaked for 12 to 24 hours before
eating. Most nuts have enzyme inhibitors that prevent them
sprouting unless they are soaked for a long time. These same
enzyme inhibitors will inhibit your complete digestion if
you don't soak them off. You'll see the tannic acid in the
brown water that you pour off. Seed typically don't require
soaking.
You want to be sure you eat greens for the reasons above,
oils (avocado, olives or olive oil, coconut oil, etc.), and
sweets (dates, raisins, sweet fruits). The sweets are required
for complete digestion of the oils!
There you go.
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