Recently I made a yummy bowl of goodness that I just have to share.  This literally kept me satisfied for 6 hours before I started feeling hungry again.  Is that a good thing?  You would think that eating raw requires you to eat more often throughout the day.  Who knows, maybe I ate too big of a portion.  I need to work on that.

If you have been reading my posts about raw kale, you know that I have discovered the simple dressing consisting of fresh lemon juice and olive oil and sea salt.  The rubbing technique for kale requires those 3 things to break it down well.  And so of course it just follows that once I toss in some other vegetables, that is the dressing for the whole thing.

(Well it didn’t follow at first…. a couple of weeks ago when I first started eating that dish, I would add in my usual Marie’s dressing (the best non-junkie dressing I can find without breaking my wallet) once I had the kale all rubbed down and the other ingredients added.  After a few days of that, I realized I actually love the fresh taste of the lemon juice and olive oil, and have more recently been foregoing the addition of other non-raw dressing.)

So I decided to try that same dressing with something a little different than the kale/lettuce salad.  Broccoli!  I went searching through my fridge and realized how low I was on groceries, but I pulled out everything raw I could find to make this dish.  Here is what I came up with:

Chopped Broccoli Salad

(I don’t know what to call these recipes… they all seem to conjure up the word “salad”.  Is every raw dish considered a salad?  I will have to come up with some better names)

Laura’s Bowl of Broccoli and Radishes
 (okay, that name is silly but I will solve this naming problem another time)

A couple of big handfuls of broccoli florets
4-6 radishes
1/2 onion
handful of raw cashews

1/2 lemon, juiced
1-2 T olive oil
sea salt/pepper

Writing raw recipes is so simple because there are not a lot of steps.  Just mix everything together and voila!  One thing to note is that I chopped everything small using a small hand chopper.

Another thing to note is that I don’t use exact measurements.  Another beauty of raw food, just use the amount you want to eat!

This dish was so yummy that I can’t wait to make it again.  I do need to come up with a name though that doesn’t have the word “salad” in it! 

Here is another version with chopped yellow bell peppers instead of the radishes, and sunflower seeds instead of cashews. You can see that I often just whip up a meal with ingredients on hand. It’s so fun!

Chopped Broccoli Salad

You knew it was coming!  Any talk of being a raw foodist and you know juicing has to fit in there somewhere.  I hear about it on all the podcasts and see it mentioned on all the websites.

Yesterday I dusted the cobwebs off my old juicer.  Literally.  It had long gotten shoved into the back of the cabinet, left over from the days of preparing fresh juices for my small toddlers.  Which makes this machine over a decade old.

I don’t know a lot about juicers.  I have recently come across some terms that I can’t remember offhand.. masticating and some such.  This is to learn another day.  For now I wanted to see if this old machine still works, and if so, if I could utilize it in my quest to be more raw.

As a side note, I am prone to ponder why juice at all?  Why not just eat the vegetable?  Aren’t we supposed to be getting the indigestible fiber along with the digestible fiber?  More questions for another day.  For now I am eager to juice some vegetables because all the raw foodists seem to do it.  A lot.

The machine took some cleaning, but then I was ready.  My first concoction was 1 stalk of celery, 1 cucumber, and 1 apple.  Okay, I didn’t love it but I didn’t detest it either.  I drank it and felt good.  About an hour later I felt hungry, so sliced up some cucumber and just ate it plain.  All of this gave me so much energy!  I was bouncing off the walls and feeling fine!  What a shame that it was late at night.  I’d better save my energy foods for earlier in the day!

Today I attempted my 2nd concoction, this time being more daring.  Here is what went into my juicer today:

1/2 lemon, peeled
1 apple
2 stalks celery
1 hunk of ginger

Here is where I got confused.  Am I making a smoothie or a glass of juice?  What are the advantages to juicing as opposed to just blending things up into a smoothie?  Lately I have really been enjoying adding a couple of handfuls of kale to my protein shakes.  Did I want to sacrifice that fiber for the sake of juicing the kale instead?

So I decided to make a juiced smoothie.  I left out my usual protein powder and milk in order to be completely raw.  I poured the above juice into my blender, and added 2 big leaves of kale, and some frozen fruit (mango, blueberries, peaches), and whirled it up into a big thick green liquid.

It was weird but I drank it!  I actually had to partially chew it because it was so thick and full of solidity.  I know that can’t sound appetizing but it was actually pretty good.

I need to tweak this some more, and come up with some good recipes.  In the meantime, experimenting is fun!  I just have to figure out if I want juice or smoothies or a combination.  Does anyone else make juice and then pour it into a blender to make smoothie?  Am I totally confused and off my rocker?!

Juiced Smoothie

My journey to be more raw is continuing, and I am feeling wonderful!  It has been a little over 2 weeks since my last post.  At that time I was wavering between all-raw or mostly-raw, to-cheese or not-to-cheese, among other assorted questions and ponderings.

I have been implementing the massaged raw kale into my salads practically on a daily basis. I am loving that.  I start with the bowl of chopped kale, add the juice of 1/2 a lemon, sprinkle with sea salt, and drizzle with 1-2 T olive oil, and just rub it all together to break it down somewhat.  Then add some red leaf, romaine, some onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, or any variation of those things.

And no cheese!  This is a revelation to me.  I never, ever thought I would enjoy a salad with no cheese.  It just shows how when you start to eat raw and clean out your system, those heavy processed foods start to lose their appeal.  I have discovered the joy of raw cashews.  I chop them up fine with my chopper, and they are a sweet & creamy addition to my salad that is perhaps replacing what I wanted from the cheese. I just re-read what I wrote and it’s a curious thing how crunchy nuts can also be “creamy” but somehow it fulfills that need for me.

Every once in a while I wonder where I’m getting my protein (the age-old question) and I just have to trust that it’s in there somewhere.  I have not had a protein shake in days, nor have I eaten eggs lately.  It just all seems so dead to me now.  I am so enjoying eating all living food.  I’m still taking my B12 supplement, mostly because I know that I am not a nutritional expert and I don’t want to mess anything up by making such a drastic change with no backup.

I need to do more research on protein content and consider adding some things to my meals to boost protein (seeds? more varieties of nuts?).  Any ideas are appreciated!