I personally haven’t eaten turkey for 23 years and have been known to bring a chickpea loaf as my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. Complete with a milk-based soy sauce gravy! And always cooked mashed potatoes. And often a cheesy broccoli casserole too.

As this is my first raw Thanksgiving I decided to attempt some raw versions of traditional fall dishes. To be honest, I don’t know how I feel about these dishes I’ve made yet. I really prefer just eating green salads all the time!  But tomorrow is the big day so we’ll see how it goes!

Cranberry Sauce

Sweet Potato Casserole

Napa Cabbage Salad

Pumpkin Pie

Edit, late night Thanksgiving Eve: I just can’t stop. I keep finding more recipes to try! Now I’ve made a nut cream for the pumpkin pie, and a “tabouleh”-like dish. The cream is made from cashews, macadamias, and dates.  The tabouleh is actually made from “riced” cauliflower instead of bulgur wheat, pulsed in the food processor until it resembles rice. It turned out great and I’m sure will become a staple at my house. Here are the pics for now, recipes to follow in another post!

Cashew Macadamia Cream

Mideastern Cauliflower Salad

I’ve made or bought my share of mock foods over the years. Being a vegetarian for so long you can’t help but try all the different varieties of fake meats out there. And my chickpea loaf and lentil burgers are to die for. To be honest, beans and all their subsequent dishes are the thing I miss most about the raw food diet. I always thought I couldn’t live without cheese… seriously! But now it turns out I miss my beans the most. Especially because I always thought they were healthy, while deep down I instinctively knew that cheese was not.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know me by now, I’m just a simple salad kinda gal. But every once in a while I get that urge to make a mock dish. You know, a “fake” something or other. Usually pasta, meat, or cheesy stuff that these glorious raw food chefs dream up.

Today the beautiful Angelina Elliott of She-Zen Cuisine posted this mock meatloaf dish in her Facebook feed, and I couldn’t resist! The Kitchen Goddess playfully calls it “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Meatloaf,” and it was every bit as delicious as she claimed. In fact, I’m ashamed to admit that I ate the whole thing! Well okay, I halved the recipe, but still! These mock foods are dangerous to me!

Edit, a couple of days later: I didn’t gain any extra weight so happily it seems that raw dishes are much more forgiving if you over-indulge. 

Angelina Elliott's I Can't Believe It's Not Meatloaf

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Meatloaf
By Angelina Elliott

Ingredients:
• 2 cups walnuts
• 1 red pepper
• ½ cup sweet onion, minced
• ½ cup celery, minced
• 1 tomato
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp onion
• Dash of oregano
• ½ tsp of miso
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Add all the above ingredients to a food processor, pulse chop until evenly distributed. Place meatloaf on a platter and shape into a loaf and serve.

*Angelina’s note: “This actually looks like real meat loaf and is absolutely delicious!”

This past weekend I experienced what every new raw foodie anticipates. The first family party since going raw. Up until this point I had been comfortably secluded in a protective bubble of learning and discovering at my own pace. Trying new things with only myself as the critic. The occasional phone conversation or email with my parents about my amazing discovery. But mostly just eating my beloved green salads and green smoothies every day and being in simple bliss!

But now with this family party looming, I had to choose between packing myself a nice personal salad and foregoing everything else, or preparing some delicious raw dishes with the hope that people will want to try them. I chose the latter and with much success!

Zucchini Hummus with cucumber sticks for dipping, Avocado-Tomato Salad, Chocolate Cheesecake, and Chocolate Balls.  The hummus was a no-brainer. Always a big hit at other family parties, the cooked bean variety paved the way for my new raw zucchini kind.  The Avocado-Tomato Salad was thrown together at the last minute because I was hungry right before the party and wanted to eat some immediately upon arriving. (I was going through a phase where I had to eat avocado every day, LOL).

Then come the desserts. A big deal is always made about raw desserts. Some people become raw foodies just because of all the fabulous guilt-free desserts! Up until this point, I had not crossed that threshold of the much revered “raw dessert.” So what the heck, I thought, it’s been three months of raw food… time to indulge in something reckless!

I chose a cheesecake made of cashews on a walnut-date crust with a raw chocolate ganache for topping. And the much-loved “chocolate balls” made with raw cacao powder, raw almond butter, sunflower seeds, and other delights. Those balls reminded my sister and me of the wonderful childhood treats my mother would lovingly bestow upon us. Except that she used carob powder and peanut butter and were not technically raw, but yummy and healthy all the same!

I will post recipes in a later post. Meanwhile here are some pics.

Avocado-Tomato Salad, Raw Cheesecake, Zucchini Hummus

Raw Chocolate Balls

Since making the gradual transition to 100% raw a couple of months ago, I have not bought any new gadgets. I was already a salad aficionado so I had good knives already. And my blender, juicer, and food processor were collected through the years just because I love to prepare food in general.

But recently I succumbed to the temptation to add a spiralizer to my repertoire. I see so many recipes and videos for these beautifully spiralized vegetables! I am not one who misses pasta as I wasn’t eating much of it anyway in recent years, but couldn’t resist this fun-looking little gadget.

Here then are my first attempts at spiralizing a zucchini.

Zucchini "Noodles" with spiralizer

Success! It was a little tricky. All the cautions were true about making sure the zucchini is cut completely straight on both ends and to insert it into the post in the exact center. But it was a lot of fun and tasted yummy. I pureed an easy sauce of tomatoes and onions and warmed it a teensy bit on the stove so it wouldn’t be ice cold. Delish!

The spiral slicer also will do paper thin slices, which come out attached together on a long chain:

I have learned that this is useful for dehydrating “chips”. Looking forward to eventually getting a dehydrator!

Ahh… hummus. The very word invites images of crisp crackers, crunchy chips, and neatly wrapped tortillas filled to the brim with this creamy, savory bean goodness.

But what does the raw foodist do who craves this garlicky sensation? In comes the humble zucchini!

Any search engine will bring up tons of recipes for “raw hummus”. You will note that some do contain the traditional garbanzo bean, but simply in sprouted form. In my eagerness to try this I recently bought a bag of dried garbanzos… and they are still sitting in my pantry. I can’t explain my hesitation except that maybe I am not ready for the complications of learning the sprout techniques yet. Or maybe I don’t want to mess with anything quite yet that might interfere with the digestive cleansing that I am sure is going on in my body.

So imagine my delight when I came upon raw hummus made with zucchini instead of garbanzos at all! I grabbed a can of raw sesame tahini from my local health food store and here is the result. Success! It was a new concept for me to dip raw vegetables in hummus, but I loved it. Previously hummus was just another excuse for me to eat bread or other flour grain products.

Zucchini Hummus

2 medium zucchini, peeled and chunked
1/2 cup raw sesame tahini
1 clove minced garlic
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt & pepper to taste
and whatever other traditional hummus spices you like! (I used cayenne, parsley, cumin, coriander)
1-2 T olive oil

Puree all in food processor while drizzling in the olive oil until it achieves the consistency you like. Garnish with some parsley and/or paprika. Ooo la la!

For the past couple of months as I’ve been adjusting to life without dairy or grains, I have not experimented with all the fabulous raw recipes out there. I guess I wanted to just keep it really simple at first, besides the fact that I love salads so much that I really can eat 2 every day and never get bored with them.

I watch all the wonderful videos and read all the excellent blogs, and I know that so many of you long-term raw foodists have come up with amazing looking raw dishes that mimic old standbys like pasta, meatballs, bread, crackers, cookies, desserts, etc. Many of those use a dehydrator, and I’m not totally comfortable with jumping into that yet. Part of me wonders if it can really be healthy to suck all that good water content out of naturally healthy foods, but yet another part of me is drooling over being able to eat crackers and cookies.

But when I look at the addictions I have been able to overcome in these past several weeks, I can’t help but be nervous about indulging in these altered goodies. Because to me it does seem like an indulgence. A treat to have occasionally but certainly not to consume as one’s daily diet. So I have put the dehydrator recipes on the back burner for now (the back tray? ha ha). Maybe one day when I am more entrenched in this raw food lifestyle and I have released all the weight I want, then I will revisit the dehydrator foods.

In the meantime, there is a raw food concept that is compelling enough for me to try right now.  Noodles!  Noodles made of zucchini are the most common but you can find other vegetables used as well. Even if you don’t have a handy little spiral slicer gadget, you can use a simple vegetable peeler to create long strands of fettucine-type noodles.

For the raw sauce, there are tons of recipes for tomato based sauces. I just so happened to have some lovely raw pine nuts and a nice bunch of basil that I had just picked up from my local produce stand. Voila, my pesto was born!

Zucchini "Noodles" with Pesto

Pesto

1/4 cup raw pine nuts, soaked for an hour or so
handful of fresh basil (I don’t know how else to measure fresh herbs!)
a few leaves of baby spinach
1 clove of minced garlic
salt
1-2 T olive oil
squeeze of lemon juice

I whirled this in my mini hand blender since it was such a small amount. I would use a food processor for a larger batch. It was an experiment and I didn’t want to waste my pine nuts if it turned out horrible. But much to my pleasure it was delicious! I didn’t even miss the parmesan cheese that traditionally goes in pesto.

My daughter and I gobbled this up, so I guess this made enough for 2 servings. The picture shows one serving. Definitely a keeper! I think this is cause to buy a spiralizer as my next gadget.

I have learned a lot in the past few weeks. Mostly to juice your vegetables, and smoothie your fruits. (Did I really  just make a verb out of smoothie?). At first I was juicing a lot of fruits. At the beginning I was feeling light-headed by the afternoon and thought I was just detoxing. But maybe it was the sugar high I’ve since learned about.

Now I think I’m going about this in a better way. I juice mostly vegetables as my first food of the day. And I completely gave up coffee, incidentally, yay me! So the first thing I do after getting my kids off to school is make my wonderful juice that I just crave in the morning.

I always start with one apple, 1/2 lemon, and a hunk of ginger. To that I add either 1 cucumber or 1 zucchini. Then some greens. Either a handful of kale or collards or a broccoli stalk. The satisfaction I get from drinking this breakfast cocktail is immeasurable. It is such a high!

An hour or two later and I am ready for my smoothie. I have experimented with lots of combinations, but a basic lately is one banana, one pear or nectarine, a couple handfuls of spinach or collards or kale, a tablespoon of either coconut oil, flax oil, or soaked flax seeds, and enough water to make it the consistency I like. Sometimes I’ll toss in some frozen blueberries or mango just to give it that cold slushiness and of course the added nutrients.

Actually the last couple of days I’ve been using a Sugarbaby Watermelon as the basis for my green smoothie. It is filled with black seeds, which I found out are high in protein and other good-for-you things. My blender just grinds the seeds all up, and the watermelon makes a nice sweet slushy smoothie.

As for the rest of my day, I am finding I don’t even require as much food as I used to. At some point in the afternoon I have a small salad, usually an avocado and a tomato chopped up with some onion and the juice of 1/2 a lemon. It is delicious and filling. For dinner I always have a big green salad with bell peppers, onions, sometimes tomatoes, cucumber or zucchini, and chopped cashews (unless I had an avocado that day, then I omit the nuts).

Speaking of which, I know it is controversial how much fat you’re supposed to (or can safely) eat in one day. I’ve lost 18 lbs so far (yay! only 66 more to go!) and have not really limited my intake of nuts, seeds, olive oil, or avocados. I’ve just been playing it by ear. That 18 lbs came off in about 2 months. Is that fast, is that slow? I’m not sure. I have never obsessed about my weight so don’t really pay attention to others’ testimonials about the rate of weight loss. Maybe I would lose weight faster by really limiting the fats in my diet. I always keep in mind that, to me, weight loss is a side benefit of going raw. That I am mostly doing it for the radiant health and being free of disease. At least that’s what I keep telling myself, ha ha! Well if anyone has any thoughts on the fat-content issue, please share! For now I will continue to follow my instincts. To me it is such a huge accomplishment to give up cheese that I really need to pat myself on the back and allow a small amount of those healthy fatty foods that I love, like avocados and nuts! :)

So to recap, that’s how I’ve been eating for the past month. 100% raw. Juicing in the morning, smoothie shortly to follow, a small salad in the afternoon, and a big salad in the evening. And no late-night snacking, another accomplishment! That nasty habit is gone forever!

It has been about a month since I last posted. This is all going so great! I have been mostly raw in that time, and 100% for this whole week. (since my pizza binge on Sunday that left me feeling a huge need to detox on Monday morning).

I’ve been juicing a lot. Pretty much every morning. No specific recipes, just whatever I have in the fridge. Lots of various combinations of apples, honeydew, lemons, watermelon, kale, broccoli stems, ginger, grapes, cabbage. So far I’ve had to dump nothing for being unpalatable. Yay! I can’t say that I’ve loved it all, but it’s okay. I am having so much fun experimenting with what works for me.

I do have to say that I am feeling terrific! I have lost 11 lbs, am sleeping better, have a great outlook on life, and just feel such a connection to the world. Really! Eating this way makes me feel so vibrant. On the drive to school yesterday afternoon I actually had the windows down and was enjoying the feel of the sun on my skin. And in my eyes! I put away my sunglasses to absorb the beautiful rays of light that gives us life!

Okay I know all of this sounds so hokey. But I’m not making it up. Is it my imagination? I don’t know. I have been so inspired lately by the many wonderful writings and podcasts on living the raw food lifestyle… maybe it’s osmosis.  It’s like a high, and I see no reason to stop doing it. Not when it feels this good!

I am still cooking food for my husband and kids (they have to find their own way), but am not tempted by any of it. I just feel that it’s toxic now to my well-being. I do give them as much raw fruits and vegetables as they will eat, and hubby asks for a big salad a few times per week for dinner. Filled with meats and cheeses for him, because that is his preference!

It just amazes me that a person (me) can start craving living raw foods who previously was a bread and dairy addict. I have always eaten a lot of salads and vegetables, being a vegetarian most of my adult life. But this is totally new and fresh for me, to eat this abundance of live food. It is a true celebration of nature and life!

This blog is changing. It started out with a two-fold purpose. To share some of my favorite recipes with friends and to be a place for me to brainstorm about my ideas on feeding my family healthier. But now it is evolving into a diary of my raw food journey. Cool!

(P.S. Recipes and food preparation ideas coming soon!)

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