RAWmadan

So while all my roommates were Austin Texas for SXSW this past week week, and left in the apartment was just me, Mr. Bones and the residue of four girls with crazy hectic lives and probably the remains of a few parties that our hung-over selves did a skimpy job of cleaning up after. I took this week as a perfect opportunity to do a little detox; of our home and myself. I cleaned all surfaces and scraped the crust that collected on the bottom of our fridge and tossed anything that had been living in there for too long.

Like I said, I also felt that I needed to detox myself a little bit of the sludge that built up over midterms week. I figured since I would finally have some time (ended up not being nearly as much as I thought) I would try to stick to only clean, raw foods. I had dabbled in raw foodism a few summers ago but I think the fact that I lacked my own kitchen and general knowledge of nutrition back then, I didn’t really go about it in the best way.

While actually preparing all these raw meals was a bit time consuming, it was totally worth it and I definitely reaped many benefits including more energy, clearer skin (like, actually cleared up all existing blemishes and I still haven’t gotten any new ones since!) diminished food cravings, minimized anxiety and just all around boosted my mood! I was about 90% raw for 5 consecutive days (I think my tahini is not raw and I may have had some roasted nuts while baby sitting...whoops o well) but I felt better almost immediately and would suggest trying to go raw for a day here and there or even just incorporating more raw foods into your diet. I think since the weather is starting to get warmer (…and then randomly cold again?) we tend to naturally gravitate towards more fresh and lighter cooked foods. Some other things that I think also attributed to me feeling great this week include:

-taking vitamins daily

-dry brushing (exfoliates, good for blood flow and release of toxins)

-rubbed coconut oil all over my hair and body (and I’m so silky smooth because of it :)

-apple cider vinegar (diluted into a hair rinse and toner balances ph levels)

-yoga (felt like I was really able to concentrate on each movement and how it affected my body. Sounds all hippy-dippy I know, but I truly just felt so much more in-touch with my body. I also accidentally went to a Bikram yoga class for the first time (hey, it was advertised as “hot yoga”) and instead of running out of studio, I stayed, gave it a try and…absolutely LOVED IT. It was one of the most intense things I’ve ever done but it was great and I plan to incorporate it into my normal yoga routine. One of the best mistakes I’ve ever made!)

-went on a few jogs outside with Mr. Bones (although I don’t think running is good for our bodies (or at least mine) these run-jogs I went on made me feel strong and energized. It also forced me to spend more time out side, I got explore parts of my neighborhood I don’t generally get to and it also made Mr. Bones very happy, which made me happy.

-sleep (something I often don’t get as much as I like of.)

-no T.V.-I’m really not a big T.V. watcher, I’ll usually just watch a few shows on my computer from time to time but I really made and effort to spend less time in front of screens.

Okay…now onto the recipes!! Breakfast usually consisted of smoothies (which I actually ate with a spoon, out of a bowl, parfait-style, much more satisfying and pretty. Lunch and dinner were either salads or veg dishes and I really tried my best to be experiemental and keep things interesting. I’m going to post the recipes over a couple of days with some updates of other (non-food related!!) things I’ve been up to this week. Hope you try some of these recipes out and enjoy!

My oatmeal replacer:

So I’ve mentioned on here before that I pretty much eat oatmeal everyday for breakfast. While oatmeal is delicious and nutritious, it is not raw. Therefore I set out to find a way to fit all a filling mix of carbs and protein into my morning meal. Enter the smoothie parfait. The general formula was this:

1-2T ground flax seeds, soaked in 2-4T water for a bit before in the same bowl I ended up eating out of

1 cup frozen fruit

1 cup liquid for blending (this was either water or almond milk for me but you could also use juice)

1 stalk of whatever leafy greens you have lying around (virtually tasteless and then boom- you just ate raw leafy greens for breakfast without even realizing!)

Agave nectar for sweetness

Superfoods!

2T hulled, raw hemp seeds (for protein! But you can also use raw protein powder. Nutiva makes a great one)

1-2T cacao/ maca powder blend

1T cacao nibs sprinkled on top for a pretty presentation, energizing kick and satisfying crunch!

1T of whatever else I’ve got (this was mostly some pumpkin or sesame seeds-I’m really into crunchy smoothies- but gogi berries are great to. Other stand-out super foods I use when I can are spirilina, chia seeds...

**A note on superfoods: These are NOT SUPER hard to find. They can pretty much be found at any health food store or at Whole Foods. I got mine from the bulk bins at the 4th Street Food Co-op because it was the cheapest option and I was able to bring my own bags to eliminate packaging and not shipping! The Navitas Naturals site has an amazing selection as well as an array of recipes to give you ideas of how to actually use them.

Even when I’m not eating all raw, I think flax seed crackers make a fabulous snack. Unfortunately, packed varieties are so stupidly expensive that I never get to have them unless I make them myself (which I should really do more often). They are quite simple to make, the only thing is you have plan ahead about 12 hours before want to eat them. They’re great with dips, crumbled onto soups or salads, made into an open-face sandwich with avocado and veggies or eaten on their own like chips.

Flax Seed Crackers:

½ cup ground flax seeds, placed in a mixing bowl and soaked over night in 1 cup of water

½ white onion

crushed garlic to taste (I used just under a whole clove because I am a garlic fiend)

½ red bell pepper

½ orange bell pepper

1 stalk of celery

1 jalapeño pepper

1 large handful of mixed leafy greens

sea salt and black pepper to taste

Roughly chop all the veggies. I should mention that no two batches of flax seed crackers I make have ever been the same. I always use whatever I have on hand (I should mention that this is a great way to put to use whatever veggies you have that are on their way out) but this batch was particularly tasty so I decided to write down exactly what I put in, but feel free to shake it up! Anyways, so the veggies are chopped and then I decided to put them in the blender, but you can choose not to if you want a chunkier cracker. Then I dumped in the flax seeds, which are now a jelly-like substance from soaking. I whirled everything together and poured it back into the original bowl and stirred in the salt and pepper.

Then, using a spoon, I spread it onto my dehydrator trays **lined with parchment paper** very important to do this so that you do not end up with bumpy crackers and a crusty dehydrator (I know this from experience) I did this by cutting one strip of parchment paper the same width as the tray and then using it as a template to make more. Don’t worry too much about wasting so much parchment paper, you can totally just wipe them off and reuse! I found it to be easiest to drop a blob of the “batter” on the end of the parchment paper where it overlaps another, and spread it across in order to hold them all in place, making sure that each “loaf” is equal in thickness.

Then repeat until all the mix is on the tray, plug that bad boy in and walk away. The great thing about dehydrating is that you can’t really burn/ overcook/ mess anything up (at least I haven’t found a way to do so…yet) I left mine for about 10 hours, but you’re gonna want to switch the order of the trays around at least once so that they dehydrate evenly, and I also flipped the crackers about 2 hours before they were completely dehydrated. Return to find yummy and addictive crackers, Yay!

*While making these I felt inspired and decided to experiment with something I had never tried before. For a small portion of the batch I added some nutritional yeast and pressed some pumpkin seeds on top once I spread the mix on the tray. These were totally out of this world and I will definitely make them again. They were a bit denser tasting than the others, so I was happy to have both on hand for variation. The pumpkin seeds on top tasted great also looked really beautiful.

Here’s a salad recipe I used these flax crackers in. It’s really exceptional and filling too!

The Cheezer:

Dressing:

Juice of one lemon

1 T tahini

1t barley miso

1 splash of braggs liquid aminos

2 garlic “sections”, crushed

1 T nutritional yeast plus more for topping

black pepper, to taste

The salad:

Mixed greens

Gingered carrots (grated carrots and ginger mixed and refrigerated overnight)

Onion

Scallion

Daikon

Broccoli

Jalapeño pepper

Cheesy-pumpkin seed flax cracker, crushed

(red cabbage could be nice/ add color but I didn’t have any on hand)

Keep checking back for new recipes this week!

Do you have any favorite raw snacks you'd like to create on your own?