Adventures in Raw Food

This really does taste like raw popcorn, even though there is neither popping nor corn involved! In fact, for those who are trying to avoid corn, or who are allergic to it, it’s a perfect snack (not to mention being raw)! And it is so darned easy to make, you won’t believe it!

Raw Popcorn

1 or more heads cauliflower, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 to 3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast per head of cauliflower

Combine the cauliflower pieces and the nutritional yeast until the pieces are entirely coated. The easiest way to do this is to put it all into a big Tupperware container, put the lid on tight, and then shake the bejeezus out of it (or I supposed you could also put it into a big Ziploc bag and shake it, ala Shake and Bake).

Lay the coated cauliflower pieces on your dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 115 until they are crunchy (expect this to take overnight or longer).

Done! See, I told you it was easy! And yummy!

Last week my daughter, of FAB Shows fame, turned me on to those awesome raw cheesy kale chips that are the equivalent of raw Cheez-Its® or, as some would say, “cheezy kale chips”. (Some even say “chreesy kale chips”, after that vegan, non-dairy cheese substitute called Chreese that is made and marketed by Edwards & Son, and whose main ingredients are wheat flour and nutritional yeast.) In any event, while “kale and fake cheese” may not sound very appetizing, trust me, these are the raw equivalent of Cheez-Its®! They are delicious! In fact, after she made them for us, we had to make more for ourselves just a few days later, we were so jonesing for them!

The recipe is really quite simple – the most time-consuming part is getting the kale into bite-sized pieces, and that is made much easier by cutting it (most recipes suggest tearing it), and then putting the chips onto your dehydrator trays.

Raw Cheesy Kale Chips – Raw Cheez-Its®

1 cup cashews, soaked in water for two hours
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast (available in most health food stores)
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan pink crystal salt
Juice of 1 lemon

2 bunches green kale – either dino or lactino

Put all ingredients except the kale into a Vitamix or food processor, and blend until completely smooth.

Tear the spine out of each kale leaf, keeping each half of the leaf as intact as you can (as this will make cutting it into chips much easier).

Stack a bunch of the leafs together, and then cut them into bite sized pieces, using either kitchen shears or a sharp knife.

Dump all of the kale chips into a large bowl, add the sauce, and then mix it well with your hands, gently squeezing and massaging the sauce into the kale chips until all of the chips are well coated.

Lay the chips out in single layers – without the chips touching – on
Teflex sheets on your dehydrator trays, and dehydrate them at 105 overnight.

In the morning take the trays out, and transfer the chips onto dehydrator screens (i.e. on trays without the Teflex sheets).

This is every easy to do if you simply take an empy dehydrator tray with screen, and lay it on top of one of the full trays of chips (that are on the Teflex), like this:

..and then flip it over and peel the Teflex sheet back off the chips, leaving the chips on the tray with the screen:

Put the chips back in the dehydrator and continue drying them until they are very crispy. You want all moisture removed from them so that they don’t get soggy when you store them.*

Eat!

*Ok, who are we kidding? These barely make it out of the dehydrator before we’ve eaten them all up, let alone to the point of getting stored!

Playing with my new Tribest Personal Blender, I ended up making this delicious Cranberry Apple Crisp Smoothie, perfect for the holiday season!

Raw Cranberry Apple Crisp Smoothie

This recipe is for one serving – how much fruit you use depends on how much smoothie you want.

Take equal parts fresh cranberries and chopped apple, and put in your blender container.

Add coconut water until it just covers the top of the fruit.

For each serving of smoothie, add one tablespoon of raw almond butter.

For each serving of smoothie add one teaspoon of maple syrup.

Blend until smooth.

YUM!

After reading Ani Phyo’s rave reviews of the Tribest Personal Blender I just had to try it. So I ordered one from Amazon. And WOW am I glad that I did!

The Tribest Personal Blender quickly replaced my Cuisinart personal food processor, and that’s saying a lot, because Cuisinart makes an excellent product!

The Personal Blender is one of those breed of food choppers / grinders / blenders that has blending containers onto which you screw the blade base as if it were the top of the container, and then you invert it and set it into the motor base.

What makes the Tribest Personal Blender really cool is not just its power (a’plenty) and versatility (ditto), but the great accessories that were clearly developed by someone who was a power user themselves. For example, the blender comes with a commuter cup lid (like a sippy cup) so that you can blend up a single serving smoothie, swap the commuter lid for the blade base, and take it with you. In fact, that’s just what we do most mornings now – throw some fruit in the container, cover with coconut water – sometimes add some chia powder or almond butter – and blend for a few moments – done! So yummy, and so good for you!

[Try my Cranberry Apple Crisp Smoothie that I made in my Tribest Personal Blender!]

But Tribest didn’t stop with their nifty commuter lid – oh no – they also have a grinding blade base (so you can grind your own nuts, coffee, spices, grains, what-have-you) and there is a mason jar adapter, so that you can blend directly in the mason jar and then store what you’ve blended or ground!

They even have a carrying case, so that you can truly put the “personal” in Personal Blender, taking it with you wherever you go so that you can live the raw lifestyle on the go! In fact, that’s one of the things that Ani Phyo raves about – she really does take her Personal Blender with her!

I got the full set (you can buy it with just the blending base and containers, or with the grinder base and containers include – it’s only $10.00 more to get both the blending and grinding base) and I’m so glad that I did!

You can buy the Tribest Personal Blender here at Amazon, where it is eligible for free Prime shipping.

And you can check out Ani Phyo’s awesome raw food books here.

One of the beauties of raw food is that, while many recipes can seem complex and time-consuming, many others are so simple and so delicious. And this is one of those. These honeyed sesame date gems, served warm from the dehydrator, are melt-in-your mouth wonderful, and so very good for you!

Take as many nice, moist organic dates as you want to make. Pit them by making a slit on one side of the date and spreading it open, removing the pit.

Keeping the dates spread open, place the dates on a dehydrator tray on a Teflex sheet or a sheet of waxed paper.

Sprinkle the dates gently with some high-quality cinnamon.

Next sprinkle sesame seeds along the inside of the dates.

Drizzle with honey, and warm in the dehydrator, at 115 degrees or slighly less, for 15 to 20 minutes.

Pop one of these in your mouth as soon as they come out of the dehydrator, and you will swoon – I promise.