Raw Food Transistion

According to Victoria Boutenko, I am right on track.

If I have an addiction it is buying books. I love books. I believe I am part of a dying breed. Fortunately, in my humble opinion, I have passed this passion onto my daughter. My daughter, Emma, consumes books the way most children consume french fries and ice cream sundaes - with pure delight and total absorption. But that is another topic. I was talking about my love of books and Victoria Boutenko.

Yesterday I bought the book, 12 Steps to Raw Foods by Victoria Boutenko.

This book is a very basic, step by step guide for "How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Foods." Now, I am not encouraging you to go all raw and stop eating cooked foods entirely. My husband eats cooked foods, my children do and from time to time so do I. I just want to see how good I can feel and then share that with you.

In 12 Steps to Raw Foods, Victoria talks about the transition period from cooked to raw. My husband calls it the "I'm in denial that I love cooked foods" stage. During this period it is very common that people create a lot of "gourmet" type dishes, crackers, breads, nut and seed spreads. These are foods that help replace the heavy, satisfied feeling that cooked meals often provide.

And I have been doing just that. In fact, before deciding to go raw I ate a lot more salads. Once the mind realized what was happening, my desire for salads diminished and I began uncooking all sorts of meal type foods. Like the one below, which I LOVE (and so does my husband).

I took a nori roll (in place of a tortilla) and on it I put some beet greens and lettuce (you can use whatever greens you have around), avocado, homemade salsa and herbed cream cheese. Then I just rolled it up and ate it. Sooo good. And so simple. Especially if the cream cheese is already made.



This, apparently, is exactly what Victoria is talking about. The next stage for many raw foodists is to transition to more simple meals, a lot of salads and smoothies. Eventually this leads to the final stage of whole foods in their most basic form - a cucumber, carrots, leaves of kale. Now, of course, each person will walk their unique path but there does appear to be a common trajectory and it looks as if I am on it.

Just a word about the cream cheese. This cream cheese is made with Brazil nuts. While not an inexpensive nut (unless you have amazing neighbors like I do who just so happen to have three pounds of Brazil nuts they aren't using and are looking to pass on), it is a wonderful choice as far as nuts go.

Brazil nuts are a great source of monounsaturated oil and selenium. According to Dr. Mark Hyman, a favorite doctor of mine, selenium helps with thyroid problems and monounsaturated fat "is considered to be among the healthiest types of fat." Brazil nuts are the fourth best source of monounsaturated fat, after extra virgin olive oil, hazelnuts, and almonds. (Ultra-Metabolism)

So if you find yourself craving nuts, breads, and heavier type meals, know that you too, are right on track.

Sauerkraut and bread crumbs

I'm learning that there is no end to the raw food journey (and I've only just begun!). Just as in the world of cooked food one can choose from an absurd number of "the best possible diet ever" options, so it is in the raw food community. There are those who juice, those who eat only fruit, those who eat nuts and those who don't, those who sprout and those who graze. It's a dizzying array of choices and I have an uncomfortable feeling that I have only just scratched the surface. Ahhh... for now I'll just take a deep breath and grab a macaroon (raw, soaked and dehydrated).

So I promised you two things - a sauerkraut recipe and an update on the bread. I'll give the update first. The bread was a failure if what you want is bread (which was what I wanted). I ended up making the recipe twice, sure that I had missed something, miss measured or just plain missed the boat. In this particular case I am convinced the mistake lay in the cookbook directions because what I ended up with, both times, was a big tin of bread crumbs. Tasty, but bread crumbs nonetheless. But I didn't give up. Below is one of my creations with the bread crumbs -


lettuce, rosemary garlic bread crumbs, salsa, herbed cream cheese (see previous post) and avocado. Quite delicious actually.

And now for the long awaited sauerkraut. Bear in mind, I have yet to taste this sauerkraut so I can't vouch for it (although it certainly smells like sauerkraut) but I will offer you the recipe.

You start with 5 lbs. green cabbage and slice it thin. You can also use the grater option on a food processor if you have one. My husband, back to the land man that he is, prefers to cut it. Just make sure, if you do it by hand, that the shreds are no thicker than a dime.

Mix cabbage with 4 T. Kosher salt. Use your hands or a wooden utensil (again my husband used his hands), to mix until the salt dissolves. Then when the juice starts to form you pack down the mixture into a crock or a glass container or a five gallon plastic bucket (as shown in the picture at the top of the post). Make sure the bucket is food quality. I'm assuming you know what this means.

Make sure the juice covers the cabbage (the juice that results from the tossing of the cabbage and the salt). My husband then prepares additional brine at the ratio of 1 1/2 T. Kosher salt to 1 quart boiling water. Let brine cool. Add to pot with cabbage. Then place a large dinner type plate over cabbage and way it down with two quart Mason jars filled with water. Cover with plastic wrap.


Then cover that with a towel. You can then put a board on it and weigh it down. The key is to submerge the cabbage under water so that no air gets into it.


Place the container in an area where the temperature will not be about 75 degrees. Allow three weeks. If the temperature is 70 degrees allow four weeks, 65 degrees allow five weeks and 60 degrees - six weeks. If the temperature is above 75 degrees it may not ferment and could spoil.

And voila - the bulk of the work is done. You know it is done when it tastes like sauerkraut.
Rinse and toss with cold water. Place in quart jars and keep in the fridge.

raw herbed cream cheese

I did a little more research into copyright laws because as I take this raw food journey, I want to share all of it with you, especially yummy recipes!

It turns out that as long as I reference the source of the recipe (which I always do), and be a little creative in my wording of the directions, which I enjoy, then I can share away. Woo hoo! So today you get herbed cream cheese.

This recipe comes from The Complete Book of Raw Food: Second Edition. It requires no soaking, no dehydrating and nothing unrecognizable (at least in my kitchen).

The ingredients are:
1 1/3 cups Brazil, macadamia or pine nuts, unsoaked
1/4 cup olive oil
3 T. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. freshly cracked peppercorns
2 T. fresh dill, minced
1 T. fresh sage, minced

A note on recipes - when trying a new raw recipe for the first time I always halve the ingredients. I have had too many, "I don't think this is how it is supposed to taste," debacles that I prefer to err on the side of caution (and my wallet). I recommend the same to you. Having said that, this recipe is fairly failure proof. I say "fairly" because I have known people to burn popcorn in an air popper, so anything is possible. 

I also omitted the peppercorns because I'm just not a big pepper person. You do what you want.

Take the first four ingredients, add 1/3 cup of water, and blend until smooth. If you have a high-powered blender, like a Vitamix, you will have a much easier time.

Then transfer the mixture to a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients. Mix together. Put in the fridge for 30 minutes and voila - herbed cream cheese. Really quite yummy.

Unless you have planned ahead and have some raw bread or crackers in the house, I find nori is a great substitute. I placed one beet leaf on a sheet of nori, spread the cream cheese and...

 

a nori sandwich. 

Simple, quick, nutritious and delicious. Ahh...this I can handle.