Raw Treats

Alicia's birthday was this month, and I made a few special raw treats for her on that special day. I made some almond mylk, which we don't make that often, either because it is messy, or because we don't have enough almonds in the house. The made some sweet milk (almond milk + agave nector) and chocolate smoothies, which were wonderful. I didn't take any pictures of the chocolate, because I think we drank 'em up too fast. That is SO good! But I did take a picture of some of the leftover almond mylk:

Almond Mylk

Now when one makes almond mylk, one doesn't want to throw away the leftover pulp, because raw unpasteurized almonds are a bit expensive. So one tries to find things to make out of this pulp. I decided to make some dehydrated almond cookies. They were pretty good, but I will make them better next time. The problem was they were too thin. That is, when I put them in the Excalibur to dehydrate, they broke apart when I pulled them out the next morning. I drizzled some agave on them, and I think we added some big slices of banana to eat with them to moisten them up. I gave the big one to Alicia. This was pre-dehydrate, and that is them sitting on the dehydrator tray:

Almond Cookies

I also made some banana chips. They were perfect--much better than my last batch a few months ago, which were cut too thin and stuck to the tray when dried!

Banana Chips

See how thick they are cut? That is the key.

So the chocolate mylk was the favorite treat, but I must say--drinking some sweet mylk with the dry cookies and some banana was VERY satisfying.

I am not a raw chef every day, but when I am I really enjoy it. And I treat my ladies right!

Raw Lunch

Welcome to Lunch!

This weekend is going wonderfully! March Madness from noon to midnight every day, and enough fresh raw food to be satisfied the whole time. I couldn't resist taking some pictures of our BEAUTIFUL lunch that we had today and sharing them with you. The colors were so wonderful. Angelina (have you seen her adorable new hairstyle yet?) and I were talking about how it is neat that fruits and vegetables love to be picked, eaten, and shared, and it is true! They project themselves in such bright and vibrant colors, and they taste so good in their natural, unmutated form. They want to nurture us!

Alicia is watching a set of DVD's featuring Dr. Graham and Dr. Rozalind Gruben in which they talk about some of these things. Something that Alicia picked up on that I didn't really hear when I listened to the DVD's earlier this month was that we shouldn't shun our sweet tooth. The fact that fruits are sweet and we tend to like sweet is not a coincidence! This relationship began in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived as fruitarians. It is not an addiction like it is with some other foods. These foods are the best that we can eat, and they grow in abundance for us. I hope to one day live in a place that is more tropical so that I can have access to an even larger variety of fruit than is already available to me and my family.

The connection that we can have with our food is simply awesome.

Darius' Plate

Our lunch was a big salad. I learned from Dr. Graham that it is good to combine avocado and any citrus or high-acid fruit to make a salad dressing. So I imitated a recent recipe made by my mother and made a grapefruit juice and avocado dressing. We drizzled it over greens, tomatoes, green onions, and then topped it with a few orange slices and some previously-made Parmesan cheeze.

I must say, it was VERY good. I recommend that dressing to anyone, raw vegan or not. Angelina said that it was her favorite meal ever and asked if we could have it on her birthday. I am not sure if that means she no longer wants blueberry pancakes, but I think she does because I think she is aiming towards 3 specific special meals that day. Two down, one to go! This next picture was taken by her:

Angelina's Plate

By the way, that drink in the cup in the first picture is freshly-squeezed juice from a freshly-PICKED grapefruit (it is one of the only things we seem to know how to grow right year-in and year-out).