Happy Birthday, Darius

I'm a little late as usual, but I wanted to post my yearly remembrances for Darius' birthday. Whenever one of the children has a birthday, for some reason it brings a lot of things to my mind about our times together. It is a good time for me to write them down as they won't always be in my mind.

This birthday was a special one for us as we were told in August of 2007 that he only had about 18 months to live. If that had been the case, we would be celebrating his memory this birthday, and it would be a sad day for all of us. We are so thankful to our Heavenly Father for the blessing that he was allowed to stay with us for a longer season. Through priesthood blessings and the inspiration to change our eating habits and lifestyle, we have hope that he will have a long and happy life.

I can still see him lying on the floor at the foot of our stairs in our apartment in Provo, Utah. We were living in a student apartment a few miles from BYU where Roger was pursuing his master's degree. He wasn't home much due to classes and a full-time job; Dorian was playing little league baseball all summer, and it was a hot one. Pioneer Day is the July 24, and I can remember how much I hoped this baby would be born soon. Roger had lost the job that had provided insurance, but the expiration date wasn't until 7/31/81. The problem was that Darius' due date was not until the middle of August sometime. We were a little stressed to say the least.

Roger decided to fast and pray that we might be able to pay for this baby somehow. It was Sunday, July 26th. I stayed up late that night sewing baby outfits. Suddenly, my water broke. I was never more surprised in my life. Neither of us expected Roger's prayer to be answered in that way.

Off we went to the hospital, and Darius was born a few hours later: 27 July 1981. He was truly a miracle baby since we had never anticipated being able to have any more children.

As I would look at him sleeping, I was very aware of what a miracle he was and that all children are. Having that baby taught me a lot about the miracle of childbirth. I was very grateful to have been given the gospel so that I could understand this better and appreciate it more. In fact, Darius got his name from the king in the Old Testament who was converted to the gospel by Daniel. He was our testimony of our gratitude for our conversion.

Dorian had mixed feelings about his new little brother. He was almost 8 years old and was pretty used to having things his way. He had been excited about a sibling, especially a brother, for now he'd have someone to play ball with. One of my funniest memories was once when he propped Darius up in an overstuffed easy chair when he was about 3 months old. Then he started tossing a nerf football to him with the hopes he would catch it and return it. It was hilarious. Of course, Dorian was a little frustrated when he realized this wasn't going to happen for awhile.

Darius went through some rough times during his terrible twos. He was my only child that did. He would be so fussy about getting his own way. What strikes me as interesting about this is that he never really acted like that later as he got older. He was pretty mellow about going with the flow.

Some of my fondest memories of the children revolve around the animals they kept for 4-H. Darius and Orion would play for hours with the chilckens, the rabbits, and the goats. They were required to take care of their animals before they could have their breakfast, and there were many mornings when they did not come in until after lunch time. If there was a game imaginable to be played with the animals, they thought of it. Never have two children enjoyed their animals more. Good times, good times.

As Darius grew up, he became interested in the electric guitar. He let his hair grow out, and he and his friend, Stephen, started a band. I don't think they ever got too many gigs, but they sure enjoyed their practice time together. In fact, I broke my ankle once during a school visit when I fell through a porch during a student visit. I called him to drive me home as I was in too much pain to drive myself. He was very perturbed to have his practice time interrupted!

The dating years were rocky ones as the girls at church wouldn't date him because of his long hair. He looked a little wild to them I guess. He was pretty shy, and he didn't get too serious about dating until after his mission. He served for 2 years in the Torreon Mexico mission, and he had a wonderful time. He thought maybe he might want a Latina para su esposa, but then he met Alicia, and it was love at first sight. I think they are very happy together. They are now raising Angelina, Darius' niece. No other little Dariuses or Alicias yet.

Of course, when Darius was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumor (16 August 2007), we all went through some rough times. We are now able to say that we are grateful for that time as we all learned so much. We certainly didn't think it was something we would be saying that at any future time.

It is interesting how adversity affects us. We would never encourage it, and we even pray that we will be spared it. Yet, it seems, all of our paths to growth are paved with it.

Somewhere along the way while Darius and Alicia were adjusting to their new lifestyle, we decided we would all like to live together. We put off doing this even though we felt prompted to implement it. Then Dorian and his wife found they were unable to care for their children, and we took over the responsibility of Wyatt and Angelina: Wyatt to us, and Angelina to Darius and Alicia. Then, what had seemed a luxury (moving in together) became more of a necessity as we struggled to assume our new parenting roles. We still wallow through the mire of making the right decisions for the children and knowing how to nurture them correctly, but our knowledge that we are doing the right thing helps us get through it.

For Darius' birthday this year, we had a lot to celebrate, and a lot to hope for as well. We are grateful that he was here, and grateful too that the children are back in our lives after spending several months away. Things are not perfect; perhaps that would be an unrealistic expectation while we live in this world. What we can do is think about how much we do have to be grateful and relish it. Thanks, Darius, for choosing to come to our family and bear our imperfections.

From Russia with Love

I always get behind on the weekends because of the work that goes into the market. I guess there's really nothing new and different because we are making the stuff that people ask us to make for them. So not missing much by not recording that on here. On Monday I start getting a little creative again.

We had a sea veggie salad for lunch; I think I'll call it Surf and Turf. It has some wonderful land veggies in it that go along with the arame (sea vegetable). I made it for the first time last Sunday, but I decided when I made it today that I would put more land vegetables in it, and I liked it a lot better. It was delicious.


We got some beets from our Gainesville farmer friend, Jeff, on Saturday. That is the first time we've gotten them. We ended up with 3/4 of a case which is about 18 lbs., so I'm hoping we can hold them for a while. I have to figure out how to pickle them or something. I used to make pickled beets all the time in my previous life (BR - before Raw), but I have to figure out how to do them in a more enzyme productive manner. Anyway, I made borscht today from a recipe Tatayana gave me. She is from Russia, and has eaten it all her life. Since she has started eating raw, she had to come up with a raw version, and that is what she passed along to me. Here is the version she gave me:

2 cups water
3 med. beets
1 small root of ginger
4 garlic cloves
7 bay leaves
3 sticks of celery
1 bunch of parsley
1/2 cup pecans
some sea salt


In a bowl, put some sauerkraut and minced parsley, and pour the above blended mixture over it. She adds defrosted lima beans which tastes like cooked potatoes in this dish. I didn't have any bay leaves or limas, and I forgot the sauerkraut part, so we just ate the broth, and it was very good. I'll be experimenting with that. I don't know if that is a good food for the market or not. Not too many people eat borscht, but I'll bet it is really good for you.

I also spiralized some beets to mix with an alfredo sauce tomorrow. I think the pink color will be really pretty.

For dinner we had spinach messaged and added to our cheddar cheeze soup base. It was really good. I diced up some tomatoes to have in it also. Very delicious.

Elizabeth has been asking me about foods for the 4th of July. Light and summery... that is what everyone loves in all this heat. I bought a case of corn, and we're going to have a marinated corn for our "heavy" part of the meal. I'll also have cucumber salad, and some kind of tomato dish, maybe a gazpacho since that is usually served chilled. For dessert I'm planning red, white, and blue parfaits. The blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries are amazing, and we'll top them off with some vanilla yogurt silk.

Of course, watermelon will be the star of the day if I can find some good ones. I think all the rain has watered down their flavor a little, but I'll keep hunting.

I was trying to decide if I wanted some "burgers", but they are way too heavy for this time of year. I just like lighter things to eat in the summer. The denser foods are nice in the winter when it is colder.

I'm sure a lot of people will want to add some hot dogs or grilled chicken to that menu, but I'm more than content with it just as it is. One of the things I like about eating like this is how I feel AFTER a meal. For many years I was sick almost every night from acid-reflux. It is such a relief to have NONE of those symptoms. I do not take it for granted. I am very grateful to not have to do that anymore. No food is worth having to feel like that every night of my life.

I also love the light feeling I have. It is hard to explain to anyone who has never experienced it. It is kind of the opposite of how one feels after a Thanksgiving dinner. It is so not like that. All cooked foods drop like a pit into my stomach. Raw fruits and vegetables don't make me feel like that.


We were talking tonight about how grains when they are sprouted are not the chemical composition of a grain but are a vegetable. I wonder if there's been anything written on that. It seems to me I have read that somewhere, but I can't recall where. I was thinking about it because today Angelina said she thought celery was a fruit since she knew people ate celery seed sometimes, so we went over the botanical definition of fruit. Everything else (in the plant kingdom) is a vegetable. I guess it is hard to keep it straight for a 7 year old. Anyway, that got me thinking about how a wheat seed is no longer eaten as a seed when it is sprouted and eaten: it becomes a vegetable. I suppose a lot of the nutrients in the seed are used up by the developing plant which then takes on the characteristics of a plant instead of a seed. Photosynthesis begins and the chemical composition would be entirely different. See what happens when I don't have enough things to keep my mind active?

Seasonal Fruits are the BEST!

Started off the day with some grapefruit juice cocktail. That stuff is amazing. I love grapefruit anyway, but it is a real treat when done in this way. Try it!

For lunch, Alicia made a fruit salad we dressed with the vanilla yogurt silk. Then we had a green salad with ranch that was delicious. We had some crackers with the olive spread and sliced tomatoes and followed up with the butterscotch pudding. (We still have more work to do on that one. It tasted fine, but I would like to work on the texture. The olive spread on the other hand....that's another story! I could it eat it all day and all night and still want some. Better watch out for that stuff.)

Could you tell I had worked out right before lunch? I was starving. It sounds like more food than I usually eat for a meal. What's up with that?

Then for dinner we had some cucumber salad, alfredo, and a lovely kale salad. We were out of avocados, but I did have a half jar of guacamole, so I mixed that in. I also put in a couple of tablespoons of agave. I was thinking about a kale salad I had in a restaurant that put candied pecans on it. I really liked the sweet flavor it gave to the bites that had pecans, so I was thinking maybe it was the sweet flavor I was liking. It worked; I did like it a little better. That's saying something as it is already a really good salad. A couple of tablespoons for that large a serving is not enough sweetness to make you feel like you're having a dessert. It just changes the flavor a little. Try it and see what you think...

There are no ataulfo mangos this week, and I'm very sad to see their season coming to an end. Good thing cherries from Washington are in this week to help comfort me. Wyatt asked me what my favorite fruit was today. I told him it was whatever was in season...

Some New Stuff

All of the food we fixed on Friday for this week was sold, so I had to start over today. I had plenty of cashew cheeze to work with, so we had a lot of fun. First I had to make some things for customers who wanted items delivered today, but that was done by 8 a.m. Then I made more cheddar cheeze, vanilla yogurt silk, Queso Dulce, and cucumber salad. I decided to experiment with some cashew cheeze alfreda, but we haven't eaten it yet, so I'll have to report on that when we eat it.

Here's the recipe for the "pasta":

1 whole zucchini shredded
1 red pepper, julienned
1/4 lb carrot, shredded
a touch of basil
some parsley
enough alfreda to sauce the dish

I plan on sprinkling some pine nut parmesan on it when it is served.

The alfredo is cashew cheeze (2 c) mixed with 1 T lemon juice, 1 T Nama Shoyu, 2 garlic cloves, 1 t apple cider vinegar, an jalopeno, some salt and pepper.

One other cashew cheeze experiment was an olive sandwich spread to which some red pepper, an jalopeno, and some green olives were added. I don't know if green olives are raw or not, but I love them anyway, and they made this spread taste really good. I pulled some alicheezits from the dehydrator to spread it on. Wow! It was really good. I think it would be really good with sliced tomatoes on it as well when we use it for a meal.

My last experiment was for a grapefruit cocktail made with some delicious grapefruits we got for the market this weekend. I just mixed grapefruit juice with agave nectar and water. It was a delicious soft drink. 5 cups juice, 2 1/2 cups agave. Fill up the gallon container with water. Serve over ice.

I also put some Irish moss on to soak and made it into gel tonight. I filled up 4 pint jars with a 1/2 lb. of moss and had 3/4 cup left over. I couldn't resist trying a recipe for butterscotch pudding I have been dying to try, so I was glad that I had the almonds soaking that were needed for the almond mylk that is the basis. The recipe calls for "thick" almond mylk, so I interpreted that as 4 cups of water to 2 cups almonds, soaked, instead of the usual 8 cups of water. This made 4 1/2 cups of almond creme, of which 2 1/2 cups were used for the pudding with the 3/4 cup of Irish moss. Then I added 1/2 cup agave nectar, 1 teaspoon butterscotch extract (from Frontier - organic, no alcohol), and 1/2 a vanilla bean. It tasted great, but we have to wait for it to set-up to see how the texture works.

All the soaked almonds had had their 48 hours dehydrating time, so they came out tonight. We need to get more alicheezits going, but that will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm tuckered out, and Roger's tired of washing dishes (4 loads today!). I'm lucky to have him to help. He's a great sous chef.

Also enjoying the wonderful stone fruits that are in season: peaches, pluots, cherries, plums... does food get any better than this?

Cucumber Salad by the Ton

Sorry I haven’t kept up; this has been a crazy week. Thursday I needed to drive to Alachua to pick up kale and cucumbers for our weekly orders of kale salad and cucumber salad. I decided to call Geri who is visiting from Utah to see if she wanted to ride with me. She agreed and probably got more than she bargained for. I don’t think she’s ever seen that much “country”. We finally found a park on our way home where we could stop for lunch, and we had a great romaine salad with no net tuna, cucumber salad, and ranch dressing. At least I thought it was great. She ate it all, so I’m thinking she must have liked it as well. It is hard for people to believe it has no meat products or dairy. They don’t expect it to taste good. As an aside, our branch president told Roger he had felt sorry for him having to eat this way until he saw how we ate the other night at the branch party. We really aren’t deprived at all.

I was thinking about that yesterday when I was asking how the cheddar cheeze went over at the market yesterday. (I was unable to go as I had a church assignment in Orlando.) I was wondering if I would eat it if I was still eating “real” cheese. I think our palettes have to adjust to eating differently, but it is not offensive in any way. We eat what we are used to eating. Things we are not used to seem strange to us. I guess the main difference is that once we get educated as the harmful effects of something, say coffee for example, we make an effort to find substitutes that are both palatable and not destructive. Once we realized that meat and dairy products were unsuitable for us, we were determined to find substitutes that we enjoyed as much or more that were plant-based. (Please read the China Study if you haven’t done so already. It really is one of the best scientific explanations for why we must change our way of eating culturally.)

Well, anyway, enough of the philosophical stuff. On to the goods! Friday we had some delicious Mac n Cheeze made with wonderful spiralized zucchini, cheddar cheeze sauce, and marinated mushrooms. Of course we had a delicious salad to go with it. We experimented with mixing our ranch dressing and avo mayo for a fantastic avocado ranch dressing.

Saturday was leftover no net tuna for Wyatt and Roger. Angelina and I just had regular salads with veggies. We had some nice cherries and grapes as well. Roger had his cucumber salad of course. He eats it every day if we have it. We had Queso Dulce for dinner with celery sticks. Darius and Alicia like to dip strawberries in their QD. Today I sent shredded zucchini and cheeze sauce for the after-conference lunch. They have the missionaries with them as well as Alicia’s mom. I made a couple of quarts of cucumber ranch dressing to go with all the carrot sticks we have. The cucumbers add a nice touch to it.

I am making a bunch more cucumber salad as Roger eats it by the pound. Since the name didn't come up with I put it in the labels, I guess I haven't posted how this is made. It is very simple. I don't measure any of the ingredients, so I can only tell you what goes into it: cucumber, onion, apple cider vinegar, raw agave nectar, and a pinch of salt. I also marinated some broccoli (Nama Shoyu, maple syrup, onion powder, jalopeno pepper, sesame oil) so that we could have broccoli soup (marinated broccoli and cheddar cheeze) for dinner. I guess I’d better get more cheeze started, but I can’t make the alicheezits from the rejuvelac that's ready as the dehydrators are both going full blast with soaked and sprouted almonds.

There were a lot of people asking for prepared foods at the market yesterday, but it is too hard for us to keep everything at the right temperature. We are asking everyone to let us know what they would like us to bring to them there as we can keep small quantities cold. New people came though who had heard about our stuff and were hoping to buy it. I’m sorry they were disappointed; we’re not sure how to get people what they want. We’ll keep working on it. ¡Viva La Verde! is definitely a work in progress.

Try It, You'll Like It!

We had an unusual experience this week. There was a missionary preparation party we held for a young man going on a mission soon, and Alicia and I decided we would go ahead and prepare our raw vegan food for them. I was really worried that people might not like it, even though one of my favorite phrases is, "What's not to like?" Here's what we made for them:

Unfried no-beans served on a bed of lettuce
Ensalada
Guacamole
Salsa
Cashew Hemp sour creme
Corn chips

The avocados and cilantro were so amazing this week that we have been eating it all week long. We can't get enough of either.

The people attending all seemed to like the food very much including the Spanish people which was surprising. I guess you never know.

Leftovers are the Best

For lunch today we had some beautiful strawberries left over from the market. I decided to make Wyatt's favorite: strawberry soup. This is just strawberries, a few raspberries to highten the flavor of the strawberries, some lemon juice, and agave to sweeten. I swirled a teaspoon of the vanilla yogurt silk on top. More delicious than you can imagine. We had waldorf salad left from the market, so that's what we had for our lunch. It was also very good. I love the avocado mayonnaise in there. Have I published the waldorf salad recipe? There's a tag for it, so I must have. The avocado mayo makes it better than the nut based one in my opinion.


Darius made some jalopeno poppers for dinner. These are just jalopenos split and cleaned of their membranes and seeds (for us wimps). Then we fill it with that good guacamole we made. I'll have mine on lettuce leaves, thank you. I do love the peppers, their flavor, but the heat is too much for me to eat more than one. Wyatt had the peppers stuffed with no net tuna and really liked it.

We finished off the night with some popsicles for FHE treat made from left over raspberry smoothies last week. I just wanted a juvie lemon shake. It hit the spot.

Pineapple Salsa

We met a few people at the market today, but the highlight was seeing all of our "regulars" when they came to pick up their pre-orders. One of our new friends was talking about how frustrated she was that her son is eating so much bread when he has wheat allergies. He is only 6 and will not stop "sneaking" it when they go to church or other areas where it is being served. I told her what I had learned about grains and how they have opiates that cause people to be addicted to them when consumed in large amounts. She had not heard this before, but it was very helpful to me in learning to control my eating to understand the addictive nature of foods that I was craving. Once I could see them for what they were, foods designed to control me, I was able to overcome the urge to eat them. This does not mean that I do not still crave them occasionally (rarely, fortunately), but I know why that craving exists, and it has nothing to do with nourishment.

We talked about the emotional needs that create a dependence on any drug or substance and how even young children have that need. It is kind of scary to think about it.

Everyone liked the pineapple salsa (I think). Here's the recipe I used yesterday to make it:

Pineapple Salsa

1 pineapple cored and peeled and chopped
3 avocados, peeled and chopped
3 jalopeno peppers, seeded, and chopped finely
1/2 carton of sweet mini peppers (about 1 large regular sweet pepper)
1/2 large onion, minced
1 head cilantro, chopped fine
3/4 pound tomatoes, chopped

Mix all together and enjoy. This makes a large recipe. You'll need it! Everyone loves this, including the children.

One of our friends introduced us to the lychee nut. I have heard of this for many years and even seen them at markets, but since I did not know how to eat them, I had never purchased any. She gave us one of hers, so I went to another vender and bought some. They are really delicious. I'll try to u-tube how to eat them, but you just peel the skin off and pop it in your mouth. There's a large seed, so don't bite down too hard. The flesh easily separates from the seed.

Long, Busy Day

We had a very long, busy day from about 7 a.m. until after midnight. You'd think we'd be able to pace ourselves through the week a little better, but maybe we will get better as we go along.

Our new recipes for the market were pineapple salsa along with guacamole and regular salsa. We also decided to do tuna. Alicia thought of a great name for it: "No Net Tuna". Isn't that clever? We made the regular kale salad, cucumber salad, raisin cheeze, ranch dressing, waldorf salad (along with little side salads), and honey almond butter. Alicia also pulled several trays of Alicheezits out of the dehydrator. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

We sprouted some more buckwheat, made more alicheezits for the dehydrator, and Alicia got some alternate universe sunnies going as well. What's that about? Can you tell I'm a stick in the mud. I like things to stay the same...

We've been sprouting 2 cups of wheat every day to keep up with the need for juvie. I think we've caught up. When I got my grocery order today, they messed up and left off my cashews, so we're hard pressed for our cheezes until I can get another order next Friday.

Life is Good

Today was a fun culinary event for me. The other day I had an inspiration for a recipe come into my head, and today I was able to create it. I don't do that all that often. I usually re-work other recipes that I try, and I'm pretty good at that, but this one, I actually came up with in my head.

I had been having some fruit with my other yogurt on it, and it was tasty and everything, but the consistency wasn't as good as real yogurt is. So I was trying to think of how to make it better. Then I was impressed to put irish moss in it which is the substance from which the food industry extracts carageenan (commonly used in ice cream - read the label). We've used irish moss in other applications with great results, but I hadn't used any in a while. I made some irish moss paste last week - I can't remember why. Oh yeah, Alicia had put it on to soak and left it there. We had to do something with it, so I made it up into paste.

Anyway, I decided to put some in my yogurt recipe, and I also added part of a vanilla bean. It was perfect, in fact, better than perfect! I loved it. I tried it out on the family tonight, and I think everyone enjoyed it. Here's the recipe, I think:

3 cups fermented raw cashews
1 cup irish moss paste
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup honey (or to taste)
1/2 a vanilla bean

All of this is mixed in the blender. We had some nice blueberries left from the market, and I topped them with this mixture, and then sprinkled them with buckwheaties for some crunch. It is truly too good for words. It is one of those foods it would be very easy to overeat. I had some on a really ripe banana tonight, and it was perfect because the tanginess counteracted the oversweetness of the banana. Anyway, I think we'll take it to market Saturday for one of our samples.

I didn't get breakfast this morning because I got caught up in the recipe, and the next thing I knew was I had to leave for work. I was also making some Queso Dulce (that's our new name for raisin cheese). So no breakfast today even though Roger had food in the car on the way to the school visit. I guess I didn't feel like eating. I had 3 mangos before going to bed last night, so maybe I really wasn't in need of any calories anyway. No exercise this morning either, so it worked out all right.

For lunch I had marinated veggies over zucchini noodles with an alfredo type sauce along with a salad and avo soup. Then I made another avocado soup for dinner with one avocado, 2 stalks of celery, 1 huge cucumber, and 1 whole bunch of cilantro. We put some miso in there too. It was pretty tasty and not overwhelmed by the cilantro as you might think. It felt so vivacious and alive. (I feel silly saying that food feels like that, but I don't know how else to describe it. It is really amazing.)

After Alicia and I went to the gym, I cut up 2 pineapples for all of us. They were so sweet and delicious, it felt almost decadent. I think they put yogurt on their's, but I ate mine just the way it was with a few sprinkles of blueberries. Life is good. I feel bad that it takes food to make me feel like that. Driving home from the YMCA, we saw one the prettiest sunsets I have seen in a long time. Yes, life is good for more reasons than just wonderful food...

Planning for the Market

I'm not doing too much cooking this week because I have a lot of work to do with school, but I did come up with some items that might be good for the market. We are committed to making 2 items for sampling each week, so we need to have enough product from the week before so that we have enough for sampling the next week. I made up a tentative schedule, but it will depend on what is available from the suppliers and the garden, and what is leftover. I guess we will figure it out after the market each week for the next week.

I was hoping to make a spinach alfredo, but the spinach is not in good enough shape for that to happen. We have mushrooms that would have been nice stuffed with it.

I think we will make a nice marinated broccoli to serve with shredded zucchini and marinated mushrooms with a marinara or alfredo sauce. Can't decide for sure. For the other thing, maybe we'll make some salsa to have with corn chips or something. Or maybe a lemon pie? or sunnies would be easy since it is a hard work week, and I haven't had much time to make stuff. Alicia made a whole batch of them this week, and I'm sure they're delicious. Of course, we always cut up produce for people to try as well, but we've had so many pre-orders, our table produce might be limited.

Anyway, the other thing on our agenda is the prepared foods that we prepare to have for customers. The honey almond butter went over well as did the ranch dressing. We have pre-orders for both of them as well as for the alicheezits and East Indian Sprouts. I think we'll make more kale salad even though we don't have pre-orders for it. It sold well. I was also wanting to make a pineapple salsa and some salads. I wonder if miso soup would go over well. Then we could use those gorgeous mushrooms. I want to make some guacamole as well. I ordered a whole case of avocados, and I am anxious to make lots of stuff with them.

So, even though I haven't been able to cook much this week, I've had fun thinking about what to prepare. It is kinda fun imagining what people will like, and there is a thrill to seeing them enjoy it. I've never felt like that before even though I've cooked a lot for others. They've always liked it, but I think this is more of a challenge because people assume they WON'T like it. They are surprised and delighted when they do enjoy it. I am getting a satisfaction from this that I didn't from preparing cooked foods. People expect to like that.

We were talking tonight about how we like not having to go to the grocery store anymore. We haven't been for the whole month. We just eat leftover produce! It is very cool. Our menus revolve around what is left, and we are eating like kings. (Raw vegan kings, that is. There probably haven't been a whole lot of them historically.) Fun stuff! It is a challenge to try to eat it before it spoils. We don't like to waste any of it because it is all so beautiful and delicious.

Smoothie Overload

I know this is boring during our heavy work weeks, but there is still stuff going on. We are kind of in survival mode when we have to work a lot, but that's ok, because we need to see that it works for us whether we have a lot of time to prepare and be creative, or if we need fast preparations so that we can get on with our work.

Cucumbers are coming on in the garden. That is good news. They were really high last winter, and they are still expensive. They never recovered. The more of them we can produce for ourselves, the better. I suppose that is true for any food, but some things will always be more elusive than others. For example, herbs are always high. Speaking of which, the basil is also doing great. We cut some today, and it was so fragrant, it was almost heady.

Darius made raspberry smoothies for breakfast. I know he used greens in there, but I'm not sure which one(s). They were delicious. He went a little overboard, so we made sorbet with the leftovers. The raspberries we got at the market this week were really delectable. I'm not a big fan usually, but these were truly wonderful.

For lunch Alicia made us a delicious salad with some sea vegetables, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, and that wonderful romaine. We also had some more yummy cucumber salad. We still had ranch dressing. UmUmUm. Thank you, mother nature. I do love salads.

We served the ice cream as our FHE treat, and the children really loved it. I'm glad we have the ice cream maker for them. I don't think it would matter that much to us, but it seems to be important to them. We had enough smoothie left over to make some popsicles, so they can enjoy them tomorrow.

Alicia got the sunnies into the dehydrator today, and we did broccoli tonight. We are not sure how it is going to come out, but we'll see.

I pulled the tomatoes that were drying. I can never resist munching on them as I pack them. The dried sweet peppers were yummy too.

We're going into double time on the juvie. I'm not sure where we'll put it all. We don't have the refrigerator space for it. I guess we'll figure that out as we go along.

Watermelon Feast Day

Today was fast and testimony day, so we did not eat until after our church meetings. We had some sugarbaby melons left from the market, so we had a wonderful watermelon feast. These were not as sweet as some I have had, but they were wonderfully hydrating after 19 hours of no fluids. They were tasty as well, just not the best I've had. Actually one of the 4 we cut open was delicious, the others were just okay.

Do we expect perfection each time we eat a fruit or vegetable? We had some cherries this weekend as well. Almost every one of them was an exquisite jewel of goodness. The few that weren't were a lesson in opposites. It helps us appreciate the good when we have something to which to compare it.

I had some of those cherries for dinner, and I will never cease to think of them in the off season. They are truly memory makers.

We also had some of Roger's salad left over from yesterday, so we had that. I think the children nibbled on fruit all day as well. It was a simple day.

Tonight I made some more rejuvelac for the week, started more wheat seeds sprouting, and used the rejuvelac that was ready for some more cashew cheese. The cashew cheese that was ready was used for some cheddar, some yogurt, and more raisin cheese. We needed to stock up! Our supply had diminished drastically! Can you tell we like this stuff?

We also packaged our finished zucchini chips and started more. Some of the heirloom tomatoes we had put in the dehydrator were ready, so we packaged them. We also cut up some peppers for the dehydrator along with a few more trays of zucchini and yellow squash. We have 2 dehydrators now going full tilt: 18 trays.

We started some marinated broccoli for some broccoli soup tomorrow. Everyone said they like the dehydrated broccoli texture better than the fresh for this application, so I guess we are going to start some broccoli drying tomorrow. Should be interesting. I got out my dehydrator book I bought when I got my dehydrator, and Alicia was able to find lots of other concoctions I had forgotten about. One is an herbal tea made from raspberry leaf. We have literally tons of that in our garden growing as a weed, so we will probably try some of that. I used the raspberry leaves in my juices last year, but I hadn't thought of them as a tea. Of course that makes sense. I think raspbery leaf is supposed to be a good blood cleanser. Sounds we have a new avenue to pursue.

Synergy in the Soil

Met some more wonderful people at the market yesterday. (I forgot to write last night.) We feel very blessed that they find their way to the market so that we can meet them. There are so many venues for organic food these days (and man, isn't that an amazing blessing), that it is a wonder we get to connect with so many people seeking those choices.

We brought some of our concoctions to the market including kale salad and ranch dressing/dip as samples. They seemed to be a big hit. We also brought cucumber salad, honey almond butter, East Indian sprouts, zucchini chips, and banana bark for sale. We are wondering how we will keep up with the demand when we get a lot of customers. I guess we will deal with that when it happens. We know this is what we are supposed to be doing at the present time, and we know it helps people to have support when they are trying to change from destructive habits, so that being the case, He will help us do it just as He always has when He directs the path in which we are to travel. He never leaves us high and dry. We just can't imagine what that path might be. We are ALWAYS amazed at it when it does become evident.

One of the greatest benefits of this has been the wonderful produce WE are blessed to eat. When we were buying it at stores hit and miss, much of it was older and not as good. We are being blessed to eat the best possible food available to us right now, and I am so grateful for that. Some of it is so incredible, and I am so thankful to the growers that produced it.

Speaking of growers, Roger added 40 tomato plants to our farm yesterday. We will soon be swimming in cherry tomatoes, and that is a wonderful thing. Last year I would pick our tomatoes, bring them into the sink, and could hardly resist eating them as quickly as I washed them. Most of them never made it to a salad, sadly for Roger. He has no idea how wonderful they were! There was a sweet tangy thing going on, definitely yen and yang. I am salivating to think of them. I can hardly wait for this year's crop. In the meantime, I will enjoy other farmer's versions.

Saying that reminds me how personal and distinct each garden's output is. I don't believe any 2 gardens or farms produce could be identical. That is all the more reason to have a greengrocer who wants delicious produce as much as you do. I was thinking that at the market yesterday. So many people turn their nose up at organic. I can't even tell you how many people walk by and say, "Oh, that's organic...", and walk by as though it is something to be avoided as much as possible. The sign we have which designates us as organic is as much a detriment as it is an attraction. That is okay. It is the great divider. We don't want to force our idealogy upon anyone. We just want to help those who have come to believe it is important.

I am becoming more and more passionate about buying only those fruits and vegetables produced by farmers who care about their soil and the organisms they encourage to live there in a symbiotic relationship. I can tell by how a fruit or vegetable tastes how much effort was put into this. I know that sounds strange to some. There are even organics for which this is true. There are non-organic (conventional) foods in which I have tasted this, but it is rare, and not worth the chance since most conventional produce is mass produced with little thought put into the life of the soil.

Some farmers accomplish this unknowingly. I think of this when I drive through Hastings and see the silage growing. Farmers grow this as a way to enrich their soil the cheapest way possible, but it is also a great way to accomplish the synergistic relationship that makes for great tasting produce.

I have been thinking of how this is true of our food preparation as well. When we combine fresh, organic, and whole fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds into foods, we must keep this concept going. They must compliment each other. We must keep the synergy going. That is why some combinations are so delightful and others aren't. If we begin with foods that are substandard to begin with, we have little chance of coming up with something wonderful. When we use only great products, and feel what would go well together, we can't lose. I realize too, that what is good for me, may not be good for everyone, but apparently I have a pretty generic sense of this since most people like my preparations.

So no new recipes at the market this week, just some oldies but goodies. We are already excited about what we will be making next week: spinach alfredo stuffed mushrooms, caesar salad, and waldorf salad. We had the most beautiful romaine this week I have seen in a long time, and we can wait to make these delicious salads with them. Our celery was gorgeous too. Oh how blessed we are...

Change in Repetoire

It's fun to take a lot of samples for people to try at the market, but we have decided it is a little too labor intensive for us this early in the game. We decided to bring 2 new recipes each week for people to try which highlights some sort of seasonal produce we've been able to get. Then we can have other prepared foods we've passed out samples for before if anyone wants anything. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

This week we made some kale salad and ranch dressing, raw vegan style. Both are delicious. We have celery sticks to go with the dressing/dip. I've already posted both recipes, so nothing new there.

We had a delicious fruit salad for breakfast with some cashew yogurt. For lunch, because the children both "graduated" today, we went to Present Moment for lunch. They had a great corn chowder today for their special. Darius and Alicia liked the jalopeno poppers, but they were too hot for me. There was also a scampi zucchini pasta dish with a Caesar salad, but it was nothing too special. We did like the addition of sun-dried tomatoes to it. It was nice to see Yvette and Sandy again.

"Sufficient for Our Needs"

Today it was Alicia's turn to forget something...she forgot the agave when she made her smoothies. Like I said, it is really hard to mess these things up. Darius said they were fine. I had watermelon. It was ok, but I am really looking forward to having one of the organic ones from Lady Moon Farms we will have at the market this weekend. All of their produce is top of the line.

We picked up our cherries today. They have been so outrageously priced, we have not been able to get any before today. They are still high, but this is the price they tapped out on last year. We bought some conventional ones last year, and they just aren't that tasty, so we held off getting cherries until we could get the organic ones. They seem hard to come by in general this year though. I haven't even seen any conventional ones at the market.

I have been thinking alot about why organic fruits and veggies taste better than conventional. (There is no doubt that they do. If you don't believe it, eat only organic for a couple of weeks, and then eat a conventional apple.) I believe it has to do with the life of the soil. When the soil is being nourished, there is a magical mix there, and all of the components are able to work together to make for a very desirable fruit or vegetable. Any other theories?

For lunch we had a delicious salad with romaine and heirloom tomato, cucumber, and alfalfa sprouts with some of the fantastic ranch dressing. I also sprinkled on some blueberries and capers. Yummy.

For dessert, we sliced up celery to have with the raisin cheese. Darius convinced me to try a banana with the raisin cheese, and that was good too. Seems like it combines well with all fruit. I had it with strawberries the other day.

Put some bananas in the dehydrator today. Alicia had some slices in there when I pulled something out of there, and they were so good, it motivated me to get more bananas in there. There is just too much good stuff to eat and not enough time to eat it!

We are going to pick basil and parsley and rosemary from our "farm" to take to the market this week. The basil is going crazy! Pesto time!

Messing Up is Hard to Do

I made smoothies for breakfast, but I was in a hurry, so I forgot the juvie base. It was a very thick smoothie! It's really hard to mess this stuff up even when you're trying!

Worked many hours today, so I didn't have time for much cooking. Alicia made a salad for us for dinner to go with yellow squash noodles and cheddar cheeze sauce. The ranch dressing is so good it makes me want a salad every day.

Darius made a fruit salad for lunch with some of all our fruit we still had. It was delicious with some of our yogurt dressing.

We were making more juvie, of course, and this time I used 2 cups of wheat berries so we could make a bigger batch of Alicheezits. We decided to make our own version of the Greek seasoning. We looked on the bottle of the one we got from Penzey's and concocted our own ratio based on the listed ingredients: coarse salt, garlic, lemon, black pepper, Turkish oregano, marjoram. It smells really good dehydrating, so maybe we got it right.

Patterns

Since we started a new work month today, there is not too much time for me to prepare food, so a lot of that fell to others. Darius made a mango milk shake for breakfast. Gotta love the mangos.

I had leftover kale salad for lunch with a lemonade. Good stuff. For dinner I was wanting a salad, so I made some ranch dressing from my giant bottle of cashew cheeze. After 3 1/2 quarts, there was still some cheeze, so I made 2 quarts of yogurt. I also started another bottle.

We are kind of getting in the groove with sprouting and fermenting. When I finish one, I start another. That seems to be a good pattern. I think it is essential to get some kind of pattern if you want to keep the food in your fridge that you want to eat.

Waldorf Salad

We went to Jacksonville last night for seminary graduation and our granddaughter Brooklyn's 1 year birthday, so I was pretty beat last night when it came time to get the old quill out for record keeping. Let's see how much I can remember about yesterday...

I know we had a Waldorf Salad for lunch after church. This is one of my favorite salads, and we don't have it often. I'm not sure why. I guess we don't want to get tired of it...

I like to serve this salad over a head of lettuce.

Mix well in a mixing bowl:

1 cup of chopped apples
1 cup of chopped celery
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup walnuts (I use soaked & dehydrated walnuts)

Mix together and dress with the following mayonnaise:

Blend in a blender till creamy smooth:

1/2 cup water
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons raw agave or honey
2 teaspoons sea salt

For creaminess choose one and add to the blender mixture, creaming well:
1 1/2 C chopped young coconut meat
1 1/3 cup raw cashews
1 ripe hass avocado

This mayo can be used as a sandwich spread or as a delicious dressing for any kind of salad. I've made it with each of the three "creamers", and they are all good. Just go with whatever you have on hand. I'm really into the avocado one right now.

Before church everyone munched on their fruit of choice, and you already know what I chose (mangos). After we got home from Jacksonville, I had some celery and raisin cheese after I ate some of the watermelon Alicia cut up for dinner. It wasn't a truly great one, but it was adequate and hit the spot.

Today Wyatt and Angelina made a fruit salad for breakfast. I took a picture but will have to post it when I have more time. More fruit for lunch for most of us, and then for dinner we had another kale salad, cucumber salad, and an save-the-tuna salad served over romaine lettuce with a tomato/pineapple/red pepper/onion/parsley salsa. It was very good. I made the above mentioned mayonnaise instead of the one I've made with it before. I think it was good. We had a dinner guest, Stephen Miracle, one of Darius' oldest friends. I think he liked it as well.

After dinner we had some delicious strawberries, some raisin cheese, and some more celery. Strawberries really taste good with raisin cheese, a little like that dip everyone makes with marshmallows.

Hale the Almighty Kale

What a great day at the farmer's market! I can't believe all the really neat people we get to talk to each time we go. We especially like talking to the ones who have adopted a vegan lifestyle. There aren't too many, but we really enjoy the ones we do meet. We feel very connected to them.

Several of our customers have recommended we go to the Riverside Arts Market, so yesterday I submitted an application to it. I don't know if we will be accepted or not, but we will see. If we are accepted, 2 of us will go there, and the other 2 will stay at Beaver Street.

Darius and I took lemonade for breakfast, and then we had some grapes. I made kale salad before we left, so we had that for lunch. It was very popular amongst the people at the market. I think I posted the recipe for that on Thursday. We also had some pesto pasta I mixed up for us and the customers. It wasn't as popular as the kale. We took 12 heads with us and sold 10 of them! That is pretty amazing based on our past track record.

For dinner, Alicia made a salad. We haven't had too many salad meals lately, so it was very good. I love salad meals. She made kind of a Caesar-like dressing.

Getting Ready for the Market

Today was a busy day preparing food for the farmer's market tomorrow. We like to have samples there so that people will have more ideas on how to get their fruits and veggies in every day. We also got our new supplier order in, and put together some pre-orders from that. We tried the new honey Elizabeth told us about from Wee Farms in Vero Beach. It is raw and organic and delicious!

For breakfast at seminary, Darius made lemon milkshakes which were delicious. He made us some more at home so that the kids and Alicia would have some too. We had been wondering how they would taste with greens added, so he put some spinach in it, and it was excellent. Not only did we have a wonderful, tasty breakfast, we felt good about it knowing we were getting at least a partial serving of greens. Another victory!

We snacked on fruit most of the day including delicious grapes, peaches, and mangos. Don, Alicia's father, came to visit her and tried some of our groceries and really enjoyed them. That is something coming from a person who doesn't normally eat like we do. He really liked the lemonade, the kale salad, and the "mac & cheese"; not so much the raisin cheese which is my favorite.

For the market tomorrow we packaged up some raisin cheese, honey almond butter, (celery to have with them), cucumber salad, pesto pasta, Alicheezits, and I can't remember if there was anything else or not.

For dinner we had the pesto pasta with marinated mushrooms. Side dishes were the delicious cucumber salad and a tomato salad made from grape tomatoes combined with the seasoned dried roma slices I made last week. It was pretty tasty. We're still tweaking our lemonade, and the batch we made for dinner was our best yet.

We're really needing to step up the rejuvelac production and are at various stages for 3 batches: 1 final stage of the wheat sprouts fermenting, 1 at the middle stage with the sprouts almost done so they can go into the juice, and one at the beginning stage where I just put the wheat on to soak for the sprouting stage. We also had a batch of cheese we started with some rejuvelac that just got finished today, so really we had 4 batches working at once. Because we pulled that batch, we were able to make a batch of crackers. We decided to call them Alicheezits (pronounced Ali like in Ali McGraw, and cheezits like the cheddar cracker with the main emphasis going to the "chee" syllable) since they are Alicia's creation and they taste like cheezits. The secret is Greek seasoning, so we are looking into making our own blend of it so that we can use organic ingredients. The crackers are really good, so we are going to have to figure out a way to make more of them which is tricky since they have to be "juvied" first. I am going to try to sprout 2 cups of wheat berries instead of one and see if it makes a difference. Never a dull moment around here!

Our final (for now) lemonade was made with 1 1/2 cups each fresh lemon juice and raw agave nectar, 2 cups water (to wash the agave out of the cup), all mixed in a half gallon container. Fill the container with rejuvelac. Serve over plenty of ice. Wow!

Feasting 101

We had to leave early today for Jacksonville to pick up our produce order, so we grabbed some watermelon from the bowl Alicia fixed last night. It was a mighty fine breakfast.

We had fruit throughout the day as we travelled around Jacksonville: grapes, bananas, and mangos (of course) when we got home. Then we got out the preparations for our Spanish meal for dinner: refried no-beans, tortillas, hemp sour cream, and we prepared salsa, guacamole, and ensalada. It was truly a feast fit for a king.

Just a Bowl of ...

For breakfast today, Darius suggested a fruit salad, and it turned out to be a very good idea. I mixed several ripe bananas with a small pineapple, some grapes, and an orange. There was some yogurt leftover from yesterday that was a nice dressing for it. Yummy!

I dug the kale from the weekend out of the fridge in the shed. Out of sight, out of mind. I had forgotten it was there. I had wanted to make a kale salad. It turned out to be very delicious:

Kale Salad

1 head kale, cleaned of stems, and sliced thinly
3 roma tomatoes, diced
1 avocado, diced
EVOO sprinkled around bowl
1 teaspoon salt
lemon juice sprinkled around bowl

Everything is mushed up together. The marinade helps break down the fibers so that it turns out to have a "cooked" texture and more digestible.

I had a small bowl full right after preparation, but the rest went into the fridge for dinner. I also had a few of my beloved mangos.

For dinner, Alicia shredded up some yellow squash. We topped it with some marinated mushrooms and our "cheddar" we made yesterday. It was the best "mac and cheese" I have ever had, cooked or uncooked. Served with the kale, it was a great meal. Some of us even mixed the kale into the squash, and that was delicious too. Again, a no-brainer!

We just finished up a small bowl of watermelon from a larger one Alicia was cutting up for the seminary students tomorrow. Life may be just like a bowl of cherries as our friend Forrest says. Or a bowl of watermelon...

No-Brainer, Really...

Today was cooking day since it has been so long for one of those. Lots of things to catch up on. Lots of cheese waiting to be made. First I pulled off the zucchini chips. I get 1 oz of chips per pound of zucchini (!). Wow, huh? I started 7 more trays of them since we had a goodly supply of zucchini on hand from the market. We ate the whole 2 pounds as soon as I took it out of the dehydrator - yes, they are that good! I also put more soaked and sprouted almonds in so that I'll have plenty of almonds around for honey almond butter.

I also made 4 more tortillas out of some of the zucchini. It takes about 1 zuke to make a tortilla.

3c peeled zucchini
3T olive oil
2t lemon juice
Pinch cayenne
1t ground coriander
1/2t salt
1/2c flax meal*

• Blend all ingredients except flax meal in a high-speed blender until smooth.

• Add flax meal and blend again until smooth.

• Pour mixture onto 2 dehydrator sheets and spread evenly into a circle on each.

• Dehydrate for 8 hours at 105 degrees F, or until able to peel of the sheet.

• Once the dehydrator sheets are removed, return to the dehydrator for 30 - 60 mins, until both sides are dry to the touch but still pliable.

* Flax meal is flax seed that have been ground in a coffee grinder or similar, to produce a fine flour.

These are really tasty and are an excellent substitute for the heavy grain kind. We used some made yesterday for some burritos for dinner with "not fried no beans", and they were delicious. I also got my salsa groove on with another interesting salsa:

1 10 oz. bag frozen corn, thawed
2 avocados, diced
1 chopped sweet pepper
1/2 a pineapple, chopped up
1/2 a large onion, diced small
splash of lemon juice
salt to taste

This made a huge bowl that we ate as salad with some romaine on our "burritos". Good stuff.

Once the dehydrator was loaded up, it was time to make the no-beans and then tackle the cheese. First we made a small batch of yogurt to have with the blueberries. I just made the hemp sour creme and mixed in some honey and vanilla bean. Ummm Umm good. We had that tonight for our FHE treat we didn't get last night. Then we made several batches of "cheddar" since we use it for so many applications. I also started the broccoli marinating so we could have our broccoli cheese soup for dinner. After the cheddar, we finished up with raisin cheese, and then I put the package of mushrooms on to marinate so we could have it with out green spaghetti later in the week. I find mushrooms will hold better in marinade than in their plastic grocery store package.

I shouldn't neglect to mention that Darius made yogurt shakes for breakfast this morning. He wanted to try a spinoff of my lemon shakes. He made a cherry version which was delicious. It really is hard to screw this stuff up. It seems like a no-brainer! We snacked on the zuke chips and fruit the rest of the day until dinner.

Asian Night

We worked very hard much of the day, so it was good that we began our day (after a few hours of light work) with the banana mambo. Our bananas are ripening fast, so that is another good reason to have this special breakfast. It's the bananas with almond honey butter on them, plus raisins and sunnies. Ummm, Ummm, good!

Our dinner consisted of zucchini shredded with peanut sauce. We also mixed in some shredded carrot, julienned yellow pepper, and julienned mango. It was great. We still had cole slaw and ensalada left over from the weekend, so Alicia mixed them into a salad with some romaine hearts. It was really good even though it sounded a little weird as we were talking about it. I'm a big fan of cabbage all of a sudden, I don't know why.

Mock Peanut Sauce

1 recipe almond butter (about 1/2 cup if you don't make your own)
1 1/2 T lemon juice
1 T maple syrup
1 T nama shoyu
1 t crushed garlic
1/2 t grated fresh ginger
dash cayenne
dash salt
water to blend (approx 1/2 cup)

lasts 5 days

In the dehydrator, I put 2 more pounds of zucchini rounds to see what the dehydrated yield would be. The tomatoes turned out perfect as did the other things from yesterday. I made some tortillas to have with the sunflower seed pate tomorrow. I have some cheese that needs mixing, but it's late, so I'll have to do that tomorrow.

Last night I made the honey almond butter, and everyone went crazy over it, so I am dehydrating soaked and sprouted almonds like nobody's business so that I can keep up with the demand. I was hoping to have some for the seminary kids tomorrow.

Sunday Must Have - Mango Salsa

Let's see. Saturday we worked the market all day. The red flame grapes are wonderful, and we are all so glad to see them again after about 6 months with no grapes. I'm not a big fan of blueberries, but we got some very nice ones. I was going to make some parfaits, but we have very few left, so we'll see.

I had a lot of lemons left over, so I decided to try a tip I got from a dehydrator newsgroup. I sliced some up very thinly and dehydrated them on a teflex sheet. When we tasted the finished dry product, they taste like a lemon drop candy without the sugar. There is a small amount of sweetness there anyway. It was a very surprising discovery because I was going for a dried product I could whirl up in the food processor to make a lemon "powder". It will be fun to experiment with it.

I also put some sliced yellow peppers and zucchini in there. Today I did some tomatoes. I like snacking on these items, and the peppers work great in recipes - they add flavor to wet product without diluting it.

Last night we had our pesto on shredded zucchini. Oh my, that is good stuff. I have a pound of basil left over from market I am going to make into pesto. I'm excited to do a little more experimenting with it.

We are going to step up the rejuvelac production. We are using a lot of it - about a half gallon a day. I want to do some videos of that this week.

Today we made a delicious salsa for lunch that involved 1 yellow pepper, chopped; 2 mangos cut in small pieces; 1/2 onion, chopped; parsley; lemon juice; 1 cup corn; tomatoes, chopped, as desired for color and taste. It was fantastic! We used it as a filling with lettuce leaves or tortillas. We also had some ensalada which rounded our lunch out well.

Pizza!

Shredded up 15 large onions for 9 trays of crispy onions. Tried our pizza tonight with the buckwheat crust, pesto, crispy onions, sliced tomatoes, and marinara. It was surprisingly good. (I had not expected to like it.) Actually it was delicious, and this is coming from someone who is not fond of buckwheat.

Made the no-fat milk shakes for everyone today, and it was a hit. No complaints. So the high fat versions are out the window. These really agree with me. Darius went on a juicing spree doing several quarts of every juice available, so we'll all be quite juicy for the next little while.

Too tired to post recipes tonight, but I'll get to them along with pictures soon. Things have been very hectic with the kids moving down, so I'm assuming things will get back to normal when we get all of that out of the way (whatever normal is).

More Experiments

I'm getting tired, but I am trying to write every day. I have been working a lot yesterday and today, so I am not cooking or eating very much. Yesterday we made milkshakes for breakfast, and that is all I had to eat all day. They really do hold you all day.

I had put some caramelized onions in the dehydrator, and I had some of them when I pulled them out. They really are irresistable. Onions are sliced and mixed with their sauce made of 1 cup dates, 3 tablespoons nama shoyu and a little oil (2 tablespoons) plus 1/4 cup water. They can be dehydrated until they're soft representing a sauteed onion, or they can stay in a little longer to become crispy. I'm going to make some more for the market this week, so I'll try to post a video when I do that.

I have been thinking about the mylkshakes Wyatt likes to have each morning for breakfast. The only fat in them is the almond mylk. I don't know fatty it is, but I was thinking that the consistency of the shakes comes from the bananas, not the mylk. So this morning I only had 1/3 cup of almond mylk left, so I decided to test my theory. I made our morning shake with rejuvelac, lemon juice, agave nectar, and bananas (4 frozen and 2 fresh). It was very yummy, and I loved it. Roger and Wyatt didn't seem to know they were drinking anything different than usual. Of course, if you had both drinks sitting next to each other, I'm sure you would be able to tell the difference. The point is that they are both tasty, but one is significantly lower in fat which is a good thing when you are working with sweet fruit. Fat in the blood stream holds the sugar in the bloodstream instead of letting it do its thing. As the sugar remains in the bloodstream, problems can occur. (Check out 80-10-10 by Dr. Doug Graham.) The issue is not calories OR fat as much as it is on the ability of the sugar to be absorbed into the bloodstream. I'll give numbers after I get it figured out.

Besides my morning mylkshake, I had 3 mangos. I snacked on some of the zucchini chips and dried tomatos and of course, some crispy onions.

I started some buckwheat to sprout yesterday, so today I mixed up some pizza crusts. They are still dehydrating. I've never made them before, so I'll post the recipe after I see what they taste like. We had some beautiful basil at the market Saturday, so I decided to make some pesto to put on the pizza. It seems really nice, but again, I'll let you know. I've never had pesto very much, so it will be a work in progress.

I was making some rejuvelac too, so made some bread with the berries based on Alicia's recipe: sprouted wheat berries (leftover from 1 cup wheat, soaked, sprouted, and juvied), 3 to 4 tomatoes, 1 teaspoon salt, and Italian seasoning. Alicia's recipe used Greek seasoning. Anyway, it's in the dehydrator and will come out tomorrow.

That's it, we're done.

Stepping up

Man, I can't believe how crazy this week was. I really want to record this each day, but I just couldn't get done early enough to do it. I put in 16 to 18 hours each day. I think I worked 20 hours one day. I try not to think about it, but this week is is kind of bugging me because I couldn't do some of the things that are important to me, like this blog.

Anyway, we got through graduation which is what was creating a lot of the stress. It was a great group of graduates.

Anyway, back to the food...

I have to start with today because I don't know where I left off before this, and I'm not sure how far back I can remember!

Today, no breakfast; not hungry. Not sure why as I had a "no fat" day yesterday which means not too many calories consumed. After church today I had 3 altaufo mangos, my new favorite food. Later after home teaching we pulled all the partial jars out of the fridge to get it cleaned out. Wyatt had his favorite: shredded zucchini with marinara. Roger cleaned up the crabby patties from last night, and I had some refried no-beans on lettuce leaves with salsa, sliced avocado, and hemp sour cream.

Last night after a long day, Roger and Wyatt had some crabby patties that I had fixed the day before. I whipped up some tartar sauce from the mayo I made for the un-tuna. I sliced up some dill pickles and some onion, and it looked pretty tasty. I made some cole slaw by grinding up a head of cabbage in the blender with water. I then strain it through a nut mylk bag. I also ground up a carrot. I made a dressing from apple cider vinegar and agave nectar with a little salt. It was delicious, and I ate several helpings of it. I had planned on having some of the dinner, but I was too full from the salad to eat anything else. I did drink a quart of rejuvelac lemonade:

1 cup lemon juice
1 cup agave nectar

Pour this into a half gallon container. Fill the container with rejuvelac. That's it. Darius and Alicia only half fill the container with rejuvelac, and then fill it with regular water. I like to pour it over crushed ice.

I had a glass of the lemonade for breakfast on my way to the market, and then I snacked on pieces of strawberries and oranges.

I had made some banana brittle to bring to the market, and I think everone who tried it really liked it. Many signed up for the newsletter and asked for that recipe in the next one. One guy asked me to assemble the recipe components for him, minus the bananas of course.

1 cup date paste
5 medium bananas
1/4 cup flax meal
2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
2 heaping cups of walnuts chopped in the food processor

Blend the dates, bananas, and flax in the food processor. Pulse in the coconut and chopped walnuts. Spread this on 2 dehydrator sheets and dry until brittle. It can be dried less for a sweet pizza.

I promise to include some pictures when I get caught up.

Last week we had some of our case of zucchini and roma tomatoes left over. They were beautiful quality from Lady Moon Farms. I didn't want them to get even close to going bad, so I went ahead and sliced them thinly and dehydrated them. I love zucchini chips. In fact, I included this suggestion in our first newsletter sent out last week.

Crabby Patties are a big hit at our house. I've adapted the recipe we got from Present Moment, but theirs is a great recipe too. I think it is posted earlier in the blog.

I think that's all I've made this week with all the work. I need to come up with some new stuff. I'm now making the raisin cheeze by the gallon. Stepping up all of my recipes to accomodate 6 of us. What to make, what to make?

Happy Mother's Day

My experiments worked out pretty well. The peppers were terrific; I used some in the salsa today hoping it would absorb some of the water from the tomatoes. It had a nice consistency.

The "parm" tasted like parm, but the consistency was different of course. We haven't had an Italian dish to try it on, so we'll see how it goes.

The carmelized onions were amazing. I could make a batch of them everyday if I had time. They were a delicious snack. We never got far enough to have them on a dish. I am anxious to try them as a pizza topping.

The breads were fine. Wyatt will enjoy them. The tortillas got left in all day as I had to work in Jacksonville, and I think they would have been nicer if we could have pulled them while they were still flexible. They had a nice flavor. I haven't used them in a meal yet. I forgot to bring them out for the Mexican meal at lunchtime.

We had a lot of parsley left over from the farmer's market as we had to buy a whole case, so I started dehydrating it when I pulled the other stuff out today. One bunch went on a tray. It worked out nicely because I used the last of my dried parsley on Friday. It is a very nice product. We actually used it to make our ensalada today since we didn't have any cilantro, and it was delicious.

Our dinner today:

Living Tacos made from refried no-beans on romaine lettuce leaves
salsa (roma tomatoes, onion, dehydrated red peppers, salt, garlic)
guacamole
hemp sour cream
ensalada (shredded cabbage, parsley, lemon juice, salt)

ears of corn

Happy Mother's Day!

Experiments Gone Wild

I'm getting too confident in my experiments. I have never been this fancy free in my cooking. I hope this craziness stops! I don't like the unstructured chef in me...

I've got the dehydrator loaded with a hodge-podge of experiments - well, some of them are tried and true, but there will be a few surprises when the rest comes out. I've got my fingers crossed that they will be pleasant ones.

First, the almond meal went in after I made almond milk this morning. That's no surprise. We have been using it, so we don't have a backlog of it like we did. I am really grateful we found ways to use it as I hated wasting it. We made lemon smoothies as that is something we can take in the car with us.

Secondly, I decided to make some tortillas out of the squash scraps Roger always has after he spiralizes "spaghetti" noodles out of it. There are 1/2 inch chunks that won't go through the machine. He always puts them in the fridge, and I usually throw them out after they go bad. I remembered that I had read about making tortillas out of squash, so I thought I'd give it a go. I poured the squash remnants into the blender with some olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and flax meal. We'll see what pops out.

My last batch of rejuvelac was ready, so I had some berries to process into "banana bread". I think it's kind of nappy, but Wyatt loves it, so he will be glad to see it when he gets home. Roger has been hiding his bread from him, so he hasn't been eating as much, but it is building up too much. I guess I shouldn't make so much.

Then I decided to try a real experiment: rejuvelac "parmesan" made from soaked pine nuts. I mixed in some lemon juice, rejuvelac, salt, and some pizza seasoning, blended it up, and poured it on the teflex. It smells good, but I don't think it will be the right texture. I don't know what we'll do with it. We'll decide when we see how it turns out.


My last dehydrator experiment is "caramelized" onions. I mandolined 3 large onions. In the blender I mixed 3 T nama shoyu, 2 T olive oil, 1 cup soft dates, and enough water to make it blend (about 1/3 cup). Then I just mixed the date paste with the onions and spread them out on the teflex sheets to soften. I guess I need to think of something to eat them with.

I think I'm going to whip up a few dips to take to the market tomorrow as I plan on cutting up some fruit and veggies to share with the passer-bys. I think a lot of people do not realize that organic fruits and vegetables taste different. How are they going to find out if we don't let them try some? Of course, we'll need some dip or something for the zucchini slices, etc. We have lots of cabbage; I wonder what I'll figure out for that... Hopefully I'll be able to post my results, and hopefully they will be positive!

Roger had his first rejuvelac lemonade today; I think he liked it! I guess that will be a keeper.

We stopped taking "bad" food to seminary, and the students have been eating "our" food for the whole week. I took raisin cheeze and apple slices a couple of days, and we had the "peanut butter and jelly" apple slice thing with almond butter and raisins. Roger also gave them bananas once or twice. One day he took apples, and they didn't take any, so that's when we figured out we needed to slice the apples for them. They want their breakfast "fixed" for them! Anyway, they seem to be surviving it ok. They don't miss their processed foods at all (I don't think). This is more work though...

New Uses for Old Friends

Not much eating or cooking going on this week as we have been very busy setting up a produce business where we sell organic produce at the Farmer's Market in Jacksonville. We had students today, our opening day, so were unable to be there, but Darius said there was a lot of interest in someone bringing organics there. There are a lot of venders who do not believe people will pay the extra money required for organics, and in this economy they may be right. We'll see. We have felt prompted to do this at this time, so we will see where it takes us. Here are some pictures Alicia sent me of opening day.





















I decided to start making the cashew cheez in gallon batches since I do so many things with it, so I got my rejuvelac made and started a batch yesterday. It starts with 2 quarts of cashews. I also decided to try the rejuvelac lemonade Darius and Alicia told me about. It is kind of weird tasting, but somehow very enjoyable. I like it! It is a great way to get a sizeable amount of probiotics into our system as compared to cheezes which have a lot of fat and are not as digestible as the lemonade. I drank a quart of it for breakfast with no ill effects. I also had several glasses for my dinner last night and had no problems sleeping indicating no digestive upset. So that is good news, I think.

To make rejuvelac lemonade, I mixed 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice with 1 cup agave nectar. Then I filled the half gallon container with rejuvelac (instead of water). Easy, easy.

For lunch yesterday, we shredded up several summer squash (called cousca, I think Jeff said), and mixed it with marinated mushrooms. We should have taken a picture of it as it was a very attractive dish. Then we added cheddar cheeze as a sauce individually. I think Angelina ate it without any sauce, and she liked it.

I was inspired by Alicia's salad dressing to try one today outside my usual comfort zone. I had some soaked pine nuts, added the juice from 3 lemons, several spoons of garlic, several spoons of miso, a sprinkle of nama shoyu, and enough rejuvelac to turn the blender blades. It was quite tasty although I still like the ranch better. It is nice to have variety though. I think Alicia's tasted better too, so maybe she used more miso or salt or herbs. I'm not sure...she's holding out on the recipe.

We made 2 pies over the weekend. Sorry I couldn't get here to post about them. Maybe next time. Things have been incredibly crazy this week with all that is going on.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

With everyone off and running early this morning, everyone was on their own for breakfast. I had a banana and then some celery with raisin cheeze. Alicia made a salad for lunch, and we had our ranch dressing made with cashew cheeze. It was quite tasty.

For dinner I made some miso soup:

finely minced spinach
1 carrot sliced very thinly
dried shitake mushrooms

These 3 ingredients were put in 1 cup of warm water per serving to rehydrate the mushroom which was then thinly sliced. 1 tablespoon of miso is mixed with 2 additional tablespoons of warm water (per serving), and the vegetable combination is then mixed with the miso blend. It was a little bland, so I may go with more miso next time along with a little less spinach. The children liked it a lot though which surprised me, so maybe bland is good with them.

I made more patties today, so we'd have food tomorrow, and took a quart of corn out to thaw for the mashed cauliflower we'll have with them. I tried to make my sunnies, but they were very weird looking, so I threw them out. I tried to wash them for a long time, but I was worried that they would make someone sick. One thing about fresh food: it is easy to tell when it is not spot on. (One clue should have been the other day when the tray on top of them was warm as though they were composting.) I had already mixed up some garlic and chili powder and had some more sunflower seeds soaking, so I just used them to make a small batch. I had intended them for some refried beans. They don't take long, so I just started some more; they'll be ready by the time we need them. I needed some sunny mixture to make the patties, so I used some of the dried sunnies instead, and I'm sure that will work out just fine.

We have lots of lemons now, so we're having lemonade. I really enjoy it, but we don't have the luxury of extra lemons all that often. We need to make it when we have them. The recipe is easy: 1 cup lemon juice, 1 cup agave in a 1/2 gallon container. Fill with water. Serve over ice. I'll experiment with some other fruits in the summer time.

Marketing the Market

For breakfast today we had a delicious strawberry soup as given to us from Chef Tracy at Glaser Farms:

1 pint large fresh strawberries
1/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
5 large dates, chopped and soaked in OJ for 4 hours
1 cup fresh orange juice
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Blend all in the blender til smooth. I spooned some of last night's "yogurt" into it as a garnish.

We made a large batch of untuna from some sunflower seeds we sprouted earlier this week. I still haven't made my sunnies, but I need to get them on tomorrow.

Tonight I was experimenting with my cashew cheeze and substituted it into my ranch salad dressing recipe. I wasn't hungry so didn't taste it, but it got rave reviews from everyone else. They made quite a feast of it with some broccoli spears and celery sticks. I also made a batch of "cheddar" from the remainder of the cashew cheeze. I discovered yesterday that we still had a nice patch of parsley in the garden, so I got that to use in the recipes. Nice touch!

I also ate a banana today and 2 of my beloved mangos. I do look forward to the mango season every year.

We decided today that we would try to make a run of introducing the Jacksonville Beaver Street Farmer's Market to organic produce. We have talked to the venders there, and many of them fear people won't pay the extra price for organic produce, and it doesn't really matter anyway. I believe very strongly in using organic when it is available. One of the most amazing things to me about it is how much different it tastes. I love the flavor of organic, in most cases, much more than conventional produce. There are some foods I won't even consider buying conventional for the taste factor alone including: strawberries, bananas, apples, grapes, lettuce, celery, and cucumbers. How a fruit or vegetable is grown definately affects its flavor, and I have to assume its nutritional value as well. There is still a lot we don't know about this aspect of horticulture.

We are experimenting with our garden this year of putting as much living soil into our grow boxes as possible to see if it affects the quantity and quality of the produce grown. We are anxious to see if it helps it to ward off viruses and funguses so prevalent over the summer here.

Our goal at the farmer's market is to educate the public re: the importance of eating more raw, fresh, organic (when possible), fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. We are going to distribute literature and have samples of foods we like. We cannot prepare and sell these foods without a lot of permits, but we're not sure that's the direction we're supposed to be going anyway. Our thing has always been education, and this new aspect of our lives isn't any different. So, we hooked up with a couple of organic producer and/or distributors today, and we are hoping to start next weekend. See you at the market!

Last of the Citrus

We had a busy work day today, so I hit the ground running. Roger made me a delicious grapefruit orange juice so I'd have something in my belly. For lunch we had a watermelon we'd picked up at Costco, but it wasn't as good as the one we got at the farmer's market last week. Then for dinner, Darius and Alicia got to our house late with Angelina. I mixed up some taco soup (cheddar cheeze with salsa mixed in topped with hemp sour cream and avocados) and a fruit salad: 1 pineapple chunked up, 1 orange sectioned, 1 quart of mango, 6 bananas, some dried coconut, and some raisins.

I made a sauce out of some hemp sour cream mixed with honey. It was very filling. We served it on some romaine leaves.

Theories and Suppositions

We were away from home during the breakfast hour, so Roger packed apples and bananas to have in the car. I like bananas best when they are not overly ripe, although I know they are sweeter when they are riper. I like to freeze them or use them in the banana brittle recipe when they are really ripe as they add the necessary sweetness to the recipe.

I did a little experiment with the almonds I bought at the co-op yesterday. There has been this big toodoo about pasteurizing almonds making them not raw anymore (like a pasteurized juice is not raw). I heard that the pasteurization of almonds takes place before they are hulled and is an effort to kill all the e-coli bacteria that are on them before they are shelled. I was thinking this might not be enough heat to actually kill the nut inside the shell, so I decided to try to sprout the ones I got from the co-op which I am pretty sure were pasteurized. Lo and behold, they sprouted just fine, so my theory, I believe is correct. The almond is still alive inside the large hull, and would therefore, still have its enzymes intact. Yay!

So I have been soaking and sprouting almonds and walnuts and cashews and have had them in the dehydrator this week. I need to put the chili-garlic sunflower seeds in tomorrow as they are sprouted, but I don't have any room until the other nuts come out. The cashews were done dehydrating today, so I curried them, and they will spend another day in there.

One of the things in my order yesterday that I was out of was my hemp seed, so I made a quart of hemp seed sour cream today. Man, is that tangy and good! I think the hemp helps it be creamier and not as chalky as cashews by themselves. I'm thinking it will be a great base for a cheesecake, so I am going to experiment with that with some irish moss.

We still had a pint of refried no-beans, so I made a large batch of salsa and sliced some avocados to have living tacos using romaine leaves as the shell. With the sour cream, it was a meal fit for a king. I can't eat that too often. I think I could eat it everyday, and that is unusual for me.

We all had fruit for lunch earlier in the day; mine was some of those lovely honey mangos. I feel as though I've died and gone to heaven when I eat them. Surely the golden gate is surrounded by honey mango trees. Wyatt ate 4 oranges and a bunch of apples. Roger had his banana bowl. It is funny how we all have our favorite fruit and it is different from everyone elses.

Well, that was our day. Totally delish.

Not a very exciting menu options day. We had mylkshakes for breakfast at Wyatt's request. I think he would have that every day if we let him. We used fresh bananas as we had a box about empty, and we still had to freeze a few so they wouldn't go bad. We'll use them soon enough.

We had to pick up quite a few supplies including our co-op big order: 25 lbs each cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds, coconut, 30 lbs red flame raisins, 15 lbs dates, 4 more gallons agave, himalayan salt, cumin, curry powder, hempseed, and some frozen strawberries. We also got another case of bananas at Native Sun and a case of golden delicious apples at Whole Foods. We also got some fresh strawberries, kiwi, and raspberries for one of Roger's favorite pies. We picked up another case of those wonderful mangos, a beautifully fragrant pineapple, a huge knob of ginger, and some more tamarindo. We also made a stop at Costco for avocados, oranges, pine nuts and walnuts, olive oil, more garlic, and a watermelon. So there might not have been too much in the way of menus today, but that's a bird's eye view of our eating for the coming week(s). yummmmmm

After the shopping, we had a cooler full of fridge stuff that we took to the park to eat with Darius and family. This was stuff we had fixed over the weekend: leftover alfreda, marinated mushrooms, refried beans, sour cream, untuna, raisin cheeze, sunlight patties, cucumber salad, pickles, cheddar cheeze, plus celery, lettuce, and tomatoes to eat it with. Everyone chose their own combination, and it was tasty, at least for me. I had refried beans and sour cream on lettuce tacos with tomatoes. Of course I couldn't resist raisin cheeze with celery for dessert. The grandbabies don't like the raisin cheeze, but that doesn't bother us at all (as in "more for us").

Menu Planning?

We had bananas mambo for breakfast since our bananas are turning fast. I made the almond butter from some almonds dehydrating that had been soaked and sprouted. It made a very nice butter. I mixed it with some honey, 1/2 a vanilla bean, and some cinnamon and dipped it on some bananas. We topped that with raisins and spiced sunflower seeds. It was quite tasty.

For lunch we had some of our leftovers. I mixed the leftover alfredo sauce with some coconut water to thin it, then topped some corn and marinated mushrooms to make some kind of soup - I have no idea what kind! Mushroom corn chowder? Nevertheless, it was tasty. Then Roger had the leftover Crabby Cakes with some sauce leftover from salmon, a lemon caper sauce. I had some of the refried beans and sour cream on lettuce leaves. Wyatt had his usual selection of corn chips.

It is interesting to me how easy it is to use leftovers on this dietary plan. I have always tried to use my leftovers creatively, but it was work. I find this very easy. It is like everything goes with everything else. There aren't any bad combinations. If it sounds good, it probably is. Even when it doesn't sound particularly good, it might be. You just have to take a chance. The point is, very little has to go to waste. My biggest problem is that I will buy something thinking I will use it and then decide not to prepare it. Eventually it will go bad. I have a real problem with cole vegetables. I just don't like them very much, but I know I should make them. At least 1/2 the time they go bad and then I don't have to make them; problem solved! A better solution would be to not buy them in the first place. An even better solution would be to make up menus including those vegetables and develop the discipline to actually prepare them. Actually Wyatt made the suggestion today to make up menus. His mother always did that, he said, and then they always knew what they were going to be eating. He really doesn't like not knowing what's for dinner. In all honesty, I don't know until I get in the fridge and start stirring things up. I don't know why I'm like that. It's better to do it the other way, I suppose. I guess that is one of my many faults. I'm not working too hard to overcome it though.