The Earth's Bounty

For breakfast on Friday (I forgot to update last night) we had a delightful low fat smoothie, 1 cup coconut water, 2 cups frozen sweet cherries, 2 bananas, 1/2 a vanilla bean, 2 tablespoons agave, pinch of salt, and 1/4 cup cacao nibs. I think I would like it without the cacao just as much. It was very nice. This is from Everyday Raw.

We made a double batch of corn chips for the weekend and put cashews on to soak for our multiple kinds of cashew cheeze.

I was famished by the time we drove to Jacksonville later in the day. The oriental market had called to say our 3 cases of Thai coconuts were in (we get them for 3 families), and I couldn't resist the lovely looking case of mangos that was calling my name. They also had ripe pineapples which is unheard of. They are almost always unripe anywhere I see them. They were so fragrant, I had to buy one of them as well. Never shop hungry! I also bought a package of tamarindo pulp to make for my Thai wraps.

As soon as we got to Darius and Alicia's house (we were picking up Angelina to spend the weekend at our house), I ate a mango and sliced up 2 more for others who might be hungry. It was so good, and I love how the juice feels running down my hand. There is no more wonderful fruit than the mango in my opinion (although the watermelon is a very close second). How blessed we are with the bounty of the earth. It truly is a garden of Eden even with its difficulties.

We had packed a lunch to have in Jacksonville of some leftovers from earlier in the week. We also had some dehydrated broccoli I had marinated (since I didn't have any fresh broccoli). This turned out to be a huge hit as it added another dimension to our "primavera". We also shredded some additional Cousa squash we got from our Gainesville CSA guy. It makes a nice substitute for zucchini which can be hard to get. I had also made some Alfreda sauce which also made a nice salad dressing when mixed with the marinated mushrooms and broccoli. It tasted kind of like a creamy caesar dressing.

Alfreda sauce

1 cup cashews soaked
1 1/4 cup water
1 T lemon juice
2 t nama shoyu
1 1/2 t garlic
1/2 t apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 t nutritional yeast
pinch cayenne
1/8 t salt, pepper

blend well in the blender until creamy. Serve over shredded zucchini. It is also nice as a "primavera" over shredded zucchini, carrot, red peppers with some herbs sprinkled in. I like marinated mushrooms and broccoli too. Do we eat well, or what? I feel very privileged and grateful. I know it is not that way for most people.

When we got back from Jax, I strained some sprouted wheat off the rejuvelac I had started earlier in the week, and it was ready to make cashew cheeze. I'll get some of that mixed up today hopefully after it is finished fermenting. I also need to mix the leftover rejuvelac wheat berries with some banana for Wyatt's favorite banana bread.

Alicia invented a new bread as well. She sprouted some lentils and mixed them with her wheat berries left over from making rejuvelac and dehydrated them. It was surprisingly tasty. I actually like it better than the wheat berries straight.

Experimenting

We made mint juleeps for breakfast today: 1 cup lemon juice, 1 cup agave nectar. Mix in blender with 1/2 a bunch of mint. Fill blender with ice. After this mixed, add a couple of shots of wheat grass juice. Very nice and healthy too!

I had also put some orange zest in some agave on Monday to "candy" so that I could make a recipe in Everyday Raw called "Creamsicles". They really did taste like the creamsicle ice cream delicacy. I didn't make them into popsicles though. I ran them through the ice cream maker. They are made with 1 1/2 cups coconut meat, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup agave, and 1/2 cup coconut oil. After this is liquified, the candied zest of 6 oranges is stirred in. This can be poured into popsicle molds also.

We also put 1 gallon of raw sunflower seeds in the dehydrator. We started these soaking on Monday (16 cups), and drained them. Then they have been sprouting for about a day and a half.

This is a large amount of seeds, so we divided them up into 3 sprouting trays. For each tray we minced a cup of garlic cloves (in the little bowl of the food processor of course), and mixed this with 2 tablespoons of chili powder and 3 tablespoons of sea salt. After the seeds are coated with this mixture, we divide it up on 3 dehydrator sheets. So the whole batch makes 9 trays, and we have 2 cups leftover to make burger patties tomorrow.

Dinner was leftover Mexican from yesterday. Still fantastic! I also started marinating some dehydrated broccoli (from Walton) to see how it freshen up. I want to see if it will rehydrate sufficiently for the soup or the pasta primavera recipe. I'll post the results tomorrow.

I don't think we posted about the mixture of leftover salsa and cheddar cheeze. I didn't have any, but Darius and Alicia said it was really good. They used some of the ensalada as garnish.