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.