My Shot at Raw Foodism

I said I would try a raw food recipe, and I didn't lie! I'm really excited about this one, too, because it's one of my favorite foods... HUMMUS! Hummus recipes in general are really straight forward and pretty easy if you know how to assemble a food processor, but this one was a little different because for the first time ever I had to "sprout" something. I could describe sprouting to you, but I would probably end up telling you a whole bunch of bull because I really don't know anything about it. All I know is I have sprouted bagels in the freezer from Whole Foods that are delicious and I spent three days growing little tails (of sorts) on my dried chickpeas in order to make this stuff :D. My chickpeas look like tadpoles!



After their little tails grew long enough I had to dump them in hot water for a minute then rinse them off. I through them in a blender with some lemon juice, water, tahini paste (sesame seed paste), cumin, garlic, and a little salt. After this stuff pulsated for a little bit, I'm not going to lie, I was getting a little nervous. My hummus looked grainy and thin, and I didn't even put as much water in as the recipe called for! Oh dear... I let my food processor hum away for a little while and it never really did get too smooth but a little time in the fridge thickened it a bit. I tried the stuff on some bread you'll hear about later and it didn't really taste like hummus to me. I couldn't quite place it for some time, but the taste reminded me of something... some kind of vegetable I thought. It dawned on me later. It tasted like sprouts. Go figure. I feel like raw hummus, assuming I didn't completely botch this recipe, has to be an acquired taste, only something a true veggie lover would enjoy. It wasn't my favorite, certainly didn't trump regular hummus in my book, and I probably won't bother to make it again. Sprouting can, however, be done with multiple types of food and I'd be interested to try some of those, I've had bagels and bread that were "sprouted" and they didn't taste odd, oh well.

Some other cool things I came across while looking at raw food diet sites:

• Decadently Raw: These YouTube episodes feature Meg McMurray, who creates and demonstrates raw food recipes. The recipes themselves look pretty good, but sometimes the videos are hard to understand or Meg is a little awkward...
• Raw Flax Crackers: I LOVE FLAXSEEDS. They are awesome in smoothies, granola, yogurt, and (as I recently discovered) excellent in pancakes. If you own a dehydrator there are tons of flax cracker recipes out there. One I glanced at was http://vegetarian.about.com/od/beverage1/r/rawflaxcrackers.htm. I'd be inclined to look for something sweet or a recipe with other nutty ingredients, cause it's really the deep nutty flavor of flax seeds that make them so divine :)
• It makes most sense to me to stick with recipes that normally are raw food or nearly raw food recipes, that way you're setting your taste buds up for success, right? Pesto is almost completely a raw food recipe, I'm pretty sure the only ingredient that's not is parmesan cheese... http://vegetarian.about.com/od/morerecipes/r/Veganpestorec.htm, this is one I came across that skips the cheese.
• Avocados are absolutely delicious, guacamole is one of my favorite foods and is probably considered a raw food (but again, what do I know?). I came across a number of recipes that use avocados as a thickener, even desserts!!! (See Decadently Raw's episode 4: s'more pie) I want to give it a try, but in the mean time, why not use avocados in a more convential way? This recipe looked pretty good, http://vegetarian.about.com/od/rawfoodsrecipes/r/rawburritos.htm, but I would argue with the claim that it's a burrito...
• Back to the flax seeds... obviously the "logical order" to these bullets is the order in which I find them... and the idea of smoothies, this is a cool recipe that is for "raw oatmeal" but to me sounds more like a tasty breakfast smoothie: http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/raw-food-breakfast-recipes.html
• This one's kinda iffy, I read someplace that raw food diets don't include raw fish like sashimi, and this recipe has smoked salmon which seems like a stretch. It does have, however, a good example of a bread option. Sprouted bread is really good, I've had Ezekiel sprouted whole grain bread and bagels which are both delicious. I also really like smoked salmon, so this one looked recipe looked good: http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/raw-diet-recipes-bagel.html. I also liked that the ingredients were simple, if you want to experiment with a raw food diet, this seems like a reasonable place to start because it doesn't require any special foods or appliances.
• FOUND A GUACAMOLE RECIPE!!! And it's pretty ordinary, so I don't think you really have to change your typical guacamole recipe in order to fit a raw food diet. The one I came across though is listed here http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/raw-food-diet-recipe.html. I like my guacamole with a bit of a kick, I use a recipe that has cumin in it. If you're into experiementing I'd play with a couple spices instead of leaving your guacamole so bare, cumin is an awesome one!

Eating Raw & Things to Come

As I have mentioned before, I'm thoroughly convinced that nobody really reads my blog. Which is totally fine, I post because I like to look back and have pictures and reflections on the different recipes I've tried, my blog is more like a diary of my attempts at culinary endeavors and benefits me whether anyone in the universe cares to notice or not and I'm perfectly ecstatic with that. But even though my feeling aren't hurt if nobody cares to drop by my little blog (because let's face it, in my selfish little food-absorbed world I write for myself far more than I do for anyone else), I do experience a little bit of joy when somebody posts a comment. I love input because it sends me in different directions, new perspectives get me thinking about new food ideas and I appreciate the... I guess you might call it inspiration. (Did anybody else notice my sentences kinda suck? I mean really, run-ons, my punctuation is probably atrocious... but guess what? I'm writing and you're not! so there's nothing you can do about it! Anyway, I stray...)

Claggy posted a comment the other day, which I have a great appreciation for because it sounds like he went through a lot of trouble to do so ;), and it led me to conduct a couple Google searches. He mentioned a "raw food diet" and I was intrigued. I've looked into veganism, vegetarianism, and other kinds of foodisms and although raw foodism is something I've heard of it isn't something I've really read too much about. So I did! The gist of it, or so I perceived from what I've read, is that raw foodists believe that cooking food kills nutrients and causes a loss in the "life force" of food. They claim cooking food over around 116 degrees F kills enzymes in the food that are essential to optimal digestion and absorption of food. Raw food diets focus on eating fresh foods, no processed foods (i.e. flour, dairy, refined sugar), as a means by which to receive the most vitamins, minerals, and enzymes from their diet. This means no meat or fish, no processed snack foods, and generally no eggs. It sounds like a lot of work, so why go to the trouble? Well, raw food diets have a number of benefits that include: increased energy, improved skin appearance, better digestion, weight loss, and reduced risk of heart disease. Rock on.

I whole-heartedly intend to try a few raw food diet recipes, but I was also interested to see that there are a number of raw food products you can buy online. One website that really caught my attention, and I think you'll know why ;), was www.ulimana.com. Raw chocolate. Truffles, spreads, cacao mixes, brownies, it all looks absolutely delicious. So delicious in fact, that I'm ordering some. Thank you Claggy! I'm not at all familiar with raw diets, but another product idea I would reccomend looking into is raw almond butter. IT'S SO GOOD. My favorite brand so far is MaraNartha, but it's kind of pricey so it's a rarity around here. It's a great way to kick up fruits and veggies though, which any raw foodie, I would assume, would eat fairly frequently.

I'm intrigued, and I've looked into a few recipes to try, but most of them require special ingredients/equiptment. I'm definitely going to attempt a few though, so watch for them to come!!!

In other news... I received a ridiculously awesome package in the mail today via Amazon!!!





That, my friends, is a 52-piece piping set, an "instruction" book, and 12 Wilton cake icing dyes. AWESOME :D. Basically, I'm going to try and learn to do all those fancy flower decorations and stuff like that, kick my occasion cakes up a notch. So look for those, too, my birthday cakes will hopefully now be exponentially more awesome!

I also have a cookie recipe I want to try in the next day or two, one inspired by my recent trip to Bloomington for orientation, so check back, should be fun stuff!