Juicing and Veggie Burgers

I had some juice and a veggie burger for dinner tonight.

The juice was carrot, beet, apple, parsley and kale.   The juice itself was really good, but one thing I learned is the Omega VRT 330 HD doesn't do a great job with all kinds of pulp.  I thought it was okay with carrot/apple juice yesterday, but my juice today had so much fiber, I couldn't finish it.  I had to strain it through a nut milk bag.  That worked like a charm though!! It seemed to be the green fibers (probably the Kale?) that got back into the juice, so I guess I will just have to know that in the future when I juice greens I'm going to have to strain the juice.   This nutmilk bag worked some magic today ...

After I strained it the juice was just delicious!!!  Who'd have thought?  I sort of have this childhood dislike of beets.  You know how as a child you have a dislike of certain vegetables for absolutely no reason whatsover?   I actually don't know if I really ever had a beet before today - just never wanted to, but I know they are supposed to be really good for you ... 

Boy is it red though - just one little beet and lots and lots of greens and carrots and this still looks like red wine!

And it was seriously tasty.  I have this left-overs in the fridge to have tomorrow. Since I got a masticating juicer the juice will be good for 24 hours.

I tossed today's pulp ... I'm not sure all the stringy pulp from the greens would be very tasty in any recipes.  But I did make veggie burgers last night using this recipe posted by rawnhealthy on RawFoodTalk.com:

Veggie Burgers

• 4 cups veg pulp (celery, tomato, beet, carrot)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp each of curry, cumin and coriander powder
• 1/2 cup ground golden flax seed
• 1/4 cup diced mushrooms
• diced onion and cilantro to taste

Dehydrate until the outside of the burgers are firm.  I think I set my dehydrator to about 6 hours and they turned out great. 

The pulp I used for the burgers actually had a little apple in it (one apple to 3 pounds of carrots), but I decided to give it a try anyway.  I have to say, my expectations were pretty much nil, but I decided to keep an open mind.  I had this veggie cheese burger salad for lunch today - with the carrot burger and the "cheese" from the Cheesy Kale recipe (that stuff works for anything ... !).    This was just delicious!

Can you see the carrot burger under that cashew cheese?   :-)

Tomorrow I have a planned "cheat" for my 30 days raw.  Tomorrow will actually be day 25, but I'm taking my co-worker Vicky out to lunch at her favorite veggie restaurant.  It's sort of a going-away do.  It's not her last day yet, but it'll be a really fun lunch with a great group of people.  I'll probably keep it simple though - definitely stay vegan - so I don't vary too much from the raw diet.   I'm really proud of my progress so far, so this one planned exception isn't going to throw me off track.

Chocolate Mousse Martini with Strawberries

My sister saw Sheryl Crow on the news yesterday where she was talking about this raw vegan recipe from her new cookbook …”If it Makes you Healthy”.

Scroll down this page for the recipe:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/09/earlyshow/saturday/main20052397.shtml

*note the vanilla and almond extacts I used were not technically raw, but they were delish!

I had this for dinner ... well, I might make something else, but right now, eating just half of this martini glass I am STUFFED.  It was sooo rich and delicious.

I also tried out my new juicer this morning - I made carrot apple juice and it was amazing. I am a big fan of the Omega VRT 330HD.  I love that it takes very little counter space and was super easy to clean.  I might make some more juice tonight to drink in place of any additional dinner and put the remainder in the fridge for tomorrow

My only complaint really is that carrots make SOOO much pulp.  I was shocked.  I have a little of it to the dogs with their breakfast.  I am thinking of dehydrating some to add with their food to help them feel more full.  They love apples and carrots.   With the rest of the pulp, I plan to make some veggie burgers. I'm going to start on those soon and put them in the dehydrator for a few hours.    I figure I can put my cashew cheese on top.  Maybe make a bun with romaine lettuce leaves and put a tomato slice in there too ... YUM!!

I bought a LOT of produce between yesterday morning and today, so I'm going to have to make some juice in the evenings after work this week - don't want it to go bad.  :-)

Taco Salad and Kale Chips

I still haven't figured out what to do with those Kelp noodles ... I guess I will bring them to work and have a salad with them maybe ... and perhaps make a creme sauce with them, but I really was hoping to stay away from nuts for a while - nuts are in so many raw dishes!

Last night I made some Kale chips.  Just simple ones with olive olive oil, garlic powder, salt and cayenne.  They turned out great!!  I might have to walk to the local produce market tomorrow and make some more - I'm thinking these may not last all that long:

For dinner tonight I mad a taco salad.  Nothing too fancy - just used some of the corn chips I made from the tortilla recipe, some of the cheese, guacamole and salsa.   It was delicious!!   My favorite part was dipping the corn chips in the cashew cheese - so good!!!

And - my juicer came this morning!!!  I went to the market to get produce this morning. I got three pounds of carrots, some celery, beets, apples, some ginger.  I forgot to get greens but I have to start somewhere right?   Tomorrow I am thinking I might just start with carrot juice -maybe add some apple as well.  I got beets - I think I *should* want to juice them.    I can't even tell you I don't like beets - they are one of those veggies that I never really gave a proper chance.  I had carrot beet apple juice once before - about 10 years ago - and I remember it tasting like dirt. I've always blamed that on the beet.  But I want to give them another try.  I think maybe I'll just add half a beet to get used to them.

Well, you'll be hearing about my juicing adventures soon ... !

The verdict on Sweet Potato chips

I came home from work and my sweet potato chips were done.  I did a taste test.  I decided the chips without oil are fabulous.  I just sprinkled a little salt on them and they taste great.  The ones with oil taste okay, but they are not better than the oil-free version, and I'm getting plenty of fats from nuts and avocados at the moment, so I'm happy to keep my chips healthy and oil free.

Here's a picture of the non-oiled version.  I used "yams" this time and they tasted much better than the white "sweet potatoes" that I used last time.  I will definitely make these again!

I was up late last night because my adrenaline was so high after a little scare with my dogs when they tipped over the treat jar and not only ate half a bag of treats but also bit into the "Do not Eat" oxygen absorber that was packed in with their treats.  I ended up calling animal poison control.  Long story, but they are fine, however I don't want to stay up so late tonight to soak the cashews for the cheesy onions, so I'll do those tomorrow.  The onions are sliced, so I don't want to wait too long to make them, but I think they'll keep just fine until tomorrow.

Tonight I made a marinara sauce for dinner to top some zucchini noodles that I already had prepared.  That was delicious, but I'm very interested in trying Kelp noodles.

I've seen reviews of Kelp noodles on Amazon where the reviewer said that the price charged online was outrageous given the Korean grocery store in NYC (H-Mart) has them for about $3.  Well, there is an H-Mart across from my office, so I headed over there to look for Kelp noodles.  Navigating any section other than the produce section is a bit tricky for me since I don't read Korean!  But I was able to find a bag of Kelp noodles and two bags of "Sea Tangle" noodles.  (the type of seaweed, not the brand).   I wasn't sure if sea tangle is the same as kelp - I suspect it might be.  But since I was not sure I decided to get the 1 kg bag of Kelp Noodles.

Now I need a nice recipe idea!!  I really like the pesto and marinara on zucchini noodles, so not sure if I want to change that up.  But I'm thinking maybe a pad-thai sauce might be nice for Kelp noodles.  But I'm really open to suggestions. I'm going to want some variety if I'm going to eat a whole 1 kg bag on my own.  I hope I even like these!  but if not, it was really just over $3, so no big loss either way.  I hope I like them though!  I will let you know.

Please feel free to post sauce ideas for me in the comments!

Still amazed at the power of raw foods

Today at work, my colleague mentioned that Christie Brinkley looks amazing for 57.  They wondered what she ate to look so fabulous.  I said, I'll bet she's raw, or at least vegetarian.   I did a little Googling, and sure enough, she is vegetarian:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Supermodel-Legends_1/2

So interesting that I was having that conversation today at lunch time and when I came home and logged into facebook, I saw this video posted by Uncooking101.com.  I don't really remember Sunny Griffin's name, but her face certainly is familar to me.  According to the video, Sunny was the "original" super model and guess what?  She's 70!!!

This is actually the second of a two part video but this one goes into a lot of detail about how Sunny's vegan/raw diet has helped her continue to look and feel so young at 70.   If you have a few minutes, I encourage you to take a minute to watch it.  It's inspiring.  I am bookmarking this video and if I ever have any doubts that I'm on the right path staying raw, I'm going to watch this video. 

I haven't needed to prepare a lot of food the last couple of days - just my green smoothies that I have for breakfast.  I've been having raw tacos for lunch and cucumber salad with Kale & Avocado salad for dinner.  I get the Kale and Avocado salad from whole foods - it's delicious!

All that said, I'm having tacos for lunch again tomorrow but will need to think of something for dinner - it might just be another green smoothie.  But tonight I took out the mandoline and sliced some onions and sweet potatoes.  The mandoline is sort of a pain to clean, so I cut them both although I'm only dehydrating the sweet potatoes tonight.  I think the sweet potatoes will fill up the dehydrator anyway.   Tomorrow, I'll make the cheese sauce to make cheesy onions. I cut up three medium size Vidalia onions because the large ones don't fit in the mandoline.  My sister and coworker really like these so I'll share some of my goodies with them once they are done 

The sweet potatoes are a little tricky.  I've cut them and have them soaking right now to remove the starch, but I'm confused about whether I should coat them in oil or not.  Alissa Cohen's book "Raw Food for Everyone" does not mention oil (although it mentions vanilla beans which I do not have).    I like the idea of leaving out the oil if I can because I'd rather cut out the extra fat.  But I want to make sure they turn out nice and crispy and almost all the other videos and recipes I've seen include coating the chips in olive oil.  so, I think I will do most of them with salt and pepper and no oil as Alissa has in her recipe (minus the vanilla beans), and then I'll try to put a little oil on some of them and dehydrate them as well so I can decided how I like them best.

I'll let you know how they turn out!

Cucumber Salad

Woooo Hooo!!! I am more than half way there.

A couple things I've noticed the last couple of weeks - first, I know it's only been two weeks, but the last two weekends I have had so much energy.  I am amazed at how much that I am getting done on the weekends.  The weekends feel a lot more satisfying than they did before.

Today, I made two batches of raw tacos (shells, cheese & "meat") a batch of zucchini hummus, and have some nuts in the dehydrator that I'm going to candy later tonight.  I decided to use Ani Phyo's recipe which has agave, sea salt, cayenne, cardamom, nutmeg.  The recipe is for pecans, but I wanted to try a mixture of nuts so I am doing pecans, almonds, brazil nuts and cashews.   I am not sure what cardamom tastes like.  I hope I like it.  I also am not sure if I have nutmeg.  Hmmm ... these'll be interesting.  I do have pumpkin pie spice ...

Oh, and today I also made a Cucumber salad.  Raw Food Talk has a "party" to showcase a particular vegetable every Sunday.  Today, I made the cucumber salad recipe from the Rawvolution recipe book.  It's a pretty simple recipe but tasty - sliced cucumbers, dill, red onion in a blended dressing of apple cider vinegar, olive oil, lemon, salt and garlic.   It was a nice spring day today and this dish hit the spot at lunchtime.  Very tasty!!

I'm really looking forward to my juicer coming.  I ordered it from DiscountJuicers.com - since they are in California and I'm in the NYC metro area, I'm guessing it will probably take a week to come.  I'm hoping it comes before next weekend ... I'd love to test it out and do a bit of juicing next weekend.

Day 15 ... Zucchini Pasta and Juicer Update

I have a little update on my juicer.  I was reading the reviews on DiscountJuicers.com and it looked like there were a lot of people that had problems with the Omega VRT 330.  The problem they were having is the problem the 330 HD is designed to fix - it has a harder filter basket so it doesn't break.

Since the Bed Bath and Beyond Juicer didn't have the "HD" in the name, I was a little nervous.  I hope I didn't waste my money, but I decided to cancel my Bed Bath and Beyond order and get the Omega VRT 330HD from Discount Juicers.  It cost a bit more, but I didn't want to have to worry about it breaking.  It's got a 10 year warranty, but it'd still be annoying if it broke and I have to wait 2 weeks to get the replacement part (as one of the reviews said).   So anyway, my juicer is ordered and hopefully I'll have it by next weekend. I'd love to do some juicing next weekend!!

Today was a pretty take it easy day - I just had Zucchini Pasta with Pesto Sauce for dinner.  I invited my sister over to have some.  It was really delicious and so nice and fresh:

We had raw coconut macaroons for desert.

Tomorrow I plan to spend a lot more time in the kitchen.  I plan to make a double batch of the corn tortillas and have the tacos again.  Plus, tomorrow is the the "Cucumber Party" on http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/, so I plan to make a cucumber & dill salad (from the Rawvolution recipe book).  And if time permits, I might make some sweet potato (yam) chips in the evening.