Raw Chit-Chat!
Hi everyone!
I'm planning on going raw for the entire month of August and I thought it would be great if we had a raw chit chat spot! I know a lot of other vegwebbers have expressed interest in either eating raw or going raw--so maybe we can help each other out here! I'm a total noob when if comes to raw, but I'm hoping my 30 day experiment will turn me into a master class raw veganist! I will be blogging everyday during August and posting pics and recipes of what I am eating--should be some great stuff plus all the "Raw Blogs" will be public!
I already have a bunch of questions! Can anyone help?
Raw milk--are there any store brands out there or do I have to make my own? Any super simple recipes for nut milk?
Dried sea weed (like wakame) how long do you soak it for?
I don't have a dehydrator and 150 is the lowest setting on my oven--how can I dry/toast oats, etc. and still have them be raw?
How the heck do I make sun tea?
OK then! That's what I got for now--I hope this can be a great place for raw info!!!
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e171/ginsoak/vegetables2.jpg
Storm,
Thanks for the Raw Truth! I've been looking over the recipes and they all look really great! I'm so excited for this Rawoliday! I'm going to go to the thrift stores soon and see if I can find a juicer and a mandolin slicer! And maybe a better dehydrator than the one I have now! *ohhhhhhh* I can't wait--12 days of cooked food left!
Kiss kiss
Capture
You are most welcome. That's a good idea, hitting the thrift store for a juicer. Good ones are so expensive! I got over zealous and already have 3 trays of flax crackers and 2 trays of onion bread drying on my dehydrator! I should be enjoying these last days of cooked food.
I was noticing in some of the recipes on goneraw that occasionally a non-raw ingredient, such as sesame oil or vanilla extract, will be used. They are generally used in small amounts. Do you consider using such ingredients to be "cheating"?
I don't think it's cheating--100% raw is almsot impossible to obtain unless you are growing ALL of your own food! I shoot for hig-raw--so in the 95% range, that allows for small things like tahini, oils, vinegars, agave, etc that are not raw. But we all are different! Some may find agave acceptable but not braggs--I think it's up to you my dear! I'm lookingthough some common "dead lists" now--when i figure out what I'll use off of it I'll post--the one I'm struggling the most with in nutritional yeast--i want to keep it for the flavvor and nutrition, but that one to me does really seem stretching it...I don't know....*erg*
I know what you mean about the nutritional yeast, but you just can't make sheeze without it. I have a couple of sheeze recipes that only call for 1 tsp. - 1 Tbsp. which I don't consider to be that much of a cheat. I use the Nama Shoyu instead of Bragg's, even though The Raw Truth lists Bragg's as acceptable in raw. The only real alternative to agave is raw honey and that's not vegan. :-\
I shall simply have to do the best that I can.
Yeah--even braggs isn't actually raw-either are alot of "raw" nuts--everything kids altered....*grrrr* I'm with you--I'm going to do the best I can and stay as high raw as possible!
On a side note--I am totaly planning my raw-thanksgiving with the recipes in The Raw truth! I am loving this book! The recipes are so simple and seem pretty easy to make! I'm going to try making the live tofu loaf, pumpkin butter w/ nut cream, essance bread for stuffing, raw beet salad and some kind of cranberry relish! I'm just bummed I'll be spending my thanksgiving alone...oh well, at least I'l lbe eating like a raw champ!
Your Thanksgiving food sounds great, I haven't even begun to plan mine yet. I actually wish I was spending my Thanksgiving alone (with my daughter only). Instead, I'm obligated to the family dinner that I will have to drive an hour to get to, take my own food, listen to my youngest brother make rude comments about my food, and try not to gag on the lovely aroma of charred turkey flesh that will no doubt permeate the house.
http://bestsmileys.com/puking/2.gif
What are you talking about Storm...that sunds awesome...um..OK, maybe not--but at least you will be with your family and people that love you--I'll be staring at a plate of dehydrated-live tofu while my cats give me dirty looks...
Anyways--on a plus note--I got 5 mason jars at the thrift store today to start sprouting with! I'm excited to try--I really hoep I can master the live tofu recipe!
One week till Rawoliday starts!!!! I'm not even close to ready--but I'm getting there! I have a host of new recipes that I can't wait to try, I'm attempting to sprout some soybeans as we speak to have live tofu in time for day 1 or 2, and I'm eating all the cooked crap in my house so that it will be gone, gone, gone (which also means I'm gaining a few lbs--but I know those will drop like stones in the first week so it's a bingtastic time for me!)!
Also--do you all remember CR?? Well! I got a message from him the other day and he said that he is going to go vegetarian the whole time I am raw! How awesome is that!?!?! Now I'm jsut cursing the fact that he moved away and has a girlfriend! *boooo* but it's still pretty cool that he is going to do that!!! Maybe he'll make the big switch from it! I sent him a copy of Neal Barnards video (ya'll know the one that's posted on here)--I really hoep he watches it--I think that could do it!!!
I'm going to do a HUGE raw shopping this coming Saturday and I can not wait for it! I'm going to hit both the farmers market and whole foods and stock up big time on fruits and veggies and nuts and kumbachu (sp?) oooOOOoooOOOoooOOo I'm soooooo excited!!!
OK, so that is my raw-update!
I feel like I'm having a one way conversation with myself on this thread...oh well...
Hi Self! OMG! I'm so excited "we" are going raw in just a few days! Yeah--I know, I can't wait either, I'll be glad when all this cooked crap is out of the house! Me too, I'm totally becoming a chunky monkey eating it all up--but that's OK! Man, I'm a little bummed my soy beans are not sprouting...guess I won't be making live tofu after all--good thing I found a recipe for raw turkeless turkey--I'll jsut make that for my solo Rawgiving instead--it will be yummy too!
By self, havve a great day!!! OK--you too! :)>>>
I feel like I'm having a one way conversation with myself on this thread...oh well...
So not true!! I was offline over the weekend (as usual), running errands and doing lots of yard work. My daughter takes most of her classes online and also tends to hog the computer over the weekend, getting caught up with her school work.
I, too, am getting eager for the rawliday to start. I have tomatoes drying on my dehydrator now and a stack of raw recipes almost an inch thick. I think I'm as prepared as I can be considering the fact that I have no juicer or food processor. I went and looked at food processors Friday afternoon, but the really good ones were all out of my price range. Hopefully my poor little blender will be able to hang in for five weeks.
I'm planning to make raw butternut squash soup for Thanksgiving and onion bread (which is really more like crackers). I'm not sure what else yet, I'm still in the planning phase. Any uneaten food that requires cooking in my house will be given to my brother by the weekend. My beautiful daughter is planning to join us for the five weeks which I am very happy about. It sucked last time to cook food for her and have to smell it and want it so badly and not be able to have it. This will make my life easier.
Yeah--I can continue my conversation with a real person and not just one of my personalities *lol*
Oh no! You don't have a food processor? I have a little one--the cuisinart mini--it only holds 21 oz, but it works well for me even if I have to do stuff in stages--you can pick one up new fairly reasonably--like around $30, it really is worth it if you don't have a FP and don't want to spend a lot of money! I'm still looking for a juicer--I found one on craigs list, but I haven't heard back from the person so it's probably gone. I'm going to hit the thrift stores again later in the week and see if one turns up there--altough I've been looking for about 3 weeks and nothing!
Most of my cooked food is gone--I actually might run out of food before my big raw shop on Saturday! I think I'l lbe OK though--I can always use this as an excuse to order out for a few days--I never do that and it might be a nice treat before the rawness begins!
You should try the pumpkin butter for Thanksgiving Storm! I think it will be a yummy substitute for pumpkin pie--especially with nut cream!
My soy beans are not sprouting so I think I might have to nix the live tofu :( oh well, I'm going to try sprouting lentles and make up a batch of nut cheese, hopefully those will go better :) I want to make up flax crackers--but I don't have the right trays for it--stupid piecce of crap ronco! Even when I use parchment paper the liquid stiks to it--I've only made one successful batch of onion crackers last time--I wish I could find a decent thing to use for that stuff--maybe some of that new silicon bake ware might work? I don't know... oh well, it will all work out!
I have a ton of recipes too! Did you see that new reipe for blueberry muffins on goneraw?? Check it out! They look yummy and pretty easy to make!
okay, sooooo..... I know I've expressed interest in raw-izing my food intake before, but I've never put a ton of effort into doing so. :P
but lately, my guts have been giving me SO much trouble, and I know that it's partly due to eating tons of junk lately. I desperately need a good cleanse!
So I thought I'd hop on board here to help myself along. You ladies (and lads?) really do inspire me, Y'know, and I want to keep up with how You're doing as well. I'll probably have a ton of questions and stuff, and maybe some of You could point me in the right direction to figuring some of this out...?
I'll start with some basics about my tentative raw-ish cleanse here:
1) I am dirt f'ing POOR right now, and really can't afford to buy fresh produce all that often. I do plan to incorporate more raw fruits and veggies in my daily intake, but I probably can't commit to the amount that You all will be buying/consuming.
2) I also work in construction, which can be pretty physically demanding. I want to make sure I start and maintain this properly so I don't just get super-weak and like, drop a huge board on my boss' head or something. I'll need STRENGTH, baby!
3) I have a juicer (second hand from my sis, yay!) and a really crappy food processor, which helps. I don't have a dehydrator, but my gas oven, though unpredictable, has worked fairly well for dehydrating stuff before.
4) I plan to consume as much raw as is financially and physically possible, though I will probably have to keep some amount of cooked grains and beans due to time and money constraints. A big aspect of this cleanse will be to eliminate processed foods as much as possible.
*whew*
Okay, so......does anyone have some pointers (or links) to share about starting out? I'm thinking, to be safe, I should probably reserve the first couple of days for a weekend/days off, so I can adjust and keep my strength for work....but I'm still not sure about what to DO right away. I guess.
and of course, any recipes that You recommend starting with would be most appreciated, too. :)
oh, and I also wanted to note that even though I'll probably keep a decent amount of cooked grains and stuff into my diet, I want to avoid flour and processed sugars (in favor of natural fruit sugars and stuff) as much as possible. Part of my intestinal issues are no doubt a product of WAY too many sweets lately.
in the week leading up to Rawliday, I'm going to try to incorporate more rawness...basically, to lean more and more towards the goals I've set out (which will be posted in my blog, probably).
today's intake, starting around 11 am (I was up until 4 ::) )...how does this look?
1 large banana
juice from:
3 tangerines
1/4 cup raspberries (frozen)
1/4 cup blueberries (ditto)
1 T natural PB (roasted peanuts + salt) on a spoon ;)
~1/2 cup refried beans (from THIS recipe, using soaked/simmered dry beans, plus 1/2 of a minced onion)
~1/3 cup cooked quinoa
and ideally, the rest of the day would include a raw veggie salad with vinegar/oil dressing, probably a bit more fruit or veggies as a snack, and some more raw nuts or seeds somewhere.
but drat!
Shane's coming home soon, and we've planned to make pizza for our anniversary! :-[ the pizza crust especially will ruin today's moderate success, but I don't want to let him down. poo.
Oh boo!!!! I totally wrote you this looooong response to all your raw-questions and it didn't show up!!!! OMG...I'm sooo pissed off now...
*sigh* here's some links...
www.goneraw.com
http://rawfoodrightnow.blogspot.com/2006/12/welcome-to-raw-food-right-now.html
http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/index.html
I really hope those help--let me know if you have any qustions--I wil lbe happy to answer them :) :)
1) I am dirt f'ing POOR right now, and really can't afford to buy fresh produce all that often. I do plan to incorporate more raw fruits and veggies in my daily intake, but I probably can't commit to the amount that You all will be buying/consuming.
I know what you mean about fresh produce prices, but there are some things that shouldn't be too expensive this time of year. I stalked your profile to see where you are....Georgia apples! In season and should be relatively inexpensive. It's also citrus season so prices should be good there too. Here is a link that lists seasonal produce by state.
http://www.sustainabletable.org/shop/eatseasonal/
2) I also work in construction, which can be pretty physically demanding. I want to make sure I start and maintain this properly so I don't just get super-weak and like, drop a huge board on my boss' head or something. I'll need STRENGTH, baby!
So you're going to need to keep your protein intake up. I'm going to say nuts and nut butters, but again with the very expensive. You should be able to do okay though, since you are going to keep beans in your diet.
3) I have a juicer (second hand from my sis, yay!) and a really crappy food processor, which helps. I don't have a dehydrator, but my gas oven, though unpredictable, has worked fairly well for dehydrating stuff before.
I'm jealous of your juicer! Do you have a thermometer to test your oven temperature at its lowest setting? I found that mine is too high to dehydrate within raw guidelines. If you find that yours is above 115°F, you can always just crack the oven door to let some heat escape and keep the temperature lower.
Welcome on board and good luck!
Hey Cap-happy hot pants (he, he, I stole that from carrot_wench)! You know, I do have a mini chopper thingy. I don't know how much it holds. Can't be much more than a cup or two. I hadn't really considered using that in conjunction with my blender. I shall have to try it.
What is the diameter of your dehydrator? If I recall, it is round like mine but a Ronco. I looked Roncos up on Amazon and they look very similar to my Nesco. If it has the same diameter, I'll send you a couple of what they call fruit roll-up sheets (I have many). I think they are basically the same thing as the teflex sheets for Excaliburs. That's what I use for my crackers and they have worked nicely. I have to spread and shape the cracker paste into rounds with a spoon because of the shape of my dehydrator, but that's easy enough. They come right up with a spatula, no oils or sprays necessary.
I did see that new blueberry muffin recipe, I'm definitely going to have to try it. There is a raw chili recipe I'm dying to try too. The list of ingredients is huge, but damn it sounds good. It's called Red Hot Chocolate Chili.
OMG Storm! You are too good to me! I'm pretty sure my ronco is the same deminsion as the nescos--I was looking at ther roundy sheets too--I just can't believe they charge $10+ a piece for them!!! Outragious! I keep thinking I'm going to find some at the thrift stores but apparently people are suddenly hanging on to their dehydrators!
Here's the Blueberry muffin recipe--
Ingredients
1 zucchini, with skin
4 dates
⅓ cup almonds
½ cup oats
1 small handful blueberries, frozen
5 sprinkles salt
2 cups blueberries, frozen
½ cup oats
cinnamon (for topping)
Preparation
Put first six ingredients in food processor and blend. Pour into a big bowl and stir in the 2 cups of blueberries and the 1/2 cup of oats. Then scoop into paper muffin cups (use thick ones or doubled ones) and sprinkle cinnamon on top of each one. Dehydrate for 24 hours at 110 degrees. (Use frozen blueberries because they’re more moist after being dehydrated and will better resemble blueberries in cooked muffins.) Enjoy! Good alone or with jam spread on top.
I'm going to leae out the oats--proably replace them with flax since I can never find raw oats up here!
Last night I made up some carrot cake like cracker/cookie things and used cup cake papers and that worked out ok--it was pretty simple too, I finely grated carrots (in my miniprep :) ) mixed with ground flax, agave and rasins and dehydrated for about 12 hours--they are tasty!
CW!!! Do you have a Whole Foods? if you do--they have a great fresh nut butter bar thingy where you make your own and they should have raw cashew butter (at least mine does)--cashew butter is really yummy, high in protein and you can do a lot with it--smoothies, on apples, mixed with other stuff to make dips and what not--and it's not too expensive!
I had to remove that link! I was just reading more of the site and it is ery clear that they are attemptine to "debunk" science and they make a lot claims and statements I just can't agree with...sorry of that!
Love ya!
Well crap! I just spent my lunch break at Whole Foods and they no longer have raw nut butters at all! :( They used to have a really nice raw section in the produce area and now it's gone....apparently no demand for it. Abby's Health and Nutrition has a nice raw section so I guess I'll be spending my money there.
I'll ship you a couple of sheets by Friday Cappy. It will make dehydrating crackers sooo much easier!
:)
Well crap! I just spent my lunch break at Whole Foods and they no longer have raw nut butters at all! :( They used to have a really nice raw section in the produce area and now it's gone....apparently no demand for it. Abby's Health and Nutrition has a nice raw section so I guess I'll be spending my money there.
I'll ship you a couple of sheets by Friday Cappy. It will make dehydrating crackers sooo much easier!
:)
WHAT!!???!!!?? YOur WHole Foods pulled the raw nut butter makers??? That is BULL SHIT!!! Total shenanigans! That sucks extra hard!!!! I'm so sorry Storm--maybe you can make your own in your mini prep? I've never tried...I bet it wouldn't be too hard with cashews--they are pretty soft!
I've never heard of Abby's Heatl and Nutrition--is it a brand or a store?
Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much for sending me the sheets! What can I do for you? Can I send you anything? You're so good too me! Seriously--that raw book you sent me is saving my life, it's the best one I've ever read and all the recipes are so simple!
I love you! Please, please tell me if there is anything i can do for you--I would be totaly happy to pay you for the sheets too!
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