I don’t know about you guys, but I love eating greens. However when it comes to kale, it’s a little bit difficult to just pop in my mouth and chew it without anything on it.
One Sunday, I was being lazy and enjoying my day at the beach when I got a call that there was no green left at Josh’s market.
So Denis and I ran to the market but it was true, no lettuce was left! There was only two buckets of kale left. So I packed almost all the kale left and bought it. When I got home, I made a nice kale salad but I remembered it was always hard for me to eat it without anything. So I came up with a nice dressing for it. The next day I had the same issue, so I whipped up another dressing!

I came up with actually 5 kale salad dressings that I thought I MUST shared with the world. Spicy Sun Dried Tomato Tahini, Avocado Tahini, Ginger Miso, Sunflower Dill, and Almond Butter Coconut. They all have pretty much the same ingredients and are made the same way.

Spicy Sun Dried Tomato Tahini

5-6 sun dried tomatoes (soak for 10 to 15 minutes)
1 TBS Raw Organic Tahini (you can also switch for raw almond butter instead)
1 Red Chillie Pepper or any spicy pepper to taste
1/2 Tsp organic or natural Mexican seasoning
Salt, garlic, and olive Oil to taste

Mix in personal blender until smooth adding water if needed. Pour over kale salad and add chopped cilantro.

Avocado Tahini

1/2 ripe organic avocado
1 Tbs of Raw Organic Tahani
the juice of 1/2 grapefruit
1 Handful of cilantro
Olive Oil and salt to taste

Put all ingredients in blender and mix until smooth.  Pour over Kale salad and sprinkle some black and white sesame seeds.

Ginger Miso

1 inch (cube) fresh ginger peeled
1 Tbs unpasteurized miso (I prefer brown or red)
1/2 carrot
1 Tbs raw tahini or raw almond butter
1 Date
Salt and Olive Oil to taste
(you can also add chillie peppers to make it spicy)

Put in blender and mix until smooth. If needed, add water to blend. Pour over kale and mix well.

Sunflower Dill

1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup dill loosely fit or to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
the juice of 1/2 grapefruit (or lemon)
1/2 Tbs raw organic tahini
Salt and cumin to taste

Mix in blender until smooth. Add more grapefruit juice if needed. Pour over kale salad and massage. Sprinkle sunflower seeds and any other seasonings.

Almond Butter Coconut

1/4 cup raw almond butter
2 teaspoon namashoyu
1 Date
1 Tbs fresh lemon or lime juice
1/4 cup raw coconut milk
1/2 chillie pepper or spicy pepper of choice
Garlic, Salt, Olive Oil, and Curry seasoning to taste

Mix in blender or personal blender. Add water for desired consistency and pour over kale salad. Mix red cabbage with kale for a “Pad Thai” feel. I use this recipe for my kelp noodles to make raw Pad Thai.

ENJOY!

Raw Food Party

I’ve summarized the questions I get all the time from family, friends, strangers on the beach, at work, in a plane, etc.

What do you eat normally on a daily basis?

For breakfast I eat one of these: fruit smoothie, green smoothie, fruit, oatmeal, ALT (Avocado, Lettuce, Tomato) salad, or a green juice.

For lunch it depends, weekdays a salad because is the easiest to take to work than some fancy raw gourmet dish. Weekends I get fancy or go out to lunch at one of my favorite raw food restaurants.

Dinner is always different. Most times it will be a new recipe or one or favorite meals like hummus, nori rolls, kelp noodles, cucumber noodles, tabouli, and all meals always accompanied by avocado and a bed of romaine lettuce.

Raw Indian Food

Do you miss cooked food?

Not eating the cooked food so much but cooking it. I have been cooking food since I was 11 years old and that way my only creative outlet. The first 6 months I missed eating cooked lentils the way I made them and some vegan spicy Indian foods.

Do you get tempted to eat cooked foods?

No, I may enjoy the smell of cook food I see other people eat or at the beach while I ride my bicycle and the smell all the fried food, but when I imagine putting something cooked in my mouth and eating, I know it’s not for me.

What is the biggest challenge of being raw vegan?

For every person is different. For me the biggest bump on the road was not being able to prepare food and be creative. With cooked food, I was able to go to a restaurant and copy the recipe at home and make it ten times better. With raw food it was hard at the beginning, it was like learning a new language. I had to start from my ABCs and then make sentences until I was able to speak, write, and read fluently! So for me the biggest struggle was in preparing the food, not eating it because I was so attached to working in the kitchen and making from delicious exotic gourmet dishes to your regular fast food favorites.

What do you drink?

Thank God, Orange Juice, & Grapefruit Juice

Well this is tough one because most people struggle with things I gave up years ago. I stopped drinking sodas when I was 11 cause my basketball coach said he would throw us out of the team if  he saw us drinking sodas! When I turned 18, I was drinking a lot of coffee and water all day long, about 8 cups of coffee and 1 bottle of water per coffee cup. And I did it for years until I turned 21. At 21, I started drinking teas cause of the Russian and so I replaced my coffee habit for tea. So I stopped caffeine 9 years ago, and when we started on Dr. Young’s diet, we began drinking a green powder in our water. So now I drink my “greens” from Alkavision or Dr. Broc’s from Dr. Young, fresh non-heated non processed juices made at home or from Josh’s Organic Garden Juice Bar or Glaser. So drinks were not an issue for me when I transition to raw because I had started it years ago.

What do you use to replace sugar or artificial sweeteners?

This is also a hard question to answer for me because I haven’t had regular bleached sugar since I was 12, unless it was sugar included in processed foods that  I consumed. And once I switched to Dr. Young’s diet, I had no sugar at all, not even from fruits and if I wanted to sweetened my tea I would use stevia. I only starting eating fruits again when I became raw, but they bother me, so I avoid most fruits. We also used agave for the first year we were raw, but now agave make us sick too. So what’s left that works for us? Stevia or lucuma powder. Some raw foodists will use honey, but I’m a vegan and I believe honey farms are a form of slavery and therefore I don’t support them.

What about Kombucha?

I love Kombucha! Yeah it’s fermented and it’s not good for me. So I’ve had it for “recreational” purposes, but now I avoid it.

What supplements do you take?

I don’t take any, I started fading them away about 3 years now. But there are other people who may need them, so again, I would recommend to consult a doctor about that. I know a lot of raw foodists that are against supplements or doctors, but one’s gotta do what is good for the body. I let my body guide me and if it needs something, I’ll go directly to the source. For example, if I need iron, I’ll eat foods that have iron and so forth. Lately, I’ve been eating raw tahini by the gallon (JK) so I can guess that I probably need the calcium.

If you have any questions, please send us an email.

Raw Cashew Tofu Salad

Kelp curry noodles

At my first Raw Spirit Festival in ’08, Sedona AZ, I came across Kelp Noodles. My friend John Schott from LifeFood Gourmet had a table at the festival and made an awesome tomato Italian sauce for these noodles. I got the last bowl he was selling and boy I’ve been hooked since then!

So when we got back to FL, Denis went online and looked them up… he ordered them and I’ve been making different sauces for them. My favorite is Coconut Curry sauce I created by accident trying to copy a red Thai chili sauce.

What  I enjoy most about this sauce and the noodles is that is easy to prepare and makes a great “fancy” meal when I’m tired and don’t want to send a lot of time in the kitchen.

Here is what you’ll need:

Kelp Noodles

1 Pack of Kelp noodles

3 cloves of garlic (less if you can’t handle raw garlic)

Cumin, curry, coriander, turmeric (all in powder form)

Ginger

1 Handful of cilantro

2 cups of coconut oil

Red chillies (Thai chillies)

Salt

Olive Oil

Lime or Lemon

Red Pepper strips

1  1/2 cup of almond or other white nut milk

Shredded lettuce & avocado

*Sweet peas, shredded celery & carrots optional

**To make it spicy (picante) add more chili peppers

First make the curry paste by putting the garlic, cumin, curry, coriander, turmeric, ginger, cilantro, chilies, salt, lemon, olive oil in the food processor and mixing until it becomes a paste. Add the nut milk and coconut oil and continue to mix.

Rinse the noodles well and put aside in a bowl to mix. Add sauce, red pepper strips, and optional vegetables (peas, carrots, celery). Mix well and let it sit for a few minutes.

Serve over a bed of lettuce with avocado.

Mixing the noodles, sauce, and vegetables

Raw Vegan "Eggs"

When someone doesn’t feel like making food or cooking, they order take out or go out to eat. And if budgets are tight, most of us have a recipe we make for those days when we just don’t feel creative about making food or are tired.

My dad’s recipe for those occasions was scramble eggs with rice, tomatoes, and onions. He would fry the chopped onions, tomatoes, and left over rice and throw a few whipped eggs and make a meal out of that. For many years before we became raw vegans, I would use my father’s recipe for when I felt tired and didn’t want order take out food.

I now have a raw vegan version of this recipe that is very quick to prepare and tastes amazing.

Here are the ingredients:

2 Handfuls of Almonds (hopefully sprouted)

¼ cup Flax Seed Powder

Turmeric

Cumin

Real Salt

2 Tomatoes

½ Medium Onion

Cilantro

½ small jalapeno pepper (optional)

Olive Oil

Avocado and Shredded Romaine lettuce

Put the almonds in the food processor with the flax seed powder, turmeric, cumin, and salt. Process to a powder and set aside in a bowl.

Almond Powder and Tomatoes in Food Processor

Using the same food processor (no need to wash it), put cut tomatoes, onions, oil, cilantro, and salt to taste. Pulse to make a semi-chunky salsa and avoid making it too liquidy. If you are using the jalapeno pepper, add them to the salsa to make it as spicy as you can handle. Add the salsa to the powdered almonds and mix without making to mushy.

Mixing Powder and Salsa

Serve over shredded lettuce, I use the lettuce to replace the rice in my father’s recipe. Slice the avocado and serve on the side. This serves two people, a tiny woman and a big Russian!

I recently added something else to this recipe; I’ve been using pumpkin seed oil and pour it over avocado. It’s delicious!

Enjoy!

Russian Raw Borsch

One of my favorite cooked dishes was Russian borsch. It was my favorite soup to make for Denis and when we became vegetarians I stopped using beef to make it. However, when we became raw, I had a hard time finding a recipe for borsch that I liked. Finally, I invented my own and liked how it came out.  The almond milk gives it a “sour cream” feeling to it.  I have actually made this soup with golden beets as well.  So I hope you enjoy it as well!

1/2 cup of raw almonds & water (or 1 cup of raw almond milk)
1 medium size tomato
2 medium size beet
2 carrots
3/4 cup shredded cabbage
Garlic and onion to taste
Salt to taste
Olive Oil
Chopped dill

Blend the almonds and water to make almond milk. Strain the milk in a nut bag or if you want to keep the pulp, don’t strain. Poor the milk back into the blender and add one beet, one carrot, and the tomato. Add some salt, garlic, onion, and olive oil and blend until smooth. Put aside in a bowl.

Shred the other carrot and beet and add to the soup base.  I use my food processor with a shredding blade to save time. Add cabbage and dill.

Pour in serving bowls and add some olive oil on the top.

Serves two hungry adults

Making the Almond Milk/Base for Borsch

Raw Vegan Kimchi

Kimchi is one of my favorite dishes ever! I think I can eat it almost everyday. Here is my way of making raw vegan kimchi.

1 Napa cabbage or Chinese cabbage

Real Salt (first to salt the cabbage and then to salt the whole recipe)

5 to 7 cloves of garlic

Peeled Ginger to taste (I use about 1 inch square of a ginger root)

1 red pepper

1 jalapeño pepper or cayenne pepper (not powder)

1 yellow onion

1/4 cup Bariani Olive oil

Chili flakes and pepper flakes to taste

10 Scallions julienned or cut in long strips (lots of scallions is what makes this recipe)

Wash the cabbage and separate the leaves. Let the water drip off the cabbage and get a container ready to place the cabbage for the salting part of the recipe and another container to press down the cabbage. Line up some leaves on the container put salt all over. Add another layer of leaves on top and add more salt and repeat until you use all the leaves and salt every layer. Use the other container to press down the cabbage. Let sit for 8 hours or overnight until all the cabbage is soaked in the salty water. You can let it sit more time to ferment more, but it won’t probably be raw at that point. You can also choose to let it sit less time, but I find that 8 hours is just perfect. Taste the cabbage and if it’s too salty for your taste, rinse it, but if it’s fine, just dumped the residual water.

Cabbage and salt in layers

To make the paste, I like to use my juicer to mince all the ingredients for the red paste. However, you can use a vegetable chopper or a food processor for this part. So mince or chop or process the garlic, ginger, red pepper, onion, and some of the red pepper flakes or jalapeño pepper or cayenne pepper. When I put this thru my juicer using the mince blades, there is also some juice that comes out which will make the paste a bit more liquidly and that’s why I don’t have to add water to this recipe. If you use a food processor or a chopper you may have to add a few spoons of water and the olive oil. Mix this paste and taste it for flavor. Depending on the saltiness of the cabbage and of the paste, you may want to make sure they will balance each other.

Peppers and Garlic for Kimchi

Using the same washed container, spread some of the paste at the bottom of the dish and take some of the scallions and spread them over the paste… you are going to layer the cabbage and paste like a lasagna. Take some cabbage and cover the first layer of the paste, and then add some more paste and scallions over the cabbage and keep layering in that order. Once you used all the cabbage and paste, cover the container and refrigerate for a few hours (4 to 6 hours). If you have cabbage or paste left over, just add it to the sides or try to fill in every space in the container.

I get about 6 to 8 servings out of this because I use a lot of it in different salads. I like to take a cucumber and chop it small cubes to add to the kimchi.

Cucumber Kimchi Salad

Gallbladder Cocktail

About 16 months ago I started to have a pain on the left side of my body under my arm close to my armpit and my ribs. At the beginning I thought it was stress or maybe that I was sleeping on the left side of my body too often.

The pain got worse and had to massage that area constantly, but it wasn’t helping. I was shopping online for Christmas gifts at my favorite organic store, and came across an organic “Brassage.” A bra that helps gets rid of toxins and aids lymphatic flow. So I bought one hoping it would help, but my pain did not go away.

We visited my friend Dave in Mt Shasta, who happens to be a massage therapist and has a spa in Mount Shasta, for our winter vacation.  He asked me how I was doing and somehow I didn’t want to mention the pain because I didn’t want to worry him. So I finally spilled the beans and mentioned about my pain. He said that pain in the area of the body is related to giving too much to others and not taking care of me. I’ve heard this before in Oprah’s show when they bring in mothers who don’t have time for themselves. I was confused! “I take care of myself!” I thought. “I eat raw foods, quit my corporate job, enjoy life, what more than that can I give myself?”

After a nice massage by my dear friend in Mt. Shasta, I realized that I was in denial. I do give first to others and then whatever is left over I share with more people and never me. The pain went away for a few weeks but came back. So I gave up. I was taking care of me but was still in pain.

Another friend at home told me that it was the gallbladder. She also does massage therapy. At that point I thought, “How can I be the gallbladder?! I’m a raw Foodist! We don’t get sick!” The same weekend another friend told me that we hold anger in our gallbladder, and then she said “but you don’t look like an angry person.” To which Denis said “you just don’t know her.” We all laughed, but that got me thinking about being angry.

And that’s how I decided to do a gallbladder flush. I started that same day and did tons of research on ways to flush the gallbladder. So I had my plan! I did liquids only for four days, which means all the food I ate was liquid. On the fifth day I drank apple juice all day… and at night came the Olive Oil Cocktail & Grapefruit Martini!

As the week went by, I thought about what makes me angry. The list was longer than I expected! Many times I hold it in because I rather not cause an argument or conflict. I also found out that I get mad at myself quite often.

Everyone that heard that I was doing the flush was excited to hear my experience. I was hoping to just be able to drink the olive oil with no issues and was praying that the stones would not get stuck anywhere. So the night came and had my olive oil cocktail, I followed the rest of the instructions for the night, and went to bed. I woke up the next morning and nothing happened… I was a little pale, but no stones.

The pain went away, but came back the next time I had stress at work and was angry. Go figure! After all it seems that I’m an angry healthy person, but at least I know I am!

Fresh Apple Juice

Links:

Bed and Breakfast in Mount Shasta, CA.

Bariani Olive Oil – The best!