This was meant to be a cabbage, carrot and chickpea soup.  However, I didn’t have the carrots and I didn’t follow the instructions.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Organic Chickpeas

1 Cup Organic Short Grain Rice

1/2 Head of Organic Cabbage

Water

2 Teaspoons Sea Salt

2 Teaspoons Pepper

Instructions:

Soak rice and chickpeas overnight. Bring rice and chickpeas to boil then set to simmer one hour prior to meal (I put 2 cups of water in each).  Put your cabbage into your food processor and puree (was suppose to only shred, oops).  

Mix everything.  The water should be warm to finger touch and no more.  You want all the enzymes from the cabbage to stay alive.  There should be ample water so add another 1 cup if you need to.

This turned out to be a surprisingly delicious and easy meal to make,

Ingredients:

1 cup dry white beans  (1/2 cup if you should sprout)

1 cup dry black beans  (1/2 cup if you should sprout)

1/2 cup dry quinoa (perfect if you are sprouting, but for cooking, you really should keep your pantry better stocked, as you needed a full cup)

3/4 a large onion

2 cloves garlic

1 cup fresh cilantro (with stems)

1/2 tsp cumin

Filtered water

Real Salt 

Pepper

Directions:

Forget to soak the beans and quinoa and start the soak in the a.m.  Put the beans together but not the quinoa.  It’s okay, though, because you get up before the sun.  Way before.  

Drain and rinse the beans, add enough water to cover and then some (g’head, fill the pot) then start simmering them in the late afternoon. About two hours later, drain and rinse the quinoa, then throw it in with the beans. Realize you will be having supper at 10:00 p.m. if you don’t do something drastic.  Sigh, and boil the mix for a while.  

Throw the onion, garlic, and cilantro into the food processor.  Reflect upon the fact that you and the food processor have a new relationship.  No longer do you spend all that time chopping everything.  It does the work for you.  Thank it.

When the beans are finished, throw in cumin and onion mix.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Enjoy.

So I had to figure out what to make on short notice, due to us having a party the night before and not preparing anything for lunch…… So I raided the pantry and fridge.

Ingredients

3 Cloves garlic (Minced)
1/2 Onion (Chopped)
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
3 Cups Water
2 Carrots (Chopped)
2 Stalks Celery (Chopped)
1 Bell Pepper (Chopped)
2 Banana Peppers (Chopped)
2 Tablespoons Fresh Mint (Chopped)
1 Tablespoons Fresh Basil (Chopped)
3 Tablespoons Almonds (Crushed)
3 tablespoons Pumpkin Seeds (Chopped)
1 Teaspoon Chia Seeds
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper
2 Teaspoons Ginger
1 Teaspoon Oregano

(Whew, that was long, but seriously, this soup was fast and easy… Seriously)

Instructions

Roast the Garlic and Onions over medium heat with Olive Oil (about 5-10 minutes). You have to keep stirring because the garlic will burn before the onion becomes translucent. Throw everything else in the pot and accidentally cook it. I wanted it to be warm and 95% raw, but left the stove unattended :(. After about 15 minutes it was ready. Adding the nuts and seeds made a difference on consistency.

If you ever need a filler then try to crush nuts and seeds or/and add Chia to the recipe for a thicker Soup.

Ingredients

3 small beets

A little less than a pound of green beans

3 clementines

1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds

1 avocado

juice of one or two lemon wedges

Filtered water

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp coriander

Juice of 1 lime

3 tbsp orange juice 

Directions

Soak pumpkin seeds in filtered water for at least ten minutes.

Wash beets, then peel.  Look at hands.  Hope it will wash off.  Throw beets in food processor along with the pumpkin seeds.  Scrape into a bowel.  Peel clementines and throw into food processor.  Lightly chop.  Chop too much and make oranges mushy.  Resign yourself to that fact.  Throw into beet bowl.  

Wash beans, snap off ends, snap into 1-2 inch pieces.  Or maybe 3.  Just make them smaller.  Put in beet bowl. 

Slice avocado and put in separate container.  Tell yourself you will remember to spritz them with lemon wedges before putting them in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch.  Forget.

In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, cumin, coriander, lime, and orange juice.  Have great ambitions to juice a couple clementines (you have no regular oranges), but instead default to the commercial orange juice you bought to make your son Boo-Nanas for Halloween.  Cringe at the fact it keeps so long.  At least it’s not from concentrate and 100% juice. Throw into the beet bowl.

Mix. 

Eat.

Ingredients

The Complete Book of Raw Food edited by Julie Rodwell

Directions:

Night 1: Turn to page 61.  Prepare the Caesar Salad.

Night 2: Turn to page 69.  Prepare the Lentil Salad.

Substitute one ingredient in each.   Decide that posting the recipe like that on a public blog might be crossing the line a bit.  Also, because you’re not that extremely excited about either, mainly because you are sick of salads and because all sprouted food is beginning to taste the same no matter what you do to it, decide that taking the time to type out all the ingredients and directions make you want to take a nap.  Go ahead. You can post more recipes later.  

Ingredients:

3 zuchinni

5 roma tomatoes

10-15 basil leaves (go to three stores to find fresh)

juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 tsp ginger, peeled 

1-2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of flax seed

1 tsp sea salt

Filtered water

Peel zucchini then slice into strips with the peeler.  Put in a bowl, cover with filtered water, add salt and stir.  Let soak while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Put tomatoes, garlic,  ginger, and basil in a food processor and chop up.  Grind flax (coffee grinders work great) and add to mix.  Add lemon juice. 

Drain zuchinni and cover with sauce. 

Salt and pepper to taste.  

Remember tomatoes are causing the rash under your three-year-old’s lip AFTER supper.  Know that while this meal kicked ass, you will have to prepare a second sauce sans tomatoes for him when you fix this again.

Here is my recipe of my Always Fermenting Hot Sauce

1 Quart Glass Jar / lid(must be glass and around 32 oz.)

6 Jalapenos

3 Chili peppers

3 banana peppers

2 cloves garlic

3 stalks of fresh dill

2 tablespoons Real Salt

2 Cups Water

In a separate container mix the salt and water.  Set aside.

Slice up the Jalapenos and garlic. Cut Chili peppers in half (doesn’t matter how).  Stuff garlic and dill in the jar then the jalapenos.  I kept the banana peppers whole and used them to hold the other peppers under the water.

 If this won’t work then you can use a small glass jar (spice jars typically work great) and then throw a towel over the top of the open quart jar.

Once all the peppers are in the jar then pour the salt water in the jar within an inch of the top. Hand snug the lid to jar

Store the jar of peppers in a cool dark place for 5 days.  (If using a jar to push the peppers down, remove it after 2 days and place a lid (hand snug) on jar)

After 5 total days pour contents into blender, blend and place in refrigerator.  You now have fermenting hot sauce.

I mixed some with the remains of my Salsa Verde and it was awesome. The heat smoothly crept in and caused wonderful pain like hot sauce should.

BTW, keep it refrigerated

Ingredients

1 cup pineapple

1 cup strawberries

1 banana

Throw all ingredients into a blender.  Mix.  Get out the wooden spoon and stir.  Mix.  Stir with the spoon.  Mix.  Finally, everything will be blended.  

Pour mixture onto a dehydrator tray lined with parchment paper. Dehydrate overnight at 114 degrees.  In the morning, the spouse will cut into strips.

Ingredients

1 cup dry chickpeas (for a completely raw recipe, sprout the chickpeas)

2 cups mushrooms (either sliced, or broken apart with your own two hands

1 onion

4 Roma tomatoes

Cilantro (about a cup?)

1/2 tsp garam masala

1 tsp turmeric

crushed red pepper to taste

some olive oil

1/2 cup fresh pineapple, diced

Soak the chickpeas overnight and through most of the next day, mainly because you forgot about them.  Don’t worry.  They’ll be okay.  Rinse them and pour enough water to cover them.  Cook them until tender. 

Rinse the chickpeas and put them in a large mixing bowl.  Add mushrooms. Throw the onion in the food processor.  Your three-year-old is more likely to eat them if he can’t identify them.  Put 3/4 of the onion mix into the bowl.  Put 1/4 in the fridge.  You made a little too much.  

Put the tomatoes and cilantro in the food processor.  If you had a Vitamix, you could have done all this at once.  You don’t have a Vitamix; you have a small food processor.  Thank it for working so hard.

Add tomato/cilantro mix to the bowl, along with all of the spices.  Mix everything together.  Drizzle some olive oil and mix again.  

Serve.  After eating it, realize that pineapple would be awesome on it.  Chop one up and put about a 1/2 cup in with the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Ingredients:

Phone

Electronic Menu from the awesome Asian restaurant a few blocks from your house

Directions:

Come home from visiting your dad overnight and find your spouse lying on the couch, recovering from the same funky virus you had about a week ago.  You know how ugly it was, so you try to be patient.  Check the dinner menu and realize you only have about half of the ingredients you need, as aforementioned spouse had planned on going to the store until being kicked in the ass by illness.  Realize it’s almost 6:00 p.m., and everyone is hungry.

Open the laptop and pull up the menu from that awesome Asian restaurant.  Choose Spicy Salmon Sushi (mostly raw), a vegetable wrap with avocado (raw), Lo Mien with veggies and tofu, and some veggie Sukiyaki.

Take three-year-old with you and walk to the restaurant to get the food. 

Share with family.