Frugal Raw Gourmet

Quick and Easy

Time-saving Recipes

Taco "Meat" Used as a Salad-Topping, Served with Sun-Breads.

(All ingredients are organic, non-corporate and local as much as possible.)

Here are Q & E ideas:

Use Taco Left-overs to make Taco Salad

I always make extra of the super yummy Taco "Meat" and squirrel it away. It freezes well and can be "reheated" in the dehydrator. Also, you can dehydrate it to a crunchy state, which is an awesome salad topper, as is. Or, reconstitute it with water or tomato juice for an easy moist filling for wraps.

Add Olives, chopped onion, or not-cho-cheeze as a garnish. Or if you are ready to change favors from "tex-mex" to KC BBQ top your salad or wrap with raw BBQ sauce. Careful, it's addictive!

Have an un-baking day each week. Sun breads and zucchini wrappers are super easy to make. You can make un-cookies at the same time. (Come to my un-cookies and mylk workshop for a fun secret recipe!) When ready to serve, sun breads and zucchini wraps can be re-heated at the same time as the Taco "Meat" in the dehydrator at 105 degrees.

I served the breads with humus and a big salad for proper food combining! And it's delicious!

Keep Humus On-hand in the fridge AND the freezer. Use it as a spread, dip, base for salad dressing, easily "up-darted" with a dash of curry or garlic or fresh herbs like cilantro, dill or basil. A I make a big batch of humus (not raw) and save some of the sprouted garbanzos for salad toppings. They keep in the fridge for about 4 or 5 days.

Raw BBQ Sauce for 2:

• 1/2 cup grade B maple syrup
• 2 to 3 TBS of homemade ketchup
• 1/8 tsp of smokey paprika
• 1/2 tsp (or more to taste) ground dehydrated citrus rind*
• ground black pepper and or cumin to taste

Whisk ingredients together, adjust seasoning. Dip or pour onto taco "meat". Great to "paint" onto eggplant bacon or dehydrated pears.

*Place orange, lemon and line peel in the dehydrator and just leave it there throughout the week as you make other things. soon it will be dried to a crisp. Put a small amount of course ground sea salt in the spice mill with the citrus rind and grind to a powder. If there are a few "chunks" remaining, sift them out. Or, not. I like the chunks, myself. Citrus rind with dehydrated coconut is a good seasoning to have on hand too. Dehydrated orange peel retains much of the vitamin C and beneficial acids. YEA! We need those this time of year --and it makes for award-winning BBQ sauce!

Naked Wraps

or with Taco "Meat" Crumbles

Use what's in the box from Fresh Connect

Having avocados on hand makes my life simple. Great source of plant protein and essential fatty acids. They have lost much of their mineral content in transport. However, combining fresh winter crops with dehydrated food helps balance the mineral content of the meal. Dehydrated foods have a higher concentration of minerals. You can munch on some dehydrated sea veggies or include them in the salad dressing to balance out the missing minerals in salad greens due to soil depletion. This is true year-round. Even organically produced veggies have 40% less vitamin and mineral content than food grown 40 years ago. Sad. The good news is, we can assimilate a combination of dehydrated and fresh foods to make meals that taste great and make us feel great!

Make your own cereal with sun-bread ingredients.

I save some of the sprouted buckwheat grouts from the sun-bread recipe and make dehydrated granola cereal with it. Add some maple syrup or honey and a pinch of pink salt to the wet buckwheat, spread on a teflex sheet and dry at 105 degrees until crispy. Mix with fresh fruit, sprouted almonds and mylk of choice.

Green drinks are a no-brainer and you can find an unlimited supply of raw green drink suggestions on line.

See "Raw Soups" for other quick and easy recipes.

"High-Raw" Means A High Percentage of Raw Foods

So, What Do We Eat as Cooked Foods? Potatoes!

These LOVELY fingerling potatoes are dug out of the Missouri soil only a few miles from me. Thank you Fred and Hellen Mesner for having a root celar extrodinair! (You can get these lovely fingerlng potatoes in the KC metro area through Freshconnect.kc. Use "Trader St. Joe's" as the discount code and recieve $5 off your first order.)

I like to bake them at 375 degrees, in a covered stainless steel dish lined with organic rock salt and bay leaves. I also tuck the bay leaves in between each little darling. If you can't find one of these awesome high-quality 1970's Dansk Design stainless dish-and- lid sets, use a glass dish with a parchment-paper and foil lid. Use the parchemnt paper to protect the potatoes from coming into contact with the aluminum foil. (Not to scare you, but I advise you to stop using foil and anodized cookware to cook your food. Alumninum + high heat = dementia and Alshiemers disease.)

After they are baked, I remove the bay leaves, open each sexy little node with a fork

and pour a rice mylk into each opening. Use the fork to "stir" the rice mylk into the potato flesh. Then, slather the tops with Earth Balance Soy-free Buttery Spread or Goat Butter or and pop the dish back into the oven for a few minutes to melt and stay warm for a dinner. Toppings of sunflower- seed-sour 'cream', eggplant bacon and vegan 'parmesiano', chopped green onions or chives, herbs and cracked pepper or nutmeg can be added. Serve with a large salad and a raw soup, seed crackers and sun breads. It doesn't get much better than this!

Live Vibe: Rainbow Salad

Eat the Rainbow!

Cut up the beat greens, chard or spinach into "noodles" using the French chiffonade-method. (Wash, then roll leaves together and slice on the bias with a Chef's knife.)

Cut celery, carrots, onions, beats and anything else colorful, raw and edible you have on hand, at an angle and slightly thiner than you would for soup. Top with sprouted dehydrated Almonds and Beet Vinaigrette.

Beet Vinaigrette

• 1/2 cup of fresh Lemon juice of Apple-cider Vinegar
• 1/2 cup of oil of choice (I like first press extra virgin olive oil or raw almond oil)
• 1/4 cup of diced beets
• 2 TBS of diced onion or shallot
• 2 cloves of garlic, pressed or diced
• 2 TBS of clover honey or grade B maple syrup
• 2 or 3 pieces of dried California Sea Palm Frond, diced (optional)
• 1/2 tsp of Himalayan pink salt (or less, if using olive oil and/or sea veggies)
• 1 tsp of mild curry powder
• Fresh ground nutmeg or peppercorns, to taste
• Fresh herbs, when you’ve got um” (rosemary, thyme and sage are all wonderful with this dressing)

Mix ingredients together in a glass jar with a lid. Shake. Marinate overnight for best results. Keeps at room temperature for a day or so, indefinitely when refrigerated.

Sprouted Dehydrated Almonds

Soak raw (Sicilian or Spanish) almonds over night in clean source water with a 2 to 3 inch piece of sea vegetable of choice until plump and looking like they want to burst out of their skins.

Drain and wash almonds and sea veggie 2 times each day. Return to a clean bowel, covered, at room temperature, away from light for 8 to 24 hours.

Wash again and soak for 1 to 2 hours in clean-source water. When skins are loose, “pop” almonds out of skin. Not all will want to come out. It’s oky, you can give them a rub later when they are dry to remove stubborn skins. Discard the skins and any discolored almonds to the compost pile.

Soak the skinned almonds in a salt-water bath for at least 2 hours at room temp. Refrigerate, if it will be longer than that.

Drain the salt water. Do not wash this time. Shake the strainer to remove excess water. Place the wet almonds and sea veggie on a screen in dehydrator at 105 degrees until crisp and dry. Store in a glass jar refrigerated or frozen until ready to use.

Green Banana Salads

Celebrate Green Bananas!

The Bananas are Green because they have not been gassed! This is a very good thing. Bananas will ripen on a sunny windowsill or in a paper bag. Allowing the bananas to have sun exposure increased the nutrient value.

We use the firm flesh of green bananas as often as we do the ripe ones. Green bananas have a lower glycemic index because many of the sugars have not yet formed. They also have more tannin that promote digestion and have anti-microbial properties. Slightly tart, they make a great topping for green salad or filling for wraps with orange pumpkinseed vinaigrette or as a snack with Greek or goat yogurt and honey. (Vegans can substitute cashew cream cheese and Agavi.)

Green Banana Snack

Peel and slice bananas

Add Cashew cream or yogurt

Add fresh herbs (Choose one or mix: fresh cilantro, sorrel, mint, fennel tops, or lemon balm)

Drizzle with Clover Honey

Add blueberries when you’ve got um!

Green Banana Salad Topping or Filling for Wrap

Peel and slice green bananas

Sprinkle very sparingly with Himalayan pink salt and a squeeze of lemon juice

Toss to coat. (Keeps refrigerated for several hours.)

Serve in a lettuce leaf with choice for fresh herbs or pea sprouts or place on top of a bed of mixed greens. Add dressing with whole seeds.

Orange-Pumpkin Seed Vinaigrette

• Juice of one orange
• Zest of ½ an orange
• 1 clove of garlic (crushed or minced)
• ½ a small onion or large shallot, diced
• 1 TBS live apple cider vinegar
• 1TBS of Namu Soyu (raw soy sauce)
• 2 TBS of raw pumpkin seed oil (substitute raw sunflower oil)
• 1 TBS of grade B maple syrup (optional)
• 2-3 TBS of raw pumpkin seeds

Marinate overnight for best results

Live Vibe: Desserts & Treats

Secret Stash

Vanilla Peanut-butter Fudge

A tribute to My Dad, Earl Stephan Jacobson, a “Black Norwegian” from Duluth, MN who made KILLER FUDGE on Christmas and whenever we asked him to …all winter long. He always made a ton of chocolate fudge with black walnuts for all of us AND a small amount Vanilla with Peanut butter, for himself. His recipes were buried with the cane sugar long ago.

Here is my raw-modern-version. You can make a larger quantity. But, you might eat it all and make yourself sick. It's so good; you'll be fighting over who gets to lick the spatula!

Secret Stash Vanilla Peanut-butter Fudge Recipe

Ingredients:

for the : Base"Add equal amounts of the following to the food processor:

• Raw honey
• Coconut oil
• Coconut butter

Blend in the flavoring(I use 3/4 cup each with seasonings as follows):

• Scrapings from one whole split vanilla bean
• 1/4 tsp of liquid almond extract
• 2 TBS of peanut butter from New Mexico
• Very scant 1/2 of a pinch of Himalayan sea salt (optional)

Instructions:

Blend until smooth. Pour into a glass dish. Refrigerate until firm.
If you can keep yourself from "tasting it" with a spoon every 20 minutes, you will have fudge in about an hour.
Slice with a warm knife. Serve on chilled plates.

For a full Batch of the Dark Rich Chocolate Version:
Add equal amounts of:

• Raw honey
• Coconut oil
• Coconut butter

to the food processor
(For a full “batch” to fill a 9 X 13 glass dish, you will need 2 cups of each)

Season as follows:

• Scrapings from 4 whole split vanilla bean
• 1 tsp of liquid almond extract
• 3 TBS of carob powder
• 1 tsp of raw cacao powder
• 1 cup of black walnut pieces (divided)
• 2 tsp of grade B maple syrup (optional)
• A pinch of Himalayan sea salt (optional)
• Home-made Chocolate Chips (optional)

Blend until smooth. Stir in a little over half of black walnuts. Pour into a glass dish. Refrigerate until almost firm, sprinkle with more black walnuts and homemade chocolate chips.* Press down with a spatula, if needed to stick to the top. Refrigerate until firm. Slice with a warm knife serve on chilled plates.

*Homemade Chocolate Chips

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup coconut or cocoa butter
• 1 TBS of Grade B maple syrup
• 2 TBS raw carob powder
• 2 tsp of raw cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp of Himalayan pink salt
• 1/4 tsp green stevia powder
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 TBS of warm water

Instructions:
(This makes a very dark rich bitter chocolate chip. For a semi-sweet, only use 1 tsp of raw carob; increase the raw cocoa powder to 1 TBS and add 1 TBS of white agavi nectar. You might not need the water.)

Process until smooth. Transfer to a plastic bag with the tip cut or a pastry bag with a small tip. Squeeze out “chip shapes” onto parchment paper. They don’t have to be perfect. (To get around this step, simply spread the chocolate batter like frosting on a sheet of parchment and then crumble into chips after it freezes.) Put in freezer until firm. Remove from parchment. Store in a glass container in the freezer until ready to use.

How is THIS Healthy?

Here is an excerpt from Jim Fly's newsletter that answers many questions about coconuts:

Our emphasis this week is on coconut products, which have proliferated in recent years as more and more research validates the healthfulness and unique properties of this tropical tree fruit.

I recall going to a seminar in Las Vegas several years ago given by Dr. Bruce Fife, N.D., the individual who has written the most about the often-misaligned coconut--(it's high in saturated fat, for example).

At that time, coconut oil and various other products were just being introduced to the health food industry. Previous to this, coconut, due to its high content of saturated fat, was being partially blamed for the high rate of heart disease. Remember the movie popcorn scare? But, as Dr. Fife pointed out it was precisely partially or fully hydrogentated coconut oil that was the real culprit, just as other healthy oils become dangerous when subjected to the hydrogenation process, which produces transfats, or plastic fats, that oxidize LDL cholesterol and set the stage for hardening of the arteries...

South Sea Islanders and other people living in the tropics, when eating a traditional diet that relies heavily on coconuts, have one of the lowest rates of heart disease in the world. And, here's why, according to Dr. Fife:

Coconut's saturated fat is a unique type of fat composed of Medium Chain Triglycerides, which the body mainly burns as fuel instead of storing as fat! Coconut also contains lauric acid which the human body turns into monolaurin, an antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial substance. Another MCT in coconut is capric acid, which converts into monocaprin, another antiviral. So, the theory goes, Coconut can possibly function as a metabolizer and immune system booster. At any rate, it is not the skull-and-crossbones fat of culinary paranoia. Oh, and by the way, pure coconut and coconut oil is one of the most hypoallergenic foods there is--most people with food allergies do not react negatively to coconut.