Reality Check Meet-up

Start one in your community!

Here's what we do:

Enjoy the company of progressive-thinkers and DOers. Share resources and ideas for establishing alternative food and information distributions systems outside the corporate choices. Moving beyond developing "models" to having these systems working and accessible to help us in co-creating a community within a community of a healthy cooperative culture that meets the needs of all its citizens.

Reality Check Meet-up

Monday, March 14 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm

2516 Lovers Lane, Saint Joseph, MO 64506

Call with questions and suggestions. 816-364-6922

Vegetarian Garbonzo Bean Chili

Vegetarian Garbonzo Bean Chili

How to sprout garbonzos:

Cover dried beans with clean source water, no salt. Leave at room temperature overnight. Drain and add fresh water in the morning. Repeat until plump with a small white "tails". This may take 2 or 3 days. You may refrigerate to slow down the process or put near a heat vent, fireplace or radiator to speed up the process. When sprouted, wash with cool salt water and then cool clean water, drain. Add to a large pot with an ample amount of clean-source water with aromatics such as bay leaves, thyme bundles, garlic cloves, onion skins or herb stems. Do not salt again until beans are fully cooked. (About 40 minutes) Note: sprouted beans take less time to cook than dried beans. Reserve cooking liquid. The gelatinous "broth" made by garbonzo beans is one of the secrets to great hummus and chili! Refrigerate until ready to use.

Tip: Adding a piece of living sea weed to the soaking water makes for faster more nutritious sprouts. One 4" piece per gallon of water. Discard or add it to a house plant for food before cooking. you might even offer it as a treat to a house pet. some animals LOVE sea veggies. We love them too. But, we eat them dried in the dehydrator BEFORE they have been feeding the beans. (Mineral-rich Super-food!) Be sure to use ONLY hand-harvested, aboriginal, seasonally-collected, organic sea veggies. Our all-time fav is Mendocino Sea Palm Fronds. We did A LOT of research on this. We buy ours from Barbara and John Stephens-Lewallen atwww.seaweed.net. Let them know we sent you! They love St. Joe! Our sea vegetable purchases are growing in frequency and we are assisting them in their fight against corporate encroachment of ancient harvesting waters! Be healthy and be an activist, at the same time: buy hand-harvested sea weed.

How to make home-made chili sauce

1 gal bag of frozen tomatoes from the fall harvest (or 4 one-quart cans)

2 to 3 large onions, diced

5 to 10 garlic gloves, crushed

3 to 5 sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil (diced)

6 to 10 drops of wild oregano oil (optional)

5 to 7 small dried whole chillies, 1 tsp each: whole cumin seeds, whole mixed gourmet smokey pepper corns, coriander seeds and dried oregano (if not using the oil)

1/2 tsp course ground Himalayan pink salt or living sea salt

Smokey paprika to taste

Add onions, tomatoes, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes to a crock pot or dutch oven. Cook on high to reduce liquid. while reducing, add dried whole spices and salt to spice mill or grinder and grind until fine. Add spice mixture to sauce, turn to low and simmer to desired consistency. Adjust seasoning, adding smokey paprika to taste and more salt and cumin as needed. Add meats, beans and other vegetables as desired to make chili or pot roast. Garbonzo beans can be added for thickening agent, but be careful not to overcook the garbonzos. They only need to be hated through in the warm chili sauce.

Gourmet Smokey Pepper Corns, Garbonzo Beans and Smokey Paprika are available for a limited time from Goode Acres Delivery. All other seasoning are available in the bulk section at A-Z Fresh Air Fare on 8th Street, down town Saint Joe.

Cooked Foods

One Dish Wonder!

Of Course, A High-Raw Life-Style (higher percentage of raw foods) Includes SOME Cooked Foods, Too.

The question comes up, what to choose for cooked foods? If I'm going to the trouble to cook something, I choose delicious, satisfying, healthy foods. There are some things I've tried to make raw or sprouted and have learned that I just prefer them cooked. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Sprouted garbanzo beans (also known as chick peas);
• Fresh pink, green and tan chicken or duck eggs (from birds and their farmers, who I know personally);
• Sprouted quinoa;
• Sprouted barley;
• A variety of lentils (Dried or fermented in goat yogurt);
• sprouted dried beans;
• Artichokes;
• Popcorn;
• Potatoes (I recommend to use small heirloom varieties);
• Occasionally, I enjoy steamed, sweated or wilted: greens, cabbage, onions, squash, broccoli, asparagus;
• Toasted mustard seeds and coconut;
• Or, I'll melt coconut oil inn a stainless steel pan and saute onions, celery, mushrooms, fresh herbs and/or root vegetables as toppings and condiments. These are all great raw too!

Currently, in the late winter months, I choose to eat 3 to 5 cooked foods a week as: condiments, side dishes, special treats and mid-day meals served with lot's of fresh veggies for optimal nutrient absorption. You may also choose to supplement with a digestive enzyme or eat some fermented kraut with your cooked foods to aide in metabolic processes. Whenever we eat cooked foods, our metabolic enzymes are used to digest them. This interrupts the "healing and vitality" role of our system. A healthy body can compensate with help from mircoorganisms found in fermented foods and enzymes from a reliable source. (Metabolic enzymes are your healing and vitality workers. They must stop what they are "doing" and aide your digestion and obsorption whenever you present your system with a challenge. Cooked foods are a challenge. None-the-less, cooked foods bring us pleasure. Enjoyable meals are key to health and healing! Feeling satisfied increased your endorphins and levels out your hormonal activities. So, if you percieve a raw foods life-style as "rabbit food," or attach other negative connotations to eating this way, your higher self may be telling you to incorporate cooked foods. Using one of the 80/20 "rules," eat cooked foods (20% of your meal) and raw foods (80%) whenever you feeling unsatisfied. To find a enjoyable balance, monitor how you feel after each meal. Eat cooked foods mid-day, exercise regularly and drink clean-source water in abundance.

Here are a few cooked recipes you may want to incorporate into your raw high-raw foods lifestyle!

I will post the recipes separately. Use the search window of the blog to find these and other recipes by name or ingredients. Enjoy!

• Channa Dal Dhoka (Steamed Lentil Cakes)
• Hummus (Garbanzo Bean Dip/Spread)
• Frittata (Cooked Eggs with Fresh Veggie Toppings)
• One Dish Wonder! (pictured above)

Here are foods you should never heat above 105 degrees:

• olive, nut or seed oils
• olives
• seeds and nuts
• fruits (fresh or dried)

The result is carcinogenic!

"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!

Love Beets All!

You have heard of Dinosaur Kale?

I'm calling these Elephant Beets!

The Fresh Connect beets are gorgeous. I want to do a painting of them! But, there are hungry people to be fed and one of the first things to eat in the Fresh Connect Box will be the beet tops! They are most likely to wilt later in the week and become soup stock. So, I try to get to them first. Plus I love sautéed and/or wilted beet tops so-much, I could eat them every day!

Beets, also known as beetroot, are high in potassium, folacin, and fiber, yet low in calories. Their edible leaves offer protein, calcium, fiber, beta-carotene, vitamins A and C, and some B vitamins. They're known in the arena of natural healing for their ability to purify the blood and the liver.

Celebrate beets by eating the beet tops! They are highly nutritious. Add them to green smoothies, save the small ones to mix with other salad greens, slice and add to raw and cooked soups, sauté’s and loafs. Use in fermented chim chees and krauts.

Leave the beets in tact until you are ready to use them. (Another reason to eat them first: Elephants tend to be huge and take up much needed fridge space.)

Val's Favorite Beet Top Recipe

(Not 100% Raw)

Sauté them with Onion & Garlic

Get Ready:

Make a bunch. They are great leftover!

Make a workspace:

Clear sink, cutting board, knife, strainer, large stainless steal skillet or pan with wide surface area, wooden spatula, and camera. Check!

When ready, cut off the tops, leaving at least 1 inch of stem attached to the bulb, place the bulbs in a waxed paper bag or brown paper lunch sack to keep the dirt out of the produce bin in your fridge. Leave the dirt on the bulbs. It's good for them! I'm serious. Beets, carrots, potatoes continue to draw nutrients form the soil while in storage. Celebrate the dirt! (You'll need the bulbs for juicing later in the weekend!) Wash the tops in clean source water and drain.

Separate the stems from the leaves. Chop the stems. You will add the stems with the garlic and onion to the pan first. Then, add the more tender leaves last. Chiffonade the leaves. (Save the small ones to mix with other salad greens

Gather organic ingredients:

• A grip of beet tops (A "grip" is however many you have an/or however many you can carry. That way, you've always got a grip!)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 a large white onion (refrigerated for an hour, or more, to avoid onion-gas-tears)
• 1/2 tsp living sea salt
• 1 tsp to 1 TBS of clover honey (to taste)
• Juice of one orange plus 1/2 a lemon (Or substitute a TBS of raw apple-cider vinegar mixed with 1/4 cup clean-source water)
• Ground Black Pepper
• Optional Garnish: 1/2 cup sprouted Sicilian almonds, soaked in inland seawater, dehydrated until crunchy (I make them in batches and store them in glass jars to keep on hand.)

Recipe:

1. Chop onion, sprinkle with sea salt

2. Sweat the onion first in a hot pan, on lowest of low heat, covered until clear. Add honey, stir, and a few tablespoons of water if needed. The amount of water will depend on the type of cookware you are using and the temp of your stove. So, don't get stuck on the phone in the middle of this step.

3. Chop the beat stems and garlic, add them to the onions, and continue to sweat on low heat, covered. Stir a few times.

4. Add chiffonade of beet leaves last. They should be slightly damp with clean-source water. Stir them into the onions, stems and garlic. Add fruit juice or vinegar when bottom of pan is sticky or leaves start to get wilted or a little dry, to preference. I know I'm close when the onions have turned bright pink.

5. Adjust seasoning, salt, pepper, and honey. Garnish with almonds very last so they stay white.

5 1/2. Hide it from everyone so you can eat it all! Just kidding. Sort of.

6. Actually, I shared and served the beet tops three ways:

• (Not pictured) As a warm topping over white Quinoa with a large side salad, New Year's Eve.
• (Pictured below left) Cold as a salad topping. They "jell" in the ridge overnight and the colors intensify. The almonds turn bright pink! I topped it with more white almonds, too.)
• (Pictured below right) Warm, as a base for the Vegan Hopin' John on New Years Day. I topped it with chopped white onion.

Store left-overs refrigerated, if you have any! The almonds will turn pink too. It's pretty. But, you can also garnish with more white almonds, if you prefer.