I am so elated raw eating is on mylife's path. There is nothing like the
freshness of crisp, colorful, mineral-blessed mouthfuls of Nature's cuisine. I don't remember the last time I sashayed into a grocery store and purchased a bag of frozen anything. How can I when anything fresh at the Farmer's Market is entirely too appetizing.
It's the difference between The One and The One With Whom You Are Biding Time...
Here is a raw zucchini hummus from The Healing Patch Cookbook.
This is a lovely picture of my Christmas dinner '09. Imagine a fresh organic spinach salad with raw goat cheese, dried cherries, pumpkin and sesame seeds, and Roma tomatoes topped with a fruity dressing.
I got creative like Julie and Sarah, authors of The Healing Patch Cookbook. Instead of making a smoothie of the frozen fruit I'd had in the freezer, I opted for a dressing instead. Riquisimo!!!!!
According to Julie and Sarah, cucumber juice was anti-inflammatory. Guess what---it is!!! After a serious workout, it puts an invisible ice on my screaming muscles...especially the ones that tend to fuss more than the others.
Now this was one savory meal. It came together with an ease relegated to the pro raw foodist, who looks at two vegetables and breathes them into a feast! I was pleasantly satisfied at its end, and I must admit...I am getting better at making the hummus.
The morning after Christmas, here I sit at my writing desk, extolling the merits of Julie Cara Hoffenberg and Sarah Woodward's The Healing Patch Cookbook. Its subtitle is true. It is indeed a gentle transition from cooked to raw foods with a taste of joyful wit.
I love the structure of the book, a slim volume, which goes down equivalent to a full, palatable feast of a meal, well worth the cost. The beautiful Ojai, CA duet offers up entertaining and informative introductory chapters that give you the skinny on why they wrote the book, enough of raw food research to whet your own research yearning, entryways to the raw food experience and an intriguing look into food relationships. From that section, I faced the knowledge that sometimes I prepare my raw meal and then post up on the sofa to enjoy while watching TV. Instead of pausing to relish the taste of the delectable repast, I split myself, not truly present for either scene. In addition, I promised myself that I'd establish my own Garden-Plant-Planet relationship. And my first plant will be wheat grass! Yes, an elixir of the mean-green sort.
After that section, I fell loving toward the Smoothies, where I just made note yesterday to get whatever it takes to make my own Nut Mylk, something I didn't know could even be. The picture of the mylk is lickable, drippable, from wherever you want it. In their case, it was pictured near a succulent strawberry. Julie's Papaya Coconut Whip is at the top of my list of "coming recipes to try," when I make up my mind to visit Superfoods or Whole Foods. I love anything coconut, a love which stems from my Grandma Sophie's three-layer coconut cakes when I was a little girl. So can you imagine how elated I'll be finally tasting coconut butter? My local Farmer's Market sold the coconut oil, not the butter.
Tumbling into the Dips Appetizers was a skip through Wonderland! Yummy! Another lick-the- page experience. What I want to know is who was their photographer? That Wanna B Chive Cheez looked heavenly, and yes, my love, I shall be preparing it shortly. As in next week, before the New Year. Like Julie, I am a cheese-a'holic. At present, on Julie's recommendation, I've fallen HARD for raw goat cheese...coming of diary. So far so good...
My taste buds are crying out for veggie wraps, stuffed with their eclectic dips, so savory just in the reading. Although I'm not a guacamole fan in the least, I'm willing to bow to their "Holy Guacamole, I'm in Love" dip. Obviously they know a little something, something! Now, spiritually, the Peruvian Olive & Red Pepper dip is already on my table. Simply I've got to get up with it in the physical. From cover to cover, the book is brimming with scrumptious, healthy JUICY MORSELS, and the Dip Appetizers Section is no different. Here, I learned that olives have more mucus dissolving power than any other food, so if you consume lots of dairy, get some! Toss them in your salads or eat them out of the jar. And goodness, I discovered why they didn't have a recipe for the beans I thought I couldn't live without. I'd cook them slow and easy, in a crock pot, until they were sweetly devoid of any nutritional value...not knowing they possessed enzyme inhibitors, which equates the precious gassy feeling we get after devouring them.
And, oh yes, Querida, the next chapter deals with Salads. These body-nurturing meals will forever have a place, a special place, mind you, in my heart! I must prepare their Fresh Fennel Salad soon. Huh uh, it's on my list. Tiny confession I don't wish to hear again: I have never had a fennel, that I knew I was eating. Well, now I will know, and blessedly so! Oooh! And why I'm on the subject, according to Julie and Sarah, fennel is divine for checking the gas you developed from falling into a deep pot of indigestible beans.
Hmmmm. The next section dealt with Sauces and Dressings! I will admit it! I crave both...on whatever. That Delectable Dill is in my Top Ten Things to prepare. Another confession (I'm beginning to feel like Usher here) I didn't know dill helps to keep us calm, the word coming from the Norse word, "dilla," which means "to lull," as Julie and Sarah have noted.
The remaining sections are Entrees and Desserts. No, I shall not enter the wonders of these sections lest I trudge back downstairs to the kitchen. No! You'll simply have to go to their website, www.rawhealingpatch.com, and purchase the book for yourself! It is a treasure; a hymnal of good eating! You'll be singing louder than I can write, possibly, and dropping pictures on Facebook of your delectable creations...just like me, earlier this morning.
I so appreciate the list of "Staples" they offered towards the end of the book. Ok! I'll give you 3, no more! Y.S. Organics Raw Honey, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and Cacao Nuts! Now, you are dismissed. I'm headed to bed...with visions of Julie and Sarah's kitchen in my head.
Love yourself and live a Golden Life!
TheGoldenGoddess
12/26/09
