Not-All Raw Tomato Wrap

Well hello there.

I wanted to share with you this yummy yummy lunch that Andrew and I enjoyed recently. The wrap on my wrap is not raw, but bought from a package of pre-made wraps at the store (and yeah, they were really REALLY tastey). Inside is some red pepper hummus that we bought, also, rather than making raw. I've made some raw hummuses before but honestly, I really prefer the taste of bought hummus!

I couldn't get a great picture of our plates, but you can see what we had.

HUGE wraps made with the bought tomato wrap, red-pepper hummus, red, green, orange peppers, cucumber, spinach, romaine garden lettuce, red onion. 

On the side, we had carrot sticks and fresh fruit.

MMMMM I loooooooove this. Its making me hungry!

So, it might not be all raw, but it definitely has plenty of raw elements. Mostly raw. You do NOT have to be 100% raw to make healthy (and extremely tasty) choices. My favorite part about raw food is that the point is just to add more and more raw into your diet, rather than taking and taking food you love. I love tomato wraps and hummus, so I incorporated those two things into my raw diet and came up with a mostly-raw lunch that knocks my socks off. 

And that keeps me happy.

*Happy Dance!*

And by the way, if you haven't guessed, ALL the food we purchase for our home is organic or naturally produced from local farmers (who don't use pesticides/herbicides but don't bother with organic labeling). That doesn't make us better than conventional eaters (just as eating raw does not make us superior to people who cook. In fact, I love this blog ), it is just something I feel strongly about (see yesterday's post hah).

Why is Organic Food so Expensive!?

Yeah, why IS organic food so much more expensive than conventional?

Well, Adriana Velez tells us in this helpful post about farming and why the cost is so high in the supermarket.

So, with that being said, yes, eating organic can be expensive. Andrew and I have seen an increase in our food budget. Luckily, Andrew finds it just as important as I do to put more in the food budget and less in other, less important areas in order to feed ourselves the best foods...why? because our bodies are worth it and we have the means. Like I said, we sacrifice in some areas for this but we do it with 100% belief that supporting smaller, organic, clean, local farms is what we should be doing with our money.

Personally, my favorite organic foods are fruits. The taste, colors, and individual uniqueness of every God-given fruit is, well, invigorating! I love how organic fruit tastes compared to conventional. It really is my favorite thing ever. I love grapes, kiwis, eco-friendly organic pineapple, and Andrew and I have had a few cantaloupes this season that have been out of this world!

Finally, now that I've given you my opinions that probably mean little to you, check out this cool video I found about organic foods:

Blueberry Honey Granola

Hello all you raw-fooders and non-raw-food people who are coming to my blog!

Today I am going to tell you about one of the most life-saving, easiest raw-food recipes I've ever made. Its just granola, but its made with all raw ingredients and dehydrated (thus keeping it raw and not destroying the essential enzymes and good stuffs in the nuts and seeds). By the way, this is probably my husband's all-time favorite thing in the world. He loves it. And it makes the house smell good while its dehydrating.

So, what does it look like?

This:

Blueberries drying with other stuff. :)

So, what I do first is put a layer (about 1/4 of an inch) of honey in my dehydrator. I add a couple drops of vanilla extract and, if I am feeling like it, maybe a squirt or two of agave. Then, I add a random amount of raw (soaked, dried) almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and then a ton of raw oats. You can add whatever nuts and seeds you'd like, but this has become my favorite mixture. 

Process until the honey is all over everything, then spread out on dehydrator trays. I added some fresh blueberries on top because Andrew bought a HUGE bucket at the farmer's market. I dehydrate on 105 degrees until the granola nice and crispy. This time I added a little too much honey so it took about two days to dehydrate! My goodness! But it was SO good.

I would recommend this with almond milk for breakfast or as a quick treat to keep you full between your early green smoothie and your later lunch! 

Enjoy!

Apple PIE! MM

When was my last post???

I don't know, but it was a LONG time ago! Where did my life go? Well, I'll let you know that another day. I promise I'll tell you what's been going on, but just wait first.

Until then, let me tell you about this raw apple pie I made. I promised this post a LONG time ago, so now it is time for me to deliver!

So this is what it looked like.

As you can probably guess, I used my new Ani Phyo book, Raw Food Essentials, and put together this AMAZING apple pie. I was absolutely astounded by how apple pie-y it tasted and there was not ONE DROP of sugar or other non-raw ingredient. The only non-fruit in this was some cinnamon. WOW. It was SO GOOD. 

I started by making a crust of almond meal (blended almonds in the blender) and mixed it in with a date paste that I made. Ani says to just pulse the dates in I think, but I like to put dates in the blender with a tad bit of water to make more of a soft crust.

This is the date paste and almond meal before I mixed it together.

One problem with this strategy was that I put alllll the date paste in before mixing and ended up with a little too much water and moisture in the crust. That's ok with me, though, because it still tasted good!

Here is what the crust eventually looked like once I molded it into my pie pan.

Next, I diced up some apples into tiny, peel-less chunks and created the apple-pie sauce (get this--with ORANGES, CINNAMON, and DATES). I won't give you all the details because its not my recipe, so if you are interested in making this pie, check out Ani Phyo's RAW FOOD ESSENTIALS! (And no, she doesn't pay me to say that, I just LOVE her books...as do most raw food eating people)

I mixed the sauce and apples together and put the mixture inside the crust. Added a little apple decorations and wha-la! A pie! I put it in the fridge and served it with some ice cream at a Bible study we went to the next day.

People seemed to like it--and I thought it tasted great! YAY!