Showing posts with label spices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spices. Show all posts

Monday, December 24, 2012

Low Fat Raw Gourmet: Chili

It's Christmas Eve! Happy day-before-the-overly-commercialized-stolen-from-the-pagans-everybody's favorite holiday. Ok, no more cynical.

Today, Daddy spent hours crafting a very complicated cooked vegan chili out of beans, mushrooms, and lots of spices.

I'm generally opposed to beans and salt and cooked things, so I decided instead, I would make a healthier version of their dinner that I could eat at the same time. I searched the internet, looking at traditional cooked recipes, overly complicated raw recipes, and the simplest of the simplest lowfat fare, and I think I've come up with something somewhere in between!

Like the sushi recipe I posted yesterday, this is a more complicated, more gourmet low-fat raw recipe - though it's still not nearly as long or painstaking as many high-fat gourmet raw recipes! If you're a chili fan, this is a good way to eat ligit chili yumminess and keep it low fat, raw, and salt free.

So without further ado,

(I know, my phone camera sucks. My apologies. Haha)

Recipe will feed 2 'cooked' people or 1 LFRV.

Ingredients:

  • 3 tomatoes
  • 8 sun-dried tomatoes (more for a richer, deeper tomato flavor; less for a lighter, fresher flavor)
  • .5oz dehydrated mushrooms (I used shiitake)
  • 1 zucchini
  • .5 onion
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 or 2 red bell peppers
  • 1 or 2 poblano peppers
  • 1 - 2tsp cumin
  • 1Tbsp chili powder
  • dash oregano
  1. Blend sun-dried tomates with a little water in a blender to form a paste
  2. Put tomatoes (quartered), mushrooms, garlic (minced), sun-dried tomato paste, onions (chopped up), cumin, chili powder, & oregano in food processor; blend until chunky
  3. Grate, julienne, or cut zucchini into small cubes (I grated)
  4. Slice or julienne peppers into small, thin strips
  5. Mix together, and let sit 2 - 12hrs (the longer it sits, the more the flavors will blend).
    • You could put it in the dehydrator to warm it/make the flavors blend faster
  6. Serve & enjoy!

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Spiced Dates

I've got a delicious holiday recipe to share! It's perfect as a meal, as a desert, and it would be a lovely, easy little treat to pass at holiday parties with all your SAD friends!

It's also a fantastic way to pack in the carbs if you don't have a lot of time, and (like me) can't bring yourself just eat plain dates.

The ingredients include:
—500cal worth of dates (that'll be about 25 deglet noir or khadrawys, or 10 medjools)
—2tbsp dried, flaked, unsweetened coconut
—¼tsp fresh orange zest
—1tsp cinnamon
—1tsp ginger

Throw all ingredients in a blender and blend until everything is chopped up pretty finely and well-mixed. Pour into bowl, eat as is, or roll into nice little balls or press together and cut into bars or chunks. They're awesome served with caffeine-free tea (my personal favorite is a Lemon Zinger). Enjoy! 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Fruitarianism, To Me

[update - original from 1-8-12]

I feel like there are so many different forms of fruitarianism, every fruitarian seems to practice a little differently, and for different reasons. Some of us eat seeds and nuts still. Some of us eat greens. Some of us eat only raw, others will eat cooked fruit, and others will only eat one type of fruit in a sitting.

Every fruitarian seems to have their own definition of fruitarianism, their own beliefs about the diet - so, as someone who has talked about the wonders of this diet in the past, I figure I could provide a definition, of what I mean when I say that I practice fruitarianism.

Well, I eat fruit, very simply.
Sweet fruits, fatty fruits, vegetable fruits.

I eat commercially grown fruit, because my parents sponsor my eating this way, and purchase this food for me. And we're not super rich, so, though it would obviously be better for me, we just can't afford to eat all organic, and I don't expect my father to spend more than he already does on feeding me.
In the summer, I eat lots of organic fruits like zucchini and tomatoes, that are grown in our garden;

I do eat dried fruits, because they keep longer, so my father can buy a bunch and store it for when we don't have any other food in the house, or when I am not going to be home for an extended period of time, as it travels much better than raw fruit. Also, in the summer I will dry tomatoes and zucchini, since there is such an abundance of it at the time, but I will definately be missing these foods 6 months later.

I eat frozen fruits. I definately prefer them over dried. They taste more like the real thing, more fresh, alive. Personally don't like eating them frozen; I will take the fruits out of the freezer a day or 2 before I want to eat them, and put them in the refrigerator, so that they thaw without spoiling. I have also in the past tried blending frozen fruit in the blender, to make a sherbet kind of thing. It wasn't bad, but icecream was never really my thing.

I do not eat a mono diet of fruit, I will eat mixtures of fruit if I feel the need.
I do now eat mono-meals whenever possible, though if I don't have enough of a single food available, I don't think it is the end if the world to mix fruits.

I eat (or drink) juiced fruits, such as grapefruit. I really like citrus juices mixed with pure carbonated water.

I will eat olive oil, mainly drizzled over fresh tomato slices or something of the like; I also use olive oil rather than shaving cream and lotion, and it works super well.
I no longer use olive oil as a food at all. You can visit this post if you'd like to know why.

I will eat things like powdered Cheyenne pepper, or things of the like, but not herbs or spices made from roots.
Since adding greens back into my diet (visit this post for why I did this), I do use herbs. I still do not eat spices made from roots or seeds.

I do eat fruits with seeds such as raspberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes that have the seeds in them - but when it is at all possible, I work my way around, and avoid eating seeds. I do this because seeds are baby plants, who will never get a chance to live and flourish, if they are chewed up and digested by me; it makes me rather sick at the thought that so many people are so against abortion - but will eat eggs and nuts and things like it's nothing.

I do not eat plain seeds or nuts, because - as I said above, I like to avoid killing things,, and purposefully taking the life of a seed, to eat it definately falls under that category.

I do not eat coconut, as it is actually a nut, that would give life to a new tree if given the chance.

I do not eat foods that have been cooked over 110 or so degrees. I have experience as a raw vegan, and do believe that at a certain temperature, enzymes begin to denature, and therefore makes it much harder to digest the food you eat. (This is why many people feel sleepy after eating a meal.)

I certainly do not eat vegetables (any part of the plant that is not the freely given flesh surrounding the seed, nut, or other reproductive method), or animal products such as eggs, milk, and meat (by meat I mean all meat - red meat, chicken, fish..).
I do now eat greens. Visit here for why.

In addition, I would like to point out that I recently completely cut added salt out of my diet. I'll do a post in the future as to why I chose to do this.

I do not restrict my intake of fruits at all. If I feel the need to eat 12 avocados, I will do so, providing I have this many at hand. My body knows what it needs, if it tells me it wants something, I am going to try and give it what it needs. Likewise, if I am just not hungry one day, I will not force myself to eat, for fear of not getting nutrients or calories - as I've just stated, my body will ask for what it needs, nothing more; nothing less.

Along those same lines, I definately do not take vitamins. I have complete faith that this diet is what is right for me, as well as the rest of us. If they are vitamins I need, they can be provided by this food that is natural to humans. I don't need to supplement and drown our organisms with nutrients that it is not asking for, that it has no need for.


I follow this diet largely for ethical reasons. I do it because I've come to the realization that killing a plant to eat, is just as sick as killing an animal for food. Just because the tree has no voice to protest, doesn't mean it wouldn't if it could.
Despite this, I do also have complete faith, that an all-fruit diet is absolutely the one for us.
I feel it could solve many of the problems we deal with today, and ultimately create a much healthier, happier, empathetic, caring, understanding, calm, all-knowing, and ideal society.❤