Green Smoothies
Green smoothies are a great way to increase greens in our diet. There are some simple guidelines to follow then the rest is up to experimentation. For the many health benefits visit www.rawfamily.com
Tips
- Use 60% organic fresh fruit and 40% raw greens
- Keep the greens to just a few per smoothie
- Vary the greens regularly to avoid alkaloids (plants natural defense toxins) building up in your system, say every three or four days
- Know your greens – make sure what you are eating is safe eaten raw for humans – carrot greens are not recommended, also baby comfrey leaves are too toxic
- If you have thyroid issues avoid the Brassica family, or be sure to limit them and make sure you are having plenty of iodine (kelp, seaweed, celtic sea salt)
- Listen to your body – if the thought of a green smoothie that day feels unattractive listen to that. If you feel unwell or tired after a green smoothie consider the ingredients or try lessening the amount, timing or frequency of your smoothie.
- For those that are sensitive to fruit sugars, you can try savory smoothies using ginger, lemon, grapefruit, cucumber, avocado, lime pickle.
Ingredients
- Fresh pure water, 1/4 of the desired amount of smoothie you wish to drink or as desired
- 40% raw greens – keep the flavors mellow – bitter is fine, but hot flavors may not be what you are after. Here is a selection of what I rotate through, certain times of the year are more difficult for variety… parsley, mint, lemon balm, pineapple sage, chicory, dandelion, winter lettuce, miners lettuce, cos lettuce, silver beet (who would have thought after all those traumatic meals as a child), zucchini leaves, cucmber leaves, nasturtium, grape leaves, spinach, kale, brassica leaves – broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, watercress, pak choy and tatsoi. There are more, but this will get you going, and give you some ideas for what to plant in your garden.
- 60 % organic fruit – choose a few or even one of… banana, berries, stone fruit, pears, kiwifruit, feijoa, lemon, grapefruit, pineapple, mango, papaya and more!
Preparation
Place your water into your blender. If your blender is not very powerful chop your greens and blend half first, adding the next half when the water is green! Add fruit broken or chopped into smaller bits the size of a large walnut shell and all. Blend till smooth. Drink slowly – taking into consideration how much fruit you are ingesting! Store in a jar to travel with. Keeps out of the fridge for half a day at room temperature, and in the fridge for a day. Shake to blend prior to drinking. Enjoy!
NOTE Pineapple’s enzymes will start breaking the protein down within 20 min so your smoothie will start to look a little odd, stir and consume asap.
Superfoods Smoothie
Ingredients for a smoothie for 2
- A small handful of Goji Berries ( I recommend Tibetan, and at the least organic)
- 10 Almonds (organic is best)
- A teaspoon of Nettle tea
- A tsp of Oat straw tea
- A handful of berries – fresh, frozen or some other antioxidant rich food like dark grapes
- 1 banana
- 1 tblsp heaped cacao powder – raw organic
- 1 tblsp cacao nibs ground -raw organic
- Additional extras – 1/2 tsp bee pollen, 1/2 tsp Maca (not for the Estrogen dominance), raw coconut flesh and milk
Preparation
Over night, soak goji and almonds in a mug of filtered water and tea’s in a one cup plunger in a cup of hot water
When your ready, pile everything (including the goji water) into your blender and blend twice to make it creamy
Travels in a jar, and will keep out of the fridge at room temp for half the day, not sure beyond that as I cannot ignore mine any longer than that
For more insight on these super foods, check out David Wolfe’s book ‘Superfoods’. Or go to http://www.davidwolfe.com/
To source ingredients above check out www.purewellbeing.co.nz
Vege Juice
Ingredients
- 5 organic carrots per person
- 1/8 medium sized beetroot
- 1 piece of fresh tumeric – the size of the last two knuckles of your little finger
- 1 stalk celery – only if organic – too heavily sprayed otherwise
- Juice of 1 grapefruit or 1/2 a lemon or 1 lime to be added once veges are juiced
- Options – 1/4 apple. If your juicer is a masticator like Champion, Oscar or green max, you may like to add a handfull of wheatgrass.
Preparation
Wash if necc, chop, juice and enjoy slowly!
Raw Crackers
Ingredients for 6 deydrator trays
- 3 cups of linseed freshly ground
- 1 cup of freshly ground sesame seed
- 1 cup of either carrot pulp from your juice that morning or finely grated carrot
- 1 cup of pumpkin and sunflower seeds soaked in water and a table spoon of Braggs for at least 2 hours
- 1 cup of sprouted buckwheat (sprouted enough to be soft to bite)
- Flavour with either a heaped tablespoon mix of freshly ground cummin, corriander and caraway OR Fresh grated ginger and lemon or lime zest OR cardamom, cinnamon, a grated apple and a handfull of sultanas OR freshly picked and chopped rosemary, thyme, fresh tomates and olives masticated.
Preparation
Mix the fresh ground seeds in a bowl and add H2O till sticky but not wet – the mix can sit like this for a few hours if neccesary – keep covered to keep from drying out.
Stir in the rest of your ingredients, adding the buckwheat sprouts last after you have vigourously mixed till well blended every thing else.
Use either dehydrator trays with those wonderful custom made plastic liners or shallow oven dishes to spread your mix thinly into – spread thick enough, so that there are no holes – we use a plastic serving spoon, or a fork if the mix is particularly dry to spread it out with.
Dehydrate on 45 degrees if you want to keep these raw, if you are just after yummy crackers either bake in the oven or dehydrate on the maxium setting. Swap your trays around for an even drying time … you are two thirds of the way there when the top is crusty. Use a butter knife to scrape between the tray and the cracker in one smooth circle and pop it off the liner onto the tray wet side up. If in an oven tray simply cut into pieces and flip with a fish slice. Continue to dry for 1/2 the time that it took you to get to that point… A dehydrator set on 45 degrees takes us 8 hours first side, and about 4 hours on the last side.
In an oven I would guess you would want to keep the temperature no hotter than 180 dgrees … keep an eye on them as this is not something I have done for years.
Make sure your crackers are dry before storing in an airtight container. Lasts for about 10 days.
Beyond Bliss Balls
Ingredients
- 1 mug brazil nuts
- 1/2 mug almonds
- 1/2 mug pumpkin seeds
- 1 level tablespoon freshly ground cardamom
- 1 1/2 mugs organic dried apricots- roughly chopped to start them off
- 1/2 mug sultanas
- 3/4 mug coconut shredded
- 1/3 mug cocoa nibs (raw chocolate)
Preparation
In a food processor with an S blade grind the nuts (not coconut), seeds and spice till soft with no hard lumps- you may need to do half at a time to get consistency with the grinding. Put in a bowl.
- Do the same with the fruit and coconut, you will definitely need to do half at a time. You will know they are done when the mix balls up as it goes around in the food processor.
Add half the nut mix to half the fruit mix in the blender and blend together. Repeat with the last half.
Place all the ingredients in a large enough bowl and sprinkle in cocoa nibs- stir to mix in.
Roll into balls or logs of desired size and shape, store in an airtight container in the fridge. I have only ever eaten them before they have gone bad- so no idea of shelf life. Test your will power if you like.
Nut or seed milk
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 mugs raw nuts – almonds or macadamias
- OR for seed milk 1 1/2 mugs sesame – black sesame is very tasty
- 3 1/2 mugs filtered water
- pinch of celtic sea salt
- B grade Maple Syrup (not raw)
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground cinnamon
Preparation
Soak the seeds or nuts for at least 4 hours in 1 1/2 mugs of water. If you have almonds peel the skins off after soaking by draining and pouring boiled water over them. Peel the skins off by sliding your thumbs over the almond as if wringing it.
Drain nuts or seeds, with the seeds give them a good rinse. Place nuts or seeds in the blender beaker with 2 mugs of water. Blend on maximum strength for about 1 minute. I recommend earmuffs in the kitchen!
Take a clean cotton pillow case and place it open over a large bowl. Pour the blended milk into the pillow case and wring the liquid part into the bowl. Wring the contents till only a tiny amount of liquid is coming out. Biff the dry contents inside the pillow case into the compost – I have not come up with anything enticing to do with this part. Rinse the pillow case and hang it out to dry on the line.
Place the nut milk in the blender and add salt, Maple Syrup and Cinnamon. Blend briefly, adding more water if desired.
Store in a glass bottle in the fridge, lasts several days. If travelling with it keep it in a chilled thermos of chilly bag with slika pad.
Bonus
For a tasty variation blend with fresh cherries, strawberries, mango or raw cocao powder.
Raw Soup for two
Ingredients
- Stock – 2 tblsp sundried tomato, 1 tblsp seaweed, 2 tblsp raw cashew nuts soaked for at least an hour
- Filler – 2/3 mug cucumber, 1/2 avocado, filtered water on stand by
- Flavor – 1 clove garlic, 1/2 lemon juiced or lime for a change, hunk or red onion, pinch of salt or squirt of braggs
- Variation – Try different veges depending on what is in the garden in abundance. I suggest sticking to green and juicy. Sugar Snap pea and Thymme, Tomato and Basil, Spinnach, Green Beans. TIP… string the beans and peas to avoid stringy soup.
Preparation
Blend ingredients in a blender till creamy. Check for desired thickness and flavour. Keep blending time to a minimum to avoid over heating soup. Serve ASAP drizzled with raw pesto. This soup does not keep.
Raw Corriander Pesto
Ingredients
- small handful brazil nuts soaked for at least an hour
- 1/2 mug packed with fresh corriander leaves
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 lemon juiced
- 1/2 tsp tamarind pulp (not raw)
- pinch celtic sea salt
- 2 – 3 tblsp fresh organic olive oil (markets are great places for finding supplies)
Preparation
In a food processor blend nuts till small chunks. Add corriander and blend, interrupting frequently to add the rest of the ingredients. Add a small amount of water if desired. Play with flavours to suit.
Stores well in the fridge in a glass jar. Will discolour over time, stir well before serving if this is the case.
Blend until all ingredients are in and mix is looking tasty.
Prune Juice
Ingredients
- 12 – 15 organic pitted prunes
- 2 mugs pure water
- Pinch Celtic Sea Sat
- Dash B grade Maple Syrup (not raw)
Preparation
Soak prunes in water for at least 4 hours. Blend with soak water and salt and syrup for a minute. Check for desired flavour and consistency.
Store in a glass bottle in the fridge. Keeps for 3 days. May need shaking before serving.
Bonus
For a treat stir in a tsp of raw cocoa powder.
Consolation Pudding
For those on a raw diet, this is pure indulgence. Serves two generously
Ingredients
- 1/2 mug raw cashews
- 4 dried ladies fingers banananas
- Variation – 1 fresh mango OR 2 fresh peaches and 1/4 mug blueberries… you get the idea
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground cardamom
- Fresh water on stand by
Preparation
Soak cashews and bananas for at least an hour. Blend the soaked ingredients include soak water until fairly smooth. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend till creamy.
Serve in complimenting dishes for the colour of your fabulour pudding.
EAT SLOWLY! And as with all raw liquid foods, be sure to add saliva into each mouth full to help with digestion.