Wild Rice with Cranberries and Cashews

This one was delicious and simple. No blenders. No food processors. No dehydrators. No complaints tonight! You better warm up your teeth though. There will be a lot of chewing going on!

This evenings meal was Wild Rice with Cranberries and Cashews and a Spinach Salad with Trader Joe's Organic Miso Ginger Dressing. I usually make my dressings homemade but when I was at Trader Joe's a while back I couldn't resist. I really wish there was a Trader Joe's nearby but the closest one to us is about 40 minutes north depending on traffic. It's a real treat to go there. Although they don't always have everything I need the prices are so much better then that "whole paycheck" place if you get my drift. I always stop by the "whole paycheck" place anyway while I am up there. I can get GT's Kombucha an entire dollar cheaper then what we pay down here at the local supermarket at the "whole paycheck" place! So, I guess "whole paycheck" isn't so bad for some things. Want to know what Kombucha is? It's a wonderful refreshing and energizing raw fermented tea filled with all kinds of nutrients including probiotics and B vitamins. Kombucha is my favorite beverage in the whole world. I brew it myself but my new culture isn't mature right now and is taking a really long time to ferment the tea. I am excited that very soon The Herb Shop at 20 Highland Drive in Newnan Georgia will be selling Kombucha!

Ok, on to the recipe!!

Wild Rice with Cranberries and Cashews

This rice is raw. How, you might say, can you do that? It's soaked! Soaking is wonderful. We do it with all our raw nuts. It "activates" the enzymes that help you digest the nut or grain. Since we have a big family this recipe is doubled. This recipe is very similar to the Ano Phyo's recipe in Raw Food Essentials with a few minor adjustments.

To soak the wild rice I pour 3 cups of wild rice into a bowl and combine with 6 cups of purified water and cover with a clean towel. Drain and rinse the rice the next day in a sieve and add the 6 cups of water back when you are done and cover again with a clean towel. (As you can see there is a bit of planning involved here, but everything else is easy.) After two days the rice will open revealing the "meat" on the inside and it will become softer and chewy. Drain the rice of it's water and rinse in a sieve one more time. This time do not put any water back in. Pour your rice in a bowl.

Now add 2 cups of dried cranberries, 2 cups of cashews, 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro and 2 teaspoons of sea salt. Toss all together and serve! Easy.


Put aside a lovely spinach salad and you have a wonderful raw vegan meal! Oh and get those "chompers" ready. There is a lot of chewing ahead.

Rawmometer Rating: 4.8
Husband, "Very good."
Oldest Daughter, "This is a 5 mom!"
Youngest Son, "I like this!"
Youngest Daughter, "I give it a 5 mom!" (wow, did I hear that right, she likes it, she really likes it!)
Oldest Son, at work, again. Boo!

Raw Lasagna

I hear a lot of folks voice concern over the "labor intensive" nature of raw meals. Some of them can be laborious to prepare and some of them are not. None the less that idea, that preparing raw foods is laborious, can make it hard to get motivated. So I want to address that a bit before we get started. (This recipe I am going to share does have a lot of steps involved but uses no dehydrator. All fresh ingredients!)  When you are beginning a raw diet it is not required to do anything complex. Your meals could be simple salads or some sort of nut and sliced vegetables. Nuts and fruit are great for breakfast. Soaked and or sprouted grains and fruit or vegetables are a simple and nutritious meal. Frequently my lunches are humus with veges or veges and some sort of soaked nut and that is all! You can keep it very simple if you like. The point is getting more "living" food in your body so you can have energy, good health, wonderful digestion and be in amazing spirits. The reason I prepare some of these more complex recipes is to "train" our palate to eat raw foods and demonstrate that there can be creativity and fun in raw food preparation. Our palates, particularly here in America and in the Western world are very spoiled. We are accustomed to constant gastronomic stimulation. I am a person that loves preparing food. I consider it an art, but I can easily get carried away using food more for entertainment rather than it's real purpose. With children, in particular, years of this kind of eating can make a raw diet very difficult to transition to. We have to learn and teach our children that we eat to live, not live to eat. My hope and prayer is that educating the public about the benefits of raw foods will help people see how important it is to learn what real nourishment is all about. We need to get back to the simplicity of how our Creator intended food to taste and what it's purpose really is in our lives. Too many people are sick and getting sicker because of the abuse of these principles. Our society is complicit in this travesty. Time to change the tide folks! These recipes can "wean" one off of eating mostly cooked food but simplicity, eventually, is the goal.
I am done preaching. On to the recipe!


                                                                 Raw Lasagna

                                        (we doubled this recipe because of the size of our family)

"Noodles"
3 Zucchini (peeled and sliced into circles, a food processor with a slicer or a mandoline slicer works great for this, but you can use a knife just as well)

Filling

1.) Sun dried tomato marinara sauce
     Process 2 tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic, 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, 1/4 extra virgin olive oil, juice of 1/2   lemon, 2 pitted dates, 1/4 cup fresh oregano, 1/2 fresh or dried rosemary, 1 teaspoon of sea salt, 3 tablespoons of sun dried tomatoes.

2.) 1 tomato, sliced

3.) 1/4 cup yellow onion, sliced

4.) Italian Cheeze
     Process 2 cups of cashews, the juice of a lemon, 1 clove of garlic, 1/2 cup of basil leaves, 1 teaspoon of sea salt, 2/3 cup of purified water

Directions: Layer in this order: Zucchini, cheeze, tomato, onion, marinara and then again until you use all of the ingredients.

***You can top with Cashew Garlic Parmesan Cheeze (Adapted from Ani Phyo's recipe in Ani's Raw Food Kitchen)

In your clean coffee grinder, grind cashews until powdery. Process cashews with 1/4 teaspoon sea salt and 1 clove of garlic. Sprinkle mixer over your lasagna. You can also top with sliced black olives if you like. Enjoy!


Rawmometer Rating: 4.8

Husband, "There is something about this sauce I can't get enough of."
Oldest Daughter, "Way better than I expected!"
Youngest Son, "I loved the cheeze and the sauce."
Youngest Daughter, "It's good!"
(Oldest Son at work, not an Italian fan anyway)