Raw Food Recipes

Here is Alex’s favorite snack: green apples with almond butter. He actually made this plate himself. How cute…will he be a future Matthew Kenney in the works? 😉

I am always recommending that people consume 2 bunches of leafy greens (about 2 lbs.) a day and the most common responses I receive are, “Why are greens so important?”Followed by, “How do I prepare them?” I decided to prepare a list of ideas and recipes for you to get you started. Once you get the hang of it I am sure you’ll be creating awesome recipes yourself.

If you don’t know the importance of eating greens I recommend the book Green for Life . I just watched Greens Can Save Your Life and it has so much valuable information. It’s incredibly important to vary your greens. Here is a list of common leafy greens that you can use in the following recipes. The cool thing about adding two bunches of leafy greens to your diet is that it gradually squeezes out the “junk” that we shouldn’t be eating. Instead of just eliminating foods and wondering what to eat I like to start by ADDING to your current diet and then after fitting in your quota of greens see how much room is left for the other “stuff”.

Juices/Liquid

• Wheatgrass Orange Juice
• Green Lemonade or a fast version I use is: 2 T lemon juice, 1 packet of stevia, 2 T of juiced greens & 8 oz water.
• Check out Mehgan chugging down this green drink version with TONS of Vitamineral Green. WOW!
• Kale & jicama juice: juice 1 bunch kale w/ 1 jicama (peeled) This tastes much like an unripe banana. Don’t ask how, but it does!
• Green Juice: 1 bunch spinach, 1 head celery, and 1 cucumber ( this is a common juice prepared at Tree of Life)
• RawModel’s Spicy Green MSM Tonic

Smoothies

• Chocolate green smoothie ( kale, bananas, ice or water, cacao or carob powder blended in a Vita- Mix)
• Here is a video of one of our first green smoothies

Savory Green Energy Soups (Benefits)

• Ann Wigmore’s Energy Soup

Salads

• Alexis’s Massaged Green Salad ( mash it together with your hands)

  1/2 (or more) bunch kale chopped
  1 ripe mango chopped
  1/2 ripe avo chopped
  1 small, ripe lemon juiced
  1 jalapeno diced
  1 green onion chopped

• Check out this video w/ my kids preparing a Massaged Greens Salad
• Prepare Zucchini Hummus ( minus lemon, cumin, paprika & added red bell pepper, & cayenne pepper ) and massage it into a green of your choice. I like spinach myself.
• Courtney’s Spirulina Salad

Snacks

• Shake a bag of lettuce with a squeeze of lemon or lime in a bag and eat them fresh like chips.
• Kale Chips

Dessert

• Leija’s Chocolate Pudding

If you have a favorite green recipe, don’t hesitate to share it in the comments below!

Q: Lori, I’d love to see a sample of your food menu (breakfast, lunch, dinner) for a week! I am really trying to eat raw food but have the hardest time finding new (and somewhat easy) things to make.

A: As the months become colder I find it less appealing to drink cold smoothies. Instead, I find veggie juices easier to drink since they aren’t cold. I also do not eat 100% raw in the cooler months, but I am still eating lots of veggies and fruits. Sometimes, it will be as simple to eat just fresh fruit like bananas, steamed veggies or even veggie soup for breakfast. I am also known to drink lots of hot herbal tea throughout the day to stay warm. However, just to give you an idea of what I am eating around this time of year here is a sample for the cooler months. I keep it pretty simple since I don’t care to spend my day in the kitchen. Every now & then I get a culinary itch, but for the most part my cooler months are looking like this:

Day 1
1- Coconut water, 4 bananas
2- 2 steamed yams w/ sea salt, cinnamon, & coconut oil
3- 2 apples
4- Homemade Veggie Soup: carrot, celery, onion, tomatoes, potato, Swiss chard, peas, corn, zucchini, etc
5- 2 bananas

Day 2
1- 3 apples + coconut water
2- 3 cups of steamed peas w/ coconut oil & sea salt
3- 3 pears
4- steamed butternut squash w/ coconut oil & sea salt
5 – 2 bananas

Day 3
1- 24 oz veggie juice- celery, spinach, cucumber
2 – steel cut oats w/ cinnamon, dates/honey, sea salt, bit of coconut oil
3- celery, cucumber, red bell pepper, & baby carrots w/ red pepper zucchini hummus
4- trail mix- raisins, walnuts, cranberries, cashews, pistachios, almonds, currants

Day 4
1- 24 oz green smoothie (pineapple, strawberries, kale, banana). Check out this video of our first green smoothie.
2- 2 bananas w/ almond butter, coconut water
3- sautéed kale, mushrooms, onion w/ coconut oil & sea salt
4- steamed spaghetti squash w/ raw marinara

Day 5
1- 24 oz romaine, celery, cucumber juice
2- pineapple chunks, coconut water
3- sauteed kale, Swiss Chard, Collards, & spinach w/ onions, coconut oil & sea salt
4- homemade veggie soup, 2 bananas

I recently bought some black rice to add to soups, or to make w/ peas, carrots, mushrooms, celery & onion. I even thought I would blend the meat of a thai coconut and make a creamy mushroom sauce for a richer meal.

Day 6
24 hour fast
Sometimes I will drink water, herbal tea plain, veggie juice or coconut water, other times I just drink water.

Day 7
1- Fresh fruit like bananas for breakfast (if any)
2- Splurge on a raw restaurant -for example if I go to:
Au Lac-I like the Song Salad & Raw Taco
Juliano’s Planet Raw– I have something diferent everytime, last time I had raw lasagna & some pumpkin dessert
I normally won’t eat anything for the rest of the day since I feel pretty heavy afterwards.

My Goal
Drink veggie juice everyday

I eat very simply and stick mostly to what is in season. The fruit and veggies vary on the time of year. I know that since I am not eating 100% raw at this time I need to kick the greens and veggie juice into high gear. However, on warmer days I find myself eating 100% raw like veggies w/ zucchini hummus, green smoothies, fresh fruit, trail mix, and simple garden salad w/a diluted guacamole as a dressing.

When I am on the go I pack the following:
zucchini hummus or guacamole w/ veggies (tomatoes, celery, carrots, mushrooms, cucumber, red bell pepper, etc)
Fresh fruit: apples, bananas, pears
Trail mix
Water

A few months ago I bought a spirooli. I knew I was going to be growing zucchini so I wanted to be prepared to make one of my favorite raw dishes: spaghetti (it is not in accordance w/ 80/10/10 due to salt & seasonings, but still a nice dish). I have a mandolin and sometimes make noodles with that too, but I really like how long and thin this makes them. Even a grater works (see in the video below).

Click HERE to see how it works!

Here is what my noodles look like after I use the spirooli. I like them somewhat short since after the first time using it I realized I was making 5 ft long noodles! DOH! I sweat the noodles by adding salt and letting them sit for about 30 min. then drain the liquid.

I haven’t made this recipe in about a year, so my memory is somewhat failing me, but here are the basics. It’s super easy & practically impossible to mess up.

For the marinara I use this base from the Raw Body Twins. Then I add more spices inspired by the marinara sauce from”Raw Food Real World” by Matthew Kenney. It’s a flexible thing and you can change it to meet your preferences. However, the marinara in the video above is fine just as it is.

“Rawsage”
1 C walnuts
2 Medjool dates, pitted
in the food processor and added
1/2 dried fennel
pinch of crush ground red pepper
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 salt

Process walnuts in the food processor til chopped. Add everything else, including dates, & process until it comes together but still has texture.

You’ll be blown away. It looks & tastes similar to cooked ground sausage. Crumble this over the top of the marinara & noodles.

This recipe is even better the next day after all the flavors have had a chance to mingle in the fridge!