Delightfully Raw in Utah: Part II

The drive from Eagle Mountain to St-George was a breeze. It was pretty much just a straight shot down I-15 S. The forecast was predicting rain but it only started about 20 miles from our destination. No biggie.

Visiting Friends in St-George
It had also been two years since our last visit with Barbara and Duane, so we were glad to get a chance to spend a bit of time together. As you may recall, Barbara is the president of VSU, the Vegetarian Society of Utah, and has done SO much to spread the good word about the benefits of eating healthily in her community. Barbara & Duane have been following a whole food plant based vegan no-oil diet for the last five years and are lovin' it! It has helped Barbara in overcoming several health issues, including obesity. Now at 68 years young she's like an energy bunny and her enthusiasm is contagious!

Just a short two months before we got there Barbara had back surgery done. Thanks to her surprisingly good health it couldn't have gone smoother (they were able to operate from the front). In fact, her doctor says he's never seen anyone recover so quickly from such a major surgery! ;-)

B&D really get into the Holiday spirit; they are notorious for putting up sometimes as many as 7 Christmas trees around their home! But this year, with Barbara's surgery and their new feline daughter Chai, they decided to stick mostly to lights and little festive decorations.

Raw Potluck
The day after our arrival VSU held a raw potluck at B&D's lovely home. They were a wonderful bunch and I had lots of fun demoing two of our staple recipes: my Strawberry Banana Shake and Sweet Pea Soup.

My little elves getting the samplers ready.

Once again VSU members really outdid themselves and got very creative with their dish contributions, even though raw is very new to many of them.

Kevin Kirkland, a gentleman who is just opening a smoothie bar in St-George called TruBerry, brought a couple of samples of his concoctions for us to try.

Tru Green Smoothie
Apple juice
Banana
Acai berries
Blueberries
Strawberries

Tru Berry Red
Apple juice
Banana
Acai berries
Blueberries
Strawberries
Raspberries


A beautiful salad with the colors of the season made from kiwi, pomegranate, cilantro, avocado, onions and peppers.

Golden Onion Morsels

Golden Onion Morsels
From Joel Fuhrman's Super Immunity

Makes 30-40 balls

1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1 cup raw almonds
1 med. Golden Delicious apple, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tbs nutritional yeast
1 tsp ground chia seeds
1 tbs onion powder
Toasted seame seeds - for coating
Minced chives - for coating

Grind cashews and almonds into a powder in high power blender.

Add apples, nutritional yeast, chia seeds, onion powder and blend again.

Form into small balls and roll each ball in sesame seeds and chives.

Savory Oat Rice

Posted by Jinjee on Gone Raw

We have finally found a way to make raw rice! The secret is not to use rice at all, but raw, soaked oat groats. You can buy the raw oat groats in bulk or in bagged packaging. They look just like brown rice. Soak them for 24 hours and follow the recipe! It is amazing how much this tastes like a rice dish, and satisfies just like rice too. However, the germinated oats give you a ton of energy, which of course cooked rice does not. The men in my family love this recipe, as it is high in protein!

1 c oat groats
1 c button mushrooms, diced
3 tbs olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 tsp sea salt
Savory herbs (thyme, marjoram, sage, or oregano, etc..)
1 Hass avocado

1. Soak oat groats for as little as 24 hours and up to 48 hours. The grains become softer the longer you soak them.

2. Marinate mushrooms for 24 hours in garlic and 2 tbs. olive oil

3. Drain oats, rinse, place in bowl, and add the marinated mushrooms

4. Add 1/4 tsp Celtic sea salt, 1 tsp olive oil and savory herbs

5. Let sit for 1 to 3 hours

6. Add 1 Hass avocado, cubed

7. Stir and serve

Guacamole and raw crackers

This was a yummy cheezey spread made with cashews, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, turmeric, red chili, miso, turmeric and green peas.

Another lovely salad: kale, cabbage, zucchini, tomato, bell pepper and pomegranate. It was served with a ranch type dressing made from cashews, garlic, lemon juice, dates, vinegar, onion, basil and salt.

Barbara had made Carrot Crackers and one of my variations from the wonderful vegan cheeze that she introduced me to during our last visit.

Carrot Crackers
Published in VegNews Magazine 12/11 issue

Makes about 35 crackers

1 cup raw sunflower seeds

2 1/2 cups grated carrots (approx. 10 organic carrots)

4 tablespoons flaxseed meal

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1/2 to 1 cup water

1.  In a food processor, grind sunflower seeds into a fine powder.  Add carrots, flaxseed meal, salt, pepper, and ginger.  Pulse a few times to combine.  With processor running, add water in a thin stream.  Stop processing when mixture is thick, but moist enough to spread.

2.  In a dehydrator on two parchment-lined dehydrator sheets, spread mixture until 1/4 inch thick.  With a knife or pizza cutter, score into cracker shapes.  Dehydrate at 115 degrees for about 6 hours.  Flip dry dough and dehydrate on the other side for another 4 hours.

3.  For a non-dehydrator option, preheat oven to 350 degrees.   On two parchment-lined baking sheets, spread dough 1/4 inch thick.  With a knife or pizza cutter, score into cracker shapes.  Bake for 40 minutes or until dry and crispy.
 

Tarragon Mustard Vegan Cheeze

She also whipped up a batch of this awesome Tropical Chutney that she discovered when she attended the 40th IVU International Vegetarian Congress in San Francisco last October.

Tropical Chutney
By Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff
Recipe posted here

Makes 4-5 half-pint jars
 
You can use any combination of mangoes, papayas, pineapples, peaches and/or apricots along with sultanas (yellow raisins).
 
1 cup dried and chopped tropical fruits
1 cup warm or hot water
1 cup yellow raisins
2 tablespoon fresh, grated ginger root
Juice of one large lemon or lime
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon salt
Additional water as needed

Place the dried fruit in the warm or hot water and set aside for ½ hour or longer to soften.

Then place all ingredients, including the water in which the fruit pieces are soaking, in the jar of a blender or a food processor. Puree the mixture, adding more water as needed to yield a fine-grained pudding-like consistency.

Allow the chutney to stand for a few minutes before transferring it to a serving bowl for storage, or to clean glass jars for gifts.

This chutney will keep for several weeks if refrigerated.


And on the sweet side...

There's an older gentleman named Frank who has been a member of VSU for years. At every potluck he proudly brings his very own creation: a raw pie made from almonds, dates, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.

Chocolate Nut Balls made from walnuts, almonds, cranberries, raisins and cacao powder.

This was my personal favorite brought by a lovely lady named Hazna. It started off as a raw apple pie that she got from a lady named April Fazini. She then modified it by adding mango, pineapple and persimmon folded into a yummy cream made with cashews, almond milk creme sauce and sweet potato. Decadent! In fact I even had 2 servings! ;-)

There was also a delicious Chocolate Pudding but I didn't get a chance to take a pic as the dish arrived while I was doing the demo. BUT you can see it at the bottom right corner of Don's plate. It was made with coconut meat, agave, maple syrup, raw cacao powder, carob, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Gina served it with fresh raspberries. Yum!

Let's munch! Yay!

This was my serving. I'm such a foodie; I had a hard time not trying a little of every dish. As a result I momentarily forgot that it had been less than a week since I was eating solid foods again. I later had to pay the price, as my belly complained about this mistreatment. As good as it tasted this feast ended up sending me on a downward spiral in terms of digestion. In the end I had to go back to liquid foods to give my body a chance to recover. In fact, I'm still not totally back to normal yet. *sigh*

A few of us stayed quite late after the meal as we were all caught up in interesting conversations. 

Greg and Mark, two super nice men I had met at the last raw potluck that Barbara held here.

Donnie caught Pu and I the next morning while we slept in. ;-)

Before we left we had a little photo shoot with Barbara and Duane. ;-)

Barbara had the idea to get some family shots with Miss Puss.

I hope you too had a wonderful Holiday Season filled with joy, radiance and beautiful people!

Rawcking near Nelson, British Columbia

My friend Ulla and I had such a wonderful time facilitating our Raw Radiance Retreat last September that we almost immediately started planning other raw events. And so in October we held a three course raw vegan gourmet Mexican Dinner as well as a one day Raw Radiance Workshop at her lovely home near Nelson, BC.

Mexican Dinner
This was soooo much fun!!! Ulla went all out, playing along with the evening's theme by using tablecloths and small serving bowls that she brought back from her trips to Mexico. She even wore a Mexican top! ;-)

We started off the evening with me demoing how to make Cheezy Corn Chowder and Nacho Cheeze. We then all sat down and enjoyed this fiesta together. It was a great opportunity for all of the attendees to talk about their own interest in raw foods and, of course, pick my brains to their hearts' content. ;-)

We were introduced to the concept of raw Tostada (actually I just looked it up online and it's really more like a Taco Salad) during one of our trips to the US. It is now one of our staples as it is so tasty and really simple to assemble: crumble your favorite corn chips at the bottom of a plate and top with guacamole and Nacho Cheeze (we often omit it). Next comes slivered lettuce, followed by fresh Tomato Salsa and Cashew Sour Cream. Yum!

Dessert was Pamela Vinten's Chili Chocolate Nut Bar from her Amazing Guilt Free Chocolate ebook.

I really really enjoyed this formula and will definitely continue to play around with the idea of themed raw dinners in the future!

Raw Radiance Day Workshop
 A few days later we conducted a Raw Radiance Workshop. The intention was to give the participants an overview of the benefits of including more raw foods in their diets, and introduce them to some easy yet really yummy recipes.

In this food prep demo I showed them how to assemble what we like to call our Whole Meal Miso Soup. This soup has been such a life saver for us, especially when we are on the road! The combination of fresh veggies with warm hot ginger miso broth is oh-so-comforting on a cold day!

Marinating mushrooms

Sooooo good!

Later in the afternoon Don and I shared about our own health journeys and passed on various tips that we have learned over the years to help us maintain the raw lifestyle in a wholesome and balanced way.

Afterwards we withdrew to the kitchen to get dinner ready while Ulla and the others continued to exchange ideas and personal experiences.

Got everything ready!

Demoing how to make raw Pad Thai.

 

And for dessert we treated ourselves to Heathy of Sweetly Raw's Beautiful Chocolate Berry Pie from her Just Desserts ebook.

Sunny Raw Kitchen 2012 Tour Update
We have now begun our US travels and are presently staying with the Knoeflers near Walla Walla, OR. They've been exploring the raw lifestyle for a long time and Matthew has been sharing with me all kinds of really interesting techniques and recipes. Guys, brace yourself for a series of awesome posts about their amazing garden, how to grow micro-greens, how to make coconut yogurt and much more!

Where to Next? 

We'll be staying here until at least November 26th in order to attend their local health group's potluck. We'll then continue our way down to Salt Lake City to hang out with our friend Thomas Fox of Omniblender.com and his family.

As usual we try to make as few fixed plans as possible in order to leave room for the magical encounters that Life will undoubtedly put on our path. This is what our general itinerary sorta looks like so far for the coming months:

• Salt Lake City (early December) 
• St-George, UT (mid-December)

Then we'll spend time in the following states:

- Arizona (we'll most likely be RVing there from late Dec. until mid-February or so)

- California (mid-Feb. until late March)

- Oregon (late March)

- Washington (April)

We'll be having some kind of raw get together in most of those places, so drop me a line if you'd like to be kept posted or get more info about the scheduled events. Also, if you live somewhere along the way and would like to hook up or even help put together an event, please send me an email at:

sunnyrawkitchen(at)gmail(dot)com

The Sunny Raw Kitchen is On The Move

After being pretty much stationary for over 15 months, we are now officially back on the road in our mobile Sunny Raw Kitchen. Yippee! It took a while for us to get a sense of whether we were really meant to be traveling over the winter, but we finally did receive a few winks from The Mystery pointing in that direction. And so we prepared ourselves to hit the road again and finally, in the middle of October, left the cozy spot where we spent the summer.

Our first stop was only a short drive away to our friends' Ulla and Mike's place just outside of Nelson, British Columbia. I've already introduced you to them in this post, but in a nutshell, we met via common friends, Mosaica and Pontifex, who did some wwoofing for them last year. Ulla is a Colon Hydrotherapist and together we facilitated a three day Raw Radiance Retreat in September. Every time we stopped by to visit them the hours would just fly by, so we were all looking forward to this opportunity to spend more time together and further explore our many common interests.

Pulling our home behind us has many advantages (it's such a luxury to be able to have our own space with minimal effort - no endless sessions of packing and unpacking) but it also has its share of challenges. For instance we can't just stop whenever we want to as the truck and fifth wheel combined measure about 45 feet. It also makes turning on streets tricky and turning around down right intimidating. Not knowing whether we'd have enough room at the end of Mike and Ulla's street, we decided not to take any chances and reversed up all the way from the main road to their driveway. Don then had to back up about 1/4 mile along the latter to the house. It's a learning process for him -  it's so counter intuitive as you have to turn the wheels in the opposite direction than you want to go - but as they say 'practice makes perfect'.

Our RawVee nicely tucked away close to the apple trees.

We were blessed with a few gorgeous sunny Autumn days before a long rainy spell began in earnest. The view from the road above their home was stunning with the season's rich yellow and orange hues.

I shared several photos of their beautiful property here. To my surprise (and delight!) it was still yielding some veggies and fruits in spite of the cooler weather.

Bok Choi

Mike said that it's been a fantastic tomato season. We continued to harvest lots of them...

... including this ginormous variety; undoubtedly the biggest we'd ever seen!

I discovered lovely purple flowers hidden among the fallen leaves.

There are several types of grapes growing in their garden. Sooooo sweet and juicy! To me they're such a symbol of abundance!

Also many kinds of apples.

Mike finishing up harvesting one of the trees.

Bosc pears

Mike placed a radio at the foot of one of the trees to discourage any unwanted visitors, but we still had several deer stroll by.

But those big critters didn't scare Miss DaPuss one bit. She made herself right at home exploring the property, even the barn where a couple of wild cats have taken residence. We did hear a screech or two once, mind you. ;-)

Stretching comfortably near her new home.

In Ulla's Sunny Kitchen
Ulla has been reintroducing more raw foods into her diet ever since the Retreat but she felt like she needed some extra inspiration. We were particularly thrilled at the prospect of playing together in the kitchen, and boy, did we ever uncook up a storm! It had been a very long time since I had prepped so much food!

As I always like to remind people, I feel you reap much better long-term results by gradually incorporating a few raw recipes that you really enjoy into your regular diet rather than going 100% all at once. Eating a certain (usually unhealthy) way for decades, it's necessarily a long process to replace these old habit patterns. One thing that has become part of Ulla's new eating routine is to always have some fresh almond milk on hand. She has grown particularly fond of Chia Pudding in the morning, which her body really responds super well too.

I had to divide my time between the kitchen and our computer, as I continued to work on an exciting new project. Ready for the big news? After many years of sharing my raw adventures here on Blogger, I will soon be launching my very own website: Carmella's Sunny Raw Kitchen. *doing the happy dance* And so I've been working closely with our fabulous web designer Boti for the last several weeks. Since we never know how our internet access will be once we're on the road, I wanted to finish sending him all of the content (and gosh, is there ever lots!) There was the odd recipe that didn't yet have a pic for my new site's recipe section, so our time in Ulla's kitchen gave me a chance to fill in the photographic gaps.

Caesar Dressing

Dill-icious Dill Dressing

Sunflower Garlic Spread

Tarragon & Chive Cream

Tomato Dressing

We all got together to share the evening meals which consisted usually of some kind of raw soup, an entree and sometimes salad. It was all quite new to Mike but he was a great sport and tried everything.

One of our feasts: Tomato & Herbs Soup, Salad with my Dill-icious Dressing, Onion, Dill & Horseradish Cheeze with two kinds of dehydrated crackers.

Some of the main courses we enjoyed...

Russell James' awesome Cauliflower Cheese

Lasagna Magnifica

Jozzie's Fajitas

On the Sweet Side
Since I've been in a low nut intake phase for several months Don and I have been mostly staying away from desserts. Well, I guess that's not entirely true; we continue to enjoy chocolate as I find that it's the perfect sweet treat yet soooo much lighter than say, a piece of raw cake or pie. Excited to introduce Ulla to certain raw delights together we did whip up a few desserts. It certainly made Mr. Donnie very very happy!

Heavenly Berry Jubilee

Chocolate Chia Pudding

Given the tons of blackberries that they harvested this year, Ulla has made my Mango & Blackberry Cobbler several times. We had it once warm straight out of the D with a nice scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream. Divine!

During the summer I started experimenting with Pamela Vinten's Amazing Guilt Free Chocolate ebooks. Raw chocolate is one of those techniques that I feel I still have so much to learn about, and so I was thrilled to discover these books that offer so many wonderful and yummy ways to use raw cacao. Every single recipe I've tried thus far has turned out super well. I'll tell you more about this fab recipe book soon, but in the meantime here's something to get you drooling.

Nutty Chocolate Slab

Ulla has been playing with Pamela's recipes a lot. In fact her Chocolate Recipe #1 quickly became her basic chocolate candy formula. She comes up with all kinds of fun variations: peppermint, stuffed with different nuts, decorated with slivered almonds...

A beautiful chocolate platter that she prepared for a gathering.

Get Those Ds Going

We must have had something like 4 Dehydrator Days in two weeks. And that's with both of our Ds going! We mostly made different types of crackers and wraps as well as a few snacks to stock up their freezer and take on the road with us.

Zucchini Crackers

Raw Cheeze Itz

Rainbow Flax Crackers

Nacho Cheezey Kale Chips

Showing our handy work: Savory Nori Snacks & Raw Cheeze Itz

We also made Rawvolution's Burgers which I hadn't had in ages.

We served them with marinated crimini mushrooms and marinated fennel.

Organic Matters
A couple of months ago Ulla introduced me to a fantastic local wholesale group called Organic Matters. They offer a wide variety of high quality organic products for really great prices. The only downside is that you need to order at least $500 worth, but that's usually not an issue when you team up with friends' and neighbors.

All Cleaned Up
I was mentioning earlier how staying with Mike & Ulla made it a lot easier for us to do all sorts of things together that we'd been meaning to but rarely had the time. On the one hand I was able to pass on to Ulla a few technical tips on how to start a blog, use her new Sony a57 DSLR camera (like ours) and edit videos in iMovie.

It also allowed me to receive a series of 5 colonic irrigations. I'd of course heard about colonics but had never experienced them before. If, like me, you aren't already familiar with this technique here's a bit of info I found on Ulla's Devine Health site:

Since the colon affects all of the body’s organs either directly or indirectly, maintaining a clean and healthy colon promotes all other organs’ efficiency within the body.

Colon Hydrotherapy is a gentle washing of the large intestines with warm, filtered water to remove built-up toxins and wastes, improve overall bowel function and digestion, and allow for better nutrient absorption. It reduces bloating and intestinal gases, purifies the liver, and stimulates peristalsis (rhythmic muscle action of the gastrointestinal tract). Other benefits reported include the relief of head and backaches; rehabilitation of nerves, muscles, glands, circulatory and immune components of the digestive system; weight control; clearer and smoother skin; reduction of acne, skin rashes, arthritic symptoms; and an overall feeling of improved health and vitality.

 I received a colonic from Ulla every 2 or 3 days and was amazed at how different each session felt. While the first one was quite uncomfortable and didn't seem to yield much result in terms of waste removal, each successive one kept taking the cleansing process deeper and deeper. At times I could feel detox symptoms as some of the accumulated waste was being dislodged, but thankfully these passed quickly. By the third colonic I was able to be completely relaxed and felt so energized afterward. I suffered from chronic constipation for most of my life (before I got into raw) and there is little doubt that my colon has suffered some distortion as a result. It was exciting to see how I could take in more and more water as my colon was gradually resuming its natural shape.

Ulla at work (and nope, that's not me! lol)

If you'd like to learn more about colon hydrotherapy, I strongly recommend that you drop by Ulla's site, particularly her FAQ here.

We're already talking about visiting Mike and Ulla again on our way back in the Spring. She suggested that we do an even longer series of colonics then, which I'm looking forward to. Yay!

Methinks I'll stop here for now as this post is starting to get pretty long. I'll be back soon with a short recap of the raw events that we hosted while staying at Ulla and Mike's.

Stay tuned!