Sunny Raw Kitchen Tour Adventures - Florida Part I

It was chilly and rainy the morning that we left South Carolina and continued further south, but by the time we arrived in Florida, the sun was out to welcome us. (Yah baby!) As we drove, we could distinctively feel the change of temperature; we went from having the heater running to the air conditioner! Throughout the day, I peeled off four layers if you can believe it! lol

Wet Happens
First thing we did once we reached the sunshine state was drop by the visitor’s center in order to stock up on maps and other Florida paraphernalia. As we were locking the car, a man walked towards us. He said he'd been following us on the highway and noticed that the lids of our containers were flapping in the wind. Oh-oh! NOT good! We’d hit a mega rainstorm in Georgia (Don doesn't remember seeing rain falling so hard!), so we thought we better check if anything got wet. Sure enough, some water had sneaked into two of the bins. Nothing catastrophic though, as the clothes bin had thankfully remained sealed. Phfew! All our books managed to remain dry, except for one recipe book I hardly ever use anyways. No biggie. Boy, were we ever glad that the man ‘happened’ to also stop at the visitor’s center and was able to let us know. Imagine opening the bins weeks or months later, not to mention after the hot and humid Florida weather! Yikes!

Amazingly for us, we were going to be in the vicinity of not one but two raw cafés, so we decided we were up for a treat. (Woo hoo!) After a quick online check (what would I do without our laptop!?!), I discovered that the Present Moment Café in St-Augustine wasn’t open that day, so that pretty much solved it. We (very gladly!) hopped off I-95 in Jacksonville and made our way towards Atlantic Beach to the lovely Shakti Life Kitchen. I'd heard about this place via my friend Eva who recently taught a series of raw food prep classes there. I was actually hoping to bump into her as she's also been replacing someone on leave in their kitchen. Sadly, Eva wasn't around. In fact, as we walked in they were getting ready to close shop, but after telling them how far we’d come they kindly offered to prep something for us. Yay! The food was delightful! I love LOVE their wraps; pliable yet sturdy. They reminded me of the Soft Veggie Wraps but with whole flax seeds in them. On the staff's recommendation, we had...

Buckwheat Bean Burrito:
A Shakti Classic. Sprouted Buckwheat Beans, Sunflower Seed Cream Cheese, Fresh Greens, Tomato, and Sweet Onion rolled in a Fiesta Spinach Pepper Wrap.

"Don't have a Cow" 3 Cheese Sandwich:
Layers of Pumpkin Seed Cheese, Cashew Cheese, and Chipotle Pepper Cheese are stacked with Fresh Greens, Sweet Onion, Cucumber, and Sprouts on Stunning Spinach Pitas. (My personal favorite!)

Both platters came with Fiesta Crackers which are like THE best flax crackers I've ever had! If I remember the ingredients correctly, they were made with flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sundried tomatoes, fresh cilantro, sea salt, lemon juice and LOTS of garlic.

For dessert, we had Cinnamon Rolls with Whipped Cream, left over from their brunch menu. To live for!!!

In Florida's Jungle
We spent that night at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park which was conveniently located in Mayport, just a few miles north of Atlantic Beach. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous; a mixture of palm trees and live oaks with big streamers of moss hanging from them. So magical! We considered staying for another day or two, but as we soon found out, we were camped next to a rather loud family (to put it mildly) which definitely was a turn off. Still, we’d like to spend more time there when we'll return to the area.

Our new tent as the old one was pretty much toast after last summer's deluge. It has a bit of a funky shape, doesn't it?

There are several trails that you can hike around the park which we were looking forward to exploring the next morning. It was Kyky's first walk ever among palm trees and live oaks.

Come to think of it, ours too! lol

Saw palmetto, a renowned natural remedy for prostate related conditions.

Melbourne Goes Raw
Our next stop was Melbourne, about 3 hours south of Jacksonville. There seemed to be a lot of energy drawing us to that area. For one thing, we'd been invited to stay with Stephanie who works at yet another brand new raw venture called Happy Healthy Human. (I swear they're growing like mushrooms! Yay!)

HHH is her friend Jason's baby; he'd been selling weekly organic food boxes out of his living room for a while and decided to expand. They like to think of Happy Healthy Human as a community life center as opposed to only a restaurant. Besides offering freshly made food, smoothies and wheat grass juices, their intention is to be a resource of education, support and empowerment, trying to send positive energy out into the community and encouraging people to be responsible for their own health. Some of the envisioned activities that HHH will offer include guest speakers/teachers, catered events, yoga classes and live music, kombucha and dessert nights. Sounds promising to me!

Since Steph was working when we arrived in town, we went straight to the center/café. It felt as if we'd walked in among a bunch of friends! Everyone was so vibrant and welcoming!

Carmi & Steph; glad to finally meet!

Steph harvesting wheat grass. Notice the cute little girl in the background?

Jess

Danielle, Jason and Steph lovingly whipping up some yummy food in the kitchen.

The delicious platter Jason prepared for us to munch on: Onion Bread Sandwich on a gigantic bed of mixed greens, heaps of home grown sprouts, coleslaw, flax cracker, kale chips with an awesome hemp dressing. I love Jason's emphasis on fresh ingredients rather than the dehydrated goodies.

After giving a hand at the Happy Healthy Human on their crazy busy food box day, we stopped for a short walk at a nearby park. Kylo went for a little dip... Ahhhhh, so refreshing! Except that we later found out that there were alligators in the lake!!! Eeek!


Time To Rest
Stephanie lives in a cozy old style home with a nice big backyard. Predictably, the latter became our favorite place to hang out in the sun. ;-) There's even a grapefruit tree, some of the harvest from which we enjoyed in our daily juices and smoothies.

Steph was working a lot of the time so we had the house pretty much to ourselves. We took the opportunity to go into complete recovery mode; hitting the hay super early, not doing much, laying in the sun, even not preparing anything too fancy in terms of food. Just taking it reeeeeeeal easy!

Failed Experiment
On the day of our arrival at Steph's, I brewed a couple of batches of kombucha tea as we'd run out some time back. If you're a kombucha drinker, then you know how much you miss the stuff when it's not around! Since it looked like we were going to be there for at least 10 days and the weather was super warm, I figured I could take my chances. I didn't have quite enough cane sugar, but after doing some research, I decided to use some sucanat sugar as well. I've never seen the scoby grow so fast! Within a week's time, it had developed a new layer of almost half an inch!!! Unfortunately, the tea itself didn't taste right so I ended up throwing the whole thing out. (Boo hoo!) I strongly suspect that the sucanat was the culprit as everything else I did the same as always. Live and learn, eh?

Lovecats
Stephanie shares her home with several cats. It was so neat to watch them interact, especially since our Puss is such a loner and doesn't really get along with other felines. Sometimes we think that she must consider herself human or something. Meet Steph's furry buddies...

Max

Rocko

and Marley

All super stressed, as you can see. ;-) They were very very curious about what was laying on the other side of the bedroom door where we and Puss slept. I had actually taken a photo of all three of them staring at the closed door (soooooo funny!), but then somehow it got erased. *scratching her head*

When you live with animals sometimes you can stumble upon the cutest moments. I couldn't resist capturing some of those on camera while at Steph's.

The boys chilling.

Steph & Don had company as they were talking at the dinner table one night.

A few sweet cuddling pics...

Rocko, the Sphinx, found a cozy spot.

Speaking of Rocko, the little guy is completely obsessed with tomato. We discovered his passion the hard way when we left tomatoes on the counter overnight. As soon as you'd start prepping tomatoes, Rocko would come running over! lol

A very attentive audience...

One day while having dinner, Rocko was nonchalantly lounging on the place mat close to mine. His paw started to inch closer and closer. Next thing you knew, he was diving into my plate in search of the precious red candy! It was beyond ha-la-rious! hehe I personally thought it was so cute, I didn't have the heart to scold him. ;-)

A Thrift Lover's Heaven
The last few years, Don and I have been buying most of our clothes used. I mean, there's just soooooo much in circulation already and the things you can find!!! As we were both needing some summer clothes for the beautiful Florida weather, I asked Steph about thrift stores. "Oh, you're going thrifting!" she goes to me. (Hehe... "Thrifting", I like that!) Little did I know... Melbourne almost has one on every block! I've never seen so many thrift stores in my life! We found four of them on the main little downtown stretch alone! I find that used clothes seem to be considerably cheaper than in Canada. Good thing I don't live here is all I can say! lol One store we went in had a room full of clothes at 50 cents a piece. Wow, definitely my kind of place! We totally scored that day; a whole new wardrobe for under $6!!! Woo hoo

Family Reunion
Another pull towards Melbourne was the fact that our dear friends, Lisa and her family from Ithaca, happened to be visiting relatives in the area during the Thanksgiving holidays. What are the odds of that!?! In fact, they were even staying at a small mom & pop's motel by the beach where Stephanie used to work! I mean, come on, isn't it incredible?

As you know, holidays can be a crazy time, so we only had a short visit. Still, we were happy to get a chance to see them again, even if not for long... We hung out on the beach below the motel while the kids got to splash in the ocean and make sandcastles one last time before returning home.


As you can see, it's not easy to get little Gabe to stop for very long! lol He did take the time, though, to give us extra big smoochies when we parted. How sweet!

We'd brought along a decadent banana coconut pie creation that Holly in Tobaccoville had shared with us. So rich and oh-so-delicious!!!


HoneyMoon Torte
"There were some bananas that Don & Carmella had left behind so I created a raw dessert with them. Here is the recipe inspired by one beautiful Carmella!"

Crust
2 cups dry coconut, finely shredded
2 cups pecans, fine meal
¼ cup coconut oil
3 bananas
¼ cup raw honey, or dates
½ tsp himalayen salt

Place coconut and pecans in blender, blend until fine. Place in bowl.

Blend bananas, coconut oil, honey or dates, and salt. Blend until smooth.

Slowly add the liquid mixture to dry mixture and stir until combined. There will be about a 1/4 cup of liquid mixture left over. Reserve for Filling.

Press crust into spring form pan, 9 inch, or regular round cake pan.

Filling
1 cup cashews
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup coconut oil
2 tbs raw honey
½ tsp himalayen salt

Blend cashews until fine. Scrape down sides.

Add reserved liquid mixture, vanilla, coconut oil, honey and salt. Blend until smooth.

Pour filling over crust. Freeze for at least three hours. Can then be put in the refrigerator.

To Serve:
Drizzle with honey or agave, if so desired.

Carmella's Notes:
~ I used only 3 cups of nuts total in the crust as I preferred to keep it on the lighter side. As a result, I had an extra cup of liquid mixture which I simply added to the Filling. It still worked beautifully!

~ I used dates as sweetener for the entire recipe.

~ I used less salt than Holly calls for, probably 1/4 tsp in the crust and 1/4 tsp in the filling.

~ I served the pie with a few banana slices and Heathy's amazing Chocolate Sauce. Heavenly!

Definitely something to be grateful for... ;-)

Hum, not a bad note to end this post on... Stay tuned for the rest of my account of our time in Melbourne!

Sunny Raw Kitchen Tour Itinerary (Updated!)

It finally dawned on me that I should post our itinerary and keep updating it as we go. (Duh!) Ah well, at least it didn't occur to me in California or somethin'! lol

Sunny Raw Kitchen Tour Itinerary
We are now in California and have begun the last leg of our adventures along the west coast.

Here's what the rest of our itinerary looks like so far...

- San Francisco Bay area, CA:

• Raw Gourmet Made Easy class in Sunnyvale on Sunday March 7th, 2 pm
• Let's Fire Up the D class in Sunnyvale on Tuesday March 9th, 6:30 pm
  
• Talk on being "Raw on the Road" on March 11th, 6:30 pm
  

- Medford, OR:

• Raw potluck on March 14th
• Raw Italian class on March 18th, 5:30pm
• Raw Asian class on March 28th, 2:00pm

- Portland, OR

• Raw potluck on April 8th

Other stops along the way...

- Olympia, WA
- Seattle, WA
- Anacortes, WA

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:

sunnyrawkitchen(at)gmail(dot)com

Sunny Raw Kitchen Tour Adventures - The Carolinas

So many interesting anecdotes about how our trip is shaping up! The fact that we don’t have a fixed itinerary is leaving the door open for awesome possibilities. It reminds me of the year I went backpacking in Europe when I was 19; free to respond to whatever invitation Life is presenting, able to make last minute changes that an otherwise tighter plan wouldn’t allow.

Our stop in North Carolina is a great example of this…

One morning, while doing my usual email checking routine, I had a message in my inbox from my friend Vee in Raleigh saying that something had come up and she couldn’t host us. As I kept scrolling down, there was also one from Kevin called “Invite to Tobaccoville”. My initial thought was that it was just a funny reference to how much tobacco is grown in the area, but Tobaccoville is really the name of a town near Winston-Salem. lol In his message, Kevin pointed out that he knew that it was sorta off our route, but he thought he’d put it out anyways. Since our other stop had fallen through and their invite felt so genuine, how could we resist? ;-) It felt strange to be back in North Carolina after 16 years. See, as a teenager, I did an exchange program, living with a family and going to high school in Wilson. This is actually when I became fluent in English. (In case you've missed the occasional spelling mistakes and bad phrasing, nope, English isn't my mother tongue - French is. ;-))

Meet Kevin & Holly...

... and their absolutely gorgeous feline friend named Petra.

She was a bit disturbed to have other humans (not to mention other furries!) moving around the house, but gradually warmed up to us. I even got to rub Petra on her belly which I'm told is quite a privilege.

Forget Tobacco, Grow Veggies!

Kevin and Holly recently acquired a piece of land this past summer which they've started to turn into an organic farm. They intend to plant a variety of vegetables as well as some blueberry bushes and fruit trees. Most of the harvest from Harmony Ridge Farm will then be distributed to local folks who have purchased shares, the rest will be sold at markets. Mmmmm... Wish we were sticking around long enough to partake in the abundance!

During our stay, there were trucks working on leveling out the field behind the house (a pretty big job!) so that they can then build a barn and a green house.

Look at the color of that dirt!!!

In Holly's Sunny Kitchen
Kevin is the one who was initially drawn to raw foods and we were told he went wild at first, experimenting in the kitchen. Holly is also amazingly gifted and creative, and since she loves preparing food, we were up for a treat! On the day of our arrival, Holly had made some raw paté and cauliflower rice which she then assembled into the best nori rolls I've ever had! We had some fresh mustard greens that we'd bought in Silver Spring which beautifully complemented the rest of the fillings.

Holly used an adaptation of the Cauliflower Casserole from Elysa Markowitz's Warming Up to Living Foods, but I bet they would also be fantastic with any type of 'rice' such as Ginger Un-Steamed Rice, or a simple rice made with chopped cauliflower, parsnip or jicama, or even without!

Sooooooo good!

Nori Rolls

For this recipe you will need:

• 8 Nori Sheets
• Wasabi Sunseed Pate
• Mustard greens or greens of choice (optional)
• 3 ripe thinly sliced Avocados
• 2 thinly sliced Bell Peppers
• 3 shredded Carrots
• 1 serving of your favorite 'Rice' (optional)

Wasabi Sunseed Pate
1/2 cup walnuts , soaked 6 hours
2 cups sunflower seeds , soaked 6 hours
1/2 bundle, parsley including stems
2 tsp white unpasterized miso
1/2 tsp nama shoyu
1 Tbs hemp oil
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
3 lemons, juiced (or to taste!)
1 tsp sweet curry powder
1/8 tsp to 1/4 tsp wasabi powder

Carmella's Note: I've made this since, using about 1 tbs of lemon juice. Yummo!

Day Before or in the morning:
-Soak walnuts and sunflower seeds

Day of:
-Shred carrots using the shredder blade of food processor. Place in bowl, set aside.

-Fit food processor with S-blade. Add all pate ingredients (the first 10 ingredients) and process until smooth.

- Lay down nori sheet. Spread pate over entire sheet, then the 'rice' (if using).

- Next, place some mustard greens over the entire sheet (if using).

- Now make a row at one end of the sheet with carrots, avocado, and bell pepper. Roll tightly, starting at end that has vegetables.

- Repeat with the rest of the nori sheets.

- After all of them have been rolled, cut carefully into 8 pieces. (I use a very sharp tomato knife for this.)

Kevin and Holly invited some of their friends to join us for a raw dinner one night. Boy, what a feast! The menu consisted of ...

Cheezy Corn Chowder

A variation of Ocean's Tuna Salad made with almond pulp (not quite as good as the original methought.)

Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers (from their garden). Mighty mighty hot!!!

Salad with Cafe Gratitude's Fig Dressing

And Holly's scrumptious Lasagna! Absolutely to live for! A must try!

Holly's Lasagna

For this recipe you will need:

• 3 zucchini, thinly sliced using mandoline slicer
• 2 handfuls spinach
• Mozanutta 1 serving
• Riconutta 1 serving
• Marinated Mushrooms 1 serving
• Marinara Sauce 1 serving

Mozzonutta Cheese:
1 cup cashews, soaked, 8hours
1 tbs nutritional yeast
½ tsp him salt
½ lemon, juiced
¼ cup fresh water
1 tbs unpasteurized white miso

Place all ingredients in blender. Blend until smooth and creamy. Place in glass dish and put in dehydrator for 16 hours, stirring every few hours. Or you may want to leave it in a warm place on the counter overnight, again, stirring every few hours.

For a harder cheese that you may slice: Pour through a nut milk bag. Place contents in cheese cloth, shape to size, and place in mesh strainer (though I use my salad spinner for this as it can drain easily into outer bowl. Let sit in warm place for 16 hours.

If you don't want fermented cheese, omit miso.

Riconutta Cheese:
1/2 cup pine nuts, soaked, 6 hours
1 cup almonds, soaked, 12 hours, peeled
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 lemon, juiced
3/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup fresh water

After almonds have soaked for 8 to 12 hours, drain.Bring some water to a boil. Cool water for a few seconds and then add to almonds. Let almonds sit in hot water for 30 seconds. Drain. Peel almonds by pushing between thumb and first finger into bowl or other hand. Watch for flying almonds! This takes time but is worth it when you taste the ricotta. Without peeling, the consistency and flavor is not authentic but still good.

Now place all ingredients into food processor fitted with s-blade and pulse until ricotta consistency.

Marinated Mushrooms:
1 large Portobello Mushroom thinly sliced, thinly sliced
1 Tbs Nama shoyu
1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp herbs de Provence
1/2 lemon, juiced

Peel top skin off of mushrooms. Slice thinly.

Place all other ingredients in bowl and whisk together until blended. Add mushrooms, making sure they are coated. Cover and let marinade in refrigerator for up to 8 hours for a more 'cooked' taste.

Marinara Sauce:
1/4 Red Onion, chopped
1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes, soaked 4 hours
Pinch sambhar powder*
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp dried sage
5 pitted dates
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp hemp oil, optional
Himalayan salt, to taste
Pinch cayenne pepper, optional
1/4 cup fresh water

Blend all ingredients until smooth in food processor with S-blade or blender.

* Sambhar powder is a South Asian blend of spices. This site offers a home made recipe that consists of red chillies, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and fenugreek seeds.

Day before Lasagna Assembly:
- Soak Cashews or macadamia nuts (1 cup) for 6 to 8 hours
- Soak Almonds (12-24 hours)
- Make Mozanutta cheese
- Peel almonds and make Riconutta
- Marinate mushrooms

Day of Lasagna Assembly:
- Make Marinara sauce
- Slice Zucchini into thick noodles using mandoline slicer (or in a pinch, peel in thicker slices with potato peeler)

Assemble in this order (if you so wish):
In glass 2 quart rectangular pan, spread very thin layer of Sauce.

Then cover with:
- Zucchini noodles
- Marinara Sauce
- Riconutta
- Handful of spinach and/or Mushroom

Repeat layers until you run out of ingredients (about 4 layers).

Top Layer:
- Marinara Sauce
- Mozanutta Cheese, either drop generously until lasagna is covered or if you made the harder cheese, slice and layer.

Drizzle with honey using fork (optional but mighty tasty!)

Place in dehydrator at 105 degrees for 5 to 6 hours. You may eat it with the dehydration but the flavors will not have the same composition.

As they had lots of young coconuts in the fridge (yay!), dessert was Cafe Gratitude's Coconut Cream Pie. Always a hit!

The lucky munchers!

Among them was Vic aka The Raw Shaman. His quest for optimal health has eventually led him to work with the power of superfoods. Vic is a bit of an alchemist; combining various ingredients such as superfoods, green powders and medicinal mushrooms. He makes a pudding that is said to be utterly addictive. As Holly was telling me about him, I immediately thought of Daniel Vitalis and his elixirs. Turns out, the two
of them are buddies; Daniel actually came just a couple of months ago in order to give a workshop.

Where To Now?

For the first time since the beginning of our journey, the details surrounding our next step weren’t made obvious. We’d heard that a raw meet up was scheduled a few days later near Raleigh, which we considered attending, but things weren’t coming together smoothly. We had arranged to stay with a friend of Sarah’s in Silver Spring, and although we were having a hard time touching base with her to coordinate our arrival, we decided to head towards there anyways. We made a stop in Chapel Hill along the way in order to connect with someone, but once again, Life had a different idea. Long story short, we ended up staying at a hotel that evening, still unclear as to where to next. As they say, “night brings council”; the following morning we agreed that things weren’t flowing smoothly and decided to simply continue our journey south.

For the next two days, we pretty much just drove on the I-95, a pretty stressful experience to say the least. So many trucks and hectic drivers, or a combination of both! One truck actually started to change lanes when we were right next to him! Sure gave us a good scare! We thought perhaps the driver was on his cell phone or something, but he was staring straight at the road and never noticed a thing! Thankfully, the further we got south, the more laid back the drivers seemed to get.

While the 95 does get you to where you want to go fast, the landscape is rather non-descript; you could hardly tell the difference between North and South Carolina or even Georgia. We stopped at a campground in Canadys, SC for one night so at least we got to see a teeny bit of the local color. I just fell in love with the gigantic live oak trees covered in moss, which I later discovered is a feature of the southern states.

Furry Tales
For the most part, the furries have been real good with the traveling. (They sure got some practice last summer when we drove across Canada.) As I was saying in my last post, Puss is not a happy camper comes time to get back on the road, but once she's in the van, she usually chills, as long as she's next to Kylo. These pics were taken on a particularly good day.

See Puss all relaxed and sorta hanging onto the back seat? lol

Hum, I think I better pause here before getting into our Florida adventures. Be back soon!