RAW Living and Learning

The other night I experimented with making a Vegan Sour Cream using just 3 ingredients and I am very happy to say that it was delicious! It does take a small amount of pre-planning as you will need to soak the "raw" cashews for a minimum of 2 hours; to ensure easy blending and an ultra creamy result, and it will need to chill for a minimum of 4 hours. This makes a great base to many other recipes. For instance, I used just 2 Tablespoons of this in a recipe that I created for a low fat vegan Ranch Salad Dressing (let me know if you'd like that recipe). You also could sweeten it slightly with some organic coconut sugar and use it as a fruit dip. I'm sure it would work well as a "raw" frosting on a raw cake if you blended it with some fluffy date paste. For my date paste recipe click HERE . The possibilities are many, I'm sure. 3 Ingredient Vegan Sour Cream (oil free, salt free) 1 cup of "raw" cashews, soaked in water for 2 hours, the...

Banana Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies Wait until you read the super charged ingredients in these little cookies. I was playing around in the kitchen today with new recipes and wanted to make an extremely nutritious cookie for the children, and hubby too. You can easily make these totally raw by purchasing raw oats. I just used really good organic oats today. Grind the raw oats to make the oat flour that I refer to in the recipe. I got out a big bowl, opened up the pantry and literally made this recipe up as I added each ingredient. I just threw in what ever I thought would taste good together and here is the result. You can make these two ways like I did. Keep some of them cold in the fridge and dehydrate the rest till desired texture; store those in an airtight container on the counter. Eat within two days....ours will be gone in one! My husband and children like both versions. My husband liked the dehydrated a bit more than the cold cookie. My older two children thoug...

My Organic Green Steevia Powder When I saw the price for a bag of green steevia powder I said to myself, I can do this!! I found steevia plants at both Home Depot and Wally World. I bought mine at home depot. I have it growing in my container garden on the upper deck. I planted it in an organic soil mixture that I blended myself. I feed it weekly with an organic liquid plant food. I harvested my first bunch a month or so ago. I hung it upside down to dry in the kitchen. Once it was fully dried I ground it to a fine powder in a clean coffee grinder. I store it in an airtight container in the pantry. See how easy that was?? And just think of all the money I saved. Awesome in my mind!  It is so important to try and grow at least a portion of our own food. I am limited during the summer as to what I can grow since I am in Southern Florida. Not much produce can survive the heat. I am successful at growing grape tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper and a variety of herbs and micro lettuce/gr...

This past Saturday we went to the Mango Festival. Man was it HOT!!!! Too hot to even enjoy ourselves to the fullest. It made the youngest two very cranky.They would just stop walking and cry. We all were dripping with sweat. But we stuck it out for a while and I got some good pictures. They had several vendors, activities for the kids, food, tasting tables, gardening supplies, fruit and vegetable trees and plants and even butterfly gardening information. Mote Aquarium had a set up there with many specimens on display as well as a touch tank and a beautiful fish tank. Our children loved the touch tank. They were able to hold a water hermit crab, sea urchin, star fish, and a horse shoe crab.  Later we found a bounce house and our three youngest spent about 20 minutes in it. Then we decided to call it a day and go get something really cold to drink. I still am glad that we went, even though it was so stinkin hot. One of the reasons I am glad we w...

Sprouted Wheat Berries Here you can see the bread triangles with dollops of raw honey . I purchased my Excalibur Dehydrator  one and a half months ago and made my first raw bread. It turned out really good and I look forward to making it again but with a few additions. The bread I made here was a slightly sweet version. I hope to make a more savory version next. By the way, I love my dehydrator. So far I have used it for buckwheat krispies, tomatoes, raw sprouted bread, stuffed mushrooms, and pepper corn crackers. Here is how to make the raw sprouted bread: Soak 2 cups of wheat berries overnight. In the morning rinse the berries very well and drain. Let berries sprout in a glass jar for 2 days. Each day you must rinse them off and drain well about every 6 hours. This is the same technique that I described in a previous sprouting post. I reuse large glass jars from applesauce or spaghetti sauce. I cut screen material into squares and rubber band it around the n...