RAW Living and Learning

              RAW Portobello Salad I found two different sources of information on portobello mushrooms and have shared the info here: About Portobello Mushrooms Source : http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Articles/Produce-638/portobello.aspx "Portobello, pronounced [por-toh-BEHL-loh]The portobello also called portabella is really simply a brown crimini mushroom in disguise. Evidently the usage of the two words "portobello vs. portabella" is simply an issue of a marketing brand. Once the little brown crimini grows up to be about 4" - 6" in diameter he is deemed to be a portobello. And How It Got Its Name A brown crimini mushroom is a juvenile portobello. There as many theories on the heritage of the name as there were for why is a Flatiron steak called a Flatiron steak! We referred to Elizabeth Schneider's vegetable bible "Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini" for some truth and learned that the only informat...

MY BLENDER BROKE! I had said before that once my blender breaks I will invest in a Vitamix or Blendtec--guess I need to start saving my pennies. My blender broke on New Year's Day. Did I scream? No. Did I get upset? Yes. Should I have been calm? Yes. Over reacting is something that can get the best of me. It is an evil that I struggle with everyday. But it is something that I will conquer! All of this brings me to this, something that has been on my mind. And then I will get to the green smoothie! :) PATIENCE, keeps repeating in my mind. STOP JUDGING, keeps repeating in my mind. How quickly I fall. I have been trying to work on having patience and being non judgemental all last year and it looks like this new year I will still be working them. A few weeks ago I was strongly pierced by these words, a reminder of the things I need to work on this year. Here they are so that I can reflect and ponder them: James 5:7-10 "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of th...

May Christ Bless this Home! Today we celebrate the Epiphany (January 6, traditional). There are many customs that surround Epiphany, but in our home we stick to a very simple and beautiful one, one that I look forward to each new year. This is the day that we, as Catholic Christians, do our annual blessing of our home. We only need holy water, some chalk, and the lyrics to "We Three Kings". My family won't let me sing because I sound like a wounded animal, so we skip the song and sing it at Mass with the entire church instead; then my horrible voice is not heard. We gather at the front door and with the chalk, mark over the front door: 20 + C + M + B + 11 representing the year, and the blessing Christus mansionem benedicat (May Christ bless this house). The crosses represent each season of the year.The letters represent the traditional names of the Wise Men--Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. These Have Been Passed Down in My Family +JMJ+ Today I am grateful for our h...

I still have some December posts that I don't want to neglect, but as it happens time flies by and here we are in the New Year; Happy New Year! We have already planned and gone on some spectacular field trips with our home school group and I wanted to post about our Hydroponic and Heirloom Garden trip we went on the first week in December to Rabbit Run Farm . We had a great time learning about this wonderful farming technique and of course I just had to buy some food!! Here are some pics of her amazing produce. Vegetables and Fruits as Far as the Eye Can See The Best Strawberry Any of Us Has Had These are the strawberies Norman Love uses in his chocolates!! Purple Broccoli She Shared a Watermelon Radish with Us My Cutie Pie I bought some greens and 4 pounds of strawberries. Her produce was the best that I have eaten. I will be making trips up to her farm often I think. I put together a salad with this head of butter lettuce and named it RABBIT RUN FARM SALAD. Rab...

One of my favorite blogs is Lisa's Raw on $10 a Day (or Less!) I made three of her amazing recipes she posted on December 19th . Her "Nut Nog" is so delicious and I enjoyed every last drop. I read the ingredients in her recipe, knew they would make a killer nog, threw everything in the blender and chugged it down in about 4 seconds flat! It was absolutely delicious. See her recipe here . Nut Nog The second recipe of hers that I just had to make was Marinated Broccoli and Mushrooms. I made a version of Marinated Broccoli and Tomato. I didn't have mushrooms so I improvised and came up with this. You can see Lisa's recipe for Marinated Broccoli and Mushrooms here . I used sun dried tomatoes that I had just purchased and they were begging me to eat them. Here is my variation to her recipe: Marinated Broccoli and Tomatoes 10 organic sun dried tomatoes, preservative free, soaked and sliced 1 bunch of organic broccoli, chopped and stems peeled and diced 2 T Pine...

I just love this salad so much that I decided to have it as my main course for Christmas Eve dinner. I will make numerous other sides but this salad will be center stage; it even looks festive. I love the combination of collard greens and Swiss chard. The chard is tender and earthy and the collards add some texture and depth. They are enhanced with the sweetness and tartness of the  fresh apple and dried cranberries. RAW Swiss Chard and Collard Christmas Eve Salad RAW Swiss Chard and Collard Christmas Eve Salad 1 bunch swiss chard, thinly sliced 4 large collard leaves, stems removed and thinly sliced pinch of sea salt 1 T first cold pressed EVOO fresh lime juice, from 1/2 of a lime 1 tsp apple cider vinegar 2 T raw sesame seeds, soaked 2 hours and drained 1 T dried white onion flakes 1 red delicious apple, skin on and diced 1/2 C fruit juice infused dried cranberries or dried cherries Directions: Mix the chard, collards, salt, and oil in a large bowl. Gently ...

I posted about my transition to the raw living foods lifestyle and talked about it being my one year anniversary.  I then continued to add Part II , Part III ,  and now Part IV. After collecting a small library of raw cookbooks and notebooks full of recipes I got off the Internet, I was ready to officially stock my raw pantry. Again I proceeded very slowly and got only the bare minimum. I purchased about four different types of nuts and seeds, first cold pressed olive oil, local honey, coconut vinegar, coconut aminos, sea salt, coconut oil, raw honey, hemp protein powder, alcohol free vanilla extract, nori sheets, kelp noodles, blue green algae capsules, oat groats, quinoa, buckwheat, nutritional yeast (isn't raw but in several recipes), garlic, and sea vegetables. It made it so much easier to prepare the recipes now that I had things on hand. It got very frustrating running back and forth to the store each time I wanted to experiment with a new recipe. Something I learn...