TOP TEN INDISPENSABLE FOOD ITEMS THAT HAVE HELPED CLIFF AND ME STAY RAW THIS WEEK!

1.     Bananas!  Buy a case of bananas!  We use 4-5 bananas in our morning smoothie.  We take bananas with us in the car in case we get hungry.  We freeze them to use in banana whips.  In fact, bananas always travel - when i go to my mother's house, what do i do?  I stop at 'Giant Supermarket' for 2 bags of spotty bananas at 39cents a pound!  Always there for smoothies and snacks, and even meals!  Oh, oh, oh, I cut up banana along with mango and leftover salsa and poured that sweet and hot tomatoey sauce over it!  That and some flax crackers, and I was in raw heaven!   

2.     Variety of GREENS! Have a huge variety of organic greens always on hand.  Right now in the fridge, we have romaine, kale and collards, spinach, and arugula!  These will be the basis of multiple salads and green smoothies and juices.  We would have been shipwrecked this week without at least 3 heads of kale, a huge tub of spinach and a tub of spring mix.  With spinach, I have even made raw spinach dip and raw spinach soup!

3.     Variety of FRUITS and VEGETABLES and HERBS!  Have a big variety of veggies and fruits on hand, always!  Keep several fruit bowls on the table.  Keep the fridge stocked with celery and carrots and peppers and lemons and everything imaginable!  Leave fruit upstairs for emergency yens.  Take fruit in the car.  Veggies just MAKE the meal.  Cucumbers are lovely sliced thin atop a raw sandwhich.  Carrot shredded make a fine beginning to a memorable side dish.  Fennel sliced thin atop a salad of greens is licoricey good!  An apple before bed or an orange before your morning smoothie can be very welcome.   What would we do without a huge variety of God's gifts to us?  We ask ourselves...what am i craving?  And let intuition lead the way!  My morning smoothie suddenly ended up with blueberries and celery in it because my body just wanted them and they just jumped out at me when i looked in the fridge.  Let your body lead the way!  Today i'm craving broccoli, so i got some, and will make a wonderful broccoli salad dressed with ginger and cashew cream...and mint!  Lest I forget those miraculous herbs.  They turn any boring bland thing fabulous: Cilantro and Dill and Parsley and Mint and Basil, I could NOT live without.  Create a patio garden.  Herbs are SO easy to grow!  Basically, what we eat when we go raw is TONS and TONS of raw fruits and veggies.  The chips, bread, cheezes, and dressings all act as adornments for literally millions of raw meal possibilities!

4.     Avodados! Have plenty of avocados on hand!  Buy some ripe, some not yet ripe.  Put the ripe in the fridge.  They last longer.  Where would I have been this week without my avocados?  Right now I have 5 in the bowl for us for this week!  I am certain that not a day has gone by that i did not have at least 1/2 avocado a day.  Avocados can form the basis for a marveloup soup.  They add creaminess to salads.  They add form and fat, yet hide themselves in raw icecreams and pies....you don't even know they are there, but they do so much!  Lest we forget guacamole?  Can we live without that?  Avocados make a meal!

5.     Flax Krackers!  Have plenty of raw flax krackers on hand!  I could not have made it through this week if i had not made up a huge batch of those delish pumpkin buckwheat flax krackers.  I made them salt free...  So good!  And Cliff even enjoyed them as is!  They just complete ANY meal, particularly something 'soft.' Suddenly a bowl of mushy fruit salsa is a delight to spoon into the mouth after you get done crunching on the corner of your flax kracker!  Alive and full of nutrition, these are a KRUNCH you can feel GOOD about!

6.     Raw living bread!  Have plenty of raw living bread on hand, in all sorts of varieties!  Living Bread is a little less crunchy than a standard flax cracker and usually contains ground up veggies in it.  Again, these form the hearty earthy basis of so many wonderful open faced raw sandwhiches.  Cliff enjoyed Cheezeburger this week and Cheeze Sandwhich atop raw bread.  It felt like a 'real meal' to him...because of the bread!  And I tore up some pieces to act as Taco Chips for Salsa and Guacamole.  Totally indispensable this week.  And get this, for Thanksgiving, I moistened lots of raw bread, added chopped veggies and sage and created "stuffing!" 

Sunny writes, "This picture is of my first attempt of your “living bread”  …it is DELISH.  I added onion which made it very tasty!"  Bravo, Sunny!  

7.     Raw salad dressing!  Have some made up in the fridge, or whip some up last minute.  As a Raw Chef, a good raw dressing to me should contain some kind of: tart acid (raw vinegar, lemon, lime, tart orange, etc...), something slippery (olive oil or cashew cream or even blenderized mangoes), one or a variety of spicy flavors (garlic, onion, shallot, jalapeno, ginger, etc...), something salty (celtic, himalayan salt, nama shoyu, braggs aminos, or even Nutritional yeast if you are avoiding sodium (only 5mg sodium per 2 Tbsp) or fresh made celery "salt" (ground dehydrated celery) or dulse or kelp), something sweet (dates or mango or agave, etc...).  A combination of all of these elements (sweet, salty, spicy, tart...and slippery) will complement your BITTER greens so delightfully.  Anything extra you add is a bonus!  A good generic raw dressing is: olive oil, nama shoyu, agave, raw vinegar, garlic and ginger blenderized.  Often i add cashews and water to this base and make a marvelous creamy dressing.  Sometimes I'll add tomato and beet to that and make it pink colored.  Plop some raspberries into THAT and you have raspberry vinaigrette, which i usually complement by adding orange and lemon juice.  Wow!  The possibilities are endless.  This week, I made a salt free dressing that was so good!  Tomato, red pepper, carrot, garlic, onion, olive oil, cayenne, cilantro, date, lemon.  No salty elements in that one, but plenty of spice, and lemony tart and datey sweet.  (But i always sprinkle Nutritional yeast on my salads so that is my salty element.  YUM!)  That dressing was SO good!  I drizzled it on top of a raw veggie burger for Cliff, I dressed kale salad with it, I poured it on top of chopped veggies/fruits and created a salsa.  We could not have gotten by without that dressing this week.  I suggest having 2 dressings on hand of different varieties.      

8.     Cashew cream! Have some made up - lasts 10 days refrigerated!  Since i'm doing salt free, I just blenderized cashew and filtered water into a 'sour cream' type of consistency, covered and refrigerated.  How many times did i grab for that in the fridge this week?  Too many to count.  I added that to the kale salad instead of oil, made creamy Moroccan carrot salad using that instead of standard mayo or olive oil, adding raisins and curry!  I spread it on raw bread under Cliff's raw veggie burger, added it to soaked chia to create "rice pudding" (add cinnamon, honey, vanilla, lemon).  The idea to leave the cashew cream salt free was so smart.  You can always add!  I'm trying to grab for nut or seed based items before I grab for the olive oil.  More alive and less processed!

9.     Raw Nut Cheeze or Seed Pate’s!  Have a few 'cheezes' in the fridge.  Cliff had such a great variety of meals this week with the Toona and Cheddar I kept on hand.  Toona Nori Wrap, Cheddar Cheeze Sandwhich, Cheddar Nori Wrap, Toona Sandwhich, etc...  The cheezes functioned for us this week as a complement to the marvelous veggies that took center stage piled atop or within!  Raw cheezes last 10 days....so make as much as you can use up in that time, or whatever is leftover, make it into a dehydrated treat!

10. Superfood powders!  Have plenty of superfood powders on hand if they jive with you. We really enjoy a good smoothie in the morning, and since Cliff's favorite smoothies don't involve greens, we make sure to get lots of superfoods!  (I'm hoping that will change, but for the time being, it's fine!  Sometimes I have green smoothies for dinner, then!)  We love cacao powder, carob powder, hemp seeds, maca powder, cacao nibs and spirulina!

You know what the other crucial elements this week have been?  Nori wraps and raw veggie burgers!!!  

But the biggest help staying raw?  EACH OTHER!  Cliff and I can do amazing things when we are in partnership.  Conversely, we can create such disorder when our resources are not joined.  We really NEED support when going raw.  I feel so so amazingly blessed that my Cliffy is doing this beside me, to help himself, but also to help ME.  Wow.    

Hey, if you don't have someone to go raw with, I'll be your partner!

You can always write me!

xoxo michelle joyLaSoprana@aol.com