Last Full Moon, I made the best gazpacho soup ever! We fast every Full Moon and this is one of my favorite soups to make at the end of the fast since it’s liquid but has some “chunks” of veggies that are easy to eat to break the fast.
These are the ingredients needed:
4 Heirloom tomatoes (soft ones, medium size)
2 Stalks of celery
1 Clove of garlic
1/4 of a medium sweet onion
Juice of 1/2 lime or lemon
1 Date (soaked for 10 to 15 minutes)
Cilantro and basil to taste
Salt and olive oil to taste
1/2 medium avocado cut in cubes
In the food processor, add 2 of the tomatoes, celery, garlic onion, lime/lemon juice, date, cilantro, basil, and salt. Pulse as many times as needed to make chunks that will be added to the base. Take everything out of the food processor into a bowl and set aside.
Take the remaining tomatoes and put them in the food processor or blender, add salt and make into the base of the soup. You can also add water if desired. I prefer mine with no water.
Pour the tomato juice into the bowl with the chunks, add olive oil, and mix with a spoon.
To make it spicy, you can add a chilli pepper or any hot pepper you can handle and blend with the base. Another option is to add cayenne pepper powder on each bowl.
Add the avocado cubes to each soup bowl and serve! It’s simple and delicious!
About a week ago, Denis, my new BFF, and I drove to Fort Myers to ECHO Farms to check out their edible plants and trees and see what we could get. After a quick stop in Naples for lunch, we headed north on I-75 to Bayshore Rd and arrived at the farm.
ECHO stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, they are a non-profit organization that educates and trains people that work or volunteer around the world to help communities in need.
It was getting ready to rain so we had to hurry. But the staff at the farms was very friendly and spent time with us showing us all the greens and fruits available.
The prices were reasonable and they had a nice variety of edible greens. So here are some of the trees and plants they had at ECHO farms:
Avocado Trees! This made me want to have a yeard to plant some of these!
Grapefruits! Our favorites! Once again I caught myself staring at it and wondering how I can grow a grapefruit tree on the beach! LOL
Neem: We bought this little tree and I hope I won’t kill it. Don’t know exactly what I’ll use it for, but I’m sure I be making something!
Tropical fruit trees: As most of you know, Denis and I stay away from tropical fruit as most is acidic. But ECHO had a good variety of tropical fruit trees if anyone is interested.
Jaboticaba Tree: This is one we love, but won’t be growing in our yard anytime soon for sure. But at least now I know where I can get one.
Katuk: This one will be on my salads this week for sure! We got it and it was about $5 bucks! You can get any better than that!
We also purchased two varieties of hot peppers, a moringa plant, spinach plant, and cilantro seeds for next season and worm manure. It was a great trip to the West coast!
Denis and I had wanted to do a green juice fast for the longest time. We do a monthly liquid fast during the full moon and it feels great. So we wanted to know what it was like to just do a green juice fast. We decided this full moon was good time to do it and planned to get all our juices from Josh’s Organic Garden.
We started on Monday and finished it on Saturday. Initially we wanted to do seven days, but I had the feeling I wouldn’t last more than two days. I thought for sure by Tuesday I would quit and go back to eating. Sure enough by day two I was ready to quit, but decided to stick with it because a lot of emotions were surfacing and I wanted to see what else would come up.
Instead of describing how each day went, I wanted to share some insights I had during my fast, not about how my body responded or all the benefits I enjoyed, but the emotions I had to deal with during the green juice fast. We followed Dr. Young’s pH Miracle Cleanse in case you’re wondering.
Empty Refrigerator
Since we decided to get all the juices already made at the Josh’s Juice bar, we didn’t shop and our refrigerator was empty. I hid the truffles we had purchased during our trip to Naples and any other “goodies” I would cheat with.
Seeing the refrigerator with no greens, no food made me sad. I felt like I had nothing in life. Empty. Without a home, without love, without money. I felt like my world was ending because my refrigerator was empty. I immediately told Denis about this and he hugged me and laughed. So I started laughing too. This happened the second day of the fast and it was the reason I decided to keep going.
I don’t know exactly how my brain/mind believes that food equal the meaning of life (apparently). All I can say is that it may go back all the way to childhood but I’m not sure yet.
Not Having to Make Food
The second thing that surfaced in my mind was this. I had extra time in my hands by not having to prepare food and not going to yoga class so I was able to take time for blogging. While I was working on my blog, I kept thinking: “Oh I have to go make food, I better stop typing” and then I would remember: Oh I’m fasting no need to make food. Ten minutes later I would start panicking cause I hadn’t make food yet and it was getting late, but then I would remember I’m fasting, no need to make food. And that continue the whole night.
One of the first reasons I got sold on the “Raw” idea was cause it took less time to prepare food. I’m constantly looking to cut things out so that I can have more time to do other things. And I always feel stressed out about making food. Once this issue came right in front of me, I realized that I think making food is all I do and live for. To feed people. I don’t know exactly how to handle this information, but it was very interesting to find that deep inside I feel food is my ONLY job and purpose in life.
Variety of Food
I’ve always known this about me: I get bored with the same thing over and over. And that’s just not food. Everything. Well except for my partner in life (9 years and still not bored one bit!)… Anyways, so going into the fast I knew that having the same juice everyday wasn’t going to work for me and would probably quit by day two. But this time was worse than ever. I didn’t want to see the green juice even as hungry as I would get, I didn’t want it. Instead I wanted to keep drinking water but not the green juice. I believe one of the reasons why I’m creative in the kitchen is because I have to have variety. Even my lunch salad is different everyday.
Sticking with the green juice fast help me see that my issue with food variety is deeper than I imagined.
Dreams about Food
Going in I had the feeling I would be dreaming about food every night and eating all sorts of junk in my dreams. I actually thought that in the dreams I would want to stop my raw diet. But I was wrong. One night I had a dream about a carnival, possibly Renaissance fest, where I had to drop off something for work. I walked through the food to where I was going, but no I didn’t stop for any food even thought I was offered a donut. That was one of the two dreams about food I had.
During the fast, I wasn’t even attracted to junk food. I didn’t even for a minute think I would run and start eating a SAD diet again, even a vegan junk cooked diet for that matter. But I did want and was tempted to eat the sun dried olives in my refrigerator, my avocados and some oil. So all doubts that I had about ever “cheating” or going back to a cooked vegan diet are no longer there. I now know that I love my raw food, even under stressful circumstances, I only want raw food.
In conclusion, and now a day after we broke the fast, I’ve got work to do with all this information I collected during this fast. I do have to say that compared to the first fast I ever did (6 years ago, water fast for three days while I was still on a vegetarian SAD diet), I did excellent. But compared to my monthly liquid fast, I did not do well at all. I complained the whole time and didn’t want to drink my juice.
Physically my body felt great, happy, healthy and grateful. I’m going to try it again, possibly the next full moon or the one after. Not having any fruits this week was amazing for my body and it let me know so.
So what’s next? Meditate on all these issues that came up.
About 4 weeks ago, Denis bought 30 coconuts and we had a feast! From drinking the water to making creams, salad dressings, smoothies, soups, etc. The following week he bought 20 coconuts, and the week after that 15 coconuts.
By the end of the third week I couldn’t come up with any more coconut dishes, and Denis had made coconut cream and stored it in the refrigerator. I didn’t want to waste it, and I needed breakfast but was tired of coconut smoothies, so I made cereal!
I soaked some nuts, seeds, goji berries, and raisins in water overnight. The next morning I mixed in the coconut cream with cinnamon powder, maca, mesquite, salt, and palm sugar to taste.
I took it to work and when I got to the office all the flavors had come together rather nicely. So that night I soaked the nuts, seeds, etc but only for a short time. After I rinsed everything, I mixed them in the coconut cream with the same powders, etc and stored overnight in the refrigerator. The next morning I had an amazing breakfast! The flavors of all the nuts, seeds, dried fruit and powders had blended and made an amazing cereal!
The coconut cream was made by blending the coconut meat and water from a young fresh local coconut. You can add extra water or more coconut butter to make as smooth as desired. The water from young coconuts is very energizing and mildly alkaline.
I don’t know about you guys, but I love eating greens. However when it comes to kale, it’s a little bit difficult to just pop in my mouth and chew it without anything on it.
One Sunday, I was being lazy and enjoying my day at the beach when I got a call that there was no green left at Josh’s market.
So Denis and I ran to the market but it was true, no lettuce was left! There was only two buckets of kale left. So I packed almost all the kale left and bought it. When I got home, I made a nice kale salad but I remembered it was always hard for me to eat it without anything. So I came up with a nice dressing for it. The next day I had the same issue, so I whipped up another dressing!
I came up with actually 5 kale salad dressings that I thought I MUST shared with the world. Spicy Sun Dried Tomato Tahini, Avocado Tahini, Ginger Miso, Sunflower Dill, and Almond Butter Coconut. They all have pretty much the same ingredients and are made the same way.
Spicy Sun Dried Tomato Tahini
5-6 sun dried tomatoes (soak for 10 to 15 minutes)
1 TBS Raw Organic Tahini (you can also switch for raw almond butter instead)
1 Red Chillie Pepper or any spicy pepper to taste
1/2 Tsp organic or natural Mexican seasoning
Salt, garlic, and olive Oil to taste
Mix in personal blender until smooth adding water if needed. Pour over kale salad and add chopped cilantro.
Avocado Tahini
1/2 ripe organic avocado
1 Tbs of Raw Organic Tahani
the juice of 1/2 grapefruit
1 Handful of cilantro
Olive Oil and salt to taste
Put all ingredients in blender and mix until smooth. Pour over Kale salad and sprinkle some black and white sesame seeds.
Ginger Miso
1 inch (cube) fresh ginger peeled
1 Tbs unpasteurized miso (I prefer brown or red)
1/2 carrot
1 Tbs raw tahini or raw almond butter
1 Date
Salt and Olive Oil to taste
(you can also add chillie peppers to make it spicy)
Put in blender and mix until smooth. If needed, add water to blend. Pour over kale and mix well.
Sunflower Dill
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup dill loosely fit or to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
the juice of 1/2 grapefruit (or lemon)
1/2 Tbs raw organic tahini
Salt and organic cumin seed powder to taste
Mix in blender until smooth. Add more grapefruit juice if needed. Pour over kale salad and massage. Sprinkle sunflower seeds and any other seasonings.
Almond Butter Coconut
1/4 cup raw almond butter
2 teaspoon namashoyu
1 Date
1 Tbs fresh lemon or lime juice
1/4 cup raw coconut milk
1/2 chillie pepper or spicy pepper of choice
Garlic, Salt, Olive Oil, and Curry powder to taste
Mix in blender or personal blender. Add water for desired consistency and pour over kale salad. Mix red cabbage with kale for a “Pad Thai” feel. I use this recipe for my kelp noodles to make raw Pad Thai.
I’ve summarized the questions I get all the time from family, friends, strangers on the beach, at work, in a plane, etc.
What do you eat normally on a daily basis?
For breakfast I eat one of these: fruit smoothie, green smoothie, fruit, oatmeal, ALT (Avocado, Lettuce, Tomato) salad, or a green juice.
For lunch it depends, weekdays a salad because is the easiest to take to work than some fancy raw gourmet dish. Weekends I get fancy or go out to lunch at one of my favorite raw food restaurants.
Dinner is always different. Most times it will be a new recipe or one or favorite meals like hummus, nori rolls, kelp noodles, cucumber noodles, tabouli, and all meals always accompanied by avocado and a bed of romaine lettuce.
Raw Indian Food
Do you miss cooked food?
Not eating the cooked food so much but cooking it. I have been cooking food since I was 11 years old and that way my only creative outlet. The first 6 months I missed eating cooked lentils the way I made them and some vegan spicy Indian foods.
Do you get tempted to eat cooked foods?
No, I may enjoy the smell of cook food I see other people eat or at the beach while I ride my bicycle and the smell all the fried food, but when I imagine putting something cooked in my mouth and eating, I know it’s not for me.
What is the biggest challenge of being raw vegan?
For every person is different. For me the biggest bump on the road was not being able to prepare food and be creative. With cooked food, I was able to go to a restaurant and copy the recipe at home and make it ten times better. With raw food it was hard at the beginning, it was like learning a new language. I had to start from my ABCs and then make sentences until I was able to speak, write, and read fluently! So for me the biggest struggle was in preparing the food, not eating it because I was so attached to working in the kitchen and making from delicious exotic gourmet dishes to your regular fast food favorites.
What do you drink?
Thank God, Orange Juice, & Grapefruit Juice
Well this is tough one because most people struggle with things I gave up years ago. I stopped drinking sodas when I was 11 cause my basketball coach said he would throw us out of the team if he saw us drinking sodas! When I turned 18, I was drinking a lot of coffee and water all day long, about 8 cups of coffee and 1 bottle of water per coffee cup. And I did it for years until I turned 21. At 21, I started drinking teas cause of the Russian and so I replaced my coffee habit for tea. So I stopped caffeine 9 years ago, and when we started on Dr. Young’s diet, we began drinking a green powder in our water. So now I drink my “greens” from Alkavision or Dr. Broc’s from Dr. Young, fresh non-heated non processed juices made at home or from Josh’s Organic Garden Juice Bar or Glaser. So drinks were not an issue for me when I transition to raw because I had started it years ago.
What do you use to replace sugar or artificial sweeteners?
This is also a hard question to answer for me because I haven’t had regular bleached sugar since I was 12, unless it was sugar included in processed foods that I consumed. And once I switched to Dr. Young’s diet, I had no sugar at all, not even from fruits and if I wanted to sweetened my tea I would use stevia. I only starting eating fruits again when I became raw, but they bother me, so I avoid most fruits. We also used agave for the first year we were raw, but now agave make us sick too. So what’s left that works for us? Stevia or lucuma powder. Some raw foodists will use honey, but I’m a vegan and I believe honey farms are a form of slavery and therefore I don’t support them.
What about Kombucha?
I love Kombucha! Yeah it’s fermented and it’s not good for me. So I’ve had it for “recreational” purposes, but now I avoid it.
What supplements do you take?
I don’t take any, I started fading them away about 3 years now. But there are other people who may need them, so again, I would recommend to consult a doctor about that. I know a lot of raw foodists that are against supplements or doctors, but one’s gotta do what is good for the body. I let my body guide me and if it needs something, I’ll go directly to the source. For example, if I need iron, I’ll eat foods that have iron and so forth. Lately, I’ve been eating raw tahini by the gallon (JK) so I can guess that I probably need the calcium.
If you have any questions, please send us an email.
“What is a raw vegan?” I get asked sometimes or why I choose to eat a raw vegan diet. So in this post I’m going to describe in my own terms what I consider my diet is. First, I choose to do vegan diet first and foremost, before organic or before raw, I’m a VEGAN. That means no animal byproducts such as honey, eggs, cheese, etc. Raw means that I choose to eat all vegan foods uncooked or unheated.
Some people wonder what is left to eat if I don’t eat animals. Well, any vegetables, grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouts and to eat them raw means no steaming, stir frying, boiling, roasting, or heating above 105 degrees. While most people get to a supermarket and head for the frozen section, I head over to the produce and the bulk grains and nuts.
I was a vegan for about a year before I transition to 100% raw, but before I even knew what raw was, I was already eating about 70% raw for years. I started the raw vegan lifestyle inspired by a documentary by Kris Carr, Crazy Sexy Cancer, and haven’t turn to look back since then!
There are many types of raw diets, and what works best for me is a raw alkalarien diet. I use Dr. Robert Young’s pH scale and principles to do a raw alkalarian diet. He basically states that to stay balance and not create an acidic environment in one’s body, one must balance the pH in the body by consuming more alkaline foods and practicing more alkalarian ways of living. Denis and I learned about Dr. Young’s pH diet 7 years ago and before transitioning to raw, we had already been following the pH diet which made it very easy to transition to raw.
As I mentioned, I chose to eat a raw vegan diet for health reasons. However, I now see that this lifestyle fits my beliefs. For example, being raw helps the environment which as you all know I’ve been passionate for many years. I can write a whole new post about the different ways being raw contributes to the environment. It  has also helped me improve my spiritual practice and sculpting my body.
A raw vegan diet is not for everyone and it’s not the solution to one’s issues. As always, when making any changes in my lifestyle, I made sure I monitor my health by visiting my doctors and ensure that the changes I made were beneficial to my body and mind.
In part two of this blog, I will answer the most common questions I get asked about my raw vegan lifestyle. But the most important point I would like to get across in this blog is that everyone is different and while this lifestyle works for me, it may not work for other people at this point in their lives. That’s why is critical to do research and consult a doctor before making any changes.
At my first Raw Spirit Festival in ’08, Sedona AZ, I came across Kelp Noodles. My friend John Schott from LifeFood Gourmet had a table at the festival and made an awesome tomato Italian sauce for these noodles. I got the last bowl he was selling and boy I’ve been hooked since then!
So when we got back to FL, Denis went online and looked them up… he ordered them and I’ve been making different sauces for them. My favorite is Coconut Curry sauce I created by accident trying to copy a red Thai chili sauce.
What I enjoy most about this sauce and the noodles is that is easy to prepare and makes a great “fancy” meal when I’m tired and don’t want to send a lot of time in the kitchen.
**To make it spicy (picante) add more chili peppers
First make the curry paste by putting the garlic, cumin, curry, coriander, turmeric, ginger, cilantro, chilies, salt, lemon, olive oil in the food processor and mixing until it becomes a paste. Add the nut milk and coconut oil and continue to mix.
Rinse the noodles well and put aside in a bowl to mix. Add sauce, red pepper strips, and optional vegetables (peas, carrots, celery). Mix well and let it sit for a few minutes.
Denis and I moved from a small 3-bedroom house to a tiny beach apartment a few months back and during that stressful packing time, I made this recipe everyday.
I was making sure to empty my refrigerator so that I could clean it before returning the house, so we had very little fresh food left. I came up with this salad with different types of Seaweed to sort of keep the “ocean-sea†theme since we were moving to the beach. So I named it “Moving to the Beach Saladâ€!
Here is what you need:
Romaine lettuce
1 Tomato
Yellow/green beans
1 pack of Pacific Sea Vegetable Mix (wakame, funori, kiriboshi wakame, shiro kikurage, ito kanten, kizami hoshi kombu)*
*I’m able to buy a pack from Glaser market that is ready to prepare, but any seaweed salad mix will do.
Soak the seaweed salad for 10 minutes and drain water and add more water to soak for another 10 minutes. Or if you buy a particular brand of seaweed mix, simply follow the directions in the package. Some mixes require more or less time soaked in water.
In a separate bowl, mix the sesame oil, olive oil, namashoyu, pepper flakes, and apple cider vinegar if you are using it. We don’t use vinegar, but most seaweed salad dressings have vinegar and agave, but I believe apple cider vinegar replaces both. Depending on how big the package of seaweed is, you may have to increase the amounts of the oils and ingredients for the dressing.
After draining the seaweed water the second time, rinse the seaweed in a strainer or colander with more water. Shake the excess water off and add the salad to the bowl with the dressing. Mix well and let sit for about 5 minutes.
In the meantime, shred the lettuce or cut thinly to use a bed for the seaweed. Cut the beans as thin as you like and add to the lettuce. Cut tomatoes to complement the meal and finally add the seaweed on top of the lettuce and beans. I also serve this with avocado slices.
We eat seaweed at least once a week; it’s a good source of minerals and vitamins. We are fortunate that we can buy the seaweed mix at our local farm, but there are websites that sells amazing seaweed salads for a reasonable price. I recommend the Sea Tangle Noodle Company which also offers kelp noodles.
When someone doesn’t feel like making food or cooking, they order take out or go out to eat. And if budgets are tight, most of us have a recipe we make for those days when we just don’t feel creative about making food or are tired.
My dad’s recipe for those occasions was scramble eggs with rice, tomatoes, and onions. He would fry the chopped onions, tomatoes, and left over rice and throw a few whipped eggs and make a meal out of that. For many years before we became raw vegans, I would use my father’s recipe for when I felt tired and didn’t want order take out food.
I now have a raw vegan version of this recipe that is very quick to prepare and tastes amazing.
Put the almonds in the food processor with the flax seed powder, turmeric, cumin, and salt. Process to a powder and set aside in a bowl.
Almond Powder and Tomatoes in Food Processor
Using the same food processor (no need to wash it), put cut tomatoes, onions, oil, cilantro, and salt to taste. Pulse to make a semi-chunky salsa and avoid making it too liquidy. If you are using the jalapeno pepper, add them to the salsa to make it as spicy as you can handle. Add the salsa to the powdered almonds and mix without making to mushy.
Mixing Powder and Salsa
Serve over shredded lettuce, I use the lettuce to replace the rice in my father’s recipe. Slice the avocado and serve on the side. This serves two people, a tiny woman and a big Russian!
I recently added something else to this recipe; I’ve been using pumpkin seed oil and pour it over avocado. It’s delicious!
