Friday, April 25, 2008

The Raw Truth

Anyone looking around this blog would think either that I have become incredibly lazy or that I have stopped cooking and eating. The first is probably true: I have been slacking off something fierce! And the first half of the second possibility is, well, half true: I have been cooking about half, or even less, as much as usual. BUT that does not mean I haven't been eating. I've just been eating different things, salads and other raw things. Call it a culinary experiment, call it a whim, call it trial at dietary change, call it a swoop into madness or a sudden breath of sanity!

Anyway, armed with a couple of books, advice from some cyberpals who like to eat raw or mostly raw (and encourage it for the health benefits too), and a refrigerator full of vegetables and fruit, I've been using the stove top because of its cool flat surface lately more than for the heat elements hidden somewhere there under that black glass (how do they DO that?!). I've yet to find a secondary use for the oven that would also allow me easily and quickly to change my mind and turn a salad into a casserole. You see? Here I am, covering all bets (or my derriere, depending upon your preference).

I have to confess, however, that I haven't really experimented much. I don't have a dehydrator for a start, I make do with NOT the horrendously expensive kitchen gadget that would put my blender to shame, and I have no juicer. My nod towards a food processor is a gadget that holds at most a couple of cups of veg or whatever and comes as an attachment to a wand blender I find useful. My attempts at sprouting were dismal, although I remember doing it way back when and finding it no problem. (Note to Self: Keep Trying!)

Soooooooo what I've been doing happily is varying salads and salad dressings, still trying to keep away from added oils (maybe a tsp of sesame oil for flavour here or there, but it is rare). My condiments are not as yet entirely raw, and probably never will be, but I'm not letting that bother me :)

I photographed several of these salads, and in the spirit of waste-not-want-not I tried to stick them in here along with a rough description of what went in each. Sad to say, Blogger will not let me upload anything right now :( So I shall have to wait until a more auspicious day. Miserable luck, dammit!!!! (Now how often - lately, that is - have I sat down with a clear morning free to spend on the blog! Not ----ing often, I tell you.)

Meanwhile, we had a lovely raw beet salad for lunch which will have to wait for another day. Your loss!!!! Heh heh heh!

Cheers, all!!!!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

"I've yet to find a secondary use for the oven that would also allow me easily and quickly to change my mind and turn a salad into a casserole."

I too am venturing more into raw, and am enjoying your blog. I don't have the fancy gadgets either. Eating lots of salads, fruit out of hand, and smoothies.

Anyway, I know that in one of the raw food books I had out of the library, the author suggested that a nice dehydrator often fits perfectly into an oven. And you could take it out to bake your casserole!