Raw

I got a few new cookbooks over the holidays, one of them being "Ani's raw food kitchen". I tried a few things for dinner the other night with mixed success. I found the two dinner dishes to be too salty and the soup too garlicky. The pie tasted good, but was just very different in texture than a regular pie. The dishes were all incredibly healthy, relying on fresh, vitamin and mineral packed vegetables and supplied more that enough omega-3 and 6 essential fatty acids in the form of nuts and flax.

The following day for breakfast I made the coconut breakfast cakes, vanilla syrup and coconut butter. The first few bites were delicious, but there was a strange, lingering aftertaste I wasn't too fond of and the texture was a bit overwhelming.

I'm interested in incorporating more raw food into my diet and am keen to learn more ways to do it than just plain old salad. I got my cookbook, thought about incorporating raw food into my New Year's cleanse and then Steve Pavlina's 30-day raw food trial came up in my feed reader - I always find it interesting when the universe brings seemingly separate but nonetheless connected events and ideas together. I think this whole raw food thing very interesting and know a couple other people who have switched to it and swear by it. I'm not convinced that people are "meant to eat" only raw food, but I can see that the health benefits could be significant, if only because this type of diet completely excludes the processed prepackaged foods that contribute to most health problems and emphasizes the fresh, organic, antioxidant, vitamin and mineral rich fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds.

The food was easy and quick to prepare. No cooking means dinner is on the table a fair bit faster. My little Cuisinart mini prep food processor didn't quite have the guts I needed to chop and puree without separating things into several batches (add Kitchenaid 12 cup food processor to wishlist...) and I found the nut based recipes quite expensive, but I'm still looking forward to experimenting with the ideas and combinations in this cookbook and with raw food in general.