In the Dehydrator

Hello everyone.

As many of you know I have ended my juice feast. My first solids? Prunes.

No worries, I am not going to provide you with a recipe for prunes. Although, I was tempted to make some sort of pudding this morning with my dried plums but alas, I ate them straight.

I also put something in the dehydrator. Want to know what it is? Okay, you don't have to pull my leg, I'm easy. I'll spill the beans.

"Breaded" Zucchini Sticks. You know what? For the first time in 3 months, I tasted my creation. How rawsome is that! And you know what? It tasted very good.

They are in the dehydrator now, so they aren't "officially" done and ready for approval (or to share a recipe)

I will let you know the "breading" was pumpkin seeds, nutritional yeast, Italian seasoning and sea salt.

There was also a marinade of Nama Shoyu, olive oil and sea salt.

I'm soaking sun-dried tomatoes now to create a nice balsamic vinegar ketchup.

Now that my feast is behind me, I have some surprises in store. Stay tuned.

For the Love of Thai

I am a huge Thai food fan. I thought it would be fun to create a salad, for the Denver Living and Raw Food Cafe rawluck, using the fillings for a Thai summer roll. The dressing uses the ingredients from a summer roll dipping sauce.

Thai food is known for its use of fresh herbs and taste balancing spicy, sweet, sour, salty and bitter. I love playing with the flavors.

It also got me thinking. What is the difference between spring and summer rolls? It's all in the translation. Gỏi Cuốn is a Vietnamese word where some believe it is translated as spring or summer roll. It's up to you. However, the literally translation is "Mixed Salad Roll"

I have a running lists of recipes to try when I finish juice feasting and this is definitely one of them.

Thai Summer Salad
Serves 8
1 zucchini, peeled
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cucumbers, julienned
2 carrots, julienned

2 Thai peppers, finely diced
1 small bunch Thai basil leaves
1 small bunch mint leaves
1 small bunch cilantro, leaves only
1 small bunch scallions, sliced on the diagonal
1 small head of Napa cabbage, shredded

Hot and Sweet Dressing
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon sea salt
1½ teaspoons dried red pepper flakes
¼ cup rice wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
¼ cup agave nectar
½ cup olive oil
1 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 Use a spiralizer to make thin zucchini pasta. Sprinkle with sea salt and place the pasta on a paper towel. Set on the counter overnight. Or you can place in the dehydrator at 115 degrees for a few hours or so.

2 Toss the cucumbers, carrots, peppers, basil, mint, cilantro, scallions and cabbage into a large bowl until mixed well. Add the zucchini pasta and gently combine.

3 To make dressing, combine ingredients in a jar. Give a quick shake before pouring the dressing onto the Thai salad just before serving.
Don't want to deal with zucchini pasta? No worries, try kelp noodles instead.

Thank you!

Shannonmarie of Rawdorable has passed along this Creative Blogger award to me. Thank you very much, it is quite an honor. As many of you know I have 5 kids and any sort of time I can crave out to be creative is cherished. So it's great that I can share the fruits of my creative labor with so many of you and to be recognised for that is pretty cool. Also thanks to Heidi and Justin for the Juice Feasting award. I just found out about that one today. Much love to you both. - Terilynn

Inspiration:Life

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your 2008 is going as great as mine. I'm in heaven and I am so excited to finally share with you what I have been up to.

I started another juice feast on Dec. 1 and I'm blogging my experience at Inspiration:Life.

Some of you might know that's how The Daily Raw Cafe started. It was a blog documenting my first juice feast back in May that lasted 28 glorious days.

From there The Daily Raw Cafe took a life of its own with recipes and it was an outlet for my creativity to shine.

I'm so blessed to have it and to have all of you guys be part of it. So thank very much.

And as an added bonus I met some really special people along the way.

My husband has committed to going raw again in 2008 so if you can send him a silent prayer to get him going that would be appreciated.

I have some really good recipes lined up for TDRC and my husband will be preparing many recipes for TDRC in the next few weeks so we have that to look forward to. Believe it or not he is the true talent in the kitchen. I'm lucky his talent just rubbed off on me. And the fact that I love raw food helps, too. ;)

I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year!

Peace and Love,

Terilynn

Garlicy Green juice

makes 1-1.5 quarts

1 pound of your favorite greens

1 cucumber, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

1 garlic clove

1 tablespoon hemp oil

1-2 cups water

1 Place cucumber, greens, garlic clove and carrots in a blender* with the water. Blend until ingredients break down into a thick mixture.

2 Strain the mixture in a nut bag or painter straining bag into a large bowl. Squeeze the bag to get all the juices out of the pulp.

3 Pour juice into a glass and add hemp oil.

Don't forget to compote you pulp or mix with flax seeds to make crackers.

*You can use a juicer instead of a blender. I use a blender because the clean-up is faster for the amount of juices I make. Also, please note if you use greens that are heavier in weight (kale, collards, etc.) a high-speed blender will work better at breaking down the greens.