This is one of those recipes where you just raid your fridge and make something. And, in this case, it turned out pretty well. Now, if you don’t have papaya, you can sub mango, but keep in mind that it’ll completely change the character of the sauce, both in texture and flavor.

Serves one

3-4 ears of corn, kernels separated

A handful of broccoli florets

1/2 of a cucumber, diced 

A couple mushrooms, diced (optional)

4-5 medium tomatoes

1/2 of a papaya

Arugula to taste

Combine the first four ingredients in a bowl. Blend the tomatoes and papaya, adding in the arugula slowly. Check every so often to see if it’s too arugula-y for you. When it’s perfect, put that into the bowl and mix well.

Pretty simple, no?

So, I know it’s been a long time since my last post. Almost a month, in fact. Not that it’s any excuse, but things have been…well, a little crazy lately. Last week I relocated, as I do every three months, from the jungles of Hawaii to the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Now that I’m somewhat settled (and the internet’s reliable), I should be able to post more regularly.

So, without further ado, here’s a little something my dad cooked (or uncooked, heh heh) up using the ingredients we had on hand. And wowza, is it good! Pretty high in fat, though, so don’t go eating ten bowlfuls a day. But you can lower the fat by using jelly coconut meat as opposed to hard, thick meat - or even leave that part out, if you feel like it. It’ll be more watery, but hey, you can have a lot more of it. I don’t know, you can figure it out. There are options.

I put in cucumber because it was what I had at the time (the picture below was taken of a slightly different version of this soup, and doesn’t include the broccoli…definitely use the broccoli). You can put it in, but you don’t have to. It changes the overall feeling of the dish, and you can decide for yourself whether you like that or not.

Serves two for lunch or an appetizer

6 cups of coconut milk*

1 broccoli head

2 large handfuls of cilantro

9-12” of lemongrass

1 key lime OR 1/2 a lemon

1 jelly coconut OR kelp noodles

1 cucumber (optional)

*Coconut milk is made by blending hard coconut meat with coconut water - or regular water, if you don’t have it - and straining out the pulp. You can play with the quantities until you get the consistency the way you want it, but do keep in mind that the more coconut you add, the fattier it gets.

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Cut the stem of the broccoli head into chunks. Put the coconut milk, broccoli stem, and lemongrass into the blender and blend well. Strain that. Put the strained broth back into the blender and add 3/4 of the total cilantro and the lime or lemon juice and blend again. Pour into a pretty bowl. Cut the broccoli top into bite-sized florets, dice the cucumber (if using) and fashion the jelly coconut into noodle-like strips. If you don’t have a jelly coconut, you can use kelp noodles instead. Mix into the broth, and top with the remaining cilantro. Try not to scarf it down in two seconds.

Black sapotes are a close relative of the persimmon. They’re picked hard and are ripe and ready, like persimmons, when they’re very soft. Only use them when they’re super soft! They grow where persimmons do, so you can probably find them fresh in Florida or California, or you can buy them online here when they’re in season.

I would have let you guys see it, except it was gone about two minutes after I pulled it out of the freezer. It. Was. So. Freaking. Good. And the only fat was a little bit of coconut in the crust! So it’s a guilt-free dessert that definitely doesn’t taste guilt-free. What are you waiting for?!

Serves…well, one person, but in reality, however many people you end up sharing with

2 black (chocolate) sapotes

1.5-1.75 pounds of bananas

Young coconut water, as needed

The equivalent of about 1/2 a vanilla bean

.5-.75 pounds of dates

1/2 of a hard coconut (or about 3/4 cup of shredded coconut)

(Note: Find the dish you want to use. Plan all your amounts accordingly.)

Blend the dates and coconut on a low speed until a doughy consistency. Press into a dish and put in the freezer.

Scoop the black sapotes into the blender first, and start to blend on a low-medium setting. Add in the bananas as you blend, making sure not to change the color. Add in coconut water if needed to blend, but you want the mixture to be pretty thick. When you’ve got the right amount and texture, add in the vanilla and blend thoroughly.

When the crust is frozen, pour in the filling and put back in the freezer. It took overnight to completely freeze ours.

Serve frozen and eat quickly! (It melts into goop if you let it sit too long, but that’s alright too - all tastes the same!)

Yes.

Did I have rambutans for breakfast? Yes.

Is a vanilla-chocolate pie in my future? Yes.

Is it my “sweet sixteen”? Yes.

Did I have a small, amateur chorus of middle-aged men sing happy birthday to me this morning? Yep.

Am I getting my license? Nope.

Is anything special happening? Does the zoo count?

Am I spending a part of my birthday on the computer, typing this up? Sadly, yes.

So I should probably get off the ‘puter for once and go enjoy this sunny, warm, gorgeous Hawaii day? I think so.

Have a great day, everyone!

veganinsuburbia:

Seriously, if you haven’t tried doing this before - do it. I get more excited about eating this than I have done any other dessert. Well, other than apple crumble :D

You can mix in berries or mango, or make a date sauce, or put it in a pie…the possibilities are endless!

The other day I wanted mushrooms.

To normal people, this might not sound like a strange occurrence. But my personal mushroom experiences have been…less than perfect. Recently I had some freshly dried mushrooms - courtesy of one of the other families in the community - that were beyond fantastic, and the dried shiitakes in my Thom-Yum inspired soup hit the right spot. Other than that, though, my basic experience has been in front of a toilet bowl at two in the morning. So I was surprised.

Anyway, we finally got mushrooms yesterday, and I was so excited to try them today. I expected alarm bells to go off, to have the Hallelujah chorus blaring in the background…and yet it wasn’t so. I found that, in practice, my ongoing relationship with fresh mushrooms hadn’t changed. It was anticlimactic, to say the least. I ate them, but without much joy.

So is there a point to this story? I suppose so, if only to tell you that cravings shouldn’t always be trusted. If you abstain and find a different way to meet your needs, you just might end up happier.

On a related note, I made a delicious soup. I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, yeah, what else is new, Sydney?” Seriously, though. It was amazing. It’s been rainy here in Hawaii all day and I wanted something warming and exotic. Normally, in this situation, I would do a coconut-based soup or sauce, but I’ve been off overt fats for a week or two. So I had to figure out a no-fat way to satisfy that. Suffice it to say that it worked out. Well.

Serves one, as a side or a light lunch

4-5 small-medium tomatoes

Half of a small papaya (or a quarter of a typical Maridol)

A little bit of coconut water (or regular water, if you don’t have any)

1t curry powder

1-2t coriander seeds, ground or whole

Chinese cabbage

A few of your favorite mushrooms, dried or fresh

Cilantro

Garlic chives

Blend the tomatoes, papaya, curry, and coriander, but leave half of one of the tomatoes to add into the base. Check the consistency; if it needs to be thinned out, add coconut water in small increments. Cut the tomato, Chinese cabbage (straight across; then you get the aeshetically pleasing long, thin strips) and mushrooms (if using fresh ones), and mix into the base. Add the cilantro and garlic chives on top for garnish.

When you’re eating fruits and vegetables exclusively, you can run into issues. Most pressing: getting enough to eat. If you’re a newbie to this way of eating, or have simply fallen into the pattern of eating smaller quantities, not only are you not going to be satisfied, but you’re not going to be getting the nutrients you need in sufficient quantities.

I don’t care how small your stomach is, ya need more, dude.

First off, you need to have enough food available. Buy bananas by the case (or truckload, if you have a large family). I’m being totally serious. Plan for eating about 2500-3000 calories a day, or more if you’re exercising. There are calorie trackers online that can help you to figure out what that translates to. (In my experience, two 8-cup strawberry-banana smoothies, 3-4 pounds of oranges, a large salad, and a date/raisin snack gets the job done.)

Now that your pantry’s well-stocked (read: overflowing) let’s get your stomach to its rightful capacity. If, at the moment, you can only drink a quart of banana smoothie, or one head of lettuce in your salad, that’s cool. But each smoothie, add an extra banana, and in each salad, add a few leaves of lettuce. While you don’t want to feel nauseous, you should be feeling very, very full. This is good. Eventually, you’ll be able to build up to eating the right amount of fruit.

We’ll split it?

When you’re eating this way, you don’t need to cut calories. In fact, you shouldn’t. This isn’t a diet for losing weight in a month or two, this is a lifestyle for long-term health and vitality. Treat it as such, and your body will thank you in years to come.

This recipe was borne out of part of an apple pie recipe I made recently. It is so good and so like conventional applesauce it’s crazy. And it’s just two (or three) ingredients!

Makes a sizable portion for one

4 apples, chopped into large-ish pieces

10-15 dates

Cinnamon to taste (optional)

Blend until applesauce-y consistency. Seriously, it’s that easy.

For those of you who are unaware, tahini is a sesame seed paste most commonly used in its roasted form to make hummus. In its raw form, it’s milder, and is used for everything from salad dressings to raw mayonnaise and back. It’s generally praised for its high nutritional content and, well, deliciousness. But what’s really going on here?

First, the good stuff. Tahini has high amounts of multiple B vitamins (1, 2, 3, 5, and 15). These are important because they promote healthy cells, speed metabolism, help out your immune system, and generally do a lot of good things (including preventing pancreatic cancer, according to a scientific study). It also has 35% of your RDA for calcium. I don’t need to tell you why calcium is important - especially for us girls. It also makes an addictive salad dressing.

Which brings me to the however part. It has a similar macronutrient profile to an almond (17-12-71, carb-protein-fat), and contains 7.2 grams of fat to every tablespoon. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but consider this: avocado has 2.3. Looking a bit high now, isn’t it? So it needs to be eaten in moderation on a low-fat diet. But that’s not the worst part: it swells in your body. I have experience with this. In three months, doing nothing differently diet-wise but adding about two tablespoons of tahini to my salad every day, I gained seven pounds. Keeping in mind that I hadn’t gained a single pound since I began eating raw foods last January - and had lost over twenty pounds - it’s a real bummer to have gained nearly half of that back. And over such a simple thing. Now, granted, I’d stopped running regularly, but for a three-month stretch, my exercising was sporadic at best, and my weight didn’t fluctuate in any way.

Not looking so innocent now, are you?

I’ve been off tahini for about two weeks now. We’ll see how it goes. But let this be a warning to you all: moderation, moderation, moderation. If you’re going to eat tahini, let it be sparingly and in small amounts. The LFRV diet calls for you to eat fruit - do so, and you’ll be much happier.

I made this soup last night. It was pretty delicious! I added in a couple sun-dried tomatoes and didn’t use as much OJ, but it was still something worth making again. I highly recommend checking out her Youtube channel; she has a lot of good LFRV meal ideas. (I really want to try the first savory summer recipe, but I’ve recently gone off tahini. :( )

The recipe:

Makes enough for two semi-hungry people

2 1/2 cups of tomato

1 1/2 cups of thawed (or fresh) berries

1 cup of orange juice

squeeze of lemon juice

two leaves of basil

two leaves of sage

For us low-fat raw vegans, bananas are a staple food, much like pasta or bread in a standard diet. I personally eat, on average, two 7-8 cup smoothies a day when I’m in Pittsburgh, or three-four hands when I’m in Hawaii. One of my cats is named Musa. So what’s the dealio? Why is a tropical fruit the most popular food in America?

What’s so special about you?

Well, to get a fuller story, I highly recommend you read this book. But I’ll let you in on a few facts about the banana:

• Not that you’d know it by looking at it, but the banana is actually a berry. Yes, it’s grouped with other oddities like avocados and watermelons in addition to cranberries and grapes. The botanical definition of a berry is “a simple fruit having seeds and pulp produced from a single ovary”. This being the case, pumpkins are considered berries while strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and the like are not. Weird?
• The banana plant is a type of grass, not a tree. It shoots off offspring via its roots. In fact, the fruit is entirely unnecessary for reproduction.
• Some people say that it was a banana that Adam and Eve supposedly consumed in Eden, not an apple. The banana’s leaves make much better clothes, if you think about it.
• For a while there was a rumor that bananas had a lot of fat. This is utterly ridiculous. Four percent of a banana’s calories come from fat. Compared to, say, an egg (64%) or “extra lean” beef (60%) it doesn’t seem so bad, does it?
• Most likely the banana you’re familiar with is the Cavendish. Let me tell you now: you’re getting the short end of the stick. I haven’t had the opportunity to try many varieties (if you’re up to it, there’s a seemingly infinite amount) but I have had apple bananas, ice cream bananas, quad bananas, ladyfingers, and Williams, just to name a few. Apple bananas are my favorite, and if you’re ever in Hawaii, I highly recommend you get some.
• In parts of Africa, people rely on bananas to stay alive the way people in China used to rely on rice, or Europeans relied on wheat.
• When monkeys eat too many unripe bananas, their eyes and tongue turn green. Eat ripe food!
• Mosquitoes are more apt to bite you if you’ve recently eaten bananas. Maybe this explains my legs the first time I went to Hawaii. (It’s since cleared up a lot, but that’s not to say they don’t still love me.)

Nom nom nom.

So, what about you? Are you bananas for bananas?

Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts are not typically what you would call raw-friendly. Or even healthy. So you have to find your own way to do things.

This was my Thanksgiving turkey. His name was Steve. He was made out of a honeydew, bosc pear, two raisins, a triangle of orange pepper, a waddle-shaped piece of red pepper, grapes, clementines, and bamboo skewers. He was delicious.

This was my edible Christmas tree. Yes, I realize it looks like: a) a sea monster, b) a round hairbrush, or c) a car wash. I imagined it being more…regal. But it just turned out kookily. Those are green beans, cranberries, and a cucumber.

Edible sculptures are a very easy way to have a holiday meal. They’re fun, decorative, and usually a big hit.

Or you can go with something a little fancier. I don’t have pictures, but I made a super-delicious lasagna with thick zucchini noodles, a cashew ricotta, and a tomato-sun dried tomato-mango-date sauce. It was literally my favorite thing I ever made. If (when) I make it again, I’ll make sure to post a recipe. I made it on Christmas Eve and let it sit in the fridge overnight. I had leftover cheese and sauce after making it, so for Christmas Eve dinner I made bite-sized raviolis with circular zucchini slices (I just cut the end off and used a potato peeler). Those were a huge hit; very gourmet-looking, yet so simple to make!

Though I am a low-fat raw vegan, I’ll occasionally make something with cashews or almonds. Though it’s delicious, I don’t recommend doing it very often. At least when I eat nuts, they aren’t filling and I always end up eating too many of them. But hey, if you aren’t going to indulge a little bit during the holidays, when can you?

What did you guys have for Christmas/Thanksgiving dinner?

Makes a light lunch for one

2 small-medium tomatoes

1/2 mango

small handful of raisins (optional)

1 zucchini

Blend the first three ingredients. Make the zucchini into noodles, using a spiralizer or potato peeler. A peeler will make fettuccine-like noodles, whereas a spiralizer will make spaghetti.

The raisins are optional. They make the sauce thicker and sweeter, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on what you’re going for. It’s good either way.

While this may not be an exact replication of the Spanish favorite, it’s still delicious!

Serves 1 semi-hungry person

3 ears worth of corn kernels

1 medium carrot

1/4 bell pepper

1/4 small eggplant

4-5 small-medium tomatoes

handful of raisins (probably about a 1/4 cup)

cumin, to taste (optional)

Dice the carrot, pepper, and eggplant. Mix with corn kernels. Blend the tomatoes, raisins, and cumin. Pour sauce over dry ingredients and mix.

This has been a big hit at potlucks and gatherings; the key is to get fresh corn and use the exact right amount of cumin. You don’t want to overpower the flavors - you want to just be able to taste it. I don’t have a formula, and usually just go by what looks like enough.

You don’t have to use the eggplant, but it’s nice to have. It gives a tofu-like texture to the dish.

If you have them, a better sauce uses equals parts tomato and papaya. The papaya doesn’t give it that very sweet taste, and thickens it very nicely.

Tell me how yours turn out!

Now that winter’s rolling around for most of us, we can indulge in the lovely, lovely pomegranate. They’re not the cheapest fruit in the world, but they are one of the most nutritious.

Um, so worth $2 a pop.

They have more calories than you would think - 68 per 100 grams. For reference, a banana has 92, a lemon has 29, and an apple has 59. Of those 68 calories, 91% are from carbohydrates, 5% are from protein, and 4% are from fat.

They’re a bit messy, and not the easiest to open, but I’d say they were worth it. (To learn about some great ways to deseed them virtually pain- and mess-free, click here.) Think about all the Vitamin C you get, not to mention the fiber.

People have been enjoying pomegranates, well, since there were people. Basically, they’ve been around forever. Greeks have known about them since before the founding of Ancient Rome, and thought they were so good that they included them in some of their myths. Moses’s scouts are reported to have brought them as proof of the fertility of the promised land. According to the Ancient Persians’ mythology, eating a pomegranate will make you invincible.

Not too shabby for a humble berry from the Western Himalayas.

It’s a bummer, but the environment on the eastern shore of Hawaii is too wet to grow it; it much prefers dry areas. But for the decay their roots get with too much rain, they are a pretty hardy tropical fruit, withstanding temperatures down to 14 degrees.

I’ve yet to try the pink variety, but apparently it has a sweeter flavor, reminiscent of fruit punch. They are also rumored to be non-staining…sign me up!

Heck yes.

In conclusion, if you haven’t yet imbibed in the deliciousness that pomegranates most certainly are, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you have, and do know what you’re missing, now you have a few more reasons to get your butt down to the store and get a few.

Happy de-seeding!