Lemony Webbles

week 10- review and reflect

This week I've spent my food time practicing the recipes I've already learned to try to integrate them into my family's food rhythm. So far, Billy likes everything. I've been able to get the kids to eat cacao smoothies with green superfood powder on occasion, and Maya likes the summer rolls. So, a long way to go with the kids, but they eat so much raw fruit already, it's just a matter of working on the vegetables. I'm hoping that the garden will help with that. They all like nuts in one form or other, especially Maya. I'm trying to get to the point where I can just do my casual grocery shopping browse and still come home with ingredients that I will use in raw food prep, and really enjoy.

The garden is just starting to produce edibles, so I think we'll get our first salad of the season this week.

It's been really great to expand my repertoire of recipes and start thinking of raw food as more of a main course than a side dish. At the same time, if I'm really going to do it, it has to be really simple. So right now, my goal is to have my breakfast smoothie, and try to get a good serving of greens somewhere in the day. For me, that's a good day's work. Whatever else I have time to make- dehydrated flatbreads, cool dressings, raw desserts, etc. are all extra for when I'm inspired. Hopefully the garden will provide me with lots of inspiration- and main courses!

I also hope we'll be able to get a couple more weeks of this experiment finished before Jenny moves to Bloomington, IN in June. Maybe I'll try a dessert or two at the end. Hmm...

week 9 - summer rolls

With all the gardening going on, I've only wanted to make simple, fresh, easy foods lately so I can get back to playing in the dirt. So I tried making the summer rolls, and life was good.

Just take your favorite leafy green (collards, chard, lettuce, etc.) and roll up some julienned veggies, of the sweet and crunchy variety (cukes, carrots, peppers, etc.), and some super Spicy Almond Dressing and maybe a sprinkle of chopped nuts and you're there. Fresh lunch heaven.

Jenny takes a bite

Here's the recipe for the Spicy Almond Dressing:

2 c almond butter
4 roma tomatoes
1/2 c nama shoyu
1/4 c sesame oil
3 T lime juice
2 t maple syrup
1 t miso
3 inch piece ginger
1 inch piece lemon grass
6 - 8 Thai chiles
1 t sea salt

Mix it all in a blender till it's smooth.

Now, of course, I coldn't just make it like it says to, and I made some adjustments based on what I had on hand and what I can eat, but it turned out great! I also only made half a recipe, which was still a huge amount. So, let's see... I omitted the nama shoyu and miso because of the soy, I used agave instead of maple syrup, and I just added a few dashes of cayenne instead of the Thai chiles.

Georgia's crochet store

Georgia's taught herself to crochet from a book (!!) and now she's ready to offer some of her pieces for sale. So this is a little online lemonade stand experiment for her.

She's got granny squares ($1.50 each)

cute little beanie hats ($5.00 each)

flowers (75 cents each)

and crocheted cord (25 cents per foot)

Here are the colors she's got right now:

burgundy with flecks of other colors, lavender
dark blue with flecks, white, red
light brown, gold, orange
dark brown, yellow

Other colors are available upon request. She's got a variety of yarn materials, some are cotton, some very fine wool, some polyester. She says she's happy to make anything in any color and even with more than one color if you want to have, say, a flower with variegated petals or a hat with several bands of color.

Shipping is $1.50 per order.

Email me if you would like to place an order- bahiyyih@orangecrayon.com

Georgia will be thrilled to crochet for you!

UPDATE: Georgia has moved on to a different venue for her crochet store. She's planning a hat stand (like a lemonade stand) to set up this summer. Don't worry if you already ordered something- it's coming.

week 8 - Babies! (also bread and meat)

big rabbit babies from the rabbit farm

We've got some new babies around here. Jenny just launched her career as a health and wellness counselor and put up a lovely website so people can find her. It's http:/wingsandrootswellness.com/. Check her out! She's so fun to be with and we always have a great time talking passionately about food. If you want someone to help you heal and grow around food issues, she's the one to see. Yeah Jenny! She's making her dream come true!

My baby is a new garden plot that's as huge as I wanna make it in the amazingly spacious back yard of La Casa Grande Collectiva, a co-op house I lived in when I was an undergrad. It's a great space with great people. It's my first real community garden experience, so I'm really excited and grateful to be there. I've turned sod, put up a fence, rototilled, and hauled in rabbit manure, and now I'm busy making the beds and rows and pulling out the sod pieces. It's my gym. Good core work and strength training (says Jenny). It's a dream come true for me and I'm learning a lot from many mistakes and adventures. (Who knew rabbit poop smelled SO horrendous?)

Here's my before picture of the grassy place where my garden is now:

Billy showing me how to use the rototiller (which I was first afraid of, then respected, then understood, then used with grace and subtlety, thank you very much):

When we wen't to collect rabbit manure, I wondered how something so cute:

...could make something so horribly stinky?

At least the rabbit barn was pretty:

Now, on to the food! Jenny made some delicious stuff. This is her portobello sausage:

Billy ate it all. It was a little heavy for me, but not mushroomy-as I feared, not being a fan.

And here's her beautiful za'atar flatbread. Here is it by itself:

And here it is loaded with goodness (hummus, sauteed rainbow chard, and sprouts):

This is definitely my new favorite food. If I had a restaurant, this would be my signature dish (not that I invented it, or anything. A girl can dream!). Tomatoes are a great idea for putting in flatbread. Thank you Matthew Kenney!

Za'atar flatbread (from 'Everyday Raw')

6 whole roma tomatoes, chopped
3/4 t garam masala
2 T za'atar spice mix, divided in half
1 T cumin
1/2 t sea salt
1/2 c flax meal
1/2 sesame seeds
1 c sunflower seeds, soaked 4 -5 hours
1 c flax seeds, soaked 15-20 minutes

Blend tomatoes, spices (half of the za'atar). In a large bowl, mix up seeds, add blended mixture and mix till it's like dough. Spread it thin on Teflex sheets and pre-cut to desired size. Sprinkle with the rest of the za'atar spices. Dehydrate at 118 degrees for 24-36 hours.

OK, now if you make them with this recipe, let me know how they turn out because Jenny made many modifications according to what she had on hand (which is so smart and thrifty) so I don't really know what the above recipe tastes like. She replaced the za'atar spices with a T. of lemon zest, the flax seeds with chia seeds because they have a lighter flavor, and omitted the sesame seeds, increasing the sunflower seeds to 1 and 1/2 cups. Everything she did to change the recipe really worked. She's got some magic.

I'll have to quiz her about the portobello sausage because I'm going to guess that a similar amount of switching around happened there.

week 7- bright foods!

Mango wraps! Brilliant!
Sweet chili-lime sauce! Dip dip!
Grapefruit cleanser (juice)! Pucker!

That's the short version of last week.

The long version starts with me wanting to make what's on the cover of "Everyday Raw", these crazy looking paper-thin mango wraps around julienned vegetables. Again, I wanted to make the thing that looked the most challenging and unusual, but it was also just what I was in the mood for. Light, juicy and colorful.

The wraps turned out to not be hard at all, just unusual. I just pureed mango and young coconut meat and spread it on the dehydrator's teflex sheets, sprinkled cilantro on top and ran it for 4 hours (practically instant!). And it turned out so pretty!

Here you can see the red pepper, carrots and romaine lettuce all ready to be wrapped up. The sweet chili-lime sauce is in the foreground. Weird looking, I know, but it's so hard to know what to substitute for soy sauce. I just used salted water, but there has to be a better way. I'm going to have to try that again. Anyways, the sauce is for dipping the finished wraps, and it was a perfect complement, flavor-wise, even if not in looks. More about that later.

Here we've cut each tray of wraps into four pieces and layered the veggies on top, with more cilantro.

Then Jenny just rolled it up. Our wraps were a little sticky because I am impatient and we were on a tight schedule that day, so the wraps stayed closed just fine. I imagine if they don't stick to themselves, just a couple drops of water would seal them right up.

Now, here's the thing of it. Dipped in the sauce and popped in the mouth, those things were AMAZING! Oh, yeah! No objectionable tastes. Harmony of crunchy veggies, sweet and creamy mango wrap, limey-sesame sauce...it sang. Laaaa!

So, if you have any inclination toward trying any of these crazy recipes I've been spouting about, make it this one. Someone you know has a dehydrator sitting in their basement. Just put it out there that you need one and it will find you. Make these wraps! They are SO GOOD!

The sauce is practically instant too:

sweet chili-lime sauce
3/4 c nama shoyu
2 T agave
2 T lime juice
1 T sesame oil
Pinch red pepper flakes

Wisk it up.

Here are the wrap ingredients:

Mango Wrappers
4 c chopped fresh mango
2 c fresh young cocnut meat
Pinch cayenne
Pinch sea salt
1/4 c cilantro, roughly chopped

I spread this onto two teflex sheets, but I think making them even thinner (less on each sheet, or more sheets) would have been good too.

Oh, and finally we have the grapefruit cleanser. This is a bunch of fruits, etc put through a juicer. Grapefruit is supposed to be a cleansing sort of food for your body, I guess. I have to say, it was VERY bitter. Maybe I left too much of the white stuff around the grapefruit slices on. It's serious stuff. But it was actually fun to drink! Exciting and invigorating! Really makes you wake up and take notice! Very exclamation point worthy! I failed to take any pictures, but it was pretty weird-looking anyways. You're not missing much there.

grapefruit cleanser
3 grapefruits, peeled
2 apples
2 limes, peeled
3 stalks kale