Review
A chef for Living Light Culinary Arts Institute, Cornbleet has been finessing her hand in the raw food kitchen for quite some time, so it might come as a surprise that her premiere book, Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People, reduces the craft to the bare minimum. Simple as it may seem, this book accomplishes quite a complex feat: it truly makes raw food easy. After spending ten minutes whipping up your own almond butter, you'll never pay outrageous prices for it again, and the Not Meat Balls will ban cravings for the processed faux-meat varieties. Innovative techniques such as replacing eggs with avocado in mousse and marinating broccoli so that it tastes cooked testify to her understated expertise. -VegNews Magazine
From the Author
The All-New Revised Edition of Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People is available in July, 2012.
My name is Jennifer Cornbleet and I'm the author of Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People. I'm here to help you satisfy your appetite at any time of the day or night with recipes that are easy, good for your body, and really delicious.
When you're stressed out, running behind schedule, and hungry...or company's coming...or the kids are clamoring for a snack...raw food recipes are the perfect answer. All you need are all-natural ingredients from Mother Nature's pantry to quickly create satisfying meals and treats, without turning to processed food that's so often high in cost, but low in taste and nutrition:
- Stir up a large batch of muesli, a breakfast cereal made with rolled oats, raisins, raw nuts, sunflower seeds, and raw honey, to replace the box of commercial cereal that's made with refined flour and sugar and not much nutritional value.
- Re-define the traditional high-carb, high-fat tuna sandwich by substituting crisp romaine lettuce leaves for bread and a sunflower, almond, celery, parsley, and onion paté for the fish.
- Stuff sweet bell peppers or ripe tomatoes with guacamole for an easy summertime dinner that's ready in minutes, but beautiful enough to serve guests.
- Enjoy silken soups even if you can't or don't want to eat dairy products by letting creamy avocado add richness and smoothness to favorites like cream of tomato, cream of cucumber, and cream of zucchini.
- Keep your salads waist-friendly by combining cucumber, lemon juice, dill weed, yellow onion, garlic and olive for a dressing that is so luxurious you'd never guess it was low fat. Add a dash of cayenne for a kick of spice.
- Get your teens to eat more vegetables with Latin-inspired raw food favorites like Mexican salsa, made with fresh tomatoes, cilantro, onions, lime juice, garlic, and a dash of cayenne or and a Spanish fig cake made with figs, almonds, walnuts, and fresh berries
- Teach raw food nutritional goodness to children by serving them a banana or talk of celery made with homemade, all-natural raw almond butter and naturally sweet raisins.
Raw food recipes are a wonderful option for busy, health-conscious people who love to eat. They require no actual cooking time and can be ready in a matter of minutes. Or you can prepare many of the components to a raw feast in advance so you always have a grab-and-go meal ready when you're hungry. And because the recipes are raw, the ingredients are loaded with everything Mother Nature intended us to enjoy: vitamins, enzymes, fiber, and scrumptious natural flavor.
Simple Techniques for Enjoying Raw Food
Eating raw is the most natural thing in the world because every recipe is made with nothing but all-natural, unprocessed ingredients from Mother Nature's kitchen. Eating raw is also the easiest thing in the world, once you get to know a few basic ingredients, familiarize yourself with some key equipment, and master a few simple techniques:
- For a dairy-free substitute to pour over your morning granola that's more nutritious than boxed non-dairy milk products, simply soak almonds in filtered water and then use a 'mesh bag' or fine mesh strainer to make it ultra smooth.
- For an elegant ladies-who-lunch salad, marinate thinly sliced raw beets in a dressing made with lemon juice, Dijon mustard, olive oil, and herbs and serve the 'tenderized' beets over a plate of mesclun or arugula, topped with raw walnuts.
- On a cold night, make a simple puttanesca sauce with olives, tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, bell pepper, herbs, and olive oil. Then preheat your oven to a temperature no higher than 200 degrees, turn it off, and place an ovenproof bowl with your sauce inside for about 15 minutes. Serve the sauce over zucchini fettucine.
- To turn zucchini into wheat-free 'fettucine' slice the crisp green veggie into paper-thin ribbons with a vegetable peeler, spiral slicer, or mandoline. Serve it with the tomato sauce you like best.
- To elevate plain-Jane carrot and celery sticks to hors d'oeuvres status, serve them with a mock sour cream and chive dip made with soaked raw cashews, lemon juice, spices, herbs, and minced fresh chives (or green onions).
There are healthy, delicious raw food recipes that are right for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and those in-between meal times when so many of us fall under the spell of high-sugar, high-fat processed snacks. And with so many options to choose from, you'll never run out of new ways to add more fresh fruits and vegetables to your everyday eating.
It's all good...and good for you.
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