Raw foods: Mango, strawberry, and banana, fruit pudding; vegan

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Raw foods have been the only thing I’ve eaten for a few days, and I must say I’m enjoying the break from cooked foods.

The raw food recipe I’ve listed below, is one of my daughter’s favorite raw fruit puddings. She’s been asking me to share this simple raw food dish on Celebrate Life, enjoy!

Raw foods: Mango, strawberry, and banana pudding

  • 1 medium sized mango – cubed
  • 1/2 cup strawberries
  • 2 overly ripe bananas

Directions

  1. Add all ingredients to a food processor
  2. Blend until smooth
  3. Enjoy

Raw foods: Keeping it simple

I’m a big fan of simplicity; you don’t need a lot of ingredients to make this raw food meal taste great. It’s incredibly simple to make; but it’s delicious and healthy.

The great thing about this, and many dishes I prepare. You can swap the ingredients. Don’t have mango, add an apple, or some other fruit you like. Choose what you like. To add additional nutrients, you could add a one leaf of a dark leafy green (kale or collards). I’ve also added carrots, and other vegetables to my raw fruit puddings.

As an infant, my daughter’s first foods were pureed in my Kitchen Aid food processor. She loved pureed vegetables and fruit. For those who’re not fond of vegetables, adding them to your raw fruit puddings, raw smoothies, or raw juices, is a great way to sneak in the numerous benefits of vegetables, without the taste that some might not like. Because of the sweetness of the fruit, it masks the taste of the vegetables.

The fruit in the raw fruit puddings, masks the taste of vegetables, which is perfect for those who might not like the taste of vegetables.  Vegetables aren’t an issue for my daughter and me since we love numerous varieties; raw and cooked. We also love our raw fruit puddings.

Maryland: Snow in April and Raw foods

Yesterday, if you lived in Western Maryland you might have received snow…

We didn’t receive where I lived, but the temperature didn’t rise above the mid 40’s, and so I bundled up my daughter in her winter coat when I took her to school. You know, it feels strange to be still wearing winter clothes…

What’s even stranger is looking at our garden, and still seeing a lot of tilled earth. Because of the unseasonably cool weather, we have been holding off planting crops, we usually have a bit more in the soil by this time. I’m hoping that we’ll soon have stable temperatures, so or planting can resume. 

I’m relieved we didn’t receive snow in our area. It’s not because I dislike snow, I don’t. I love it, but I definitely don’t want the crops we’ve planted to be affected. 

I didn’t get around to making any raw food pasta yet…but I have raw veggie wraps, raw soup, and made some fruit, and vegetable smoothies. For my daughter, I made chicken and rice.

So yes… yesterday was an all raw food day (for myself). I mainly drank water throughout the day, but I did make some raw juices and smoothies too. Incorporating vegetables into your juices or smoothies is an excellent way to boost your vegetable intake, especially if you or those you’re preparing meals for, aren’t used to eating a lot of vegetables. For my daughter and myself, we love vegetables, but it’s nice to have variety too.

Yesterday, homemade fruit pops were made, and my daughter happily consumed one today; even though we had chilly weather. She likes them because they taste great. I like them since it doesn’t have a lot of junk she doesn’t need. Making your own homemade fruit pops is a healthier, and it can be a cheaper alternative to purchasing   all natural fruit pops from the store. 

I’m definitely happy that I’m taking a break from cooked foods. I decided to switch to raw foods for a little while. I’m not doing it for health reasons. I’m in great health, not doing it to lose weight, I’m at my ideal weight, and I exercise daily. I’m swapping to raw foods, simply because I can. 

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to include pictures of the fruit pops (along with a few recipes) before the week is over.

Fun with Raw foods

For myself, there’s nothing like biting into a ripe peach, juicy tomato, or munching on some dark leafy greens; pure heaven!

We eat plenty of raw foods in our household. I’ve always enjoyed eating foods fresh from the garden. The flavor is miles ahead of what you find in the grocery store. I realize that I’m fortunate to be able to have a garden filled with organic produce.

The beauty of gardening is that you don’t need a lot of area to grow vegetables, so even if your in an urban setting you can have a garden, it just won’t be as big.

Colorful vegetables

Raw food made easy

A  few years ago, I decided to go raw for thirty days. no reason really, it’s something I never tried, and I wanted to eat lighter meals. Eating raw foods was the perfect option.  I’d already eating a lot of raw foods, and I thought it would be interesting to see how I’d manage during that month. Well, a month turned into a year. Initially, it was challenging creating food in a different way, but I soon learned simple is best;  occasionally I’d make elaborate raw food meals, but they were rare.

Over the course of a year, my eyes were open to numerous raw food delicious dishes that I prepared while experimenting in the kitchen.

When I gradually started introducing cooked foods into my eating lifestyle, my raw food pasta maker, Kitchen Aid food processor, and Vita Mix blender, received a permanent spot in the kitchen; because they are amazing.  Six years later, and those machines are still doing well. Foods that are constantly in our rotation are raw collard wraps, vegetable pasta, raw sandwiches, and a variety of homemade butters; raw almond butter is my favorite.

I’ve always had a lot of energy, I did notice an increase while I ate only raw foods, which amazed my friends, since they know the amount of energy I had before. Afterwards, my love for dark leafy greens increased, and you could actively find me trying to include raw or lightly steamed portions into my daily routine.

These days, I still eat a high amount of raw foods, but I have been thinking about eating only raw food for a time. During that time, I’ll share some of the recipes here at Celebrate Life. Today, I believe I’ll be making some type of raw food pasta dish, and so I’ll be sure to take a few photos of whatever I create.

In other news…

WordPress: Disappearing comments

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It appears like some of my WordPress comments have disappeared. Uh oh! Crochet and knitting diva, Nicole, and a brand-new reader (who’s name I can’t remember offhand) have gone missing. After a lot of research it seems that I’ll need to log into phpMyAdmin and repair the comments database, and so I’ll be taking care of that later today.

Once repaired, the comments that disappeared should reappear. Yeah!