RAW FOOD BASICS

Mom and I are getting frustrated over some of our attempts at making raw food dishes and we have put our heads together and come up with the reason why. The basics is the answer.

Think of it like this; if you were a chef in a restaurant, you would be required to add things to your recipe, things like milk, water, butter, cream, juice, whatever is considered the wet stuff, the liquid ingredients. You would also need to add dry things.

The difference between the chef and you is, they already have those things on hand; they either came from a box, a container, carton or a package. In your case, you will make these things as you go which is in keeping with “rawism”. In the beginning of your raw journey, you may want to go ahead and purchase pre-made nut butters and cream, nut milks, seed milks, etc. You can choose to make your own juices or buy organic juices that match the raw criteria. Either way, you will then have the ingredients you need to finish your recipes.

A good example of starting with the basics is a recipe mom and I received recently. Somewhere in the body of the recipe, it calls for adding “butter” to your dry ingredients and you wonder where the “butter” came from. Well, the first ingredient on this list is coconut. By now, you should have taken the meat from a coconut and blended it into butter. There is your “butter”.

Remember, there are many basics to a recipe, if you have those basics on hand ahead of time, you will cut your preparation time down considerably. Make your sauces, creams, milks and butters and keep them ready.

We bought a “ball” of candy which as it happens turned out to be the “paste” in the recipe for a choco maca shake. If you have a bunch of those little balls of paste made up ahead of time, you can quickly add your liquid ingredients and make your shake in much less time.

We have agreed to purchase the basics to start with and, as we go, we will start making the basics for ourselves. Hopefully this will cut down on the frustration when things don’t turn out the way it should. It may seem like it is more expensive to start out this way but, by the time you try and try again and still don’t come up with what you want, you are wasting money on those attempts. We are going to gradually start making our own basics but, in the beginning, we are going to purchase them always keeping in mind the raw criteria. Earth Balance makes some great spreads and Cascadian Farm makes some raw veggies available in the freezer section of the supermarket. You can get raw nut butters, milks, creams and such. You can purchase many varieties of nut milks and seed milks at your local grocers as well. Many health food stores carry all of these products but may be a bit more expensive. Shop around. Start there so you don’t get frustrated and turn back before you give it a chance.