Raw Week, Day 3: Stuffed Anaheim Peppers, an Entire Raw Onion, and a little heartburn, quite frankly.

Day 3 started off with some fruit for breakfast, followed by a bunch of recipes from “Ani Phyo’s Raw Food Kitchen”.  The picture above is her Stuffed Anaheim Chilies with Mole Sauce (plus a southwest slaw I threw together).  I made the mole sauce, but it just didn’t look very appetizing drizzled over the peppers.  Luckily, I snapped this pic just before destroying the aesthetic.  I’m not really a chocolaty mole sauce person at the best of times, but I wanted to give it another chance.   On the other hand, the cashew cheese-stuffed Anaheim chilies were really yummy.  If make this again, I think I’ll make a fresh salsa or salsa verde to pour over the peppers instead of the mole sauce, and maybe leave a few seeds in the chili peppers to give them a bit more zip- I was expecting the chilies to be really spicy, but actually, they are very mild.

I’m finding that the more salads I eat, the more I crave them.  I’m trying to pick a new salad to try every day this week, to get help me get into the habit of making them more often.   I thought that it would be a good time to tackle one of mankind’s most pungent salad items: raw onion.  Since I didn’t have any boys to kiss today, I figured what the hell.  Yes, I ate an entire onion in one sitting.  (Diluted with salad, of course)  And yes, it was actually enjoyable! The salad above is Ani’s Wilted Spinach Salad with Marinated Onions and Mustard Dressing.  Marinating the onions in a bit of soy and apple cider vinegar really sweetened them up and gave them a beautiful caramelized colour.  Did you know that besides giving you onion breath, onions are great for oral hygene?  Fact: chewing raw onions for 2 to 3 minutes could possibly kill all the germs present in the mouth area.  In a stinky way, my mouth felt very fresh afterward!

Ever since I got my hands on Ani’s book, I have been so excited to try her Portobello Steaks and Brazil-Broccoli Mash with Mushroom Gravy. Full marks for presentation, but it was actually pretty painful to get down.  And I just realized it my fault because I accidentally made her miso gravy instead of the mushroom one.  Both the miso gravy and the marinated mushrooms really salty, and the brocolli-brazil mash was interesting, but a bit too hefty for me.  Each mouthful was like swallowing a scream of flavor.  (Even if I made it with the right gravy, I don’t think I really would have loved it.) I forced myself to eat it all, but had a pretty bad stomach ache after.  I think it was the amount of nuts.  I once heard that a great way to get a good balance in your diet is to consider how much of a certain item you would actually be able to obtain with your bare hands- ie, how many berries, grains of rice, etc.  I would have had to spend a long time cracking a cups worth of those Brazil nuts, so eating them all in one sitting is pretty out of touch with the natural portion (probably a small handful).

Before bed I settled my stomach with a ginger and nutmeg blueberry banana smoothie, and felt a whole lot better.

Heartburn Zapper:

• banana
• blueberry
• almond milk
• ginger
• lemon zest
• fresh nutmeg

Peace and Parsnips,

Laurakins