Valine's Fruit Tacos

This is a fun and easy to make recipe.

Filling:
2 mangos, diced
1 banana, diced
1 apple or pear, diced
1 cup red grapes, diced
1-2 cups spinach, minced

Mix all ingredients in a big bowl and then spoon the mixture onto lettuces leaves.

Shells:
1-2 heads of romaine lettuce

Chop the bottom off of the lettuces leaves and clean well. Be sure to check the leaves for those tiny bugs, especially if you purchased organice lettuce. Spoon the mixture on top of leaves and serve.

I like this recipe because it is so versatile. You can change all of the filling ingredients to your liking. You can even put the filling on top of a bed of mixed greens or spinach and enjoy it all as a salad. Any mild tasting green works great, such as red or green leafs lettuce. Fruit and greens are a great combination!

NOTE: Avoid adding any fats. I used to add hemp seeds or flaxseed meal to my fruit recipes, but I have since learned the fruits don't combine as well with fat. If interested, read more about proper food combining at http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/.

Avocado and Tomato and Dulse Salad

Breakfast will never be the same!

I am so used to having something sweet to start the day. Whether it was oatmeal with bananas/dried fruits, fruit cereals with berries and brazil nut or hempseed milk, assorted fruits, buckwheat cereal or even a green smoothie... breakfast was always a healthy and sweet way to start the day.

Well, that has changed from healthy and sweet to healthy and savory. Ever since I learned that my daughter has yeast in her blood, candida albicans to be specific, I've scrutinized all sweets. In fact, to avoid feeding and growing the yeast, she is supposed to avoid all fruits, especially bananas, dried fruits, and all sugars (and other things). It's been hard because fruits are so easy to serve to children, but here is one way I've combatted the urge to make it sweet (and I must admit I've benefitted from these changes as well).

I made this Avocado Tomato and Dulse Salad one morning, and I served it with some mixed greens, some sunflower sprouts that I cultivated in the kitchen myself, and miso cups. I must say it was a wonderful way to start our day.

The idea comes from Dr. Gabriel Cousens' book entitled Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine. His recipe is called Avocado Tomato Salad.

The ingredients are super simple:

2 avocados, diced
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1 pepper, seeded and diced
1/4 - 1/2 cup of dulse, cut into pieces
2-3 tablespoons of hempseeds (optional)
pinch of himalayan sea salt (optional)

I hope you like it.

Fruit Cereal by Valine and Hempseed Milk from Alive in 5

My husband and I started eating Fruit Cereal years ago. The original recipe came from The American Vegetarian Cookbook from the Fit for Life Kitchen by Marilyn Diamond. So this recipe is inspired by her Cocobana Cereal and Fall Fruit Breakfast Pudding which are found in that that book.

Fruit Cereal is a real treat because it is sweet and somewhat "heavy". Sweet and heavy is not something I do often, but when I'm in the mood for a filling breakfast, I choose this recipe. This also a fun cereal to make as a family or group.

I use bananas and apples as the base, but you can be versatile with the rest of the ingredients, and enjoy it with your favorite milk. Here are the ingredients I used for this recipe on a particular day. Shown in the picture is 1/2 cup of raisins, a handful of dates, and 1/4 cup of hempseeds. I didn't even use all of the raisins and dates.

Here is the recipe:
3 ripe bananas, peeled, halved and chopped
4 apples, peeled and grated
1/3 cup of raisins
a handful of pitted dates, chopped
1/4 cup of nuts and/or seeds of your choice (my note: Be sure to activate them by soaking them the night before. Hempseeds don't need soaking.)
1/4 cup of freshly ground flax seeds (my note: I was out of flax seeds that day.)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
berries for the top (optional)

When I add the ingredients in the order listed, it always looks beautiful to me.

Enjoy the cereal with a milk of choice. Vanilla Brazil Nut Milk is now a favorite, but most mornings, when I want a quick milk, I make Hempseed Milk.

Hempseed Milk from Alive in 5:

5 cups filtered water

1 cup raw hempseeds

1/2 raw agave nectar

1 tablespoon vanilla flavor (my note: I used alcohol-free vanilla extract)

1/2 teaspoon Himalayan salt

Combine all the ingredients in a blender, and process until smooth.

Spanish Scramble by Ani Phyo

I really like Ani Phyo's book Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. I decided to try this recipe out and my family liked it. I cut the recipe in half. I served it with some avocado and seaweed veggies, too. It is definitely easy to make. I already had soaked and dehydrated almonds and sunflower seeds on hand, so that made preparation really quick. I love the colors! Make this first:

Love-the-Chicks Pate
2 cups almonds, dry
1 cup sunflower seeds, dry
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 cup water

Put almonds, sunflower seeds, salt, and turmeric in a food processor and process into a powder. Add water and process until mixed well. It will have small chunks, rather than being completely creamy smooth. Add your favorite ingredients like mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions to this pate base to make different "scrambles."

Then, make Spanish Scramble:
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1 cup tomato, diced
1/4 cup chopped scallions
1 batch Love-the-Chicks Pate
1 cup spinach leaves or other soft greens, like red leaf lettuce or butter lettuce
Pinch ground black pepper

Place cilantro, tomato, scallions, and a batch of Love-the-Chicks-Pate in a bowl and mix well.

To serve, scoop your Spanish Scramble onto a bed of spinach leaves. Top with black pepper.

Banana Oatmeal by Ani Phyo

2 cups oat groats, soaked overnight, and rinsed well
3 bananas, chopped
2 tablespoons water, as desired
1 cup raisins

Put soaked oats, bananas, and water in the food processor and process until mixed well. For a thinner consistency, add another 1/4 cup of water and process. Add raisins last and pulse to mix them in.

Enjoy as is, or serve really thick with a side of nut mylk.

Will keep for one day in the fridge.

Drizzle 1 teaspoon maple syrup on top of each bowl of oatmeal.

Green Fruit Sauce by Valine

click on photo to enlarge

2 bananas
3-4 apples, peeled and coarsely chopped
1-2 pears, coarsely chopped
5-6 medjool dates, pitted
4-5 leaves of dinosaur or curly kale, with stems removed and finely chopped

Place all ingredients in the food processor and blend to desired consistency. Serve immediately.

This is another breakfast favorite. As you can see, I just gotta add greens. They are just so good for us! I like it be a little bit chunky. With fruit sauce, I don't always add the same amount of apples, pears, or bananas. So the recipe above is never the same when I make it. I hope you like it, too.

Green Pudding by Valine

2 avocados, chopped
2 ripe bananas, chopped
1/2 cup of pitted medjool or honey dates
2 leaves of kale with stems removed, finely chopped or almost minced
2 tsp. of super green food (optional)

Add kale, dates, avocadoes, bananas and super green food to the blender. Blend until smooth, using tamper if necessary. Top with chopped dates, slices apples, or raspberries.

I like to serve this pudding for breakfast. I'm always happy to serve it because it is great to start the day with greens. The healthy fat of the avocado and the potassium from the bananas is very nourishing.

This pudding will make an excellent baby food for Baby Brother. He's only 5 months now, so of course I'll introduce bananas and avocados separately first, because this makes an excellent baby food.