Indulge a little too much during the holidays? Feeling the need to cleanse and reset? Drinking too much alcohol, eating a lot of sugary foods, and just eating too much food in general can tax your detoxification pathways. If you are not detoxing properly, you can end up with lowered energy, increased pain in the body, poor circulation, and sluggish digestion.

By consuming this salad, which is rich in plant-based chemicals that promote detoxification, you can relieve some of the unwanted symptoms of a holiday hangover and begin to regain balance. In fact, if you include raw plant foods such as kale, cabbage, arugula, broccoli, collards, ginger, pomegranates, lemons and limes, blueberries, cranberries, black currants, and raspberries in your daily diet (try green smoothies, fresh juices, and big salads), you will find that indulging in (healthy) holiday treats once in a while will be easier for your body to handle. Hint, hint….try serving this salad at your next holiday gathering!
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If you are looking for more ways to use up the last of the lovely basil growing in your garden this season, then try making a pesto sauce! It can be frozen and then thawed in the wintertime for a taste of summer. We've been using this sauce tossed with raw cucumber noodles, cooked quinoa noodles, or to top baked wild salmon!

To make cucumber noodles, you will need a spiralizer. This handy kitchen tool makes noodles out of vegetables....zucchini, carrots, kohlrabi, sweet potatoes, beets, cucumbers! You can watch this short video I posted to Instagram a few weeks ago of me making noodles from yellow summer squash. You can order one here. If you don't have a spiralizer, then just enjoy this sauce tossed with cooked noodles, drizzled over baked chicken or cooked winter squash...or? Leave a comment below with more ways you are using it!
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I love the thick and creamy richness of mayonnaise, especially tossed with steamed potatoes and chopped pickles, or thinly sliced cabbage for a summer picnic salad. Although we eat eggs, I prefer the flavor of egg-free mayo better. This recipe uses soaked cashews along with a few other ingredients. It has such an amazing consistency and flavor. I think it will remind you of traditional mayonnaise! I've been making a lot of cabbage and veggie slaws with it lately. You can also use it to make chicken salad or spread it onto gluten-free bread for a sandwich.

Cashews are a fabulous source of antioxidants and monounsaturated fats! I think they might be my favorite nut. I find them easier to digest compared to other nuts. Cashews are also a good source of magnesium, a mineral that easily gets depleted when we are under stress....and who isn't experiencing some level of stress these days!
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My garden is going nuts this year. I've never had so much kale! Everything is so lush and beautiful. I planted rows of sweet onions amongst the kale and other vegetables. Little did I know last spring, but allium vegetables are great at deterring aphids. Almost all of my kale this year is aphid-free. We've been making kale sautés, kale and egg frittatas, creamed kale, kale in soup, kale salads…..kale everything!
Kale is a vegetable powerhouse! It's high in sulforaphane, a compound that stimulates your body's own production of powerful antioxidant and detoxification proteins, which help to safely remove environmental toxins from your body and protect your cells. If you want to learn more about detoxification and how you can protect yourself from environmental toxins….as they relate to blood sugar dysregulation, diabetes, obesity, infertility, and just about every chronic disease……you can register for the FREE online Detox Summit going on now through August 11th. Each day's talks will only be available for 24 hours so be sure to register today. I listened to them yesterday on my iPhone plugged into some speakers while pitting 20 pounds of organic cherries!
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Happy New Year! Cheers! This is our favorite green juice recipe, in fact, our children think it's the bomb! They love it. Serve it in a pretty glass with a stainless steel or glass straw. I think you'll find that this green juice is very mild tasting and quite enjoyable to drink. This recipe is part of our new Elimination Diet Program and Book! We've been receiving so many emails asking about the Elimination Diet and where to find it. Our Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook (where the old program was) is out of print now. We spent our summer completely updating the book with 100 new recipes and plenty of new up-to-date science! It will be available this spring, published through Grand Central Life & Style. We also removed the elimination diet from the book because it deserved its own book. We have a brand-spanking new elimination diet program coming for you soon online. We can't wait to share this powerful healing tool with you, complete with new recipes, menu plans, and more!

If you are setting new year's intentions that revolve around eating well (I like intentions far better than resolutions) then this juice recipe is a great one to add to your repertoire! Through our research we've found that it's quite important for all of us, children included, to add some sort of raw cruciferous vegetable to our daily diets. You can make raw salads, green smoothies, or fresh juices. Cruciferous vegetables include kale, collard greens, mustard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, arugula, bok choy, daikon radish, horseradish, radish, turnips, rutabaga, watercress, and bittercress (a common weed).
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We have a garden full of tender fresh collard greens right now which is what inspired me to create these nourishing raw wraps! My children even love them. Well, my 8-year old thinks they are just okay, and the littlest one can only really eat the pâté and cucumber strips, but the rest of the gang enjoys them!

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. I have a one-year old now who is into everything.....and four other children. Need I say more? However, we do have a new website in the works which I'm excited to share with you, so stay tuned! If you want to keep up with what I'm cooking and creating in my kitchen please follow me on Instagram. In the meantime....please enjoy this raw collard wrap recipe!
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Raw food in the middle of winter??!!  Who would do something crazy like that??  Me, that's who!  And when it's done right, you won't miss the stove at all.  Plus, you can always cuddle up in front of a fire in the fireplace after dining on these delicious treats.


This past Friday I had the privilege of sharing some gourmet raw vegan recipes with a group of 18 gathered in the back room of Divine Treasures, a vegan chocolatier in Manchester, CT.  Owner, Diane Wagemann, generously offered to be the host for this event, and I think it was the perfect location.


We started the evening in the Mediterranean with a raw falafel done two ways:  fresh from the food processor as a pate, and dehydrated into the traditional looking yet healthier version of falafel balls.  The base of the falafel is pumpkin seeds, which are high in zinc and perfect for anyone who suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) this time of year.


Both were enjoyed, but everyone agreed that the flavors intensified and the firm, slightly crisp, yet chewy texture of the dehydrated version were an unexpected delight.  It's nice getting that same falafel satisfaction without the harmful trans fats from deep frying!


These were served with a raw hummus pureed in my Vita-Mix to smooth perfection with cashews, zucchini, tahini and various seasonings.  Although regular hummus made with chickpeas is pretty healthy, everyone agreed that the raw interpretation was silky smooth and surprisingly decadent.  Cashews will do that!

Next we journeyed to Mexico for Raw Tacos with Walnut "Meat," Jicama "Rice," and Chipotle Cashew Aioli.  All of the nuts and seeds had been soaking the night before, so everything was drained and rinsed for the presentation.


I began with the walnut meat filling which is pulsed together in the food processor with sun-dried tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, and seasonings.  You'd never imagine this much flavor can be contained in raw ingredients, but it's worth experimenting.


Next we moved on to the Jicama Rice, which is made by pulsing together chopped jicama and pine nuts in the food processor until it's the consistency of grains of rice.  Jicama is a root vegetable native to Mexico.  It's slightly sweet and not too starchy with the texture of a water chestnut.  The brownish skin is very fibrous and often coated with wax to help it keep longer.


The skin must be washed, peeled, and removed before eating.  Once it is cut away, the jicama can be diced into chunks, then put into the food processor where it is pulsed together with the soaked pine nuts.

After it is pulsed for a few seconds, this mixture needs to be placed in a nut bag so that the extra liquid can drain out.  I did a little squeezing to hurry the process along and what I was left with was a big bowl of whitish water that reminded me of rice milk.  Out of curiosity, I decided to taste it.  And I made a surprising discovery: WOW!  Jicama water is the sweetest, most refreshing drink EVER!!  Or, at least, after doing a 2-hour demo it was the perfect elixer.  I'm definitely going to experiment with this more often. Somebody should look into bottling it. :-)


We finished the demo with the Chipotle Aioli made with soaked cashews, dried chipotle, lemon, garlic powder, apple cider vinegar, and sea salt.  I topped it all off with a garnish of fresh red pepper diced finely for a little pop of color.  Beautiful and delicious!

 

I have something for you, just in time for 4th of July celebrations.....and no cooking required! I used to think that making tarts was a complicated process, but it is really quite simple. You will need a 9 or 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, which can be found on amazon.com or your local kitchen store. For this recipe I use my standard nut-date crust which is pressed into the pan. Then the filling is added and topped with whatever berries or fresh fruit you have on hand. Raw tarts come together so quickly!

For the pastry cream, I use coconut butter, which is made from both the oil and the meat. We like the brand Artisana, but you can use others. Sometimes it is labeled with different names such as coconut mana or coconut cream concentrate, but it is all the same thing.
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