In some recent Summertime Raw posts, we’ve focused on preparing delicious, nutritious raw foods *while* on the go. Today, however, we’re doing an outing with all of the prep work done at home — so no need to pack knives and cutting boards! We’re also focusing in on a few seasonal ingredients. You’ll see some really tasty uses for mint, and we’ll also take a look at some wonderful edible flowers. Here’s the video:

In the video, we showed three salads. The first is a salad that we haven’t yet named. Here’s that recipe (measurements are approximates):

Yet To Be Named* Salad:

~ 3+ cups shredded carrots
1 sliced red pepper
1 sliced yellow pepper
chopped peas w/ the pods
~ 1 cup shredded cucumber
~ 1/2+ cups raisins
~ 3 Tbsp. almond butter
~ 2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt
** LOTs of fresh mint, chopped **

[*Can you help us name the salad above? If so, please suggest a name in the comment section!]

The second salad you saw in the video (the yellow egg-salad-looking thing) appears in our free Raw Recipes eBook. So, if you don’t have that, make sure to sign up now and get it! Finally, the third salad was:

Improvised Fruit Salad w/ Dazzling Cornflowers

Blackberries, whole
Strawberries, quartered
Banana, sliced

It’s best use a citrus-based sauce on such a dish to help preserve the fruit and keep it from oxidizing. So, in a food processor, process one orange, a small handful of strawberries, and two mint leaves. Pour this over the fruit and mix. Then sprinkle on some hemp seeds, and (if you can find some), a handful of gorgeous edible wildflowers (we used strikingly blue Bachelor Buttons, aka cornflowers) to really transform an already great dish into a bowl of undeniably magical, sparkling wonderment.

Now, while the mint tasted absolutely *perfecto* in the first salad, Wendi didn’t find the mint a perfect match for the fruit. I thought it was pretty tasty, though, so you may want to experiment with that. I will share one remarkable afterword, though:  After we’d eaten and taken our long, hilly stroll through the verdant Summer woods of Frick Park, we returned to our car to leave. As I approached the car, a nearby man called over and said, “Hey, I saw a great-looking fruit salad you were eating earlier. Do you have any left that you might want to sell to me?” Now, how many times has a stranger approached you in a park asking you to sell him fruit salad?!  This is what happens when you transform “already great” into “undeniablly magical, sparkling wonderment.” What can you transform in this manner TODAY?!

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Jim here… Here’s a compilation of vids from my little Flip camera, all taken over our weekend roadtrip to Washington, D.C. It’s not all strictly raw-food related, but does include some raw tips. First up, you’ll see our rawsomely packed food coolers. Between using ice and frozen fruits, everything kept cool just fine.

Early in the video, Wendi shares a handy tip for keeping your smoothies cool on the road. If you’re going to drink your smoothies right away, you might have little concern for keeping a drink cold. However, we had eaten breakfast already and knew we wouldn’t want to get into our smoothies for another hour or so after leaving. Frozen berries to the rescue! (Just make sure to hunt down a large glass bottle with an opening large enough to pour frozen berries into.)

Later in the vid is some footage from my trip to Senbeb Cafe, one of the puzzlingly few destinations for raw foods in Washington, D.C., where KDcat and I hung out with raw couples Blaqberry & Jer and Wysteria & Ryan. We had fun sampling the rich, gourmet raw foods (super-sweet kale salad, walnut-olive burgers w/ flax crackers, a funky/chunky tahini-based slaw-like concoction with soaked wild rice, and of course raw raspberry cheesecake).

(By the way, why is it that there are so few raw restaurants in D.C.? Surely a city of that size could sustain several more! Any D.C.-based raw entrepreneurs out there? I smell opportunity!)

It was a fun evening of hanging with friends, getting to know new raw friends, having the obligatory (but always fascinating) raw foodie conversation on colloidal gold and marine phytoplankton, and basically just hanging out for hours. I did briefly meet Senbeb’s manager, and wanted to do an interview with him for the blog. However, it was a particularly busy night in the community there and he seemed way too busy at the time. Another time, I’m sure! (Wendi actually interviewed him once, but the sound quality didn’t work out on that video.)

Also included is some bonus footage of a fascinating iPhone app called the Ocarina (really mind-blowing, magical stuff!) as well as some silly footage of Julia (aka The Jooge) making a new puppy friend (if by friend you mean a smaller dog that might be fun to attack).

As prepared as we were, I think we probably could have prepared even more for the return trip during which Wendi and I both became rather tired and even struggled a bit to wake up a few times. Wendi improvised a salad in the car at one point, which helped her. I was still feeling a little weighted down from having eaten so many rich dishes. But… we made it and, as with any trip or outing, if you arrive home exhausted and in a good mood, you got the job done right!

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To continue with our Summertime Raw series, we took a trip to Pittsburgh’s Frick Park to enjoy the beautiful day. Before leaving, we packed another meal to show you how easy it can be to eat a raw food diet while away from home. Frick Park was wildly popular among dogs; we saw canines of all shapes and sizes — all playful, yet calm in comparison to our lovely Julia, a rescued blue Doberman. Joogie enjoyed the outing very much because she was able to snack on cucumbers (a favorite treat), chase after a few joggers (we’re teaching her that this isn’t proper doggy behavior), knock the cooler out of Jim’s hands when we were leaving (which broke a few of our best glass dishes), and lick the faces of a few new furry friends. We’ve been to many parks, but we have a feeling this is now Julia’s favorite.  

In yesterday’s blog and video post, we showed you how easy it is to simply grab fresh fruits and veggies and head out the door for an outing. In that show, no refrigeration or preparation was necessary. However, we also know that many of you are new to raw foods, and perhaps eating simple chopped produce isn’t so appealing for you compared to traditional foods you’d normally eat while in a park. So, today’s goal is to demonstrate how simple it can be, making it easy for you to stick to a raw food lifestyle and not feel tempted by the cooked foods that may be around while you’re out enjoying the summer with friends and family. So, today’s video is about stepping it up to the next level.

Before leaving the house, we created some quick sandwich spreads. We also packed some whole veggies to slice and use for our sandwiches. The total time we spent preparing the spreads and packing everything was about 20 minutes. Since we processed some of the food and brought along some perishables (e.g., lettuce), we needed to bring a cooler with us for this trip. In an extra bag we brought along a cutting board, chef knives, a vegetable peeler, some blankets/throws for the ground, a few fruits, and a bottle of water. We were out the door in about 20 minutes; not bad!

While at the park, we spent another 20 minutes or so slicing the vegetables, creating our individual sandwiches, and making some miniature sandwiches to offer to others in the park. We figured that it would be difficult to find anyone to take food from a stranger, but it was worth trying because we could plant the seeds about a raw food diet even if no one was interested in sampling what we created. You’ll have to watch the video to see if anyone took us up on our offer of sampling the mini-sandwiches!

KEY POINTS FROM THIS VIDEO:

• In this video you see how simply preparing some spreads ahead of time, you can create delicious sandwiches using vegetables that you slice at the park.
• If your cooler has a flat lid like ours, it can become a convenient table top for chopping and serving foods!
• Wrap your chef knives in a few kitchen towels, so they don’t poke through a bag and possibly hurt someone (and the towels are convenient for helping to clean up).
• Make your meal fun so you don’t feel like you are missing out on anything. We created cute little sandwiches that were visually appealing and fun to eat.
• It’s convenient to have pre-packaged raw bread to save yourself time. Plus, they are delicious!

Note: 

The Summertime Raw series will pick up again next week, after we’ve taken a trip to Washington, D.C., to visit some friends. What better way to show you how to pack for a raw outing than by going on a small trip and taking you along with us? We’re going to require some more complex dishes to keep us from being tempted by the most delicious cooked Indian food, however! Wendi will be okay, since she’s been raw longer. But, this could be a huge struggle for Jim! We’ll let you know how it goes…

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Happy Summer Solstice!

Well, it’s officially summer here! This time of the year is extra special to us now that we’re healthier. Not only is there an abundance of fresh, local organics to eat, but the sun also shows itself to us a lot more (Pittsbugh is ranked as one of the places experiencing the least amount of sunshine per year). The sun actually used to make me feel physically ill (I wrote a bit about that in an earlier post), but ever since I’ve switched to a raw vegan diet I find myself drawn to the healing sunshine.

Before switching to a raw lifestyle, we used to go on a lot of outings (picnics) and we’d also go camping. I remember a friend voicing concern when my diet was beginning to change to raw foods. She felt I wouldn’t be able to go camping anymore and that things like picnics wouldn’t be fun for someone eating a raw food diet. She thought I’d need access to a refrigerator in order to keep all my raw foods fresh and a kitchen where I could prepare the delicious foods she had been seeing me eat.

Fast forward years later and we’re professionals at raw foods and going on outings with ease! We know many of you have concerns about being in a group setting where the focus is normally on the food consumed, especially at picnics, so we’ve put together a few videos to help share what we’ve learned. Outings for those living a raw food lifestyle can be as simple or complex as you desire. We’ll start you off with the easiest way to head out to a park for the day. In this video you’ll see how simple and easy it can be to eat a raw food diet and still enjoy yourself on an outing for the day. We focus on truly whole foods that have not gone through any processing at all. After the video, I’ll summarize some key points for you to remember.

EDIT: There are two sections of the video where the voice didn’t come through. We’re working on uploading another version of the video to see if it can be corrected. In the first quiet section, you hear a child crying and Jim explaining (with a bit too much glee in his voice) that the child was just bitten by a duck! I say it wasn’t funny, but he thought it was a bit humorous.  In the second part, Jim is explaining that while everyone who’s been eating cooked foods is feeling tired and a bit lazy, as a raw foodist you’ll have abundant energy. He then takes Julia (our dog) on a run to see the BISON!

KEY POINTS FROM THIS VIDEO:

• You don’t need refrigeration to enjoy a picnic on a raw food diet.
• It can take as little as ten minutes to pack all that you’ll need for the day.
• Be sure to pack extra because raw food is so vibrant your cooked friends will be asking you to share it.
• You can pack a very large variety of fruits and veggies that require no refrigeration. 
• You’ll find that your need for water is decreased on a water-rich whole foods diet.
• It’s best to bring much more food than you think you could eat because it’s much better to bring leftovers home than to be hungry and tempted by cooked foods while you are out.
• Pack a variety of tastes and plan to include sweet as well as nonsweet foods.
• While others may be feeling lethargic after eating heavy, cooked foods, you’ll find yourself with abundant energy!
• Going on outings isn’t about the food; it’s about having FUN!

Additional things to pack for your outing:

• chef knives
• cutting board
• jars of spices and salt
• kitchen towel
• one or two bowls and serving spoons

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