As you know, Terra and I began a raw journey together 25 days ago, and many of you may be wondering how we are doing. That journey for me began as a cleanse. A desire to rid my body of some toxins that I knew had been plaguing it. However, after the initial juice fast my path took somewhat of a detour. Well not so much of a detour as a change in destination. My desire to continue the ‘cleanse’ became less about cleansing and more about a movement towards a raw lifestyle. While I didn’t exactly follow the cleanse protocols of juicing and blending everyday, I have maintained a 100% raw diet over the last 25 days, with the exception of two nights out with friends. We have 3 days left of the initial 28 day goal, but I don’t intend to end my journey there. I have been enjoying eating raw and learning how to “cook” raw and pulling myself out of my comfort zone. While, I don’t know exactly how far I will take this journey, for now my goal is to maintain a mostly raw diet and see how it goes.
I have been a vegan for about 6 or 7 years now and not once had I attempted to ‘go raw’. In fact, I probably have been heard to say on more than one occasion “I could never be a raw vegan”. So why now? Why was I all of a sudden enlightened to the fact that a raw diet isn’t as scary and intimidating as previously thought? Why do I now feel compelled and empowered to at least attempt a mostly raw lifestyle? I personally think it was the above mentioned synchronicity. It needed to happen simultaneously with other events in my life to help lead me down my path. I won’t get into it now, cause I tend to be a little superstitious, but I am hoping that those events are going to unfold in the coming weeks and if they do, this could be huge for me. Life-altering huge. So everyone send out all kinds of positive energy for me and I will keep you posted on my progress.
So all that being said, I will continue to post my raw preparation experiments and hopefully successes. Since my success with raw brazil nut milk I have somewhat successfully attempted raw ‘pasta’ marinara, raw pesto (which was amazing and because it was the most successful I am including the super duper, easy recipe in this post), raw cheesecake and raw hemp milk. And of course a myriad of yummy salads.I will work on perfecting these and others and will continue to share them with you.
The following pesto recipe can be used with the pasta marinara, on top of salads, as spreads on both raw and non-raw sandwiches, on slices of raw tomatoes or any other ideas you come up with. And I hope if you come up with any you will share them with us!
Raw Pesto:4 cups of fresh basil
1/4 cup cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup of pine nuts or walnuts (I used both)
2-4 cloves of garlic (I used 4, but you can use less if you aren’t big on garlic)
3 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 Teaspoon of unrefined sea salt
Black pepper to taste.
Combine all ingredients in a food processor until desired consistency. (A few pulses should do the trick). This should keep in the fridge in a sealed glass container for a few days, or you can freeze individual portions in ice trays, and then pop out and thaw when needed.
That’s it! So easy, and trust me, so delicious!
Keep it Fresh and Raw!
-Jill