Our Dehydrator

Dehydrating foods provides us with a connection between the worlds of cooked and raw foods. It is a method of preservation that helps retain food enzymes and nutrients. You can cook your food and keep it below 118degrees in a dehydrator.
Personally, we use the Excalibur dehydrator. I love it! It is quiet and takes less time to dehydrate. The fan is in the back of the unit rather then the bottom, like conventional dehydrators, so there is no need to rotate the food. Easier is always welcome!
We have dehydrated many different foods. We've made kale chips, tortillas, cookies, almond flour, pizza crust, and breads. There are sooo many more recipes for RAW foods you can dehydrate.
If you look at the side of this blog, I have listed some of my favorite, go-to websites for recipes.
I also use recipes from the following books:
*Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow by Kenney and Melngailis
*Raw Food: A Complete Guide for Every Meal of the Day by Irmela Lilja
*Kristen Suzanne's EASY Raw Vegan Dehydrating
*Kristen's Raw: The Easy Way to Get Started & Succeed at the Raw Food Vegan Diet & Lifestyle - this book was more of a jump starter for me then a "cookbook"

Here are two of the recipes I use most:

Corn Tortillas
3 Cups Fresh Corn Kernels
1 1/2 Cups Chopped Yellow Bell Pepper
3/4 Cup Golden Flaxseed, Finely Ground
1 Tablespoon Lime Juice
1 Tablespoon taco seasoning
1 1/2 teaspoons Sea Salt

1 In a food processor, chop the corn and bell pepper. Add the remaining ingredients and process until almost smooth.
2 Divide the dough onto two Teflex-lined dehydrator trays and spread to the edges using an offset spatula. Dehydrate at 115 F for 3 to 4 hours. Flip the Teflex sheets over onto the tray and carefully peel away the Teflex. Place back in the dehydrator for about 2 hours.
3 When the tortilla is completely dry on both sides but still pliable, remove it from the dehydrator and place on a flat surface. Use a round cutter or small plate about 4 inches in diameter and trace around it with a knife to cut round tortillas. Keep the scraps to add to a salad or just eat them plain as a snack.

Apple Raisin Cookies
2 C hazelnuts, soaked 6 - 8 hours and rinsed
2 Fuji apples
2 large bananas
1/2 C honey dates
1 t honey
1 t cinnamon
1 C raisins

Process hazelnuts, apples, bananas, and dates through a Champion Juicer using the solid plate. (If you don't have a juicer you can use your VitaMix, but make sure to have the apples mixed throughout the container so that the hazelnuts don't overwork the engine)
In a large bowl, mix dough with honey, cinnamon, and raisins
Spoon dough on a dehydrator tray with a teflex sheet, and form into small, round cookies.
Dehydrate at 105° for 4 - 6 hours, turn cookies over and remove teflex sheet.
Continue dehydrating for 4 - 6 hours, or until desired moisture is obtained.
- The bonus to this cookie recipe: the kids can eat as many as they want. They are actually good for them! What a treat!!!

75% RAW

We have been keeping up our RAW foods diet really well. We've decided to have RAW food for breakfast and lunch. The typical: a smoothie in the morning and then a salad in the afternoon. I'm still losing weight and feeling good.
Then for dinner we eat a vegan meal. Lots and lots of veggies and grains. We are 100% dairy free and about 80% gluten free as well.
So our diet is now about 75% RAW!
We snack on nuts and fruit throughout the day and continue to drink a ton of water!
I am very proud of the commitment we have had with our new way of life.
Yoga and Reiki (a hands-on energy healing)have also been incorporated into our lives.
Life is good!

Part II : Day 14

Last night was the end of our two week 100% RAW excursion. I lost 7lbs! I feel great. And we owe our ability to avoiding the latest illness spreading through our friends to our healthy diet.
We began eating cooked food again tonight for dinner. However we plan to continue having RAW for breakfast and lunch.
Why stop all together if the benefits are so great?
I love the direction our life is going!
Onward.....

Part II : Day 13

Last night I made vegan mini-chocolate chip cookies. Not completely raw. The mini-chocolate chips are vegan, but everything else is raw.
I used almond flour that I made with the almond pulp when I made milk.


2 1/2 cups almond flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 applesauce (we make homemade-use right away or it will spoil)
1 tbsp raw vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey
1 cup vegan chocolate chips 73% cacao

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
Mix wet ingredients into dry
Form 1" balls and press onto a telflex sheet
Dehydrate 8 to 10 hours or until desired consistency.
Best straight from dehydrator, still warm.

1 day to go!!!

Part II : Day 11& 12

For the past few months we've been making our own RAW almond milk.
Milk made from almonds is rich, sweet, and packed with valuable vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and protein. It is literally almonds and water, blended together to form a milky liquid. While you can purchase almond milk at the store, commercial products tend to consist of more water and sweetener and less of the actual nut.
Other then having lactose intolerant family members, we drink homemade almond milk because it has many benefits. Almond milk is high in vitamin E, which acts as a fat-soluble antioxidant in the body, preventing cell damage. Almonds are also rich in vitamin B2, which is important for healthy metabolism.
Drinking almond milk is also a great way to get half of your daily requirement for magnesium, which helps with the uptake of calcium and potassium, prevents tissue calcification, and is beneficial for preventing irritability, depression, and PMS.
If you make this dairy substitute with fresh almonds, you will be consuming six carbohydrates and almost four grams of dietary fiber per serving.
So now that you've had your nutritional lesson on why we drink almond milk. Here is how you make it:

Homemade Almond Milk
2 cups of raw almonds (soaked overnight)
6 cups of healthy water
Blend in VitaMix for 2 minutes.
Pour through a nut milk bag (can be found on Amazon)- or you can use a cheese cloth

Keep the almond milk refrigerated. It should last you 5 to 6 days.

Almond milk is delicious in hot beverages like tea and makes an exceptionally rich cup of hot chocolate. It is wonderful over cold cereals. Using almond milk in pudding and baked goods recipes results in really superior dishes and it adds a subtle, but certainly not overpowering, taste of nuttiness to any recipe in which it’s included. And, of course, almond milk is quite tasty plain.

Finally, we dehydrate the leftover almond pulp and the grind it up. You now have fresh, RAW almond flour which you can use for a variety of recipes.

Part II : Day 9 & 10

Yeah, Yeah, I've been getting lazy with writing the daily posts. But I have good reason. I have been spending my energy playing with my kids, my husband and exercising.
Yes, that's right, me, the lady who won't even take her dog for a walk if it's below 60 degrees outside! I've been doing sit-ups every other night, chasing the kids around the house and playing music while I make dinner, so that I move my body. The kids and I have been having a blast dancing around the kitchen for the past few days.
I was talking to a friend of mine Monday night about eating RAW. She wondered how I get through the day. It dawned on me that I've only written about the three main meals and left out the grazing that goes on the rest of the day. The foods I eat are very simple. Mostly snacks that I feed the kids as well: bananas, oranges, apples, raw nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, cashews), dried fruits (raisins, apricots, cherries), and sprouted grains like mung beans. And of course, tons of "living" water.
For those of you that know me and my husband, we are big advocates of healthy water. I won't go into all the details; but briefly: Water from nature, the kind you find in natural springs and creeks is living with healthy bacteria and enzymes that our bodies need. The water that comes into our homes is dead water, being processed and sent through series of pipes that are underground, receiving no sunlight.
We did a ton of research and found a method that can bring the "life" back to water. We take the tap water and filter it through a Brita (my sister uses reverse osmosis, but we can't afford the machine, yet) then we put it in a clear glass container and set it outside in direct sunlight for at least 3 hours, and shade for another 3. Bring it back in and pour it through a strainer (clean out leaves and bugs that may get trapped in the water) and that is our "Living" drinking water. I have had friends tell me it tastes like water from a natural spring. Soo yummy! No chemicals!!
Give it a try and see what you think....

Part II : Day 8

Holy Moly, We made it over a week, and have less then a week to go.I am feeling great! I am having fun playing with the kids and my husband ;-) I am down 5lbs!! Only 15 to go!!!
Not an exciting day as far as food goes: juice and banana, kale salad, and quinoa with veggies. woo hoo.
That's all for today!