What foods should I eat to insure wellness? How should I prepare them? Is food medicine?
Lab experiment to replace tuna salad
Sometimes you just want a sandwich. Sometimes you just want a salad topping. This jackfruit based offering gives me just that. It’s simple, quick and few ingredients.
Here is my final meal. It is jackfruit, celery, serrano pepper, avocado and salt to taste on a bed of spinach, arugula and tomatoes. The salad dressing is a homemade avocado/cashew milk dressing.
For those who are not aware, I do not like to cook. Here is a quick recount of my entry into the lab. First thing was to change my attitude. I changed how I viewed my kitchen. It was no longer a place to cook food but a place to experiment with food. So it began.
The first thing that changed was my husband and I deciding to stop eating beef, pork, chicken, and dairy; but not all at the same time. We still ate turkey and seafood. I decided one day to stop buying ground turkey and sliced turkey for sandwiches. I thought why not break down the turkey and grind some, and cook the rest for different uses. I did and it was a fun, time consuming endeavor. Next experiment was bread. I did like to bake so I expected this to be a more enjoyable experience. I remembered when my children were young how much fun we had baking bread together. This is how they learned fractions. At the same time I began to grow peppers. I wanted to make my own hot sauce, mustard and ketchup. I was on a natural food kick. LOL.
When my husband was treated by Dr. Baxter Montgomery for heart issues, a raw vegan dietary plan was the main prescription. This was a new challenge. We had moved to Texas and anticipated eating Cajun and creole dishes. I know it was not New Orleans but the influences are alive and well in Houston. That dream died. We became not only vegan but raw vegan. The lab was revived. Enough of that. You get the point.
In these past three years I have fluctuated between vegan and pescatarian. I have gained all the weight I had lost during the years we were raw vegan/vegan. We ate no processed food. (Side Note. When the doctor told me I didn’t have to prepare everything from scratch, I tried the closest to clean processed vegan food. Big mistake.) I began gaining weight and got lazy because of the convenience. Not only have I gained weight but joint pains, brain fog and fatigue have returned.
Like many churches in this country, my church began this new year with a corporate Daniel Fast. The dietary portion of this fast is much like I eat anyway, so there was no sacrifice for me in that area. My fast had to take a different form. My fast was eliminating convenience. If I purchased prepared food, it had to be strictly clean and vegan. This could only be done once a week at most. This requires me to prepare all the other meals. I am vegan . I have to cook or make raw preparations. This requires discipline and planning. This is my fast.
So now, I am back in the lab. To get started I decided to make a salad dressing that I enjoy at a salad restaurant I go to. It is jalapeno avocado dressing. They told me no dairy was used to make it but I am not sure.(I just checked. It does include dairy products.) My experiment uses no dairy. Mine is avocado, non-dairy milk, seasonings, vinegar and habenaro. It tasted okay but I have to adjust the flavor profile. Too mild.
On my way to the lab to try a new burger recipe with lentils and quinoa.
See you soon.
One of the unexpected side affects of a raw vegan lifestyle was a drink I had never tried. It was included because of the probiotic contents. I liked it and made it a part of our regular meal plans. The only problem was the cost. When I first started drinking it, the cost was about $2.89 for a 16 oz. bottle. Now, it is $3.99. I buy about 5 bottles/wk. Food cost has gone up and the drink cost has made my grocery bill huge. I have wanted to try making my own, but the task seemed daunting. What did I know about brewing? Oh, wait a minute. Maybe some of you are thinking I’m talking about whiskey, wine or the like. Nope. It is kombucha. Kombucha may have an alcohol content. It depends on the brand. I drink GTs Synergy brand. It is raw and the alcohol content is negligible. I have had some that gave me a slight buzz. I don’t remember the brand because I stick to Synergy. Until, now. I read a lot about making my own. I joined groups on Facebook to learn from experienced brewers and could get questions asked rather quickly. I bought a book entitled The Big Book of Kombucha by Crum and LaGory. Finally, I was ready to begin.
Oh, I need a SCOBY or pellicle. This is and starter tea is needed to begin. Hesitantly, I ordered a kit from Amazon. The kit included black tea, sugar, a pellicle aka SCOBY, ph strips, a pipette, a cover and the all important rubber bend. There was enough product to make two batches. NOW, I’m ready.
Of course I couldn’t do it exactly according to instructions. Where is the fun in that. Rather than brewing my tea with boiling water, I chose to make Sun tea. I sat a quart of water with 6 tea bags out on the patio. After that I followed the instructions. Seven days later my brew looked like this. It was growing a new, healthy pellicle.
Fifteen days later it was time for the second fermentation. This is where you add flavor and create carbonation if you desire. I added ground ginger and cayenne to the bottles Three days later I drank my first batch of Home Brew aka my Kombucha.. My grocery bill will be reduced about $20 because I can make my own and flavor it any way I want or not.
Those who have followed me and know me know that I am resistant to pharmaceuticals. It is my very last resort. The health issue that I have is the source of any other potential issues: high blood pressure. I didn’t know I had the condition until a blood vessel burst in my eye. I had to have surgery on my eye. The day of the surgery, my BP was so high that they rescheduled. That was the day this battle began.
Since then I have been regulating my BP with vegetables, specifically beets. It was going well, but I did get periodic spikes. The spikes in BP measurements are my Dr’s concern. She said they were just as damaging to my blood vessels. So for now I will take a very low dose of lisinipril. One of the side affects is allowing a build-up in potassium that damages your kidneys. To me that is trading one problem for another. My goal is to eventually get off this medication. In the meantime, I will eat clean and exercise and take this poison. Those who pray to the Heavenly Father, please pray for me.
A few posts ago, actually, quite a while ago I made my own veggie burger blend. A few days ago I discovered Javant’s Healthy Vegan Eating on YouTube. I made it. It is pictured below. His mix is made with no oil and no soy, so I had to give it a try. It was very good. I guess the walnuts along with the mushrooms gave it the fatty moisture mouth feel, aka texture.
I had forgotten that I made a veggie burger mix posted in My Vegan Burger. There are differences that could make a big difference to some people. First of all,Javant’s recipe is to be cooked. It uses cauliflower, walnuts, mushrooms, carrots, red onions and seasonings. Javant’s ground is designed to be used for multiple purposes.Therefore, no specific seasoning was used. It was very general. Mine is raw; designed for raw vegan lifestyle. My mixture included mushrooms, carrots, green onions,ground flax seed, soaked sunflower, jalepeno, and liquid smoke. There were other seasonings used, but they were specific to burger flavors, or at least they might have conflicted with Italian or Mexican flavors. I thought I had resolved my search for a homemade vegan burger blend. I’m down to two. I’m going to take a little from his and and add to mine. I will then cook a batch and dehydrate another batch. I learned a lot from Javant. I will continue to checkout his videos.
I’ve been trying to get back to cooking vegan meals instead of buying them. Three days ago I decided to cook dry chickpeas on the stove top instead of the pressure cooker. I let them soak for almost 2 full days. I thought surely the beans would cook in about 4 hrs. Well it’s been about 7 or 8 hours and they are NOT tender. I’m going back to the pressure cooker. I would have been done by now if I had used it first. My tuna-less tuna said will have to wait another day.😒
I finally ground the dehydrated beet pulp. Why buy beet root powder when you can make your own? All you need is the dried pulp and a grinder. I used my Nutribullet grinding attachment but a coffee or spice grinder will probably work just fine. I gave it a try this mornig. I put 1 tablespoon of the powder in my waffle mix. The batter was pink. I expected pink waffles. Didn’t happen. They were regular waffles . The beet flavor was barelty noticeable. The waffles tasted good. Results were nutrition boosted waffles.
I was so excited about getting the great results of beet and celery juicing. I began to plan for other juice meals and then……
Silence. My Caynel Masticating Juicer stopped. I thought it had over heated. I waited. Turned the switch. Silence. I tried again. Silence. My juicer died. Of course the warranty had expired. It was laid to rest last night in the dumpster.
Now I await the arrival of my new juicer. Didn’t plan to spend that much money on a juicer but it is my medication provider. It cost about 4x as much as the other. I will let you know if it provides 4x the quality.
It is my expectation that the loss will be replaced with better.
As you can imagine making fresh vegetable juice everyday yields a lot of pulp. I can’t imagine throwing it away. So what do I do with it all. My first thought was veggie patties. I looked around at different recipes and decided to use a variation of my veggie patty. I put the beet pulp, carrot pulp, celery pulp, shitake/portobello mushrooms in my food processor along with sunflower seeds, onion powder, garlic powder, organic liquid smoke, chilli flakes, flaxseed eggs and salt. I formed this mixture into patties and put them in the dehydrator for 12 hours. The reul
The results are reasonably firm and soft in the center. I need more of a binding agent so I will try chia seed egg or oatmeal the next time. This is my first try. They turned out well. Tasted okay but I need to add more seasonings. When I get the amount figured out I can share a recipe. But for now know I used 2 cups of the beet, carrot, celery pulp combinations and 2 cups of shitake/protabello mushroom blend, 1 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds. The rest was to taste or as they say in my family until it feels right. 🙂
Seven days ago I engaged in a battle with my Blood Pressure. I was determine to defeat this adversary with natural means. I had tried several different pharmaceuticals prescribed by my primary care provider and my cardiologist. My doctors’ felt the side affects to them were out weighed by the decrease in my pressure. However, I was the one feeling those side effects. All but one made me extremely ill. The one that was tolerable wasn’t as effective. I stopped taking them. I researched the vegetable and herb world to find answers to my situation. I found beets decreased the blood pressure quickly. I also found a herbal tea that reported decreasing blood pressure. On last Sunday I began. Three hours after drinking 8 oz of fresh non-pasteurized beet juice my pressure had dropped 20mmHg units. I was hopeful. You can read the details in the preceding posts.
My “beginning the day” blood pressure was always less than it had been the day before. The last two days I have had measurements in the 120/80 -ish range in the late afternoon. This morning, I drank 12oz of a combination juice of beet, celery, carrot and apple. At about 5pm I took my pressure and it was 122/71. This will be my daily prescription for my blood pressure along with potassium and magnesium tablets and a decrease in salt intake. I will continue to try to reduce my stress and increase my exercise. This is my self-care plan. I am making an appointment with the cardiologist. I expect that will be a positive visit, except for the stress test I have to take. 🙂 I am not a doctor or a medical expert. I can only share my experience. If this appeals to you, discuss it with your doctor and give it a try.
I am continuing the war of taking care of my body on all levels. I still have difficulty prioritizing myself but I am getting better. My next battle is returning to the weight and dietary practice pre-quarantine. I liked how I felt and I like how I looked. Seventy is my new 40. I am going to get there. It took 18 months to get here, so I know it will not happen over night. First order is to get back into the habit of making my raw food that needs to be dehydrated in a timely manner.
Next experiment is making veggie burger patties with the pulp from the beets and celery. Hope they taste as good as the juice.
We Keep The Feast and Observe Sabbath!
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Beauty, Reviews, Swatches, Baking
by David Guerrieri
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Eating Gluten Free Never Tasted So Good!
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"Black Soil" Living 