I love spaghetti and would love some recipes that cater to the comfort foods I crave. I know that as I get healthier and stronger I will find new comforts but for now I need to ease into it with the help of some favorite tastes. The reason is that I am married into a very stressful situation and I am a recovering addict. A food addict.... and, I am heartily convinced that is a REAL addiction. I can leave the booze and the smokes out of my day by simply not buying them. Hate both anyway but groceries are something you need to buy. I do not purchase "junk food" but I can overeat on the worst concoctions created within my kitchen. I am an emotional eater and the stress is being worked on. I have come a LONG way but there is more that needs to still be done!

So... I am thinking marinara vegetables and something gluten free. I love warm soup (its cold here in MI right now!) I love potatoes!!!

Oh and I guess I ought to say... I AM VEGETARIAN. Not vegan because I eat small amounts of cheese and I really like greek yogurt! Added milk in recipes or a occasional homemade potato cheese (homemade and I love it) chowder. My daughter says she has cooked with Silk milk but has anyone found that to not work too well for them? HATE fish and what I did like (tuna) I gave up a few months ago. But NO eggs for a few months also... YUCK!! Other than that vegetarian for 9 years.

Well, apologies about giving you a non-raw recipe, but I just made a dish that is very inexpensive and gives you a lot left over. I get organic tomato paste and brown jasmine rice from Trader Joe's and dried organic blackeyed peas from Whole Foods in bulk (one pound). Boil peas until soft (1+ hour) and at some point during this time, add one green pepper, one large onion, a few cloves garlic, the can of tomato paste, a jalapeno pepper, cilantro, and some green olives. Cook until peas and veggies are soft, serve over rice. So delicious!

just 4 me,

Have you looked at the Recipes forum here? As you are incorporating cooked as well, any larger library[don't know where you are in the Mitten]should have a good selection of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. These will, of course, also feature lots of salad recipes and many soups that could converted to raw recipes with tweaking.

I have found that British publishing imprints tend to be more conscious of nutrition and budget because vegetarianism was mainstreamed in the U.K sooner than here--I still meet people who think we all sit around eating big bowls of brown rice and stir fried tofu every day, LOL!

When I was transitioning becoming vegan, I found that fruit and veggie detoxes really helped a great deal. I would do them for a week. The first 2-3 days were tough because of the cravings but they subside.

To help with cravings, think of the food your craving and substitute a vegan/raw(if possible) meal. If youre thinking pasta, you can take a peeler (for apples and potatoes and such) to some zucchini and make zucchini pasta. Then add do it the seasonings you would to regular pasta. Some salt and olive oil makes it taste buttery and sweet. Or you could add marinara sauce. I've done this for my 13 year old sister with much success!
If you're craving cake, there are many raw vegan recipes online for brownies, bars, cakes, and more!

I was really into gourmet raw food during my transition and I found google or yahoo or youtube searching easy raw food recipes is really simple and helpful.

vegweb.com is one of my favorites. There's a search engine that allows you to search ingredients in recipes.

Anywho...here are some recipes in my bookmarks. Good luck with everything!!


chocolate cake: [goneraw.com]
truffles: [www.youtube.com]
sundried tomato dip: [www.rawfoodrecipes.com]
brownies: [recipes.sparkpeople.com]
apple crisp: [www.loveveggiesandyoga.com]
almond joy: [veganmother.blogspot.com]
marinara sauce: [www.loveveggiesandyoga.com]
pasta: [www.youtube.com]

Wow! Thank you for the ideas, support and recipes!!!

I can sympathize!
I can leave out the booze and other stuff.....but when it comes to food.
That is something else.SOOOO much temptation out there.
Vinny

For me, spiralized zucchini with raw marinara wasn't a great substitute for pasta, because it isn't glutinous; it lacks that starchy chew that people unconsciously crave in pasta.

HOWEVER, from the first bite, I realized that the fresh taste explosion I was experiencing was absent from even the tastiest cooked pastas I'd ever tried, and that I preferred the raw zucchini and tomato version. To say nothing of the raw zucchini and Thai flavored coconut sauce version!

This "shift" in tastebud response is key to developing a preference for the raw versions of cooked dishes and for simpler raw foods. If you look in the Recipes forum, you'll see that half the threads are about someone wanting a raw version of a common cooked food.

Green smoothie. I honestly find it a pain in the patootie to make but can't think of a thing I'd rather have had once it's done. It just makes me feel So terrific and you can throw all sorts of stuff in there, whatever produce needs to get used up.

plain almonds
trail mix (almonds cashews pumpkin seeds chopped dried pineapple/raisins)
plain pumpkin seeds

There are many exceptional blogs out there where raw foodists share their amazing recipes.

If you're craving comfort foods, i have a few things on my mind, such as raw burgers, raw eggless deviled eggs, raw nachos (or rawchos), raw almond butter, raw apple pie, raw lasagna, raw cookies, etc.

Here are some of the recipes I mentioned:

raw burger: [rawfoodhealthwatch.com]
raw eggless deviled eggs: [rawfoodhealthwatch.com]
rawchos: [rawfoodhealthwatch.com]

Feel free to browse through the entire recipe section of this website for more awesome things to eat. Good luck and Happy Holidays!

Keeping it raw at [rawfoodhealthwatch.com]

I have a few simple recipes on my recipes playlist on youtube:
[www.youtube.com]

There is plenty more out there!


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

Ive never bought any books for raw food recipes but megan elizabeths e-book is appealing to me. The recipe pics look amazing and i know she is into the fairly simplistic whole food based so might buy it soon.

Will let you's know if i do and how it is.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

THANK YOU everyone. I will be checking out these sites as soon as possible. The u tube ones will have to wait until I get to library high speed computers. Again thank you! Merry Christmas to you all!

Vitamix whatever you have but make sure its sweet. Dates work.