I'm relatively new to raw. Fortunately, my husband is raw right along with me. But Thanksgiving is coming up, and I'm looking for recipes and food that will work with our non-raw greater family. We'd like to include everyone and be included ourselves.

Thanks.

There are terrific recipes right on this website that will help you prepare wonderful meals.

In her book, Raw Family, Victoria Boutenko describes that one of her first jobs after she went raw was to prepare food for a wedding for SAD eaters. She made a complete raw feast, including (if I recall correctly) a wedding cake. The guests raved about the food and not one commented on it being raw.

Are you bringing a dish or preparing a whole meal for the family at your home?

For years I have cooked things for other people and they rave abot my recipes and stuff but it winds up costing me so much time and money.

I say do a potluck and everybody bring a dish and you and your husband can eat that and others can bring what they want to eat.

Don't be pressured into cooking things, or even making the entire menu for everybody..

it's not good for you to cook because you might have to taste and tryit/tempted etc..

What about a really large impressive raw dish. A fancy one? And a really fancy raw food dessert your husband can bring.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2006 02:27PM by coconutcream.

I so totally agree with the potluck concept. You may have great intentions with trying to serve your guests healthy food, but serving something raw instead of the traditional fare is SO going to backfire on you.

I have an entire lifetime of experience with dealing with SAD relatives and their reaction to healthy (cooked usually) food, and believe me it will not go over.

As an analogy, imagine if one of your relatives went breatharian and you showed up for dinner and they took you out to the forest for some deep breathing. They may think they are doing you a favor and trying to help your health, but you've just had a bad experience.

LOL!!!! "took you out to the forest for some deep breathing"! Still laughing!


Life Is Good!


alive!

Since there's only four of us (and one is my 85 year old mother-in-law), we'll probably share the cooking/preparation duties. She will cook the "traditional" things and we will bring raw dishes. I would like specific suggestions as to recipes that might fit it well with their turkey, mashed potatoes and the like. We've already decided on a raw "waldorf" salad, a green salad, and some cranberry relish (cranberries, orange, honey), but I'm looking for a couple more options to round out the table.

Thanks for the support!

Mary

See the thread over on the Recipes and Food Prep board [www.rawfoodsupport.com]

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

<img src="[myspace-630.vo.llnwd.net];

furkey burgers, apple walnut stuffing, wilted spinach with a little kale and seasame seeds, cranberry sauce, celariac mashed potatoes (came out great), and pumpkin pie:

<img src="[myspace-945.vo.llnwd.net];

Looks great! Could you post the recipes?

furkey burgers: (half quantities of my original)
1/2 zuchini
1 small celariac or 1/3 medium head of cauliflower
2 white stalks of fennel or light celery
garlic, onion or bottom of a leek to taste. (ive been using leek isntead of garlic or onion)
sea / mineral salt
1 lemon - juice
spicy pepper to taste

1/4 cup almond
1/4 cup sunflower
1/8 cup really raw cashew or macadamia
1/8 cup pine nuts
1/8th cup white seaseame

1/2 cup finely ground coconut

on the top and bottom:
1/2 cup finely ground coconut
basil / rosemary - or whatever spices or herbs you like.
paprika


the idea is to have more vegetable than nut. the almond and sunflower will help keep it on the lighter side. also with everything i used, i kept it white. i even peeled the almonds after they were soaked. all the nuts i soaked except for the pine, and the mac i only soaked for a short while. you can ues whatever veggies or nuts you like. i think its probably best on all these things not to over blend and try to leave at least the vegetables or something chunky. i have a tendency to want to blend everything up.
i used the same food processor for everything.
i used the technique for salting spinach and kale seen below to get juice out of the veggies, and i blended the nuts and stuff in this.
after i made the burgers i put them on little beds of basil and rosemary ground with the coconut. this stops it from sticking to the sheet. and then soon after you can flip it and put it on the ones with holes. then i put some paprika on the tops with a tea strainer.
i de hydrated at 115-120 for an hour or two then i turned it down. you can do it slower at a lower temp. some say that when you have more dense things with more volume that you need more heat to warm it up. i have found things to feel cold to the touch at temps like 100-105. i just kind of feel it out with the dehydrator.


apple walnut stuffing
1/3 cup almonds
1/3 cup walnuts
1/3 cup pecan
(all soaked)
1 apple
6 stalks celery or fennel
1/2 lemon - juice
garlic, onion or leek to taste
italian or french herbs or
rosemary, sage, tyme, etc

you want to chop these things up individually keeping the consistancy no less than rice. i cut up the apple by hand and then gave it a quick pulse in the processor. i then took everything and stired it together by hand. i also threw this in the dehydrator for a little while and stirred it occasionally to remove some water and concentrate it.

wilted spinach w seasame seeds:
you take like a tsp of salt and mix it with the greens with the juice of a half a lemon. you let it sit, and then work it by hand. it will get really nice and soft like you cooked it if you do it right, juice will come out. i did this with some kale and added some of this too. and then at the end i put in some sesame seeds.

cranberry sauce:
1.5 cups fresh cranberries or less dried
1/4tsp orange zest
2 oranges - juice and pulp
agave to taste - can use dates, but its thicker
cinnamon to taste
cinnamon stick

i dehydrated my cranberries about half way. then i soaked them in orange juice with the pulp too. this makes it seem cooked. i then blended it all up. and then stuck a cinnamon stick in there.


mashed potatoes:
1/2 head cauliflower
2-3 small celariac
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
1/4 cup pine nuts
salt
1/4-1/2 lemon(not too much)
garlic onion or leek to taste

you can play around with the quantities. more mac nuts will make it creamier. i would certainly put in more celariac than cauliflower if you can get it. some use parsnip and other things. when this came out of the food processor it was okay, but i put some black pepper on it, and then threw it in the dehydrator to warm up with everything else. somehow the dehydrator completely softened the cellulose and it was very good, and a lot like mashed potatoes. i figured i would jsut make this as something to do. it was a big suprise how nicely it came out. my mom said it was the best thing on the table cooked or not. interestingly, when it cooled off it was more course again.

pumpkin pie:

crust:
1 cup almonds
1/2 cup sunflower
1/2 cup walnut
1-2TBs agave
1 lemon - juice + 1/4tsp zest
1 tsp+ cinnamon
1/2tsp+ nutmeg

filling:
2cup pumpkin
1 cup almonds
1/2 cup really raw cashews
2 TBs coconut oil or mix with cacao oil
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp+ cinnamon
1/4-1/2tsp+ nutmeg
1-1.5 cup soaked and squeezed dates
1/4tsp+ vanilla or vanilla bean
1/4tsp+ organge zest
1/4tsp clove

usually i soak the nuts, last time i did, but i dehydrated them. this made the crust very crumbly, and almost too difficult to work with. i thought this might concentrate the flavor a bit, but it didnt make too much difference. its nice to leave the crusts chunky to make it different than the filling.

i have been using something as a bed to put the crust on. this time i did wallnut meal. i put that down first, and then the crust over it. this makes it so it comes out very cleanly, and also probably dehydrates better. you can do this with anything, ground nuts, whole sesame seeds, ground coconut, whatever. if you just fill the bottom and the sides a little, you can push the crust into it, and it will extend all the way to the top. i work by putting little peices of crust in until ive got it filled up, its kinda like clay or something. its good to put this in the fridge for an hour or two to let it dehydrate and set before putting the filling in.

for the pumpkin, i grated it with my food processor and then i salted it and used lemon, if you let it set and work and then keep blending it this way, eventually it will really break down and get creamy. there is another technique for this which is to blend it up, and then put it under liquid, water or coconut juice and dehydrate it. this seemed to make it soft, but didnt seem worth it. also then it was much wetter to work with. i used dehydrated nuts to blend in which thickened it. i dont think i would do this again, as i can get it really creamy with salt and lemon. so you just blend it all up and then put it in the crust. later i took the tea strainer and powdered it with cinnamon and then ground some nutmeg on top.



hows that?

Rawlife, this sounds really delicious, especially the mashed potatos. I can't wait to try some of these recipes. Thank you for taking the time to post all this.

i just remembered i put like 1/3rd of a cup of coconut oil and olive oil in the mashed potatoes, sorry i didnt write that one down.

Thanks, rawlife. That would make a difference.

I'm thinking of making a semi-frozen pumpkin pie with almond cream mashed in. I didn't find any pumpkins today at the HFS but it's on my list. I may experiment with other squashes if I can't find pumpkin, although I haven't tried them since I've been raw. They're so hard to cut and peel, and I'm so lazy! Maybe carrots & ginger. What would you think of a carrot and ginger pie?

I think the squashes could get nice and creamy.

Yes, thank you for the wonderful recipes!

I blew it this Thanksgiving and ate "standard fare." Hopefully on Christmas I will get it together to make these recipes!

i will be making this stuff and more for christmas. ill be around if you want to join in its not hard, well worthwhile. i felt thankful for being raw and having nice raw food to eat. the holidays is a bit of a celebration for me, this christmas i will have been raw vegan and organic for 2 years.

i also made some truffles on thanksgiving. ill be doing these plus a raw fruit cake, pecan pie, chocolates with fillings, and other things.

i think i did find some recipes that used carrot instead of pumpkin. dr gabriel cousens suggests trying to use the japanese squash variety of pumpkin, whatever that is.

what i need to figure out is exactly how im going to make a pecan pie. i was messing around a little with trying to make candied pecans with agave for the top before thanksgiving.

brett

I just experimented with raw spiced walnuts using agave. I soaked the walnuts, tossed them with agave and salt and a little chili spices and put them in the dehydrator. The agave thickened somewhat, maybe not enough for a real caramel but getting there. There's some real gooey residue on the dehydrator sheet.

Thanks all - we had a great time. The only thing not raw that I ate was mom's pecan pie!

Mary