Raw Food Made Easy!
Newsletter April 2012

Hello there.  It's time for April showers and spring flowers, and another newsletter.  This one's filled with a bouquet of Springtime-fresh recipes that make embracing a raw food lifestyle easy and interesting.  And there are plenty of tips that will help you 'bloom' as a raw food home chef, too.

The gray, humid days of April can leave me feeling a bit sluggish, and that's when I let raw food re-energize me.   Creating beautiful plates of fresh fruits and vegetables for myself always gives me a lift.  And working in the kitchen, making raw dishes that will last me through the week is a wonderfully soothing way to spend a rainy afternoon.

So in this month's newsletters, you'll find raw food recipes made with fresh on-your-grocer's-shelves-now ingredients.  Like all the recipes I create, these dishes are ultra-quick and easy...although they're so beautiful, you'd never know it! 
 Garden Wraps
IN THIS ISSUE:
Raw Food 'Fashions' For Spring
It's Better with Blanching
Raw Food's Dynamic Duos
From France To Your Raw Food Kitchen
 Raw Food 'Fashions' For Spring
Have you noticed that just like in the fashion world, the food world has its 'seasons,' too, as chefs declare what's in and what's out from a culinary standpoint.  This year, food and fashion are trending both trending to the East...to India, a country known for bold colors in clothing and bold tastes in food.  And I've got a wonderfully exotic raw food pudding recipe that will put you right in step with the latest in fashionable raw food desserts.

This is a good time to remind you that raw food is always made with wholesome ingredients, but the results are not necessarily low-cal. 
Kheer, featured in my book Raw for Dessert, is an excellent example. Kheer is a sweet pudding enjoyed throughout India, originally made with rice and cow's milk.  My raw food Kheer gets its creaminess from coconut meat, dried coconut, and coconut water, not dairy products.  That makes it cholesterol-free, but not fat-free...and certainly not low in calories.  But it can definitely be part of your healthy eating lifestyle if you enjoy it in moderation.

One thing you'll always find in kitchens from Jaipur to Delhi is a masala daba, a traditional spice box filled with cumin seeds, turmeric, mustard seeds, garam masala, fennel seeds, cardamon seeds, and coriander powder. The spices are to an Indian cook what a color palette is to an artist  So staying with the Spring fashion analogy, you can tweak favorite recipes for this season so that they're more up-to-date by 'accessorizing' them with in-fashion spices.  For example, it's the cardamom and rose water that make my Kheer dish immediately reminiscent of the streets of Mumbai in Spring.  

Click here for my raw Kheer recipe. In my opinion, eating well is always in fashion.
 Stuffed Mushrooms
 It's Better with Blanching
To spearhead your Spring 'lighten up' efforts, dig into salads topped with seasonal vegetables.  Salads are naturally filling as you eat them, but don't leave you feeling stuffed when you're done.  And topping my eye-catching Tricolor Salad with a few spears of blanched, first-crop-of-the-season asparagus is a delicious way to celebrate Spring.

Don't blanch at the idea of putting cooked asparagus on a raw salad.  Blanching is a useful technique for warming tough vegetables (including broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans) so that they are a little less fibrous and easier to eat, but still retain most of their nutritional value.

To blanch asparagus (or broccoli, cauliflower, or green beans), all you do is put 4 cups of water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Then turn off the heat and add your veggie spears.  Let the asparagus sit in the water for about two minutes, then drain it and rinse it with cold water to help it retain it's bright, fresh green color.  

By doing this, you are not really cooking the vegetables; the carryover heat that's in the water merely warms them through and allows the fibers to relax...kind of like your muscles do in a warm bath.  You can add blanched vegetables to a number of dishes.  They are an elegant touch that elevates a simple salad to a new level.  

Blanched asparagus spears are especially good and good for you in my Tricolor Salad.  (I've written more about the combination of spinach and asparagus in the Dynamic Duos story.)  This is a super-sophisticated dish made with a combination of baby spinach, Belgian endive, and radicchio.  It's astonishingly beautiful and sweet asparagus is a perfect counterpoint to the slightly bitter flavor of the other ingredients.  

Add a splash of my Classic Vinaigrette and you've got a spectacular starter for any meal in just minutes.

 Raw Food's Dynamic Duos
The human body is an amazing thing.  It takes the food we consume and rather mysteriously breaks it down and recombines it in ways that allow us to live and thrive.  My goal is to do everything I can to help my body work its magic.  And one thing I know I can do is eat certain foods together to make it easier for my body to absorb and utilize the nutrients.  

Combining foods that work well together led to the creation of my Spinach Apple Soup recipe.  Beyond the two ingredients in the name, this creamy, dairy-free soup also includes avocado.  Avocado and spinach are naturally delicious together.  Both are slightly sweet, but the spinach lends an outdoorsy 'green' note to the dish.  And I discovered that when you eat them together, they work in concert to make certain nutrients more 'bio-available' (the word scientists use to mean 'easily absorbed by the body'). Click here for the Spinach Apple Soup Recipe.

Eating certain foods in combination is like getting a value-added nutritional boost without having to do anything other than enjoy a delicious meal or snack.  But to be honest, when I combine foods, I'm really focused on what works taste-wise than nutrition-wise because I'm all about flavor when I cook.  And since I work with exclusively fresh and natural ingredients, I'm always confident that what I'm cooking will taste great and be good for me, too.  

Take the Classic Vinaigrette that's featured in the Better with Blanching story.  The basic recipe calls for either cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar.  As it happens, cider vinegar is easier to digest than red wine varieties. Your body will also appreciate that the recipe is made with healthy extra-virgin olive oil.  And your taste buds will be grateful for the rich, spicy flavor or Dijon mustard.  (See the sidebar story for more information about the mustards of Dijon.) 

I hope this newsletter has put a little Spring in your step and given you some ideas for new and useful ways to make raw food part of your lifestyle.  Remember, you don't have to take an all-or-nothing approach to eating raw.  My only goal as a raw food advocate is to show you options for preparing meals that your body will love as much as your taste buds.

I've got so much information to share with you that I couldn't possibly fit it all into one newsletter...or even a dozen.  So on my website www.learnrawfood.com, you'll find dozens of recipes, videos, articles, and other information about my favorite subject: raw food.  

See you in May,
Jennifer Cornbleet
Learn Raw Food
 From France to Your  Raw Food Kitchen
Can you name an ingredient that's probably in your refrigerator that you have in common with the world's most celebrated French chefs as well as the most novice of American home cooks?  It's Dijon mustard.

Dijon is light in color, but fairly strong in flavor.  That's why it works so well in salad dressings like my Classic Vinaigrette. It adds a pale yellow dimension to the color and a spicy counterpoint to the vinegar and olive oil.

Combining savory Dijon with sweet honey is one of my favorite quick tricks in the kitchen.  This versatile honey-mustard base can be used as a dip for crudit�s, a sandwich spread, and morphed into many different things.

Not all Dijon mustards are alike.  I prefer an organic brand such as Annie's.  

Not all honeys are the same, either. Many are heat processed which strips away so much flavor and nutrition! Here's a terrific raw honey I really like.
 Best of the Blog
Have you visited my online blog yet?  Last month we had these mouthwatering stories: