Beyond Raw Food

Here’s a recipe I often serve in the winter time since it’s warm, creamy smooth, delicious, and very healing to the body since it’s made with a bunch of powerful Chinese tonic herbs. Chai traditionally is a mixture of tea and milk or cream. This chai uses nut milk and is every bit as creamy as dairy.

You can find the herbs online and in some oriental herb stores or groceries, but beware, if they’re not labeled organic they may have toxic chemicals in them. Read labels and ask questions. A good source is ShamanShack.info; their high quality Three Treasures organic herbal tea mixes are ready to go, taste great, and can be used easily instead of buying all the ingredients separately and weighing them out. Otherwise search online for “organic” in front of each herb name. eBay often has bulk organic Chinese herbs. Because the ingredients can come in different forms and are very light, they are weighed in grams, which most kitchen scales will measure.

TEA INGREDIENTS
36 grams Szechuan Lovage Root (aka “Rhyzome”)
36 grams White Peony Root (Paeonia Lactoflora)
60 grams Condoropsis Root (Tang Shen)
4 pieces of Rehmannia Root
36 grams Liquorice Root
12 grams Reishi mushroom (about 5 slices, 4 by 1/8 inches)
60 grams Astragalus
40 to 60 Goji Berries (Lycium)
20 Jujube Dates

TO BREW THE TEA
Soak the herbs in 8 cups of water for 30 minutes. Cover, bring to a boil and leave at moderate heat for 30 to 45 minutes. Let cool until warm but not hot. You can leave the same batch of herbs in the pot when making a second batch, the first batch will still have some flavor left.

NUT MILK INGREDIENTS
(Available at places like www.naturalzing.com)
4 cups pure water
2 cups raw cashews, unsoaked
2 tsp vanilla bean powder or 2 vanilla beans (beans are more grainy)
1 tsp nama shoyu or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
2 tbsp Artisana raw coconut butter (not oil)
4 rounded tbsp raw cacao powder
20 drops SweetLeaf vanilla or English toffee flavored Stevia
8 tbsp organic raw honey, or organic raw agave nectar

NUT MILK DIRECTIONS
This is a drink for special occasions, not daily drinking, because the combination of nuts and sugar is a poor combination that ferments in the gut, but for a very OCCASIONAL treat, the wonderful creaminess and chocolate flavor are very much like hot cocoa. It’s a great treat that will impress even non-raw friends. For vanilla nut milk, leave the cacao powder out and increase the vanilla bean powder to 4 teaspoons. Blend all ingredients in a high-speed commercial blender until smooth, creamy, and warm. Only a high-speed blender will have enough speed to warm the milk and make it creamy.

TO MAKE CHAI
Mix about 5 parts tea to 1 part nut milk and stir. Can add more or less nut milk or sweetener to taste. You can leave the agave or honey out altogether and use Stevia only. Enjoy!

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Got tired of the raw cracker recipes I’ve been using of late, so I created a new one. This tastes a bit like a western omelet (as I remember them), hence the name. As always, use raw organic ingredients whenever possible. I use an Excalibur ED2900 9-Tray Dehydrator to make these. Enjoy!

—Ken Rohla

Western Omelet Crackers
(Makes 8 or 9 15”x15” dehydrator trays)
1-1/2 cups golden flax
2 cups buckwheat groats, soaked about 8 hours and drained
2 cups truly raw organic almonds, soaked about 8 hours and drained
9 cups water
4 to 6 Anaheim chilies (mild green), seeds removed and finely chopped
1 med yellow onion, finely chopped
4 red bell peppers, finely chopped
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp Celtic or other unrefined salt

This tastes a bit like a Western Omelets, hence the name. Powder dry flax in a blender until a fine flour. Mix well with 6 cups of water in a large bowl or pot and let sit to thicken. Blend buckwheat groats with 1 cup of water in a food processor until creamy, and pour in a large bowl or pot. Blend almonds with 1 cup of water in a food processor until creamy and add to buckwheat. Beware, most almonds from California now are irradiated, so get truly raw organic almonds. Cut chilies in half lengthwise, remove seeds and stems, and chop finely. Peel onion and chop finely. Remove seeds and stems from red bells and chop finely. You can put all items to be diced/chopped into a food processor and pulse chop. Mix all ingredients including flax and veggies into buckwheat and almond mixture. Add 1 cup of water or so to make a thick batter.

Spread on dehydrator Teflon sheets (Paraflex, aka Teflex) with a spatula to about 3/16-inch thick. Dehydrate at 145 degrees F for about two hours until firm, then flip the crackers onto a regular screen and peel away Paraflex to expose wet side. Dehydrate at 105-110 F on regular dehydrator screen for about another 13 hours until crisp. Break up into smaller pieces to serve.

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I was in the kitchen wanting a nice restaurant-style raw vegan Italian dressing for an incredibly fresh sunflower sprout salad, so I whipped this up and wrote it down to share. Enjoy! -Ken Rohla

Country Club Italian Dressing

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orgainc lemon juice
1/4 cup Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar
1 clove of organic garlic
2/3 cup pure water
2/3 cup organic first cold-pressed sunflower or safllower oil
1-1/2 tsp Celtic, Himalayan or other unrefined, unheated whole salt
3 tsp Italian seasoning (I prefer Mountain Rose Herbs or Frontier brands)

Blend everything except Italian seasoning until smooth. Add seasoning and blend for just a few seconds to mix. Best if left for a few hours or overnight to infuse herbs into dressing. Makes about 2 cups.

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