Join Raw Melissa and Jen of Delightful Delicacies.
October 22, 2011 – 11:30 to 1:30 p.m.
Price: $35
Venue: TBA
Learn to make:
Roasted tomato soup, Autumn vegetable minestrone, Gruyere and kale pesto grilled sandwich, Carmelized brussels sprouts salad, and Free form apple and lemon balm galette.
Register HERE today!
We thought all of our readers would love this great blog by Terri Johnson: Roots of Healthy Living. It’s full of great information on alternative health, herbs, nutrition, and has many fabulous healthy recipes. Check it out!
September is National Apple Month, and what a better month to celebrate apples? There is no apple better than one fresh from the tree, and what a beautiful sight to see bushels-full of an array of colors lined up at your local farmers market. Fresh, sweet, and crisp, apples are full of vitamin C, flavanoids, and antioxidants. What a more refreshing snack than a cold apple on the last remaining warm days of the year?
Want a little more out of that apple? If you make a trip to the farmer’s market this weekend, or have some apples ripening on your own tree, try out this delicious recipe for Raw Melissa’s Fresh Apple Crisp. Enjoy!
2 Granny Smith apple, diced
½ C walnuts, broken into pieces
1 C rolled oats or hulled buckwheat or oat groats (process if using last two)
½ C golden raisins
4 T coconut oil
4 tsp. agave or honey
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ -1 tsp. salt
Set apples aside. Mix rest of ingredients together. Put over top of apples and dehydrate until warm, or mix into apples and eat right away.
And one more thing on apples: Check out this great article on Gravenstein apples, and find out why it is considered one of the best eating and baking apples. http://tinyurl.com/3r2wnxw
Take a look at this article in the Daily Herald that Melissa was interviewed for, and learn some of her great tips on incorporating more fruits and veggies into your diet.
Check out this great video by Slow Food USA’s President Josh Viertel. He talks about knowing the story behind the food you eat, buying food that is good for you and good for the environment and things we can do to help make changes in our community by the way we buy our own food.
http://www.plumtv.com/videos/2011-aspen-ideas-festival-josh-viertel/index.html
Going along with our posts on Alternative sweeteners (Part 1 & Part 2), I just wanted to share this recipe my dear friend gave me this morning along with a dozen gorgeous farm fresh eggs her beloved chickens recently layed! Although I haven’t tried the recipe yet, she said it was absolutely decadent and it uses sucanat so it’s perfect to include with these posts. Enjoy!
Do you know about Slow Food USA? It’s a wonderful organization that started in Italy in response to fast food chains cropping up there.
From their website:
Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.
I’m a member of my chapter in Utah and they have lots of fun events from learning to cook to planting gardens in communities. They have book groups and potlucks and the people are wonderful to be around.
Slow Food just posted this slide show of good, clean and fair farms around the US. I think you’ll like it a lot.
…and don’t forget to find a chapter in your area by going to the website: slowfoodusa.org and clicking on the “local chapters” tab.
Maybe I’ll see you at one of the meetings!
Join Raw Melissa at the Raw Food Fair in Spanish Fork at Beehive Health Essentials Saturday August 27 from 10:00 – 2:00. We hope to see you there!
My favorite alternative sweeteners:
Sucanat – (stands for sugar cane natural) is available in bulk sections of health food stores, it’s dehydrated sugar cane that has then been ground into granules. I use it especially for baking.
Honey – Buy local honey if you can. Anecdotal accounts show that it may help with allergies and may have other immune boosting properties.
Agave – A sweetener available at any health food store. It’s slightly processed from a type of cactus-like plant grown in Central America.
Maple Syrup – Siphoned from a tree and boiled to a thick syrup, maple syrup has trace minerals and is a delightful sweetener.
Here’s a recipe for a really delicious ice cream sauce or spread using maple syrup. It tastes like caramel to me:
Maple Sauce
1/4 C coconut oil
1/2 C maple syrup
Blend in a food processor or blender until “whipped.” Serve immediately over ice cream or as a spread on toast or other bread.
Here’s yet another article on high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
There is much debate on whether or not it is bad for you. Main stream scientists would have you believing that it is similar to sugar and other alternative sweeteners including agave, but it’s not necessarily the components of the finished product that have me concerned, it’s the *way* in which HFCS is processed. Several chemicals are involved in getting it to its final product state, whereas, products like agave or sucanat (a barely processed version of sugar cane), are hardly removed from their natural plant state.
To better understand why HFCS might be worse than table sugar, see this article:
http://tinyurl.com/44drd79
Remember, though, that the bottom line is that any sweetener should be consumed in moderation and if you can use a sweetener that is more natural and as close to it’s plant state as possible, it will most likely be better for your body.
See part two of this post for my favorite four alternative sweeteners.
melissa@rawmelissa.com
