While I was out running the other day and listening to Sarah Parent’s podcast on Strewing (which I barely got into before my ipod died) I was trying to think of something good to strew this week. It was such a beautiful morning the sun was out, the wind was blowing and all the spring flowers and trees are in full color right now. The air smells so sweet. This wondrous time of Spring is so short. A few windy or rainy days and the flowers blow off of the trees and those Spring bulbs turn into green skeletons.  So I thought we should bring Spring inside this week.

I wanted it to be more than just a small nature table–I wanted the sun, the wind, the sounds and smells of Spring. So I choose a sunny spot near the windows.  Ginger and I found lots of stuff just in our own yard to bring inside.  Flowers, leaves, nuts, pine cones, bark, sicks with fungus on them, seed pods, rocks, dried up daffodils, tulips etc…

Then I rummaged through my basement and cupboards to find just the right containers to sort everything into. I think it’s important to take some time to think about how you are going to display your items. They certainly are more visually pleasing and inviting if you take a little time to display them in different ways. I don’t think this would have been nearly as appealing if I just left everything in a tubby on the table mixed together. Think trays, silverware sorters, tiny bowls and boxes, cigar boxes, egg cartons, vases.

Put your specimens under glass and  your immediately drawn to the little collection.

Add mirrors and you get more light and a whole new perspective!

Add magnifying glasses to get a closer look.

I put out vases of flowers too.

What’s happening in your back yard?

Bring it inside for a whole different view!

I hear some of you want to play along with What’s On My Strewing Table?!  Excellent!! If you are strewing at your house and want to share, leave a link to your strewing post in the comments so we can all see what you got going on! I will try to post this regularly as a Friday Feature–but sometimes I might not get it posted until Sat. –Be patient with me!! Are you strewing this week????? Let us know about it!

Often times my kitchen looks like a laboratory with various nuts and or seeds soaking or sprouting on the counter tops.

Where to start—

So why sprout?  Sprouts are full of nutrition–They are alive, vitamin and mineral content doubles or triple!!  Sprouting pre-digests the nut or seed and  activates living enzymes which also assist in digestion.

What to sprout? Almost anything! Use untreated, unbroken nuts, grain or seed–not seeds treated for planting purposes. Anything out of the bulk bins will probably sprout.

What equipment  do you need? Any container that provides drainage. You can buy nut and seed mesh bags for sprouting or use mason jars with old tights or nylons on the top secured with a rubber band for draining or you can buy a jar with a screen lid or for larger beans/grains I have used a bowl strainer/colander combination.

How do I sprout? Choose something simple to start off with-   Easy beans–mung beans, garbanzo, lentil, kidney, aduki Easy seeds—alfalfa, clover, radish, mustard, feugreek      Easy grains—-whole barley, wheat berries, kamut berries, rye, quinioa  Best nuts—almonds, sunflowers, filberts

For 1 qt finished sprouts measure out:    small seeds 2-3 rounded Tablespoons — Medium Seeds 1/4-1/2 cup —-Larrger beans and grains 1 cup —sunflower seeds 2 cups

Pour into jar or strainer, fill with good water,  let soak over night    Drain using a screen, nylon or strainer of some sort.  Rinse and drain again.  Continue rinsing 2 to 3 times per day for 4 to 7 days depending on the temperature-until desired sprout length. Keep in a darker spot for days 1 through 3 And for the last 2 to 3 days place in a sunny spot to activate their green chlorophyll.  Drain and keep in the fridge for about 7 days.

Once you get started it’s super easy to sprout!  You can eat them raw in salads or on sandwiches (PB&J w/ alfalfa sprouts is a favorite of mine!!) You can add them to soups or puree to make pate or hummus. You can go on to cook sprouted beans and sprouted grains can be dried and ground into flour.  I have a recipe for the mung bean sprouts in the first photo that I will be making tonight! I love to use sprouted quinoa to make tabouli.  Happy Sprouting!

******Fermented Foods update from last week*********

I just tasted them again today and the carrots definitely have a bit of a zing to them but still not enough-I will taste again in a couple of days. The cabbage is now a beautiful purple color but not too tangy yet. The temperature hasn’t been too warm so I think that might keep things from moving along and fermenting. If I had to eat them now they would be tasty but I am hoping for a little more “sour” zest to them! I promise to keep you posted.

OOps I see it’s been a week since I last posted. We have been busy skiing, cooking and eating and trying out some new homeschool classes. I have been spending way too much time in front of the computer changing email addresses and joining a new blog group (more on that soon).  I hope to post more projects in the coming weeks.

We have been eating this for breakfast and dessert this week. It tastes like a home baked treat but really it is healthy enough to enjoy any time of the day. Or even multiple times!

Apple Crumble

You will need a 9×13 pan and about 10 apples

In a food processor puree 1/2 cup of raisins (I used 1/2 dates and 1/2 raisins), 2 lbs apples (about 10 small apples) with skin on, 1 tsp cinnamon

Line the pan with this mixture

For the crumble process 4 oz almonds, 5 oz pecans, 4oz oat groats soaked 8 to 12 hrs and 2-3 oz honey or agave. Add more dry oats if this is too wet.

Crumble over top of apples.

For the banana ice cream break up 4 frozen bananas into the food processor and blend until they reach a creamy consistency. This will take a while so be patient.

We added 1/2 a scraped pod of vanilla beans and a few squares of dark chocolate for chocoalte chip ice cream. Even my picky, junk food loving, husband like this ice cream!

I have seen many different additions to this ice cream–chia seeds, nuts, fruit–frozen or dried, carob powder or almond butter. I think next time I will add some mint leaves to make a mint chocolate chip.

This ice cream is really smooth and creamy and the banana flavor is not overwhelming at all.

Over the weekend we went for a walk and collected many treasures .

It doesn’t take long to fill a basket or a bag with pretty, little interesting things. I am worse than the kids!! I love little collections of this and that. If you just look around my house you can easily see my love of “stuff.” I also love to arrange these little collections, to set them out in interesting ways, like little still lifes. Molly also loves to arrange and rearrange and set up little scenes. Ginger on the other hand likes to investigate and touch everything. And sometimes break things in the process

I had just the thing to organize our finds…an old printers box. I set the box on top of a small table and perched a mirror on the back. Instant nature table.

Ginger sorted out the pinecones, rose petals, rocks, acorn tops and nuts and pretty red leaves into their own sections.

Until all the little pieces had a new home!

Ginger spent a long time this morning moving stuff around and taping the tops back on to the acorns (and taking them away from the bad, bad puppies that think they are treats!)

So between Ginger and the puppies, I give this pretty little set up a couple of days until things are smooshed, mixed together, tipped over and dumped. But that’s ok…I know where we can get lots more ‘stuff!!”

I see lots of recipes that use young coconuts. I have bought one before, but it spoiled before I could use it-(like it sat in my fridge for 3 months!)   So I bought another recently without a plan in mind. I had some left over fresh pineapple and thought it would go really well with the young coconut. That was if I could get the darn thing open!!!!  Several knives later I remembered seeing directions in a cook book for opening young coconuts.

By the way, this is the first raw cook book I ever bought-at least 3 years ago. And do you want to know why I bought it-because who wouldn’t want to look like Sarma and Matthew! I thought if I ate raw food I would look just like them. Call me gullible or stupid. But marketing works.

Finally I was able to open the coconut and pour about 2 cups of water out of it!

Into the vita-mix it went along with the cocnut meat I was able to scrape out of the inside. This is fresh not dried coconut-so it’s a little different.

About 2 cups diced pinapple

1 orange-with the white still intact

2 frozen bananas

6 dates-which you may want to add less. I think my blades need sharpening so most of the dates are still in a clump at the bottom of my vita mix

1 cup frozen blueberries

splash of vanilla

The taste was like summer!  It didn’t have a super strong coconut taste and it wasn’t too sweet. I froze what was left for a sorbet for later.

If you have a raw recipe to share add the link to your raw recipe blog post in the comments or just type the recipe out in the comments. Thanks for playing along!

I have Matthew Kenney’s book EVERYDAY RAW checked out from the library, with many recipes bookmarked. Baked Macaroni and Cheese is one that I marked.  I like a recipe book with pictures-so much more appealing! So I am sure I picked this recipe because it looked so good. And it was good, while I was eating it. But after a small bowl full I was finished. This dish is way too rich for me. I felt heavy and full and sort of sick after eating it. The recipe makes a lot of sauce and I thinned it out some with water too.

But I think I have come to the conclusion that there are no substitutions for cooked food. Just like fake meat is sort of bad if you are expecting it to taste like meat, same with cheese and dairy alternatives. I think fom now on I am going to stick with fresh raw foods that aren’t trying to mimic a cooked food.

Here is the Oh so easy Mac and Cheese recipe.

Cashew Cheese Sauce

Blend or process the following until smooth

1 3/4 c cashews soaked for 1-2 hours

2 T lemon juice

2 T water (or more to thin)

1/2 c olive oil

1 t sea salt

1/4 c nutritional yeast

1/4 med shallot

1/2 t chili powder

pinch of cayenne and turmeric

1/2 clove garlic

black pepper to taste

Process 4-5 yellow squash through spiral slicer. I used a peeler to make long strips. Roughly chop and lightly salt and set aside for 30 to 45 mins.

Pour sauce over “noodles” and spread into casserole pan

Top with finely chopped walnuts and sprinkle with chili powder and paprika

You could definitely add something green to this dish-chopped spinach, kale or broccoli.

If you have a raw recipe to share leave a link in your comment to your raw recipe post or if you don’t have a blog simply add the recipe to the comments! Thanks for sharing!!

Last week when we went to The Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering we stayed in a room with a full kitchen, so we were able to bring all of our own food-and too much of it! Two of the many things I brought that traveled really well were these Figgy Nut’ins

and this raw ranch dip

I loved them both so much I made more today!

The ranch dip is super easy and definitely tastes better the longer it sits. This recipe comes from The Complete Book of Raw Food

1 1/2 cups raw cashews

4 teaspoons lemon juice or 2 1/2 teaspoons raw apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon dill weed

1 teaspoon italian seasoning

1 basil leaf minced

Blend the cashews, lemon juice, sea salt, onion and garlic powder with 1 cup water (less if you want it more like a spread or more if you want it like a dressing) until smooth and creamy.You may need to add more lemon juice or vineger-the cashews are pretty sweet. I also added more of the spices. pour into a bowl.

Add the dill, italian seasoning and basil leaf by hand. Store in fridge up to 2 weeks.

The Figgie Nut’ins recipe is from The Raw Revolution Diet

2 cups of almonds soaked for 8 hours, rinsed and drained

3 cups dried figs, stems removed, chopped, soaked in warm water for 5 minutes and well drained

1 1/2 cups walnuts soaked for 8 hours, rinsed and drained.

1/2 teaspoon orange zest

My additions were godji berries and raw cocoa nibs and some dates because I didn’t have enough figs (I used black mission)

Process almonds into meal, add figs, walnuts and orange zest and any other additions you choose. Process until well combined. Mixture should stick together when pressed into palm.

Form into balls

store in fridge for 1 month and up to 4 months in the freezer.

If you posted a raw recipe on your blog this week and want to share it here please leave a link in the comments to your recipe post or if you don’t have a blog just share your recipe in the comments. Thanks!