Recipe: Celery Root Remoulade

I am really excited to share this original recipe. It is inspired by the recipe by the same name in Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food. This is one of my favorite cookbooks for inspiration. Ms. Waters takes the simplest, cleanest, most seasonal foods and elevates them to a sublime level. I took out the olive oil and creme fraiche from the original recipe and replaced them with diced zucchini and a little bit of stevia to offset the acid. I left the white wine vinegar in (not an ideal food because it's fermented) because it lends brightness and bit that would be lacking without it. Feel free to leave it out. I should also mention that I'm having a love affair with mustard right now. In fact, I'm munching on parsnip and sweet potato slices (raw) with my own honey mustard (raw wildflower honey with mustard mixed in, to taste).

Celery Root Remoulade

1 celery root, peeled and sliced to 1/4" in the mandoline and sliced into matchstick pieces
1 tsp white wine vinegar
sea salt, to taste
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1/2 of zucchini, peeled and diced
1 tsp mustard
stevia, to taste
ground pepper, to taste

Toss the julienned celery root with the white wine vinegar and sea salt to taste. Toss the rest of the ingredients in the blender and blend until liquefied. You may want to add a little water or lemon juice to thin the sauce. Throw the sauce on the marinating celery root and marinate. This will keep in the fridge for a few days (if it lasts that long).

Getting Back on Track and Get Thee to Stanley's....

This past weekend was not what it could have been nutritionally. In fact, it was completely off the wagon. Sometimes weddings, bachelorette getaways, funerals and family holidays do that to us. While I'm getting myself back on track, I thought I would take this opportunity to write a post about getting back on track when you meander through the valley of the shadow of brioche french toast and tequila. This leaves me feeling tired, blotchy and depressed. Since I know what having clean cells feels like, I want to get back to there as quickly as possible without pulling the rug from under myself.

The key to getting back on track is to return to the simplest, most satisfying food on your chosen plan and making it tasty. For me, that is lots of water, herbal tea, green juices (Green Lemonade is my favorite), salads and steamed or baked vegetables. In order to temper the cleanse, I keep dark chocolate, butter and raw goat cheese in the repertoire. This keeps detoxing tasty and pleasurable and ensures that aforementioned brioche french toast is not missed at all. One could even include a daily glass of wine in a get back on track cleanse. This time, I am also cutting out the wine. I feel especially toxic this week and want to avoid adding in any straight up intoxicants like alcohol.

Physical activity is also key. Rebounding, jogging, brisk walks, yoga or pilates are awesome work outs. It will pump sweat, lymph and toxins out of the system. Exercise also improves the quality of your sleep, which is a powerful detoxification tool in and of itself.

For someone just beginning their whole foods journey, getting back on track could be as simple as a daily walk or run and cutting out the white stuff. Someone macro or ayurvedic might return to the simple, clean grain/bean/veg combo.

Stanley's: I just want to recommend that any Chicago readers head over to Stanley's Fruits and Vegetables immediately. It's the opposite of a regular market in that fruits and veggies dominate, and the fresh food is reasonably priced. They also have spices for less than three dollars, which is totally unheard of at Whole Foods and the like. Get thee to Stanley's immediately!

Welcome to my blog!

Hello and welcome,
In this blog, I will be sharing my experiences, knowledge and recipes of living a high-raw (mostly) vegetarian lifestyle. More importantly, I will be demonstrating how much fun living a high-raw lifestyle can be. Hopefully by reading and using some of my tips, pointers and suggestions, you will see how easy and pleasurable moving away from a S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) to a diet comprised completely of whole food and very high in plant foods can be!

Disclaimer: I’m definitely not a medical doctor. The information contained herein should be taken with a big grain of salt, and should not be considered prescriptive advice. If you’re looking for a formal medical diagnosis or prescription, you should definitely seek out an actual doctor (preferably one who is open to both eastern and western medical practices, but hey, don’t listen to me).