Beyond Juicing: 5 Delicious Raw Fruit and Vegetable Recipes

The weeks are just rushing by, aren’t they? You’re probably excited about this next blog post. Frankly, so am I. I can’t wait to hear how much you love trying these recipes.

Now that you’ve had time to digest all the benefits of juicing, I want to talk to you about the delicious fruit and veggie based meals and treats that you can eat that won’t ruin all the improvements you’ve experienced during your juice fast once you go back to eating food.

Remember, as we talked about earlier, the more fruits and veggies you eat the better. You cannot have too many fruits and veggies. So, using that idea as your guide, let’s talk about the different treats you can make that are made of fruits and veggies but taste better than any store bought candy, cakes and processed foods that you can buy.

If you’re having cold weather it can be hard to stick to cold juices and cold food, but did you know you can use your high speed blender to make a warm soup that you can enjoy fast that is just as good for you as a juice?

Raw Tomato Soup

Try blending the following in your high speed blender for a creamy, delicious tomato soup to enjoy on a cold day.

1/2 Cup raw cashews, soaked in 1 cup of water
2 Large tomatoes, cut in fours (cut over bowl of blender so as not to lose juices.
1 Slice, sundried tomato
1/2 TSP Basil
1 Small, clove garlic, smashed
1 TBS, sweet onion, chopped
3/4 TSP Himalayan Sea Salt
1/2 cup Roma tomatoes, deseeded and diced for topping

Throw all of this except the Roma tomatoes into your high speed blender, including the soaking water, and blend until smooth. The better tasting the tomatoes the better this soup will taste. Garnish with diced tomato. Variations: Add in some red bell pepper to up the color and nutrients. Want some spice; blend in some spicy red chili peppers. Be careful though.

Delicious & Nutritious Smoothie and Sorbets

Desserts and dessert like smoothies are often higher in calories than other fruit and veggie combos so pay close attention when you make these.

Raw Apple Pie Alamode Smoothie

No, there isn’t any ice-cream in this smoothie but you’d swear there is. It’s delicious and sweet but packs a punch of green goodness.

2 Small organic green apples, cored and chopped & frozen
2 TBS Date Paste (blend soaked dates with some of the soaking water until a smooth paste)
1/8 Cup walnuts, soaked in 1/2 cup filtered water
1/2 TSP cinnamon, ground
1 Small vanilla pod
Pinch ground nutmeg
1/2 Small cucumber
2 Cups baby spinach
1 Cup crushed ice

Place everything in your high speed blender, including the soaking water. Slice open up your vanilla pod, and scrape out the beans inside, add that to your blender. Blend for about 30 seconds to a minute until smooth. Tip: Toss the apples in lemon juice before freezing to help maintain a pleasing color. But, don’t worry, even if they turn a little brown they are not ruined and will work great.

Making Fruit Sorbet

One thing that gets my family excited is fruit sorbet. Most of them cannot even believe it’s just fruit. You can use fresh, frozen and canned (in juice, no added sugar) fruits to make the best sorbets. Once you realize how freezing fruit changes the flavor and texture you can try many combinations for excellent results.

Quick Raw Pineapple Sorbet — Open a can of chunk pineapple in juice. Pour it into a container and freeze. Once frozen, put into your food processor and blend until an “ice cream” like constancy. Serve immediately.

Raw Chocolate Banana Cream — Peel, chop and freeze 2 bananas per serving. Put frozen banana chunks in food processor with 1 TBS cacao powder, plus 1 tsp Vanilla per serving and blend until smooth. Serve immediately.

You can do this with any type of frozen fruit without adding any sweeteners at all. The fruit is plenty sweet enough as it is. If you find that fruit that you’ve purchased isn’t as sweet as you like, try tossing with agave nectar, coconut sugar, or honey before freezing to increase the sweetness.

Experimenting with Raw Food Desserts

Once you learn about the different flavors of raw food you’ll definitely want to experiment with raw food desserts. Usually a raw food dessert is so healthy that you can eat it as a meal, but sometimes if it contains added oils, sweeteners like agave, or other additions that you should eat sparingly. Most people tend to gravitate toward chocolate creations when making raw food desserts.

Here is my “go-to” raw food dessert that I like to take to parties.

Raw Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

The trick with bananas is to make sure they are really and truly ripe. If bananas don’t have spots on the peeling, they’re not ripe.

Crust: In a food processor pulse until dough is formed the following ingredients:

1 Cup Pecans
1 Cup Brazil nuts, soaked and drained
6 Medjool Dates, pitted and soaked until soft, drained
2 TBS coconut oil (sit jar in a pain until melted so you can measure 2 TBS)

Process until blended well, and forms a ball. Press into an 8 inch tart shell until 1/4 inch thick. Place crust into the freezer so it can chill.

Filling: In a food processor process the following ingredients:

2 Cup cashews, soaked for three hours, drained
1 Cup young coconut flesh
1/4 Cup coconut water

Add in the following:

1 TSP lemon juice
1/2 Cup date paste
1/4 Cup coconut butter
1 Banana (if your bananas are small, and you can add another one)

Process until fluffy and well combined. Transfer to a bowl and let chill. Meanwhile take out the crust, and top with sliced banana until crust is covered, top with chilled filling, then top with more banana. Place in the refrigerator.

To make a chocolate drizzle blend together using a fork.

1/4 Cup Light Agave
2 TBS Cacoa Powder (after mixing taste and add more if you want more)
1 TBS Coconut oil, melted

Drizzle over finished pie, put back in the refrigerator until the party and ready to serve. Sprinkle with more crushed pecans if you desire.

That should get you started with creating delicious treats that are both yummy and healthy when compared to the high sugar and super processed versions normally consumed.

Next week I’ll give you some more juicing tips, techniques and tricks to help you stay on track.