Posts Tagged ‘carrots’

Raw Veggie “Stir Fry”

We found this fabulous recipe on website Rawmazing. If you want something with a little spice and a lot of flavor, this rawmazing dish is for you. For this recipe you need a food processor. It is fun, fast and the flavors are great. Don’t be intimidated by the parsnip rice. The flavor is very mild and when combined with the other ingredients, makes a great meal.

Parsnips are full of vitamin C, have tons of fiber and are high in folic acid. They are a good source of niacin, magnesium, thiamine and potassium. They also have vitamins B6 and E.

Rice:

• 2 C Chopped Parsnips
• 2 Carrots
• 1/2 C Pine Nuts
• 3/4 C Broccoli, Chopped
• 1/2 C Mushrooms, sliced

Finely chop parsnips, carrots, and pine nuts and place in bowl. If you are using a food processor to do this, you will want to do each separately. Combine with chopped broccoli and sliced mushrooms. (mushrooms not pictured)

Sauce:

• 1/4 C Olive Oil
• 1/3 C Sun dried Tomatoes (soft)
• 1 t. Chili Peppers (dried)
• 1 1/2 t. Curry Powder
• 1 T Nama Shoyu
• 1 T Agave (Optional)

Combine all ingredients in food processor, process until well combined. Stir into “rice mixture”. Enjoy!

Source Information: Recipe and photographs are copyright 2009 Susan Powers www.rawmazing.com. All Rights Reserved.

Red Cabbage Tacos

Oh my goodness! One of the reasons we love raw foods so much is the colors! So bright! So bold! So full of life and energy! So I am sure you can see from the picture above why we were so excited about this recipe. It’s so beautiful! And amazingly delicious too so we think you should give it a try.

This recipe comes from a blog called The Kitchen Dispensary. Here’s what the author had to say:

Red cabbage is one of my favourite leaves to use as a wrap. It looks amazing, it’s crunchy and you can fit a lot into one leaf. It’s really one of the things we raw foodies use as a bread substitute. The ingredients below are pretty much what I had in the fridge today. You could just as easily use things like cucumbers, tomatoes, sprouts or leftover salad. Whatever takes your fancy.

Red Cabbage Tacos

Makes 5

Ingredients

5 smallish red cabbage leaves

2 medium sized carrots

1/4 avocado

1-2 tsp lemon juice

about 8 stalks of fresh chives

Greens of your choice  (I used a mix of spinach, chard and lettuces)

Dulse flakes (Karengo Seaweed) for saltiness

Preparation

Finely grate the carrot. If you have a fine grater like one usually used for parmesean you will get more juicy flavour from the carrot.

Mash in the avocado, lemon juice and finely chopped chives. Add a little himalayan or sea salt if you wish.

Take a red cabbage leaf and fill with a few green leaves of your choice and top with some of the carrot avocado mixture.

Top with some dulse (karengo) and a few chopped chives.

C is for Carrots!

Who doesn’t love to snap into a carrot? The crunchy texture and sweet taste of carrots is popular among both adults and children. They are perfect on their own or great to dip in raw almond butter or hummus! Carrots benefits are legendary. Bet your mother told you that eating carrots would keep your eyesight bright.

While we usually associate carrots with the color orange, in fact, carrots grow in a host of other colors including white, yellow, red, or purple, the latter being the color of the original variety. The carrot is a plant with a thick, fleshy, deeply colored root, which grows underground, and feathery green leaves that emerge above ground. It is known scientifically as Daucus carota. As such, carrots are related to parsnips, fennel caraway, cumin and dill. There are over 100 different varieties that vary in size and color. Carrots can be as small as two inches or as long as three feet, ranging in diameter from one-half of an inch to over two inches. Carrot roots have a crunchy texture and a sweet and minty aromatic taste, while the greens are fresh tasting and slightly bitter.

Health Benefits

• 1 cup of raw carrots has 683% of your daily value for Vitamin A! Wow! In addition, they are a very good source of vitamin C, vitamin K, dietary fiber and potassium. All of that and only 52 calories!
• Beta-carotene helps to protect vision, especially night vision. After beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A in the liver, it travels to the retina where it is transformed into rhodopsin, a purple pigment that is necessary for night-vision.
• Carrots are by far one of the richest source of carotenoids. High carotenoid intake has been linked with a 20% decrease in postmenopausal breast cancer and an up to 50% decrease in the incidence of cancers of the bladder, cervix, prostate, colon, larynx, and esophagus.
• Intake of foods such as carrots that are rich in carotenoids may be beneficial to blood sugar regulation. Research has suggested that physiological levels, as well as dietary intake, of carotenoids may be inversely associated with insulin resistance and high blood sugar levels.

How to Select and Store

Carrot roots should be firm, smooth, relatively straight and bright in color. The deeper the orange-color, the more beta-carotene is present in the carrot. Avoid carrots that are excessively cracked or forked as well as those that are limp or rubbery. In addition, if the carrots do not have their tops attached, look at the stem end and ensure that it is not darkly colored as this is also a sign of age. If the green tops are attached, they should be brightly colored, feathery and not wilted. Since the sugars are concentrated in the carrots’ core, generally those with larger diameters will have a larger core and therefore be sweeter.

Carrots are hardy vegetables that will keep longer than many others if stored properly. The trick to preserving the freshness of carrot roots is to minimize the amount of moisture they lose. To do this, make sure to store them in the coolest part of the refrigerator in a plastic bag or wrapped in a paper towel, which will reduce the amount of condensation that is able to form. They should be able to keep fresh for about two weeks. Carrots should also be stored away from apples, pears, potatoes and other fruits and vegetables that produce ethylene gas since it will cause them to become bitter.

If you purchase carrot roots with attached green tops, the tops should be cut off before storing in the refrigerator since they will cause the carrots to wilt prematurely as they pull moisture from the roots. While the tops can be stored in the refrigerator, kept moist by being wrapped in a damp paper, they should really be used soon after purchase since they are fragile and will quickly begin to wilt.

Recipes to Enjoy

We feature carrots in some of our yummy raw recipes! Check them out:

• Cabbage Carrot Slaw
• Kale, Carrot & Flax Fruit Smoothie
• Raw Collard Wraps
• Red Cabbage Raw Slaw
• Vincent’s Kale Salad

Resource

World’s Healthiest Foods: Carrots

20 Simple Juice Recipes

Many of you have told us that you recently brought a juicer or would like to get into juicing. We would like to respond by offering some simple recipes for you to try. For starters, we found the list below from Living Foods (will provide website and additional info at the end of the article) and believe it is a great way to introduce you to the wonderful world of juice.

One of the great benefits of  juicing is that you get to experiment with different fruit and veggie combinations as you find recipes online or in books. Your taste buds may be on a roller coaster for a bit, but we promise they will settle soon and start to become excited about what you’re juicing. Maybe you aren’t ready yet to take the plunge into 100% green vegetable juice. We actually recommend  juicing gradually. You’ll be amazed with the results.

So while you’re working up to it, here are some fun simple recipes that you can try. They are easy to make, and delicious too! If you happen to try some of these recipes, report back and let us know. We will continue to post additional recipes and information about the health benefits of juicing to keep you going and trying new things. So go get juiced!

• Carrot/Apple Juice: 6 carrots, 2 apples
• Liver Mover: 2-3 carrots, 1/2 beet
• Bromeiain Special: pineapple (skin & all), unscrew top and throw away, Orange or Grapefruit, 3 oranges (peeled) or 1 grapefruit (peeled)
• Evening Regulator: 2 apples, 1 pear
• Digestive Special: handful of spinach, 6 carrots
• Holiday Cocktail: 2 apples, 1 large bunch of grapes, 1 slice lemon with peel
• Body Cleanser: 4 carrots, 1/2 cucumber, 1 beet
• Rejuvenator: handful of parsley, 3 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 2 cloves of garlic
• Cantaloupe Juice: cut into strips and juice (rind and all)
• The Waldorf: 1 stalk celery, 2 apples
• Sunshine Cocktail: 2 apples, 4-6 strawberries
• Energy Shake: handful of parsley, 6 carrots
• Watermelon Juice: cut into strips and juice, (rind and all)
• Potassium Broth: 1 handful of spinach, 1 handful of parsley, 2 stalks of celery, 4-6 carrots
• AAA Juice: 6 carrots, 1 apple, 2 stalks of celery, 1/2 handful of wheatgrass, 1/2 handful of parsley, 1/2 beet
• Passion Cocktail: 4 strawberries, 1 large chuck pineapple, 1 bunch black grapes
• Morning Tonic: 1 apple, 1 grapefruit (peeled)
• Digestive Cocktail: 1/4 lemon with peel, 1/2 grapefruit (peeled), 2 oranges
• Alkaline Special: 1/4 head cabbage (red or green), 3 stalks of celery

These recipes came from Living Foods. The purpose of their web site is to educate the world about the power of the living and raw vegetarian food diet. Contained within the many pages of their website, you will find many recipes, articles, resources, links, testimonials, information and support.

Raw Collard Wraps

Now this is what’s for dinner! Yummy raw collard wraps. This recipe serves 2-3 and we recommend you use all organic ingredients.

• 8 large collard leaves
• 4 medium Avocados
• 6 carrots
• 1 Red bell Pepper
• 1 cucumber
• Dulse powder (comes from a sea vegetable that has a fine distinct taste of seaweed)

-First flatten the collard leaves and cut out the spine.
-Once spine is removed overlap leaf on itself a little so you can spread the avocado.
-Spread the ripe avocado across the leaf (Half of one medium sized avocado should cover one collard leaf)
-Next, slice the carrots, cucumber and red pepper into strips
-Place the veggies on top of the avocado and leaf perpendicular to the stem at one end of the leaf.
-Sprinkle with dulse and roll it up to create the wrap.

You can either eat as a wrap or cut it into pieces and eat them as raw sushi rolls.

This recipe was provided by Will T. Roundy, also known as Gorilla Greenz. Will resides in Paso Robles, California. His favorite thing about raw foods is that when eating them consistently for an extended period of time, he sleeps great, has endless energy, and always has a sense that everything is okay. Check out his website, http://www.gorillagreenzblog.com.