Saturday, August 14, 2010

Wakame salad

In my last post I wrote about my diet dilemma. It seemed like I was gaining weight on a raw food diet (probably due to a combination of high sugar from fruit and high fat from nuts). Following this I've brought some healthy wholegrains back into my diet: quinoa, millet (my fave), amaranth and oats. The improvement is incredible,  I feel so much more energetic and I quickly got back to my ideal weight! What Okriina from Keittiökameleontti (an inspiring blog filled with excellent raw recipes in finnish) said when she commented on my last post really hit home. I believe I was not absorbing protein well from raw nuts. 


Anyway, I digress. Just wanted to post a recipe that gives you guys some idea of what I eat these days. This is a simple raw asian-inspired wakame salad, boosted with toasted sesame seeds (you could use soaked and dehydrated too, if you are on a raw food diet). As lunch, it would work wonderfully on its own. For dinner, I served it along with vinegared millet.

WAKAME SALAD

Salad:
1 small zucchini and/or cucumber
4 medium carrots
1 small apple
1C or more of green peas, preferably snap peas
5 stalks of wakame seaweed
couple tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Dressing:
1,5 tbsp brown rice vinegar
Sweetener of choice, I used a bit of xylitol here
4 tbsp cold pressed sesame oil
Mineral-rich salt (Himalayan, gray sea salt)

Soak wakame for 5 minutes in cold water. Julienne the zucchini, carrots and apple. Chop up the wakame. Mix together the veg. Blend the dressing ingredients, taste and adjust it according to your liking. I use toasted sesame seeds here for flavor, I just love them combined with the sesame oil in the dressing. This would be even better with snap peas, but as you can see from the pic this time I only had regular ones.

VINEGARED MILLET
3/4 C millet + 3C water (or thereabouts)
2 tbsp brown rice vinegar + salt + a little bit of sweetener of choice
2 strips of Kombu seaweed

Cook the millet in water with salt and kombu. Remove from heat, chop up the kombu and mix it in along with vinegar, salt and something sweet to round off the taste.

5 comments:

Jael said...

Nice to hear by adjusting your diet you feel better:-) I am now trying to be a few weeks even without grains, just to see what happens,as they have really high carb count. If I see any weight loss, then I know where my problem lies...

Unknown said...

Nice sallad! I can almost taste all the good nutrients in it ;)

Girl on Raw said...

Delicious recipe. Thank you for sharing. I didn't lose any weight when I first went raw, and I am not sure why, because about a year after going raw, it all fell off and I don't actually recall me changing my diet too rapidly, I think perhaps just my body had cleaned out of all the toxins and there was nothing left to hold onto?

Alan Ricardo said...

Hello! My name is Alan and I'm from Brazil

Sorry get into your blog, but I found interesting your posts. I also have a blog, if you'd like to visit: http://viagemconstante.blogspot.com/ is a simple blog I write with two friends.

Cheryl Magnant said...

I absolutely love your blog (it parallels so much that I blog about and hold to be true and healthful). I'm sorry you no longer are blogging ... but wish you well with your diet, your daughter and her healthful development, and with life in general.