Fast and Easy Raw

Kind of can’t believe Christmas is less than a week away! But I’m comforted that most of the shopping and wrapping is down, most of it.

Recipe planning is a different story with potlucks and two family gatherings we still need to complete the menus for and the following grocery shopping. With holiday stress, work stress, sick people all around me, and cold weather, I’ve actually been maintaining a high raw diet and it feels great with plenty of energy for working out and running even though I’ve been functioning on about 5-6 hours of sleep each night lately. I’ve been trying to keeps things easy for my own meal planning with so much else going on. I made a huge, chunky batch of the Save-the-Chicks pate from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen last night, a simple pate of almonds, sunflower seeds, and turmeric that has a fabulous savory and versatile flavor to use in salads, wraps, or on crackers and bread. And it can keep in the fridge for a few days to use for fast meals.

I used in on messy romaine lettuce wraps with carrots, tomato, fresh-grown mung bean sprouts, and Dijon mustard.

While Miko ran off with each piece of lettuce I dropped, such an efficient floor cleaner!

He seems quite content on a high-vegan diet inhaling V-Dog vegan dog food, snacking on edamame, tofu, tempeh, carrots, and just about any other veggie scraps I’ve dropped lately.

The wraps looked like a colorful mess.

But actually weren’t messy to eat.

Tonight I had to make a Whole Foods run after work for potluck ingredients and why not reward myself with a salad to go after surviving the holiday traffic and shopping madness?

I went with a fiesta theme for this salad adding corn, salsa, black beans, and dressed it with cilantro chutney that was delicious, but heavy on the garlic!

Our little lap buddy begged for salad samples, but I wasn’t about to let him try the chutney!