Happy Wednesday!  Time is winding down before the holidays and I have a very special post to share with you today.  Not only is it a cool recipe but the story behind the recipe and the life change of Andrew is what really is inspiring.  So have a read through the story and by all means take some time to visit www.raw-food-health.net to get more ideas for keeping your food simple.

After years of suffering through a nasty case of colitis, a disorder that left me with bleeding intestines, pain, and all kinds of problems in the bathroom, I discovered that if I stuck to a diet of only raw fruits and vegetables it disappeared like it was never there. This amazing improvement lead me to start www.raw-food-health.net to share with others that renewed vitality and health are only a dietary change away.

Yep, you heard me right, I only eat raw fruits and vegetables – bit staid for a cooking blog, eh?  Well I eat LOTs, of fruits and vegetables, volumes that would probably stagger the mind of most people. My nightly salad usually consists of 1-3 heads of lettuce or some other leafy green with other vegetables for fixings.But prior to going raw I was a salad dressing fiend. I could never eat greens without drenching them with some oil-based dressing.

As I became aware of just how much diet affects us mentally and physically, I decided to stay clear of high fat, processed dressings. This forced me to figure out how to make delicious ones out of whole fruits, vegetables, and herbs, without any of the salt or toxins you’ll find in store-bought brands.After years of experimenting, I decided to share what I’d learned, and recently published my ebook, Savory Raw Dressings and Sauces. The idea is pretty straightforward – if you want to be healthy you’ve got to eat lots of raw vegetables, but you’ll sabotage your healthy meal by dousing them with health-damaging dressings. On the other hand, eating them plain isn’t too appetizing. I show you that there’s another, very tasty alternative.

In the book I not only show you how you can make low fat, healthy dressings on the fly using ingredients you probably have on hand or can get at any supermarket, but explain in detail why salt, oil, vinegar, and other ingredients found in many dressings are harmful. Although the book is about teaching you to come up with your own dressings, I give you eight of the best ones I’ve created myself. These eight are delicious and healthy, and have become staples of my raw food kitchen.

Cory was nice enough to invite me to share one of my recipes with you guys, and I’m happy to do so.  It’s called Corn Medley, and is one of my perennial favorites:

Ingredients

• 4 ears of corn
• Juice of 1/2 a lime
• 1 large tomato
• Cilantro (to taste)

Directions

1. Cut the corn from three ears and place that corn in the blender.
2. Squeeze in the juice of the lime. Add cilantro to taste. Blend this until smooth.
3. Now slice up the tomato into smaller pieces and place it in the blender (on top of what’s already there) along with the corn cut from the last ear.
4. Blend this on low with the tamper until the tomato and corn have been rendered into small chunks.

A Note About Corn: Many people don’t know that corn ripens in reverse of the way most fruits and vegetables do. While most produce proceeds from predominantly starch to predominantly sugar as it ripens, corn has its highest sugar concentration when first picked and quickly starts to turn to starch. If you want high-quality corn, find a farmer or store that will sell you just-harvested ears and then quickly use that corn before it loses its flavor and easy digestibility.

You can learn more about Savory Raw Dressings and Sauces here.  Thanks again Andrew for opening my eyes to raw dressings.  I know I will be trying some of these in the very near future.

Have a super Wednesday and get shopping.

Take care

zesty

Download my Free Recipe Book: Simply Zesty

Happy Friday!  With Thanksgiving fast approaching in the US (I forgot to do this post for the Canadian Thanksgiving), I thought this would be a great time to quickly go through my favorite eats at Thanksgiving.

First off I will start with saying that it was really hard to limit this post to 5 items because I truly love everything about thanksgiving.  But here goes:

1. Turkey

This really does have to be one of my favorite meats to eat. I love turkey with all the fixings and even in sandwiches, soups and casseroles.

2.  Fig and Maple Brussel Sprouts

Recently introduced to me this year, this dish was a knockout! I mean the combination of flavors and textures were over the moon.

3. Homemade Cranberry Sauce

A classic yet one of my favorite side dishes with turkey. You can find out how to make this easy delicious dish.

4. Turkey Dressing/Stuffing

A true family favorite for sure.  You have to be quick to this bowl to ensure you get some.  A little turkey, a little dressing and a touch of cranberry.  What a bite!  This is also great on a turkey sandwich.  Not the most healthy of choices but… can you really worry about that around this time of year?

5. Sticky Date Pudding

I great dessert after a big dinner. I love the combination of warm caramel sauce coupled with the cool ice cream sitting a top a super moist cake. I sometimes classify this as heaven! This sticky date pudding is delicious.

Now Tell Me Yours!

This is where I want everyone that reads this post to come out of the wood work and mention at least one of your favorite foods around Thanksgiving. I think it will be fun and I just realized that I left my favorite sweet potato dish out of the top 5. Very shocking but that just goes to show how much I like food! Ok I better run to the flooring store and pick out grout. I will talk to you on Monday. Have a great weekend.

I am doing a big food demonstration tomorrow morning for a large group of people so I will be sure to let you know how it goes. The topic I am focusing on is – Not so traditional Christmas foods and ways to prepare them.

Talk to you Monday.

Take care

zesty

Download my Free Recipe Book: Simply Zesty

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers out there.  This past weekend was action packed to say the least.  Saturday included some work at the house site, taking a load to the dump, and a super Thanksgiving Dinner.  It didn’t end there, to close out the night  Mrs. Zesty and I hit the dance floor during a wedding reception we were invited to.

That was only Saturday which I know is likely hard to imagine…. but Sunday was equally as exciting.  We were invited to a family picnic by our house builders.  It was really nice of them to do that and we had a great time.  The weather was very nice for a change and the kids had a great time running around and playing. The food looked amazing and I did have a sample of the seafood chowder.  I didn’t want to pig out too much because we had plans to have another turkey dinner with my Family.

I kind of have a hodge podge post for you today because I was unsure how to structure it (the whole week for that matter).  What I thought would be a great idea is to have a “Turkey Feast Week“.  This week will include fantastic turkey creations from kicked up vegetable dishes, homemade cranberry, mustard pickles, amazing dressing, melt in your mouth turkey and of course a couple of killer desserts.

With that said, I am going to start the week of with a glimpse at the full meal deal and some random shots throughout the cooking process.

As I mentioned on Friday, we were going to attempt to go apple picking on Saturday if the weather was fine – the weather was not fine!  Poured rain all day on Saturday so we are attempting to go today.  I will keep you posted and may intervene with an apple post.

Before I start off this fun post I need to announce the three lucky winners of the POM Tea Giveaway.

Winners

Comment 36: Tiffany

I have always want to try these…I told some co-workers about the giveaway.

Comment 16: Melissa
I just told 10 of my co-workers about the giveaway and your site! Will be linking back next…

Comment 30: Low
Hey Zesty! I just gave you a tweet out! Is that proper Twitter lingo? Something tells me it’s not, but you know what I mean.

For all the winners, contact me with your mailing address and I will get your coupon delivered.

Turkey Day

Without giving away some great recipes today, I am going to share with you some shots I took throughout the day on Saturday.  I will get into the details and recipe specifics later this week.  I am so excited about the line-up I am finding it hard not to post them all at once.

I hope you have a super Monday and if it is a holiday for you – please enjoy it.  I am heading out to the house today to hang with the builders and maybe help them if I can.

Take care

zesty

Download my Free Recipe Book: Simply Zesty