To Alissa

[RowanC]

Hey Alissa, I love your cookbook. But one of my feedbacks to you is that the recipes really make WAY too much food for the average person. I realize you can cut them in half, but some people aren't confident enough to do this.

Anyway, I'd like to suggest that you write a NEW cookbook and I think a lot of people would buy it... I would!

I'd like to suggest you write a new cookbook with quick recipes for ONE or TWO people! I read about such a book on another website and I thought it was a great idea. Your recipes are so good.. but I often end up throwing out a lot of food.

For instance, I have your carrot cake in the fridge now. I cut the recipe iin half and I still have half a cake in there that I'm going to have to toss. Smaller portions that work would be great.

Anyway... a suggestion.
Best Wishes

[JMD]

RowanC..

That is a great idea...esp because I don't make a lot of the recipes because I am the only raw person in the house!!!

I would love and thought of compiling a simple raw recipe book too for those of us who like easy things under 5-6 ingredients.

PS I always love your postings RowanC....I was gonna pm you that but we cannot anymore :eek: --i forgot!!

:)

[PATH301]

RowanC,JMD -

I'm making foods for one person too. But so far I have no problems with the meals =
because 1.) I have left overs, which mean that I don't have to cook for a day or two - chaaa - what a deal.
2.) I have this high tech tool that I use all the time it's called my freezer :D
Then if I want to thaw my food for later than I just put in in the fridge in the morning for later at dinner it works pretty good. If i need to I just pop a little seasoning on it and it's brand new again.

Plus I've sorta figured out how reduce the amount of ingredients so that I won't make that much~~of course I had to do through trial and lots of error - but it's all good :)

[DharmaGirl]

Hey RowanC...
Yeah... great idea.... and thanks for the input... I'm fairly new to all this wonderful stuff ;) and have been doing some of the recipes and find that I do have leftovers, too. I just need to learn what recipes I need to adjust. I haven't attempted any of the cakes or even the date nut tort everyone raves about (altho VERY anxious to try it :p ) It's good to know that maybe I should be cutting down on some of those ingredients! I love, love, love the book sooooooooo much and it has really opened my eyes to how wonderful the raw foods world can be... THANKS, ALISSA!!! AND thanks to all of you who are so open in sharing their raw journeys.....I've learned SO MUCH from this forum (((((((HUGS TO ALL)))))))))

[maraw]

I have also learned to adjust some of the recipes for smaller quantities, but may I add, I also have to do this for other raw "cook" books too.

What I think would be a very helpful addition to Alissa's book is to state approximately how many servings you get from one dish. That would help someone trying a recipe for the first time to know how to scale the proportions. That way, if you are feeling two or twenty, you know how to adjust.

With regard to the number of ingredients, I have several raw cook books and I find Alissa's recipes and instructions to be the easiest to understand and most enjoyable to prepare. Her ingredients are (almost) always available locally and usually very few in number. Yet the taste and presentation is pleasing and impressive.

Just my two cents on the subject...

[RowanC]

To me, Alissa's book is the most user friendly of all. . . and the recipes are actually good.

Hey Path.. I hadn't thought of freezing stuff.. Does the raw stuff freeze ok? What have you frozen? I mean, which recipes? Thanks for the idea.

[RowanC]

Thanks JMD.. that was a nice thing to say ::blush:::

[Sheryl]

I haven't frozen anything other than cakes, but I have a friend with a large family and she makes HUGE batches and freezes everything. Smoothies, nute pate, marinara sauce, 'cheeze' and more. She can qhip up a pizza in less than 5 minutes, and it tastes just as good as what I make in half an hour. Things that relied on texture of whole fruits and veggies wouldn't work and would go soft, but prepared stuff seems to freeze really well. There might be a small decrease in nutrients, but often less than if the same food got old in the fridge.

Now if we didn't EAT everything I made I'd do the same. Nothing lasts here though! I usually make something, and we eat until gone, then I make something else... and the cycle continues.

Cheers,
Sheryl

[Raene]

I agree!!! And another important thing not yet mentioned is that people who make weekly grocery lists and don't realize how much food each recipe makes go to the store, come back broke and think that raw food is too expensive. I was really discouraged at my last grocery shop (my first shop after having a raw uncook book). But tonight I realized I should have only put half of the recipes on my grocery list, cutting my bill in half, and giving me quite enough food without wasting. :)

[Lynnz]

I would love it if Alissa wrote a cookbook with 1 to 2-person recipes. I think more often than not, it's only one or 2 people in a household who are raw. And some raw-eaters don't freeze their food.

[Shivananda]

I have no problem adjusting recipes sizes up or down as needed, since I'm comfortable with fractions and math, and anyway I generally take recipes as loose guidelines to improvise from. But a simple solution to the issue others are having might be to do what many restaurant recipe books for large quantities do... show the ingredient list in a table, with columns for the various quantities desired... like for 1 serving and 4 servings, in this case. That raises other issues, but it might be doable.

BUt I'd argue for making more than one meals worth of food at a time whenever you can. Why? Because it cuts down on kitchen time and makes it less of a chore day to day. If I'm making up a "stir fry" mix of matchstick vegetables, for instance, to make a Pad Thai with, I'll at least double that part of what I'm doing, and use the blend for something else like enchiladas later in the week. Or have most of what I need for lunch tomorrow. with no additional setup or prep. With modern refrigeration and airtight containers, this is an easy thing to do and really makes it all more fun and less time consuming. Making 100% of every dinner from scratch every day is kind of wasteful of your time and energy, when a little planning could cut it down a lot.

And need I saw, this is how most raw restaurants operate? .They don't make every dish from scratch every day. They prepare parts, pieces, and components of the standard menu items that can be assembled in different ways. Dehydrated stuff today, sauces tomorrow, chopped stuff the next day. And it works at home too!

[RowanC]

I cut the carrot cake recipe in half and after 3 days, I still have half a cake left.. it's not looking to appetizing... you want some? :D Maybe you could freeze it! :::cackle:::

[misslinda]

I agree that Alissa's is the most "clean" user friendly raw cookbook. I cruised the bookstore last week and OMG, talk about TMI.

One raw cook book was so wordy that I just put it down without even considering it.

I don't have a problem with adjusting proportions BUT, I'd like to see future raw cookbooks....MORE MORE MORE!!!! :)

[PATH301]

RowanC,

I cut the carrot cake recipe in half and after 3 days, I still have half a cake left.. it's not looking to appetizing... you want some? Maybe you could freeze it! :::cackle:::

Send it over to me in some dry ice and when it's thawed I'll throw in a banana or two and stick it into the FP and it will be transformed into carrot/ banana pudding.. hehe.... then I'll have some pudding for couple more days :D

[fiddler]

Right now, I think there's plenty of good cookbooks out there. The nice thing about Alissa's though, is that she seemed to really hit a great niche with her book. She sort of borrowed ideas (not necessarily intentionally) from many other resources. For example, the before/after stories have been around for awhile (i.e. Body-For-Life) but Alissa had the smarts to use that content in her book --- Brilliant. The idea of mimicking SAD meals had also been done by others (Elaina Markowitz sp?). But Alissa's recipes, imho, are better and the layout/organization and sheer number of recipes blew away Elaina's book. Plus, Alissa also included many other facets of the RAW lifestyle to make this book an all-in-one one-stop book to get people to transition to the RAW diet. Plus, the accompanying DVD goes well with the book.

Well done Alissa!

Just wanted to compliment Alissa (yet again) for the great product she has in her Book and DVD.

I suppose a second DVD would be cool showing simple recipes. But, I thought her first book contained simple recipes. Shoot, much simpler and they'd be mono :-) To shrink the recipes, you could punch in Alissa's recipe into "The Living Cookbook" software program and it will automatically scale for you.

Just my right-before bed ramblings... Cheers to all.

[rawpriestess]

I freeze Alissa's recipes all the time,

I love the pesto stuffed mushrooms, but I can only eat about 4 in a sitting, so I freeze them, and I just take them out and pop them in the dehydrator for about 20 minutes, they thaw and warm right up and voila' instant dinner.

I spend one day a week, making lots of fun things, the meatloaf into burger patties, the pesto stuffed mushrooms, the pizza wraps, the enchiladas and I just freeze them, and when I want something to eat, there it is, all ready made.

this makes it very easy, to be raw, I always have plenty on hand for guests who may stop in, or if I decide to eat a ton one day, I've got plenty, if I get hungry in the middle of the night, it 's there,

if someone wants to try something, it's there.

If I have a pot luck come up, I've got lots to take.

I love my freezer, it's my favorite raw food appliance, (like Path301 says, it's my high tech tool)