Happy Earth Day and Hello to Day 1 of Brad's 7 Day Raw Challenge for April!

Photo courtesy of Earth Day Santa Cruz

Happy Earth Day and HELLO to Day 1 of Brad’s Raw Challenge!! I hope I have a few people joining me this week! To add, it’s also US Vegweek which means tons of cool things happening all over the nation! Free cupcakes, vegan friendly menus, vegfests…yep, a ton of things going on this month and it is eeexccitting!!! With that means LOTS of stuff going on with our blog and Facebook page, so stay tuned!!

Here we go Day 1!!

Early Morning: 

Oh you guessed it! Gulped that cup of lemon water before getting ready! Why!? 

Photo courtesy of RawForBeauty.com

Breakfast:

I have been following Simple Green Smoothie's and Young and Raw’s smoothie challenges for the entire month of April, having one for breakfast and sometimes, one post-workout for dinner. We’re on Day 22 and I have fallen madly, deeply in love with some seriously, insanely delicious smoothies! This week’s challenge is “add some citrus” so don’t be surprised if you see a ton of orange recipes. :)

If you’re ever looking for more recipes, please feel free to follow my Smooc-ies and Jui-thies pinterest board until we can get them all transferred over to The Split Plate’s Pinterest page which you can also find great recipes at as well. There are so many, I have no doubts you will always find a new one to try!!

Kale Blood Orange Cooler

By Simple Green Smoothies

Serves 2

• 2 cups kale, fresh
• 2 cups water
• 2 blood oranges, peeled
• 2 cups pineapple
• 1 banana

Blend and go!! I always add some aloe leaf and turmeric for a nutrition boost, but feel free to add whatever superfood you would like such as flax, chia or even hemp seeds!

Snacks: 

I drank a ton of locally produced, MTO kombucha in both lemon ginger and grapefruit flavor to combat some digestive upsets. I’m feeling much better now. THANK YOU PROBIOTICS and the wonderful benefits of fermentation!!!

Lunch:

I have become quite addicted to salads and avocados. Actually, I crave them! I guess I can’t really complain about that... This salad has become a new favorite of mine over the last couple of weeks, for a couple of reasons. First, if you know me by now, you know I love “kitchen sink” - “trash can” - “refrigerator leftover” recipes…in other words, recipes that throw every ingredient you have all into one dish! This salad clearly passed my “kitchen sink” approval with romaine, spinach, beets, carrots, mushrooms, and so many more veggies all nicely arranged to create a salad loaded with different textures and flavors. Win!

Now, I will admit, I was a bit skeptical about the dressing. I’m not a huge sweet dressing fan…at all. I prefer my savory, salty, creamy dressings, but I decided to give it a try and shockingly enough, I actually liked it. Sprinkled with a bit of salt, it provides a really great combination of sweet, salty and savory. What I love most about this dressing is that it is very versatile. It is a great base to use to create new creamy dressing. For example, add a pinch of mashed garlic and all of a sudden, you have something more asian inspired!  It’s definitely a keeper.

Abundant Garden Salad with Sweet Tahini Dressing

Adapted from Young and Raw

Adjusted to serve one

Abundant Garden Salad

• 6 romaine leaves, cut into bite size pieces (about 3 cups)
•  A small handful of mixed greens or spinach
• 1 large carrot, shredded (about ½ cup)
• ½ small beet, shredded (about ½ cup)
•  ¼ cucumber, peeled and sliced
•  2 small button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
•  ¼ cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
•  ¼ avocado, sliced
•  1 green onion, sliced
• 1 Tbsp of raw, sprouted pepitas (aka green pumpkin seeds)
•  Small handful of sprouts

1. Arrange your salad any way that you like! Layer it on a plate or toss it all together!

Sweet Tahini Dressing

• 2 heaping Tbsp of tahini
•   ½ small navel orange, juiced
•  ½ small lemon, juiced
• ½ teaspoon of grated ginger (I freeze my ginger, then grate it into my dressing for no chunks and a milder flavor)
•  Pinch of salt

1. In a small bowl, whisk the ingredients together until well combined. Add some water/coconut water until desired consistency is reached.  
2. Pour over salad and devour!

Dinner:

As I stated, I wasn’t feeling too hot to trot so I had a light snack of raw, nut butter stuffed strawberries, drizzled with raw honey, cacao nibs and coconut! So sweet and satisfying! 

The nut butter is a blend of almonds (3/4 cup), cashews (1/2 cup) and brazil nuts (1/4 cup) with some salt. Best blend yet! You can make it ina  food processors or high speed blender. I have found sprouted almonds to be my favorite almond to use because it provides a nice crunchy texture that you just cannot resist!

And Day 1 is done! Crazy how fast these days go by, huh!?

So what was on your plate or maybe even IN your cup today!?

- Beth