But What do I make for Dinner?

Food. One of life’s delights and one of life’s problems. People do much harm to themselves eating the wrong things because they think they can’t give up the foods that mean so much to them. But the stakes are clear: changing your diet lets you feel better, look better, and heal yourself. People who have changed their diets say they have healed their cancer, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and other degenerative diseases; had babies when hope was gone, lost weight, reduced their cholesterol. They also report they look younger, have more fun, manage their emotions better, improve their attitude toward life… the list is endless.

But you still want things to taste good and look good. You want to be able to bring an interesting dish to a friend’s house for a pot luck. You want to have foods that are right for celebrating.

Three chefs, Steve Levine of West Palm Beach, Ari Budnick of Chicago, and Sheila Gabayson of San Diego, have changed their own eating to the Hippocrates way and believe that food should be interesting, delicious, and suitable for occasions. But healthy. They each arrived at their changes in different ways: Steve because he was preparing over-rich food for restaurants, Ari because his mother had cancer and healed herself by changing her diet and Sheila because of her own accelerating health problems.

Steve, Ari and Sheila all stress the importance of preparation and presentation. A carrot salad, for instance, will taste better and be easier to eat if the carrots are very thinly sliced or are grated. That same salad will look more delicious if fresh chopped parsley or dill is added.

The following recipes they have developed to make at home.

Steve Levine

Steve Levine is one of the outstanding professionals on staff at Hippocrates. Trained at the French Culinary Institute, he apprenticed at world-renowned restaurants like the Quilted Giraffe in New York. During his tenure as chef in several French restaurants, Steve gained 65 pounds.

When his back began to hurt and he was always tired, he went to see a doctor. He weighed in at 225 pounds. “Something hit me like a ton of bricks,” he says, “I had no energy and was much heavier than I had realized.”

He became a vegetarian first, and then a vegan—he removed all dairy from his diet—and reduced to 160 pounds.

With his burgeoning interest in his own health, Steve says, “I was itching to find a way to take my culinary knowledge and apply it to the health field.” By the time he arrived at Hippocrates, he was eating a 50% raw diet – now it’s 80%.” I have more energy than I know what to do with. I feel great.”

Thai Mixed Veggie Salad

2 ears corn kernels

12 asparagus, sliced diagonally

1 red pepper, julienned

3 green onions

½ cup soaked almonds or cashews

2 T. hot dry mustard

3 T. dried basil

Juice of one large lime

Pinch of cayenne

Braggs to taste

A dash of olive oil

Carrot-Parsley Salad

2 cups shredded carrots

½ cup chopped parsley

4 T. lemon juice

6 T. extra virgin olive oil

Braggs to taste

Mix dressing with parsley, then mix with carrots. Let sit 30 minutes before serving. Serves 4.

Mushrooms Basquaise

4 cups sliced mushrooms

1 medium onion, diced

2 ribs celery, diced

Fresh basil to taste

Mix well together:

6 T. paprika

3 T. lemon juice

6 T. olive oil

Let marinate for one hour. Serves 4.

2 T. dried onion flakes

¼ cup raw tahini

3 T. paprika

A handful of dehydrated nut crumbs

Braggs to taste

Cut the broccoli into florets. Blend the onion flakes, tahini, and paprika. Thin with water until consistency of creamy salad dressing. Season with braggs. Toss with the broccoli and add dehydrated but crumbs, if desired. Serves 4.

Ari Budnick

After Ari Budnick’s mother discovered she had breast cancer, she decided that she could not commit to her doctor’s recommended medical therapy of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. She found the Hippocrates program and it instinctively made sense to her, says Ari.

After his mother returned from Hippocrates, she thought about cheating, he says, because she didn’t know how to prepare food that tasted good. A private chef in Chicago, it was easy for Ari to learn the program and begin perfecting recipes for his mother.

“If you are preparing fine organic foods that taste and look good, you must invest time just as you would in cooking the old way,” says Ari. He knows whereof he speaks as he now specializes in vegetarian and raw foods catering in Chicago.

Marinated Asparagus with Purple Onions and Mushrooms

One bunch of asparagus

12 mushrooms

One small purple onion

3 t. good quality olive oil

2 t. grapeseed oil, found in gourmet food stores

½ t. good quality English mustard

A handful of fresh basil

Braggs to taste

Cut the asparagus two inches from the tip and dice the rest of the asparagus. Slice the mushrooms and onions. Make a marinade from the rest of ingredients. Let marinate for 8 hours or overnight to tenderize the asparagus. Serves 4.

A small pot of millet

One red pepper, julienned

2 spinach leaves

One steamed asparagus

One green onion, chopped, green part only

¼ cup of chopped red cabbage

1 sheet sushi nori

Dipping Sauce:

Tahini

Minced ginger

Prepare millet by adding one-third more water than usual and cooking twice as long. Millet should be mushy and pasty.

Take a sheet of nori and place on a bamboo rolling mat, available at Oriental food stores. Press cooled millet onto entire sheet of nori, being careful to use a small amount, so that pressed millet is only ¼ inch high or so, and leaving ½ inch uncovered at the base of the sheet. Place the steamed asparagus horizontally across millet in middle of sheet. Place a spinach leaf on each side and a sprinkling of the red pepper, green onions, and chopped cabbage close to the asparagus stem. Carefully and tightly roll the nori from top to bottom, using the bamboo sheet as prod. Add water to the uncovered strip at the bottom and seal like an envelope. Cut the roll into one inch pieces.

Combine the ingredients for dipping sauce in any proportion to taste. Serve dipping sauce on side.

Artichoke-Pepper Salad Dressing

3 large, fresh artichokes (not canned)

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

Juice of ½ lemon or lime

3 T. braggs

Steam the artichokes for one hour in a covered pan with other ingredients so that the liquid reaches halfway up the artichokes.

Remove artichoke hearts and puree in blender or food processor with liquid form pan and the following:

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

1 handful fresh chives

1 handful fresh basil

1 t. fresh or dried marjoram

1 ½ t. fresh or dried lemon thyme

½ cup water or onion stock* for extra flavor

Use over salad. A good combination is radicchio, romaine, escarole and sunflower sprouts.

*Onion stock can be made by boiling 1 large onion in 1-1 ½ cups of water in an uncovered pan. When liquid is reduced to ½ a cup, stock is ready.

Banana Ice Cream

Get ultra-ripe bananas, mash them, and then add any essence you want, like maple or almond. Several companies like Frontier Herbs make lines of non-alcoholic essences. Put mixture in a traditional ice cream maker, according to manufacturer’s directions. As an alternative to an ice cream maker, put the mashed mixture in a stainless steel bowl on ice and beat with electric beater. The reason this has the consistency of ice cream is because of the air introduced by beating or with use of the ice cream maker. Making banana ice cream in the Champion juicer yields a different consistency. Put in freezer for 1 to 1 ½ hours. Do not over freeze. Fruit sorbets can also be done this way, with mashed fruit.

Sheila Gabayson

In the late 1960s in Montreal Sheila Gabayson was in her twenties and feeling tired. She was overweight and had acne. After a few health food stores opened, she began to frequent them and learned some new ideas about nutrition. She became a label reader. In 1969, she decided to remove from her diet red meat, sugar, salt, white flour and processed food. She lost weight, her complexion improved and she began to feel better.

In 1987, she had a serious car accident. She was in the hospital, immobilized, waiting for surgery on her lung. She knew she had to do something drastic to heal faster. She became a vegan, removing all dairy and animal protein in addition to the changes she had made 18 years earlier. She was allowed to go home for two weeks. During that time, she used her new diet, herbs, and proper food combining to accelerate her healing process. When she returned to the hospital, her doctor found that surgery was no longer necessary.

Six months after the accident and not feeling well enough, she went to Hippocrates and learned about living foods. When she left feeling wonderful, she dropped her plans to open a frozen yogurt shop and began to look for space for a living foods restaurant. Garden Taste, with an ocean view, opened near San Diego in 1991.

Here are two of the restaurant favorites:

4 cups sprouted chickpeas

4 cups sprouted lentils

1 cup sprouted sunflower seeds

2 oz. Braggs

1 oz. ginger juice*

1 oz. diced parsley

Cayenne and cumin to taste

Mix all ingredients together. This salad is very easy to digest because of the sauerkraut. Serves 10.

*Ginger juice can be extracted by putting ginger root through a juicer.

Sheila’s Sesame Dressing

1 16oz. jar raw tahini

8 oz. lemon juice

8 cloves garlic

2 oz. ginger juice (see above note)

3 oz. parsley

1 small fresh hot red or yellow pepper

4 green onions

4 oz. Braggs

At least 2 cups of water

Put all ingredients in food processor or blender. Blend well. More water can be added for use as a dressing or sauce for steamed vegetables, grains, or pasta. Less water can be added for use as dip.

Vol 11 Issue 1 page 1