Saving Water

What some people might call lazy, I call saving water.  When you live in a dry cabin you quickly learn how to make the most of every drop of H2O.

• When I have a big raw food production day I plan out my recipes in order of sweet to savory, so that I don't have to wash Viv or the FP in between.  Soups and dressings come last, so they can absorb a bit of all the day's goodies. 
• I don't wash my fruits and veggies.  We eat organic produce, so I'm not worried about pesticides. This may gross out some people, but I think it's beneficial (B12) to eat a little dirt.  (I do look for bugs and worms and try to avoid ingesting those fellows.)   
• I serve TH's dinner in a Pyrex, which then holds his leftovers for lunch the next day, no washing in between. I thought I was brilliant the day I  figured this out!  Huge dirty dish savings, as he washes the Pyrex at work. 
• I buy undies every time they are on sale.  I must have about a hundered pairs now (why do we say "pairs" when talking about underwear?), which allows me to avoid laundry for loooooong periods of time.
• I've already mentioned this, but I drink the water leftover from rinsing sweets out of Viv, and TH or our plants enjoy the savory water leftovers.
• TH thinks we should get a dog to wash (i.e. lick clean) our dishes.  I know dogs are supposed to have super antibacterial tongues, but I think that's taking the whole hippie cabin dwelling thing a bit too far.  

Now that nobody will ever eat at my house again....on to food talk!  I finished up Russell James's Spinach and Wild Mushroom Quiches, in spite of mishaps that might have derailed me in earlier raw food prep days.  (I swear, after a day battling middle school hormones, my brain is so beleaguered it's all I can do to uncork a bottle of wine....) 

I'm not sure if I made my crusts too thick, but I had way too much filling for my three tart pans.  To use the remainder of the filling, I made more crust dough, realizing in the process that I had forgotten the flax in the first batch (that's why my first crusts were a little cracky and volatile!)  In the second batch I filled the crusts and put them in the D overnight, forgetting that I was supposed to dehydrate just the crusts for 8 hours first.  Ay carumba. 

No worries, it turns out this recipe was quite forgiving.  The end result is delicious, but very dense and rich due to the high nut content. I think it tastes rather gourmet, but I will report back after serving them to some non raw foodies.

After Lisa from Raw on $10 a Day (or Less!) posted her Stuffed Truffle recipe, I had to try my own.   I didn't have palm sugar, so I made my own chocolate coating:

3/4 cup raw cacao

3/4 cup melted coconut oil

3/4 cup maple syrup

dash of vanilla

pinch of salt

(I have no idea if these proportions would be considered acceptable to a real chef, but it makes an almost milk chocolate type coating and the 1-1-1 ratio is easy for me to remember.)

I used Lisa's recipe for the almond butter filling, substituting maple syrup for the palm sugar.  I put a layer of chocolate sauce in a paper cupcake liner, let it harden, then placed a flattened spoonful of almond butter mixture on top, followed by more chocolate around the edges and on top.

I had extra chocolate coating and Heathy's Caramel Sauce #2, so I made more chocolates.

Question:  Do you wash your produce?  How do you feel about eating a little dirt from time to time?