(Photo: raw nut burgers)

I admit that the "burgers" pictured on the dehydrator tray might look a little- um- nasty? But if you think that looks bad, you oughtta look at the mixture while it was still in the bowl- I thought I'd spare you by putting that photo further down on the page. (Someone told me that a picture I posted from another recipe looked like the results of a liver flush! Well, this must surely look worse than that). I was really hesitant about tasting this latest creation of Felicia's, but the girl is on a roll. What she did was make "burgers" from three kinds of nuts/seeds that she blended together: pecans, cashews and sesame seeds. She basically did a take-off on a nut loaf recipe, but personalized it by grinding her own fresh spice mixture, and adding bell pepper, onion, jalapeno and fresh corn.

(Speaking of corn- those of you who now eat raw, did you ever notice when you ate SAD, that whenever you ate corn you could see the evidence of it later on when you "took care of business"? Not all of the corn kernal is digested, so whatever isn't used comes out whole at the other end! Felicia and I both noticed, though, that since we began eating raw, we never see any corn coming out! It's like we are making use of the whole kernal now. Just an interesting aside. Now back to our main story).

So, Felicia made square patties slightly thinner than the thickness of a slice of bread and dehydrated them at about 105 F for 3 to 4 hours- those are the patties you see at the top of the page. We dressed them up like real burgers: ezekiel bread, lettuce, tomato and avocado.

I was SHOCKED at how great they tasted! It's really hard for me to eat the stuff she makes sometimes because I know they are imitations of past foods, and I prefer to let go of my past habits completely. But these burgers were awesome! You would think you were eating a real burger patty - ok- maybe a turkey burger. It's more the texture that reminds you of the burger, not the taste so much, and the burger illusion is also helped by the bread, lettuce and tomato. NutritionData.com liked these burgers, which surprised me because of the high fat content (about 35 grams per serving). They say: "This food is low in Sodium, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Thiamin, Magnesium and Copper, and a very good source of Manganese". A burger also has 12 grams of protein and 21% of your daily iron needs.

To work off some of those calories I actually worked out today. I did an Xbox version of a dance game that is much like Dance Dance Revolution- that arcade game where you dance to steps shown to you on a screen. Man, what a workout that was. I did this for an hour and I am in PAIN even sitting here typing this. I am so out of shape it's ridiculous. I'm sure I burned off much of that burger. The only reason I worked out for an hour is because I got "F's" on just about every dance and I was determined to pass a song, even with a C. Finally I did make it past one song, but I didn't last much longer than that.

Despite my current aches, I had a good day. I started with a green smoothie, ended with a healthy, tasty "burger," and had a fun workout. I'm reeeeally sleepy now, so I'm off to bed!