Raw Comfort Food Workshop by MAP Wellness

I’m always trying to do my best to make healthy food for my family. It’s hard, but I find being knowledgeable about what you eat helps a lot. That’s why I was really excited when my friend Meghan Pearson, owner of MAP Wellness, invited me to one of her raw food workshops. I didn’t know much about preparing and eating raw foods but I did know it involves vegetables and nuts and other stuff that is extremely good for you. Meghan’s ‘Raw Comfort’ class was amazing. She develops her own recipes, demonstrates how to make them, and teaches you about nutrition along the way. Last night’s class focused on “comfort” dishes, and started off with mini pecan pies sweetened with dates and raisins. These tasted as good as they look:

After showing us how easy it is to make almond milk (which Meg then turned into chocolate almond milk with raw cacao and cinnamon) she whipped up some apple sauce, also sweetened with dates.

My little man loves corn (I hide all his protein in it) so I am eager to make Meg’s creamy corn chowder, which is made creamy by the almond milk. You may think, shouldn’t corn chowder be hot? This was incredibly flavourful at room temperature, which, as Meg points out, is the temperature to which most of us allow our food to cool before we eat it anyway.

The final dish was a creamed spinach stuffed tomato with a side of whipped parsnips. Cashews and macadamia nuts get thrown in with the parsnips, along with some super nutritious and crunchy hemp hearts:

Nutritional yeast is the magic ingredient that gives the spinach its creaminess. You would never know there is no dairy in this dish.

If you want to check out some of Meg’s other workshops, visit the MAP Wellness website for the class schedule. On February 13th, you can catch her whipping up her famous raw lasagna on the Live Healthy Now show on Rogers, and then on Global’s The Morning Show making her vegan chocolate recipes on February 14th for Valentine’s Day. You can also read Meg’s blog entries on Huffington Post, where she is a regular contributor.