New OHI Class: Pray, Eat, Live…in the Graduate’s Kitchen

So you’ve experienced all three weeks of the Optimum Health Institute’s (OHI) God-centered holistic healing program. Your first week you ate the freshly prepared live, raw, organic vegan dishes the OHI kitchen staff lovingly prepared for you. Your second week, you tasted dehydrated “pizzas,” and other delicious foods created for you by the Third Weekers. Then, in your third week, you learned to make a live, raw, organic vegan feast yourself. You chopped, blended, shredded, dehydrated, fermented and juiced, and picked up some new skills to help you take the program home with you. You asked us for additional OHI-compliant advanced food preparation class, and we listened.

We’re happy to announce a new Saturday class exclusively for guests who have completed OHI’s 3-week program. Pray, Eat, Live launches early next year, and will lead students through a culinary wonderland of live, organic, vegan delicacies that will inspire you to abandon processed foods forever. Created by our new Executive Chef Ken Dorr, the 2.5 hour class will empower students to create a tempting array of OHI approved dishes – including some cooked foods for those on the maintenance diet – and plan healthy appetizers, meals, snacks and desserts.

Recipes on the menu for Pray, Eat, Live include:

• Buckwheaties

• Raw (but warm) Cauliflower Soup

• Oil-Free Pesto Sauce

• Chipotle Sun-Dried Tomato Dip

• Dehydrated Almond Coconut Cookies

The class will be held in room 78, also known as the Graduate’s Kitchen. Besides being a play on a popular autobiographical account of author Elizabeth Gilbert’s spiritual quest Eat, Pray, Love , the title of the class honors OHI’s commitment to empowering guests to bring body, mind and spirit into balance. The word “pray” reminds us to always bless our food, and hold it in high spiritual regard. The word “eat” reminds us that eating is a way honor the temple that is our body. The word “live” reminds us that by eating right, we can live a long and healthy life. Pray, Eat, Live will give guests who have completed the three week OHI holistic healing program more kitchen skills, and new ideas for creating healthy and still delicious dishes that family members and friends will also enjoy. Students currently in the third week of the program will also be eligible to take the class.

Oil Free Pesto Sauce (Hypo)

· 2 c. tightly packed fresh basil

· 1 to 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped (to taste)

· ¼ c. soaked and drained walnuts

· ¼ c. pine nuts

· 1 T. lemon juice

· 1 T. coconut aminos

· 2 T. celery powder

· ½ c. vegetable broth

Place the basil, garlic, walnuts, pine nuts, lemon juice, coconut aminos and celery powder in a food processor fitted with the S blade. Pulse to combine, until the mixture is coarsely ground. Turn the motor on and drizzle the vegetable broth in a thin stream. Taste. Pulse a few more times to combine.

Yield: Serves 4