Chili for a Spaghetti Western Party

We've got invited to a party with old Italian western movies and a lot of Mexican food. Well, cooked food... So, we needed to bring our own creation to survive. By a lucky coincidence, a book we are currently exploring provided us with the right inspiration. Carol Alt is surely into Mexican kitchen! The book, co-authored with David Roth, is called "The Raw 50". Don't panic, fifty is not an age; just breakfast, lunches, dinners, snacks and drinks - 10 each (just do the math :-). However, total number of recipes is much higher, because most meals have several courses.

We prepared "Sweet Melissa's Autumn Chi-lee" (page 62 of the book), with exotic ingredients like pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, and mango; along with more mainstream tomatoes, peppers, and jalapeños. Reasonably easy to make, fantastic taste and a huge success at the party!
Notes: We didn't have tomatillos, used half of zucchini instead, plus added around one cup of sprouted lentils.
How To Make 1t of Pumpkin Pie Spice: mix 1/2 t cinnamon, 1/4 t ground ginger, 1/8 t nutmeg, 1/8 t allspice or ground clove.


To minimize risk of an untried recipe, Zora decided to un-cook another chili in parallel. "Everyday Chili" (page 102) has eggplant, zucchini, and mushrooms, with marinade and a tomato based sauce. We didn't bring it to the party, but enjoyed it at home the next day. Another recipe we can return to without hesitation.


There are more Mexican/Texan recipes in the book to complement chilis, e.g. Lettuce Shell Tacos, Zucchini Crackers, Guacamole and Lettuce Burritos. By the way, the most popular recipe from the book, according to voting in this blog is "Raw Pizza" (page 84), followed by Melissa's Chi-lee.

Erik's Name Day

Today is Erik's name in Slovak calendar. We celebrated with a Carob-Hazelnut Torte. We liked it, but kids didn't. It's very rich and filing, suitable for special occasions. The recipe is from Raw Truth: The Art of Preparing Living Foods by Jeremy Safron (page 173).

A lot of cooking, trying new things from an inspiring Australian e-book. Curried broccoli is very simple: just a little bit of coconut oil with curry powder massaged into broccoli heads. Goji-berries cookies are fast; we used freshly sprouted buckwheaties. No currants at home, so I've used some raisins and two fresh peaches. Cookies have nice orange color (they look almost artificial).
We made a big batch of vegetarian jerkies for party tomorrow (eggplant, zukini, butternut squash, sweet potato/yum, red pepper), using all 9 dehydrator trays. Recipe from Gabriel Cousens Rainbow book.

Meal log for today:

• Two kinds of green smoothies: kale, pears, mint (inspired by Green for Life), and salad, napa, blueberries, banana, chia seeds
• Dumplings with sheep cheese and bacon (bryndzove halusky) for kids - their favorite Slovak traditional food, with sauerkraut (probably the only healthy part of their meal). I've got similarly tasting lunch: sprouted buckwheat ("dumplings"), avocado with sprouts ("cheese"), marinated mushrooms and olives ("bacon") and the same home-made sauerkraut
• Haselnut-carob cake (tons of it :-), jasmine tea, banana, pear, apple
  
• curried broccoli with tomatoes, onion crackers, garlic toast, crab cake
• nuts and red vine with friends (well after midnight, very unhealthy!).
  

Simply Raw Potluck in January

We both prepared fantastic meals for the potluck. To reduce family competition (which is always fierce), mine was in the "main course" category, while my wife prepared a dessert.

Rice Bowl with Orange Sauce

Rice:

• Grate one whole cauliflower and set aside

Sauce:

• One whole orange - peeled
• 1 1/2 tsp chopped jalapeno 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp raw sesame seeds
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1" piece of fresh ginger - peeled
• 6 tbsp nama shoyu (I've used 3tbsp of Tamari)
• 5 tbsp raw honey or raw agave
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste (or use dried papaya seeds instead)

Place all sauce ingredients in a high powered blender. Blend on high until liquefied, yet thick. Amount of jalapeno, ginger, and red pepper affects "warming effect" of this meal.

Veggies: (any combination you wish; I didn't use mushrooms not chili peppers)

• grated carrot
• sliced mushrooms
• finely chopped ancho chili pepper
• finely chopped red bell pepper
• snow peas - sliced in half
• green onions - cut into 1" pieces
• finely shredded kale or collards

Mix sauce in a bowl with prepared veggies. Spoon up a bowl of the shredded cauliflower and top with sauced veggies - garnish with additional raw sesame seeds, chopped green onion, or peppers.

Can also be used to make wraps (e.g. in collard or chard leaves).

Source: blog of Mattye Lee Thompson.
Sadly, I cannot find Mattye's Rice Bowl recipe anymore. My guess is it was so good that Mattye decides to save it for her upcoming book... Well, I wish her good luck! There are so many excellent and inspiring recipes on her blog, I am sure the book will be successful.

Poppyseed Pastry

Crust: 2 cups walnuts (soaked 4 hours and dehydrated), 5 dates (soaked), 1 tbsp organic orange peel, dash of salt
Topping: 2 cups poppy seeds, 2 cups raisins (soaked 20 min)

Garnish: goji berries

Instructions:

Place walnuts, dates, orange peel, salt in a food processor with S-blade and mix until they are crust like. Then firmly press into a pan pie and set aside.

For topping: blend raisins (I use meat grinder, but a food processor works as well) and grind poppy seeds in a coffee grinder. Mix together and put on the crust. All measures are approximate, don't be afraid to improvise!

Our day starts with a green smoothie

In fact, smoothies are often my only meal until lunch. Interestingly enough, we didn't have a clue that one can blend leaf vegetables with fruit and water and create something so healthy and delicious - until we tasted a sample at the Simply Raw festival in September 2007. That smoothie was the simplest possible combination, spinach with banana; tasted great and we were immediately hooked.

Green smoothies are easy to make and have fantastic health benefits even for people on a regular diet. There is only one psychological barrier to overcome: taste is much better than look (suspiciously green, thick liquid). The ultimate source of inspiration and recipes is "Green for Life", a great book by Victoria Boutenko. We bought several copies and started to hand it out as a gift to our friends...

In the beginning, our old blender was not powerful enough for harder vegetables. Some people prefer smoothies with a texture, but we were quite relieved after we switched to a mighty Vitamix. So, this is a list of ingredients we use regularly these days (not all of them at once, of course :-):

• spinach (neutral taste), salad, arugula (spicy)
  
• kale, chard (slightly bitter), carrot green, dandelions (yes, we can buy organic dandelions at Rainbow Foods)
  
• bok choy (Chinese cabbage), choy sum, nappa (Pekinensis cabbage)
• homegrown sprouts (alfa-alfa, clover, brocolli, daikon radish)
• celery (salty), green onion, garlic, avocado (I blend this zesty combination without fruit, but it is too zesty for Zora)
• banana, apples, pears, orange, mango, papaya (smooths bitterness of kale/chard), pineapple
• chia seeds (1 tablespoon), spirulina powder (1 teaspoon)
• water or rejuvelac (usually with sprouted/germinated quinoa)
  

Typical batch would be perhaps 2 cups of spinach, 2 cups of chard, 2-3 leaves of bok choy, 1 banana, 2 apples, 2 cups of water - yielding almost 2 liters (2 quarts) of smoothie (we like it more thick and less sweet than most recipes suggest).