Waldorf salad

Zora use to make a Winter Waldorf Salad, published in Rawsome! p.158, by Brigitte Mars. I am pleasantly surprised today to see the complete recipe displayed in Google books. Just follow the link above. Google books is an amazing service - often you can read half the book there to decide whether it is worth to invest into the rest.

Italian sauces (Marinara, Primavera, etc.)

I am really keen to Italian dishes, anytime.
Today I made "Pasta Primarawva", Rawsome! p.203, by Brigitte Mars.
However, squash was replaced by daikon and zucchini. Instead of sun-cured olives, our home-made olives are more bitter, we used less than half of amount. Didn't have enough sun-dried tomatoes, replaced with celery, oregano, and more tomatoes. Still, result was excellent (even with some sprouted alfa-alfa added).

Few weeks ago, Zora prepared "Exquisite Raw Marinara Souce" (page 219) with "Pasta Marinara", both from RAW The Uncook Book. As usual with Juliano, a lot of ingredients, but fantastic result...

Poppy Seeds Dressing

I have to capture this fantastic dressing, shared by our friends Diana and Milan, although measures are missing:

• lemon juice
• orange juice
• liquid aminos
• apple cider vinegar
• raw honey
• olive oil
• garlic
• poppy seeds
• pine nuts

We made it several times since the last potluck, where we've got the list of ingredients, leaving amounts to our imagination. We are using whole oranges (peeled), so the result is quite thick. Not really fond of vinegar, using just a tablespoon or so. I am really curious how far is our creation from the original...

Our previous favorite dressing was Ranch Dressing (or Thousand Island variation, with added red bell pepper) from ?, page 104. I am going to prepare it tonight, to have a short break from poppy seeds.

Kale salad... finally!

I heard many praises about kale, and sampled some salads on potlucks. However, we used kale and related vegetables only in smoothies - until today. I decided to prepare a salad for lunch and it was so good! I followed The Raw Gourmet (one of our favorite cookbooks, by Nomi Shannon), page 67 "Kale and Hearty". Surprisingly, I found all the ingredients the recipe calls for, including red peppers, grated sweet potato (commonly called yams, which is probably a different plant), and dehydrated mushrooms. Only change I made was to reduce amount of lemon juice to half - original is too sour for our taste. Two of us left the bowl almost empty...
Next time, I must try a simpler variation, e.g. this Kale Salad (using lemon juice instead of vinegar).

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!