raw spaghetti and vegan meatball

It sure looks like spaghetti and meatballs! However, it tastes like squash and nuts. Not that that is a bad thing, but in this case looks are certainly deceptive. I suppose when I look at a plate of spaghetti I expect it to be hot and with a deep tomato flavor.

The recipe I used for this meal came out of Raw Made Easy by Jennifer Cornbleet. The spaghetti sauce called for 1 tomato and 1/2 c of sun-dried tomatoes. Although my mind said 'that's too much,' my hand still added it. I love sun-tomatoes but they dominate! The proportion of fresh v. sun was out of whack. So I remade the sauce, but I was running out of steam, getting tired.

The 'not meatballs' were once again made using nuts and well, ...they tasted like nuts.

I need to stop using raw cookbooks. I need to stop replicating cooked food because I am expecting one thing and another is delivered.

This is getting frustrating. I wind up making two meals on Mondays because the raw is under-appreciated by the kids and it is getting exhausting.

Next week I'm going back to the raw basics. Salad. Maybe an easy soup, and a cracker. Back to the raw-ing board.

Cost Breakdown:

squash: $1

walnuts: $1

tomato and sun-tomato: $2

basil, parsley, lemon: $1

Total to make 2 servings:

$5.00

raw thai salad

Raw Night

I needed something quick for dinner - I am in the middle of cleaning my house from top to bottom, so this is what I came up with: cucumbers, peeled and sliced into thin strips with the peeler to the middle where the seed  are. I added strips of red pepper, thin slices of red onion and grated a carrot. I made a dressing using a young coconut meat, agave, nama shoyu, lime juice, olive oil, chilies and cilantro. To add some crunch I chopped up some almonds.

This was excellent - I really enjoyed it. Refreshing, cooling for the summer, quick and tasty. The dressing was especially nice - the young coconut is a very mild coconut flavor but just enough.

Cost Breakdown:

cucumber: $3

young coconut: $2

red pepper: $1

carrot, lime, cilantro: $2

almonds: $2

Total to feed a family of 4:

$10.00

raw mexican cabbage boats

Raw Night

I made a Mexican-style stuffed cabbage boats. I used soaked sunflower seeds, onions and garlic to make the filling. But since I am beginning to see that a lot of raw foods that are trying to imitate other meals are utilizing nuts and seeds, I wanted to add something different. So, I also chopped up fennel, zucchini and summer squash and mixed it with my seed filling. Not so say that nuts and seeds are not good for you, on the contrary, they are immeasurably so, but I am seeing that there is some dependency on them. All things in moderation.

I topped it with a salsa of avocado, spring onion, and yellow and red tomatoes. 

As for the cabbage, I attempted to dehydrate some leaves to see if I could get a crunchy shell. Nope. It turned out brittle and the color was off. I'll try marinating it in some olive oil next time.

The boats were Mexican influenced with the addition of chili powder,  chipotle chili powder and lime zest.

Very filling and delicious! I'm actually looking forward to raw nights. Not only is it easy and quick to make, but it tasted good.

If you make this, though, do not stuff the leaves as much as I did - not enough leaf for the filling.

Cost Breakdown:

2c sunflower seeds: $3

cabbage: $2

tomato, avocado,lime, onion, garlic: $3

zucchini, squash, fennel: $3

Total to make 10-12 boats:

$11.00

raw collard wraps

Monday Night is Raw Night

It seems my children have gotten used to the idea of Raw Night. I didn't say they've gotten to like it - just that they now remember to moan...'oh, yeah. It's Raw Night,' sigh and walk away.

No matter! Onward we go!

Tonight's culinary delights involved a marinated collard wrap, encasing a puree of fresh-shelled peas and kohlrabi. The puree is mixed with walnut pieces, slivered spinach, bean sprouts and minced Fresno peppers. Accompanying the wraps are a cucumber salad, marinated shiitake and nama shoyu vinaigrette.

I found the meal well-balanced, the flavors, textures and colors all complementing each other. David thought it wasn't bad. Kate liked it. Mikel and Cat humored me tasting the wraps. Mikel told me making raw taste good is hard. After I gave him a Mom-look, he amended that to getting him to like raw is difficult.

When dinner was almost ready, Cat sprang on me that it is her Half-Birthday. Great! So? Well, we have some dear friends who do celebrate all five of their children's half birthdays, and since I was just jumping out of my skin that my daughter was doing math of any kind, I immediately set to work to produce some dessert in celebration. ...a raw dessert.

Mudslide Pie.

No fear, blog readers, desserts of any kind - raw or otherwise- are always welcome at our house! Desserts are not collards, after all.

By the way, this pie has three fillings - almond butter, chocolate and vanilla. My blender needed to be cleaned thrice. And the food processor once. This is a gluten free, albeit not soy free dessert - the thickener is soy lecithin.

Cost Breakdown:

1/2 collard bunch: $1.50

filling: $4

mushroom: $3

1/2 cuke: $.50

nama shoyu, limes, pepper, oils: $2

Total to feed 3 people:

$11.00

Raw Mudslide Pie Recipe

raw alfredo primavera

Raw Night

To the delight of my children, I made another raw meal. For us, Mondays are the ideal day to make raw because that is when I go to Whole Foods and the vegetables are extra fresh - very important when they are naked, so to speak. It is especially important that summer squash be fresh because the older they get the more bitter they become. Not a good thing.

I lost a part to my spiral slicer, so I just used my knife to cut the squash into thin, long strips. I tossed the slices in a little olive oil and dehydrated them for about an hour. Sort of the extent of my cooking tonight. I also tossed some spinach with diced red onion and dehydrated that, too.

The olive 'bread' I tossed in the dehydrator the night before; it didn't need to be crispy because I wasn't shooting for a cracker.

The Alfredo sauce was really excellent. I wouldn't say it is 'Alfredo' sauce, but calling it Macadamia Pasta Sauce fits better for how it tasted. The sauce had a little garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and coconut vinegar. Mixed with the squash strips, tomatoes, olives and the spinach, it tasted very flavorful and quite good. Another raw surprise for David. It was harder to sell to the kids, though, who passionately dislike squash of any season. This meal was inpired by recipes in the cookbook Eating Raw by Mark Reinfeld.

Cost Breakdown:

nuts: $4

vegetables: $6

olives, oil, lemon: $1

flax seeds, sunflower seeds, olives: $3

Total to annoy 3 kids and feed 2 adults:

$14.00

Macadamia Pasta Sauce Recipe

raw kale salad with sun-dried tomato + chili-crusted cheese

Kale salad was the first food I remember eating raw (Excluding the obvious raw fruits and vegetables. You know what I mean.) I was fortunate enough to be friends with a few ladies in California who were interested in raw preparation and invited a chef to show us how to cook live food. The first thing she made was this salad and David and I were hooked. In fact, he ate too much the first time I made it!

Lesson to those wishing to make this :)

To prepare kale raw, you need to massage the kale with the dressing; this breaks down the cell walls of the kale, not just making it more palatable but ensuring that your body can get to those powerhouse nutrients. 

The cheese (dip or spread) I made using nuts and sun-dried tomatoes, lemon, grape tomatoes, and then I rolled it in chili flakes. The cheese might be spicy (and of course you do not have to roll it in hot chili) but the kale and the crackers cool things down. The cracker is sun tomatoes, peppers, flax seeds, ground and dehydrated. I will make a whole batch and they keep really well in a tightly sealed jar.

Cost Breakdown:

2 bunch kale -$4

shiitake -  $2

onion, garlic, tomato: $2

crackers: $2

avocado and lemon - $2.50

  sun-tomato and almonds- $3

Total to feed a family of 8:

$15.50

Raw Kale Salad Recipe

Raw Sun-Dried Tomato Dip or Spread

Raw Flax Crackers Recipe

raw tacos two ways

Wow! This was fabulous. The inspiration came from my coffee-table cookbook, Raw, but I significantly simplified it.

One of the tacos has oyster mushrooms and fresh cut corn marinated in lime juice and a little chili sauce I made for the vinaigrette. I then dehydrated it a bit to let it 'cook.' The other taco has jicama and mango filling with guacamole. The shells I made using fresh cut corn and soaked golden flax seeds. I made my cashew sour cream, which is raw anyway. The chili vinaigrette was made by rehydrating ancho and guajillo chilies, (but any dried chili would be fine) and whisking it with lime juice, vinegar and olive oil. The sauce was super awesome!

The tacos with the sour cream and the chili vinaigrette were a mouth-watering combination.

Even picky-daughter who swore she would never eat raw had a few of these.

Cost Breakdown:

nuts and seeds: $5

olive oil and vinegars: $1

chili peppers: $.50

produce: $7
Total to feed a family of 5:
$13.50

Raw Tacos Two Ways Recipe

raw eggplant manicotti

I have decided to serve one meal a week...raw. Now if you are an adult, it may sounds intriguing, even adventurous; but, if you are a kid, not so much. Or if you are my husband. Once a year, he says, is more than enough. Unfortunately for my family, the raw meal stays. At least for now. If they start withering away, I'll reevaluate.

Tonight I made a raw eggplant manicotti. 'Cooking' raw is actually quite easy and uncomplicated, as long as a plan is in place. The eggplant needed a few hours to marinate and a few hours to dehydrate. Dinner was actually ready on time.

I totally dug this dish, but my family collectively thought otherwise.

Baby steps.

Cost Breakdown:

eggplant: $2

sun-tom: $2

tomato: $2

nuts: $4

lemon: $.50

spices, herbs and oive oil: $4

Total to feed Mom thrice and Dad once:

$14.50

Raw Eggplant Manicotti Recipe