Vegannosaurus Rex

Its been a long week of experimenting (if not writing). Experimenting doesn’t always make for compelling writing, or photography, except when you succeed or fail brilliantly. I’ve done a little of both.

I started experimenting with a mock tuna recipe this week. I have no idea, except maybe hubris, that i am experimenting with a mock tuna recipe considering i have found about 10 that all seem perfectly acceptable. Well, i proved both of those points this week. I attempted my own recipe with the following ingredients:

• 1 cup sprouted sunflower seeds
• 3 green onions
• 1 celery stick
• 1/4 cup soaked Dulse
• 2 tablespoon nama shoyu
• 1/8 cup lemon juice
• dash salt
• dash pepper
• tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 carrot
• parsley
• cayenne
• garlic
• half red bell pepper

I feel like i have the ingredients correct, it was in the process. I didn’t have this recipe as well thought out as i probably should have. I ended up blending the sprouted sunflower seeds, celery, nama shoyu, celery, green onions, carrot, and dulse. Everything was going fine, i liked the consistency, then added the parsley and garlic and blended again, but it was missing that one ingredient, which turned out to be red bell pepper. Unfortunately i had to blend yet again when i added the pepper, and the consistency was a little paste-y for me. It was actually, to be honest, quite unappealing. I’m going back to the drawing board.

To salvage my appetite for mock tuna, i made this recipe from goneraw.com (the recipe below includes my modifications):

• cups raw, germinated walnuts, soaked in water (the longer the better)
• 1/4 cup dulse (red seaweed), soaked for 10 minutes and drained
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup cold-pressed olive oil
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2½ celery stalks, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded, cored, and chopped
• 3 green onions

Chop the onion, celery and red bell pepper and set aside. Blend all other ingredients in a food processor. Combine the blended mixture with the onion, celery and red bell pepper. I didn’t have fresh dill so i used dried dill weed, the proportions aren’t the same as if you use fresh dill. The dried dill gave my version of the this recipe somewhat un-photogenic, although the taste was great.