Vegannosaurus Rex

I’ve seen, and eaten, a few ‘tempura’ dishes over the last 6 months, but have never found a recipe. To be honest, i didn’t look very hard for a recipe, i was interested in the challenge of trying to create this one on my own. A special thanks to my sister to lending her nose to identify an ingredient or two that made the recipe close to perfect.

• 1 cup raw pistachios (soaked for at least 2 hours)
• 1/2 cup pinenuts (soaked for at least 2 hours)
• 2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2-3 Tablespoons Nama Shoyu
• 1 teaspoon Turmeric
• 4 Tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1/2 lemon (juice only)
• nutmeg (will explain later in the post)
• pepper
• sea salt
• cayenne
• 1/2 cup water (max, this is added as needed)
• 1 head of Cauliflower

This recipe is super easy. If you subtract the dehydrating time you could accomplish the whole mess in about 10-15 minutes.

1. Soak pistachios and pinenuts in water for at least 2 hours, the longer they soak the creamier they become, which can affect how much water you use in the final mix (this will make sense later).

2. Chop the cauliflower into bite sized pieces. This solves two problems, one, you want them to be able to fit in your mouth, and two, you have to cut them relatively small to fit in the dehydrator.

3. Put everything else in the food processor. Pistachios, pinenuts, dash of sea salt and pepper, cayenne to taste, olive oil, turmeric, Nama Shoyu, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice. For the nutmeg…I took a nutmeg seed in one hand and a microplane in the other hand and ground a dusting over the top of the other ingredients

4. Turn on the food processor. As ingredients are blending add water as needed to create a creamy consistency. I’ve never used more than 1/2 a cup of water. Depending on how long you soak the pistachios and pinenuts you may not need to add any water at all, but even after allowing nuts to soak overnight I still needed 1/8 to 1/4 cup of water. Altitude and ingredients play a factor, as always.

5. Pour the blended mixture on to the chopped cauliflower and mix together.

6. Stick the whole mess (i’m not kidding here, its a mess) in the dehydrator for 2 hours or longer depending on the type of dehydrator being used.

Enjoy. You may want to vary the amount of apple cider vinegar depending on how your palate reacts to the taste, i happen to like it, many don’t.

I added, and unfortunately subtracted, some new locations to the vegan-friendly-business map on my blog. Check it out here.

Additions:
Rainbow Natural Foods
Arden’s Garden (fresh juices and smoothies, all natural) All 5 Locations!
Dynamic Dish (once vegetarian restaurant, now kinda unsure but they have veg options)

Subtractions:
Zennubian 7 – closed without notice

I just realized that a large portion of my blog has been broken since upgrading to Wordpress 2.5. My apologies to anyone that has attempted to access the site in the last 2 weeks, there was an incompatibility issue with one of the plugins I had installed.

Problem solved, and I have also solved the mystery as to why my site traffic virtually disappeared.

My take on simple and quick Tabbouleh.

• 1/2 cup hulled hemp seeds
• 1 head of parsley, chopped
• 2 roma tomatoes, chopped
• 4-5 green onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh mint, chopped
• 2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
• juice from 1 lemon
• 1 cucumber, seeded and chopped

put it all in a bowl, mix, eat. Flavors integrate very nicely overnight.

I have a minor hemp seed obsession (maybe ‘addiction’ would be more appropriate in this case), i’ve been finding ways to include hemp seeds as an ingredient in almost everything. Hemp seeds work especially well as a substitute for bulgur wheat in tabbouleh.