Vegannosaurus Rex

Just like everyone else, there are times when I am just too busy, or lazy, to prepare a meal for myself. Or, more accurate perhaps, I simply enjoy having someone else do the work for me from time to time. Beyond that, i really enjoy experiencing the creativity of others. It’s inspiring.

When I’m between trips to the farmers market, or simply feeling lazy, i call Living Food Delights, a mere 2.5 miles from my house. If I time it right I can call in my order, get in my car and drive to Living Food Delights, and walk in the front door before they have hung up the phone.

Great people and great food, in a non-descript storefront in Grant Park. I only have two complaints, there hours are short, the close at 8, but my attempts to call in an order at 7:30 in the past have been met with grunting and mumbling sounds until i have offered to call back another day, and they only make 4 of each entree each day, so if you try to catch them later in the day your options can be severely limited, as in you have 2 options out of the usual 10. Neither of those are reasons to stay away, and they aren’t really complaints to be honest, they’re observations. I understand limiting the amount of orders, its far to expensive to throw it away and the end of the day, and I trust they know their business far better than I do.

To get a taste of what their wares, take a tour of my most recent visit:

(You can see detailed notes on the flickr version of this picture.)

What you see here is the three course dinner, $17.50.

Choice of entree:

• Barbeque Mushrooms
• Lasagna
• Lentil Patties
• Marinated Kush with Topping
• Spaghetti
• Stuffed Tomatoes
• Sun Burger Patties
• Tempura Vegetables
• Walnut Steak
• Wild Rice Medley

Choice of side dish:

• hummus
• wild rice
• cracked wheat

I have found that almost never have the cracked wheat, but always have a more interesting special side dish.

Choice of green/salad:

• Spring Mix Salad
• Collard Greens
• Seaweed Salad
• Romaine Cesar Salad
• Spinach Cesar Salad

It’s truly a delight to have someone else prepare such a delicious living food meal for me.  If you’re in the are definitely pay them a visit.

I was quite fortunate this holiday season. My family was amazing in their support of my dietary decisions, and made it damn near impossible for me to look back now. I was on the receiving end of a dehydrator (thanks Lauren!), a high speed food processor (thanks Mom and Bill!), a very sharp kitchen knife (cut my finger within 5 minutes of first use, thanks Mom and Bill…for the knife, not the cut), and a mini food processor (thanks Erika!). All in all, everyone was amazing and I am quite fortunate to have such an understanding and supportive family.

I’m warming up to the dehydrator (pun intended) after many initial experiments. It takes a few failures before you realize what is possible and what isn’t possible. Failed experiments include a baby bella mushroom jerky (dont ask), and and eggplant facon recipe i found on gone raw (i know how i screwed this one up, user error, not the recipe’s fault). I’ve had a few successes as well.

I found a veggie burger recipe on gone raw, but, to be perfectly honest, it was quite bland, so i spiced it up, in the process doubling the amount of ingredients.

Mung Bean Veggie Burger (Raw Veggie Burger, Way #1)

• 3 cups mung bean sprouts
• 3 cups carrot, shredded
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup sage, oregano, thyme, any combination of the three, totaling 1/2 cup
• 1/2 cup fresh ground flax seeds
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• dash teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon pepper
• salt, to taste

Super simple to make. I bought my mung bean sprouts at the farmers market, if you are going to sprout them yourself let them grow to 3″-4″ for this recipe. Ground the flax seeds in a food processor or coffee grinder. Shred the carrots, doesn’t really matter how you perform this task, vegetable grater or a food processor will work. Add all ingredients to a food processor and blend. Place in the dehydrator for 6 hours on one side, then flip and dehydrate for another 6 hours.

**Note about dehydrating times**

I’ve only had a dehydrator for 2 weeks and I have already figured out one important fact about dehydrating times listed in recipes. Similar to the times i have seen listed in sprouting directions/instructions, the dehydrating times used in recipes are merely guidelines. Each dehydrator is different, and I’m sure that climate and elevation play a role as well. Basically, use your best judgment, and check progress often.

**end of dehydrating note**

Sprouted Lentil Veggie Burger (Raw Veggie Burger, Way #2)

• 2 cups sprouted red lentils
• 2 cups carrot, shredded
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup sage, oregano, thyme, any combination of the three, totaling 1/2 cup
• 1/3 cup fresh ground flax seeds
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon pepper
• salt, to taste

Obviously, i didn’t make many amendments. I cut the recipe by a third, more or less, and I substituted sprouted red lentils for the mung bean sprouts. I’m not really sure which recipe i like better, or if i do at all. I definitely like the color of the lentil burger better, and i added a little more cayenne to that version which spiced it up a bit. Try them both, you be the judge.

I, honestly, have no idea why i decided to work on my own ‘mock tuna’ recipe. A quick search around the internet has found that this is a pursuit in which many engage. What is so alluring about tuna salad? I ate tuna salad as a kid, and every now and then as an adult, but I don’t remember any aspect of it particularly spectacular. Quite the contrary, tuna was something you knew you always had in the cabinet when you were in college, it was the insurance policy meal. If all else fails make a tuna sandwich. Yet again, i digress.

So……I decided to attempt to make my version of phoney fish, and here it is:

• 3 green onions
• 1.5-2 celery stick
• 1 cup sprouted sunflower seeds
• 3 teaspoon nama shoyu
• 1/8 cup lemon juice (or 1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar)
• dash (or two) salt
• dash pepper
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup soaked Dulse
• cayenne to taste (i use quite a bit, i like it spicy)

I make two different versions, you can either use 1/8 cup of lemon juice (1-1.5 lemons) or 1 Tablespoon of Apple Vinegar, both equally good. I’m not sure i would fully commit to saying that this recipe is a ‘dead ringer’ for tuna salad, but i don’t really care, i was out to make something that taste good, and this tastes pretty tasty. AND, its semi-photogenic.

In retrospect, after looking at the photos, this recipe wasn’t as much of a failure as I had once thought. I attempted a rather ambitious undertaking. My version falls under the category ‘looks better in the cookbook’ but the flavor, texture, aesthetics in general, were all spot on. I made this recipe for raw vegan meatloaf from The Daily Raw Cafe.

Start with a sun-dried tomato ketchup:

• 1 cup sun-dried tomato, soaked, 1/4 c reserved water
• 1/4 cup raisins, soaked
• 1 tablespoon Italian Seasonings
• 1/4 tablespoon chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced

chop 2-4 cups (recipe calls for 2 cups, i found that to be far less than i actually needed) of spinach and place in a Ziploc bag with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, juice from half a lemon, and 1 teaspoon of sea salt for an hour. This gets the spinach tender and juicy.

blend 2 cups walnuts (soaked for 4-6 hours), 1 cup almonds (soaked 4-6 hours), 1 cup soaked sun-dried tomatoes, 1/2 cup reserved tomato water, 2 tablespoons parsley, 4 chopped green onions, 1 clove garlic and 2 stalks of celery. Add the remaining 1/2 cup water one tablespoon at a time to moisten the meat loaf. This can’t be understated, be careful when adding the water, it is very easy to over moisten the ‘meat’.

blended meat should look something like below, mine was a little too moist. Blend with 2 teaspoons of sea salt and 1 teaspoon of black pepper.

spread the meatloaf mixture on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Form the mixture in the shape of multiple rectangles approximately 2 inches my 8 inches. Cover the top of the spread meatloaf mixture with marinated spinach and roll. The result should look something similar to the picture below. Two notes about this step of the process.

#1: my mixture was too moist, which made it a little difficult to roll, if you monitor the moisture closely the rolling shouldn’t be a problem.

#2: the original recipe calls for a dehydrator, which i do not own. I try to compensate for this shortcoming by setting my oven to 100 degrees and use that as my version of a dehydrator. In theory as long as it doesn’t get above 118 degrees then the food remains raw. I had the oven set a little too high in this case, as you can see from the results…

cover rolls with sun-dried tomato ketchup.

slice and cover with more sun-dried tomato ketchup. As i stated earlier, i had my oven temp set a little too high (it was a mistake on my part) and the result looks a little ‘cooked’, although it didn’t taste that way. As long as the temp of the over stays around 100 degrees i think this recipe will turn out as expected. If nothing else it was delicious.

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.

In my pursuit of the perfect taco, i tinkered with the raw spicy walnut taco meat recipe yet again last night. My only complaint, and its a minor one, is that this recipe is slightly dry. The texture is great, the flavor is great, but dry is a pet peeve of mine. So, i set out to solve that problem. I’ve tried two different methods, neither to perfection. Adding olive oil is an option, this method is the easiest to control, but didn’t add as much moisture as i was hoping, at least not without adding a lot more olive oil that i desired. Last night i tried a new method, soaking the walnuts i water for about 30 minutes. The result was an obviously lighter color, and a texture that i could only describe as ‘paste’. Not exactly ideal either. I’m going to keep working on it, the perfect taco is out there somewhere, i just have to find it.

For dinner i made pizza. Tacos and pizza. Yup, i’m an American. Aren’t Pizza Hut and Taco Bell both owned by Pepsi? I’m an effin cliche, and i just realized it while typing this blog post…

Pizza. I spread a layer of pesto on the tortilla (no, the Food for Life tortillas aren’t raw, but they’re made out of sprouted grains instead of flour), topped the pesto with a little raw marinara, some shitake mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes and ‘marinated’ spinach. I laid the spinach leaves flat and stacked them on top of each other, rolled em up and chopped. I placed the spinach in a bowl with some olive oil and rubbed the oil into the spinach, making sure all of the spinach was covered. I let it marinate for about 30 minutes, ideally you would let it marinate for an hour or so. I have also seen a suggestion to marniate the spinach in a combination of lemon juice, olive oil and sea salt. I used this method for another recipe i made and it works great; nice, tender, juicy spinach, almost as if it were wilted.

the combination of the marinated spinach and pesto was awesome, this was by far the best pizza i have made yet.

Thursday night was prep night. I have more food than i know what to do with in the wake of my prep fest. I find that i’m much more motivated, and accomplish far more when I am hungry. I put this to the test Thursday night, and it proved correct yet again.

I amended the delicious spicy walnut taco meat that i made earlier in the week. I added a little bit more cilantro, a small handful, plus 3/4 of a serrano chile and approx 1 tablespoon of olive oil to moisten the mixture. Even better than ever.

Next up was curried kale. This was one of the first ‘raw dishes’ that i was introduced to, through Katie. Katie’s curried Kale is delicious, addictive, simple to make, and has a long shelf life. The perfect food.

[Katie is setting up a catering business (more about that later) as I type this, so i'm not allowed to publish her recipes, but if you email me directly, and are only going to use the recipe or personal use, i'll pass it on.]

blend:

• olive oil
• curry powder
• garlic
• cumin
• lemon juice
• salt
• dates

per the recipe you should chop 6 bunches of kale and combine with the curry mixture. I used 6 stalks of kale and found the richness of the curry mixture to be overpowering, i diluted with 3 additional stalks of kale. Chalk that up to personal taste/preference.

While I had momentum i made some pesto as well. Nothing too exciting here, i’ve discussed the recipe in the past.

I know I don’t have the best camera, or perfect lighting for still life photography, but its still odd how closely the pesto and spicy walnut taco meat resemble each other.

My friend Erlene introduced me to a friend of hers (well, she tried to) that has been a raw vegan for the last 3 years. Erlene also sent me a link to her LiveJournal blog on which she has posted several recipes. This recipe for a raw vegan chili struck my eye, and I had all of the ingredients in house, with one exception, dulse. Dulse. Dulse was the bane of my existence for several days this week. I did my usual internet research, so i was more than familiar with what it was, its nutritional value, indigenous regions and cultures, how it’s used, you name it. What i couldn’t find was a store to sell it to me. Being stubborn I looked around town for a few days before giving up and sending Katie a txt message asking for help. I got a response within 30 minutes listing 3 stores that sell dulse plus an alternative ingredient i could use (wakame) if i couldn’t find dulse. Mission accomplished.

• 2 cups blended tomato (3-4 medium tomatoes)
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled
• 1/2 red bell pepper, seeded
• 1 cup fresh basil, mint or cilantro leaves or a combination
• 1/2 cup whole-leaf dulse
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup nama shoyu
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

i garnished my chili with some green onion and cilantro. I used to eat my non-raw/vegan chili with rice on the side, taking a spoon of rice then diving into the chili. As a replacement to the rice i used sprouted quinoa and was pleased with the results.

The internet proved to be a wonderful and rewarding place this week.

I received this comment on my first post regarding raw vegan tacos from a fellow raw food blogger based in Perth, Australia:

Your salsa looks yummy! I had taco’s for dinner tonight, layering spicy walnut meat with a salsa and a guacamole into a Cos lettuce leaf to replace the taco. It was very tasty! I’ve also seen recipes for raw taco shells but it seems too involved to be worth it (unless it’s a special occasion perhaps!).

I was a little surprised to get a comment from Perth, Australia, but more importantly i was excited about the suggestion. I took it upon myself to email my blog commenter, asking if she wouldn’t mind sharing her recipe for ’spicy walnut meat.’ She graciously rewarded my inquiry with the recipe, and its reference. As it turns out, the recipe for spicy raw walnut meat is adapted from ‘Rawvolution‘ by Matt Amsden.

Wow, what a difference that made in my raw tacos. The spicy walnut meat makes a huge difference in the raw taco.

Spicy Raw Taco Meat, blend the following:

• 1 1/2 cups of walnuts
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Cumin powder
• 3/4 teaspoons Coriander
• 2 tablespoons Nama Shoyu

as my fellow blogger suggested:

‘Add a little bit of olive oil if you want it to stick together more (it’s a little loose) and I usually add some chili or cayenne powers, or a few pieces of parsley or coriander to give it a bit of color.’

i took her up on her suggestion and added:

• 1/2 tsp cayenne
• cilantro

added a little guacamole

topped with tomato, green leaf lettuce and some lime juice