Vegannosaurus Rex

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

I have an unhealthy obsession with tacos. At one point in my life i would come home drunk and bid on various taco memorabilia, tools, accoutrements, anything you could imagine. Whatever my drunk ass bid on was greeted with surprise upon arrival as I never remembered bidding on any of the items i ultimately purchased, and that was half the fun. None of these items amounted to much, it was just a pile of taco crap, most of which has since gone the way of the dodo bird. Anyway, you get the idea, i like tacos. As I have adjusted my diet I felt this was an obsession that was going to have to fade, and have had some reservations about losing this dear friend. Well, i made my first stab at a raw vegan taco last night. I’ll admit that my expectations were low, but that didn’t stop me from putting some thought and energy into making the best raw/vegan taco possible. And it worked. SOOOOO simple, and so good. You could make these in your sleep, which is convenient because i had a dream about them the night after i made them.

Delicious, absolutely delicious. I surprised even myself yet again. I made two fillings, one was a pretty basic guacamole:

• cilantro
• avacado
• roma tomato
• red onion
• salt
• serrano chile
• garlic
• lime juice

and the other a salsa/pico de gallo mixture:

• roma tomatoes
• cilantro
• red onion
• garlic
• sweet white corn

The guacamole is the same basic recipe (i add a touch of this or that from time to time) that I have been making for 10 years, as you can see from above, its nothing extra special. On paper, the salsa mixture looks super simple as well…its all in the corn. I kept the corn kernels whole, right off the cob, and i cut the tomatoes fairly large, you could fit 3-4 pieces on a fork, keep it nice and chunky:

This meal wasn’t totally raw, i did use a tortilla, slightly toasted. Line the bottom of the tortilla with some guacamole, top with the pico de gallo mix. Absolutely delicious. Enjoy.