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.

I spent a good portion of my day being productive, I added an interactive map of local raw and vegan business’s to the blog. I would really appreciate feedback, especially businesses that need to be added to the map, leave any suggestions you may have as a comment or feel free to email me directly. My goal is to make the map a comprehensive representation of the raw/vegan community in Atlanta. Thanks for your help!

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.

Quick, easy and painless. That was the theme of the night. I made this ‘Quick and Spicy Avocado-Corn Salad‘ from GoneRaw.com.

• 1 avocado
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1 ear of corn
• 2-3 green onions
• 1/2 lime, squeezed
• small handful of cilantro
• sprinkle of cayenne
• sprinkle of sea salt
• sprinkle of pepper
• splash of olive oil

this was delicious. Although the recipe says it serves two people, i enjoyed it so much i ate the entire thing. I served mine with ‘Ezekiel 4:9′ Organic Sprouted Whole Grain Flourless Tortillas from Food For Life.

I haven’t figured out if these tortillas qualify as raw or not. They must be stored in the freezer, and they are made entirely from sprouted grains, but i don’t know of they are baked or dehydrated, or, or….i think i need to call them directly and get to the bottom of this….

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

Although my attempt at making raw cauliflower korma the other night was quite deflating, i was redeemed the next night with a new creation. Lemongrass Jicama. I’ve had a lemongrass tofu recipe in my arsenal for over a year, and i took myself to task last night to attempt a raw version.

First step was to replace the tofu. I chose to cut jicama into small cubes and slightly dehydrate it in the oven.

Unfortunately i didnt track the time necessary to prepare the jicama. Basically, cut the jicama into cubes, place on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and put in the oven at about 100 degrees. I believe i left them in the over for about 20-30 minutes. The consistency is a personal preference ultimately.

For the lemongrass blend the following:

• 3 stalks of lemongrass (use only the ‘meat’ from the bottom 2-3 inches)
• 1.5 tblsp nama shoyu
• 1 serrano chile
• 1/2 tsp chili flake
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp agave nectar
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 3 green onions
• 1 shallot
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 tsp basil oil
• 1/3 - 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/3 - 1/2 cup of water

put the jicama in a bowl, top with lemongrass mixture, top with a little chopped basil and some chopped peanuts. Enjoy. I was extremely pleased with how this turned out. Warning, its a little spicy, so if that isn’t your cup of tea you may want to cut the chili flake, or cut the serrano chile in half. I didnt gut the serrano chile prior to adding it to the mixture, so you may want to do that as well to cut the heat somewhat.

I had a monumental failure Sunday (10/14/07) night.

[Before I continue, i want to add a disclaimer. I love the site goneraw.com, its community listing of raw and recipes in which you can comment on the recipes others submit. Its a god-send. I have made many recipes from this site to great success.]

Sunday night, i didn’t feel like going to the farmer’s market so i was a little desperate to figure out something for dinner from my meager existing ingredients. I found this recipe for raw cauliflower korma on goneraw.com. It required the following ingredients:

• 1 Small Carrot, Chopped
• 1 Small onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons Water
• 2 tablespoons Mild curry powder
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• 1 small red bell pepper
• 1 small handful cashew nuts
• 1 sprinkle turmeric
• 1 sprinkle cumin
• 1 clove garlic
• ½ head Cauliflower
• ¼ cup raisins
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 large date or 2 small

I didn’t have the dates ore the raisins, but i decided to give it a try anyway. I replaced the small onion with half an onion, and used a large roma tomato. I didn’t have mild curry powder, so for some strange reason i decided that i could use garam masala in place of the curry powder.

I would consider my attempts to make this dish a monumental disaster. First of all, the onion was overpowering, and i cut the quantity in half. But that is simply a personal preference. i really think the garam masala ruined this dish. And, for the record, the failure is 100% attributable to user error. I plan to give it another shot with the proper ingredients (i.e. curry powder) at a later date.

I purchased a small bag of flax seed crackers from a vendor (name escapes me) at the EAV Farmer’s Market 2-3 weeks ago. My intention was to attempt to make some type of flax seed cracker, but had assumed I needed a dehydrator to do that, so i kinda just considered this purchase as an easy way to throw a couple dollars to a good cause- a local organic grower. I stumbled across a fellow local vegan blogger the other night, and her most recent post was a very simple recipe for flax seed crackers made in the oven. An added bonus, on this first truly chilly day of the fall season, the garam masala i blended with the cracker mix made my apartment smell extra delicious, and very autumnal (and, yes, i’m quite proud of myself for working the word ‘autumnal’ into a blog post). I attempted to set my oven to a temperature at or less than 118 degrees, in an attempt to simulate a dehydrator, and thus maintain the cracker’s ‘rawness.’ In the absence of a thermometer, there is no telling what actually happened. I think its time to get a dehydrator.

If you have a dehydrator, and are looking for a true-raw preparation, try this one over at Hi-Rawkus.

I made a little pesto

• sundried tomatoes
• garlic
• basil
• oregano
• olive oil
• sea salt
• pine nuts

Steamed a spaghetti squash and chopped some spinach.

Put it all in a bowl and eat. Why ’slow food’ you ask? Or maybe you didn’t ask, or even care for that matter…but i’m going to tell you anyway. Steaming spaghetti squash reminds me of that old adage about a watched pot never boiling. I don’t know what my problem is, but it takes for-f*ing-ever to steam spaghetti squash. I actually had a friend cancel plans we had last night because the spaghetti squash screwed up our timeline by about 30-45 minutes.