All tomatoes, basil, and zucchini are local. I’ve been devouring local apricots, cherries, blueberries, peaches, and greens as well. If you’re in the Philadelphia area, try to visit the Clark Park or Rittenhouse farmers’ market this weekend!
Above is simply basil and tomatoes pureed/pulsed in the food processor over zucchini.
Well, just as I got out the camera and turned it on to take a pic of my salad, I realized the camera’s done. The screen doesn’t function anymore, and while I can take photos, I can’t SEE what I’m taking a photo of. I don’t know if I dropped it or someone stepped on it. Doesn’t matter. It’s good to know before something important came up, like a trip to see family!
My post was simply going to be a recommendation on a way to prepare a salad differently, to chop it up finely. I use plum tomatoes, jalapeno, minced by hand, add some garlic and lemon juice; then I let the food processor do some magic! I throw in spinach, basil, cilantro, parsley, collards, red leaf lettuce, chives. Put in a little at a time and pulse it until it’s finely chopped. VERY easy and fast! I believe the flavors can incorporate well this way, too, after you mix everything together. Your salad will look like tabouli, and you may “trick” (oh, what a negative connotation for giving a person some amino acids!) someone you love into eating collard greens raw.
This, of course, is ONLY if I’m taking a break from my Champagne mango feast.
From Professional Vegetarian Cooking
Asparagus with mango, black sesame seeds, and a strawberry-basil dressing.
Entertaining in the Raw
I added the raw tofu to the salad. Shown here with pine-nut based parmesan and basil oil.
Kale, red & green cabbage, and carrots in a creamy nut-based dressing and topped with basil.
Cucumber, tomatoes, and basil = one of my favorite combos ever!
I know I have a lot of noodly stuff going on here. Perhaps I noticed how lonely my mandoline was, underneath all of the sugars and baking items I rarely use. 
Cucumbers are another good fruit to spiralize or turn into pasta shapes. The tomato-based sauce has sun-dried tomatoes (soaked an hour), fresh tomatoes, lemon juice, garlic, basil, pink salt, and a touch of agave.
I think if a person has a child who is used to cooked food, these would be a great addition…..and you wouldn’t have that rush of energy that you get after eating cooked pasta. You know….where you find the whole family at naptime? 
To make things easier, when I feel like throwing something together without a recipe, I first wash all of the vegetables, fruit – good combos below of non-sweet fruit – and sprouts (I even rinse items such as avocado because you cut into the skin, thus taking anything on the skin into the flesh of the fruit).
For the soup, I juiced 3 carrots, 3 celery, 1/2 of a large cucumber, and half of a lemon. I added this juice to my Vita-Mix along with my three-seaweed garnish blend, 1 cup of spinach, 1 whole avocado, 2 T. red bell pepper, 2 T. grape tomatoes, 1 c. parsley, and 2 T. basil. After blending, I poured this into the bowl and then rinsed the Vita-Mix with a tad of water and a few more cherry tomatoes to get more of that good green stuff out, then poured this orange mixture in a pattern around the soup. The soup is garnished with more grape tomatoes, cucumber & zucchini sticks, chopped red bell pepper, celery, frisee, and mixed sprouts. I tasted for salt and added a tad of Himalayan pink salt.
Do check on the nutritional info of parsley if you get a chance; it’s a great source of many vitamins and minerals, including iron.
The wraps have chard as the wrapper. I washed the chard, then dipped and rubbed it in a fresh lemon juice and flax oil mixture to soften the leaves a bit. The avocado paste inside is so flavorful, with one avocado, chard stem juice, lemon juice, garlic juice (normally, I don’t eat garlic but the juice was fine for tonight only), 3 T. basil leaves, 1 c. parsley leaves, and a tad of pink salt. Then the wrap also has grape tomatoes, zucchini, red bell pepper, frisee, and sprouts. They are so delicious, and I love eating with my hands!
Many people seem to not like soy-based vegan cheeses as much as they had liked cow-milk or goat-milk dairy products, but Dr. Cow Cheese is really getting some attention. Some of the greatest things about it is it’s raw, has a short list of identifiable ingredients, the fat comes from whole nuts and seeds, and it’s not too salty/dehydrating. Besides that, there’s the taste – incredible! I have been fond of my own cooked vegan cheeses in the past, and still continue to make a cashew-red pepper one for my boyfriend. While I rarely eat raw vegan cheese, I think this one is the best choice for store-bought. www.dr-cow.com You can get Dr. Cow online or in some places in New York City and New Jersey; see their Website for more information. No dirty sock smell here!
Wraps with Dr. Cow hempseed cheese, kale, red bell pepper, tomato, basil (I love the smell of fresh basil), and spinach:
I haven’t been posting a lot lately, but I do plan on making a raw lemon meringue pie later this week from Sweet Gratitude.
Admittedly, I’m mad about most fresh foods, but this salad just hits the spot and is perfect – better than any papaya salad I’ve had in a restaurant! I’m really excited and would like to thank Urban Vegan for creating this. I’m going to make it more often; this was the first time I had worked with green papaya.
Shown here with radish (including a heart one I made for my boyfriend but figured I’d eat it myself ), snap peas, carrots, tangerine, lime, Thai basil, purple kale, and cilantro, along with the ingredients for the salad.
The first tray has carrots, cucumbers; zucchini pasta with Brazil nut pesto; marinated & dehydrated mushrooms; celery; red and yellow marinated and softened bell peppers; guacamole; and leaf lettuce.
This pan has tomato & red bell pepper dehydrated wraps; spicy walnut filling; red bell pepper macadamia hummus; salsa; sprouts; sun-dried tomato and basil macadamia hummus; and sun-dried tomato and olive pate. The tomato & basil hummus reaffirmed my belief that raw hummuses are the greatest! Love the bell pepper one, too.
We are also having a kale salad, a mixed green salad, and the raw pecan turtle cheesecake. There will be cooked vegan food, too.
Hope to have more pictures tomorow!
