New Camera and Kitchen

It’s massaged dino kale, red leaf lettuce, spinach, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, lemon juice, and a few sundried olives I still have from a long time ago.  Delicious. 

The new camera works great.  I just haven’t had many noteworthy meals as of late.  And the lighting in my kitchen in the new place is awesome for photos (except with white bowls, note to self).  Thanks again for the early birthday gift, Tracy!

 

I groan when I see some of my older photos, or photos I chose to put up, but I’m not a professional here.  The point of my search being  Urban Vegan’s cookbook is out in case you missed it. 

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Vegan-Sumptuous-Recipes-Favorites/dp/0762752815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255544906&sr=8-1

And pics of some of the recipes I tested (although other people tested FAR, far more):  http://utopiankitchen.wordpress.com/?s=urban%2Bvegan

Chopped Salad

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.

Raw Tamales

Entertaining in the Raw

I stopped putting these together for a bit to take a picture with the garnish, sour cream and tomato-chile sauce (thick sauce).  The tamale mixture, like most raw foods I’ve found, is much more delicious than any cooked I’ve ever had.  It has corn, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and lime juice.

Kelp Noodles w/ Green Sprouted Almond Sauce

http://www.kelpnoodles.com/

These kelp noodles seemed to be popular among raw-food circles, so I decided to give them a try.  I found it amazing that they only have 6 calories per 4 oz.  It seems other noodles, whether they be wheat-based, rice-based, or even mung-bean-based, have about 200 calories per 4 oz.  And they have the minerals from the seaweed!  Win-win.  :)  

I don’t count calories on a raw-food diet – I eat whatever I want — but it seems that with a noodle, a nut-based sauce would go best, so it’s nice that this is a light meal, not heavy like a cooked pasta dish would be.  Yes, you can leave your buttons fastened after this one.  :D

I made the sauce from sprouted almonds, garlic, pink salt, and a fresh juice (apple, parsley, cilantro, chard, and carrot – sweet and flavorful) blended in the Vita-Mix.  The noodles have cucumbers mixed in and are topped with spinach and more sprouted sliced almonds.  I feel like the raw sauces that I make nowadays are a drastic improvement on the salty, less-fresh ones I used to mix up.  This was fabulous.

Green Papaya Salad w/ White Peaches

This is just something that sounded good to me today.  I was going to do a green papaya salad with fresh cherries, but I couldn’t find any.  So I made a cherry smoothie, got the peaches out, and decided to add them to a green papaya salad.  The salad also has green chilies and cilantro; the green papaya has lime juice, plus the pink dressing on top is a mixture of fresh lime juice and fresh peach juice (one was badly bruised, I figured why not).  I think fresh pomegranate seeds on top would be awesome.

It tastes delicious!  Good combo.    We’ll see about cherries next time!

Urban’s Back! Fat Free Papaya Salad

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.

Thanksliving Spread

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!

Urban Vegan Tester – Spicy Udon Noodles

It’s the first food blog picture taken at Lando’s house!  With his black plates.    This definitely smelled good and I was able to snatch up some whole-wheat Udon.  I think Lando will like it and it was very easy to make. 

Two Raw Pizzas

Crusts made with golden and dark flaxseed, hempseed, and one with basil, olives, and kale; the other with kale, cilantro, and green onion.

For the Mexican-style pizza, I topped it with tomatoes, green onions, and cilantro.  The regular pizza is topped with tomatoes, fennel, and basil.  The sauce is made from sun-dried tomatoes.

Veggie Wraps

I saw this link on someone’s blog the other day and thought it was a great idea to make raw wraps with all vegetables and no added oil:  http://www.rawfreedomcommunity.info/forum/showthread.php?t=117  I used 10 plum tomatoes, 2.5 red bell peppers, 1/2 juiced lemon, 1/2 tsp. salt, one avocado, and 1.5 T. of psyllium husk powder.  And instead of onions and garlic, which are too strong for me now, I used 1.5 green onions.  Also made an awesome raw hummus with macadamias.  I love raw hummus!  The directions say to flip the wraps after 4 hours of dehydrating; however, mine took about 8-9 hours of dehydrating, some longer, before I could flip them or they would have fallen apart.  Maybe mine have more water content. 

Either way, they are delicious, healthy, and easy to make!  Shown here with kale and hummus.