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.
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!
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.
Before I knew it, I ate a whole avocado in one sitting like it was nothing! But it was easy with this dressing, the raw nori, sprouts, carrots, and kale. I sealed the handrolls shut with lime juice.
I’ll have you know I took about 35 photographs and felt none did the concoction justice, but you CAN see how creamy and smooth the dressing is, at least. It does have one non-raw ingredient. 100% rawness aside, it was definitely worth it and I enjoyed this snack.
I can’t decide whether to eat this for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but I might decide on all three! It’s very unique and tasty. Lots of texture, too.
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Living Cuisine by Underkoffler
First a disclaimer that I used the Corn-Buckwheat Tortilla recipe from the above book but modified it to make rectangular shapes and also used whole spelt instead of buckwheat, since I knew I would be having buckwheat pizza crust and wanted to vary my food types. I admit that I am having difficulty with the notion of dehydrating a tortilla, such as how to get it so thin and flexible. Any pointers?
Anyway, this is a great recipe with cumin and coriander, fresh cilantro and parsley, which goes well with pico de gallo and guacamole. I made them into tostadas for ease of preparation, but I wouldn’t preclude trying to make an actual raw tortilla in the future, with a little help, perhaps.
The tostadas are topped with romaine leaves, guacamole (avocado, chile pepper, tomatoes, lime juice), and then a tomato mixture with cilantro, cucumber, and chile pepper. You might notice that I don’t use garlic or onion in my food anymore; the flavors are too strong for me nowadays and I don’t like to smell them seeping from my pores. What’s awesome is that the chile peppers are in my freezer and from my friend Sara’s garden from last year. I take them out and they defrost in about 15 min. and it’s so great to use local food made with love. :p
I would definitely make these again! And might make the rest into crackers or chips.
Pad Thai recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance, my favorite, with bean sprouts, chives, broccoli, green beans, carrots, cilantro, lemongrass, onions, peanuts, and garlic. I made the Seitan O’Greatness recipe, but with chilies, ginger, coriander, lemon peel, and peanut oil.
I made my own noodles for this recipe with spelt, oat, and unbleached white w/ wheat germ flours. The protein for the pasta alone (for 6 small servings) was 41 grams. The seitan added 172 grams. The person I am making these dishes for likes to eat lower fat and high in protein.
I got some lemongrass stalks and Thai basil from my friend Sara, so I thought I’d try to put them to good use and also eat plenty of raw in the process.
I made a broth with pureed coconut shreds, broccoli stalks, and kale, coconut water and homemade vegetable broth, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, a green chile, salt, and a small amount of the basil. Then I cooked the broccoli florets in the broth but still found something was missing…..roasted peanuts! They really changed the flavor of the soup for the better. The garnish is carrots, bok choy, kale, avocado, and Thai basil.
It was really tasty but I think in the future I may just keep things more simple and start eating more raw broccoli. I had previously thought I didn’t like it raw, but I had a few bites of a stalk and liked it. Of course a sauce with the lemongrass would be excellent even raw!
Kale salad has red and green bell pepper, carrots, and a creamy raw cashew-cilantro-orange dressing with garlic.
The cucumber boats are stuffed with an avocado, onion, garlic, tomato, lime, cilantro, and celery mixture.
Both are excellent! The cashew dressing with some sweetness from the fresh orange juice pairs well with the kale.
Not including the peanuts, mung bean sprouts, cilantro, and green onions, this salad, for a medium-size bowl, has 22 grams of protein, 1,067% RDA of Vitamin A, 76% of the RDA of calcium, 401% of the RDA for Vitamin C, and 59% of the RDA for iron. The dressing I used was simply lime juice, sambal oelek (the chili paste I’m bonkers over), and soy sauce (I always use gluten-free soy sauce).
The tofu is marinated with cilantro.
