www.spiraldiner.com, an all-vegan restaurant in Fort Worth, TX and Oak Cliff, TX
For me, an all-raw salad with greens, apples, raisins, zucchini, cucumber, avocado, walnuts, pine nuts, red bell peppers, carrots, and walnut-basil dressing
For my sister Tracy, the McNut burger, which she likes so much, she got it on our return trip to Spiral (and I loved my salad so much, I did the same!).
*Salad is gluten- and wheat-free, not burger.
I knew I would have to use up all of the items in my refrigerator and also wouldn’t be juicing for a few days, so I made some awesome combos today:
Orange-kale-carrot
Pear-kale
Apple-collard-carrot-ginger
How’s that for getting your calcium!? Just drink it from nature’s best sources. 
I was in the mood for a few high-fat items today, but I do plan on enjoying many fruits on vacation.
Shown here: Nachos with flax crackers (two varieties, both sprouted, live, and raw), taco-seasoned walnut crumbles, avocado-tomato dip, and a spicy cashew-sunflower seed cheese (with the walnut crumbles, avocado dip, and cheese showcased in center). That will hold me over. And it’s beautiful! ***
Although I like food like this here and there now that I’m high-raw, I much prefer, during the week and most weekends as well, simple foods, mono meals, which would be eating one type of food (sometimes in high quantity) at one time. This seems to be easier on the stomach for digestion and more amenable to that superior energy flow I enjoy. 
Raw Food Real World
This dish is a slightly modified version of the zebra tomato and zucchini lasagna recipe from Raw Food Real World. I LOVED this dish! The flavors were amazing, and it had very reduced fat.
The first layer is a fennel, thyme, and oregano mixture. I left out the extra-virgin olive oil. Next is a pine nut ricotta, followed by a basil puree (again, no fat added), and a fat-free sun-dried tomato sauce. I think I could eat this every day.
It’s served with a kale-dulse salad with avocado dressing and cucumber.
Raw Food, Real World (for wraps and coconut ice cream)
Thai vegetable wraps in collard leaves with bok choy (instead of savoy cabbage), almond-ginger dressing, mango, carrots, basil, cilantro, mint, and served with a tamarind dressing. I left out the bean sprouts. I loved the wraps; I kept going back to make more. I think I will use the leftovers as a salad, with the collards chopped, so it’s easier to transport tomorrow. Definitely recommend this recipe!
Coconut ice cream sweetened with agave nectar, also shown with raw chocolate ice cream with coconut water and meat, macadamia milk, and cacao powder. Served with mango, kiwi, and blueberries. The ice creams tasted good, but I realized tonight that if I want to make my own nut milks and ice creams with coconut meat, I should really get a better blender, such as a Vita-Mix. The texture isn’t smooth and pureed enough with my regular old cheapy blender! Especially to serve to other people.
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!
The Raw 50 (for cheese & mango flan)
I know that raw collard leaves, to some, may not sound like their idea of food, and I’ll admit that I was skeptical myself, but I got some organic leaves, marinated them in salt and lemon juice, and made some accompaniments for wraps.
The cheese is excellent, with pine nuts, macadamias, nutritional yeast, extra-virgin olive oil, and garlic. I could eat it by the spoonful.
I love raw preparation of food, as it seems to inspire more creativity in me than cooked prep does. I wanted sun-dried tomato and basil balls, so I merely threw some sunflower seeds, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil in the processor, ground it up, decided I need more liquid, and added garlic, carrots, and raw tahini. What resulted was exactly what I wanted and paired perfectly with the cheese and collards.
The mango flan, however sweet and coconuty, did not turn out. You are supposed to chill it for 30 min. in the freezer and then release it from the container. This didn’t work, at least for me, but the flan tastes just as good using a spoon, and I got to use young coconut meat for the first time and drank the coconut water. I’m thinking that my skin loves coconut oils and anything coconut, really, so I’m embracing all things coconut right now and finding that I like fresh coconut flavor more than I realized, just not dried shreds.
The flan can be seen in the background here:
I found this recipe online and am not sure if I can/will recommend it yet….the batter was so thick that I was worried the cake wouldn’t turn out at all. I feel a little bit better about it now, but we’ll see after the celebration of a friend’s birthday tonight! I did modify the recipe slightly, using all ground maple sugar instead of any other refined sugars. However, as you can see, there is quite a bit of frosting, sweetened not only with maple syrup but also with some powdered sugar (organic and fair-trade!).
I do NOT mess around when making candy- or sugar-coated nuts. These are coated with not only maple syrup but also maple sugar. It’s like pouring a gallon of the syrup down your throat, only more sophisticated and with extra protein and minerals. There are candy-coated ground and whole cashews in the middle layer as well.
As some of you already know, my vacation was purely pleasure, a much-needed break from work, and an exciting visit with someone who is becoming a closer friend of mine, Erik Marcus. I did eat cooked food while on vacation (and don’t worry, I haven’t become a raw foodist!). Cooking with Mrrrrrrrrrrrr. Marcus was a joy…..it was refreshing to skip the cookbooks and just make what sounded delicious to both of us, with ingredients already on hand, adding garlic here and a few serranos there when Skimpola wasn’t around. :D (I did get to meet her, too!)
The above dish has sauteed garlic and ginger with a cashew-macadamia coconut milk sauce, serrano chilies, cilantro, toasted cashews, a bit of tamari for saltiness, and lemon juice. It was fantastic! I believe I caught sight of Mr. Vegan.com scraping the pan with a spoon before placing it in the sink to wash.
At first glance, the frosting probably looks like it’s chocolate because it’s so dark, but it is merely dried blueberries pureed with lemon juice. I had made this cake before, years ago, with walnuts and raisins, then a date-lemon topping; I thought blueberries would be a nice modification. Like most raw desserts, it’s high in calories but very healthy and delicious. Use 2 cups of each walnuts and raisins for the base, ground together in the food processor.
