om nom raw

So, last night’s dinner was the Jicama “Potato” Salad from Eva Rawposa’s 3 Days Raw, and I have to say straight-up that I did not expect to enjoy this recipe. I’ve never been a huge fan of jicama. Every time I hear “fresh parsley” in a recipe I cringe. Cumin is quite possibly my least favorite spice. BUT I had purchased the jicamas (3 large ones to be precise) so decided it was worth a shot. I’d at least be able to take a few bites.

I had a momentary freak out because the recipe called for sesame tahini, and I had none. I did, however, have sesame seeds. So after desperately emailing Eva and posting a question on The Uncooking Club, I used my noggin for half a second and thought, “Oh. I can make some tahini.”

See, the last time I tried to make tahini, it didn’t go well. I have a Blendtec and I do not have their nut butter jar, so making anything thick with nuts or seeds is something I approach with some trepidation because it requires frequent starting, stopping, and pushing everything down with a spatula. These are the moments I wish I had a Vitamix. At any rate, I did make the tahini. And it went better than last time, but still isn’t on the top of my, “I want to make this” list. It’s actually somewhere near the bottom.

Making the dressing was also quite an affair, even with a doubled recipe. I ended up needing to add some water to the mixture so that there was enough in my blender to keep things moving.

Once everything was combined, I taste tested, and oh. my. jicama! I loved it! So much that I’m really glad I have two more jicamas sitting on my counter!

I am really encouraged by these three days. Though they haven’t been perfectly raw, I somehow managed to make three raw meals a day for both of us including sending my husband off to work with lunch – a lunch that he loved! I have lots of produce left and really feel that I can and will continue on today and make it 4 days. Then we’ll see.

This was my raw dinner last night, as a part of my participation in Eva Rawposa’s 3 Days Raw challenge, and oh my what a treat! I had tried a red pepper tomato soup from Trader Joe’s and loved it, so was excited to try to create a raw version. It was so creamy and flavorful and almost “fluffy” in texture by the time all was said and done.

This recipe was very much inspired by Judita Wignall’s Creamy Tomato-Basil Soup from her book, Going Raw. I made several modifications but used her recipe as a guide for the elements to include. (By the way, this book is one of my absolute favorites. I highly recommend it, along with her new book, Raw & Simple.)

Funny thing about this photo… and you can probably tell… that bowl is tiny! The soup was so yummy that I gobbled it up quickly and forgot to take a photo. So I took one spoonful and dropped it in this bowl! Haha! I think I might make it a common thing because tiny photographs so well and it’s so cuuuuute! I have day-dreamed a bit about doing a raw tasting party where every serving is pint-sized – and then when everyone wants more, I’ll whip out the big dishes.

Ingredients
5 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
5 large leaves of fresh basil
1/2 cup almonds, soaked 6-8 hours and rinsed
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp Himalayan pink salt
2 Medjool dates, pitted and soaked for a few minutes in warm water
1 dried chipotle pepper, soaked for a few minutes in warm water (optional if you don’t love spice like I do!)
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic

Instructions
Blend until smooth. (On my Blendtec, the “soup” button not only blended until smooth, but warmed the soup ever so slightly, making it really pleasant and just what I needed.)

This makes around 4 cups of soup. I did regret that I didn’t have any raw crackers to go with it, so if you plan to make this recipe, consider making some crackers in advance! Enjoy!

As a part of my participation in Eva’s 3 Days Raw challenge, I decided to try making a raw version of truly authentic Mexican tacos. Day 1 of the challenge went relatively well – we both had three raw meals. But when my husband started eating a graham cracker, I looked at him and said, “I forgive you. You know why? Because I ate one earlier.” We are not perfect. But it’s a start.

Anyway, these tacos usually consist of corn tortillas, meat of some kind, cilantro, onion, lime juice and a salsa. If you’ve never had tacos of this variety and are used to some other adulterated version, you don’t know what you’re missing. And honestly, it’s hit or miss depending on where you go. I will tell you that the reason I say “authentic Mexican tacos” is because my Mexican husband insists that what I believe is Mexican food is actually “Tex Mex” and what I thought was Tex Mex is actually just “Tex.” Haha!

In my quest to eat as much raw food as possible (and drastically reduce my intake of animal meat and products), tacos are something I really need a replacement for, because they’re something I’ve loved for some time. So I have really been day-dreaming about some raw tacos and what those might be like.

I’m not big into meals that take tons of time to prepare – or else day(s) advance prep work, so raw corn tortillas are immediately out of the question on most days. I settled on romaine leaves as my “shells” and was on to coming up with a meat replacement. There are several recipes for “meat” from my favorites like Amber Shea Crawley and Judita Wignall, but I really wanted something ridiculously simple. I remembered having marinated mushrooms in October at Eva’s raw B&B+ on Martha’s Vineyard that Amber happened to be at, and apparently she was responsible for the recipe. And I must have totally missed it in her book, Practically Raw, because I had to ask her about it! (I don’t generally enjoy mushrooms, so I hypothesize that when I see recipes that include them, I don’t actually see them.) Anyway, the recipe was simple, taking only moments to put together, so that worked for me.

I also had leftover “mock salmon pate” from Eva’s 3-day guide, which I ended up including. (I tried them without the pate, thinking it wouldn’t work well with everything else, but I was so wrong! The pate added a lot more depth – but the tacos were okay without it.)

I didn’t have the things I would have needed to make salsa (missing one key ingredient: serrano chiles!) so I made a simple guacamole instead. That was just 2 medium avocados mashed up, 1 small roma tomato diced, a sprinkle of Himalayan pink salt, and the juice from one lime (my husband likes things to be EXTRA lime-y, so you could skip this if you don’t love sour things).

Then I chopped up lots of cilantro and white onion – which we love, so I made lots of it!

To assemble, I spread the pate inside a romaine leaf, spread some guacamole on top of that, then added the mushrooms, cilantro, and onion. Ta-da!

They were honestly not my favorite meal, and not an adequate replacement, but they were edible. My husband says I’m too hard on myself and they were delicious, but even he topped his with Cholula (a not-raw commercial hot sauce). I am going to try these again with some modifications. I didn’t follow Amber’s recipe precisely…or much at all really…I just kind of threw stuff together. So it would be better to say that I am going to try these again the way Amber says to do it! Haha.

I also really don’t think it’s okay to have these tacos with a raw hot salsa. I found a recipe for raw tomatillo salsa, which I am curious to try. It’s essentially the same as the cooked version except that they cook the tomatillos.

And as much as I LOVE guacamole and avocado, I didn’t feel that this had a place in this recipe, since guacamole is not traditionally served with truly authentic tacos.

SO, I’ll update you again when I try again. Meanwhile, onward and upward with the 3-day challenge! I struggled a bit to get everything going this morning again (honestly, had ZERO interest in the kitchen today), but ultimately made us both a smoothie this morning AND managed to send my husband off to work with a nice size salad.

My dad has worked at a fruit company (primarily apples) for almost as long as I can remember. He brought home boxes of apples so often that after I moved out, I don’t think I touched one again for at least 5 years. Yet I considered myself somewhat of an apple expert. I was schooled in “all” of the varieties of apples. (It’s also funny to me that every time I go to type ‘apple’ I accidentally capitalize it. What can I say? I AM posting this from my MacBook Pro, and I took these pictures with my iPhone. RIP Steve Jobs)

Enter raw food. Not only are there way, way, way more varieties of apples than I realized, but there are also tons of fruits and vegetables that I have learned about in the last three years. I think my favorite discovery so far is the cherimoya. Oh my fruity goodness, Batman!

My husband brought home this apple tonight, and I have no idea what it is! It’s missing the sticker that tells me – I don’t know what to do without the sticker!

It’s my first encounter with a pink-fleshed apple. I Googled it and I believe it is an Alaska Pink. (If you happen to know, please comment and tell me!) So it appears I’m only familiar with varieties of apples that come from Washington and those that come from Apple. It was slightly sour but with a very soft texture like a Golden Delicious. I loved it! Good thing there are two.

I had been reading about Almost Vegan Chef Amber Shea’s test runs of various juice cleanses and was so excited to learn that there are so many companies doing these. It’s been a three-year wish for me that I could just BUY cold-pressed juices without preservatives instead of always having to make them. What can I say? I’m a product of our instant gratification society.

So I’d been salivating over them, trying to convince my thrift-loving husband that I should be able to buy a juice cleanse. He wasn’t buying it, pun intended. I think the cheapest juice cleanse I’d seen was $120 for 3 days of juices. That’s a price steep enough for even me to say, “When I win the lottery, I’ll do a juice cleanse.” I all but gave up on the idea, assuming that at some point I’d be able to buy juices at the store.

APPARENTLY, I have been totally out of the loop and not paying attention.

I was at my local Safeway last week when lo and behold, I stumbled upon Evolution Fresh juices, right next to Odwalla and Naked! I immediately bought their Essential Greens juice to try. It was the most expensive 15.2 fl oz juice I’ve ever bought at $4.99, and it was pretty gross, I have to say. It tasted like pure nutrition, so I more or less chugged it. I started to enjoy it just a little bit by the end of the bottle, so maybe there’s hope. I do NOT recommend getting this one if you’re new to juicing. Green juice is really where it’s at with juices though. There is so much concentrated nutrition in it and the sugar content is super low. If you wanted to try the greens, you could buy the Essential Greens and then juice a couple of apples to mix with it and make it more palatable.

I also have to say that I’ve never been able to have a GREEN juice like this, so I’m sure that in comparison to others or some I might make, it was probably delicious. I haven’t been able to make a truly green juice because I have a Breville centrifugal juicer and it would take something like 10 lbs of greens to make a decent size juice with that thing. Since buying a single auger juicer is not in my current budget, it’s worth it to buy this juice occasionally to get such a concentrated dose of greens. In addition to all of that, I like to vote with my fork. If I buy juices, I’m telling Safeway and the world that I WANT these things in their stores.

I went back today with the intention of getting another green juice to chug and to try one other, but they were sold out of the green stuff! That’s just so awesome to me because it means there’s at least enough demand to keep it stocked. So I got their Essential Vegetable (also $4.99) and their Carrot Orange Mango ($3.99).

The ingredients list on the Essential Vegetable makes me a laugh. They put 3/4 of a leaf of spinach in each bottle. I don’t know why this is funny to me. I guess it’s because the juice has 38 small carrots in it – and tiny bits of other things – so it is essentially flavored carrot juice. Carrots are great for you, but I wouldn’t call this Essential Vegetable as much as I would call it Essential Carrots Plus Some Other Stuff. Although, perhaps they chose their words wisely – perhaps they believe carrots are THE essential vegetable, and I’m just reading the name wrong.

The Essential Vegetable is definitely more palatable than the Essential Greens, but I still don’t recommend it for those new to juices without tons of sugar and chemical preservatives. I will say that while I’ve grown used to carrot juice, it’s still not my favorite. If you like carrot juice, you may like this one.

The Carrot Orange Mango is much, much, much better. It’s delicious and sweet. I would definitely recommend this to the newbies, but get yourself on the green stuff as soon as you can tolerate it. I’ve never gone 100% raw and in fact, I still eat all the things you’re not supposed to more often than I care to admit. Yet I hear that the more raw food you eat – especially leafy greens – the more your tastebuds adjust to the flavors and your body begins to crave them. I can say that if I had tried the Essential Greens when I first started poking around with raw foods, I would have spit it out. So maybe I’ve made some progress after all.