Raw-sagna

While in Montreal moving my sister out of her apartment I found a book called "Raw Food, Real World."  She was going to leave it behind for the next ghetto dwellers.  I cannot begrudge her for not packing it, as my moving style involves tossing anything I haven't used in the last three days.  Anyways, I saved it from certain doom and had it shipped (I was off to Bordeaux) to Vancouver.

The first recipe I made from it was a Raw Lasagna.  It was the same amount of work as making a real lasagna, and was ready as soon as it was assembled, no baking required!  Not having to turn  my oven on when it is 30 degrees outside was a definite plus.

Being the first raw meal that I "cooked," I was lacking in all of the proper tools.  The hardest thing to make was the pine-nut ricotta.  I don't have a food processor (I had one, but I tossed it in the garbage when I moved to Vancouver), or a Vita-Mix, so I made the whole thing in a Magic Bullet.  I love my magic bullet, but it doesn't do all the things that it says on the infomercial. I had to make the ricotta in four batches, a little at a time so that it wouldn't clog the blades, or turn it into a pine-nut puree.

The other sauce was a basil-pistachio pesto.  Again, it would have been much much easier with a Vitamix, but I can make do.  The third sauce I used was a sun dried tomato puree.  The bullet does an excellent job of pureeing foods.  Everything (smoothees, sun dried tomato puree, salad dressing) comes out of the Bullet with same consistency.  It did have trouble grinding up the harder bits of the sun dried tomatoes, but worked out in the end.

At first I was skeptical when the recipe called for raw zucchini and tomatoes, but I pushed on.  Since we are in summer, I substituted the green zucchini with yellow squash. I like zucchini, but I love yellow squash.  Is it only available in the summertime? I seem to find it easier to come by in the summer months than the winter ones, but that is the same for all vegetables.  The yellow squash was sliced super thin, along with the tomatoes and layered alternately between a layer of the pine nut ricotta, basil with pistachio pesto and sun dried tomato puree.

When it was all assembled, it looked quite appetizing.  Total prep time was about 2 hours.  In all that time I didn't make any appetizers, or another back-up entree in case this one bombed.  Everyone, myself included, was skeptical.  But it was absolutely, utterly, and in all other ways fantastic! The whole recipe made a dish that was 9"x13".  It was enough for 4 people and then 2 servings left over for lunch the next day.

My biggest concern was the yellow squash being too crunchy or starchy to be eaten raw.  Alone it may have been, but with the soft ricotta and purees it was an excellent combination.  The next day however, it was too soggy, but tasted exactly like leftover lasagna.

My first foray into raw food was definitely a success.  Every vegan/vegetarian I have told wants the recipe and every omnivore wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Lasagna and Rawsagna.  I think that I will be cooking (proper word?) much more raw food.