This week was my friend Yasmin's 25th birthday. She just moved into a new house by us and had a whole bunch of people over to celebrate. I was excited for two reasons: (a) I hadn't seen any of the people who also live in the new house in ages and, (b) our birthday present to her was an Ikea mattress we bought but couldn't use and weren't able to return which had been taking up an inordinate amount of room. Once the mattress was gone finally got our spare bedroom back. But I digress...
Aretha was in Calgary last week and we took advantage of the low sales tax and bought a brand new dehydrator. We have experimented with dehydrating food in our oven but its really inefficient and seems very wasteful. I had been wanted an actual dehydrator but wasn't sure it would be used enough to make the purchase worthwhile. As I prepare more and more raw food I am finding that at least half the recipes call for something dehydrated and with how poorly the oven worked we decided to take the plunge. Now we make so much more and the possibilities just keep coming. It was especially crucial for the dish we decided to take to Yasmin's pot luck birthday.
We had put off making Sesame Cashew Dumplings for a while as we didn't have the dehydrator so we figured this recipe was like killing two birds with one stone. Test out the dehydrator and cross another recipe off the ever growing list of delights. I did very little work in the preparing of them. Aretha did all the hard parts, of which there were many. The dumplings are wrapped in thin sheets of coconut which required the meat of 5 young coconuts, the removal of which is very time consuming for novices like us. We tried finding someone who sells just coconut meat in store but to no avail. We ended up buying the 5 Young Thai coconuts, cut them open, drained the milk, scraped out the meat, removed the bits of shell and finally blended the meat in the food processor until it was smooth. Then the meat was spread in thin sheets and dehydrated for 5 or 6 hours. Just getting to the point of putting the sheets in the dehydrator was nearly 3 hours. (The time frame was lengthened slightly by the fact that Aretha also had one eye on our new puppy Bamboo who requires a significant amount of attention.) The dehydrated coconut sheets were then used to wrap the dumplings. The recipe book calls for square pieces of the coconut sheets and recommends a square dehydrator. Sadly, our dehydrator is round. There is a lot of waste when cutting squares out of round sheets. Next time we will lay out the processed coconut meat in square sections the size of each dumpling and fit as many as we can on the round tray to avoid the frustration in the future.
Inside the dumplings was a cashew filling with marinated spinach. The cashew filling called for a quart of carrots and celery, and 4 cups of cashews, among other things. When mixing it all together it seemed like a lot, too much for the coconut sheets really, but who are we to question Mathew Kenney's expertise? We followed the recipe as instructed. In the end, we were right. By the time we had worked through all of our coconut wraps we were only a fraction of the way through the filling. The next day it we still enough filling to make for 8 rolls using rice paper as wraps and still we wound up throwing away a huge portion of it. Note to self: trust your instincts.
Whenever I make something new, that I haven't tried before, I am always really nervous about bringing it to a party. What if no one likes it and I will have to take a full tray of food home with me? Yikes! In this instance the result was bitter sweet. Everyone seemed to like them since we left with an empty plate... however, they were scarfed down so fast I didn't even get to try one! Aretha said they were really good and I always trust her judgment. Plus, I liked all the individual ingredients when we had them in the rice paper wraps so it must have been good, right? Next time we make them I will be sure to save one or two at home. Selflessly of course so that I might more accurately report back to you, my faithful readers.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Raw Food in the Summertime
Hello,
Just a quick update for today. I haven't been eating much raw these last few days, as I have been busy with summer BBQ's. When I first started eating raw I knew that it wouldn't be an everyday, every meal commitment. It is just too hard. And I don't want to be that person that shows up at a friends BBQ and makes everyone feel awkward because I am eating guacomole and salsa with lettuce and tomatoes on the side. Besides, how can you not LOVE a hot, juicy, burger smothered in cheddar cheese on a sesame seed bun? No, I'm not talking about a Big Mac. Needless to say we haven't been cooking ourselves and we have been eating out at restaurants.
On another note, we just got our first puppy. She is a 9 week old Vizsla-Lab cross. We bought her from a breeders in Pitt Meadows and made the classic puppy buying mistake: "We are just going to look at them, we are not going to buy one today!" That didn't turn out
Just a quick update for today. I haven't been eating much raw these last few days, as I have been busy with summer BBQ's. When I first started eating raw I knew that it wouldn't be an everyday, every meal commitment. It is just too hard. And I don't want to be that person that shows up at a friends BBQ and makes everyone feel awkward because I am eating guacomole and salsa with lettuce and tomatoes on the side. Besides, how can you not LOVE a hot, juicy, burger smothered in cheddar cheese on a sesame seed bun? No, I'm not talking about a Big Mac. Needless to say we haven't been cooking ourselves and we have been eating out at restaurants.
On another note, we just got our first puppy. She is a 9 week old Vizsla-Lab cross. We bought her from a breeders in Pitt Meadows and made the classic puppy buying mistake: "We are just going to look at them, we are not going to buy one today!" That didn't turn out
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Summer Rolls with Arugula Pear Salad
After the success of the Rawsagna (as Aretha and I have dubbed it) I was excited to attempt my next raw dish. I chose Summer Rolls with Green Papaya from the same recipe book as the Rawsagna, Raw Food, Real Living since it didn't call for a dehydrator or food processor. It was a very simple recipe to follow similar to a standard Vietnamese salad roll. The book has the rolls as an appetizer and to add another dish we decided on an Arugula with Pear salad. The recipe called for a lot of prep but fortunately we got to use the new mandolin I bought for Aretha's birthday which cut down the total "cook" time significantly. And as an added bonus, neither Aretha or myself cut our fingers off during the slicing of any vegetables!
The recipe called for the Summer Rolls to be wrapped in Daikon radish sheets. A note to all raw foodists! Make sure you read the recipes thoroughly before you even begin shopping. Many recipes will call for something to soak overnight, dehydrate for 24 hours, or marinate for a long periods of time. In this case my mistake was looking for pre-packaged daikon sheets instead of an actual daikon radish. Unsure of the next course of action I came home with everything but the sheets. If I had more thoroughly read the recipe, I would have seen that the recipe instructs to slice a daikon radish with a mandolin (or Japanese sheeter...great another fun new toy I have to buy) and use the sheets to wrap up the rolls. As a last resort, we used rice paper we had in the cupboard from our last Vietnamese foray.
The rice paper worked very well, but the recipe lost the bite I'm sure the daikon radish would have supplied. In addition the paper survived a move from Calgary to Vancouver and was worse for wear which made rolling a little more interesting.
The filling was a combination of papaya, carrot, radish, ginger and coconut meat all sliced julienne and marinated in an Asian style sauce. This was the first time I had worked with coconut meat and I loved the rum cocktail we made with the left over coconut milk. I halved the amount of red chili pepper to make it a little less spicy. After marinating for 30 minutes we drained the vegetables and combined them with rest of the ingredients. Ok, so we didn't drain them and the wrap was too runny, but hindsight and pre reading the recipe are 20/20. Now we know for next time.
The assembly was my favourite part of the whole thing. It was similar to what rolling a big Cuban cigar would feel like. We spooned the filling onto the rice paper layered two slices of avocado some basil leaves and topped with a generous amount of alfalfa sprouts. The wraps were then rolled burrito style and set aside while I made a red chili dipping sauce. We also used the leftover liquid from the marinade as another dipping option.
The salad was a basic arugula salad with nuts and pear slices. We added a handful of pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries for sweetness. I found a recipe online for a lemon dressing with honey, olive oil and pepper. We found it tasty but too thick and would add more water next time.
Suffice it to say Summer Rolls were a success. With a little more attention to detail the process would have been smoother and the result more refined but all in all a delicious meal.
On a side note: After the Rawsagna we noticed a sharp metallic taste at the back of our throats. I tried my best to drown it with beer but its still here after three days. After consulting with google, family and friends we have concluded that it most likely a result of liver detoxification. The beer no doubt helped.
The recipe called for the Summer Rolls to be wrapped in Daikon radish sheets. A note to all raw foodists! Make sure you read the recipes thoroughly before you even begin shopping. Many recipes will call for something to soak overnight, dehydrate for 24 hours, or marinate for a long periods of time. In this case my mistake was looking for pre-packaged daikon sheets instead of an actual daikon radish. Unsure of the next course of action I came home with everything but the sheets. If I had more thoroughly read the recipe, I would have seen that the recipe instructs to slice a daikon radish with a mandolin (or Japanese sheeter...great another fun new toy I have to buy) and use the sheets to wrap up the rolls. As a last resort, we used rice paper we had in the cupboard from our last Vietnamese foray.
The rice paper worked very well, but the recipe lost the bite I'm sure the daikon radish would have supplied. In addition the paper survived a move from Calgary to Vancouver and was worse for wear which made rolling a little more interesting.
The filling was a combination of papaya, carrot, radish, ginger and coconut meat all sliced julienne and marinated in an Asian style sauce. This was the first time I had worked with coconut meat and I loved the rum cocktail we made with the left over coconut milk. I halved the amount of red chili pepper to make it a little less spicy. After marinating for 30 minutes we drained the vegetables and combined them with rest of the ingredients. Ok, so we didn't drain them and the wrap was too runny, but hindsight and pre reading the recipe are 20/20. Now we know for next time.
The assembly was my favourite part of the whole thing. It was similar to what rolling a big Cuban cigar would feel like. We spooned the filling onto the rice paper layered two slices of avocado some basil leaves and topped with a generous amount of alfalfa sprouts. The wraps were then rolled burrito style and set aside while I made a red chili dipping sauce. We also used the leftover liquid from the marinade as another dipping option.
The salad was a basic arugula salad with nuts and pear slices. We added a handful of pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries for sweetness. I found a recipe online for a lemon dressing with honey, olive oil and pepper. We found it tasty but too thick and would add more water next time.
Suffice it to say Summer Rolls were a success. With a little more attention to detail the process would have been smoother and the result more refined but all in all a delicious meal.
On a side note: After the Rawsagna we noticed a sharp metallic taste at the back of our throats. I tried my best to drown it with beer but its still here after three days. After consulting with google, family and friends we have concluded that it most likely a result of liver detoxification. The beer no doubt helped.
Summer Rolls with Arugula and Pear Salad
Thursday, August 5, 2010
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)