Gnoocchi Carbonara

This was a meal I recently made for dinner with two friends. One of my friends doesn't like spicy food, so it was a challenge for me to make something milder in flavor. I tend to really love extreme tastes and definitely love really hot, spicy food. To meet this challenge I pulled out Alissa Cohen's Raw Food for Everyone. I highly recommend this cookbook if you are only going to buy one.  I love raw cookbooks and can't stop myself at one, so trust me when I say I've compared this book to my two dozen others. It is the most comprehensive by far. It contains over three hundred delicious recipes. I'd say everything you need to know about raw food is in this book. When I need inspiration, I grab it off my shelf and get to work.

I made the whole meal using recipes from this book as a base. I rarely follow a recipe exactly, but the basic idea was the gnocchi carbonara, pickled asparagus topped with a beautiful salad containing pickled red onions and macerated berries that added color to the blander looking gnocchi. I served the meal accompanied by a kombucha/lime juice beverage that also added color to the meal. For dessert I made a white chocolate cheesecake topped with a chocolate ganache. Within the cheesecake was a hidden raspberry layer that tied in the shades of red that popped in the rest of the meal. The bright pinks of the pickled onions, kombucha and raspberries pulled the whole thing together.

The basic idea of the Gnocchi Carbonara was a mix of cashews, pine nuts, and some seasonings rolled into little dumplings that were rolled into sunflower seed flour. Then I made Cohen's Rawmesan cheese out of more cashews, pinenuts and some coconut milk and drizzled that over the gnocchi. I added lemon juice and nutritional yeast to the rawmesan because I like the cheesiness that it gives.  I topped that with some raw eggplant 'bacon,' which is basically marinated eggplant dehydrated to a crispy, crunchy, bacon-like texture. I needed a little color to go with the whiteness of the meal, so I added fresh peas and arugula. The green accents helped to tie the meal together with the salad.

For the salad I first pickled asparagus spears in apple cider vinegar and dried cherries. The recipe called for figs, but I didn't have any. I loved the slight hint of cherry flavor on the asparagus. I pickled red onions in apple cider vinegar, beet juice, vanilla and added a bay leaf to the mix. Then I soaked goji berries, mulberries, goldenberries, and golden raisins in apple cider vinegar. I also dehydrated some almonds I had rubbed  in olive oil and salt. I made the salad with a mix of greens so there would be color variations within the salad leaves. I added to the greens some grapefruit, the pickled onions, the macerated berries, and the almonds. To assemble the salad, I laid the pickled asparagus on the plate, drizzled a fig vinaigrette over them, and then topped the spears with the salad. I used the same vinaigrette as a salad dressing.

The meal was a success. I am now absolutely in love with the pickled red onions. You'll see them show up in other salad combinations. I've kept them on hand since I made this meal. They will always brighten up your greens.

I wish I had taken a picture of the dessert. We dug into it so fast I didn't have a chance to think about it. It was really indulgent and rich. What's not to love about chocolate and rasperries? It's worth making again, so I'm sure I will, and then I'll remember to post it.