The Full Raw Meal

Main Course

Dessert

 

 

I'm posting pictures today of a meal I made for two dinner guests awhile ago. I made way too much food for three people, but I love making a themed meal so much that I often get carried away. This theme was Italian.

I started with a raw lasagna, which was layers of zucchini, cashew cheese, sun-dried tomato sauce, spinach, corn, and other assorted vegetables.

Then I made raw beet ravioli with a pine nut cheese garnished with cilantro.  I also served raw breadsticks, which were basically nut cheese rolled in sunflower seeds and then dehydrated. I made a tomato base dipping sauce that contained typical Italian herbs. The breadsticks are in the basket to the left of the upper picture

In front of the breadsticks was a Ceasar Salad with raw croutons. I'm getting a bit redundant here, but the croutons were also a nut cheese rolled in dehydrated crushed carrots. These croutons are amazing. They look real, add a bit of color, and taste great. With so many nuts in this meal, I really needed the lighter salad.

The big challenge for me was making raw calamari. I used King Oyster mushrooms to make the circles. I basically cut off the long stems of the mushrooms, then used an exacto knife to carve the inner circle of the calamari, then breaded the mushroom in a ground flax powder. I dehydrated the mushrooms to a soft, slightly chewy texture. To go with them  I made a raw tartar sauce that was flavored with lemon juice, parsley, and capers. I've never had calamari because I've been a vegetarian for so long.  I didn't know what it was supposed to taste like. I was honored when one of my guests said I hit the texture of calamari on the dot. It was her favorite part of the meal. I'm thinking next I should try the same idea with a sweet yellow onion and make onion rings.

For dessert I strayed from the theme and made a pomegranate kiwi pie. I used pistachios in the crust to give it a little more green color to tie in the kiwi. The pie filling was coconut, cashews, and pomegranate seeds. Then I layered the top in alternating circles of pomegranate seeds and kiwi.

In all, the food was a success and so much fun to make. I love to experiment. It's always risky to try new recipes on guests, but I just invite very gracious guests who will love whatever I make, even if it doesn't always look good. I know who to invite if it's an experiement. I've learned this many times, my food may not always look great, but it always tastes great, thanks to pure, organic ingredients. I think in all my years of making raw food, I've only made one thing I didn't like. It was a raw caviar. I don't think I'd like real caviar, so I don't even know why I tried it, except that it was something I'd never made before. I also have this habit of trying everything in a raw recipe book at least once before I begin to riff on the idea.  Raw cookbooks were the first cookbooks I could do this with because I could eat everything in them. For someone like me, those endless possibilities opened a whole new world. It's probably why raw food has stuck with me for so long. I always have something new to try.

I encourage you to do the same.