Raw Lasagna

The lasagna is essentially three parts: pesto, tomato sauce and cheese.  Make the pesto the way you normally make pesto minus the cheese.

One small zucchini will provide enough noodles for one person with a little left over.

I make mine this way:
1 1/2 c packed basil
1/2 c parsley or spinach or both (you can omit)
1 clove garlic
1/4 c walnuts (you can use pinenuts or almonds)
1-2 T nutritional yeast
pinch of salt
1/4-1/2 c olive oil
Process to a chunky paste

Rinse out your food processor for the tomato sauce. 
1 handfull sundried tomatoes (soak in water for 1 hr)
1 plum or roma tomato deseeded (you can use a handful or cherry tomatoes or half of a larger tomato, it may make your sauce a little runny, no biggie though).
1 shallot sized red onion
1 date
2-3 cured black olives(optional)
drizzle of olive oil
pinch of salt

Raw ricotta cheese!
1 cup macadamia nuts (soaked 4-6 hrs)
pinch of salt
2-3 T nutritional yeast
Blend until creamy

Once all your sauces are processed use a potato peeler to peel thin slices of zucchini. Lay them out on a flat plate three or four wide.  Make a small layer of each pesto, cheese and tomato sauce.  Add another layer of zucchini...and so on. 

I like to top mine with brunoise carrot, bell pepper and onion.  I splash a little balsamic and olive oil on the veggies and add celery seed and a tiny bit of salt.  If I have time I will put it in the dehydrator to warm them up before adding them to my lasagna.  If you remember, you can do your brunoise veggies first.

Cheers!

Starting the Year Off Right

Welcome to 2012, people of 2011.  What a crazy year it has been so far.  Phew!!!!!  The end of the world is coming soon, so buckle up.  This blog is about to get crazy.  Who knows what I'm capable of.  I may get my whole body tatooed with different types of plants.  All edible of course.  I will be a living garden of tattoos. And piercings.  I will pierce my body all over with earrings made of corn and dill weed.  Just you wait.

To start though, before I get all hip and shit, I have decided to get a little healthier.  I haven't been posting and in the no posting, I have been eating a lot of wheat and dairy and other glue up your intestines type of crap.  (Yipes!)  Since it is a brand new year, and for some reason I (like you) need an excuse (like the beginning of a year) to get my lazy ass to do anything towards self betterment, I have decided to get back to basics. (Was any of that proper grammar?  If so, I may have just justified my four years in a two year program at a community college!)  More raw food.  And exercise.  And water.  I do not drink enough water during the winter.  Here's what I have going on right now.

Raw choc chip cookies from my course at 105 Degrees (now Matthew Kenney OKC).  I dug up my recipes folder and salivated over all the recipes I have buried away and somewhat forgotten.  These are so easy to make.

I made cocoa and cinnamon crispies from Raw Food Real World.  This is my first time making the cinnamon.  I don't love them.  The cocoa crispies are awesome.  I have been making them for years.  Delicious.

I am trying to make kombucha.  I have made kombucha before, but fruit flies got my last batch and laid eggs in my SCOBY.  So, I am trying to make it without a SCOBY.  I have heard of people successfully making it from bottles of store bought kombucha.  That is what I am attempting.  If nothing grows over the next couple weeks, I think I will give in and buy a SCOBY from someone.  I have been missing it.

I had an incredible slaw salad at One Lucky Duck the other day.  I tried to recreate it at home.  Not too shabby. I will try to remember what I did to make the dressing and post it.

I made a raw lasagna with "roasted" vegetables.  It was so good and so easy.  It is a lot of processing and blending, but well worth it.  I will post the recipe in a couple days.

Happy New Year!

After Graduation

Things got crazy.  We went out with Miki the Japanese Geisha.  We had sushi and drinks.  Then we went to the Copa, which is a gay nightclub.  No offense Oklahoma City, but the music there sucked.  I will not be returning.  Then Sat morning, we got our bikes out and returned them to Bike One.  Go to Bike One!  Then grabbed Big Truck Tacos on our way out of town.

My one regret is that I didn't eat at Big Truck Tacos sooner.  It was amazing.  Definitely chek them out if you like Mexican food.

Then we were off to St. Louis to stay the night on our long journey back to NYC.

(I guess I never posted this.  I adding labels to some older posts and this was in there.  Some pics for you if you miss my OK days.)

This is for William

This is a Holiday Pear Butter.

I know the holidays are over, but the spices in this butter are fun all winter long.  Also, this was supposed to be posted like 70 years ago and I forgot to post it.  (Yipes, you can learn so much about me by reading my scattered blog can't you)?

I hope this is an exciting enough recipe.  If, not let me know and I will post a cooler one for you.

I adapted this recipe from a recipe in the book Tart and Sweet.

You need 4lbs of pears.  Mine were rock hard.  I don't think yours need to be.  They can be soft and ripe.   You can peel them if you'd like, but you don't have to.  Core and chop them.  add them to a pot with a cup of water and the juice of one half or one whole lemon and 1/2 cup of sugar.  I used sucanat.  If the pears are good and ripe, you don't need the water.  

Add 2 thumb sized pieces of ginger, peeled and chopped.  Add 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 cardamom pods, 7 clove buds and about a 1/4 - 1/2tsp of freshly grated nutmeg.   (You can put all your spices into a spice bag to make them easier to fish out once everything is cooked.  I didn't do that, but it did take me a while to get all of my spices fished out). 

Simmer on med heat until pears break down.  I use a potato masher to help them break down.  You will want to help them if you have unripe pears.  After your pears are good and mush (45-60min) blend them in batches in a blender. (Hot foods in a blender will explode, so be careful to do small batches or let them cool before blending). 

Once all is blended, transfer back to your pot and simmer for another 20 mins or until butter sets.  Test for a set on a chilled spoon or plate.  Transfer to jars and boil in a hot water bath to seal.  Or transfer to jars and give away to all your friends.

It is delicious.  Especially in yogurt.