I AM SO LOOKING FOR A RECIPE FOR RAW VEGAN SOUTHERN BARBECUE

I know, I know…. each area in the South has its own barbecue (and that is, of course, NOT take all your food outside and put it on the grill, but, rather, a way to produce a meat dish commonly made with pork and served on a bun – at least, that is the way I know it from Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina)

I had a really good “barbecue” at a( raw restaurant in Brooklyn, NY, which no longer exists, and the name of which I cannot recall. That tasted so much like the real thing. (‘They also did a remarkable ‘crab’ dish). Of course, their recipes were “so valuable” that they would not tell me what their dishes were made of, but I do know that both the barbecue and the crabcakes had mushrooms in them.

Now, of course, that place has gone under, and my favorite place from before (Quintessence, in Manhattan) went under, unfortunately, a while back (fortunately, I was able to cadge a few recipes from Raw Chef Dan before he went under the radar, but just not these ones I want.)

I periodically feel driven and start looking again for a raw vegan Southern barbecue dish/sandwich or a raw vegan crabcake recipe, but I don’t find anything anywhere around. From research, I know that there are some raw vegan restaurants in the South, but I never see any which are offering any kind of “Southern barbecue”.

If you know of a recipe for (anywhere Southern) pulled mushroom
“barbecue”, or Virginia-style (or even Maryland- or Chesapeake Bay-style) mushroom “crab cakes” please let me know at prettysmartideas@gmail.com

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SAVORY PEACH SOUP

Savory Raw Peach Soup

based on recipe from Frederic Patenaude

1-1/2 C chopped tomatoes (@ 2 med-size tomatoes)
4 C peaches, peeled and chopped (or nectarines) (@6 lg white peaches or nectarines),
2 small seedless cucumbers, diced – 1⁄3 cup packed fresh dill, chopped
Onion, diced, to taste.
1 t dry dill, or to taste (or use fresh dill)
Tabasco, to taste (optional).

• Place tomatoes, peaches (or nectarines), and onion in blender or food processor, and process to a slightly chunky texture
• Add cucumber and dill and process to chunky texture.

For best results, use ripe white peaches
Chunky texture is best.

UnCooking 101 Recipe Index

POST #984
Are you looking for some new recipe ideas?  One of my hobbies is reading other people’s ideas (yes, and sometimes making them)

UnCooking101 has been trying out several different things over the past year or two, but I think her collection of recipes is the best reason to go to her website — of course, you might some other things that interest you there – I’m still working my way through the recipes.

WHERE HAS GONE RAW GONE?

POST #982
SOMETHING HAS GONE RAWNG
Admittedly, I had not visited GoneRaw.com in quite a while (okay, maybe a year or so), but I was surprised and disheartened to find the place in a shambles today when I clicked through and old link on an old, inactive blog, looking for Chef Landria, who seems to have disappeared.  On the home page, there was some kind of code disturbance, which just got worse when I clicked on RECIPES at the top of the page.  

Ah, but help is on the way, if you want to go see this famous old repository for raw recipes of all kinds.

Go to the bottom of the page, and find where it says RECIPES –GONE RAW – that link is healthy (at least as of a few minutes ago)  You can page through the recipes, which seem to be intact. 

My advice – if you want to avail yourself of a number of wonderful recipes from people who have posted over the years, who may or may not still be active, QUICK! Go there and look through all of the recipes which sound like something you might want to eat or prepare for someone else.  (Who knows how long this site will remain – it has apparently been abandoned, and there have been no postings in the past year or so).

THIS WEEK’S CHEEZE: Trying out a sunflower cheeze

Posted on August 18, 2013by prettysmartone

Two nights ago, I set a sunflower cheeze to ferment (I usually do cashew cheezes, but I wanted to try something a little different – I mean, the stuff I add in is usually going to be the same no matter what I am making)

Instead of grinding the sunflower seeds into powder, the way I used to do, I soaked them overnight.

In the morning, I added salt and put it all into the Cuisinart, reduced it to mush, and then put it in a nutmilk bag, set it in a colander on a bowl with a jar full of water as a weight on top.  (All of these things are different from my usual sunflower seed recipe)

I set it in the corner of the kitchen, and waited for 2 days. Tonight I opened it up and, although it tasted okay, something was missing.  I went ahead and added in the garlic and onion and oil-cured kalamata olives, and prepared to let it set up in the refrigerator. Then I checked, and my body memory doesn’t have me putting in the probiotics. Should I or not? I decided to add probiotics at that point, and I am glad that I did. I put the first cheeze round in the food processor with a capful of probiotics, and, when I took it out, I could smell the difference! 

So, now, I have decided to leave these very blended cheezes out one more night, and then put them in the refrigerator for another day. 

One is just the garlic, onion, olive version, and the other one was going to be coated with dill, but the dill got mixed in when I added the probiotics. I am expecting good results, regardless.

 

SHOPPING WITH FREE MONEY, HOW FAST IT GOES, BEING MINDFUL, AND ADVENTURE!

POST #948
So, I went up to Grace Institute this morning because, since I am a graduate of one of their programs, they let me use the printer there, and I wanted to print off my Groupons.  Some of them are dangerously close to expiration, and having them in hand might make it easier for me to use them (now, they have apps for that, but I have an app-less phone, so…).  Groupons in hand, I headed across town to Westerly Market, which is an experience! It’s very bright and shiny, but the aisles are extremely narrow. I had such a wonderful plan, and a carefully-made list (on my new list-making app on my Kindle, which I figured I would need so I could stay as close to $40 as possible, and I have a calculator on it) I cautiously put a few things in my basket on way through the store, but when I got the cashew $10/lb is not bad, but I wanted to stick to the groupon limit, so I only got 1 lb.. I went for 2 lbs of lentils because they were on special for $1.59. Then I found the probiotics cooler – $26.95 for my New Chapter All Flora! The All Flora is a necessity for culturing vegetables and making cheeze (and, excitingly, it was mentioned by name and demonstration in  my Russell James Home Chef course (which I am taking on-line), and it will do fine in the refrigerator for quite some time, and I can always pick up a tomato or a cucumber(or a couple of jalapenos!)  here and there. I did get a container of something called “raw vegan crab”, mainly because it was marked half-price, and I never try raw prepared from the natural markets because it is so pricey (and, of course, I was playing with free money – dangerous!). In the end, I only went over by about $3.00. Sure am glad I really only paid $20, because I came home with this puny bag with a measly four things in it (and I do know how much I would have had to pay for it, so I should be happy and grateful). 

So, let’s get on to that crab stuff:  It was made of almonds, celery, red bell peppers, lemon juice, sea salt, and kelp.I tried a forkful, and yes, it did taste like somebody’s idea of crab (not even close to what anybody I know from the Chesapeake Bay area would consider decent… and it was to grainy for my taste.  I through it in the food processor, to ground it down more to a paste, and then I had my inspiration. As it needed liquid, I added the rest of the salad dressing I made last night (garlic, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, Spike, and onion powder) – a quick taste test told me I was almost there, so I splashed in a couple of drops of Worcestershire sauce, gave it another whir in the food processor, and, voila! a taste very close to my Mom’s crabcakes which are the best! Then I just scarfed it right down!

Tomorrow, I’m signed up to go on a foraging trip in Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, with the legendary Wildman Steve Brill.  He says we might find june berries, chickweed, lamb’s quarters, burdock root, mulberries, poor man’s pepper, and, perhaps even chicken mushroom and wine-cap stropharia mushrooms. I have scissors, but I don’t have a digging tool. I am going to carry a strong spoon (why would a die-hard city girl who has never been closer to a garden than the other side of the window have a shovel?) Wow! If I get some of those things, I will consider myself lucky, and make something delicious tomorrow night!  For sure, I’ll post and let you know what happened (I mean, have you ever gone on a foraging tour with a knowledgeable guide? All those years that I had weekends off, I never even thought of it, even though I saw the announcements for Wildman Steve Brill’s tours at least once a month. Now it is hard for me to schedule one of these tours and it’s the only thing I really want to do — other than get married!)

I am excited. I’ll put on designer jeans from Salvation Army, my purple Converse high-tops and venture into the wilds! Adventure!!!! (and I don’t even have to leave my city! This will be my next BIG vacation!) 

By the way, I do want to tell you about Grace Institute: If you are a woman in New York City, fresh out of school, or if you are out of work, and/or need some job training, Grace Institute offers virtually free education in secretarial/administrative/office technology skills – the only thing you have to pay for are your textbooks, which isn’t much, considering how much such training costs in other programs. They have a new program starting up in September. This is a private program that was established 0ver 100 years ago to assist women in need. You decide if you are in need, and you apply. I attended their Fresh Start program a couple of years ago, along with women of all ages and backgrounds.

BEST OF RAW – great recipes!

POST #907
Congratulations to Amie Sue of Nouveau Raw for winning BEST OF RAW – 2013!  This girl has some  of, if not the,  best raw vegan recipes in town (yours, mine, anybody’s!). Do check out her recipes – I’ve already mentioned a lot of them, but, it seems that, each time I go to her blog, it seems I have a different hankering, so I end up looking at something that has probably been there all along, but which I have cavalierly ignored previously. Today’s discovery was the coconut bark recipes – I don’t rightly know that I’ll ever get around to making those, but I might, since they do sound delicious (but I would need to get the cute little molds first, wouldn’t I?

CARMELLA’S SUNNY RAW KITCHEN RETURNS!

I’m happy to see that Carmella, of the Sunny Raw Kitchen blog, has come back to us, with a dynamic new website, Carmella’s Sunny Raw Kitchen.  She has some free recipes there, and she is also offering special prices on her books.

CHEW-FREE RAW LIVING FOODS: Raw foods for the toothless

POST #859
There is one area of raw live foods that nobody ever looks at.

A number of my nutrition clients, and, also my speech therapy clients, have complained to me that raw food is often difficult for them to eat, the reason being that they either have no teeth or use dentures.  Some people just simply say that raw food is difficult to eat because they have problems with their teeth.

An interesting thing about “Mrs. Richter’s Cook-Less Book” which I wrote about a couple of posts ago, is that a section of the book is devoted to “Soups for the Toothless”.  I found that quaint,  odd, at first, and then I realized that Vera Richter was the first raw living foods author to address such an issue, and that no one has mentioned the situation since.

I do champion the “chewing challenged”, particularly since I am a lazy chewer (I simply don’t like to have to chew much). Many of my clients have dentures  or are toothless.  Most raw recipe books have recipes which are mostly inaccessible to people who do not or cannot chew well (too hard, too chewy).

Most raw vegan recipe writers/chefs assume that the chewing challenged can get by with blended foods, without considering that a liquid diet can get boring.

If you are looking for more substantial food, i.e foods that fill your stomach while, at the same time, addressing your taste buds, as well as your subconscious food ideas), which can be eaten with no teeth, or plastic teeth, consider pates,  kale chips, A while back, I wrote a mainstream recipe book for chewing-challenged people.

Since the beginning of my new interest in cultured vegetables, some people have written complaining that their teeth come loose when they eat cultured foods.  Now, that is interesting.   Something in the probiotic is dissolving whatever adhesive people use to secure their dentures.

As a result, I have decided that, when I make up a recipe, I will note ways that it can be converted to “chew-free”  (actually, most of my recipes are, in fact,  chew-free, simply because I am a lazy chewer).

Meanwhile, in the case of the fermented/cultured vegetables,  100% of my denture-wearing clients have complained of the denture-loosening effect.   I plan to eat my fermented vegetables either before I insert my dentures, or after I am at home and don’t need them anymore.  (Of course, you can always just carry adhesive with you and use it if your food loosens your dentures) . If you have removed your dentures and you want to eat a cultured vegetable, please consider blending or food processing it into a paste – you will have the taste, and, at the same time, be able to manage the food in your  mouth.

HURRICANE ALLEY: What do I do when there’s a hurricane outside?

POST #847
What do I do when there is a hurricane outside?

Well… first, I watch the weather for too long, and, then, when I cannot take it anymore, I get up and go to the kitchen and make stuff. Today, that was kale chips and sunflower seed crackers.

After I did that, I raced back to the computer, just in case the power might go off, and found a new cool site, Nouveau Raw, with great recipes, read them all, then sat around and thought about making something else. [I really really liked Nouveau Raw. It is almost like a raw food training. Who knew there could be so many things to address on such an attractive blog?  I’ll be going back there soon and often]
That brought me up to now.

Time to hop in bed. The hurricane can wait or go away.