Sun Dried Tomato and Roasted Eggplant Sauce Recipe

Make a basic marinara  but add 1 tbs of cornstarch. Cook like normal.

Roast an eggplant.
Soak about 5 sun dried tomatoes.*


Once the marinara has reduced by about 1/3 add peeled, roasted and chopped eggplant and finely chopped soaked sun dried tomatoes.

Heat thoroughly and serve hot.

Goes well over pasta, on bruschetta, over steamed veg, baked potato... The possibilities for this deliciously roasty flavored sauce are endless!


*I dry mine in the dehydrator. Slice roma tomatoes in half or fourth, place on rack and dry at 105F until they are dried fruit texture, usually this takes 24 hrs or more.

Vegan Pizza with Oat Cheese and Vegan Sausage :: Hail Seitan!

I have been making raw pizza. plenty of raw pizza. I love raw pizza. But I wanted a cooked, vegan pizza. One that I made myself so I would know what was in it, on it and around it.

So I made up some bread dough, rolled it out and put it on my handy pizza pan.















Topped it with raw marinara, sliced onion and tomato, sliced vegan sausage and slices of oat cheese, and fresh tarragon and thyme leaves














I am really not sure how long it baked. About half an hour, 45 min at 400F. The man was in charge of cooking time for some reason.













The whole wheat crust was thin and crispy and the toppings were hot and juicy. It was everything you could want in a vegan pizza pie and as one of my favorite vegan food bloggers would say "we ate the shit out of it".

There were no leftovers, sadly because I would go for a cold slice right about now.

Money shot














Oh, yeah. It was good.

Sunday Brunch Vegan Gluten Free Veggie PIZZA Flax and Sesame Crust

Flax seed crust smeared with sunflower sesame seed cheese. Then layered roma tomato slices, avocado slices, red bell pepper slices. Drizzle some thinned seed cheese on top and drizzle some marinara over the whole thing. sprinkle crushed, dried oregano on top.















It's ready to eat as is for a raw meal or you could dehydrate it for an hour or so.
If you don't care if it's raw you could put it in the toaster oven for about 5 minutes or until you can smell the seeds toasting.

Serve with a big green salad















Red leaf lettuce, green onions, tomato, red bell pepper, cucumber and the rest of the avo

Home Made Vegan Cheese Ravioli

even though the pasta machine was a fail, the ravioli was a win.


Before cooking














These are filled with seed cheese
I put them in a large pot of boiling water. They need enough room to all float on top.

First they will sink and then they will float. It takes about 5 minutes

I put them in a bowl and spooned raw marinara over them to heat the marinara















Yummers! The cheese-y goodness was almost too much to take!

The money shot















The long shot
















Dessert was baked yams with vegan butter...














Win!!

The man says he wants to try the machine. I want him to, too. I really want that thing to work. It has a bagel attachment.

Pasta Machine Noodle Maker FAIL

It started out like any other day. We went to the Goodwill and found this wacky pasta making machine. Fun, fun! $10 for a new kitchen toy. So, we bought it. It has no instruction manual or recipes so we did what we do and looked on line. The man found this groovy and hilarious 1994 vid on youtube.
It promises to familiarize you with your unit, inside and out, but it only talks about the machine.

Here is the machine and some flour and some pulp from JUICING. I figured it would be a nice vege pasta with a little taste of ginger. mmmm.














I was going to make lasagna noodles and maybe make a lasagna.

I put flour, pulp and oil in the machine, thinking, who needs to measure. Too wet, add water, to dry add more flour, right. Well that's what it said in the video.














The truth is, this machine does NOT work!! I set it to extrude and it would not grab the dough and push it through the slot. Poorly designed, not my fault.
















I ask you, does THAT ^ look ANYTHING like Lasagna Noodles? No. It looks like biscuit dough shoved through a slot

I took the dough out (NOT easy) and tossed the doughy machine parts in the sink. I've made pasta before, without a machine.

I have a rolling pin and a board :)















Sliced into 1-1.5" strips















And into the dehydrator they go.















I really don't expect them to be good. We shall see.

Then rolled out some more















And used this tool to make some seed cheese ravioli!















About a tsp in each one.















I will put them in boiling water for a minute and serve them with fresh raw marinara and a HUGE salad!

Maybe next time I will use a recipe...

Cooked Vegan Recipe Gluten Free Noodle-less Eggplant Lasagna. No Noodles!

It sure looks like the real thing















But this is "no noodle lasagna". I have been wanting to do this for a while and I finally put it all together last night.

The man said "Wow. It tastes like lasagna."


Fresh outta the oven!
















Side view. Just look at those layers!

















An action shot. Look out with that knife, there, Cutty McBladeson!

















This beautiful vegan dish was made from super thin sliced eggplant strips and not so super thin sliced zucchini strips in place of the noodles.

I layered the eggplant and zucchini with sunflower/sesame seed cheese, marinara, chopped walnuts, some fresh tomato slices, green onion cut in strips and sprinkled a little salt and black pepper between each layer. Next time, more tomato layers. More fresh sliced tomato layers = More fresh tomato flavor.

I put foil on the top of the pan and put it in the oven at 170F for about 4 hours or more. I don't remember.
When the guys got home I jacked up the oven to 400F for another hour with the top off. After an hour I noticed it was burning browning on top too much, so i replaced the foil and lowered the oven to 350 for one more hour. Just to evaporate all the liquid and make it a solid substance. You know, like lasagna.

And it worked.
It actually worked.

Vegan Stuffed Tomatoes (mostly raw, except the oats)

Rolled oats are steam processed, therefore this is not a RAW RECIPE

Makes two servings.

1 large roma tomato
one heaping tablespoon of walnut oatmeal nutmeat mixture
2 tbs marinara
1 tbs chopped green onion

Use cut the tomato in half. Use a sharp paring knife to carefully cut around the inside edge, without piercing the skin. Use a spoon to carefully scoop out the insides of the tomato, leaving the skin and about a 1/4" of the tomato meat intact.

Chop the tomato meat in to small pieces, add to the rest of the ingredients and stir well.

Pack the mixture into the tomato shells. Put them in the dehydrator at 115F until dinner time.

These are ready to eat as is, but I like to let them sit in the dehydrator to give them more of a cooked texture.

Here they are going into the dehydrator, I will get more photos tonight.

That is parchment paper they are sitting on. I love the stuff. It goes in the oven, too, up to 450F or something. Paper that don't burn. Now that is technology I can get into.

GROOVY UPDATE:

YUMMY!















HINT:
It was kind of hard to cut through the skin, serve with a knife for ease of eating.

(mostly) RAW Dinner Last Night w Recipe Links!

Welcome to the new blog. Same as the old blog :)



We have here, finally, an image of last night's dinner:



















Raw Avocado "fries"
Curry carrot salad
Walnut oatmeal cutlets, with marinara on top
A pile of sprouts, alfalfa or clover, I cannot remember
Green flax crackers with Brazil nut cheese
Sauerkraut

It's all raw, except the oats in the cutlets. The Brazil nut cheese is a simple vegan spread, a cup of nuts, olive oil, lemon juice and salt

Raw Pizza For Breakfast

Flax seed and vege crust with sunflower seed cheese, raw marinara, and soaked sun dried tomatoes.

Served with carrot curry salad and raw sauerkraut.

It is a wonderful feeling to know that I made all of this from scratch with whole ingredients.
And it was just about the best breakfast I have ever had.

Evey time I eat now, I think that. "This is the best meal I have ever eaten".

The feeling I get, the feeling of accomplishment, the fact that I made all this stuff from whole raw ingredients, and none of it was made from any animals. I just can't describe it.

It makes me happy on so many levels. Oh, and the fact that E eats it and enjoys it, that is a marvelous feeling all in itself.

I'm so happy.

A MOCK SAD Spinach sidedish :OR: Simple Raw Spinach Salad with Celery Dressing made with NO Vinegar and NO Lemon Juice!

This may have been the best salad I have made to date, even if it is really a side dish.







I use rosewater in the dressing. it is NOT RAW. Here is how to make your own rosewater. It is steam distilled.






Dressing ingredients:
The thin stems and leaves from the top of a bunch of celery, minced, about 2 tbs














2tbs olive oil
2 caps full or about two teaspoons rosewater (that link will take you to wisegeek.com There is more of a history, useful facts, trivia about rose water there)
Black pepper and salt, to taste
Put all indgredients in a bowl large enough for all the salad and begin to crush them all. I used the back of a wooden spoon and just smash it up. Enough smashing to let all the juice out of the celery.

Salad:

Spinach, 2 cups, or more
Carrot, 1/2 large
Onion, 2 tbs finely minced

I wanted something like traditional cooked spinach so I chopped the spinach into thin ribbons.
This is easy to do if you stack 8 or 10 leaves, fold them over and slice into about 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices. When they unfold you have nice ribbons.
I sliced the carrots on the diagonal with my mandolin slicer set on the thinnest. They were like paper.
Add spinach, carrots and onion to the bowl with the dressing, toss it real well and put a lid on it. I have commandeered the glass casserole that E has here and it is now my salad bowl. I love that it has a lid and that I can see what is in it.















Let sit for at least an hour so the oil can work on the veges. I served it at room temperature and it was delish. A real break from dressings based on lemon or vinegar. Very subtle flavors.

It was coupled with a nutmeatloaf cupcake that was made in layers; meatloaf, seed cheese, marinara, meatloaf, seed cheese, marinara and warmed in the dehydrator.

Grumpy Morning and Rambling Trains of Thought

I woke up grumpy and proceeded to take it out on everyone around me then apologize then do the same thing again. Sigh. I'm sorry, guys.

I am experimenting by going without sweet fruit for an undetermined amount of time. My smoothie no longer has fruit in the morning and instead of snacking on grapes or apples I snack on celery or cauliflower. And seeds.

I just started this whole thing yesterday and it seems like it will be ok. I enjoyed the smoothie without fruit. More than I thought I would

I will have to do more study and see which fruits exactly are considered sweet and which aren't.

Tonight's dinner will be Portobello Mushroom Caps Stuffed with Nutmeatloaf. I used peanuts this time:















Those two are in the dehydrator right now. Later I will put cheese and some Marinara on top and serve it with a giant spinach salad.

Here is the kitchen after preparing those two innocent looking mushroom caps...
EEK!
Call me Miss Messy Kitchen!













And ten minutes later:














I have the place pretty well set up, I think. It's easy to get to stuff I need when I'm preparing food. My appliances are right in reach, things are organized and I know where to find utensils, spices, etc. I moved the more used things to the top drawers and delegated other things to lower drawers and cupboards. I organized the cooking pan cupboard, putting all the lids in the old dish drainer that I hated looking at on the counter. If i need to drain a dish I can put it on a towel. That pink fungus growing bacteria catcher needed to GO and it did and it is now living a good and useful life, holding lids for pots and pans. Yay.















I'm working on getting rid of the coffee maker. He hasn't used it in over a week and I think I might be able to move it somewhere more out of the way. Like the garage. Just kidding, honey. The microwave has been moved over to the other side of the sink and I think the coffee pot might join it. Not today, though.

Ok, enough. I will update later with photos of the mushies sauced up.

Raw Nut Meatloaf Roll Stuffed with Spinach

This is a meatloaf, stuffed with spinach leaves and rolled up. Like a big, meaty joint, lol. Well, that ought to get me some hits. Heh.

Ok, first I made nut meat meat substitute. This one is walnut, flax, carrot, onion, celery, beet and seasonings like salt. Then I flattened it in a vaguely square shape and covered it with spinach, thusly















Then the rolling begins. I folded up about a 1/4 of it with the wax paper on the top.














I peeled back the paper and then folded it up again, folding over more of the meatloaf, keep rolling it until it's rolled. I really can't explain it but it's easier than I thought it would be and you can do it!!!

It should look something like this when you are done.















I am going to dehydrate it for a couple of hours and then














I will cut it into two pieces, cover it with marinara sauce and return it to the dehydrator until dinner time.

I will update with more photos and reactions after dinner

I was inspired by this: Daily Raw Cafe


UPDATE: It came out ok. There are a few things I would do differently, next time, but all around a great dish!

At this point it had been in the dehydrator for over an hour. I took it out and chopped it in half to make two individual servings. I topped it with sundried tomato & sunflower seed cheese and some raw marinara.















I dehydrated it for at least four more hours and it looked like this:














Ingrid of Raw Epicurean asked me if the spinach wilted after dehydrating. Well, Ingrid, it did a little. It was still kinda fresh, but warm and a little wilty.

Things I would do differently:

I would roll out the meat a bit thinner and longer and use a LOT more spinach.

I would put cheese and marinara on the INSIDE of the roll also, not just on the top.

Let me know if you try this, I would love to hear your variations and reviews!

Raw Dinner or Lunch Idea: Stuffed Bell Peppers

I have always loved stuffing. I love stuffing things. Stuffed squash, stuffed mushrooms, stuffed peppers. Stuffing was always my favorite part of tgiving dinners. What I made for dinner tonight is a raw, vegan version of stuffed orange bell peppers.

Cut your bell in half. You could use any color that you like but I find that the green ones are hard to digest. The darker the color, yellow, orange, red, the more ripe the fruit is and the easier for me to digest. If you want you can cut it into four or even smaller to make hors d'oeuvres.


Drizzle oil and if you want salt and seasonings inside the pepper.












This will give it extra flavor and the oil will soften the pepper more when it dehydrates.

Here are the ingredients for the stuffing, left to right, sunflower and sun dried tomato cheese, Center, nut meatloaf mixture. I used beets to make it red. It also has carrrot, celery, onion, ground flax seeds, and various nut meats, walnut, almond and pecan. I had some end of the bags to use up. Right is marinara for the topping.















I like cheesy surprises so I always put a dollop of cheese in the bottom of my stuffed peppers :)














Fill the rest with the nutmeat mixture and top with cheese and some marinara drizzle.















Put it in the dehydrator until it's time to eat.














I put the toothpick in mine so I will know it's the one without salt. Smart, eh?

I will leave these in for four to six hours depending on what time we eat. The longer, the softer. I made a small one for my lunch and left it for two hours and it was absolutely mouthwatering. So much so I decided to have it again for dinner. It will be served with a HUGE salad. Whenever I have something heavy, I like to eat it with a big juicy salad to add more water and greens.

UPDATE

Photos of the pepper on the plate and cut open for some juicy raw food porn