Awesome Sauce Redux

Rice paper salad rolls with a side of Awesome

Biz gave me this recipe a few years ago. It's fresh, lively, and herbal. Biz, our friend Tim, and I ate it on everything for an entire summer: salad, cooked veggies, rice, quinoa. Play around with the herbs, and throw in handfuls of whatever's handy.

It's basically a pesto, sans diary, and it's vegan, if you replace the honey with a hippie sweetener (agave, maple, etc.). I always think I've made too much, but then it disappears in a couple of days.

One batch = about a pint

 Recently, I found my original hand scratched recipe (no doubt dictated by Biz over a bottle of wine on her porch, on a lovely summer evening in Woodacre). I thought I'd share the written recipe, instead of typing it out. The paper version is so homey and used; I love it.

You can make substitutions where you see fit, and make it thinner or thicker by adjusting the water (I use just a tablespoon or two), just don't leave out the orange juice (squeeze it yourself), ginger, or garlic. Substitute avocado for the oil, if you want. You can exclude the soy sauce, and up the salt (or not). Also, I add four or five cloves of garlic. Is one clove ever enough for anything? And I throw in loads more herbs than the recipe calls for.

The original recipe, c. 2006 (you won't need that much water!)

Instructions: Chop up the herbs by hand first, then throw everything in a blender. I always start with the garlic, ginger, and seeds, so I can be sure they are blended to a fine consistency, then add the herbs and liquids. Blend until smooth. Awesome Sauce will thicken, and the flavors will meld in the fridge, but you might not be able to wait that long. Keeps for about 5 days. Enjoy!

Avocado Chocolate Mousse

My friend Biz turned me onto this recipe a few years ago, and I've tried many variations. I believe hers called for Medjool dates (probably soaked in water for a few hours) as a sweetener, but I like to use raw agave nectar because it's convenient, and there's always a bottle on hand in my kitchen. You could probably just as easily use honey, brown rice syrup, or regular old sugar to make this incredibly easy, surprisingly delicious chocolate mousse. Whether you're a diehard raw food enthusiast, or you just like rich desserts, this one is a crowd pleaser.  Your dinner guests won't be able to guess that it took 5 minutes to make, and that it's good for you.

2 very ripe avocados
1/3 C cocoa powder
1/2 C agave nectar
optional:
almond or rice milk (to thin the mixture, if desired)
a little vanilla (bean or extract)
couple Tbls of coconut oil (if you wanted to use it to frost a cake)

Raw ingredients, and almost TOO easy!

A high-speed blender works best for this recipe, but you can whip it up in a food processor or a regular blender, too. I suppose you could even do it by hand, but blending makes it silky smooth like regular mousse. I use about 1/4 C of almond milk, and make it in two batches in my blender, because my old Osterizer was made back when my parents were in grade school, and it won't blend very well, unless I add liquid. If you wanted to use dates instead of agave, you would want to use the date water to thin the mixture. Refrigerate the mousse and let set for a while. I've heard you can freeze it like ice cream, too, but have never tried that.

It just took me twice as long to write this post as it did to make the mousse. Try it out next time you over-buy avocados. It's super rich and yummy. I like it with some crushed walnuts sprinkled on top, or with a sliced banana. Enjoy!

What's in Your Fridge?

My refrigerator is about a thousand years old, missing the bottom shelf, and is held together with duct tape. It's on the List of Things to Replace, but it's gotten me this far, so a new one is not very high on the list. The exterior of my house needs a serious paint job, and two trees need to be removed from my property; a new fridge will have to wait. I think a refrigerator says a lot about a person. It's akin to looking through someone's music collection, or underwear drawer.

It looks like a jumbled mess, perhaps, but I know where everything is, and I'm fanatical about throwing things away, so it's pretty clean. The bottom drawer is problematic, since it's missing its glass cover/shelf, causing the massive pile-up of fruits, and veggies. You gotta dig around a little.

Eat your veggies!

Must-haves: Almond milk, lemons, baby foo-foo lettuces, and Anchor Steam Beer

My freezer, on the other hand, is more easily navigated. It contains exactly six things: coffee, sweet potato fries, home made vegetable stock, steel cut oats, tempeh, ice. Sometimes, there is vodka.

Siberia.

At least it's clean, right?

The outside of one's refrigerator often tells a story, too, of course. Although, since most people have stainless steel refrigerators these, days, I might be the last one with magnets, old pictures, and grocery lists on the front of mine.

Peach comes from within.

What's in your fridge, Sissy? (No fair staging it first!)

Franny, is this a competition?  'Cause I think I win... Erin

Always on hand: eggs, kale, cabbage, carrots, leftover mashed potatoes, Veuve Cliquot and St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc.

Why there are two copies of the same photo of Dad up there, I'll never know.  You and I have the same taste in fridge magnets.

Crazy Fijian ingredients that Suli keeps in my awesome bottom drawer freezer plus endless loaves of gluten-free bread and some Amy's frozen dinners, just in case.

Nacho Mama's Nacho Sauce

What's cookin'? Indy waits for a cashew to drop.

Today, I had some cashews soaking, and too many bell peppers in the fridge, so I decided to give Cashew Cheese another try. I've tried to make it a hundred times, and it never turns out quite right . . . . until now! I made up a recipe based on what I already knew (and actually wrote it down for once), and it turned out great. 

1 Red Bell Pepper, cleaned and chopped

1 c Raw Cashews, soaked for 4+ hours (they will double in size and become 2 cups)

1/2 c Raw Cashews (not soaked)

1-3 Garlic Cloves

Juice of 1 Lemon

1+/- tsp Kosher Salt

2 Tbls Red Onion, finely chopped

3 Tbls Nutritional Yeast

2 Tbls Tahini

Water (thin as necessary to incorporate ingredients)

Whiz all ingredients in high-powered blender for about a minute (or in your regular blender for 2-3 minnies), pour into glass container, refrigerate for at least an hour or two before serving. The consistency will be something like the consistency of yogurt or a thin hummus, depending on the amount of water added.

Spread on crackers, use in place of mayo, dip veggies, add a dash of cayenne for a Nacho experience, make kale chips (see earlier post for recipe), or thin with lemon juice and add chopped sweet pickle for a pseudo thousand island salad dressing. This recipe is vegan, gluten free, soy-free, and raw. Enjoy!

Juicing with the Champ

A hundred years ago, my family generously gave me a Champion juicer for my birthday. It was our Dad's idea, which was weird, since he almost always gave us cards with pictures of kitties in a basket on the front, with five twenty dollar bills inside. I saved a whole bunch of those cards (but not the money), and one of them reads: Love, Joe. The Champion juicer -- The Champ -- was the most thoughtful material gift he ever gave me. His reasoning: I was spending too much money on carrot juice from the grocery store. Might as well make it myself.

The Champ

Sentiment aside, I recently dusted off the old juicer and, for the past few weeks, I've been murdering bags of carrots, keeping mutant hands of ginger in the fridge, and experimenting with weird combinations of fruits, veggies, and herbs. It's true what they say on those late-night Jack LaLanne infomercials: juicing is good for you, and makes you feel great. I don't know if it's the concentration of vitamins, or what, but I'm feeling energetic and downright nourished these days.

There's nothing that bores me more than a drink recipe, especially if it doesn't contain vodka, but I'm going to share my favorite juice recipe, regardless:  5 or 6 carrots, 2 chard leaves, a tart apple or two, a tiny piece of ginger, and a handful of cilantro.

Like a rainbow for your belly

I made something last night which I named "The Bottom Drawer"; it contained almost every fruit and vegetable in my fridge: all of the above, minus the chard, plus 1 bosc pear,  a beet, some kale, and celery. I went way overboard on the ginger, which can ruin an otherwise perfectly good glass of juice. The unfortunate part of this experiment was that I drank one pint of the juice and still had a pint left over, which I bottled and saved for today. I think Whole Foods offers something similar at their juice & coffee bar, appropriately called The Oil Changer. It wasn't my best effort, but it wasn't terrible, either. Plus, it was so darned good for me, how can I complain?

After The Champ does its thing, separating the juice from the pulp, I like to put my juice through a strainer. Some people probably like the sludgy stuff at the bottom, but I think it's gross. (Side note: I've been keeping the pulp to make raw veggie crackers in the dehydrator, and now I have a kazillion crackers. They're not bad!).

Bottom Drawer

As much as I hate keeping small appliances on the kitchen counter, The Champ has found a new spot near the sink, where I'll use it more often. Juicing makes a mess, and the clean-up almost doesn't seem worth the effort, but I'm going to stick to it, anyway. Who knows, someday, I just might juice a potato and figure out how to make my own vodka. For now, I'll just have a Bottom Drawer.

Kale Salad

Been making this again lately. I've tried for years to copy the kale salad at WFM, but I never get it quite right. This one was close. Of course, I was just tossing stuff in a bowl, so I don't know the measurements, but you can wing it. I tear the kale into fairly small pieces, then wash it in hot water for a minute, to wilt it ever so slightly. It just makes it more appetizing, and easier to eat. Alternately, you can toss the kale with the dressing and let it sit in the fridge for a day, and it will wilt a little. Raw kale can be tough to chew and digest.

Kale
Arame seaweed, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
Ginger, grated
Garlic, grated
Seasoned rice vinegar
Olive oil
Tamari
Currants or raisins
Sesame seeds

Spin-dry the greens. Mix the liquids and spices together, and toss with the kale, seaweed, sesame seeds, and currants. Let it sit for an hour or so, for best flavor. Enjoy!

Seaweed, kale, raisins, dressing

Mix it all together - voila!

Leftovers - yum. Even better the next day.