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!

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.