Mystery Ingredient Soup and a Salad only the Cook will Eat

Does it make you a good cook if you know you could have whipped up a tasty meal for your loved ones if only you hadn’t followed the recipe?
Or does it make you a bad cook because you couldn’t get the recipe, written by two high-end gourmets, to taste very good.

Or are my friends just complainers? I mean I expect it from my closet food-critic husband, but my girlfriends? Just because the Red Bell Pepper Soup with Mango Dollops had strands of “white things” in them…I mean, why make a big deal out of that? They said the “white strand things” distracted them from the taste. What sissies. I gulped mine right down. I thought it tasted pretty good. What white strand things? Finally Susan dug one out of her soup. Huh, I thought, weird. Then Justine piped up with the same complaint. What could it be? It looked like hairs from a bottle brush. Could it be the fibers from the turnip thing I added that was supposed to be juiced horseradish? No, it was too tough for that. In a word, inedible. I gave up on trying to figure it out and poured their soups through a sieve, but neither of them accepted the refined version. Doesn't say much for their adventurous spirit, does it?

To stay in theme, today (the theme of fixing meals my guests won't eat) I made the Creamed Cauliflower Soup and the Marinated Artichokes, Turnips and Beets. The soup should be called Boringly Bland White Stuff that has no flavor. After you puree basically only cauliflower, water and some vinegar you’re supposed to put it through a sieve, but if you did that, there would only be one bowl of soup. No matter, no one would eat it anyway. Although I ate most of mine. I’m the only one around here with any determination.

The Beet-Artichoke Marinade turned out surprisingly tasty. To me, that is. No one liked that one either, but the thinly sliced beets, turnips and artichokes flavored with a vinaigrette, a bed of date, jalapeno and cranberry sauces is really delicious. And loved ones who don’t like your food? At least I keep them entertained and obesity at bay.

18 Down and 33 To Go! 54 days left.

Dolmas and Broccoflower Couscous and Neighbors of the Mayacamas

I don’t like traditional dolmas very much. They taste vinegary and mealy, but these live-food Dolmas with Dill-Sour Cream Sauce were crispy and fresh with a delicate sweetness. The “rice” in the dolmas was the ever-popular pulsed parsnip which I am finding in so many of Roxanne's recipes and I could not find dried currants so used fresh ones. How the coconut and cashews could wind up tasting like a dill sour cream sauce was pretty amazing to us all. But when I do the recipe again (and I will!) I won’t bother with the sauce, the dolmas were so delicious they didn’t need a sauce. Thank you to Sarahndipity for the photos.

I served this on the 4th of July when we were up at our Sonoma place and invited our crazy neighbors Karen and Jannell over. Karen, a product of the Berkeley-Hippy era who still lives by the finer virtues of that time, and Jannell who lives next to her in a tiny cabin and grows a sprawling and beautiful flower and vegetable garden. They brought over the illustrious Ricky, master-of-all-things-at-age-24 and a few other friends. Sarah and William have been up planning out their huge deck that will surround a tree, and we had Cath, a prior guest at Cinque Terre also there with her faithful dog Molly to grace our table. What a party.

Couldn’t find broccoflower, so did the most logical thing and simply mixed cauliflower and broccoli heads. No champagne grapes so used red grapes. The curry oil finished the recipe, giving it the spicy flavor it needed to not be bland.

Being up on top of the wine country in the mountains is a sublime and cleansing experience. The atmosphere is wild and wonderful, as are most of our neighbors who I refer to as the “Smiling Eyes Tribe.” To see the fireworks we all piled in the car (including the dogs) and drove along the incredibly bumpy and dusty road over to Random Ridge, Bill Hawley’s place which sits up on the southwest side of the mountain and overlooks the entire Bay Area and downtown Sonoma. Since Bill is a grape grower, there was plenty of his wine flowing, I had my wands glowing and we all enjoyed the fireworks show from our tailgates. http://www.randomridge.com/place/photos.html

I never made it to the soups and looks like I’ll be taking tonight off too. Still recovering from the alien party in my gut, I guess.

Heirloom Apricots Losing Ground

Ever heard of Blenheim apricots? They’re only grown down in the Santa Clara Valley region and anyone who’s tasted one says they are the best tasting apricot in the world. Forget the bland Turkish apricots with the great shelf life. But sadly these dreamy fruits don’t travel well and Blenheims often have green and yellow colors on their skins, which fool consumers into thinking they have no flavor. People just want to buy the pretty rosy-orange apricots, but if they took one bite, they would be so happily surprised!

Slow Food has added the Blenheim to their endangered list as farmers throw in the towel when competing with the visually perfect and tasteless apricots at our groceries. And we lose so much farmland to developers too. Luckily Nancy Kux invites me each year to accompany her to a farm where we can either pick, or simply buy a nice quantity of the Blenheims. This time we were directed by Blenheim Apricot advocate Barbara Anderson to Bertuccio’s in Hollister.

We toured their facilities and came home with 25 lb boxes of the little jewels. Pictured here drying. I’m giving them away like crazy as they don’t last long. They are an ‘eat now, always remember’ fruit. I hope the few of us who trek down every year, and those who buy the dried Blenheims will be enough to keep a few orchards in business.

For more info, check out: http://www.freelancenews.com/printer/article.asp?c=60974

Internal FireWorks make Holiday in my Gut

I’d like to say I took it easy over the 4th of July holiday. Instead I invited aliens into my house for a party. Aliens being bacteria and house being my stomach. Can you say food poisoning?

Should I blame it on the evil beef burger or the killer squash blossoms?
Here I’ve been on this insanely healthy diet, feeling so energetic and healthy and then I had a beef burger at a friend’s party. Could it be that it was such a shock to my body?
Or could it be that the raw food I didn’t wash harbored the bad guys?
Nobody knows but my innocent and suffering intestines, but I confess I suspect the innocuous-looking, delicate squash blossoms. Look at them, so colorful and pretty. Those deceptive little imposters.
Photo courtesy of: http://www.seasonalchef.com/recipe0805b.htm

I consider this rude experience (yes, I writhed in pain on a public bathroom floor for 45 minutes, unable to move) to be a sort of graduation, an awakening if you will of the degree of respect I must now have as a raw foodie. I’ve always been so cavalier and trusting about the cleanliness of the produce I buy. When the squash blossoms came in a shrink wrapped container (and knowing that I did not want them to wilt for the photo I would be taking of them shortly) I skipped over my usual step of soaking produce in a solution of grapeseed extract water.

Verily, verily I say unto you: many foreign hands hath touched thy produce. Lo, false prophets shall attack your belly if you do not obey the god of sanitization (sanity?).

Even (and especially) sprouts need to be washed. Those tiny hard-to-wash onion, daikon or sunflower sprouts apparently love to harbor unfavorable bacteria.

The bacteria party is over, but my cells are still sweeping up, repairing the damage and pulling the house back together. And who knows, a lot of the time people need antibiotics to recover from food poisoning, I didn’t. Maybe all this healthy eating put my body in a better position to ward off the evil aliens all on it’s own. That’s what I’d like to believe.

Tomato Tart / Ceasar Salad with Rawmesan+Croutons / Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Wow! These recipes were worth the effort! Took me three days to pull it all together. First I had to make rejuvelac (fermented wheat berry juice) so that I could make the nut cheese, which took a day. Then I had to dehydrate it. Had to make croutons also with the cheese, which also required hours of dehydration. Had to make dragon crackers so that I would have crackers to roll the onion rings in. Whew!

Keep in mind those new to raw food: all recipes shown here are fresh "alive" have not been cooked. We dehydrate crusts, crackers, croutons, etc., to get the desired texture, but all enzymes and vitamins are preserved (unlike cooking).

We had the tomato tart for lunch with one of my “splash” salads, which means a fresh vegetable and nut-filled bowl of whatever I can find in the refrigerator with very little leaf action. The tart was not as much work as I had imagined and pretty tasty, although I gave up when it came to making my own dehydrated tomatoes. I just used a jar of sundried tomatoes. This recipe is a keeper! Email me if you want me to send you the recipe.

I worked straight (including yet another trip to the grocery store) from lunch on for dinner. I had been dehydrating a single carrot since yesterday so that I could grind it up and roll the “croutons” in it. That damn carrot just would not get crispy. I finally just ground it up anyway, the clock was ticking. Rolled the croutons in it then it all went back into the dehydrator. The “rawmessan” was dehydrating too. I whipped up the ceasar salad dressing which was KILLER, and then began blending the stuffing for the squash blossoms.

Finally the crackers were ready, so I ground a few of those up and added the herbs, then dipped red onion rings in olive oil and rolled them in the crumbs, which didn’t stick very well (egg would have been nice, but this is vegan, remember?) and then they went into the dehydrator.

Ready to stuff the blossoms and discovered I couldn’t find all the parts to my pastry bag and nozzle…a momentary panic until I got resourceful and resorted to a large grip-lock bag. Man, it worked like a charm! The photo here does not do it justice. Oh! The stuffing was pine nuts, pistachios mixed with a delightful Indian herb mixture and it was just HEAVEN…a wonderful floral aroma, so delicious.

The rawmessan and croutons made the ceasar salad, pictured here in a beautiful new bowl that my dear sister Deb gave me as a gift to cheer me on for this project. Thank you, Debbie, I love you.

These are the most delicious recipes I’ve made so far, although I can see a growing annoyance in Daniel (husband-photographer). He repeated several times today “we can go back to paper plates after this project is over, right?, right?” He grumbled rather loudly at having to do the dishes again (although I was the one in the kitchen ALL day). Goddess bless him, he is helping me so much and I know he’s quite unsure why the hell I am taking on such a time-intrusive hobby, but I’m HOOKED and I am just having SO MUCH FUN, but I admit I am tired and looking forward to my day off of doing this tomorrow.

Count: 13 down, 39 to go in 9 weeks.
Next up over 4th of July holiday – Red Bell Pepper Soup with Mango / Greek Salad /Dolmas and Kaboch Squash Soup. God help me.

House Stinkin’ Party

Whenever we’re invited over, we always try to bring more than we take.
Last night our friend Nick was celebrating moving into his new place.
Like the Clampits that we are, we of course brought our dogs. He’s on ten acres of open space and the dogs were in pure heaven running around like hyenas.

We had a lovely evening and toward the end of the night an overwhelming odor floated onto the patio as Boomer (our dog) approached. We knew within a split second he had been skunked. Poor boy got hit in the face and his eyes were burning, as he madly rolled himself on Nick’s lawn. Boomer often wears a t-shirt, so we pulled the soaked t-shirt off of him, he rolled some more. We squirted his eyes with water and wiped them off with paper towels and he rolled some more. By this time, we both were reeking.

As nice of a guy as Nick is, I couldn’t help notice how he tried to close his front door on me as I tried to walk in. Imagine that. Soon his whole house was reeking and all his guests were groaning. By then my olfactories were desensitized so I didn’t see what the big deal was. We called the vet who gave us a concoction to remove the odor:
-1 qt hydrogen peroxide
-1/4 c baking soda
-1/4 c dishwashing liquid

We ungracefully bowed out with Nick enthusiastically waving goodbye through a closed window (I think he was holding his nose).

We got home and bathed Boomer and it was much better except for the fact the damn skunk got him in the face and we couldn’t put the mixture too close to his eyes. So you only smell it if you kiss him, or when he kisses you! He of course slept with us last night, after all he’d been through I couldn’t reject him from his comfort zone.

But we had to chuckle this morning, realizing that Boomer had probably wiped most of the skunk smell onto Nick’s lawn, right in front of his front door. I wonder how long that smell will linger? And imagining the skunk-soaked t-shirt laying in his yard as a special “gift” made us laugh even harder. Happy House Warming, Nick!
Yes, we’re givers.

Next up: Open Faced Tomato Tart & Ceasar Salad with Rawmesan & Croutons!

Tengusa Seaweed MIA, Recipe #10 DOA

Did I say this project has taught me to be courageous about substitutes? Did I say that?

No Japanese market in the vicinity has heard of Tengusa, so I tried Kombu. Kombu allowed me to skip the tedious steps of making a gel sheet out of the tengusa, dehydrate and then roll it up.

Like I could have ever done that anyway!

Hey, not finding tengusa was a favor. As was not finding sea beans. Actually, I think I’ve eaten seabeans before and I sure would have liked to try them, but if I expect to do a recipe almost every damn day, I can only search so far and wide. So it was julienned French beans mixed with seaweed salad. Close enough, right?

So do I announce my failures to the world? That eating kombu was like eating a rolled up piece of kelp you step over at the beach? I ate one and spared my husband. Sea vegetables make good compost.