The Complete Book of Raw Food | Musings From The Fishbowl

This has been a most excellent Raw day…hurrah for Raw Thursdays!

I started the day off with some “Purple Porridge”, a slight twist on Shazzie’s “Pink Porridge” from The Complete Book of Raw Food. According to the recipe it serves two people, but I halved the recipe, and it still made a huge amount, about 2 servings I’d say easily. It’s just frozen blackberries, soaked almonds, and some briefly soaked dried apricots all mashed up in the food processor (now, the recipe says you can use a blender, but I ended up having to use both because my blender evidently doesn’t have enough testosterone or something…). I really liked this. I am always a bit leery of the “nut-heavy” recipes because they tend to be so heavy, but I did change the proportions and added more frozen fruit and less almonds which lightened it up… either way – super yum!

For lunch I dined on “Italian Rawzania” with “Sun-Dried Marinara” and “Ricotta Cheeze” from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen. I believe that “Rawzania” is supposed to be a cute, raw-friendly way of saying lasagna, but it just seems awkward to pronounce, frankly.

Luckily, it was not difficult to make, or eat, for that matter. This was really a delicious meal, and I am sure that I’ll make it again. I knew I was a fan of the marinara sauce, but I haven’t yet found a raw faux-cheese that I really like. I’m learning how to play with the recipes to my own tastes, which helps, but I still found the “Ricotta Cheeze” to be, well, weird – and don’t get me wrong, I like weird, but it’s just too something. Not sure what. It did really marry quite nicely with the raw veggies and the marinara, though, and all together it was great. I made this the night before to allow for the flavors to combine nicely, and am very glad I did. It was good at lunch, but it was even better at dinner! The veggies had softened even more and the flavors were really harmonious! (That’s not something I say every day!). Since I’m the only one dining Raw, I will have one piece left over for lunch tomorrow – yippee for me!

My dessert-cum-snack is also from Ani’s Raw, the “Coconut Snow Cake”. The recipe called for a cake base, then a frosting layer, and then a lovely coating of coconut (I just love the coconut!). After tasting the cake I decided that it did not need frosting because it was already über sweet, so I just gave a generous dusting of coconut and voila!

This was the first raw dessert that the Guppy actually liked. She has such a sweet tooth (I have NO IDEA where that comes from, at all…) and loves raw fruits, I thought she’d really like them, but she usually takes a tiny taste and spits it right back out. So, when she asked me for a bite I of course obliged, but was ready for the typical “No, it’s yucky!” which generally follows anything new that isn’t to her liking. She surprised me when she confiscated my fork and smiled, “This isn’t yucky, it’s yummy! I think I would like this now, ok?”, and slyly pulled my plate towards her side of the table. Go figure!

Yes, yes, I know…but I’ve been one very busy Fish! I wasn’t too busy to carry on with Raw Tuesdays, though…just too busy to post about it. As I was discussing with “Bob” the other day, the Guppy started school on Tuesday. I know, she’s only 3! We could have started her last Fall, but Mr. Fish & I decided to give her one more year of toddlerhood (because 2 is just so freaking early!). I actually think it’s great that kids – and parents – have access to free, public education as early as 2 here in France as it makes childcare easier for those who need it, but that is young.

Anyhow, on to the Rawness of Tuesday :

Pre-run I had two “Carob Confections” left over from last Tuesday. They are so yum! I also had a few for a mid-afternoon snack. Now they are gone, however, and that has made me sad 😦 Post run was my new favorite smoothie evah : just tons of spinach, banana, almond milk, about 4 dates and half of a vanilla bean. My spinach from the marché was very “rustic” (big old honkin’ bitter dinosaur-sized leaves) and needed a little sweetness, so I added the dates & vanilla bean. Tasted like a dessert. Cool.

I have no picture of the smoothie, because it was ugly, but look at these:

Des tomates anciennes bios or in the language of Shakespeare, organic heirloom tomatoes. These puppies were huge. Freaking science experiment huge. When I saw the stand at the market, I asked for two tiny ones, because these are like the babies of the huge mamma sized tomatoes they had. How big were they you ask?

Well, how’s about 620g or almost 1 and 1/2 pounds (1.3 to be precise)! I know, tomatasaurs. I enjoyed them in a large salad with some “Sunshine Paté” from The Raw Gourmet for lunch. The “Sunshine Paté” is a sunflower seed-based raw paté which I really liked…and it’s a good thing, because it makes an enormous amount (the better to go with the tomatasaurs, I know). The other good little tidbit about the Paté is it keeps for 12ish days, so we’ve been still enjoying it – because even Mr. “I disdain raw cuisine” Fish has been loving this stuff. Go Ms. Shannon, Go!

These are some Sunshine Rolls before they met with certain doom in our tummies at dinner time. Rolled up with sliced carrot, red pepper, large lettuce leaves, and fresh cut pineapple. You may notice some of the rolls are a little sloppy…I was assisted in my rolling by Ms. Guppy who was very excited about them, because she loves eating nori rolls as much as she loves making nori rolls. The kid’s going to roll me under the table before she hits 5.

And we dipped our rolls in one of the lovely raw dipping sauces from The Complete Book of Raw Food which is the kind of book you want to have around when you’re going to be killing any large, aggressive insects invading your kitchen or defending yourself from home invaders because it weighs a ton. It’s huge, has like a zillion recipes from many different Raw Food Peeps in an anthology-type format. I have only skimmed through the recipes in there, though many of them seem to require a dehydrator which is a big, fat bummer. This dipping sauce was also great with fruit :