Vegan MoFo Day 7 – Animals on my table?

I’ll tell you one thing, this Vegan MoFo posting is a bit like when I first began running…I need to build up my endurance! I’ve never posted 7 days in a row evah! I’m feeling a little out of breath, and my legs are a little shaky, but I’m gaining ground!

Luckily, I have help like this in my kitchen…

These are the only animals you’ll ever see on my table!

Guppy is obsessed with dinosaurs, and animals in general, but really dinos. She knows so many of their names (in both French & English), it’s crazy the way she just soaks it up. M. Fish and I had to study up to be sure we weren’t messing up their names! She can also tell you if they are carnivore or herbivore. She fancies herself a comedian when she talks about Spinosaurus or T. Rex, “They eat other animals…Grrr (imagine the two plastic figures smashing into one another in an epic reenactment of Godzilla vs. King Kong)…but not my dinos. They only eat leaves and no animals!” (the dinos then kiss – SMACK – and proceed to eat imaginary “leaves” suspended in the air. This is all her, by the way. We don’t make a big deal about her diet sans animaux. It comes up, but for now we prefer to live more by example, and talk about the loving bonds ALL families share, regardless of species. Guppy carries her dinos with her in cotton drawstring bag (the mammals travel separately, they are more “snugly” says Guppy), and she brings them everywhere with her. For example, here there are on the kitchen table…

…because here she is tossing a most delicious salad. It’s the “Cabbage and Corn” salad from The Raw Gourmet. (I know, you were wondering where the food was in this MoFo post!). It’s so delicious, and beautiful, too, with the purple and yellow yumminess. It’s really an easy salad, just fresh or frozen corn and purple cabbage with a light vinaigrette – simple, sweet and sublime. I make a double batch each time, because it’s really better the next day once the cabbage has pickled a bit in the vinaigrette.

This salad is also really great wrapped up in a tortilla with some breaded-fish-style tofu. AMAZING! It tastes like the sea shore (without the gritty sand), or vacation, or maybe summer vacation. The crispy warm and the light, bright salad – W-O-W! You gotta try it! I of course have no pictures of that, because when it’s ready I just dive in and sacrifice photographic evidence for culinary satisfaction!

Tomorrow I’ll bring you some quinoa love, because damn it, it’s worth it!

Raw Tuesdays – Mardi Tout Cru! (yeah, I know, it’s Thursday…)

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 :

It also made a huge amount, so we’ve been snacking on that for the past few days as well.

I am really behind on your blogs…lo siento…but I will be catching up tomorrow (hopefully!).

Raw Tuesdays! Mardi tout cru!

I am still your Raw Connection for Tuesdays…but I didn’t manage to post last night, so let’s just pretend that it’s Tuesday, shall we? Merci!

No surprise here! (Liz, stop drooling! I know how these babies affect you!). This was my almost last one…I might have one more left…that I brought back from my still-not-properly-posted about North American vacation. I’ll probably be making more of these soon to fill in the void. I also think it’s time for me to try to make some other raw bars. I mean, the ingredients list on the Lärabar package is usually like two to three things long : cashews, dates. I must be able to figure this out. And look at my wound! I nearly cut a hunk of my thumb off in a bizarre onion chopping incident. Horrible. Gruesome. I wanted a Dora bandage, but I couldn’t find them in the medicine cabinet…

For lunch I re-visited the Japanese Mushroom soup I posted about here, because I had such great memories of it being delish about two weeks ago. It was delish last time, but this time it left something to be desired. I think my disappointment came from some slight changes I had to make to the recipe – only used one kind of mushroom, you can’t get Braggs here so I fudged my marinade, and while I used sweet white miso the first time, this time I used the darker, evil cousin, brown rice miso. I did manage to eat two big bowls (of mostly mushrooms), but am ashamed to say the broth went down the toilet the next day. I hate the waste, but did figure out what I liked about that particular recipe!

Now for the very cool “new favorite thing” discovery of this installment of Raw Tuesdays :

These delicious little gems are called “Carob Confections” and they are from a raw food book I picked up while in the U.S. called The Raw Gourmet by Nomi Shannon. Nomi rocks. Hard. This is a slim volume but packed with full-color glossy punch. It’s so great to have pictures of the food, and not of the author! (Nomi has a tasteful little pic next to her bio, and that’s it. Congrats on having your priorities straight Ms. Shannon). These were made in like 5 minutes, rolled in almond meal, and devoured! They became my favorite snackie-poo, dessert, and post-run breakfast today. They reminded me more of truffles than anything I’ve ever had, besides truffles I mean.

For dinner, I made some of the Spicy Pecans from Ani’s Raw :

These were simple and delicious, a nice addition to my big, huge dinner salad :

The sweet glaze on the pecans eliminated any need for a dressing, so this is just tons of shredded carrots (I love shredded carrots), corn cut from the cob, batavia lettuce, diced green onion, raw sesame seeds, and yes, you’re not hallucinating, avocado! As most of you know I tend to avoid avocados because though I LOVE them, they aren’t so very local. When I went to the marché (the outdoor market for you kids playing at home) my usual vendor who never, ever has avocados had a huge bin of them and they were 3 for 2E! Let me tell you folks, that’s muy cheap here in France. I caved and loved every luscious bite!

My Raw Summary for this Tuesday : eating raw once a week has really helped me to be more mindful about all the other crap I eat all week long. I like to pride myself in being a healthy vegan, but let’s face it, cupcakes are not healthy. I also like that it reminds my body what true hunger feels like, as it is not to be confused with “being in the mood” for a cookie or some of that warm baguette I just bought.