by Julie Kalivretenos on March 8, 2010
{ just a bite to start the week }
{ raw vegan, gluten-free }
When I see fresh English sweet peas, shoots, and greens at the market, it’s always a great indicator of spring making its arrival. I literally just grabbed up a pint of peas and some pea greens this morning and whipped up this quick and easy amuse bouche.
Some of you have asked me why I don’t tend to give the exact recipes on Amuse Bouche Mondays. Well, it’s mostly because (#1) I intended for these Mondays to be a sort of fun and informal “just a bite to start the week” and, even more the case, (#2) rather than plan or “design” the amuse in advance, I like to open my pantry and refrigerator on the very morning and challenge myself to what I can come up with relatively quickly. Preparing raw food has quite a reputation of being time intensive, but does it always have to be? This is a fun way to sort of be spontaneous, and it’s great practice in creativity. This is not to say I never think up stuff in advance. I do. I just write it down in my notebook, and if the appeal sticks, I will do what prepping needs to be done. In this case, the taro chips had to dehydrate for a few hours, but you can serve these mashed peas with pretty much any vehicle you fancy.
For this little amuse, the taro chips were made by slicing the whole root with a hand-held mandoline. Then I salted them, sprayed them with olive oil, and dehydrated them for about 3 hours. With a large mortar and pestle, I mashed the peas with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, some chopped mint, a touch of curry powder, a sprinkling of sea salt, and a pinch of cayenne. That’s all. So easy, so delicious. The peas are delicate and sweet and really brighten up with the contrasting flavors of the mint, curry, and cayenne.
<3, JMK
by Julie Kalivretenos on March 5, 2010
{ Dobos Torte at Gerbeaud Confectionery Budapest, Hungary. Photo courtesy of Bruce Tuten. }
This Hungarian dobos torte, or dobostorta is certainly original, beautiful, and has never been “rawified” before to my knowledge. And although I’ve never tried a real one, from the sound of it it’s well worth a stab at a raw conversion. Now, I may very well have bitten off more than I can chew. But I now have a whole week to prepare and attempt to perfect this treat. A well detailed history and description of this dessert can be found here. In Earth Mother’s own words, “…the chocolate butter cream layers are definitely melt-in-your-mouth. The cake layers are kinda spongey. Very light & airy, but not dry. The hard carmel glaze on top is very sweet. Again, melts in your mouth.“ Boy do I have a lot to live up to, but I love a challenge.
Now, this winning torte wasn’t an easy choice. There were soooo many great entries from all of you, and some honorable mentions include:
- Cadbury Egg from Bitt
- Chocolate eclairs from “rrnancyr”
- Cannolis from Lauren
- German chocolate cake roll from Raw Candy
- Boston cream pie from Whitvia
- French neopolitan from SingerintheKitchen
- Pineapple upside-down cake from Just Audrey
- Bavarian delight from Laura J.
- Oreo cheesecake from Jenn
- French Silk pie from Megan
- Cookie dough truffles from The Ordinary Vegetarian
Matter of fact, I’m going to keep some of these under my hat, because I just may make one (or two or three) for a future sweets recipe here at Julie’s Raw Ambition.
There were several entries for tiramisu, chocolate lava cake, peanut butter cups, brownies, and various cheesecakes, which, as tempting as they are, do exist somewhere in the raw dessert universe either via book or internet. I really wanted to do something original, something that isn’t out there yet. And after all of the research I’ve done for this contest, there are very few things left that someone hasn’t made raw. I think that’s pretty awesome.
So congratulations again, Earth Mother! Be on the look-out during the next week or so for the UPS man with your box of raw sweets ingredients from Sunfood.com!
A big THANK YOU to all that participated! The raw Hungarian dobos torte reveal will be exactly one week from today on March 12.
<3, JMK
