{ raw vegan, gluten-free, serves 2 }

Pasta with vegetarian bolognese using packaged tofu crumbles is one of my favorite comfort foods.  But since the processed stuff isn’t so good for the gut (or that great for you in general), I wanted to create a raw version using whole, healthy ingredients that could be enjoyed both on raw pasta or the classic cooked semolina.  The outcome was even better than I had hoped.  The similarities are pretty striking in flavor as well as texture.

“Stracci” basically translates to imperfectly “ripped” sheets of pasta.  So making rough, wide tears of squash using a vegetable peeler stands up to a hearty, heavy topping like bolognese.  Dehydrating the squash also lends to its sturdiness as it creates a more chewy, pliable texture.

This recipe makes more bolognese than what’s needed for the stracci.  But that works out just fine, because it freezes beautifully.  I used the remainder of it on cooked linguini for dinner one night, and it was out of this world.  Gently heated through, it resembled more of a mushroom ragù than a bolognese.  Win-win!

For the sauce:
2 pints grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced lengthwise
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
4-5 sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil (recommended: Mediterranean Organic)
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms
3/4 cup soaked walnuts
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp sea salt
1 small shallot, roughly chopped
1 small carrot, roughly chopped
1 large celery stalk, roughly chopped
1/8 cup good red wine
3 tbsp cashew milk

Toss the first 7 ingredients well in a large bowl and let marinate 1 hour. Transfer tomatoes to lined dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 115 degrees for about 4 hours.

In a food processor, blend the grape tomatoes and the sun-dried tomatoes together to a purée. Pour into mixing bowl and set aside.

Next, add the creminis, walnuts, thyme, and remaining 1 teaspoon sea salt to food processor and pulse to a crumbly texture. Add to the tomato sauce mixture.

Finally, pulse together the shallot, carrot, and celery until finely diced and transfer to the sauce. Add wine and cashew milk and stir together until well mixed. Adjust seasonings if necessary.

For the stracci:
1 1/2 – 2 lbs goldbar squash (about 4)
sea salt
flax seed oil (lends a rich, buttery flavor)

With a vegetable peeler, slice squash into thin sheets, alternating on each side until seeds are visible. Set in a large bowl, sprinkle and toss moderately with sea salt, and allow to stand for about an hour. Drain excess water, and drizzle with flax seed oil. Transfer to dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 115 degrees for about 2 hours, or until “stracci” achieves a chewy texture.

Pinenut parmesan:
1/2 cup soaked pine nuts
1 tbs nutritional yeast
1 small garlic clove
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp sea salt

Process all ingredients until well blended and crumbly. Spread on lined dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 110 degrees for about 2 hours, or until excess moisture has evaporated.

For assembly:
Simply arrange stracci on plates and top with desired amount of bolognese. Finish with pinenut parmesan and garnish with roughly chopped basil.

<3, JMK

{ Raw vegan, gluten-free*, serves 4 }

Vegetables and herbs such as leeks, shallots and tarragon are staples in French cooking – and flavors I absolutely adore.  They also happen to be some of the most under-utilized in American cuisine until recent.  Singularly or combined, each of these ingredients adds sheer flavor heaven, and particularly work like magic with mushrooms.  Leeks are incredibly nutritious and while lending their mildly diuretic benefits, they’re loaded with minerals like iron and potassium.  I added leeks and tarragon to this otherwise Italian-inspired cannelloni dish, launching the marsala wine-marinated creminis and porcinis into taste bud bliss!

Mushroom mixture:

1 lb criminis sliced in half
1/4 oz dried porcinis, soaked and softened in 1 cup warm water and 1/2 cup marsala wine
1 small leek finely sliced, white and light green part only
1 tbs dried tarragon
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup marsala wine
1/3 cup nama shoyu*
1/2 tsp finely ground green peppercorns
1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper

Put all ingredients, except for porcinis and liquids, into a large bowl. Whisk together olive oil, marsala, and nama shoyu and pour over mushrooms. Toss well and marinate for 2 hours, occassionally turning to coat. Meanwhile, coarsely chop porcinis and set aside. Spread mushrooms on to a lined dehydrator sheet and dehydrate for 3 hours at 115 degrees, or until texture is slightly chewy and resembles a sautéed mushroom. Toss mushrooms occasionally while dehydrating.

Take 3/4 of the mushrooms and all the porcinis into the food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.  Reserve remaining mushrooms for plating.

* For gluten-free preparation, omit nama shoyu and substitute with 1-2 teaspoons sea salt.

“Raw”cotta:

1/2 cup soaked, moist cashews
1/2 cup soaked, moist pine nuts
1/4 cup soaked, moist hemp nuts (optional, I had to finish off a package)
1 tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 garlic clove

Blend all ingredients in a food processor to a ricotta or thick cheese-spread consistency.

Tarragon marinara (I made this two days ahead):

2 lbs fresh roma tomatoes, sliced in 1/2 lengthwise
4 fat smashed garlic cloves
1 tsp dried oregano
1 heaping tsp sea salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
handful fresh chopped basil
2 tbs fine quality aged balsamic vinegar
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil to coat
1 tbs dried tarragon

Combine all ingredients, except for tarragon, in a large bowl and marinate for about an hour. Spread tomatoes on to lined dehydrator trays face up, spooning herb mixture over them. Stuff the garlic cloves into a few of the tomato halves. Dehydrate at 115 degrees for 8 to 10 hours (depending on tomato size). They should appear roasted, but still somewhat plump. You don’t want to totally dehydrate them to the sun-dried type.

Put tomatoes in a food processor along with the tarragon and blend to a marinara. It’s now ready to eat, or you can put it in a bowl a few hours before serving and keep warm in dehydrator. (This will also reduce excess moisture).

Cannelloni:

2 medium zucchini (you may have extra left over)
flax seed oil (makes it nice and buttery)
sea salt
finely ground green peppercorns
a hand-held mandoline

Slice zucchini lengthwise very thin, about 1/8″. Layer slices in a casserole dish, rubbing them with flax seed oil and sprinkling sea salt and pepper very lightly between each layer. Allow to sit for about an hour and careful drain water out of dish. Spread on dehydrator screens and dehydrate for 1-2 hours at 115 degrees so that excess moisture is gone and cannelloni have a chewier, more pasta-like texture.

For assembly:

On a work surface, lay 4 zucchini in similar lengths next to each other, slighty overlapping.  Beginning 1/2″ from one edge of the width (not lengthwise), spoon about 2 tablespoons each of rawcotta and mushroom mixture down the width of layered zucchini.  From this end, carefully pick up exposed edges and roll into cannelloni tubes.  The zucchini are very pliable and stay together quite well.  At this point you can keep the cannellonis heated in the dehydrator until ready to serve.

Spoon over tarragon marinara, garnish with remaining halved mushrooms and fresh basil leaves.

<3, JMK

vegan, semi-raw, gluten-free

Another recent craving for Mexican food got me experimenting again, and just like other similar dishes such as tacos and enchiladas, it works incredibly well with raw.  I believe it’s a combination of both the seasonings and the ingredients to which they are applied compliment each other famously.  Best of all, this deceivingly labor-intensive, elegantly presented dish requires quite the contrary.  It is so easy to make and friendly to those who are getting raw-acclimated.

I opted to slow-roast the poblanos for about 2 hours at a low oven temperature (200 degrees), using what I call the CWC (cooking with care) technique.  You can of course, alternatively use the dehydrator for a 100% raw meal. I chose the former because I prefer the texture, flavor, and moisture-retention that slow-roasting provides.  Once roasted, carefully cut a slit down one side of the pepper, forming a pocket. Gently remove seed membrane.

For the base of the “rice”, I once again used my favorite combination of jicama and pinenuts at a 3 to 1 ratio, reminiscent of Pure Food & Wine and Raw Food, Real World.  Add them to a food processor along with 2 cloves of garlic and a light sprinkling of sea salt and blitz to a rice-like consistency.  Then spread on Teflex sheets and dehydrate for an hour or two, to remove excess moisture.  To bring it all together and turn it into “confetti rice”, I combined the jicama and pinenut mixture with fresh sweet corn kernels, chopped green onion, chopped cilantro, diced grape tomatoes, ground cumin, paprika, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper.  Keep checking the seasonings and adjust if needed.  Stuff this mixture into the poblanos.

The tomato-chipotle salsa cruda turned out a bit more spicy than anticipated, and that says a lot because I am spicy food queen!  But it was smoky and delicious, used sparingly. I used 6 halved and pitted roma tomatoes, 6 sundried tomatoes in olive oil, 1 garlic clove, chili powder, Sambhar curry powder, cocoa powder, chipotle powder (SPICY), a pinch of freshly ground nutmeg, agave, and sea salt, and blended until ultra smooth.

The cilantro crema really helped neutralize the heat of the salsa cruda.  One cup of soaked cashews, a big handful of fresh cilantro, 1 fat garlic clove, flax seed oil, sea salt, pepper, and cold water were blended together till silky smooth.

AND finally, though it may sound like an unusual combination, I enjoyed a wonderful 2004 Côtes du Rhône Rouge by E. Guigal with my poblano pepper meal.

<3, JMK

(vegan)

Looking back through my blog’s recipe entries, I think it’s becoming pretty obvious I have a thing for Asian food.  It all started when I first started cooking at about age 10. I’d come home from school and head straight for the packaged 10 cent ramen noodles, adding my own fresh vegetables to them, and thinking I was the gourmet shit!

This black rice and tofu dish was a rather whimsical experiment.  I’ve had the rice in my pantry for a while, just waiting for the right time and inspiration to fool with it.  Chinese black rice, also known as Chinese Forbidden black rice, is a gorgeous short-grain glutenous rice with a sweet flavor and chewy texture.  It turns indigo or deep purple in its cooking liquid and smells slightly grape-like.  It can be used for both sweet and savory dishes.

This week at the Fresh Market, I zealously grabbed about 5 pounds of some lovely organic roma tomatoes since I’m pretty sure that these opportunities will be few and far between as we near summer’s end.  I know I’ve said this before, but those babies are the absolute perfect cooking tomato, uplifting anything they touch with an incredibly sweet and rich tomatoey dimension.  There is nothing else quite like it.  Although many people don’t think of using tomatoes in Asian cooking, it is actually quite common in Szechuan cuisine and throughout Southern China, and Malaysia. Tomatoes and five-spice?  Hmmmmm….

When it comes to five-spice powder (typically a blend of fennel, star anise, cinnamon, cloves, and white pepper), it’s not on my top 10 list of turn-to Asian spices or condiments.  As a matter of fact, any that I’ve bought in the past would just go to waste since I’d use it only once and the whole bottle would end up being shoved to the back of my spice drawer left to go stale.  Well, I got a five-spice itch and imagined searing some tofu that had been coated with it, and somehow incorporating those amazing tomatoes.

So as it came together: I took a few romas, quarted them, and marinated them in equal parts of hoisin and Chinese chili sauce, minced garlic, and grated ginger.  I let them sit and smolder in all those wonderful flavors for about 30 minutes.

Some dehydrated shitake mushroom caps were reconstituted in hot water and then cut into quarters.

I cut extra-firm organic tofu into 1 1/2 inch filets, placed them between kitchen towels, and squeezed for about 30 minutes with the weight of a cast iron skillet placed on top to remove all excess water.  I then sprinkled them with shoyu, followed by a liberal coating of five-spice powder, seared them in a wok with grapeseed oil, and removed them to cool before being cut into triangles.

To prepare the rice, I sauteed a cup with olive oil, a dash of shoyu, and minced garlic in the bottom of a Le Creuset pot (I had to mention Le Creuset, I am so proud of my collection!) then simmered it with vegetable broth for about 35 minutes.  Once finished, I added some diced green onions.

Finally, in a hot wok with the same grapeseed oil used to sear the tofu, I added the tomatoes and their marinade, plus the quartered shitake caps, and stir fried just until the tomatoes began to soften and release their juices.  I added the tofu back in and gave it a quick stir to bring all flavors together.

After plating the rice and tomatoes, I garnished with some chopped cilantro.

The verdict?  This is one of my most successful experiments.  Five-spice powder will no longer go to waste! It went perfectly with the richness of the tomatoes, the meatiness of the tofu’s texture, and chewy shitakes.  The hoisin-chili marinade was both sweet and spicy, but not too stingy-spicy, just a nice warmth throughout my mouth.  Hoisin sauce and romas really love each other!  The black rice was just an added interesting and exotic dimension.  YUM!

<3, JMK