Today we un-cooked.

Uncooked Lunch

Open Young Coconut

Jicama Fries

Carrot Mint Soup in the Vitamix

Red Pepper "Ketchup" and Basil Avocado Mayo

Uncooked Lunch Plate

Kim (from the Affairs of Living blog) and I finally got together today to make some food following our initial so-so experiment with a savory scone a few months back.  I’ll admit I was both excited and nervous to make raw food with Kim, because her list of food allergies is long (we’re talking far, far more than the common food allergens), she is on a strict anti-candida diet, and I was just panicky that my kitchen would be full of cross-contaminations galore.  For some reason, citrus fruits especially had me worried about whether we’d be able to make something yummy – I almost always add orange or lemon to both savory and sweet raw dishes I make to get a bright, fresh flavor.  But I didn’t need to despair, because we made a really delicious allergy-free raw spread!

I like cooking with other people as well as for other people.  You get to teach and learn so much and solve problems together.  I got to teach Kim how to open a young coconut, and we used the water to add a sweet dimension to some soup we made (Kim can’t eat sugar, or fresh fruit, at the moment).  Our soup turned out delicious!  Not much more than local carrots, fresh mint, coconut water, umeboshi vinegar, a little coriander and salt made for a thick and refreshing (and pretty) side to our other dishes.

And Kim taught me about vitamin C powder, which you can find at most health food stores; it solved our citrus-free problem as it added a nice tangy taste to a lot of our concoctions, and you only need the tiniest bit.  We decided we were going to make some seed and veggie burgers and jicama fries as our main entree, and decided we needed some condiments to go along with them.  I had a ripe avocado and a half in the fridge and Kim whipped up the most delicious basil avocado “mayo” you can imagine!  Rich, creamy, with a hint of spicy Thai basil…I think my knees may have buckled a little.  The only other ingredients were a teensy bit of water, some olive oil, and a pinch of vitamin C to get it right – I’d take this over any other vegan mayo I’ve tried.  I’m also a girl who loves ketchup for her burgers (raw or not) and tomato-y things in general.  But it not really being fresh tomato season at all, and Kim having a tomato allergy besides, we improvised a red pepper “ketchup” sweetened with stevia, seasoned with soy-free adzuki bean miso, allspice and herb salt, and thickened up a little bit with ground chia.  It was like xmas!

The jicama fries happened somewhere in there too, tossed in olive oil, garlic and onion powder, salt, and paprika with another pinch of vitamin C powder.  I’ll be honest and say they don’t taste like “real” French fries, but they satisfy this wonderful need for crunchy, crispy goodness in a way that they don’t need to taste like French fries (not to mention are about a thousand times better for you and have a super high water content for us parched folks).  I definitely need more jicama fries in my life!

We made some burgers from the book Living Cuisine called Lower East Side Patties; broccoli, onion, garlic, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, fennel, black pepper, thyme (instead of oregano, which we had to avoid), and a bit of olive oil.  We dehydrated them a bit, and they were very green and very tasty, served on red leaf lettuce with cucumbers and the basil avo-mayo.  What a plate of delicious raw goodness and the loveliest un-cooking company to share it with…

See?  No reason to be nervous at all.  Tasty food, whether raw or cooked, can still be made under a plethora of restrictions, which makes me extra inspired to keep exploring allergy-free, wholefoods cooking.

Though that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna post a recipe quite soon for you-can’t-believe-they’re-gluten-free coconut lime cupcakes with avocado-lime frosting.  Uh huh, that’s right.  Yum.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 6:53 am. It is filed under Blog-related, Featured and tagged with Burgers and Patties, Raw, sauces and spices, Wellness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.