Temaki-zushi

We're finally back from a few busy weeks off and are truly glad to be spending days in our sunlit kitchen again, cooking and shooting away.
Here is a question that has been on our mind ever since we started eating raw - what is a sushi lover to do in our situation? Turns out, there is a way, and a pretty delicious one at that.
This recipe is adapted from Raw Food/Real World. Temaki-zushi is what is widely referred to as hand-rolls - ingredients wrapped into nori or rice paper by hand and often right at the table. Compared to maki sushi (sushi rolls), this variety is much less involved and requires less equipment.
We were on quite a hunt for enoki mushrooms, the elongated white ones that you see below, and bugged our Whole Foods manager until he ordered some specially for us. Besides for providing excellent visual satisfaction, enoki turned out to be very tasty.


Jicama root is a fine substitute for sushi rice - it's slightly sweet and delicate in consistency and resembles the flavour of rice when combined with rice vinegar.


Marinated mushrooms:


Ingredients prepared and ready to roll:












We've recently become fascinated with Japanese attention to detail and studied a sushi encyclopedia to try out the garnishes for the plate. Cucumber peel, ginger pickled with and without beet juice, oregano leaf, and lemon curls.








Pickled ginger:
1-2 large gingerroot - peeled and sliced as thin as possible
about 2 tablespoons of sea salt
1 1/2 cup raw apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup beet juice

In a bowl, combine the ginger with salt. After letting it sit for around 5 minutes, rinse and drain. Mix 2/3 of the total amount of ginger with 1 cup of apple cider vinegar and 1/2 cup of agave. Slice the rest of the ginger in thin strips, mix with the remaining vinegar and agave, and add beet juice. Refrigerate both types of pickled ginger for at least 1 day. Drain and squeeze before use.

Marinated mushrooms:
1 cup shiitake mushroom caps - sliced
1/2 pack enoki mushrooms (optional)
1/4 cup nama shoyu
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix all the ingredients and marinate for 1 hour.

Jicama "rice":
6 cups jicama root - roughly chopped
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 1/2 tablespoons sea salt
1/4 cup brown rice vinegar
3 tablespoons agave nectar

In a food processor, pulse the jicama and pine nuts until they resemble rice grains. Put the "rice" between two stacks of paper towels in order to absorb the juice. Combine with the salt, vinegar and agave and dehydrate at 115F for 2 hours, mixing occasionally.

The rest:
Untoasted nori sheets - cut in half
2 ripe avocados - sliced
1 bunch sunflower sprouts
2 green onions - thinly sliced

Put the sheet of nori shiny side down, take a spoonful of "rice" and spread on the left side of the sheet. Place all the ingredients onto the "rice" diagonally. Start wrapping from the left corner, making a cone shaped roll. At the end, wet the nori at the tip to secure the shape.

Sesame Sauce (optional):
This sauce usually does not come with sushi, but we've been craving for this particular combination.
4 tablespoons sesame tahini
4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons nama shoyu
2 tablespoons purified water

Combine all the ingredients thoroughly in a jar or mixing bowl. Serve as sauce on top or dip.

Although the recipe appears complicated, it's not - many of the ingredients (the pickled ginger and marinated mushrooms) can be prepared beforehand.

Creamy Asparagus Soup

Asparagus is a vegetable that I grew to like during my years in America - we never cooked with it in Russia. Up until recently, I prepared it the conventional way - steamed or grilled. Every time while cutting off tough ends of the spear, I would chop off a little piece for myself to enjoy its crunchy and fresh flavour. It always tasted better than cooked and the thought of serving raw asparagus often crossed my mind. Asparagus is a wonderful spring vegetable and is especially rich in vitamin K and folic acid, as well as a whole spectrum of other vitamins and minerals.
This soup is as easy in preparation, as it is impressive in taste and presentation. I like to serve it at small gatherings, when other dishes are much more involved. It's also a sure way to impress skeptical eaters. I never announce that dishes are raw prior to my guests tasting them. Instead, I wait for their pleased faces and then surprise them with the news.
















The recipe is adapted from Awesome to be Rawsome.
Soup:
1/4 cup of raw cashew nuts per 6-8 asparagus spears
juice of 1/2 lemon
some purified water
sea salt to taste

Optional garnish:
I use kelp noodles, which are completely neutral in taste and take on the flavours within your dish, bringing interesting noodle-like texture and loads of health benefits to the plate
Wild mushrooms, prepared according to this recipe

Soak the cashews in purified water for about an hour. Cut or break off tough ends of asparagus and discard them. Cut off the tender tips of the spears and combine with kelp noodles (if using), squeezing the lemon juice over them to marinate for a bit, while you make the soup. Cut the remaining asparagus spears into pieces and put them into a blender together with the cashews. Cover with water, blend until smooth, and add salt if desired. Slice the asparagus tips into smaller pieces. Stir them into the blended mixture along with lemon juice and noodles. When pomegranate is in season, you can sprinkle several kernels on top for an amazing contrast in colour and taste.

Regular "raw," or untoasted cashews that are sold in grocery stores are most often not raw. After harvest, nuts are put through a steaming process, which softens their hard outer shells. Apparently, only a couple of cashew producers use a technique that doesn't involve high temperature steaming. Thus, if it's important to you, look for "really raw cashews" which are available through various websites (although the reliability is often unclear, as there is a lack of regulations).
Apologies for the recent lack of posts. We're both busy as bees. We'll be back up to regular programming in a bit.
Post by: A

Maple Leaf Snack Bars

This is our favourite post so far: making these snack bars felt so much like being little and having the freedom and creativity to fashion something joyful with your own hands. Back in my childhood in the USSR, toy choices were few, so we always found ways to make our own trinkets to play with. One winter comes to mind, when we as a flock of neighborhood kids dyed water different colours, poured it into glass test tubes, and stuck them into the snow bank to freeze, ending up with a surreal rainbow of ornaments. This lack of readily available goodies forced us to be inventive, and not only with toys, but sweets as well. We came up with our own strange and wonderful concoctions, and they always tasted better than any store-bought delicacy.

As much as we love the Floridian sunshine and warm beaches, we miss having a more than subtle turn of seasons, especially the brilliant colours of autumn leaves. And funnily enough, this June we're going to travel to Canada for the first time, so the lovely shape of the maple leaf seemed like a perfect inspiration for our homemade raw snack bars.

We started with three basic colours, advancing as we go by creating different shades and patterns of fallen leaves.

Our objective was to use only raw ingredients, working from scratch whenever possible. Thus, for the green palate we selected fresh spinach, green beans and kiwi, drying them gently and turning into powder in the coffee grinder. Dried spinach tasted surprisingly good by itself, promising some possibilities for future recipes. Raw pistachios and pumpkin seeds added some substance and color variations into the green scale. The powders were mixed with fresh kiwi puree and some agave syrup.



For the yellow colour, fresh mango and bananas were gently dried and turned into powder. We also ground freeze dried corn, carrots, almonds and bee pollen. Fresh mango puree and agave syrup served as a base for the dry ingredients.



For the red selection, we dried fresh strawberries and powdered them along with goji berries, and freeze dried raspberries, carrots and pomegranate. Here, the base was a fresh strawberry and raspberry puree with some agave syrup. Some mixtures had a bit of hemp protein and maca powder added to them.

The colour mixes were packed into lightly oiled maple leaf molds and left to air dry until no longer sticky. After some quick freezer time, the bars were ready to be removed from their molds and put to dry in the dehydrator at 115F.



We were able to build many different shades of green, red and yellow. Every bar had its unique structure and colouring.















The snack bars hold well in the refrigerator, in an air tight container.
Paloma liked looking at the bars almost as much as hungrily consuming them. Her favourite was one made entirely out of goji berries and berry puree, as she is a complete goji fiend. M preferred the green leafs, while A could not pick any one colour over the other.
With these snack bars, the possibilities for ingredients, hues, and shapes are endless. This project presents a perfect opportunity for making healthy and playful snacks with your children, while teaching them about colour, shape, and flavour.
Post by: A