My First Raw Meal...Or..How to Eat Two Zuchinnis and a Bunch of Kale in One Sitting

If you missed my last post, I'm thinking about going raw.

Well, maybe not totally and forever, but I'd at least like to give it a try. I've been doing a lot of reading about it and health benefits seem amazing.

I'm not sure long I could do it for, but I'm thinking about starting with a week-long challenge.

For now, I've been experimenting with a few raw dishes. My first attempt was fettuccine pesto and a kale salad. The fettuccine is actually zucchini, but the pesto was pretty close to the traditional sauce - just veganized (and a little lighter). I added some chopped asparagus to bulk it up, but you'd never know.

They were both actually pretty good for first tries!

I got the ideas for the zucchini pasta and the kale salad here: http://www.learnrawfood.com/ and the pesto here: http://yeahthatveganshit.blogspot.com/.

Here's how I did it:

Vegan/Raw Fettuccine Pesto

3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup basil
1/3 cup chopped asparagus
1 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp vegetable broth
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup walnuts
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp sea salt

4 zucchinis
1 cup grape tomatoes
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Pulse first three ingredients in the food processor. Add the water, broth and lemon juice and pulse to thin out. Add the walnut and continue processing. Add the olive oil and process and then add the nutritional yeast and salt to taste.

Use a vegetable peeler to peel thin strips from the zucchini lengthwise. Keep slicing until you get to the seedy center.

I don't like to waste anything so I sliced the center widthwise into little circles. I sliced the grape tomatoes in half and tossed both with the vinegar.

Mix some of the sauce with some of the zucchini noodles and top with the tomato mixture.

Vegan/Raw Kale Salad
1 bunch kale
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon
4 dried apricots chopped
1/4 cup raw cashews chopped

Julienne the kale so it's in super thin short strips. Pour on the oil and lemon juice and massage it in with your hands to help break it down so it looks steamed. Add the apricots and nuts, toss and serve.

On another note, you wouldn't believe how easy sprouting lentils is! I'll save that story, and my fun experience making homemade almond milk for next time. Fun stuff!