Raw Mac 'n' Cheese

Recipe From Matthew Kenney's Everyday Raw

Sweet potato crisps

This is a simple raw recipe! Peel a sweet potato, then use a mandoline to shave thin rounds. Dehydrate for 3-5 hours at 40°C. They look lovely and taste delicious! You will be amazed at how much flavor natural crisps have!

My only issue was they were not as crispy as I would have liked. I need some dehydrating tips! How can I ensure a satisfactory crispiness?

Eggplant bacon

I came across this beautiful post on Raw+Simple with Matthew Kenney's raw eggplant bacon recipe plus pictures. Yum! Grease! were the two words that sprung into my mind. After completing the 30-Day Raw Feast I celebrated by buying myself a dehydrator. The first vegetable I dehydrated was tomatoes, the second was eggplant. The result was not bad! Very tasty (delicious with sunflower seed paté), but not crispy enough.

I recently made sweet potato chips in the dehydrator and they were also not as crispy as I like. A question for expert dehydraters: what is the trick to crispiness? Lower temperature for longer time or a higher temperature for a shorter time period?

Below a visual step-by-step of making eggplant bacon! Check out the link above for the full recipe.

Step #1
Peel the eggplant, sprinkle with salt, and let sit.

Step #2

Marinate the eggplant

Step #3

Lay out eggplant in the dehydrator

Step #4

Eat! It even resembles bacon.

NYT Op-Ed: Chemicals in our Food, Our Bodies

By Nicholas D. Kristof

Your body is probably home to a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. It’s a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — to the tune of six pounds per American per year. That’s a lot of estrogen.

Read on...  

Yet another reason to eat a high raw diet! Why trust your food preparation to a corporation when you could buy the food and make it yourself -- at a reduced cost?

Final sprint!

I am rounding the corner and starting the last week of the 30-Day Raw Feast! (Yes, I am back to calling it a feast!)

Lunch today is pumpkin soup with fennel, red onion and zucchini croutons. Does this look as delicious to everyone else as it does to me?

Halloween Raw Chili Recipe

Happy All Hallow's Eve! What a great day to light the jack 'o' lantern, turn on some spooky tunes, and brew and stew a delicious autumn meal. In pagan religions, today marks the end of the harvest. Any food left unharvested on the fields tonight would be tainted by the living dead. Christians placed All Saint's Day (Toussaint here in France!) on Nov. 1 to Christianize the pagan holidays. To celebrate the beautiful autumn vegetables and start of the holiday season, I decided to make my first raw chili. And it was delicious! Recipe below and Halloween soundtrack in the sidebar for you!


Halloween Raw Chili Recipe
Serves 3-4 people

3/4 cup walnuts soaked
(If you have time to soak the walnuts the night before, let them soak for 6 hours or so, and then drain and dry. If you want to make the chili right now, start to soak the walnuts at the beginning of your preparation and you can use them this way as well).

For your chili base, add:
4 vine-ripened tomatoes seeded (they are a bit smaller than regular tomatoes)
10 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes (water-soaked would be fine, but I cannot find them here)
1/2 each green and yellow bell pepper (or whatever colors you like)
1 stalk celery
1 hot pepper (or to your tastebuds)
1 garlic clove
3 T olive oil (cold pressed organic please!)

Process in a food processor at med-high speed, occasionally stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Process until all chopped (3-4 brief pulses) and then add your spices:
3 tsp cumin
4 tsp chili powder
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
Juice of 1/2 lime

Of course, these were the spices I had at home and felt like adding. Be creative! Fresh cilantro would be great, go spicier if you like, add onion powder, etc.


Then process the base again until it is purée, almost liquidy. Pour into a dish.

For your chili mixings, combine in a separate bowl:
2 vine-ripened tomatoes
the other 1/2 of your two peppers
3 shallots minced
2 mushrooms
the 3/4 cup walnuts, drained
3 tsp olive oil
2 tsp tamari
2 tsp agave
1/2 tsp sea salt

This is the mix that will make your chili chunky, so cut the veggies to the size you would like to chew. I did the peppers a bit bigger than the mushrooms, but next time, I would make the peppers smaller and the mushrooms bigger. The fleshy mushrooms are really nice combined with the crunchy walnuts.

Stir together to mix the flavors, then pour into your chili base.And voila, you are ready to serve. Eat and enjoy. Yum!