Raw Zucchini Fettuccine and Sun Dried Tomatoes in Cashew Sour Cream Sauce - Vegan MoFo Day 8

Wow, that name was quite a mouthful, wasn't it? Even by my usual standards. I promise that this dish is worth every syllable though!

When it comes to raw food, there's nothing like zucchini/courgette to replace regular pastas; be it zucchini lasagna, flat zucchini noodles, or if you have a fancy spiralizer tool (which is so on my I-want-this list), zucchini spaghetti! It's the one vegetable, which when combined with a creamy raw sauce, has that perfect al-dente pasta texture. It's something that you just have to taste to believe!

Since it is of utmost importance that the zucchini pasta is super thin, I use a vegetable peeler to quickly scrape it into flat, fettuccine-like noodles. This whole dish takes five minutes to put together but tastes like a laborious work of art! :D

In the summer I make real sun dried tomatoes. But since we've barely had any sunlight in this monsoon season, I made the batch used in this recipe by dehydrating cherry tomato halves in the oven at 70°C. If you don't want to make your own, you can buy them locally in Bangalore at Food Hall and a few other grocery stores that carry speciality goods.

If you like, you can substitute fresh cherry tomatoes for the sun dried ones in this recipe. But sun dried tomatoes have a significantly richer flavour and better texture, so if you are able to get your hands on them, you should definitely use them.

The nutritional yeast makes the sauce mind-blowingly flavourful. In India, you can currently order it online from i2cook. I know there are a few more sources of these precious, golden flakes coming up here soon and I'll keep you updated about them. :)

Here's a step-by-step HowDo guide (oh, how I enjoy making these HowDos) for this recipe, followed by a typed out, text version.

Raw Zucchini/Courgette Fettuccine and Sun Dried Tomatoes in Cashew Sour Cream Sauce

1 small Zucchini
1/2 C Sun Dried Tomatoes
1/4 C Cashews
2 cloves of Garlic
1 T Nutritional Yeast
5 Raisins
Juice of 1/2 Lime
Salt

* Wash the zucchini well and using a vegetable peeler, scrape it into flat, fettuccine noodles (including the peel) and keep them aside
* When you reach the soft, seed portion at the heart of the zucchini, chop it up roughly and pop it into a mixie jar
* Add the cashews, garlic, raisins and salt give the grinder a quick whirr
* Squeeze in the lime juice and add a splash of clean, filtered water
* Blend into a smooth, creamy sauce, adding more water as required
* Place the zucchini noodles in a serving dish and add the sun dried tomatoes
* Pour the cashew sour cream sauce over everything and mix well
* Enjoy! :)

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup - guest post by Manasa of Cure yourself with Food - Vegan MoFo 2013 Day 7

Today, I have a special guest post from Manasa Rajan of Cure yourself with Food. Manasa is a Nutrition Coach who lives here in Bangalore, India. I met her for the first time at one of our Vegan Bengaluru monthly potlucks and was very impressed to hear about the healthy, high raw diet that she and her family, including her young daughter, follow.

When I decided to include a few guest posts for MoFo this time, I knew one of her recipes would be perfect to share here. I was very happy when she agreed to create a raw recipe for my blog. And what a delicious, refreshing recipe it is!

Apart from her blog, Manasa can also be found on Facebook and Google Plus. Thank you for guest posting on Veganosaurus today, Manasa! :)

Now on to her post...

--

When Susmitha asked me to do a guest post on one of my raw vegan recipes, I was a bit tempted to do a raw dessert with nuts and fruits. But lately I have been craving more savoury and spicy foods; my lunch seems to comprise of some kind of raw soup everyday. So, I decided to share one of my favourite raw soup recipes, which is making its presence on a loop in my kitchen. Creamy tomato basil soup!!!

The potted tomato plants on my balcony are offering little plump red beauties, which I cannot get myself to put on the stove to 'cook', I want to preserve and enjoy them in their natural, whole (and organic) lusciousness.

So, here's to raw vegan (really) fast food!!!

Ingredients

1/4 cup raw cashews (soaked for 4-5 hours)
5-6 medium sized tomatoes
1 1/2 cups hot water
1 ghost pepper (or a regular green chilly)
3-4 black pepper corns
1-2 tsp dried basil
1 clove of garlic
sea salt to taste
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Process

Rinse and drain the cashews. Put all the ingredients in a high powered blender and blend. The motion of the high powered blender like a Vitamix will heat up the soup, but if you are using a regular blender, you might need to run it a bit longer and be really careful with the steam being generated in the jar. Warm the soup a bit (do not boil), if you prefer. You can taste the soup and add more seasoning if required.

Stuffed Bajji Menasinakayi with Walnut Cilantro Pesto - Vegan MoFo 2013 Day 6

Last Thursday, we had a little freak out session at Veganosaurus Headquarters, but by the end of the day things had calmed down. After successfully posting a raw, vegan recipe for the fifth day of Vegan MoFo all of us went to bed with peaceful smiles on our faces, blissfully unaware of what was in store for us the following day. *insert ominous music here*

On Friday afternoon, our Internet's phone line went dead! *Gaaahhhhhh* I was left to depend on the data plan on my phone to have access to the Internet for the long weekend. Yes, I did freak out for a while but soon I decided to go with the flow, and calmed down.

How did I keep up the morale around here, you ask? Well, I just did not bother to mention anything about the phone line to Veganosaurus, Kip and the other monsters. Thankfully, they were too busy stuffing their faces with Gowri and Ganesha festival food to wonder why I wasn't Vegan MoFo-ing. And so, all was peaceful in these parts through the weekend. And before they could figure out what had happened, we got our precious Internet connection back! *sigh of relief*



Today I'm back with a very special recipe I put together, Stuffed Bajji Menasinakayi with Walnut Cilantro Pesto. This recipe could work with any kind of Chilli Peppers, but I decided to use these because they are very easily available locally (they're commonly used to make deep fried snacks called Bajjis), are the perfect size for stuffing and can be enjoyed raw because they are not overly spicy.

Before I move on to the recipe, I just have to make an appeal. My fellow Vegan MoFo-ers, if you have Captcha Text/Word Verification for commenting on your blogs, please, please, please disable it! At least during MoFo. It's such a slow, painful, annoying process to go through when someone wants to leave nice comments on your blog posts. If you're wondering why you have so few comments on your posts, it's very likely because of that darned Word Verification. Try disabling it for a while and see what a huge difference it will make. And if you're worried about those pesky spammers, just put your comments on moderation like most of us have. That way, you can publish the genuine comments and report the spam ones.



And now, Stuffed Bajji Menasinakayi with Walnut Cilantro Pesto. Since this is a recipe I totally invented, I thought it would be good to have a step-by-step video tutorial plus a text version of the recipe for it. Here you go...

 

 

Stuffed Bajji Menasinakayi with Walnut Cilantro Pesto

For the filling:
1 C Moong Sprouts (Mung Bean Sprouts)
2 small Carrots - grated
Lots of Lemon Juice
Salt

* Mix, cover and keep aside for half an hour for the flavours to blend.

For the peppers:
4 Bajji Menasinakayis (Banana Peppers)

* Make long, lengthwise slits in the peppers and carefully scoop out the seeds using a spoon.
* Save the seeds for the pesto and keep the peppers aside.

For the pesto:
1/2 C Walnuts
1/2 C Cilantro
1 T Raisins
1 fat clove of Garlic
Seeds from the de-seeded Bajji Menasinakayis
Salt

* Grind everything together.
* Add a little water and blend well into a creamy paste.

How to proceed:
* Stuff the hollowed out chillies with the sprout mixture.
* Place them on a plate and pour oodles of pesto over them.
* Enjoy! :) 

 

Raw Almond Pulp Vadai/Cracker Sandwich - Vegan MoFo 2013 Day 5

Day 5. Wondering why I'm posting so late in the day? We had an incident at Veganosaurus headquarters last night. I was happily blog hopping, when suddenly, the laptop charger stopped working! It would be bad in any other situation, but during Vegan MoFo...it's a freaking disaster!!! And to top it off, the Apple store I went to this afternoon didn't have the appropriate one in stock. They told me it would take them a whole week to get it for me. Aaaarrrrrrrghhhhhh!!!

*deep breath* *deep breath*

Okay okay, I know I'm being melodramatic here. But if I'm this way, imagine what our mascot was like. The stress really built up from last night and by this evening, when it became unbearable, someone exploded into a screaming fit!



After being all screamed out, Veganosaurus just dropped down and gave up on this cruel, cruel world. That's when Kip hopped by to see what the ruckus was all about. He just said a quick hello and was hopping away, when Veganosaurus, who couldn't bear to see his cheerfulness decided to drag himself to Kip to share the depressing news.

It was at this point that I had to pull myself together and interfere before a damper was put on everyone's mood around here. After all, Veganosaurus headquarters runs on joy and cheer. Without those two ingredients, we're doomed.

We did a healing, gratitude meditation where we focused on the many other gadgets around our home which *do* work fine. In the end, everyone was calm and feeling thankful that we have other ways of getting today's blog post done. So finally, here we are! :)

Remember on the first day of MoFo, in my Almond Mylk tutorial, I spoke about saving the pulp after extracting the mylk? Today I'm going to share one of the things I like making with the pulp. This is a recipe for my Raw Almond Pulp Vadai/Cracker type thingies. They just involve mixing a few things into the almond pulp, shaping them into vadais and sun drying them. Simple to mix up but they take a long time to dry, especially in the kind of cloudy weather we've been having here. They are worth the patience though. Especially if you're on a completely raw diet and would like to have something snacky.

Raw Almond Pulp Vadai (Cracker) Sandwiches

For the Vadais:
1 batch Almond Mylk Pulp (approximately 1 1/2 C)
1 Carrot
5 Green Chillies
3 Cloves of Garlic
3 T Sesame Seed Powder
1/4 tsp Asafoetida Powder
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
Salt

* Grate the carrots
* Crush the green chillies, garlic and salt together

* Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix them well with your hands
* Taste and adjust the flavours and spices to your liking

* Shape the dough into rounds and flatten them in between your palms
* Place them on a plate that's been lined with wax paper

* Dry them under a hot sun for a few days, flipping them every other day, until they are completely dry
* In case of dull weather, you can place the vadais in your oven at 70°C and dehydrate them by leaving the door of the oven slightly open

* Do this for a few hours each day, over a period of 4-5 days, until they are dry
* Whether you're sun drying or oven drying, in the nights, keep the plate in your fridge, uncovered, because it helps to dry them out more

* You can eat these vadais plain but they tend to have a dry mouthfeel and not too easy to swallow. So it is best to enjoy them with a creamy dip or turn them into pretty tomato sandwiches.

For each Sandwich:
1 Vadai
2 slices of Naati Tomatoes (or other juicy variety)
Tulsi (Indian Basil) Leaves
Crushed Black Pepper

* Place the vadai in between the tomato slices
* Top the sandwich with chiffonaded tulsi leaves and some crushed pepper
* Bite into them and taste the delicious textures and flavours
* Enjoy! :)

Making Sprouts, 21 Day Kickstart India and a yummy Chutney Video by Dr. Nandita - Vegan MoFo 2013 Day 4

Wow, it's already Day 4 of the Vegan Month of Food, the global vegan blogging marathon where hundreds of blogs write about vegan food, every single day (or at least weekday) of the month.

I just sat down to start typing out today's post when I read a comment by Mel on yesterday's post, where she very sweetly gave me kudos because she thought I'm going completely raw during MoFo. Haha

Though Kannada is my language, the exclamation that sprung to my mind was a Hindi one, "mujhe paagal kutte ne kaata kya?!" I won't translate it word for word because it just sounds funnier in Hindi, but what it basically means is that, I would have to be bitten-by-a-rabid-dog-bonkers to put myself through the sheer torture of going raw during Vegan MoFo. :oP

My theme for this month is Raw Vegan Foods but I'm not following a completely raw regime during this time. My intention is to just include *more* raw foods into our daily meals. At the end of the month, I'm hoping to have compiled a nice collection of raw recipes that will at some point inspire myself, and others, to try out at least one week of a completely raw diet at some point. :)

 

 

Today I have a couple of different things to share with you.

* First, there's a little video about making bean sprouts. I've shown you how to sprout Whole Green Moong aka Mung Beans because they sprout the quickest. But you could use the same process to sprout other beans too. Some of them might take longer, you just mix them once every 6-8 hours during the sprouting process. If you've never made sprouts at home from scratch before, I'd like to say that they are totally worth it. The time and effort are well rewarded. :)

 

* Then Zeeshan Ali of PCRM talks about 21 Day Kickstart India. If you haven't signed up for this program yet, I highly recommend that you do. You will get all kinds of delicious recipes and support to help you try out a healthy, vegan diet. The recipes are designed keeping in mind the people who live in India, so all ingredients will be easily accessible here. But you could try out these recipes (with a few replacements perhaps) regardless of what part of the world you live in. 21 Day Kickstart India started on 1st September, but it's never too late to sign up and give it a go. :)



U.S. Doctors, Bollywood Stars Guide 21-Day Health Challenge on Sept. 1

An Indian version of the popular 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program that has helped more than 250,000 global participants lose weight and improve their health will start Sept. 1 with the support of Bollywood stars, including Jackie Shroff, Jacqueline Fernandez, Amala Akkineni, Celina Jaitley, and Mallika Sherawat.

The free online program, available at www.21DayKickstartIndia.org, is created by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. It will offer Indians in India and around the world a research-based roadmap to jumpstart weight-loss and reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems.

The Kickstart program is based on National Institutes of Health-funded clinical research by PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D., that shows a low-fat, plant-based, dairy-free diet can help people lose weight, reverse diabetes, and implement long-term changes in eating habits and health.

“India faces a health crisis like never before,” Dr. Barnard says. “Traditional plant-based diets are being swamped by meat and processed foods, dairy product consumption is rising, and these unhealthy foods are driving obesity and diabetes rates through the roof. Our research shows the best way to lose weight and reverse disease is to jump into a completely dairy-free, plant-based diet for three weeks.”

The 21-Day Kickstart Program will be available online starting Sept. 1, and participants can sign up for free access to three weeks of recipes, nutrition information, and cooking tips, including cooking demos. Hollywood stars, including actress Alicia Silverstone, will also offer their favorite vegan recipes and tips to stay on track with the program.

* Finally, here's a recipe that Dr. Nandita Shah of SHARAN India has created for PCRM. I've mentioned here before that I am highly inspired by Dr. Nandita and all that she does to help people heal themselves by switching to a healthy, vegan diet. My parents went vegan after attending one of her Reversing Diabetes seminars and that means a lot to me. So when Zeeshan offered me a recipe from their 21 Day Kickstart website, I just had to choose one by her. It's a simple but yummy chutney. And yes, it's raw. :)



Green Cilantro-Mint Chutney

Makes about 1 cup (4 to 8 servings)

A green mint and cilantro chutney is a great complement to any meal and can be used as a sandwich spread. Mint adds freshness to the chutney while lemon or lime juice enhances the flavors of the mint and coriander and prevents discoloration of the greens. The chutney can be stored in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.

3 cups (50 grams) chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup (20 grams) chopped fresh mint
1/4 cup (60 milliliters) lemon or lime juice
1-4 green chilies, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons (15 grams) grated coconut (optional)
1/4 teaspoon (0.75 gram) ground cumin (optional)
sea salt, to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and grind to a smooth paste using very little water. Refrigerate and use as needed.