Some New Stuff

All of the food we fixed on Friday for this week was sold, so I had to start over today. I had plenty of cashew cheeze to work with, so we had a lot of fun. First I had to make some things for customers who wanted items delivered today, but that was done by 8 a.m. Then I made more cheddar cheeze, vanilla yogurt silk, Queso Dulce, and cucumber salad. I decided to experiment with some cashew cheeze alfreda, but we haven't eaten it yet, so I'll have to report on that when we eat it.

Here's the recipe for the "pasta":

1 whole zucchini shredded
1 red pepper, julienned
1/4 lb carrot, shredded
a touch of basil
some parsley
enough alfreda to sauce the dish

I plan on sprinkling some pine nut parmesan on it when it is served.

The alfredo is cashew cheeze (2 c) mixed with 1 T lemon juice, 1 T Nama Shoyu, 2 garlic cloves, 1 t apple cider vinegar, an jalopeno, some salt and pepper.

One other cashew cheeze experiment was an olive sandwich spread to which some red pepper, an jalopeno, and some green olives were added. I don't know if green olives are raw or not, but I love them anyway, and they made this spread taste really good. I pulled some alicheezits from the dehydrator to spread it on. Wow! It was really good. I think it would be really good with sliced tomatoes on it as well when we use it for a meal.

My last experiment was for a grapefruit cocktail made with some delicious grapefruits we got for the market this weekend. I just mixed grapefruit juice with agave nectar and water. It was a delicious soft drink. 5 cups juice, 2 1/2 cups agave. Fill up the gallon container with water. Serve over ice.

I also put some Irish moss on to soak and made it into gel tonight. I filled up 4 pint jars with a 1/2 lb. of moss and had 3/4 cup left over. I couldn't resist trying a recipe for butterscotch pudding I have been dying to try, so I was glad that I had the almonds soaking that were needed for the almond mylk that is the basis. The recipe calls for "thick" almond mylk, so I interpreted that as 4 cups of water to 2 cups almonds, soaked, instead of the usual 8 cups of water. This made 4 1/2 cups of almond creme, of which 2 1/2 cups were used for the pudding with the 3/4 cup of Irish moss. Then I added 1/2 cup agave nectar, 1 teaspoon butterscotch extract (from Frontier - organic, no alcohol), and 1/2 a vanilla bean. It tasted great, but we have to wait for it to set-up to see how the texture works.

All the soaked almonds had had their 48 hours dehydrating time, so they came out tonight. We need to get more alicheezits going, but that will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm tuckered out, and Roger's tired of washing dishes (4 loads today!). I'm lucky to have him to help. He's a great sous chef.

Also enjoying the wonderful stone fruits that are in season: peaches, pluots, cherries, plums... does food get any better than this?

Menu Planning?

We had bananas mambo for breakfast since our bananas are turning fast. I made the almond butter from some almonds dehydrating that had been soaked and sprouted. It made a very nice butter. I mixed it with some honey, 1/2 a vanilla bean, and some cinnamon and dipped it on some bananas. We topped that with raisins and spiced sunflower seeds. It was quite tasty.

For lunch we had some of our leftovers. I mixed the leftover alfredo sauce with some coconut water to thin it, then topped some corn and marinated mushrooms to make some kind of soup - I have no idea what kind! Mushroom corn chowder? Nevertheless, it was tasty. Then Roger had the leftover Crabby Cakes with some sauce leftover from salmon, a lemon caper sauce. I had some of the refried beans and sour cream on lettuce leaves. Wyatt had his usual selection of corn chips.

It is interesting to me how easy it is to use leftovers on this dietary plan. I have always tried to use my leftovers creatively, but it was work. I find this very easy. It is like everything goes with everything else. There aren't any bad combinations. If it sounds good, it probably is. Even when it doesn't sound particularly good, it might be. You just have to take a chance. The point is, very little has to go to waste. My biggest problem is that I will buy something thinking I will use it and then decide not to prepare it. Eventually it will go bad. I have a real problem with cole vegetables. I just don't like them very much, but I know I should make them. At least 1/2 the time they go bad and then I don't have to make them; problem solved! A better solution would be to not buy them in the first place. An even better solution would be to make up menus including those vegetables and develop the discipline to actually prepare them. Actually Wyatt made the suggestion today to make up menus. His mother always did that, he said, and then they always knew what they were going to be eating. He really doesn't like not knowing what's for dinner. In all honesty, I don't know until I get in the fridge and start stirring things up. I don't know why I'm like that. It's better to do it the other way, I suppose. I guess that is one of my many faults. I'm not working too hard to overcome it though.