Experimental Week

We've had a couple of fun things happen this week. First there was the olives. We're all quite the fan of the olive, especially since we went raw vegan. So we're always looking for good ones. This week we got in some kalabata olives and some oil cured ones. They're both great, and I like them equally well: the kalabatas for eating out of hand, and the oil-cured ones as an addition to my salads.


Another reason I had been looking for a pitted olive is because I wanted to make an olive tapenade. I wish I could say I had the time to sit around pitting olives all day, but I don't, so I was looking for a source for pitted olives. The tapenade I made using a combination of these 2 olives is FANTASTIC. I really have to use some willpower to not just eat it out of the bowl with a spoon. I know I don't need that much fat, even if it is good fat, in my diet.

I had purchased a tapenade, but it just didn't taste quite right; I was anxious to make my own. There is a spinach recipe I wanted to use it in:


Spinach with Olive Tapenade

mix together:

9 loose handfuls spinach
2 cubed avocados
handful of soaked and dehydrated walnuts or pecans
generous tablespoon olive tapenade
dice in a few Roma tomatoes
3 tablespoons unpasteurized apple cider vinegar
3 generous tablespoons maple syrup
pinch or 2 sea salt
cracked black pepper to taste
2 generous tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Also, tried these new olives in our olive spread. Man, that is some good stuff. Again, have to exercise some control...

The second fun thing was that we decided to experiment with another dessert. Everyone seems to do great with their salads, etc., but having the comfort foods desserts provide is quite another matter. Our friend Elizabeth brought this up to us again this week, so we decided to work on another dessert we could produce in large quantities like our other ones. We need a couple more so that we have a little better rotation. Not having a dessert for a couple of weeks makes it all the more enjoyable when we get it back, right?

Anyway, our search resulted in a great new dessert we are calling Rawky Road. It is a chocolate / raisin / coconut confection topped with a coconut cream. It is not dense at all but surprisingly light and very satisfying. We hope all of you like it. It wouldn't be possible without the wonderful raw cacao we were able to find about a year ago. It is incredible! If you like to make your own chocolate treats, we heartily endorse it. I sometimes "cut" its richness with a nice raw carob (carob found at health food stores is roasted), but for this dessert, I decided to go with the full monty!

The third experiment is a hard cashew cheese I've been working on. The final product is a small experimental batch, but it is quite tangy and delicious. I couldn't find my cheese press from back in our goat milk cheesemaking days, so I ordered another one off e-bay this week. Next week, I'll put up a gallon of cashew cheese in the press so that I can get an official cheese wheel. It is still a little more crumbly than a dairy cheese like cheddar, but I'm thinking if I use an official press, it may be more solid. I am really excited about this and have had it ruminating for a while. (Ha ha, I made a joke - ruminating about plant based cheese... well, if I have to explain it, it probably isn't all that funny.)

I also ordered some wax. I don't know if cashew cheese needs wax like dairy cheeses, so that will be an experiment as well. Fun stuff.

Enough of all our fun discoveries this week and onto the menus:

¡ Viva La Verde ! menu for week of 2/27/10

2/27/10 Saturday

dinner: Spinach and olive tapenade

2/28/10 Sunday

breakfast: bananas or whatever you can pickup before church
lunch: pineapple wedges, sliced bananas, orange wedges, coconut
dinner: Mexicali wrappers with unfried no-beans, shredded lettuce, tomato salsa, crema

3/1/10 Monday (Happy Birthday, Orion!)

breakfast: grapefruit / orange juice
lunch: Waldorf salad on shredded lettuce; additional avo mayo if needed
dinner: hummus, pita chips, baby cukes

3/2/10 Tuesday

breakfast: banana smoothie
lunch: tomatoes stuffed with no-net tuna on lettuce leaves
dinner: cauliflower soup

3/3/10 Wednesday

breakfast: Hawaiian granola with almond mylk
lunch: avocados stuffed with elote con crema; Mexican rice
dinner: collard wraps (good way to use up leftover veggies and / or salad toppings like the no-bean from the weekend) peanut sauce for dipping

3/4/10 Thursday

breakfast: apple / celery juice (1 head celery and a couple of apples run through the juicer)
lunch: shredded zucchini, slivered red pepper, julienned carrots, onion if you want it; sauce with peanut sauce
dinner: corn chowder

3/5/10 Friday

breakfast: bananas dipped in buckwheaties
lunch: pizza (everyday bread with cheese, marinara, veggies, "parm")
dinner: salad - lettuce, celery, carrots, tomatoes, raisins, sunnies, Ranch dressing

Snacks and desserts:

pumpkin pie
key lime pies (these turned out so delicious this time; I think the flavor of the citrus affects it, and maybe the avocados, too...
crispy treats
rawky road

ball park sunnies
soul dates
zucchini chips (good with ranch dip as well)
carrots with ranch dip
celery sticks with honey almond butter
apple wedges with honey almond butter
banana bark
corny chips and salsa
olive spread and / or olive tapenade with crudites and / or pita chips