Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Mexican-Style Slaw and Other Raw Selections

Another long absence, but these things do happen. I have a new recipe to share in a few, but I want to start by showing a raw items I made during a food prep spree I went on last week.

First was a recipe straight off my friend Amber's website, Almost Vegan. I originally was going to make plain coconut butter from her book, but given the sheer number of strawberries this time of year, I instead opted for Strawberry Coconut Butter. I had been saving an empty coconut oil jar for just the occasion, but the pink stuff inside is all sweet, delicious spread that goes with damn near everything. Also in the photo to the left is my own Banana Carrot Bread.


Also from the mind of Amber (and from her fantastic raw cook book, Practically Raw, that came out earlier this year) are the Naked Kale Chips. I substituted coconut oil for the olive oil in the recipe, and also added a couple cloves of garlic. The result was a crispy treat that tastes great on its own or dipped in hummus. Amber has several hummus variations in her book, but I opted to make my own. Here is the massaged kale laid out on a dehydrator tray, ready to get to work:


And here is is all shiny and crisp, post dehydration:


A few select kale chips:

 I also dehydrated some zucchini into chips:

Now onto the recipe. We had tacos for dinner last week, and I wanted a light side dish that didn't involve heating up the stove, as the summer heat makes cooking a little less fun. I came up with this simple Mexican-style slaw using pre-packaged shredded broccoli. For even more Mexican flavor, use cilantro instead of the parsley (which I used to accommodate the aversion to cilantro the oldest spawn has). After dinner, we had about half the slaw leftover, so the next day I added a can of black beans (drained and rinsed) to make it a meal of it's own.

Mexican-Style Slaw

Ingredients:
1/4 small red onion, minced
2 green onions, minced
1 tbs spicy mustard
zest and juice from 1 lime
1/4 c olive oil
hot sauce, to taste
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
1/2 bag broccoli slaw (about 2 cups)
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
kernels from 1 ear of corn
1/4 c parsley, chopped


Directions:
Whisk together onions, mustard, lime juice and zest, oil, hot sauce, cumin, salt, and pepper.

Toss the dressing with the remaining ingredients. Refrigerate for at least half an hour before serving to allow the flavors to meld. 

To the right, you can see the slaw alongside our tacos of Morning Star Chick'n, homemade salsa, and avocado.

Below is the slaw with black beans added.