Thyme To Cook wins a Raw Food Recipe contest!

I'm proud to announce that I've won a raw food recipe contest!
I usually do not enter anything (I'm a party pooper)...

I entered my Raw Creamy Gazpacho into the Raw Food Naturals/Raw Way Bar raw recipe contest; the criteria was to use 3 in season produce items in a raw recipe.
Here is the link the announcement on FB: Yea for Gazpacho!

Here is the recipe I submitted:
Gazpacho
4 tomatoes, rough chopped
4 tomatillos, tough skin peeled off, rinsed and rough chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded, then rough chopped
1/2 - 1 cup coconut water from young Thai coconut
1/2 cup packed coconut meat from young Thai coconut

1-2 garlic cloves
1/4 sweet onion, rough chopped

1 red pepper, rough chopped
1 handful cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp Sea Salt

Garnish
Kernels from 1 ear of corn, removed from cob
1 jalapeno, minced
1/2 red pepper, finely diced
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely diced

Technique
1. Place all ingredients for Gazpacho (tomatoes->salt) into a high speed blender or food processor and pulse to liquid texture. Give it a taste and correct seasoning if necessary.

2. Pour Gazpacho into a bowl and add the ingredients from the Garnish section (corn->cucumber) and stir them in.
3. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

That's it :) I chose this recipe for a couple reasons, with 1 being you don't need fancy equipment for it. It can be made in an ordinary blender, food processor or high speed blender. Secondly, it really uses the bounty of what's in season: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, tomatillos, corn, jalapenos, onions, garlic, you get the idea....it can be made without the coconut water and meat as well. It just will be less creamy, but still excellent.

Try something raw today!!! :)

Raw Sesame Kale Salad

I love the late summer when kale becomes abundant...it lasts, and lasts and lasts long into the fall even winter...Last week I made a raw kale salad with arame and carrots and a sesame dressing. It was quite good.

The secret to eating kale in it's raw form is in the massage. Yup, the massage. You have to massage it, rubbing the leaves in between your fingers in order to soften up the texture and to release some of the moisture. I massage the kale with lemon juice and a pinch of salt. The acid of the lemon juice almost "cooks" the kale and the salt will draw out the moisture. You'll see that you can start out with a huge bowl of kale and after rubbing the leaves with the lemon juice and salt for just a couple minutes, the volume is drastically reduced to at least 1/2 the bowl.

So here's the recipe:
1 head of kale, cut into thin stips
2 carrots, grated
2 handfuls arame, soaked 20 minutes and rinsed
2 lemons, juiced and juice divided
2 TBS tahini, room temp
2 tsp unrefined sesame oil
2 TBS sesame seeds

Technique
Take your kale and put in a bowl. Pour juice of 1 lemon and a pinch of sea salt over the top. Mix the juice and salt into leaves and then start to rub the leaves between your fingers, massaging them for a couple minutes, until wilted.

Add in the carrots and soaked/rinsed arame then mix so all ingredients are incorporated.

To make dressing, whisk the room temperature tahini, sesame oil, juice of lemon and a pinch of sea salt until combined. If necessary, add a touch of warm water to thin out.
Pour over the kale mixture and combine to dress the salad.
Garnish with the sesame seeds.

I put some into romaine lettuce leaves and made little boats out of them.
So, try out the kale massage and see how you like it. It just might change your mind about eating kale in it's raw form. :)
Try some thing raw today!