Rawkin' Raw Chili

Today I made a raw chili recipe that Dee Charboneau posted on Road to Raw. The Road to Raw is a great website that runs raw food cleanses and offers a TON if information on raw food and healthy living. Dee posted a recipe called Penni's Rawkin' Raw Chili...I'm not sure who Penni is, but my guess is Penni Shelton, a well versed raw food enthusiast who runs the website Raw Food Rehab.
Regardless, I decided to make it because it seemed fitting on this cold, blustery, rainy fall day.
Here is the recipe - don't get turned off by the amount of ingredients. It actually comes together quite quick...I will indicate where I made adjustments to the recipe.

Penni's Rawkin' Raw Chili
1 cup soaked almonds (walnuts would also work well) - I used almonds
1 cup carrots
1 med portabello mushroom (or 6 shiitake) - I used shiitake and I soaked them in Liquid Braggs before using them in the recipe to flavor them up and "cook" them a bit
1/2 cup finely minced red bell pepper
1/3 cup finely minced red onion - I used scallions
1-2 finely minced jalapeno, without the seeds - I used a serrano
1 cup sundried tomatoes, soaked (reserve 1 cup soak water)
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes
1/3 cup soaked golden raisins
2 T fresh leeks (yellow or white onion would work) - I used a small shallot
3 T chili powder - I used Powdered New Mexico Chiles
2 cloves garlic - I used 1 garlic clove only
1 T olive oil
2 t Alder Smoked Sea Salt (Celtic is also fine) - I used Himilayan Sea Salt
2 t apple cider vinegar
2 t dried oregano - I used Mexican Oregano
1 tsp. cumin
1 handful chopped cilantro, stirred in at the end, prior to dehydration

Technique
Put nuts and carrots into a food processor and run until well blended. This will be your "meat base," so don't over process. Once ground, place into a large bowl and set aside.

Either on a cutting board or in your food processor, chop the mushroom (I marinated the mushroom in Liquid Braggs, see picture. I drained the mushrooms prior to processing them), red bell pepper, scallions and serrano. Add this to the bowl. I used my food processor to do this step.

In a high powered blender, such as a Vita Mix or Blend-Tec, add all of the remaining ingredients and blend until you have everything well combined and liquefied. Stir this mixture into the bowl with the existing ingredients to complete the chili.

The recommendation was to place the chili into a dehydrator set at 145 degrees for about one hour, stirring the chili every 15 minutes will help to warm it evenly. (Although your dehydrator will feel hot, the temperature of the food will not exceed 110 degrees in this amount of time). I didn't have the luxury of being able to stir the chili every 15 minutes, so I stuck it in the dehydrator @ 115 degrees for 1 hr, then 105 degrees for 1 hr and ate it after that. It wasn't as warm as I would have liked it to be, but it was delicious.

Here is the bowl of chili, with cilantro, prior to going into the dehydrator
And after
You can see it got a little thick on the edges (that was the best, most yummy part!!). Overall, delicious. Tomorrow, when I eat more, I'll try the 145 degree dehydration with stirring every 15 minutes, and I'll garnish it with avocado. Already looking forward to it!!
Try something raw today!