Adventures in Raw Food

Category: Ingredients

  • Cheese That’s Safe for Vegetarians to Eat – Even Vegetarian Brie!

    You know that most cheese is made with rennet, right? And you know where rennet comes from, right? If you don’t, well, brace yourself.

    Rennet is derived from the enzymes in a newborn baby calf’s stomach. That’s right, nearly as soon as the baby is born, they slaughter it to get those enzymes so that they can make the cheese from the milk that its mother will no longer be able to feed it. (Heartbreaking, isn’t it?)

    But it is possible to make cheese without using animal rennet. In fact, any cheese that is marked “Kosher”, by definition cannot have a product derived from a dead animal mixed in with the dairy, so it will not have animal rennet.

    Unfortunately, a lot of Kosher cheese (not all, but a lot) is also rather, well, bland (to be kind).

    Other than that, it’s hard to find cheese that you can know does not use animal rennet. For some reason, many cheese producers simply list in the ingredients, instead of rennet, the word “enzymes”. And enzymes can mean either animal rennet, or non-animal rennet. And I certainly don’t want to chance it, do you?

    But here’s something interesting – there are cheese producers who make really good cheese, and who don’t use animal rennet. Why they don’t shout this from the rooftops is beyond me. They are missing a big market.

    One example is Tillamook, a cheese that is sold in many supermarkets across the United States. If you look at their ingredient list, you’ll find that it clearly says “We do not use animal rennet.” But you have to really look. All Tillamook cheese is safe for vegetarians – and free from animal rennet – except for their special 2 year reserve cheddar, which I’ve only seen a few times anywhere. (I know all this because we toured the Tillamook factory, up on Oregon, and they are very proud of the fact that they use no animal rennet, and they warned us about that special 2 year reserve cheddar.)

    We particularly go through a lot of Tillamook’s medium cheddar, which we buy in 2 lb. loaves, and my husband and I also love their sharp cheddar, but they also make other standards, such as Monterey Jack, Colby Jack, and pepper Jack.

    A brand with which you may be less familiar, but which is well-known in California, and also rennet free, and organic to boot, is Horizon.

    Horizon is awesome because in addition to being organic and rennet free, they sell a lot of pre-shredded cheese, which is awesome for making pizza, Mexican food, etc.. And they sell several varieties, for example they sell a shredded mozzarella, a shredded cheddar, and a shredded Monterey Jack. They even sell a blend of shredded cheddar, colby and jack!

    The most recent example of really good cheese that is vegetarian, but you’d never know it without asking, is the cheese from the Marin French Cheese Company. They make, among other yummy cheeses, the wonderful Rouge et Noir Triple Creme Brie. Now, nowhere on the package will you find them telling you that it’s vegetarian and rennet-free. They use that horribly ambiguous word “enzymes” in the ingredients list. But I happened to be at Whole Foods one day, and they had a Marin French Cheese Company rep there handing out samples, and he was telling the world that it was vegetarian. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Absolutely,” he responded, “you can even look it up on our website.” And so I could, and you can too – you can read about how all of their cheeses are rennet-free here.

    You can buy their Rouge et Noir Triple Creme Brie here.

    It’s wonderful served with some fresh pears. And it’s fantastic with the top skin sliced off, and warmed apricot preserves poured on top.

    So there you have it. If cheese is part of your diet, now you can have delicious cheese that you know to be vegetarian.

  • Raw Carrot Coconut Macaroons

    Wondering what to do with leftover carrot pulp from making carrot juice? Try these wonderful raw macaroons made with carrot pulp and coconut!

    Raw Coconut Carrot Macaroons

    2 cups carrot pulp
    2 cups organic shredded coconut
    1/2 cups organic raisins
    1/3 to 2/3 cup agave nectar

    Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Knead together well.

    Squeeze a walnut-sized amount of the mixture in your fist, squeezing out any liquid. Place macaroons on Teflex sheet and dehydrate about 10 or so hours, until the consistency you want. We actually have ‘overdehydrated’ these so that they were crisp and not at all moist or chewy and my family still loves them! Kids always ask for more!

    You can buy organic raisins, organic shredded coconut and agave nectar from Amazon.

  • Annie’s Stuffed Summer Squash

    Have you ever found yourself wondering what to do with summer squash? You know the type – pale yellow, crooked neck?

    The problem with summer squash, from a raw diet perspective, is that the entire center of the squash is filled with seeds. So you can’t easily spiral slice it for noodles, and it seems like other than slicing it into rounds or matchsticks, there’s not a whole lot you can do with it.

    Wrong!

    You can make stuffed summer squash!

    It turns out that if you slice a summer squash in half, length-wise, and cut off the crook neck (reserve the neck to make yummy, refreshing marinated squash rounds!), you can scoop out the seed section, and have perfect little “boats” to fill with stuffing and let cure in your dehydrator!

    Now, I just created this recipe last night, so you should feel free to riff on it as you see fit (and let me know!)

    Annie’s Stuffed Summer Squash

    4-6 pale yellow summer squash
    1/2 cup sunflower seeds
    1/2 cup quinoa (uncooked)
    1/4 cup raisins
    equal parts olive oil and nama shoyu or soy sauce

    Mix the sunflower seeds, quinoa, and raisins, and put in a bowl, covering well with water (I use filtered water). Let soak for about 2 hours.

    In the meantime, cut the neck off each squash, at the base of the neck (reserve for Marinated Summer Squash Rounds). Also cut the bottom tip of the squash off.

    Split each squash in half, lengthwise, and with the tip of a small spoon carefully scoop out the center core of seeds. You will now have perfectly formed, seedless “boats” in which to place your filling.

    Mix the equal parts olive oil and nama shoyu or soy sauce – enough to coat each piece of squash all over – in a bowl. Let the squash soak in it a bit, and then place the squash pieces on a Teflex-lined dehydrator sheet, cut side up.

    When the 2 hours’ soaking period is up, grind the sunflower seeds, quinua and raisins in your food processor to a stuffing-like consistency.

    Now here is where you get creative. I felt at this point that the stuffing lacked a little something. So I added a little of this, and a little of that, and at one point it all came together for me and was perfect. But what works for me in terms of ‘best flavour’ may not work for you.

    What I added to my stuffing was:

    A couple of dehydrator sauteed mushrooms, some fresh sage, and some poultry seasoning herbs that I happened to have laying around.

    Once you have the stuffing exactly as you want it, fill the squash boats, and put them in your dehydrator at 110-115. Let them cure until the squash is nice and soft – but not too soft. Go for al dente, or a slight bit softer. For me this took about 6 hours, but it will take more or less time depending on your dehydrator, the thickness of the squash, and how long you’ve soaked the squash first.

    That’s it!

    These will keep fairly well in the fridge for a few days if covered with plastic wrap, but do bring them to room temperature before serving, or warm them slightly using the oven pilot light warming method.

  • On Making Raw Peanut Butter from Raw Peanuts

    I really wanted to experiment with making raw peanut butter from raw peanuts. So when they had raw peanuts in the bulk section at Whole Foods, I jumped on them.

    Then I took a look at the recipe for raw peanut butter in my Vita Mix “Whole Food machine” “recipes and instructions” book that came with my Vita Mix.

    The Vitamix recipe for raw peanut butter from raw peanuts calls for:

    4 1/2 cups raw peanuts
    3 Tablespoons canola or olive oil

    I didn’t want to make that much, and I wanted to use Udo’s Oil. So I didn’t, and I did, respectively.

    For my raw peanut butter from raw peanuts I used:

    1 cup raw peanuts
    1 tablespoon (plus more) Udo’s Oil

    Put the oil in the bottom of your Vita Mix, and then put the peanuts on top. Process at “hi” until peanuts are all ground. You will need to stop every so often and push the peanut grindings from the sides into the center of the Vita Mix, to the blades.

    When the peanuts are all ground, slowly add more oil until the peanut butter emulsifies and gets to the consistency you want.

    When it’s done you can add salt to taste if you like.

    Vita Mix warns that once the peanut butter is done, if you continue to process it for more than a minute, you may overheat the machine (then it will automatically shut off until it’s cooled down).

    Now, I have to tell you that I didn’t really like the flavour of raw peanut butter. To me, it tasted to – well – raw. However you may like it.

    BUT! I then took this peanut butter and made a fantastic spicy peanut sauce which I not only liked, but I adored. You too may adore Annie’s Spicy Peanut Sauce .

    Here are organic raw peanuts (click on the picture for more information):

    Nature's First Law Raw Organic Health Wild Jungle Peanuts

    Here is Udo’s Oil (click on the picture for more information):

    Udos Choice Oil Blend, 32 oz