The Live Green Smoothie Diet

Super-quick, super-flavorful, and made with Utterly Pedestrian ingredients so easy to keep on hand!

Enjoy without the meatballs — super-delish on its own, over “noodles” or “spaghetti” made from fresh, raw baby zucchini — or make a side of meatballs for a heartier repast!

And even if you make the whole Spaghetti & Meatball affair… it will still take you all of about 15 minutes, tops!

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And the theme for more savory, “meaty” raw and living food options continues…

“Meaty” dishes in the raw vegan world usually entail one (or both) of the following: mushrooms or dehydration. My project this week is to expand upon the meaty options not using either of these options. Because, in the mission to expand and develop the food culture involving all the ways we can possibly feed ourselves with nutrient-rich, enzyme-rich, vitality-rich raw and living foods, OPTIONS are so important.

New Options For A Raw & Living Food Culture

In the cooked-food world, we are more familiar with OPTIONS. When we look at the food stuff in our cupboards and in our fridge, we already have a rich cultural background that speaks to us almost instinctively as to how we can feed ourselves with what is on-hand. We’ve got family culture, television culture, cookbook culture, school culture, restaurant culture… all of that behind us.

But when we face our raw ingredients, we can get stumped pretty quickly after getting past the make-a-salad, eat-a-piece-of-fruit, make-a-green-smoothie options.

So… here is just one option for how to make a “meatball” type of recipe, something that will add a grounding, filling, savory quality to a raw pasta meal.

This particular meatball (raw vegans often call them “neatballs”… I guess as in “Not mEAT”), holds its shape nicely but is easy to cut into pieces, and in fact is better, in my opinion, when it is cut into pieces and eaten in small bits with your pasta because it is quite rich. Fresh garlic, red onion, and fresh oregano lend a simple classive meatball flavor, while raw almond butter binds the sunflower seed mixture together.

And they look like actual meatballs… and can be make on-the-spot, no dehydrating necessary!

Next, I’ll be playing with this recipe a bit and conjuring up something similiar but with a different texture, using raw zucchini! Once again… OPTIONS!

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This is a potential life-changing, culture-changing recipe, one I wish I knew how to make back in April 2005 when I first embarked on a journey of discovery with raw and living foods.

You could be a meat-eater and eat this instead of meat, and be satisfied. That is not only my own sentiment, but the conclusion of my 70-something marginally raw parents, who were quite impressed when I put this on the table. My mom went crazy over it, and my dad, who is not much into this whole living foods business, really had his eyes opened, I think.

I set out to make a meaty-tasting “salsa” type recipe with 100% raw mushrooms plus seasonings, without other vegetables. And in this case, I left out the olive oil and added only raw almond butter and a bit of lemon juice as a binder, with some fresh garlic, green onions, and generous fresh black pepper… and of course the ever-present “himmy” salt.

If I’d had socks on, this dish woulda knocked them off. For all it’s simplicity, this is the recipe I am most proud of and most pleased with on this whole site. Because it’s the savory, meaty, deeply grounding kind of food that I crave, and the sort of thing a family could make almost every single day, to offset whatever else they might put on the table.

It will play off of whatever else you are eating. Shoot, I ate this Mushroom dish for dinner with organic tortilla chips and 2 sliced bananas and was in heaven. Heaven, I tell you. And fully sated afterwards. But I could’ve had it with any salad, any warm live soup (what a great cold-weather meal!), or a bit of Ezekiel bread (what an amazing salad sandwich or wrap filling this would make!), or just some different fresh fruit, and it would complement any of it equally.

This is a dish to server to your non-raw friends and family, and would make for a killer buffet or raw pot luck dish. You could serve this as part of a “rawish” meal with Yukon Gold potatoes or brown rice (am swooning at just the thought). You could have it with toast for breakfast. Or you could add this to a miso broth with fresh greens.

I’m just getting started. I bet I could serve this a different way for a raw or rawish meal every day of this month. Might be an interesting blog project!

Anyway… make this. And tell me what you did with it!

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Absolutely delicious and as savory and juicy as a buffalo burger… but entirely raw, living, and vegan. Not only that, it’s made from Utterly Pedestrian ingredients, which is currently becoming a theme for the Live Green Smoothie Diet site.

The more I “jack up the raw”, the more I crave non-sweet, non-chilled, very-savory dishes. And they can be a challenge in the culture of the raw food world.

But personally, I need them, and the kind that can be made now, this “because-I’m-hungry” moment, not after several hours (or days) of soaking-sprouting-dehydrating. So this genre of make-on-the-spot-savory-food-from-utterly-pedestrian-ingredients is becoming a bit of a personal specialty.

This dish, made from plain ol’ button mushrooms, tomatoes, scallions, olive oil, salt and fresh pepper, can also be amped up with a bit more exotic flavor — just use portabellas, shitakes, maitakes, fresh chaga, reishi… you name it, any of your favorite mushrooms.

But failing that, you can also make this for dinner with the commonest ingredients in your local produce section.

One aspect of this recipe is that, after all the ingredients are combined, the dish is heated very briefly in the oven, not to cook but just to sweat the mushrooms a wee bit. As you can see in the photos, this is not a cooked dish, and by the time you spoon the filling out onto your wrap material (red leaf lettuce leaves, here) the dish is entirely room temperature. But just a few moments of warmth allows all the flavors to meld so nicely!

I ate the entire dish for dinner, without anything else… nothing “rawish” added, just what you see here. It was smokin’ delicious. And so juicy it dripped all over the plate and my fingers… just like a good buffalo burger.

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These look like ordinary nuts, but I assure they are not. This unique recipe coats your favorite nuts in a sweetly savory combination of raw honey, cacao butter, garlic, cumin, and maca, calling up the taste sensation of authentic mexican mole seasonings, tho’ I left out cacao powder to keep them lighter in flavor.

Munch on these by themselves, or add them to salads, Salad Sandwiches, and Warm Live Soups. But be sure to include some the next time you entertain. They are festive and addictive!

And satisfies that desire for crunch and something salty in a wonderful healthy way. Plus… you get the potent adaptogenic health benefits of maca powder without being bothered by maca’s distinctive pungent flavor. An utterly win-win treat!

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The mushroom recipe trend continues, as we’re in a cold snap here in the Northeast and mushrooms seem to hold a number of keys to enjoying savory, earthy, grounding, warming cold-weather foods.

This one is extremely versatile — I leave it to you to discover how many ways you can use it. But do make it and see what tasty benefits and comforts it brings you. And this recipe requires no dehydration — you can make it in just a couple minutes, which certainly jacks up its usability factor!

You can season this recipe with cacao powder, cumin, a splash of organic raw apple cider vinegar and a bit of raw cane sugar to create a delicious raw vegan taco meat.

Or you could use it instead of walnuts and mushrooms in my Greek Spaghetti or Creamy Bolognese sauces…

You can season it with thyme and add a few chopped apples to go in the direction of a holiday stuffing flavor. You can add it to sandwiches, sprinkle it over soups and salads, enjoy it on its own as a kind of “dry chutney”, as is not uncommon in Indian cuisine.

But if you endeavor to “stay raw” during the winter months, I suspect this basic recipe may serve you very well toward that end. You can even warm it gently in the oven, adding to the comforting appeal. Just keep the setting on the lowest possible and make sure you can handle the plate its on with bare hands!

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Pasta Night. Big tradition, definitely in our house. And normally, “raw pasta” dishes just don’t cut it for me. But this one… really satisfies. It has a flavor combination that should please a lot of palates, even if they’ve never been into “raw” very much.

And if you’re not quite on the 100% Raw Train, you can add some toasted Ezekiel bread for a hearty, grounding, filling meal and make it really do the job. This is a dish not just for the raw food fans, but for meat-eating, BBQ-loving guys, and for kids, as well.

Transposed directly from the recipe I used for years for the cooked version, learned from Marcella Hazan, this sauce bursts with flavor, and takes only minutes to get on the table. It’s creamy, looks cheesy, doesn’t use nutritional yeast or any raw food “tricks”, is made from simple, common ingredients… and really, really tastes yummy. This recipe alone fueled myself and a hearty meat-eating man for a long night of dancing.

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There are just soooo may ways I can think of creating a raw vegan gyro, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. And I may have to eventually call this “Raw Vegan Gyro #1″ as I begin to bring out the other, more complex, perhaps “meatier” versions I’ve already envisioned creating.

But as I’ve received two request for raw gyros over the past week alone, I decided that the very first recipe I put out for a gyro should be both 1) quick and 2) easy to prepare from very simple ingredients. No dehydration of a raw vegan “pita bread”. No straining of cucumbers for an authentically thick tzatziki. No dehydration of some kind of “gyro meat”. Just simple ingredients and no fussy preparation. I guarantee you can have this dish on the table very quickly, any day of the week.

The challenge of creating a raw gyro recipe is three-fold:

• One can’t utilize yogurt or any other dairy product to create the tzatziki (cucumber/garlic/yogurt sauce).
• One must have some kind of “holder” of the gyro, such as the pita bread normally used.
• And then there’s the seasoned meat which comprises the heart of the sandwich.

In addition, in Greece an additional ingredient is french fries, which adds so much in the way of texture and flavor. 

I’ve whipped this recipe up very quickly, while enjoying a glass of wine with a friend, with the ingredients depicted in the photo below, so you can see how simple my approach is. And what you get is something fresh, flavorful, messy/drippy (as any authentic gyro should ever be…), and truly grounding and satisfying enough to serve as a main meal.

Although there are a few different components to the dish, they are all extremely easy & quick to prepare. Just set out a few separate bowls, fill them up, and you’ll be done before you’ve finished that first glass of wine.

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Anyone who knows me knows I am a HUGE fan of Greek-style spaghetti. It is a highly enjoyable part of the non-raw, non-vegan portion of my diet. Yet I’ve wished many times that there were a way to create a healthy raw vegan equivalent that also actually tasted great and gave that hit of “comfort” that pasta gives…and in particular, pasta with the sauce that I grew up on.

Greek spaghetti sauce is typically seasoned with “sweet” spice combinations, such as cumin & cinnamon, cinnamon & orange peel, or fenugreek & clove. It is also less “tomato-saucy” as it is generally made with tomato paste rather than sauce.

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Simply…Must…Have…Meat!

After staying up late last night looking at amazing raw food recipe photos (aka, “raw food porn”), I woke up absolutely famished for something hearty, zesty, spicy, and meaty-tasting! Although 10 am isn’t typically the time that someone eats such food, I was on a mission and utterly driven to achieve it… and I ended up concocting exactly what I was after. I’ve dabbled with trying to make “raw taco meat” before, but it never panned out. Today’s effort, however, worked brilliantly.

Made from a single portabella mushroom cap and some walnuts, with various secret ingredients which I shall reveal forthwith, it is truly delicious, and gave me the taste-bud tingling meaty “hit” that I so craved.

Minimum Effort for Maximum Pleasure!

As I am both lazy and busy, as well as a long-time “foodie” who has always been seriously motivated by all things delicious, my endeavors in the kitchen pretty much follow the dictates of “I want what I want, I want it now, I don’t want it to be complicated, and I want it to be great!” A bit demanding but… meh… that’s the way it is. The benefit is that any recipe that impresses me is bound to work for many other people. I need recipes to be simple, easy, fast, and wonderful. Unless I’m paying someone else to do it… then knock yourself out in the most rarefied manner, pleez.

In any event, I am a homey chef in the Nigella Lawson “minimum effort for maximum pleasure” mold, and have only a minimal tolerance for fiddliness when I’m hungry.

Raw Vegan Taco “Meat” You Can Actually Make To Eat NOW… Not 10 hours From Now, or Tomorrow

Having said that, raw foods recipes for “meaty” things commonly use the dehydrator and often take 2 or even 10 hours to achieve, sometimes even longer if sprouting is involved. Not my cuppa tea. In addition, they sometimes use some ingredients meant to trick your taste buds, such as nutritional yeast, which I don’t care for. I prefer simple whole foods without tricks.

The recipe that follows can be made start-to-finish in less time than it takes to make the actual carnivorous version! Also, even though I used my dehydrator to achieve the effect, if someone has a very low “warm” setting on their oven, it could just as well be used because one only needs to put the raw “meat” ingredients in a warm place to “meld” whilst making the other layers. There’s no actual “low-heat dehydration” required. And the ingredients are all available at your local grocery store…provided you have raw cacao powder on hand, as I usually do.

One word of warning — this is garlic-intense. But…oh-so-worth-it. Just, maybe… not the best thing to make before a big date or a night of dancing!

Genuinely Meaty Raw-Vegan Taco “Meat”…With Chunky Guacamole and Fresh Cherry Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa

Finding raw foods that are truly “meaty” and satisfying in a savory way can be challenging, without a lot of sprouting/dehydration hoopla in the kitchen. I created this recipe for an on-the-fly meal anyone could make with common ingredients you can find in your local grocery store. The ingredients are exactly what I put into my carnivorous homemade taco-meat recipe — down to the cacao. Granted, in a cooked food recipe I’d use processed cocoa powder, and for this one you’ll need some raw cacao on hand. But that should be a staple in your raw kitchen anyway.

Do not leave the cacao out. The use of cacao in meaty mexican dishes goes way back in time, and I’ve used it in my chiles and tacos for years. It’s an integral part of a mole sauce and does something just wonderful to bring everything together.

The Taco Meat

• 1 Portabella mushroom cap, rinsed and chopped medium-fine (nearly 2 cups finished)
• 1/2 cup raw walnuts, chopped (not too fine… leave some texture)
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon cold-pressed olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon raw apple cider vinegar (ACV)
• 1 tablespoon raw cacao powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon raw cane sugar (rapadura) or some other raw sweetener
• squirt fresh lemon juice (about 1/4 teaspoon)
• quality natural salt & fresh pepper to taste (I use Himalayan Crystal Salt)

Mix all ingredients well and check for taste. Should not be under-salted. 

Spread on dehydrator sheet and bung into the dehydrator on “almost high” — no worries, you’re not cooking it. It’s only coming to roomish-temperature while you fix the remaining ingredients, then it’s coming out. You could also put on plate and stick in the oven on “warm”, just to the point of releasing some of the mushroom’s moisture so they darken a bit.

Chunky Guacamole

• 1 avocado
• 1/2 long cucumber, cut in quarter lengthwise, then sliced fine
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh lime or lemon juice to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon ACV
• quality natural salt & fresh pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients well. Correct seasonings for S & P. Make sure the overall effect is “zesty”, not bland & creamy.

Fresh Cherry Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa

• 1 cup cherry or “grape” tomatoes, chopped medium-fine
• 1 glove garlic
• 1 tablespoon jalapeno pepper, chopped fine
• 1 heaping tablespoon minced red onion
• 1 tablespoon cold-pressed olive oil
• squirt (1/4)  teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• quality natural salt & fresh pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients well. Correct seasonings to taste. This recipe doesn’t have super-heat. If you want that, add more jalapeno and some cayenne!

Layer the Final Dish

Take the “Taco Meat” out of the dehydrator and spread on plate.

Mound all of the Chunky Guacamole on top, and cover the whole bit with the Fresh Cherry Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa.

You can eat right away as-is, by itself. Or you can mound it into fresh white cabbage leaves to make “Raw Nachos” or roll up into larger ones to make “Raw Tacos”.

You can also leave it out at room temperature to eat later — the flavors come together and intensify, and become even more delicious, so this recipe is perfect for a Raw Food Pot Luck or dinner for company! Just bring a bag or lay out a bowl with the raw cabbage leaves and your guests can create their own tacos on the fly!

Would love your comments if you make the recipe!

Buon appetito!