Saturday, September 5, 2009

First food post in who knows how long...

Nearly everyone agrees that raw fruits & veggies are an important part of a healthy diet. Luckily for me I prefer most veggies raw anyhow, but munching on carrot sticks can get old fast. I've been fortunate enough to try lots of delicious raw meals at various restaurants and talented friends' houses, but I rarely prepare anything raw at home besides the occasional salad or smoothie. Starting this week I'm challenging myself to try out a new raw dish every week.

This morning I woke up with carrot soup on my mind and Googled for a raw recipe. This one looked appealing so when I got off work today I spent a whopping 71 cents on a couple organic carrots. I tried about a half-batch just now. I used green pepper instead of red because that's what I have in my garden and threw in some cayenne & cumin, too. Word to the wise: if you are halving all the ingredients, it's a good idea to make sure you halve the ginger too! I don't know why I didn't, except that I was excited about ginger and not thinking, so this has got QUITE a kick. I had to water it down pretty significantly but I have to say the flavor is excellent. The texture would be better if I strained out the pulpy bits but that feels too wasteful so I didn't (I do get to borrow a juicer soon, though, at which point I will definitely use this recipe with it!). I tossed in some small pieces of bell pepper and enjoyed this cold with some toast on the side. I plan to have the rest slightly warmed for breakfast tomorrow. Mmm, carrots & ginger!

Also, behold:

I realize it doesn't look like much, but that is my first foray into cheese-making! Some friends of mine get a 3-gallon weekly delivery of fresh, raw milk and lately they haven't been able to keep up with drinking it all. I gladly volunteered to take a half-gallon off their hands the other day and used it to make farmer's cheese, which really couldn't be easier. I served slices with garlic toast and crumbled the rest into a salad. Yum. Next time I think I will try mixing in some basil &/or other tasty herbs (suggestions?). Eventually I would like to delve much, much deeper into aged cheeses and all that good stuff, too.

I'm afraid I lied last time about the yarn pictures coming this time, only because I feel too lazy to bother with them right now. Next time for real!

2 comments:

ColorJoy LynnH said...

I have learned to make paneer since I became able to eat dairy (but not fermented/aged foods). Since I can not have vinegar, I squeeze limes and use their juice instead, as my acid.

The lime has a very faint flavor-echo in the final cheese which I enjoy very much. The best cheese I ever made, I put a large amount of fresh dill in it, with that lime. I wish now that I had put salt in it as well, and maybe one other flavor (white pepper?).

Paneer is really cool in that you can actually cube it up and brown the cheese cubes without it melting. Super cool!!!

yoli said...

the soup sounds really good. i'll have to see if I can't rustle up a lemon (aka. steal some from a dining hall) and make it. oh, and carrots. i'll have to get those too...but still, looks lovely and oh man, that cheese porn was deelicious!