"Helps your cooking fast, joyfully with wonderfully edged strings!"

When I ordered my ice cream maker I also threw a Japanese Benriner Cook Help into my shopping cart.  It arrived today!

I had read that this tool makes fantastic raw veggie noodles and had been scoping it out for a while.  I was tired of using a veggie peeler, or slicing my fingers on my cheap mandolin.  

I am soooo glad the instructions came illustrated because they were full of useful tips like:

• "Also, cut it in tiney (sic) pieces with kitchin (sic) knife and use for Hamburg steak, frizzled rice, etc."
• "Sliced onion can be obtained with ease. Very much popular as stamina food."
• "Just a little bit different Tastes of a regular cook."

Okay, I'm rude, but I had a nice laugh at Benriner's expense, but then did feel truly joyful (as the instructions stated I would) when I figured the thing out.  It is super cool!  

After playing around with lots of veggies (should have taken pics!), I made green pepper and carrot "noodles" and topped them with Cauliflower Curry from Delightfully Raw.  Heavenly.  

One of our Full Circle Farm boxes this week was packed with kale.  I did the ordering for this box when I was in Mexico, under extreme leafy green deprivation.  I wonder if FCF thinks I learned how to make meth with kale.  

Only one thing to do with bucco kale:  KALE CHIPS!!

Oil and vinegar, Kristen Suzanne's Cheezy Hemp and Carmella's Curry Kale Chips.  

I decided to do something productive with that mysterious freezer chocolate ganache, so I don't continue to spoon it mindlessly into my mouth while reading blogs.  

I set it on the wood stove to soften it up, then spooned a little layer into a candy mold.  I froze it for a bit, then spooned in a layer of Caramel Sauce #2 from Sweetly Raw's Just Desserts recipe book.  (BTW:  that caramel sauce is outstanding.  Tastes better than the real deal.)  I froze it again, and topped the candies with another layer of ganache.  

Wow.  This is better.  I can eat one or two of these and feel totally satisfied.  

Question:  What's your favorite kitchen tool?  

I'm Feeling Saucy

This evening I made two of my favorite sauces:  Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce by Kristen Suzanne and Curry Sauce from Delightfully Raw.  I love them so much because all they require is an easy whirl in the blender and voila, you have a lovely accomplice for veggies, raw crackers or kelp noodles.  I would be perfectly happy on a Friday night curled up in a chair with a sauce filled Viv and a spoon.  Seriously, you must try.  You will be wishing you had a bitchin' spatula to get all the remnants out of the blender creases.

When I got back from Mexico this new friend was waiting for me at the PO:

I decided my first ice cream flavor would be chocolate from Sweetly Raw's The Ultimate Raw Ice Cream Cake Book.  TH's review:

• ice cream maker= more white noise, which sends him scampering out to the mancave.
• white noise=small price to pay for raw ice cream that tastes just as good as dark chocolate Coconut Bliss 
• 4.5 out of 5 stars because the texture is a teensy bit grainy.

IMO, this was unbelievably good.  The best part was the ice cream maker took all of 20 minutes to turn liquid into a creamy pile of deliciousness.   (I might even go and do an Amazon review, that's how pleased I am.)  I can't wait to make a raw ice cream cake this weekend!  

Question:  When you are aggressively whipping something up in the kitchen and a little organic matter goes flying under the fridge, do you dig around for it or just leave it?  Just wondering. 

Gremlins

I had a little bit of a Saturday high today, filled with an overwhelming sense that life is so good.  The only thing that popped my happy bubble the tiniest bit was opening up the red and white envelope that arrived in the mail.  So, I swear that I have Netflix gremlins.  I am consistently confused upon discovery of some artsy, foreign, LeFilm Festival winner in my PO box.  Said movies sit on our shelf night after night, sadly listening to our evening conversation.

Me:  Want to watch a movie?
TH:  What do we have?
Me:  "The Brave Little Toaster".
TH:  Ummm, forget it.  I'm too tired to read subtitles.

Wtf?  Where do these mystery movies come from?  I have to admit that NPR reviews and I might play some small part in this.  My memory has been a bit faulty lately.  TH says I have successfully killed any former Netflix excitement he used to harbor.  I think he should blame the Gremlins.

Post Kenpo workout snack:

buckwheaties

frozen blackberries smooshed with honey and lemon

almond milk

For lunch I blended up another batch of curry sauce from Delightfully Raw.  It is so fantastically delicious.  Last week I used it to make kale chips, a kelp noodle dish and dipped veggies in the leftover sauce.  I needed to make more to pour over veggies and warm up in the D.

I'm in the process of putting together my first Moonie Pies from Sweetly Raw.  All the separate parts were quite tasty, so I'm expecting heaven when I put everything together.

Question:  Anyone made any yummy raw recipes with sunchokes?

Raw Curry

Eating raw in the winter doesn't appeal to some people because they believe that eating raw means always eating cold food.  This is so not the case!  When I have a hankering for a comforting,  soul-warming dish I simply put my lunch/dinner plate in the D and pull it out when it's warm all the way through.  For example, this weekend TH and I enjoyed an outstanding curry with kelp noodles.  I used my leftover kale chip curry sauce from Delightfully Raw and mixed zucchini, cabbage and broccoli in with the kelp noodles. The combination of creamy sauce and the D helped the noodles lose their crunchy texture.  It was flippin' fantastic.

We followed the curry with a little raw cheesecake from, once again, Delightfully Raw.  This meal was pure bliss.  

Damn, I have a crush on that recipe book.  I love that I can confidently make any recipe, secure in the fact that I will not be wasting hard to come by ingredients.  I have one raw food recipe book, which will go unnamed, that I had to stop using because every recipe I tried tasted like it had been dug out of the litter box in a demented cat lady's house.  In fact, I just found several jars filled with brown substances of varying consistencies in the freezer, thanks to the afore mentioned recipe book.   I remember thinking, "I can't throw this away.  Maybe I will like it later."  Still not liking it.  

Question:  Do you have a favorite always reliable recipe book?