Dudes, I’m two months into my resolutions. Every Saturday morning when I sit down to make my meal plan and shopping lists, I grab two books, and read through each recipe, assessing if I can fit so and so into our weeknight routine of walk through the door, feed Ella, make dinner, wash dishes, and pass out, all before 9PM.
Along with the challenging of selecting weeknight friendly recipes is how to document this project. Am I writing a cookbook review? Am I sharing a recipe? Should I cook it a few times and offer you my version? I don’t know how that is going to look just yet.
I’m always a little afraid a cookbook author is going to come across a recipe that has inspired me (I’ve only changed two ingredients) and call me out. Crazy, right? Like Deborah Madison has nothing better to do than comb small time bloggers and find her recipes? So, please, be patient with me as I fumble through this project, and please offer up the feedback! Let me know if you want the recipe, or don’t want all the photos, ect.
Right now I feel like all I can do is just get a photo in before a lunch needs to be made, a floor needs to be mopped, a diaper needs to be changed. I moved my desk into the basement to get a little more peace and quiet so I could actually commit words to screen, but I never seem to get down here. For serious, my basement is a scene plucked from a horror movie: solitary bulbs hang from the ceiling, unfinished walls, a furnace that bumps, and a midget zombie in the corner drooling. I’m just going to say it. I’m afraid of my basement.
Wow, this is getting long winded, isn’t it? And, we haven’t even gotten to eating raw! Let’s move on, ok?
Matt Amsden’s Rawvolution is one of those books I acquired with high hopes of becoming a more conscious, more healthful eater. High hopes, but not necessarily the passion to commit to a life below 138 degrees. I had a roommate in college who exclusively ate raw and I recall, with tangible pain, those gastro-intestinal cramps that would sneak up on me after a serving of Morgan’s raw falafel dinners.
When I finally cracked the cover I found lively recipes was a variety of flavors, and varying levels of difficulty. This isn’t a scary health food cookbook. Not everything needs to be dehydrated for 48 hours, or soaked and sprouted. The flavors are bold and bright. The food is beautifully photographed.
You will want to eat this food.
Matt’s dishes don’t strike me as something I’d need to label RAW. Instead, these recipes are plant strong, healthy sides everyone can eat and enjoy.
Last year I posted this Hemp Tabbouleh Recipe, inspired by Rawvolution, I’ve tried the mock tuna salad, Nut Meat Tacos, and I hope to eventually try the onion bread but planning around the dehydrator is proving a roadblock.
For this project I whipped up the Seed Cheese Wraps with Sunflower Seed Cheese, so technically two recipes. Overachieve much?
I’ve since made these wraps a few times. The seed cheese is more like a humus boasting a yeasty lemony flavor, and the collards, when young and tender stay together nicely and politely yield to each bite.
And there we have it, one book down, 97 to go.
- Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
- The Essential Cuisines of Mexico
- Aquavit
- Korean Kimchi and Le Cordon Bleu
- The American Family Test Kitchen Family Baking Book
- The Lee Brothers Cookbook
- CIA Garde Manger
- At Home with Japanese Cooking
- The French Laundry Cookbook
- World Vegetarian
- Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen
- Eat for Health
- The Voluptuous Vegan
- China Moon
- The Art and Soul of Baking
- 660 Curries
- The Northwest Essentials Cookbook
- Tapas: a Taste of Spain in America
- Little Foods of the Mediterranean
- Vegan Cupcakes Takeover the World
- 3 Bowls
- Charcuterie
- Martha Stewart Hors d’Oeuvres
Rawvolution- The Baby Cuisine Cookbook
- Mastering the Art of French Cooking
- 1080 Recipes
- I Know How to Cook
- Japanese Vegetarian Cooking
- A Cooks Tour
- Invitation to Korean Cuisine
- The Vegan Gourmet
- Korean Cookery
- Korean Cooking Made Easy
- Vij’s
- Supernatural Everyday
- Supernatural Cooking
- The Kripalu Cookbook
- Making Artisan Chocolates
- The Engine 2 Diet
- Cafe Flora Cookbook
- Chefs on the Farm
- Vegetarian Turkish Cooking
- Cocktails 2006
- Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining
- Sips and Apps
- Entertaining for a Veggie Planet
- Homemade Cheese Making
- Joy of Pickling
- Vegetarian Planet
- The Splendid Grain
- Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
- Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook
- Quick and Easy Korean Cooking
- The Improvisational Cook
- The Northwest Kitchen
- River Road Recipes
- Rebar Modern Food Cookbook
- The New American Chef
- Harumi’s Japanese Cooking
- Mario Batali’s Simple Italian Food
- Ratio
- The Just Bento Cookbook
- Washoku
- The Japanese Kitchen
- The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
- Laurel’s Kitchen
- Les Halles Cookbook
- The Garden of Vegan
- Singapore Heritage Food
- Eat Cook Hong Kong
- The Balthazar Cookbook
- The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
- The Art of Simple Food
- Eating Korean
- The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook
- Chang Mai Thai Cookbook
- Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving
- Ad Hoc at Home
- Around my French Table
- Raw Food Real World
- My Sweet Vegan
- The Raw Gourmet
- The Whole Foods Recipes- Vitamix
- Fish Without a Doubt
- The Splendid Table
- The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves
- The Moosewood Cookbook
- Simple to Spectacular
- The Herb Farm Cookbook
- Putting Food By
- Cooking the Middle Eastern Way
- Bruce Aidells’s Compete Book of Pork
- Crust and Crumb
- Cocktails 2009
- Peas and Thank You
- The 30 Day Vegan Challenge
- Webber’s Big Book of Grilling
So inspired by your dedication! I NEED to find time to do some meal planning!!! OH ya, I am afraid of my basement too, and I converted it into a craft wonderland. Still don’t feel inspired to creep into the depths especially at night. Usually I venture down because it has been way too long since I did a load of laundry.