How To Eat Raw, and Like It.

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.

  1. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
  2. The Essential Cuisines of Mexico
  3. Aquavit
  4. Korean Kimchi and Le Cordon Bleu
  5. The American Family Test Kitchen Family Baking Book
  6. The Lee Brothers Cookbook
  7. CIA Garde Manger
  8. At Home with Japanese Cooking
  9. The French Laundry Cookbook
  10. World Vegetarian
  11. Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen
  12. Eat for Health
  13. The Voluptuous Vegan
  14. China Moon
  15. The Art and Soul of Baking
  16. 660 Curries
  17. The Northwest Essentials Cookbook
  18. Tapas: a Taste of Spain in America
  19. Little Foods of the Mediterranean
  20. Vegan Cupcakes Takeover the World
  21. 3 Bowls
  22. Charcuterie
  23. Martha Stewart Hors d’Oeuvres
  24. Rawvolution
  25. The Baby Cuisine Cookbook
  26. Mastering the Art of French Cooking
  27. 1080 Recipes
  28. I Know How to Cook
  29. Japanese Vegetarian Cooking
  30. A Cooks Tour
  31. Invitation to Korean Cuisine
  32. The Vegan Gourmet
  33. Korean Cookery
  34. Korean Cooking Made Easy
  35. Vij’s
  36. Supernatural Everyday
  37. Supernatural Cooking
  38. The Kripalu Cookbook
  39. Making Artisan Chocolates
  40. The Engine 2 Diet
  41. Cafe Flora Cookbook
  42. Chefs on the Farm
  43. Vegetarian Turkish Cooking
  44. Cocktails 2006
  45. Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining
  46. Sips and Apps
  47. Entertaining for a Veggie Planet
  48. Homemade Cheese Making
  49. Joy of Pickling
  50. Vegetarian Planet
  51. The Splendid Grain
  52. Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
  53. Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook
  54. Quick and Easy Korean Cooking
  55. The Improvisational Cook
  56. The Northwest Kitchen
  57. River Road Recipes
  58. Rebar Modern Food Cookbook
  59. The New American Chef
  60. Harumi’s Japanese Cooking
  61. Mario Batali’s Simple Italian Food
  62. Ratio
  63. The Just Bento Cookbook
  64. Washoku
  65. The Japanese Kitchen
  66. The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
  67. Laurel’s Kitchen
  68. Les Halles Cookbook
  69. The Garden of Vegan
  70. Singapore Heritage Food
  71. Eat Cook Hong Kong
  72. The Balthazar Cookbook
  73. The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
  74. The Art of Simple Food
  75. Eating Korean
  76. The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook
  77. Chang Mai Thai Cookbook
  78. Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving
  79. Ad Hoc at Home
  80. Around my French Table
  81. Raw Food Real World
  82. My Sweet Vegan
  83. The Raw Gourmet
  84. The Whole Foods Recipes- Vitamix
  85. Fish Without a Doubt
  86. The Splendid Table
  87. The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves
  88. The Moosewood Cookbook
  89. Simple to Spectacular
  90. The Herb Farm Cookbook
  91. Putting Food By
  92. Cooking the Middle Eastern Way
  93. Bruce Aidells’s Compete Book of Pork
  94. Crust and Crumb
  95. Cocktails 2009
  96. Peas and Thank You
  97. The 30 Day Vegan Challenge
  98. Webber’s Big Book of Grilling

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2 thoughts on “How To Eat Raw, and Like It.

  1. 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.