Recipe transformation help needed!

sossoco

Hello all you wonderful uncooks,

I need your help transforming two of my favourite non raw dishes to raw. I’m good in the kitchen, but my culinary brain is still a little iliterate about making up raw recipes.

So here goes:

1. Pumpkin Seed Parsley Pesto (which is by far the most delicious pesto I ever had, raw or non-raw!)

1 bunch parsley (leaves only)

2 cloves garlic

1 ts salt

2 TS pumpkin seeds

100 g young parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup)

100 ml olive oil (about 1/2 cup)

2-3 TS pumpkin seed oil

Process the first four ingredients in your food processor until well combined. Then gradually add pieces of parmesan cheese and olive oil and process. Add pumpkin seed oil and process a bit more.

I need an alternative to the parmesan cheese, (but I would like to try without nutritional yeast if possible since it’s not raw) does anybody have an idea?

This pesto has been an all-time favorite of our family, it’s so versatile: dip veggie sticks in it (especially delicious are carrots), have it with pasta of either kind, use it as a base on lettuce wraps, and so on. I’d be so happy to keep it in our raw kitchen!

2. Banana Chocolate Cream

5 bananas, the riper the better

cacao powder

2 cups cream

vanilla extract (optional)

Puree the bananas until smooth, then add cacao powder until the mixture is of a dark chocolatey color.

Whip the cream, then carefully combine the whipped cream with the banana chocolate puree. If the color is only a light brown add more cacao powder.

Tastes fantastic with belgian waffels, pancakes and all the raw alternatives to those, my kids want to have it every sunday. If I could still serve that on sundays, but raw, wow. :D

Do you have an idea how I could substitute the cream?

Thank you guys so much, I know you’re amazing!

All the best from Berlin, Sossoco

Zoe

Sounds like you’re stuck on how to do dairy as a raw vegan.

Basically, nuts and seeds are your raw vegan dairy. You can make cheese, cream, milk, ice cream, yoghurt, etc all out of nuts and seeds blended with water.

Which nuts you choose are a matter of taste, and also whether you can get them raw or not. Personally I use sunflower seed sprouts, hemp oil, and coconut butter for my raw vegan dairy.

If I’m making milk, then I add a dash of lemon (fake animal products need a bit of acidity for an authentic flavour), salt and a few dates.

If I’m making cheese, I add oil, salt and lemon.

If I’m making cream then I’ll add salt, dates, lemon and also some coconut butter/oil.

The pesto sounds lovely. You can use pine nuts or any other nut instead of cheese. My favourite raw pesto is made with walnuts, but I guess pine nuts would be more authentic. Use about 1/2 cup but add more of you think it needs it. The amount of oil is good, but add to it if you think it could take it because the oil will add more weight/heaviness and creaminess to it.

Banana choc cream – I would put about a cupful of sunflower sprouts, a few dates, water, pinch of salt, dash of lemon juice in the blender with the cacao, bananas and vanilla, and blend the heck out of it until it is creamy.

Or an alternative would be to use avocado instead of nuts or seeds. The recipe would be something like this -1 nice and ripe avocado, cacao, 2 bananas, 5 dates, and a pinch of salt. Avocado works so well in creamy puds!

RawKidChef

The most popular raw vegan parmesan cheese is basically pine nuts ground to a flour and added lemon juice and salt. Mix it all together and spread it on a dehydrator sheet, at 110 for 12-24 hours. It should be dry and crumbly.

I second the avocado. It is really rich and creamy and definitely would replace cream.

sossoco

Thanks so much, you two!

That’s exactly the kind of information I needed. I’ll play around a bit and post the recipes once they’re worth it. :)

aimee

Hey sossoco,

I'm in Berlin, also. How long have you been raw? I'm just now really starting up. It's hard with kids around that don't have the same motivating factor. I have 2 kids 14and 12.

RawLibrarian

For a cream substitute in the banana chocolate cream recipe, you could make a cashew cream:

Soak 1 cup raw cashews for a couple of hours.

Put in blender with 1/2 to 1 cup filtered water, 1/2 tsp. vanilla and 1 tsp. agave nectar (or sweetener of your choice) and hit the switch.

It makes a really yummy cream, which will thicken up in the fridge.