Delightfully Raw Near Walla Walla - Part II

I'm back with more about our adventures near Walla Walla, although this time it will all be food talk! Yippee!

First off, I want to start with a photo that really belonged to my previous post, but hey, what can you do? These things happen. *shrugs* I was mentioning how our hosts live right in the heart of apple country. During one of our walks in the orchard across the street we found the odd apple still in the trees. Among them was probably the largest one we've ever seen! The pesticide coating was so thick (yuck!) that we had to rub it energetically to make it nice and shiny.

While we walked we noticed how some of the trees in each row were bearing teeny miniature apples that hadn't been picked at all. Brian explained that the main purpose of these is to act as pollinators.

Apples, big and small

In Matt & Dawnen's Sunny Kitchen
As I was saying before, Matthew and Dawnen have been experimenting with raw foods for a good while. Often times when we stay with folks, we're the ones who end up sharing a lot of our knowledge. This time it was my turn to be in the apprentice's position and learn a bunch of new tricks and techniques. In the coming weeks you can expect to read feature posts on how to grow micro-greens, make Coconut Yogurt and assemble Matt's famous Hot & Cold Salad.

We happened to be there for Dawnen's birthday, so we all got together for a little feast.

Me with the birthday girl

One of the challenges of living in a trailer is the lack of sufficient light. Like me Matt is a sucker for having his working space very well lit, so he's come up with the perfect solution: a head lamp. Actually once you get used to seeing so clearly you sort of get addicted; now Matt wears his lamp pretty much all of the time! he he

Closely watching Dawnen preparing a Dipping Sauce for veggie rolls. Notice that she's wearing a head lamp too; it's contagious I tell ya!

Whizzing up our raw soup du jour. And nope, that's not a head lamp near my forehead. ;-)

Smile!

For the main course we assembled our own veggie rolls with both rice paper and nori sheets.

Matt making sure everything is looking good.

At some point Brian got hold of Matt's super duper camera and took all sorts of shots throughout the evening.

Mr. Donnie...



... looking very much relaxed, as usual. ;-)

Feasting at Vedra & Merle's
We were invited for lunch a couple of weekends ago by Dawnen's mom and step-dad. They eat fairly healthy to begin with, since, as members of the 7th day Adventist Church, honoring the temple of our bodies is particularly emphasized. I certainly didn't expect to partake in such a raw feast, though! Vedra really went all out in whipping up a bunch of yummy stuff!

See for yourselves...

A nut based Chili

Cauliflower and Jicama Rice

 

Ranch Dressing

Cheeze Sauce

 

Dawnen and Matt contributed lots of goodies for salad, including freshly harvested micro greens as well as a curried quinoa dish.

We brought a blender container full of the ingredients for my Tomato & Herbs Soup which we just had to whiz up on their brand new Vitamix machine. (Very nice!)

Don's ginormous pile! It looked like a LOT of food (and it was!), but he didn't come anywhere close to beating Matt's 3 servings! lol  I'm still not quite sure how can so much food go into such a thin man? ;-)

More of Vedra's handiwork: 2 kinds of sweet nut balls.

Giving Thanks in Good Company
We walked over to Matt & Dawnen's trailer on Thanksgiving day to share a lovely meal. On the menu was a soup concoction of Don's, a large salad with Peppercorn Ranch Dressing, Neat Balls, mashed potatoes freshly harvested from their garden, and Miso Gravy.

Most of the salad ingredients also came from their garden. So vibrant in both colors and flavors!

The Neatballs recipe came from Gabriel Cousens' Rainbow Green, Live-Food Cuisine. I thought that they had a nice flavor from the herbs but they were a tad too salty for my taste.

Garden Neatballs
From Gabriel Cousens' Rainbow Green, Live-Food Cuisine
Recipe posted here

1 C almonds, soaked
1/2 C walnuts, soaked
1 C olive oil
1/4 C leeks
2 celery stalks
1 T sage
1 T marjoram
1 T thyme
2 t Celtic salt

Homogenize nuts with oil.

Finely chop and stir in leeks, celery, herbs and salt.

Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls and dehydrate for 2-3 hours at 140F.

Matt's Mods: He used only 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 cup of leeks and 5 celery sticks.


The recipe calls for serving these with Marinara Sauce but Dawnen opted for her own rendition of Gravy made with cashews, veggie broth and South River miso.

Afterwards we just hung out for a while. Almost as soon as Don and I got settled on the couch Mr. Bean hopped on so that he could snuggle between us. Awwwww! It seems that every time we come over he feels more and more comfortable in our presence. ;-)

Beanie was all chilled... until Dawnen got dessert out: raw vegan pear ice cream freshly made in their fancy ice cream maker. He was so thrilled at the prospect of this treat that the poor fellow tripped while coming down from the couch. It's not easy to maneuver around when you've lost the partial use of two of your legs! ;-(

Matt played around with our Sony a-57 camera for a while and captured this nice shot of Dawnen drinking her tea.

Meet the Matt-Man

During our stay Brian came up with the brilliant nickname of 'Matt-Man' for Matthew, partly inspired by the latter's quirky old Subaru which was instantly dubbed the 'Matt-mobile'. he he Anyhoo, one afternoon we all climbed into the Matt-mobile and went grocery shopping in Walla Walla. It turned out to be quite the funny expedition. Not sure what had gotten into him that day, but Matt-Man sure was being a goofy guy!

 Nice hat, Matt!

But the funniest bit was when he managed the considerable feat of getting (most of) himself and Mr. Bean into one of those kiddie buggies. Mr. Bean seemed to enjoy the ride, especially when Matt beeped the horn. ;-) The tough part, though, wasn't so much getting in as getting out of the thing afterwards! lol

One thing is for sure, Matt is a super interesting character! ;-) He knows heaps about all sorts of topics. Oh, the fascinating (and long!) conversations that Don and Matt had! I also spent a good deal of time hanging at their trailer, picking his brain and soaking up all kinds of helpful info.

Matt likes to amp things up; his motto? The more the better! When Matt does something, he likes to "go all the way, including the postage." For instance a few weeks ago he made such a huge amount of sauerkraut that I could barely lift up the bowl. It filled something like 9 two-quarts Mason jars. ;-)

Chocolat

One Sunday Dawnen and I took over her mom's kitchen and turned it into a raw chocolate factory. Woo hoo! We had several recipes on our to-make list, but it all went very smoothly. Even so, by the time we finished cleaning up our mess it was nearly 7 hours later. Eeek! Call it the 'Raw Choccie Marathon'! ;-)

We worked with two basic chocolate recipes: the one featured in Matthew Kenney's Raw Chocolate book as well as Pamela Vinten's Recipe #1 from her Amazing Guilt-Free Chocolate. We also experimented with different kinds of sweeteners - maple syrup, agave, honey and coconut nectar - although neither of us thought of taking notes of what was in what. Ooopsie! We also kinda lost track of which choc recipe we used for some of our goodies. Ah well, as it happened all the variations turned out marvelously well! ;-)

Both of us felt drawn to certain recipes from Matthew Kenney's book, so we each played with those individually. In the end we split all of our goodies anyways. Yay! I thought that the lighting wasn't the greatest for some of the pics I took that night, so I got more shots in daylight, hence the double pics.

Marzipan Stuffed Choccies

Mint and Candied Nibs

Hazelnut Almond Chocolate Bars

As a matter of convenience we used the dehydrator method for melting the cacao butter and paste, as recommended in Matthew's book. We did end up returning the chocolate mixture to the D while we were working on other recipes. I'm not 100% sure how that affected the tempering process but most of our choccies did turn out nice and shiny, except for a couple of recipes. I'm actually thinking that the molds might have been the culprits for these.

Walnut Maple Chocolates

We both really like Cafe Gratitude's Coconut Almond Joys which we've prepared on a number of occasions. And so we split up a batch between us. I think that the last time I made these I worked on a picnic table at a California campground under Kylo's intense scrutiny. How he used to love chocolate! Not to worry though, we never let him indulge in this compulsion. One time he ate several artisan organic chocolate bars that we'd made the mistake of leaving in the vehicle with him while we continued our shopping. When we returned he had wolfed them down, wrapping and all. He didn't even so much as burp. hehe

 

There were a little bit of left over coconut filling which Dawnen turned into these gorgeous treats.

My intention was to also tell you about a potluck that we recently attended with their local health group, but this post is already getting long. How about I save it for another time, eh?

Rawcking near Nelson, British Columbia

My friend Ulla and I had such a wonderful time facilitating our Raw Radiance Retreat last September that we almost immediately started planning other raw events. And so in October we held a three course raw vegan gourmet Mexican Dinner as well as a one day Raw Radiance Workshop at her lovely home near Nelson, BC.

Mexican Dinner
This was soooo much fun!!! Ulla went all out, playing along with the evening's theme by using tablecloths and small serving bowls that she brought back from her trips to Mexico. She even wore a Mexican top! ;-)

We started off the evening with me demoing how to make Cheezy Corn Chowder and Nacho Cheeze. We then all sat down and enjoyed this fiesta together. It was a great opportunity for all of the attendees to talk about their own interest in raw foods and, of course, pick my brains to their hearts' content. ;-)

We were introduced to the concept of raw Tostada (actually I just looked it up online and it's really more like a Taco Salad) during one of our trips to the US. It is now one of our staples as it is so tasty and really simple to assemble: crumble your favorite corn chips at the bottom of a plate and top with guacamole and Nacho Cheeze (we often omit it). Next comes slivered lettuce, followed by fresh Tomato Salsa and Cashew Sour Cream. Yum!

Dessert was Pamela Vinten's Chili Chocolate Nut Bar from her Amazing Guilt Free Chocolate ebook.

I really really enjoyed this formula and will definitely continue to play around with the idea of themed raw dinners in the future!

Raw Radiance Day Workshop
 A few days later we conducted a Raw Radiance Workshop. The intention was to give the participants an overview of the benefits of including more raw foods in their diets, and introduce them to some easy yet really yummy recipes.

In this food prep demo I showed them how to assemble what we like to call our Whole Meal Miso Soup. This soup has been such a life saver for us, especially when we are on the road! The combination of fresh veggies with warm hot ginger miso broth is oh-so-comforting on a cold day!

Marinating mushrooms

Sooooo good!

Later in the afternoon Don and I shared about our own health journeys and passed on various tips that we have learned over the years to help us maintain the raw lifestyle in a wholesome and balanced way.

Afterwards we withdrew to the kitchen to get dinner ready while Ulla and the others continued to exchange ideas and personal experiences.

Got everything ready!

Demoing how to make raw Pad Thai.

 

And for dessert we treated ourselves to Heathy of Sweetly Raw's Beautiful Chocolate Berry Pie from her Just Desserts ebook.

Sunny Raw Kitchen 2012 Tour Update
We have now begun our US travels and are presently staying with the Knoeflers near Walla Walla, OR. They've been exploring the raw lifestyle for a long time and Matthew has been sharing with me all kinds of really interesting techniques and recipes. Guys, brace yourself for a series of awesome posts about their amazing garden, how to grow micro-greens, how to make coconut yogurt and much more!

Where to Next? 

We'll be staying here until at least November 26th in order to attend their local health group's potluck. We'll then continue our way down to Salt Lake City to hang out with our friend Thomas Fox of Omniblender.com and his family.

As usual we try to make as few fixed plans as possible in order to leave room for the magical encounters that Life will undoubtedly put on our path. This is what our general itinerary sorta looks like so far for the coming months:

• Salt Lake City (early December) 
• St-George, UT (mid-December)

Then we'll spend time in the following states:

- Arizona (we'll most likely be RVing there from late Dec. until mid-February or so)

- California (mid-Feb. until late March)

- Oregon (late March)

- Washington (April)

We'll be having some kind of raw get together in most of those places, so drop me a line if you'd like to be kept posted or get more info about the scheduled events. Also, if you live somewhere along the way and would like to hook up or even help put together an event, please send me an email at:

sunnyrawkitchen(at)gmail(dot)com