Raw Zucchini Lasagna
By popular request, here is the “Raw Zucchini Lasagna” recipe, which, while made with raw zucchini instead of pasta, was not a totally raw dish only because the spinach in Costa Rica is too bitter to serve raw. This recipe is based on Russell James’ raw lasagna recipe, the original which can be found on therawchef.com for free when you subscribe his raw food tips. I really respect Russell James – if you are new to raw food I HIGHLY recommend his Raw Chef Academy Homestudy Course – his videos are very professional and well presented, and the recipes are consistently reliable and good. I don’t think anyone out there is educating on raw food as professionally as he is.
Raw Zucchini Lasagna – Serves 10
While this recipe has many different components, it is actually very easy to put together and extremely flexible. The nut layer can be made with soaked macadamia nuts or pine nuts instead of cashews, the spinach layer can be made all raw instead of cooked, or be replaced with any other vegetable layer, or eliminated completely. You can leave the mushroom part out of the mushroom nut layer, or do a raw version, or leave the nuts out, or eliminate that whole layer as well and just use the cashew ricotta, pasta and tomato sauce. Get creative with what you have on hand. The lasagna can be made several hours in advance and held, but serve it the same day you make it because it is best fresh.
Raw Zucchini Lasagna “Pasta”
- 10 medium zucchini or goldbar squash, peeled
- 1 t olive oil
- 1/2 t salt
Using a mandolin or Chinese slicer or very sharp knife, carefully slice each peeled zucchini lengthwise into even 1/8 -1/4 inch slices. Only use the fleshy outside of each squash discarding or reserving the seedy core for another recipe. Gently rub salt and oil into all the slices, reserving the nicest, most lasagna-like “noodles” for the top. Let sit while you prepare the remaining fillings, tossing gently with your hands occasionally and letting excess liquid drain off.
Texture Tip: texture is everything here. The reason you peel these and the thickness of the slices all add up to a smooth, lasagna-noodle “mouthfeel”, which I think is the whole trick. You may have to adjust the thickness as you go to get it perfect – I find that thinner slices are nicer, but go too thin and you will lose the body after the squash marinates in the salt a bit. Play with it – you can always bury the ugly ones in the middle!
Cashew “Ricotta” for Lasagna
- 2T lemon juice
- 2T nutritional yeast
- 2 yellow peppers, seeded and chopped
- 2T fresh parsley
- 1T fresh thyme
- 2t salt
- 3 cups cashews, soaked 2 – 4 hours and drained.
- 1⁄2 c water if needed
- ½ c (optional) fresh chopped herbs (rosemary, parsley, thyme, basil)
Blend all in vitamix until smooth and creamy, starting with peppers and adding nuts at the end, and water only if needed. Fresh herbs can be added at the end if using. Set aside, use the (unrinsed) vitamix to make tomato sauce:
Sundried Tomato Sauce
- 11⁄2c sundried tomatoes, soaked for 1 hour or more
- ¼ small onion
- 2c tomato, seeded and chopped
- 4 t agave/honey or 2 soaked dates
- 11⁄2 T dried oregano
- 1t salt or to taste
- ¼ c olive oil
- 2T lemon juice
Process all in a food processor or vitamix until smooth, adjust for salt/sweet depending on how salty your sundried tomatoes are. Set aside while you make your mushroom filling:
Mushroom Nut Filling
- 2 pounds fresh mushrooms
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 T olive oil
- 1t salt
- 1t black pepper,
- 1T dried sage
- 11⁄2c sunflower seeds soaked 1 hour or more and drained
- 1c sun-dried tomatoes, soaked for 1 hour or more
- 2T dark/brown miso
- 2t dried oregano
- 2t dried sage
- 1T nama shoyu/soy sauce
- 1⁄2t cayenne pepper
- 1T olive oil
- 1T honey/agave nectar
- 1t sea salt
In food processor, chop mushrooms coarsely. Sauté with garlic in 2 T olive oil, salt, pepper and sage, for 5 – 10 minutes until liquid is absorbed and mushrooms are very flavorful. Alternatively, for a truly raw version, spread evenly on dehydrator sheet and dehydrate for 2 – 3 hours until lightly “cooked”.
In food processor, blend nuts and remaining ingredients until combined but slightly chunky still. Combine with mushrooms. Set aside in dehydrator or warm place while you make your spinach filling:
Spinach and Onion Filling
- 2 large onions
- 1 pounds fresh spinach leaves, washed and chopped
- 1 t salt
- 2 T olive oil
Sauté onions in olive oil, salt and pepper until translucent, add spinach and sauté 5 – 10 more minutes until gently cooked. Cool slightly in colander, squeezing lightly to drain excess liquid. Alternatively, to make raw, toss raw spinach with other ingredients and massage gently to soften.
Assembling the Lasagna….
Spread one cup of tomato sauce on the bottom of a large casserole dish, preferably glass. Top with one even layer of zucchini pasta, overlapping each slice slightly. Top with one thick even layer of mushroom filling.
Add a second layer of zucchini (use the ugly ones here and make sure you have enough for one more layer of nice ones for the top. You can skip this layer if you don’t have enough for both.
Top second layer of zucchini with the cashew ricotta, dot with spinach. Top with final top layer of zucchini. Smooth remaining tomato sauce over the top. Cut carefully into 10 -12 pieces with a serrated bread knife and keep warm in dehydrator or low oven until ready to serve.
Quasi-raw, butter, and my favorite Peach Gallette
For a while I have been thinking about my own eating habits as being “quasi-raw”… this could be anywhere from 75% – 95% raw, and is totally flexible depending on whats in season, what’s on hand, what country I happen to be in, and who is coming for dinner.
I do believe in the virtues of raw food, and although much of the flavor of fresh (see Addicted to FRESH), comes from uncooked foods, I love also being able to mix it up by taking more traditional cooked/baked recipes and loading them up with really fresh seasonal fruits or veggies, and turning people ON to that freshness in other ways.
Since my background is that of a professional pastry chef, and I LOOOOVE food, all sorts of food…I want to say that there are some things that are not great for you, but cannot be substituted for by anything else, and one of them is butter. Really good butter. Fresh from the farmers market, organic, grass fed when possible, or at least French or European. (You have to be able to smell it, or it doesn’t count).
Can you smell it when you look at this photo? What I love about this tart is the incredible simplicity of it – the flavor is simple bright fresh peach, nestled in a flaky pure butter crust, the shape is as organic and free-form as you want to make it, and it takes no time to pull together with any fruits you happen to have on hand.
Fresh Peach Gallette
Perfect Butter Crust:
- 1/2 c butter, frozen
- 1 1/2 c unbleached white flour (can use up to 1/2 c wwheat pastry flour)
- 1/2 t salt
- 1/2 ice water, with squeeze of lemon
This can be done by hand, but its incredibly easy and fast in a food processor or mini-prep:
Chop butter into 8 -10 pieces and combine with flour in mini-prep. Pulse until butter is no larger than course bread crumbs. Stop, add salt and 4 -5 T of the iced water and pulse just a few seconds more to slightly combine. Turn out into a medium mixing bowl and toss lightly with a fork, adding 1 -2 T water if nessesary until the mixture just holds a ball. Pat lightly into a 1 inch circle and chill for at least 1/2 hour, while you prepare the fruit.
Preheat oven to 375. Prepare fruit:
Peach Mixture:
- 4 -5 peaches, washed and sliced thinly
- 1 t vanilla
- 1/4 t almond extract
- 1/4 c Agave syrup, to taste
- 1 t arrowroot powder (or cornstarch)
- pinch salt
- pinch nutmeg and cinnamon
Combine fruit and remaining ingredients and allow to macerate for 10 -15 minutes while you roll the crust.
Roll the chilled dough into a large circle, 3 -4 inches beyond diameter of the the pan you are using. This is a freeform tart, so you can make it in anything you have – its supposed to be rustic. I like using an 11′ glass quiche pan (shown above).
Pile fruit in center of crust, even out, and then fold the pastry sides gently towards the middle, so they lay directly onto the fruit, leaving the middle exposed. Crazy, uneven shapes are fine – part of the charm of this tart.
Bake for about 40 minutes at 375, then reduce to 350 and bake for another 20 -30 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the peach juice is thickend slightly.
Remove from oven and brush the exposed peaches with a bit of the juice form the tart to moisten them and make them shine. Serve warm for dessert, and then finish off the next morning for breakfast!
Options:
- Add a smattering of blueberries, raspberries, or blackberries
- Replace cinnamon with zest of 1/2 lemon
- Replace peaches with nectarines, plums, or any other stonefruit in season
- Replace stonefruit with apples or pears, or combination.
- Try adding chopped crystallized ginger and a few cranberries.
- Use maple syrup instead of agave, or use a combination
Addicted to FRESH
I live in NYC, and am a certified food nut. Usually can’t even remember the names of my relatives, but ask me what I remember about some 2 week trek in the Himalayas over 20 years ago… and you will get total food recall. (A little hut… they served us “mussel pizza”, which was steamed dough topped with Chinese canned mussels. It was delicious!).
New York is a city where you can pretty much get any type of food you like, any way you like it, any time day or night. So the rules change here a bit, and surprisingly, I don’t actually go out that much. It was different when I lived outside the city and came in – all I wanted was good Asian, or whatever I wasn’t getting where I was. But here, in the middle of everything, when people ask me what kind of food I like to eat, I say “Fresh!” Because that’s the rare gem to be found here. Not just fresh, but fresh done really well, when it sparkles off your plate. When you think Wow!… then mmmmm…..
I love finding these spots, and will be posting them in the FOOD GEMS category as I find them.
But back to Fresh- its something that once you develop a taste for, there is no going back. I developed this, and became conscious of it, cooking for Andrew Cohen, my spiritual teacher of over 15 years. There was one particular day that I made an omelette for him. I had recently seen the movie Big Night, and was on a serious omelette trip at the time, and can confidently say by anyone’s standards it was a GORGEOUS little omelette, a perfectly balanced sweet-savory combo of caramelized onions, zucchini and thyme, light on the eggs, perfectly cooked… or at least I thought.
Andrew sent it back. He asked me to taste it, to see if I could tell what was wrong with it, and I did. It was dead.
The tastes were all perfectly balanced, but the veggies had lost their life, and I realized that you can taste the life force in food. From that moment on, that sense of life, that Fresh, became an irrevocable 6th element for me, in both cooking and eating.
My name is Jorin – I am a Fresh-oholic.
About Conscious Food Choices
Because I am passionate about great food, was a professional pastry chef for 15 years, have been a vegetarian since I was 9, and am a total vegi-holic and burgeoning locavore living in the middle of New York City, people ask me about food all the time.
I get asked for recipes, for where to eat, for what to eat…
And because my mom died of cancer in 2008, and I spent an amazing 6 months in the last part of her life trying to heal her with food, while at the same time trying to navigate the bizarre medical practices that are set up to “cure” cancer patients, I have developed a particular interest in exploring the nutritional and social aspects of all of those questions.
For a long time I have been intrigued by the notion of food as a vehicle for higher consciousness, and more recently, the obvious and extreme need for higher consciousness around food.
Ongoing Foodie Explorations…
I am always looking for tricks to making really healthy food totally delicious, and proving that the experience of eating can be an adventure – 100% pure enjoyment, with the added surprise that it is good for you and makes you feel great!
I want to give people that experience directly by listing recipes, notes, ramblings and also listing my favorite haunts and newest finds around NYC for great (mostly inexpensive) vegetarian food.
By creating this blog and sharing this ongoing investigation about what makes stuff actually taste great, what is actually healthy and what is myth, I am hoping that together we can begin to navigate the positive but complicated terrain that every well-meaning food-centric consumer faces every day. Every time I am in the shopping aisle I find myself having to re-weigh my options:
Should I choose “Local” over “Organic” ? And if it says “Organic” is this a company that means it?
And after reading Micheal Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I found myself seriously pondering the ethics of “Humanely Raised” animals… even after 32 years of calling myself “Vegetarian”…
What is “Cage Free”… “Humane Certified”… is it better than “Grass Fed”…?
Not to mention the questions of “Vegan” vs “High Protein” or “Low Fat” vs “Low Carb”…!
Some of these questions I have definite opinions about and others require a new choice on the fly each day. I hope you will join me in exploring these issues and others by posting your own questions, comments and suggestions.
Social Myths and Minefields Around Food
We have become a nation with a view of food based on fear, limitation, and media confusion rather than joy, exploration, and personal experience. And it’s killing us.
The movement towards food consciousness that began in the 70’s finally seems to be gaining mainstream momentum, but now it is a race against an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease at untold levels. I personally believe that the key to turning all of this around is in understanding the value of food in every aspect of our lives, including physically, spiritually, and socially.
I think it is really important to dispel some of the social myths and confusion we have around dietary fat, dairy, carbs, protein, “cheap” food, and lack of time to cook. And it’s equally important to understand that much of the “confusion” around real nutrition in this country is no accident – it is a very deliberate act by some of the most powerful lobbying forces in this country to keep the consumer misinformed. Its sounds like conspiracy theory, but the more I find out, the more I am horrified by how much worse this is than I even imagined.
As a web marketer, I am a shameless promoter of things I believe in, so I want to use this blog as a platform to highlight and support the other people and organizations who are helping to clarify these issues and bring them to greater public awareness. For this, I have created a resource section listing of recommend books and websites.
What do I mean about “Higher Consciousness”?
Food and consciousness run hand in hand – the more conscious we individually become about what we put into our bodies: where it came from, what it took to get to us, as well as what it is actually doing to us, the better chance we have to pass this information on. This awareness needs to develop into mainstream thought so that our healthcare system will not collapse from simple ignorance, and our children and society as a whole will not either.
Food is what we are made of, literally as an individual, and also as a society. What we choose to purchase, create, and put into our mouths directly is in no way separate from the entire social fabric we live in. We are what we eat.
Who knew you could change the world by just eating better???
In the spirit of joy and adventure – thank you for joining me in making Conscious Food Choices!
Jorin Hawley
October 24th, 2009
This blog is dedicated to my mother, Samm Hawley, who lived and died in the most wonderful, creative, positive way you could ever imagine. She loved food and art, and wove them all seamlessly into the tapestry of her life, mine and everyone she touched.
Conscious Food Choices 