Today I share some experimenting I have been doing on raw food ingredients to shake my raw food experience up a bit.
There is an interesting plurality between my homecooked food (including the daily raw foods I make for myself) and the food I shoot. I find it therapeutic to conceptualize and then make foods that I then style for photography. Its a visual process and its about eating with the eyes. Raw food itself CAN lend itself to fantastic photography because it easily conveys the vitality we like to see in food photography. On the other hand, I have been making smoothies that are not that visually appealing and eating apples and bananas, nothing clever about their appearance. When I cook for the family and serve it up, while its not just all tossed into a pile, it doesn’t hold up well for photography.
All this said, these thoughts were part of my process as I brought together today’s recipe. I wanted to make sweet potato ravioli but my mandolin would NOT cut a whole round. When I cut the potato with my food processor I got rounds but VERY thick ones. I wanted to make a rich ravioli stuffing that was different in color from the sweet potato, same with the sauce. If I had more basil on hand, the green of the stuffing would have been more intense. The tomatoes were hot house and thus did not give a nice bright color.
I did the best I could with the technology I had! As I ate the dish, I enjoyed the broccoli and the sweet potato although it might be better if you can get the slices much thinner!
Nika’s Sweet Potato Crunch
Ingredients:
- 1 medium sized sweet potato
- 2 medium tomatoes
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 slices fresh ginger
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 2-3 basil leaves or some basil sprouts
- 1/3 c sunflower seeds, raw
- 1/3 c pumpkin seeds, raw
- 1/3 c organic unsweetened coconut flakes, medium size
- 3/4 c broccoli florets, raw
- 2 medium organic carrots
- 3 tablespoons coconut water
- 1/4 tsp salt
Directions:
Slices: Peel sweet potato, slice as thin as possible (mandolin, food processor, knife, the force, what ever works for you).
Stuffing: In a Vita-Mix dry blender, pulverize coconut fakes, sunflower and pumpkin seeds to a flour. Add flour to liquid blender and add 1 clove garlic, coconut water, ginger, broccoli, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp olive oil, and blend. You will need to used the plunger stick and you may need to stop a few times to redistribute unblended parts. You also may need to add some more coconut water to bring the mixture together into a dough.
Sauce: Peel two medium organic carrots, cut in half. Turn on Vita-mix and then take off top clear part (leave main top on) and drop carrots down onto the moving blade. This minces the carrot finely. Turn off the Vita-Mix. Add tomatoes, lemon juice, 1 clove garlic, 1 tsp salt, basil leaves (I used basil sprouts) and blend until completely blended.
Assemble as desired. I sprinkled on some chunky salt and red and black pepper to garnish, along with basil and salad green sprouts.
Because the tomato is NOT cooked, it will release clear tomato juice if allowed to sit. A cooked tomato sauce will not do this. The sauce tastes fantastic as it explodes with umami, even in it’s raw state. The broccoli filling is creamy from the seed flour and rather filling. The sweet potato, as I mentioned, would do well to be sliced more thinly but the flavor is lovely and it has a strong crunch. This is a textural thing that is up to you! Experiment and see for yourself.
