Raw Beet Salad!

Still on the mend, but definitely mending, thanks to tomato tea, grapefruit seed extract, and oil of oregano. Feeling like more raw foods might give me the boost I need to conquer this thing, so in that spirit I have raw dinners on the menu for Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Last night I whipped up a simple beet salad, (from the Boutenko's "Fresh" raw cookbook, and also started a raw live Kimchi from the same book.).

Delicious, but pungent, this recipe calls for the following:
3 diced fresh beets
5 (yes, five) cloves of fresh garlic
1 tsp of honey
1 tsp of lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Assault all ingredients in a food processor until you have a nice, nicely nice, relish consistency. Once again, this is probably not a job for the Vitamix, unless you want a raw beet and garlic smoothie. I served these in red wine glasses, with the suggested oregano garnish.

This salad was pungent but very tasty, definitely not for vampires, and if you prefer, you can adjust your orbit a bit and roast the garlic first. Also, you might tweak the amount of honey, lemon(I used Meyer lemon, which are lovely when you can get them) or both, you can significantly adjust the overall flavor of the dish. The purists among you will not use honey, so raw agave works just as well. I have no issue with honey, or homie, as my autocorrect suggests. Bizarre.



The live Kimchi is a process, but it's coming along. Kimchi is basically a Korean fermented cabbage, similar to a sauerkraut, but spiced much differently. The recipe will be forthcoming when I have the cookbook handy, it did require a few more unusual ingredients, but thankfully, nothing I couldn't find on the hallowed shelves of Whole Foods, ( I did have a moment of panic when I couldn't find Kefir starter, and thought for a second I might have to crawl back to the Asian market with cash in hand and tail between legs.) thankfully a knowledgable clerk showed me where it was. I am eternally grateful, you have no idea.

I only bring it up now because A. It requires time, and B. I'm already seeing the need to adapt the process. Boutenko calls for 3 entire napa cabbages stuffed into one gallon sized jar, but when I took a look at the size of the cabbages, I knew I could scarcely fit one into a jar at size. However, as it ferments it shrinks quite a bit, so my plan is to add more cabbage today, and let the mixture ferment another 12-24 hours.
Pics forthcoming.

If anyone is interested, I think I'm going to start post good local finds, talk about kitchen implements etc that I find useful (or not,) and anything else that seems appropriate.

See you in cyberspace!




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Location:Madison, CT