Raw Food In 30 Minutes or Less

So many raw dishes take forever to prepare. The night before a Raw Food Tuesday (the first Tuesday of each month), I spend hours in the kitchen — chopping, dicing, processing, blending, and then washing all those dishes. Ugh. I couldn't do it every day. Once a month is enough for me. But this Raw Food Tuesday's prep went a little quicker thanks to a few easy-peasy dishes.

For starters, I made the Live Cinnamon Rolls from 30 Minute Vegan:

Don't let the fancy presentation fool you. These tasty raw buckwheat-based treats only took about 20 minutes to prepare. All you need is a food processor and a few ingredients. The light brown part is made from processed raw buckwheat, dates, and agave. That's spread with a cinnamon-raisin mixture and walnuts. But the best part? The frosting!

The roll's frosting has a coconut butter-orange base, which meant I had to break down and shell out $12 for a jar of Artisana coconut butter. I've been eye-ing this stuff for ages at Whole Foods (ever since I read about it's awesomeness on Chocolate Covered Katie's blog), but I'm cheap. I needed to have an excuse to allow myself to buy it, so I made plans to make cinnamon rolls. Now I can't imagine why I've waited so long. Coconut butter is amazing!! Totally worth $12.

Mid-morning, I snacked on some Raw Veggies with a Quick Cheesy Sauce:

The cheese sauce is just 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast mixed with a little water, salt, and pepper. Perfect for veggie dippin'.

Lunch was another 30 Minute Vegan recipe — Live Mango Gazpacho:

Again, this was super-easy to make. I would say it took 10 minutes from start to finish, and it tasted wonderful. The sweetness of the mangos was the perfect balance to summer tomatoes, jalepenos, and red onion. I had a small garden salad on the side.

I snacked on more veggies and cheese dip, as well as half an orange (leftover from the cinnamon roll's frosting) before dinner.

I chose one of the quickest sauces from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen to top my zucchini pasta — Garlic Cashew Aioli:

Ani suggests using this sauce to top raw pasta for "fettucine alfredo" and though I've had a better raw alfredo (Gena's sauce from the Choosing Raw blog), this one was damn tasty atop my locally-grown zucchini.

I served my pasta with a slice of Raw Flax Foccacia from Living in the Raw Gourmet:

Okay, I'll admit. This raw bread took a little longer to prepare because it had to dehydrate for 14 hours. But it was a cinch to mix up and spread on a Teflex sheet. The Excalibur took care of the rest. The "bread" contained a base of summer tomato and basil, as well as ground almond and flax seed. A bit like a flax cracker but softer. Perfect for scoopin' up extra cashew aioli sauce.

After dinner, I went to my friend Shara's house for O.C. Night (yes, we watch all the old episodes of The O.C. on DVD). I took the extra cinnamon rolls, and everyone — all omnis, mind you — actually liked them.

By the way, I totally forgot to ask you guys to check out my guest post on Lindsay's Cook. Vegan. Lover blog. It went up on Friday, and it contains a few of my favorite vegan tofu-eggy recipes. Thanks Lindsay for letting me guest post!