Raw Food for Two

For years, my all-raw food day detoxes were a solo effort. I know lots of vegans and vegetarians, but none willing to give up cooked food for a whole day. Well, I have a few raw friends, but they're raw every day and doing a one-day raw cleanse with them wouldn't be the same. They're so above my level!

But when my vegan co-worker Hannah moved into the cubicle next to me several months ago, she suggested we do a raw day together. We put it off and put it off for months for various reasons — weddings, vacations, busy work weeks. But today, we finally had a successful Raw Food Thursday. After spending two hours prepping food Wednesday night, we were ready for a full day of uncooked eats.

We started our morning bright and early at Cosmic Coconut, Memphis' only all-vegan juice and smoothie bar. Our awesome friend Ashley owns the place, and she gave us these sweet, stainless steel reusable straws for our smoothies! Mine is a Mango Mama (mango, coconut meat and juice) and Hannah got the Tropical Fusion (mango, pineapple, coconut, and pomegranate):

Ashley also sells raw desserts at Cosmic Coconut, and Hannah and I HAD to buy some of her bittersweet cacao-coconut balls, Coco-Nutties. These may be the best raw dessert I've ever had:

But we didn't stop there. No way. Ashley knew we were coming, so she brought in some Raw Cookie Dough for us to try. I'm not sure what is in this, but I detect cashews, coconut oil, and carob. It really tastes a lot like cookie dough, but it's way healthier:

We saved those raw desserts for mid-day snackin', but first we had a hearty lunch of this Spring Herb Rainbow Salad in Kreamy Curry Dressing from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. The salad was made with chard, dill, rosemary, and cilantro and tossed with a sweet curry dressing that was tasty enough to eat by itself with a spoon:

We also had Zucchini Hummus from Raw Food Made Easy. I've had several raw hummus recipes, and this one may be my favorite. It was perfect with these leftover Salsa-Flax Crackers from a past raw day:

Dinner was another raw day stand-by for me, but it was Hannah's first time trying the Raw Tacos from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. Ani's recipe actually called for cabbage leaves to be used as burrito shells, but we opted for Romaine heart taco shells instead. They're stuffed with Ani's Nacho Cheeze, Taco Nut Meat, and Red Pepper Corn Salsa:

In between meals, when we weren't snackin' on raw cookie dough at our desks, we were shoveling (quite literally) these Cheezy Raw Kale Chips into our mouths. We invented the recipe on Wednesday night in an attempt to recreate Kookie Karma's Cheesy Kale Krackers, which I'd gotten in my Easter basket a few months ago:

These were delicious! Hannah said they reminded her of spicy Cheeze-Its, which she's all sad that she can't eat anymore now that she's vegan. They were crunchy right out of the dehydrator, but they did soften a bit after I bagged them up and took them into the office. I'd recommend eating these right away. Here's the recipe.

Bianca & Hannah's Cheezy Raw Kale Chips
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1 bunch kale, washed, stems removed, leaves torn into small pieces
1 cup raw cashews
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
3/4 cup nutritional yeast
Juice from one lemon
1 Tbsp. miso
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
Water

Wash and tear the kale. Place into a large bowl and set aside.

In a food processor, combine the cashews, red bell pepper, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, miso, pepper flakes, and about 1/4 cup of water. Process until smooth, adding more water as needed to create a creamy paste.

Pour the mixture over the kale in a bowl, and massage it into the leaves. Spread the kale leaves out onto a couple of dehydrator sheets (we used two sheets in my Excalibur). Dehydrate for 7 hours at 115 degrees.