i might be reconsidering some of the raw food stuff now that i don’t have such an elitist and complicated un-cookbook. i bought ani phyo’s ani’s raw food kitchen while i was picking up a salad the other day at ecopolitan, and most of the recipes only require a knife, a food processor, and/or a blender. not that i want to go raw or no longer think there are classist issues at hand in raw foodism, but it’s given me some good ideas, and most of the meals don’t take, say 24 hours. more like 5 minutes.  i also really like that there are ideas and reasons for living less wastefully and more resourcefully, which i’m really trying to be better about.

first i tried the coconut breakfast cakes. i only have refined coconut oil at home, so they probably weren’t as coconutty as they should have been, but they were still really tasty! i topped them with raspberry puree and sliced bananas:

i wanted to share the tastiness with my lady this morning, but i didn’t pre-grind the whole flax seeds i got after work last night, thinking they’d just get pulverized with the other ingredients. not so much. i also added some medjool dates and walnuts, and what do you know, i ended up with a flax cake that turned into “oat”meal (with sunburst tangerines):

it was really quite good! but filling in that kind of when-will-this-banana-be-over kind of way. i’m sure i’ll be pretty omega 3′d and regular though, which is nice. the crunchiness of the flax was a nice touch. i think i’m into the idea of eating raw breakfasts on my non-630am workdays.

for dinner last night i wanted something tasty but different. a has a recipe for a really delicious corn bean and rice salad, and then with buckwheat on my mind from reading about the buckwheat crispies in ani’s book, i decided to cook some up in the rice cooker. so fresh-tasting, and the earthy flavor of the buckwheat was a nice change from rice. i omitted the garlic and changed up some of the spices too.

buckwheat with avocado, tomatoes, scallions, serrano chili, corn, black beans, cumin, epazote, paprika, and lime juice:

the reason for the lime juice above was because i brought home four limes from work in hopes of creating a vegan key lime pie to bring in for sampling to work. i based it off of, surprisingly considering my rant about it, the raw food real world recipe for lime mousse tart, but i switched some ingredients up knowing i couldn’t really bring that particular recipe into work (i think my manager would have a heart attack at using agave nectar as an ingredient). i also baked the graham cracker crust instead of making some kind of nut crust. AND i also made them into some cuppies (like cupcake only pie) instead of a big pie.

the flavor is kind of amazing. now, my disclaimer is that i don’t think i ever really had a key lime pie before going vegan, and the closest i’ve ever gotten to it is a key lime tofutti cutie. but this is so rich and tart and sweet in just the right way! i don’t know how it will go over at work, but i guess we’ll find out soon enough. also, i was worried from reading the recipe that the filling would discolor but so far it still looks fresh and green. perhaps i picked the avocados at just the right ripeness (and by pick i mean at the store, not from my avocado grove in the front yard). photo evidence: