This is a recipe I taught during my workshop in Phuket, Thailand, to a packed room full of locals. My raw vegan version of their traditional Thai soup.
Tom Yum Inspired Soup (serves 4)
TOPPINGS
1/4 cup shallot, thinly sliced
1/2 cup straw mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons green chili peppers, chopped, about 3 Thai or 1 serrano pepper
1/4 cup lime juice
1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
SOUP BASE
2 cups coconut meat
1 teaspoon garlic
5 medium Kaffir lime leaves
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 Tablespoons lemon grass, chopped, lower stalks only
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 to 4 cups filtered water, as needed
GARNISH
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, chopped
Marinate toppings by placing all ingredients into a bowl. Set aside for 10 minutes or more.
Into your blender, place soup base ingredients with 1 cup water. Blend smooth. Add remaining water, blend to mix well.
To serve, scoop soup base into 4 bowls. Top with marinated vegetables, and garnish with cilantro leaves.
Fresh Baja Taco Boats being served at Ani's workshop
A delicious recipe I taught at the first ever raw food workshop in Phuket, Thailand. It was a packed house, standing room only. A great day of fun, food, and new friends.
Baja Fresh Taco Boats Filled with with Cilantro Cashew Cheeze, Fresh Corn and Tomato Salsa, and a Ground Almond Taco Meat (makes 4 servings)
GROUND ALMOND TACO MEAT
1 cup almonds
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
CILANTRO CASHEW CHEEZE
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup cashews
2 Tablespoons lemon juice, fresh, from about 1 lemon
1/4 cup packed cilantro leaves
1/4 cup water, as needed
SALSA
1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup corn kernels, cut off cob
2 Tablespoons cilantro, chopped
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon chopped green chilies, to taste
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
BOATS AND TOPPING
12 small romaine leaves
1 avocado, pitted, sliced
To make taco meat, process almonds into small pieces. Add oil, cumin, coriander, and salt, and process to mix well. Set aside.
To make cheeze, process garlic and salt into small pieces. Add cashews, juice, cilantro, and only enough water to process into a thick cream texture. Set aside.
To make salsa, mix ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.
To assemble, fill romaine leaves with about 2 tablespoons cheeze. Sprinkle on 1 to 2 tablespoons taco meat and salsa. Top with avocado slices and serve.
Ani’s Raw Food Durian Essentials: 4 min, 39 sec Watch video
I’m in love with durian. I love the flavor, texture, and yup, even the scent. So, I flew myself to the other side of our planet, all the way to beautiful Bali, Indonesia, to visit during their 2 month durian season. There, I was able to enjoy a fresh durian daily, and even visited a durian farm where I ate fresh durian straight off the tree. This was the highlight of almost all my gastronomical adventures in life.
Many people in the USA have not yet seen or tried durian fruit. So, I shot this video in Seminyak, on the West Coast of Bali, as an introduction to the King of Fruit. I hope this video may encourage you to give this delectable fruit a try.
A delicious save-the-fish style pate made with almonds and cashews, flavored with ginger and lemon. The orange salmon-like color comes from sweet carrots full of beta carotene. Use this pate inside nori rolls, lettuce wraps, and scooped on top of a bed of greens.
Almond Veggie Pate Nori Rolls (Makes 4 servings)
FILLING
1 cup almonds
2 cups cashews
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 clove garlic
3 carrots, chopped
1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice, from 1/2 lemon
WRAPPING
4 sheets nori, or 8 sheets if too thin
4 cups spinach leaves, washed and dried
DIPPING (optional)
Soy Sauce or Nama Shoyu (raw) or Braggs (gluten-free)
Wasabi
To make filling, process almonds and cashews into a powder, and set aside.
Next, process ginger, garlic, carrots, onion, raisins, and salt into small pieces. Add oil, lemon juice, powdered almonds and cashews, and process to mix well.
Wrap by placing nori sheets onto flat surface. Spread dry spinach leaves along bottom half. Onto spinach, spread about 1/4 cup filling along edge closest to you. Roll up nori sheet. Slice into 6 pieces using a sharp knife.
To make crust, place almonds, vanilla, and salt into food processor. Lightly process into small pieces. Add dates and coconut butter, process to mix well.
Sprinkle half of the crust onto bottom of a loaf pan.
To make filling, toss together all ingredients. Scoop onto crust. Top with remaining crust.
Pineapple Ice Box Dessert (fills one loaf pan to make about 8 servings)
Crust
1 1/2 cups cashews
1 vanilla bean, scraped
2 Tablespoons honey or agave syrup
Filling
1 1/2 cups cashews
1/3 cup honey or agave syrup
1/4 cup coconut oil, liquid
2 1/2 cup cored and chopped pineapple
Make crust by processing cashews into small pieces with vanilla. Add honey, and process to mix well. Sprinkle half of the crust mixture into bottom of a loaf pan,
To make filling, in high-speed blender, blend cashews with honey or agave and liquid oil into a smooth cream. Into a mixing bowl, toss cream with pineapple to mix well. Scoop into loaf pan. Top with remaining crust, and gently press down.
One thing we need more of in the USA are cultured foods. In Korea, we have fermented and probiotic rich pickles like kimchi and sauerkraut, which aid our digestion while helping rebuild healthy bacteria we’ve destroyed through stress and antiobiotics. Fermented raw foods are the highest form of living foods. The probiotics and friendly bacteria predigest this food for us.
For breakfast today I enjoyed local organic blueberries topped with a kream i made by blending coconut meat with water kefir.
To make your own kefir kream, just scoop the meat from 2 Thai baby coconuts into your blender. Add about a 1/4 cup of your water kefir, and blend to mix smooth. Scoop kream into a container, leaving at least 1/3 of the container empty. Don’t fill up all the way, it needs room to expand.
Cover kream, and leave out (I leave it on top of my fridge where it’s warm) overnight to ferment. You can see how the fermentation creates bubbles in the kream, below.
kefir kream
Store in your fridge, and enjoy on salads, soups, as a dip, in smoothies, and on fresh fruit as you would any yogurt.
It can sometimes be a struggle to find a vegan option on an American airline. I was surprised that my flights in SE Asia on both Singapore and Silk Air both offered numerous vegan options, from Asian vegan to American vegan, and also offered a RAW FOOD option!
Cabin air pressure in flight is lower than air pressure at sea level, which means we have less oxygen being carried in our blood. Cabin pressure makes our digestion more challenging due to a 30% increase in gases trapped in our body. And, flying is dehydrating. I try to drink a liter of water for every hour of flight time.
I say a raw food platter should be served to everyone on every flight. It’s full of water, oxygen, and easy on the digestion. This isn’t rocket science, but simply common sense. Hopefully, this vegan and raw meal also helps offset my carbon emissions a little bit….
