Raw Food Experimentation

My mother nags me at least once a week to blog something, anything. I've been busy with school and work and other collegiate activities but she still thinks that I have all the time in the world to blog, just like her. (For those who read this and know my mother know that I just made an untruthful statement.) Anyways- this past month I recently converted to vegetarianism minus eggs and dairy. I've really seen an improvement in my energy levels and thinking processes. A friend of mine and I also try to prepare a couple of "raw food" meals every week. "Raw" pretty much means it's not cooked or heated over about 104F degrees so as to preserve the natural enzymes and living things in the food. Raw food is also packed with energy and the flavors are really potent.

So last night my friend and I were about to start preparing our food when I remembered that I had fervently promised my mother I would document every single step and blog it, so I busted out the camera and we got to work. We get our recipes from a book called "Ani's Raw Food Kitchen" by Ani Phyo. It's an excellent book, with good recipes for beginning "raw foodists" and also tips for healthy living.



Stuffed Anaheim Chilies with Mole Sauce
Ingredients:
Chilies:
4 Anaheim chili peppers
4 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
1 batch Black-Pepper Cheeze (not to be confused with 'cheese' the dairy product.)

Black Pepper Cheeze:
2 cups cashews
Juice of 2 lemons- about 4 TBSP
3 cloves of garlic (We noticed that she usually uses WAY too much garlic for us, so we changed this to one clove. Feel free to be brave and use all three)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup water



Mole Sauce:
1/4 tsp dried chipotle (we couldn't find any, so we just used chili powder)
1 TBSP pitted dates
1 1/2 TBSP carob powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 tomato, chopped
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 TBSP water, as needed



We made the black pepper cheeze first. Combine cashews, lemon juice, garlic, pepper, and salt in a food processor adding water as needed to make a smooth, creamy texture. It took us a little bit longer to do this step, because the food processor we used was tiny. We had to do it in two batches. Set aside for now.





I then made the mole sauce. To make the mole sauce, simply throw the chipotle (chili powder in our case), dates, carob powder, cinnamon, olive oil, celery, tomato, sea salt and a little bit of the water in the blender and blend until it's smooth.



While I was making this he was slicing the chilies lengthwise, and taking out the seeds. If you want a pretty good spicy kick, leave in a few of the seeds. Remember not to touch your face for a while after doing this.



After everything is deseeded, processed, and blended, stuff the chilies with the black pepper cheeze and drizzle the mole sauce on top. Make sure you have a glass of something cold and soothing to chase it down in case it's too spicy.





These were super good, very spicy and the flavors were bold. My favorite taste was the cheeze stuffing inside the chilies. I actually used some of the extra cheeze to spread on a piece of bread to dull the spiciness. It was great.