Experimenting in the kitchen with friends!

Hey Everyone! Amanda, Isabel, Shadow and I spent last weekend In Medford, Oregon hangin’ with our new friend Josephine and her family. Josephine has been rockin’ the raw scene here in Medford for years now!  With an ever growing group of individuals she has put together regular potlucks, recipe classes, and lectures with awesome info and amazing turnouts! Bringing the community together and sharing the raw love… awesome work is all I can say… very awesome work!

Speaking of work.. Josephine asked if I could make the cheesecake that I  had made at Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe the day that Shazzie dropped by! You know me and goofin’ off in the kitchen… I’m in! So I got started right away!

Josephine and her husband Wayne have been rockin’ the rawness for a while now and grow loads of their own organic eats!  Wayne took me for a tour of their intensively planted garden beds and we harvested swiss chard, collards, squash leaves and some lambs quarters and stinging nettles (to get that edible weed goodness going!). After gathering this awesome assortment of greenage we headed inside where Wayne blended up a tasty and powerful green smoothie! “That’s your superfood!” Wayne said as we enjoyed it. I couldn’t agree more!

Greens galore!

Strawberries growing in bags on the garden's fence.. no space left unused! I love it!

The weekend with them was awesome!  Saturday I went hiking with Wayne and his friend Larry through some of Oregon’s gold mining historical sites!  That evening we all sat at the table sharing stories and shooting the breeze about going raw, as Larry is gettin’ into it.  He sampled the cheesecake and thought it could use a lil’ salt.  So I tried a sprinkle of sea salt on my slice and it was a nice addition.  Then Larry tried the cake with a drizzle of Indonesian Style Soy Sauce.  I put a lil’ on a bite…it was interesting and tasty!  Josephine tried it as well and we pondered a raw version of this sauce and cheesecake combo. 
 

   Sunday morning we got to playing in the kitchen!  I whipped us a cacao/maca/mesquite/lucuma smoothie to to get us going. Josephine had looked through my book and wanted to try my Turkish Style Cauliflower Patties (recipe in Gettin’ Raw) with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dipping Sauce, so we whipped up a batch together!

Cranking out some Turkish Style Cauliflower Patties!

Fresh and warm outta the dehydrator!

 We were thinking of what to do for dessert and remembered last night’s experiment.  Jose suggested we make a version of the Indonesian Soy  Sauce with a lil’ cacao thrown in… for good measure!  So we put together this awesome dessert topper ”Cacao Fig Vingarette Syrup”. The taste was freakin’ incredible!  I’m always up for experimenting with wacky combos and this one took the cake… the cheesecake to be exact!

Cacao Fig Vinagerette Syrup... sooooo good!

Cacao Fig Vinegarette Syrup ~ An unlikely yet ridiculously tasty combo.  I even used it as a salad dressing. It was so good we had to share the recipe! 

Ingredients ~

4 Tablespoons melted coconut oil

3 Tablespoons cacao powder

3 Tablespoons agave (could substitute honey)

2 Tablespoons of Fig Vinegar (if this is hard to find I would try blending a couple of dried figs with a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar as a substitute. It can be blended right into the mix in your blender!)

Splash of balsamic vinegar for a lil’ tang!

1/3 teaspoon of sea salt

Wisk thoroughly together in a bowl or blend in your blender!  Serve slightly warm as it will harden when cold.  This effect makes for an awesome topping for a chilled dessert such as that cheesecake…

Give this syrup a shot and lemme know what you think!  Speaking of chocolate we’re going to be back at Josephine’s September 8th as she’s giving me use of her home and kitchen to hold my Raw Chocolate Workshop! 

 She has previously hosted Elaina Love and Carmella, so I’m psyched to be rocking it out at her place!  As we head off to visit more friends in Oregon we look forward to hanging with Josephine and Wayne again, an awesome dynamic duo!