Sunday 3/22: Sunday Morning Raw

When I was still in school, Sundays used to be “Soup & Salad Dressing Day.” It was the day that I would whip together some food for the upcoming busy school week. It was usually soup, because soup it easy to re-heat for a fast and lazy dinner when there are still 30 pages of Derrida to read and you haven’t understood the first 10. And salad dressing because having 6 different kinds of salad dressing on hand keeps raw veggie-centric lunches interesting. And I don’t know the last time you priced vegan/organic salad dressings, but a girl could go broke eating Green Goddess.

This morning started out with a 9 mile run. I was a bit nervous as this was the longest I had run since hurting my ankle. But it went well. Half-marathon here I come!

Anyway, the best reward for a run well ran, is a creamy salad dressing. And this is one of the best I’ve found that doesn’t have a vegan mayo or soygurt base. It's a recipe from The Raw Food Detox Diet cookbook, but I altered some of the seasoning levels and juice types.

Tenth Mile Raw-nch

½ cup lemon juice
1 scant teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon dried chives
½ tablespoon dried rosemary
½ tablespoon dried oregano
½ tablespoon dried sage
1 cup whole, raw macadamia nuts
1/3 cup olive oil

Blend the juice, oil and half the nuts until semi-smooth. Put in the spices and the rest of nuts in and blend, blend, blend. You may need to scrape the sides a few times. Depending on your taste, feel free to add a little water to make this thinner or a few grinds of some black pepper for a little kick. I’ve also made this with half orange-half lemon juice which makes the Raw-nch a bit sweeter. You can also use half lemon juice-half water which makes for a more savory dressing.

Does this taste anything like ranch? Well, that depends on how long it has been since you’ve had ranch dressing. I’m approaching the 15 year mark (I gave up Ranch for Lent one time before I was vegan and never went back) so to me this is “just like the real thing! oh my gosh! you have to taste this!” More often than not this reaction is met with eye rolls. They agree that my concoctions are delicious but taste nothing like the "real" thing.

The last time I made this for my roommate, though, he actually said he preferred my dressing to dairy-based ranch. This is in part because he knows how ranch dressing is made. My roommate works at a local sandwich shop (which for discretion’s sake will remain nameless) that also sells salads. They make their ranch by mixing a gallon of buttermilk with a gallon of full-fat mayonnaise and a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning. This turns my stomach a little bit just thinking about it.

The soup was just a couple of tablespoons of store-bought red miso dissolved in some broth and tamari and then tossed into some veggies (celery, carrots, napa cabbage, the leftover bok choy and green onions from last night, a few mushrooms, some snow peas) I had sautéed briefly in sesame oil and then boiled in broth. Having my mandolin made this soup-er easy.

Yes. I totally went there.

It was pretty funny when I said it out loud to myself in my kitchen.

9 miles might be good for my heart and legs, but it plays heck with my sense of humor.