Stuffed Avocado, Raw Tomato Soup

September 8, 2009 at 4:17 am (raw vegan, Uncategorized, vegan)
Tags: avocado, carrot, raw, soup, tomatoes, vegan

Stuffed Avocado

Today was mostly fruit and salads (yeah, of course!) and very good they were too. I did, however, do a little (very little) preparation for a couple of dishes. The above Stuffed Avocado is one. This dish has been with me a while, over a year, since the first time I tried a Raw Food Diet (note those capital letters, my friends – it signifies how important I think this project is!). I saw the original recipe in Kate Wood’s Eat Right Eat Raw (and posted it with a photo on my Bean Vegan blog on Blogspot right HERE but of course, being me, changed it a bit right from the start, mostly by adding lime zest and lime juice. After that I started to do variations on the adaptation (as you see HERE).  The recipe lends itself to lots of experimentation and is not only simple but very forgiving.

STUFFED AVOCADO

For each avocado:
1 Tbsp raw sunflower seeds
1 medium carrot, chopped
4 sundried tomatoes, rehydrated
1 tsp miso
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 slice onion
1/4 thai chili or ground cayenne to taste (you might want to adjust this down a bit – we like it hot!)
a shake or two of dried basil (or use fresh – I didn’t have any)
juice of half a lime or according to taste (or use lemon)
Garnish: handful of alfalfa sprouts, slice or quarter of lime, few strands of lime zest, whatever

Puree all ingredients except for the avocado and the alfalfa sprouts. halve the avocado, remove seed. Fill the hollow in each half with the mixture and then spread it across the avocado. Garnish with the alfalfa sprouts, top with the lime zest and add the lime to the plate for squeezing.

NOTE: You may have some of the stuffing left over – just refrigerate and use it for dip or sandwich spread or whatever in the next day. Delish.

VARIATION: Add a little Bragg’s Liquid Aminos/All-Purpose Liquid Soy Seasoning, skip the dried tomatoes, and/or use ginger as well as the chili. You can substitute an herb or herb mix of your choice for the basil – whatever. Just have fun with it – we do.

Raw Tomato Soup

Now this Raw Tomato Soup is sinfully quick and easy – like making a smoothie. I got the orignal recipe from the same source, Kate Wood, and can only tell you that the soup is excellent. The only thing is that either she counted on very very large bowls to hold the soup or I had extraordinarily large tomatoes. (Well, I did have large tomatoes – humongous, in fact – but I could only use three of them instead of the twelve she asked for or I’d have soon run out of room in the blender. Best to guesstimate for yourself how many you need. I do wish she’d indicated by weight – or even cupfuls of chopped tomatoes. I shall weight how much is needed next time. I did make some slight changes to suit our taste and omitted the optional avocado (which Ms Wood said would make for a creamy texture). I didn’t think it or we needed the extra calories 😉

RAW TOMATO SOUP

12 tomatoes (but see note above re how many or how much really needed)
1 stick celery
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp raw agave nectar
3 Tbsp fresh basil leaves
2 or 3 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 or 2 dashes ground cayenne
2 Tbsp Braggs Liquid Aminos/All-Purpose Liquid Soy Seasoning
8 fl oz water (or as little or much as you need to bring it to the right consistency)

Chop the vegetables and put everything into the blender and blend it until it’s smooth.

This soup was very very good – and we did finish the lot, despite it being twice as much as even these soup fiends would normally have at a sitting. I shall be working on the recipe to get it to our particular taste, but for this first time I made it reasonably close to the original (well, I upped the seasonings a tad) and would have been delighted to have it anywhere and anytime!

And now for my next meal . . . I have some portobellos in the fridge begging for something interesting to happen to them. I wouldn’t like to disappoint 🙂