Emaciated to Plump: A Long Wait

I apologize for starving everyone of any new recipe or update of any kind for a couple months. My life has been beyond busy and hectic. I have had no time to blog let alone cook a meal! But wait no more, as I have a great meal that will fill your desires!

The meal (left) is a recipe that I just thought of one day (when I was hungry, of course). It started with the wild rice salad to the right. It is a Wild Rice and Blueberry salad (recipe fallows). I love the idea of sweet and savory. While flipping through several raw vegan blogs, many sprouted wild rice dishes kept popping up everywhere. I wanted to take my spin on it....and this was the result. The mild sweetness juxtaposed with the saltiness from the rice, almonds, and the savory mild onion flavor from the spring onions balance perfectly on the tongue---no flavor taking over another. It was perfect. I wanted to play with textures as well and the almonds added the subtle crunch that my palate craved. It is one of the best salads that I have made.

After this salad recipe formulated in my head, I was trying to think of a way to incorporate it into a meal. Granted, it could be a meal in itself, but I wanted something more substantial to fuel my over-exercised body. It did not want tofu, seiten, tempeh, or really anything made out of beans. After searching through all of my mental culinary encyclopedias and recipe books, I thought that potato cakes would go well with it. They are blank canvases that can be flavored in anyway to match the meal. They have a bit of crunch with a soft interior. I thought it was perfect. Plus they're filling! However, my mental recipe alarm went off telling me that that would be too startchy and oily in order to be satisfied. Of course I knew the solution to this: add an acidic sauce. This cuts through the grease and starch and revitalizes the palate. Luckily I had some red bell peppers that were starting to turn bad and I wanted to charbroil them anyway. What was this taste bud-awakening sauce? A lemony roasted red bell pepper chipotle sauce! Not only did it add the needed acid, but it added some spice, which also revitalizes the grease-laden taste buds and give them a jolt of spiciness.

Overall, this was a great, original meal to start off my long hiatus of not cooking. But, now I must go to the gym in order to prevent those carbs from turning into fat. The recipe for the wild rice salad follows. Enjoy!!

Wild Rice and Blueberry Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 cup wild rice, uncooked
• 2 cups filtered water
• 1/2 cup wild blueberries, thawed and drained
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1/4 cup spring onions, sliced
• 1/2 tsp raw honey, raw agave, maple syrup, or brown rice syrup (any liquid sweetener)
• 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)

Method

1. In a rice cooker (or follow package directions), place wild rice and water. Cook until rice cooker is done.
2. Chill the wild rice.
3. Then add the remaining ingredients until well combined.

ITS THAT SIMPLE!!!!

I hope you enjoy. Also, you can make this version raw by just sprouting the wild rice for about 2 days. I wasn't that patient.