It's Rawesome! raw vegan restaurant

This weekend just gone Nadine and I took a long weekend holiday on the Sunshine Coast! It was half a celebration of her birthday and half a celebration of her finishing her cert 3 in companion animal services. How exciting is that. The weather was perfect and we did pretty much nothing but lie on the beach getting sunburnt. Nadine was also quite sick so everything was just too hard...except lying on the sand. Haha.

Anyway I have a few posts, but this one first. I saw a review for this cafe called It's Rawesome! on Easy as vegan Pie and we decided we must eat there while we were up the coast (since it takes like 2 hours to get up there from my house lol).

I love going to raw food restaurants because I usually can't be bothered to do much at home myself. The drinks we had were the Pina Colada, which is pineapple, coconut water, lemongrass and ice (I couldn't taste the lemongrass, but it was still delicious) Nadine had a juice, the Betacarotene Booster which had carrot, ginger and apple. Also very nice.

When we buy meals out we always go halves so we don't have to miss out on anything (who knows when we'll get to go out again!) so we got:

California Burrito with avocado lime sauce, red pepper sauce and sour cream

and the Sun burger with apple mint relish.

We both liked the burger more than the burrito, but the burrito was still yummy. It was like a thin crepe wrap with fresh salad inside with a chipotle 'cheese' (all their cheeses are made from a cultured cashew nut mix [ I think, can't find it anywhere] and are so good).

The sun burger was worth it for the apple relish alone. And whatever the mushrooms are marinated in. And the mayonnaise was quite impressive.

We of course had a dessert which we forgot to take a picture of! It was a chai cheesecakey type deal though. Very rich but very delicious. Good thing we only got one dessert :)

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Whenever we are up that way again I'll definately go back. It was actually quite busy for a little place out in the middle of nowhere (that's Rosemount, which is in the middle of Nambour, Bli Bli and Woombye). It's a good thing I like driving along random highways in woop woop aye! The only thing that irked me -and it's a really really tiny thing that shouldn't bother me - but the lady who was serving kept making sure I knew it was a vegan establishment and that the 'burger' wasn't a burger in the traditional sense rah rah rah. I don't know, little but annoying. I think that might turn people off - let them be pleasantly suprised by the delicious food they ordered!

Ps: lately I haven't been able to leave comments on blogs that have the comment form at the bottom of the post. Does anyone know how to fix that? It seems all the blogs I want to comment on have that form!

Raw hummus

I've always wondered what raw hummus would taste like so on the weekend I decided to make some :) There just happened to be a recipe on sproutpeople.org, which was handy, but it is essentially the exact same as making regular hummus - just use chickpea sprouts instead of cooked chickpeas.

I packed up some for lunch at work with carrot and kohl rabi to dip it in (the carrot tasted awful though - remind me not to buy organic stuff at woolies).

Anyway, it tastes pretty good, just like regular hummus, just sprout-y :P I will probably make it again, next time I sprout chickpeas.

I put the rest on warmed slices of pita bread, topped it with sprouted alfalfa (I buy in bulk at Mrs Flannery's for nothing - 2 tbsp of seeds made 3 cups of sprouts!) grated kohl rabi (I got one as big as my face at the markets for $1.50!) and baby spinach leaves. Tasted like the best salad sandwich in the universe.

I love alfalfa sprouts. They cost a fortune to buy at the shops but are so simple to make at home.

Brown 'Rice' Sushi and Zucchini Noodles with Almond-Coconut Sauce - Raw

On my birthday, I dragged Nadine to Mrs Flannery's and bought piles and piles of grains and dried beans. Yes, that is my idea of fun. One of the grains I got is whole oat groats - I've been wanting to make oat milk to see what it's like, and I just assume you make it the same way you do brown rice milk.

Anyway I got lots (I love bulk - so cheap!), and I always look at this recipe from Addicted to Veggies, just waiting for a time when I could be bothered making it. (I often keep recipes bookmarked for aaaggges before I finally get around to it). And, I took so long to make it because the idea of eating grains that weren't actually cooked seemed odd to me.

I had a day off work Monday (present to myself haha) so I decided to make it then!

Oooh and it turned out so so good. I put the oat groats in to soak on Sunday night so I could prep it all during the day. I really hate being rushed when sushi rolling is involved! I made half the recipe, in case I didn't like it and because I didn't have quite enough oats to make a full recipe and milk later on.

I had to make a few substitutions:

In the brown 'rice' seasoning - I used sunflower seeds instead of pumpkin seeds, and I used my mortar and pestle to grind everything. It took a little while but it's worth it.

And in the making of sushi rice I used soy sauce instead of coconut aminos or nama shoyu.

I could have just eaten the oats as they were then! Yum. They turn out quite chewy. It's very different, but also very good.

In my sushi filling I had avocado, carrot, red capsicum and garlic chives from my garden.

I had to make something to go on the side, so I had a look around and found this recipe for Spicy Thai Almond-Coconut Sauce. (Scroll down, I think it's the second recipe). So I made some zucchini noodles by peeling and peeling a zucchini until I couldn't peel any more (I want a spiraliser), tossed them with the sauce and some baby spinach, the rest of the zucchini cubed, and the leftover bits of red capsicum that didn't fit in the sushi. I also used lemon juice instead because I didn't want to buy a lime, but I sprinkled some lime zest I had frozen on top to make it limey. Yum. (Good thrifty tip I learned from Vegan on the Cheap).

Extremely good, except for one thing - I used coconut oil instead of coconut butter, not wanting to go and buy butter just for one recipe. I should have, well, not. Next time I make it, if I do, I'm going to skip the oil and used some dessicated coconut instead. It made me feel so sick! I woke up nauseous, went to work and had to come home because I still felt nauseous (I couldn't eat even half my breakfast and the mere thought of eating my morning tea at work made me want to be ill).

But on the motorway on my way home, when I saw one of those 'cage' trucks carrying cows off to whereever they go and burst into tears, I realised the nausea was probably a little more to do with certain lady troubles than just too much coconut oil!

Anyway, I'm glad I've finally had a go at raw 'cooking', especially since eating more raw foods was one of my resolutions! I've done pretty well this year so far. Why make a boring salad when you can make raw sushi out of oats!?

Anyway, I've just finished baking a trial batch of hot cross buns and, wow, they smell amazing. I made some last year which turned out kind of brick-like, so I hope these are nicer. If they worked I'll post my recipe, and make another batch for actual Easter that's coming up soon! I'm not religious, but I do enjoy making holiday food. Mince pies are on my list for Christmas this year, in lieu of my usual trifle! Actually that trifle is so delicious I may have to make both.

Tonight I'm cooking up a big pot of something spicy, and chickpea-y and oil-free to try and make the nausea go away. I've tried sleeping it off, drinking ginger tea and eating marmite toast but it's still there. Ah well. Hopefully I make it to work tomorrow, I don't have that many sick hours clocked up, and getting paid is kind of important to be able to eat.