Raw "Calamari"

First off, Happy New Year to you all! 

Hope your year has started off with health, happiness, and light!

To those of you who make resolutions/goals, may you fulfill all those intentions!

To those of you who don't, have an awesome guilt-free year!

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I've written, and before you know it, I'm back in classes again tomorrow. This holiday season was wonderful, stressful, relaxing, healing, and so many things at the same time I don't even know where to start... I know I've always kind of written a resolution post around this time, but my goals and intentions this year are pretty intense, so I think I might actually hold off for now and go straight to the funner goods.

One of my mini-resolutions for the year is to continue on my raw food journey without having to completely ignore the fact that I do love baking and making vegan foods. I know that to be happy I want to do both. The catch is to feed the non-raw stuff to your spouse and/or friends, so you can stick to your diet while getting the fun cooking feedback too, hehe. In fact, I'm considering letting out my inner housewife and start meal planning on a weekly basis to keep it new...

Tonight, I stayed raw though. I started this year's recipe attempts with a bang, by making something that's been on my mind for about 2 years now (seriously):

Raw "Calamari" 

(convincing, isn't it?)

Yield: 1 serving (or 2 small sides)

200g of oyster mushroom, cut into strips

3-4 T extra virgin olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

generous pinch of salt

3/4 C ground flaxseeds

2T of herbs of choice (rosemary, thyme, etc.)

ground pepper to taste

1. In a bowl, marinate sliced mushroom with olive oil, lemon, and salt for about 30 minutes. They should be well marinated in the liquid because that's what makes the flax stick.

2. In a separate bowl, combine ground flaxseeds with herbs, and pepper to make "breading".

3. Mix flaxseed mix with the mushrooms and stir 'til they are coated and look breaded.

4. Transfer mushrooms onto dehydrator sheet at 110 for 2-3 hours or until it reaches desired levels of chewiness (or crunchiness). 

I first got the idea in one of Sarma Melngailis's recipe books and never got around to making it because it was based on king oyster mushrooms and they've been really difficult to find organic. However, the stars are in my favour this year. So yesterday when I found organic oyster mushrooms (not king) at Nicastro's in the Glebe, I knew they would do the trick. The recipe ended up being pretty low maintenance. I served it with a salad and homemade ketchup (tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, and sea salt). It was just like I remembered... Delicious!

Here's to a new year of foodgasms and culinary creativity! (Along with all those serious fitness goals :)