< back to RECIPES

Green Papaya Salad

This is a colorful and very flavorful salad – great to bring to a raw potluck or serve your ‘cooked’ friends and family. Pecans or walnuts can be used, but the raw pistachios flavor really fits this combination of flavors.

Amounts don’t matter much in this salad – I mix this with the colors in mind. The base is the julianne green papaya and you want a good amount of the colors of the green cilantro and purple cabbage so the white of the papaya is not the predominate color. Serving on a dark color plate enhances the colors.

Ingredients:

• 1 – 2 cups julianne green papaya  - peel first then julianne, then soak in enough water to cover strips, add 1 teaspoon salt and juice of one lime to water. Soak at least 30 minutes, drain.
• 1 red apple – sliced thin and chopped
• half to 1 cucumber – peeled and julianne
• 1 cup sliced purple cabbage – after slicing, take handfuls of cabbage and squeeze several times to soften.
• half to 1 cup cilantro – chopped
• half to 1 cup pistachios – chopped
• 1 tablespoon orange zest

Toss all ingredients together. With tongs, make a small pile on a plate, drizzle with cranberry dressing, top with soaked dates that have been sliced lengthwise and more orange zest for garnish.

 ***************************************************************

Cranberry Dressing

This is a combination of the Cranberry dressing recipe at Gliving.com Green Chefs - the ultimate in gourmet raw recipes and my Tropical Slaw dressing recipe at the bottom of this page.

     

Slice open these adorable little tart berries and you’ll see it’s been designed as a perfect little seed container. I prefer not to have the seeds in a dressing so I slice them open one at a time and toss them in a colander. Place a cutting board right next to  a colander in a sink. After they are all sliced, rinse and toss the berry halves in the colander and the seeds will fall out. If you cut a whole bunch of berries, you can use some for your dressing and pour some on dehyrator sheets and dry at 115 for several hours. Without added sweetener they are very tart. But they can be soaked later and used in other recipes.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons cranberries, deseeded
• 1 – 2 tablespoons honey, agave nector or maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon raw Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• juice of half an orange
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg (optional)
• 1/2 inch piece ginger root
• 1 green onion (use white part and little bit of the green part)

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Refrigerate unused portions.

 ***************************************************

 Spring Fling Corn Chowder 

a chilled sweet and savory, crunchy soup

• ¼ cup of cashews per serving, soak about 15 minutes, drain and chop. (I find it easier to chop while they are soaked and wet – they don’t go flying off the cutting board.)
• 1 stalk celery per serving
• ½ cup apple per serving
• 1 pitted date per serving, soak to soften about 15 minutes
• 1 green onion per serving, minced
• 1 young coconut, water and meat, per 2-3 servings

To serve:
Pour blended mixture from blender pitcher into serving bowl. Add scoop of corn mixture to center of soup. Top with zest of lime. Shown above topped with with wild edible flowers from Common Vetch.

• 1 Tablespoon lime juice per serving
• ¼ minced ginger root per serving

Open coconut drain and strain water. It will be about 1 to 1 ½ cups of water. You want at least a ½ cup of liquid per serving. (So for 3 servings if you have 1 cup of coconut water – add half a cup more of pure water that.)
Gently scoop out soft coconut meat with a melon baller or spoon.
Add coconut, water, lime juice, ginger root and half of corn mixture to blender. Blend until smooth.

The flavor of the lime and ginger added to the hint of onion and sweet corn is a lively taste sensation! Your cooked food friends would love this.

These ingredients and their amounts can be played with – need more zing? Add more lime and ginger. Top it with chopped greens from the green onions.  Want it a bit sweeter? Agave nectar or honey can be added or more chopped dates.  Cinnamon also tastes really nice with this type of corn mixture.

Refrigerate left over corn mixture and pureed mix in separate containers.

******************************************************

FAST FOOD – COSTA RICAN STYLE

Last time I visited my father in Costa Rica, I saw a street vendor selling some sort of hot meat meal served in a plastic bag placed inside one of these rolled up almond tree leaves! How cool is that!

I couldn’t wait to try it for myself. I plucked a giant leaf off of one of dads trees – (thank you tree) and stuffed it full of a version of my raw Tropical Slaw (see previous recipe post down below). Any dressing used always just lightly covers the ingredients so it wasn’t drippy or anything.

So I could eat it like this hand held – which I tried without utensils, but ended up sitting down with a fork. The same thing could be done with a banana leaf, readily available in your yard in South Texas here or in Mexican grocery stores. Or a really large collard green leaf would work splendidly!

This slaw was simply white cabbage, cilantro, red bell peppers, chayote squash with a light dressing of one of those orange colored limes they have in Costa Rica, some olive oil, cinnamon, honey and ginger root. Very refreshing and crispy! The trick is to toss it with very little dressing.

Check out the cool placemat I made from palm fronds. As it dried up it got a little loose – but the meditative process of striping the fronds and picking perfect ones and weaving them together was the part I really enjoyed.

***********************************************************

CHINESE KALE SALAD

When I have cravings, it’s usually for Chinese food. And to be more specific – I crave the flavors of soy sauce, ginger, garlic and seseme oil. If it’s just a little craving, I will tear up a couple of kale leaves, mince a bit of ginger root and toss them with some pure sesame oil and Nama Shoyu sauce. And eat it with chopsticks – yum, hits the spot.

If I want to make a meal out of it I’ll add a bit more. Measurements do not really matter with this and any ingredient is optional if you don’t have it in the frige. Get a big bowl out and add all of this together, toss and serve.

• 1-2 kale leaves torn off the stem and chopped
• small handful sliced red and/or green cabbage
• handful snow peas or sliced thin, celery or mung bean sprouts
• handful cilantro leaves or mint leaves, torn
• red bell pepper, diced or sliced
• small handful soaked raw cashews
• 1 young coconut meat sliced into noodles (optional)
• minced ginger root to taste (1/2 teaspoon or more)
• drizzle the sesame oil over it all (to taste, 1-2 teaspoons)
• 1-2 tablespoons Nama Shoyu (raw soy sauce)

You can add minced garlic or onion, but remember, without cooking the flavors are really strong. I usually don’t add it as there is enough flavor with these ingredients. Sometimes I have used only kale, cucumber, cashews, bell pepper and coconut. It’s an easy one to play with – have fun, enjoy.

**********************************************************

NATURALLY RAW IN COSTA RICA

I lived in Costa Rica a while back and though I had not heard of “raw food” and “live vegan diets” back then, I see it would be very easy to live raw in the tropics. Coconuts falling off the trees, mangos, papaya, rambutan, cashews, almonds…all readily available fresh and raw.

I never saw the fresh greens like romaine and spring mix salads we have here in North America. But crisp cabbage was served often. Usually in the form of a “slaw.” I think it was because cabbage can stay around for longer than any usual Romaine type salad lettuce. I saw all kinds of these wonderful cabbage slaws and nothing like the creamy drippy kind we have here in the states.

It was always fresh and crispy, sometimes with just shredded white cabbage and jicama and lime juice. Just like the fresh ceviche that you would see everywhere. Usually raw Tilapia (a white fish) “cooked” in lime juice with jicama and chayote squash. (Raw fish put in lime juice will “cook” in a few hours.)

Anyway, below is my version of a slaw that we used to serve at the restaurant my dad and I created (Frescos in Sugar Land, Texas. We sold it some time ago) It’s really bright and refreshing served cold on a hot summer day…under a palm tree, with monkeys echoing in the distance. Pura Vida!

 

TROPICAL SLAW

 1 head green cabbage sliced
1/2 small head purple cabbage sliced
1 small carrot fine grated
2 Granny Smith apples chopped and tossed in lemon juice
1 – 2 red bell peppers diced
1 bunch cilantro chopped
Toss in a large bowl

Dressing
1 orange juiced
2 limes juiced
1/4 cup raw honey or Agave nectar
dash cinnamon
1″ ginger root minced

Stir ingredients together. This makes more dressing than you will need. Save in a glass bottle in the refrigerator. Toss dressing with the slaw just just enough to coat. Some have suggested that chopped pineapple would go well with this too.

*******************************************

MANGO SALSA

 2 cups chopped mango (fresh or frozen)
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1/4 cup diced red onion
1 garlic clove minced
2 tablespoons juiced lime (about one small lime)
1/4 cup juiced orange (about half an orange)
Mix well and refrigerate. Serve as a condiment or scoop mixture into lettuce boats and serve as a refreshing salad. Chopped avocado is a nice addition – fold in last so they keep their shape and don’t get too mushy. Other suggested additions: chopped tomato, chopped pineapple, walnuts, pinenuts, macademia nuts. I personally prefer twice the amount of cilantro.

PINEAPPLE PAPAYA SALSA

1 cup chopped papaya
1 cup chopped pineapple
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes, seeded
1/4 cup shopped green onion
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons juiced lime (about one small lime)
Real Salt to taste
Mix well and refrigerate. Some people like this with more lime juice and no onion. It’s really refreshing and papaya is packed with enzymes.

TIP: Mangos placed in a brown paper sack will ripen faster for you – keep watch though because it works fast. Otherwise, cubed mango can be found in the freezer section of grocery stores.

********************************************

Salsas are fun and easy to create. They are colorful and you can change the recipes up a hundred ways. They can be created as a condiment when you are preparing meals for your friends that still eat cooked food. (like grilled fish). Or you can put a beautiful scoop into a bowl of romain and have it as a salad.
Consider these recipes is a “base” – good “as is” or add chopped avocado, raw walnuts, pineapple, tomatoes, pinenuts. You get the picture. Leave the onion off for a sweeter salsa or add the onion and a small amount of raw jalapeno pepper if you really want to spice it up. Get creative and enjoy!

Remember to use fresh ingredients – using canned or processed versions of any of these ingredients defeats the purpose of preparing a vitamin packed raw food meal.