Near the end of the day yesterday, Russell had challenged us to improve on the restaurant‘s calamari recipe, so we went to work. The actual “calamari” rings are made from slices of king oyster mushrooms with holes punched in the middle. I tweaked the marinade and the crumb coating…
…and left them to dry in the dehydrator. They crisped up quite nicely, if I may say.
I’m not into real calamari at all, but I was surprised by how much I liked these little guys. They’re addictively poppable!
The next thing we did was mix up some blonde macaroons! Yesss!
I LOVE me some blonde macaroons. (I’m just a blondie girl in general.) We’ll have to see if these turn out to be Hail Merry-caliber, though!
These blondie babes are perfecting their crisp outside and chewy inside in the dehydrator as we speak.
Then we were right back at it with the seafood. Another challenge dish, in fact: crab cakes.
King oyster mushrooms again stood in for the shellfish. I spiced up my creamy cashew mayo with a chipotle pepper for extra heat.
Sorry for this terrible photo, but it’s the only one I snapped before the crab cakes went into the dehydrator.
Next, we did an experiment of making crackers three ways: with all ground flax, with whole flaxseed, and with a 50/50 mixture of ground and whole flax.
We had no recipe to go off of here—we had to invent these from scratch. Is it any wonder that I went and whipped up a raw zucchini-tahini hummus…
…and made HUMMUS CRACKERS!
I originally got the idea from Deanna, but I raw-ified it and winged it with this from-scratch hummus.
Here are my 50/50 crackers and my all-ground-flax crackers…
…and here are my all-whole-flax crackers. I scored each batch before putting them in the dehydrator. We’ll see tomorrow which version turns out the best! And you know what? Since this is an original recipe of mine, perhaps I can share it with you in a future post. 
I got my Middle Eastern sensibilities satisfied in another way after that…
…when we made…
…FALAFEL!
With their blend of nuts and seeds and plenty of cilantro and parsley, these are the very reason I fell in love with 105degrees to begin with earlier this year.
To finish them off (and add a crunch factor), I rolled them in hempseeds before sticking them in the dehydrator. I cannot WAIT to taste these tomorrow!
Since this post has been awfully brown-and-green, I think I ought to end it with a splash of color. Wouldn’t you agree?
This was my post-workout smoothie today, blended up right in my mason jar thanks to my Tribest personal blender. I’m calling it a Pink Pine-nana—it had coconut water, frozen strawberries, pineapple chunks, half a frozen banana, a spoonful of my superfood mix (a blend of flax, chia, hempseeds, bee pollen, and maca that I brought with me from home), and a small scoop of Sun Warrior natural raw protein powder. I am loving this blender!
i should stop reading your posts. they always make me hungry!!
No, that’s exactly why you must keep reading! Stoke that raw appetite of yours
the smoothie sounds so yummy! love the pretty pink color.
those are some “seafood” i’d be willing to eat since its not the real stuff.
Might have to figure out the crab cake recipe through trial and error.
I LOVE macaroons those look yummy!
Thanks! And yes, even if you can’t stomach the idea of regular seafood, these raw versions are palate-pleasers
I don’t know how you have the patience to wait overnight to try all your creations – how do you do it?! It’s exciting for me! haha. Can’t wait to see how everything turns out, especially the crackers. I’m always on the lookout for a good cracker recipe.
Haha, waiting can certainly be difficult! I mitigate the torture in three ways:
1) I sneak bites of the food/batter/etc. before it goes in the dehydrator.
2) I remind myself that certain things (like these crêpe wrappers) won’t taste good UNTIL they’re dry.
3) I remember that my tummy is already quite full from all of yesterday’s stuff that we ate today!
The crackers should be done on Monday
I did the training just before your group started!!!
You guys are making different things than us!
We should share our binders!!
Definitely!! The more recipes I can rack up, the better. It might have to wait a few more weeks, till I have time, but let’s do it!
Falafel falafel! I’m almost tempted to ask you to have a falafel buffet instead of a cheezecake buffet waiting for my on the magical, magical day we finally get to meet in person
And I bet your macaroons will be worth a hallelujah, not just a hail mary
So a cheezecake-kale chip-falafel buffet is where we’re at with that right now? Just trying to keep track
Love your blog! Especially the fact that your a metalhead like me
I think your approach to your diet is great. As long as you FEEL good there is no point in sweating the small stuff
Awesome! I don’t meet enough other metalheads in the food & health blogosphere
Glad you’re on board with the AV diet! I couldn’t agree more with your statement above.
You guys made a ton of stuff this time! Really interested to see how that falafel turns out.
Yeah! It was quite a day
Wow! You made a squid dish so wonderfully…
I want to try to make the dish like that…
Thank you!
Okay, there’s some sort of weird vibe going down here – cause apparently I inspired you, and all your raw food posts inspired me. We had raw hummus & raw falafel for dinner tonight! Granted, I started this project 3 days ago when I began sprouting chickpeas. But, still. That is one funny co-in-ki-dink. (That’s the family way of pronouncing coincidence, in case you’re confused.)
I hope your raw hummus crackers turn out great! I meant to do some raw crackers, too….but just didn’t get them whipped up in time.
Wow, are we synergistic or what?!
That’s awesome. How were your hummus and falafel? Are you going to post about them?
I’ll give you an update on the crackers come Monday!
I might post about them. But it was mostly a throw things together recipe. They turned out well though and I could see doing them again.
Ah, gotcha. Well, glad to hear they turned out tasty!
The calamari from Living Raw Food was so good! I love breaded mushrooms.
Enjoy the falafels tomorrow.
The funny thing is, I was just flipping past that recipe in LRF earlier this week, and then what do we make a couple days later? Crab cakes. A similar-though-not-identical recipe.
I love happenstance.
Hey there is nothing wrong with all green stuff!
Lovely smoothie at the end. My friend only has a magic bullet so that was interesting this morning. Lovely falafel and macaroons. I want a care package! ASAP! Let me know if you ever want to do a swap of any kind.
True!
The Tribest is doing great, though. I don’t actually have any experience with the Magic Bullet.
Yeah, it can be hard to “step down” from a Vita
Noelle! A care package swap is a GREAT idea! I would love to! Let’s revisit the idea after the new year when I get home from 105.
I love reading about your school! It seems so amazing. And I’m very impressed by everything you’ve whipped up!
Thank you! 105degrees is pretty fantastic.
Oh dear….I know you warned me about the seafood post….but that seems to have not done any good. Why are we calling this seafood, when there isn’t a single thing from the sea? And why call it “raw calamari/crab” when there is a perfectly wonderful way to prepare both items in a raw fashion (ceviche!).
As crispy mushrooms or mushroom salad, I love it (and it looks and sounds absolutely yummy!)….but I’m the kind of girl who likes to call a spade out for being a spade
.
Hummus crackers, however….I just might have to forgive this “seafood” offense! I cannot wait to hear how they turn out!
Hehe, I knew you’d have a bone to pick with this one
(pun intended) But I totally understand where you’re coming from.
I’ll be letting you know on Monday how the crackers come out!
Hummus crackers and falafel – great middle eastern fix! Interesting that you’re mostly using mushrooms for the seafood – often they’re very sea veg heavy.
gotta go but loved the post
love
Ela
I did include some dulse both in the calamari coating and in the crab cakes, though it didn’t come through very strongly – which, to me, is just fine!
raw falafel :O how cool! i like the look of those crab cakes.
I’m a falafel freak! I’m not so much into the crab cakes, but apparently they did turn out well.
Swoon. Falafels, hummus, and blond macs. I’m in jealousy Heaven.
And kind of funny, I made raw macs last night for the first time in probably a year… call it blog-intuition? Weird. I think I’m going to have to try yours to see how they stand up against mine.
You just named all MY favorite things from this post!
Our taste buds are totally in sync.
Hehe, more blogger symbiosis! I love it! A macaroon swap would be awesome.
I love how you can turn the crab cakes into something so appealing and appetizing!
Thanks!
LOVELY!!!!!!! I am so envious. Some day I will get there for training! Your photos are awesome. You have a wonderful flare for making your food look so mouth-watering beautiful!!!
Thank you Barbara! I really appreciate the compliments on my photos, especially since I’m still a novice with my camera.
Wow! Calamari… I have got to try that! And falafel? One of my favorites… raw. Amazing!!
Yes! It’s fascinating to me that all these great things can be done RAW! It’s ingenious.