Open Sesame

On Wednesday I bought black and brown sesame seeds at Rainbow Grocery. The first thing I created was the above sesame truffles, which were intended as a raw version of sesame balls, the deep fried things filled with red bean paste and frequently served around Chinese New Year. Naturally, they tasted slightly different, but were completely awesome nonetheless. Jess thought they would be ideal to give to non raw people who are freaked out by the whole raw concept. By the way, the reason there are only two in the photo is because we ate most of them before I could take one!

I'm not going to post the recipe in recipe form tonight (I'll probably do it next week on Gone Raw, but the basic recipe included: shredded coconut, processed to a paste, tahini, honey and salt. That stuff blended up, then rolled in sesame seeds.

Next I decided to tackle Nori Rolls. Once again, I used Renee Loux's Living Cuisine for inspiration, although (once again) i made a few changes. The first spread (the one with black and white sesame seeds) is a tahini/miso/honey mixture with sesame seeds and ginger. This was tasty, although I used a bit too much honey, these rolls were a bit candy like (kind of like that wrapped Chinese sesame candy.) The second spread, pictured with only white sesame seeds, was made with cashew and hemp seeds, and was very rice-like. I am beginning to fall in love with hemp seeds. They have practically perfect nutritional ratios, both of protein to carbs and fat, as well as the type of fat they contain. But the main reason was because oh my goodness was that ever rice like! However, this spread is much more filling than rice, so if you make it, don't expect to eat as much as you might at a sushi bar!

I am finally beginning to really love what I am doing. I look forward to loosening the rules just slightly, but I definitely believe there is long term potential here, which I didn't really at the start of the trial. It helps to figure out the appropriate level of complexity to expect from a meal (like maybe only using one piece of equipment, or maybe it takes no more than 10 minutes to make, but not just a piece of fruit or a few nuts every single time I feel hungry.) Plus, I started losing weight again, so that always helps. Here's to our health!