[Blog] Raw Wedding Potluck

Me eating raw guacamole on a leaf of romaine lettuce.
Heirloom tomatoes, avocados, cold-pressed olive oil; yum!
-Photo taken by my husband-

Wedding Reception

This Sunday was my wedding reception, which was held in the form of a raw-food potluck. The affair was full of smiles, and delicious raw dishes. (For anyone who is surprised to discover that I'm married, perhaps it would helps explain if I mentioned that the engagement period was fairly short.)

We started with the classic salad - or at least we thought it was a salad. A friend of mine pulled off the cover to the dish he brought and we all thought we saw salad, but actually, what we saw were 'tuna sandwiches.' Okay, so not the classic salad at all! (The same friend also brought 'ketchup.')

Raw 'Tuna' Sandwiches

The sandwiches used romaine lettuce leaves instead of bread, which is surprisingly effective and gives a nice crunch when you bite into them. The inside consisted of avocado and a rich filling that looked like tuna. When I asked my friend to share what was inside, he said;

"The filling is just sunflower, pumpkin seeds, and walnuts with a stalk or two of celery, olive oil, salt, pepper, lil cayenne, squirt of lemon, some chopped onion (red or green or both), dill, and some other spices."

Just!

It was delicious. Who would have thought the healthiest part of the meal would taste that good?

Raw 'Ketchup'

And what was the 'ketchup' made of? Lemon, tomatoes, dates and a little water. It was surprisingly good; but then again, aren't many red gloppy messes surprisingly good?

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the sandwiches; I was too busy enjoying eating them.

Melon Delight

Next we ate a dish I made. It was almost your traditional fruit salad, except that it was all melons with the exception of the Papaya.


The Melon Delight

One papaya, one small watermelon, one Tuscan cantaloupe (like a regular cantaloupe but more 'musky' or 'spicy'), one galia melon (like a cantaloupe in the white-areas except sweeter and like a honeydew melon in the green areas, except softer), and one honeydew melon.

Note: Careful when cutting open a galia melon. You may end up with melon juice everywhere.

If I had thought about it to begin with I would have also used the honeydew melon as a bowl, but I had quartered it before it occurred to me. I used the Tuscan cantaloupe and watermelon halves as bowls quite effectively. The galia melon was entirely too soft to be used to way; although not as soft as the skin of a papaya. One thing that I found very interesting about the galia melon was how incredibly juicy it was; it was almost as juicy as the watermelon.


The Banquet Table

A bit later we had the raw brownies I made. Similar to the raw fruit ball treats, the raw brownies mostly consist of dried fruit, and raw nuts. The main difference is that I used an entire bar of bakers chocolate and, instead of mixing the almond butter in, I spread a layer of almond butter into the middle. The white flakes on the top are shredded coconut. The dried fruits in the corners are prunes.



Raw Chocolate Brownies
After the raw brownies we proceeded the wedding cake, brought by a friend who works at Cafe Gratitude. He brought an amazing cake made from blended (whipped?) nuts and dried fruits, and had a friend of his who does wedding decorations do the top of the cake;



Raw Cake
And you thought going raw meant nothing but salad for the rest of your life... Silly goof.


My husband and I cutting our Raw Wedding Cake
The day after the event, it occurred to me to get creative with some of the leftovers. After eating a lovely dinner salad with and orange heirloom tomato, organic blackberries and raspberries, raw almonds, Brazil nuts and pecans, organic avocados, seeds, spinach, romaine lettuce, cold-pressed unfiltered olive oil, garlic seasonings and some other things...


The said 'lovely dinner salad' mentioned above.

I put some of the leftover melon in a bowl and added some leftover raw brownies and a fresh banana.


Melons, Raw Brownie Crumbs, Fresh Sliced Organic Banana.

As you might be able to tell, since beginning this raw food journey, I've become more and more interested in the art of food. Raw fruits and vegetables are so much more colorful and beautiful than anything else. It just goes to show how perfect nature is before humans go and muss everything up. Yes, I said 'muss' on purpose.


The perfection in nature.
-Photo taken by Raederle in 2008-


The thing is, when your food looks boring, it feels boring to eat it. The more enthusiastic and happy you are when you look at your food, taste and chew your food, the more in-sync you are with correctly digesting it.


Organic Raw Banana & Pluot Pudding

Another recent delicious experiment was making a banana pudding with pluots. Needless to say, it was very good. Although, I learned the hard way about adding too much water. It was a bit thin for pudding. Ah, live and learn! (And then stop buying Monsanto's products... Just saying...)

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to leave your feedback in a blogger comment or in my guestbook. If you have a health related story you'd like to tell me, please e-mail me at pitifulbarbie@aol.com - thanks!

PS: Please take my polls found on the right-hand widget bar. Pretty please with a slice of watermelon on top? With raspberries on top? With a slice of raw cake on top?!